I think this is my favorite time of the year. September should really be considered the New Year. I used last week as a way to get everything together, so I can hit the Jewish New Year at least up and running, if not in peak form. Well, that's what I wanted to do, but. . . Every August 25 or so, I say to myself, "I'll clean the house, the computer and my head by Labor Day!", but it rarely happens. After all, my head has to be clear for football season.
Football is the greatest of all sports because it is made for people that crave structure. The Thursday Night Football games are the worst things to happen to people like us and when I say us, I guess the word "structure" was a polite way to say the word anal. One game a week from September 1 to December 31. It's perfect. Or it was, before Thursday Night games. How horrid to ruin the sanctity of analness by adding in an extra night. Every weekend, assuming you enjoy football of course, is like Christmas. Every Saturday Night is like Christmas eve. You can hardly wait for Sunday morning. I like to watch the Red Zone channel and get a complete overload of games for 4 hours. The Red Zone channel is a brilliant idea by someone to show every scoring play from every game - live, with get this - no commercials! So after the first set of games, I can now go on with my life and sometimes even leave the house. In fact, this year, I'm trying so hard not to get bogged down with football, I have made arrangements with 4 different folks to take turns having dinner with me on Sunday at a restaurant so I have a reason to leave. Living on the east coast, if I don't have this plan, I am home watching tv from 1:00 p.m. until midnight when the last game ends. Now, granted, that's what I do on a regular Sunday when the season isn't happening anyway, but. . . I don't notice it as much. This brings me to my next topic of why this is the greatest season.
Ever since I was a boy I couldn't wait to get the Fall Preview issue of the TV Guide. I went day by day, cover to cover to check out the cast photos of the new shows, what nights they would air and which shows they would move to different days. I was absolutely obsessed. Through the years since nobody buys TV Guide anymore I had forgotten the complete joy in betting on what shows would go and what shows would stay. I have even saved up all the old TV Guide Fall Previews through the year since the 80's. That was until my cleaning lady accidentally locked my cat in the closet all day and kitty started going postal on the old magazines. BUT, thank goodness for the internet and eBay. I guess there were a lot of other folks like me out there so I can get anything old I want. The fact that I even think that way is a little off.
My two lives have combined all of the sudden though. That stupid Thursday Night Football has thrown a monkey wrench into the mix. Many of the CBS shows have to be moved to a different night because of football and that's good and bad. It is exciting (for me and probably no one else) to see how the other networks like NBC and ABC change their programming for CBS's airing of Thursday Night Football. For instance NBC is so happy with The Blacklist they have decided to put it on Must See TV Thursday Nights. That's a big deal. However, they won't take the chance to compete with football and are keeping it on Monday Nights, until Thursday Night Football is over. The wildly successful Big Bang Theory is supposed to also move to Thursday Nights, BUT they have to stay on Monday's until football is over. ABC is going to stay with its powerhouse Scandal so that should be quite entertaining to see how that holds up. You see now that CBS is actually airing Thursday Night games (it used to be solely on the NFL Network, and the match-ups were not A-list material) it has upped the ante and put on, what they believe at the start of the season, will be more entertaining match-ups.
I was down at the Comedy Cellar in the West Village for my birthday in mid-August and they already had Sam Adams Oktoberfest on tap. Oh it's on this fall!
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