The View from Nowhere

My rent-a-car quit on the road, and a tow-truck dropped me off in this oasis of motels and gas-pumps nowhere with nothing but a smart-phone and hope for a better tomorrow.

3:21 AM.

On TV the channel-guide cycles slowly through 100 channels.

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

The horizontal axis is time. The vertical axis is choice, the free market, America.

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

Paid Programming Paid Programming Paid Programming

A block of named programs appears:

The Healing Power of Juicing. Your Baby Can Read. Collect Gold Coins. Celeb Hair. Cash in the Attic. Super-Size Beauty.

The Fox Movie Channel offers “Bad Boy,” a musical comedy made in 1935, starring James Dunn.

Then the crawl suddenly stops, for “scheduled hardware maintenance.” This thing runs on dedicated hardware! Live and learn!

3:51 AM.

Outside the motel, it’s very cold. Across the service road a quadrant of the truck-stop parking lot is empty.

Lot2

The horizontal axis is time. The vertical axis is choice, the free market, America.

3 comments

  1. …..funny thing was he still received some channels, all the paid programming channels.

    So. you can’t pay your bill, you turn on the TV and all you  get is people trying to sell you stuff.  

    • RiaD on February 2, 2010 at 19:08

    that this is wrong… that the cable tv companies are double  dipping. they get someone (not me!) to pay to receive their broadcasts AND they get someone to pay to broadcast their advertisement.

    something wrong w/this picture to me.

    which is why i’ll never subscribe to this “service”

    • triv33 on February 3, 2010 at 03:05

    is one of my Mom’s favorite shows. BBC America. British people put their stuff up for auction. It’s deadly dull, but Mom loves it. Nice shot, Jacob.

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