Happy December
By Carl Nolte, Columnist Nov 30, 2024 San Francisco Chronicle
The sun finally came out, marking the end of an autumn that was more like winter. And now, suddenly, it’s Christmas. Well, almost.
A good time for rainy day stories and small wintry adventures.
Things move fast these high-tech days — and slowly at the same time. Maybe you noticed how Halloween has become a whole season, Black Friday has become a week long and Christmas starts before Thanksgiving.
I learned all this by watching television. Hemmed in by an ailment, housebound by more than a week of rain, depressed by an unseemly election, I turned on the television to hear stories for rainy days.
You might be surprised what can be learned on a television marathon. There are a lot more diseases out there — and many more cures for these modern diseases by drugs with catchy names like Rinvoq (good for eczema), Pluvicto (“proven to help men with PSMA”), and Ozempic (good for Type 2 diabetes and used for weight loss). Wow. It almost makes you dizzy. Check with your doctor.
But there’s no cure for football season. The games are on every single channel, it seems, even the offbeat networks. I got hooked myself, and one rainy day I caught five complete games: football from dawn deep into the night. I watched Saturday college football, Sunday 49er football, Monday Night Football, Thursday football, Black Friday football. I got so good at it I could even recognize defenses.
During the commercial breaks I noticed something. Football is sponsored on TV by insurance companies — Jake from State Farm, a talking lizard for Geico or assorted helpful agents. But television news broadcasts are sponsored by attorneys dedicated to fighting insurance companies — check out the ads from the Law Brothers, or Sweet James, whose real name is James Bergener, a Southern California attorney. Confused by the TV claims, I turned off the television before I nearly sold out to John Buys Houses. In the morning, the rains had stopped and the sun came out.
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Enough illusion. I was ready to go out and see how the world was doing.
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