Why I Can't Stand Chris Matthews Anymore. Part One.

I'm not going to talk about Chris Matthews here.
That will wait for Part Two.
This will be about laying the groundwork for Part Two.
This is merely the prelude.

As many of you know by now, I am a rabid sports fan.
All rabid sports fans know that there is nothing more pointless than watching a sporting event where you already know the outcome.
Rabid sports fans will go to great lengths to avoid hearing the outcome of a sporting event that has already taken place.

When I lived primarily on the West Coast, they used to make it particularly difficult to to avoid learning the outcome of a sporting event that had already taken place, but hadn't aired on TV yet.
Because they would commonly show these events, particularly basketball games, later in the evening, on tape, to get bigger audiences for them.
Probably the biggest fight I had with my ex-wife was when she told me the score of a game that had already ended, but I was just starting to watch on TV.
And I had money on the game.
It was the biggest fight we had in our entire marriage.
Including the custody fight for our daughter.

In the early seventies, the Lakers were playing the Knicks in the NBA Finals.
My friends and I were Knick fans.
We were living in L,A.
The game wasn't sold out, so it was blacked out on local television.
But the local ABC station announced that they were going to air a replay of the game
at 11:30 that night.
What to do?
We made the decision to go to the movies, avoid listening to the game, coming back home and watching the game as if it were live.
Pretty good plan, huh?
I remember nothing about the movie.
I don't remember what movie we saw.
What I remember is that as soon as the movie ended, the manager of the theater came
out on to the apron of the stage and announced "I think you'll all be happy to know that the Lakers beat the Knicks tonight by thirty-five points."
A big whoop went up from the audience.
Except from us.
We weren't whooping.
We were appalled.
We were distraught.
Not only because the Knicks got walloped, but because we heard the outcome, and learned that there was no place safe left in the world.
We yelled out curses to the theater manager.
If anyone wanted to follow the game, why didn't they go to the game, or at least follow it on the radio?
The movies is supposed to be a place of refuge, although John Dillinger or Lee Harvey Oswald would certainly have given you an argument about that.

Next time, I'll discuss how Chris Matthews committed roughly the same breach of etiquette on his show yesterday, for which I'll never forgive him.

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My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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