Where's Alice?

Alice

I saw a photo tonight of Linda Lavin. Apparently she has an engagement coming up at The Carlyle or some such place.

Anyway, it got me thinking that "Alice" is one of the rare long-running shows (1976-1985) that has been out of syndication, at least with my cable operator, for quite some time. I don't think I've seen an episode of it since the '80s. And it's kind of refreshing.

I have nothing against Flo and Mel and Tommy et al. I just find that it is impossible for me to be nostalgic for anything any more because nothing ever goes away. I literally cannot escape the movies, music and television of my youth. That is so weird. I came of age exactly the same time as cable expanded and expanded and needed miles of content, no matter how tired.

It sort of results in this weird feeling of time not really passing by. I mean my 16 year old niece can have some of the same media references as I have. For God's sake, she knows who Alexis Carrington is and that is just unnatural.

It almost seems quaint to recall catching something old on TV and it bringing back specific memories of a certain time in my life. How can that happen anymore when the same shows and music are just as likely to pop up now, 20 years later?

Which brings me back to "Alice." If I think of "Alice,” I think of the den in the house I grew up in and my father complaining that "Linda Lavin is no Ellen Burstyn." I like thinking of things like that.

I used to feel that way about "One Day at a Time" which I would watch over at my next door neighbor's house on Saturday nights as a kid. She, the neighbor, was my age and we used to gab during the show. One summer, her older cousin from Germany came to visit and she used to watch with us all serious like it was "Macbeth." She hated how we talked incessantly during the show and used to shush us constantly only she had a lisp so it came out "thhhhh!" But I don't think of that anymore when I think of ODAAT (as those in the know call it lol) because it is on all the time and now reminds me of this dumb queen who used to cut my hair in his apartment and I swear ODAAT was always on when I was there. So now, when I think of that show I think of that dumb queen and his annoying sheddy cats and his constant complaining about his boyfriend.

But amidst all this, I still wonder where "Alice" is. In litigation probably.