So, I Cancelled My Cable

That's right, I finally did it.

For real this time.

Last time I said I did it, well, that was just a ruse.

Cutting back to 71 channels and no HBO (for like 2 weeks) doesn't count.

This time, there is no On Demand, there is no E! Channel.


There are the network channels and for some bizarre reason, the jewelery portion of the The Home Shopping Network. There is public access and PBS. I really had no choice, seeing as the recession has finally hit my state, and it turns out most people can live without the margaritas and cheese dip I serve to make a living.



I debated for weeks about it, wanting to hang on for just a little longer - Always Sunny was premiering! There was that new show with Zach Galafinakis and Jason Schwartzman! Curb Your Enthusiasm was starting again! And then there was Mad Men.

Oh, Mad Men. I'd had a standing date for weeks with my friend Marianne to watch it while we drank healthy amounts of wine.

What would we do without Mad Men?

Talk.

Sure, we could talk.

Which we did every week, of course, and then we watched Mad Men. We (or maybe just I) were a tad obsessed. Marianne had even watched the entire second season in a few weeks in order to catch up for the third season opener. I had to email her and tell her that it was over, that my cable was going, along with our affair with these ad men and women of the 1960s, that we would toast them a repressed farewell without speaking, we would simply lift our martinis in tribute and then light our Lucky Strikes.

Marianne really took the whole thing in stride, saying we could meet on another night, maybe even go out. I tried to follow her example, and shake it off, knowing that without all that TV to watch I could do so many other things. Things like read. And write. Finally start that novel I've been thinking about. And that screenplay, those three essays. I could watch a sunset. Talk to my neighbors. Get used to an episode of Cheers in the afternoon instead of a rerun of The Daily Show. Instead, I was haunted by these questions: Why is Diane so uptight? Why can't Sam get over her? If Coach is so dense, how can he possibly figure out how to mix drinks? What is Jon Stewart saying about Sarah Palin's memoir? Did Betty have that baby or what and is Don still a cheating, lying bastard?

So what did I do, you ask? I went to the Internets for answers. That's what everyone said, "Just go online," they said. "Every show you want to watch is on there somewhere."

So I did, and I found them, alright. Sort of. A search for "mad men free episodes" warrants one an assload of sites that appear to have said episodes for free, yet to "play" said episodes, you must answer a quiz, or sign up for something or agree to some kind of contract, yet when you do all that, you still can't play the episodes. I went to so many of those sites that I was suddenly barraged with pop ups that appeared even when I wasn't online, promising me a free iPod if I caught the ants in a jar and/or various disturbing sexy photo messages, the most disturbing of which came with the caption, "Lord, do you want to play?"

She was a little more svelte than these ladies, but with a distinctly renaissance feel. Ok, ok,
she was porn-ey. And creepy. She popped up on my computer that I had to disable my
Internet Explorer. She was making me feel dirty, and not in the good way Mad Men does.

Anyway, after many thwarted attempts to watch the show (and Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which does post 8 days after it airs on Hulu, FYI) I simply gave up.

I watched Seinfeld reruns at night, and told myself, "Hey, you aren't missing anything. It's just TV. Remember that last episode that you and Marianne watched where Sally spent too much time with her demented grandfather and there was all this fog? You guys were bored, admit it." And we were, a little. But I still longed to hear Don Draper wax poetic about life in general and watch Joan's marriage to that screwy doctor slowly go awry. In the back of my mind, I was still obsessed.

I had lamented to my friend in LA about my budgetary constraints, and while on a business trip to Minneapolis, she called me with the Holy Grail. "Hey," she said, "I just heard about this site where you can watch everything you want to. For free!"And so I went there. And it's true. And I'll tell you something, Mad Men has not disappointed this season. *Spoiler Alert* Another baby that Sally thinks is her dead grandfather? Peggy's hair is still terrible but now she's getting laid? Joan's husband didn't get chief resident and she's already quit Sterling Cooper? The arrogant English guy gets his foot cut off in a John Deere mower accident that happened in the office? Don wakes up bleeding from the face in a hotel room?

That, my friends, is quality television. I have qualms about posting the free site here, as it seems, well, dirty. Not sure why, I guess because it's piracy and those writers should be getting paid? Oh, and the actors. The actors never make enough money, you know. However, if you email me, I'll give you the site. That seems slightly less immoral: abby.eileen@hotmail.com.

Speaking of slightly less immoral, I have a few ideas for those other sites if they really want to get people's attention and get them to subscribe. They could offer this video, for instance.

Actual verbiage that accompanied it: Learn how to prepare a Renaissance feast fit for all the Lords
and Ladies in your realm. Lord Taldish walks you through the preparation of an extensive menu of
Meat pie, Roasted Ravens (cornish hens), Taldish Wrung Rabbit, Fritters of Leek, Buttered Wort,
Taldish Simple Soup, Herb Salad, Pain Foundow. But be not afraid! You will not be required to labor
over a hearth, nor skin a wild animal, unless that be your desire.

And or, provide one an alternate life, like The Sims, only medieval style.

I came upon this whilst googling, "lord and ladies, images" and realized, it looked a little like I
would all digitized and medievalized. It has nothing to do with anything really, I just wanted to post it.

At any rate, if you aren't watching Mad Men, please start.

It has all the complexities of The Sopranos, with slightly less bloodshed and about the same amount of sexism. It's fascinating to think about a time where all the ladies wore pencil skirts and smoked at their desks, while the men drank bourbon for breakfast and talked about said ladies asses in said pencil skirts and went nowhere near the delivery room when their wives gave birth. It's interesting to think about how far we've come and how far we still have to go.

That, and the wardrobe is fabulous.