An Actor's Incredible Journey

There is no TV in my top-floor apartment. I watch nothing by NBC, CBS, or ABC. My late father would be happy with my rejection of the 'boob tube', although my apostasy was more due to my inability to operate the new-fangled remote controls than the content offered by networks. I hear people talking about TV shows. The names of the shows' characters populated and my ever crowded limbo of contemporary popular culture, so last night's EMMY contestants registered zero recognition with my synapses. Everyone at Frank's Lounge watching the televised event knew everything about these people. I felt like Rip Van Winkle woken from a long sleep, but I was amused by a friend's comment about many of the lucky winners' acceptance speeches. "What is this show "Incredible Journey", that every winning actor thinks he's been on?" Aldo had been reared on the Gold Coast of Florida. "You don't know the struggles of traveling from a bodunk town in square state to attending acting classes at a square state cow college then surviving the purgatory of nos while everyone jokes about you're being a waiter and finally coming to LA to sell your body and soul to TV." I came from Boston. We had culture. These actors came from the Midwest. The odds against making it were a million to one. "And who would have dunk it?" Certainly not their old man." "You got that right." Aldo worked in TV on the production side. His Emmys were on the mantle at his Jersey home. "Who would have think it?"