Monday, January 21, 2002 6:43:11 PM
Tonight we are taking calls from Time Travelers Only!
In the good old days before my snappy broadband connections, after my glass of warm milk and depositing my slippers on the floor, I would turn on one of three radio talk show stations and sail off to slumber land with either a conservative talk show hack on one, a slick sports talk show guy on the other, or some dreadful combination of both on the third. Not really satisfactory, but it was better than counting sheep. Nowadays I tune into stations across the world and sleep to the morning traffic patter in Australia, or the hot late night subjects in London, or Wisconsin Public Radio which rebroadcasts its morning and afternoon shows, or WGN in Chicago. It is swell fare for a radio talkanatic like me. Sleep inducing eventually, but deeply satisfying nonetheless.
Regardless, or is that irregardless of the broad cast or band invariably, after four hours of sound sleep I awaken and listen for some hint of what portion of the universe has me. One evening, pre-broadband, I awoke to the Art Bell program. Art was saying, "Tonight we are taking calls from Time Travelers Only! My first sleepy thought was 'Oh, good, the Time Traveler (for so it will be convenient to think of him) would surely call. I came out of my stupor with an image of Rod Taylor dressed in Victorian splendor, followed quickly by one of Yvette Mimieux more casually clothed. Closer to fully awake I thought rationally, but, Art, we are all time travelers. Was anyone free to call? I fell back to sleep before any Time Traveler actually called. Alas!
I am a Time Travel addict. Stories of Time Travel have intrigued me since my earliest days. Jack Finney's wonderful and ironic Third Level stories and later novels, a few classics on The Twilight Zone, The Door into Summer, By His Bootstraps by Robert A. Heinlein, to be sure HG Wells and his Time Traveler, Movies: The Philadelphia Experiment, 12:01, even Groundhog Day which is based on 12:01, Back to the Future One and Two, The Time Machine, Late For Dinner, Time and Again.
It is the perfect literary device. Mailer's Time Machines in The Naked and the Dead, Proust's exquisite remembrances from his cork lined Parisian room. It is also a delicious fantasy. I have an image of me, present day, returning to the me sitting on my Maple Avenue porch, set between rhododendron bushes punctuated by beautiful Florida Cast Pink Flamingos, listening to Al Nobel, KQV, list the top songs of the week in order on my brandy new electric blue Arvin Transistor Radio. One Two Three Look At Mr. Lee. Damn! Anyhow, I go up to myself and hand me one of those Sony Watchmen or the like and leave with a smile on my face as a look of comprehension appears on my younger face. I have thought about a Pocket PC or a Laptop computer, but I'm not sure I would have figured them out so it complicates the fantasy. As a kid I was always waiting for someone from the future to rescue me, take me into deep and mysterious adventure. Why not me?
Tonight I am taking dreams from Time Travelers Only!