Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.

It's a quiet Friday night after a crazy work week. Today I managed to do the impossible and get not one, but two major projects out the door. I'm exhausted and ready for the weekend, so I crack open a delicious beer and put my feet up. I don't really watch much television... I have a handful of shows that I'm committed to (True Blood, anyone?) but right now I just feel like cruising down cable river and seeing what's on.

I take a quenching sip of cold beer and grab the remote. I press power. Nothing. That's weird. I get up and flip some lights on and off. There doesn't seem to be a power outage. Annoyed, I pick up the remote and stand closer to the television, pressing and pressing and pressing the power button, with no reaction from the television whatsoever.

Alright fine.  Who needs TV anyway? I toss the remote to the chair, but it doesn't quite make it. Instead, it falls to the floor with a loud crash. Suddenly, a luminous, multi-coloured red, green and blue light blasts from the remote and shoots toward me, enveloping me, electrifying me, and then continues past me to the TV screen. The hairs on my body are standing on end, but I don't feel any pain - more like I'm in a cocoon made of static. And there is another peculiar sensation. I look down and see that I am floating above the floor.

Just as I'm wondering what is happening and enjoying the pretty light and funny feelings, the TV switches on and the RGB light pulls me through the room toward the TV. I'm afraid I'm going to crash into it, but instead, I am sucked right in through the TV screen.

Goddamnit. I left my beer on the other side.

Alrighty, where exactly in TV land am I? I seem to be in someone else's house. A typical sitcom-style living room. I can hear voices in the next room - the kitchen, I suppose. The voices start to get louder and I realize the characters of this show, whatever it is, may not be expecting to see me. I dash behind the couch - in sitcoms, no one can ever see you behind the couch. It works - the two young, TV-attractive men emerge from the kitchen. One of them is wearing a baby. All three humans are of different ethnicities. The two smooch each other sweetly and concisely on the lips. The live studio audience applauds and whistles. I get it. It's a show about modern love.

Suddenly, a wild neon-clad neighbour, big in the hair and even bigger in attitude, comes bursting through the door performing some kind of flygirl routine. Her spindly limbs flail about with fierce expression, threatening to knock the duck lips right off her heavily made-up face. The force of it almost knocks the modern couple over.

 Then she stops in her tracks and looks right at me. She lunges at me and pulls me out from behind the couch. The modern lovers gasp in surprise as the flygirl throws her arms around me, crying with a nasal, nails-on-a-chalkboard wail, "Oh honey, you're back! You guys, you never told me your sister was coming back from Australia! How was it? You must be so jetlagged, oh you better just run right upstairs and get yourself some sleep, then come over and tell me all about it!"

"G'day, mate!" I stereotypically reply, thankful for the opportunity to escape from this canned hell. The audience laughs as I bolt up the stairs, the show's two main characters watching me with overly wide eyes and overly dropped jaws on their overly stunned faces. Lucky for me, I don't get to find out how they get out of this one.

Upstairs in the sitcom house is a dark and strange place. The paint is peeling on the walls, and the light bulbs are flickering creepily. Bits of garbage litter the floor like an obstacle course for cockroaches and silverfish. Is this what is hiding above every sitcom living room?

 I can only faintly hear the sounds of the live studio audience downstairs. I decide to crawl out the bathroom window, which conveniently has a fire escape. As I hurry down the stairs, I'm aware of being in what looks like not a very good area of town, the inner city, as it were. The air is damp and smelly, and there are sirens not far off. As I walk around to the front of the building, I see a young woman crouching behind the dumpster. She's badly beaten and bruised, her clothing torn, her face red from crying. I call for help.

I wait with the girl until the ambulance arrives. I'm a witness now, and a couple of investigators come to talk to me about the girl. They look really familiar, these investigators. Is that... Mariska Hargitay? Am I in Law and Order SVU?! I stifle the urge to shake her hand and ask her for an autograph, for obviously, this is a serious moment in the episode and I don't want to ruin it for those who may be watching.

I tell them everything I know, and they ask if I wouldn't mind coming to the station with them, to fill out some forms and give a statement. Feeling a bit uneasy about the whole thing, I go, feeling like I don't have much of a choice. Where would I go anyway? This universe is unfamiliar to me and I could end up in a situation not unlike that poor girl.

At the station, I'm surrounded by all kinds of people from all walks of life. Most of the people scattered around the station have a passionless, drifting way about them, like they just can't seem to get ahead. Everything about them is dingy and hopeless, caught up in a world that never gives back, forcing them to take what isn't theirs. They bounce off the walls and push through the combine, in and out, around and round through the revolving doors. Ricochet! It's not the end of the world.

I've waiting in this room for what seems like an eternity. I wake up to some commotion as a dirty, disheveled looking man who smells strongly of gasoline is brought in wearing handcuffs, his hands behind his back. He wears a disturbing grin, baring rotten, blackened teeth which look as though he's been chewing on charcoal. The edges of his coat are singed black, and black smoke practically wafts off his hair.

I've been putting out fire with gasoline he looks at me and says. Just then, a documentary crew comes flying into the station, demanding to know if this is the famous Catman, the elusive arsonist who has been setting fires all over town.

Finally, Mariska Hargitay appears and tells me I'm free to go. I ask her if the girl will be alright and she says she thinks so, thanks to me. Feeling happy to hear that, I leave the station light on my feet among the lost souls filing in and out through the revolving door.

Out in the street, the moon has broken through the clouds, illuminating the streets and casting glimmering sparkles on the river up ahead in the distance.  I start walking toward the waterfront of this television city. As I stroll, I find myself getting caught up in a crowd of people watching something on the street. I'm short and can't see over the crowd, but I can hear the sound of voices rhyming and singing in unison. I slither my way through the crowd to the front to find what looks like two rival gangs getting into a musical battle with each other - a battle of singing, dancing, and cheeky glances. Oh god, is this some kind of budget, television take on West Side Story?

Now the people in the crowd are getting in on it, dancing in choreographed unison to the song. How do they all know the moves? I look like a right moron, being the only one not dancing, so I start copying the moves of the people in the crowd around me. And then cartoon birds appear, singing and dancing along with us, in their magical Disney-esque way. TV world, you are weird.

The dancing crowd breaks up and the dancing birds flit away, but I hang around for a moment. The victor of the dance-off seems to have won the girl the rivals have been fighting over. She's a beautiful young Chinese girl, and she seems quite thrilled with the result of the battle. I watch as the girl and her man go walking off toward the serious moonlight, holding each other tightly.

(Things that are uncomfortable to listen to: this song. 

Things that are not okay in 2014 and I don't remember being okay in 1983 either: most of this video.)

As I make my way to the waterfront, I become aware that I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get home. What if Chad changes the channel and never finds me? What if he turns the TV off?  How can I let him know that I'm in here? I'm basically homeless here.  I might have to shack up with one of those singing, dancing gang guys. Ugh.

Staring at the big white moon, I'm suddenly aware that I can see a face in it. Will you look at that, in the TV world there is a man in the moon after all. Of course there is. I smile and think about Chad. I wish he was here with me.

I sigh and think about where I might take shelter for the night. Suddenly I hear someone calling my name, ever so faintly in the distance, or through some kind of barrier. It kind of sounds like Chad. Wait, it is Chad! In the moon... that's his face! Then I start to hear other voices... disgusting gurgling voices, choking out what sounds like "brrraaaiiiinnnnssss". Are you kidding me? Zombies? Am in The Walking Dead now? I fucking hate that show! Fucking zombies! But boy do they move fast for a bunch of deadbeats. Shit.

More and more, I can see the image of Chad fading in from the sky. He's waving at me. He can see me! I wave frantically at the man in the moon, yelling at him to get me out of here. He's pressing all kinds of buttons on the remote control, but nothing is happening. The zombies are getting closer and closer. I mouth the word ZOMBIES at Chad, hoping he can read my lips. Nope. I scream it as loud as I can. He shrugs helplessly. Then he sees them. There's nowhere for me to run. Now he's pressing buttons on the remote like crazy. I have never been this terrified in my life. I'm going to be turned into a zombie. This fucking sucks.

Desprate, Chad throws the remote at the TV, tearing a hole in the fabric of the sky. The warm light from my living room beams through the tear. Just as the horde of zombies approaches, Chad's arm reaches through the jagged hole and he grabs my hand, pulling me off the ground, through the air, over the river, and through the hole in the sky, safe and sound back into my home.

Sigh. I hug him harder and tighter than I ever have before in my life.

And then a nasty fucking zombie arm comes grabbing through the hole in the TV. Without even a thought Chad and I grab the TV and chuck it out the window. It crashes to the ground 20 floors below, the rotten arm of the undead twitching in the wreckage.

Fuck television.

*****

Okay, this album didn't exactly set my imagination on fire. The first few listens were fun and nostalgic, taking me back to Grades 2 and 3. The songs Modern Love and Let's Dance seem to be printed onto my DNA, and I love them in that special kind of way. I even have a couple random fleeting memories of them playing, one where I was riding in the car to my uncle's girlfriend's house (she was like a part of the family - my sister and I even called her auntie) and Let's Dance was on the radio, and for some reason I associate Modern Love with the playground at my school in Grade 3.

I think that's why this album took me to TV land. I was a kid raised on television. I'm relieved that I've pretty much grown out of that now, but up until about 12 years ago, I watched a lot of TV.

The theme of getting zapped into the TV I have obviously pinched from TVC15 off Station to Station. I played with the idea of using that theme for the Station to Station blog post (get it? TV station to TV station? Ha, miso clever) but ultimately it wasn't true to the real feelings and images I got from that album, so it got shelved until now, when it just made much more sense.

I'm not going to say I didn't like this album. Obviously it earned its place in my heart long ago before I even had a say in the matter, but I will say the chances of it making it into my everyday rotation are not high.