Get by with a little help from ‘Friends’
I’ve been in and around the news business for nearly 60 years. When you’ve done it for that long it’s hard to shake the habit. Especially when it seems the nation — damn, the whole world — is in a death spiral.
There’s Afghanistan, Haiti, the fires out West, climate change, COVID-19, and the generally untethered state of American politics. And that’s just this week. Gotta keep up.
As a result I spend too much time doomscrolling the news. I regularly read this, that and everything in between, virtually anything that finds its way to my iPad or phone screen.
Like most of you, much of my news consumption fits my particular bias. But I also make it a point to read opinions I disagree with, sometimes violently.
For the record: Not physically violently. Just rhetorically. Also, I tend to post my reactions in, shall we say, a largely unrestrained way.
None of this is good for my emotional equilibrium.
Frankly — and because I do not see the planetary upheaval improving anytime soon, if ever — there are days when my frustration level drives me up a wall. My wife, Ruth, shares my news addiction, so there’s no relief from that quarter.
Over the years I’ve developed a variety of philosophical, psychological and spiritual coping skills to handle my existential angst. But they don’t always work. So desperate times called for desperate measures.
Ruth and I recently watched CNN’s “History of the Sitcom.” As first-generation TV babies, we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We noticed that in interviews “Seinfeld” cast members all said they consider “Friends” the very best of the sitcom genre. The “Friends” crew, of course, graciously called “Seinfeld” the best of the lot, which is actually a very contra Larry David position to assume.
“Friends”? I’d never watched a single episode. I was just too cool during the years it enjoyed its 10-season run. But because I’m equally cool in a New York Jewish humor sense I’ve seen just about every “Seinfeld” episode at least once.
Of course I skipped the recent “Friends” reunion because, who cares about a show so alien to my life choices.
But as I noted, doomscrolling hasn’t helped my mental state of late so I decided to give “Friends” a chance. And now I’m hooked on the absurd insecurities that drive Phoebe, Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, and Joey.
It may not be sterling drama, but I’m surprised at how well the comic timing and smart writing hold up. Plus, at 22 minutes per episode (sans commercials on HBO OnDemand) it’s just the right length for my nightly home elliptical workout.
It occurred to me at the start of this process that I’m echoing the lesson learned by the late Norman Cousins.
Cousins, the legendary “Saturday Review” editor, decided that laughter, if not the very best medicine, is indeed an important medical tool.
Afflicted by a crippling, sudden-onset connective tissue disease, he devised his own treatment plan that included, as Wikipedia put it, “self-induced bouts of laughter brought on by films of the television show Candid Camera, and by various comic films . ... ‘I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.’ ”
I still check the news regularly. I also still watch an assortment of current dystopian dramas available on the various streaming platforms to which I (over) subscribe. But now Ruth and I make sure that the last thing we watch at night, and store in our minds’ emotional cabinet, is an episode or two, or three, of “Friends.”
As of this writing we’re nearing the midpoint of season four. We’ve watched about 40 or more of the 236 episodes broadcast. We’re still laughing and have yet to develop “Friends” fatigue. Never did I think I’d be so enamored with a meaningless sitcom — not to mention publicly confess it.
We may well be nearing the start of another long pandemic lockdown, which is in no way a laughing matter. But if my choice is between laughing at some silly sitcom or stewing helplessly over the pandemic’s massive impact on my life, I’ll take the former.
So laugh a little, every one. And do it now — before your laughter turns to hysteria.