I bought me a new high definition television, then signed up with the relatively new GVTC Cable TV service, a miracle of fiber optics of the mass communication persuasion.
 Pretty good for an old cedar chopper who was using a pair of bent rabbit ears in the hills of Bulverde not too many winters ago.

From a Royal manual typewriter to a McIntosh computer, I have progressed, and my reluctant emergence in the 21st Century now sees me switching from the herky-jerky Dish Network to a cable service which lights up my TV set with brilliant and near flawless audio and video, previously unheard of in the Bulverde area.

Newscasts and Spurs games comprise the vast majority of my television viewing, and the technical improvement of GVTC Cable TV over Dish has been miraculous. With Dish, the Fox Sports SW channel would blink out during almost every single basketball game I tried to watch, and the only way I could get it back on was to unplug the TV from the wall, then wait while the contraption hunted up a new signal.

No more blackouts.

With the new cable service, words are in sync with the lips that are mouthing them, and GVTC Cable TV doesn’t black out every time a sprinkle cloud passes overhead.
But I guess this piece isn’t really about fiber optics and mass communications advancement out in the gingleweeds. It is more about the aggravations of current television commercials and the proliferation of simpleton lawyers who invade my living room in escalating numbers.
In high def, and without a single pixel paroxysm on my new Samsung screen, I get the daily brayings of injury lawyer Wayne Wright in clarion tones, although I have learned to mute him out on most commercials. This usually happens before he can get the “You deserve respect and justice...so we demand it” punch line out of his mouth.

My skills with the mute button on the TV remote are improving with continuous practice. I first started honing these skills on the garrulous “old man” voice which accompanies every single puke-inducing Whopper Burger commercial. I can now mute out almost every single Whopper Burger assault before the old bastard can get the first two words out of his mouth.
 

Soundless Yosemite Sam

Ditto for Wayne Wright. I have learned to silence “Yosemite Sam” Wayne long before he waves his cowboy hat at the TV audience, and gagging his procession of testifying clients is no problem at all. Knowing in advance what is coming, it is relatively simple to render them all speechless on my TV.

But Wayne Wright is just one of many, and the numbers of personal injury attorneys buying television time are increasing with the season. Quick Draw McGraw could never silence them all, and the mute button on the TV remote can never do away with the moronic images which accompany the pitches.

Most all lawyers who hawk their services on TV and roadside billboards are of the personal injury variety. While legally legitimate, these ambulance chasers are generally regarded within the legal community as bottom feeders whose legal fees have long since surpassed any standard of ethics some law professor might have advanced.
There are the annoying barristers who try to use sports and sports figures to feather their nests.
All Spurs fans have been subjected to the TV promotions of rotund legal beagle Forrest Welmaker. Right square in the middle of a game, we have been forced to watch this “Spurs sponsor” deliver a legal spiel on the sanctity of a basketball telecast, ending it with his signature promo line--Choose well...choose Welmaker.
Jeff’s Got Your Back is the billboard and TV slogan of personal injury lawyer Jeff Davis. His Davis Law Firm uses photographs of former world champion boxer Jesse James Leija and former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Drew Pearson. In Davis’s old telephone book ads, Leija says, “Jeff had my back. I know he will have yours.” Pearson is quoted as saying, “I know a winner when I see one. Call Jeff.”
Human round balls
Davis and Welmaker could both do with a little time on the treadmill and speed bag. While Davis is starting to get a little hog jowly under the chin, Forrest Welmaker is already
prime for a cold weather rendering. The words don’t fit the picture when these two project themselves with professional athletes.

Then there is Marynell Maloney, an attorney whose television commercials are about as joyful as a funeral procession hearse with a blown engine and two flat tires. With sorrowful, droopy, hound dog eyes, and hair that gets longer and witchier every year, Marynell beeseeches those who have been wronged or downtrodden by the medical profession to call her.
“I’m Marynell,” she whispers. “.....call me.”
When watching divorce specialist Steve Benke, we wonder which side will get the worst or the best of it. A mirthless fellow, Benke solemnly promises to handle all aspects of a family bustup, from child custody to alimony.
But the absolute worst television presentation by a San Antonio lawyer is the one by Jim Adler, a personal injury hustler who provides a form of comic entertainment which cannot be found on any late night variety show or sitcom.
The Texas Hammer
Adler has christened himself “The Texas Hammer,” and he does have a large, homely face which might resemble an oversized claw hammer or even a 10-pound sledge that has just been pulled out of the mud.
The “Texas Hammer” makes his living suing insurance companies, and/or threatening to sue insurance companies, and he bellows like a bull with hornets stinging his scrotum when he advises his TV viewers to call.
“Call me,” Adler hollers. “Call me NOW!”

Adler is the only one I don’t skip over or try to mute on the TV. He is so bad he could embarrass Billy Graham and Heidi Fleiss at one sitting, but I find him uproariously amusing.
I guess that’s an indication of how sick watching too much television has made me.