I want my MTV...

Okay, not really.

I was thinking about the old Columbus Public Access channel a couple of days ago for whatever reason. I wasn't sure why it went off the air and Googled it. The city council cut the funding for whatever reason in the mid 2000s. This made me a little sad. There was nothing like being at someone's house at 11 on a Saturday night and catching the late night hijinks of the various guys.

For those of you from places without public access, this is how it works. You want to put the time and effort in, you can have your own show. This means that during the day it's a lot of religious programming and after about 11 it turns into the wild west of television. And by wild west I mean, anything short of penetration is fair game on a public access channel.

I got my start watching public access because they had wrestling on. I was in my mid teens and devoured anything wrestling related that came on television at the time. I watched lucha libre on the Spanish channel on Saturdays after WCW Saturday Night was over. And this was perfect, the IWA aired on Tuesday afternoons. Now granted, the IWA was probably the most rinky-dink promotion to ever exist. I mean, they worked from a venue where the ceiling was so low that the guys couldn't climb to the top rope. But it was wrestling so I watched it.

Eventually through the grapevine I heard about the late night programming. I think it was my friend Dan had become a fan of some of the later night guys. Fan might not be the right word. It was more trainwreck television than anything else.

I looked stuff up on Youtube and the various guys haven't aged well. Some of the stuff was oddly self important and shocking for the sake of shocking. I still have my fond memories but I think it's one of those you can't go home again moments.