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Tired of the 21st century and cannot afford a time machine? Why not click off the regular cable stations and tune the TV to where the movies are forever G-rated and the world is largely black and white?

VISIT Turner Classic Movies web site

I’m sick of the 21^st century, aren’t you? In California "Terminator" Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man who has murdered hundreds of victims in graphically violent films, wants to be governor. In Washington, President George Bush wants to hunt down and assassinate the former leader of a foreign nation as the American public plays along. "Saddam, Should We Kill Him?" the media asks, as if the whole thing is just a giant video game.

TV is deteriorating too. "Nip /Tuck" the hot new cable series profiles the lives of foul-mouthed money-grubbing sex-crazed plastic surgeons, but doesn’t forget to show plenty of operating room gore. Sure it’s a nice break from bile-drinking celebrity tightrope walkers on "Fear Factor" or battling albino dwarves on morning TV or kids face-planting skateboard accidents on "Jackass". Even Howard Stern, who routinely invites women to strip and be verbally abused on his talk show, is beginning to look more and more like Arthur Godfrey.

Who is Arthur Godfrey? Well, let us just say that there was a time when crotch-gtabbing half-naked booty dancers didn’t dominate the prime time airwaves. And what about the movies? Even Disney was shocked when "Pirates in the Caribbean" got a PG-13 rating. "Come on man!" they whined. "This is a kid’s movie. I mean, we hardly show any blood when the half-desiccated pirate skeletons decapitate their victims!" As to films for grown-ups, let’s not even go there. Another week here in the 21^st century and I’m going to start sounding like Jerry Falwall on an especially pious day.

So I’m leaving the 21^st century for a much-needed break from gruesome reality. With the exception of "Ground Force" the gardening show on BBC America, and "West Wing" reruns on Bravo, I’m gluing my remote control to Turner Classic Movies (TCM). No more reality weddings, bisexual dating contests, police car chases or trumped-up American idols for a while.

I’m going back in time.

Ted Turner may be a rich nut, but he has integrity. Despite mediocre ratings and criticism, TCM continues to air full-length "oldie" films without commercial interruption, all day and all night long. I get them on the Dish, but the network comes standard in most cable television packages too. Most of the films are black and white and the commercials come between movies that run for 90 minutes or more. Largely Hollywood-made, many of the movies are still violent, but rarely bloody. Some are politically very incorrect. Some drag on. But most are charming, extremely well written, wonderfully acted and as relevant as any rap song or reality show today. Classics, by definition, have staying power.

Most cable TV networks have gigantic, flashy well-maintained web sites. TCM is no exception. Click on the homepage and you instantly see the films currently playing on TV. The homepage shows a giant drive in movie screen – remember those? This month TCM is featuring 31 Hollywood stars – one per day. It’s all Frank Sinatra, or all-Ingrid Bergman. Yet when Bob Hope died recently at age 100, TCM managed an instant homage.

Like BBCAmerica.com or IFCtv.com or HGTV.com , the Turner web site utilizes the Internet like an annex to its ongoing programming. The principal is similar to the way DVDs offer extensive ancillary features. If you want behind-the-scenes data or outtakes or unseen footage, it’s there for the taking. TCM.com includes a databased guide to the films in the massive Turner library. In August 1985, Turner bought Metro Goldwyn Mayer for one-and-a-half billion dollars. He’s been recycling the archive ever since – and restoring many of the old films in the process.

Web visitors can see film clips and trailers online, maybe the whole film eventually. Think of the web site as a multi-media interactive TV Guide that only covers one channel. For the moment, one channel is enough for me.

Turner didn’t have this idea first. Nickelodeon follows the same recycling process with kids’ shows and nostalgia grown-upTV in the evenings. But most of that material is ultimately garbage. Turner does the same with his own all-cartoon network and some-say offers even more recycled junk on his hugely successful all-news station – CNN. But TCM truly contains film art classics like "Mildred Pierce", "Singing in the Rain," "Casablanca" and "Citizen Kane". American Movie Classics (AMC.com) started running free full-length films for viewers too cheap to opt for HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and a dizzying array of movie networks -- and they did it long before pay-per-view. But AMC includes tons of standard television commercials and shows newer films directed toward a youthful kitchy market. While AMC owners suggest that viewers enjoy the commercial breaks – I doubt most Americans agree. Thanks to TIVO, we just pause the television.

Turner, hosted by baby-boomer Robert Osborne, is after the oldsters, like me, and the classic film buffs. Nearly half the TCM audience is old enough to the AARP newsletter. But numbers count and there are a lot of us who don’t care who Ben Afflick is marrying this time or who is swearing at whom in the latest bitchy-love relationship flick. I try to keep up with the "Indies" too, the independent films on IFC and the Sundance Channel. But I care less and less about these nihilistic grainy flicks. For every "Secrets and Lies" or "Winged Migration", there are scores of non-films like "Slackers" and "Dogma". Personally, I don’t think Quentin Tarantino has written or directed a single foot of watchable film from "Clerks" to "Pulp Fiction" to the present day. I already feel sorry for those tattooed tribes of movie minions 30 years from now as they watch old Jim Carey or Adam Sandler films saying – "Man, wasn’t that barf scene awesome!". Sorry, dude. It never was.

Whether TCM can stay alive is the burning question for those of us who like to hide in the past. Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III has made his share of bad investments. Known sometimes as "The Mouth of the South" and "Captain Outrageous", he recently said he lost billions when he sold $46.8 million in AOL Time Warner Inc. shares. His philanthropic Turner Foundation, after handing out millions, is looking unwell. According to the web site the foundation board has decided "to forgo any funding requests in 2003". Then there’s the Jane Fonda thing, the Turner-made film "Gettysburg" and those Atlanta Braves -- but let’s not go there. His philanthropy ($1 billion to the United Nations alone) and stand on environmental issues often balances his billionaire status among liberals, and he manages to be both maverick tycoon and lovable underdog at the same time.

For now the Turner time machine is fully operational offering 350 classic films per month. TCM parent company Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. (www.turner.com) still has 8,000 employees. Like the History Channel, TCM continues to find not just memories, but value in the past. A recent special looked at the horrors of the Hollywood blacklist and the network has produced a line of high-quality shows about early films and film stars.

If you want to know what’s playing, click on the web site. But be careful. The way things are going lately, you may not want to come back.