Sometime folks at work will ask me if I saw a particular TV show. My response is simple: "I don't have TV." Their response is complex: confusion, fear, distrust. Suddenly, I am only one scuzzy beard away turning into Ted Kacszinsky; one trunk of fertilizer short of national headlines; one pair of white Nikes shy of making that final galactic stroll.
When I say I don't have TV, I mean I don't have live TV - cable, satellite or digital antenna. My set pulls in exactly zero channels, but I watch plenty - what I actively decide to watch - on the DVD player. I reap plenty of video fodder from the library, the kind folks at Netflix and generous friends.
I also listen to the radio, almost always public radio. KCRW is a favorite because it has varied programming. The advantage of radio is that I can engage and disengage at my will - get things done, listen a bit, then go back to my business. Radio doesn't seem to encumber one with the all-encompassing mind fuck of Television. And radio is so much more varied, grass-roots, edgy and worldly. It doesn't require millions of dollars to make a radio show. Radio programmers can engage in a bit of risk taking. They can try something once...hence the varied part.
The most baffling response ever from a co-worker was,"how do you listen to music if you don't have TV?" You can't make this stuff up! But it certainly demonstrates the power of the electronic udder. TV provides media that is easily consumed and it convinces consumers that there are no other media to be consumed.
I don't recommend that you kill your television, but you may want to snip your cable.
Television Davidian
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