My Big Fat TV Experiment!

Editor's Note: This was originally posted in August of '08 right after I started this experiment. Tuesday, I'll post an exciting update!

“The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.” ~ Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun

OK, so I got behind a little on my Comcast account and those unreasonable turkeys took it personally and turned off my cable and my internet. Fine, no big deal, it’s happened before but this time they wanted a deposit since I was a habitual slow-payer. Fair enough but it got me to thinking.

They did it on a Friday and I went without television for a whole weekend which is a pretty big deal if you knew how much TV I watched. That’s when this little experiment started to take shape. What I found is that once I was unshackled from the hold that television had on me I was free to be a much more productive person. Watching TV is not an activity; it’s inactivity.

I couldn’t just sit and do nothing anymore; I could read again… and I could think again! Perhaps accurately, the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright called television, “chewing gum for the eyes.”

In my opinion, you’re either a TV person or a music person and I’m a TV person. By that I mean some people walk in the door and turn the TV on and some people walk in and turn the radio on or put on some music and I guess there’s even a sub-group of people that sit around without any noise which was unfathomable to me.

I realized that I could rationalize and make a viable experiment of going without television but these days unless one wants to go to the library or Panera Bread two or three times a day to check email and pay bills (yes I do pay some bills), you pretty much need to have internet access of some kind.

Well, my neighbor has a wireless router and I can pick up a pretty good signal from it. After Comcast’s ruthless action, I made a phone call to said neighbor, told him of my grand experiment and suggested I shoot him $20 bucks a month and split the cost of his internet with him. Done and done.

One might suggest that I simply just decide to watch less TV and that would be a valid suggestion for anyone that had willpower in their personal repertoire. I, unfortunately, do not. If television is available than I will avail myself of it; it’s like a Fully Digital High Definition Sixty Inch Widescreen needle mainlining useless drivel into my brain. My drug of choice if you will.

One might also suggest that I just get some rabbit ears and limit myself to “regular” TV with ten channels or whatever (and I remember when there were only 5 in Houston and no cable or satellite.) Actually I did that for a couple of years before but found that whether it be one channel or a thousand, I’ll watch whatever’s on including Spanish Tele-novellas that I don’t even comprende.

So I officially started my experiment the first of July and so far so good. With the dearth of first-run shows and must-see TV available during the summer, it’s not been too bad at this point but I’m already worrying about how this is going to go over when fall comes around. I’m already behind on what’s happening with Nancy Botwin and what will become of Dexter? What am I going to do without NCIS? How can I live without knowing who got kicked off the island?

Seriously though, what will I really miss about TV other than the pixilated lullaby at bedtime? I think sports will be the number one thing. Thank goodness Tiger is out for the rest of the golf season but come football season I expect to have Delirium Tremens that would rival that of any aficionado of Thunderbird or MD 20/20.

To be fair I will note that I’m not going to avoid TV entirely; I just won’t have it at my house. I find myself looking forward to the trips to the local tavern when my beloved Texans are playing and my mom and I have already talked about having Survivor night on Thursdays. And I’ll also rent movies and stuff from time to time.

Sadly the bank of otherwise useless and random pop trivia I’ve accumulated through TV is all I have to hang my hat on sometimes at the end of the day. And perhaps that’s what I dread the most about not having the “idiot box” glowing in my living room and dutifully putting me to sleep at night. I worry about how much pop trivia I will get behind on or miss altogether.

But that’s kind of the point I guess…

Tuesday: Update! My Big Fat TV Experiment!