My TV

Hi kids,

I recently counted over 36 films that I saw in movie theaters in 2009. That's 3 movies at movie theater prices each month. On the facebook movie application, I have rated (which means I have seen most of, if not all of) over 12,000 movies in my lifetime. I have a collection of movies that would impress non-movie folk, I watch movies all the time on demand on premium channels and on regular TV, and I am practically the mayor of my local Blockbuster Video.

Yet... if I had to name my hobby of choice, and I was honest with myself, I would definitely and proudly/pathetically choose television. I watch more hours of TV each week than I sleep (by a long-shot.) Many people in my predicament could point to a childhood marred by TV as a parental-substitute. Some people that watch as much TV as I do, can point to a veritable TV prohibition their youths, which led to a rebellion/binging period. I cannot blame my TV predilection on anyone but myself as my parents let me watch a normal amount of television growing up, and my addiction is a recent development.

When you hear "TV addiction," you may think: this sounds serious, he's crying out for help OR this sounds like a joke and he's mocking addictions. I intend neither and sorry if you misinterpret my meaning. In the course of my blog entry, I will delve further into my TV habit and you can judge for yourself whether I am a problem user or a lightweight complainer. However, during prime TV season, I watch about 30 hours of TV a week from my DVR alone. This does not include anything I watch live or sporting events, which I occasionally watch. I also have DVR guilt, which prevents me from ending my day until I see just about everything on my DVR. Then, of course, there is my lifelong insomnia, which I feed with crap TV and re-runs of crap-TV. If this was solely a seasonal affair, it might be a sustainable nuisance. As it is, my life has turned into a perpetual Shark Week.

Last summer, I survived a month without television to see if my problem was systemic. And no, my issue is not actually a physiological dependence on television, but rather, TV has become something of a friend to me. The show Friends, which I did not particularly like (or dislike) epitomized the notion that these characters are our friends, whether they know it or not. They do not respond to us, so it would be foolish to talk to them, but we KNOW them. We "let them into our homes" through the wonder of television. But just like any other dysfunctional relationship or friendship, it's time to cut the proverbial cord. But, I'll get to that later.

First, I'd like to examine where and when my relationship with TV transformed from a pleasant distraction away from my mundane life into a disturbing priority over my existing life. I know about the roots of the change, but let's start a little earlier to give my story some context.

When I was very little, I have feint memories of watching cartoons including He-Man, Spiderman and Thundercats. I also recall really enjoying MacGyver and looking forward to his interesting combination of nerdy-scientist and action hero. At some point, I also watched Quantum Leap with some regularity and Saved by the Bell with fervent interest because the characters helped shape my misunderstanding of what was cool.

In my early youth, a part of me actually shied away from TV because my brother and parents often watched Three's Company, which often made me feel bad for the likable Jack Tripper's constant hi-jinx. He would regularly employ deception, which I was uncomfortable with at that age and was always falling down, which made me feel bad because he was such a personable figure. I also was too young to grasp the sexual innuendo, which would probably be obvious to a modern 5 year old. Similarly, Married with Children did not appeal to me because of how mean they all were to each other. Even though, I understood it was fiction and meant for entertainment and silliness, I did not care for the coarse interactions.

In fact, I did not like comedy in general because I was a morose child. Actually, I was a badly-behaved solemn child, from getting into fights to being a spoiled brat when I was very young. By the time I was 10 years old, I was still very serious, if not outwardly misbehaved anymore. I started to excel in school and actually reached my academic peak in the 4th grade, but I still had yet to develop a well-rounded personality. I did not appreciate the lighter side of the world. One thing changed all of that for me.

Seinfeld.

My father watched the show first and really really liked it. So, the next time he saw an episode on TV, we watched it together- the episode was a late second season episode called "The Deal" about Jerry and his ex-girlfriend, Elaine, trying to take their passionate and intense friendship and add a casual sexual relationship without involving any emotional entanglements. Somehow, even as an 11 year old, I saw the humor in that. And I... was... hooked. I'm not sure how, but my whole family was all caught up in no time.

According to Wikipedia, the date was May 2, 1991 that changed my life. It seems strange that I would watch something so sexually mature with my parents (as my parents are mostly conservative with regard to child development, so this was not routine for us.) But, immediately, the Seinfeld experience became a household tradition. For much of the rest of the country, the show created a water-cooler culture, but for us, Seinfeld transformed our domestic dynamic.

Every Thursday night, (during TV seasons,) the family gathered, ordered Chinese food from Hunan Park on 72nd Street and sat in front of the TV (I would be lying down on the floor, my brother leaning against the couch and my parents alternated their spots on the couch) to laugh consistently for half an hour about "nothing." Everything about the experience became magical. The time slot made Thursday nights my favorite night of the week. Hunan Park's Kung Pao Chicken became my favorite meal of all time. Even the television itself, which mesmerized me a half hour at a time, became a uniquely social experience.

My father and I invented a new pastime, which was to recount stories from our own lives and measure whether that moment was worthy of Seinfeld comedic fodder or to determine whether a joke was Seinfeld-worthy. Even in the present, my parents and I often go out to dinner and spend hours detailing Seinfeld episode plot-lines like they were hilarious personal anecdotes.

After a youth filled with determined solemness, Seinfeld taught me to have a sense of humor about life, and now I can laugh at just about anything.

But, back to TV...

Seinfeld changed my life for the better, but it was a gateway show. The addition of other shows was actually relatively gradual, as I watched every episode of Lois and Clark and a few other notable shows in my angst-y teenage years. While I was friendly with people who went out regularly in high school, I was not "friends" with them. My friends tended to be people like myself who enjoyed grabbing a slice of pizza (or maybe going to an occasional after-school club like chess, ping pong, roller-hockey or street soccer) and then most importantly heading to the comforts and luxuries of our respective homes.

Then I went off to college, Seinfeld ended with a thud, Hunan Park closed with a bang and my parents remodeled their apartment in such a way as to inadvertently discourage lying down on the floor. The only things left from that magical Thursday night equation were: the existence of Thursday nights, (for now, Thursday nights are still intact,) my family is still awesome, (even though my brother moved a bit further away,) and my affection for television.

Over the years, my insomnia led me to read a lot of books (I was an English and history major in college and often proudly and nerdily read 3 books a week) and watch a lot of television. But, even throughout most of law school, I did not cling to steady programming. Sometime during law school, my focus shifted away from books and my home-hobby of choice became almost exclusively the television box.

Around that time, I indulged in Arrested Development, which probably garnered more laughs per episode than even Seinfeld. I also encountered the Office(s,) which merged comedy with drama (the Jim-Pam romance) more effectively than any previous show I'd watched. Even as I watched these shows, TV was merely a minor crutch for me to cope with my innate laziness, my life choices and my social phobias.

Then came 24. I had watched 2 or 3 episodes of Season 1 of 24 when it first aired and recognized its excellence, but I did not want to be bogged down with such intensity. Perchance, my brother caught a few episodes and he convinced me to catch a new episode. After I had one viewing, I proceeded to watch 4 seasons of 24 in about a week, in order to catch up. And no, I was not camped out in my apartment watching episodes of 24. I would get home and watch 24 in lieu of sleep. By the time I was caught up, I was convinced every person in the light of day was a terrorist. In retrospect, the method was not a smart idea.

After I caught up on 24, which became one of my all-time favorite shows in the span of a week, I was ready for a new show. Having caught up on 24, I gained a newfound respect for the serialized drama and so shortly after my 24 sprint/marathon, I decided I wanted another sprintathon. So, I got Lost.

I did not expect much from a show headlined by the less cool brother from Party of Five. There was a plane crash. Fine, but how could a show like that retain my interest for a season? Yet methodically, it won me over. There were major issues about the group's survival, there were character clashes and of course, there were mysteries. By the end of the 4th episode, I was sold. The show might might be a science fiction show or this might be a fantasy show or this might be a show about spiritual enlightenment, but no matter what it was, it was unbelievable.

I caught up quickly, as is my wont. But, I did something different this time. This time, I felt there was more to the show than the airing of entertainment, so I followed along with the blogs to recognize the totality and the depth of the program. And then, by the third season, (even with its notorious low-points,) the show had galvanized the entirety of my interest like no other show ever had. So, while Seinfeld guided my youth, Lost now pervaded my mind. With the onset of the 4th season, I began to blog my own thoughts on the show, trying to ascertain the hidden messages like the little kid in a Christmas Story (of course, the kid's decoder ring only told him to buy more Ovaltine, while Lost was telling me to pay attention to the world (and probably to drink more Ovaltine.)) (Also, Lost is the one show that depending on its ending might possibly dethrone Seinfeld as my favorite show of all time.)

As we approach the end of Lost, I have probably spent more time watching, reading about, writing about and thinking about Lost, then I have on any endeavor, save sleep, school and work (not necessarily in that order.) In part because of Lost, I needed other TV just as a break to ease my mind as well as to occupy my time through the rest of the week. And around this point, with the addition of other television shows, I would often prefer mundane television, which required nothing of me, rather than mundane conversation, which required little of me.

So, Lost in conjunction with the creation of DVR, made serial shows a staple of my diet and introduced me to TV fanaticism. Then, on-demand and hulu came along and made my condition more of a problem. I imagine it's like having a drug dealer that delivers to your office. Now, I can track these shows from the onset ad infinitum. I also have friends who are TV enthusiasts who have graciously contributed by lending me DVDs of TV shows or by suggesting new shows. Everyone's a pusher.

Now I can honestly say that, in my lifetime, I have watched most (often every) episode of well over 100 TV shows (and it's actually probably over 150 shows.) Most of the TV shows that I watch/watched last at least half an hour (including commercials) and most of them lasted more than one season and some of them like Jeopardy or PTI are on daily. Then, there are reruns that air regularly that I watch during my sleepless nights. And of course, there are shows like Lost, where I feel compelled to watch each episode on multiple occasions. To keep a long story from getting longer, I will spare you the details of which shows I currently watch (the number of shows have continued to grow, rather than shrink.) I finally hit rock bottom when after months of recognizing how awful the show Happy Town was going to be, I actually watched the pilot, did not like it, and then watched ANOTHER episode. Ergo, I watch a lot of TV.

So, what's my point?

My point is that I am going to use the end of Lost (and 24) as an opportunity to seize the momentum of this moment. I invite all of my TV-aholic brethren and sestren(?) out there to join me in my new endeavor: of watching much less TV. The details of my TV project are still being hashed out, but there's no need to speed through the process because I'm no hero or heroine. But, the bottom line is that I plan on cutting my series down substantially and impose my own arbitrary limits on TV intake from now until someone else can effectively boss me around. This blog entry is meant to log my journey through television: from infancy to adulthood from naivety through indulgence and finally, hopefully reaching a sense of understanding and appreciation. And now, we will try more forcefully to have a fulfilling life outside the world of television and create shows, spectacles, entertainment from our own lives.

But, mostly, I'm just sad that Lost is going byebye.

To all my adoring fan, I say, I'll probably see you later this week,
ME

PS: Despite the fact that I watched a lot of TV, I am entirely functional and have only let TV interfere with my social life and never my work-like life. Even now that I have less of a daily grind and I am at my apex of TV viewing, I still maintain a TV-free time period, to effectively structure my day to complete my personal projects. For those of you in the know: stage 1 of the project=complete- Stage 2, the editing stage, has begun. We'll see what happens next.