The addicting comfort of analogue TV
I love my TV. It is square with a big bulge out the backside. It is heavy and awkward to carry. We have been together for over ten years and even though I cannot plug my DVD player into it, I still like it. The black plastic box that encases it lacks certain ‘goes-in-to’s that modern living requires. It is the last of its kind. It is analogue and soon to be a relic.
TV is a warm box of flashing light that we point our furniture towards. It entertains, describes, teaches, and demonstrates. It dazzles the brain with color, moving shapes, and sounds. It starts simple with a few cartoons on the weekends… maybe an after school special, a few re-runs of Happy Days. As time passes by, we are addicted. Now we must know what happens on our favorite shows. We do want to ‘be where everybody knows your name and everybody’s glad you came’.
TV accepts us as we are. PJ’s and runny nose, half-asleep, or distracted by the day it accepts us. It is happy flashing in the background of our lives. It never asks us to be something we are not. It only wants to be there for us to comfort us when we need a laugh or a good cry.
TV is good in many ways. It ties us all together, it explains the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, it shows us images of far away worlds, and it brings us current events.   Once turned on, the TV is so difficult to turn off. Especially now – when the weather is so cold, when it is dark so early in the day, when money once spent on a night out is now spent on heat, food, or gasoline.
Have we gotten lost in the plot of characters, stories, and staged works? Perhaps. Should we read a book occasionally? Of Course. Could I have learned that 70% of walnuts are grown in California and that walnut oil is contained in the paint of the Mona Lisa from a book? Sure, but why would I have looked that up?
You know you have watched too much TV when – You wonder why there is no dramatic instrumental music playing in the background of your life. – You know what you are watching on any given weeknight. – You complain that there is nothing good on TV. – You get frustrated when other people do not use the remote efficiently enough. – You prefer either ‘remote’ or ‘controller’ and you know why. – You can distinguish in the first 30 seconds which episode of Seinfeld/Friends/Cheers/MASH is currently on. – You miss Johnny Carson. – You cannot decide whether to be on Survivor or Antiques Road Show.
Even though we watch too much TV, we are still trying to make it better. Yes, Digital is now scheduled to take over on June 12 with the House vote Wednesday to delay the analog TV shutdown. My converter boxes are ready and waiting for the new age of TV viewing. My square TV and I will be tuned in regardless of the compressed picture, overly loud commercials, and lack of DVD player. We will still be together flipping through the channels of our lives.
Tune in or Tune out – TV is part of who we are.
