1
In the early nineties, I killed my TV.
I was addicted to it but I could not stop watching it. I took a pair of scissors and cut through the cord plugged into the wall. An electric shock went through my body. Did you know that there is an electric current in the cord of a television even when it is off? I didn't. The hair on my arms stood up. I smelled burning hair. I felt power coursing through my body. Later electricians told me that I could have been harmed, but I was energized. I felt like nobody could stop me.*
I had someone take the now neutralized TV and throw it out for me. I lived without television for thirteen years. This had good and bad aspects. It did keep me from trancing out on that addictive medium.
Later electricians told me that I was lucky in how I fared. Maybe I needed that shock, who knows? I also have a strange effect on some appliances at times. I have knocked out more than a few streetlights when I passed under them.
I remember what got to me just before I did it. They were presenting the Gulf War like a miniseries. They even had a theme song for it. Also, the phone sex commercials late at night on network TV seemed to say, you have been replaced by a commodity. Turns out they were just getting started with that one.
A few years ago I needed to spend more time off my feet. A TV was gotten. By mistake (or by design?) the cable company gave me a box with all the channels activated, all 900. I had Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Spanish, Korean language television, porn, a BBC channel, an independent film channel, Sundance, all premium cable channels, everything. I also purchased Tivo and digital cable. I hacked myself a pin number.
I had a new eMachine computer and high speed internet. I vowed I would always have those things. We were one, me and my TV and my computer. We were a system and it was working. I published fifty articles in an online magazine.
Then, stuff happened. Those things went away. I ended up with no computer and an small older TV set with basic cable. I picked up the TV in a parking lot in a rich neighborhood where people leave things they don't want. I have a vague memory of the days when I had could command my TV like a queen. There was an entire universe in there.
Still I watch obsessively. There are so many commercial interruptions that it is abusive and addles my mind. I am addicted to it once again, but it's like drinking cheap hootch instead of good stuff.
I need to do something to ration my TV watching, but they pipe it into your home. They don't have a system for rationing it. I turned it off this morning and got some writing done. I have to live my life or leave it. Can't live in the TV no more.
__________________________________
* Don't do what I did. I was lucky. You might not be.
I was addicted to it but I could not stop watching it. I took a pair of scissors and cut through the cord plugged into the wall. An electric shock went through my body. Did you know that there is an electric current in the cord of a television even when it is off? I didn't. The hair on my arms stood up. I smelled burning hair. I felt power coursing through my body. Later electricians told me that I could have been harmed, but I was energized. I felt like nobody could stop me.*
I had someone take the now neutralized TV and throw it out for me. I lived without television for thirteen years. This had good and bad aspects. It did keep me from trancing out on that addictive medium.
Later electricians told me that I was lucky in how I fared. Maybe I needed that shock, who knows? I also have a strange effect on some appliances at times. I have knocked out more than a few streetlights when I passed under them.
I remember what got to me just before I did it. They were presenting the Gulf War like a miniseries. They even had a theme song for it. Also, the phone sex commercials late at night on network TV seemed to say, you have been replaced by a commodity. Turns out they were just getting started with that one.
A few years ago I needed to spend more time off my feet. A TV was gotten. By mistake (or by design?) the cable company gave me a box with all the channels activated, all 900. I had Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Spanish, Korean language television, porn, a BBC channel, an independent film channel, Sundance, all premium cable channels, everything. I also purchased Tivo and digital cable. I hacked myself a pin number.
I had a new eMachine computer and high speed internet. I vowed I would always have those things. We were one, me and my TV and my computer. We were a system and it was working. I published fifty articles in an online magazine.
Then, stuff happened. Those things went away. I ended up with no computer and an small older TV set with basic cable. I picked up the TV in a parking lot in a rich neighborhood where people leave things they don't want. I have a vague memory of the days when I had could command my TV like a queen. There was an entire universe in there.
Still I watch obsessively. There are so many commercial interruptions that it is abusive and addles my mind. I am addicted to it once again, but it's like drinking cheap hootch instead of good stuff.
I need to do something to ration my TV watching, but they pipe it into your home. They don't have a system for rationing it. I turned it off this morning and got some writing done. I have to live my life or leave it. Can't live in the TV no more.
__________________________________
* Don't do what I did. I was lucky. You might not be.
