Its kind of funny. All of my earliest memories tend to revolve around television. Whether it was watching Star Trek with my father or baseball with my great grandfather (Actually I think thats the only memory I have of him). Television has always been the dominate force that life seems to centralize around.
And yet, it is with no sadness or regret that I can proclaim myself to be almost entirely free of the comforting enslavement of television. Sure, I will occassionally catch a ball game in a restaurant or a pub, but besides that the only time the boobtube is switched on is when I am selectively watching the video cassette or dvd of my choice.
Thing is, I really do love the boobtub. But lately things just havn't been the same. Television has been poisoned by less then a handful of greedy corporate over lords who corrupt it's charm in the interest of selling garbage and manipulating political debate.
After nearly two months of television free living I was taken back a bit as I sat in a restaurant and noticed a debate taking place on CNN. There was a hard lined left winger and a hard lined right winger and a wimpy moderator stuck in between to help give the illusion that this was all just a perfectly normal everyday regular Joe American back and fourth conversation. And suddenly, just like that, a moment of clarity had occured. It was all bullshit. We are happily being herded into boxes.
It took two months of detoxing to realize just how stupid this whole thing actually is. Television really serves no purpose beyond scaring the shit out of idiots and peer pressuring their kids into buying things they don't really need.
I mean, I guess I already knew that. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if a handful of intertwining corporations are in cahoots with one another that something is up. I cheated my way to a high school diploma and I'm barely capable of holding down a minimum wage job with the least bit of responsibilities, so why is this so clear to me and not so much to everybody else?
Anyways, going television-less is something that I truely recommend everybody try atleast once in their lifetime. It is truely a liberating experience. Why should I give a shit about what's going in Egypt when I am sitting on a peaceful park bench eating a $1 double cheeseburger? Right, I shouldn't, I can care less becaue it will never effect me. The only reason I knew or cared in the first place is because television told me too. Have fun being a bunch of "informed" citizens.
No comments:
Post a Comment