Mike TV

Is it possible to make up for years living abroad, without the luxury of television, I mean American television? So many of the snob intelligentsia of America look to TV as the downfall of the all society. I think I have yet to see a “Kill your television” bumper sticker o anything but a Volvo station wagon. But with the advent of technology and the means to program and watch whatever programs you favor the most, the watching of television is surely at a whole new level for most. Somehow, with the avoidance of laws by rogue states, it is possible for me to watch, via the internet, a whole slew of American shows that I have never before seen (“Mad Men”, “Noah’s Arc”, “Dexter”), or even rewatch old favorites from Andy Griffith to “My So-called Life” or “The Facts of Life”.

The meaning that I have so cleverly masked here is what this technology means, how it impacts my everyday life. Well, I’ll just put it to you like this: you know those statistics that come out every once and a while that say that children sit in front of the TV for three hours daily on the average. I am putting that measly number to shame. I am ingesting media at this point to such an extent that, if TV were a actual nutrient, I would be unable to fit through the door for my sitcom girth…Richard Simmons will have to come and unplug me from the set so that the firemen can chainsaw a hole in the house big enough for the crane to lift me through. I will not go willingly, though, and some famous designer will make headlines as he revisits high school algebra in order to calculate the dimensions for my tailor made straightjacket, a necessity as I start to convulse and fight when losing visual of that beloved screen.

But, you know what, to hell with excuses; I am having so much fun at this point that I almost don’t mind gorging myself on TV like seawater for some shipwrecked, overly tanned, extremely parched soul on a life raft. I am happy drinking this pixeled brine for the time being. Batten down the hatches, I’m on my way to TVLand euphoria and neither hell nor high water will stop me. Kill my TV? Heyl no! I am actually toying with the idea of watching two screens simultaneously.