Disconnecting from Media

My family moved to a country home place about ten years ago. On the evening of moving day, my wife and I were sitting on the sofa in the littered, cluttered living room of our new house. The television was resting silently on the floor, placed there by one of the wonderful friends who helped us move. We were exhausted, dusty and damp (it was July). We looked at the television and at each other.

He: “Where should we put that?”

She: “How about downstairs.”

He: “I need to put together the entertainment center. I’ll get to it tomorrow.”

Well, tomorrow came about six months later. I first had to put my office together, put the kids’ room together, take all the boxes to the recycling station, unpack 3,000 pounds of books, fix all the problems the previous owners had left, etc. Seems the last undone thing was the entertainment center.

I hooked up the television and VCR, but we have no cable out here. I suspect we are so far out that the satellite signal would even be weak. So, we just watched videos when the mood struck, but the change had begun.

Before we knew it, we had gone a year without network television. No CNN. No Bosnia. No O.J. No Oprah. No Jesse’s (Jackson or Helms). No Robert Novak, or spittle at the corner of his mouth. No election crisis, here or in Haiti. And there are no naked women on television, or sitcoms which attempt humor with liberal use of the word “ass”. Funny thing was, we did not miss it.

In the meantime, I had enrolled in college classes, had started writing and recording music, had become involved in a public speaking group, had read some books that I missed, and generally enjoyed life and the family. My wife pursued several interests of her own as well, including running a home business and taking college courses. All the time for these activities came directly from the hours we had spent watching television in the evenings. Our life had been transformed.

I heard a statistic recently that average television viewing time is about 28 hours a week. Think about that, four hours a day! Even when we had cable, I could not get away with blowing four hours a day in front of the tube. I suppose to balance my two hours a day there was some poor Consumer watching six hours a day. We have to keep those numbers up. That average has to include a load of wayward Producers as well.

After realizing our accidental television withdrawal, my wife and I noticed some interesting things. First, our kids were not as frenzied over toys as their peers. When the relatives gave the girls some popular doll for Christmas one year, they had never seen them on television and hadn’t been pumped in expectation. Their response was, “Oh... A doll. Thanks, Grandma. Hand me that next present.” It was wonderful for us, but Grandma was rather disappointed!

To this day, our children watch only a few hours of videos from the library per week, and we control what they watch. My kids pick cartoon videos, as expected, but they also watch those ‘how things work’ tapes that would bore most children.

Over the years, we have bypassed several kiddie crazes: Beanie Babies, Pokemon, Cabbage Patch, various talking toys, and others. This is only possible because of the lack of television. The children are aware of these products, but they are not whipped into a rabid fury by a constant stream of commercials.

Every now and then my wife and I take a trip and stay in a hotel. There we watch some television to pass the time. Holy mother of raster scanning! How can Consumers stand all those commercials? Each time we catch the tube, there is more and more garbage advertising. Every half hour program consists of at least ten minutes of Paraducer sales pitches.

And the commercials are getting more frenetic. I never could watch MTV because each image consists of only about ten frames of video (less than a second). It gives me a headache. Even Geritol commercials are looking that way now.

The minimum IQ for television viewing has sunk to amoebic levels. The network ad wizards should be written up in a mathematical journal for discovering a lower common denominator than the lowest common denominator. Let’s call it the ultra lowest common denominator, kind of a virtual lowest common denominator that only exists in television viewers. The premises for commercials are so inane, stupid and insulting that now I understand why my cats never took an interest in television.

Here’s a lyrical snippet from “Don't Phunk With My Heart” by Black Eyed Peas, as of this writing on the Billboard Hot 100^TM list:

Can’t wait to see the video, can you? He wants her mind, yee-haw. Man, that gets me off! At least he’s not just interested in her body.

Within each program (programming: that stuff between the commercials), the content is getting more and more low brow. I’m not talking just about the slide to vulgarity, but the lack of any intellectual stimulation. Now we Producers produce because we like to think and do. Thinking, however, is not required on any level for a television viewer. I used to watch sci-fi shows because they stimulated my imagination, but any more even those have been subsumed into the running political commentary from the Hollywood establishment. Utopia till you puke.

About this time, some Consumer will be heard to say, “B-b-b-but I only watch quality television. You know, the Discovery and History channels.” Really? Quality television? An oxymoron if there ever was one. Reminds me of “political science,” and “Central Intelligence Agency.”

People blurt that out every time I mention I don’t have network television at home. I say it with no criticism in my voice. But without fail, their guilt takes over and stages a defense. Why is this? Could it be they know deep down that they are not living up to their full potential when several hours of every evening is spent exercising an infrared remote? I had no idea that people carried around this much guilt, a veritable viewing complex, but that’s how it looks.

There are a few Consumers who don’t feel guilty, and their response to my lack of viewing is predictable and even comical. Several times I have been asked if I saw some episode of Seinfeld. (I’ve seen 30 seconds of it walking through the appliance department at Sears.) Upon learning that I am out of the loop, they feel obligated to clue me into the outrageously funny goings on therein. Often. Call it the Seinfeld regurgitation torture.

Television tips the balance toward the Consumer side, and that’s what the Paraducers want. Walk through a cemetery and count the headstones that say, “He was a dedicated consumer.” “She was a faithful viewer.” “He never missed Jerry Springer.” Not many. We remember figures from history because of what they produced, not what they consumed: “He was a good father.” “She was faithful to the last.” But television encourages us to live a ultra lowest common denominator life. “Work your miserable job then come home and watch our ads. We’ll even tell you a few jokes.” How lame.

On top of that insult, we are standing in line to pay money we have worked hard to earn for the privilege of wasting our time! Producer, is that wise? A humorous benefit of not watching television comes at parties when everyone starts grousing about the price of cable. “What are you grinning at?” they sneer.

Producers also must realize the value of real experience and how television steals it from us. What’s better, seeing someone climb Everest on television, or doing it yourself? The answer is obvious, but for those of us who like thicker air, it’s not an option. However, what is better, seeing someone climb Everest on television, or climbing a mountain near your home? I say climbing the mountain yourself is much more beneficial.

The additional benefit is had because climbing any mountain is better than watching someone else do it on television. That mountain also represents other pinnacles of life: learning a new skill, conquering an old fear, being what you know you can be (and more), doing even what you think you can’t do, and stepping up to the checkout counter of life and claiming the good thing that has your name on it, because you have earned it.

Don’t be fooled. You are not discovering anything but the mold in Tupperware when you watch the Discovery channel. You are passively watching someone else discover. There’s a difference, but some people have been watching television so long they cannot remember what it was like to discover something for themselves. What better for the Discovery advertising Paraducers than for you to believe discovery involves watching television!

And the disconnectable media is not just television. About the time our oldest daughter was taking a rabid interest in reading (age seven), our local newspaper published a story on the growing phenomenon of local women selling pictures of their naked bodies on the Internet. I opened the paper to the section on local life, the section with the comics my daughter loved to read, and there on the front of that section was a 16 inch high photo of a nude woman, in silhouette, being photographed, by her husband. I had to hide that day’s paper.

Then there was the article by a local reporter who went to a meeting of corrections officials and researchers. He reported that the conference participants were lamenting the incarceration rate, at an all time high, while the crime rate was at a 10 year low.

Pause for a minute, reread that last paragraph, and think.

What’s wrong with that thinking? Here’s the hand-wringing cry that the reporter wants to hear from you: “Oh! Crime is way down, but we have so many people in jail! What a horrible, unjust society we have! That mandatory sentencing has to go!”

What is the logical way to look at the situation but that the crime rate is low specifically because the incarceration rate is high? The bad guys are in jail, perpetrating assaults on one another, not you and me. That is a good thing! The reporter and editors at the newspaper would prefer the idiotic, hand wringing response, though.

In Virginia, James Gilmore ran for governor on a promise to eliminate the hated car tax, a personal property tax on vehicles. My in-laws retired and moved to Virginia to be near the grandchildren. They are living on a fixed income and were at the time traveling in a trailer part of the year, seeing the country. Having found a nice little bungalow in town, they settled down to a quiet life. That is, until they got their first car tax bill! It was a couple thousand dollars, levied against a 15 year old Chevy Suburban with 200,000 miles and a 20 year old travel trailer. Now you see why I used the word hated to describe the car tax.

When Gilmore was elected on what I thought was a gimmick campaign ploy, he actually implemented the car tax cut. After the legislation was written and signed into law, the accountants totaled up the damage to government takings. That’s when our local fishwrap ran a huge headline: “Car Tax to Cost $1 Billion.”

Only in media could a tax rebate to the people who produce wealth be called a ‘cost’. The government exists to serve the people and does not incur costs. Taxpayers incur the costs at the hand of government. All of the girth of government is a cost to you and me on a second by second basis. The headline should have read, “Car Tax to Benefit $1 Billion.”

That, plus a couple comic strips that depicted blacks as stereotyped Ebonics speaking, watermelon eating inner city losers caused me to cancel the paper. I don’t know any black people that fit that stereotype, and never have, and I don’t want my children growing up with those ridiculous images. Their black friends are not like that. Just because a strip is drawn by a black person does not give him the license to demean blacks.

There was a flap in 2005 because a violent video game, “Grand Theft Auto,” was found to have hidden sexual content not appropriate for children or teens. Once the codes to unlock this content were communicated through the Internet, the media got hold of the story, raised a stink, and the manufacturer agreed to pull the game from the market. Parents and right wing leaders were outraged that this type of trash could be found in their homes.

People, get a brain! This video game is packed with violence. It has no redeeming qualities, unless you fence stolen cars and you need a good training video for your ‘mules’. I trust that Producers have the sense not to buy this sort of game for their children, sex or not. Just disconnect.

The outrage reminds me of the backward masking flap of the 1970’s. Remember when it was suggested that the Beatle’s records had suspicious or satanic messages buried in the songs, only audible if played backwards? I remember hearing some clips of a song that was supposed to relate to John Lennon’s death. I though it was a ridiculous notion. Then right wing Christians piled on and soon found satanic messages on many popular records, including those by Led Zeppelin.

Once again, let’s all get a collective brain! It’s not necessary to have special codes to unlock a fire hose of filth in “Grand Theft Auto.” And it’s not necessary to play an AC/DC record backwards to hear a satanic message! Just play the records forward, like your kids do, and it’s all there in almost grammatically correct English. Popular music has played a role in many teen shootings and suicides, all of it played forward.

When considering media for ourselves and our families, we don’t often have to look for the hidden agenda. In many cases, the agenda is right on the label.

The agenda supporters are not just in Hollywood, but extend all the way to Congress. The US House of Representatives voted to subsidize consumers’ switch from analog to digital television. Not everyone can afford a new $2000 digital TV, so there will be $60 converter boxes on the market to adapt your old set to the new, sharper digital picture format. To keep the masses connected to the tube, the House voted to subsidize the purchase of the converter boxes to the tune of $40 each. This stupidity has the support of both Democrats and Republicans. They want you and I glued to the idiot box, wasting all our precious time, being average, being controlled. And they are willing to pay us to do it, with our money. Imagine the boost to America if tens of millions of TV’s were instantly made useless, and the former viewers started doing something constructive. Congress won’t stand for it.

Every information or media outlet deserves a critical eye: television, radio, podcasts, blogs, web content, news, art, etc. Every one. Turn off the ones that you know are not good for you and your children. Turn off the negative, turn off the obscene, turn off the merely silly. It’s all about you, and you have the remote control.

My family has been unchained from television for ten years now. I would not have suspected the benefits. We still watch a movie every now and then, but television is our servant, not our master.

How can you kick the habit? First, line up something else to do with your evenings. Check out a stack of books. Take a class. Get a date (with your spouse if you are married). Form a Producer cell group. Then turn off the television and see what happens. You will find yourself with restless brain syndrome, you Producer you, gravitating toward things that specifically interest you, not television programs to fill empty time.