discovering cable TV
Apr. 23rd, 2003 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topazEllen came in to the living room late tonight and asked, "What are you watching?"
I'm still not sure, but I think it was the prelims of the Eastern Log-Sawing Competition.
We are discovering the great social experiment that is American cable television. Neither of us has had much exposure to cable TV. Ellen had cable in her youth, but it was pre-MTV, before the era of 500 channels, when "cable" was how people in the sticks got any TV reception at all. I grew up in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where cable TV wasn't available. (Or so my parents told me. They may have been conveniently fibbing.) We did eventually get something called WHT, which was like the bargain basement of cable services -- it was the movie channel that ran all the bombs and B-movies of yesterday, movies like "Bronco Billy" and "Rough Cut." It was horrible. The memory still gives me nightmares.
As adults neither of us have ever spent much time watching TV. In Chicago we always ran home from work to catch "The Simpsons," and we'd pick up "M*A*S*H" at 11 p.m. In the last few years we've picked up a wicked bad "West Wing" habit but have (proudly) successfully avoided getting sucked into anything else, despite earnest attempts by "ER" and "Will & Grace" to occupy our attention.
Now, beyond our wildest dreams, cable Internet has finally come to our town. We signed up right away. I wouldn't have bothered with the cable TV subscription, but Comcast offers TV + Internet service for $5/month less than Internet service alone, and I could not resist. (Something about capturing eyeballs. The poor fools.) The fellow came this morning to hook us up, and now we're hooked.
Since we both are weirdly obsessive about organizing information, I immediately went about writing down the names of all the channels that scrolled by on the TV Guide channel. This information is surely available online somewhere, but wouldn't you know it, I just had to do it by hand. Then we typed up the list and looked up the ones we weren't familiar with. ("What the hell is EWTN?" "Something Catholic." "Okay, how about TNN? What is that, country music?") Then we reorganized the channel list, sorted by category.
Sick, sick, sick.
What was most interesting about it all was that -- ods bodkins -- we actually spent the evening hanging out together sharing an experience. I have come to look down my long pointy nose at TV, considering it entertainment for the brainwashed. We have resisted cable TV mightily. We have wanted not to become zombies to the box. Because, sure as sunset, as soon as our cable was hooked up, we were completely engrossed in a half-hour TLC spot on dwarfism. This is not necessarily how I want to pass my days.
The surprising thing was that it was a more active, personal experience than I expected. After the kids are in bed, we often retreat to our separate offices -- "to check our mail," of course -- and emerge only hours later, pale and drawn, spent of energy and hardly able to drag ourselves to bed. Tonight we sat down in front of the television while we both still had some energy and spent the time talking and laughing together. (Which led to having some really fabulous sex and eating up the leftover Thai food in the fridge. All in all a better night than I've had in a long time.)
It's still the honeymoon period, of course. This NRE thing can't last. Before long we'll be watching reruns of Happy Days, drooling, slackjawed, and wondering where the evenings went. But until then we can enjoy the present....
I'm still not sure, but I think it was the prelims of the Eastern Log-Sawing Competition.
We are discovering the great social experiment that is American cable television. Neither of us has had much exposure to cable TV. Ellen had cable in her youth, but it was pre-MTV, before the era of 500 channels, when "cable" was how people in the sticks got any TV reception at all. I grew up in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where cable TV wasn't available. (Or so my parents told me. They may have been conveniently fibbing.) We did eventually get something called WHT, which was like the bargain basement of cable services -- it was the movie channel that ran all the bombs and B-movies of yesterday, movies like "Bronco Billy" and "Rough Cut." It was horrible. The memory still gives me nightmares.
As adults neither of us have ever spent much time watching TV. In Chicago we always ran home from work to catch "The Simpsons," and we'd pick up "M*A*S*H" at 11 p.m. In the last few years we've picked up a wicked bad "West Wing" habit but have (proudly) successfully avoided getting sucked into anything else, despite earnest attempts by "ER" and "Will & Grace" to occupy our attention.
Now, beyond our wildest dreams, cable Internet has finally come to our town. We signed up right away. I wouldn't have bothered with the cable TV subscription, but Comcast offers TV + Internet service for $5/month less than Internet service alone, and I could not resist. (Something about capturing eyeballs. The poor fools.) The fellow came this morning to hook us up, and now we're hooked.
Since we both are weirdly obsessive about organizing information, I immediately went about writing down the names of all the channels that scrolled by on the TV Guide channel. This information is surely available online somewhere, but wouldn't you know it, I just had to do it by hand. Then we typed up the list and looked up the ones we weren't familiar with. ("What the hell is EWTN?" "Something Catholic." "Okay, how about TNN? What is that, country music?") Then we reorganized the channel list, sorted by category.
Sick, sick, sick.
What was most interesting about it all was that -- ods bodkins -- we actually spent the evening hanging out together sharing an experience. I have come to look down my long pointy nose at TV, considering it entertainment for the brainwashed. We have resisted cable TV mightily. We have wanted not to become zombies to the box. Because, sure as sunset, as soon as our cable was hooked up, we were completely engrossed in a half-hour TLC spot on dwarfism. This is not necessarily how I want to pass my days.
The surprising thing was that it was a more active, personal experience than I expected. After the kids are in bed, we often retreat to our separate offices -- "to check our mail," of course -- and emerge only hours later, pale and drawn, spent of energy and hardly able to drag ourselves to bed. Tonight we sat down in front of the television while we both still had some energy and spent the time talking and laughing together. (Which led to having some really fabulous sex and eating up the leftover Thai food in the fridge. All in all a better night than I've had in a long time.)
It's still the honeymoon period, of course. This NRE thing can't last. Before long we'll be watching reruns of Happy Days, drooling, slackjawed, and wondering where the evenings went. But until then we can enjoy the present....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 05:49 am (UTC)I think that calling some medium "entertainment for the brainwashed" is actually the entertainment for the brainwashed. It is all too easy to say that some technology is dehumanizing or stops people from using their brains or stifles creativity or yadda yadda yadda.
A medium - technological or not - is an opportunity for people to share things. What you do with the things you get from the medium is up to you. If you want to consume it as a mindless drone, then do it. If you want it to be a bonding experience, then you can do that, too.
A number of years ago, someone I knew was surprised to find that I watched television on a regular basis - after all, creative, intelligent, thinking people don't do that, do they? I pointed out that in my household, the television was actually part of a social pattern of discussion and interaction. Had they ever seen "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"? Well, no, haven't seen that. "well, its a show about people watching bad movies. The entertainment isn't in the movie, but in the way the viewers react to it". "Oh! What an interesting idea!"
Interesting, creative people find new and interesting things wherever they go.
PS. For some reason, I think there is 6 feet under with your name on it somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 05:53 am (UTC)Ooo yes. David and I just watched season one (out on DVD); totally worth it.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 07:11 am (UTC)But I can keep my nose in the air because not only have Bob and I decided not to get cable for this house (cable people act very strangely when you want to disconnect their service, as if not having cable were as uncivilized as not having hot water) (which, come to think of it, we've also done without, albeit involuntarily), we haven't even set up the TV yet. We will have to someday, when our friends get tired of taping West Wing for us.
Sure I can totally see going without cable...
Date: 2003-04-23 12:44 pm (UTC)At the point I'm at now, having a *slow* net connection makes me feel like I've been kicked in the head a few times, and can't think clearly anymore.
How pathetic is that?
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 11:04 am (UTC)I think there is 6 feet under with your name on it
That's an HBO thing, right? Still no premium cable yet. :-)