20. There’s something more to life than TV
“Today, our attention is less than the television advertisement. We’re looking at six or seven problems constantly. We’re living in the disturbed societies of cities. I think modern technology is one of the worst things human beings have invented.” – Marina Abramovic
To the surprise of some people, television has been around for almost a century. I wasn’t alive then but wouldn’t have watched it anyhow. It was very crude. Black and white viewing via the boob tube became prevalent during the 1950s. The mid 1960s gave us more advances with the NBC peacock. The set and viewing screens were bigger with time, even gargantuan with projection ones. The big cabinets vanished, followed by thinner screens, high definition TV, and other hardware to record programs and to view them on, not necessary in that order. The Golden Age of television began in the late 1940s and continued for two decades. TV was live, including Playhouse 90 and other good shows. It featured talented actors and actresses despite the fact that you could count the channels on one hand. Cable TV was nowhere to be seen, but people were amazed by the technology, even without an idea of what was to come.
In early 2015, I saw the episode on the CBC, Doc Zone: Renaissance Television. Today, I wonder if we could be referring to the platinum age of television, because of the offerings. I think the lead age is more appropriate, as in the saying, Get the lead out of your xxx, or turn it off and get off the couch. Even better is the rust age. Referring to it as bronze gives it an award connotation, which it doesn’t deserve. Calling the stuff on the tube junk is way too kind for most programming.
Sports are ubiquitous and on numerous channels. I was watching the 1971 movie, The Anderson Tapes, when after an hour a basketball game took over the station. Don’t tell me the ending, as I want to see the entire flick, if it’s even on again. Maybe I should get it from the public library on DVD. I returned to that same channel shortly afterwards and there was movie on, but the screen was frozen and the motion picture wasn’t Ice Station Zebra. It may be evening, but the baseball game on the tube could have been from that same afternoon or even the previous day. About a year ago there was a game on, but it was from another year, maybe even the last century.
At one time I was a sports fan, but today I’m no longer one. That single word is an oxymoron. It’s all about greed, cheating, games and seasons that are too long. Not including preseason games: major league baseball begins in April and the World Series ends in October; the National Football season extends from September until February; both pro basketball and pro hockey cover the period from October until June. To get a ticket for any of these games, you need an equity loan. A family of four on a trip to the stadium or arena would need more than half a grand if you include parking and concession stand visits. A pass to the 2015 Super Bowl averaged more than $3,000 dollars. That doesn’t include the $90 parking, $12 beers, $11 hot dogs, $6 bottle of water and $15 souvenir popcorn, which you obviously can’t eat.
As far as greed goes, to advertise at that game cost about $150,000 a second or four and a half million dollars for half a minute. I’ve heard that this year’s ads weren’t funny but rather tasteless and disgusting. Yet, numerous people tuned in just to watch them. Ordinary commercials for lesser-viewed broadcasts are less pricey, but also have no redeeming social value. No thought or ingenuity goes into them and false advertising is nothing more than a pleonasm.
Watching an ad for a prescription drug makes me wonder why anyone would waste money on it after noting all the side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, kidney problems, constipation, irregular heart beat, blindness, the desire to be a telemarketer and death – but that’s only in a few cases. It wasn’t that long ago doctors were in commercials saying that smoking was healthy. If they were real ones, they forgot about the Hippocratic oath – first do no harm.
The ads of bile inducing ambulance chasers are something I turn off before I need one of those things they hand out on planes. These lawyers pick cases they can’t lose and pry on the innocent, refusing cases that may not be winnable. They bilk the clients out of much of the settlement and take money from insurance companies or those who are sued and not at fault. Shakespeare was right about killing all the lawyers, except he should have qualified that by adding, though not the good ones. In Buffalo, we have at least three of these criminal businesses where in order to contact them, you press one number on the phone seven times. I saw an ad for some illness where it offered in so many words that if you worked in a certain business, you could be entitled to a settlement. If you experienced difficulty breathing, from cancer or death, you should contact them at the web site or call the number listed.
I hate ads and avoid watching them. One for mattresses showed a salesman or maybe the company owner attacking his competitors mentioning not to trust people hawking mattresses. It appears we shouldn’t have faith in him either. An ad has people praising the Dish. The wife of the family says, We’re customers for life. We loved it. They forget that the proper feeling is like. Even that is a stretch. It seems people without common sense created these ads. If that isn’t barf inducing enough, it gets worse with infomercials. More people should join the church of stop shopping, led by the Rev. Billy Nolan. The site is www.revbilly.com.
Then there’s the inappropriately named reality TV, since it’s fabricated and not real life. Many humans still tune in to it since they like to see people suffering. It’s taken over the networks and cable. It may not have been offered if it weren’t so easy and cheap to produce. All you need are cameras and some person who wants be on television, making a fool of himself.
You can see more fabrications on network TV as well as cable. Nightly news shows should more fittingly be called news entertainment. Many networks figure that the truth isn’t that important as long as money flows into the station. Gore, murder, celebrities, crime and war bring in the dollars. Even some of the programs on PBS are leaning to the reality TV approach. What used to be real news there has floundered as PBS has too much concern with balance, which is only important for Nik Wallenda and old people. A polluter in a corporation who kills workers and citizens of the town shouldn’t be allowed to speak out balancing matters if all the evidence is against him.
A few years ago I was fortunate to see and hear the great American, Ralph Nader, even writing about him in my 2014 book about heroes. One of his pet peeves is overkill about weather. I agree with his take completely. The beginning of a half hour local news has a word or two about weather, followed by more at twenty after the hour and a few closing words before the program ends. That’s just too much, even if it’s a sunny and warm forecast. A better option is to look out the window. For an all-news station in Buffalo, one hour of it has six mentions of weather. With a minimalist approach, people will still have something to talk about.
There are many annoying elements of television, including old movies, which aren’t very good, with their archaic soundtracks. Most of what you’ll encounter are orchestras providing nausea instead of nostalgia. Laugh tracks and canned laughter has been around for years but they’re out of hand. On many shows today, people may have thought a line on the program was funny, but they didn’t wait until the punch line was delivered before reacting with noise. The show The Office had no laugh track, but I didn’t like it for that reason. I had been in the business world too long.
Television has been a blessing to the diet people, the drug industry, ambulance chasers, hospitals, doctor’s offices and big business. The population has become hooked on drugs, alcohol, food, violence, sex and even TV itself. That last addiction may be the worse of all mentioned. The tube is responsible for complacency, the decay of society, the decline of civilization and stress. People turn off the set at night and then try to retire, wondering why they can’t sleep. The great comedian Gallagher wondered why they call it a TV set, when you only get one. He’s onto something but today many a household has one of those gadgets in every room in the house. They must have bought the full set. The comedic genius also mentioned that TVs have a brightness button, but it don’t work. In the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, too many people were caught up to the drums of war. They watched and cheered the bombing but never considered the innocent men, women and children of Iraq.
We’ve been able to record music and TV programs for quite some time. DVD recording has replaced videotaping technology but that may be history as well. Five years ago I was at my friend Tom’s house for the NFL playoffs. Either we saw part of the game and had dinner or we had dinner and then were to view the action. Tom set the TV to record the game so we wouldn’t miss a play. Less than a year ago, I was talking to Pedro and he mentioned that people have the ability to record every program on television – thus enabling people to see every offering on the tube. I don’t have that capability and don’t want it.
In the Wasteland Speech of May 9, 1961, Federal Communications Commissioner chairman, Newton N. Minow, called commercial television a vast wasteland. I wonder how he feels today. One of his quotes was: Children will watch anything, and when a broadcaster uses crime and violence and other shoddy devices to monopolize a child’s attention, it’s worse than taking candy from a baby. It is taking precious time from the process of growing up. He also said, When television is good, nothing is better. When it’s bad, nothing is worse. As putrid as it was a half century ago, how can it be anything but worse today? Minow’s quote about children doesn’t mention adults and what it does to them as well: addiction, obesity, unhealthy eating habits and the creation of zombies. Zombie Television would have been a better choice for the name of the January 2015 Doc Zone episode, rather than Renaissance Television, which I mentioned earlier.
There are many oxymorons that I talk about in my books. Another one is smart TV. It’s at least a double oxymoron. You may have to think about that one. The words, smart, expert, master and cured – which should be healed – are overused and not applicable in our age. Any software that has wizards is to be seriously questioned.
There’s something more to life than TV
You know it’s gonna make you blind.
The above words are from the April 1976 song, “Someone to believe in” by Michael Pindar. Simply Red recorded a song called “Turn it up” on their 1989 CD, A New Flame. In the case of TV, we should Turn it off, at least for a few hours. Len Barry sang a song with the words, “It’s easy like taking candy from a baby”.