I don't really watch "TV Land." I just made that up in the earlier post today. Okay, I did watch it back when I posted that thing about Welcome Back Kotter, but that was just by accident because my wife was upstairs doing God Knows What and I was surfing around while waiting for her so we could watch our movie. But we've been over that already.
I don't really think I watch a lot of TV. At least not by the 12-hour-a-day American standards, or whatever it's up to now. I have my shows I watch, but that's it. What I don't do is turn it on just because. By default, the set is off. Because I live in Berkeley, I find myself more often that I like face-to-face with those self-righteous "kill your television" blowhards (or "I only watch PBS" cretins), and I sometimes walk away from those conversations feeling like the shallow dolt I no doubt am. But you know, everything in moderation, man. To contend that one is not allowed to veg out on the couch and turn off your mind for awhile (unless it's "educational") is just to take life too goddamn seriously. But if that's how you want to spend your limited time on the planet--being hard on yourself--be my guest. Just back the heck off me, because I'm lazier and less ambitious and more easily amused than you, okay? And I don't feel bad about it either. I can use my brain when I want to. I usually just don't want to.
So here are the shows that I numb myself with these days, because I know you're dying to know:
Alias-- My cousin is the executive producer of this show, and even though I've only talked to him I think once in my whole life, this is my excuse for watching. Plus Jennifer Garner is HAWT.
24 -- Dumb, silly potboiler. Can't stop watching. Plus the daughter is HAWT.
The Shield I am partial to the well-written cop/detective story, having once been a member of the criminal class myself. In 1976, I attempted to shoplift a copy of the Kansas album Leftoverture wth my friend Harrison, but we got caught. Why we wanted that record is a mystery all unto itself, but thank god I saw Elvis Costello on Saturday Night Live the following year (yay, TV--again!) and got religion, music-wise. Anyhoo, The Shield might just be the best cop show ever. At the very least, it's the toughest, scariest, most surprising, most brutal, and best-acted one. Plus it's hard to stop looking at that one guy's teeth.
On HBO: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Oz (r.i.p) -- Not sure how I functioned without HBO. Six Feet Under, formerly my least favorite, is really killing me this season. Just some incredible, sublime, at times painful dialog.
Er, that's it. See? Not so bad I don't think. Throw in the occasional, surreptitious viewing of something like American Idol or Survivor or The Bachelor -- purely for anthropological reasons of course-- and I'm sure the set isn't on more than, oh, four hours every night.
That was another joke. See-- I tell the jokes. I bring the ha-ha. I am teh funny. And now The Wife is calling me for pasta.
She makes dinner while I wank online.
Posted by jeff at May 4, 2003 6:44 PM