The Powhatan Review, Norfolk, Va.
1998 issue
By Alex Marshall

Missing ‘Ally McBeal,’ ‘The Simpsons’ and HBO’s ‘RealSex,’ and how much one is missing, is the issue. Ten months ago my wife and I threw out our television, in a fit of highbrowism, and now we are without.

The question is time. It’s becoming clear to me, disturbingly so, that my time here on earth is limited. In what remains of that time, what do I want to do with it?

The problem with television is that it is always there. When we had a television, it would beckon to me from its perch on the third-floor of our townhouse, ‘Come watch awhile, why not, see what’s on?’ You’ve heard its voice, I’m sure. When I had a TV, the most dangerous time period was between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. Wandering the house, a bit wired, unsure of bed, my wife Andrea already asleep, I would find myself before the box, clicking from channel to channel, always saying, ‘I’m just going to be here for a few minutes to unwind.’ Two hours later, at say 2.30 a.m., I would stagger downstairs, my eyes burning and my brain with it, having digested God knows what. When I awoke the next morning, I would have a hangover as if I had stayed up drinking. Without a television, I am a changed man. Trim. Fit. Sounder of mind and body. I have cast the demon rum out of my house and am better for it. I think.

The problem is, I happen to like a lot of what’s on television. I approve of television in the specific. I’m not talking PBS. I’m talking ‘South Park,’ ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ and ‘Chris Rock.’ They are all cutting-edge stuff — funny, experimental and enlivening. Dramas like ‘NYPD Blue’ and ‘Homocide’ arguably have better writing, and are closer to the shifting shoreline and dangerous waves of emerging culture and society, than most movies, even independent, art house movies. ‘The Simpsons’ is better political satire than anything I have seen at the movies since ‘Bob Roberts.’ The ‘X-Files’ is a better work of science fiction than ‘Armageddon.’

But absent TV, I have time for other things. For one, I read more. In the last six months, I have read both The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1,500 pages), and The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (800 pages.) I may not have made it through either if I had something else to do after dinner. My life is richer for having read both books. I am starting to understand ‘Empire’ better, whether it be an attempted Nazi empire or the actual British ones; how our lives are determined by the political context in which we are born, and how in the past and still in the present, those political contexts are determined by the usually quite amoral struggles of groups of men and equipment to gain predominance over land and other people.

That’s a more important ‘get’ than the latest clever plot from the X-files.

But still, I ambivilate. To tell you the truth, I really don’t feel that much like reading at night, when I would otherwise be watching TV. I write for a living, and so I’ve usually spent much of the day staring at words, either my own or someone else’s. At night, I kind of feel like sitting back and being visually and aurally stimulated. I also dislike being cut off from the zeitgeist, to use a once trendy word, of popular culture and politics. I even miss the ads on television, being a big fan of the design and thought that goes into them.

The only time I really feel like reading at night is in bed, before I go to asleep. But I usually only last a few minutes, before sleep calls. When I read earlier in the evening, I feel vaguely anxious. But without a TV now, I soldier on more, at my perch on the couch, non-fiction book in hand.

Of course, it’s not as though my life is without visual stimulation. Absent a TV, I now walk the four blocks to the Naro movie theater at least once a week, and sometimes two or three. The Naro in July had the Warner Brothers Festival of Classic Movies. I managed to see 10 of the 33 shown. But movie watching is different than TV watching. With movies, you commit to it. You decide to leave the house, go to the theater, and see said film. Then you go home. One does not drift into watching a film in a theater. Then there is the technology. A friend convinced me that TV is harder on the head because it is beamed directly into your eyes. With a film, you watch reflected light. The movie projector isn’t aimed at you, like a TV. It’s aimed at a blank sheet on a wall, which one then views. It’s a less aggressive form of technology.

What bothers me is that it seems as I grow older, I have to increasingly plan my life. I read once that actors, as they grow older, have to do consciously what was once intuitive: a gesture, a portrayal of emotion, a reaction. I feel the same way about life. It seems that as I age, I have to plan things that once just happened. If I want to ‘hang around with friends,’ then I have to schedule ‘hanging around with friends time.’ It doesn’t just happen. I used to just pick up my guitar and play at odd moments, including learning new songs. Now, I contemplate scheduling a set period for the act. Reading was once something I just did. Now, I have a loose schedule: newspaper reading at breakfast; magazine reading at lunch; non-fiction before dinner and at night; fiction before bed.

I guess what I resent is having to be an adult. To have to be fully conscious and responsible for my own actions. I still want to be age 10, where life was a room I played in, without thought of where it came from.

Television fits into this, or doesn’t, because, despite my affection for the medium, I can’t quite work it into my schedule. If I start watching TV again at night, when will I read that new non-fiction book I wanted to get through? On the other hand, I dislike missing all those neat new shows on the tube. It seems unjust that I can’t do everything.

I leave where I came in. Undecided. I may go out next week, if Andrea will let me, and buy a big-screen TV and place it prominently again on the third floor. I would like to think that I could work out a plan to watch it more selectively, to limit the late-night forays. But I know that would take a plan and some discipline, both of which I often lack.

We’ll see. In the meantime, do you mind if I drop over your house tonight, say about 8:00 p.m.? ‘King of the Hill’ is coming on, and I just wanted to catch it this once. I promise not to stay long. Really.