We didn't have any Friends in our house last year. We didn't have them the year before either, and I'm certain we won't have Friends next year. Although it's easy to wonder whether our family has a collective case of halitosis, dry scalp, yellow teeth, dandruff, ring around the collar, or the heartbreak of psoriasis, we're not worried about it.
In fact, we don't want Friends. Or Survivor, or The Apprentice, or The O.C., or Entertainment Tonight, or the oxymoronic Celebrity Justice, or the myriad of stagnant water cooler shows that monopolize television screens across North America, the pages of People magazine, and far too many lives.
I'm sorry, but I choose sex in the morning over Sex in the City every time. And unlike Chauncey Gardener, I'd rather participate than watch.
When people talk about Paris Hilton, I still think they're speaking about a hotel. When they gossip about Newlyweds, they might as well be speaking some dialect of Cantonese. When American Idol comes up in casual conversation, I can only think about Easter Island, its blank-faced statues staring into a vast wasteland; stoned celebrities of another era. Perhaps all the idols are watching Survivor.
I don't care about wardrobe malfunction, Britney's navel, or who's been nipped (let alone tucked). I don't care about Joey, or Amber, or The Donald's hair.
Springsteen was right. There's 57 channels and nothing on, except now there's 157 and there's nothing on. Despite the laws of mathematics, more choice has somehow become less interesting. All those extra channels have become a ruse for more celebrities wanting a piece of my life and more commercials wanting a wad of my cash.
So boldly going where few seem to go these days, we curbed our enthusiasm for the box, cut the umbilical cord of cable and now we're down to a much simpler life.
We get three channels.
What there is to see in vacuumland, we see somewhat fuzzily on our Sony Wega with the help of something the high-tech Sony engineers would never have imagined: a set of rabbit ears. Although the reception may be a tad fuzzy, we view the rest the world through our own, clearer eyes. And without a laugh track, either.
Although some would say we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater, our viewing choices are more deliberate now. When we feel the need to watch a movie, or to see who Tony Soprano whacked last year, we'll walk to the video store and rent it. If there's something on the boob tube we really want to see, it had better be on Channel 2, 8 or 10, or we can't get it. Even when we don't get it, we don't miss it.
There is no more mindless channel surfing in our house, because we know within five seconds what's on. Charlie don't surf here any more.
I've discovered the cable company doesn't always know you have an active line. And they don't always turn it off just because you ask them to. It took them three years to respond to our request to cut it off, making the federal government appear the model of businesslike efficiency. Now they politely telephone me every three months offering new connection specials with 88 channels, "if only we'd re-subscribe."
I love these calls. I thank them profusely for cutting us off our addiction. I tell them about the changes in our family. We read more. We go out more. We play board games as a family. We are not readjusting our schedules to watch Fear Factor or Jerry Springer. The kids do their homework or play sports instead of watching Teletoon. Their marks have gone up, and one's on the honour roll. "But you miss great shows like The Apprentice," they say. "You're fired," I answer, having been around enough water coolers to know that these two words will trump the caller.
These days, we get a lot of information from something called the radio, a useful device that allows us to acquire valuable information, news and music without having to stop everything we're doing to stare at it mindlessly for hours on end. We can clean the house, cook dinner, wash the dishes, and even play Scrabble with this device on, without ever having to look at it. Given that it's wireless, I have high hopes of this device catching on.
I'm told there are fabulous TV shows that I should put what's left of my life on hold to watch this year, including reality shows called Wife Swap and Trading Spouses, where supposedly happily married people mix things up with another's better half in order to become television celebrities. I'm told I shouldn't miss an upcoming episode with a hot tub.
If that's a sample of what television has to offer this year, I may be throwing away the rabbit ears, too.
Tony Wilson is a Vancouver lawyer and writer. He has high hopes that his second book, Confessions of a Former Keg Waiter, will soon be published.