TV -- The Sewage Pipe

Michael Savage is correct. Television is a Hollywood sewage pipe that pumps Feminist News/Entertainment Media sludge directly into your family room.

I want to explain the history of my TV viewing habits and then draw out some lessons.

The first part is easy. My parents, stereotypical Dutch skinflints, never subscribed to cable the entire time I lived under their roof. We watched as much network TV as any average American family.

When I went to college, some people in the residential house we rented already had cable; so, I paid my share and had cable for two semesters. I lived in a couple other places in college and didn’t have cable at either of those places.

After graduating from college, being a stereotypical Dutch skinflint, I never subscribed to cable, ever.

But something crazy happened! I was renting an apartment and had network TV, but when I came home from work one night and turned on the TV, I noticed my usual channels were messed up. For a few minutes I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, then I started going through the channels one-by-one and I couldn’t believe it. I had 80 cable channels on my TV for free! It was great!

It was neat because I didn’t splice a cable line or put any effort or money into getting it. It was like, yesterday I had network TV and today I have 80 channels. I had the same setup the whole time. I had the TV plugged in and a cord antenna from the TV to the wall. I think what happened was, it was a large apartment complex and people moved in and out all the time, so maybe the cable company turned on the “juice” for somebody else and it went to me too.

It was a good conversation starter and I was the envy of everybody I told. People acted like it was the coolest thing in the world and they encouraged me to enjoy it.

I had 80 channels for a few years but then one day it went down to something even worse than basic cable. It was only 27 channels and the only ones even worth mentioning were: RFD-TV, E!, Bravo, and CMT. The rest of the channels were shopping networks, reruns of old afternoon soaps, and CNN.

Then, just a couple of days before Christmas in 2011, all of the channels went away, including network. It was such a lousy cable package at that point that I didn’t mind losing it so much, but I still wanted network. I waited for a few days to see if it would spontaneously come back again, but it was gone for good.

I figured the loss of the network channels had something to do with the switch to digital TV. So I got out the digital converter box and plugged in all of the cords. It seemed to work.

I found out quickly how difficult it was to keep the signal. I tried several different arrangements with the cord antenna. I spread it out on the floor. I put nails in a window frame and outlined the window with it, but the result was always the same. Soon, the signal would begin to fade -- the signal never faded back in -- until it was all static and the channels would need to be searched and scanned again. So I had only a couple of channels with any reliability and they were lousy off-brand channels. 

In March of 2012 something in the converter box burnt out and ever since then I haven’t watched any TV at all.

I might get TV again someday, but I won’t ever pay for cable. I’m cheap but it’s also a matter of principle. It’s the endless reruns. It’s all of the extra channels you don’t ever watch. It’s the way they try to link you along with all of the spin-offs of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, for example. It’s how networks you hope are scientific, such as Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, air shows about aliens, mermaids, and Bigfoot.

The feelings I have for TV are similar to those in the song “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” by Bruce Springsteen.

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I want to encourage all of you to cut back on how much TV you watch. That doesn’t mean you have to go cold-turkey like I did.

You could cancel your premium channels and save money. You could switch to a cheaper cable or satellite package and save money. You could have one day per week or one day per month when you don’t watch TV. Or, one whole week per month when you don’t watch TV. You could have no cable or satellite at all and just have network TV and save money.

This is not a call for a boycott of any companies that advertise on TV, although, there is a good time and place for that. It is simply less TV for our own mental health, to maybe save a buck or two, and to reduce the influence of the Feminist Media.  

I talked to one recently retired couple who have lived without TV for 40 years. She said if anyone has questions about it she tells them, “While you were watching TV, my husband was earning a Ph.D.” In fact, he double-majored in math and psychology and minored in education, earned a Master’s degree of Theology, and a Ph.D. in Education – not too shabby.

Of course, the absence of TV doesn’t explain all of his education and their success in life, but I think we should encourage and admire those living without TV and try to spread the idea.

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Kurt Schlichter wrote an article “Ignore Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’ at your own peril conservatives” on Breitbart.com, January 29, 2013.

He writes, “If conservatives are going to be in the popular culture – and act to change it – they can’t simply ignore shows like Girls that capture the zeitgeist, even if the zeitgeist makes their skin crawl. Season two is well under way, and conservatives need to participate in the discussion.”

I agree with his broader point about participating in the culture, but I disagree with his specifics. Of course we should – and will – participate in the culture. If you can so much as get out of bed in the morning, you are participating in the culture.

But the worst thing we, all, could do is watch a show like Girls on HBO. Hollywood doesn’t care if we love it or hate it as long as we watch it. Fifty million viewers means high ratings, high ratings means advertising, advertising means money, and money means Hollywood will continue to pump out more of the same type of sewage.

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I made this nice aphorism:

Turn off the TV,

Tune in to talk radio, and

Drop your subscriptions to the Feminist News/Entertainment Media.