Confessions of the Cableless

I have no cable. Normally, this grants me some kind of moral superiority when talking to others. They’ll be yammering on about the latest episode of Arrested Development and look to me for an opinion. “Sorry, I don’t have cable.”

Insert image of my being somehow too intellectual and worldly for some small matter like television.

The truth is, right now, it’s killing me. The new season of television lingers on the horizon, teasing and taunting me.

“Watch me. You know you want to. What are you really accomplishing, anyhow? You’re not writing. Your house is messy. You could be living the same way... but with me titillating you. Caaaable. You know you want me. You want me bad, baby. Prime-time wantage. And all you gots to do is ask. Ask.”

And it’s so right. I want it. Bad. Worse than sex. Caaaaaaable. I wanna get Lost. I wanna see what’s the secret behind Kitchen Confidential. I wanna plant my fat ass on the couch and never, ever get up again.

I want the underwhelming experience of being sucked into the boob tube vortex. This holier -than-thou shit is boring the hell out of me. I want a cheap third act. A four-minute commercial break that puts the pressure on to not only MAKE toast, but butter it, too.

My god, the drama, the excitement. That’s what’s been missing this summer.

We like to think that without TV in our lives we somehow live better, more full existences, but the reality is, most of the time we’re so bought and sold by our jobs and obligations that a little television doesn’t really make much of a difference.

There’s a lot of shit on the tube, and that’s never going to change, but there’s better television being offered than ever before. Writers are actually writing stories. Sure, you can sit around and watch something socially unnecessary like The King of Queens, but you could also be watching something like last season’s gripping 24, which tackled a lot of really challenging social issues around race relations on this continent.

All I know is that it felt cooler not having cable in the summer, when there was nothing worth watching anyhow. Now that summer’s winding down, I’ve had to turn my pad’s heat on for the first time since spring, and the days are getting shorter, there’s something wistful about the notion of not being able to watch the telly... especially with all the good shit I’m hearing about that’s due to start over the next three or four weeks.

I’m torn between wanting to not be needing the added distraction, and knowing I want to be distracted more than I’ve wanted it in years.

I’m like a junkie. I want it. I need it. I’m fighting it with everything I got, but I know that high’s worth chasing. Besides... I’m missing out on conversations and feeling far too disconnected from this paltry little electronic world we live in.

Oh, fuck, wire me up. Please. I beg you, Mr. Cableman.