Zoneboy
11-15-2008, 01:11 AM
Link (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/my-name-is-danny-and-im-a-television-addict-20081112-5o0h.html?page=-1)
DAD, look what you've done to me, look what I've become. Years and years of childhood cruelty and neglect have created this depraved desperate monster you see before you — years and years of horrendous abusive TV deprivation. You never let us have a TV in the house, Dad: you said it was an idiot box, junk food for the brain, and instead you forced your own children to … oh it makes me shudder just to recall it … read books at night! And also … ohhhhh the painful memories … have conversations round the dinner table! And even … aiiiii I can hardly bring myself to say it aloud … get together in the evenings to do "Fun Fun" where we dressed up in kooky outfits and sang show tunes! You made me sing selections from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in a cockney Dick Van Dyke accent and Dick Van Dyke wasn't even cockney in that film, YOU SADISTIC SHOW TUNE SINGING SOCIOPATH!
Dad, have you any idea how your viciously caring and brutally educational parenting stuffed up my life? All through my youthful years I was out of touch with TV fads and pop culture — schoolfriends would hang around at recess talking about the latest cop shows and M*A*S*H episodes, and I'd stand there, grinning stupidly, humming the overture from Candide. And when you finally did buy us a TV, it was a tiny black-and-white second-hand that you got for 20 bucks from the Trading Post with a rusty coathanger-aerial and a strange naphthalene smell coming out of the back. You kept it locked in the cupboard and brought it out only for "worthy programmes": nature documentaries, quality news and the occasional old flickery black-and-white movie, which was EVERY movie on our old flickery black-and-white TV.
We couldn't even sneak peeks after school when you were at work because you'd come home and immediately feel the back of the TV for warmth: "Hmmmm, judging by the kinetic vibrations of the heat molecules, I conclude it was … Danny … watching Petticoat Junction … at 4.30pm. NO JACQUES COUSTEAU FOR A WEEK!"
You created THIS, Dad … this … this incurable insatiable TV addict. Because the moment I moved out of home, I bought a proper TV, a colour one with a brand new state-of-the-art shiny coathanger-aerial, then I sat down and started watching everything I could, catching up on years of televisionlessness — sitcoms and soapies, cop shows and pop shows, miniseries and maxi-series. My friends got jobs, I watched TV. My friends started dating, I watched TV. Then I started dating, but only girls who watched TV — the most intimate erotic moments were when we both reached for the remote at the same time. And now that I'm married with a wife and kids and a house, I'M STILL WATCHING, CAN'T STOP, every night, every day: my idea of travelling is shifting forward on the couch to watch The Amazing Race. My sexual fantasies involve the Brand Power lady, the AAMI girl and the Cadbury gorilla. My only intellectual pursuit is counting the murdered young, blonde, newlywed women on CSI shows (on average, 17 atrophied trophy wives a week). A gawking untalking vegetable, that's what I've become, with 1024 x 768 pixellated eyes and high-definition plasma for blood. But here's the irony Dad, you'll love this Dad: last week my kids staged an intervention. They said: "Dad, let's play a game or hang out in the garden or you can help us do our homework." And I said: "Not now … it's an ad … with a man … with a thing … " But they switched off the TV, blink, black, and got me off the junk.
So now I'm trying to stay clean, Dad, at least through the low-ratings summer months. And you'd be proud of me because I've started hanging with my kids, having conversations at dinner, even reading books at night, though I still get TV withdrawals now and then — sometimes I just have to stop reading mid-page for a short break, and softly sing to myself "Victory Victory curtains and blinnnnds …"
DAD, look what you've done to me, look what I've become. Years and years of childhood cruelty and neglect have created this depraved desperate monster you see before you — years and years of horrendous abusive TV deprivation. You never let us have a TV in the house, Dad: you said it was an idiot box, junk food for the brain, and instead you forced your own children to … oh it makes me shudder just to recall it … read books at night! And also … ohhhhh the painful memories … have conversations round the dinner table! And even … aiiiii I can hardly bring myself to say it aloud … get together in the evenings to do "Fun Fun" where we dressed up in kooky outfits and sang show tunes! You made me sing selections from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in a cockney Dick Van Dyke accent and Dick Van Dyke wasn't even cockney in that film, YOU SADISTIC SHOW TUNE SINGING SOCIOPATH!
Dad, have you any idea how your viciously caring and brutally educational parenting stuffed up my life? All through my youthful years I was out of touch with TV fads and pop culture — schoolfriends would hang around at recess talking about the latest cop shows and M*A*S*H episodes, and I'd stand there, grinning stupidly, humming the overture from Candide. And when you finally did buy us a TV, it was a tiny black-and-white second-hand that you got for 20 bucks from the Trading Post with a rusty coathanger-aerial and a strange naphthalene smell coming out of the back. You kept it locked in the cupboard and brought it out only for "worthy programmes": nature documentaries, quality news and the occasional old flickery black-and-white movie, which was EVERY movie on our old flickery black-and-white TV.
We couldn't even sneak peeks after school when you were at work because you'd come home and immediately feel the back of the TV for warmth: "Hmmmm, judging by the kinetic vibrations of the heat molecules, I conclude it was … Danny … watching Petticoat Junction … at 4.30pm. NO JACQUES COUSTEAU FOR A WEEK!"
You created THIS, Dad … this … this incurable insatiable TV addict. Because the moment I moved out of home, I bought a proper TV, a colour one with a brand new state-of-the-art shiny coathanger-aerial, then I sat down and started watching everything I could, catching up on years of televisionlessness — sitcoms and soapies, cop shows and pop shows, miniseries and maxi-series. My friends got jobs, I watched TV. My friends started dating, I watched TV. Then I started dating, but only girls who watched TV — the most intimate erotic moments were when we both reached for the remote at the same time. And now that I'm married with a wife and kids and a house, I'M STILL WATCHING, CAN'T STOP, every night, every day: my idea of travelling is shifting forward on the couch to watch The Amazing Race. My sexual fantasies involve the Brand Power lady, the AAMI girl and the Cadbury gorilla. My only intellectual pursuit is counting the murdered young, blonde, newlywed women on CSI shows (on average, 17 atrophied trophy wives a week). A gawking untalking vegetable, that's what I've become, with 1024 x 768 pixellated eyes and high-definition plasma for blood. But here's the irony Dad, you'll love this Dad: last week my kids staged an intervention. They said: "Dad, let's play a game or hang out in the garden or you can help us do our homework." And I said: "Not now … it's an ad … with a man … with a thing … " But they switched off the TV, blink, black, and got me off the junk.
So now I'm trying to stay clean, Dad, at least through the low-ratings summer months. And you'd be proud of me because I've started hanging with my kids, having conversations at dinner, even reading books at night, though I still get TV withdrawals now and then — sometimes I just have to stop reading mid-page for a short break, and softly sing to myself "Victory Victory curtains and blinnnnds …"