TV kills

Blog post - Television kills

Despite myself, I seem to be crying more than one should - at the television. I'm not much of a crier away from the screen. Yet there I am, wailing at the sight of an abandoned dog in one of those harrowing fundraising adverts. Sobbing during a local news item about an elderly war veteran robbed by thugs.

Why is it that I am so ready to open the floodgates in front of strangers I neither know nor care about on the television, but run a mile at the thought of exhibiting an uncomfortable emotion, admitting a vulnerability, to the actual people in my life? Well of course, I'm certainly not unique in this unhealthy behaviour, the roots of which aren't exactly rocket science. It's dramatically less hassle unleashing your inner emotions via some (seemingly) unrelated incident involving a small child and a rare disease on the news, rather than admitting your fears directly to a loved one. This is why counselling is so effective. Well, that and counsellors are trained professionals... your tv isn't exactly going to pipe up with some coping techniques to offer you. 

At home, the tv is always on. Critiquing what we're watching takes on a real importance and, as the years go on, I find I'm over-relating with tv in general. It's like I actually know the characters in The Big Bang Theory, that they really exist. I'll have full-blown conversations about them - sometimes, when I visit my parents, we will speak more about what's happened on the tv than we do about events in our own lives. And with real seriousness.

I consider myself a member of a generation for whom it is still considered a little anti-social, embarrassing - downright ridiculous - to talk so much about something as trivial as the television. It's an admission that you don't have enough to say for yourself, about yourself. Times have obviously changed - look at the Gogglebox phenomenon. And while I maintain that too much tv is prone to make us lazy and insular I would also argue that, contrarily, tv does have a valid role to play in today's society - encouraging connections in its own, very modern, way. 

When an episode of The Apprentice finishes, and we all rush to Twitter to de-brief, we're brought together as part of a (weird) virtual community. And when we say nothing to our partner/parent/sibling in a whole evening other than 'what did you think of Eastenders?', well - it might seem to sad to the older generation (and to me, a bit), but at least it is keeping some lines of communication open!

So really, tv is a way of building bridges that perhaps wouldn't otherwise be crossed, virtual ones and actual ones. Just as it's easier to cry about something you see on the telly when it reminds you of something you hold quietly inside you, it's easier for some people to talk to others in those displaced terms too - an easy, ready-made medium to communicate through, in which we can all contribute. Something we can all use to relate to each other with because, come on, who doesn't watch the tv? (Well, I do know two people who don't have one...) I can't see the situation changing either - judging by the constant chatter of the young people that come into my workplace, it's apparent that tv - well, YouTube actually - is the focus of their days.

I Googled before writing this post and - surprise, surprise - too much television is resoundedly considered bad.

It can shorten your life. 

It can change the structure of a child's brain (?!)

It means DEATH! 

Apparently sitting sedentary in front of a screen for more than two hours a day doubles (yes, doubles) your chance of a premature death. a) I feel genuinely anxious about this alarming statistic. Should i alert my GP? I think I'd need to join a queue, and b) if this is in fact the case, work is definitely killing me.

Of course, there's distinctions to be made between the kind of tv where you sit glass eyed unquestionably watching pointless drivel for three hours straight, the content of which is seemingly made up of repeating what's just happened because, presumably, it assumes its viewers have been rendered stupid by merely watching it. (Perhaps death is preferable here...) But it seems unfair with so many screens in our lives now to blame the biggest, oldest one. Surely some idiot glued to their mobile phone screen whilst driving is much more deadly.

Too old for gigs

I did something I haven't done in a long, long time on Friday. I went to a gig. (For a second there, I was tempted to call it a concert.)

I don't know about you, but I've certainly noticed that I have a changing relationship with music the older I get. When I was younger, music was everything. I was totally consumed by it. I defined myself through it - I don't know how I'd have got to be the person I am today without music in my life. I'm not talking about actually making music here - I'm much too lazy for that, even as my younger more energised self. Just listening was enough.

But then you grow up. You work out who you are (ish), come to some kind of resolution. You find yourself settled, stabilised. And in this new, more adult existence, music isn't so central - in fact, it's veritably on the sidelines. Relegated to muzak. Something that gets rolled out only when it's needed, for grown-up social occasions, times when you need to make an impression. Impress on others - and yourself - that you've still got it. I suppose it's maybe easier if you have children - you can live through their music, press them for trendy bands in an emergency. No longer is music the provider of heady relief as it was in your youth. Well, not for me at least.

And it makes me feel very sad. I've still got the tinnitus at least but I mourn those days, that me. I would lie in bed into the small hours with a pair of headphones plugged into my (much-loved) hi-system. It had a multiple CD selector system, so I could load it up with 5 albums, pre-set which tracks I wanted to listen to, and just lay back in the dark and live out a life in my head to these very personal soundtracks.

When it was time for me to go to work (humph) I always had my portable radio with me for the bus rides. Then my cassette player. Then my (wholly unreliable) Sony disc-man. Before long (although a lot later than the rest of the world, I'm stubborn with technology) the iPod made it's way into my life - and has never left, still getting me through my daily commute.

It was all so much effort back then. But it never felt like it. I was at gigs all the time, sometimes more than once a week. And on weeknights. It meant I spent a large chunk of my life holed up inside a massive concrete dive of a building - split over three floors, the old Carling Academy in Birmingham's Dale End (the street even sounds seedy) looked and felt very much like the multi-storey car park opposite, but that was all part of its charm. Many a happy hot, sticky evening has been spent in that dark cave (sadly now closed), and there will always be a special place in my heart devoted to its memory. I've kept all my old gig tickets, pointlessly. I absolutely cannot throw them out.

All the things that would prevent you from actually going to a gig now were not a problem then;  standing for hours, holding your coat, not being able to see anything, sticky floors, pushy people, too loud, too hot, too late. Of course you occasionally toy with the idea, now, of going to see a band when one you really, really, definitely like comes on tour...but you know deep down you're never really going to go. You tentatively suggest it to friends regardless, pretending to yourself, but you know what response is coming - exactly the same thing you'd say if they had suggested it to you. Hmmm, it's a bit expensive, especially with the booking fee too. Oh, it's on a Thursday night?!

But although the flame is somewhat diminished, I hope it never dies out. Recent gig attendance would suggest not. By the way, if you haven't heard of Lucius you should check them out (I've done some of the work there for you, you're welcome). They are amazing. But what made you go to see them, I hear you ask? The clincher - it was on a Friday. That's an acceptable non-school night. And it was in Liverpool - who'd turn down an excuse to visit Liverpool?