Why I've decided television isn't evil.

This morning I woke up and watched Zack Gailfiirnocdkraiis (sic) in Visioneers - a movie set in the future where people explode because their lives don't match up with their dream of what life should be. In the movie, television is shown as how I used to see it - as an opiate of the masses, the drug everyone takes to escape, to have on in the background, to turn their minds off because, gosh darnit, life isn't good and maybe someone on television's life probably is.

I used to see television like that. When I got to college, I didn't watch television. At all. TJ and I were proud of our severance from the tube, and I didn't start watching television again until my life was kind of spinning out of my control, and someone turned me on to Arrested Development. I was proud because I was going to finally be "an intellectual" or whatever, deriving my pleasure from the books I read and the people I would encounter. And then, you know, I wasn't. So I turned to television and there it was - people I wanted to know. Gob and Michael and George Michael, et al - and ensemble cast who I wanted to watch the plights of.

I didn't do much my Spring quarter of freshman year other than sit in my room and watch that show, the Office and (I'm embarrassed to admit, actually) My Name is Earl. I emerged from that year in a haze, going back home and working at Jamba Juice, disillusioned with the college experience and hoping that the next year would be better.

It was. I moved. I got new friends and integrated them with old ones, I started new projects. I became someone closer to who I am now, I think - and I realized what television could be to me - it's a way into the discussion. The cultural discussion, that is - the blueprint of humanity that we are all trying to look at from a bird's eye view, an amalgamation of television, the news, the people around us, the city we live in, the music we listen to, the movies we see, the way we form words in our conversation - sentences.

It was from there that I realize that television is not evil, it's just a facet of the multi-faceted diamond of life, given to us by (I'm not finishing this metaphor, you get it.) And ever since, I've seen television as two things - one, it's the door to new relationships with new people, be them fictional or real. Yes, I believe I have a relationship with Ned from Pushing Daisies - he is someone I know. I let him into my house, he makes pies that I emulate. I root for him. I hope he gets the girl. But Ned is also someone that I get to talk about, to someone else, someone real. Me and the person sitting next to me on the couch both get the chance to talk about him afterwards, talk about what happened to him and what we hope will happen to him in the future.

And then we get up, we take a walk and we go get a cup of coffee. We, the real person and I, talk about real people. We might even compare Ned to someone we know, and vice versa. We might even compare Ned to someone we don't know in real life. Do you see what I mean? Am I making myself clear? Everything bad, like television, can be good for you - it can be another way to get to know how you're living your life. It can provide a side of the venn diagram to which you compare your life. It can be a story that I want to emulate - not in plot, maybe, but in style and grace.

There is grace to the plot of Lost - there is a serenity to the way the men of Sterling Cooper talk to each other and belittle their women. There is (was) beauty to behold in the world of Pushing Daisies, and laughs to be shared with the friends of How I Met Your Mother. All of these things, all of these escapes - they aren't really escapes. You don't turn off your television because you want to turn off a facet of your life, you turn it off because your going to take those relationships and apply them to your real life, in whatever small way.

And yes, I still think it should be small. That's the insidious bit of television - there is always another show to watch, there are always a new group of friends to be letting into your living room. But there are also books to be read, movies to watch, and mostly, mostly, MOSTLY people to talk to these things about with. And that's really what it's all about - it's finding the people who will share in these things the way you share them with yourself. And I find that all the time. And that's why television isn't evil - if you don't let it be.

why don't you sit right down and stay a while?

Hey cats. Living in San Francisco has its perks. Like three fantastic ice cream places in walking distance. Max and I went and got weird ice cream at Harvey Slocombe last night - I had Thai Chili Lime, he had Root Beer.

Next time I'll have Jesus Juice - Red Wine and Coke flavored.

Today, I'm going to hang out in a cafe. Old school. I wrote a story, wanna read it?

Pigeons

My girlfriend likes pigeons. We moved to Venice because of it – she saw my pictures from my trip to Europe and saw all the pigeons and pointed at the picture.

“There,” she said, pointing. “Let’s move there.”

It’s nice to have rich parents, I thought as we boarded the plane. I asked her if she wanted to keep any of her things, and she said that we would buy things in Venice. So we are leaving our apartments fully furnished. I am leaving behind my collection of guitars that I bought at estate auctions. She is leaving behind her bird feeders.

In Venice, we get along great. We have sex with each other with the windows open. She leaves bird seed on the windowsill so that pigeons will come and keep her company while I’m out looking for work. I don’t need to work, and I won’t work, but it’s fun to look for it. I like to get dressed up and present myself to the American ex-patriots and convince them to hire me and then not call back.

While I’m out once I see a pigeon. He’s fearless. He is brown and white and mottled and he is eating off a café table while the people are still there. They are trying to shoo him away, but it’s not working. I walk up and ask them if I can have their pigeon.

“Si,” they say. I pick him up and take a piece of bread from their bread basket and go to my friend’s house. I ask him where a vet is, and he looks it up online, and tells me that the only one in walking distance doesn’t speak English. We tape record his neighbor asking the questions we want.

“Is it sanitary? Does it carry disease? Will it make a good pet?”

I bring the pigeon to the vet and play the questions for him, and then record what he says and take it back to my friend’s neighbor. He smiles and gives me the a-ok sign, so I bring the pigeon home.

My girlfriend loves the pigeon. She names him Pierre. It sits on her shoulder and gets fat and she won’t put a blanket over the cage when we have sex. She says Pierre has no idea what’s happening anyway. I disagree. He snaps my guitar strings with his beak when I leave the apartment to go get another bottle of white wine.

I get bored of Venice eventually, but my girlfriend doesn’t. She has started sending Pierre out with messages, and the bird brings back messages. They are from a stranger, and she thinks it is the person that used to own Pierre. She won’t let me read the messages so I try to follow the bird on a bicycle. I’m too slow for a bird that can fly, so I borrow my friend’s moped and can finally keep up.

Pierre stops at a bookstore and gives the bookkeeper his leg. The bookkeeper is an old man. Bald. White eyebrows. He doesn’t wear glasses but he reads my girlfriend’s handwriting with a magnifying glass.

“Is that your pigeon?”

He doesn’t understand. I point to the pigeon and I point to him, I point to him and I point to the pigeon. He shakes his head. He shrugs his shoulders. I make an angry face. I mime writing a letter. I mime slitting my throat. He looks scared, like I got my point across. I moped back to my girlfriend.

“I don’t think that pigeon is coming back,” I said. I feel sick for being jealous of an old man but she kisses me.

“Tralala,” she says. “That’s why we moved to Venice. There are a lot of pigeons.”

I don’t understand, but I kiss her back.