Streaming

If you’re old enough, you remember when your parents, who grew up without television, told you that television will rot your brain. Imagine what they would think today with all the streaming choices available. They were right, television is rotting young peoples’ brains, and doing a lot of damage to some of us old folks.

Ok, I’m about to use a worn out cliche, but it really does fit here. When I was young, (if I haven’t scared you off, you will understand), all we had on our T.V. at home were four channels. There were the three big networks, and in Chicagoland, WGN. FOX was not yet in existence, giving us slop like The Masked Singer.

It was a time when popular shows like I Love Lucy or Your Show of Shows ruled television. They would have tens of millions of viewers. There was very little competition to dilute the audience. There were legendary stories about when a commercial came on during a very popular show, like Milton Berle. There would be a sudden surge of water use due to so many people taking a toilet break. Today, all you have to do is hit the pause button on your remote and take your time, maybe read a magazine while you’re in the john before you resume your favorite show.

When I was a kid, I was the remote. I couldn’t pause the show but when my dad said, change to channel 5, I got up, turned the channel knob on the T.V., (yes, televisions had knobs), and changed the channel. I would also be instructed to lower or raise the volume. It was amazing how much power I had as a child over our family’s entertainment choices, as long as I did exactly what my dad instructed and didn’t piss him off. Good thing he liked the Ed Sullivan show. I would never have seen Elvis or the Beatles when they first appeared on American television. I saw history and I will not apologize, and no, I wasn’t screaming along with the young girls, if you were wondering.  

Television was free back then, as long as you owned a television and had enough nerve to climb on top of your house and install a television antenna to your chimney. Those folks who claim they had to constantly adjust rabbit ear antennas, or the wire coat hangers they used to replace the them after inadvertently ripping them off in anger, on their television, really didn’t watch a lot of T.V. Those things never really worked as well as the roof version. People used used rabbit ears were probably afraid of heights and didn’t like climbing ladders.

Television was black and white for me until I finally broke down and bought my first color T.V. in the early 1980s. I never realized the Ponderosa was so green, and so was Herman Munster. After I got married, I did get to enjoy some color television. My wife and I would go to Sunday dinner at my in-laws house and stay afterwards to watch some color T.V. It was the highlight of our week.

I don’t know when cable television first came along, but I am pretty sure I resisted it until I was forced to get it. I am accused of being cheap and not wanting to pay for such extravagances, but I had no choice once I moved to California. Where we chose to live, we could not pick up television station signals from Los Angeles and our only choice was to hook up the cable. Just like trying a cigarette the first couple of times, unfortunately you get addicted. Not because of the pleasure, but if you want to see football games on Sunday, you depend on that cable running to your house. Large cable providers are like dealers. They let you try a little and when they get you hooked, they have you over a barrel.

As a first time cable subscriber, we agreed to everything that was offered when we signed up. For the first few months, it was inexpensive and we received hundreds of channels, most of which we didn’t watch. We might have missed the fine print when we signed up, which explained that after those first few months, the actual price would kick in and our television watching would get very expensive. It is not easy to kick the television habit. We did drop all the paid channels like HBO and Showtime but each year, the cost of using cable kept climbing. 

Like most addictions, you’ll end up being that guy at the next stop light with the sign begging for money so I…I mean…he can pay his cable bill. Unlike most addictions, you won’t lose weight, you will be gaining it while munching on endless snacks as you spend all your time watching some stupid reality show on something called Bravo. You’ll be yelling, between bites, trying to advise Heather not to choose the guy who looks like a Greek God but is actually a sleazeball, that lives in a garden shed behind his parents house somewhere in Indiana…oops, too much information? Well, she should have chosen Chad, who is a saint and may actually join the priesthood due to his rejection by Heather. Just saying.

Now cable is on the verge of going the way of the dinosaurs. It is being replaced by “Streaming Channels.” Which are entertainment apps you pay a monthly fee to use, and it streams the entertainment or sports shows that your cable bill used to cover. Instead of giving you the good stuff through your cable, you have to pay extra for it. Even the big networks are now offering streaming apps, which you pay for, and they are streaming content you can no longer get through their regular cable channel. People argue that this is a good thing because you can pick and choose what you want to see but I respectfully disagree. By the time I start paying for individual apps, the cost of watching my T.V. will be higher and I will still have to pay for cable. That’s the only way I can get the Internet so I can continue to watch all these apps I’m paying for.

I am trying to kick my cable addiction but I have to catch a few things first. I have to see how my teams are doing, how can anyone Beat Bobby Flay and I have to find out if Heather and the Greek God really can make it work. After that, I’ll quit.

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