"Click"

“Click”

If this were a musical, they would capitalize the title and put an exclamation point at the end.

“CLICK!”

That wouldn’t be bad, actually.

“CLICK! –The Musical”

“Based on an original blog post by Earl Pomerantz.”

My name listed prominently on the marquee.

(If I had an agent, they would insist on it.)

But that’s (possibly) for later.

Today it’s just this.

I have been putting this off. 

It is an enormous undertaking.  Or “crusade.”  Or “debacle”, if it doesn’t work out.

That’s probably why I’ve been hesitating.  Who wants to fall on their face on the Internet?

(Except for those viral “See Them Fall On Their Face!” websites, or whatever you call them.)

Here’s the thing.

And, believe me, it’s big.

Deep breath.

……………………………………….

Okay, here we go.

I am thinking about not watching television anymore.

See what I mean?  I got the shivers, just writing that.

Which, understanding my background, is entirely understandable.

Earlo Pomerantz – TV watcher since I was six.

And I am considering, literally, “pulling the plug.”

Why?

Because television is not helping me.  

And it most definitely used to.

Television kept me company when I was a kid.  During those lengthy Canadian winters, and my even lengthiier “Non-dating years.”  (A lot of “Hockey Night In Canada” on Saturday nights.  I was a hockey fan “by default.”)

For more than three decades, television gave me someplace to work.

ˆ"And now that you are not working you are callously casting it aside?

That’s a coincidence.

“Sure, it is.”

I have reasons for not wanting to watch television anymore.

"And you didn't before?"

I didn’t notice them before.  Now I do.  Plus, they have definitely proliferated.

The issue is too vast to cover in one post.  So I will nibble around the edges.

Why I Am Thinking Of Jettisoning Television:

Subsection A:  The commercials.

Which I always disliked but they paid the bills so I put up with them.

The thing is… Call it “Unintended consequences.”  Or what professional marketers might call “Micro-targeting innovation.”  Producing the phenomenon, wherein the TV channels I watch – channels demonstrably watched by people my age – are “wall-to-walled” by “Seniors-Specific” products and services.

Short List Of Commercials Deluging The TV Channels I Watch:

Adult diapers.

Catheters.

Chairs you sit in that carry you upstairs.  (That Medicare may “fully cover.”  Watch out for that “may.”)

“Medic Alert”, for when you have fallen and you can’t get up.

Bathtubs with a door.

Services that arrange your daily dosage of pills for you.

Comprehensive funeral insurance.

Mail Order “Oxygen.”

Advertisements of “A Nice Place For Mom.”  (Because Dad’s already dead.)

To name just ten.

That was just nine?

Okay. 

Tests for “Incipient Dementia.”

Now there’s ten.

The question is,

Do I really need to see any of those reminders of approaching decrepitude?

That was a rhetorical question, to which the non-rhetorical answer is “No.”

For me, television has always been a refuge from life.  Now, with every commercial, there’s this hint that there is not a lot of that life left.

I suppose I could change channels and watch something where strangers are thrown together and… I don’t know what they do, because I have never seen that… or “Bachelorettes”, picking “Life Partners.”  (Which I have also eschewed.) 

But that’s “(inexplicably popular) Content.” 

This was “Commercial ‘Turn-offs’ For Seniors.”

That alone is enough to drive me to “Videoholics Anonymous.”

Which, if it exists, would not be advertised on television.

Well who knows?

If they were desperate enough, maybe it might be.

So that’s it.

Today, I announce the intention.

More – hopefully not “Surrendering To The Inevitable” – to come.

(I’d say “Stay tuned” but I am trying to kick the habit.)