She killed her TV with a fork!

This is from my friend Angela Mucci's blog. It's funny to read about the TV's destruction but what's fascinating is to read her story of how people reacted to her not having a TV. Where was she during TV Turnoff Week!

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When I was eighteen, I killed my television. My friend Kelly and I had been drinking, so naturally we had to destroy something. It was fun. We cut off the cord, stabbed it in the back with forks (if you do this at home, be sure to UNPLUG the T.V.) and drew things all over the screen. Then I threw it on the ground next to the dumpster behind my apartment.

I'll admit, I went through mild withdrawal during the first few T.V-less months. I was used to watching three or four shows at night, and at first I smoked cigarettes nervously, twitching my foot or pacing the floor.

Should I get another television? I wondered... No, I'll conduct an experiment, see what life is like without T.V....

Well, first I started to get more creative, and then televisions looked different to me. When I would see them hanging in corners of sub shops or flashing along restaurant walls, they appeared to be bizarre and even frightening. I liked watching movies, but commercials became either unbearable to watch, or they just looked hilarious in a kinda creepy way. Same thing with "the news." I turned T.V.s off whenever possible, and that is when I began to notice peoples strange devotion to television.

People really wanted me to have a television. I was repeatedly met with the same exact two questions when I said that I didnt have a T.V. "Do you want one?" People I barely knew were often willing to give me a T.V. And: "But what do you do?" One person asked me if I was "one of those religious freaks," and asked me if I thought rock and roll was "bad or something?" It wasnt a moral thing, I explained. T.V.s just freaked me out. It scared me the way I couldnt help but stare at them when I was forced to be around them. They seemed to suck my energy. Even when they were off, they seemed to be alive. I had am image of my mom, slumped down on the couch, hollow-eyed, staring the screen at 3 P.M. on beautiful Spring afternoons. My Dad, emotionlessly tuned in to the screen.

I didnt own a T.V. for six years. But then when my parents sold their Falmouth house a few years ago, they told my brother and I to take what we wanted from what they left behind. There was a huge T.V. and it was winter. "It would be nice to watch movies during the winter, I thought. So I took the T.V. home (My friend Rene' and I carried that beast of an awkwardly shaped T.V. one step at a time up three flights of stairs, having to drop it at every other step and laugh hysterically), and I bought a tiny D.V.D. player. I didnt get cable, but I loved watching movies in bed, especially when it was too cold to go outside.

I soon became addicted to two television shows, both of which are available on D.V.D: The Gilmore Girls and Twin Peaks. I wondered what would happen if Rory, star of The Gilmore Girls spent a day in the life of Laura Palmer, star of Twin Peaks. Or vice versa
Each teen would be wildly out of their element in their respective small town. Any ideas of how this switch would look? Stay tuned for my compare/contrast of the two oddly similar shows that have completely polarized ideas of life in a small town.

If you would like to contact Angela, her email is: angela.mucci@gmail.com