Free at last, free at last…
OK, I thought I knew the unspoken rules of appliances, mainly: If you ever mention you’re going to get a new TV, computer, camera, etc., in front of the previous and still current version you’re going to replace, it will go bad on you. It’s why I’m writing this on my laptop. You don’t write that you’re planning to get a new iMac on your current iMac, because it will stop working.
But, as I understood it, it had to be vocalized in proximity of the existing appliance for the misfortune to occur, no?
So, last night, I was at an after-party marking the end of the sold-out run of my friend Kirk’s one man show, and I was telling someone who just moved back to the Bay Area that I was considering moving to NYC in spring 2009. They were talking about how much they had to move when they left the Bay Area, and then how they got rid of a lot before moving back again.
And I mentioned that I’m already going through my stuff now to prepare for the move. There are piles of books, and some piles are clearly “You better read this, cuz it ain’t going to NYC.” And, as an aside, I said, I’m not even going to take my TV to NYC. Watching TV in NYC doesn’t seem necessary, I should be doing more interesting things.
In that moment, I remember thinking: “If you truly believe that, why do you have television now? Why not find more interesting things to do in SF?!”
My saying this took place a good mile away from my apartment, minimum.
Today, I mainly hung out, with a quick little Herbivore/gym/Rainbow grocery run in the middle. The plan today was to watch the Tony Awards, although the only nominated show I actually saw was Xanadu and I was rooting against it and supporting other things.
But the main goal in watching it was to see Robin De Jesus hopefully win an award for best featured performer in a musical for “In The Heights.” I’ve followed Robin since I first saw him in the cute movie Camp, through him being in Rent (never got to see him in it) and now In The Heights. On Oasis, I interviewed Robin about In The Heights twice now: a few hours before the show had its opening night off-Broadway and two weeks ago, to talk about his Tony nomination. The only other person I was pulling for this year was Harvey Fierstein, whom I consider a national treasure, but he wasn’t nominated for his book/performance in A Catered Affair.
So, the whole night was cleared to enjoy the Tonys. Only, my TV doesn’t turn on. Well, it turns on, but the bottom half of the screen is black, and the top half is folding in on itself like the picture was hung over a clothesline to dry, and you could see the upside down top half of the screen superimposed behind the bottom half of the screen, which is all taking place in the top half of the screen.
And after a while, the screen usually went completely black and it was audio-only. With any other show, I’d just go do something else and download it illegally online later. But, even I’m not optimistic enough to think there’s some gay, Broadway musical-loving nerd out there who is going to put this online. And, even if they do, it will probably be slow as ever to download since it’s not the geeky stuff that gets attention of the online piracy community. The musical numbers will likely end up on YouTube, so I’ll watch some stuff there.
So, I have to say, Broadway musicals aren’t as enjoyable as audio. I took to using my useless subscription-less TIVO to pause up to 30 minutes of the show at a time, and then the did the reverse of what most people would do. I skipped through the musical numbers to hear the awards. Or, I should say, to make sure I caught Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Finally, it happened, and I paused the Tivo and turned the TV on and off a few times, seeing if it would cooperate with me. It didn’t. So, I hit play and listened. When I heard Robin’s name, my whole body filled with goosebumps and joy, even though this was tape-delayed and three-plus hours into the history books. When we did our interview, he still didn’t know what he was going to wear, and I still don’t know what he came up with, but he didn’t win. So, once I knew that, I just went online and read the results. That was really the only category/nomination I was interested in, although I was happy to hear Lin-Manuel win for best score, because he just seems to be so appreciative and full of life and spirit. I can’t wait to enjoy his show on the boards this year.
I’ve long thought about it, questioned it, wondered what it would be like, and it’s here. I don’t have television. I will officially try and confine anything I do watch to downloads that I convert to iPod video and watch at the gym. I mean, let’s face it, having a computer and knowing how to illegally download stuff (or, I suppose, legally downloading it through iTunes, heh) means you can watch as much TV as ever before. And, anyone local with spare TVs, don’t offer me one. I’m curious to put more attention on other things.
So here we are… I couldn’t get rid of it on my own. But I can certainly not replace it.
