Tom Waits - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis: youtube.com/watch?v=tE5NLpZC6r0
I was talking with my roommate last night about the stylization of the past; how some movies, say, from the 70s now look great compared to the movies of, say, today. Will people look back on the movies of 2010 and ask why movies aren't made that way anymore? or will movies of the 1970s just be lionized more so?
He said "I'll tell you one thing. The 1970s really hit their mark when it came to buttons and knobs. I'm sick of this touch screen bullshit. Give me buttons and knobs." He then told me about the death of his first family TV, which had lasted them into his teen years.
I've been thinking lately about a poem I recently read in which the author stated that he had already lived a dozen lives. And how many lives have I lived? I could probably, at 26 years, designate between 2 and 5 lives lived depending on the perspective. I think, though, that perhaps I could also designate the death of my family television as the end of one of my lives. As much as I resent such a thing it's a certain amount of true.
Our family basement / living room was designed and structured in a completely different manner when we had our first, somewhat cumbersome, thick and wooden television. The room was long and narrow and the TV faced one of the horizontal walls, most of the sitting arrangement was organized to face it. I remember a lot of brown, stained wood, even the couches were brown, grey, drab. But then when we got rid of that TV there came this big screen, 50 inch, black, heavy beast of a television that was exciting and new, all the sitting arrangements faced it again but this time vertically so we were in a kind of hallway facing the end (or beginning). Then the furniture changed. And then the walls. The whole room became different and the TV was so big and loud that it was heard throughout the house.
There even used to be a door to the basement / living room, I remember, and we would shut it when the TV was too loud down there. That all changed with the big screen though.
A friend asked me the other day, "So you were raised on TV?" I hadn't stated such, but I had to agree, yes I was raised on TV. It's not untrue. And it's the most unfortunate thing I can think of. Some I know quit school, ran away and traveled, got their own apartments, struggled young and adventured; my parents were steady, my household was quite sane and "normal" and this sort of normalcy was propagated. My only real problem growing up was too much television and what kind of problem is that? It's barely anything to overcome, barely a problem. It's nothing, really.
That's not to say that I strive for struggle or resent my family's stability, quite the opposite. But when I think back on my childhood it seems like nothing real ever happened. We had TV, video games, computers...
This same poet I read stated that most writers never really have anything important to write because they never had anything important that had to be written. When you're comfortable always, what's to say except that you're not uncomfortable? Conflict makes for good writing, but without the familiarization of conflict, is one able to write? Or does one find discomforts where really there is nothing real? Is this a necessity?
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