I haven’t watched a new television show since a couple months of watching of Hill Street Blues. That ended when l no longer gave a flying fuck if they were careful out there. As people have stopped reading and television has become the most important thing ever, I am at a permanent loss as to what the hell it is everyone is referring to. On the other hand, I watch the science documentaries pretty much as soon as they are out. I may not know what show you are all talking about, but I know why deep down you’re nothing but a fish watching television.

These past few years, as people have gotten too poor to do anything else, watching television has taken on an importance I don’t think it’s had since the 1970’s, when we were all too poor to do anything else. Sometimes I think if it weren’t for rock stars dying, there’d be nothing cultural on Facebook at all. But that’s just being jaded. It’s impossible not to be jaded in Los Angeles, a friend once said, thoroughly jaded. I picked up the remote and hit the channel button over and over. Stop! another jaded friend said. Women were running about in next to nothing, beating bad guys senseless. He never misses this show, he said. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why, aside from the obvious, which you could just as easily watch with the sound off while listening to Dark Side of the Moon. But we had the sound on and I don’t have Dark Side of the Moon anyway. Not that it matters, since my friend is really into the show. As he described the story line, my mind wandered and set my gaze on my library spilling out of its shelves behind him. A fish staring at a pile of books. Sudden movement gets my attention as an amazon woman karate chops one two three guys and does a back flip fifty feet in the air in slow motion. I watch. I did so automatically, against all better judgment. I could hear my frontal lobe protesting that the amygdala was getting its way again. It was no use. A half billion years of vertebrate evolution and boobs still trump books every time.