C.B. Murphy  .:. Six Feet Under

When I tell people we don’t “have television” they immediately get the wrong idea and start to defend the Discovery Channel, sports, news or inevitably PBS. “No, no,” I tell them, “we’re not that kind of anti television people. Oh? You see it on their faces: there’s more than one kind of anti-television people? There are the anti-sex and violence people, by far the majority, we’re not in that club. By now they’re really confused. Could we be part of a tiny radical minority that wants more sex and violence on TV and won’t watch it till we get it? When they calm down they lead with, “Then?” hoping I will fill them in. I say that despite being different in so many ways that friends sometimes wonder how we made it, my wife and I agreed when our children were very young that we would be a “movies only” household. This means we have plenty of TVs but they are set up only for DVD viewing and video game playing (I’ll defend that another time). This means we are far from a media-free home, we are merely a TV-free home. Sometimes people sigh in relief that they won’t be subjected to the smug smile of a purist household which creates either geniuses or criminals though the statistics aren’t in on that yet. No, we are corrupt like everyone else, maybe worse if you get into the details which I will save for another time. Simply: my wife and I agreed that we didn’t want the buzz, the constant presence and accessibility of us to them (and them to us if you’re an old Marshall McLuhan fan). The buzz? I lost them here and we go on to talk about shows. They’re surprised we see so many of them if we’re “down on TV.” Read More »

Like several million others (we are all unique!) I, too, fell for this show. There were days when it felt too familiar, like my life, so why watch it? Not that I work in a funeral home, but I did know a guy in high school who did. Never mind. HBO is run by smart aliens, but the real question is why? What are they setting us up for?Six Feet Under // HBO Series