Last Day

Detox is just about over, less than 24 hours to go. Even though I didn't execute this perfectly, I'm pretty proud of what I was able to do. There were a couple of rules I maintained throughout the month. I never listened to the radio in the car. I read NO magazines, or popular press books.

Other rules, I did very well with. For example, with the exception of about 30 minutes while on a business trip, I only watched TV a couple of times with the kids and it was usually a rerun of The Simpsons. I did very little recreational web surfing, probably no more than one hour over the entire month. Amazingly, I only went to the movie theatre once, which

My major sin of commission for the month was in movie watching. I watched only one movie (on TV) which I didn't watch with the family. However, on several occasions, when we started watching a movie together but when the kids had to go someplace, I finished watching the movie on my own. Generally, this would happen once or twice on the weekend.

One week and counting

As I prepare to emerge from my media bunker I'm actually worried about what I will do when I get out. I dare say I'm a little fearful.

For the past 24 days I've done everything I can to avoid media. Yes, like most of my diets, I've cheated on the rules a little bit. Some of that is due to not thinking through the rules, some of it came from trying to do this without involving my family, and some of it from weakness.

Over the weekend, I played pretty close to the rules. I watched a movie, Mad Money, with my wife, and I watched Fool's Gold and The Net with my kids. Other than that, there was a bit of TV watching while we waited for the movies to come on (they were either pay-per-view or on a movie channel), but no solo watching of any kind.

I'm seriously considering doing this again, soon. While I'm woefully uniformed on current events, I don't really miss it. I'm beginning to wonder how much of an effect what goes on in the world around me really has on my life. I also find myself getting more done personally and professionally. For example, with my former media habits, I would not have been able to take the time to put together this blog.

I've also developed some positive habits on the internet. While I used to click through to the latest news story that seemed most interesting, I've spent some time looking up old friends, making connections on Linked In, and buying scuba gear on eBay for our upcoming trip to Key Largo.

I've also spent a lot more time with my wife which has had a positive effect on our relationship. In fact, I would have to say that I'm happier in my relationship than ever before.

Spiritually, I've spent more time praying and reading scripture which, I believe, has made me more sensitive to the Spirit. For example, the other day I was in line at Subway behind a man who appeared to be in his mid 20s with two little girls, the older of which may have been 6. I don't know if he was their father, uncle or what, but he was wearing a t-shirt that said 'volunteer' on the back. He made his best effort to corral the energetic little girls gently but firmly while ordering sandwiches so that the girls wouldn't bother the other patrons. When he got to the cash register, his debit card was declined. When he went to grab his cash, he only had $7 of the $14 needed to pay. He convinced the cashier to keep his sandwich and water bottle but to let the girls eat while he called the bank on his cell phone.

After I paid, I felt a prompting to pay his tab. I looked over at the man who was clearly on hold with the bank and saw how he was agonizing over paying attention to the bank on the phone while keeping the girls from causing chaos in the busy, little sandwich shop. I turned to the cashier, handed her my credit card and asked her to put his tab on my card. She replied, "are you sure? It is $14!" probably a couple of hours of pay for her, but a trivial sum for me. I told her to go ahead.

I carried the man's sandwich and water bottle to him and waived. He was on the phone with his bank and, I think, quite surprised. In any case, he tried to thank me, but I walked swiftly out of the store. I didn't want to make it any more embarrassing or humiliating for him than it already was.

I haven't seen the man or the girls since, but I have made a new friend. Every time I go get a sandwich there (which is often), the cashier smiles at me. It's a good feeling.

I feel like Al Qaeda

While I'm sure this occurred to most of my readers the moment they saw the premise at the top of my blog, the idea of using blogging - probably the most popular or, at least, most populist, means of communicating today - to take down the media is a bit of an oxymoron. It's sort of like the terrorist who eschews western influence but uses a porn site to embed secret messages to his operatives.

I'm not about to put up a porn site, but I do feel duplicitous.

Dani California

I was in Best Buy the other day with my wife looking for CD labels when the song Dani California came on the speakers where they have the display of computer speakers that you can try out and switch the sound by pushing the button. I played with the speakers a bit, but the remarkable thing about this little incident is that I remember still what song was played because I've heard so few over the past week.
For your listening pleasure:

Day 18 - I'm not exactly provoking a lot of thought here

I've been blogging for over a month on this project and haven't seen a single comment. It's depressing me because all this self-control is depressing. I think I'll go eat a gallon of Hagen-Dasz.

Funny TV Story

I'm not sure how this story is related to this blog, but it shows how desperately we crave the media.

In the early 1990s, I attended SDA Bocconi in Milan, Italy. I was recently married and had a young son, about 3 months old. We were graduate-student poor which, if you've never been poor or a graduate student, you'll have a hard time understanding. Let's just say that in order to save money on food, my wife became adept at cooking chicken hearts into pasta sauce. Don't gross - out! They were good, just a little chewy.

Despite living on chicken hearts and spaghetti, we had everything we needed to be happy... except for a television. My wife was looking through the paper for used TVs we could afford and called a woman who needed to get rid of her set because she was upgrading to the latest Sony model and simply didn't have room. After getting her to talk, my wife managed to talk her into giving it to us for free if we would cart it away that night.

We grabbed a taxi as soon as I got home from school and found a woman who had a strange vibe to her. She was rethinking giving the TV away, but my wife convinced her to go through with it. I quickly unhooked it and started moving it to the elevator. It must have weighed 200 lbs. I had no idea where we would put this thing in our little student apartment.

While I was slowly moving this set into the hallway, my wife kept the lady talking. As it turned out, she was giving us the TV to spite her boyfriend. The new TV (hers) was already there, but he had done something to make her very angry, so she was giving away his TV.

About the time I got the TV into the elevator, the boyfriend showed up. Apparently he had been downstairs for a while, but since I had the elevator blocked off, he had to take the stairs up the 5 floors. He asked me what I was doing with his TV. I told him to talk to the lady of the house. While he walked into the apartment to yell at her, I maneuvered the old set into the elevator and started downstairs.

A quarrel ensued that I could hear at least three flights down. The cab driver helped me lift the TV into the cab when I realized that my wife and baby son were still up stairs. As I hurried back into the building, she came huffing down the stairs with the baby carrier and we stepped quickly to the awaiting taxi and headed home.

I don't know exactly what happened upstairs or how my wife got away. The set was old and the channels had to be tuned manually. It lasted about two months before giving out on us and never worked very well.

The sacrifices we'll make to watch our morning news shows!

Day 17 - The internet makes this impossible

While the Internet is considered popular media by my rules and I allow myself to use it for "business" purposes, the line gets fuzzy very quickly. For example, when I log onto my blogging account, they show snippets of blogs that are clearly popular media like the NYC Donut report.

I use Wikipedia to look up a sailing term, and bing-boom-bom, the next thing I know I'm on Fox News, or a website for beach volleyball. How the hell did that happen?

Point and click - it's the devil's tool.

News Ignorance

One of the things I thought I would miss but don't is the news. Since I've changed my web browser landing page to blank and cut off NPR in the car, I get all of my news updates via conversations with coworkers.
Most days I don't hear about anything, which shows me that most news is essentially formalized gossip. For example, I heard that Hillary conceded to Obama. Believe it or not, that information didn't change my life! And, even though I know the world's journalists were tripping over themselves to be the first to report it, I could have heard about it a week or two after the fact with no negative implications.

I believe most news falls into this category. And yet, much of my time prior to this month was spent gathering that type of information.

Day 16 Catching Up

This is much harder than I thought it would be. I shouldn't be surprised because, hey, I'm 60 lbs overweight. That might be an indication of a problem of self-control.

In any case, I definitely broke my rules in a couple of ways this week:

1) On Tuesday evening, I was in my hotel room in Phoenix. Since arriving on Sunday I had not turned on the TV at all. I was having a hard time getting to sleep, so I turned it on and watched about 30 minutes of HBO (I rationlized that this was probably better than commercial TV, but that was just lying to myself).

2) On Saturday evening, I watched a few episodes of Family Guy with my son. Thankfully, my wife objected and we've now banned FG in our house. So, I should be good for the rest of the month.

3) On Sunday evening, I watched another half hour of TV with my other son. I think he was channel flipping between a Power Rangers movie and CSI.

4) Friday night, I watched a pay-per-view movie, Cloverfield, with my sons. My wife was at a youth camp for girls that night. Since my rule states that I will watch a movie with my wife, this was a violation, but I probably should have thought it through. My sons pushed watching the ppv because we were home together on Friday night, so I kind of give myself a pass on this one.

I'm finding it very difficult to live up to the standards I set for the month. I've noticed that when I turn on the TV, it is like a magnet for my kids. They like to watch TV with me and it is a socialization time. We talk about what we're watching, laugh together, comment on it afterwards, etc. It's not just mindless "vegging" time.

I also find it difficult not to sit down with them for a few minutes while they are watching. I want to make sure that they know that I'm monitoring what they are watching.

It has also become very apparent how permeated my home is with popular media. Most of the time when I am home I can hear either a TV, a radio, a video game, or the click of keys on the keyboard (supposedly from someone using the internet).

Day 9 - Thinking my own thoughts

I finally got the music out of my head, and I've noticed one thing: I'm thinking more of my own thoughts. When I was absorbing so much media, I think I had a lot of ideas scripted in my head. Now, when I hear something, I consider it more.

I've fallen completely behind on the news. The only news I get now is by asking other people about what is going on. That is how I found out about the salmonella-tomatoe crisis, about Hillary dropping out of the presidential race, and a few other things. I probably don't know most of the news and I don't get jokes about things that are in the news.

I'm still in Arizona for the DSA convention. I went to the hotel fitness facility to workout this morning and, unfortunately, right in front of the elliptical trainer there was a big flat-screen TV with CNN blaring on it. I had no escape. The funny thing to me was that I realized how little I was missing. There is a water spout off the coast of Hollywood, Florida and they kept that picture on the screen even while giving the news on presidential candidates, the stock market, and the Saudi oil meeting.

It made me laugh because I know what was going on. Every time they would switch away from the coverage of the waterspout, their Neilsen real-time monitoring system showed a drop in audience, so some director in the studio was yelling "get that damn spout back up." I have a friend who analyzes consumer reaction data for news shows (down to which tie the anchor should be wearing) and I'm sure he would have had a field day with that one.

Over the weekend I spent some time playing the piano. My mom has a book of Italian songs that I play from and I played "Ritorna a Sorrento." I wouldn't say the song is stuck in my head, because there are a lot of others I pull out of my memory and listen to inside of my brain, now including children's church songs like Jesus Once Was A Little Child and Families Can Be Together Forever.

Confessions and Guilt

Sorry for the delay. I spent the weekend in Wichita for my mother's 70th birthday party and spent the entire time with the family. I also transgressed my rules a little bit. So, here we go, full disclosure:

1. I went to the movies and enjoyed Narnia: Prince Caspian. Technically, this falls under my rules of going with my wife, but it was my mother's idea, not my wife's. I enjoyed the movie, but it didn't feel like a "fix," I simply enjoyed it.
   
2. I watched some TV, but it was in the setting of the family and we spent more time talking about what was going on than passive watching. However, I do felt I lingered a little too long. We watched about 1/2 hour to an hour.
3. In the car on the way back to Dallas, my wife put in her music CDs. She was driving, so I wasn't about to raise a fuss about it.

Since I'm putting everything down here, I thought it important to record this detail.

Today I saw a lot of corporate video and enjoyed some live entertainers at a convention I'm attending, but have avoided reading the newspaper, watching CNN in the airport and have been turning my back to the TVs on every wall of the resort. I haven't turned on the TV in my hotel room at all.

Day 5 - second-hand smoke

The world around me doesn't share my goal for a media-free June. I feel like someone who is trying to quit smoking but that hangs out in smoky bars and lives with a family of smokers.

Inevitably, you breath in some of the second-hand smoke. The level of your resolve is determined by whether or not you take a big breath when walking through the tobacco cloud.

Here are a some of the ways that my world is clouded with 2nd-hand media:

1. Other family members watching TV - usually the kids. I have to confess that I've let my ear linger a moment or two while one of them was watching an episode of Family Guy.
2. My wife does a lot of work with her iTunes. She's putting together a CD of Italian songs for a friend's birthday. Since the computer is in our bedroom, I hear the songs all the time.
3. Visiting web sites. Even though I'm only visiting "business" web sites like eBay, they have advertisements on them for movies and TV shows.
4. This morning a construction worker was parked outside my office blaring his country music from his truck.
5. Billboards on the road as I drive to and from work.
   
6. Magazines everywhere: at the convenience store check out, at the grocery store, at Target, lying around the house. You can't get away from them. So, even though I'm on a media lock-out, I still know the headline that talks about Bill and Hillary's $109M divorce.
7. Eating lunch. Almost every place I eat has music playing and some have TVs on the wall.

Products Advertising Media

Two posts ago, I wrote about media advertising media. Now I have an even better one... products advertising media. When I grew up, the advertising media was designed to convince people to purchase products. Now, I see how deeply that model has turned on its head. For example:

1. I bought a Super Big Gulp at 7-11 today. On the cup was an advertisement for The Incredible Hulk.
2. I had been buying Diet Dr. Pepper in the 20 oz bottle because there was a game code under the cap where I could win cool stuff associated with the new Indiana Jones movie. Since I swore off commercial web sites as part of my Detox, I started buying the fountain drinks since I wouldn't be able to redeem the cap code, anyway. This was a double whammy. There was advertising on the outside of the bottle, a code under the cap driving you to a web site that advertised a movie. Wow!!! I think you see the problem.
3. I also saw the staff at Subway today wearing T-Shirts advertising yet another movie. I don't remember which one.

I think you see the problem!

Day 4 - Thank God for the family

It's Wednesday evening and since I came home from work at about 7pm, I came home to an empty house. The kids and my wife are all in Church for youth activities (no, she's not that young, she is a youth leader). Very quiet. I found it very hard to resist the urge to turn on the TV.

I still have the problem of songs getting stuck in my head. Van Halen's "Right Now" has been playing for about three days, and I'm ready for something new. A children's song from church has also been playing over and over. The problem is that I don't know the whole song, so I keep hearing the same half verse and the chorus ad nauseum between repeats of "Right Now."

I miss Family Guy. Over the past 3 years, I've probably seen about 50 different episodes from the pre-cancellation and the resurrection timeframe. I love Stewie, Brian, even Meg. I found myself thinking about old episodes while I was in the bathroom.

The good news is that I'm used to the quiet car drive home, now. I make phone calls on my cell phone, which keeps me in touch with our field sales force a little better. I also find myself thinking about some of the people at work that I supervise more than I would have.

I also think my wife is starting to think something is up. I've been paying more attention to her. Last night, we walked the dog together and, rather than heading for the TV, I stayed and talked to her. I think it spooked her.

Media advertising media

I've promised myself to do some research about how much of our gdp is generated by media.

The reason is that I've noticed how much media is spent on advertising other media. The thought came to me when I saw a bill board advertising Glen Beck's radio show. I like Glen, though I revere him as an entertainer, not a journalist.

In any case, I started to notice, 3 out of the next 5 billboards I passed actually pitched radio programs. On the radio, we here tonight's TV line up. TV news programs drive us to their web sites.

I'm not saying it's bad to know what your choices are, but when is it too much?

In the end, this is just another example of how I'm failing this test. If I want to swear off media, I need to stop reading billboards.

I guess I need to learn to drive blindfolded.

Sitting in Ritzy's

The more I try to avoid media, the more I realize how little I am in control.

I've stopped at one of my favorite lunch places. There are TVs on the wall. I've turned my back to them. Nonetheless, music is blaring, so I'm technically out of bounds right now.

Yesterday I went to buy something at Target and walked by a stereo that was blasting "Right Now" by Van Halen. Without something from the radio to take its place, that song stuck in my head for almost the whole 30 minute drive back to my house.

In fact, I've found that music has become much stickier. All music, not just music I like. For example, the step aerobics song from Wii Fit, which I do several times a week, is now stuck in my head.

This is going to be a long month.

Day 2 - Silence is Golden

The car has become a very quiet place. Unfortunately, I find myself making a lot of phone calls, but I can only talk to so many people and, frankly, I don't think it is the safest thing in the world.

I had to make a trip to return my scuba gear rented over the weekend and that was about 1/2 hour each way at lunch. I thought about a lot of different things, none of which seems to have stuck with me. I remember thinking to myself, "I'll have to remember that and put it in the blog." Well, sorry dear readers (should I ever have any), I don't remember what it was that I was supposed to remember.

Day 1 - At the lake

For my first day out of the web, I did much better than expected.

Normally, I go to Church most of the day on Sunday, but, since my son was doing his SCUBA certification, I was at the lake all day. My daughter came with us so that she and I could dive together (she certified last year) while he did his training dives. Since there were no TVs or radios at the lake, I was fine until we got in the car to head back.My first instinct was to turn on the radio in tha car, but I caught myself before doing it.
The only other temptation before the ride back was my daughter asking me to listen to some songs with her on an mp3 player, but I made an excuse and she didn't really care.

When I got home, I avoided tha family room though my oldest son was watching an episode of Family Guy and I had to turn my head. I spent the rest of the evening in my bedroom talking to my wife about leasing a new car and looking for used SCUBA gear on eBay.

I was so tired after diving for 2 days that I went to bed early.

So far, so good.