I HAVE A SUGGESTION FOR THE know-it-all engineering geeks who spend their time inventing the latest and greatest technologies. When designing the next Tivo, iPod or search engine, consider that human beings (that is, selfish, stubborn, self-absorbed, desperately anxious creatures with the attention span of a gnat) will be using your machinery. While technology trends towards efficiency and ease of use, humans trend towards maximum chaos and disorder, with an occasional temper tantrum thrown in the mix.
Consider the average American trying to program a digital video recorder during television’s fall premier week. We’re not exactly talking about grace in action.
The wonders, freedoms and conflicts inherent to the TiVo/DVR experience have been well chronicled, so I won’t bore you with a re-hashed analysis of how this technology affects our modern life. I do think it’s worth pointing out that DVR gives users the illusion that they have many more hours in a day than are actually available. People like me, who don’t even watch that much TV, find ourselves looking at the fall schedule like a shopper at Costco looks at a sample station. “I might as well try that,” we say. “After all, it’s free.” Pretty soon we’ve recorded all of Hollywood’s rejectamenta and can’t even rightly discern the strange mishmash of new comedies and dramas clogging the box on top of the TV.
As Los Angeles residents, I think we’re all more susceptible to this deluge of scripted drivel since the hustlers who write, produce, direct and market the stuff live in our midst. And, of course, these new shows are promoted via massive billboard displays across the city that make each new cop drama on Fox look like the next “Dirty Harry.”
Added to this year’s overindulgence on small-screen offerings were two titanic events that shook the foundations of my household to the core: Ken Burns’ “The War” documentary and the baseball play-offs. I’ve already insisted that I’m not big on TV, but I should have qualified that statement with the fact that any documentary on American history or playoff game involving the Boston Red Sox will tether me to the couch like a terrorist detainee under the care of Dick Cheney.
Ken Burns, as everyone knows, made his name making laboriously detailed documentaries on the American experience. And his look at World War II is no different. It’s 14 hours of excruciating coverage of The Great War from the perspective of the average folks who fought and lived through it. To anyone who was able to watch this kind of brooding intensity (which is the only term for this kind of stuff... it lacks the explosion and quick fixes of an action film, but the sheer magnitude and honesty of the depiction are enrapturing) night after night, my hat is off to you. I DVRed everything and now have it staring me down from my “recorded list” like a tweedy, insistent professor of history. “Are you really going to play around on the Internet,” it seems to be saying, “while our boys are fighting tooth and nail against the Nazis in the Ardennes Forest?”
The Boston Red Sox are the main reason I can’t honor the Greatest Generation. Their playoff run has further prevented me from cleaning out my DVR inbox and, unless they stumble in the next two rounds, I don’t see anything changing in this regard. It’s a matter of time. I don’t have it. And until a piece of technology is invented to stretch the day to 30 or 36 hours, my private catalogue of TV programs will sit in digital purgatory.
I can’t manage my DVR. I can’t manage my life. These complaints are nothing compared to the challenge of fighting the spread of pure evil at all corners of the globe. But, hey, they’re my complaints.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 11, 2007. Read the original PDF.