Blondie – "Fade Away and Radiate" (1978)

Beams become my dream

My dream is on the screen

One of the ways I while away my leisure hours is by watching cable TV series – Game of Thrones, Homeland, Orange Is the New Black, Silicon Valley, etc.

(By the way, did you know that “series” is both a singular and a plural noun?  Other examples of nouns that are both singular and plural include “sheep,” “deer,” and “aircraft.”)

Now that I’m retired, I like to watch one episode of a series while I eat lunch, and a second episode in the evening just before I go to bed.  I don’t watch two episodes every day, of course – sometimes I have other plans that keep me from doing so.  

Since a single season of a series usually consists of 10 or 12 episodes, that means I go through a season every week or so. 

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I should note that I watch TV series only on library DVDs.  Why?

Because I want to be in control of when I view.  I’m not the type to drop everything and plant myself in front of my TV every Monday at 900p (or every Saturday at 800p) to watch a show when a network broadcasts it.  

And what if I want to stop in the middle of an episode, or watch two episodes back to back?  If you’re watching on DVDs, that’s easy to do.

(Yes, I know about DVRs.  But if I’m not going to remember to watch an episode of a series when it is broadcast live, what makes you think I will remember to set my DVR to record it?)

I could control the timing of my viewing by buying the DVDs, or by subscribing to Netflix or some other streaming service.  But library DVDs are free, and I find it almost impossible to bring myself to pay for something – even if the cost is relatively low – when I can conveniently get that something for free.

(If I was in therapy, this would be an interesting topic to discuss with my therapist.  But I’m not in therapy, so I don’t have a therapist to discuss it with – meaning that the cause or causes of this behavior will remain buried beneath the surface for the time being.  Just like the causes of all the issues I have – which are numerous.)

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The only disadvantage of relying on library DVDs is that they’re not always available to check out when you visit your local library branch.

My library allows me to go online and reserve DVDs of TV series.  I get an e-mail when the desired DVD is available, and can then pick it up at my leisure. 

If I request a DVD that’s not in high demand – maybe the show was broadcast several years ago, or it wasn’t that popular in the first place – it often will be delivered to my local branch within a couple of days.

Brand-new DVDs of popular shows – like brand-new bestselling books – may have been requested by a number of people, so you may have to wait weeks (if not months) before a copy becomes available.

I hate to find myself without a DVD to watch, so I try to always have a couple in reserve.  Since my library allows me to check out DVDs of TV series for three weeks and renew that initial checkout period twice – meaning that I can hold on to a DVD for a nine weeks if no one else has requested it – there’s no reason not to err on the side of having too many rather than too few DVDs.

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About a week ago, I was running very short of DVDs to watch.  

So I sat down at my computer and did some research, looking for well-reviewed shows from the past several years that I hadn’t yet viewed.  A good number of the recommended shows had not been acquired by my library, so I couldn’t request them.  But plenty of shows that appealed to me had been acquired and were available to be reserved.

It just so happened that all of the DVDs I reserved became available almost immediately.  Within a few days, I found myself with DVDs for the third season of Showtime’s Billions (which I’ll write about in the next 2 or 3 lines), the first two seasons of the Netflix series Narcos, the first three seasons of USA Netowrk’s Mr. Robot, the first four seasons of the BBC’s Sherlock, and a couple of mini-series (HBO’s Olive Kitteredge and the BBC’s Bleak House).

My current stash of library DVDs

That adds up to roughly 78 hours of viewing pleasure – not counting the miscellaneous bonus features that are included with most TV series DVDs.

I spend about 10 hours a week watching my DVDs, so that means I’m taken care for the next eight weeks or so.

I can’t tell you how relaxed and contented I feel knowing that I don’t have to worry about running out of DVDs to watch for the next eight weeks.

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Over 40 years ago, I started entering the titles and authors of every book I read in a notebook.

A couple of weeks ago, it hit me that I should do the same when I completed watching a season of a TV series. 

Instead of writing the name of each series down in the same notebook where I enter the books I read, I decided to create a document instead.  (It’s much easier to search a computer document than it is to flip through dozens of pages of handwritten notebook entries.)

I’ve been able to recall about 50 series that I’ve watched – I’m guessing I’ll remember a few others that I’ve forgotten.  (It’s much easier for me to remember whether I’ve already watched a TV series than it is for me to remember whether I’ve read a book – especially a book that’s part of a series featuring the same character.)

Some of the series I’ve watched (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos) have come to the end of their run, while others (Veep, Westworld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) are still cranking out episodes.

(Why am I keeping these lists?  That’s another question for my therapist if I ever go into therapy – which I never will.)

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“Fade Away and Radiate” is a poetic tribute to the experience of watching television in a dark room late at night – which is something that nearly all of us have done.

When Blondie recorded that song in 1978, all televisions were cathode ray tube (“CRT”) televisions. 

Today, CRT TVs seem as ancient as rotary-dial telephones and airplanes with smoking sections.  But sales of LCD televisions did not surpass the sales of CRT units until 2007.

By the way, I still have a 27-inch Sony Trinitron CRT TV sitting in a closet in my basement.  You’re welcome to it, but you’ll have to drag it up the stairs without any help from me.  (The damn thing weighs about a hundred pounds, which is why it is still sitting in my basement.)

Click here to listen to “Fade Away and Radiate,” which was released in 1978 on the Parallel Lines album.

Click on the link below if you’d like to buy the song from Amazon: