Dropping Out

I sent this Victor Davis Hanson blog post to my wife a few weeks back and she responded that I could have written it, so closely did it resemble my own experience.  The post’s subject has to do with Hanson’s alienation from contemporary culture and, judging by the responses in the comments section, Hanson and I are clearly not alone.  Like Hanson, I once was deeply engaged with the popular culture.  But also like Hanson, alas, I never go to the movie theater anymore and I only watch a few current movies per year on DVD.  There’s simply very little coming from Hollywood these days that interests me as most of what I see is predicable, trite, and boring.  Likewise music.  I have no idea about music being produced today or who is producing it. I couldn’t name a popular hit song over the past decade if my life depended on it.  As I’ve mentioned before, modern popular music is a world that doesn’t exist for me.  And so on: I don’t read the newspaper beyond a glance at the morning sports page, I very rarely watch or listen to public TV or radio, and I watch less sports than I used to.  For instance, I loved professional basketball from the time I was a child until the day Larry Bird retired but I never watch it anymore.  Like other once glorious things, it has devolved.  Rather than being a team game, it’s now a one-on-one or two-on-two affair, with little of the teamwork, ball movement, movement away from the ball, and beauty (think the old Celtics teams from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s) that once epitomized the game.  Pro basketball these days seems to be about clearing out for one player to go one-on-one to the basket against his defender and, if that doesn’t work, to pop it out to a teammate for a three-pointer.  Indeed, the three-point shot is one of the problems with the game today.  The twenty-foot jump shot is a thing of the past as is working together to get the best shot under the best circumstances. 

I watch a smattering of TV.  I still watch Entourage, which isn’t as good as it once was, and I’ll watch Curb Your Enthusiasm until it’s run is complete.  And, as any reader of this blog knows, I love Mad Men.  I started watching 30 Rock last year but it got unfunny after its first season.  I’m thinking about starting to watch The Office because I watched a few episodes recently and found it quite good, particularly how they handle the relationship between Jim and Pam, which is touching.  I had a bit of a bias against it when it first came on because my wife and I had watched the original British version of the show, which was brilliant, and I thought the American version could not possibly match it.  Perhaps not, but my cursory viewing of these recent episodes tell me it’s well-made.  We’ll see if it’s worth watching the full run.

I don’t want to be this way.  To anyone who reads this blog, clearly I love movies, music, television, books, and sports.  But in the desert called modern culture it’s more rewarding to look backwards.  There’s still lots out there to find so long as you know where to look.