I know of TV critics who have in their homes half a dozen television sets, wired so that they can be watched simultaneously, the way a network executive or Best Buy salesman can watch.
There are even some of my professional peers, I am sure, who have already spent the necessary several thousand dollars for a set that handles a digital signal so they can say they checked out the local news in its new, HDTV glory.
I am not one of those TV critics. Indeed, as I have mentioned previously in these pages, I have done my at-home work these many years on the TV-set equivalent of an eight-track tape player — a bell-bottom television showing a Datsun ad. My home set, purchased as a clearance model in 1986 from the now-defunct Highland Superstores chain, has been a puny (20-inch diagonally, microwave-sized), ugly (unless you like gray and black plastic, peeling, and a missing front panel) original remoteless (it broke, so I made do with a cheap universal model) thing.
It was a pretty good set for its time, but its time, like that of the Lindy hop, passed long ago. And as the ’90s rolled on, it became an embarrassment to my job title, my affection for the medium, and, yes, my manhood.
I offer here the tale of my quest for a new set in the hope that there is something universal in it, a modern cultural odyssey informed by Homer and McLuhan, by the Simpsons and by Sony.
I offer it because every man, somewhere in his mastodon-hunting soul, wants a new TV set, always. We are hard-wired, these days, to be in a state of perpetual electronics desire, and a new tube is ever high on the long list. Most every woman, meanwhile, thinking of lawns unmowed and conversations unhad, not to mention budgets unmet, wants to deny him that set.
I offer the tale in full acknowledgment of the gender stereotypes it accepts and perpetuates because those stereotypes are largely, you know, true. More women are experiencing transistor arousal these days, but it remains, mostly, a guy thing, with women, once again, as the gatekeepers.
I must deny, in advance, charges that I offer this tale in anticipation of writing off a new TV on my next tax return.
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I have spent nearly half my life peering at my midget screen and wanting more. I have, for many years now, cruised the room of 32- and 36-inch sets at Best Buy, marveling at how large are the baseballs, or pores on the actor’s face.
I have also seen the bigger models, the 52-inch behemoths, and drawn that mental line in my brain. I do not want a TV that says, with its volume and inescapability, “books are not welcome here.” (Little known fact: Those sets are largely hollow on the inside, stuffed for ballast with the great books of Western civilization.)
Sometimes it has been a deep ache, sometimes just a quiet tingle, but I have wanted a new set: one bigger, crisper, and more technologically advanced, one that lets you watch two pictures at once and that moderates the volume so that commercials are not louder than programs, one on which I could watch the shrunken action of a basketball game from the couch across the room instead of a rocking chair pulled up close. (True confession: If I have ever called myself a “couch” potato, it has been, technically, due to screen limitations, a lie. The Tribune regrets the error.)
I have wanted a set that, on those many occasions when I did bring work home, would let me fully appreciate, for instance, the nuances of the comic masterstroke that is the Brooke Shields double take. “Suddenly Susan”? Suddenly genius!
But there was a catch, a roadblock to achieving my desire, exactly 5 feet 9 inches tall.
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Marriage, as any person who manages to remain married knows, is a series of compromises. You give a lot, you get a little. You keep a mental scorecard, the preamble to which states, in capital letters and boldface, that you must never ever let on that you keep a mental scorecard.
My wife, for instance, gave on the issue of the obelisk-like stereo speakers that occupy our living room like artifacts from a “2001” prop sale. (She has become aware, alas, that the rich, vivid sound I covet can also come from a not-nearly-so-large subwoofer and tiny satellite speakers, and she is lobbying for this configuration. Lesson: Never leave an A/V magazine around.)
The TV-set issue was one on which I gave, and gave, and gave. But I never gave up. I kept pushing, conducting a campaign that was as relentless as it was undignified.
In her presence, I would sit conspicuously close to the set, at a distance that everybody who also avoids swimming right after eating knows is bad for your eyes.
On the rare occasions when I could get my spouse into a Best Buy, I would steer her toward the big-screen room, in the vague hope that it would spark the kind of desire that was burning in me. She could have been a vegan in a meat locker; Michael Douglas in a room full of attractive women his own age.
When her kid sisters came to visit for Christmas, I enlisted the younger one, then about 11. Kids know about material wants at Christmastime, and this one was a master at building a case for a big-ticket item, issuing offhanded, sly remarks about how blurry and small our set was.
My wife was more amused than moved. Her standard response demonstrated a maddening pragmatism: Does the old one work? Why does the screen need to be bigger? Are there more important things to spend spare money on right now?
To both questions, I had to answer yes. But I kept plugging. At every opportunity, I wheedled, whined and cajoled. When a friend got a new set, I made sure to tell her the exciting details, reported more quickly and breathlessly, I must admit, than news of, say, a pregnancy.
And eventually I extracted one of those down-the-road promises that keeps the marital peace, even if it wasn’t intended to be fulfilled.
It went like this: We get an entertainment center to hide all the electronics in the living room, and you can get a new TV, as long as it fits entirely inside it.
It was not a wide-open door, but it was daylight enough.
– – –
I made short work of the entertainment center, shopping relentlessly, then finding a handsome, if slightly undersized, quarter-sawn oak one at a sale price.
The old set and all the surrounding stereo equipment were installed inside. And I started taking measurements. I compared the depth of the cabinet, which would be the real limiter, to the depth of TV sets.
I stayed up late several nights, working out on a spreadsheet (on a poky old computer that –warning, honey — needs replacing) how different-sized TVs could be made to fit. The goal was to not have to banish from the cabinet any of the other components that were inside: receiver, center-channel speaker, VCR, cable box, tape deck and two CD players.
I calculated that all 27-inch sets and a few, shallower 32-inch models would fit. And since a decent quality 32-incher these days can be bought for little more than the $440 I paid for my 20-incher back when, this seemed a reasonable goal.
I am not an impatient man. When it comes to big-ticket electronics, I have a few rules, which I sometimes manage to follow: Never buy a store’s extended warranty; never be in a situation where you have to buy and thus can’t hold out for a good price; don’t hurry into a purchase, because you will have this thing for a very long time; and buy comfortably behind the technology edge, consoling yourself with the knowledge that two years ago, this was tops.
So over a period of about six months, I scoured all the newspaper ads. I went to the usual-suspect places, like Best Buy, Sears, Circuit City and Sam’s Club, stores where there isn’t much in the way of in-store help, but you know the profit margins are low.
I avoided the higher-end stores because I knew that I didn’t want to pay higher-end prices and that, these days, even a mediocre TV is pretty good.
Also, somewhere in the not too distant future, I knew I would want a digital TV, once you didn’t need a car loan to get one. So it didn’t make sense in the present to spend more than, say, $600 on what was essentially an interim model.
I looked at the sets’ pictures and read up on their features. In Consumer Reports’ TV rankings, I discovered that, as usual with electronics, that otherwise trustworthy publication and I don’t see eye to eye. They give, for instance, way too much weight to convenience of use; I figure I’ve been to college and can figure out even the trickiest set. And they rank sound quality; I listen through stereo speakers and could care less about what is in the TV set.
I quickly dismissed the Internet as a TV-buying source. Any price advantage and sales-tax savings were more than offset by the $100 or more of shipping charges.
– – –
I gradually narrowed my search to a couple of models that would fit and seemed of respectable quality. My dream set was from the Panasonic “SuperFlat” series. The name was a misnomer; the screens were still slightly convex. But the picture looked great in stores, and the A/V magazine reviewers seemed to adore it.
It was expensive, about $600 for a 27-inch screen, but not prohibitively so, like for instance, the very sleek Sony WEGA series, a genuine all-flat set that at the time was running about $850 for 27 inches.
I came close a couple of times to buying a 32-inch Sharp model at Sam’s Club that would fit in the entertainment center. But I knew we didn’t really have the cash at the moment, and figured I could do better on price and features by waiting to find a clearance model.
That’s another of my electronic rules. I have had great luck buying from the table of items that are there because they have been dinged, dented or, in most cases, simply returned. It’s the only time the price gets really low, and the items are still warrantied and returnable.
All of this was happening, I should mention, with my wife only having a vague idea. I would periodically mention that I had taken measurements in the cabinet, just to make sure the promise wasn’t being revoked, but I didn’t really let on that I was in full hunting mode.
Finally, two things happened. In May my ever-generous Uncle Sam (no relation to Sam’s Club) returned some of the money we had paid to him the previous year. And there was a manager’s special at the Sears Outlet Center in Melrose Park, another store I had been cruising regularly.
That Sears discount store, one late spring evening, had on display one of the 27-inch Sony WEGA models for only $320, some $500 less than in regular stores and $230 less than what had been the outlet store’s usual price.
The picture seemed sharp, the functions all in working order, and there was only a small scratch on the cabinet. I jotted down the model number from the set back and went home and checked it out on the Internet. This was indeed a regular Sony WEGA, not some special, discount-store line.
It wasn’t the 32-incher I would have preferred, but it was still appreciably bigger than what I had, and an incredible deal for a top-of-the-line set. I was there when the store opened the next morning to buy it.
Now I have my new set and I’ll let you in on a little secret. The picture and features are better, and I can sit a little farther away from the screen. The true dimensions of Brooke Shields’ talent are revealed. But, for all the effort extended, my life is not appreciably better.
As with most things in life, the desire for new electronics is more rewarding than the possession, the hunt better than the capture.
Still, I’m not only glad I did it, it also turned out to be just in the nick of time. I set up my old set down in the basement playroom. Not unlike my old and very infirm family dog a couple of decades ago, who we came home to find dead on the day she was to be put to sleep, my 20-inch set, obedient, loyal, and runty, gave up the ghost within weeks of being relegated to the basement.
Now I have to devote my attentions to getting that new, 400-disc jukebox CD player. I don’t really, really want it, but I figure I can use it as a bargaining chip to hold on to my Easter Island-worthy stereo speakers.
