I don't tend to watch a lot of television. It isn't that I think TV is the devil, or horrible or anything like that. No, I just don't have cable, and I live in a city where if you don't have cable, you can't get signal at all. All the rabbit ears in all the land wouldn't stop the palsy victim on acid static flicker of NBC.

So I watch my TV at the bar. I'm down there anyway, right? Working away, scratching notes or typing things out while I sip a drink and share a joke; I might as well catch some TV time while I'm at it.

Except the TV in the bar is muted and they turned off the close captioning. At first this presented a problem for me -- I could see images flicker along the box, but nothing had an explanation. Silent movies know they're silent, so they add certain motions to explain the reasoning behind movements. With normal TV, though -- none of that. Dead silence should equal dead confusion.

But I've found, with time and booze, that it isn't quite as simple as all that.

Sitcoms work according to dance. They tend to move at a certain rhythm, each show has its own, that they never violate. Characters move from one side of a room to the other, interact, spin, walk, interact, laugh, react, interact, run. It's a silent dance of stupidity, but it has structure. I can watch a sitcom now and tell you what's going on by the arch of a back and the drape of a hand. Ballet for the masses with pratfalls tossed in for good measure.

The News, in another way, works perfectly fine with no sound. They tend to toss in text bars for the hell of it anyway, reducing sound bites to smaller and smaller chunks of screen time. Fire kills 12. Dog eats bear. 27 dead in mystery attack. That's all you need to know. Back when I could hear the News I wondered who was writing that dreck they pass off as copy. It was full of soft lead-ins and mushy closers. Without sound, though, it's a nodding head with flashing cruelty off to one side. I think I like the News programs the best now.

Closest in energy to the bar I watch from, hour-long dramas are almost unwatchable. They end up looking like nothing so much as a host of institutionalized depressed patients wandering around sets and moping. They're all so damned serious. Heads down and shiny black leather jackets flapping in the wind, these characters slump through the paces to try and find the killer/victim/ghost/one true king/whatever until the hour releases them from their purgatory.

Television is interesting now. When I can hear it, I tune it out. When I can only see it I end up rapt, staring at the screen like a baby expecting a tit to appear any second. I might drool, sometimes -- I'm not sure.

The other night, in fact, I was down in the bar when my friend D.J. came in. Now, Kirkbride (or as I call him, "The Kirk") is an imposing guy. He walks into a room and everyone knows it, but he wields this sort of stature with ease and respect. Which is neither here nor there, but fuck it, I'll make sure he knows this shit. Anyway, he came into the bar the other night. He almost never visits me, you see. It depresses him. The Kirk is sure I'm gonna lose a kidney any day now and doesn't want to see what will happen after that. He hates having to help me upstairs and has never learned to enjoy my taste in shoes. So The Kirk coming by is a surprise and an occasion.

Well, I sat his ass down and got the man a drink and tried to watch TV with him. He didn't get it at first. It took a while to sink in. I had to explain to him what I just told all of you, except he could see how much I drank while I composed the thoughts in order. Eventually he got it. He saw it all, and we sat there, hypnotized, for four hours.

I think he broke the volume setting on his TV when he got home, but you'd have to ask him. I'm not allowed in The Kirk's place.

Still. If even The Kirk finds out how much he enjoys it... well, try it for yourself. Shut off the noise and watch the pictures move and twirl and dance for you. I'll be here, where I always am, at the bar, doing the same.