You Get A Little Extra When You Watch TV cover art

You Get A Little Extra When You Watch TV

You Get A Little Extra When You Watch TV

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 While we think we’re just watching, we’re also being shaped by the stories and images we see. We watch how others live their lives and we see the values they hold. Our brains notice everything, even if we’re not paying much attention, and we compare what we do, with what ‘they’ do. Here’s a live concert video from 1990 when Pete Seeger invited me to join him on stage at the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga.YOU GET A LITTLE EXTRA WHEN YOU WATCH TV.Cho: You get a little extra when you watch TV CAin’t that ducky! Well you’re lucky if you see, that G7You get a little extra when you watch TV! C-G7-CYou sit too close and you get a big surpriseLots of radiation in your body and your eyesYour eardrums hum when someone turns it up too high,When you watch TV!We learn lots about our bodies and our aches and pains,Headaches, hemorrhoids, heartburn, diarrhea, denture stainsGotta buy more drugs t’stop your stresses and your strainsWhen you watch TV !ChorusWhen someone in an advertisement tells me liesI jump up and switch the channels, so I get some exerciseAnd my body’s getting healthy and my mind is getting wiseWhen I watch TV!Daddies only love the Mommies when the dirt’s all goneFrom their shirts and shiny floors, the coffee has t’be right on,I’m so glad my Dad’s not fussy, cause he’d leave my Mom,If he watched TV!ChorusIn real life it never works when people goAnd hit and kick and punch and smash each other’s heads and toesBut it always solves the problems on the cartoon showsWhen you watch TV!Last night on the highway when our car got stalledWe saw a bloody accident with bodies that were mauledThough my folks got sick, it didn’t bother me at all.Cause I watch TV!ChorusNow you may think that I am lazy, don’t you call me namesI’ve learned important skills from playing video gamesIf a spaceship should attack us I could shoot ‘em down in flames,Cause I watch TV!And a big TV can really give you quite a restIf you get one near your bed, you’ve got no reason to get dressedYou never have to talk to anyone, your life is a successWhen you watch TV!ChorusWritten by Peter Alsop, ©1983, Moose School Music (BMI)On Wha’D’Ya Wanna Do?, Songs On Recovery & Addiction, & Pie In The Skyhttps://www.peteralsop.com(Illustration by @TerriAsher)I wrote this song in 1983 about all the little hidden messages we get when watching television. It’s helped thousands of kids and families build awareness about how we are subtly influenced every day through our ‘media screens’. I think it’s even more relevant now than it was back then, because when we go into our ‘screen-time focus’, we check out of our ‘real-time awareness’, and we miss many of the interactions we could be having with real people and real things that are actually right there in front of us. Our ‘real time’ life-minutes tick by without us picking up on the nuances of the world around us. And, of course most of us have our own portable private screens now! When screen time becomes ‘normal’, we don’t even question that maybe we’re getting unhealthy radiation from our device. Everyone else is doing it!If taking a pill is the ‘normal’ way we stop our pain, we may embrace the message, that everything problematic in our live can be ‘fixed’ with some elusive simple answer.If I believe that I’m getting sufficient exercise simply by getting up to change channels, (although everyone nowadays has remote channel changers!), I’m unlikely to put the ‘screen’ away and go outside for a walk or a jog. You get the point.It’s very human and normal to focus on our entertainment or on how many ‘friends’ we have listed on the internet, but as we become more aware of the powerful, subtle, nowadays dishonest and manipulative cultural messages we are exposed to, … the less likely it is that we will believe those stories and take them to heart. We will tell ourselves more uplifting, hopeful stories about how we can support each other in our communities and our work places, and find courage to speak truth to power when we need to do that. That’s how we can build a better future that leaves space for love and kind-hearted caring, for ourselves, others and for all life on our planet.Thanks for stopping by, … I’m Peter Alsop. Please share any of my posts that might be helpful to someone you know.Peter Alsop’s SONGS TO CHEW Audio podcastsThanks for reading Peter Alsop’s Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.Click here to see All of Peter’s albums!To send me a comment, you can sign in as a Substack member by clicking the button above. It’s free, but you can always email me at peter@peteralsop.com. I’d love to hear from you! You don’t have to be a ‘paid’ subscriber to get my posts. Everyone gets ‘em, … some folks send in money to support my work. In either case, glad you’re here! Thanks for spreading the word!Peter Alsop’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To...
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