2002-05-03 | 3:23 p.m.

corduroy licorice came up with another half-baked scheme. his idea was to open a business called "half-bake your own pizza!" it would be a pizza shop that would half-bake the pizza you ordered, and then you could bake it the rest of the way when you got home.

***

i'm still getting over a cold, but that doesn't stop me from craving a banana split for dinner. mmm....bannnnanannnna split. gooey, fake whipped cream, nutty nuts, melty ice creamy scoops and drizzling topping drizzles. shebang!

***

hello, i'm nictate and i'm a recovering tv-aholic.

tv was my drug when i was growing up.

i started using seriously in my middle school years. i would set my dinner to "vaporize" in order to get my butt in front of the set in time for my rerun routine: first i love lucy, then the brady bunch and the partridge family. then came prime time. from happy days and charlie's angels to mork and mindy, the love boat and diff'rent strokes...if the tv was on, i was glommed. most of my first loves were tv guys...david cassidy, henry winkler, randolf mantooth.

i would lie prone on my parents' bed for hour after hour, mesmerized by the flicker of the little black and white set. if my similarly addicted dad would agree, i'd set up stakes in front of the big den tv. my habit got even worse during summer vacations. all day long, i'd be mainlining game shows, cartoons, soap operas, dating shows...you name it.

tv was my world. if i wasn't in school, eating or sleeping, i was watching it. this destructive trend continued without lapsing into my adulthood. talk about a slippery slope.

a moment of clarity came around my mid-twenties during a conversation with my then-boyfriend. he and i used to talk on the phone every day. i soon realized that most of our conversaions were tv-related. "wasn't it funny on last night's episode when roseanne got mad at dan and said...?" it was a shallow awakening. was our addiction keeping us together?

i remember the day tv finally starting losing its grip on me. it was when seinfeld went off the air. that was the last show that consistently got me high. my thursday "must see tv" house of cards collapsed when jerry the joker was pulled out. i had hit bottom.

before kramer and the gang quit cold turkey, i'd even thought about becoming a dealer...maybe working on a tv show as a writer. i signed up for seminars with "how to make it in hollywood" tips. i scribbled out a spec script for friends in a couple of hours, longhand...woody allen-style, but never bothered to type it up. i soon realized that there were no shows i liked enough to want to work on...and i didn't want to do the "pay your dues" WB stuff.

soon my social life got more sassy, which weakened tv's grasp upon me even more. i began to chafe under its demands on my free time. i thought about reading books instead...and isn't it the thought that counts?

present day, i'm one step away from slapping a "kill your tv" bumper sticker on my car. i resent the time tv sucks out of our lives. the crap it injects into our brains. of course, tv is a great communicator, connector and educator, too, but mostly it sucks ass.

when i come across current shows randomly, even the ones considered quality hits, i'm annoyed with the writing. it seems groaningly hackneyed and uninspired. i know there are probably exceptions i'm missing. you know...the chronic shows, but homie don't wanna play that no mo.

don't get me wrong. i've got my happy tv memories. i've got my comforting cultural references. tv kept me off of the street. i still dig the simpsons and sex in the city, but there's nothing like the freedom of being clean. no time slots to tie me down. no lost weekends. well, less anyway.

today...as i sit through the snowstorm that is my cableless tv reception, i feel glad that the only buzz tv gives me now is the static coming out of its stereo speakers.

mute.

power off.

<----������� ---->