Watching TV at Eric Bogosian’s House –

Watching TV at Eric Bogosian’s House – 

The big-screen TV the Bogosians got over a year ago now wasn’t my idea, let me make that clear from the git-go. I was perfectly happy with the old TV. Sure, watching TV together is a big part of my relationship with Eric, his wife, Jo Bonney, you know, the theatre director, and his boys, whatever their names are, but it wasn’t me that was pushing for the upgrade. 

The new TV does have a much clearer image and it made it easier for me to see, but if anyone had asked me, I’d just have soon have gotten an upgrade in the snacks or the beer I see them having. Heineken is OK, but for a TV star, performer, writer type of guy like Eric, would it be asking too much to see some Dinkel Acker or some other classy and non-conglomerate produced beer around the living room?

Then there’s choice of programming. I remember watching the 2006 U.S. tennis Open final with some of the Bogosians, must have been Federer against Nadal, and it was pleasant enough. It’s hard to say who the tennis fan in the family is, but I enjoyed the simulcast aspect of it because I am a hard-core tennis fan and I had it on at home at the same time I was watching it on the Bogosian’s screen. So not only do the refreshments lag, at least I think they do, it’s hard to be sure, when have they ever offered me any, but for all the years I’ve watched TV with the Bogosians, have they ever once asked me what I wanted to watch? No, they haven’t.

I don’t know, maybe they think I’m supposed to kick in for their cable bill or something. I never said I wouldn’t. What am I supposed to do, guesstimate my share of it? I’ve never discouraged anyone in that family from asking me for anything so I don’t know why they have to clam up about whether they want me to pay for some of what we’re watching together. I’m not saying I’d spring for the Golf Channel or any of those other extra, pay per view things that maybe some other celebrity families might go for.  But basic service and yeah, HBO, I’d consider a request if they had enough manners to ask. I mean, this is only if they care. You can’t tell what people are thinking. If it’s not bugging them, then let’s just leave it alone. I’m happy with the current arrangement except for, you know, the snacks and nobody ever asking me what I want to watch.

It’s true I’m not, in a literal sense, there. But there’s nothing keeping them from phoning or emailing me and asking me about what we should watch. Shit, they could even use hand signals, I’m only right across Leonard Street from them. It’s not like I craning my head out of my apartment or using a telescope or something to watch their TV, big deal, now it’s a giganto screen plasma whatever that is, way from far off in another neighborhood.

You’d think they might take the trouble to reach out and consult me on some aspect of our shared activity. It’s not like Leonard Street is even that wide. 

Another thing that bugs me, though, is that if our older TV and basic Time Warner set-up is OK for me and my wife and my daughter, I don’t see why the Bogosians have to get up on their high horse and never watch TV with us.

As far as I can tell, they never look out their window to try and watch TV at my house. I swung the set around years ago so they could see if from their place at 100 Hudson Street. Sure, it’s just a 26-inch, old-fashioned kind of Sony set, but we have cable, maybe just as many channels as the Bogosians do. But they never try to watch TV at our house not even in the months when we have the free Cinemax or HBO. 

It’s not that I want to break up our TV-watching relationship because it’s really at the core of what I do with the Bogosians. Really, outside of watching their TV together, it’s almost like we don’t know each other, for all the other things, that is, none, which we do together. All I’m asking for is a little give and take.