TV Blast Revisited

Comment from Ernie Pasanen on the TV Art Piece, piece.

Ah, the TV.

That TV graced my workshop/office for many years. I put it in storage after the "incident".

I came home one night late. The house was empty, and as I was changing my clothes, I smelt something burning.

I walked about sniffing, and as I approached my work area, the smell got stronger, and I could hear a faint, 60 cycle hum.

I walked into my workshop, and found the TV. It was plugged in, and powered up. The smokey smell was coming from it. I touched the plug wire, and it was almost too hot to touch. I pulled the plug, and took the TV off the wall.

The rheostat coil was glowing red! (love the word rheostat. Potentiometer is so lame) It had burned the insulation it was wrapped around. Some of the insulation on the surrounding wires had melted away.

So I let it cool. When my son arrived home (he was age 13 at the time) I asked him how the TV came to be on.

After a lot of hemming and hawing I found out that he and his friends had come over that afternoon, and plugged the TV in and started pushing the buttons.

Well, I'll freely admit, that TV is just so damn touchable! It dares you to push its button! You just gotta. Lets face it. My sons generation never had to actually touch a TV. They were always safely sequestered behind a remote control. They never had to turn a "dial" ("Don't touch that dial!") that broke off after a year or so, and need pliers or the jury rig needed to keep the knob on.

So they touched it. A lot. And moved the knife switch. And then left it powered on and left the house.

Now, I know we both know that we shared an view that devices like fuses and circuit breakers are such elitist and intrusive things. I remember that in 1981 ("mostly a bad year") we built FMEH (A talking head, mounted in a glass display case located on 8th avenue and 53 street in New York City) and mounted very expensive (at the time) LED's on the keyboard. I remember spending about 6 hours lovingly hand wiring the whole thing, and then watched them explode like a chain of firecrackers, because of the lack of a 5 cent fuse.

Good times, Good times.

Anyway, I plugged the TV back in after an hour, and it did nothing. I figured it was grilled. I unplugged it, and went to bed.

The next day, I plugged it an again. It worked! It took 24 hours, but it healed itself! Lord knows (cat's name) that I wouldn't want to try an fix it. I never really figured out why it works at all.

I wrapped it up and put it in storage, along with the 12 gauge shotgun and other stuff "youngin's shouldn't get in to. Of course, now my son is 22 years old, and in a masters program. I guess I can afford to bring it back out again.

22 years old. That's how old I was when I stepped forth from the hallowed halls of Kubie U. Now, where did I leave my walker...