A Eulogy for My Best Friend

I believe that it was the Irish dramatist, George Fabricius, who said: “Death comes to us all. But great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.”

Truer words were never spoken. For the loss of my friend, while tragic, is but a beginning of a lifetime of memories, of monuments to a presence in my life that never faltered, a friend who strived to know me a little bit more every day, a friend who sometimes seemed to know me better than I know myself.

The death itself was sudden. We should have had many more years together. We had spent countless hours enjoying the simple pleasures that we shared: watching Sportscenter on a Sunday morning, learning some arcane fact about D-Day, laughing at a movie that my friend somehow knew I would like.

We weren’t always together but I knew that my friend, my trusted confidant, my companion would be there for me when I returned. There were never any fights, no petty arguments. If there was a disagreement, we were honest with each other. We both knew where the other stood on the matters that really count when one examines the content of their life.

But now, I am alone, awash in a sea of uncertainty, desperately trying to grasp at a shoreline which seems to draw ever farther from my reach. Because my friend will never have my back again.

Already, the loss, the emptiness is striking. Rarely does a night go by when I do not mourn the loss. Invariably, I find myself reaching for my friend’s soothing touch, but there is no response to my desperate movements.

I think back to last Tuesday evening. It was nearly 10 PM, an hour the two of us had always cherished. But now, it was just me and alone I was not the same. I was addled, crippled by a loss that I’m not sure I will ever be able to fully replace.

And so, when I lingered for a moment too long on FX’s Rescue Me and completely missed the reason why Danny was crying on MTV’s Real World, I couldn’t help but let out a mournful cry “Oh damn you, Tivo, why did you have to die so young?!”

My Tivo is dead, long live my Tivo.

Without my best friend, I am a shell of my former self. With Tivo beside me, I was at the absolute apex of my television watching. Tivo’s remote control fit into my hand as if I had gone to China myself and had some slave-laborer make a plaster mold of my hand to use in the eventual design of the Tivo remote controls. We were inseparable.

Rewind. Pause. Rewind. Guide. Back to the Beginning. Skip to the End. Pause. Check my Season Pass. Rewind. Pause. Oh, the fun we had.

When we were good, we were a duo for the ages. We had the grace of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. There were never any unnecessary rewinds or sloppy pauses. We were simply simpatico.

We had the single-mindedness of Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli. I was Belichick, calling the shots, telling Tivo what kind of programs I needed. Tivo was Pioli, always getting our man but also turning up gems that I never knew about. History channel documentary on Delta Force. An early morning Sportscenter after a tough night. A movie with a little questionable content on a Wednesday afternoon. Tivo delivered.

But now, Tivo is gone and I feel an obligation to talk to all the other Tivo owners out there.

Cherish your Tivo. Everyday take a moment to tell Tivo how important it is in your life because just like that (insert dramatic finger-snapping here), Tivo could be gone.

And you can’t imagine the adjustment when Tivo isn’t around. They say that amputees often experience phantom feelings in their limbs. I have phantom feelings for Tivo. Every night since that warm July evening when Tivo died, I have been trying in vain to convince my Comcast remote that it can do what Tivo could.

Sadly, it can’t. I’ve tried to give it a pep-talk. “Come on, Comcast, you can do it- I believe in you. You were made to pause live action television for up to 30-minutes at a time.” But thus far, my attempts have failed.

What I never fully realized when Tivo was around was how much I depended on that little rectangular bastard.

I could pee whenever I wanted to. The freedom to sit on my couch and suck down drinks and go to the bathroom when I wanted and not when the networks dictatorially ruled was marvelous. It was the type of freedom that we are trying to export to Iraq. If more Iragis had Tivo, I promise that pesky insurgency would crumble.

I could maximize my video game and television enjoyment with Tivo. Any sports video game, Madden, FIFA, NCAA Basketball, MLB Baseball, was a perfect accompaniment to Tivo. So many times, I would count on Tivo to pause the program I wanted to watch, say Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Tivo would blissfully record the first 30-minutes of the show while I joyously played a full game. Then I could fast forward through Gumbel inexplicably trying to act as if he had never seen the story before, pretending to actually write questions as if he had no idea that Frank Deford was going to stop by the set. It was couch potato nirvana.

Watching television without Tivo just isn’t the same. My nights are strictly regimented. I feel like a factory worker in Lowell in the 19th century- always watching the clock. If I’ve spent too much time out walking the dog, or making dinner, or dropping off toys to the orphans, I’m screwed.
Flipping on a show at ten after the hour is like a death sentence for my viewing enjoyment. It doesn’t matter if it is CSI, The Family Guy or Dora the Explorer, if you miss the crucial first 10-minutes, you are forced to sit there for the next 50-minutes praying that some character that you have never seen before doesn’t pop up in the last 15-minutes. And if you want to change the channel, you invariably end up on a station that is so desperate for viewers that it purposely begins its programming at crazy times like 8:07 or 10:22 in the pathetic hope of snagging viewers whose Tivos have died.

Even now as I am writing this, I know that my television is doing nothing. It’s loafing out in the living room, sitting on its fat ass napping. When Tivo was around, it had my television in the best shape of its life. My television on Tivo was the Tom Brady of home electronics, the unquestioned best at what it did. And just like Brady, when I put the television into those do-or-die situations like a Thursday night when I had the To Do list stacked from 7 to 2 in the morning with programs all over the dial, with Tivo’s help my tv help played like a champion.

Now, my entertainment center is a heartbreaking shadow of its former greatness. Picture Bernie Williams trying to run down a hard shot into the gap and you know how pathetic my home entertainment system has become.

But, I will struggle on. I loved Tivo but he’s gone and I can’t dwell on the past. I need to move forward. It’s 4th and long and I’m swinging for the fences.

Football season is right around the corner. Hockey is back. Basketball is almost here. And baseball, well I plan to be watching that into late October. It’s time to get serious again about my home viewing. Time for HD, time for DirecTV, time for a new contraption that will let me pee during sporting events.

For everything, there is a season, and a time under every heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to weep and a time to watch the Sox and Pats march to more championships. That time is now and I plan to be prepared.

Rest in peace, Tivo. My living room was a better place with you in it.