Tuesday, September 20, 2005
The Vein in the Brain
I don't keep up with any television shows of whatever genre - news, drama, sitcom, etc. - (I tried to hang in with "The Closer" this summer but missed a few episodes anyway) but last weekend A&E ran a "24" marathon which kind of got my attention but I hate the commercials without which none of it could survive so I went up to the video store and rented all six season-one disks and I've been watching them ever since along with Elizabeth the ballerina who got hooked with me and now her Mom too, and it's not a good thing because we keep popping one after another into the player with occasional stops for a pee break or a run to the kitchen for a snack but on the whole we're not eating well and our eyes are bloodshot with dark circles under them and it's really dark in here with the blinds pulled like a junkie's redoubt, which analogy I find most apt because even though there are no needles involved this stuff is digital smack because what you do in this case is wrap the rubber band around around your neck until the blood vessels in your forehead pop out and then you press "play" and upload directly to the vein in the brain, and when the disk's finished it's like a real bummer of a crash while one of us pushes the remote buttons and someone else stumbles to the player with the next disk (I don't know what's going to happen when season two runs out; someone will have to go to the video store and at best I see lots being drawn, at worst a screaming match about who is less physically and mentally capable of driving a car at the moment, maybe even hysterical phone calls to the store asking if they deliver like pizza guys) then returns to the depression worn in the cushion on the couch to re-numb her butt, and the further reason this isn't good is that I'm afraid the ballerina's legs will go flaccid and that her Mom won't go to work tomorrow (or me either, which is fine with me) and I've gone days at a time without checking my email and, further, I know this isn't great art just a manufactured obstacle course of plot twists designed to frustrate the good guys and their good ends and that no human child can get into as much trouble in a 24 hour period as Kiefer Sutherland's alternately smart and stupid daughter can but, hey, it's in the system and there's nothing to do but let it run its course, which reminds me that Kiefer is trying to stop a deadly bio-engineered virus from being released in American cities but right now he's hanging naked from a barn ceiling somewhere in Mexico and being tortured with electric rods and so forth beyond human endurance so I've gotta go but for God's sake somebody help us.
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9 comments:
Been grading too many papers, Bill? That seems a better explanation of your new writing style. :-)
No, but starting tomorrow I will be. The anticipation of it may be responsible for this latest...lapse. All I know is, it's not my fault.
Found your call on my answering machine, btw - will be getting back to you.
Hahahahaha.
Ha so amazing that we're on the same circuit. I never watched much TV except for talking heads news shows and the Apprentice. And about six months ago we watched "24" and that vein hit my bloodstream and my wife and I are hooked bad. Got the six disk set for season 3, then season 2, now we're on season 1. We watched twelve episodes of 24 (two a night) during our one week vacation in June. We have now "slowed" to 3 a week, and it's tough to even do that. I've come to the conclusion that Jack Bauer is one tough dude.
Printed that for my wife and she laughed during the whole read.
OK, so, well, like I was gonna watch it, but now, like, I think I'm not gonna. I don't need no more addictions in my life. HGTV and the Amazing Race and House are all I have time for.
Maybe I could just ditch the books, huh?
Books? Those are so, like, not now. Just watch one disk. You can't get hooked after trying it just once.
OK, I was so bummed out at the lame ending of Season One (is this a spoiler? Sorry.), that I have been reluctant to spend my hard-won sanity on "24". Are they ending the seasons in a satisfying way?
Or I could follow Mama T's estimable example. I'm already watching House, Monk and the NYPD Blue reruns with Jimmy Smits in them.
Better living through electronics.
If it's a choice between your sanity and 24, I'd go with the former. They do resolve the main "crisis", but leave other threads hanging to bring you back for the next season.
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