Broken promises
I know I promised not to blather on about my hospital hijinks a while back. But maybe this most recent deviation is worth an exception.
The other (lower) leg was amputated about three weeks ago. In a flurry of infectious activity, over maybe a year, I went from "my left leg is perfect!" to losing two toes to infections, to flaring up twice in three weeks and just having the same op as I did on the right leg ... only this time, instead of taking 9 years to come to a decision, I took maybe 90 seconds.
And so I'm home again, home again – but not so jiggity. And definitely not so much of the jigging. I'm happy the damn infection issues are now a thing of the past. But it's a bit of a drag being all gimpy again for a short time ... waiting to heal.
The best thing about it is, I know the routine now. I won't be wondering and fretting about a prosthetic being able to hold me up, or work right (the "trust" issue I had to work through with the first op > prosthetic took a while to hurdle).
So that's it – another chop job, both legs now symmetrical in that the amputation on the second one mirrors the first, below the knee, same length. The only other down side: I fell a week after the op, exploding the stitches and leaking a bit of pinot noir on the bathroom floor ... which required me to go back into the hospital for a tidy up and re-stitching. That, thankfully, only took three days before I was home again.
Bad timing for a visitor
Of all the rat-bastard things ... this latest op derailed some potential for some really good fun. I don't get many international visitors here. And I was due for one ...
For months now a Canadian friend (Elly) had been planning and plotting a trip from Aussie's Gold Coast to come to New Zealand to tour and visit. My 'surprise' op was exactly a week before her arrival.
So I was in no shape to be the usual jocular tour/pub guide that I am famous for. It was great seeing Elly again after 12 or so years, albiet it was a too-short visit. She blizted most of NZ in 4 weeks, and she had a blast. Which is great! At least I could be like Denzel Washington's excellent portrayal of a complete invalid in The Bone Collector, and provide computer-driven research and hints and whatnot for Elly, from my chair-bound position at home.
But enough of all that. I fully intend to be vertical and mobile again by September, after breaking in a new prosthetic. Then I'll be done with all this hospital nonsense, and I can get back to living again.
Multi-media overkill – not liking "Liking" so much
While I enjoy the all-in-one connectivity that FacePlant allows me, for keeping in touch with international friends on a regular basis ... and for having almost as many bars/pubs/breweries/wineries on my connectivity list as friends, keeping me informed of impending fun looming on the horizon ... the latest trend of absolute oversaturation from the movie and TV regurgitation machines has stepped well past the Absurdity Line in The Sand.
Once upon a time, news of an exciting new movie or show would trickle down the pipe with a bit of a tease in a newspaper or magazine. You'd have to be looking for such things.
Or you'd read an original novel and then catch wind of a movie being made of it. I can recall thinking: "Imagine the stunning visual extravaganza that the movie version of Dune would be!" (Disclaimer: that one fizzled badly and totally sucked. But it sure was fun imagining how great it would be!) Maybe instead we should consider The Godfather as a proper example here ... or Blade Runner.
Then, if you were a regular movie-goer, you might catch a 'trailer' of said movie (a WELL MADE trailer, not something that pretty much divulged 98% of the plot - I'm looking at YOU, Prometheus!), or a cool 'preview' poster in the theatre (which would really fan the flames) ... or a brief TV advert flogging said TV show.
Then your imagination would take over, and you would whip yourself into a frenzy about the impending new bit of visual entertainment. Word of mouth amongst friends would ignite, too. You would plan ahead (using that memory thing we all used to have?) and go to the cinema (or be in front of the TV) on the day ... I can recall seeing posters for the first Star Wars movie when I was in high school. The 'grapevine' of rampant enthusiasm was a pandemic ... we couldn't wait to go! It was going to be so excellent! We planned to meet to see it (without the use of cell phones and incessant texting!)
And then happened, and it was goddamn excellent!
Now, it seems the media machine thinks we have NO memory OR imagination. Or ability to plan.
Here's the rumpus.
Game Of Thrones – I discovered, purely by chance, what this was all about, thanks to a casual chat with a neighbour on a bus-ride home from work one day. He told me about the book series (I'd never read nor heard about it), and how I should keep an eye out for the impending show. I did just that, and was hooked from day one.
Then the show took off like a wildfire. Everyone was talking about it. The 'net chatter was incessant. I downloaded the e-books and rediscovered the pleasure of marathon sessions of reading thrilling adventure stories again. It was immense fun!
And then ... overkill kicked in. I 'liked' the GoT page on FacePlant because I thought I'd get some hints as to what upcoming (attractive) actresses would show up in ensuing episodes and seasons. (Yep, I'm a heterosexual male, and the show had already demonstrated that it would provide me with plenty of realistic and scintillating scenes of nudity and sex with really hot women). And boy, did I ever get some hints ... and way WAY too much more stuff ... repetitive clubbing over the head ... with a daily barrage of images, videos, behind-the-scenes shenanigans, games, what-if scenarios, and just about anything a marketing weasel could concoct came flooding through.
It's too much. I don't need to know – or be involved in – that much tangent marketing, for something that is simple (yet well done) video entertainment. I don't need to engage in live chats with the author or actors. I don't need to buy the video games. I have a good imagination. My memory is still relatively OK (disclaimer: dependent on the amount and frequency of either prescribed and/or other types of pharmaceuticals). I know when the show/movie is coming, I've seen the one trailer/ad. I can plan.
The Newsroom – Tie game here with Breaking Bad for the best thing on TV right now. Aaron Sorkin, creater and writing wizard who brought us the most excellent West Wing came storming out of the gates a few weeks ago (more or less by surprise – an odd exception to the new 'pre-overkill' marketing rule) with a show that is just hands-down, astoundingly fantastic. He is "the man" for dialogue, character and scenario development. And the cast, much like West Wing, is a couple of 'name' actors and a whole pack of newcomers. After a few eps, you can almost see who is the somewhat interchangeable (Martin Sheen's) President here, and who is Josh, and Leo – and Donna, Toby and Charlie. But who cares ... they're real people. They react to things the way we would (if we were White House staffers, or in the case of The Newsroom, hot and important TV news people). Yeah, right ...
Then the overkill began. Once again I 'liked' The Newsroom's FacePlant page (hmm, I see a trending common denominator here ...) and the same sort of round-the-clock saturation began. Watch previews of the upcoming ep NOW! Watch recaps of the last eps! Engage in chat with the star(s)!
Nope. Not gonna do it. I'll still sneak peeks at what babe is going to portray what future character ... but methinks it's about time I stop "liking" things so much on FacePlant.
I realise the overkill isn't just specific to FacePlant ... spills over to newspapers, magazines, radio and TV too – it isn't just a FacePlant symptom. Ever facet of media seems to think we have NO imagination, NO memory, can't PLAN ... and if we aren't reminded of things every 15 minutes (of fame?) then we might get Ooo! shiny object on the ground! distracted, and forgo their product for some other sexy new strumpet of a thing.
Overkill of the real, blatant kind
Hey America (and Canada now) ... enough with the whole "solving your mental issues with guns" thing, OK? And mass media? Stop demonizing and anti-hero-ing these barely-human wastrels. Watch this inciteful bit of musing by the UK's Charlie Brooker and take notes:
And goddamn your freedom-loving, jingoistic asses ... stop making ridiculously overpowered automatic weapons so readily available to any assclown and toolbag with enough money ... and stop ignoring the blatant mental health issues in both countries.
Sure, Canada's gun laws are slightly more constrictive than the Excited States of 'Mer-ca, but it's painfully apparent – if a thing (guns, knives, or methods for making bombs) exists, it is available ... and deranged mu-phukkas will find a way to obtain them to try and solve their shithouse-rat-crazy problems.
Film-maker seeks Editor to reign him the hell IN ...
This blog entry is really becoming a rambling hodge-podge of topics. But this does dove-tail in with media saturation and clinically insane people with easy access to firearms ...
Suddenly, lots of movies are marathon-length, poorly-edited, butt-numbing festivals of directors saying: "Look what I can do! LOOK! No, stay in your seat for another 90 minutes, I'm not done yet. LOOK!!!"
I blame Peter Jackson. Sure, the guy's somewhat creative, and he was in the right place at the right time with the (then) new availability of mind-boggling special effects software. But holy christ on a pogo stick ... the Lord of the Rings things just got WAY out of hand length-wise.
And as proven by his successive movie King Kong, it wasn't just a case of the LOTR subject matter being too rich to edit down to a tolerable 90 minutes per movie ... Jackson just has to shoot (and include) every little twinkling of an idea that splooges forth from his mind.
Now we have ass-clamping marathons with the Chris Nolan Batman movies. (Note: not all of them ... the first one of the trilogy was a magnificent piece of work, tightly edited and presented, and it was a dazzling, dark reworking of the comically over-wrought original ones presented by Tim Burton).
At this writing I have not seen 2012's newest offering, The Dark Knight Rises. But it's reported to be just shy of 3 hours long. THREE HOURS. These maniacs are asking a LOT of a public they seem to otherwise think has ZERO focus, memory and attention span, when it comes to marketing ... sure, thrash the hell out of us with a non-stop blitzkreig of pre-advertising for your movies (in 15-to-30 second increments) ... THEN you expect us to sit still for 3 hours to actually WATCH it?
Yeah, right ...
I re-watched The Dark Knight (the 2nd movie) a couple of days ago, to remind myself what irked me so much about it ... the damn thing is just too long. It's got a really good premise. It's well-filmed. The actors are great. The action is legendary. But holy shit ... OVERKILL!
When I first saw it in the theatre, I emerged confused and more than a bit irate that it didn't stick to the first movie's fine example of how to make a tight, well-done movie ... my first re-watching some months later, with a DVD, re-affirmed this feeling – excessive scenes clubbing home the point.
We get it. The Joker is NUTS. Batman can't take that extra step over the line to just kill him, he's too moral. MOVE THE FUCK ON.
Much like how massive increases in computer memory and storage space have suddenly given software programmers Carte Blanche to be horribly sloppy in making software (which results in grotesquely bloated, huge programs) ... giving these big directors free reign to churn out 3+ hour-long monstrosities of badly-edited movies needs to stop.
Maybe Peter Jackson got the hint ... just recently he mused (publicly) that perhaps this newest two-part Hobbit thing he's embroiled in should be THREE movies instead of two ... as he has so many ideas he wants to include.
Maybe.
That's enough babbling from ME for now ... speaking of presentations that are too long!
