Have you lost interest in activities you once enjoyed?

So after having spent the last ten years woefully uninsured, positively plagued from head to toe with various ailments, I received my very first insurance card. I immediately booked an appointment early last week designed to address the following concerns:
1. Q: I have been told by the knee and joint specialists that I need a referral from my primary care physician to confirm that my knees are in fact torn to shreds. Can your office please produce said referral?
A: You likely have meniscal tears in both knees, which will not show up on an X Ray, however, your insurance requires an X Ray for said referral to go through, so take this piece of paper and get an X Ray to confirm there are no Gremlins in your knees.
2. Q: Is this red thing on my face cancer?
A: No.
3. Q: I suffer from Chronic insomnia. You wrote my mom a script for Ambien and I must say, they really do the trick. Can I have some too?
A: You're 26. You're too young for that. Do you drink coffee, exercise at night, watch tv in bed? (Continued in script form...)
Me: My problem is of a psychological nature.
Cute Ukranian Doctor: Are you depressed?
Me: Well Yeah. (But, to be fair, I do live with my mother in the suburbs, work a mindless/pointless job, and am a citizen of this world, so...you know.) I see a therapist twice a week. (He agrees you should give me the prescription and shut up about it.)
CUD: Have you lost interest in activities you once enjoyed?
Me: (Uh oh, I see where this is going) Nah.
CUD: Are you prone to fits of crying?
Me: Well yeah (but have you met my boyfriend? ha ha)
CUD: Have you thought about hurting yourself or someone else?
Me: Nah.
CUD: What we have on our hands here is a clear case of depression induced insomnia. I recommend you take ELAVIL.

Remember that scene in Wayne's World where they do all the hilarious product placement gags, and at the end Garth is head to foot in Reebok gear and he says "it's like people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad."

Well, there was an Elavil clock on the goddamn wall. She was writing with a Nexium pen. I don't believe in anti depressants, but I love drugs, so this situation really tested my mettle. Really showed me what I was made of. I walked out of the office with a prescription to both Ambien and Elavil.

So I've been taking the Elavil since tuesday. Not only am I sleepy at night, but also all day every day. I feel light headed and apathetic, like, woooo, who the fuck cares? I remember I took Zoloft for a month in high school, and the only difference I noted was that I suddenly enjoyed pop music. "Oh my god, I'm a genie in a bottle!"

Let's all monitor my condition together and see where this magic carpet ride takes us, eh?

J/K Before, I do know how to read.

I was sitting in a doctor's office (more on that later) where I read this passage in a David Foster Wallace essay The Big Red Son. Here the author covers the adult film industry and the bunny slipper clad performers that comprise it. Having now brought you up to speed on the plot, let's have a quick read:

There is, first, the matter of having seen the various intimate activities and anatomical parts of these starlets in videos heretofore and thus (weirdly) feeling shy about meeting them. But there is also a complex erotic tension. Because porn films' worlds are so sexualized, with everybody seemingly teetering right on the edge of coitus all the time and it taking only the slightest nudge or excuse- a stalled elevator, an unlocked door, a cocked eyebrow, a firm handshake- to send everyone tumbling into a tangled mass of limbs and orifices, there's a bizarre unconscious expectation/dread/hope that this is what might happen in Max Hardcore's hotel room. Yr. corresps. here find it impossible to overemphasize the fact that this is a delusion. In fact, of course, the unconscious expectation/dread/hope makes no more sense than it would make to be hanging out with doctors at a medical convention and to expect that at the slightest provocation everyone in the room would tumble into a frenzy of MRIs and epidurals. Nevertheless the tension persists...

I just feel "to send everyone tumbling into a tangled mass of limbs and orifices" bears repeating*.

Another Installment of "People from my Job I Hate"

Let me preface this by saying that ordinarily I love retards- more than most people even. Amongst people with average IQs I feel frightened and socially awkward, but when I'm talking to a retard, I feel awesome, because you know, they're retards.

Having said that, Mark, the retard at my work, is the worst custodian that I have ever known, and he has kind of a shitty personality to boot. To ignore these things about Mark commits the sin of homogeneity of variance. To force myself to like every retard just because they are a retard (films would have us believe that all retards have a heart of gold) does a disservice to the integrity of the people as a whole. He comes into the office ever day with that thorazine shuffle, peers into our garbage can, disregards it the way evolved primates disregard their own feces, collects any bottles or cans we have for deposit, and walks out. Sometimes he favors us with some ridiculous anecdote about his life that nobody asked for.

"I won first place in a bike race in 1991."
(A fact I find hard to believe.)
"I'm switching to AT&T cable service."
(I'll alert the media.)

All this would be fine if he would perform even the most elementary of custodial duties, but alas, he does not. We tried to explain to him one day that the garbage in the kitchen was overflowing. His poignant response: "I don't have room for it in my pail."

I have been told that the company gets a tax break for employing retards. All this means is that there's an uncharming retard shuffling around the building all day and the data entry employees have to take out their own garbage and vacuum their own carpet.

Why do I find it so particular? Maybe because less than 6 months ago, I had this dude's job. The bar I worked at should have gotten a tax break for deigning to employ a girl with a bachelors in English. I am special. And I took out the fucking garbage.

Sex, Cinema, Politique!

Let's take a little break from the gorefest in lieu of a whole 'nother kind of horror, eh? American politics. These are what I consider the best sites for all your election/depression needs.

1. (Written In the style of a Reading Rainbow segment.) Have you ever wondered What Makes People Vote Republican? I sure have! Now you can find out by reading this informative and stimulating article by Jonathon Haidt, a psychologist specializing in the study of morality and emotions. (/end Reading Rainbow shtick.) In all seriousness, the article is pretty enlightening and I recommend it. Oh and yeah, I am just assuming that everyone reading is not a republican. If I'm wrong, wow! Are we friends? Do you know me? One Republican Friend, is that you?

2. realclearpolitics.com This site takes all the different national polls and averages them together. The Dark Knight returns!

3. The Giant Pool of Money. Here you can stream an episode of This American Life that explains the housing crisis to idiot poets like me who only know how to spend money and maybe watch movies featuring people spending money. Radio podcasts are a really great format for learning things because you don't have to read words.

4. The Huffington Post is just liberal propaganda but you know, that's how I roll.

5. 236.com The title is a play on 24/7 news coverage, but somebody had to explain that joke to me cuz... I just don't often get jokes. They've animated Get Your War On, which is perfect. I already said I don't have time to read word bubbles.

I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

The Horror.

Watching horror films at home by yourself may be the loneliest activity I can think of. It just seems that the genre calls for a communal screaming, yelling, talking to the screen experience, but alas, I live with my mother in the suburbs and I have no friends. Let's not dwell.

Wednesday night's feature: Joe Dante's 1981 Werewolf classic The Howling (1981). The best thing about the movie is the scenes where humans transmogrify* into werewolves, the old fashion way, with those air pressure bubbly thingies under the makeup. Pardon me for once again being a fuddy duddy about the olden days, but CGI has ruined the world of cinema and beyond. Remember when you could trust images to really exist in time and space? The real deal might look hokey to sophisticated modern eyes, but god damnit, I like hokey. But enough about me.

My friend Nick, featured here is not only Detroit's go to Horror Film Historian, he's also completely nutso for Joe Dante's work (You may know him from Gremlins, Matinee, Looney Tunes Back in Action... or you may not know him at all, and you're sick of me talking about movies you don't know doing things you can't see. Whatev.) And so these questions are directed to him.

1. I couldn't help noticing many instances of intertextuality and self referencing of horror films/popular conceptions of werewolves throughout. For example, they watch an old werewolf movie, the husband reads a Thomas Wolfe novel in bed, the camera cheekily lingers on a copy of Allen Ginnsberg's "Howl". I was born in the 80's and forgive me, I guess I implicitly assumed that Kevin Williamson/Wes Craven invented the concept of characters educating themselves on the paranormal through film. Having found out just how wrong I am, I wonder, when did this truly start and just how ubiquitous is it? SUB QUESTION: What werewolf film were they watching?

2. Remember when Karen runs straight to the doctor in the barn in tears and horror that everyone is turning into werewolves and he just looks at her and says "Uh, no." Cuz you know, he's a werewolf too and isn't in the mood to help? THAT WAS AWESOME. That was the best part of the movie. Agree? Disagree?

***BONUS QUESTION open to the public***
Does anyone have a favorite horror film they recommend I watch during this fabulous holiday season? Do you hate horror films? Why or why not? DIscuss.

*I would just like to congratulate myself David Foster Wallace style for using the word transmogrify completely legit.

I'm so goth a black blog is implied and thus unnecessary.

There's all these horror films available for rent on my Mom's magic picture box in celebration of Halloween, which is not only the best holiday in general, but the best holiday for inspiring a genre of films. I mean, Christmas movies, don't make me puke. I love Christ and all but his birthday is gaaaaay. Groundhog Day was a pretty good movie but I think we can all agree that Groundhog Day II: Back in Action only recycled the formula without any of the originality or characterization of the first film. (How many of you just opened imdb right now to see if there really is a Groundhog Day II? There's not.) I'm off task. The point is, Halloween owns.

I kicked off the season with Repulsion (1965), Directed by Roman Polanski, starring Catherine Deneuve. She speaks a mousy english and spends the entire picture in a bewildered state. The men, hopelessly British in black and white, are positively smitten (much to their own peril) I guess because she's so beautiful and uninterested, but this was not enough for me. I didn't fall in love until she put a rotted rabbit's heart in her purse and took it to work with her. (Swoon.) She's not wound up quite right. When she touches the walls they turn to putty and she leaves an imprint of her palm. As an artist, can you think of something like that without having done drugs? Would any of you know the answer to such a question? Do tell.



In other news, Beverly Hills Chihuaha is number one at the box office and there is no God.