|
|
|
sick day teevee
Wednesday, January 3 2001
I was feeling so weak when I woke up this morning that I knew there was no way I'd be going to work today. So I took the day off, my first sick day ever with my present employer. Lucky for me, I've accumulated a good number of sick days. It seems I'd contracted the flu.
In the afternoon, I couldn't muster the strength to do much, so I watched a lot of teevee, first by myself and then with my housemate John (who is currently unemployed). I started out watching a "Tour Diary" featuring the jet-set adventures of the Backstreet Boys. As I was watching them spotlessly reveling in the gosh darned thrill of pop stardom, I realized that my sense of musical and stylistic taste is fixed forever in the disaffected early 90s (where, I might add, it must have been since I was born). These Backstreet Boys are nothing but a bunch of Mariah Careys and Dionne Warwicks. They don't appear to care about anything except their own personal success, all of which is achieved with the vapid happiness that characterized the era of Ronald Reagan. There's no sense of doubt, sadness or anger in their music (at least Britney Spears can muster a few of these things now and then), it's all just a series of permutations of the words "yeah," "baby" and "oooh." When the backlash inevitably comes (perhaps with the impending George W. Bush memorial recession), it's not going to be pretty. Ten years from now I'll be tuned into VH1 happily watching the fat, bald Backstreet Boys giving "where are they now?" interviews and I'll be rhetorically asking, "where were you then, motherfuckers?"
Later, John and I watched the movie Star 80 on Bravo. It's a movie about the rise and fall of Playboy Centerfold model Dorothy Stratton and her jealous freeloading pimpish boyfriend. If nothing else, the movie satisfies that craving all of us have for depictions of the unnecessary excesses of the early 80s: the feathered hair, the cheesy mustaches, and the vaguely yellow hue everything had. In my opinion, the best scene in the movie is the one where the pimpish boyfriend makes a sadly over-eager attempt to impress Hugh Hefner, accidentally misquoting him in the process.
I took another big long nap in the late afternoon and then, needing a change of scenery, I came down to the living room to hang out with John, his sister Maria and a mostly-ignored television. The Backstreet Boys were on teevee again, this time upstaging host Shania Twain while singing to an open-air audience of adoring pop music fans in Miami. Maria knew all the words and even had a favorite Backstreet Boy, though she admitted that none of them dance anywhere near as well as the guys in N'Sync.
Later, Maria kept bringing up the sleeping arrangements that might have to be made at Big Bear (a nearby ski resort) when John, Maria and Chun take a group ski vacation there next week. Asked Maria, "You might have to sleep with Chun, I wonder, will this be the first time?" To which John responded (in the manner of sarcasm), "Of course not!" Maria evidently didn't realize that this was not sarcasm and if she looked over at me for confirmation or denial, I was maintaining a poker face. "I suppose we could sleep in the same bed together," Maria suggested helpfully, "but we'd have to promise not to make out!" Evidently they've both independently joked to Chun that they like to make out with one another, so this might not seem much like a joke to her anymore.
I watched an installment of Junkyard Wars and then, due to weakness and a headache, I had to go to bed. Throughout most of the night I found myself sweating profusely.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?010103 feedback
previous | next |
