March 7, 2010
let's pretend this never happened shall we
3/7/10
A lot can transpire in a weekend, so I'll just dispose of the "trying to tie it all together" trope and go with bold letters and numbering. Back in 1995, eye-tracking tests showed us "that was the only way people were going to read on the internet" anyway, so it shows you how much of a luddite I've remained by using long paragraphs. That is, if you actually finished this one. No offense taken, believe me.
If anything bores you, just skip to the next one. It's Just That Simple™!
1. The University of North Carolina Men's Basketball Team - Because desire springs eternal (and we had won the last two games) I had the faintest soupçon of hope that we might pull off something special over in Derm on Saturday night, but this game was not only a disaster, it was a historic disaster.
We are not a school that "fires" a player who doesn't turn out like we wanted - we don't kick anybody to the curb, and in fact, Dean Smith always made it clear that seniority within the family was sacrosanct. This led to great moments like Vince Carter carrying Dante Calabria's suitcases to the bus, and it engendered respect among recruits that pays dividends to this day.
However, there's nothing wrong with asking a player if they're happy with the system they chose to join, and if my instincts are correct, two or three guys on our roster may be happier elsewhere. Because this team bears no relation to any Carolina team I have ever experienced, with the exception of a few lost years around 2002.
Then, as now, there is a fundamental lack of giving a shit, and it has punctured a hole in the hull. The fan base is divided by recrimination; on one side, you've got the "it's all Coach Roy Williams' fault" and on the other is "the players lack talent and personal motivation". I'm inclined to view it as a little of both, but I will not suffer the kind of bullshit hurled at Roy.
Yes, he refers to himself in the 3rd person, yes, his so-called Huckleberry Hound demeanor can inspire the occasional eyeroll, and compared to the inscrutable granite mountaintops of Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, he can seem downright unhinged. I've also bristled at the way he talks about some of the players, and he is not a master at making mid-game (or mid-season, for that matter) changes when the status quo seems to be tanking.
But he has also brought home two national championships - one from a set of seniors that had gone 8-20, and the other from a group of kids who had been kicked in the face the year before (and probably didn't even get along that well). He is a deeply good guy, and I feel like I understand him, his longing for something ineffable, his inappropriate sadness. This is the other thing I know: he can coach, yell, motivate, cajole, psych out, ingratiate, draw plays every waking minute, but if the guys don't care, none of it matters.
My immediate almost-post-mordem on this season? It doesn't take much for a group of 18 to 20-year-olds to lose their collective shit. Ask anybody who has been in a failed fraternity. A couple of injuries, a loss of confidence, a lack of communication, and then gangrene sets in. Two non-senior players will leave. Everyone's reputation takes a hit. Next year will be a nice rebuilding year. We have to work to get the mystique back, but it will return.
2. The Oscars - I'm going to admit something here: I'm beginning to not like movies very much. I still enjoy the act of going to the movies immensely - popcorn, the great seats they have here in LA, talkin' shit to th' wife - but I have not been emotionally engaged by a film in a long time.
Previously, this was the work of Prozac, which is why I yanked myself off it in the late '90s. But this is something else. It reminds me of what my mom started saying about mystery novels: she knew the ending of the book by the middle of chapter two, and then just started going through the motions.
Nothing's worse than a person who refuses to join you on an emotional adventure, especially when you really want them to feel the same things you did... it's like sharing a favorite album with a new girlfriend and getting the "meh". But worse than that is the desire to be taken on a journey and being unable to hop on the bus everyone else is on. Because when you see the bus, you say to yourself: oh yeah, I know this bus. It goes in a circle.
I was really engaged by one film in the theater this year, and I don't expect anyone else to agree: I thought "District 9" was amazing. The lead character was so off-kilter that I was stunned at his transformation, and the delicate ballet of violence and peril was heart-pounding without being merciless. I actually wanted the lead character to find his way back to his wife, I actually cared about the alien father and son.
As for the rest of these movies, I don't know, it all seems like inside baseball, ambiguousness dressed up as Defining Statements, and a lot of people looking at each other waiting for something to happen.
And this comes at a time when we've been told to start writing movies. I just hope Tessa doesn't get frustrated with me as I work my way out of this ennui. Right now, I'd rather write the churning mindfucks of great television, because something about its crassness seems more honest. Perhaps it's just a phase I'm going through, n'est-ce pas?
3. Being sick - On Thursday morning last week, I woke up with the horrifying realization that something terrible had just happened to my lungs. Lucy had had the croup the week before, and my brother Steve had an awful cough, but this had surely been too long an incubation period, yes?
Didn't matter. Every intake of breath felt like I was inhaling butane lighter fluid, and I was feeling ghastly, like "take me to the hospital" bad. In my delirium, I managed to get in to my ENT, who looked upon me with pity and professional interest, because I was as bad as anyone he'd seen in a while and said I had bronchitis and the beginning of pneumonia.
I'll spare you the details - and this is mostly for my family, just in case my mom caught it while she was here - but I will list exactly what had to happen:
• immediately tested for flu and went on Tamiflu
• went on giant Augmentin antibiotic horsepills
• got worse the next day, so received cortisone steroid shot delivered in an elephant tranquilizer needle (or at least it seemed like it)
• also got a intramuscular shot of an antibiotic (Rocephin, I think)
And guess what? I got better. None of the usual 7-day yin-yang of misery, better days, dashed hopes, 2 weeks of lethargy, all that shit. Got it early, nuked the fuck out of it, back in business.
I don't know what the lesson is here - don't wait to treat illness? A well-placed steroid trumps everything? A quick anti-viral actually works? But man, it feels good. I might even write a longer-than-normal blog.
Posted by Ian Williams at March 7, 2010 11:03 PMI have not seen a good movie in years. I liked slumdog, but it was predictable once i understood the premise. I guess at some point, you've seen enough movies and read enough books that it all becomes a variation on one of five or six themes. In addition, now that taking the two of us to a movie is a sixty dollar event, I generally would rather spend another twenty for 2.5 hours at a great restaurant....that's just me. Hell, the only movies I get excited to see these days are the animations.... creative, often moving, and funny.
I'm with tregen. Would so much rather spend precious babysitter rates actually talking and interacting with my husband or girlfriends rather than sitting quietly next to each other watching a film - er, MOVIE. (again, what exactly is the difference between a "film" and a "movie"??) My other problem is that I will NOT watch a sad movie. Life is sad enough, I don't need make-believe shit to make me unhappy. So that pretty much limits what I will see. I do love the animated stuff and Harry Potter. Heh. Oh well.
As for the Heels. It's the players. The only way any blame can fall to Roy is perhaps his failing to recognize the lack of motivation during the recruiting process. Then again, I'm not a Hall of Fame coach, either. so what do I know. For the first time EVER, I'm glad the season is over.
The last time I remember REALLY being moved by a film was in 1994, when I watched "Pulp Fiction."
You can always cheer for the MD Terps. My husband is going to the ACC tournament this week. Hope the Terps do well.
Did I tell you we adopted a rescue dog last week? Helen named him Ace, and he is wonderful. Having a dog in the house again is as good as a dose of Lexapro!
The 'Heels have certainly made me sad as well. I will be there Thursday night to see what small bit of joy can be extracted from a game against a moderately bad team. At least we plan on drinking a lot post-game either way.
If someone had offered to straight up exchange of last season and this season for 2 straight Elite 8 finishes, would you trade?
I thought District 9 was exceptional as well. No coincidence it was set in South Africa. Added nice dept to the whole story.
District 9 was the best movie I saw this year. I have seen Avatar, Hurt Locker, and Up.
District 9 and Up are the only ones of the 2 that showed originality and made me give a shit about the characters.
Alas, because movie-makers suck (sorry, ian and tessa), they will probably make a sequel to District 9. Noooooooo!
"I have not been emotionally engaged by a film in a long while." There is the been-there-seen-it aspect as you get older, and the year-to-year output of Hollywood can be a bit lackluster, but there are always gems that you usually miss when they come out but catch years later. It's been more than a decade since Tessa's documentary, but I got to be emotionally engaged by that last year, since it was the first I'd heard of it and seen it.
Same for lots of small indie films...you're never going to catch them at the theater unless you live in the Land of Art Houses (which ain't rural mid-Michigan).
(Television, on the other hand, has become such a powerful force for evil in the world...it's doing to our minds and hearts what the fast-food nation is doing to our bodies. Bill Burroughs wrote about the "long newspaper spoon" feeding us things we don't want to examine up close, but TV has us strapped in with the feeding tube like a goose being forcefed for foie gras.)
Wanted to add.
"Moon" is a good one to see as well. Gets pretty existential, which makes it thought provoking.
Goes out on the Philip K. Dick limb and does a nice job.
YES! I had forgotten about "Moon", but that was breathtaking.
LFMD, pics of dog please.
lrrrr, Tessa will be so delighted.
Has anyone here seen "Precious"? Good, or overhyped?
The last movie that shook me to my core was "Million Dollar Baby." I had no idea about the ending before I watched it. IMO Eastwood should have stopped right there. ("Invictus" was manipulative and mawkish, and that guy on screen was Morgan Freeman, NOT Nelson Mandela.)
That was the worst Tar Heel game I have ever seen. Thank holy Gbus I watched it at a biker bar 3 miles from the Rocky Flats superfund site. The patrons started buying us free shots of Jager and mugs of PBR to ease our pain. Doug, the 300lb snowplow driver was really trying to make some friends, and won a few with the "That Vitale guy is a real dick head!" comment. So sad that my dookie sister called 10mins. in to the game and left the message, "So sad, we are going to kick your asses!" One stinging message from her at that point in the game was more potent than consistent calls all night long. She is letting the wound fester. Here's to not loosing another game.
As for District 9, the best film in many years. I have not felt that conflicted with emotions and questioned many of my own prejudices in quite some time. I too felt genuine concern for the alien family, and the return to love for our hero. This movie should have made the 3D rounds....the pink mist of humans and aliens would have been freaking awesome in 3D (yah...I know...kind of sick on my part). This is a blue-ray purchase.
Srinath! Yes!