Part Fourteen - Oscars etc.

Happy Almost Fat Tuesday! We try to celebrate every year by dining out at one of the few restaurants in ABQ featuring this fab cuisine, popping something from my modest collection of Cajun/zydeco music into the CD player, and/or finding a good New Orleans-themed movie to watch. (The Big Easy is the obvious choice, but there are others we like.) Laissez les bons temps rouler!

I’m obliged to drop in a few words about the stuff in the title of this blog. If you read the last entry, you know I received encouraging news at my last MRI scan. My mind was at least temporarily put at ease when what my doctors believed might be cancer growth turned out to be “pseudo-progression.” So that lightened the mood somewhat, tho it goes back into suspense theater again with new MRI’s on Fat Tuesday of the upcoming week.

I barely had time to celebrate the good news when I started to feel weird last weekend. I was feeling pain around my left eye and in my left ear, and had developed what looked like a hideous giant zit on my left nostril. By Monday everything was worse, and I was miraculously able to get an appointment with my GP. He took one look at me, asked about the symptoms and nailed it on the spot: Shingles! I knew nothing about shingles, but my simple explanation is this: You get chicken pox when you’re a kid, it goes away but the virus stays with you forever. It’s not all that uncommon to have some kind of re-emergence in the form of shingles, but it generally occurs in only 1-3 people per 1000 under the age of 65. Certain things can bump up your odds of getting it if you’re younger than this – such as a compromised immune system caused by carrying little dark passengers like mine around with you.

Shingles takes the form of an ugly, nasty rash around the midsection in most people. A smaller percentage gets it all over your face – excuse me, all over one side of your face, which is weird. By Tuesday night I looked like the arch-villain Two-Face from the Batman series. It got worse than the photo I’ve included, with my left eye completely closed and blisters on my face making it look like the worst case of pizza-face acne ever. At the time of this writing I’ve had it about a week. I can see out of my left eye again and much of the rash has subsided, tho the big ugly nose zit is still there and the pain emanating outward from my left eye won’t go away. Got some anti-virals and some hydrocodone from the doc, but my stash of oxy left over from surgery is also coming in handy. There is an effective vaccination which is, unfortunately, useless once you already got it. I urge all of you to get the shingles vaccination today!

I didn’t really want to use up all my blog time on this, but this blog was started to communicate news about MBFGC and related health issues, so I feel obliged to keep you informed about it, and I am always gratified by your interest and concern. I hope you can indulge me a few comments about the Oscars tomorrow night.

I’ve been into movies big time since I was a kid. Everyone in my family was. On weekends we would “go to the show,” and everyone who grew up in Chicago is familiar with that phrase. It mattered little what movie was playing, nor even what time the movie started. We would just go to the movie and watch the next showing until “the part where we came in,” and if we liked the film, we’d watch that second viewing all the way to the end.

I became more seriously interested in movies after high school. I found the most interesting part of my initial semester of college to be the film society on campus, where I was exposed to foreign language films. Blowing off college after one semester, I headed out to Berkeley CA and spent about a year immersed in the big candy store of all the college film societies and revival/repertory theaters, soaking up all the international, experimental, and classic American cinema I could find. I came back to Chicago for the usual stupid reasons (little head leading the big head), but continued to mine the same kinds of venues in Chicago to enthusiastically continue my cinema education. I eventually made my way back to school, working my way thru several institutions before earning a useless BA from the Radio/TV/Film division of Northwestern’s School of Speech (now Communications).

Sorry for the biography; will attempt to fast-forward thru the boring stuff. I spent over 25 years in marketing and sales in motion picture distribution, cable TV, and the home video industry. Left the home video industry in the face of changing technology and diminishing opportunities, but had the impeccable timing of attempting to launch some new media ventures in the teeth of the 2008 recession, so the last five years have found my fortunes plummeting into survival mode. An unexpected visitor last year has helped to further stall my career progression.

In any event, my point is that I have loved the cinema from an early age and have been fortunate enough to find employment in related positions for much of my adulthood. Though I feel fortunate to have long ago discovered the world of international cinema, I am no film snob. I still consider American cinema to be the innovative leader that has historically been the most influential in shaping the art form. However, as we have watched American industry begin to lose sight of the principles and objectives that made it a world leader, the same afflictions have affected the American cinema. It has always held a unique position between art and commerce, but it seems that in recent years artistic decisions are influenced by commercial considerations more than ever. This is evident nowhere more than in the annual Academy Awards show, a grotesque orgy of shallow emotions and phony sentiment by which nobody but the most cynical can avoid being nauseated.

In recent years I have been spared the most horrific moments of this kitsch-fest by the magic of TiVo, but I don’t even have enough interest to bother setting the DVR this year. I can find out all I need to know without gagging in two minutes on the internet. In the meantime, there are so many great films emerging on international screens. Just recently I watched an amazing film called Wadjda, which is not only the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, but the first film made by a female Saudi director. It is funny and emotionally satisfying and easily superior to any of the films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Many of these films can be viewed easily via the many video streaming services available, but most people are not aware of these treasures hidden in plain sight. I’m going to start recommending a few of these in future blogs. Perhaps some of you will find something to enjoy in these suggestions. I am certainly interested in new films that any of you can recommend.

GOODBYE AMIGOS!  SEE YOU SOON!  HAHA!!