reality tv - I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Friday night I was watching A LIFE AQUATIC from Steve Zissou by Wes Anderson. During the love scene of Cate Blanchett and Owen Wilson (I just cannot keep movie characters' names in my mind. I guess it must be the same thing for variety reviewers as they always use the actors' instead of the characters' name) I was suddenly extraordinarily bored and switched over to the normal tv programming. I found myself in one of the friday night talkshows i usually enjoy pretty much. Now it is a given fact that the characters in Wes Anderson flicks tend to belong to the most cranky, weird, mentally confused, eccentric and maybe unrealistic folks that have ever been seen on theater screens. When I saw the talkshow guests sitting on their chairs in front of me though I could hardly notice any difference between Wes Anderson's take on reality and the televised reality that I faced that minute. In the end this obviously the reason why we love these cranky characters populating the stories of the Coens, Andersons, of Ozon, Mendes and Kelly? They actually exist. Those are the people we meet in the supermarket, who live next door and whom we unfortunately see on local tv. Our world is
populated by these guys and maybe there's enough incidence to assess that even I, myself could be one of them. Our life just seems to work by the logic of the the absurd and television is the best place to witness absurdity and Uneigentlichkeit. Or is it only television that conveys the impression of an absurd world?


The biggest televised revelation is when you get to see people on tv that you actually know personally. On one of our local stations I recently saw a woman of our neighborhood prepare some kind of special "summer drink" in front of the camera. The show itself is regularly hosted by two guys from my town. It is incredibly funny to witness the transition from provincial quasi-celebrities to tv personalities. The fun comes from the fact that many of these people who suddenly gain this (sometimes regional, sometimes domestic limited) celebrity status just aren't worth it. These men and women try to be funny but are not. They try to do intelligent moderation but fail.
The saddest and most absurd part, though, is that there are actually people who enjoy this shit.

THE DAWN

When i was laying in my bed this morning (early afternoon) i felt like a whale just flooded onto a strange shore. Maybe this feeling was slightly inluenced by the dream i had this night which actually dealt with a lot of spiders.
Spiders in my room to be exact. They very about a thumb's size, not actually very big but crawled around like crazy so that every piece of the floor was covered by their bodies. i assume that one can put this SPIDERS IN MY ROOM dream to the categories of nightmares. It's crazy how our brain is able to fool us. One more time during this dream when I was trying to reassure myself that this was indeed nothing else but a dream I could barely recognize some spiders sneaking slightly about my head.
Or was this not a dream?
In addition to the aftermath wake of dreams I'm often struck by a time paranoia when I'm alone and don't have a date that forces me to get out of bed. Thus I'm just lying there, the bright light of morning shining through my window,
reflecting on what time it may be. Mostly I'm sure that it must be horribly late. Probably after 12 a.m. . So what I do to leave that embarassment of standing up in what is supposedly the afternoon behind is that i don't move and just keep lying there.
I don't know what I'm waiting for then. It would probably be a good idea to just take a little peek at my watch to see that it is not even 11 o' clock. The reslut is that I'm spending about 50 minutes in my bed with
nothing left but paranoid regret. Regret, that I'm still laying in bed.
Regret that I ate a whole load of chocolate yesterday.
Regret, that I don't want to go to the gymnastics training that takes place this evening. ("I can do some situps and stuff right here at home", "I still have to edit the whole camp movie, and there's a lot of work ahead of me")What rescued me this morning was a wonderfullly delight- and meaningful mischmasch of music.

Here's the playlist that rescued me:

#1 DAYDREAM BELIEVER (Mary Beth Maziarz for DAWSON's CREEK)
#2 ANGELS IN AMERICA MAIN TITLE ( Thomas Newman)
#3 FAIREST OF THE SEASONS (Nico - THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS)
#4 MAGNOLIA MAIN TITLE (Jon Brion -MAGNOLIA)
#5 DEEPER THAN LOVE (Antony and the Johnsons)
#6 SPOTLESS MIND (Jon Brion -ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND)
#7 BIENNALE (Antony and the Johnsons)
#8 BOY (Antony and the Johnsons)
#9 STAND ABOVE ME (Antony and the Johnsons)
#10 FIELDS OF GOLD (Eva Cassidy for DAWSON's CREEK)
#11 STEPMOM (unknown track) (John Williams)
#12 A.I (unknown track..8?). (John Williams)
#13 A.I.(unknown track...9?) (John Williams)
#14 OLD MAN (Neil Young live)
#15 WALTZING MATHILDA (Tom Waitz)
#16 AMERICA (Ennio Morricone)
#17 ETERNITY (Ennio Morricone)
#18 POCAHONTAS (Neil Young)

I think now that it is important -at whatever it is that i DO these days- to maintain confidence.
I shouldn't walk around in heavy boots because i think that everything i do is wrong.

A german director presented a documentary that is entitled DIE GROßE STILLE at the venice filmfestival. In this movie he portrays the life in a Karthäuser Kloster in France. The monks are living in silence most of the time. The director, when asked what he had learned there, said: "I left with the realization that there's nothing that can really turn bad or that IS WRONG. I gained confidence"

happiness

prepare for dull words used in the wrong context.


i feel now that my life starts running again. most recently i've recontacted a lot of my dear and closest friends from school ...or i was contacted. once i had spoken to my friends -even though it was via phone- i felt like updated or refreshed. it made me happy to hear their voices and exchange thoughts, fears and ideas on what could inspire us. noone knows me i guess as good as these people. we've mostly been going through the most important and amazing times of our lifes to this time together. we've seen how people changed and became who they are now. and this is a very special and precious kind of intimacy that we all share.
i felt as happy these days as i haven't in quite some time. today just before i was heading for the lake i recieved a call of a good friend of mine who is now going to study at __________________. i've never been able to keep up or start an in depth relationship to her. it's some little things in attitude, humor and cultural appreciation that link us (something she calls a taste for absurd culture). beside she's a very tough and disciplined person. actually there's enough material in my mind to dedicate a whole column to this woman, whom i'll only refer to as the future Claudia Roth on this site. i've already written a whole diary entry about her way of life. one of the things i admire most ebout her is her bravety and self confidence. she'll even have the guts to say that one of her works of art class could easily be exhibited in a museum...as opposed to the works of all the other classmates, which were as she sad shallow and superficial pieces of art. this is of course a rather estranging side of her self counsciousness. the positive side, that i quite admire...is the stereotypical side of a young career woman, who's not withdrawing from her attitude to MAKE IT and from her own will and plans. She now spent some time at an internship in montreal, canada. after one week in a law firm, where she'd all against her hopes just supposed to be serving food, she didn't hesitate but head for the human ressources office. the head of this office, a woman that goes by the beautiful name of jackie chan was soon to be identified as her arch rival of her longing for a better job. future claudia roth didn't leave out any little embarassing comparison to proof that catering would be beneath her. she even went so far to dwell on the difference between a german abitur and an american high school examination. of course she aimed to say that compared to the abitur the high school exam would be kinda pointless... i would never ever have the courage to do something like that. it would probably take me two months at the catering to start thinking about how hurt jackie chan would possibly be if i denigrated her high school degree.

this and last week i was working at my aunts bag shop administration. which means that i'm from 8 a.m. till 2 p.m. occupied with the most stupid and dumbest kinds of work one can imagine. but in the end it's that stupidity that gets me some solid cash.
once i come home i have a hard time to organize my spare time, which leads to the fact that i rarely come to update this blog. instead i'm watching tv and downloading three investigators internet files via kazaa. i hope i will be able to manage a television column on this site very soon. among all this trash that's put out on air these days there are some rare diamonds that are sometimes hard to discover.