I have no idea what this entry is about
March 31, 2005
Earlier tonight I was watching the movie Gas, Food, Lodging, a not great movie, but one that was at least good enough for me to watch all the way through.
Of course, after seeing it, because I'd never heard of it before, I hit the ole IMDb to find out more. (I love the IMDb. Seriously, what
did I do with my life before that?)
Anyway, one thing led to another, as things tend to on the ole interweb, and I ended up checking out the information for a recent favorite of mine Dream for an Insomniac . The movie is so typical of that spirit of the 90s--it's full of slackers with dreams who earnestly try to follow those dreams, all the while throwing witty ("witty") banter back and forth, and trying to maintain a cyncical veneer. The super-hunky (he's got an earring!) Mackenzie Astin (yes, the real-life brother of LoTR's Sam) stars in that movie, and when I checked out his imdb page I found out that he hadn't done that many movies. But I was so sure I'd seen him in a lot of movies before, because his face was so familiar to me. And then as I scrolled down I found that he had once had a supporting
role on a television show I used to watch religiously with my sister--the Facts of Life. I could talk on and on about that show, how now I realize I was probably too young to be watching it in the first place, how I really did learn a lot about the facts of life from that show, etc., but what I really want to get to is this--I haven't seen the Facts of Life in about...10 years? Maybe more. And Mackenzie Astin's role on that show was really kind of small, and you know, his looks *have* changed quite a bit since that time, and yet, he seemed so familiar. And all this got me to thinking about how incredible (not necessarily in a good way) it is that television has had such an effect on my life. I recognize and readily admit that I watch too much of it. That unless I want to be in the entertainment industry, the amount of television I watch is not really doing me much good (I didn't say any), and yet I don't mind the role that tv plays in my life right now. I think that after 4 years in college where I didn't have a television, and 6 years in Kuwait before that where I pretty much didn't watch television, it's okay that my childhood was, and my early adulthood is full of it.
But I wonder, too, if American television had such a great role in my life because english wasn't my first language? I mean, I honestly don't remember how I learned English. You know, one day I couldn't speak anything but Arabic, and the next I could speak nothing but English. I remember very clearly the day we moved into our house in Jersey--I remember that by the time we arrived the sun was setting. It was hot and humid late summer/early fall weather. I remember seeing the other neighborhood kids around. And then after that? I don't remember anything except being in pre-school and speaking English.
Being told by my teacher that if I ate my tuna fish sandwhich while standing up I'd have big feet (I do, but I hope that bitche's nose grew ten feet for the lie she told me), and sitting in a circle during play time, walking outside in a single file line, and somehow communicating with my peers. My family moved [back] to the US in the late summer (perhaps even early September) of '83, which means I must have gone straight into school. How? How did I possibly communicate when the only English phrase I ostensibly knew at that time was the one I learned on my first day in America when I got into a fight with the neighbor's son, "You are stupid."
Some of my clearest memories from my early days in America are waking up and watching Mr. Magoo and Kids Incorporated and that cartoon with the penguin with my sister, and having no problem understanding what they're saying.
And. Anyway, what I want to know is did I learn everything I know from television? I think I need to start a tv-only blog to explore these...issues.
So...on the schedule for this weekend: Trip to Sharm al-Sheikh with Zenith and E., who are coming in from Tunis tonight, possibly culminating in a climb up Mt. Moses? I'll let y'all know.