Thursday, May 25, 2006

 

An end to the addiction?

OK, so it's been an age since I last posted here on the old blog. I've got loads of excuses, none of them good. Sure, there's been travel all over God's green earth - to DC and New York and Chicago, the Long Beach Airport, you name it.

Sure, there's an impending trip to the Middle East, a script in the midst of major rewrite, my wife's show, and a whole horde of other things keeping Our Man and Our Woman in LA busy, busy, busy.

Lessons have learned over these last few weeks. Lessons about growing older, about the inability to party as hard as we used to (I'm looking at you, Mr. Newton), and so much more. And I'll share it all here in the old blog. Soon. Really. I swear. Soon. Yes, this year.

But if I'm not going to go into all of that right now, what could possibly bring me back to the world of the blog on such a beautiful day as this (High of 76 in LA today)?

It's my old enemy. That's right. The addiction known as LOST. Just like an aging super-hero who has to come out of retirement when his archenemy comes back on the scene, last night I again did battle with LOST.

Now over the past several weeks, I had shaken the addiction to this most annoying of all television shows. It no longer has a hold on me. I'd switched my allegiance to HOUSE, the medical show on Fox that features great performances, good writing (even if it's not 100 percent medically accurate), and best of all, a lack of stupid, nagging questions about who the others are and whether or not any of this is real.

Viva la HOUSE! Lose the LOST!

It's been a slice of heaven. I've missed episodes of LOST, and I haven't cared a whit. Yeah, I saw the one where Michael killed the two women. I shook it off easy - wondering aloud why he couldn't have killed a few other characters while he was at it.

My lovely bride, however, has been no help at all. She's been leaving episodes on the TIVO, calling me during the day (now that I work from home), and saying things like, "Why don't you just watch it during your lunch hour" and "If you don't watch it, you'll probably be confused if you ever do watch it again."

Basically, I'm a recovering addict whose wife is still in the throes of addiction. I'm the poor schlep who just stopped taking crank, and his wife is telling him that she left a bent spoon, a candle, and a bag full of H out on the coffee table "just in case." And she put a Velvet Underground CD on the stereo. But I have to supply my own rubber tubing or belt.

I would try and fight her addiction, too. Honest I would. I'd stage an intervention. If I could find any of our friends who aren't likewise addicted to freakin' frackin' LOST.

As it turns out, though, it might not be a problem at all.

You see, last night Our Woman in LA watched the two-hour finale of LOST. You know, the one where "all the questions were going to be answered"? The one that was going to make things all so clear?

And which didn't make much of anything clear, thank you very much. And which got rid of a couple of characters who were likable (Michael, Walt, Desmond) without wasting even one more of the annoying folk. Eko, Charlie, Locke, and Sayid, I'm looking at you.

The wife watched it all. I was in the room, reading a Carl Hiaasen book and making sarcastic remarks, mostly under my breath. Steph kept focused.

And my oh my, what she learned. That hostage guy, Henry Gale? He's the big bad. Wow. Don't get me wrong, it makes him cooler than most of the other characters, but that's about all. Oh, and Sayid saw the foot of a big statue. Oooh. Scary. And they didn't push the button, which caused . . . something, which ended not long after.

Just like the Crank, dudes. The highs get lower and lower.

Which is good, really. Because the episode finally, at long last, disappointed Our Woman in LA.

"That didn't really solve anything," she said as she went to bed.

No, honey, it sure didn't.

"Is Locke dead?"

I don't think we're that lucky. Plus, the guy's freakin' Yoda, so he'll come back as an annoying ghost if he is.

"You know what they didn't explain? Why the Others wanted Claire's baby."

Right, honey. THAT'S what they didn't explain.

"I don't like that."

And so it begins. Our long journey back to sobriety and the end of addiction. Heh. We have all summer.

"Did that bird say Hurley's name?"

You'll never know. The important thing is to make peace with that and move on. One day at a time.

And hopefully, the other networks will schedule something good on Wednesdays at nine next year. Seriously, guys. Please.

"I don't get it."

Neither does anybody else.

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