Eccentric Flower:200003/Guilt Exploitation and Cynicism

I goofed off today, and I'm feeling guilty about it, but not so guilty that it kept me from goofing off (obviously).

I spackled a slew of thumbtack holes in a door and repaired the futon frame in the guest room, but that was about it. What I should have been doing was working on the source code some more. Yes, for my job. I don't normally take work home on weekends, but, see, there's some residual guilt here ....

On Friday, I hoped to have another very productive day like Thursday. Instead my brain would not focus. Not just on the code. I mean I couldn't look at the computer at all. I couldn't stand to sit there anymore.

So after my meetings, in an effort to save my sanity, I met Marc and we went downtown for a rare treat: Wendy's.

No, I'm not being facetious. There is one Wendy's I know of in the greater metropolitan area. I'm sure there are others out in the 'burbs, were I to drive half an hour in a car to get to them. While Wendy's is probably not worth that, they do make the best chicken sandwich of any fast food chain (especially the spicy model) and I miss them sometimes.

Besides, there's a Barnes and Noble a block down. I don't like B & N but I had a gift certificate from them to spend.

So Marc and I walked across the river from the Institvte all the way to Downtown Crossing. Then we walked from Downtown Crossing to the South End and had coffee and played the "watch nearby men and trade catty remarks about them" game. Then we walked from the South End up to Copley Place, where we realized that some people have more money than sense and we were just Not Fabulous Enough to be there that day. Then we walked across the river again - different bridge, though! - back to the Institvte again. Stopped to check mail and kilns. And then walked up Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard Square to meet Nonelvis and Susan for dinner.

And I wondered why I was so tired later that night ....

Anyway, I didn't get any work done on Friday and now I feel guilty, but I also don't want to do any work.

Regular readers will deduce that guilt is a powerful motivational tool in my life.

And speaking of guilt, today we got Entertainment Weekly's Guilty Pleasures issue, with Pamela Anderson (I won't use his surname) in Sophia Loren makeup on the cover.

I have a certain respect for Anderson. She's successful (did you know she also gets executive-producer money from V.I.P.?), she bounces back from her mistakes (although I really wish she hadn't gotten back together with Mr. Surname), she has a sense of humor, and so forth. But, most importantly, she has no illusions about what she does. She does not take herself too seriously.

I respect someone who makes trash, if it's obvious to me that they know they're making trash and don't have any pretensions about it. This covers other levels beyond "trash" as well. I don't think I write trash (aside from that Superman fanfic, which was a hoot), but I don't pretend to write great literature either. I just want to write things which are interesting to read. I like to think that Shakespeare knew he was writing these contrived spectacles - that he was aware that what he did was not High Art and was laughing all the way to the bank about it.

But when I say Shakespeare was playing to the audience, or that he wrote potboilers, people think I'm insulting him. I'm not - it's admiration. Shakespeare was a success in his time, and pretty well-off for someone with no lands or title. Can't beat that.

To me, exploitation is a more acceptable thing than pretension - if all parties involved are okay with the exploitation. It's a lot like sex; all sorts of strange things are okay with me as long as everybody gives consent. (Anderson: "I'd rather exploit myself than be exploited by someone else.")

Regis Philbin, for example. Here's a man who (as I've been saying for months) has finally found his true ecological niche: He was destined to be a game show host. Why does everyone think I dislike Regis when I say that? I'm kinda fond of the guy. When it comes to gladhanding, no one does it better. He really is the perfect game show host. Isn't that enough?

Or - speaking of guilty pleasures - tonight we watched most of The World's Most Expensive Videos 3, where Robin Leach shows music videos and makes catty remarks, with subtitles ringing up various costs as the video plays to show why they were so expensive to make. If you're expecting me to be repentant, forget it. I saw #1, and I was glued to the set as soon as I realized I was seeing more of the same. I didn't know they were going to do this every year! My one regret is that I've missed #2.

Leach does what he does perfectly. He is so completely over-the-top artificial that it reverses, judo-style, and you cannot help but love his obnoxious self for it.

But, hey, it's clear I love some people you hate, just as I hate some people you love. Case in point: We finally saw the much-recommended film Election tonight.

I'm glad we got this one on video because it was just about at the threshold of what I was willing to sit through. A lot of dislikable, tormented people engaged in petty squabbles. In some ways this movie was even more dislikable than American Beauty (which, oddly, it reminded me of) because the squabbles have been moved to high school, making them even more insignificant. Even when I was in high school, I knew my problems would seem petty and minor when I was an adult - that is, I knew that worrying over whether I'd pass my math test was nothing compared to worrying whether I'd be able to get a mortgage or find a job. Of course, I didn't like other teenagers much when I was a teenager either.

(Spoilers follow, so you may not want to read the rest of this screed unless you've seen the film.)

I mean, the jock is a Genuinely Nice Guy, so the film has to make him a moron whose head is sometimes in his pants. Why? Beats me. My theory is that as soon as the screenwriters came close to making a character sympathetic, they felt obliged to put in some fatal nastiness. (That's the part that really reminded me of AB.)

His adopted sister is pretty cool, so of course she has to be one of these "who cares - it all sucks anyway" nihilists - and overinfatuated with a person who's obviously a Young Teen Bitch to boot, and given to sappy Love Is Forever speeches (which rankle coming from adult characters, but more so from teens) even when she's showing us her good side.

Reese Witherspoon's character - while very well-acted - is so horrific to watch that I had to leave the room during some of her speeches. But, hey, at least we're supposed to hate her. At least I think we are. At the end of the film there has been no retribution whatsoever; she gets everything she wants, and the film seems to be saying that her type will always get whatever they want, stomping over everything in their way.

Instead, the film heaps all its revenge on poor Matthew Broderick, whose home life - his relationship with his wife and his ex-best-friend's ex-wife - is apparently written into the film for no other reason then to have it backfire on him and cause an additional layer of pain for him at the end. I mean, yeah, he deserves to lose his job for falsfying the results, but why is he punished so much? Why is it necessary to have everything else fall down on his head as well?

As I say, I sat through it - barely. And there were bits of it I really enjoyed, and on the balance I'm glad I saw it - it's a well-made film, even if it happened to make me grit my teeth.

But I wouldn't see it again.

I can't tell if I'm too cynical to fully enjoy this movie, or if I'm nowhere near cynical enough.