Fevered Televisual Grumblings

So right now I have a bad case of bronchitis that appeared virtually overnight. On Saturday I felt one hundred percent healthy, then on Sunday I had a day of heavy flu symptoms: headaches, vivid dreams, exhaustion, etc. I spent the day in bed, hoping that I could kill it off by staying warm. Not quite. The next day saw the appearance of two new sorts of abject liquids: watery vomit and a treacle-ish green ooze in my lungs that murmured whenever I breathed and when I was lucky enough made itself manifest to me on tissues when I coughed. As my little sister called me once when I had a chest infection (I had asthma as a child, so it was often), I was Gem the Phlegm. Again. That was when I went to the doctor:

G: I’m fairly sure that I have a bronchial cough – it’s happened so quickly, it normally takes ages.
Doctor: Let me listen…oh yes! Oh yes! [Way too excited here] Of course you do! It must have been this cold weather, it could have brought it on more quickly. Can’t you tell you have it, don’t you have trouble breathing?
G: Yes… that’s why I came here.

What drugs did my doctor prescribe for me? Antibiotics, steroids (yes, I thought that seemed unnecessary, but apparently my bronchitis is severe and I needs me extra boost ‘o chemicals), a Ventolin puffer, plus the usual cold and flu tablets. Mornings and evenings are becoming quite ritualistic for me. The directions on some of the tablets seem more than a little bit over precise verging on sadistic: for the antibiotics, the directions are “take ONE tablet TWICE a day with the first mouthful of food until all is taken.” They’re those mother-sized tablets too, so big that I keep accidentally crunching down on them and taste how disgusting they are. Faithfully, I’ve been following this direction to the letter (like perhaps it stops nausea or stomach upsets or something), but today I made the first part of my breakfast a glass of water, and I haven’t suffered any ramifications yet…

But to continue on with my grumblings… The pure pleasure of a blog-rant sometimes makes you wonder about the form's potential hidden socio-political function - a bit like Sharon Zukin’s Adorno-esque problematic in her study of cultural capital in New York, that the fashionable Manhattan youngsters who make no money in the arts industry don’t mind so much about being exploited in their bit-jobs with shit pay because they don’t feel it is their real career and therefore is nothing worth worrying or complaining about. I don’t get heard on a public forum very much, well that’s OK, I can say all that I want to the symbolic Other on my blog… I digress (but at least it’s still all in the spirit of complaint). Last night, I turned to crap prime-time TV for some visual solace. With my headache last night, it hurt too much to read, and I looked forward to seeing what commercial television could offer to me. Nothing, it seemed. The OC was yet another episode with a recycled storyline from last season and from every other teen soap before it. Not carefully borrowed, but blatantly stolen – for example a large part of the show was set in Miami at the infamous college Spring Break. Infamous? I only know that it is infamous because I have seen it happen before on Dawson’s Creek! Remember, that time when Dawson and Pacey go there and… oh, don’t worry, it happened.

Admittedly, I didn’t really pay much attention to the intricacies of the episode as I was on the phone for most of the hour. But then I made the mistake of continuing the Channel 10 odyssey by watching some of Rove. Only when I’m sick, really! Yes, I got a little bit interested when I noticed that the street-interview segment “Roving with Rove” was filmed at the recent Superheroes conference on campus, so I was expecting a little bit of lively conversation from the participants. Nope. Rove went there with a couple of important questions like “What Superhero do you want to be?” (considering that all of the interviewees were dressed in superhero outfits, this question seemed a little superfluous, perhaps “why” would have been more appropriate); then his next question was something like “Who is a real life villain?” Ask a boring question… The conference was made to appear bland and inconsequential (the same way that higher education is normally presented in popular media, then) and I’m sure that all of the more interesting conversation that couldn’t be filtered into a single Rove-ian soundbyte sentence was swiftly edited out.

Then, I got annoyed when Rove interviewed the most recent evictee from Big Brother, Rachel. Rove did his usual fluff-interview (“what was it like to live in the house?” whatever the normal tripe he comes up with). As she was leaving, Rove said something patronising to the audience (I’m paraphrasing) like “yes, I think your fifteen minutes are well and truly up.” I hate the second-class citizenship that is meted out to reality television stars on these kinds of shows. Rove sells itself as a largely interview-based show, but if Australian Idol and Big Brother weren’t around to prop up Rove with extra cross-promotional interviews, how would the very show survive? I’m sure the show's ratings are oftentimes attributable to these kinds of short-term celebrities, so the condescension in his tone was the kind used by a master who doesn’t like the look of his servants. If you don’t like interviewing them, Rove, it’s easy, stop exploiting them on your show!

It was all the visual equivalent of phlegm anyway – soft, slimey, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. At this point I’d naturally had enough of Rove, and I decided to remedy my poor night of TV-viewing by watching a DVD of a quality drama – The Sopranos. I sat happily and watched the last two episodes of Season Two. These episodes are really so excellently written and filmed, they just inspire awe. Really, the only good news I’ve heard in the last week concerning TV is that Season Five comes out on DVD in Australia next month. But speaking of remedies, I’m going to end this rant now because I need to go and get some more pills, and take some more ventolin inhalations, and perhaps make myself a hot water bottle. Or curl up and die. One or the other.

Of all things, I am most of all very angry with my body at the moment.