Life on Mars

Tonight was a fifth Wednesday meeting of the Society of the Rusting TARDIS, so in addition to one of the brand new Doctor Who episodes (just aired on Saturday in the UK!), we watched a show called 'Life on Mars'.

The premise of 'Life on Mars' is that a detective inspector from today, Sam Tyler, gets hit by a car just after his girlfriend and coworker gets taken by a killer on the loose. When he wakes up, he is fine except for the fact that he's now in 1973, and the same killer is at large. He's still a cop, albeit now with shoes that would make Liberace proud, so he is able to catch the killer by the end of the first episode.

But is he in 1973, or in a coma, or just simply mad? Now and then he hears the sounds of the hospital--the respirator, voices talking about his prognosis. Other times, he has bad dreams that blur the lines of reality even more. We know that catching the killer didn't change anything for Sam, but that's about all we can be sure of.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether it is real, it is what he is stuck with and he needs to work with what he's got. And much of what makes the show so compelling is to see him adjust to what he doesn't have anymore, which highlights how far we've come in the last 33 years. 1973 is a long way away from anything politically correct, and while I often think the PC movement has gone to far, watching this show is a brilliant reminder of how far the pendulum was swung the other way. All the women in the police force are in lowly roles and are sexually harassed on a continuous basis. The cops threaten, intimidate, and frequently punch anyone who might offer any help in solving the case at hand. Sam's superior hits Sam regularly enough that it made me wonder if men miss hitting folks these days. The forensics that we all know so well from modern television shows are largely non-existent; for instance, a fingerprint check takes 2 weeks. There are no computers (the desks are instead piled with paper), no mobile phones, and no one stops the superior from lighting up in a hospital room where the patient is on life support!

It is an interesting, if somewhat terrifying (especially given the clothes), thought to wonder what it would be like to wake up in 1973. Something I feel I'll be pondering over the next few days.

David E. Kelly is apparently working on doing an American version of this. I'm a fan of 'Ally McBeal' and 'Boston Legal' but I'm not sure the quirky characters that make those shows so interesting will work for this. But then, maybe the literally hard hitting superior cop is quirky enough as is.

"Magic" Music

Eight years ago, I had a powerful cleansing experience when I went to see Gary Numan at the Fenix. I went to the concert with Alex, who is friends with the Sirius comics folks who were involved in the tour, which featured 'Dawn' a rerelease of a 1994 Numan album with artwork from one of their artists. Here's some of what I wrote about it:

"I had a great time. The concert was good and fun and nostalgic. I felt like I did after my smudging; at peace with myself and the world.

Part of it might have been that the air was 90% cigarette smoke (75% of that clove cigarette smoke), 2% incense, 2% cannabis, 4% sweat/actual cologne, 1 1/2% alcohol, and maybe 1/2% oxygen. I figure the second hand smoke was the equivalent to a pack of cigarettes."

I wish now I'd written more about it, about how the air and the crowd and the company and the music, especially the song 'Magic', altered my perception, taking me to a place where I could feel old pains, secret fears, old regrets, lingering doubts all just melt away. It really was Magic.

My Property Management Company

I decided this morning that my property management company's customer service philosophy is that of a French fastfood worker who doesn't care. At least that's the way I tend to feel after I have any interaction with them, and why I tend to just do things myself rather than deal with them.

I called up last week and left a message (because they tend to only be in when I'm working or otherwise occupied) since several of the cupboard doors in my apartment (kitchen and bathroom) were loose and the light in my kitchen had gone out (the bulb blew when I turned it on that night). I labeled the cupboard doors with hot pink PostIt notes with the word 'loose' written on them. Two days later I come home after dark and, only because I need to wash a dish or something that gets me to turn on the range light in the kitchen, find that I've been left a note from a maintenance worker, who chained together the aforementioned PostIt notes to write the message "We do not provide lightbulbs per Management". The bathroom cupboard's PostIt remained.

So, I call up the management company and leave a message informing that the bathroom cupboard was missed and asking the following two questions:

1) Why didn't they call me when they got my maintenance request and let me know that they didn't supply lightbulbs so I could have gotten them earlier? and

2) Since I'm 5' 2" and have nothing to stand on to let me access the kitchen light (which was taken down and left in pieces on the counter) could someone put in a lightbulb for me if I got one)?

Then I said "Please call me tomorrow AT WORK" and left the number. I felt a little badly for having stressed at work so much, but my experience was that they would call me at home anyways. Sure enough, the following night I got home and there was a message from the management company letting me know that they didn't provide lightbulbs and never had, and that they needed me to call to give permission for the maintenance man to come in a attend to the missed cupboard. I actually screamed at the machine having been so utterly frustrated in my requests/questions.

I still haven't called back, but Friday when I got home the PostIt in the bathroom was on the counter top with a note saying 'Done' on it. Sadly, the maintenance man had failed to straighten the door before tightening the hinge, so it still appears loose. One of the many things I'm going to bring up in my next call to the management company. *sigh*

NetFlix and Veronica Mars

My two-week free trial to NetFlix ended yesterday. You may note that those two weeks correspond directly to my lack of postings (I got my first DVDs the day before my last post). I've spent most of the trial mainlining 'Veronica Mars,' Season 1, as well as watching the first disk of 'Battlestar Galactica,' Season 1.

I started watching 'Veronica Mars' well into the first season last year. Despite not really knowing what was going on, I found the show compelling enough to keep at it, resorting to asking friends about certain, more vital points. The last DVD is sitting unopened, waiting. Soon. Very soon. I've probably seen these episodes, but this time, they'll probably make a lot more sense.

[Of course, tonight is the second to the last episode of the 2nd season, which is all coming back to season one stuff.]

BSG is a fav of Justin, who insisted I watch it. It's also compelling but oddly, despite the space setting, more real than VM, dealing with a basic day-to-day struggle for life. It's almost too depressing to watch, but I'm going to keep at it. I'm hooked.

The First Day of Summer

Today is the first day of summer (with the Summer Soltice being Midsummer).

Sadly, the thing that comes to mind when I think of summer starting is the Country Time lemonade commercial about summer being 91 days long this year. It didn't make me want to drink Country Time (but, of course, I'd already tried it by the time I'd seen the ad), but it did make me think about summer as a day count.

91 days. 92 by my count: 31 in May, 30 in June, 31 in July, but the seasons are more or less 91 days (91*4=364). 13 weeks. 3 months.

The days are already almost as long as they will get, but they will be like this for the next 91 days. 91 days of summer to enjoy the daylight and the warmth (or heat, depending upon where you live).

I guess I'm just trying to say what Ferris Bueller already said better: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." Same goes for summer.

Enjoy!