From Oscar to Alaska

Feb 23

Ian, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Glenn, Rita, Mary, Ray, Bob, Andy

Another nomad returns to the fold: after Libby last week it was Glenn, fresh from the surgeon's knife. about 25lbs lighter but happily claiming the procedure and its aftermatch were virtually pain-free. He was made to walk around just a few hours after coming round from the anaesthetic, and left hospital a mere five days later. Thanks to modern surgery, a triple bypass has become almost a routine op - and Glenn said one of the other patients had had a sextuple bypass. Amazing. But since he has been out, the old remedies have kicked in: regular exercise and a strict diet, which had him eating salmon tonight. But it's driving him nuts that he can't drive: the saintly Rita is his chauffeuse.
They said how thankful they were that they had an HMO health insurance policy, which covered them totally for the $96,000 that the hospital stay cost, BEFORE the surgeon's and anaesthetist's fees.
'I'd have been in a hotel room in the Huntington if we had had a PPO,' said Glenn, 'but we couldn't have afforded the 20% deductible.'
Being the night after the Oscars, the annual shebang was much trawled over with the help of Mary, who kindly brought her program for us all to peruse, with a sheaf of instructions on the night such as having to have a driver's license or passport to pass the ID checks. The general opinion was that the TV show was better than usual: at least they tried a few new ideas.
That led us into a wider discussion of movies and a trip down memory lane to the days when we used to see a B movie, maybe a cartoon or two and a newsreel before the main feature - often all shown continuously so you could turn up when you liked and just stay until you said 'This is where we came in'.
You can do something like that now at the multiplexes, because one ticket can let you flit from screen to screen and see several movies for your money. I've never done that, but I've often been tempted.
'But multiplexes have killed the movies,' intoned Bob, 'because they have allowed films to become bloated beyond audience endurance. Because multiplexes can play the same film on dufferent screens, a film can start every half hour without regard to running time. In a single screen set up, running time was a consideration because you need to get so meny screenings in per day to bring in enough dough to keep the doors open. Now it doesn't matter if a picture is 14 reels long, because it can play in three or five theaters in a multiplex and achieve the needed number of showings. Directors become self-indulgent and shoot extra footage--that extra footage costs money (sometimes as much as 40% below the line) and very few stories are worth the kind of screen time the extra footage entails. That is why mutiplexes have ruined the movies.'
The LA Times pointed out that the nominated titles for Best Picture had taken around $200m so far, but in 2003 the comparable figure was over $600m - a significant decline, not helped by the fact that there's just so much more grabbing our attention, from DVDs to Facebook.
Bob is a recent adherent Facebook in order, so he admitted, to generate publicity for his various projects. I suggested he put create a Facebook Group for Cinecon, which would make it much more interactive than at present. I also repeated my plea to be allowed to start a Rollo Fan Club, and I can reveal that Regina has - after consulting the peerless hound - agreed. I've started preparations already.
As often happens, one of the most interesting tales emerged right at the end, when nearly everyone else had gone home. Andy told us some of his exploits as a lawyer in Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, with no electricity, no running water, no locally grown vegetables (too cold for them to survive), no restaurants, no libraries, no telephone - just hiking, fishing, listening to a crackly radio and praying that the ship delivering supplies is not blocked by ice.

CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
The only people who come up to me in restaurants are three-year-old kids
What happens when you pass your old age?
If you have yr face lifted any more you'll have a goatee
I was a piccallily, not a piccaninny.
You have to have a god complex to be a surgeon
The camera just loves people with small bodies and big heads: don't ask me why.
If you can survive a Conrads dinner, you must be feeling ok