Am I a communication hack?
Not long ago, Concha blogged about how much easier life would be as a montage.
(cut to me reading Concha’s blog, laughing, looking off in the distance, fade to Concha and I on the swings in Covent Garden, cut to me all drunk telling Concha I only slept for 10 minutes, quick cut to a still shot of our happy ad school group at my London birthday party, cut back to me reading Concha’s blog, fade to black)
That particular entry raised my consciousness on a habit of mine that over the past 4 to 5 years has gone from infrequent to ridiculously manic levels. I think and speak in movie. It’s maddening and not just for the people on the receiving end. See, not only can I expertly weave in and make relevant the crowd-pleasing favorites, I can also conjur up the obscure, Valerie Bertinelli Oxygen Channel quotes with equal ease. Why won’t they go away? Why could I never remember science things or…math? (I was trying to remember what the things in geometry are called. But my brain’s too full of “Zoolander” quotes and Judith Light cancer scenes to hold such a memory).
What’s more disturbing, though, is that I use entire scenes from movies to convey my feelings in everyday conversation.
Take Valentine’s Day, for example. Someone asked me what I did and I told them I went to Borders after work and perused the new hardback fiction section. As if that wasn’t sad enough I added: “Kinda like in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Remember? When George gets to see what his life would be like if he’d never been born? He sees Mary and she’s a haggard spinster librarian? And he says ‘Don’t ya KNOW me, Mary? It’s George! George Bailey! Your HUSBAND!! ‘ “I’M MARY!’”
Imagine the crowd of co-workers I turned into friends with thatlittle story.
Here’s another one. On roughly day 4 at my new job, a friend asked how things were going at my new job without one of my regular art director wives. The truth is, I liked it (and still do) but I was having that uncomfortable “I haven’t made a lunch buddy” kind of discomfort you often have at a new job. I was missing the familiarity of having a someone like BDH or BLH by my side. So I said, “Remember in ‘Up Close and Personal’ when Michelle Pfeiffer moves to Philadelphia? And they make her color her hair because the viewers told her she’s better as a brunette? There’s this scene where she’s sitting at her desk and she’s, like, SO completely lonely. So she calls Robert Redford just because she needs to hear a familiar, friendly voice, right? But when she talks to him she pretends that everything is OK. It’s kind of like that.” It sounds weird, but it described how I felt perfectly.
It’s sad, really. I fancy myself a (air quotes)“writer” (end air quotes) but often I rely on others to do my dirty communication work for me. Does this mean I’m a poor writer or a poor communicator? Or both? (Don’t answer that please, it’s rhetorical….honesty is such a lonely word. Shit! I did it again! This time with 70s song seepage!)
The truth is, sometimes people just beat you to things. And why waste all that time trying to clue people in to what I’m feeling when someone’s already done it so flawlessly?
Just last week I was watching a “Sex in the City” rerun. The one where Miranda makes Carrie try on a wedding dress in an attempt to calm her fears about getting married. Remember what happens when Carrie puts on the wedding dress? She begins to suffocate, she breaks out in a cold sweat, hives begin appearing on her torso. She makes Miranda rip the dress off her. Watching that, it hit me. That’s exactly how I felt when I fled Seattle to come back to San Francisco. Suffocating. Cannot. Breathe. Get. Me. The. Fuck. OUT. Of. This. CITY!!!!!! I GET it, Carrie! I underSTAND!
It’s sick, this blurring of reality and fiction, not only in my head but in the heads of so many of us these days. It’s as if fiction is directing reality now. People write lies for memoirs but think they’re true. Reality TV stars become celebrities. What’s wrong with all of us? Or is it just me? Too much Diet Coke? Too many lattes? Enlighten me, blogosphere. Please. I need to rekindle my faith in original thought again.
In an odd note of irony, Judith Light appeared as a judge on Law & Order SVU tonight. I saw her AFTER I’d written her into this entry. Did I WILL Judith Light to appear? Or would she have appeared anyway? See what I mean? Fiction….directing reality. Does that mean this blog entry is fiction? Or is it a memoir? Shit, I’m totally confused now.
(cut to me reading Concha’s blog, laughing, looking off in the distance, fade to Concha and I on the swings in Covent Garden, cut to me all drunk telling Concha I only slept for 10 minutes, quick cut to a still shot of our happy ad school group at my London birthday party, cut back to me reading Concha’s blog, fade to black)
That particular entry raised my consciousness on a habit of mine that over the past 4 to 5 years has gone from infrequent to ridiculously manic levels. I think and speak in movie. It’s maddening and not just for the people on the receiving end. See, not only can I expertly weave in and make relevant the crowd-pleasing favorites, I can also conjur up the obscure, Valerie Bertinelli Oxygen Channel quotes with equal ease. Why won’t they go away? Why could I never remember science things or…math? (I was trying to remember what the things in geometry are called. But my brain’s too full of “Zoolander” quotes and Judith Light cancer scenes to hold such a memory).
What’s more disturbing, though, is that I use entire scenes from movies to convey my feelings in everyday conversation.
Take Valentine’s Day, for example. Someone asked me what I did and I told them I went to Borders after work and perused the new hardback fiction section. As if that wasn’t sad enough I added: “Kinda like in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Remember? When George gets to see what his life would be like if he’d never been born? He sees Mary and she’s a haggard spinster librarian? And he says ‘Don’t ya KNOW me, Mary? It’s George! George Bailey! Your HUSBAND!! ‘ “I’M MARY!’”
Imagine the crowd of co-workers I turned into friends with thatlittle story.
Here’s another one. On roughly day 4 at my new job, a friend asked how things were going at my new job without one of my regular art director wives. The truth is, I liked it (and still do) but I was having that uncomfortable “I haven’t made a lunch buddy” kind of discomfort you often have at a new job. I was missing the familiarity of having a someone like BDH or BLH by my side. So I said, “Remember in ‘Up Close and Personal’ when Michelle Pfeiffer moves to Philadelphia? And they make her color her hair because the viewers told her she’s better as a brunette? There’s this scene where she’s sitting at her desk and she’s, like, SO completely lonely. So she calls Robert Redford just because she needs to hear a familiar, friendly voice, right? But when she talks to him she pretends that everything is OK. It’s kind of like that.” It sounds weird, but it described how I felt perfectly.
It’s sad, really. I fancy myself a (air quotes)“writer” (end air quotes) but often I rely on others to do my dirty communication work for me. Does this mean I’m a poor writer or a poor communicator? Or both? (Don’t answer that please, it’s rhetorical….honesty is such a lonely word. Shit! I did it again! This time with 70s song seepage!)
The truth is, sometimes people just beat you to things. And why waste all that time trying to clue people in to what I’m feeling when someone’s already done it so flawlessly?
Just last week I was watching a “Sex in the City” rerun. The one where Miranda makes Carrie try on a wedding dress in an attempt to calm her fears about getting married. Remember what happens when Carrie puts on the wedding dress? She begins to suffocate, she breaks out in a cold sweat, hives begin appearing on her torso. She makes Miranda rip the dress off her. Watching that, it hit me. That’s exactly how I felt when I fled Seattle to come back to San Francisco. Suffocating. Cannot. Breathe. Get. Me. The. Fuck. OUT. Of. This. CITY!!!!!! I GET it, Carrie! I underSTAND!
It’s sick, this blurring of reality and fiction, not only in my head but in the heads of so many of us these days. It’s as if fiction is directing reality now. People write lies for memoirs but think they’re true. Reality TV stars become celebrities. What’s wrong with all of us? Or is it just me? Too much Diet Coke? Too many lattes? Enlighten me, blogosphere. Please. I need to rekindle my faith in original thought again.
In an odd note of irony, Judith Light appeared as a judge on Law & Order SVU tonight. I saw her AFTER I’d written her into this entry. Did I WILL Judith Light to appear? Or would she have appeared anyway? See what I mean? Fiction….directing reality. Does that mean this blog entry is fiction? Or is it a memoir? Shit, I’m totally confused now.
posted by Single, Party of One at 11:08 PM
9 Comments:
Kindred spirits we are, RBrown. At one point most conversations I have with people will involve the phrase "It's like that one time on Friends/Sex and the City/Family Ties...." And now Grey's Anatomy is creeping in there.
And even worse, I'm starting to say "It's like this one blog that I read..."
Nerd alert.
I don't do the movie or TV thing, because once I see something on screen I instantly seem to forget it. I'm a little better with recollection of books, though not much.
Blogs, though -- I'm with tweets -- the things I read in blogs I seem to remember and use in conversation (though with non-bloggers I just say "I know this person that..." rather than try to explain about reading blogs and what they are.)
somebody wise said that, until movies came along, there was no set way for people to behave at certain moments. but, for example, since we see people mourning silently in movies, that's how we're expected to act. hollywood sets expectations.
that being said, check out the cast on this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106688/
If you only knew....UGH move here to LA girl, EVERYONE speaks in movie. I was sitting around trying to be "cool boss" with all my new employees the other day and a girl made this staement and totally acted out what she was saying and I was all "What movie is THAT line from?" (Since everyone talks in movie and I usually never get it) and they all looked at me like I was the most retarded person they knew and the girl said "It's not, I was just being expressive"
Yeah, one Cool-Ass boss over here, that's me.
ok that was REALLY weird cause I was watching scrubs and paused it to read your blog and when i finished it the FIRST sentence after I started it up again was the blond saying to Braff they should go home and watch GREY'S ANATOMY! And then Braff said, "I really like that show, it's like they take what we do in our life and put it on TV." So that's their stab, but still, my god! Did you will THAT to be on TV right after I read your blog? Can I borrow some of that TV Voodoo that you do so well?
thank you very much for the shout out. since you're quoting me, i must be my very own walking movie montage. ahh..
and there's still a place for "writers" like you. it's a little agency down in miami. maybe you've heard of it...
RB - first of all, imitation is the best form of flattery. Second of all, I've made a living out of this, so has one Mary Catherine Gallagher. She best expresses her feeling through lines of dialogue from movies and songs all the time and it really completes her as a person. she'd be lost without it. third of all, it's not unoriginal to relate to movies as a form of expression. it's a part of popular culture and it's what makes you a brilliant writer. this post, which was about you writing about being an unoriginal writer was original. does that make sense? has any one else written about that?
you ahve your own originially girl, sometimes it's hard to see it. especially when you don't have your peeps aroudn you to constantly laught and feed your ego. wish i was there to help with that.
in the meantime, keep on channeling judith krantz. or judith light. or whoever that is....
I said God damn! (ear muffs Bella). For a brain-shrunken mother who's already dealing with a bonafide yet god-given gift of Art Directors short attention span - I'd say you and your communication hack blog is alright. Meaning, if I was able to read the entire friggin thing (including all the posts) and am still around to contemplate...... well > your bloggin (hack or not > NOT) techniques are.....well..... you want the truth? ....................(insert.... "You can't handle the truth" - A Few Good Men) ...... the truth is... your blog is as original as you darlin' - one of a kind baby.
It's ok honey. Embrace your psychotic self....we are all just figments of your imagination anyway and you are in a straightjacket somewhere tripping on some good lithium. Go with it. Oh, and have another diet coke! Maybe they can work that into their next big ad campaign...
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