medical shows and me

i've been watching a lot of medical tv shows lately, and it has started me thinking about two things:
1) i've amassed quite a collection of medical vocabulary and dialogue
2) i've become impressively desensitized to things like blood and guts

before i start, i should really stress just how many of these hospital shows i've seen and consequently become addicted to. the medical show genre in and of itself is a fairly compelling one to me, and most of them are similar enough to each other that when you find yourself engrossed in one, it's pretty easy to get pulled into another.

for me, it started out simply enough. there was an 'er' marathon on tv not too long ago, and of course i tuned in, mostly because i find it easier to concentrate for long periods of time when there's some sort of noise in the background. anyway, i realized how long it had been since i had seen the show, and i instantly remembered how much i loved it when it was on. when the marathon was finished, i decided i was not finished watching people get cut open, get treated for crazy diseases or die in impressive accidents. naturally, i popped 'grey's anatomy' into my dvd player, and the rest is history. i went through 'er,' 'grey's,' 'private practice,' 'house,' 'scrubs,' even those now-cancelled shows like 'doogie howser' and 'northern exposure.' i knew it was bad when i started really scraping the bottom of the barrel with 'mercy' and 'trauma.'

this brings me to thing 1. watching all these shows, i have become far more conversant in medical vocabulary than is natural for an advertising major such as myself.

i know all the acronyms and shortened words like AMA (against medical advice), CBC (complete blood count), DNR (do not resuscitate), NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit), GCS (Glascow Coma Score), PVC (Premature Ventricular Contraction), SVT (Supra Ventricular Tachychardia), V-Fib (Ventricular Fibrillation), and so much more. but then again, most people know these things.

through continued viewership, i have learned what it is the doctors are actually doing when they perform things like angioplasties (inserting a catheter with a balloon tip to open up an artery), intubations (inserting a tube down a patient's throat to help them breathe), crikes (cutting open the throat, putting a tube directly in the throat when intubation won't work), lavages (basically washing out an organ to get rid of bacteria), pericardiosenteses (inserting a syringe into the pericardium to drain any fluid that has collected there) thoracotomies (opening the chest to get directly to the heart in order to massage it back to life if the patient is in asytole, or flatlining).

i can comprehend what a doctor means when they diagnose a patient with most things, such as cystic fibrosis, edema, encephalopathy, hyperkalemia, nephropathy... all sorts of things. i know the symptoms for the more common diseases and conditions, i know what most commonly-used drugs are for, and i know what most medical instruments do. i know i'm not actually a doctor, but i think it's more intriguing to watch hospital shows when i know what the characters are talking about.

given that i'm so engrossed by all these shows, i guess thing 2 comes as no surprise. my blood and guts tolerance level is pretty stratospheric. not only can i handle lots of the explicit medical stuff, i'm genuinely disappointed when i feel a show could have been more gratuitous with the organs spilling out of bodies and blood spattering all over the place.

the only thing, by way of explanation, that i can really equate this idea to is a coffee drinker who drinks so much coffee that after a while 3 spoonfuls of grounds doesn't provide much of a caffeine jolt anymore, so they start adding 5 spoonfuls of grounds. it's like most shows are that pot of coffee with 3 spoonfuls of coffee grounds, but i've watched so much of it that in order to be really shocked, i need the 5-spoonful show.

i'm sure a lot of this has come from violent movies, too. the average person is exposed to a crazy amount of violence on tv and film, but those of us who actually seek out the 'zombielands' and the 'texas chainsaw massacres' of cinema operate on a whole different level. watching 'kill bill: vol. 1' with a friend of mine whose preferred genre of entertainment generally involves a 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl, hilarity ensues, girl forgives boy' plot line, i realized not everyone is like me.

intense hospital shows definitely share the credit in differentiating the quentin tarantinos from the hannah montanas of the world, and that might be part of the reason i love them so much.

how 'lost' has ruined me

i, like millions of americans, can't get through a week without watching 'lost.' i'm so deeply addicted, i never really stop theorizing, and i can tie almost any conversation somehow back to the show. everyone i know who starts watching it has sort of the same reaction i did in the beginning: torn between exhilaration because it's such a great show and the realization that from now on, nothing else will really compare.

us 'lost' fans could actually more aptly be described as lunatics. we know all about the ridiculous mythology behind the show and can offer multiple theories as to what the hell is going on. during the show's hiatus, we watch our way through the whole series, again. in the five or so minutes immediately after a new episode has aired, all that occupies our minds is how we're going to make it from 9 p.m. on wednesday all the way to 8 p.m. the following wednesday. like i said, lunatics.

what is it about this show? it probably has something to do with all those unknown questions and answers. each episode, they answer just enough questions to keep us all from spontaneously exploding due to thinking too hard, while at the same time posing a slew of new questions sure to keep us all puzzling for however long they want to keep us hanging. it could be that the writers seem to be unaware that cliffhangers are not, in fact, the only conceivable manner in which to end an episode.

my theory is that 'lost' is so complex and confusing and thoroughly compelling, it actually teaches us lessons and almost imperceptibly changes our outlooks. while we all agonize over the things we don't know, we don't really realize all that we do know because of the show. here, then, are a few things, deep or shallow, constructive or otherwise, that i have learned from watching 'lost.'

- there will always exist a dichotomy between science and faith. if the exploits of jack shepard and john locke have taught us anything, people will always argue about this issue, and nobody will ever find the definitive correct answer.

- never trust anyone. this might be more detrimental than constructive. i say this because after trusting and then getting burned by henry gale/benjamin linus, charles widmore and various bit characters like that guy who turned kate in to pay his mortgage, i became pretty paranoid about trusting just about everyone, especially those who are all mysterious, like richard and juliet. i'm needlessly suspicious, to the point where i'm glad my life is nowhere near as complicated as this show, because if i had to work this hard deciding who to trust in my own life, i'd probably be an agoraphobic hermit living under a rock somewhere.

- if you're a fugitive on the lam, always pay in cash and use aliases. all the cop-dodging tips i've picked up from kate's story line wouldn't ever help in my actual life, because i don't plan on killing my father and setting my house on fire, but it is kind of entertaining to know some of these things. i know how long it takes for a phone trace to work, i know how to forge a passport (theoretically), and i know that i would never commit a crime, mainly because i would be a terrible fugitive.

- there is always another way to look at the situation. i learned this mostly after a large majority of my 'oh my god how could it be any other way' theories didn't even come close to panning out. the creative thinking i've had to apply to all my 'lost' theories has actually come in handy in real-life scenarios, though. if i'm stuck on a problem, i can do a better job of stepping outside the situation and dreaming up a different way to approach it. as a result, i honestly think i've become more creative. also, my 'lost' theories have been getting steadily more far-fetched as i learn that the writers always come up with the one scenario i never imagined.

so there it is, good people. even though 'lost' has indubitably ruined me for other shows, especially dramas, i love being ruined. i love the convoluted plot lines, i know the intricacies of the characters and the mythology, and i can't get enough of any of it. while i will admit that it is fairly indecipherable for newer viewers, those like me love it not only because of what we haven't figured out yet, but also because of what we've learned from it.

a rumination on the adapted screenplay

i have a theory. generally speaking, the movie is never quite as good as the book. actually, i should amend my theory and say that a movie can never really reach the standard set by the book, unless you haven't read the book.

being an individual who reads a lot of books and sees a lot of movies, i can say fairly definitively that an adapted film, however poor the quality of the adaptation, appears better if you haven't read the source material.

take 'into the wild.' it's a heartwarming story with breathtaking scenery, and no one seemed to be able to say a bad thing about it. no one except me, that is. i had already read the book, and while admittedly i was on the fence about it, i couldn't believe how disappointed i was in the movie. i could see how people enjoyed it, but knowing what it could have been like, i couldn't stop thinking about what an awful adaptation it was. 'the devil wears prada' was the same way. i'm secure enough to admit that i really liked the book, and i guess the movie was fine, but there was just something missing. lost in translation, maybe. no wonder j.d. salinger wouldn't let anyone adapt his books into movies. i can't imagine how strongly i'd feel about 'the catcher in the rye,' my favorite book, being brought to the big screen in a way any other than how i imagine it.

of course, on the other end of the spectrum for me was 'the lord of the rings' series. i saw the movies when they came out, but i hadn't read tolkien's books. despite the one of my friends who had read the books telling me i was missing things, i still loved the epic story line and the fantastical characters. i wanted a horse like shadowfax, i could recite the inscription on the one ring and i was confident that i could find my way around middle earth, but when i tried to read the books, i got lost. even though the movies are all 2+ hours, they had cut a lot of the plot out. i was trying to follow the plot of the movie while reading the book, even though i had already lost interest because i knew what would happen. i guess the idea there is that once you've seen the movie, it's hard to go back and read the book, knowing the ending when you start. i do still love the movies, even though readers of the books assure me they're nowhere near as satisfying.

another unsatisfying experience? seeing people pick up a truly phenomenal book like 'harry potter,' simply because the movie is popular. i'm sure this is how my friend felt about me and 'the lord of the rings,' but it bothers me when people want to jump on the bandwagon just for the sake of being on it, not because they like the material. these are the people who do what i did with tolkien's books; they read the first 50 pages, lose interest, and then pretend they're just as knowledgeable and devoted to the series as those of us who have been around since day one. maybe i'm just a snob, but i feel like this whole idea cheapens the experiences of people like my little sister, who honestly loves the series, and was trick-or-treating dressed as draco malfoy long before most of these people had even heard of him.

all right, off my soap box, and on to...

... those special cases, like 'the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy." i saw the movie before i read the book, and thought it was fantastic. the characters were interesting, the plot was charmingly far-fetched but accessible, and it starred that guy from the british version of 'the office.' what's not to love? as it turns out, the only people i knew who had also loved it were the same people who hadn't read douglas adams' book. those who had read the book had all the same complaints i had about 'into the wild' and 'the devil wears prada,' and insisted that if i liked the movie, the book would blow me away. well, blow me away it did. even considering that the ending was already spoiled, i was so thoroughly engrossed, i read the rest of the books in the series as fast as i could. once i ran out of books, i figured i'd go back and watch the movie, and before i knew it, my opinion had changed. now, i'm one of those people who can't watch the movie without wishing i was reading the book instead.

the moral of the story? whether or not you've read the book, i feel fairly confident in saying that it's better than the movie. sure, our perceptions of a film may be different based on whether or not we've read the source material, but that doesn't change the quality of either. as much as i love movies, sometimes it's hard to beat your own imagination.

a kind of funny thing...

while this anecdote doesn't exactly offer anything significant, it is kind of interesting... at least to me.

first, we have 'ferris bueller's day off.' remember how principal rooney guesses (correctly) that ferris has skipped school, so he goes around to all the places he assumes a high school kid would go to play hooky? so rooney walks into an arcade, sees someone who, from behind, looks remarkably like a 1986-era matthew broderick, then says "les jeux sont faits. translation: game is up. your ass is mine!" at which point a lady who also looks remarkably like a 1986-era matthew broderick turns around and spits her drink in his face. awesome.

then, we have 'casablanca,' arguably one of the best movies of all time. there's this scene in rick's cafe, in the casino, and you can hear the man at the roulette table say "les jeux sont faits." and bam! from 'ferris bueller's day off,' of all movies, you know that he's saying "game is up," which can mean either "your ass is mine" or "we can all start playing roulette now."

now, wasn't that kind of cool?

an exploration of the epic soundtrack

so i lost my keys yesterday. this wouldn't be such a big deal to me if all i cared about was the hollywood video card on my key ring, but without my keys i can't get into my building, let alone my apartment. faced with potential homelessness, i can't even tell you how far video rentals were from my mind.

anyway, i told you this story so i could raise a point about movie soundtracks. in movies, whenever something monumental happens, a really great soundtrack seems to multiply it into something epic. take '500 days of summer,' for example, in that sene where joseph gordon-levitt has just slept with zooey deschanel for the first time. we're all already happy for him, but when hall & oates' 'you make my dreams' starts playing, i'm willing to admit that i go from being happy for him to feeling downright exultant. why? because the song is an absolutely perfect way to amplify the situation.

another perfect example? in sergio leone's 'the good, the bad and the ugly,' ennio morricone transforms a film that would otherwise be mostly about the desert into one of the best films ever made. toward the end, clint eastwood, lee van cleef and eli wallach are standing in the middle of a cemetery in a mexican standoff. the camera starts on a wide shot of the three of them, then switches to close-ups of each man, going around in a circle, getting tighter and tighter until all you can see is their eyes. this scene might be just a time-filler in any other movie, but the score holds your attention and somehow guides your focus to every little eye twitch and finger movement. i'm sure real mexican standoffs are nowhere near this exhilarating.

moments like that in movies are totally great, but i'm here to assure you that it doesn't work like that in real life. i can say with 115% certainty that when i realized i didn't have my keys, the last thing i wanted was music playing in the background, amplifying the situation. maybe it would be a different story if it were something more exciting that had happened to me. i might even change my mind if ever there were an absolutely game-changing scene in a movie where the lead character lost his keys and through a rousing montage set to a stirring soundtrack, he was able to soldier bravely on to eventually... find them.

until a scene like that actually occurs, i will not expect music to in any way ameliorate the crappy situations in my own life, but i will continue to immensely enjoy all those extraordinarily scored scenes out there that can... scenes like that one in 'the sound of music' where julie andrews sings about having confidence in order to summon the courage to face her duties as a governess. by the time the song is over, she has boosted my own confidence level to the point where i feel like i could conquer any challenge, like getting into my apartment.

the holy grail, a compilation.

the davinci code, indiana jones and the last crusade, monty python and the holy grail... what do these movies have in common?

one is a mostly crappy adaptation of a pretty good book made crappy by, among other things, the total miscasting of tom hanks as the lead; one is a fairly mediocre third installment of a really great movie redeemed only by the presence of sean connery; and one is a masterpiece of british comedy with a permanent place in my awesome movies hall of fame.

the one thing tying all these films together is the central theme of the holy grail. i love these movies, because the search for the elusive grail always makes for a plot rife with delicious historical inaccuracy. if you believe these movies, which were incidentally the first three grail-related movies that came to mind, the holy grail could come in one of three forms: an ornate and poorly animated golden cup, a plain wooden carpenter's goblet, or audrey tatou as a direct descendant of christ.

given this fairly obvious discrepancy between the films' ideas of where to find the holy grail, i feel like this would be a good time to point out that we can't take movies in general too seriously, we can just mock them for the aforementioned delicious historical inaccuracy. i mean, has anyone seen 'the league of extraordinary gentlemen?' it doesn't get any worse than that in the realistic representation of the past department. but i digress.

watching the davinci code, i've learned a lot about grail mythology- or, should i say, grail mythology as told by dan brown. i can now hold a somewhat intelligent conversation about things like the council of nicea, the symbols of the masculine and the feminine... even several underground societies that may or may not exist.

the ironic thing to me is that while the davinci code clearly goes deep into grail mythology, it's movies like indiana jones and monty python that show the more classic interpretations of the holy grail itself. all i know about the holy grail from watching indiana jones is that if you read the bible carefully enough you can construct a map that will lead you to a cave where there are a bunch of grails guarded by a really old dude, and you'll be letting sean connery die unless you pick the correct grail.

now, one of the situations i make a point to avoid involves being in control of whether or not the greatest james bond ever lives or dies. in the spirit of leaving indiana jones to handle james bond's fate, i choose monty python to guide my expectations of the holy grail. through the process of elimination, i choose to wholeheartedly believe that the grail is in a cave somewhere guarded not by a really old dude, but by an inquisitive man on a rickety bridge, a killer rabbit and the knights who say 'ni.'

bring on the shrubberies, the holy hand grenades and the swallows, both african and european. in my opinion monty python may not impart much wisdom, but it's definitely the most entertaining of the holy grail-centric movies out there.

how to hotwire a car

ah, the first tidbit. it came to mind first because i was watching 24 last night, and realized just how many times jack bauer has had to hotwire a car to get out of one bad situation after another. consequently, i now have a theoretical knowledge of how to start a car, no key required. keys are for weaklings.

how to hotwire a car in three easy steps, or how i learned from ctu agent jack bauer:
step one: use your elbow to break the driver's side window so you can unlock the door from the inside
step two: yank out the panel underneath the steering wheel, exposing all those wires
step three: find the red wire and the yellow wire, twist them together like twist-ties
now the car should be running.

not that i've had the chance to test this knowledge, because i don't have a car and my buddies won't let me try on theirs, go figure. but there it is, now you know.

to give you a general idea...

hello, world!

considering this is my first post of my first blog, i'm going to go ahead and assume that the millions of blog subscribers out there are all hanging on my every word, demanding an explanation as to the nature of this particular blog. who am i to disappoint?

good question. i'm adel johnson, an advertising student at columbia college in chicago. i was that ironic kid in high school who skated by on the minimum amount of effort possible and still managed all a's, but at the same time cared about my grades, perhaps at a level disproportionate to the amount of effort i expended. as a result, disappointment isn't really my thing, so i'll just get to the point.

i grew up reading great books, all the way from the kids' books to the more serious classic literature. i love reading, not only because of the fantastic stories, but also because of everything i can learn from reading a book. same goes for watching movies and television. i'd say i watch way more movies and tv than the average person, and combined my sometimes overactive imagination and memory, i've amassed quite a collection of information, references and trivia.

think of everything we glean from books, movies and tv. learning new words, collecting random pieces of useless trivia, even storing away random life lessons learned from our favorite characters and classic story lines.

this brings me to the subject of the blog.

in my somewhat insignificant yet respectable 20 years on earth, i've gathered a decidedly significant amount of information from books, movies and television. i will be writing to you about how everything i know, i've learned from these media. i'm sure everyone in cyberspace is simply brimming with anticipation and dying to know what it is i have to say, so here it is:

this is, collectively, what i have learned from books, movies and tv.