Last week I was sick. I was not going to make a post during my bout of viral pinkeye. Instead I watched an inordinate amount of two television programs:
Celebrity Ghost Stories and
I Survived.... Both shows are made by the
Bio network and are remarkably similar in structure. These shows take little effort to watch and follow, so it was like crack to me during my illness.
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| John Waters on Celebrity Ghost Stories |
The format of
Celebrity Ghost Stories is a one-sided interview with four B to D range celebrities (think dancing with the stars
dancers, VH1 celebriality stars, and surprisingly, nearly the entire cast of the Sopranos). While the celebrity tells their tale of dealing with the paranormal, blurry quickly-cut footage of people who have their matching hair color, reenact the scene. They make scenes from the past or other countries look vaguely accurate, but one can tell it's probably all shot in willing crew-member's property, and the director uses as many diversions as possible. It appears that each reenactment only uses about three minutes of actual footage. The editor loves repeating shots to add emphasis, jiggling photographs of people dressed like ghosts. The best time-eating trick is to nearly explain the whole story over again after every single commercial break.
The show is not scary or creepy to any degree, but it is really entertaining. Every couple of episodes you get a gem, like
David Carradine,
John Waters,
Dave Foley,
Tracy Nelson, or
Daniel Stern.
Stories like theirs keep you sloshing through the muck. The muck is tall tales about entire buildings disappearing, drops in temperature, and departed loved ones saying hello. The aforementioned gems have more layers, history, evidence, terror. Good. Clean. Fun.
Similarly,
I Survived... is a one-sided interview with three ordinary people who have survived horrific events. In this scenario, there are no reenactments and only a few still photographs that I can assume are never from the actual scenes. A friend suggested I watch
I Survived... as therapy to help with my sensitivity to blood.
I Survived... was not difficult for me to watch, but it did help me gain perspective on almost dying (and every episode has at least one person getting their throat slit). Since there are no reenactments, just the person talking, there is nothing to close your eyes over. You just cringe and take it.
On the other hand, the recounting of the events is told in such a mater-of-fact way, some of the bloodiest moments have the wind knocked out of them. Maybe it's just their way of coping, and remembering, or that they were in such shock they just didn't feel the pain. While a woman says here attacker's first move was to cut her in the arm, I'm thinking "That's it, that's the wost part". But he actually kidnaps and rapes her for 24 hours, and the fact that she was cut in the arm is never mentioned again. I guess my worst fears are not as crucial in the big picture. It is also depressing as hell. It's a good show to share a cathartic moment with yourself. I subjected myself to hours of these moments.
By what I've said it's obvious you don't actually need to watch the shows closely to get the gist. Listen to it like old time radio... but you'll find yourself needing the shitty ghost footage or a photograph of the bloody hairbrush having the
Tim Burns kicked out of it.
It sounds like I hate these shows. Really, I just don't respect them too much. I have fun with them, but we both know we can never have what
Breaking Bad and I have.
The truth is, I watched such a marathon of
Celebrity Ghost Stories, Hulu asked me to take a break. I wish I had thought to take a screen shot of this pop-up window, but I was all like, never show me this again, no thanks.
On the other hand, the recounting of the events is told in such a mater-of-fact way, some of the bloodiest moments have the wind knocked out of them. Maybe it's just their way of coping, and remembering, or that they were in such shock they just didn't feel the pain. While a woman says here attacker's first move was to cut her in the arm, I'm thinking "That's it, that's the wost part". But he actually kidnaps and rapes her for 24 hours, and the fact that she was cut in the arm is never mentioned again. I guess my worst fears are not as crucial in the big picture. It is also depressing as hell. It's a good show to share a cathartic moment with yourself. I subjected myself to hours of these moments.
Just as a disclaimer, I know it can be annoying to watch full-length movies on YouTube. Rarely are they in one piece, and good luck if you can find all of parts 1 of 8 in a logical order. Don't fret, because for your viewing pleasure, I found the full length version of the 1984 documentary, Style Wars. Directed by Tony Silver, Style Wars follows the graffiti culture of New York City during the early 1980s. The film has a gritty, 70's quality to it, some of it shot in black and white. If you like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, and other movies about NYC before it got cleaned-up, this is for you. It is apparent that everyone is just trying to deal with this chaotic environment. The upright citizens bemoan the graffiti on the trains and lump the graffiti artists with other criminals, while the artists defend their craft, and paint whenever possible despite efforts against them. It is apparent that both sides are victims of their society. 
