Being sick is never fun. Being sick in a foreign country is challenging. Being sick and alone in a foreign country has to top all of that. Throw in the fact that it is Christmas and you have the perfect storm.
As I was lying in my hotel bed, channel surfing, trying not to die, my good friend Jason reached out to check on me. As we were chatting, he said I needed to write another entry, but then stated “good luck writing anything funny when you are sick.” Well my friend challenge accepted.
Something I learned whilst being ill in Singapore. Never underestimate the value of television! It is the great equalizer. It can entertain you, inform you, pass time and give you great knowledge and enlightenment. Singaporean television certainly hits all those markers. It is a combination of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Indian, British and American television. On one channel I can watch a great Bollywood movie and on the very next I can see how trump is destroying the universe. I learned that the new US tax plan is horrible for the American economy but also an unfair advantage to US companies. Huh? So it’s bad for us but really good for us to the point it’s unfair? Does BBC not have an editor that watches this dribble? Try some cohesiveness in message perhaps? It’s good. It’s bad. I have no idea but pick one and go with it!
So I’m back to the Bollywood channel. Have you ever watched a 6 hr movie where all they do is sing and dance in the forest? Apparently that is what every single movie produced in mumbai does. I even saw an Indian gentleman catch a bullet in his teeth whilst signing and dancing in the forest. How can a billion and a half people watch this with a straight face? I have seen Univision telenovellas with better story lines. Good thing there are some beautiful woman. I shall watch a little longer.
As I tire of the women not teaching me the Kama sutra or anything useful I continue on in my channel surfing. Russian news network. Interesting. Perhaps I will learn of how Putin won the election for trump? Maybe there will be insight in how Hillary sold all of our uranium to Russia? Nope. I only hear of the greatness of Putin. The man plays concert piano. Is that Chopin? He rides horses bareback. He is like an 11th level black belt. I’m starting to love this guy. Maybe it’s the fever talking but how can you not like a guy that does all that, dates super models and runs the world? He is like the person Kim Jong Un portends to be. Maybe putin did play a round of golf once and shoot an 18? He could be the one, true dear leader??
My new found love for a ruthless dictator aside, I figured perhaps there was something better on down the line. Next stop. Japanese tv. Well I think it was Japanese. Who else has anime cartoons where half the people are some type of squid man/woman and everything seems to fade into and out of some fight between a super hero and a squid man. I waited to see if Godzilla would show up and stomp on Tokyo, thus confirming my theory that it was Japanese tv, but alas Godzilla must be hanging out with Putin because he never showed.
Wait how about that for a Russian tv show?Godzilla vs Putin? He could wrestle him shirtless, while riding bareback on a horse and just as Godzilla is about to stomp the kremlin he defeats him with his patented Putin karate chop! Thus preserving mother Russia. I can see it now. Played on every channel throughout Russia. Can I get a producer credit?
Japanese television was no longer holding my interest. What’s next. Chinese? Korean? Both channels have nothing but people talking to other people. No hot ladies. No dear leader. Just weird dialogue with a little snippet about ice fishing in northern Manchuria. Well I think that is what they were doing, either that or the Chinese love to stand around, frozen, staring down a hole in the snow. I never saw a fish but what the hell else could they be doing? It looked cold and as I was already shivering from fever chills. Nope.
Finally, we were down to American channels. English. History channel. Discovery channel. National Geographic. Now we are talking! I can surely find something to keep my mind off of being deathly ill, alone and experiencing Christmas from this hotel bed. Maybe a show about monkeys or animals of Asia or something educational. Not a chance. When did those channels become about building motorcycles and selling things at pawnshops? Whatever happened to watching the lion take down a giraffe? Now I have to watch a fat guy eat his burger while complaining about his family not giving him a chance in business? What the hell? Maybe we can take him and let him survive a week in the Serengeti?
Now that is a reality show that discovery should run. I can see it now. Having spent a week w no food and water chumly goes for a kill. He sneaks on his ever shrinking belly closer and closer. Only to be denied by a pride of lions! As they take down his kill. Chumly is upset and decides to tape his side interview so he can complain that the jungle is unfair and he “deserved” that kill. The lions, ever upset he is bagging on them decide He is an easy target and they go for his throat. The show is over. I would watch that! Again. Producer credit!
What else do we have in American television. Ahhh movie channels. Dear lord please don’t let it be Christmas movies! Oh no. It’s worse. It’s a Disney marathon! If I wanted to watch people sing and dance in the woods I already had the Bollywood channel! Damnit! Well I guess when you are a beggar you cannot be choosy. Cinderella it is.
As I’m watching the 200th retake on this Disney classic I come to a sobering conclusion. When I got married, I thought I was marrying Cinderella. The loving. Kind beautiful woman. But I didn’t. I married the evil stepsister with the diabolical mother! Omg. Where is the movie about the poor soul that gets the stepsister and not Cinderella? Oh yeah. That movie is called my life.
As I watched the prince decline the marriage w the princess, the one with the huge armies they needed so that he could marry for true love, all I could think of was “oh dude. Bad move!!”. As soon as she gets home she will roll her big ass army out on your kingdom. Murder your citizens and kill you and the princess as she dissolved your kingdom into hers. Alas, they don’t go that far. They end the movie. “They lived happily ever after”. My ass. For how long? We all know that crazy princess was not gonna be snubbed like that and go home to her daddy upset and he wasn’t gonna do something about it. “He turned me down Daddy”!! With the king responding. “Nobody turns down my baby! Hold my Beer and send out the armies!” Cinderella’s head would have been on a stake in the castle walls in a week! I think Disney should hire me to help them with their movies. They are just giving people a false sense of reality!
Next up. Snow White! Be careful mr prince. Just walking up to some girl and kissing her while she sleeps is a bit too Harvey weinstien for this day and age. She may slap a harassment suit on your ass. And wait. Why can’t she get with the midgets? Err dwarves. They aren’t good enough for her? That dwarf in game of thrones is always getting with hot women why can’t dopey or sneezy? I mean Doc has a good job he could be an option for her. By not entertaining the potential dwarf love is Disney being prejudiced? Perhaps they will be picketed by the little people that are now on the discovery channel telling me about their lives??
I am beginning to think that perhaps Disney has missed the boat on my writing genius and should call me. I could correct where they went wrong on all these movies. Maybe it’s the sickness talking but Cinderella ending w her head on a stick and Snow White suing the kingdom for sexual assault, Now we are talking about good movies! I even know a good lawyer that will take her case. But then again she is an evil step sister.
So Jason. As I am alternating between bone shattering chills and lost in the desert, so hot I cannot breath, fever. Was I able to make you laugh? Dilly Dilly!
bgjflyer 