Elf Sternberg

During my COVID isolation in a three-star hotel in Fort Lauderdale, I found myself doing something I do not ever do. I found myself watching television. Premium mediocre television, but still, television. I watched a few movies on HBO and Cinemax, and even some on commercial television.

Later, I was hospitalized with that COVID. While I was in the hospital I noticed that my roommate perpetually watched the television. He was up all night long, watching the television. My next roommate did the same. They never turned the television off. And when I described that behavior to my mother, she said that she had the television on all day long.

I never turned my TV on; it was broadcast only, taking even the “premium” out of its mediocrity. Omaha was beautiful and brought me my laptop, e-reader, phone, and notebook (and all the relevant chargers, too!). I spent my time reading, researching, and yeah, bragging about my survival and my brief fame as The Bed Whisperer.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, Omaha and I were authorized to fly on different days. So I got home Sunday night, and Omaha was to fly home Monday night. I… I pushed myself waaaaaay too hard Monday night, probably did extra microembolism damage inside my peritoneal cavity, but in some ways it might have actually been worth it. Only my future self will be able to make that judgement.

But in that time, I found myself watching television again. Well, a movie, the last Bond film. And as I did, I asked myself why I was watching television. And the answer was simple: My alters, The Council and the Stable were as sick and fatigued as the rest of me, and none of us could really think well. We were all quiet. Tired.

We don’t want to be lonely.

Omaha and I are still watching television over other activities. It’s fine and passive, and it means we don’t have to move much, risking inflammation. She’s a huge fan of her childhood favorites and we ended up watching Barney Miller, the comedy that, I believe, bridges the gap between Steve McGarret of Hawaii Five-O (a “perfect cop”) and Norman Buntz of Hill Street Blues (a “corrupt cop”). After a few episodes, I realized that over half the “cases” dealt with by Barney Miller and the rest of the 12th Precinct were about lonely people dealing with their loneliness in inappropriate ways.

Some of us cherish our time alone, but none of us want to feel lonely. For those who have no one, television fills the hours with a kind of companionship, a sense that humanity is happening, at least somewhere, and letting you in on it, at least a little bit. I’ve spent a lifetime learning to live with myself, create personas for the thoughts (not really “voices,” not as I understand it) in my head (if they are “voices” as other experience them, mine are all very friendly and helpful, but I cultivated them to be so).

I’m eager to get back to full health, to be capable again, to have Girl Scout, Muse, Code Fairy, DJ Earworm and the rest back at their respective helms (do they have helms? I should ask Muse; she would know). And true to my sages, I must find, now, how to manage the interior loneliness that will come as I get older.

No silence today. There’s always a silence tomorrow. What? Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here! Silence.

"Face it, Elf. You just like women of hearty peasant stock." -- Shemayazi

All I can say is, I really, really want a trio of singing cowboys to announce my evil intentions to the world!

I awoke this morning before everyone else and, having little else to do, snuck down to the TV room and did something I haven't done in months: I channelsurfed. And while engaging in this mindless activity I came across an ancient relic of a happier time as Turner Broadcasting was showing Smokey and the Bear. I had forgotten than once upon a time Burt Reynolds was hot and Sally Field were cute, that Jackie Gleason was talented beyond his years, and that "cool" car stunts with stock engines and no digital enhancements usually consisted of jumps of maybe four or five car lengths. It's not a brainy movie, just one long car chase but well-done and it's obvious that Reynolds, Fields, and Jerry Reed are having a whole lot of fun moving from one scene to the next.

I had to turn it off. The advertisements that interspersed the action were for diabetes medicines, heart medicines, liver medicines, "I've fallen and I can't get up" services and, most disturbing of all, erectile dysfunction treatments. And I'm sitting there thinking, is this my demographic? Is this the population I will have joined when I turn 40 next year? This movie is clearly aimed at me: I was thirteen when it came out and it's all about cars with a little mushy love story somewhere in the middle. I don't want to be one of those people to whom they're selling those drugs, though.

Omaha and I finally sat down last night to watch the first episode of HBO's new hit show, Rome. I've never been big on HBO's internal programming; I watched a few episodes of The Sopranos and thought it was well-written but not for me. OZ was just depressing, and I never even bothered with Deadwood or Six Feet Under (probably because by then my kids were taking up all my spare time).

But Rome intrigued us enough to actually make some time for it. And it was worth it. This version probably does better than any other in showing the way majesty and squalor played out in ancient Rome, and how "keeping the common people happy and subdued" was the number one duty of those in power so that they may stay in power. Because Rome is on pay cable it can actually show much of what has been hidden from view for most of history: the phallic worship that was a part of daily life. Sex grafitti is everywhere and upper-class whores bargain for power as hard as any gladiator.

There's an ahistorical plot involving the theft of Caesar's army standard, but the way its played out is quite well done. The actor who plays Caesar looks both world-weary and imperial, while Pompey is played with restraint. Only the actor who plays Cato is over the top for my taste, but he was supposed to be a pendantic old fart. Brutus is great, and there's this scene where he and Pompey are talking, and Omaha and I turned to each other and said, "I think Brutus has had just a bit too much to drink." Very well-acted.

Atia, Caesar's niece, is a centerpiece character, both because she uses her body to procure her position in Caesar's attention by sleeping with the men around Caesar (and she has a lovely body with which to do it), and because in one scene she kneels, praying for the safety of her son, under a cage where a bull is to be sacrficed, and the blood just courses over her in a gory shower.

But what really sets this apart from every other Rome ever shown are the sets. They're gorgeous, huge (probably digitally matte'd), brutal and unforgiving. Rome is vibrant and messy, beautiful and cramped, alive and squalid all at the same time. Rome isn't a history lesson, but it gives you a feel for the place that just reading The Gallic Wars or any of a dozen history books won't.