A Short List of What I Watched While My Brain Decided it Hated Me

Also: a health update

Marty, Life is Short. Image: Netflix

I’ve been in a unique kind of hell the last few months. Functional, but also not.

If you’re just tuning in, welcome to the latest episode of Eric’s Experience Slowly Becoming an Old. A brief summary: an ocular migraine in October led to frequent headaches and migraines. Also, my ears started ringing and won’t stop, and I have trouble sleeping. I’ve been to my doctor, had a MRI, was tested by an ENT, then a neurologist. The only thing I’ve learned so far is our most qualified professionals are guessing most of the time.¹

The neurologist referred me a physical therapist. He believed my problems are related to posture and my neck, and that perhaps a nerve is pinched and I just need to, like, chill out. I work on a computer all day, and spend a lot of time looking down because when you’re tall, literally everything is below your eye line.

I started PT at the end of May. I got a nasty headache the first day. Progress!?

I wake up most days not knowing what to expect. Which I guess is how most of us live. We make plans and have things to do but there’s always some variety in how it plays out. The difference: my agency is gated not by something normal like chance or procrastination but by a brain that randomly decides to nope out. Emphasis on random.

Case in point: I woke up last Wednesday with a headache. From sleeping. (Sadly, that’s not unusual.) I took Motrin and did my stretches. It got worse. I was supposed to go golfing that afternoon. It wasn’t bad enough that I had to cancel, but the combination of sun + athletic-ish movement threatened to tip the scales. There was a very real possibility I’d have to quit after three holes.

My brain decided it was fine. The headache hung around because of course it did. Didn’t get worse. Didn’t improve. Just lingered, as though to remind me that it could get worse. Like that crotchety lady in Monsters Inc. who kept telling Mike Wazowski she was always watching.

Other days I wake up feeling fine and end up laid out by dinner. Mostly the experience has meant living with the realization that I’m not really in control. Plans become aspirational. I’ve mostly stopped making plans.

I’ve watched a lot of stuff, because watching stuff is about all I can do. Usually that would be good because stuff in = stuff out. I watch something good or bad, and then I write about it. But the headaches took even that away. There were periods where I didn’t have a headache, a few days clear, like an eye in a storm. But I had nothing.

I thought I was missing the want, but that wasn’t it. I wanted to write. I was missing the part of my brain that allows me to come at the work sideways. And without that, I didn’t want to write. I don’t write reviews. I write the kind of stuff that only comes from thinking way too deeply about stuff. The wonder that led to the thinking that led to the writing was gone.

I didn’t self-diagnose this until I was watching something last week and I felt the old impulse stir—hey, why is this like that? I don’t even remember what I was watching, or what triggered the thought. That wasn’t important. Ideas are cheap and plentiful. What was noteworthy was that my brain came alive again in a way it hadn’t for a long time. The reemergence made me realize how quiet my brain had gotten, but it also felt like a bit of sunshine. Maybe the PT is working. Maybe I’m finally coming out of this.

---

Due to this long fallow period (one new piece since March), I’ve comped all paid subscribers 6 additional months. Thanks for sticking it out as I work through this.

---

If you’re curious what one watches when their brain is quiet quitting on them, I’ve got you covered. One thing you quickly realize when you’re not 100% is you don’t want to waste the good shows. There are only so many Hacks out there—there is exactly one Hacks, and now it’s over, and the world is a dark and cold place²—and I don’t want to waste it on a brain that is going to miss the rapid-fire material. At the same time, I don’t want to watch trashy reality TV.

There’s a sweet spot, a very narrow lane I’ve discovered for what ails me: documentaries. I don’t have to worry about worsening my headache due to laughing. I don’t have to worry about following intricate plots. The stories are standalone, typically 90ish minutes or a three-part miniseries. I can zone out and not really miss anything because google is right there.

I’ve always liked documentaries because I love history. Documentaries are like commercials for history, and as a child of the 80s, I approve. There’s a not insignificant wing of my brain reserved for commercial jingles from my childhood. When I die and my life flashes before my eyes, the soundtrack will be comprised of jingles for Mentos, Freedom Rock, Cool Mint Listerine, Big Red, and The Clapper.³

I’m not going to list everything I watched because the list is embarrassingly long, and also because I’d rather highlight the worthwhile stuff in case you end up in a similar, ‘my brain hate me’⁴, situation.

---

Marty, Life Is Short

In this house, Oliver Putnam is the best part of Only Murders in the Building.⁵ So I was immediately interested when this documentary/biopic/delightful nugget popped up. I’ve known of Martin Short since the days of Three Amigos. But I don’t really identify him with anything in particular. I guess probably Only Murders?

My awareness of Martin was basically—ahh, Martin Short, funny guy. I had no idea how much tragedy he’s endured. And somehow he’s still smiling.

A lot of Marty, Life is Short uses home videos Martin shot himself, which makes the entire thing feel intimate and real in a way I haven’t really seen before. As much fun as it is seeing Martin paling around with young(er) versions of Tom Hanks, Catherine O’Hara, and Steve Martin (who eternally looks 50), the beautifully heartbreaking part is how the videos capture a life that’s now gone. Still thinking about this one.

Amy Bradley Is Missing

The thing you quickly discover when perusing Netflix’s documentary category is the options get super dark, super quick. I’d guess something like 75% of them involve someone dying in a gruesome and horrific fashion. Even if you don’t expect it! We watched one reportedly about a girl’s picture tied to a murder mystery, which is like saying Star Wars is a movie about space—technically true but way underselling what it actually is.

It’s interesting; I have zero problems with dark fiction. Like, it doesn’t get in. I can be affected, but it doesn’t linger, if that makes sense. The emotions are real, the people aren’t, I can disassociate from the trauma. But I have no interest in true crime, because that shit is real and I don’t really want to know about it. My wife is the exact opposite. Avoids dark fiction, seeks out the real life stuff. I don’t have a profound observation to share about that, just that it’s curious how we’re the exact opposites on this.

Amy Bradley Is Missing is about a young woman who disappeared on a cruise in the 90s. But the story is more twisty and complicated and tragic than that. It was like watching an actual mystery. Just when you think you have it figured out, a new twist changes everything.

Between this and Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, I’ve decided I will never go on a cruise.

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

I don’t want to say much about this one because the story is WILD. One of those scenarios where truth is stranger than fiction. This story took place just over an hour from where I live. I vaguely remembered hearing something about it on the news, by which I mean: my wife told me about it and I sorta remembered but not enough to spoil the documentary.

A good one to watch if you want to dip your toe into the true crime genre, mostly because nobody dies.

Pepsi: Where’s My Jet?

I actually have a personal story related to this. More in a second.

In the Before Times, companies sometimes incentivized / bribed people into buying their product by offering a proof of purchase redemption scheme, where tokens could be traded for merchandise. I got a William “Refrigerator” Perry G.I. Joe action figure sometime in the last 80s/early 90s by mailing in six cardboard proof of purchase squares from the package of other G.I. Joe action figures. It arrived like four months later, which seems like forever now and probably felt like it then too, but we didn’t yet have 2-day shipping. Waiting was basically the norm.

At the time, Pepsi was getting its sugary butt kicked by Coke. It decided to try to win customers to their side through a redemption program. There was a catalog with all sorts of swag. The marketing blitz included a Harrier Jet that could be purchased for 7 million points. There was no disclaimer in the video.

Some kid decided he wanted the jet. This three-part documentary is about his attempt and the subsequent legal battle. And while it seems pretty obvious the jet was not a legit offer, the documentary actually brought me around on that. It’s a fascinating story.

At the time of the program, I was bagging groceries at a now-defunct chain with stores all across Northern Michigan. Part of our duties involved processing people’s bottles and cans—in those days, nothing was self-service; customers dropped off a bag of empties, a customer service rep counted out the bottles (yes, by hand), and the bag was thrown into a wheeled bin until someone could deal with it. (Bottle deposits in Michigan are ten cents each, because people had a nasty habit of throwing their bottles everywhere but the trash.)

The back area of the store had a dozen of the same machines you and I use today to crush cans. I’d be back there for hours feeding the machine. Pretty quickly I discovered nobody kept the tops from their Pepsi bottles. So I started collecting them.

I don’t know how many I collected before the program was winding down. I had so many, I couldn’t spend them all. There wasn’t enough stuff I wanted. My girlfriend ended up getting a nice denim jacket. The only other thing I remember getting was a beach towel. Said another way: It was all junk. The jacket was legitimately nice though. She kept it for a long time.

The worst part about redeeming the points was mailing in all the tops. It was ridiculous. Though there is a nice ‘circle of life’ symmetry in the idea of a faceless clerk counting out bottle tops by hand in the dingy underbelly of Pepsi HQ.

Dynasty: The Murdochs

I watched this hoping for more insight into how we got to where we are. I didn’t really get much of that. I mean, the fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, but this three-parter is less about diagnosing the crime and more about how screwed up the Murdochs are. Daddy was busy playing succession games with his children and now we’re all paying the price.

Full Swing

With season four due releasing, I decided to rewatch from the beginning. My wife—who doesn’t golf and thinks the sport is super boring—ended up watching part of an episode and got hooked. So now we watch Full Swing together, which is interesting.

She still has zero interest in golf—watching or playing—but it’s weird when she sees someone on screen and casually says, “JT always looks stressed.”

Still: A Michael J. Fox Story

This one was hard.

Michael J. Fox was my guy. I was too young to remember him much as Alex P. Keaton, but I was the perfect age for Marty McFly. His career post Back to the Future was more wane than wax. But there was always something so likable about him.

Still is about his life, before, during, and after his diagnosis with Parkinson’s (at 29! sheesh). It’s hard to watch him struggle to walk, when so much of his comedy was grounded in movement. He’s still quick with a joke but the punchline gets lost when the words are slurred. It’s tragic and it’s sad and it’s beautiful.

I’m glad I watched it.

1. The neurologist, who I took to be the most learned of the practitioners I visited, looked at me like he was Yoda. As in: that knowing look someone gets when they want you to solve your own problem. He actually perched on the bed, looking down at me in a chair. I’m not even joking. I think he misunderstood the meaning of ‘physician heal thyself.’

I think he was more used to old people problems because the “battery” of tests he ran included such numbers as “follow my finger” and “see if your leg kicks when I hit your knee.” It was the kind of test our president might brag about acing. As the next hurdle on my path to wellness, I was nonplussed. But he got me to the PT guy and that seems to be doing something. So good job, neurologist.

2. I will be writing about Hacks because I’m in mourning and the finale was beautiful but season five was not.

3. This reminds me of the best scene of Elizabethtown, a not-great 2000s movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom, which involves a band playing “Free Bird “at a funeral while a bird effigy is accidentally set on fire. (That may be a clever metaphor for the entire film. Either way, best scene by a mile.)

4. This is not a typo. This is a clever play on the name He Hate Me, which a XFL football player called himself—as in, the name on the back of his jersey. Spike Lee was so pumped about the name, he borrowed it for the film She Hate Me, which is about Anthony Mackie impregnating lesbians for money. (Sure, Spike.)

As you can see, it was deep cut. Always a good sign when you need to explain a joke.

5. Not really. My wife prefers Selena but she can’t be right all the time.