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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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August 17th, 2009 I AM HOUSE I have written and spoken before of my disdain for the TV show House and its’ popularity; for starters, it’s the same damn predictable show every week! House intuitively knows that what’s wrong with the patient of the week is not as it seems and must drag his far less intelligent, less knowledgeable and less talented co-workers along with him, kicking and screaming, as he finds his way to the correct diagnosis in the 56th minute of each episode. What I have never understood, beyond the show’s stunningly high ratings amongst the general public, is how almost everyone that I know, respect and care about in my life, ranging from my wife to Dawn to my own mother, love this show and proclaim its excellence. Beyond even that, they all say they love the show for the same reason that they demand I should love it also; I am House and House is me! This has always struck me as an insult; not that any of them meant it as such, it’s just how I took it based on my prism of thought. House, as I saw it, is portrayed by a B list (at best) actor named Hugh Laurie who has never done anything of note ever anywhere and is not exceptionally good at what he does. Further, House the character is an injured, cranky, occasionally pill popping gruff guy who seems to garner little to no love or respect at all from the people he surrounds himself with on the show. Keep in mind that my previous perceptions were based on 4 total episodes ever seen. I have now seen 5 and have altered my position slightly. The show still stinks. It’s still mindless, predictable and utterly insulting to my intelligence as it tries to force me into clichéd attempts at moral dilemmas (for example, this most recent episode I subjected myself to involved whether or not a doctor in love would forsake his own professional ethics to advance the life of his lady who will die either way within 5 years;…please…I liked “Picket Fences” the first time I saw this shtick…and they did it a lot better). Alas, summer vacation came and went recently and that always means that I relinquish whatever control I like to think I have over the TV to my wife completely. During the 44 working weeks of the year I get to make claims to what shows will be watched based on the need to remain “in touch” for the radio show. I also tend to go to bed by 8 each evening, leaving my wife to watch shows she likes and getting me out of having to endure television I loathe. Don’t worry; I am going to counseling to deal with my selfish passive aggressiveness as it relates to forcing my wife to watch TV she hates while refusing to do the same. I’ll keep you apprised. Back to summer vacation TV; while spending a week on the ocean my wife and I were winding down for the evening as I searched for something to watch and lo and behold stumbled upon a rerun from the most recent season of House; being a loving and considerate husband (at least during the 8 weeks per year I am off) I left the show on and snuggled next to my wife while making some sort of snarky comment about how awful this was going to be. Sure enough, we were treated to 54 minutes of House dancing around the proper illness inflicting the patient of the week while fighting with his coworkers and the hospital chief of staff until ultimately House solved the mystery and was proven right again in the final 2 minutes. Riveting. This episode was different, however, in at least one sense; I finally saw myself in House. And you know what? I really like me…even if so many others have a problem with that. It all began early on in the episode when House was trying to explain to his Chief of Staff (the risotto girl from Seinfeld) why babies are completely worthless and adults have gone out of their way to define their own self worth based on their children. The culminating line came when House says to her “we have gone out of our way to make baby puke cute because otherwise we’d kill them in their sleep.” Upon hearing House’s views on how American society has inflated the importance of children for reasons no other than to give our pathetic adult lives some form of meaning I looked at my wife and said, “hey, that’s why you guys love this show so much. He’s right!” She giggled while I suspect also took personal stock of what the hell she was doing in love with a man with such views. That’s for future counseling. Less than a minute later came the penultimate line of the evening; House was described by risotto girl as “cold, an ass, and never wrong.” She meant it literally and as a compliment (at least I took it as a compliment); House used no emotions in formulating his opinions, he rarely if ever cared about the frailties of others and he was almost always right. This allowed one of those classic marital moments between my wife and me; we sat in silence, staring forward for what seemed like minutes but was no more than 3 seconds, before we both began to shift our eyes towards one another without moving our heads an inch. We caught each other’s gaze out of the corners of our eyes and both burst out laughing, knowing my tombstone had been written. Rob Williams; cold, an ass and never wrong. For the next 50 minutes I watched myself in a mirror as Hugh Laurie; there was the scene where he mocked Dr. Kumar for being totally wrong about the patient’s ailment in a way that completely emasculated Dr. Kumar and also made sure his colleagues knew that House was and will always be, right. There was the scene in the operating room when House, distracted by a cell phone with a screaming Chief of Staff on speaker, a second doctor losing faith in his motives and Dr. Kumar trying to backstab him, remained focused on the task at hand and still correctly treated the patient. My favorite moment, however, was when Dr. Token Black came into House’s office and asked him for advice about Dr. Token’s dying girlfriend and how to care for her. House looked at him and said “if you’re coming to me for advice it means that everyone else has lied to you and no one has told you what you need to hear.” Ask my friends if that doesn’t fit coming to me. I have never claimed to be warm, soft, cuddly or even compassionate. Honest to a fault and focused on solving the problem, that’s me…and House apparently. Fine. I get it. Unlike House, I was wrong….about being House. Apparently he is me and I am him and we’re both cold and asses and we’re never wrong…unless it’s about being each other, then I am wrong and cold and an ass and he’s all three. Got it? I am House; but I am addicted to alcohol, not pills. Let’s keep the glaring difference clear, shall we?
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