Up with Evil Energy

Yesterday, Monday February 8, 2010, I noticed a very pronounced crease in between my eyebrows. A wrinkle. I leaned into my reflection and squinted, my left eye brow raised slightly above my right. Yes. That's the face that did it. I could see the crease clearly deepening at it's odd little angle. That's my "What the...? ugh..." face. I knew precisely what caused that wrinkle

The Super Bowl commercials.

I had made this very face at very regular intervals for about four hours the night before.

Some people are so used to the television that they can ignore the sheer repulsive stupidity of the commercials. I am not one of these people. I average less than 5 minutes of exposure to TV commercials a month. I am weak to broadcast advertising.

As I stared at my new crease, I realized that I had watched more commercials on Super Bowl Sunday than I had the entire year leading up to that night. And the concentration of the repulsive stupidity gave me that new wrinkle.

So many thoughts race through my head while watching cable TV, they usually all get lumped into "What the?... ugh!" In all the confusion of questions that rush to my brain while I watch a commercial such as the one where people form a human bridge to make it possible for a Budweiser truck to enter their town, I do notice these: "This actually works?" and "What the hell is WRONG with this country!?" The answer to the first question is "Yes, that's why they paid so much to make it," an answer that furthers the brow furrowing. The answer to the second question is so complicated that it requires years and years of dedicated study and thought to still only pretend you have.

What's up with me and this wrinkle in my eye? Did anyone else develop a new and pronounced wrinkle at the Super Bowl Party?

Nope, no one seemed to share my look of concern and confusion. Everyone else (except maybe Jacquie up front) was just watching the Super Bowl. To my friends, the commercials were just Super Bowl commercials.

If Ned were here, he would remind me that I am not exactly weak to broadcast marketing, but to the Evil Energy.

In the year that Ned and I were house mates, I learned a lot about this "Evil Energy". He would comment from time to time that I would not be so weak to television commercials if I just watched them a little more often. Not overboard, so much so that I am totally numbed, just enough to get used to them a bit, to make them less of an assault on my system.

Like a vaccination, I suppose. Just the right amount.

This idea also applied to junk food, mall exposure, pop music, cheap beer, video games and all other sorts of controversial cultural matter that had become "no-no's" in my crunchy Pioneer Valley lifestyle.

Just watching Ned in a convenience store was a lesson in itself (besides the lesson that you shouldn't join him in the trip if you didn't have 30-60 minutes to spare). I was always simultaneously annoyed and amused as Ned wandered around such small limited spaces as the Hadley Shell Station, soaking in entirety of a store that seemed to me to have nothing useful but lighters and ice. It was a though he absolutely needed to fully inspect the packaging, label design, ingredients, and possible tastiness or repulsiveness of every single item, and also take in the layout and general feel of the store as a whole. He did this, I believe, every time he went into a convenience store, whether alone or accompanied by a group of our house mates, spending nearly an hour just to end up at the counter with some Hot Fries, Coca-Cola, and a pack of cigarettes.

We both worked at Whole Foods at the time, too. For the most part, the man ate pretty well. He definitely ate healthier than any other 25-year-old man I knew at the time. He just had to have a Nerd's Rope candy and a Coke from time to time.

"You have to build up on the Evil Energy, or you'll be weak to it" he casually commented in the kitchen, as I as pointed the brow furrowed, wrinkle producing face at his meal of store brand "cup o'noodles" and soda. "You can't avoid eating junk food altogether, or if you're ever in a situation where you have to eat junk food, you'll be sick and useless. I like to build up a little bit of the Evil Energy from time to time, just to make sure I can handle it."

Ned's alarm clock at the time was a radio blasting "You've got to know your chicken!" He never actually woke up, which amused me greatly, as it was loud enough for me to hear from anywhere in the three floor farmhouse. I often knocked several times on his door, getting my daily dose of the bad music Evil Energy.

I remember, also, that I made this same face the first time I came home to all seven of my house mates, (Ned still included) and several of their friends crammed into the living room watching lost. I caught a few minutes of terrible acting, and "What the...? ugh...!" happened to my brain and I promptly left the living room. Those several minutes are still my only several minutes of Lost. While I'm typing this 9.8 million people are watching Lost. Several million more will download and watch it in the next few days. I, however, will wrinkle if I catch a short glimpse of it.

I moved from that house over two years ago. I used to do these three week intense dietary cleanses, I haven't done one since leaving there. But I also haven't played enough video games, drank enough Coca-Cola, heard enough odd pop songs, or watched television commercials to have my proper dose of Evil Energy.

Until yesterday, when I noticed my new wrinkle, I hadn't really thought about Evil Energy much at all.

Maybe I'll take Ned, Steve, and Erik (all former house mates of mine who still live together) up on their offer to stop by and play some video games very soon.

Maybe, with the formation of this wrinkle, I'll finally give in and watch Lost.

I've clearly got to build up an immunity somehow. I'm all set with the premature wrinkles. I'm also all set with being an innocent bystander, clean of cultural "no-no's", furrowing my brows and saying "Don't look at me, I don't even get it at alll."

Sometimes we can give in just a little for the sake of not really giving in.