Nobody around Ithaca is fooled by the balmy late December weather. OK, a few dreadlocked boneheads were careening around the Commons shirtless yesterday. Smoked a little too much Salvia or is that Saliva, eh? What the fuck is Salvia anyway? All the headshops along botiqueland boulevard are advertising it.
The oldtimers know that winter is just getting warmed up. In another few days Ithaca will once again be encased in a frozen jello mold of dirty snow and ice. Waiting for mister groundhog. Like some fuzzy godot. A few idiots will leave their xmas lights up until April to fool themselves into thinking that there is something to look forward to in life.
Ez knows there is nothing to look forward to. No pancake dinners. No holidays on ice. No terrorist attacks. Nothing. This is Ithaca in winter. Hunker down.
Well, at least, we have tv. Hyperreality in a box. Let your brain fall asleep. And you can always look forward to the Thursday night lineup. Autopsy night.
What's the story with the sudden revival of medical examiner shows? Tell the truth now. Didn't you used to like to watch Quincy? Despite the bozo they got to play the loveable coroner, that show had merit. Except they never showed the good stuff - you know - lacerated heart muscles, eyeballs rolling around Las Vegas parking lots, headless torsos buried in the desert sand. At least you could imagine Quincy cutting a chest open. You could hear the whirring sound of a buzz saw rippling through a cranial shell even if you couldn't see it.
Now things have changed. This is the 21st Century, post Patricia Cornwall. TV shows everything right down to the bloated frat dude lying in the tub, looking like a rotting Pillsbury doughboy after being dead for three days. CSI, CSI Miami, Cold Case. Finally, there's something worth watching on tv.
To get us through the winter. To get us through the miserable vacuum of small town life. The Russians drink gallons of vodka. The Laps cuddle with their reindeer. What do Ithacans do? Watch tv, visit the mall and listen to the sounds of their mufflers rusting. Ezra curls up with a good autopsy program.
And Ez has begun to experience new career stirrings. You don't have to go through all that med school bullshit to be a coroner, right? You don't have to deal with those twinges of conscience like real doctors do when they prescribe $120 purple placebo pills to dying children just to make a living. When you're an ME, the patient doesn't feel a thing. Often the patient doesn't have a face let alone anything resembling a pulse.
Ez is looking around for a good forensic pathology school. Maybe he'll turn the spare bedroom into an autopsy lab. Advertise in the Pennsysaver for body parts. Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:46 AM
