Tag: #lockdown

Lockdown Five: The Assignment Miami Beach Parallel

Lockdown number five.  As sequels go, we’re definitely heading towards the shallow end of the pool. Nothing good ever came of installment number five.  Looking at this purely from a ‘Police Academy’ point of view, that puts us in ‘Assignment Miami Beach’ territory.  I could bore you with plot details, if there were any, but it’s enough to say that this particular sequel didn’t even include Steve Guttenberg; whose absence rendered it something worse than pointless.  

There’s a law of diminishing returns.  It’s a law even more powerful than the one that requires you to wear a mask whilst at the supermarket so your glasses are continually fogging up as you attempt to read your shopping list.  I, however, am determined to make this lockdown count.  Forget learning a new language or acquiring a new skill. I refuse to squander this lockdown by adopting an on-line fitness program – a pointless exercise that involved actual pointless exercise.  No way.  This time, I’m surrendering to binge watching.

When I was a kid, ‘binge watching’ referred to what you ate when watching television rather than the act of watching television itself.  Eating Milo straight from the tin whilst watching ‘The Fall Guy’ was as close as I ever came.  But in this era of content on demand, ‘binge watching’ means something else entirely, even if it is still best done with a tin of Milo and a spoon to hand. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I’m not sure how, but I’d never seen ‘The Sopranos’.  It’s meant to be one of the greatest shows of all time and whilst as someone who used to regularly watch ‘It’s A Knockout’ I treat such claims with skepticism, it’s time I filled that particular pop culture knowledge gap. But I plan to mix things up. Rather than solely indulging in something new, I plan to engage in nostalgia also.  Which is why I’ve dusted off my DVD collection of ‘A Country Practice’; all fourteen seasons spanning some two hundred and two separate discs.  That ought to fill a five-day lockdown nicely.

‘What?!’ I hear you cry. ‘You’re not using lockdown for a Police Academy marathon?’  Put simply, no I’m not.  That’s because I saw ‘Police Academy Five: Assignment Miami Beach’ at the cinema.  Every smutty joke, ribald innuendo and moment of acting so hammy that if you slapped two pieces of bread around it, you could call it a sandwich, was projected onto a forty-foot screen.  That was nearly thirty-five years ago and all I can say is that I’m yet to fully recover.

Lining up a bunch of DVDs to watch feels like I’m stepping back in time.  Nowadays the idea of getting up to change one disc for another seems like an incredible burden.  But for all the convenience that streaming offers, you never get buffering when you’re watching something on DVD.  There’s something to be said for that kind of reliability. Specifically, ‘phew’.

A couple of days into lockdown and I’m finding ‘The Sopranos’ kind of tense.  To balance that out, I’m swapping between Tony and the gang and the lovable characters from Wandin Valley.  Esme Watson is the ying to Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtieri’s yang. I don’t want to put it too highly, but watching two entirely different series simultaneously feels like it may be an act of genius.

I need to disclose something at this point – I’m terrible at watching television.  Don’t get me wrong; I like movies and TV shows. It’s just that I struggle to stay awake.  For me, watching a film involves me viewing (and enjoying) the first forty-five minutes before waking up as the credits roll.  Invariably, various plot points have developed whilst I’ve had my eyes closed and I’m confused.  After all, it’s not as though I’m re-watching ‘Police Academy Five: Assignment Miami Beach’ for which being unconscious is probably highly desirable, with the added bonus that you won’t miss important plot developments because there aren’t any.

 I’ve been enjoying both ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘A Country Practice’. However, as is my way, I’ve nodded off a few times mid-episode.  At times I’ve been kind of befuddled.  So much so, that I’ve started to blur the lines somewhat and treat them not as two separate shows but a single series.  Dr Terrence Elliott sitting down with Big Puss at the Bada Bing.  The bit where Fatso the Wombat is promoted to ‘captain’ before becoming a rat (being a furry quadruped probably made the transition an easy one.)  And I’m still reeling from the episode where Bob and Cookie get clipped for heisting a truck full of plumbers’ overalls on the outskirts of Wandin Valley.  

However long this lockdown lasts, at least I’ll have made the most of it.  As overwhelming as being separated from friends and family is, I’m mindful it’s all for a bigger purpose.  Besides, things could be worse – you could be stuck inside watching Police Academy Five on a continuous loop.  Soon enough, we’ll be able to celebrate.  Or as Tony Soprano once so memorably said to Sergeant Frank Gilroy as they enjoyed a counter meal down at the Wandin Valley public bar; ‘It’s almost time for turkey sandwiches!’  So true.

The Lowdown on the Lockdown Hearted: Your Handy Guide

To borrow the words of William Shakespeare: ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends’.  These words were attributed Henry the Fifth, who was attempting to inspire his soldiers prior to them storming Harfleur to get the last available rolls of toilet paper and beef mince.  Or, to put it as Yogi Berra once so memorably did, ‘It’s de ja vu all over again’.  Here we are, once more, in lockdown.  It’s a little deflating, I know, but temporary.  By now, though, we’re all kind of experts.

Traditions have developed. Firstly, everyone sees the announcement coming a mile off.  Despite this, nothing seems to prevent the customary panic buying the instant it becomes official.  It seems that people drop whatever they’re doing the moment the news breaks before throwing the green bags in the back seat and hightailing it down to Coles, Woolies and Dan Murphys.  Possibly not in that order.  It’s as though we demand the right to lose our minds before lockdown kicks off.

To be honest, I’m not sure who these people are.  Surely they can’t be the same people who stuffed their trolleys with every spare bit of two-ply they could get their hands on in the first lockdown? They must still have mountains of the stuff from last time.  Perhaps those who kept their nerve in previous lockdowns have decided to get the full pandemic experience and discover what it’s like to fight someone for a packet pasta swirls and half a kilo of mince meat.

The second part of the routine is that we have to dig out our masks again.  For me, I like to pick a different theme for my masks each time we have a lockdown.  Last time, I went with ‘the Ned Kelly’. Whilst fully Covid-compliant, I’ll admit now that it was a little uncomfortable, both for me and for everyone who saw me wearing it.  Something about seeing someone walking down the street with a metal bucket on their head makes other people nervous.  Apparently.  In addition to chaffing, it also drastically reduced my field of vision. Trying to buy fruit with a Ned Kelly helmet on is an absolute nightmare; believe me.

This time, I’m steering clear of bushrangers altogether.  Instead, for this lockdown I’ve decided to make a mask that I like to refer to as ‘the Tuckerbag’.  Based on the world’s most manifestly inadequate puppet and spokesperson for the supermarket chain ‘Tuckerbag’, my mask will both be a nostalgic celebration and a reminder that, once upon a time, shopping bags were made of truly recyclable paper rather than some kind of heavy duty plastic that probably has a half life that would rival plutonium.  

There’s a slight problem with the eyes.  I’m pretty sure the original ‘Tucker’ had eyes that were stuck on.  Stuck on eyes are no good for navigating the fruit and vegie section of the supermarket.  It’s bound to lead to trouble.  Worse still, in the event that I am actually able to find the supermarket whilst wearing ‘the Tuckerbag’ mask, there’s a very good chance I won’t be able to find my way back out again.  

The third part of the lockdown routine is the regular evaluation of exposure sites.  This serves two purposes: to see how close the nearest exposure site is to where you live and, secondly, to look with awe and quiet admiration at the busy social lives of others.  I do want to say that those who supply these details are performing an immeasurable public service.  But when I look at the list, I am struck by the fact that I really don’t get out enough. 

If I’m being honest, it’s hard not to be a tiny bit, well, judgmental.  In previous outbreaks, who amongst us didn’t read the list of exposure sites and see both ‘Dan Murphys’ and ‘Off Ya Tree’ and lift and knowing eyebrow?  Or wonder at the kind of person who visits multiple K-Marts in a day instead of using the internet like the rest of us do?  Yesterday, I saw that a shopping centre comfort station was listed as an exposure site for a ten-hour period.  My thoughts immediately went to the person concerned, hoping that there were multiple trips involved as opposed to a single, catastrophic visit.

My own lockdown traditions tend towards the idiosyncratic.  I have taken to getting changed after work just so that it feels different. In old movies, they’d often talk about getting ‘changed for dinner’.  It sounds kind of civilized.  Last Tuesday, I ditched a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt to put on a tuxedo before mealtime.  It was rissoles.  In retrospect, I may have overdone it.  I choose to look at the positives.

I am now a certified black belt in ‘Microsoft Teams’.  I also feel I know what to do when a lockdown is announced.  I’m disappointed – but who isn’t?  Nobody wants to be here and everybody wants things to get back to something like normal.  Which they will. But I marvel at the ability of people to adapt, to look out for each other and to do what needs to be done. If the horror-show that is the last twelve months has taught us something, it’s that we can do anything when push comes to pandemic shove.  Soon, lockdown will be a thing of the past and I can finally burn my Tuckerbag mask.  The day can’t come soon enough.