Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[SVNBob]

12 hours ago, DearEvette said:

A Different World -- the only network show that is set in an HBCU and included stuff like ROTC and the specificity of Black Greek organizations, pledging in Black PanHel is really different than in traditionally white Greek systems.

Related to some of these issues were the seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Will and Carlton graduated prep school and went onto college.  They didn't have the housing issues as they still lived at home/moved into the poolhouse as roommates.  But there was the relatively famous episode about them pledging a Black frat and Carlton not getting accepted because the pledgemaster thought he "wasn't black enough".

[bijoux]

5 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

There was some college movie with Freddie Prinz that filmed when I was at Berkeley. It was awful but fun to see all the places on campus. 

Boys and Girls maybe? I thibk the better part of that movie was set during college years. 

[Raja]

7 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Related to some of these issues were the seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Will and Carlton graduated prep school and went onto college.  They didn't have the housing issues as they still lived at home/moved into the poolhouse as roommates.  But there was the relatively famous episode about them pledging a Black frat and Carlton not getting accepted because the pledgemaster thought he "wasn't black enough".

Seeing as just about all the men I knew while growing up were members of one of the Divine Nine that story didn't ring very true to me.

[DearEvette]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Seeing as just about all the men I knew while growing up were members of one of the Divine Nine that story didn't ring very true to me.

Yeah. That wouldn't have happened.  Carlton would have been tailor made to be an Alpha.  In a pinch, a Kappa.

[Lyinfait]

21 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

There was some college movie with Freddie Prinz that filmed when I was at Berkeley. It was awful but fun to see all the places on campus. 

We were there at the same time! I remember hearing that it was also being filmed in parts on my high school campus too (don't believe so) but I thought great, now I have to watch this movie. It was nice seeing parts of campus. 

[DrSpaceman73]

Breaking Away was filmed in and around Bloomington and Indiana University.  The campus is prominently featured in the movie, always a fun thing to watch at the student union, seeing your local campus ad city on the big screen

Probably a bigger deal for people in Indiana, where not many movies are filmed, than say LA where a bunch are all shot. 

 

[Silver Raven]

34 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Breaking Away was filmed in and around Bloomington and Indiana University.  The campus is prominently featured in the movie, always a fun thing to watch at the student union, seeing your local campus ad city on the big screen

Probably a bigger deal for people in Indiana, where not many movies are filmed, than say LA where a bunch are all shot. 

 

One of my favorite movies of all time.  Really well made.

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Probably a bigger deal for people in Indiana, where not many movies are filmed, than say LA where a bunch are all shot. 

Yep.  Filming here is just a fact of life, and often an annoyance when you're trying to get someplace or park.  Especially when someone is filming yet again on your university campus, and you have to take the long way around to run/bike from one class to another.

But even the most jaded born-and-raised among us will squeal when our school, office, house, etc. is used in a favorite show.

[Haleth]

Last fall I was visiting the UCLA campus and walked past a movie or tv set where they were trying to make one building look like a dorm or frat house at University of Michigan.  UCLA looks nothing like Michigan.  LOL

[Zella]

My dad lived in L.A. for a couple of years and still gets a kick out of pointing out landmarks he remembers from his time there, especially in 80s movies (which is when he was there). 😅

[DoctorAtomic]

I forgot where I mentioned this, but they filmed an awful Freddie Prinze movie when I was at Berkeley. We saw them filming. That's the only reason I went to the movie. It was bad. I think Claire Forliani was in it. 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 7/8/2020 at 11:00 PM, Silver Raven said:

On 7/8/2020 at 10:25 PM, DrSpaceman73 said:

Breaking Away was filmed in and around Bloomington and Indiana University.  The campus is prominently featured in the movie, always a fun thing to watch at the student union, seeing your local campus ad city on the big screen

Probably a bigger deal for people in Indiana, where not many movies are filmed, than say LA where a bunch are all shot. 

 

One of my favorite movies of all time.  Really well made.

A lovely film.  One of the best films to deal with class distinction in American life.  The scene where Paul Dooley talks about the school buildings:

"I was proud of my work. And the buildings went up. When they were finished the damnedest thing happened. It was like the buildings were too good for us. Nobody told us that. It just felt uncomfortable, that's all."

Just kills me every time.

[Blergh]

On 7/10/2020 at 2:22 AM, ratgirlagogo said:

A lovely film.  One of the best films to deal with class distinction in American life.  The scene where Paul Dooley talks about the school buildings:

"I was proud of my work. And the buildings went up. When they were finished the damnedest thing happened. It was like the buildings were too good for us. Nobody told us that. It just felt uncomfortable, that's all."

Just kills me every time.

Most folks don't recall it but the movie DID spawn a very briefly run TV prequel with Shaun Cassidy playing Dave Stohler (played by Dennis Christopher in the movie who   worked steadily in movies and TV until the last few years but did NOT become a star via that movie despite having knocked that role out of the ballpark). Anyway,  one may think that no children of working class folks pretend to be Italian cyclists (which Eric Matthews [Will Friedel] ALSO did for broader laughs in a scene for  Boy Meets World), but I once knew someone from Alabama who attempted to pass themselves as an Australian when meeting new people so, yes, there ARE folks who somehow think that their OWN background and/or circumstances aren't good enough to be proud of so they  pretend  to be others they think must somehow be automatically be glamorous and better solely due to being different.  Of course, the older I get, the more I sympathize with Mr. Stohler who not only had to live to be snubbed by the folks who benefited from his skills and workmanship but also his own son for the longest time seemed to believe that their own background was something to hide if not belittle via faking being a glamorous, foreign, exotic biker! 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Blergh

[DrSpaceman73]

6 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

A lovely film.  One of the best films to deal with class distinction in American life.  The scene where Paul Dooley talks about the school buildings:

"I was proud of my work. And the buildings went up. When they were finished the damnedest thing happened. It was like the buildings were too good for us. Nobody told us that. It just felt uncomfortable, that's all."

Just kills me every time.

I didn't realize so many people would recall Breaking Away. 

It is a great film.  That scene is outside the main library I believe.  Spent many hours there in college. 

It helps that the Indiana University campus is beautiful, well planned and pretty much the idyllic Midwest campus you picture to spend your college years.  I know I am biased, but I still think its true. 

 

[Shannon L.]

Everyone who needs prescription pain meds becomes an addict. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Shannon L.

[Lugal]

9 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

Everyone who needs prescription pain meds becomes an addict.

I had a Vicodin prescription after having a wisdom tooth out.  I do not understand the addictive quality of that drug.

[auntlada]

1 hour ago, Lugal said:

I had a Vicodin prescription after having a wisdom tooth out.  I do not understand the addictive quality of that drug.

I had that too when I had a wisdom tooth out. At least I think that's what it was. I hated it. About three hours after taking it, I would throw up. After my C-section, I had Percocet. I hated that, too. I couldn't sleep and kept half hallucinating things that were just outside my vision. It was not a pleasant experience.

[Lugal]

2 minutes ago, auntlada said:

I had that too when I had a wisdom tooth out. At least I think that's what it was. I hated it. About three hours after taking it, I would throw up.

Yes, there was lots of vomiting in my case too.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, Lugal said:

I had a Vicodin prescription after having a wisdom tooth out.  I do not understand the addictive quality of that drug.

I can't stand the stuff either, but I worked in pharmacy long enough to see how easily others got addicted to it.  Everyone's brain is wired differently and some people can take them and never develop an addiction while others are addicted by pill #10.  There really is no way of knowing how a person with no previous history is going to react.

[Zella]

The pain meds I always got after dental procedures were seriously disappointing. They either didn't seem to work or they made me sick to my stomach. I don't think the Jack-the-Ripper-as-a-dentist hallucinations I had one time after a dental procedure was related to the painkillers, but if it was, it's not a drug-induced experience I'd recommend. 

[GaT]

6 hours ago, Lugal said:

I had a Vicodin prescription after having a wisdom tooth out.  I do not understand the addictive quality of that drug.

 

5 hours ago, auntlada said:

I had that too when I had a wisdom tooth out. At least I think that's what it was. I hated it. About three hours after taking it, I would throw up. After my C-section, I had Percocet. I hated that, too. I couldn't sleep and kept half hallucinating things that were just outside my vision. It was not a pleasant experience.

I am currently taking percocet & I have no idea why this stuff is so much trouble to get & is considered so addictive. The stuff just mutes the pain, it sure doesn't get rid of it.

[DoctorAtomic]

When I broke my finger, they prescribed vicodin, but I got a big bottle of advil for less than half the price and did fine. 

[Shannon L.]

I have an addictive personality, so I have to be careful.  I don't sleep well at night and drugs, like Vicodin, that make you drowsy, make me practically comatose (I'm really sensitive to meds-a bendryl can render me useless for a few hours), so I could see myself getting addicted to them simply for a good night's sleep.  Of course, as I said, I need to be careful and always have been, so I never developed an addiction, but yeah, I could have.

[auntlada]

1 hour ago, Shannon L. said:

I have an addictive personality, so I have to be careful.  I don't sleep well at night and drugs, like Vicodin, that make you drowsy, make me practically comatose (I'm really sensitive to meds-a bendryl can render me useless for a few hours), so I could see myself getting addicted to them simply for a good night's sleep.  Of course, as I said, I need to be careful and always have been, so I never developed an addiction, but yeah, I could have.

It didn't make me sleep, but Benadryl and NyQuil don't too much either. They relieve the symptoms (mostly coughing) so I can go to sleep, but then four hours later, I'll be wide awake. So for me, the thing that happens on TV that doesn't happen in my real life is someone takes a Benadryl or a dose of NyQuil or some other medicine and is still out 12 hours later or is sleepwalking and doing loopy stuff. I suppose it's all a matter of body chemistry.

[Katy M]

7 minutes ago, auntlada said:

It didn't make me sleep, but Benadryl and NyQuil don't too much either. They relieve the symptoms (mostly coughing) so I can go to sleep, but then four hours later, I'll be wide awake. So for me, the thing that happens on TV that doesn't happen in my real life is someone takes a Benadryl or a dose of NyQuil or some other medicine and is still out 12 hours later or is sleepwalking and doing loopy stuff. I suppose it's all a matter of body chemistry.

Nyquil keeps me up.  Dayquil puts me to sleep.  Not sure what that says about me.

[GaT]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

Nyquil keeps me up.  Dayquil puts me to sleep.  Not sure what that says about me.

Check your reflection in the mirror, you may be a vampire. 😁

[Brookside]

 

On 1/12/2020 at 9:20 AM, Blergh said:

Patients who hate doctors and/or hospitals walk out in huffs without having to wait to be checked out- and nothing is ever mentioned about the fact that, in doing so, the insurance companies won't pay a PENNY towards the bill and it's ALL  on the patient's shoulders from that point on! 

You're making a huge assumption that they have insurance.

On 1/19/2020 at 7:12 PM, Ohiopirate02 said:

While I agree that the amount of actual serial killers is much lower than what Hollywood wants us to believe,  we all know or know someone who knows someone who has been murdered.   I honestly don't have any statistics to back this up, but I have had more than one interaction with a person who ended up murdered in my life.  I have lived my life in 3 states and have come across this in each of them.  And then there was one time when I was drinking with my uncle (by marriage) who proceeded to tell the story about his uncle (by marriage) who was executed by the state of Louisiana for murder.  I know these are just anecdotes, but I am an average woman living in a fairly quiet part of the country.   

We obviously run in different circles!

 

On 1/31/2020 at 7:36 AM, bilgistic said:

My late uncle was a junk collector, and he once had two mannequins that he kept in his storage room on the carport. My cousin strung them up in the trees for Halloween.

You mean like a lynching?  He thought that was funny?

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Brookside

[Ohiopirate02]

8 hours ago, Brookside said:

 

We obviously run in different circles!

 

 

Out of the three people I know about, only one of them was someone I probably should not have been around as a kid.  He was friend of my aunt and she brought him over to the house a few times.  The other two were the victims of crimes that both happened in the town where I lived.  This has never been a high crime area, so these ones stood out.  The one was a botched robbery at our local bowling alley one Saturday night.  I, along with a lot of other people, was actually there earlier that night.  It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I was in college and was hanging out with friends from high school.  It was a regular Saturday night until after the place closed and armed gunmen showed up to rob the place and shot both employees working.  One died and the other was paralyzed from his injuries.  It was surreal waking up the next morning to the news that the place where I was just there 12 hours before was robbed and the sweet old lady who worked there was dead.  I am very tangentially related to the other crime--we both worked for the same company in the same store a few years apart with the same managers.  The crime in question happened in the town where my parents live and I was working in a different state.  

I still have lived a reallly boring life which is why these instances probably stand out more.  None of the people were close friends or family members.

[Blergh]

I've had coworkers who've lost loved ones to murder. That's all I'm saying. 

[Zella]

My family is pretty wild admittedly, but I've relatives who were murdered or were murderers themselves. 

Someone I went to school with also murdered someone.

Damn I think I might know more murderers than murder victims. Sad either way though. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Zella

[andromeda331]

Three family friends murdered in (different) robberies. My brother and mine elementary school babysitter was murdered by her boyfriend during a fight he later killed himself in jail. And a relative who murdered his wife during an argument. One of my brother's friend's brother tried to help a guy getting beaten up only for them to turn on him. It took him years to recover in rehab from it.  

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't think I'm going to any parties with you people. 

[ABay]

Do you all live n Cabot Cove?

[Ohiopirate02]

43 minutes ago, ABay said:

Do you all live n Cabot Cove?

No, but I did get my undergraduate from Hudson University.

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, ABay said:

Do you all live n Cabot Cove?

I might have. I was talking with a boyfriend once, and he said "for someone who's always lived in small towns you sure know a lot of people that were murdered."

[Zella]

7 hours ago, Katy M said:

I might have. I was talking with a boyfriend once, and he said "for someone who's always lived in small towns you sure know a lot of people that were murdered."

I live in a small town too. LOL

[Lugal]

I've only lost one friend to murder, and tragically she was killed by her father.

[Browncoat]

I used to work at a University where there was a mass shooting.  While I did not know anyone who was injured or killed, almost everyone I know did.  Does that count?

[Shannon L.]

My husband had a coworker who turned out to be arrested and convicted of kidnap, rape, murder and attempted kidnap of another victim.  They weren't friends, but they were friendly at work and one time he even came over to pick up some tools that my husband said he could have.  When it came on the evening news one night (he hadn't worked with him for a while by then), we were stunned, to say the least.  Not in a "I never would have guessed" way because we didn't know him outside of work, but more in a "Holy s&$!" kind of way. 

[Browncoat]

Oh, I almost forgot!  I taught for a bit at a school that was not the University, and one of my students killed his ex-wife and himself.

[Raja]

When I was assigned my first route it was in the murder capital zip code of Los Angeles at the time. For 6 years I had a customer murdered a year in the one shade of blue versus another shade of blue gang war. I knew the family of one of the victims better than the 5 others and he was killed in front of my substitute on my day off.

[Zella]

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

My husband had a coworker who turned out to be arrested and convicted of kidnap, rape, murder and attempted kidnap of another victim.  They weren't friends, but they were friendly at work and one time he even came over to pick up some tools that my husband said he could have.  When it came on the evening news one night (he hadn't worked with him for a while by then), we were stunned, to say the least.  Not in a "I never would have guessed" way because we didn't know him outside of work, but more in a "Holy s&$!" kind of way. 

The guy I went to school with who killed someone had a really nice personality. I also worked with him at a work-study job and knew him more from that. He was a great coworker, kind of quiet but really pleasant and always smiling. He was nice-looking too! Didn't know him well but I was always relieved when we were on shifts together because he'd actually work. I usually think of myself as having good instincts about people but nothing about him ever seemed off or creepy to me. 

When my college roommate sent me a text message with a news article about that same guy murdering someone in front of the victim's kids, asking "Hey, don't we know this guy?" I was genuinely distraught. There are so many other people I went to college who I would have thought would have ended up in the news for murder than that guy. It still bothers me. I can't imagine how freaky it would have been if I'd really known him well. 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Zella

[DoctorAtomic]

Can you still post here if you're not loosely associated with MURDER?! 

[Mabinogia]

8 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Can you still post here if you're not loosely associated with MURDER?! 

You can do what I'm doing and say you know several people on a message board who know someone who was murdered. That's the closest I think I've gotten, and I'm good with that. 

[DearEvette]

Does  knowing the murderer count?  Cuz I inadvertently (sigh) was casual friends with a kinda serial killer.

[OtterMommy]

Okay guys, time to redirect the conversation to things that only happen on TV and not in real life.  Discussion about the murderers in our lives can continue over here.

[CoderLady]

I've just applied a peel-off activated charcoal mask which has turned my face an interesting color for the next half hour. If this was a sitcom it would be a guarantee that some unsuspecting visitor or delivery person would show up ASAP to ring the doorbell and get freaked out when I answered it.

[DoctorAtomic]

Oh, no, your new bf would show up unexpected with two fancy spoons and a pint of vanilla ice cream!

[RealHousewife]

I may have mentioned it before, but the lack of caring about safety! On TV they don’t bother locking doors or turning on alarm systems. Wealthy families IRL usually have high security, but on soaps, people easily come and go out of mansions. 

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, RealHousewife said:

I may have mentioned it before, but the lack of caring about safety! On TV they don’t bother locking doors or turning on alarm systems. Wealthy families IRL usually have high security, but on soaps, people easily come and go out of mansions. 

Yeah. The characters live in a major city, we see them unlock their door to get in, and then they put their keys in a bowl as they stroll into the apartment.   Rarely do you see a character lock the door once inside unless it's a plot point.