Great song:
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Funeral Giveaway!-'Pigs Going 6 Feet Under
I'm not making this up; it's for real!!:
'Pigs going 6 feet under
In what is being described as the most valuable fan giveaway in team history, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs are giving away an all-expenses-paid funeral at their Aug. 20 game. What you get, courtesy of the IronPigs and a local funeral home:
A casket, embalming or cremation, hearse, flowers, memorial service, and headstone.
Total value: $10,000.
How do you win? Submit an essay of 200 words or less toinfo@ironpigsbaseball.com that describes your "ideal funeral and why you feel you will, eventually, be deserving of the free funeral."
All essays must be received by July 31, 2013, and prospective winners have to be at the Aug. 20 game to win.
IronPigs GM Kurt Landes called it "a once-in-a-lifetime giveaway. Unquestionably, this is the most highly coveted 'out-of-the-box' promotion in IronPigs history."
- Inquirer wire services
Monday, June 24, 2013
Wake Up! No Long-Term Care For Aging Boomers-Patholigical View Of Aging
From the front lines, a fight for aging boomers
Martin Bayne, 63, in long-term care, is still trying to wake up his cohort: There is no solid system to care for elderly.
Martin Bayne, 63, with early-onset Parkinson's, at Sacred Heart Senior Living near Allentown. He has lost hope that America will develop a system to provide for the long-term care needs of its elderly. MIKE VITEZ / Staff
His world is so small now, a room and occasionally the hallways of a personal-care home near Allentown.
It is from this isolated existence that Bayne, 63, has reached out to an enormous audience in the last year. He has had an essay published in Health Affairs, a leading health-care journal, and has been interviewed by the New York Times and by Terry Gross on her NPR radio show, Fresh Air.
Bayne sees himself as a "clarion" for aging baby boomers. For 11 years, since early-onset Parkinson's disease left him unable to care for himself, he has been living in a world that primarily elderly people inhabit - institutional long-term care.
"A lot of people are going to get hurt," he says. "Lose their dignity. Lose their way of life."
Bayne recently got out of the hospital after weeks of pneumonia. Doctors also found a mass the size of a grapefruit on his thyroid. This is all on top of congestive heart failure, two pulmonary embolisms, and more.
Every word he spoke during a visit last week was a struggle, but his wit was intact. Asked how he was doing, he said, "I'll make it through the interview."
Bayne excelled early on as a salesman of long-term-care insurance. The more he sold it, the more he saw its limitations, and the more he realized America needed to develop a new attitude about growing old and a comprehensive system to care for people as they declined.
Bayne realized that millions of Americans were suffering from chronic illness, but that there was no comprehensive system to help pay staggering bills or to provide care in acceptable settings. He became such an expert in long-term care and an advocate for reform that he earned the moniker "Mr. Long-Term Care" and once ran a popular website.
He tilted at the biggest windmills. In an interview with The Inquirer 13 years ago, he said: "The culture doesn't know what to do with people who are old and frail. We hide them away. We have such a pathological view of aging. They want us kept young forever, having face-lifts. Until we deal with how we turn away from aging, long-term care will always take a second seat."
As his Parkinson's progressed, he became an enormous consumer of long-term care, first at home with aides, then for the last 11 years in two different facilities.
He had foresight to buy a long-term-care policy at age 40, for a $1,000 annual premium, which would pay up to $231 a day for life. His policy, he said, has paid about 80 percent of his $750,000 in long-term-care costs.
Bayne has now lost hope that America will develop a system to provide for the long-term care needs of its citizens. Neither the people nor the politicians have the will. His blunt solution: "Children should be tasked with taking care of their parents."
Alas, Bayne, divorced, has no wife, no children. As his world has shrunk, so have his goals. He now just tries to improve the life of residents in his community. His descriptions are so powerful they have carried his voice far beyond his isolation.
"Most residents in assisted-living facilities, by necessity, live secret lives," he wrote last year in Health Affairs. "On the outside, there might be a calm, even peaceful, veneer. But beneath the surface, all of us are susceptible to the ambient despair that is a permanent component of life in this type of facility.
"It's the result of months or years of loneliness and isolation and of a lack of true social interaction among residents. It's also the result of burying our feelings and emotions about the exceptionally high numbers of demented and disabled neighbors around us and being surrounded by frequent death."
Bayne recounted a story about an elderly resident who interacted with no one. Bayne tried repeatedly, day after day, just to shake the man's hand. He cut the man off with his wheelchair after dinner, blocking his exit, and still the man refused. Finally, one day, the man accepted Bayne's extended hand.
"After that day, something happened to him deep down inside," Bayne said. "Every meal after that, I would shake his hand."
One day, the man, who always dressed in shabby clothes, came down in a fresh, pink oxford shirt. Bayne knew what it meant. "I started crying," Bayne recalled. "My friend said, 'Don't worry. Everything is going to be just fine.' He died that night."
"Residents all feel enriched by their relationships with Marty," said Suzanne Panick, the administrator at Sacred Heart Senior Living in Center Valley. Bayne routinely now sits with residents when they're dying. A woman said to him, "There's no place like home," before drifting off and dying days later.
Bayne has changed in these last years. As he has grown more dependent, he has become more giving. "I learned how to reach in and touch a person's heart," he says. "Not in a manipulative way. But in a powerful way, in a way that gives the person being touched great power."
Unexpected upset
This story takes a sharp turn.On Tuesday, the day after our first interview, Bayne went by ambulance to a hospital in Bethlehem.
He had fallen out of his wheelchair. A personal-care home is not prepared to care for someone of his size, with his needs, said Panick, the administrator.
From the hospital, he will go to a nursing home. Panick says she worked hard to find a nursing home that would take someone of Bayne's size. It will have equipment to lift him when he falls. And a therapist who can work with him to lose weight.
Bayne vehemently didn't want to go. He wanted to stay in his assisted-living facility, his home. But in his eyes, what he wanted didn't matter.
From his hospital bed, by cellphone, struggling for breath and words, Bayne said Wednesday: "I've spent most of my adult life being an advocate for other people. And when it's my turn, I don't have anyone to step up to the plate for me and no one to turn to."
Panick, the administrator, visited Bayne in the hospital Thursday. She is fond of Bayne, and he knows that. She explained that Sacred Heart just didn't have the facilities to help him. He needed rehabilitation to get stronger, lose weight, and return.
"I'm not upset," Bayne said, barely audible on the phone. "It's all changed again. But that's the way it is. I look at it as a challenge. And that challenge might be good for me. So I'll make the best of it."
Contact Michael Vitez at 215-854-5639, mvitez@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @michaelvitez.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130623_From_the_front_lines_a_fight_for_aging_boomers.html#s1KhsCtAhbpdJTu6.99
Friday, June 21, 2013
Family Love And Death Of Father
Do Not Adjust Your Screen or Sound
By HEATHER SELLERS
My computer screen filled with bosom. The bosom belonged to Dawn, the activities director at the care center in Florida where my father was living. She leaned over her laptop and shouted, “Can you hear us?”
I leapt out of my chair, closed my office door. I was shaking. When Dawn stepped aside, I would see the father I hadn’t seen in years.
And never sober. My father smoked and drank around the clock. And he didn’t just chase women — he lunged for them. He met any intervention with violent rage. The large sum of money he inherited from his father slipped away to homeless drifters and lady friends from bars. He missed my graduations, my wedding, every birthday, every need. I was in my late 30s when I realized: This relationship might be too hard.
So I let him go. From afar, I orchestrated assisted living, necessary paperwork and medical power of attorney.
I didn’t see him. Until now.
I watched Dawn’s face, her long brown hair.
“We can hear you, but we can’t see you,” she said.
In the background, I heard an old man saying, “Wah, wah, wah,” as if asking for water. How happy my father would be, I thought, if he were the one seeing the cleavage up close on the screen. There’d been that, too: porn addiction. And cross-dressing. So much chaos and confusion in this man. Recently, I’d decided he had most likely suffered from mental illness. But I’d never found a way to know him or understand his rage.
Now, here he was, Fred Sellers, at 80. I hadn’t seen him in so many years. His bright eyes roved around the screen, intensely curious. He still had his thick white hair and gigantic eyebrows. His stroke-frozen claw hand was clutched over his heart. He worked his good hand to the keyboard. I was afraid he was going to break our connection.
“Daddy,” I said. I sounded so small. My throat hurt. I did not want to cry. I was at work, wearing mascara and a white blouse; I had to teach class in less than an hour. “You look so good.”
“Well, hell,” he said, peering hard at the screen. “Where you been, girl child?”
His stroke-affected speech was heavy on vowels, light on consonants. But every word was as clear to me as always. He looked better than ever. Was this the first time I’d seen him sober?
“Can you see me, Daddy?”
“No!” he shouted, banging his good hand on the keyboard.
I examined the green button on my screen, just under his chin: “Video.” It was on. Then I remembered: Since his stroke, when he said “no” he meant “yes,” and “yes” meant “no.” He did see me. “Isn’t this great?” I said, pressing tissues to my face.
“No!” he shouted. “No, no.”
I smiled.
Over the years, friends, clergy members and relatives urged me to visit my father, while others urged me to never see him again. When I visited, I always regretted it. When I didn’t, I regretted that, too.
But children of negligent parents have complicated needs. Now that my father was in a nursing home and couldn’t drink, hurt anyone or destroy himself, I felt overwhelmed in a good way by the love that rushed in. Now that my father fit into a desktop-size box — my computer screen — the proportions seemed manageable.
My father and I started talking, thanks to Dawn, every Friday afternoon. Online video calls gave me my father, gave him to me in a safe, manageable format. Here, in a box, was a man I could love.
“Dawn says you’re doing pretty good,” I said.
“No!” he said, his whole body nodding yes. “No!”
“It is so good to see you,” I said.
“Oh, gosh,” he said. “Oh gosh, honey. Look at you.” This last would sound to the untrained ear as “Oh, osh. Unnie. Ooo. Ah. Ooo.”
He beamed. I’d never seen my father really happy before. I’d never seen his love for me shine through. But here it was.
At this safe distance, I couldn’t get enough of him. We spent a lot of time just staring at each other. He peered hard into the screen, trying to capture every bit of information, looking happily overwhelmed, and fiercely confused. One day, I was pleased he was wearing a green striped shirt I’d mailed, and I told him how nice he looked.
He looked down at himself and back up at me, shaking his head, as if to say, “Life’s a mystery.” He looked bemused, bereft and philosophical all at once. And always well shaven, well fed. We’d been estranged forever, yet now we were having the best relationship we’d ever had.
After that first conversation, when the adrenaline kept us both going for an hour, he tired quickly, and our talks were brief. He got bored; his attention wandered. I sensed he was looking around Dawn’s activity room for cookies, hidden treats.
One day I showed him photographs of his babyhood, his parents and his own young family, me as a baby. He looked intently, saying the names of each person. When I told him my book was coming out and showed him a mock-up of the cover, he said: “No kidding. Amazing, amazing.”
He looked so proud. Stunned, but proud. Often he asked me, in his garbled way, how my house was, and my teaching. Finally he was asking me questions about my life, noticing I had one. My Dad was with me, there was just less of him. Which turned out to be a good thing.
That fall, at one of my department meetings, a colleague from the office next to mine said, “Your video calls are disturbing others.”
“I know it’s loud,” I said. “My father can’t hear me unless I shout. I apologize. But it’s the only time of day I can talk to him. The calls are brief. Please be patient.”
I wanted to say: “This is all we have, this fragile shouting. It’s 10 minutes or so a week. And it won’t last much longer.”
I tried to find another weekday time that could work for all of us. I tried to find another place to set up my computer. But I didn’t try very hard. Some part of me, I admit, wanted to disturb my colleagues. Some part of me wanted to yell my father into the world: “Don’t you see? I have a father! My Dad loves me. And I love him.”
“I love you,” I shouted at the end of each conversation.
“Ooo ooo ooo ooo,” he said, every time, as he zipped out of the screen (“I love you, too”).
After Christmas that year, my father went to the activities room less and less. Then in February he didn’t go at all. A couple of times Dawn took her personal laptop into his room, and I’d see him in his bed, and he’d wave his good hand, look at me for a bit, smile wanly, then drift back to sleep.
Finally Dawn broke the news to me: lung cancer. I flew to Orlando and spent three days with him. We held hands and laughed a lot. I showed him old photos. I read him a book I’d salvaged from my childhood.
That evening, after dinner, he pointed to his chest.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He nodded. “Is it bad?” he asked me.
“It’s not good,” I said.
“Dammit.”
I held his hand while he slept. The laptop phone calls had given me a new template for my father. I couldn’t have just come down and seen him otherwise. We’d made a new relationship online, me and the smaller Fred.
The cancer was a slow-growing kind. They said six months, maybe three years.
Two weeks later, he was dead. Pneumonia. As he passed, a nurse — an angel — in I.C.U. held the phone to his ear. She said, “When he hears your voice, he smiles.”
In the end, we had just barely a year. But I got what I wanted: to be a normal daughter. And after he died, I got to have some profoundly normal grief. The last words he heard me say were “I love you,” and his last to me, said in his way, were “I love you, too.”
Forgiveness is a heavy-duty word. I don’t know that I forgave my father. I’m not even sure what that means. What happened between us at the end of his life feels more simple and complex than forgiveness.
Those conversations don’t cancel out the years of trauma and neglect. But neither does the bad cancel out those final moments of grace. Both are true. I hold both in my heart, and I am grateful. In the year before he died, I got to love my father — some.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Afterwards Offers Hand When Grief Takes Hold
Coming to grips with life's body blows
APRIL SAUL / Staff Photographer
Sharon Roth-Lichtenfeld (left) and Pat Obst. They wanted to offer help beyond the initial grieving process. "You're still left with, 'What am I going to do?' " Roth-Lichtenfeld said.
Roth-Lichtenfeld, a former art director who is now a life coach, lived through a friend's rape and murder, her mother's death when Roth-Lichtenfeld was 34, divorce, a child with special needs, and, last summer, a preventive double mastectomy. Nine women in her mother's family have had breast or ovarian cancer.
Obst, a social worker and therapist, dealt with her parents' divorce when she was 17, her mother's death when she was 24, her own divorce, the death of her newborn child in 2002, and, in November, breast cancer.
The women, who both live in Washington Township, Gloucester County, wanted to put their personal and professional experience to good use as a team. They could see there were plenty of programs to help people through the intense emotions of new grief, but little for the really hard part: creating a new life, a new, imagined future, after world-shaking loss.
The two called their new eight-week program Afterwards. Its first session, at the Starting Point in Westmont, attracted 13 people trying to move on after divorce, the deaths of sons and husbands, and financial collapse.
The program, described at www.afterwardsprogram.com and which will be offered next in the fall, costs $354 to $380, and includes two one-on-one sessions with Obst, 50, and Roth-Lichtenfeld, 52.
If you find a lot of talk about self-empowerment and the like grating, the program might not be for you. But early reviews of its combination of new-agey therapy techniques, supportive talk, and coaching have been positive.
"I needed to redefine myself and figure out where to go from here," said Theresa Malone, a 51-year-old Gloucester County woman whose husband committed suicide in January 2012. "It's an awesome program, and it has been helping me."
Maggie Keller, 55, of Newtown, said the program was filling a need for her, too. She and her husband lost their house in Florida during the recession and are starting over.
"There was no support group for people that had lost their dreams," she said.
Participants said they went because they were feeling stuck, shut down, or withdrawn.
Roth-Lichtenfeld said many want to stop feeling sad. That won't happen, but she said people could reach a point where they could feel those stabs of grief and let them go in just a few minutes.
Some of the group members have found they needed to face the pain of earlier losses rather than their more immediate crises.
Keller, for instance, grew up in foster homes. She discovered that the loss of her home was so painful to her because the house represented family.
Barbara Stokley of Hainesport is still struggling with how to go on since her husband's death in 2007, but the classes have made her realize that she never really grieved her grandmother's death when she was a child.
Obst and Roth-Lichtenfeld see support groups as a good way to work through and normalize grief, but said they wanted to do more. Obst said Afterwards was for people who can see the light at the end of the tunnel but don't know what they'll do when they step outside. The two spend some time helping people identify what's holding them back, but also teaching thinking techniques that could help them move forward.
During their fifth meeting, for example, the group talked about the "I am" statements they'd written earlier to highlight their strengths. They'd chosen words like calm, brave, and deserving. They explored emotional triggers that reopened old hurts. They discussed the difference between being MindFULL and MindFUL, and they talked about cultivating gratitude.
Keller finds it easier to drive through neighborhoods now without feeling jealous of people who own their own homes.
"I can just see that it's not consuming me as much," she said, "and I'm really starting to focus on the loss of growing up without a family."
Malone said she had gotten a full-time job and was feeling stronger.
Homework she did for the group - writing a goodbye letter to her ex-husband - helped her get back in touch with the good memories. She's writing in her journal about herself now, not him.
Seeing how Obst and Roth-Lichtenfeld have gone on after their losses has given her hope.
"I'm still here and my kids are here," Malone said. "We're still going to live our lives and enjoy a happy life."
Contact Stacey Burling at 215-854-4944 or sburling@phillynews.com.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130609_Coming_to_grips_with_life_s_body_blows.html#u5hAXMxCqDOgT0MK.99
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Prepare For Chicken Death & End Of Life Decisions-Yes Chickens!
5 Ways to Prepare for Chicken Illness, Injury, Death & End of Life Decisions
by Kathy Shea Mormino, The Chicken Chick
Most of us spend a great deal of time preparing for the arrival of our first chickens, but few of us give much thought to how we would handle serious injuries, illnesses and end-of-life decisions until they are upon us. My recent experience with a dying chicken made me realize that I could have been better prepared to handle certain aspects of her fatal illness, which make an already difficult time, more stressful. My hope is that by sharing my experience that you will be prepared to face the toughest part of chicken-keeping when the time comes.
Esther was one of my oldest chickens and she came to me as a day old chick with scissor beak. She managed very well in spite of her disability. At the end of last month, she became less active than normal and within a few days, I noticed abnormal poop on the droppings board underneath her spot on the roost. I brought her into the house for closer observation and noticed that she was not eating or drinking, so I began dropper-feeding her water withvitamins & electrolytes. Her condition did not improve and I decided she needed to be seen by a veterinarian.
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| Esther in foreground. |
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| These droppings are abnormal, the dark green indicates she has not been eating and the vast amount of white (urates) indicates organ failure. |
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1. Have a well-stocked first aid kit & infirmary set up ready
Many injured and sick birds can be cared for by the average backyard chicken-keeper at least until professional veterinary care can be obtained. Having some first aid essentials such as vitamins & electrolytes, a dropper or syringe, Vetrap and Vetericyn Wound Care spray, on-hand is critical to being able to deliver emergency medical aid and may mean the difference between life and death.
Having a dedicated crate or special location to keep a sick or injured bird is important so that they can be closely observed during their crisis.
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| dog carriers serve as excellent, temporary infirmaries for sick or injured birds |
2. Find an avian veterinarian in your area before you need one
Find an avian veterinarian nearby before there is an emergency and keep their phone number in your chicken first aid kit. This vet will likely not be the same vet that already treats your other animals. A visit to the office to introduce yourself to the staff can be the difference between being seen during a crisis and being told the vet has no time to examine your bird. Have a backup plan. Find out who covers for that vet when they are on vacation and keep their number handy too.
There is a list of board certified avian vets here--> http://www.aav.org/search/index.php
3. Have a euthanasia plan
There will inevitably come a time in every flock when a sick or injured bird will need to be euthanized. Some people are capable of euthanizing their own bird by a variety of humane methods. Learn which methods are available and whether you are capable of following through with one when the need arises. Some people are more comfortable having a professional euthanize their chickens. Most vets, even if they do not ordinarily treat chickens, will euthanize a sick or injured bird. Inquire of your dog/cat/goat/horse 's vet whether this is a service they would be willing to render, but do so in advance of needing these services if possible.
4. Locate your state veterinary diagnostic laboratory & get a necropsy done
Each state has a veterinary lab that will run tests and perform postmortem examinations on animals to determine the cause of death. Know where your lab is, how to contact them and which services they offer. If a bird dies unexpectedly, it is extremely important to get a necropsy done to determine the cause of death. Some illnesses and diseases are contagious and the rest of the flock may be at risk. A determination of the cause of death can provide some peace of mind.
If you will be transporting a deceased bird to the lab yourself, it is critical to get her there as soon as possible after the time of death and that the body is stored properly until then. It should be placed inside two plastic bags, sealed and kept under refrigeration (not frozen) until it can be delivered to the lab. Some labs will send a courier to pick up the remains.
In Esther's case, my avian vet was unaware that our state diagnostic lab would transport Esther to their facility, euthanize her and perform the necropsy- all free of charge. I was aware that they offered these services, so I was able to share that information with my vet and make the necropsy arrangements for Esther myself. Since Esther was in pain, I didn't want her to wait until the next morning to be put to sleep- I asked the vet to draw blood for the lab, (at their request) euthanize her and store her remains until the courier picked her up the next morning.
5. Request a copy of the Necropsy Report
While the lab will send a report to the veterinarian automatically, I think it's important to request a copy to learn what they found and keep it on file as part of your flock's health history. I have medical training and experience, so I understood the report, but if you do not, discuss the necropsy report with your vet and let them know if you do not understand the terminology they are using.
While I was making Esther's transportation arrangements, I asked the lab to send me the necropsy report, but they forgot. I followed-up with them several weeks after the necropsy and they gladly emailed it to me. As you can see from the report, she had ovarian cancer. The tumor was enormous and the cancer had spread throughout her other organs. Poor girl. I was thankful to have had access to the services of a knowledgeable vet who was able to put her to sleep peacefully.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Joyce's Ulysses Re Love, Mortality & Death
Writer Chris Hedges says we should read Ulysses because it shows us that "the most heroic and important actions of human existence do not take place on a battlefield or on great public stages . . . It is love, and the reverence for the sacred that deep love inspires, that alone allows us to face the specter of our own mortality and cherish and hold fast to life in the face of death."
Friday, June 14, 2013
This Is The End-Hollywood Apocalypse Upon Us
philly.com:
'This Is the End' is the bro-pocalypse movie Millennials need
Mike Bertha
This film publicity image released by Columbia Pictures shows, from left, James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel in a scene from "This Is The End." (AP Photo/Columbia Pictures - Sony, Suzanne Hanover) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Jay Baruchel is crashing with Seth Rogen for a few nights during a stint in Los Angeles. After an obligatory bro greeting and subsequent afternoon squandered smoking themselves into comas and playing video games until their thumbs (and eyes) bleed, the pair heads over to James Franco's new mansion for a lavish Hollywood blow out. Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Rihanna, Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Mindy Kaling and pretty much everyone who's anyone is there, partaking in the abuse of various self-prescribed medications.
When Baruchel gets pissed and tries to bail and go back to Rogen's, the biblical apocalypse begins. The Hollywood Hills are on fire and the earth opens up and swallows a slew of Franco's famous friends. Thus, Franco, Rogen, Baruchel, Hill, Robinson and McBride are left to survive the remainder of the apocalypse together in the mansion, each playing a caricature of their Hollywood personas.
James Franco's the uppity A-lister who collects props from his own movies and is creepily obsessed with impressing Seth Rogen. Jonah Hill is overly nice to the point that you can't tell whether or not he's beeing an a**hole. Danny McBride is basically just playing his character from Eastbound and Down. Baruchel's a little awkward and feels like he doesn't fit in with the rest of the crew.
The rest of the film follows the group of guys as they struggle to survive the elements without succumbing to damnation or killing each other in the process. It's full of everything Millennials love in their comedies: heinous language, friends making fun of each other, surprise cameos, awesome pop songs from the '90s, instances of Hollywood making fun of itself, and all of their favorite comedy stars playing off each other in an ad lib-style competition to see who can be the foulest/funniest (as if there's a real distinction).
It's the perfect summer comedy for people who know all the words to LFO's "Summer Girls" and could have earned a minor in Watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall Hungover While Shoveling Doritos Into Your Face, had their universities offered it as a specialization.
And along with This Is The End's obligatory jokes about ejaculate and drinking your own urine comes an adept analysis of Millennial culture and an enlightened interpretation of modern male group dynamics. For an entire generation, early adolescence is just a blur of group sleepovers fueled by Mortal Kombat, Mountain Dew, Adam Sandler movies, and Internet porn. The main act of This Is the End is, essentially, the same, except the guys have swapped the Mountain Dew for booze and the power is out, so they've got to resort to an old-fashioned nudie mag for the adult entertainment.
Thanks to the video camera from 127 Hours that Franco has as a keepsake, the guys in the movie are able to film themselves surviving the apocalypse to show the true story of six friends (sorta) forced to live in a house, work together, and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start being real.
They use sarcasm and false bravado to mask their own insecurities and concerns. They're as jealous, petty, defensive, and irritable as a gaggle of hormonal tweens. At a sixth grade sleepover, kids are worried about not fitting in and letting their parents down and accidentally saying something stupid if they ever actually spoke to a real girl. In This Is the End, the guys are afraid of eternal damnation by way of a seven-headed demon brought about by the biblical apocalypse. So, basically the same thing.
For all of the juvenile parallels between This Is The End and that time everyone got all hopped up on Mountain Dew at Bobby's 12th birthday party and played Frank Thomas' Big Hurt Baseball until I finally passed out at 5:30 a.m. and someone put an ice cube in my ear, the film also includes a very real depiction of what it's like to transition from adolescence to adulthood. It demonstrates that, in certain situations and with a particular group dynamic, it people to revert to old versions of themselves very easily. The social struggle within the group is palpable and the fallout of being in such close quarters with such close friends resonates for anyone who's ever vacationed with friends. But, mostly, This Is the End is just wildly inappropriate and hilarious.
On a scale of Strange Wilderness to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, This Is the End is an 8.5. Go for the d*** jokes, stay for the faux-ironic '90s nostalgia and male gaze commentary.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/trending/This-Is-the-End-is-the-bro-pocalylpse-movie-Millennials-need.html#O6YGytZiYEhGI12v.99
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