My Name Is Phillip, and I am an Addict ... and a Co-Dependent

June 8, 2007 — -- Unfulfilled and bored by this year's summer of sequels at the Cineplex, I yearned for something real. Something different. Something just a few paces off the beaten path.

"Crazy Love," the third directorial effort from New York native and PR kingpin Dan Klores was just what I needed. (It's miles off the beaten path. We're talking virgin path here.)

The film is a documentary about a complicated, quirky Bronx love story — boy (Burt Pugach) meets girl (Linda Riss). Boy falls in love with girl. Girl leaves boy. Boy pays thugs to blind girl with lye. Boy goes to jail. Girl doesn't find better meal ticket during boy's 14-year incarceration. Girl marries boy.

These dysfunctional lovers are drawn together by lust and need, separated by unhealthy obsession but drawn back together under the glare of media co-dependency.

As I sat in the theater, I realized that 50 years after Burt blinded Linda, this sad, dysfunctional tale is something I could have watched on "Oprah," "Maury" or even worse, "The Jerry Springer Show." Today, we look at the years following World War II as a simpler time in America, a time when people's biggest problems were like those seen on TV — what June Cleaver would cook for dinner and whether the Beaver would do his homework. Tawdry affairs and violence were for gangsters.

This love story made me laugh as if I were watching a gritty segment of "Seinfeld," "The Nanny" or Linda Richman's coffee talk on "Saturday Night Live." Burt and Linda's friends and family were clichéd caricatures, straight out of central casting .

But as the story unfolds, complete with pain and suffering, the laughter gives way to a sobering awe that leaves your mouth agape as you watch the proverbial train wreck in shock and repulsion, just as I did earlier that morning as I voyeuristically watched "Divorce Court," which triggered a heated argument with my TV. Why does she stay with him? I wouldn't take that! Is he for real? I am living vicariously through families I don't even know, with problems I hope I will never experience.

My name is Phillip. I am an addict. And a co dependent. I am addicted to soap operas, and co-dependent on "Oprah." I am guilty of watching people's most personal trials and tribulations play out in the glare of the public (well, television studio) spotlight.