Life

Open Letter To Online Movie Bloggers / Writers

Posted by on June 28, 2011 at 4:39 pm.

John-Hospital.jpg2 months ago I suffered 2 heart attacks in under an hour.

3 months ago I never would have imagined writing an opening sentence like that… but there it is as large as life itself. Despite the fact that I train once and sometimes twice a day, despite the fact that I have no family history of heart problems, despite the fact that I do no drink, despite the fact that I do not smoke, despite the fact that I’m under 40 years old… I had 2 heart attacks in under an hour.

It was late April and I was at the gym just finishing up a fairly intense Muay Thai class. I felt totally fine. I put my shoes back on, sat down to drink something and the first heart attack hit me. I swear I just thought it was some kind of chest muscle cramping up.

Let’s face it… those of us who have the privilege of watching movies and then writing about movies for a living are a pretty lucky bunch, but unfortunately we usually sit on our asses to watch movies, and then sit on our asses to write about them… and in the middle of a 7 hour stint in front of our computers writing our latest review or editorial, we eat like shit throwing down whatever is quick and easy for us to eat because we don’t have the time to get up from our desks to make something half decent for ourselves… so a bag of Doritos, a 2 liter bottle of Coke and some McDonalds usually has to do. I’ve polished off more bowls of ice cream in that very position than I can count.

And also let’s be honest… us web guys are not the most physically active people on the planet. I highly doubt a group of crack dealers would tremble in fear at the thought of crossing paths with an angry group of movie bloggers.

So what’s my point?

I love the online movie community. I count many of you as friends… some as frenimies, and yes there are a few I just don’t like… but all based on things that in the grand scheme of life are small and probably petty. The reality is that if this heart attack thing can happen to me… a young guy who trains, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and fits in no real risk category, then it can happen to any of us… and I’d honestly HATE to hear it happens to any of you… no matter which of those three categories you fall under.

So as trivial and trite as it admittedly sounds… take a few minutes to get outside. Take some extra time to go to the grocery story and at least buy some apples. Skip one trip to McD’s or Wendy’s this week. Go join George for some Vollyball this weekend, go bowling, skip one dessert… do anything. Just please start taking small steps to take care of yourself. Life is short and our little online community is better with you in it… even if you actually liked Transformers 3.

As for me, things are good. I went back to training 2 weeks after getting out of the hospital, I’m feeling good, trying to eat a little better than I did before (cut back on my ice cream consumption A LOT)… but I got lucky.

Thanks for reading. I hope it wasn’t a complete waste of your time. Looking forward to seeing you all at Comic Con.

~John

  • http://twitter.com/ec10condemned Will LeBlanc

    Hey man, glad to see you well and writing. I read an article a few weeks ago that changed the way I think about my health. I’m a part time writer like you, but my full time job is as a video editor/graphic designer so I’m at a desk all day. And my second love isn’t of MMA like you, it’s of video games, so I rarely am up and about. Thankfully I have a dog to walk that helps get me out of the house. Anyway, here’s a link to the article if you want to take a look. Good info from top designers on how they stay healthy. Good health, John.

    http://line25.com/articles/how-do-you-stay-fit-and-healthy-as-a-designer

  • Fergusontx

    Best of luck for a quick recovery and many years of good health. Thanks for sharing your story.

  • GiGi

    Think FROZEN GRAPES instead of ice cream! Oh oh, you can bake an apple with cinnamon, now that’s GOOD! ha ha. Okay, obviously I am hungry.

    I am glad you’re doing well, you are an incredible trooper and inspiration, seriously. Your experience is completely surreal. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Patrick-Sauriol/1193685920 Patrick Sauriol

    John, good to know that you’re on the mend both physically and mentally after having such a scare.

    In addition to trying to keep in some shape and eating relatively OK, there’s one other thing that I’d like to mention that you didn’t: reducing your stress level.

    I find that our industry has an insane amount of pressure. We’ve seen ad rates decrease for the past decade, putting stress on site owners. The bargain basement rates paid to online writers put stress on those of us that slave away in front of our keyboards, sometimes for more than a dozen hours a day, writing blog post after blog post. Several sites have told their writing staff to produce quick turnaround content, as fast as they can, at crazy hours and throughout the day. It’s a nightmare of a profession to work in, much less call it a living, and I don’t see it getting any better any time soon. Do you see our studio buddies from marketing buying ads on the movie websites to promote TRANSFORMERS 3, GREEN LANTERN or CARS 2? Without their support, how are any of us supposed to earn a living and reduce our workload and stress level?

    Well, I’ll say it: maybe they don’t care. Maybe we’re just willing slaves to them, selling out for a STAR TREK DVD or set visit four times a year. Maybe we’re much more to blame for being content and marketing sluts as the masters we say that we don’t work for.

    Not that the studios are the only culprit to blame, but I hope that you see my point.

    Take it from someone who lived living online and writing updates about movies 24/7, it’s just not worth it. Not for the money we’re making, not for the cheap swag and merch we’re given to write about movies and not for the non-stop workload and crazy hours we write our news articles.

    Just a few new pennies to add on your pile.

  • http://twitter.com/CMSheridan Christopher Sheridan

    I’m glad you’re doing ok, that can be pretty scary.

    As a psychology major that also does movie blogging, this makes me thing pretty hard about my non-active lifestyle.  Thank you for making me think twice.

  • craig ryan

    Hey john, been training martial arts for a looong time, nearly 12 years, i recommend (if you have the time) to do a cardio warm up on a treadmill or something like it, to increase your heart rate gradually, ontop of whatever warmup you might do with the muay thai class

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