Message in a Bottle

The Silence of the Telemarketers

2010-11-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

I got an annoying telemarketing call this morning. Since it was an otherwise quiet Sunday morning, we've been on the National Do-Not-Call Registry ever since it started, and have received calls from this same outfit before (and asked to be removed from their list), I was more-than-usually brusque with the woman who called, and she sounded quite hurt (just before I hung up on her in mid-sentence).

I started thinking of various strategies I've tried or had read about over the years to deal with calls like this; the problem is that, even with Caller ID, there is little you can do to truly identify them and make them stop. My mind being the perverse engine that it is, I flashed to "The Silence of the Lambs", specifically to the scene when Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) first visits Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) at his specially-designed cell in a high-security facility. Lecter, a former psychiatrist, whispers something so devastating and persuasive to the person in the next cell that the man kills himself.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to exercise some of that same power in order to get revenge on telemarketers? I've decided that the next time one of them calls, I'll say something like this:

It must be very hard for you. Most normal people quit jobs like yours after only a few weeks; their conscience begins to bother them. All the time calling people who don't want to be disturbed and offering them some sort of bogus prize just to get them to listen long enough to agree to have some equally dishonest person into their homes to give them a hard-sell sales pitch for something they don't need, don't want, and probably can't afford. Maybe you personally are not dishonest-- perhaps you're just desperate. Maybe you can't get a real job, maybe you can't pass a drug test, maybe you're a convicted felon, maybe a sex offender, maybe you're too ugly to deal with the public in person, and this is the only work you can get. But keep this in mind: if your employer is willing to stoop so low as to lie and cheat people to squeeze some bucks from them, if he or she has so little respect for customers, you can pretty much be assured that, sooner or later, employees like you will be treated with the same contempt. After all, people like you are a dime a dozen. Have you thought about that? Do you have trouble sleeping? Can you look at yourself in a mirror? Are you truly happy? Is it all worth it? Don't you feel like a whore?

...and, hopefully, by now the drone on the phone has wrapped the cord around his or her neck and is trying to pull it tight...

Less of a Man

2010-08-21T15:14:00.002-06:00

From Mid-March until now, I have lost 37 pounds. I have been thinking about this in various ways; for example:

In my business, I handle a lot of milk. A gallon of milk (or pretty much any watery liquid) weighs 8 pounds; so, I have reduced my weight by the equivalent of four-and-a-half gallons.
When I started this weight-loss regime (I hesitate to call it a 'diet'-- that would imply a level of organization that I haven't really reached), I weighed 220 pounds; I now weigh 183. This means that I have reduced my weight by almost 17 percent.
I just gave several pairs of pants to a local charity; my waist is now 36 inches, and the pants were 42s. My tighty-whiteys are not so tight anymore; they're now baggy at the leg openings, turning my briefs into boxers.
I'm not sure how long it's been since I weighed what I do now... but I'm guessing that it's been at least 35 years. Richard Nixon was president then.

Why did I decide to do this, and why now? I'm not sure-- but I think my trip to Houston may have had something to do with it. For several not-very-good reasons, I had not had any dental work done for about eight years; I decided that it was time to do something about it, so I arranged for a dentist relative in Houston to work me over for several hours over the course of three days. I came back from the trip with a willingness to develop the habit of daily dental maintenance, and somehow one thing led to another-- I decided that I was ready to take on the formation of another good habit pattern.

A lot of acquaintances and customers have noticed the difference in me and some have carefully asked me about it; in this day and age (and at my age), there is always the concern that a significant weight-loss may be a sign of illness. Once they understand that it's a result of deliberate work on my part, they usually ask me how I did it. I've tried not to bore people with the details, but there are a couple of points I generally make:

The key is knowing yourself. I somehow knew that I was ready to do something about my obesity, and that I knew that (for a change!) I had the attention span necessary to persevere. The point is not just that nobody can go on a diet for you, it's that nobody can persuade you but yourself.
I also knew that I needed to make the minimum amount of changes in my lifestyle in order for this to work; this meant that I would have to come up with compromises between my need to cut my food intake while still eating as many of the foods that I love as I could manage. In short: how much could I get away with and still go to heaven?
The mechanics of it all were simple: I counted calories during my day at work, trying to rack up no more than about 900, then I would go home to the so-called 'sensible dinner' that they used to advertise in the commercials for Slim-Fast.
Along with counting calories, I decided to adhere to a paradigm: that I was on a caloric 'budget' of approximately 1400 calories per day, and I wanted to get the most bang for my nutritional bucks by 'spending' carefully.

So how do I feel? Physically, not so different-- though I enjoy being able to bend over and touch the floor or tie my shoelaces without grunting. My bloodwork tells the tale, though: my cholesterol is ridiculously low (though it *is* drug-assisted-- who's isn't?), and my cardiologist has reduced or eliminated several of my meds.

My mental state is where there are some interesting changes. I am unconsciously equating any good thing that happens to my body as a result of my weight loss, logical or not; if I look in the mirror and my hair looks less gray that day, I have to remind myself that it's (probably) unrelated. My self-image is beginning to change also; I looked at some photos taken of me about 20 years ago, and I am for the first time seeing my former self as uncomfortably overweight. I'm hoping that this will be helpful in making sure I don't regain the weight I've lost, which is always a concern.

This weight-loss thing could have become an obsession, but it looks like I've found ways to turn it into a hobby instead.

One of our local markets gives a 10% discount to those of us who are 55 or older on the first Wednesday of the month. Since Wednesday is usually my day off, I'll go there and prowl the aisles, thoroughly examining the shelves for items that sound tasty and are low in calories and fat. I've added all kinds of stuff to what was once a somewhat limited palette of foods I enjoy, and the discount provides an incentive to try new things.
I am also becoming increasingly interested in cooking. My culinary knowledge is spotty at best, and I lack experience in some basic kitchen skills; however, I can follow a recipe, and I have an intuitive grasp of what to add in order to improve the taste of a dish. My wife generally doesn't enjoy cooking all that much, so she's been happy to turn over some of the task to me-- and the results have been pretty tasty. I have printed out a whole binder full of recipes from the EatingWell website, which has a wonderful variety of recipes under such headings as: meals for two, 30-minute 500 calorie meals, dinners in 3 steps or less, dinners at $3 per portion, and much more. All recipes have complete nutrition info as well as comments and suggestions from people who've tried them.

I don't know what the future holds for me, but I'm aiming for a 'soft landing' at 180 lbs., which will give me a BMI of less than 25, and I'm hoping I can find a way to eat more of the junk foods that I love so well without spoiling my efforts. Stay tuned...

Coincidental Juxtaposition (third in a series)

2010-04-02T11:52:00.002-06:00

This morning I was reading my Facebook news feed when I noticed a post by a friend; she mentioned a letter written by Marianne Williamson to Sarah Palin.

Directly beneath my friend's post was one from Leftake.com announcing that over 5,000 people have joined StopWinkingAtViolence.com in an effort to get Sarah Palin to tone down some of the rhetoric that has been inciting the Tea party crowd.

Coincidence piled on coincidence: when I posted the Leftake link as a comment to my friend's post, I received a 'captcha' asking me to enter two words to prove I wasn't a spam-posting bot; the two words I was required to type: 'buffoon' and 'election.'

Coincidental Juxtaposition (second in a series)

2010-03-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

From time to time, Facebook posts items about some of my friends and what they have been up to; sometimes the items are assembled using unintentionally amusing placement.

Today I saw that one of my friends is now a fan of both In-N-Out Burger and Victoria's Secret. I posted to her Wall saying that the woman of my fantasies would be wearing one while offering me the other... but I wonder if she'll notice that I didn't specify which was which?

Lesson Learned

2010-02-17T15:05:00.002-07:00

Every week or so I get a phone call at my shop from one or more businesses that are trying to sell me ad space on sports calendars, t-shirts and the like, ostensibly to support one of the local high schools. ("Local" seems to be loosely defined by these people; some of the schools they want me to support are a two-hour drive away from our town.) I always blow them off as soon as possible; typically the cost for the ad is exorbitant, and I'd rather support the local schools by contributing directly to them-- at least that way I know the money is going where it should.

My wife tends to feel more sympathetic toward these people than I do; after all, she says, they're just trying to make a living. One time, in response to just that sentiment, I told this story from my misspent youth.

Forty years ago, after a major argument with my parents, I left home with only the clothes on my back. I hopped on a bus and went downtown, to what was then the 'bohemian' part of Baltimore. Being the practical sixteen-year-old that I was, I immediately set out to find both shelter and a job; as this was after dark on a Sunday night, my prospects were looking a little bleak.

While talking with the owner of a local head shop, I was interrupted by a local denizen of the neighborhood, who suggested that I could earn a decent living by panhandling.

I demurred. "Hey it's easy," he said. "All you have to do is go up to people and ask them if they have any spare change. Try it!"

"OK, I will. Got any spare change?"

"F__k off!"

"Why'd you say that to me? I was just trying out my pitch, just like you said!"

"Well, you gotta learn how to handle rejection."

I have taken this lesson to heart, and it has served me well over the years.

Seventeen Minutes and Five Seconds

2010-02-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last month while I was in Houston, I bought a little music box that plays "My Funny Valentine" when you turn the crank. I gave it to my wife today. She really likes it, which is a good thing, 'cause the one that plays "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" wouldn't have fit into my suitcase.

Wrong Number

2009-11-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I have a certain air about me; often, strangers come up to me and ask me questions, especially directions. This used to happen to me a lot in stores; people would mistake me for an employee and ask me where to find things.

Maybe it's my face. People used to say that Walter Cronkite had a face that conveyed trust; perhaps I have a face that people trust to provide answers.

A lady walked into my store the other day after reading the various notices, flyers and posters hanging in the windows. She came up to me at the counter and said, "You're gay, right?" I said, "No. Actually, I'm married." "To a woman?" "I believe so." She apologized; I told her that I wasn't offended. She asked me about how she could connect with the local GLBT community in our town, and I gave her a few suggestions.

Was her gaydar turned off, or was it my air of Authority?

Out Here

2009-09-01T13:44:00.005-06:00

Back around 1990, I was on a business trip to Australia. One day a local resident took me on a trip from Sydney to the Blue Mountains, about two hours away by car. After checking out some of the sights in and around Katoomba, we bought burgers and fries and drove a short distance down a dirt road to a clearing. We unwrapped our fully-loaded burgers (complete with a fried egg on top) and proceeded to eat, using the hood of the car as a table. Julie pointed to the west and said, "The Outback begins here, you know." I admit that I was impressed by the idea that where we were standing was the beginning of miles and miles of relatively unspoiled wilderness stretching across an entire continent... yet in a matter of minutes I could be back in a busy tourist town and an easy drive from one of the world's great cities.

For the past six-plus years, I have been living in a similar situation: the small town I live in is on the edge of millions of acres of government-managed forest. Though the wilderness is clearly marked on maps, in the real world the boundaries are not delineated with the same precision. The blurring of this line can make for entertaining and instructional interactions.

For instance: last night at 12:52 AM local time, I heard a siren from a police car passing nearby. After a minute or so, the siren's ululation was augmented by the howls of a neighborhood dog. Before the dog was entirely finished, the chorus was joined by the unmistakable yodeling of several coyotes who inhabit the uncleared area north of our yard... followed by the raucous counterpoint of what sounded like a litter of coyote pups having their say.

Take Time to Stop and Smell the Home Fries

2009-06-17T16:39:00.003-06:00

I recently spent a few days back in my old hometown of Baltimore. I flew in from Albuquerque Saturday night, rented a car, and stayed at the Radisson in Cross Keys, a gated community where I worked as a security guard after leaving college in the early 70's.

I was back in town to attend a memorial gathering for my parents, arranged by my brother. I could have stayed with my brother and sister-in-law, or with any of several friends or family in the area, but I chose the hotel instead; I wanted to be someplace anonymous and impersonal, someplace neutral where I could come and go as I pleased. I wasn't certain about how well I would handle the constant reminders of my parents' recent death along with the continuing realization that Baltimore had changed and had gone on without me after I moved away ten years ago.

I woke up Sunday morning, shaved, showered, dressed, then got in the car and drove aimlessly for a while. I was hungry, and I remembered other Sundays when my wife and I would walk from my apartment over to the corner of 32nd and Greenmount to Pete's Grille. Pete's is a local institution that gained notoriety (a few years after we left the neighborhood) as being a favorite of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. I decided to drive to Pete's and get some breakfast.

Though the ownership of Pete's Grille has changed, little else about the place has. It's one long counter-- you sit wherever there's an empty seat, or you wait patiently until one opens up. I was lucky; there were several places open, and I sat down next to a party of three: a man, a woman, and a little boy who was not quite old enough to talk, but was quite emphatic about the nonsense syllables he could pronounce such as "Bah!" and "Mama!" and the like.

While waiting for my scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and home fries, I occasionally glanced at the child, who sported two braided pigtails, just like his dad. His father got him to finish the last of his breakfast, and the kid was getting the attention of one of the waitresses, who thanked him for the empty plate.

He proceeded to babble to her, and his mother and father were encouraging him to talk. His dad was joking about how he was trying to get the boy to say "Waitress!" or "Excuse me, miss." It was at that point that I leaned over and said, "As long as he doesn't learn to say 'Hey, Bartender!' I figure he's gonna be OK."

And I was home.

More (Alleged) Comedy

2009-02-22T20:05:00.002-07:00

[Here is a comedy routine I did last night at a benefit 'no-talent' show. The Grant County porn consists of the names of various features of the area.]

Can you hear me over there? (pause)

Can you hear me in back? (pause)

Can you hear me in Lordsburg? (pause)

Cooooool!

OK, keep in mind that I’m more of a comedy writer than I am a stand-up comedian, so I’m going to read you some of the stuff I’ve come up with recently.

Here’s an example of my writing— some Grant County porn I’ve been working on:

“As he ripped off her blouse and ran his Hanover her Bear Mountains, he shoved his Hurley Stack into her Big Ditch all the way to his Little Walnuts. She cried, ‘Never mind about my Twin Sisters, give me all of your big Pinos, Altos!’ while Tyrone drove into Arenas Valley again and again. She screamed, ‘No! No! Not the Burros!’” (pause)

“Meanwhile, the Kneeling Nun—“

I went to the doctor’s office the other day for a checkup, and he asked me the usual series of questions. I especially like the one they always ask: “Do you ever have black, tarry stools?” I was ready for him this time— I said: “Yeah, I get ‘em— but only when I eat black tar.”

(pause) “It’s sort of an ass-fault, yah know?” (pause)

Yesterday I was in the middle of the street, with my pants down around my ankles, reading the Daily Press, when this cop comes up to me and yells, “Hey, you can’t do that here!” I said to him: “Oh, and you expect this pothole to patch itself?”

Oh, and speaking of crap: my wife went to the Crunchy Co-op the other day and bought some genuine imitation Oreo cookies, mint-flavored. I took a look at the package and found in big letters: “70% Organic.” I gotta tell you, I was not reassured by reading that. It seems to me that it asks more questions than it answers… such as what’s in the other 30%? Post-consumer waste? Animal by-products? Deep-fried chicken lips? Spent nuclear fuel rods? Used hypodermic needles? Recycled Wal-Mart bags? What?

Let’s face it: even the most conscientious consumer is going to want to eat some crap sometimes— and even if they won’t, their kids will. So what’s a mother to do? She looks at the bag, sees that it’s 70% Organic and she goes, “What the hell— could be worse,” and puts it in the cart.

Obviously, the manufacturers are trying to put a good face on things. It reminds me of the movie “State & Main”; they had some interesting made-up stuff buried in the closing credits, including this gem: “Only 2 Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This Film.”

70% Organic— that’s like being 70% virgin. “We did it in the car, and I didn’t take my clothes off, and he only put the tip in, and he promised to pull out in time, so…”

…and the next thing you know, Sarah Palin’s daughter is on Fox News with her little bundle of joy.

Talk about food and sex: my wife brought home two chocolate bars the other day. One was called “Orange Sunset” and the other was “Toffee Interlude.” Am I the only one who thinks that these are being marketed as sex surrogates? It all started with Hershey’s Kisses, but where will it all end? “Blueberry Blowjob”? “Gangbang Ganache”? “Debbie Does Dovebars”? Little bags of S&M’s?

“This show is brought to you tonight by Sledge Hammer— Apply Directly to the Forehead!”

I love how they advertise Head On as a “homeopathic” remedy. “Homeopathic” — that’s Latin for “doesn’t do shit.”

I was watching TV the other day and saw a commercial for Acura automobiles that said something like: “Your in-dash navigation system suggests that you bypass the next turn-off.” My navigation system, if I had one, would say: “See? See? I told you not to turn there, but would you listen to me? No, you never listen to anybody, Mr. Bigshot!”

It’s a good thing I don’t have any kids, ‘cause I’m not much of a role model. The other day at about 6:00 AM, my cat woke me up; she was meowing because she was hungry. (pause)

I gave her a coupon for Sonic and the keys to the car. (pause)

She asked me, “You want anything?” I said, “No I’m good.”

My wife and I have decided: when I die, my grave will have a stack of dirty dishes on it, and the headstone will read “I Was Going to Get to That.”

Recently I went to Las Cruces to see the cardiologist for a stress test. Frankly, I don’t know why I bother— I keep telling him that I don’t get stressed so much as I induce stress in others. So I’m sitting in the office, and I look up and there’s this sign that reads: “Are you from out of town? And will you be going through Border Patrol?” And I realize that my answer to both is yes. I asked a technician about it and here’s what he told me: during the stress test, they shoot you up with radioisotopes, and it takes a while before they’re flushed out of your system… and until they *are* flushed out, you can set off radiation detectors at the Border Patrol checkpoint— not to mention that you can use your testicles as a nightlight. The doctor’s office gave me a little card to show the Border Patrol that explains why Geiger counters are freaking out all around me and who to call to check on my story. I was disappointed though, ‘cause they didn’t stop me at the checkpoint; I even told my wife as we were pulling up to reach in the back seat and get me a towel to wrap around my head, but…

Thank you! You’ve been an audience!

As Funny as a Heart Attack - Part 2 of 2

2009-02-10T12:50:00.003-07:00

Part 2 of 2: Fun’s Fun, Until Somebody Gets Hurt

[Author’s Note: This was originally written eight years ago. I am still alive and in reasonably good health. ]

Monday morning January 22 dawned rather early for me. I was being transferred by ambulance from one hospital to another, a bigger facility with more people and technology to handle cardiac problems; I was scheduled for a coronary catheterization at something like 7:30 AM, so I was awakened at about 5:30 AM or so.

I tried not to think too much about what was going to be done to me. In fact, I had had a mild disagreement with one of my doctors on this issue; he felt that I should have taken more of an interest. I pointed to my upper thigh and said, “You’re going in here,” then pointed to the center of my chest and said, “ . . . and you’re going up here. Other than that, I’m not really excited about the details of how you’ll be threading the catheter, using it to squirt dye in various arteries and so forth. To me it’s like a monster movie: the monster is right around the corner from the girl, he’s going to jump on her any second, and the anticipation is far worse to me than anything the monster is going to do. So don’t expect me to ask a whole lot of questions.”

Actually, it was a piece of cake. Other than the needle with the anesthetic, there was no pain, no sensation of any kind. They found that one branch of a lesser artery that supplies the back of the heart was partly blocked; rather than using more aggressive treatment (Plan B—more on that later), they were hoping that I would respond to drugs to open things up. The good news was that everything else appeared to be in good shape. The problem appeared to be more a matter of someone peeing in my gene pool than anything I personally may have done to myself—not that this hasn’t given even total strangers the opportunity to tell me that all this was a warning that I should go on a low-fun diet, run several miles a day, and think Good Thoughts. Thanks anyway, but the heart attack was easier to handle.

Once they wheeled me into the recovery area, I began to find out some of the differences between the first hospital and the second one: I got to hang around for several hours until they found an open bed for me on the cardiac floor. I was reminded of the old adage that a hospital is no place in which to get well, because this one was bursting at the seams with all manner of sick and injured folk. While I was waiting, I was not allowed to sit up or move my right leg. I don’t know about you guys, but I find it very difficult to lie flat on my back and keep the aforementioned limb immobile while at the same time trying to take a whiz into a plastic jug with only a flimsy translucent curtain separating me from all the people scurrying hither and yon. Even My Mincturation Mantra (“There are no bashful bladders, only bashful people”) didn’t help at all. Finally I was able to let fly after dropping the left side rail of the bed and moving my left leg as far as I could from my right one; don’t ask me why, but it worked.

At the first hospital I was in a private room in the Critical Care Unit, with eight beds covered by as many as five nurses to a shift. At the second hospital I was in a two-person room, and the entire floor of sixty or seventy cardiac patients was being served by roughly eight nurses to a shift. The difference is equivalent to that between a sit-down restaurant and a fast-food joint: the quality may be good at both, but one of them deals primarily with volume. Important Tip #6: What this means is that you must actively participate in your care. Make sure you’re getting the drugs you’re supposed to, make sure that when they take your vital signs they actually compare them to previous readings, etc. For example: I was taking medication daily to lower my blood pressure, but my early-morning BP readings were running high. I pointed this out and indicated that the dosage was either too small or running out too soon; my doctor agreed, the dosage was raised and the BP dropped to a lower level.

The biggest difference between the first hospital and the second was that I now had a roomie. In this case it was a nice old guy in his late sixties who had been a patient for about two weeks. One problem was that he was profoundly hard of hearing, and he often had one or both of his hearing aids turned off or removed entirely. Even if I had wanted to strike up a conversation, it would have been pretty fruitless for us both. It was especially rough on him because he would press the button to call for assistance and never be sure when (or if) someone was responding to him on the speaker. As a result, he ended up wetting his bed twice that night because he couldn’t get the help he needed in time; I tried to help, but I didn’t wake up in time to do anything.

The next day, Tuesday January 23, started out bad and got worse. My roommate was being given a sponge bath when he slumped in his chair and became unresponsive. It turned out that he had had a mild stroke and was moved elsewhere in the hospital to remedy this condition. Luckily, he improved and was returned to the room later in the day. That night, a little before midnight and only a few minutes after the nurse had checked on him, he started having breathing problems. I think that he may have been asleep briefly, awakened in a confused state, then had a panic attack. All I know for sure is that he said he was having trouble breathing and wanted to sit up in his chair. I called for the nurse just seconds before one arrived because his heart monitor had signaled that something was wrong.

He went downhill from there. It never actually reached the point when someone broadcasted a ‘code blue’ or whatever, but the guy pretty much went into respiratory arrest. Over the next hour about a dozen people were at his bedside, intubating him and trying to stabilize him, only to find that he was stroking out again just as he had earlier in the day.

Here comes the part I’m not proud of. While all these people were working on him, there was a certain amount of banter going on mixed with the instructions and exchange of info. Imagine some of the scenes in the operating room on “M*A*S*H” and you might get an idea about what it was like. Keep in mind that these people weren’t making fun of the guy, they weren’t being cruel to him; I sincerely believe that they were all good people trying to cope with the tension by trying to make light of a bad situation—and, stuck there on the other side of the curtain from a desperately ill man and the people who were striving to keep him alive, my sense of humor came out to play.

A nurse peeked around the curtain and, concerned about my state of mind amid the chaos nearby, asked me if I was OK. I replied, “This has got to be the noisiest goddamned hotel room I have ever been in! I want you all to know that I’m having a thallium scan done early tomorrow morning, and I’d better not see any of you there. Geez, and to think that I turned down a sleeping pill before bedtime tonight!” I had quite a monologue going for a while.

It was finally around 2:00 AM before they found my roommate a bed down in Intensive Care. Meanwhile I started to feel that my conduct, while understandable, was inexcusable. My nurse and a couple of the techs sat with me for a while and helped me realize that it was a traumatic time for all of us, participants and bystanders alike. My actions of that night still bother me, but nobody got hurt. I think John Lennon had the right idea: whatever gets you through the night . . .

But my night wasn’t over yet. The room was a disaster, so a cleaning crew was called in to tidy up. Then, at nearly 5:00 AM, they wheeled in my new roommate—a loud, garrulous old fart in his eighties. He was talking up a storm with the nurse, the guy who pushed his gurney and anyone within earshot. The nurse tried to gently shut him up, but he seemed to be oblivious to the fact that there was someone on the other side of the curtain who had had a bad night and was trying to sleep. Finally when he was all tucked in and the nurse asked him if he needed anything else, I piped up from the other side of the curtain, “Yes—a little silence and subtlety would do just fine right about now.”

The next morning he tried to apologize to me. He said that he had been moved from his previous room because he had a problem with his roommate, who apparently was a howler—someone who carried on a loud three-way conversation with two imaginary friends in the middle of the night. I coldly told him that it just goes to show you how the term “problem” was a relative one, and that his opportunity to inflict himself on me was related to the “problem” that my previous roommate had had, i.e.: nearly checking out permanently. I avoided contact with this selfish bastard for the rest of my stay. I suppose I should have been more compassionate, because he was seriously ill and definitely hadn’t learned about Important Tip #5: he fidgeted almost constantly, and called the nurse on any pretext. What he needed was attention, and I wasn’t going to play.

The thallium scan brought both good news and bad. The bad news first: the drugs I had been given were not opening up the clogged artery. The good news was that the scan showed that there was less damage and more viable tissue than originally thought, making me a good candidate for Plan B.

Plan B consisted of waiting until the next day and doing the coronary catheterization all over again (through the same thigh), with some important additions: a balloon angioplasty to clear the crud out of the affected artery, and the insertion of two stents, little stainless steel mesh sleeves, to support the weak sections of the artery. All this was predicated on finding me an open slot on the schedule.

Meanwhile, I spent that day as I had most of the others: reading, sleeping, and walking laps around the cardiac floor (which had all the rooms on the outside of the hallway with offices, storerooms and nurses stations in the central core). On one of these laps I saw four young doctors-to-be, or interns, or residents or whatever they call them these days. All I know is that none of them looked old enough to remember the Bicentennial and they were the only people I ever saw wearing white lab coats (the doctors wore either surgical scrubs or three-piece suits). They were examining a patient’s chart with intense concentration and serious demeanor all around. I approached these four fresh-faced young healers of tomorrow and said, “As long as you are available at the moment, I have an important medical question I hope you can help me with.” They looked up at me eagerly. I pointed to the hem of my hospital gown and said, “Do you think this is a good look for me, or should I consider something a little above the knee?” Yep, my artery was clogged, but the joke slipped through anyway.

And it came to pass that Plan B was enacted in Thursday, January 25 and went off without a hitch. I left the hospital Friday afternoon with instructions not to lift anything over five pounds, admonitions to take it easy, and prescriptions galore. Do you remember the scene in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” when Michael Rennie addresses the robot Gort: “Gort, klaatu barada nikto”? I think if they ever remake the movie the line should be changed to something I can relate to, like “Gort, Norvasc Zocor Plavix Toprol—and Zantac twice a day to prevent stomach upset.”

I’m now home, alive, well, catching up on my correspondence, and have a nifty before-and-after picture of my artery to show off. Maybe I’ll post it on my website—it beats pictures of cute little kittens any day. I’m scheduled to meet with my cardiologist soon (on Valentine’s day, oddly enough), and I’m putting together a list of questions to ask him; so far, I’ve got three:

1. When can I have sex with my wife?

2. When can I have sex with your wife?

3. If they weigh less than five pounds, when can I have sex with small furry animals?

Have I forgotten anything important?

As Funny as a Heart Attack - Part 1 of 2

2009-02-09T14:21:00.001-07:00

Part 1 of 2: Pay Attention—You’re Next!

[Author’s Note: This was originally written eight years ago. I am still alive and in reasonably good health. ]

It all started sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, when both my wife and I managed to catch a cold/flu bug that was making the rounds: we were by turns coughing, wheezing, sneezing, feverish, chilled, and raspy in the throat—the usual. As I write this a month later, I still get an occasional ‘hitch’ when I speak that causes me to break out in a dry cough.

Two weeks into this misery I began to notice something strange: whenever I exerted myself a little, I would feel a dull ache running from each elbow to the wrist. (I had felt this before when exercising heavily, and it always went away as soon as I stopped, so I didn’t think much of it.) I told my wife that I would contact my doctor if the problem didn’t clear up by the end of the week; I never got the chance.

On the morning of Friday, January 19, I noticed that the pain in my arms had returned, and the only thing I had done was to sit at my desk and talk to some people. Worse yet, I now felt a pain in the center of my chest—something new and alarming.

I waited a few minutes for the pain to go away, but it hung right in there. I haven’t talked to too many people who have shared this experience, but I believe that I am not unique in what I was thinking at the time: am I really having a heart attack? How do I know? I’ve never had one before. Other than being born, I had never been hospitalized before. Is it time to call for help? Is this a result of my age (47), weight (230 lbs. on a six-foot frame with a noticeable gut), lifestyle (sedentary, but I had been working out twice a week for nearly a year), eating habits (red meat, plenty of fried foods, lots of candy, not enough veggies, too much food in general—which is how I got the gut), personality (not quite Type A; I don’t get stressed so much as induce stress in others)—in short, am I to blame? What if it turns out that I need surgery, or a transplant? What if it’s a false alarm? More importantly, what if I treat it as a false alarm and guess wrong? This whole situation of calling someone for help was embarrassing—but I decided that my wife would be really pissed at me if I died of embarrassment. Important Tip #1: Don’t worry about feeling like a dork—make the call!

I quietly shut down my notebook, arranged my desk and asked my co-worker in the adjoining cube to call for an ambulance. She handled it pretty well, except that she had to be reminded that it’s 911, not 411. Maybe she doesn’t like me after all.

The paramedics arrived pretty soon after the call; the pain kept on unabated. One of the questions they asked me was “On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?” I rated it a 5; if you want an idea of what a 5 is to me, a leg cramp that wakes you in the middle of the night and makes you thrash around in bed and grit your teeth while trying to find a way to make it stop rates about an 8.5 in My Big Book o’ Pain.

One of the first things the paramedics did was hook me up to an EKG machine. They immediately saw some irregularities—it’s not a false alarm, yay! For once in my life I wasn’t in denial and did the right thing! I felt almost smug as they wheeled me into the ambulance. On the way to the hospital, I even asked if we could stop at McDonalds for some drive-thru—Happy Meals for everyone, I’m buying.

My elation was extremely short-lived. I was taken to a nearby hospital, and the real fun began. The doctors first tried to stop the pain with nitroglycerin, a common practice with chest pains; no luck. Next they went to the other extreme: they shot me up with morphine. Important Tip #2: if there is something unusual about you, let everybody know and remind them often. In my case it so happens that the vast majority of painkillers and depressants simply don’t work on me—living through the Sixties gave me plenty of opportunity to find that out. Even if the doctors and nurses are arrogant and don’t believe you, at least you will have warned them.

After three doses, they gave up on the morphine, too. A couple of hours passed, and though the pain wasn’t getting any worse, the fact that it was dragging on with no end in sight was beginning to get to me.

Somewhere in the middle of all this my wife arrived, much to my relief. Important Tip #3: even in the best of hospitals, you want someone there with you who knows you—preferably someone who also knows enough about medicine to ask the right questions and understand the answers. My wife is both my guardian angel and, when necessary, the avenging variety. Long may she wave! Finally, the doctors found something that eased my symptoms and the pain began to gradually recede.

My treatment was complicated by the fact that they weren’t entirely sure whether I was actually experiencing a heart attack. Some of my symptoms seemed consistent with pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac that surrounds the heart—something that could have resulted from the aforementioned cold/flu/virus/demonic possession that had been lingering on for so long. A blood test eventually settled that issue; it showed enzymes that appear when part of the heart is damaged—heart attack: yes, pericarditis: no. Note that it was the third blood test that finally told the tale; I guess the plan was to keep on drawing blood until the results showed something useful or I died of anemia—whichever came first.

The rest of that day and much of the next is somewhat blurry. Part of that blurriness was due to the headache I had from the IV nitroglycerin meant to reduce my blood pressure. I kept after my nurses to reduce the dosage, but they just kept giving me Tylenol to reduce the headache—and remember what I said about my immunity to analgesics? Finally one of my doctors removed the IV and gave me nitroglycerin paste on a bandage at my ankle in order to alleviate the headache—at which point my nurse claimed that the Tylenol must now be working since the headache went away. Now I have nothing against Tylenol or the company that makes it; it helps thousands of people each day, I’m sure. But how it fosters such a near-religious belief in its restorative powers even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary is beyond my understanding.

I recall that three chest x-rays were taken at various times. The portable machine that they use for this rolls up to your bed and looks like a small Zamboni, which might explain why the plates are as cold as ice. The frigid plates were a minor annoyance; there were other, more serious inconveniences. At one point I was hooked up to four different IVs, with lines running out of the backs of both hands. I also had close to a dozen wires stuck on various portions of my anatomy to provide readouts on heart activity, pulse rate, etc., a blood pressure cuff that automatically inflated at fifteen-minute intervals, a clothespin-like gadget clamped to one finger to measure the oxygen in my blood, and one of those two-pronged thingies that go in your nostrils and connect you to a tank of oxygen so the clothespin gadget is happy. And then they have the nerve to ask you if you’re resting comfortably; whatever you do, don’t say yes—they’ll just come back and ask for another blood sample.

Sleeping was a problem. Each of the IVs was hooked to a pump that measured the flow and started beeping when it was nearly empty—and with four of them running, I could expect to be awakened by one of them every hour or so. There wasn’t much slack on the wires that hooked me to the heart monitor, so one or another was always popping off and causing the monitor to beep. I already mentioned the blood pressure cuff; thankfully, they lengthened the interval after a while. There were all kinds of human interruptions, too: people coming in to give me pills, take blood, bring me meals (most of the time I felt too queasy to eat much), take the chest x-rays, sign papers, and much, much more.

Hospital food isn’t all that bad. It’s like airline food minus any attempt at pretension—what you see is what you get. I especially enjoyed the generic-brand ‘crispy rice’ cereal; it went crack, tinkle and flop because all the good sounds were already taken.

Important Tip #4: you will be surprised at how quickly you can adjust, and the things that you will adjust to. Don’t like needles? After a while you don’t even notice. The thought of tubes being hooked up to your bloodstream makes you squeamish? Relax to the inevitable. Have any body modesty? Forget about it—nurses have seen it all and doctors don’t care.

Aside from time spent sleeping and dealing with all the various comings and goings of doctors, nurses and technicians, most of what I did was—nothing. I had a TV, books, magazines, a newspaper, and I could have asked for my notebook so I could play FreeCell all night, but mostly I just lay there. It felt a lot like when I used to fly to Europe, Asia and Australia for my work: your freedom of movement and personal space are restricted, you eat when you’re hungry, watch the movies if you want to, read when you’re in the mood, sleep when you feel like it, get up once in a while to pee, and somehow the time passes. Important Tip #5: you have to find a way to do your time. If cranking down your perceptions and minimizing your active participation in the world at large (like I did) works for you, go with it. If reading everything in sight or watching talk shows and soap operas or having lots of visitors or knitting a sweater or praying to your choice of deity is what makes the time pass for you, great. But you have to find something, because if you don’t your perceptions will turn inward—and you’ll end up calling the nurse every ten minutes to complain that your eyelids feel loose and your elbows are flaking or the mole on the side of your nose seems to be getting larger or something like that, and the time STILL won’t pass for you.

Coping with time isn’t the only survival skill I learned during my hospital stay. I found that my sense of humor was blessedly unimpaired by the gravity of my situation. I held onto my ability to wisecrack like a toddler clutches a security blanket. Whenever someone asked me if there was anything I needed, my answer was always the same: “A frozen margarita—no salt.” (After all, I should restrict my intake of sodium.) Though it cheered me up and made people laugh, this ability to make a joke about nearly anything eventually became a two-edged sword; you’ll read about it later in Part 2.

Deja Jew

2009-01-26T13:57:00.006-07:00

I live in a small town, and like many such towns in the American West, and especially in New Mexico, there is a relatively high tolerance for alternative/New Age/non-traditional beliefs. By way of setting the scene, it also bears mentioning that our community of 10,000 has about 60 or 70 disorganized, rather relaxed Jews-- and no rabbi or synagogue.

I usually don't discuss my religious affiliation (or lack of same) unless someone asks me about it, but I am in fact a product of a Reform Jewish household-- though, as I've mentioned in an earlier post, I have no religious faith.

At any rate, there are people in town who know about my background. The fact that many of them have had little or no experience with Jews, coupled with the aforementioned Aquarian-flavored spirituality, can make for some interesting interactions.

Today a frequent customer came by to drop off a flyer for me to put in our store window, a service we gladly provide for the community. She then asked me if I had any Jewish blood; I replied in the affirmative, 100 percent. She then asked if I believed in 'channeling' and I replied, "Only on my cable box."

She then proceeded to tell me that she had heard from someone who practiced channeling that the reason why Jews were such 'advanced' (her choice of word, not mine) individuals is that, because they are the Chosen People, they are always reincarnated into the bodies of Jews-- and therefore were familiar with their surroundings and already knew how to drive the car-- so to speak.

Playing to one of the classic stereotypes, I said: "So, what you are telling me is that Jews are an insular society in this life and in the next?" She agreed.

Well, that explains a lot-- such as the fabled Jewish sense of humor.

Scenes from the Class Struggle in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

2009-01-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

It was the fall of 1969. I was 16; she was 15. How we met is a whole other story, not to be written now. We were in love, and we lived 75 miles apart.

We wrote each other letters, sometimes several times a week, and used to microscopically dissect each others' writing and responses; I sometimes think that my abilities as a writer (such as they are) were developed and honed as a result of these exchanges, which took place for nearly three years.

We were both virgins, and we both believed in romantic love-- at least we did then. She wasn't my first love, but she was certainly the first in what I consider to be my adult life. I often wonder how different my life would have been if we had managed to stay together longer, or if we lived closer together; I think I would spend too much time trying to re-create with other women the feeling of being in love with her-- and I'd have never grown up.

We came from very different backgrounds. I was a long-haired snarky Jewish kid from a middle-class liberal family; she was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed sweet young thing from an old Presbyterian family that traced its roots back to England, and they made a point of living an understated life... except for the indoor pool and her father's two antique Rolls Royces, which he maintained as a hobby.

Her mother reminded me of June Lockhart, who played Timmy's mom in the 'Lassie' TV series. Her father wore a crewcut and kept a teargas pen in a bracket by the front door; it was inconspicuous, but I noticed; I noticed everything.

I tried to fit in when I would occasionally be allowed to spend a weekend with her in the insulated suburb her family lived in, but I was acutely aware of the class differences. Sometimes I reveled in the situation (Jewish boy hooks up with a rich shiksa), but while I was there I was coiled tight as a spring; I remember playing some card game with her little brother and letting slip a "Jesus!" when he won big, and feeling the raised eyebrows from clear across the den. I also remember her mother chiding her father for mentioning within earshot of the children that one of her aunts was "hot to trot" about something.

They certainly appeared to be the ideal family, not dysfunctional like mine, though her father apparently was away a lot of the time. I found out years later that her parents got divorced after twenty-odd years of marriage, and her mother started a business offering financial and investment advice to other divorced women. My parents, despite their differences, the ongoing stress I created, and the unhappiness that we all experienced, managed to stay together for over sixty years until the death of my father, followed by that of my mother a month later.

After almost forty years, I remember something about her family that I will always cherish, an ironic bit of business that endeared them to me, a chink in the polished armor they wore for company: when I went to use the upstairs bathroom, I dutifully lifted the toilet seat and saw, hand-painted on the underside, "Goody-Goody, Daddy's Home."

Coincidental Juxtaposition

2009-01-12T09:29:00.002-07:00

I was looking at the newswire on Salon a few minutes ago and saw the following two headlines, one directly under the other:

# Teen convicted of killing mother over video game
# Bush says nation's 'moral standing' intact

I didn't read the articles themselves-- I liked the arrangement just as it was.

Crackpot Theory

2009-01-10T15:38:00.003-07:00

I'll just lead off with it: I believe that the economic downturn we've been experiencing in recent months will not last as long as many experts expect.

Why? Because the people of this country have a short attention span and will eventually get bored of it all.

Remember 9/11? Remember how for a period of several months it seemed like everybody was united, and how everybody in New York was suddenly nice to each other? Didn't last, did it?

How long the current mess will last, I don't know... but I'm betting Americans will simply get sick and tired of the bad stuff and somehow reverse what is considered to be a crisis in confidence. Maybe a new administration will help; after all, Barack Obama ran on a platform of hope.

As my wife would say: "From your lips to God's ears."

In Restless Dreams

2009-01-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

Though I left college back in 1972 without a degree, for the next 30 years or so I could count on every so often dreaming that I had a term paper due that I hadn't started yet, or that I had cut so many classes that I no longer had any idea about what I had missed.

For the most part, I have put those days behind me. Nowadays I dream that I am back at work in a 'cube farm' trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing before somebody catches on to the fact that I'm nowhere near as competent and knowledgeable as they think I am. (To make matters even more interesting, sometimes in this dream I'm in my underwear or am stark naked; the "Emperor's New Clothes" symbolism is pretty obvious, isn't it?)

What is notable is that these dreams are not all that far from the truth (except for the part about being under-dressed). I was a terrible student and lacked the motivation to succeed in school, which is why I dropped out after only two years of college and never returned. As for my worklife, the four years I spent in Virginia working for "Feeble & Witless" prior to moving out here were fraught with uncertainty and contradiction, and I constantly feared for my job and my future; I knew that I was being overpaid, and that my only skill was in being obsessive.

What prompts me to write this is something that happened recently. I was exchanging comments with a friend and former co-worker on her Facebook page when she said:

YOU ROCK, you escaped, you got a life!!

You make us all proud....

Her comment brought home to me a fact that I had forgotten, if I had ever understood it at all: that some people feel that my having moved to a small town in a remote part of the country and starting a business unrelated to the telecommunications and IT industries that fed (and clothed) me for so many years was somehow laudable, or heroic, or something like that.

For a moment, I was appalled.

I don't feel like I'm a shining example of anything other than somebody who jumped from the frying pan into the fire and who no longer has the strength to crawl out. The thing I am proud of is that I made the attempt-- but I am not what you should call a success.

Waves Upon the Ether

2008-12-26T20:28:00.006-07:00

I like lots of different kinds of music. About two years ago, a local radio station in my town switched to an "Americana" format, playing folk music, bluegrass, alt-country, blues, and who-knows-what. It was perhaps a little bit twangier than I was typically used to, but I have adapted. The fact that they sneak in some left-wing political and protest tunes in there helps, too.

I grew up listening to my parents' collection of big band music and show tunes, fell in love with Top-40 rock 'n' roll in 1963 just a few weeks before the Beatles broke into the US consciousness, moved on to 'underground' radio in the late 60's and lost my way somewhere in the Disco era of the late 70's. What happened was that where I lived (Baltimore, MD, USA) there were no radio stations playing what I wanted to hear; at best, there were stations playing so-called 'classic rock'-- but for the first time since I was ten years old, there was nothing new on the (local) radio that appealed to me.

Finally, in the mid-80's there was a local 'progressive' station that I could listen to. The DJs got to pick their own music to play, and I recall hearing all kinds of stuff I'd never heard before. It was sometimes amusing to hear something I liked, find out who the band was, and realize that the tune was released years earlier, back when I had no way to discover it.

This kept on (though the playlist kept tightening up as the years wore on) until around the turn of the century. Meanwhile, I listened to music supplied by my cable TV carrier (but found it generally to be too limited as far as variety within any particular genre), as well as Internet 'radio stations.' I also began to listen to 'world' music, especially CDs released by the Putumayo label.

What's fun is that with the radio station that I'm listening to, I am again exposed to all sorts of artists I never had the chance to discover until now: Tom Russell, Neko Case, and Darrell Scott, to name a few

All of which brings me to today's nugget: I am obsessed with the fact that at any moment, somewhere in the world, at some spot on the dial, or some URL on the Internet, a wonderful piece of music that I've never heard before is playing-- and I would just love to hear it, if only I knew where it was.

If a tree falls in the forest with no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?

The Scare Lecture

2008-12-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

It was about 8:30 AM on a Wednesday morning sometime in the spring of 1971. I (and probably about a hundred other bleary-eyed folks) sat in a large lecture hall drinking a can of Coke (nugget alert: I can't stand the taste of coffee and never drink it) while trying to stay awake during a Psychology 101 class taught by a tall Texan with the unlikely name of Elvis Jones. (Psych 101 was known to students as "Sesame Psych," while Abnormal Psych was commonly referred to as "Nuts and Sluts.")

I don't recall what Dr. Jones was talking about at the time, but he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, "I haven't given you The Scare Lecture yet, have I?" Several of us replied in the negative.

He then proceeded to recite various statistics related to how many of us in the hall that morning would die in traffic accidents, how many would commit suicide, how many would die of cancer, how many would die before age 50, how many would develop some sort of serious mental illness, and several other things I no longer recall.

Being the smartass that I was (and, let's face it, mostly still am), I raised my hand. When he called on me I said, "There's one statistic you left out-- members of the psychological and psychiatric profession have a suicide rate seven times higher than the norm." I then hoisted my can of Coke in salute and basked in the warm glow of applause from my fellow sufferers.

Elvis was right, of course. Before my two-year brush with higher education was over, I witnessed at least one student go batshit crazy and knew another who ate his gun for no reason that any of us could discern. And the rest of us survivors can't look forward to living forever like we thought we would way back in the Seventies.

According to an Internet search, Elvis Jones died in Houston on July 4, 2006 at the age of 68.

Duration

2008-12-21T15:51:00.005-07:00

This topic goes hand-in-hand with my last entry, which was about memory. Inextricably linked with what I remember is the experience, usually distorted, of the passage of time. Here are some things that feel like they happened yesterday:

I first traveled across the Atlantic; real date: 1988.
I used one of the earliest battery-powered cellular phones, which was built into a briefcase (and barely fit); real date: early in 1985.
I ate my first Burger King Whopper; real date: some time around 1973.
I visited San Francisco (during the Summer of Peace and Love); real date: August of 1967.
I read my first science fiction novel, "Have Space Suit, Will Travel" by Robert A. Heinlein; real date: 1961.
I took a trip alone by bus from Baltimore to New York (the bus was equipped with a stewardess who served drinks and sandwiches, believe it or not); real date: 1959.

If all this stuff happened yesterday, how can I possibly be 55 years old? The stewardess on that bus is in her 70's by now-- if she is still alive at all.

Memory

2008-12-13T19:10:00.001-07:00

Something tells me this subject is going to take several entries to cover. I think I'll start off with a nugget: I have managed to suppress or forget most of my memories of childhood prior to around age fourteen.

That stuff I don't miss.

What worries me these days is that some things I don't want to forget are slipping away from me. After watching my mother's ability to remember things deteriorate along with the rest of her faculties, I sometimes get scared that my abilities are fading, too.

I read a Wikipedia entry yesterday about my former employer, MCI. There were several events mentioned there that I didn't recall until reading them. I suppose that some of this has to do with the fact that my life has changed so much in the ten years or so since then, and that I have cleared my mental blackboard of many things I no longer use. The trouble is, it hasn't helped to enable me to recall the things I really need.

For example: I have gotten particularly bad at remembering names and faces. In a small town like ours, this is bad news: every day I am greeted by name by people I often don't recognize, and I can't be sure if it's because I forgot them or if they have heard or read my name somewhere.

I also don't remember how Starr and I decided to move here, and how we chose the name for our business... and these events took place less than 6 years ago.

The Sliding Board

2008-12-04T14:53:00.004-07:00

My mother died this morning at 11:02 AM EST.

I had been expecting this ever since my father died in early November. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he was covering for her, trying to make her dementia less evident to family and acquaintances-- but she was in a decline before he died; his death, at most, may have hastened the inevitable. We may never know exactly what she died from-- but it was more than a broken heart or depression; she had some sort of infection that did not respond to treatment, something that probably started while my father was still alive.

Do you remember when you were a child and were playing on the sliding board while your parents watched? You'd call out to them: "Watch this!" before doing some sort of variation on simply sliding down the board. Maybe you'd slide face-down, maybe you'd slide really fast, whatever. That's what I'm going to miss: after more than fifty years, I wanted them around --not to approve, not to be proud of me, just to watch-- as I carry on with a life that in many ways is more than anyone who knew me had reason to expect: I am alive, I am sane, I am solvent, I've never been arrested, I am considered by many in this community to be an asset, I have a wonderful wife who loves me-- none of these things was a foregone conclusion, and some people (myself among them) thought I'd never experience any of them.

My parents got to see all that, as recently as this past September during their last, brief visit-- but there is still a part of me that says: "Watch this!"

Whoever reads this: if you know me, or want to meet me, and see the life I've made for myself, come on down. Leave a comment here and I'll tell you where to find me. It's just that it's lonely here on the playground...

And Now for Something Completely Different

2008-11-25T17:00:00.006-07:00

In case you begin to think that all I think about is bad stuff, here's an abridged version of a comedy routine I did as part of a comedy benefit.

Intro (Sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song):

Now listen to a story ‘bout a man named Mitch

Livin’ in Virginia like a dumb sumbitch

Then one day he said “I’ll make jeh-la-TOE”

So he packed up his shit ‘n’ moved to New Mexico!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the “R” rated portion of the show. So if you’re easily offended, now would be a really good time to get up and leave, while you’re still under the mistaken impression that I’m a nice guy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, let me explain to you how this is going to work. Though my very life itself is considered by many to be some sort of cruel joke, I’ve never actually done stand-up before. My area of expertise—if you want to call it that—is as a comedy writer. As a matter of fact, I once made a living writing jokes for a DJ for the princely sum of fifty cents a joke. Since I haven’t had the time to memorize this stuff, and make it sound spontaneous, I’m going to read it to you instead. (Smiles at audience.)

Spontaneity—it’s real important. Just like sincerity. And if you can fake them both, you’ve got it made.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you all know, this is a benefit to help raise money for a new liver for Ray Trujillo.

Actually, I heard Ray has already received a new liver; trouble is, he received one from Mickey Mantle.

Anybody here who didn’t get that? Substitute David Crosby for Mickey Mantle. Funny now?

Honestly, Ray already has the new liver— the money is for the onions to go with it.

Really, the money is to cover travel expenses. Ray didn’t go anywhere— the liver’s the one with all the frequent flyer points.

Ray, if you’re here tonight, here’s an important tip: nobody in this place would make a good donor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may also know me as the guy who recently published a couple of articles in the local paper about How to Get a Job and How to Keep a Job Once You’ve Got One. I’ve done this to make life a little easier for the younger generation about to leave school and embark on that lifelong journey in the world of work. The articles are filled with important info such as: your teacher can’t fire you, but I can.

A lot of it is getting people to look at things with a different point of view; for example: I once hired someone, and she didn’t show up for her first day of work; when I called her to see what had happened, she said that she “forgot” (air quotes) to tell me that she took a job elsewhere. Then she came back to me a few weeks later, looking for work, when she got laid off from the job she took instead of mine!

She didn’t act like there was anything wrong with doing that. I was gentle with her, but what I should have said was: (snooty voice) “Let me explain this to you in a way that will be relevant to your experience thus far.

OK, so like some guy invites you to the Senior Prom.

You spend lotsa bucks buying your prom dress from the finest store in town: The Hot Spot, purveyors of fine slutwear since 2004.

You get your hair done, your nails done, you get a new tattoo, you get a Brazilian bikini wax for your landing strip.

Finally the big night comes… and he doesn’t show. You wait up half the night and finally get up enough courage to call him on his cell to find out what happened— is he hurt? Is he dead? He answers the phone and says that he “forgot” (air quotes) to tell you that he got another date for the prom.

Mortified, you hang up the phone.

Weeks later, you’re still alone in your room, still wearing the prom dress, the corsage a wilted ruin pinned to your bosom. (Clutch hands to your chest.)

The phone rings. It’s him! You recognize the special Snoop Dogg ringtone you programmed just for him. You go ‘Hello?’ and he goes ‘Yo’ and he says ‘hey, remember how a couple of weeks ago, I asked you out to the Senior Prom? And you go ‘Yeah…?’ and he goes ‘and remember how I “forgot” (air quotes) to tell you that I lined up someone else to go with?’ And you go ‘Yeah…?’And he goes ‘Wellllllll…’ And you go ‘Yeah…?’ And he goes…

‘The bitch wouldn’t fuck me. You wanna go out tonight?’

Now what are you going to say to him?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our town has a sensibility and style all its own, especially among the young people. For example: there was a guy who, for a brief period anyway, drove his pickup truck up and down Bullard Street with a custom-made grille on the front of it that consisted of a single word (and I am not making this up): P – I – M – P, PIMP. Mind you, most of the time he did this he drove alone—gosh, I wonder why? Aside from the absurdity of some skinny little white kid driving around town pretending to be a pimp, what kind of girl would see this and say, “Gee, I want to ride around in the pickup truck with PIMP on the front of it! That’ll be so cool. People will think I’m a ho! I’ll be the envy of all the girls at school.” Yesirree, that’s a chick-magnet for sure!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here in New Mexico, immigration is a really big, complex issue. Many people look at it as a matter of homeland security; they’re worried about the possibility of an influx of potential terrorists. Me, I’ve got bigger concerns. I think the biggest threat to the safety and security of the people in this town is the uncontrolled influx of massage therapists.

Man, those people rub me the wrong way!

I don’t want my aura balanced, OK? I like it wobbly!

Let’s put this issue in perspective, shall we?

This town has one taxicab.
This town has two RV parks.
This town has four Chinese restaurants.
This town has seven coffee shops.

…but this town has at least thirty licensed massage therapists listed with the state, plus still more who have less formal arrangements. Oh yes—and two or three people who are not only licensed massage therapists, they’re licensed massage instructors— so that they can train even more massage therapists! That’s kinda like when a vampire bites you and what happens? You turn into another vampire! Where will it all end?

Last night I went through the drive-thru at Burger Time and the person who took my order said: “OK, that’ll be $7.83. Do you want a massage with that?”

I predict that it’s only a matter of time before the competition for the minds, hearts and bodies of the residents of this town will get nasty, maybe even violent. How about this:

“Saturday! Saturday! World Massage League presents a no-holds-barred Cage Match between Mangler Masseuse and the Therapist of Terror! They’re oiled up and ready to rumble! Watch all the spine-crackin’ action live on Pay-Per-View! THEY’LL RUB YOU RAW!”

For the legion of massage therapists who are starving to death here and need to find another way to make a living, here’s a list of stuff that this town really needs:

A good BBQ restaurant
A 24-hour restaurant like Denny’s
A restaurant serving Korean, Thai, Japanese, Pan-Asian, Vietnamese, Mongolian BBQ—anything but Chinese!
More assisted-living facilities
More daycare centers

…and I think somebody with some political clout should arrange for New Mexico to follow in the footsteps of the great state of Nevada so the empty hotel downtown can be turned in to a real tourist attraction: Madame Millie’s House of Whoopee. Now, those are the kind of massage therapists this town needs!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As long as I’m talking about things near and dear to the hearts of so many of us here, let’s mention the latest buzzword: “sustainability.” Nowadays, it’s all about sustainability. Any day now I expect to see the following commercial:

(Announcer voice) “Hi, I’m Al Gore. I wrote the book on sustainability. That’s why I use Viagra. Why should Bob Dole have all the fun?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here’s another hot topic: biodiesel. In case you don’t know what that is, there are folks who have converted their diesel-powered cars to burn used cooking oil. They say it’s eco-friendly, and they get the used oil for free. You have to ask yourself, though— if this catches on, how long do you think that used oil is going to remain free? Real soon now there’ll be a sign in front of McDonalds: “Free Big Mac with an 8 gallon fill-up.” Now that’s what I call an inconvenient truth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can somebody explain this for me? Day-of-the-week-panties. What are they for? I guess when somebody comes up to you and asks “Do you know what day it is?” you’re supposed to go (mimes lifting skirt): “Woooooooo! It’s Wednesday!”

Wouldn’t it make sense to embroider the day of the week upside-down, so you can bend over to read it?

What about if you’re wearing jeans at the time—do you use a periscope stuffed down there to check out what day it is?

Wouldn’t it be easier just to check your Day-Timer instead?

I saw the other day that they no longer just sell packages of seven pairs of panties with the days on them; they also sell 5-packs, too. What’s up with that? Is that so you can party like Britney on the weekends?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, unlike Twana and Derby and some of you folks out in the audience, I didn’t grow up here. I grew up and spent most of my adult life back East in Baltimore Maryland— except for four years spent in the DC suburb of Fairfax Virginia just before my wife and I moved here.

I didn’t like life in Fairfax, mostly because it was the same wherever you looked. Folks at my job used to act snobby about where they lived: Alexandria versus Arlington, Clarendon versus Chantilly, Sterling versus Vienna. So fucking what? There’s at least one Applebee’s in each of these places, so how can it possibly matter?

People who live in suburbs like that kid themselves about a lot of things. Certain things, things that are somehow related to your “quality of life” take on great importance— so much so that you ignore the big picture.

For example: not far from where we were living, there was a “gated” community of “townhouses.” Now, if you’ve ever been in a big, old, primarily East Coast city, you’ve probably seen townhouses; these were not like those.

First off: one of those really important features, like I mentioned before, is to have a two-car garage… which takes up the entire first floor of the townhouse— which is barely wide enough for the garage.

Right next to the garage is a narrow flight of outside steps leading up to the front door, and because the distance from the curb to the house is so narrow, the stairs are as steep as Machu Picchu in Peru. I mean, Mel Gibson could have staged the human sacrifice scenes from “Apocalypto” on these steps. You need a bottle of oxygen waiting for you at the top!

There is no room in front of the townhouse for a flower bed or lawn chairs or a used refrigerator or anything like that, and since you’re paying good money for your two-car garage, you don’t ever park on the street. As a result, the “community” looks like a set for “The Stepford Wives” before a day’s filming; you’re sure that somebody lives there, but you never see who.

Speaking of never seeing, whoever lives in this community must have some selective blindness—I’ll explain why in a minute. I’m convinced that every morning the residents must climb down that flight of steps without lifting their heads up.

It’s kind of like men in a restroom. Ladies, you may not be aware of this but there is a code of conduct to be followed in the restroom if you’re a guy (a straight guy, anyway): eyes front, little or no conversation, no looking anywhere near your neighbor in the next stall. I can pretty much guarantee that the guy pissing next to you will not lean over and say, “Hey, pal—nice penis!” or “Your mom must be very proud of you.”

So it is in this “gated” community in Virginia. You walk down the steps, open the garage door, get in your car, drive past the gate, and head off to work or the mall or wherever, trying hard not to look across the street—because right across the street, just outside the gate to this expensive enclave, this exclusive edifice (I swear to God, I am not making this up), there’s…

A Taco Bell—complete with a drive-thru and speakers blaring “OK, so you want a Number 6 with a side of guacamole and some super nachos. That’ll be $7.83. Drive forward, please.”

You’re paying all than money to live next to a Taco Bell! Hell, in our town you can live next to the Taco Bell for practically nothing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The suburbs are hell. In fact, Satan himself lives in the suburbs. He lives at 666 Mockingbird Court in a cul-de-sac. I used to live next door to him, at 668; yes, I was the Neighbor of the Beast.

His son, Damien, known in the neighborhood as “Demon Spawn of Hell” (coincidentally, that’s what they called me when I was growing up), was really popular in school. All the dyslexic kids hung out with him because they though they were selling their souls to Santa.

Can you imagine Satan living in a “gated” community? With one of those guardhouses at the entrance? The guard would be something like this:

“You’re here to see who? The Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Flies, the Adversary? Waitaminute, let me check the list of residents. Hmmmm. Oh, here he is—Bub, initials BLZ. Right there above Bush, initials GW. Cheney? I can’t tell you anything. He’s at an undisclosed location.”

Alternate Universe

2008-11-18T13:48:00.010-07:00

In an alternate universe, I was born with more upper body and arm strength than I possess in this one. In that universe, I think I would be a very different person from the one I am now. Time for another nugget: I am uninterested in sports of any kind. As a matter of fact, the personal ad I placed in 1995 that caught the interest of the woman whom I eventually married (Starr) read:

A man who hates sports, puts the seat down, asks directions, and treats women as equals-- am I for real?

(That's why the URL for this blog contains "mi4real.")

But I digress.

I think my disinterest in sports stems from the fact that because I was weak in the arms and upper body I was simply no good at throwing a ball, climbing a rope, swinging a bat or other common physical activities. (To this day, I am unable to chin myself, do a push-up, etc.-- though the torn rotator cuff in my left shoulder provides a good excuse for being out of shape.) Also, like many kids, I was not willing to practice and develop the skills-- if I couldn't hit the ball, I was not going to keep swinging. I remember at summer camp being in a swimming race and realizing that I was too far behind to catch up... so I just stopped swimming; I just didn't see the point to continuing. Perhaps I am psychologically, as well as physically, unsuited to sports.

My theory is that if I had been more capable, I might have been more interested-- and I might have turned out to be a couch potato watching sports hour after hour on TV... instead of a couch potato who reads books hour after hour.

Hey, at least I got the girl.

Things That Make Me Cry

2008-11-17T19:30:00.009-07:00

Needless to say, the events of recent weeks have provided plenty of opportunity for me to choke up with tears. For me though, it usually only lasts for a minute or so before I get it under control.

Lately, I have been pondering the whys and wherefores of what causes me to cry. I have noticed over the past several years that there are some things that will cause me to choke up, and that doing so is an almost Pavlovian response to certain situations; I may not even consciously realize that a triggering event has taken place-- but I feel the tears coming on anyway, and I will then try to figure out what the cause was. It distresses me that I am unable to control this reflexive reaction.

Here are some of the things that will cause me to tear up:

Heroism
Sacrifice
Achievement

When I hear/read/see something wherein someone acts heroically, or makes a sacrifice for others, that will set me off. It doesn't even have to be real. Also, witnessing someone strive for something and winning, that will do it, too (I was teary-eyed throughout Barack Obama's acceptance speech).

When I saw my father in the hospital, there was a white board in the room. Someone, probably my brother, had written:

His name is Malcolm, and he is a hero.

Starr then added:

He is a gallant and valiant man.

Then I wrote:

I only hope I can do half as well.

The reason we all felt this way was because of what my father did, one of his last conscious acts: when he felt the stroke coming on, he didn't call 911; instead, he got dressed, got my mother dressed, left $120 on his desk in case my mother might need it, and then, finally took the two of them downstairs to the building lobby.