"Two Years and You're Still Alive!" See? It's All About Setting the Bar Really Low! Really, Really Low!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

The title of today's missive refers to the visit we made yesterday to my PCP (Primary Care Physician) and his assessment of my progress.  My response was not nearly as enthusiastic.  "Really?  This is best I can hope for?  Really?"  In the words of Hannibal Lecter, "That won't do."  I was really close to death, I get it.  The "Grim Reaper" passed me in the hallway, and grabbed for me, I understand.  He touched me and had to let go, I'm processing all of that. 

I still like my PCP, he's trying to be helpful and I am happy to be living, the alternative isn't great. (Tarentino's Japanese Charlie Brown again springs to mind.  When his club partner/wife rhetorically asks him, "Did you hear what happened to Boss Tanaka?  Do you want your head chopped off?" He says,"No, I don't think I would like that.")  Being dead.  I don't think I'd like that.  Putting that aside, I have to conclude that I am pretty lucky to be alive, although physically I feel like Stephen Hawking without the genius.

The PCP's comments made something I never considered to be of vital importance to me and that is this:  People are the only important things.  Not your house or the clothes on your body or the cars you drive.  Only the people you care about, keeping them safe and healthy.  And love, that's important too.

I still believe that someday soon, if I work hard enough, I'll be able to look back on all of this and say something like, "Jeez, I'm glad that's over with!"  I still believe in Neuroplasticity.  Words are all that lasts, and people you care about.  I can make fun of Blue Lipstick and Gladiator Sandals until the cows come home but what motivates me are the people who need me to get better, who will greatly benefit from my continued existence (Although making fun of stuff is pretty entertaining).  Currently, I'm still unable to eat/see/walk or talk.  Thanks to the Internet (and my mom, when she's not sending cat-fur she sends encouragement and computers), I have found an outlet I'm suited to.

My PCP wrote a bunch of referrals for me and assuaged another fear I've had for months, by asking (and answering) the only "really" important question "Is it cancer?"  "No?  Then who cares?"  Works for me!  Always does!  See?  It is all about setting that expectation bar low.  Really, really low.

PS - Despite my best efforts, I am still affronted daily by as "South Park" calls  it, a fair amount of "murder/porn" (Discovery ID, part of 'Discovery Communications), at the gym.  Today, they had a program that loses me right out of the gate.  I (Almost) Got Away With It"  is a "shoulda-woulda-coulda" kind of proposition.  I mean, come on, "I (Almost) Got Away With It"?  They might as well call it:  "We Weren't Successful" or "(Almost) A Program" or "Crap I Could Have Watched But Didn't". This is the network that brought us such scintillating titles such as "Unusual Suspects" and "Who The F+&? Did I Marry?" so "I (Almost) Got Away With It" is kind of disappointing from the beginning because it's obvious from the title it didn't work out.  A failed crime!  Who's got time for that?  It's not even like antiques or real estate you looked at and disregarded.  These are  crimes some nitwit attempted but was ultimately incarcerated for!  It's not even good "bad" TV.  It's just bad, not even the best they could come up with which is dicey at best.  The great thing about the ID Channel is that you can do at least three other things simultaneously while keeping track of any convoluted drama (real life) they present.  Perfect for the gym, right?  You would think so, the problem with the ID Channel is that the titles are far more interesting than the shows themselves.  So you (or more likely, me) get bored enough to stop at say "Who The F##% Did I Marry?" and 20 minutes later you're working on the  treadmill and wishing someone, anyone, would scream, "Well this is stupid!"(because it is) and change the channel.  But the gym gods or whomever don't hear your silent prayer and you're stuck.  That's why I watch nothing but CNN.  Just news, grim, real news.

"Better To Let Your Silence Cause People to Wonder If You're An Idiot Than Speaking And Removing All Doubt" (or Something close to it) Mark Twain

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Prior to the brain surgery required to remove the large tumor from my brain (that never gets old for me!) I was following a pretty depressing descent into mediocrity. Now I actually bring home some bacon.  Now I have laser-vision and a huge sense of purpose.  The '"new" me never  gets more than irritated.  Now I realize that I was mostly wrong about everything.  The other night we watched "Lemony Snickets" with Jim Carrey, Jude Law and some English children.  It was a charming film with the children facing a dilemna I face every day;  Nobody listens to me.  It would be comical if there weren't farther reaching implications.  People try to talk around me, over me, direct their eyes (and ears) to anyplace else that isn't in a wheelchair.   "Ironsides" might be a cool name, but that's all that's scary about that dude.  A dude in a wheelchair just does not inspire fear and/or dread.  But I digress:  The kids in "Lemony Snickets" have several adventures, they aren't there to have "fun" and they don't expect any.  Maybe it's a British thing.  Feel free to weigh in here, British relatives (and you know who you are) I like British stories.  When they are in peril there is no screwing around, THEY ARE IN DANGER!  LIVES ARE LOST!  British citizens get into all kinds of trouble with no way to escape but with their wits and fortitude.  And if you're a kid, nobody listens to you!  And the bad guys know it!  And they use this against you!  I liken this journey I'm on to a British Kid's Adventure, not "fun" necessarily but a huge undertaking with twists and turns and learning a lot of "life lessons" along the way.  I feel like I'm all alone out here with nothing but my words to protect me.  I hear "You have a lot of courage."  a lot.  I appreciate that but I'm not sure that's not wide of the mark, what I am is brave and there is a big -difference.  I can get through the next workout, the next MRI, even the next operation.  That's my understanding of bravery - short term.  That and tactics.  I have tactics for days.  What I lack is a strategy.  A specific design for me to get out of this mess as quickly as possible.   I woke up in 2011 with my world turned on it's head, and with absolutely no clue how to right it.  I'm not stumbling around in the dark (because that would imply I could stumble, and I would love to stumble anywhere!  Stumbling would be great! Schedule Stumbling would be heaven!) but I'm definitely reaching around in the pitch blackness for any strategy that works.  I'm starting from the start with what I have (not much) and what I know (even less).  Hey, nobody ever said adventures were "fun".

PS :  Another reason regular TV holds no charm for me:  "Sons of Anarchy" - a program that Patient Spouse and I watched together because it's on Netflix so he can skip over all the boring stuff.  In spite of my desire to share in the wonders of "High Def" with my beloved, I never really liked "SOA" and it took me a little while to figure out why.  The cast is OK, Peg Bundy, The Beast (from Beauty and the Beast), and a lot of other people you've never heard of.  It really bugged me that I couldn't stand this program.  Middle-aged bikers living and loving in a small town in Northern Cali.  I think their "fictional" town is Galt or someplace else near Stockton.  Is it bad storytelling?  Bad acting?  Nope.  Too local?   Possibly.  If I wanted to watch white trash drama, I could go to Oroville.  "Sons of Anarchy" - Marysville, to quote the blonde trampy girl from "Officer and a Gentleman",  "I don't want some Okie-from-Wiskokie, I can get that right here!"  I grew up with a trailer park too close to my town for my comfort level.  I had never seen a mobile home before I was 10.  What's interesting about "white trash" drama?  Nothing I don't find it colorful or interesting, just local!  And who are all these media yahoos who feel the modern need to compare every current bad guy to Hitler?  There was only one (Thank Goodness!) Adolf Hitler!  He was in a "class" all by himself.  Students of World History know this.  Syrian thug Assad is not Hitler.  The old North Korean dictator was not Hitler and the young North Korean Dictator is not Hitler either.  Loathe him and hate him, only Hitler was Hitler.  But I digress!

 PS - Another program that has an authentic feel to it from a foodie perspective is "Knife Fight" on the Esquire Channel.  The guy who hosts it is Ilan Hall, the winner of "Top Chef2" and  he has an amazing restaurant in LA.  All the young blades hear about each other and after his restaurant closes for the night, two Angelino chefs go head to head and battle it out "Chef vs. Chef" with a rowdy audience cheering them on.  A lifetime ago I use to observe Randall Sellend do exhibition cooking to a packed house at "The Kitchen"  and this show is a lot like that except with secret ingredients and celebrities.  Food and fashion shift faster than tremors after an earthquake in Southern Cali so it's great to see chefs duking it out "old school". 

"Pain Means You're Alive!", my Primary Care Physician, Setting the Bar "Low"

Hello Fellow Travelers!

If I could speak, I would respond with something like, "Really?  They let you get away with that?"  This remark probably comes from the same genius who thought up, "God only gives us as much as we can manage."  What the ???  How did God get dragged into this?  To be fair, this was the same guy who initially recommended lots and lots of narcotics on my previous visit.  So he was just trying to be helpful.  The glass is half full kind of thing.  I don't take it personally, but it is pretty funny! "Pain means you're alive?"  Then I must be out living large.  I'm too alive!  I guess the alternative is the opposite of being alive and no, as Charlie Brown put it in "Kill Bill, Vol I","No, I don't think I would like that.", in Japanese.

Yesterday, I saw a neurologist, I refer to as "Dr. Zhivago".  Patient Spouse thinks seeing him is a waste of time but I think I caught a glimmer of thought from him once.  We have him off the headache cure (never felt anything) and onto the Vertigo issue which is the primary impediment to my recovery.  Dr. Z. actually tested me on some parallel bars where I can actually show a little skill.  So he ordered me a set.  Biking to nowhere and walking in circles, oh boy!  And this is the stuff I aspire to!  This is a good day.  I won't be seeing him for awhile and I'm glad he's done trying different anti-seizure medications on me, he was repeating himself, pharmaceutically speaking, and I never had a seizure or migraine in my life.

Today I weigh myself at the gym, I do this once a week, if used to depress me a little until I got the numbers going in the right direction anyway (less).  It's a part of the rehab experience and going to the gym so it doesn't bother me (much).  Of course, in the big scheme of things I ask the same question,"Is it cancer?  No?  Who cares?"  OK, that's technically three questions but as long as the answer remains the same (No), that's all I care about.  It's all about setting the bar.  And I set it low.  No cancer?  That's good enough for me!  "C" is for "Cookie" Whoa! "Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!"  If it's good enough for the Cookie Monster it's good enough for me.

I Wasn't Alone In Watching (and sorely missing) "Breaking Bad" and I Think I Figured Out Why!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I spent part of last week feeling very alienated and sorry for myself because a program I had watched from the beginning was ending.  Shows end all the time, we saw the end of Dexter after seven years and it ended as appropriately as one could have hoped, but we forgot about it as soon as we saw it.  It's rare that one ends as well or with such fanfare as "Breaking Bad".  When I looked up from my computer, I saw that there were a lot of people who didn't know squat about methamphetamines who were going to sorely miss "Breaking Bad" on Sundays.  Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, for starters both did huge tributes to "B.B." on their respective programs.

My mother never watched "B.B." because she claimed to like Bryan Cranston from "Malcolm in the Middle", I go back even further with Mr. Cranston and remember him from "Seinfeld" where he had an occasionally recurring role as Dr. Tim Watley, the dentist, who may or may not have converted to Judaism "for the jokes".  Speaking of Seinfeld, remember an old episode where Elaine had Kramer take a photo for her Christmas card and of course, she sends them out to everyone not realizing that there was some wardrobe malfunction?  Everyone at her office is calling her "Nip".  George starts complaining that he never got a card from her so she grabs his head and smashes it into her chest and snarls, "You want a card?  Here's your card!"


A couple of authors have pulled an "Elaine" on the public.  Specifically, Thomas Harris, the fellow who wrote, "Silence of the Lambs".  An amazing book, I couldn't put it down.  Of course later they made the iconic film that set the film industry on fire and won awards for many involved in that film.  Zeitgeist - being in the right place at the perfect time and making something amazing!  So I, like a lot of people waited for years for this dude to write another book.  He didn't write much and he didn't write often so what he did have out there was read and reread.  So, after many years, out comes "Hannibal".  I actually wait listed and paid full retail on a hardback book.  "Hannibal" was well over 600 pages and when people would ask me about it, and they often did, all I had to say was, "What's the most ridiculous thing you can imagine these characters doing?"  Invariably, I received the same response, whether the person was or was not a reader, they always said "Let me guess, Hannibal and Clarice fall in love and get married!"  Yup, "Hannibal the Cannibal" and Agent Starling fall in something and sail off into bad writing land or maybe The Island of Misfit Toys or someplace else mysterious.

I may not be much of a writer but I am an accomplished and prolific reader and as a reader, I was truly offended.  I knew when I'd been "Elained", in literary terms.  At least I hope that was what was going on, I'd hate to think he labored intensely for years over that steaming pile of words.  What did you think I was going to say?  That steaming pile of literary goodness?  How about I confine my remarks to say, steaming pile?  If they had social media back then, I could have read "Hannibal" and posted the book next to a picture of kitty litter (Hah! You thought I was going say "Steaming Pile" again, didn't you?).  But I'm not sure there was even the Internet back then so they went ahead and made a movie (also a steaming pile) and more $$$ before everyone caught a clue that a little Lecter went a long way.  Even the movie-makers shied away from having the two polar opposites start dating, and left Clarice with the FBI and put Lecter on a plane to parts unknown.

I wouldn't know Thomas Harris if he bit me but after finishing "Hannibals'" 800 plus pages, I felt as though I'd been middle fingered by Mr. Harris.  As in "You want more Lecter?  I'll give you all the Hannibal Lecter you can stand!  And then some!  I'll write a whole flippin' book, badly, about him!  And Clarice Starling!  So screw you gentle reader, and critic, book editor, film exec, etc...  Screw all of you!  And the horse you rode in on!"

"Breaking Bad" finished great!  All the actors and the show's creator quit at the top.  Walter died about when his oncologist said he would.  The reason I was sort of sad about that show ending was that in seven years Walt never lost me.  He had this terrible diagnosis and figured out a way to utilize his time left on this planet to making a large amount of money.  It's a revenue stream I know nothing about (methamphetamine) but I could relate to a shy chemistry teacher having his world turned upside down with a diagnosis of terminal cancer.  He had a finite amount of time and objectives to meet in that period of time and his meticulous nature lent itself to being a mythical manufacturer as well as a distributor of his special "blue" product.  Even though the character did some terrible things I always wanted Walter to be successful.  At the end of the show you aren't sure if a gunshot killed him or the returning cancer but it doesn't matter.  He dies on his terms in his lab with no unfinished business.

At the end of the day, control over your own destiny is all we can hope for.  But the reason Walter never completely lost me or my sympathy completely is fundamental:  Great storytelling!  It was a great story that was told really well.  And at the end, that's truly all I care about.  Like the Sopranos, I'll get over the loss of "B.B.", but it's good to know people are still wanting to tell good stories well because there are those of us who desperately want to hear them.

PS - Speaking of "Seinfeld" and "The Sopranos", you know why the Rom/Com with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini went to DVD faster than a Steven Seagal movie?  Not because they didn't 'have chemistry' or didn't look like they belonged together,  The film flopped loudly because poor Gandolfini died.  No new shows or Soprano reunion.  He's still dead!  And NO romantic comedies!  James Gandolfini is still dead and that fact is neither romantic or comedic.  To his credit, that man made Tony Soprano his own, much like Bryan Cranston did to Walter White.  Poor Gandolfini pulled a Heath Ledger this year (unwittingly) and we'll never see his work again without thinking, "Oh, he's still dead.  That's too bad."