“SO HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?...

“How the fuck should I know you just woke me up!” was always the answer in my head as they roused me from sleeping at 7AM every day. As I fought to gain consciousness I would mutter something like “fine” and my day would begin anew… sort of. Let me bring this into perspective here before I go any further. It has all of the makings of a great “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essay if I were still in school. My “Vacation” started Monday morning May 20th and would continue until Friday afternoon May 24th. During this time I would be subjected to a series of tests for epilepsy in an effort to find the cause of the seizures I still have despite the fact I’m taking enough anti-seizure medication to tranquilize an elephant. Seems simple enough right? But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO… They fail to tell you a few things until you can’t escape. Shortly after arriving I was escorted to my eerily quiet room, changed into my PJ’s and then played twenty questions with a couple of doctors and nurses and being instructed to sit in a chair where they super glued thirty little wires to my head after drawing a jigsaw puzzle on my bald head in blue marker (they were thrilled I have a shaved head) then they put a yellow wrist band on me that said “Fall Risk” on it. Then they bound all of the wires together with that tape they use on you after you get a blood test which made me look like a really ugly Hare Krishna guy or one of those big blue character in “Avatar”. I didn’t know if I looked like a science project gone wrong or a piece of performance art, but it was interesting. After that I was buckled and LOCKED into a padded bed for the entire week. When I had to go to the bathroom I had to flag someone down so that they could unlock me long enough to do what I needed to do then re-lock me again. I’m pretty sure that wrist band was some sort of entertainment for the staff… I mean REALLY…where could I go? I’m plugged into a monitor with a bunch of squiggly lines on it and a live video feed of ME on it 24/7. It was like having my own personal podcast. Every time I blinked, burped, coughed or whatever one of those lines would do a different dance. When I moved the camera mounted on the ceiling for follow me to make sure whatever I did was visible. The tests were interesting… not. Sleep deprivation, Cognitive tests (boring), adding and subtracting meds, and (my all time favorite) flashing strobe lights in different speeds and patterns which are supposed to induce an epileptic seizure. All it succeeded in doing was taking me on a trip down memory lane to high school and college. (I kept waiting to hear Jefferson Airplane or Pink Floyd on the speakers every time they did that.) The only thing all of that managed to do was give me a case of the munchies and verify that neurologists use too many of their own sample drugs. Every day it was more of the same, always starting out with “How are you feeling today?” which would be asked again, and again, and again about a dozen times each day. Each day there would be fewer and fewer answers as to what the problem was, but I did get to learn a few things while I was there. The hospital I was staying in was Good Samaritan. For those of you unfamiliar with Phoenix it’s the hospital they used in the movie “Waiting to Exhale”. (I learned that by accident when it was being filmed. I was there to see some friend or relative and got off on the wrong floor and was me by two mountains masquerading as security and put back into the elevator to the right floor.) I had only been a patient there once… the day I was born. The first few days of my life was spent in the pediatric ward there in the old hospital. They tore that hospital down a long time ago and built what is there now. Interestingly enough, I was able to find out through conversations with my dad and hospital staff, we were able to determine that the bed I had been strapped into all week was about eighty feet directly above where I was born (give or take a few feet in any direction). There was something strangely comforting about knowing that. Other than that, all I learned that week was I don’t have epilepsy, I don’t have cancer, I visited where I was born but, now I have a whole bunch of other tests to take… lucky me. Well, I must be going. Next week I get to… you guessed it… start another new “Vacation”.

JAZZ HANDS

I’m impressed at how silent the world is these days. In spite of the traffic, the sirens, the bombs, guns and the screams it’s become comfortingly quiet… because nobody is listening. We have become talking Mimes. Our mouth’s move, but nobody hears us. They’re blocking out our words as they attempt to talk over us… or through us. It becomes a battle of expressions. Jazz Hands moving in a pathetic game of “charades” as we strive to show our level of intelligence and righteousness while showing how unimportant everyone else is to us. We search for our mark under the spotlight and hold tightly to that space. A social filibuster until we run out of words and ideas. We walk down once noble streets that were then only defaced by the occasional dog marking its territory. The brick and concrete edifices that line the street are now marked by spray paint as young punks dressed like clowns with needles in their arms and guns in their belts lay claim to it as THEIR territory as they stand nearby and flash their Jazz Hands at people who show interest in claiming what belongs to NEITHER of them. People have turned their homes into fortresses to protect themselves, their families and their belongings from the violent vampires of the night who want everything you have… and more. They chant their vile poetry of false poverty while taking needles and putting more drugs and ink into their bodies before heading back into the night in expensive vehicles for more blood from all of us and blend in with the hipsters searching for their next victims. The disenfranchised, delusional or completely discarded will cower in the shadows of the doorways sometimes wondering why they’re still there and who forgot them. They hope only to be remembered and cared about like not so long ago. Once again the Jazz Hands will come out and lull us into submission. We will dance, we will sing… badly and if it happens to be a karaoke bar… sing even worse, because nobody is still listening really and being drunk is actually the important part anyways. It’s so much easier to forget we’re not human anymore when we’re that drunk. We will, eventually, find our way home to where we pretend to live normal lives. We don’t travel as much as we used to because, regardless of what country you’re from or live in, everyone HATES you. We pretend not to notice or hear, but we’re reluctant to venture out too far anymore. Instead we’ll stay in and watch how dysfunctional we’ve really become on TV. Life has become both a circus and a zoo; it all just depends on which side of the cage you stand on. We’ll reduce ourselves to becoming armchair critics and quarterbacks and stand in judgment of everyone and everything without hearing, seeing or researching a fucking thing before offering our opinion… but the Jazz Hands will still keep moving… even though no one is listening. We will continue to hate people not like us, justify our existence, maintain and armory of weaponry for our own personal use and belligerently explain why we shouldn’t compromise in the slightest, but those Jazz Hands keep dancing and our ego’s will continue to grow. We’ll pay exorbitant amounts of money for artwork the quality of a third grader and call it a “bargain”. We’ll also pay more for “VIP” treatment at parties and events while trying desperately to forget that if you really were a VIP they’d be giving it to you for free. We stress about being “Green” but only when it’s convenient to do so and have assumed that food can only be good if it costs three times what it should. Everyone has become a “gourmet cook” because someone showed them how to cook a recipe on TV but, as usual, WE know better than THEY do so it’s OK to over spice the dish. A restaurant can’t be great unless it’s owned by a celebrity chef and/or shown on TV. The hospitals, sanitariums and “rehab” centers will continue to be overflowing with people so over medicated, self-medicated, undiagnosed or misdiagnosed that half of the population cannot function and fall through the cracks and into the shadows. All the while the politicians of every stripe break out the Jazz Hands as they tap dance around the issue and do nothing… again. We didn’t have to stand up and recite “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” or “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood” at our graduation. Partly because we don’t have snow or woods where I live, but mostly because Robert Frost wasn’t our guest speaker nor did we have to recite “Buffalo Bill’s defunct” because e.e.cummings wasn’t there either. It’s unlikely that students today will have to sit and listen to the poetic resonance of Russell Simmons, ‘Lil Wayne” or “Snoop Dogg/Lion” for much the same reasons along with the fact they can’t read anything. What they will probably hear is some “suit” tells them they’re under-educated, the most indebted generation ever and have no chance of getting a job in their chosen field but should “go forth and be happy”. …And the Jazz Hands will, once again, wave along even though they didn’t hear a word that was said.

…”WHO ARE YOU?”

…Asked the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied very shyly, “I…I hardly know sir, just at present… at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “Alice in Wonderland” Chapter V By Lewis Carroll I’m sure it would be impossible to remember how many times people have asked us “Who are you?” not to mention how many times we’ve looked in the mirror and asked ourselves the very same question. Each time the answer was, more likely than not, different than the last time you were asked. If you’re a normal human being you’ve continued to grow and change daily… if not minute by minute. The interests and beliefs you had yesterday may not be the same as today yet sometimes some of us manage to never really know, or understand, who they are as a person. They may have a vague idea of who they’d like to be or who they think people want them to be but they really don’t know themselves or what THEY want in actuality. Sometimes they may catch a glimpse of their inner self and may be terrified of what they saw and done everything in their power to prevent that from rising to the surface even going so far as to lie to themselves and everyone else as to who they might really be. Sometimes people catch that glimpse and are shocked, but curious and cautiously explore that part of them, some just jump in with both feet and hope they don’t drown. Many of us do a mixture of all of that depending on the situation. Then there are people like me. I’m more of a “Damn the Torpedo’s” type of person which can easily put me in some interesting situations when I least expect it (and then I wonder why I have heart issues… but that’s another story). Regardless… life can only be an adventure if you know who YOU are and are brave enough and honest enough to follow the path you choose to take.

WISDOM OF THE AGES

They say that with age comes wisdom… well… it appears that may be true. After several days of people exploring what’s left of my brain the following has been confirmed: I am a MENSA level genius… with the memory of a gnat and the dexterity of an arthritic chimpanzee. I am officially an “Idiot Savant” and must still wear a helmet when I ride on the short bus. There’s something strangely comforting about knowing this and means… I have no fucking idea what it means… it must be the meds…now, where was I? There’s always that surreal “What does it all mean/Waiting for Godot” period of time from after you leave the doctor’s office and when the cab arrives these days. A timeframe where you find yourself reflecting on what just happened and, in some cases, over-analyzing the situation with statements bouncing around in your head like “You don’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s but….” “but” what!? It thrills me to no end to know I’m going to lose my memory “just because”. That’s a “thrill” I can do without, thank-you very much! Then I get home to find out some nutbag blew up a bunch of innocent people in Boston… suddenly I can’t lose my memory fast enough. The next day I had to meet with Manny, Moe and Jack the Gastrointestinal boys. It appeared from recent tests I’m a little over a quart low in the blood department and everyone was a little curious about how and where I was leaking fluids from. I know my body pretty well and when something isn’t right (and something hasn’t been right for a while now). You don’t survive two dozen heart attacks without having a better than average idea of what’s going on inside. Needless to say, it came as no surprise that they want to take a look inside next week. Procedures seem to advance at a speed equal to the changes in smart phones. Instead of having to drink great heaping gobs of that awful stuff before surgery they simply scare the shit out of you by looking serious and asking “Has anyone in your family ever had Colon cancer?” and BOOM… clean as a whistle. Thank God there was a Target next door or I’d have had to ride home naked. I find myself dreading the surgery. Not because of what they may find but… of what some knucklehead might have blown up while I was in there this time around…what a fucking world.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF 03/02/2013

It’s been a wild a wooly past few weeks. All of the weather changes around here succeeded in giving me a cold and/or a sinus infection even though I refrained from as much public contact as possible hoping not to get the dreaded flu that was going around. I thought my hermit-like existence would protect me from that as I smugly walked around humming Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a rock” in my head which just goes to prove that massive amounts of drugs make you delusional and give you shit for brains. (Which can often give you the side effect of spending a great deal of time in the bathroom playing solitaire on your smart phone a lot until your brain starts functioning again.) I became very adept at fighting with myself during this period of time which actually delighted me in an unexpected way. I have become so good at it that while following the “Sequestration” comedy on TV I could get the feeling I was watching a game show filled with stupid third graders. I kept waiting for someone to push a buzzer and tell the bureaucrat of the moment “Sorry…wrong answer, but thank-you for playing”. The only thing missing from Obama’s wardrobe the past few weeks is a big red nose and a band leader’s baton. It’s not because he’s a Democrat, they’re all guilty of stupidity on this one, but because he’s as delusional as I am at this moment in time. The talking heads “analyzing” all of this are just as pathetic as everyone else. It took me twenty minutes the other night to figure out they were trying to explain how to make an In-N-Out burger instead of how to resolve the potential collapse of the Government. Living here in Arizona we have front row seats to the Jodi Arias trial which, sometimes, makes me wish I could still drive. Then I would go out and buy a Jodi Bobble head and put it on my dashboard and watch it go up and down and side to side all day…it would be just as entertaining as just as real as she is! I mean COME ON PEOPLE…how much time and money are we wasting on this already? Talk about CRAZY! Speaking of crazy… I get to go to Barrow’s soon and play 2000 questions with, yet, another Neurologist finally so they can determine just how far my dementia has gone so far and if anything else needs to be addressed along those lines. I’ve been “approved” for disability and given me an obscenely small monthly stipends with the thought that in three years I might be able to go back to work. If what little memory I still have serves me correctly that will be 2016. As it happens… there’s a President’s job opening up in D.C. that year…I just might be crazy enough to qualify for that position by then… what was I talking about a minute ago?

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF 01/26/13

The plague arrived at our house this week. We made a futile effort to avoid it but, it came in spite of our best efforts. Everyone in the house has come down with it at least once which has caused us to avoid each other as much as possible. This drove me into more of a hermit-like existence then I’ve already had the past few weeks. I don’t dare venture into public for fear of contaminating more people than this flu already has. It’s sadly comforting in a bizarre, unexpected way. This has also provided the added benefit of having a reason to sit on my hands for a while. Since our great and all powerful President has implemented his useless healthcare plan people get to sit and wait while doctors and healthcare providers argue over the necessity and cost effectiveness of any and all medical procedures from giving someone an aspirin to MRI’s. Needless to say many of my tests are now on hold for the moment while they continue to collect monthly payments from us hoping not to do anything in return. So here I sit talking to myself, drinking my green tea, taking lots of naps and trying to remember or decipher my dreams. Dreams… small word… big meanings, it seems like, in many cases, the bigger the dream… the harder we chase it. The unfortunate part is we seldom really make solid, realistic plans for when and/or if we catch them. A great many people insist the seldom, if ever, dream. According to most all researchers we dream 4-7 times a night but rarely remember all or part of any of them and the ones we do remember have some degree of significance to them. Small children don’t include themselves in their dreams until the ages of three and five due to their limited life experiences. Here’s another interesting tidbit if you’re going to be on Jeopardy any time soon… the term “nightmare” was created in the Dark Ages to support the claim that they were the work of female spirits messing with your head… doesn’t that make you feel better guys? Also… everyone has “wet dreams” and interestingly enough, they seldom have anything to do with sex. This disturbs me on a number of levels. I would really hate to think that on those rare occasions I was woken up by a raging hard-on was because I was thinking about mowing the lawn… that would be a supreme verification as to just how pathetic a person’s life is at times. I did have an interesting dream the other day though. It involved a group of people I respect and admire all sitting around drinking and talking in, what I assume is my studio that I have yet to find and occupy. Some of the people I know (or knew at one time or another), some I would like to know, some I’ll never know because they’re already gone. An eclectic group of bombastic free thinkers who seldom color inside the lines and could give a shit if you don’t agree with them and, apparently, have gotten together often enough we have named ourselves “The Curmudgeons Club” and proudly accept that moniker. People like writers, poets and essayists Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall…among others), Henry Miller, Richard Brautigan, Shel Silverstein, Allen Ginsberg, James Thurber and Hunter S. Thompson (just because he was Hunter). Musicians like Joe Walsh, Sting, James Taylor, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, Michael Stipe, Dave Brubeck and Cole Porter. Painter’s Chuck Close and Picasso and Photographers Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton plus newcomer chef and writer Anthony Bourdain, others would roll in and out from time to time like Nicholson and so on while we drank, bantered and joked about while periodic arguments would break out over art, philosophy, politics, social changes and more with terms like “asshole” and “bastard” being thrown at each other with good natured love and affection of brothers having fun. Songs would be played, statements would be made, pictures would be taken and then suddenly… out of the blue, Thurber would quote a passage from one of his own books… “It is better to have asked some of the questions than to know all of the answers.” Everyone nods in agreement and the magic stops and they all grab their coats and head out the door leaving me to contemplate on what had just happened alone in my studio. The quiet is as comforting as my real life “hermit hole” yet I find myself anxiously waiting for the next get-together. Is this a Bohemian dream or a glimpse into my own future? Time will tell.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF 01/18/13

“I’m going to say four words and I want you to remember them. Banana, truck, apple, cat” …and so began my visit with young doctor “Spooky” my Neurologist (although he isn’t as spooky as he used to seem to be to me anymore). I’ll be honest right here…I really don’t remember the words he said at that time but for the sake of this missive let’s pretend those were the words. As we’re talking about how the seizure meds are doing and if the dosage should be increased he scribbles a pentagon on the back of one of the forms and hands it to me and says “I want you to copy that for me” as we continue talking. “This is a piece of cake!” I’m thinking to myself, “I’ve been a fucking artist my whole life! What’s this going to prove? It’s like that old ad in magazines and gum wrappers when I was a kid…”If you can draw this YOU could have a career in Art” it would proclaim.” I indignantly think in my head as I draw the shape…sort of. A pentagon has five equal sides, all connecting. Mine was a little shy of equal and one side didn’t connect. Perhaps it was a “deconstructed” pentagon or just after 9/11…who knows. We keep talking about this, that and the other thing while he looks at my drawing and then without warning he asks “So what were those four words I told you to remember?” The look on my face must have spoken volumes. I desperately try and remember the words and the only word I can come up with is “apple”. “OK…I’m fucked” I think to myself as I try and gage Dr. Spooky’s expression. “I’m going to refer you to a specialist to run several more tests.” He finally says. “But aren’t YOU a specialist?” I ask somewhat befuddled. “Yes, but they have the right equipment to run all of these tests accurately” was all he said rather matter-of-factly. As he walks me over to the scheduling desk to set up my follow-up appointment and my referral scenes from “Rocky Horror” dance through my head, “What twisted “experiments” am I going to be subjected to now?” I nervously wonder. “If this “specialist” turns out to be a transvestite who looks frighteningly similar to Tim Curry I may decide to take up marathon running in spite of my health issues. During the cab ride home all sorts of potential scenarios are bouncing around in what little brain I seem to have these days. Suddenly…in the middle of all this internal angst the word “banana” pops into my head. “Oh that’s just fucking great! I couldn’t have thought of that sooner? I would have at least gotten a 50% on that stupid test!” I think to myself. I didn’t want to say it out loud and scare the hell out of the cab driver. And so the adventure begins and what is typically the case in my life these days, it’s not on the right foot… so what else is new. One only wonders.