x365: 2 of 365: Macbeth
» Sunday, September 30, 2007

Dear Mr. Macbeth,

In grade 3, I told people that I'd read your play, which I hadn't. For several years you haunted me, stalking all my claims to precocity. When I finally sat down to read the play, I discovered that you were a paranoid schizophrenic married to an obsessive-compulsive megalomaniac. How did anyone let you run Scotland in the first place?

And what's your first name?

Labels: x365

posted by the palinode | comments (8) | permalink | subscribe

it's x365 time
» Saturday, September 29, 2007

x365, that's a thing. It's a thing where a guy named Dan decided to write about 365 people he'd met in his life. Every day, for 365 days. There are rules* about how many words are permissible per post, but these rules are flexible and even breakable if the occasion demands. Like most things in the world of blogs, nobody's enforcing the rules. It's a libertarian's dream! Like most libertarian dreams, it happens in cyberspace and not the real world.

#1: Steve Austin

I was terrified of the credits, but once the show started I would venture out from behind the couch to watch you beat up a robot Sasquatch or trade quips with Oscar Goldman. Can I confess to something? I liked Maskatron, the face-swapping robot, way better than I liked you.


*One of the rules probably involves restricting your x365 list to real people. I've decided to mix the people that I've met in the flesh with fictional characters and imaginary friends. It's a libertarian's dream!

Labels: x365

posted by the palinode | comments (5) | permalink | subscribe

here and there
» Monday, September 24, 2007

I spend all day gobbling down the web. It's selfish of me not to regurgitate some of it for you. In fact, it's hypocrtical of me, since I've always said that I feel like a mother puffin when I blog. Time to let you all stick your beaks down my throat. But you better be a baby puffin, is all.

On the Arts Journal Daily website I found a link to Joseph Epstein's essay "The Literary Life at 25," a follow-up to his 1982 piece on the state of the humanities. At first I was disappointed by the tone of twee self-regard, but I soon cheered up when I realized what the piece was: a knifing of the last quasicentennial of the life of the mind. He starts with a few whittles at the figure of the 'public intellectual', starts nicking away at Susan Sontag ("it was only reality of which she was ignorant"), but by the time he gets round to poetry, it's stabbin' time:

Poor poetry, it is the Darfur of twenty-first century literature. Everyone wants to do something about it, but nobody quite knows what is to be done. Money is poured into it (think Miss Ruth Lilly’s $100 million bequest to Poetry magazine), prizes and titles are awarded to poets roughly every thirty-five minutes (think Poet Laureate of the State of New Jersey), new poets are produced roughly at the rate of rabbits (don’t think, lest serious depression set in, of all those endless MFA programs turning out more and more people who will themselves go on to teach in MFA programs).

"The Literary Life at 25"

***

Mark Kermode explores his personal history of film-over-TV snobbery in The Guardian. Then he rates the state of current television.

***

I’m looking forward to watching Le Samourai and 2 Days in Paris tonight, which I am assiduously leeching from the internet. Ahh, sue me. In the meantime, David Thomson will tell you all you need to know about Jean-Pierre Melville in this essay here.

***

Anthony Lane of the New Yorker drools over the Leica in 6,000 words of nicely wrought prose.

A Leica viewfinder resembles no other, because of the frame lines: thin white strips, parallel to each side of the frame, which show you the borders of the photograph that you are set to take—not merely the lie of the land within the shot, but also what is happening, or about to happen, just outside. This is a matter of millimetres, but to Leica fans it is sacred, because it allows them to plan and imagine a photograph as an act of storytelling—an instant grabbed at will from a continuum. If you want a slice of life, why not see the loaf?

***

As we all sorta know but do not care to imagine, incarceration policies in the United States are warping its society and letting its minority population bump around in the endless drying cycle of penury and poverty:

In surveys conducted by Pager, 62 percent of Milwaukee employers said they'd consider hiring an applicant with a nonviolent drug offense in his past. But in her field study, Pager found that her black applicants with criminal records got called for an interview - or to interview on the spot, as they applied in person - a mere 5 percent of the time. That compared with 14 percent for the black applicants without a criminal record. Meanwhile, the white applicants with a record were called back 17 percent of the time, compared with 34 percent for the white men lacking the blotch on their résumé. "Two strikes" - blackness and a record - "and you're out" is how Pager summarizes her findings. (Pager has replicated this study in New York City, with similar results.)

***

Here’s a piece from the New York Times about the increasing proportion of TV screen space being overtaken by ads. I think we can all agree that ads suck, and that the nature of ads is to suck mightily. Let’s think of it in terms of accident and essence. Advertisements are the ape of art: the artistic qualities of an ad are costumes that can be changed at a moment's notice. It is a mistake to distinguish any commercial on television, say, from the one that precedes or follows it - they are all different outfits worn by one entity. What gives shape to the fabric is a rhetorical structure, which for the sake of visualization I'll call The Greedy Sucking Monkey That Wants Your Mind. The monkey wants you to believe that it is natural and inevitable, that its powers of disguise and occasional philanthropic missions qualify it as a permanent citizen of our imagination. But the next time you see an ad that empowers women by selling them wrinkle cream, or an ad from an oil company that touts the beauty of nature, remember the Greedy Sucking Monkey.

Labels: stuff

posted by the palinode | comments (4) | permalink | subscribe

top 6 songs bands we thought were cool way back when
» Sunday, September 23, 2007

Now and again I write bits for publication. Here's something I tossed off this evening for the reading public's pleasure. Enjoy!


In the sixties and seventies, from twangy folk to angry punk, music mattered. In the nineties, grunge brought pop perilously close to relevance once more. What were adolescents to do in the eighties, when social relevance in pop was cordoned off into the occasional benefit concert or Christmas single? Like prisoners deprived of sensory input, we overreacted whenever pop singers seemed to be doing something daring. If you never listened to Brave New Waves, here are the top six bands we thought were cool in school:

1. CULTURE CLUB (1982)
OMG that guy is dressed up like a woman and playing smooth soul-pop ballads! Will the social order disintegrate? Will the pillars of society come crashing – no.

2. FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1983)
Once “Relax” started sneaking onto radio playlists, the gender-bending antics of Boy George seemed quaint. We were shocked that we could buy a single so clearly about sex. Many of us had yet to discover Frank Zappa's back catalogue.

3. W.A.S.P. (c.1984)
Did W.A.S.P. Stand for “We Are Sexual Perverts” or “We Are Satan's Preachers”? Whatever. When we went out and bought the 12” single “Animal(F**K Like A Beast)” we were badass and we knew it.

4. PAUL HARDCASTLE (1985)
"Nineteen" was an anti-Vietnam protest song delivered in samples and beats. It sounded cutting edge until you realized that Hardcastle was speaking out against a war from the previous decade.

5. NIGGAZ WITH ATTITUDE (1988)
When N.W.A. blasted outta Compton, a nation of suburban kids drove around their neighborhoods with “Fuck Tha Police” pounding out of their stereos. Only Charlton Heston cared.

Bonus '90s entry:
6. NINE INCH NAILS (1994)
Much like W.A.S.P., Trent Reznor tried to introduce the joys of fucking like an animal to the stereos of suburban teenagers. Unfortunately the Discovery Channel showed us all how sexy that was.

Labels: eighties, music

posted by the palinode | comments (6) | permalink | subscribe

once more with neutrons
» Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Here's another entry taken from the archives of my previous weblog, The Palinode, from the mists of 2003, when cars were powered by coal and the ipods were known as 'stereos'. The meds, they make sustained effort and concentration tough, so here you go.


Recently [or if you like, a long time ago] Mimi Smartypants pointed the way to Multibabel, a site that hijacks the good intentions of Babel Fish by translating a phrase back and forth from language to language, until the original English has been twisted into an unrecognizable syntactic shape. The translation daisy chain goes as follows: English-French, English-German, English-Italian, English-Portuguese, English-Spanish and back to English. Best of all, you can run the resultant phrase through the process again, like feeding mangled metal fragments into a broken machine. It's fun if you're wearing gloves.

Eventually the phrase will stabilize, achieving a consensus between languages. Unfortunately, the consensus does not lead towards universally agreed-upon sense, but towards a Point Of Mutually Assured Nonsense (POMAN). With extremely simple single-clause phrases it takes about three or four cycles (30-40 passes) to hit POMAN. Given something more complicated, when will POMAN be achieved? Because I am who I am, I tried out the gramatically ugly but chart-topping sentence "I'm just burning, doing the neutron dance" (see last entry). It produced unexpected results, which I've taken the time to track for you. Here are the highlights of 250 kicks at the Pointers Sisters can. I've omitted the translations into non-English languages, and wherever possible I've avoided linguistic explanations in favour of more imaginative ones.

1. (original) I'm just burning, doing the neutron dance.

3. (from French) I am burn right, making the dance of neutron.

Two translations in and already Babel Fish has made a conceptual error, confusing the English "just" (as in "only") with the French "juste" (as in "correct"). Babel Fish also neglected to properly translate the continuous form of "I'm... burning". It must be the "just" that's causing the problem, but already the notion of correctness has been introduced. Also, I'm no longer dancing but making a dance, which is, you know, kudos to me.

6. (from Italian) They are the right of the fire and I form the dance of the neutron.

Just a few translations and already things have gotten pretty hairy, not to mention a bit Fascist sounding. I've been taken off burning duty and assigned to a subcommittee charged with administering the neutrons. "They" are a group that somehow embodies the correctness or the claim to the liberty of fire, whereas I'm somewhere else taking care of the dancing neutron. Two passes later and the line reads "I give form to the dance of the neutron," which is even cooler. I picture myself in some kind of metaphysical conservatory, sculpting a dance in the studio for subatomic particles while fiery incarnations proclaim their rights in the lecture hall.

10. (from Spanish) The correct one of the fire and I give the form to the dance of the neutron.

The first translation cycle has been run through, and far from reaching POMAN, the results have produced an unexpected richness. One of the fire-rights creatures has been appointed to join me in directing the neutron dance. Am I jealous, aloof or standoffish? Of course not! I'm honoured to share choreography duties with the correct one of the fire.

16. (from Italian) The corrected one of the fire and of that it gives the shape for the dance of the neutron.

Well this sucks. Obviously something's gotten screwed up, because I've been kicked out of my position as co-choreographer and the fire guy is no longer "correct" but "corrected". Why? What mistake did it make? Was it a crime to fraternize with me? Those "right-of-the-fire" types are just jerks.

24. (from German) Behobenes fire and of this gives it the form for the dance of the neutron.

What? Who the hell is 'Behobenes' and what business does he have with our neutron dance? Where's the corrected one? Where am I? This is nothing but a corrupt bureaucracy at work.

26. (from Italian) The fire of Behobenes and this gives the shape to it for the dance of the neutron.

Whoah... fire of Behobenes. I've got to admit, that sounds kind of cool. I can see why they brought this Behobenes guy in.

30. (from Spanish) The fire of Behobenes and this one gives to the form he to him stops the dance of the neutron.

Oh, great. Thanks, Behobenes. Mad props to you and your fire. Don't come calling when you want your neutron dance started up again, because I was doing just fine. Just fine.

36. (from Italian) The fire of Behobenes and this of gives to the famous shape ch' to it the dance of the neutron.

At this point I'm not sure what's going on, but it looks like they're trying to fix the situation by bringing in the famous shape ch'. I've never heard of that particular shape, but I don't think it's wise to bring in a ringer and hope that all their problems will just go away. I don't care how famous ch' is. If you want a good dance, get a dancer, not a shape.

42. (from French) The fire of Behobenes and that of gives to the form celebrates CH ', this dances it neutron.

See, this is exactly what I feared. Everyone's capitulated to fame and started celebrating "CH '" instead of paying attention to what really matters. If I were on the job you'd get a first class neutron dance every time, not this ridiculous pandering to celebrity. Notice the capitalization now? Gimme a break.

50. (from Spanish) The fire of Behobenes and of gives the form commemorates the CH,', that to the neutron this one dances.

Total sellout. Let's all bow down to CH and forget about the neutrons. Let's just flock to the concerts and watch CH do a tribute dance to neutrons or something, while those hard-working little particles never even make an appearance. Also, notice that than an apostrophe gets its own clause. I think they've brought in a !Kung as a consultant. Well, good luck to them. I've started up an improv troupe with a handful of Higg's bosons and strange quarks.

Labels: language, poman, useless

posted by the palinode | comments (5) | permalink | subscribe

letter of welcome
» Thursday, September 13, 2007

A message from John “Do Want!” Kornford, President and CEO of Lolcats.com Inc.

Oh hai!

On behalf of Lolcats.com Inc. board and staff, let me welcome you to the most exciting new corporation to come along in years - or as we would say, yearz!

I’m extremely pleased that you “do want” to be “wurkin in r company, maximizing r and ur profitz”. As a new employee, you’ve got the chance to get in on the first major wave of Lolcats mania. Our professional research has shown that captioning amateur photos of cats with humorous 'leet-style' pidgin grammar is about to hit the mainstream – and the mainstream will never be the same. “Halp!” Our competitors will cry, “Youz invaded r murket shair!” And that’s just the beginning.

At Lolcats.com, we’re in it for the long haul. We like career-minded people who are serious about their prospects for the corporation. We think you’ve got what it takes to ride the Lolcats.com wave to the future, riding aboard our unique two-plank corporate vision:

1. Lolcats

2. Profit!

Are you aboard with us? Of course you are! I am aware that my nautical metaphor is not the best suited for a company whose product involves cats, but I’m sure you will understand that it is just a metaphor, and that no cats are intended to be aboard, metaphorically or literally. That also means that employees are not permitted to bring cats into the building, as we share space with an allergy clinic and it is not considerate to their clients to have cats escaping into their offices and bringing on more threats of lawsuits. That was a refreshing diversion! But it is still important.

So what do we expect from you? Under our unique incentive system, employees of Lolcats.com are expected to produce five humorous captions per day. Employees must adhere to the rigorous standards of lolcats grammar, which we call ‘gramr’. Exceptions to the gramr rule are permitted in our ‘Spock cat’ product line, which features serious looking cats speaking in ironically perfect English. Other exceptions to the standard product include the classic ‘lolrus’ and ‘lolpets’ specialty lines.

We also encourage employees to think ‘outside the litter box,’ as it were. But don’t forget the ‘unahfishul’ corporate motto: If It Ain’t Lolcats, We Really Don’t Care! Market research shows conclusively that lolcat popularity will continue to ‘bubble’ upward for the next two decades, so why would you mess with a great thing? It’s just not worth anyone’s while.

Employees are also urged to help maintain our intellectual property rights. Any use, posting, ‘screensaving’ or retelling of extracorporate lolcats images or ‘gramr’ is forbidden on company property. As well, any sighting of same on the internet or in public or private spaces elsewhere should be reported to our attorney immediately, as unauthorized lolcat use represents an infringement of our rights.

Don’t forget: it is your commitment that will keep Lolcats.com Inc. alive and thriving for years to come. See you next Caturday bitchz!!!

K thx bye

posted by the palinode | comments (7) | permalink | subscribe

neurosurgeon, part 3
» Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The actual story isn't quite finished yet (ie., I'm still twisted around like a bendy straw) but with part three, we arrive ever closer to the present. Check out parts one and two for yer perusing pleasure, ya sadistic bastard.

Sure, the place is ugly, shadowless and decorated with industrial auction furniture, but at least I’m not alone. A woman with a layer of tan over her varicose veins is braced against the receptionist’s desk.

I was referred here by van Heeren, the woman says. She has long curly hair that looks as if she's just run here from the shower. With a pair of flip-flops and a black t-shirt pulled down over a loose stomach, she imparts a strangely casual but institutional air to the office, as if the place is attached to a minimum-security woman's prison.

We have no paperwork on you, Ma'am, the receptionist says.

Phone them, the damp-haired woman insists.

I sit down on one of the metal-frame chairs. It's going to be a while before Dr van Heeren is roused from his mountain fastness to fax over some recognition of Ms. Ex-con.

After a surprisingly brief wait, the receptionist calls me into the doctor's office. The doctor is not there, and I understand that I’m meant to continue sitting and waiting, but without the stack of Cosmo magazines or the gurgling water tank. Why do they call you into the doctor’s office if the doctor is not actually in the room? I’ve never understood it.

The room has two chairs. One is the same vinyl-padded metal model that I escaped from, the other is a swivel-back office chair on wheels. The comfortable seat faces away from the door, which means that I’m to take the unfolded vinyl cube. I consider pulling the other chair around, but then the door opens and Dr. K. parades in. He holds his body straight as he turns to close the door, as if his legs and spine were threaded together and pulled taut.

He avoids eye contact until he settles in to his chair, swinging one leg over his knee and leaning back slightly, a shift in axis calculated to make me feel just a little bit at ease. Despite the fakery - or is he just a bit nervous? - I do feel a bit more relaxed.

I also find his face relaxing, which confounds me, because he has a peculiar complexion like blonde fudge trowelled thickly over cheekbone and jaw. The troweller left only a bit of space for his eyes, which have an obsidian glitter to them, which makes me imagine a skull of semiprecious stone covered in light-brown putty. He pulls up his lip to show teeth, and of course it's a welcoming smile.

So, he announces, I am Dr. K, a neurosurgeon. What can I do for you?

The accreted particles of goodwill blow away with that question. He's been reading my file. I've been to doctors, chiropractors, therapists, that guy with the needles and the little electric box: he knows all this. But of course he wants to hear it from me. So I begin to explain myself as if it's a job interview, and I can hear the severity of my problem begin to fade with exposure to the air, until I finish practically apologizing for the inconvenience to his busy day. Dr. K, who has presumably satisfied himself on the question of my submissiveness to doctors, tells me to get up on the table.

Dr. K owns the highest doctor's table I've ever encountered. Under normal circumstances there's no way I'd risk the pain of hoisting myself up on this thing, but normal circumstances had long ago run galloping into the woods, so I propel myself up.

The maneuver creates several different kinds of pain in different spots all over my body. First comes the standard pain of putting weight on my feet, which causes the tops of my feet to prickle, as if brushed by a match; then the surprising shock of jerking my body off the ground with my hands, which lets my hips feel the weight of my suspended legs for a second. The pain runs up from my hips to my shoulders as I twist my weight, and then my butt hits the table, which causes a starburst of pain radiating from the small of my back all through my hips and legs.

Okay, Dr. K says, lie on your back please.

I may not be able to do that, I say, still breathing deeply to expel the pain.

Oh, I think you will have to, Dr. K says. He's examining the X-rays I brought from home.

So I lay on my back. It's about as much fun as I'd imagined. K is studying the X-rays very closely, murmuring 'oh yes' and 'I see' to himself. I distract myself by looking at the bald spot clutching the back of his head, where it's all set to feed and grow.

Then it's test time. Or maybe it's just time to push my toes with his thumbs and run a little wheeled spur over my legs. I've had these tests so many times I feel like shouting out the answers before he gets to the questions.

Which one do you feel more, he asks, running the spur over one calf, then another.

The left, I say.


He runs the instrument over the shanks of my feet. What do you feel there? he asks.

That one's numb, I venture, trying to get it right. The other is... not numb...

No, he interrupts, it is not 'numb' and 'not numb,' it is subtle. There are subtle differences.

Then I remember that I'm an adult.

If you want the right answers, I say with my head raised a bit, then I need you to be absolutely clear with the questions.

He runs the spur over my feet again.

Which one do you feel more?

The left.

After the tests are over, he motions towards the floor. Okay, he says, you can get down now.

I roll on my side and take a leap to the floor. The pain hits again and I bend double to absorb it. I straighten up as best as I can, looking like a marionette hung on a hook.

Dr. K regards my ridiculous posture. For the first time in my life, I understand what the phrase incredulous look means. His eyes seem to protrude slightly to capture me at a wider angle.

Is that how you stand without the cane?

Yes.

He turns me around and lifts my shirt. Oh my, he says. Oh my.

I will schedule you for a CT scan. The problem is that you must lie flat for ten minutes.

I will need a lot of painkillers.

Yes, he nods, and looks over my chart. You are young enough to take a lot of Dilaudid. I will write you a prescription. Before the CT scan, take 4 extra-strength ibuprofen and 4 mg of Dilaudid. Okay?

Amen, I think I say. I mean Okay. And it's good to be young. Or at least young enough.

I walk out with a prescription for smack and a CT scan in my near future. Joy.

Next up - Part 4: The Doctor and the Doughnut.

Labels: autobio

posted by the palinode | comments (7) | permalink | subscribe

filler
» Monday, September 10, 2007

Ah, cripes of crap. I left my third neurosurgeon installment at work, without any fancy hackery way of retrieving the info. I don't think I even saved it. It's just floating on the surface of the screen, vulnerable to power outages and monitor lizards computer thieves.

This is the modren-day version of leaving your wallet in your other trousers, I know. So in penance I'm going to imagine what my day would be like if I were Paul Simon.

5:00 a.m. I'm up. Aghhh, why does Paul Simon have to get up so early? I try to pummel myself back to sleep, but I'm already doing calisthenics and making a quinoa-boysenberry smoothie. Man, that's got some kick. Antiooooxidants.

5:15 a.m. I skip over to my studio, which is a series of natural caves beneath the mesa, and pick up a guitar. There's a poster of Carrie Fisher in her Princess Leia metal bikini taped to the bathroom door, and when I spot it I start sniffling. Oh boy, here come the waterworks. I have a feeling that Paul Simon spends most of the day weeping over his guitar strings. So I'm inconsolable over in my studio and the sun hasn't even risen. Fuck.

8:30 a.m. In mid-sob I remember that I'm married to Edie Brickell and that cheers me up some. I wonder what she's looking like these days. Wasn't there someone in bed with me this morning when I woke up? Didn't I pour two glasses of quinoa-boysenberry smoothie? What the hell is wrong with me?

8:45 a.m. I walk back into the house. The woman there sure looks like Edie Brickell. Hey Edie! I say. Hey Edie!

Not a word. She's just flipping through an Utne Reader. Hey Edie!

Dad, says some dark-haired kid. Guess it's my son. She hasn't completed her vow of silence yet.

Right, I say. When is that over again?

When she's baked her thousandth polenta.

9:00 a.m. Not even noon and I want out of my day as Paul Simon. Then I discover the room with the rebreather suit and slowly rotating crystal that transmits alien knowledge directly into my mind. Did you know that Paul Simon is the descendant of an alien race from a dying planet circling a star in the Cassiopeia constellation?

9:30 a.m. I take the rebreather suit into the desert with me, absorbing the alien culture and rediscovering my long-lost inheritance. I make flowers grow in the desert. Then I grow a Ferrari, but it's out of gas. Disappointed, I waft back to the house, finding my way through the molecules of hot desert air.

10:00 p.m. Family meeting time. Guys, I say, have I ever said anything about being an alien? They give me blank looks. Here's how it is then. You guys suck, and if you think I'm going to stick around while we slowly turn into The Partridge Family or The Cowsills, then you're sucking on the wrong end of the hookah. I'm going to go build a robot army out of sand. The kids look frightened and Edie starts weeping great silent tears, but I think it's for the best.


And that was my day as Paul Simon, or Rx'hachk Bulagq of the Skaaalr clan.

Labels: paul simon, useless

posted by the palinode | comments (5) | permalink | subscribe

the neurosurgeon, part 2
» Thursday, September 06, 2007

The day before yeestuh-die* I wrote Part 1 of my ongoing attempts to see the neurosurgeon. Much comment on the obvious craziness of my experience was offered. Here’s the second and final thrilling installment.

Eventually I drop the chiropractor. His office is across town, my back gets better and worse, and anyway I’m getting tired of arguing politics with him.** I’m just getting tired.

My physical therapist gets married to another physical therapist. They move to British Columbia. My new physical therapist is the guy who owns the place. He is a terrifyingly well-muscled man who could use me as a backscratcher. He brings in a young woman named Stephanie with distractingly huge breasts to see what a really bad back looks like. He explains my condition to her breasts. Then he promises her breasts that he’ll get me in to see my specialist within two weeks.

I wait out the two weeks, but the specialist doesn’t call. My physical therapist lied to Stephanie’s breasts, damnit. I would have treated them with more respect than that.

July hobbles off. Hello August! My father recommends a nearby chiropractor – not because he has any faith in the efficacy of Greco-Romanesque spine twisting, but because this chiropractor hunts the health system with an elephant gun. So I make an appointment.

My new chiropractor is named Dave. He has one dead eye, which I find surprisingly comforting. After five minutes of tests I’ve been run through so often that it seems choreographed now, he’s given me an unofficial diagnosis: a midline fracture and disc herniation somewhere in my lower back. He draws a picture on the lightboard that looks like a squid with its brains leaking out.

Who’s your doctor? He asks.

Boembe, I says.

Ah, Boembo, Dave says. You’ll never get in to see him. His waiting list runs twelve to fifteen months.

Somewhere in the back of my brain I know how terrible this news is, but my despair centres have been overtaxed. They don’t give a shit.

Tell you what, I’ll call another doctor, he says. Hold on.

He gets on the phone. Hi, this is Dr. Dave, he begins. I’ve got this healthy young man here with a really bad back. Looks like a fracture and a herniation. Yeah. Okay? Okay, thanks.

He hangs up.

Okay, he says, they’ll call your house and get you in by the end of the month. If they don’t call you in the next few days, let me know.

I check the room, but Stephanie and her breasts aren’t there. This is a sign of hope.

By next week the specialist still hasn’t called. I tell Dave. He’s got me on the table with my legs twisted around and my arm draped over my head, like I’m a lousy actor pretending to be dead from a long fall. He takes his hands away and goes to the phone.

Hello? This is Dr. Dave. I talked to you last week about this patient here and he’s still waiting for a call. Oh, you did?

I shake my head. He rolls his eye.

Well he didn’t get that call. Uh-huh. That sounds great.

Okay, he says to me, You’re in for September 5th.

The next day the specialist calls. I’m bumped to September 13th.

On September 4th I have an appointment with Dave in the morning. A muscle in my hip feels like it’s been lovingly slow-roasted over smoking charcoals. Dave watches as my skin turns pale and sweat starts beading on my forehead. I’m exhausted and sick with pain.

Sit down Aidan, he says, and leaves the room.

He comes back in. You go home right now and get some rest. I got you an appointment with the specialist for 1:00 in the afternoon.

What, today?

Today.

And just like that, I was in to see the neurosurgeon.

*

I’ve been in many ugly offices in my life, but I’ve yet to see one as perfectly ugly as the neurosurgeon’s office. All the angles are square and brutal. Fluorescents bathe every surface in the same reflective glare. It’s as if the architect had a fear of shadows. Worse is the colour scheme, which combines a flat maroon with industrial teal and a light blue that somehow manages to capture the very worst notes of grey and green.

I wonder if the doctor’s assistant notices the colours, but then I see that her scrubs are a slightly washed-out version of the maroon walls.

Close your eyes and wait patiently for Part 3.


*I’ve hired a New Zealander to say “yesterday” in all my blog posts for the next six months. Believe me, it really takes the stress off.

**I knew when he quoted Ronald Reagan one day that we were off a rocky start. I can almost understand American ideologues who suck up NewsMax and Firedoglake fodder for the next day’s talking points, but when a Canadian does it, it ceases to make sense.

Labels: autobio

posted by the palinode | comments (9) | permalink | subscribe

the neurosurgeon, part 1
» Tuesday, September 04, 2007

You may think my brain has died lately, and that's the reason for my brief spell of silence. Why wouldn't you think that? How well do you really know me anyway?

Nah, my brain's not dead. The truth is, I get caught thinking over a phrase like "spell of silence" and I can't get past the contradiction between the two words. I'm like a vampire counting grains of rice until sunrise, whereupon pffffft. A phrase slides down the chute, gets stuck, and the only way to extract it is to write it down. But there's something about its audacity that makes we want to rebel. I refuse to write it down. And so it goes, clogging up the chute as smoother, slicker sentences pile up behind it, bend and snap into pieces. Then it's a garbage of words in my head.

I have better news. What I just wrote wasn't exactly news, but in this age of information overload and trivia, it's all news. Even your grade four diary, disclosing to you best-forgotten details in a revolting pre-adolescent whisper, is news now. I can't keep myself on track today. I never kept a diary in grade four. Even then I knew I didn't want the adult temptation of revisiting my younger selves.

Who needs an old diary when you can finally, after months of waiting, visit the neurosurgeon? I finally got in to see the neurosurgeon. That motherfucking neurosurgeon.

Here's a recap of me trying to get in to see the neurosurgeon. Around Christmas 2006, something goes seriously wrong with my lower back as I pull my suitcase over a curb. It feels like a wasp sting at first, then it feels like a twig embedded in my back, restricting my movement slightly. I wait for it to go away.

I tell you, I am good at waiting. After several weeks, the pain not having gone away, I go to a doctor at a clinic (family doctors are hard to get where I live, and I've always been healthy, so I never pursued one). The clinic is where nobody cares about you and everyone looks like they're about to collapse from terminal illness, malnutrition or sheer helplessness. I see a doctor, who tells me to take some ibuprofen.

I have the sense to see another doctor. This one is kinder, gentler and clearly horrified by the state of my back. By this time I have a perceptible shift to the right, with one shoulder poking higher than the other. He prescribes a killer anti-inflammatory, a killer muscle relaxant, a killer painkiller. He tells me to take the drugs until they're done and then come back. He also tells me get X-rays.

About three-quarters of the way through my drug regimen, I lose my wallet. At some point during my search for the wallet, I bend forward to look under my desk and realize that I cannot straighten up. I'm tilted at a neat forty-five degree angle with a slight swing to the right. The twig in my back had grown into a bough. I go home. People stare as I pass by their offices, bent over like I'm looking for a cigarette butt. Lost my wallet, I say as I stumble past.

Back at the clinic to see yet another doctor. I explain my problem. He nods and mm-hmms. That sounds pretty bad, he says. I agree. I tell him that the drugs have been ineffective and possibly a contributing factor to my ridiculous posture. He nods again. Yeah, that could be a part of it. Then he sits there, smiling and looking at something on the wall, as if we were strangers waiting for a bus.

Do you recommend physical therapy? I asked.

Physical therapy? the doctor says. Sure, I'll write you a prescription.

He writes me a prescription. I hold on to the paper. It's dawning on me that I'm not going to get the care unless I ask for it.

Do you recommend a specialist? I asked.

Oh yes, the doctor says. You should definitely see a specialist.

Can you refer me?

Absolutely, he says, and starts writing out the referral. I start wondering what would happen if I asked for some jars of jam or maybe a blowjob.

Here you go, he says, handing me another slip of paper. Take that around the corner to the nurse at the desk. She'll prepare a letter of referral and fax it over to the neurosurgeon.

Do I get the appointment date right away?

The neurosurgeon's office will phone you to set up an appointment in three or four months.

What? I said. I won't get in to see the doctor for three or four months?

No, you'll get a callback for an appointment in three or four months. You'll probably get in to see him around nine months from now.

[I don't remember what I said to him at this point. I think I was so shocked that I actually said thank you for the nine month wait that I had just been given.]

Meanwhile, I'm going to a chiropractor and a physical therapist. They all have guesses as to what's wrong with me. Nobody knows for sure. All I know is that I've got nine more months of this.

Three months come, then four, and the neurosurgeon has not called. I start calling the neurosurgeon. The receptionist has dealt with more angry back sufferers than I've dealt with unmovable ice blocks of receptionists, and she is not moved by my pleas, which go from reasonable to edgy to near weeping in the course of thirty seconds. I extract a promise from her that I will be called whenever a cancellation happens.

Eventually I give up on the chiropractor. The cracking provides some relief, but the office is on the other side of town. The physical therapy sessions turn grim.

Stay tuned for part 2.

posted by the palinode | comments (7) | permalink | subscribe