Last week, a billboard was slapped up along Interstate-35 near Wyoming, Minnesota. It read:
A valid enough question. And one that went without a response until yesterday, when a group called The United States of America pasted a decidedly clear reply on the opposite side of the freeway:
In a statement, America said they would have replied sooner, but the billboard company is run by a guy named Michael "Heck of a Job Brownie" Brown who just couldn’t seem to get things together very quickly.
I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Why I’m here doesn’t quite overlap how I came to be here.
I came to be here by asking the woman at North Tower reception where Urgent Care was. In Minnesota, the Urgent Care facilities are located within large hospitals, such as Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. As I would come to find out, not so in Los Angeles. When I asked if there was an Urgent Care department in the complex, the woman at reception (who should, let’s be clear, know what Urgent Care is if she works for a hospital, regardless of whether or not the hospital she works at has an Urgent Care facility) told me, “The Emergency Room has a ‘Fast Track.’ Just right there next door,” she pointed.
Of course, Urgent Care, as we will find, is less urgent than an emergency. But, then again, it seems an emergency these days is an issue that has been downgraded from “a crisis situation that must be dealt with immediately” to “a situation in which people wait in a harshly lit room for their names to be called three times before they are admitted to deal with their issue.”
I walked next door to the Emergency Room, which, quite ironically, had the orderly, laconic mood of jury registration rather than the expected chaotic necessity of, well, an emergency room. I was directed to the registration window.
There was a reason I was looking for Urgent Care above the Emergency Room. Twenty-five reasons, in fact. My Cigna insurance, you see, charges a $25 co-pay for a visit to Urgent Care and $50 for a visit to the Emergency Room.
When I asked the kind woman at registration if there was an Urgent Care department in the Cedars-Sinai wonderland, she leaned over to the nurse next to her to check. “There’s one on Wilshire,” the nurse said, “but you have to be a Cedars-Sinai member.”
I questioned if this was really an emergency. I went outside to think about it. I text my father to see if he thought it was an emergency (remember, I had yet to realize the new definition of the word emergency; I’d have been better-off asking if this was a “Fast Track” or not). After weighing membership in the Urgent Care on Wilshire (clearly for stuntmen and people married to Star Jones), I decided: sure, whatever, I’ll stay here. I registered and was directed to the next window where I found The Nurse.
I reiterated my pecuniary predicament to The Nurse. She reiterated her Urgent Care Club to me. I asked how much she thought this would cost. She said she had no idea. $50 was certain and then the charge would be determined by the medical team’s assessment of my injury.
“Obviously they are going to have to take X-Rays,” I pointed out. “Can we get a ballpark based on that? There’s not much else they can really do.”
I was informed that the actual charge depended on which “codes” and “functions” where written on my forms by the medical team. “We’re here to take care of people. The actual charges are figured out elsewhere.” The Nurse kindly informed me.
While that “care” is unquestionably appreciated, I found it odd that I was being walked into buying a product I could neither see nor question; it was like telling a car salesman what options I wanted, driving off with a vehicle, and receiving a bill in the mail two weeks later for whatever amount the salesman felt like charging. After all, he’s there to get me from point A to point B.
I don’t think it would be to much to ask to have a sort of fast food menu posted at these (ostensible) Emergency Rooms. Appendectomy: $1,500; EKG: $2,115; X-Ray: $455. There has got to be a standard charge – and, if not, can congress talk about that for a little bit?
So, I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Why I’m here is: injured rib. It might be cracked. It’s hurt since a chair attacked me five days pervious.
More and more, I’m wondering about the charge. I call my insurance hook up at Cigna. The costumer care person at Cigna cannot tell me how much an X-Ray will cost either. What she can tell me is that an ER visit is a co-pay of $50 (thank for reading my card with me) and that I have a $300 deductible per year – of which I’ve paid nothing because I’m a 30-year-old non-smoking man who exercises and doesn’t fight crime during holiday breaks.
I hang up. After a few minutes, I accept that this 3 hour adventure is going to cost me $100 per hour and I promise myself to live a bit more dangerously in the next 12 months; maybe I can squeeze a free ruptured spleen out of this shit.
After 40 pages of “East of Eden,” I’m called to the back – to get my blood pressure and temperature and patience taken. I’m asked, “On a scale of one-to-ten, what is the pain?”
This question is the nexus of the insanity of our medical community because a) obviously pain is subjective and the answer cannot possibly let a medical professional know how dire is the situation, and b) I personally have no frame a reference for this scale; I’m given no guidelines, whatsoever. The way I see it, the woman taking my BP should instead ask me, “Are you going to pass out in the next 15 minutes if I don’t give you a shot of morphine right now?” But I say the pain is a “6.” Whatever that means.
I go back to the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
After 50 more pages of “East of Eden,” I’m called to the back – to sign papers and give a woman my home address and phone number and emergency contact and mother’s maiden name (presumably so that she can crack into my back account after signing me up for “Steak of the Month Club”).
Back to the waiting room – that clearly is earning its pay – and that is, incidentally, filled with thick paranoia in the form of thin, yellow medical masks on easily eighty percent of those waiting.
Twenty more pages of “East of Eden,” which is, luckily, not only long but spectacular (as if Steinbeck writes any other way). I’m called to the doctor. I continue to read for 15 minutes. The nurse asks me how much pain I’m in. I tell her it’s not that bad and, not kidding, she says, “Okay, but on a scale of one-to-ten…” I go with a four this time.
The doctor comes, he looks at my ribs. He says it’s probably bruised, but I should have been taking analgesics for the pain; I am running the risk of taking shallow breaths, having my lungs collapse, developing pneumonia and (I suppose, but I’m adding this part, just for the record) dying.
Four X-Rays. It’s bruised. Damn chair hit me hard, but I’ll be back to fight another day.
On the way out I notice a chart on the wall. No, it’s not a fast food menu of how much Cedar-Sinai’s services cost. But it’s almost as good.
You know it’s a good day when an actress (that’s a deliberate stop short of calling her a celebrity) gives an interview about a breakup with a famous author in an effort to scratch her way into the limelight for as long as possible. And it works.
I understand the pain of a breakup, the realization that someone doesn’t want you or like you in the way that you thought they should or might. I can even understand talking publically about a breakup – I can see how that would be cathartic, like writing about it, for those of us who are not writers. What I don’t understand is publically disparaging the person with whom you used to be in a relationship.
This week, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Salman Rushdie’s ex-girlfriend, Pia Glenn, derided the man whom she also called a "genius" and with whom she claimed she once had a relationship that was a "meeting of the minds" – as if Friday night at the Rushdie residence was Orgy Night, regularly attended by Henry Kissinger, Meg Whitman, and an AWOL (but prompt) Aung San Suu Kyi.
Today, Glenn told the New York Post that Rushdie was still hung-up over the now pregnant Padma Lakshmi. Glenn said, Rushdie "would talk about Padma day and night. He felt hurt and betrayed by her. He would talk about her so much I'd ask him to stop."
A or B? You decide.
Then Rushdie broke up with Glenn over email, propting her to label him a "coward." Yes, sure, a cowardly move to be accurate. But considering the man spent years hiding from Muslims that wanted to kill him, and considering the entire courtship with Glenn was over email, what do you expect? Phone calls from London are like a buck-eighty these days.
Glenn is more than upset. "Its clear that he's not interested in friendship now, which calls into question why he was interested in me in the first place. If I had thought he only wanted me for sex, I would have gotten out immediately," she told the Post.
She’s so upset, she went so far as to condone prostitution: "If he just wanted sex, then he should have gone out and paid a prostitute. If he wanted a woman who was arm candy, there are plenty of them around."
Hate to break it to Glenn, but she is what is around.
Used to be that if you wanted to get even with Salman Rushdie, all you had to do was tell Ayatollah Ali Khamenei where he was (since the man who placed the fatwa on Rushdie, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died four months after the threat was made). Now you have to hook up with a British tabloid and say that he was an awkward kisser who Googles himself incessantly and is still in love with a beautiful woman impregnated by a mystery man. How far lovers’ quarrels have fallen…
In order to be a good storyteller (not eve great) you must have a drum-like memory. Truman Capote had that. John Steinbeck did, too. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is noticeably lacking capacity for memory in his new book, "The Governor."
It seems that this is an ongoing theme with politicians from Alberto Gonzalez to Scooter Libby and now to Rod Blagojevich: I don’t exactly recall. Blagojevich writes that very excuse (or something similar) a number of times throughout the book that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I looked at the cover a number of times to make sure I didn’t accidently have an uncorrected copy. Blagojevich calls Dick Durbin Dick "Druban" once – and twice in a row he calls Barack Obama’s formed campaign manager David Plough, instead of David Plouffe.
Man, I hope I have an uncorrected copy.
However, even with corrections, the book reads, at times, like your Aunt Millie not getting to the fucking point and, at other times, like your dad driving you and your 7-year-old sister through Candyland at top-speed while he screams, repeatedly "You guys have got to see this!" before pulling over to the shoulder of the road and abruptly taking a catnap.
There is nothing new in this book, but I have no idea why we should expect anything new from Rod Blagojevich unless it comes in the form of YouTube.
The poster ad at the La Cienega bus stop read: “That’s so ‘gamer guy who has more videogames than friends.’”Beneath the large, yellow block letters that partially obscured the face of 10-year-old African American kid were more letters that more clearly explained the point of the ad: “Think that’s mean? How do you think ‘that’s so gay’ sounds? Hurtful. So knock it off.”
In theory, the advertisement (or public service announcement) makes a necessary point: don’t use pejorative words, titles or phrases that could be hurtful to others.In practice, it fails leagues from its goal.
The advertisement was created and posted by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.GLSEN “is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students.”The organization is hugely important; it is imperative that children know from an early age, not necessarily that it is not acceptable to use derogatory terms – but, more fundamentally, that it is really fucking cool to be gay or lesbian or Jewish or whatever.If they understand that, they will understand that using derogatory language makes no sense.
The first problem with this ad is the 10-year-old black kid.As the ad is by GLSEN, its target audience is junior high students.There is no way to know that unless you research the GLSEN organization.Is that kid supposed to be a gamer?It looks like they stole background art from a No Child Left Behind poster.Maybe go with a. acne-ridden college-aged white guy, sitting alone on a couch, crazily grasping an XBOX controller, if you’re trying to make your point.
Secondly, the phrase, “That’s so ‘gamer guy who has more videogames than friends,’” is a terrible example.Do I think that’s mean?No.“That’s so Hair Plugs” or “That’s so Fat Redneck Prick” or “That’s so Spencer Pratt” – those are mean.
Gamers are never going to see the ad because they never come out of their oily basements long enough to do anything other than answer the door for the pizza guy or ask their moms to go to the drug store for a fresh box of Kleenex because they used last carton she bought to jerk-off to a fuzzy cartoon version of an adolescent Natalie Portman dancing that they drew and animated themselves.Now, that’s mean.
The ad was placed at a bus stop.Maybe junior high kids ride public transportation in
Los Angeles .But what’s more likely is...no they don’t.I’m guessing the majority are on yellow school busses or in the passenger seats of their parents’ cars.Even if they do ride public transportation, not one of the kids who needs to see the sign will; it is at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard.Right in the middle of Boystown.It doesn’t get any gayer than that – and I’m not using that in the pejorative because, unless you place the ad above the urinal in the men’s room at The Abbey, it is quite impossible to find a location with a higher percentage of gay men anywhere in
Los Angeles.
Maybe Silverlake.
Placing the anti-gay-pejorative poster at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica is like placing a “That’s so Black” billboard over Crenshaw Boulevard in Inglewood, or pasting a “That’s so Karaoke” poster on construction scaffolding in Koreatown, or hanging a “That’s so Raven” banner from the balcony of Raven-Symoné’s bedroom.
The message is important, but the delivery is sadly ineffective.Even this television PSA with Hilary Duff falls short of its intentions.
How the fuck does Hilary Duff know that she meant the shirt was “bad”?If anything the girl “wearing a skirt as a top” is “so not gay.”A gay guy would never be that ridiculously unfashionable. Plus, the situation is absurd.I mean…I get the point, but the message is obfuscated by the attempt at humor.
As a consolation, I’ve created a new bus stop ad for GLSEN.I really think it drives home the point: don’t say stupid shit.
Best bottom line of the day. As seen on CNN on July 13, 2009.
Others losing Levi Johnson's vote: Ted Stevens, P. Diddy, Abraham Lincoln, and the over 686,000 Alaskans who, like Sarah Palin, will NOT be running for Governor of Alaska in 2010. Levi refuses to vote for any of you. So fuck off. Don't even try.
The FBI, Secret Service, Federal Authorities, etc. are searching for a man who threatened to kill President Barack Obama during a transaction at a bank in St. George, Utah. The man, named Daniel James Murray, entered Zion's First National Bank on May 19 and opened a savings account with an $85,000 check, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Salt Lake City today.
As the old saying goes, you shouldn’t trust people who don’t drink, wear jeans or have two first names. Daniel James Murray. That’s three first names. Not a good dude.
Further evidences of this not-goodness is apparent in Murray’s remarks to tellers at the Zion’s First National Bank. On May 27, he returned to the bank and tried to withdraw $12,698 from the savings account. But, lacking proper ID, he was turned away. He responded, "Not to be disrespectful, but if I don't get this money, someone is going to die." While polite, it’s a little vague.
The bank manager ended up heeding the warning after learning that James wasn’t his first or last name and gave Murray his money in the demanded smaller than $50 bill denomination. Murray then upped the specificity of his earlier remark by saying, "We are on a mission to kill the president of the United States."
Killing someone? No worries. Here’s $13,000.
Killing the president? Um… hold on a second while I file a complaint. Okay. Take care.
Murray, like most American’s is concerned with the solvency of the banking system in the United States. "With all this mess going on...with banks and the economy, I'm sure if citizens happen to lose their money, they will rise up and we could see killing and deaths," he said. However, Murray is a little off, maybe a little crazy, and I can prove this scientifically.
During the transaction, he allegedly told the teller at the bank, "We are 94 million miles from the sun, and are in-between the sun and moon, and the eagle that flies between them, and it's a giant step for mankind…"
Untrue. We are 93 million miles from the sun. Well, he was close, you say. Was he? He was a million freaking miles off. If someone misses hitting a curve ball by a million miles, are you going so say, "Oh, he just missed that one?"
Murray went on, "... I have traveled thousands of miles to be here and know things that are going to happen... The banking system will fail and people will die… There will be chaos in the world."
It’s clear from the rant than Murray fancies himself something of a prophet and that his prophecies are based on astrology – sun, moon, eagle. The eagle in astrology is small constellation called Aquila located approximately Capricorn 29° and sometimes called the Vulture. Whatever that means, at least it means it’s up there in the sky. However, as a constellation is a group of stars, it also means that it is far away.
The nearest star in this constellation is 16.7 light years away. But the average distance of the major eight stars of this constellation is 280 light years away. Meanwhile, based on Murray’s misfire on the distance to the sun, his calculations are off by about 1.07 percent. The distance light travels in 280 years is about equal to the distance light travels in 102,220 days. If Murray is off by one-point-oh-seven percent over that time, he is off by 1,094 days. Or almost EXACTLY 3 years.
This means that he is predicting the past. Three years into the past. To Daniel James Murray, it is June 2006. And he’s right, it turns out. The banking system will fail. And people will die. It’s just that the Secret Service is worried for the wrong US president.
I bought the entire Rosetta Stone language learning software collection last weekend.I bought all 31 languages.The commercial sold me, as commercials are intended.The hook wasn’t the possibility of conversing in 180 some countries around the world, or the Michael Phelps lisp, or the green screen technology the company used to give the illusion of a home than could be located anywhere from Southern California to Tuscany to a mountain in Argentina.
What sold me was the box.It will look so nice on my bed--I mean floor--I mean on the kitchen table after dinner because we can't control ourselves anylonger, I don't care if they linguini gets in my hair--I mean on my bookshelf, next to my other computer software.So nice.Just don’t ask me what color its eyes are.
Pink is the new blue. Bitch is the new black. Vanessa is the new Jessica. Jessica is the new Kirstie Alley. The list goes on and on, proving that we never do anything new, we just update shit. In fact, Flann O’Brien who once wrote, "The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before – usually said much better."
With that prominently in mind, we begin our semi-bi-weekly series called: Ex is the original Why. In this investigative, poignant, future award-winning series, we will explore the origins of really cool things. For example, King John of England, a twelfth century man know for his military ineptitude, would be the original General Tommy Franks. In another example, King John’s dumb but delightfully promiscuous daughter was the original Paris Hilton.
You get the idea. If Mr. O’Brien had it his way, we wouldn’t say blank is the new blank, we would go the other way, in recognition and reference of the original…whatever. Today, we somewhat joyfully launch our series with:
Priests were the original bloggers.
Ever since priests were allowed to pontificate and pretend like they were smarter, wiser and more above licentious behavior than the rest of humankind, they have been doing just that. Bloggers also sit at small terminals dolling advice and unsolicited wisdom like a lonely couple with too much candy in a retirement community on Halloween. Even if the advice is blatantly self-aware, it’s the sort of thing that wedges itself into the replete L-Train at 1st Avenue and lets the door close three times on its messenger bag before it notices.
Priests love to stand at the pulpit. Bloggers have their own didactical platforms from which they tell people how they should live.
Both priest of yore (and of today, I suppose) need the problems of which they complain to continue. Do you think any priest wants every man, woman and child to truly follow their advice? To live sin free? Guilt free? To forgive us our trespasses as we have forgiven those who have trespassed against us? They would be out of a job. Thanks, Father, but I got this one. Same goes for bloggers; you will never ever ever see the day that Arianna Huffington runs dry of thing about which she can complain.
Priests have a gift for inane connections and analogy. If they were trying to make a point about themselves in present vernacular, they might compare themselves to bloggers.
Priests enjoy preaching extemporaneously. Not a word I’m writing at the moment is premeditated. For the past two days, I’ve read about a young man named Demetri Martin (whom I’ve consistently referred to in my head as Dmitry Medvedev). I know everything there is to know about him. I know that he shares a birthday with my mother, that he is allergic to peanuts, and that his first day ever performing stand-up comedy was July 14, 1997 at the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village. I also know that his father was a Greek Orthodox priest who loved to speak extemporaneously.
Demetri shares his late father’s propensity for connections and alternate world views. As mentioned, he is a stand-up comedian. And, as we all know, a stand-up comedian is nothing more than an illiterate blogger. With that in mind, and because this entire essay makes little sense anyway, I leave you with some thoughts form Demetri. May he change the world, one comedic convert at a time.
We’ve lived and fed and breathed off of the excitement for so long, it seems there a vacuous void now that it’s finally over.On Friday, the marriage of Guy Ritchie and Madonna Ciccone finally met its demise by the hand of preliminary divorce in a
London court room.The couple did not attend the brief ceremony.
The couple did, however, email each other throughout the morning on Friday.As usual, the Eleventh Draft, with our cunning and promiscuity, has managed to hack one or both of the formerly sometimes happily married couple’s email accounts.It seems like just yesterday we were in and converting people to Kabbalah and ruining good Guy Ritchie films by acting poorly in them.
That’s all behind us now, and in six weeks and a day the legal separation of two people, who had in common only that their favorite legal term was “plausible deniability,” will begin walk this earth sad and alone for the rest of their miserable, lonely, tired, tearful days.The sorry bastards.
But first, let’s listen in to what might have been their final email exchange as husband and wife.
From: mcsquared@gmail.com Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 07:34 GMT To: Guy [lockstockandmadge@yahoo.com] Subject: Today
Guy – I am done with my workout.Don’t forget to bring Rocco and David to meet me outside of LA Fitness in 20 min. My arms look great. M
From: Guy [lockstockandmadge@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 07:54 GMT To: M [mcsquared@gmail.com] Subject: RE: Today
Already on my way.Did you forget what today was?
From: M Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:15 GMT To: Guy Subject: RE: Today
I’ve been waiting for three minutes.Where are you. Some guy just looked me in the eyes.Where are you???No I didn’t forget what today was. WHERE ARE YOU????????????????
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:16 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
I’m two seconds away for godsake.The driver took the wrong route.
I just wanted to say that I still love you and I know this is for the best for everyone, but I don’t want to end on a bad note.I want you to understand that.I don’t want this to really change anything.Okay?
From: M Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:18 GMT To: Guy Subject: RE: Today
You’re not getting any of my money.
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:20 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
Oh for fuck’s sake.Will you shut up about the money?We already went over this.I basically gave you $200 million against my better judgment and advice from Heather Mills.What more do you want from me?
You’re the reason
Michigan ’s auto industry is failing.
From: M Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:25 GMT To: Guy Subject: RE: Today
Real fucking mature, Guy.That doesn’t even make any sense.I’m the reason for GM going under?You don’t even know what you’re talking about.Another person looked at me in the eyes.I’m walking over to the Starbucks at Notting Hill Gate.
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:26 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
It’ll take another half hour to get there.You’re barmy.
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:28 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
M- I didn’t mean that.I really do want this to end well.And I think it can.New York and
London aren’t that far away.Not any farther than New York and Los Angeles or London and
Dubai .We can still live happy lives and be near each other, just not with each other.The divorce will be settled in six weeks and a day.Doesn’t that sound strangely as poetic as a 21 gun salute at a funeral?
From: M Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:34 GMT To: Guy Subject: RE: Today
Ugh.Stop trying to be witty.Why do British people always think they’re so poetic and witty.Six weeks and a day?Who fucking cares.I’m not taking the David and Rocco to
New York .We’re going to live in the D.I’m taking them back to my roots. My arms look bloody terrific.
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:36 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
The fuck you are.Stop saying bloody.You’re not British you fucking twat. We’re outside the Starbucks.
From: M Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:37 GMT To: Guy Subject: RE: Today
Fuck off. Be right out.Do you want anything?
From: Guy Sent: Friday, 21 November 2008 08:38 GMT To: M Subject: RE: Today
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