Going Down, Please

A FAREWELL FANTASY FROM A TIRED, SAD IMPOSTOR

Part One of a Two-Part Memoir

     (7/13) "You will make a wonderful secretary," my junior high school guidance counselor told me, after we all took standardized vocational aptitude tests in the mid-1960s. "Your clerical speed and accuracy are the best we've ever recorded. Plus: You're a smart dresser."
     I was incredulous. My plan had been to become the Paris-based correspondent for NBC's  Huntley-Brinkley newscast.  I was both furious and hurt. Oddly enough, the thought that maybe I could become an elevator operator at a local department store called "The Paris" lifted my spirits. Up and down, in and out, back and forth -- it seemed suited to my psychic swings, which had already become a foreboding aspect of my character. "Going down, please," I practiced, aiming at a modulated resonance. I'd have to be a real Renaissance elevator operator though -- I was raised  that way. I could unsettle my captive audience by reciting disturbing literary passages --  from Poe, for example. Pits, you guys! Pendulums!
    I always thought that if Poe were alive, maybe the two of us could shack up. In a menage, with Salvador Dali. We'd live in a spooky mansion, and we'd play out our bizarenesses together like it was jazz improvisation. Cool! And we'd love each other for what we were, ain't that right Edgar? Evermore!

The Beggar Wears Prada (or Why I Stopped Giving to National Public Radio)

Can you believe it? We're already being dragged through another NPR pledge drive.
(Be sure to get the "officially sanctioned" Carl Kasell doll as a thank-you gift!)

The Devil is in the details.

   UPDATE Feb. 10, 2014: NPR has quietly replaced its short-lived (three months) female announcer, Sabrina Farhi, after relentless complaints about her "vocal fry." I didn't mind the fry so much as the baby tone, drawl, and clumsy inflections. Would you believe she beat out 427 applicants? How did that happen? See details below.
   
    (Oct. 8, 2013) The twice yearly public radio pledge drive is finally over. Thank god. If you listen to those fools pleading, cajoling, making "rational" appeals and glorifying their role in your life long enough, it can make you physically ill. Switch to a rock station and listen to Eminem's "Berzerk." It'll drive you less crazy.
    But if craziness is your thing, consider this: Just weeks before NPR's nationwide panhandling fest began, its seventh CEO in seven years announced that he was leaving his $700,000 a year job for one that pays $2 million. The staff was "stunned." They feel OK about making only several hundred thousand dollars a year.
    I don't feel OK about bankrolling these vain, elitist, self-important people, who have ensconced themselves squarely in the top One Percent. They expect the rest of us, who earn far less and don't likely have  rewarding, prestigious jobs, to pay for their fancy-pants lifestyles. That's not my kind of charity.

Elderly Girl's secret passageway to the role of Global Icon

(Soon to be a major motion picture? The first option expired, but they've bought another.)

         (11/14/13) Can you imagine frolicking with your sisters through the endless rooms, secret passageways and tropical underworld of this neo-Byzantine castle? Can you imagine wearing anything you wanted from any of the cool boutiques inside? Isn't it like every little girl's dream come true? You may think it helps explain Elderly Girl's confidence, her splendor, her sense of freedom, style and beauty. But the truth is much more complicated.
    Elderly Girl was conceived, born and lived in the Kronstantinople Bazaar, the most splendid mall on Earth. It's hard to believe, but she was a rather stupid child. Her three big sisters were brilliant and brave -- true originals. So why was it she who became a Planetary Phenomenon? It's an epic tale that will captivate the human race forever. 

What was I thinking? Christmas Eve with a Statue

    (Dec. 23, 2011) When I moved to New York City, people were friendly, garrulous and charmingly meddlesome on the street or in the neighborhood shops. Subway protocol, I quickly intuited, was entirely different: If you didn't want to be accosted, humiliated, assaulted or propositioned, you kept your head down and your eyes to yourself.
    But when I stumbled and sort of crashed my way into a train headed uptown on Christmas Eve day -- carrying a five-by-nine foot cardboard-backed photo of The Thinker -- a consensus seemed to materialize pretty fast among the other passengers: The rules should be temporarily suspended.

Model Intentions: I Got Duped, You Got Screwed

I don't have a photo of Punky, but this looks
 very much as she did in 1968 -- sweet and beautiful.

(10/5/12) Dear Punky Fortune:

    I have wondered for so many years how things turned out for you, and even if you’re still alive. Long after I’d moved to New York, I heard that your pimp almost beat you to death. I heard about the heroin. I heard that you’d had two kids before you were 20.

    I think you must know that whatever role I played in what happened to you was unwitting. I hope you realized that I was there with the purest of intentions. Decades later, the betrayal that affected all of us, but which victimized you and your girlfriends in unspeakable ways, still makes me ill. I am so sorry.

"Non-Scents!" Elderly Girl Declares

Our Seductively Scented World Commits a Fragrant Foul

     (8/18/11) Every morning, whether it’s hot and muggy or blizzarding snow, Elderly Girl goes jogging in the dark, while the whole world, it seems, is still sleeping.

    Once in awhile, as she is running blind along a residential street, she suddenly smells the odor of men’s cologne. Immediately, her blood runs cold. Any guy who’s skulking around out there is a little bit scary, but the ones who have perfumed themselves for the occasion seem particularly sinister.

    That is how Elderly Girl has come to view the chemical-fragrance industry: It’s hidden in the shadows, plotting its next assault on our bodies.

The 'Godfather of Bull' Whips Up a Fairy Godmother

     (4/10/11) It wasn’t until we were at 51,000 feet in the Lear jet that I realized there had been a terrible misunderstanding.

     I thought Tiao Maia -- the 52-year-old Brazilian cattle baron sitting next to me -- was taking me directly to Salt Lake City, to spend the holidays with my family. But after we reached our cruising altitude, the billionaire produced a map and pointed out all the places we would be going first -- a two-week adventure that included a stay at a luxury resort in Acapulco. My stomach convulsed. The word “parachute” entered my mind. I didn't know this man at all!

    How did I keep getting into these uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, situations? I was saying “Oops, I Did it Again” ten years before Britney Spears was even born.

"Thanks, Miss Bleeding Heart"

(the movie option expired, but another is in the works)

  (5/7/12) I had boozed my way through much of the very Deep South -- which truly was a jungle, another country, a bygone era -- conducting interviews of extraordinary young black professionals for the Rockefeller Foundation Journal. It was priceless material, very moving and colorful. I had seen and heard things I knew would surprise and dismay our readers.

    I was exhausted, but I had one last stop, to spend time with a "rising star" of the civil-rights movement. If I had known what my visit would do to his life, much to the delight of the white establishment, I would have headed straight back to New York City.

Nursing-Home Netherworld: Putrefaction, pain and poop

Let's face it: Most of us will wind up here, for weeks, months or forever.

     (12/15/11) I wretched. I couldn't help it. I wretched again. David, I'm sorry! He had asked me to remove his diaper and clean up the mess in his nursing-home bed. Feces extended from his mid-back, down his buttocks, to his knees. It was still  pouring out and piling up, surge after steaming surge of porridge-textured poop. It was a nightmare, like "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."
     "Don't call anyone," David said. "I think they're mad that I keep doing this."
    I was up to my wrists in it, but it was all so slippery, and he is so massive, that I couldn't get the soiled diaper or drenched mattress protector moved, in order to wash him.
      I said, "David, I'll be right back."
      Then I went into the bathroom and vomited. I puked my brains out, but I did it quietly. I felt ashamed, but there was no holding it back. Five-star nursing homes can do that to you.

Our future: Everything in modulation

 Don't worry. Be happy☺.

   (9/13/2013) In a recent post, I documented the desperate -- even ruthless -- effort to gain acceptance of vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of depression. The medical-device industry is investing millions in order to reap billions in the burgeoning field of neuromodulation. But if you're not depressed: "Don't worry. Be happy!" Before long, they'll be peddling something that may change your life, too. Your brain is their playground.
  If you have any of these conditions (among others), just be patient. The finest minds in science are at work as we speak: Anxiety, sleep apnea, depression, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, stroke, Tourette's syndrome, addiction, "phantom pain," obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parkinson's and other movement disorders, obesity, tinnitus, incontinence, PTSD,  fibromyalgia, hearing loss, bladder dysfunction, migraine, IBS, asthma, eating disorders, chronic pain, heart disease, systemic inflammation, and autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis. They will also perk up your memory and cognition. All you'll feel is a little tingle.
  But the more you know about the industry, the more uneasy you'll feel about them messing with your mind. 

GRAVE ROBBERS: How online obituary firms steal and monetize your family story, with or without your knowledge, leaving you with no rights or recourse

                                                                                                   by Matthew Frey

This is the follow-up to Dead Man's Party, which explored the funeral industry.

   

    There is a quiet war going on in America, with hundreds of millions of dollars per year at stake. Nobody is being killed, thank goodness. They're already dead.
    The battle is over which online company will get fabulously wealthy exploiting the anguish of those left behind, by selling them colorful, compelling interactive obituaries that portray the grand and beautiful lives that their loved ones lived. If you don't buy one for your family member, they put one online anyway. They feature it prominently in search engines, and urge "visitors" to buy tokens of sympathy in your honor.
    These are cynical, profiteering schemes -- yet another aspect of our notoriously predatory “death industry,” which takes such ghoulish advantage of people‘s grief. They underhandedly wrest ownership of our loved ones' lives and legacies, claiming rights to use their stories to make money, in any manner whatsoever, forever. How can we allow this IDENTITY THEFT to go on without a legal challenge?

Holy Sheet! Elderly Girl Could Lie Here Forever

    (8/2/11) Each morning, when Elderly Girl awakes, there is a smile on her lips and a flush on her cheeks.  How could there not be -- she is lying lavishly in a Wildflower Meadow, with undertones of Summer Rain.

    Her sheets smell like the 1960s. Does anybody out there remember those days? There were vacant lots everywhere that we called “meadows.” You could slip deep inside, beneath a tree with your teenage boyfriend, and kiss for hours amid flowery, grassy dewyness.

    And now some genius has immersed Elderly Girl once again in that ecstatic era. Thank you, sir! Her wrinkled loins are tingling poignantly.

Your crime: dementia. Your sentence: solitary confinement

Don't feel bad. He doesn't even know he exists.

    Do you ever envision yourself as old and alone? Can you imagine that you -- that active, attractive, sociable you -- might someday essentially be a prisoner in an institution that runs your life? And that nobody will care -- you will be forgotten?
    Maybe your memory and your volition will have deteriorated, but you will still be you. No one seems to realize that. Each day at the nursing home, you get washed off, spoon fed, strapped into a wheelchair, and abandoned in your room. Deeper and deeper you sink, into inconsequentiality.
    You grow pale and gaunt. Your eyes are increasingly haunted. You will be here until you die. Someone needs to be shouting: "WAIT A MINUTE ! THERE'S A PERSON HERE!"

Lupus: A Rash Quest for the Truth

An Andy Warhol-inspired depiction of my Fiery Flare.

      (7/21/11) In spite of all the dire warnings I’ve received, I am still refusing to take the medications that have been prescribed for my condition. My decision to do the best I can to take care of myself has been quite liberating, and I am at peace with it (most of the time).
    I have become more convinced that probiotics are helping me, and I have found medical evidence that supports my inadvertent discovery. I will elaborate below.
    I endured a florid, unsightly and uncomfortable rash under my eyes for nine months, starting in May 2010. Like so many of you who have responded to my blog post,  I have no idea how sick I am or how sick I may become.

Regarding Alzheimer's: Let's blow Big Pharma's mind, and expand our own

I can see for miles and miles.

                                                                               by Alphacoder

       (June 6, 2013) Despite billions in taxpayer dollars, pharmaceutical companies have failed spectacularly to provide any real hope to the millions among us who suffer from Alzheimer's and other dementias. Their best efforts have not only been ineffective -- they have also come, of course, with terrible side-effects and outrageous price tags. 

    Screw them! We don't need them! Remedies that enrich and enliven the brain have been out there for thousands of years. But Big Pharma isn't interested in these liberating substances, because they can't be patented.
    Among other strategies in our war on Alzheimer's, we should investigate the use of  MIND-EXPANDING DRUGS in order to defeat a MIND-SHRINKING DISEASE. Does this not make perfect sense?

Elderly Girl transforms getting old into a sexy new fad

Thank god, bladder incontinence has become trendy. It's about time!

    Elderly Girl inspired billions of people to regard elderliness as alluring, sassy and brilliant. Now, hundreds of profit-mad companies have succumbed to her voluptuous wisdom by creating products that have turned 80-year-olds into the new hip-hop generation.

Saving Face: Dr. Oz escorts us into a wrinkle-free world

 UPDATE: Dec. 20, 2014:Researchers find most of Oz's claims to be bogus (:http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-hate-to-say-i-told-you-so-dr-ozs.html

     (April 14, 2012) The stupidest remark I've ever heard Dr. Mehmet Oz make was this:

     "Nothing is more embarrassing  than looking older than you should. Let's all get busy and prevent embarrassing wrinkles!"

      Did you really mean to make such an asinine statement, Dr. Oz? What is wrong with you? You're the one who should be embarrassed.

   Oz knows that his 25-54 age demographic is freakishly obsessed with wrinkles, and his show targets their anxieties with one miraculous, magical, surefire, exotic, secret pill or potion after another. Day after day, he hauls out "the ultimate discovery" that will "keep you beautiful forever." There'll be a new one tomorrow. And how's your face doing? Any miracles yet?

The Delilah Paradox: Elderly Girl Takes It All Off

    (1/4/12) "Don't cry, Mama, it will grow back in no time," Elderly Girl says, holding her ever-tinier old mother in her arms. God, that woman's tears can rip you to shreds. Elderly Girl does not enjoy having to be maternal. It gets in the way of her lust for drama.
   As most of you are are aware, Elderly Girl had perhaps the most beautiful and celebrated hair on Earth. Even so, the urge to liberate herself from it has stalked her for decades. It was a complex impulse -- Elderly Girl's favorite kind. Now that she has succumbed, she has been Born Again. Her radiance is positively blinding.

Pedophilia: My desire to understand it was shattered by horror

    I wanted to understand pedophilia. It took about two days of studying it in a "rational" way before I could tell it was MESSING ME UP. Although it is an 'orientation'-- a sexual preference -- it resembles a disease in many ways, and I can see why its mindset is contagious.
    I have always tried to confront my prejudices -- to inform myself, to see things from the other person's perspective, and thereby to feel compassion rather than revulsion or hatred. This nonjudgmental approach has helped me to become more empathetic.

    So when I decided to do a blog post about the phenomenon of pedophilia, I didn't expect to emerge from my investigation more disturbed and sickened than ever.

HEARTLESS

If your pacemaker or defibrillator attacks you, that's too bad!

    (July 19, 2012) Her beloved husband of more than 50 years had a defibrillator implanted in his chest to save his life if his heart stopped beating. Instead, the ultra-sophisticated device killed him. He was feeling pretty good until it malfunctioned, zapping him with 1,400 volts through the right ventricle. He cried out, falling onto the couch. As his wife ran toward him, it surged through him again. She took him in her arms. A third massive jolt slammed him.

   The defibrillator-gone-mad tore into his heart 30 more times, until both he and the battery were dead. The device had gotten so hot, it burned a hole through his chest.

     The multibillion-dollar corporation that made the defibrillator wasn't liable. Firms that make life-sustaining medical devices are exempt from prosecution, thanks to their lobbying finesse. Thousands of people every year are injured, permanently disabled or killed by their products. Sorry about that, but you're on your own.