A new Etiquette de Toilette: Let's stop flushing forests and wasting water

My strategy is cheap, easy and hygienically superior

Or get zestfully clean with one of the new, high-tech bidets.

        When you slip into the restroom for a little tinkle, you probably don't realize that you are participating in massive environmental genocide -- but you are. Millions of gallons of water swoosh down the tubes every day, even as water becomes an ever-more precious and limited resource, and the specter of global drought and conflict looms (the U.S. has declared water a "national security issue"). On top of that, more than the equivalent of 9.8 million trees are flushed down the toilet every year, according to Claude Martin of Worldwide Fund for Nature. The expanding global demand for toilet paper has resulted in an assault on forests in both the  Northern and Southern hemispheres by paper companies competing to fill a seemingly inexhaustible, rapidly growing consumer demand for ever-cushier toilet paper. The U.S. alone uses 30 billion rolls a year.
    To make matters worse, the Sanitary Industrial Complex is succeeding brilliantly in its marketing of "flushable" wet wipes for adults ("They get you so clean, you can 'go commando'"), which are gumming the gears of plumbing networks around the nation. According to yesterday's  New York Times, the city has spent more than $18 million in the past five years on wet wipe-related equipment problems.
    My solution mitigates my impact on this forest and water misuse by close to 80 percent.

Transgendering: The Halfback's High Heels

Godspeed to Bruce Jenner on his/her courageous journey

     (May 10, 2011) The platinum blonde explained the situation in hushed, urgent tones -- although the hush was unnecessary. No one else was in the ladies' room.

    Last year, she had taught undergraduate engineering as Ronald. This year, in what struck me as incredible bravery, she had returned as Rhonda.

    "I really, really, really need your help…," she whispered, "…in learning, you know, how to be feminine. I’ve been scouting around for months looking for a mentor. Won’t you please help me?“

    "I'll tell my friends I'm leaving, and then let's get out of here," I said.

Oh My God: The Rip-Roaring Rise of the Mods

Guess who's coming to dinner.

Yo, man. I want to marry your daughter. You got a problem with that?

    What explains the surge in recent years of extreme body modification, or Bod Mods? Young people are scarring their skin, driving steel posts and spikes into their faces, slitting their tongues, injecting saline and/or steel balls under their flesh, slashing their ears, covering themselves in vivid, sometimes shocking, tattoos, and piercing whatever little fold of epidermis they can find. Then they attach something sparkly.
     I wish I were so brave.
    They look like crazies or psychopaths or beings from another world, but most of them are just nice young people who have taken possession of their bodies, and made them their own.
    I think it's an intriguing phenomenon, even (or especially) when it's deliberately grotesque.  The notion that your body is your playground, your canvas, your medium of self-expression, is ancient and probably hard-wired, to some extent. I admire and enjoy the color and inventiveness of these wonderfully crazy kids. Why not "play with yourself," and have some fun? Why was my generation satisfied with being so bland? What's caused this current explosion of in-your-face faces?
    We all need self-expression. If I didn't have my blog, I'd probably get some screws in my skull and a switchblade through my nose. If I did, it would be less outrageous than some of the things I've written.

New Year's with the Generalissimo: on the rocks, with a twist

     (dec. 30, 2012) Harris called me "flat ass." I took it as a compliment, even though it was intended as a playful insult. I was glad he didn't flirt with me. I wanted a father figure, and that's what he became.
    He was also a mystery. What, exactly, did he do in our office, anyway? He strode around in full military regalia, covered with ribbons and medals.What was up with that? Our young staff  regarded this middle-aged black man as a lovable, blustery eccentric who lived in a dream world. On New Year's Eve, I would discover just how neurotically grandiose he apparently was. And when he died, I would finally learn the real truth.

Darkness at "Sunrise": The $74,000 a year dementia warehouse

A mind is a terrible thing to neglect, deprecate or manipulate.

There are no hugs from staff (that's against policy) nor are there bright-eyed, stylish, healthy residents in the dementia wards.

    (12/14/14) When you step off the elevator onto the fourth floor of Sunrise Senior Living, and you enter the secure “Reminiscence” ward -- where dementia patients are housed -- you might well become overwhelmed with a sense of dread. The first thing you see is a large, semi-dark room – known as “the TV room” -- in which about 25 women sit virtually all day in theater-style rows, with their eyes closed and their heads either hanging down or thrown back. A couple of them gaze vacantly into the distance. There are no interactions between them, and the seating arrangement certainly isn’t conducive, even to eye contact. Is this what the website meant by "individually tailored care"?
    No one is watching “Let’s Make a Deal.” They ignored "The Price is Right" as well. It would be too bad if they were interested: The sound is turned off. These women look gray and dead. They seem unreal, as if they were in Madame Tussauds’ rendition of Zombieville.
    I am sick with grief and guilt as I confront the fact that my mother is moving into this $74,000 a year institution tomorrow.

Wasting away again in our Dementiavilles

This disease needs an extreme makeover of its image.
Dementia testing and dementia facilities need major overhauls as well.

It should be this.................

..................................not this

    I have spent several hours a day for the past six months with people confined in locked dementia wards. I realize that they have a progressive brain impairment, but I fear that we are giving up on them way too readily, which leads to their becoming exactly what we expect: dull, bored, confused, sleepy and complacent. I believe that it is the institutions -- which ignore the "real person" who is still inside that head -- as much as the disease itself, that account for the blank-faced, slack-jawed, sprawled out appearance of these dear people, who are being cruelly warehoused and neglected by multibillion-dollar conglomerates, which own hundreds of facilities in order to profit from "economies of scale."
    We are throwing our loved ones to the wolves. Every day in these dismal surroundings makes them die a little bit more. When you watch as they become helplessly institutionalized, it breaks your heart.
    When I "embedded" myself in Dementiaville, I found that beneath those masks of stupor, sullenness and indifference, there were bright, lively, charming people. Many if not most of them still have beautiful minds, if you just connect with them. In their faces, the sun rises again.
    These concentration camps must be regulated. We are losing thousands of precious human beings, who are plunging deeper and deeper into oblivion.They are prisoners. We need to hatch an escape plot.

The Neon Neurochemistry of the Drama Queen

 Are you one of these babes?

    I can hear Gigi's shrill laughter all the way down a long hospital corridor. "You are such a cute doctor!" she cries. "A cute doctor for a cute patient -- that's only fair!"
    I don't want to visit this exhibitionistic, narcissistic drama queen, but I promised her father I would make an appearance every few days while he's out of town.

    "I refuse to eat the food here -- it's like being in Auchwitz or something," she is telling a group of nurses as I approach. "I have my meals delivered from 'The Good Earth.' Beautiful food on the inside makes you beautiful on the outside. Look at me!"
    That's Gigi's implied motto: Look at me.
    I have known a few drama queens over the years, but she is like a caricature of a caricature. As I approach her, I see that she has rejected the hospital gown and is instead wearing a sheer, shocking-pink peignoir set, trimmed with a feather boa, and a pair of pink stilettoes.
    "Sylvia, where have you been?" she cries irritably as I approach. "Did you bring me the brie and pears?

If a tree falls in the forest: Rape vs. dementia

    If a tiny, 96-year-old woman with dementia -- who has lost the ability to form new memories -- tells a nighttime  aide that she has been raped, but has no recollection of it the next morning, should any "sound" be made about it? Should we care? She is eating her eggs and bacon and talking about her love of "smooth jazz." What's the problem, Sylvia? Why don't you back off, instead of making a big deal out of nothing?

Elderly Girl discovers that dressing as a man is tinglingly transformative

How our tender sweetheart civilized the
 "giant hole of putrefaction" that was 1890s Paris.

"Do join us in Paris, for a life of glittering ease and colorful divertissement!"

    Have you ladies ever considered dressing as a man, just to see how it feels? Elderly Girl cannot overstate the magic that will flood through you. Please ransack some guy's closet, and disappear into your boudoir to give it a try.
    During the Civil War, Elderly Girl -- who has been alive practically forever (but remains luscious) -- had bound her breasts, chopped off her wild, wavy tresses, and donned a Union uniform so she could fight heroically to free her beloved black people from slavery. Until she had this experience of wearing pants (what a vulgar word), she would never have imagined the exhilaration of striding about as the male of the species. She expected that she would have to "play a role," but it wasn't necessary: Once she was "in disguise," she instantly felt more comfortable and confident than she ever had in her whole life. She felt like a cattle rustler. She felt like Da Bomb. She felt like a Swat Team of one. She was cruisin' for a bruisin'. She was ready to rumble, baby! Everything changed. She stood erect! She breathed more deeply and felt a glorious competence in her hands and mind. She was engorged with a sense of possibility. It's so much more interesting to be formidable than beautiful, ladies -- we've been kept in the dark! The world was her oyster! Or -- puke -- let's try that again: She felt like "He-Man, Master of the Universe."  Elderly Girl became aggressive, rash, restless, and terribly sexy. This is a shameful thing to say, but she felt like fucking. She felt like hauling some young farm girl into a barn and just doing it! 
    It was confusing, to say the least. Please don't judge her too harshly. dear friends. She was more appalled than you must be. And no farm girls were harmed in the making of this blog post.
    She was so exhausted by the war and its aftermath, and so disgusted by the bestial horniness of all those rednecks down South, that she succumbed to the promise of a refined life in Paris. But she was shocked beyond measure when she got there. It was, as she would soon discover, 'a giant hole of putrefaction." Her work was cut out for her: Civilize Paris.

Turkish Coffee and Rosewater Custard with a "Gay Mantilist"

Don't you just love these crazy kids of today?

     I had an hour to kill before my appointment, so I decided to take a walk, instead of waiting in the orthopedic surgeon's office. I did my best not to limp, as I ambled along Third South, because people give you looks of distress and compassion if they think you're in pain. It makes me feel guilty.
    The fragrance of Turkish coffee hit me like a full-fledged flashback to my 1970s afternoons at Uncle Toonoose restaurant in New York. The owner had always stopped by my table to "read" my coffee grounds (the ancient art of tasseography). He predicted fabulous events in my life, most of which came true.
    I followed the scent down a side street to "Mists of Persia," a tiny cafe that had four tables. Just one patron was there, a young man with a mohawk haircut, plinking away at his laptop. He grinned at me as I made my way to the counter, and said, "You should sit with me. Let's not be lonely." What a charming comment, from this tattooed dude with his bod mods and e-cig.
    "Are you writing the Great American novel?" I asked in passing.
    "I wish! It's a Power Point presentation," he sighed. "I'm a Gay Mantilist. I thought this gig would be pure fun, but the 'suits' are turning it into a drag. They are relentlessly 'data-driven'."

     Gay Mantilism? Oh my god, that sounded cool. My blood and brain began at once to sparkle. I love being exposed to new ideas and theories and fields of study. It almost makes me wish I were still young.

Stayin' Alive: Hospice feasts on a terminally stupid Medicare fee system

Please, for god's sake, don't die! Hospice needs all the clients it can get!
The stockholders set some almost impossible 'benchmarks' at the last meeting! "

    (Nov 1, 2014) The young lady in the Hospice for Utah shirt was giddy and shameless. She and her fellow employees were in the process of buying the "death with dignity" hospice business from the charismatic and energetic founder, Cathryn "Kit" Jackson, for $10 million. Pretty soon this lucrative operation would be all theirs, and the sky would be the limit, she told me two months ago.

    I was having breakfast with a friend at an Assisted Living facility. The hospice aide was there to bathe and dress a client and escort her to the dining room. This in itself was absurd, since the client was already paying to be bathed and dressed by facility employees. But when hospice moves into your end-of-life drama, they take center stage,  and Medicare pays for it.
     "Where are you getting the funds to buy the company?" I asked the pleasant-faced Hospice girl.
    "That's what's so great," she said. "Every quarter, we get to split up the left-over money. You know: the allotment that Medicare sends us to take care of each client. We get that, plus our salaries! If we didn't keep the leftovers for ourselves, we'd have to send it all back to the government.  Kit's already rich, and now we've got a shot too." Kit, who is an admirable, enlightened person in many ways, is now content to bake cookies with her grandkids or ski the Alps, her website says.
    Even though I knew from my previous investigations that the vast majority of hospice firms are for-profit, it had never occurred to me that the profit they make consists of money disbursed  for patient care that is not spent for patient care. That should have been obvious, but I still find it shocking. The incentive to spend as little as possible on patient care is built into the system. More stupidity! Can't the government get anything right? 
    This is the story of how a compassionate, progressive concept morphed into one of the most fraudulent  (and painfully disappointing) (and profitable) enterprises in our economy.

The rambunctiously rich rewards of the "Thrift Shop" lifestyle

The thrill of the hunt is part of the Thrift Shop experience.
Macklemore bagged a luxurious beauty, if you don't mind animal slaughter.

    Watching the video for the Grammy-winning "Thrift Shop" was like viewing a rousing, witty tribute to my 95-year-old mother, and to the values she instilled in me in the 1950s. I have been plowing through stuff that others have discarded all my life. I have found countless treasures amid the trash. I left plenty for you.
    In today's frantic, acquisitive consumer culture, my Mama's motto is more relevant than ever: Living well, on almost no money, is the best revenge. Looking hip and strikingly original in an outfit that you "curated," using items that cost you between 49 cents and five dollars, is very rewarding.
    Just as the Grammys were being handed out, New York was gearing up for Fashion Week. Did anyone else notice how many of those designer geniuses flagrantly plagiarized Thrift Shop chic in their collections?

Christmas Eve with "The Filthy Boys"

He looked pretty darned clean to me.

    I was just about to knock on the door to Apartment 1B when I heard a terrible sob.
    "Please don't -- not again!" a young man cried.
    Then I heard a whack. And another one.
    "I'm sorry I was bad! I'll do anything you say," the trembling voice pleaded.
    Then another voice -- this one harsh and cold -- shouted, "Shut up, or I'll put the gag back in, you worthless piece of shit. Give me those ropes. Hands behind your back. Now bend over."
   "Oh God, not the whip again, Daddy. I can't bear it." There was a struggling sound. "Not the whip!"
    I had forgotten to breathe. My hand was still frozen in knocking mode. What should I do? I was concerned. I was scared. And, frankly, I was curious. So I did knock, as if I were a pert and determined Avon lady.
    The two guys were flushed, breathless, smiling. One wore a diaper, the other a scanty, black leather outfit. "May I borrow a corkscrew?" Couldn't I have avoided saying "screw" somehow? "Come in!" they replied.

A final act of love: Slamming the door on Morticia

A dignified, loving farewell, no morticians or toxic chemicals required.

    Our mothers cared for us from the moment we were born, attending to our needs in countless ways. We emerged from their bodies, and that intimacy was never eradicated by time or distance. They devoted themselves to nurturing, protecting and supporting us. They would have died to save our lives.
    So when a mother -- or any loved one -- dies, how should we feel about having his or her body briskly zipped into a plastic bag and whisked off to one of those dungeons known as mortuaries, to be stripped naked, and then (among other indignities) punctured, clamped, drained, and glutted with chemicals?
    We do have options. We can keep our loved one with us, at home, and take care of the body ourselves, in one final act of love. There are networks all over the country that can help us through this process. Not everyone would want to do it, of course, and even among those who wish they could, it might be too complex and traumatizing during a time of grief. But for those who are able to cope, it can provide the rewarding sense that you bestowed upon your beloved the warm, all-embracing farewell that was so well-deserved. -- rather than one that was sterile, lonely, cold and invasive. 
(This article also includes info on intriguing alternatives to burial and cremation.)

Butt out, you buttinsky! My accidental remedies for sciatica

    (July 2013) Does anyone else find the thought of sciatica kind of embarrassing? Do you think of funny old folks in the 1950s, griping about their rheumatism, their bunions, their corns and carbuncles, warts and bursitis, their impacted bowels and ill-fitting dentures?
    I got hit with sciatica on my left side when I was in my thirties. I was a weight-lifter, and a jogger, who was outside before dawn, stomping along to "Pretty Fly for a White Guy." I was very fly for a white girl! Way too fly for sciatica! I was pissed off, and determined to rid myself of this stupid, unfair affliction. 
    Thirty years later, after having tried every remedy I could find, I still had it, only now it was on both sides.
    About six months ago, I stumbled upon a remedy that has worked magic for me -- and it's free. I have devised other complementary strategies since that have almost put me in remission. It feels like a miracle.

A Teenager Flowers, Plath-style, in the Bell Jar of New York

       (6/8/12) The Barbizon Hotel for Women in New York City plays a prominent role in Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar." Her protagonist spends the summer of 1953 in the legendary old monstrosity while struggling through a fashion-magazine internship, just as Plath did. Three years before her iconic, semi-autobiographical novel was published in the U.S., I came to New York for a summer job with a Madison Avenue advertising agency, and I stayed at the 23-story, 700-room Barbizon as well.  I was 18 years old.
    Each night, I hauled my bedspread and pillow up 15 flights of stairs to the roof. I did it for the magic -- for the sheer joy and beauty of lying there, surrounded by glittering skyscrapers and that pulsing urban dynamism that floated up from the street. Imagine having this place you'd always dreamed of, soaring majestically all around you as you slept.

Lupus: A Rash Quest for the Truth

An Andy Warhol-inspired depiction of my Fiery Flare.

       In spite of all the dire warnings I received from doctors, I refused  to take the medications that were prescribed for me after my diagnosis of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. My decision to do the best I could to take care of myself was quite liberating, and I was 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 believe I am also benefiting from the supplements black currant oil, oil of oregano and Omega-3s, for which there are persuasive scientific explanations.
    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 original post, "A Lupus Mystery" (which I've reprinted at the bottom of this one), I have no idea how sick I am or how sick I may become.

Doctor Who? Doctor You!

This is Part Two of "Impatient," above.

  

It's not a stretch to assert that your body is YOUR wonderland.

     It's time we had a "patient liberation movement." Become your own #1 best doctor! Those who are well informed should be granted greater latitude in taking charge of their own health care. But even now, there is much you can do to avoid or minimize your entanglement in the bloated, exasperating, often pointless Dictatorship of the Medical Elite. You can save time and money, but more importantly, you won't feel so helpless, angry and confused, if you become the Boss of Your Own Body. It's exhilarating!

Lupus: The red peril strikes Kronstantinople again

It's a good thing I've lost my vanity!

Four months earlier, it wasn''t quite so bad..

    (Feb. 12, 2015) Although I've had this lupus-variant disease for five years, this is only the second time that its dermatological manifestation has burst forth in such a florid and painful way. It itches and burns, oozes and crawls. It spreads. I am helpless. The first time this happened, it took nine months for it to go away. It can cause very unsightly scarring.

    The rash is the least of the worries of those with lupus. Our flares cause destructive inflammation of all major bodily systems, most importantly our kidneys and nervous systems, including our brains. I am exhausted, dizzy, unsteady and achy. I stutter and fall over. It's hard for me to type, or to write legibly. My vision is blurred. I can't sleep. My brain is foggy. My morale is very low. I just want to be in a coma until it's over.

I shaved my head. It gave me a buzz

   (1/1/15) I finally did the deed: I shaved my head. My boyfriend has the pleasure of doing it every day, so why shouldn't I be able to do it at least once? That's the excuse I gave him, anyway. He was concerned about my psychological well-being, but that's nothing new, the poor guy. He says I'm having a midlife crisis. If 65 is midlife, I've got a problem. I'm pretty bored with everything already.
    The truth is, I'm in a protracted manic phase (part of my bipolar illness), and I've been doing quite a few rash, crazy, obsessive, self-destructive things (like stuffing myself with nuts night after night, despite the 1,800 calories). I'm going to get a tiny rhinestone in my nose, even though everyone -- except for girls who have them -- thinks I'm being ridiculous. I long to be in a sauna, where I could sweat myself nearly to death.
    I've been wanting to do the bald thing for decades. I was cured of the impulse for a long time after writing a short story about Elderly Girl buzzing off her own glorious tresses (http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2012/01/delilah-paradox-elderly-girl-takes-it.html). I got such a vicarious thrill out of her adventure that I immediately lost interest in doing it myself.
    But the impulse returned. Like Elderly Girl, I feel exhilarated. Light-headed! Enjoyably weird! 

How dubious "charities" break your heart to rip you off

He, and thousands like him, are used as bait by "charities."

Ben Affleck pleads for your money to "help our nation's heroes."

    (12/28/14) The music swells and harrowing pictures flow by as TV ads for blown-apart, disfigured, brain-injured war veterans, and trembling, abused, beaten and starved animals flood the airwaves. These are carefully calibrated to move you to tears, and into action. "Just $19 a month," they beg you, or "just 35 cents a day," to alleviate unspeakable suffering. Given how often these ads run, they must have millions of people rushing right to their phones to donate on the spot. It's hard not to -- unless you do your homework. Even knowing as I do that they are exploitative, I can't ignore them. They are profoundly, albeit cynically, poignant. It's almost impossible not to be moved by them, even if you're well-informed.
    The Wounded Warriors Project has mounted a major  campaign on TV in recent weeks to speed up the influx of your hard-earned money. The executive director of this "nonprofit" pays himself more than $600,000 a year, according to its Form 990 tax return, and his deputy about $400,000 a year. Nine other executives haul in between $150,000 and $200,000 a year, plus benefits, pensions and expense accounts. Ben Affleck appears in a new ad for Paralyzed Veterans of America, which spends twice as much money to raise funds (60 percent of its income) as it spends on helping its "heroes."
    Is that where you want your money to go? Especially since billions of your tax dollars are already being devoted to veterans?

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: Helping a friend escape its brutal clutches....

...and soar into the sky, freed from his ravaged body. 

    When I learned that my middle-aged, former high-school friend and debate partner was dying of multiple sclerosis -- alone in a dismal "disabled living" facility, after being bankrupted by the unconscionable cost of his medications -- I was grief-stricken. We all thought he had been essentially cured when we were in college. I called him and begged him to let me do something for him. His response was surprising and intriguing. I could help him, he said,  to "soar peacefully" into The Great Beyond, by giving him a massage, three times a week -- but not the conventional kind. He had been a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation since his late teens, and he wanted our sessions to incorporate an ancient spiritual dimension, as reflected in Ayurvedic medicine. He aspired, contrary to Dylan Thomas's advice, to "go gentle into that good night." I didn't think my emotions or skills were up to the challenge, but he persuaded me to try.

Do you really want to donate to the Alzheimer's Association?

I

Actually it starts with a $2.7 million CEO.

   (Dec 12, 2014) This year as part of the Alzheimer’s Association Walk to End Alzheimer’s, Sunrise Senior Living (http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2014/11/darkness-at-sunrise-warehousing.html) raised more than $500,000 for the Alzheimer’s Association, providing less than 1/538th of its the "charity's" income (but it already has plenty, including a $20 million slush fund).
    The CEO of the Chicago-based "nonprofit" Association pays himself more than $2.7 million annually, according to IRS Form 990 for fiscal year 2013, and there are 70 local chapters which also have generous pay packages. The "nonprofit" spends one fifth of its income on fund-raising.
    In the past 32 years, the Alzheimer's Association has contributed only $335 million to research -- less than 18 months worth of its revenue over that time period
   

How Our Good Will turned "That" Goodwill into a "Nonprofit" Billionaire

Goodwill is generally regarded as the epitome of brotherly love and generosity.

       (12/11/2014) If you feel a warm-and-fuzzy good will toward Goodwill, it's probably because you don't know the facts. Until recently, when I was investigating Savers Thrift Stores' fraudulent modus operandi (http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2014/07/thrift-shop-its-not-just-song-its.html),  I thought of Goodwill as being an honorable, charitable shopping venue where I could have a blast, buying great stuff for great prices, which I've been doing since the late 1970s. Its own website characterizes it as one of the nation’s top five most valuable and recognized nonprofit brands.  In 2012 and 2013, Forbes named it as one of America’s Top 25 Most Inspiring Companies.
    In 2012, Goodwill Industries International, Inc., the national parent corporation for all of the nation's secondhand clothing franchises, paid its president and CEO James Gibbons $729,000.  Dozens of state and local chapters copied the national headquarters' executive extravagance. IRS form 990s indicate their salaries were hundreds of thousands of dollars each (17 of them exceeded a million dollars), essentially for being store managers. It is they, not the umbrella organization headquarters, who determine their pay.
    That's where the profit from your donations goes. The government pays the disabled employees, costing taxpayers about $90 million a year..This is yet another "beloved" charity, such as the Red Cross and United Way, that has shown itself to be fundamentally corrupt and contemptuous of its good-hearted donors. 

The Bicycle Thief's Anaconda

Now, 70 years later, Mr. Walker was riding the same bike, in the same uniform.

    (Dec 8, 2014) Mr. Walker was 94 years old, and he spent most of every morning, afternoon and evening whizzing around our beautiful neighborhood -- with its 19th century homes and huge trees -- on a beat-up olive-green bicycle and wearing his World War II uniform. When I was out jogging, in the predawn darkness, he was already racing up and down the streets, tossing the Salt Lake Tribune onto people's lawns. Before long, the news would become a soggy mess (having formerly been a scandal- and catastrophe-filled mess) when the sprinklers burst into action.
    "It ain't my fault, baby girl," he told me. "They should be up and eating their eggs and bacon by now. The news waits for no man."
    I loved being called "baby girl," for some perverse reason. Black guys referred to me as "baby" and "sugar" and "mama" when I lived in New York, and it made me feel special, even though they called everybody that (the ladies, anyway). In Utah nobody called you anything. Then I turned fifty, and cool young dudes started calling me "ma'am," even when I was wearing my MegaDeth T-shirt, cargo pants and combat boots. Bummer. I didn't feel "mammy" at all.
    Mr. Walker took a leisurely breakfast break after finishing his paper route, and then he escorted his two little yapping dogs for a brief walk. They yapped even louder, and with a bit of joyfulness thrown in, after they'd "done their business," which I totally related to. "You can't beat a good shit," Mr. Walker told me. "Nothing makes sense until that deed is done." So true.
    But as soon as the pups' evacuatory needs had been met, he was back out there on that bike again, as if he were a patrolman, careening through the neighborhood . His very sweet face was red and splotchy from all that sun exposure. He was a tall, lanky, handsome man.

Sex and the Singular Girl

She had the exotic glamor of a foreign film star.

      Stan was the sexiest girl I had ever seen in person. She seemed to belong on a European movie set -- the leading lady in a passionate, complicated, black-and-white work of directorial genius -- not in our high-school Creative Writing class, circa 1965. Another student told me he had once asked her if "Stan" were her real, given name. She just laughed and replied, "Apparently."

    She was a senior, and I was a sophomore. From my assigned seat, I could stare at her as much as I wanted, which was pretty much all the time. She sat side-saddle, just one desk up and to my right. She mesmerized me.  I had never seen such radically arched eyebrows, even in a magazine. They made her appear to be perpetually alert and fascinated.  Her posture was positively regal -- that of a full-blown woman, not a teenager. She had the warmest, most open and gently amused face I had ever seen. Even so, she had no friends.

StoryCorps' predictable plot

Here we go again: A charming upstart becomes an insatiable Fat Cat.

                                                             "Fat Cat" 2010 by ira upin

    (Oct. 30, 2013) During this past month, StoryCorps -- a favorite feature on NPR -- celebrated its 10th anniversary. Its founding premise was simple: Put two friends or relatives into a cozy, private booth -- along with a microphone and a box of Kleenex -- and magic will happen.
    Magic did happen, according to series creator and CEO David Avram Isay, as tens of thousands of ordinary people experienced an extraordinary emotional intimacy, thanks to this modest format.
    The real magic, though, was in the bank account. Astonishingly, StoryCorps has evolved into a $10 million a year enterprise, with 140 employees. Your tax dollars make up a third of the budget, and foundations pay most of the rest. So how does Isay manage to blow 11.4 percent of the budget on his full-time fund-raising?
    In many respects, StoryCorps -- which portrays itself as a unique medium of heartfelt Truth -- has become an elaborate fiction. 

The lie at the core of StoryCorps

(Or is it the con of a lifetime?)

    (Dec. 3, 2013) The lie at the core of StoryCorps is that it enables you to share "profound, intimate" moments with a loved one in a recording booth, and then -- if you sign a consent form -- to have that interview archived for posterity at the Library of Congress. What a lovely, heartwarming idea!
    The truth at the core of this fundamentally dishonest and calculating operation is that the consent form has been deliberately misrepresented to tens of thousands of people, who had no idea that they were signing over the copyright to their stories and photos to StoryCorps, "permanently and irrevocably," permitting the "nonprofit" to use their "sacred" interactions in countless ways. It has already turned people -- many of them dead -- into amusing cartoons, as well as books and DVDs. It wouldn't surprise me at all if StoryCorps employs its "intellectual property rights" to develop an "Our Town"-like theatrical production, or maybe even a rock opera like "Rent," or a multimedia museum exhibit, with your face projected on the walls, and your voice wafting through the gallery. Maybe a caricature of you will appear on T-shirts, tote bags and mugs.You have no say in the matter, as StoryCorps explores new media to exploit your likeness and precious moments. You are the raw material it has dug up to dump into its self-promoting processing plant and to "create more content," as the CEO puts it.

The Michelangelo Dentist

     (12/1/14) In the waiting room of dentist Saaren Van Wyck is a startling sculpture. which made me wonder if I should have selected a different dentist. It is a four-foot tall bronze, depicting a headless artist with a palette in one hand. The other hand is reaching out with a brush toward an unsettlingly real set of teeth. It is from the "world-famous" Ronadro collection, and it looks as if it defies gravity. The sculpture seems to convey both derangement and vanity. It is grandiose yet tacky. Dr Van Wyck, who I insisted on calling Van, because I'm lazy, told me proudly that he'd bought it in Las Vegas for "only" $5,000.
    As he settled me into the chair of his very attractive, high-tech office, he took my hand.
    "Sylvia, we are embarking on a journey together: The journey of your beautiful smile. It will be a long journey, and we will become very good friends. When I am  through with you, you will be a reborn. I am an artist, and you are a new canvas for me. I am champing at your bit, so to speak."
    Get me out of here: I just came in with a chipped tooth! Van looked into my mouth hungrily, obviously seeing a wide-open realm of terrible imperfections and  imminent catastrophe. Even so, over the next few months, I would come to regard him as one of the most complex and charming characters I have ever met.

Forever Young: Elderly Girl Shares Her Cherished Secrets

    (11/29/2011) Elderly Girl adores elderly people. They exude a sweetness and softness that is quite special. They have a vulnerability that is touching. They have patience, bravery and wisdom.

    Elderly Girl is glad they exist.

    She just doesn’t want to be one of them.

    Instead, she has become a kick-ass person, a hell-raiser, an enigma, a renegade. Much to her surprise, she has turned back the clock, becoming stronger and more luscious than ever.   

Seeing Red: The first and only reported case of Blood-Spatter Psychosis

'MURDER,' IT WROTE

The beauty was unsettling but unmistakable.

    (11/28/14) On the day when Mitch Vasile lost his outward vision, his "inner eye" saw nothing but an infinite expanse of red. It seemed to be breathing or undulating. After a few days, the vastness began to differentiate into patterns: forceful sprays of red, glistening dribbles of red, smeared arcs of red, Rorschach patterns of red that resembled uteruses, poppies, crabs, galloping camels, emaciated refugees, a trellis of roses. He was in a universe in which there was no center, no foothold, no respite. It wasn't a silent universe, though. There were muffled sound effects: nonstop explosions, moans and screams. He blinked and blinked to blink it all away. He washed his eyes. He closed them,  but the images seemed to move in on him all the more. He trembled at the thought that this might never end.
    As I walked with the doctor through Bellevue, to the psychiatric ward, he warned me to set aside my investigative instincts and merely act as a friend to Mitch. "Don't ply him with questions. Don't press him for details. We're taking care of that," he said. "Just comfort him, if you can. He's devastated."
    The tentative diagnosis, he added, was "hysterical blindness," also known as conversion disorder. Patients experiencing some type of emotional or psychological trauma can lose some or all of their sight. Hysterical blindness is thus "a neurological abnormality with apparently psychogenic cause," he elaborated. Recovery is often very slow and uncertain.

A super girl becomes a Supreme for a day

A fictionalized  version of a wonderful true story.

    (11/24/2014) Candi was a sort of magical girl at William Penn Elementary School. She smelled of April Violets by Yardley, and she chewed grape-flavored gum. This seemed like such an inspired "calling card" that it left us feeling we couldn't possibly compete for male attention. We just gave up from the git go. She was obliviously beautiful, with her wild, curly black hair, full lips and cafe-au-lait skin. She managed to be smart and very creative (Crayola masterpieces) without evoking jealousy -- not an easy feat in our youthful hotbed of gossip and pecking orders. I think most of us had at least a little crush on her -- boys and girls alike. Candi had fabulously white teeth, which I noticed and envied even way back then, before "whitening" was an issue, and she had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen. Her ballerina posture and unflappable nonchalance added to her "above it all" air, although we realized she wasn't arrogant -- she was a loner. She was a mystery. We watched her, quietly musing about what made her tick, and adored her from afar.    

    Her twin sister Carla was her greatest fan. She was a sensitive, tenderhearted  girl, but she had a broad, plain face, and she lumbered around the schoolyard while Candi glided, apparently immersed in a world of her own. Carla had bought the April Violets as a gift for Candi. She herself smelled like bacon.  I loved the smell of bacon before I "went vegan," but Carla  got nicknamed "Porky" because of her unmistakable aroma. I was truly relieved when I was nicknamed "Saliva," which I hoped would make Carla feel better.  

  As is so often the case in the unfolding of lives, there would be unexpected and startling reversals of fortune as the twins grew up.

"NO THANKS" Giving: Don't binge -- purge!!

    I have nothing against Thanksgiving, even though I think most of us realize that's it's just another excuse for overeating -- and another major burden on women, who are already collapsing under the weight of their responsibilities. Still, giving thanks is a nice thing to do.
    But to balance things out, I believe we need a day for giving "no thanks" -- a day that encourages people to vent the resentment, rage, irritation, exasperation, betrayal, jealousy and frustration that they are obliged to stifle in their everyday lives.

Farewell to Victor, "The Halfback" and "My Gay Fiance"

    I have just learned that three of the dearest people in my life, all of whom I have profiled in this blog, have died. Victor, the fiery black activist in "Model Intentions," passed away last week. Rhonda, the glowing and aching star of "The Halfback's High Heels," and Joseph, the big, manly gay architect who asked me to marry him, apparently died several years ago in dire circumstances.

The Few, the Proud, the Masters of Manipulation

PROTECT YOUR KIDS from the Military-Seduction Complex

Being an American soldier is like being the Daddy to all the world's adorable children!

   (Nov. 2013) The commercials are more moving and stunningly tender than any ad campaign I've ever seen. First, there's the music:  a radiant, expansive, heart-rending hymn of somber violins that sounds worthy of a beloved president's funeral. The visuals are of noble young Americans: Beautiful, brave, principled, determined, competent and strong -- an idealized profile of what this country is supposed to be about.
    The few. The proud. The Marines. I have seen this series of ads over and over again the past 18 months. Even though I despise war, and believe that our military-industrial complex is the world's biggest, most dangerous source of corruption and suffering, I never tire of watching them. They stop me in my tracks every time. They pour forth with the poignant  power of superb human beings doing what they believe is truly righteous. There is grace and magnetism in the way these clean-cut kids hurl themselves out of planes, surge through forbidding terrain and leap with awesome fortitude over one barricade after another.The ads use sophisticated psychology to lure today's peace-loving kids into our "humanitarian" military. Watch out!

Malpractice and Malfeasance: Mama was delirious. I was furious.

    (11/19/14) As I walked down the hall of the dementia ward to have breakfast with my mother on Sunday, Nov. 9, I heard screams, sobs and moans. When I entered her room, she was pointing at the ceiling crying, "No! No!" When I bent over to hold her, she began yelling in an indistinguishable language, grasping my blouse and pulling me close to her face. "AHHHHH, AHHHH," she shrieked. She clutched her distended abdomen and grimaced, She was crying, but then she suddenly stopped, looked startled for a moment, and then began laughing in a shrill, Wicked Witch of the West fashion. "You," she said. "Oh honey!" She pulled me down onto the bed with her, and I held her while she jerked and trembled.
    Here we go again. I had seen delirium before, and I had no doubt that my mother was in the acute phase of this disturbing condition. If it's treated early enough, it can be resolved within 8-12 hours.
    But thanks to the apathy, cynicism and incompetence of the staff at this $74,000 a year facility, that's not what happened. Now, 11 days later, she is in the hospital, pouring gargantuan blood clots out of her rectum. "End of life" options are on the table. There may well be charges of negligent homicide if she isn't saved.