Morphine - Kind of a Disappointment

You can imagine how excited I was as the nurse held up the full syringe of morphine, doing the little tap-tap on the tip to produce that dribble from the needle, preparing to inject the whole, sweet draught directly into my feverish bloodstream.

Yes, the part of me that was still thinking clearly had only one word in mind: awesome.

The backstory is that I've been suffering from a gradually worsening case of tonsillitis. I had started a course of penicillin, but the doc was afraid the bug was too nasty and switched me to a more powerful antibiotic called Augmentin. But the drug didn't help. I had fever, chronic headache, fatigue, dizziness whenever I stood, a hacking cough and a killer sore throat. To say nothing of the tongue thrush, sour stomach, the shakes, and diarrhea with the consistency of chocolate in those kit kat commercials where they show how they make the kit kat.

I was in bad shape. I was rapidly using up my sick days, and the antibiotics weren't working. Last saturday night, the fever and headache got so bad that I thought I might as well go to the emergency room before I was no longer capable of doing so.

One very reassuring thing about the emergency room is that you can immediately see 5 other people that are worse off than you. "Well at least I'm not that guy." you can say to yourself. I found myself, after a bit of a wait, on a gurney on one of the main thoroughfares of the hospital. The doctor would see me shortly. I immediately conked out into a semi-stupor. When the doctor arrived and I had given him a rasping version of the story, he said he was going to stabilize me with an enormous IV dose of antibiotics, and a shot of morphine for the pain.

And now, readers, is when I perked up. Morphine. Not advil. Not Bufferin. Not even codine, which a doctor in England had given me once. Morphine. The real shit. The most powerful pain killing opiate ever devised by man and science. A narcotic with unrivaled potency. And when I say there was a full syringe of it, I'm talking about a fat, old-time syringe.

I'd never been high before. Tried pot a few times but never felt much. Booze just makes me sleepy. I was ready for a trip. An experience. As the nurse prepped my IV there in the corridor, I envisioned a white stallion trotting up alongside my gurney. He would whinny and snort and motion for me to get on. Feeling nothing but euphoria, I would climb on his strong back, gripping his mane in my fingers - and he would take off at a gallop, down the long, long hallway. Together we'd ride, right out of the hospital, and up into the sky, up up and away, the wind in my face - my hospital gown flapping freely in the rear - and we'd take to the clouds, never looking back.

That, at least, was the plan. Though in a lot of pain and with a sickening fever, I still had a giddy optimism about me as the nurse now was ready to apply the morphine shot to the newly inserted IV. This was it. I had my passport. I was ready to trip. As the morphine entered my body I waited calmly for the first few bars of Jimi Hendrix playing the national anthem. I figured that's how it would start. Then... a warming sensation in the belly. Here we go.... I waited....

And nothing. Zip. Nada. The "morphine", if that's really what it was, very quickly took the edge off the headache and the sore throat. Not "killed" the sore throat and headache. No. It just took the edge off. So I still had a bit of a sore throat and a headache. After a friggin SHOT OF MORPHINE. And the trip? Where was the trip? I was sober, man. I could have struck up a conversation about the flagging Las Vegas housing market. I had no buzz.

Morphine! Morphine for God's sakes! Isn't this what they give soldiers on the battlefield when they've had a leg blown off? Wasn't there that scene in Saving Private Ryan when the one dude (the medic) has had his stomach blown open and he's dying, and they jab him with a morphine dose? Remember that scene? That was just a tiny dose of morphine, and the guy instantly goes passive. I had a huge syringe of morphine! And I had no mood altering experience, and I still had a headache! How's that for luck!

Well, the fever's down now. It's a few days later. The tonsils are feeling better. The sore throat is gone. Still a little feverish. Still fatigued. But on the mend. What have I learned from this experience? I've learned that morphine just isn't all that great. It's essentially no different than tylenol PM. Unless the hospital was pulling some placebo shit with me and didn't actually give me the real thing. Which maybe is possible. I'll have to look at the bill.

220 Annoyances

201. Movies that have adult characters puffing away on asthma inhalers as a cheap way of making them interesting.

202. Restaurants that refill their ketchup bottles. Do they at least rinse them?

203. Someone doing an English accent just to be cute.

204. I don't like not knowing whether or not I'm going to get the whole coke can on the plane. Will it be the whole can, or just that little plastic cup? I can actually handle not getting the whole can, so long as I'm prepared. But there's no standard. There's no universal policy. Sometimes, seemingly at random, you get the whole can. Other times, just the very small cupful of coke and a wan smile. How am I expected to manage my thirst?

205. Old couples at restaurants who sit in total silence for the whole meal.

206. When you mis-enter one line on a long, tedious online form, and you submit it, and then the site points out your error in red, but then - surprise! Every line has been erased and you have to retype the whole damn form from scratch.

207. These "people" who "submit reviews" to the Zagat Survey, who use the same "annoying quotation mark style" that Zagat does in its capsule review, "not seeming to realize" that there is "no need" to do this, as they themselves "are not summarizing" fifty other reviews.

208. A guy in front of you at Starbucks unfolding a list.

209. Friends, family and coworkers: Do not email me things that require me to sign up for some bullshit in order to view whatever it is you're sending. I have to register with some site to see your photo album? I have to give my name and email to view your party invite? I have to create an account and password to open your animated holiday card? I ain't doing it. Why are you trying to get me to invite even more junk mail and spam into my existence? Why are you trying to put me on yet another marketing database? Why do you even need the help of a third party website to show me some photos anyway? Just zip them and send them for Gods sakes.

210. Slot machines that are programmed to give you a lot of close calls.

211. Thomas Friedman's incessant attempts to coin phrases.

212. No sugar added ice cream.

213. I am now officially tired of seeing the lower case "i" and "e" in front of products, services and companies. I give Apple a pass, because it's a market leader, and it already had that reputation for whimsical names. But every crappy tech product being called the iThis or the eThat - it's starting to get on my nerves big time. I was recently on a website where I could buy an eFridge, and if I clicked on it it would go in my eBasket. Look I understand that new words and concepts arrive naturally in the language. I accept that we need an abbreviation like I-Banking to refer to internet banking. But I don't see any reason why we have to spell it iBanking. What worries me is that run of the mill shitty companies are using the iSpelling technique as code for "Please have confidence in this product. Clearly it is on the cutting edge." This is a recipe for trouble, people.

214. When you enter a restaurant with one half clearly empty, and you're told there's a wait.

215. Deaf people who want their children to be deaf.

216. Failing, for the millionth time, to match that two-digit number at the end of the pinball game. Has anyone ever won the match game?

217. Websites that rely on spelling mistakes to get your traffic.

218. People on the left side of the moving walkway who aren't walking.

219. You know what I don't like? The first time you go skydiving, you have to be harnessed to another dude. The instructor. This is terrible. The very first time you skydive is probably the most exhilarating. The most emotional and crazy and adrenalin fueled. No jump will probably ever give you the rush that the first one will. And the first jump has to be the one where a leathery old skydiving instructor is mounted on you. Isn't there some skydiving instructional school somewhere that can train you so well that you don't need a guy on your back on the first jump? I don't mind the dude on the 10th or 20th jump. By then it's old hat. It's just another jump. But the first time - give me some freedom!

220. You know, when I use my hands to illustrate a concept to someone I'm talking to, I always defer to the listener's perspective. Like, if I wave my hand when I say "from beginning to end", I'll wave it right to left. If I'm describing a headline or a marquee title, I'll sweep my hand right to left. If I say "to the left" or "to the west", I'll point right. Basically, if there's any kind of timeline, or directional significance to whatever I'm explaining, I defer to the perspective of the person I'm talking to. And I apparently AM THE ONLY ONE ON EARTH WHO DOES THIS. Just saying.

Quidditch Just Isn't Very Well Thought Out

The rules of quidditch are really stupid, and I'm going to explain why in excruciating detail.

Now I'm guessing that you, the reader, either already know the rules of quidditch, saving me the need to rehash them, or - you're saying "what's a quidditch?", in which case I predict you're really not going to care once you find out. Either way, I don't need to explain the rules. But here they are anyway as a reference.

OK. Imagine soccer. Except somewhere on the grass there's a little chocolate bunny. And when the chocolate bunny is found, the game ends and the finder's team get 15 extra points.

Now, how much effort would you put into scoring goals in this version of soccer? Not too much, huh. Wouldn't proper strategy dictate that the whole thing just turn into a massive bunny hunt? And when a player spotted the bunny, he would call over his "seeker" to grab it, and that would be it?

I mean, why would you even bother with the soccer ball?

This, basically, is Quidditch. Who would give a rat's ass about scoring a goal in this game? The majority of the positions and players in the sport involve scoring goals through floating hoops - but in almost every case, the winner of the game will have nothing to do with how many goals are scored. The goals mean nothing. For the goals to ever make a difference, one team would have to score at least 15 more goals than the other team.

And if one team scores 10 more goals than the other in a soccer-like scoring environment, but loses anyway, then what kind of game is that?

The only game I can think of in real life that has a similar cheap-win mechanism is 9-Ball pool, wherein a player can make 8 consecutive, exquisitely perfect shots, then screw up the last shot and allow the opponent to immediately win the game. But even in 9-Ball, you play best-of-7 or something.

And why the hell are fictional games & sports in sci-fi and fantasy always just 3 dimensional versions of familiar sports? Quidditch is just field hockey with a z-axis. (And a chocolate bunny.) Where's the invention? Where's the fantasy? Is the future of sports really going to be the sports we already know, except we all fly around?

Blu Ray Wins the Format War. So What?

I have two points here.

First, who does Sony think is going to rebuild a DVD collection from scratch to make it all Blu Ray? Is anyone going to do this? Yes, we did rebuild our VHS collections for DVD - that's true. But a) the difference between VHS/DVD is night and day, b) DVDs offer tons of superior convenience like interactive menus and slim storage, c) they offer boatloads of extra content, and d) VHS hasn't entirely gone away anyway. Some people still use it for hard to find items and for recording.

Now why would anyone rebuild a DVD collection into Blu-Ray? Do any of those reasons hold up? No, they don't. Blu-Ray is only a marginal improvement. There might be a gradual migration of sales, sure, but nothing like the arrival of the DVD standard. This is laserdisc, folks. You heard it here.

The second point is that the entire video sales industry is about to start showing symptoms of the terminal illness that is currently afflicting the music business. Why would anyone buy music if they can download it for free? The only thing keeping the patient on life support at this point is that some people still haven't figured out how to share music online. Why do you think Barry Manilow has been putting out chart-topping CDs lately? Could it be because his audience is the only demographic left that still gets its music from Target?

I already know early adopters that illegally share movies online. Probably you do too. The only thing slowing the mass adoption of movie stealing is the still (at this point) high memory and RAM demands that these downloads make on current computers - movies are big files - and also a general ignorance on how to do it easily. But over time, and I'm talking only a few years, both of these obstacles will vanish.

"But movie downloads give you a grainy, low resolution picture!" say the studios. "Plus, you get no extra content!" Sure, sure. But it's free, and that's the key word. You know what food always tastes good? Free food. It's the same with Batman Begins.

Government enforcement? Impossible. I've said this before and I'll say it again. If your intellectual property can cheaply and quickly be converted into ones and zeros, there is absolutely no way to protect it from piracy. That's essentially a law of nature. The cost it would realistically take to enforce anti-piracy policy would be far greater than the benefits gained.

Movie-download-pay-services? Won't work. How can you beat free? Movie-download-for-free-if-you-look-at-some-advertising services? Same deal. How can you beat free with no ads?

We are only a few years away from the complete collapse of the home video market. There will always be a market for the movie theater experience, but the act of going to a store and buying a "thing" that you take home and unwrap and slide into an expensive player? Those days are fast approaching their end. Everyone will be carrying around massive movie collections on keychain flash drives, all acquired illegally and for free, and it just can't be stopped. There might still be a few people - A/V geeks, who want the whole hi-def experience and who therefore will still shell out big bucks for legitimate movie-watching equipment and the movies themselves - but they will be few and far between. They will be like their counterparts in the 60s and 70s: the guys who had their own screening rooms where they could run films at home. But the rest of America will watch lower-res free movies.

You don't think America will settle for lower-res? Think about the telephone. When I was a kid, there were no cell phones. Every call was on a land line and it was crystal clear. Now, it's the 21st century, I live exclusively on a cell phone, and the quality of any particular call is shitty. "Hello? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?" That's modern phone life. We settled, en masse, for shitty phone reception because the reward was the enormous convenience that came with cell phones. Movie viewing is about to take its own step backward, for similar reasons of convenience.

Short sell those film stocks now, people, the floor is about to fall out. And Blu Ray. Think about all the champagne corks popping over there at Sony. Do they have any idea what's about to happen? The format war is over. But Blu-Ray didn't win. My keychain flash drive won.

So That's It. To Play Any Nintendo Game, Going Forward, I'm Going to Have to Wave a Stick at the TV.

I mean, every game? EVERY LAST GAME?

Is it just me, do I have to be the first one to say this - but isn't this completely stupid? How is it that an interface best suited for Mario Party 8 somehow became mandatory for every game on the system? Games like Metroid and Mario - games that require the finest precision - now have to somehow be reduced to magic wand waving, motion sensing control?

I DON'T LIKE WAVING THIS FUCKING STICK AROUND.

Look, I had as much fun as anybody slipping on the armband and trying out Wii Bowling for the first time. That was a great 20 minutes. Putting custom eyebrows on my Wii character and picking his hair? Great stuff. Kudos to Nintendo for delivering a quality half hour of entertainment.

But thanks to that one enjoyable diversion I have to see the greatest franchises in video game history forfeit their intricate and elaborate control schemes and submit to the magic wand fad? Again, I ask: every game? Every last game?

We've seen these games before. They're called Light Gun games. Light Gun games have their niche and they have their fans. If you're the kind of gamer who likes playing the same 10 minutes of game hundreds or thousands of times, then yes, light gun games are probably for you. But if the president of Nintendo announced that henceforth, every game for Nintendo would have to be a light gun game, wouldn't we all just be a little ticked? How is this Wii remote any different, in terms of the challenge it offers and the way it dumbs down a game, than a light gun?

Sure, kids, grannies, knock yourselves out. Casual gamers, pick up and play gamers, sure. There's a class of gamer out there who wants to experience everything the game has to offer in the first 10 minutes. The Cooking Mama gamer. The magic wand is perfect for this person. There's another class of gamer who wants a skill-equalizer. A game where a novice can be competitive against a pro. Like Mario Party, where whoever is ahead will be gradually handicapped until the others catch up. The magic wand is perfect for these gamers, because the skill-ceiling it offers is really quite low.

Nintendo man. I tell ya. For the last 5 years, this gimmick shit has taken over their corporate philosophy, and the available real estate for gamers like me has been shrinking and shrinking. First it was "connectivity". They wanted to turn the gameboy into a controller that you would attach to your Gamecube for innovative multiplayer. The Gameboy screen itself would become a secondary screen for use by the game.

Not a bad idea in theory, except for the inconvenient fact that in order to make proper use of this scheme, a game would have to be seriously dumbed down. The Zelda and Final Fantasy franchises produced 4-player offerings for this "connectivity" design, and, well, they were really bad. And a pain in the ass too. If you wanted to play Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles to its 40 hour conclusion, you had to find 3 other people, all with gameboys and connection cables, to meet somewhere for regular sessions of Final Fantasy multiplayer. Did that ever happen, anywhere?

Then the Sony PSP came out. I've never played a PSP, but I blame it for killing my Gameboy Advance. Nintendo was forced to counter the PSP by rushing out a successor to the GBA. And so we got the DS, with its stylus gameplay.

Fuck you, stylus.

So, with the DS, Nintendo basically said "If you want to continue to play your favorite Nintendo games on gameboy, then you're going to have to use this stylus." And with that edict, every gamemaker had to go back to the drawing board and put stylus functionality into their games. Useless, pain-in-the-ass, un-fun stylus gameplay.

"Well, that's okay." I said at the time. "I can still play my favorite games on the big screen." Then the Wii was announced and its wand-waving control scheme unveiled. And now it's all over. The lion's share of the greatest game franchises of all time - exclusive to Nintendo - are now only accessible to those willing to twirl this stick gaily about, swishing it this way and that, jerking, wiggling and pantomiming.

Look, video games have a certain cerebral component. They're not ALL just twitch button, arcade-y affairs. I like the strategy elements in an RPG, or an RTS game, or a puzzle game, or a an adventure game. These are games where there's not necessarily anything special about the controls. Tetris, one the greatest games of all time, really only requires two buttons: a directional pad and a rotation button. Games aren't always about the interface. In fact, the best games usually make you forget there even is an interface. Nintendo's decision to make every game a light gun game demonstrates that they don't give much of a rat's ass about that. They're going to differentiate their product in the only way they can - by creating a unique interface that's truly unusual and un-copyable. "No more ports," Nintendo is saying. Every Nintendo game will now be fully unique.

Well, fantastic. I'm glad it's worked. But in doing this they've changed the DNA of the games the system will support. Now every game has to somehow include all the excitement and challenge of that machine at Dennys where you try to grab the stuffed animal with the robotic claw.

I don't want that shit. I don't want my Wii to be party central. I want to zone out to a cool metroid game with the shades drawn and doritos on my shirt. The last game I was able to enjoy in the old fashioned style was the new Zelda, since a Gamecube version was released too.

And it wasn't even that good.

Who Is This Person? And Why is He in Every Movie?

Yeah. A year ago I had never seen this portly fellow before. And now he is literally in every movie, and every TV show. It's getting to the point where he's playing every part too. I'm a little alarmed, because in his many, many roles I haven't seen anything particularly interesting out of him. His comedy is too broad. His "tough guy" isn't so tough. He just confuses me. Is he funny fat? Or is he tough guy fat? Or is he just-ignore-that-I'm-fat fat? Nothing makes sense with him.

I'm flipping channels, and suddenly it's this movie with Jet Li kicking ass, and yet inexplicably this guy seems to get more screen time than Jet Li. And in some scenes he's comic relief, and in others he's supposed to be threatening. I just don't get it. I rented Transformers. He's there. I saw an ad for this show called K-Ville. Wham! It's all him.



I guess what I'm saying is - this guy needs to back off a little. Let some other actors have a chance. There's no need to be in every movie. Let's not forget this other guy who used to be in every movie:



I'm not sure what happened to him, but from 1982 to about 2002 he also was in every movie and TV show. Particularly if your movie called for exactly one Asian character. Then, forgot about it, he'd be there. Don't make the mistake of this guy, other guy. Be more selective in your roles. Don't be that guy.

If you're going to be in a lot of movies, and there's no persuading you otherwise, I recommend you go the Gary Oldman route and disappear into roles.



No one ever says "Pffft. Great. Another Gary Oldman movie." No, people say "Wait... that was Gary Oldman?" That's what you're looking for. That's where you want to get to.

Losing 200 Pounds via Gastric Bypass Surgery Does Not Make You a Hero

You know, looking at Mario Batali's full, cherubic face reminded me of this topic - something I had meant to write about before but had forgotten about.

I'm sorry but it's true. If you lose a few hundred pounds through diet, exercise and sheer determination and will - well now that's a heartwarming story. That's a story about character. That's a great, rousing, stand up and cheer, life affirming tale. You can sell that story to me over and over again. I will always stick around till after the commercial to see the new, slim gal and to watch the spouse's tears flow freely. I might even get a little misty myself.

But some fat tub who lost 200 pounds because of a gastric bypass? I mean sure, hooray and all. Nice that you're alive and not dead. But.... I'm supposed to be proud of you? I'm supposed to reach for the kleenex as I watch your touching story? Well, no. My opinion, madam, is that you didn't do shit. You learned nothing.

The problem originates with the TV people. You see, they have a "woman loses 180 pounds" script. They've had it for decades. They wait till someone loses 180 pounds and then they step in. They get the "before" photos from the woman's scrapbook, they film some new video, they get a few tearful interviews. Whammo, it's all done in one morning, and they can broadcast it that night at 5:30. But this gastric bypass craze is so recent, so unexpected, that the networks haven't had time to adjust their well worn playbook for fat women who lose 200 pounds.

They still frame the story like its a heroic triumph of great courage. So let me get this straight. Stop me if get any part of the story wrong.

1) A person gets fat to the point of imminent death.
2) Rather than summoning the will power to stop eating, she agrees to surgically reroute her digestive system, limiting the amount of food she can intake at any time.
3) Thanks to her insurance, society as a whole gets to cough up the 20-50 grand for the procedure and associated post-surgical therapy.
4) The post-op woman sheds 200 pounds, regardless of any will-power or lack thereof.
5) CNN rushes a camera crew over to interview the hero.

Am I missing something? Maybe there are a few heroes in the story. There are the medical researchers who developed this lifesaving surgery. There are the surgeons who went through a lifetime of study and training to be able to perform it. There's you and me, working away at our jobs so our health insurance contributions can foot the bill for the fat tub's surgery. I can't see who else qualifies for the hero label here.

Am I wrong or does the morbidly obese person have absolutely no redeeming qualities in the gastric bypass story? At least the old fashioned 200 pound losers had a character arc. They were gluttonous, they looked death in the face, then they made a commitment to fight for their life and turn over a new leaf. That's good TV. That's a story. But the gastric bypass people have no story. They started pathetic and ended pathetic. They didn't decide to turn their life around. They decided to have others turn it around, and at great expense on the public coin.

Look, I'm not saying don't have a Gastric Bypass. Go ahead, get the surgery. I encourage the surgery. Go and save your life. Rediscover the joy of having your leg not touching your other leg. But network TV: stop showing me these people. They've learned nothing. They destroyed their own bodies and were rescued from themselves by the charity of society. They're not heroes.

A small programming note: I will try at some point to get a reservation at Carnevino. And then I will try to engineer an encounter with Mario Batali. I will then ask him what the soil and air are currently telling him, and maybe we'll chat a bit about organic farming. Stay tuned.

Close Encounter...

I had a brush with fame the other day that I need to mention. I was attending the grand opening of the Palazzo last week - the new resort on the Las Vegas Strip - and I found myself outside the restaurant Carnevino. Actually, I was just passing by on my way up the stairs. As I walked past, a chef came out of the restaurant in a hurry. He was a roly poly little man, fairly barrel shaped, and he had on the whole chef's outfit, complete with poofy hat and a tied-off scarf. He also had a fairly striking ginger beard. He huffed and puffed, and craned his neck upward, looking out into the crowd, staring intently into the middle distance.

My only thought at the time was "What an odd-looking little man." although as I walked away it occurred to me that line chefs wouldn't be permitted to walk outside the restaurant like that and that therefore this guy must be the head honcho. But that's all I thought about it.

Until the next day, when it suddenly dawned on me: doesn't Mario Batali, the imbecile author of that idiotic Starbucks cup quote have a restaurant at Palazzo? Could that have been the restaurant? And could that have been Mario Batali? The guy who talked about what the air and soil "knows", and argued that the only way to find solace from the headaches of soul searching on how to acquire inner peace was to have a grandfather who once shook the hand of the individual that shucked his corn? The same guy?

So I google-imaged his face and lo and behold:



So it was Mario Batali! Just think, I was only feet away from the guy whose irritating prose I had to read on my coffee cup for months and months. I could have confronted him. I could have called him an idiot. I could walked up to him and said "Hey man, do you know that I pick your peas? How bout a hug?" At the very least I could have grabbed his hat and ran away. Too bad.

Yes, I live in Las Vegas. No, I haven't heard of your favorite lounge act from 45 years ago.

Just wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy New Year, from all of us here at Petty Annoyances. I'm in New York for a week, and wanted to report just briefly on a disturbing phenomenon - another demerit on the long list of things I can't stand about the elderly. I've been mingling around all these holiday parties, and you better believe that the elderly love holiday parties. I think these holiday parties afford the elderly two, rare chances. First, they get to wear their sunday best, which for them must be an increasingly rare proposition. And two, they get to enjoy a kind of professor emeritus status that I know they covet dearly.

So as soon as the word gets out that I'm visiting from Las Vegas, it doesn't take long for the following to occur. An old guy, cheese dip and/or crumb hanging from lip, will buttonhole me in a corner for this conversation:

Old Guy: "Rowsdower. Rowsdower."

Me: "Yes, hi! Hello."

Old Guy: "Come over here. I need to ask you something." (We retreat to a quiet corner)

Old Guy: "You're from Las Vegas?" (His mouth opens and closes even when not speaking)

Me: "Well, I'm from here, but I live there now."

Old Guy: "Have you ever heard.... ..... ..... ........ of the Pineapple Brothers?"

Me: "No."

Old Guy: "They used to play there. They were huge."

Me: "Where did they play?"

Old Guy: (seemingly annoyed by the question) "Oh I don't know."

Me: "Well about what time period?"

Old Guy: (Incredibly dismissive) "Oh.... a long time ago."

Me: "Well.... what about them?"

Old Guy: "They were huge!"

And then the conversation sort of runs out of steam.

And this happened 3 years ago, more than once. It happened 2 years and 1 year ago, and now it's happening this year. Old people learn that I am from Las Vegas, and are seized with the desire to know if I have heard of some ancient lounge act.

"You know who I used to love in Las Vegas?"

"Who?"

"Sally Hanmeister and the O-Kay Cabaret. Have you ever heard of them?"

"No. No I haven't."

"Oh, they were huge! We saw them on our honeymoon!"

I've known for a long time that old people like to play the "That didn't used to be there." game when driving by offices and gas stations. But apparantly hearing the words Las Vegas triggers a deep, long forgotten well of memories - a rich new vein of conversation topics that have no point except to briefly exist and then taper off into nothingness.

"Have you ever heard....................................................... of Big Doc Brownnose?"
"The Wallapaches?"
"The Sassafrass Band?"
(Brief pause while old guy licks every square inch of his lips)
"Herbert Moonpie?"
"Toucan Willie?"
"Glen Potsticker and the Bakers' Dozen?"

Me: "No."
They were huge!!!

Really, if a Vegas act has been gone for more than 1 year, there is only a very small chance that I have ever heard of them. An act from 1961? Sure, yeah, I read about them all the time in my subscription copy of "Old!" Jeez. At least the pastries at these parties have been top notch.

The Disgust that Star Trek Characters Have When They Travel Back to Our Time

Now just to warn you, this post will go so deeply into the dorkiest reaches of nerdland, that even seasoned geeks may want to take a pass. But for those of you who have watched basically all the trek shows and have a reasonable comfort level with the characters and storylines - maybe you will be sympathetic to this longstanding annoyance of mine.

Have you ever noticed that in the dozens of times when trek characters have been magically transported to other historical eras, they are always utterly delighted and enchanted by the opportunity to spend a little time in history, EXCEPT when they visit "our" time, in which case they are always filled with contempt and disgust?

It's true! Be it a) a time travel episode, b) a holodeck adventure or even c) just being visited by people from other times - Trek characters are guaranteed to have this over-the-top infatuation for whatever era they're in... unless it's the late 20th century. There's no better way to get Captain Picard giddy as a schoolboy than to put him in Napoleonic France, or Robin Hood England, or some such. You with me? You send Picard to Victorian England and before you can blink an eye he's got a pipe, a deerstalker cap and he's excitedly solving mysteries. But you put him in 1990's California and it's all he can do not to spit on everyone he encounters.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Next Generation episode where three 1980's Americans are unfrozen and end up on the enterprise. Picard is entirely uninterested in them (even though history is his greatest interest). Plus, he's quietly disgusted that they froze themselves in the first place (even though they did so, it is revealed, to save their own lives) and he reacts with pure contempt and hostility when they ask to speak with him.

Do you think for a single moment that he would have reacted the same way to, I don't know, someone from the WWII French resistance? I think we all know he'd have been fawning and drooling all over them and inviting them back to his quarters for high tea.


Why does every historical era generate these warm fuzzies and excited curiosity except our own? Here's my theory. I attribute about 60% of the present-day-disgust thing to the sci-fi convention where the futuristic people have to express amazement at how primitive and backward we are. It's just a convention. So when McCoy calls the 20th century doctors barbarians (or something like that) in Star Trek 4, that's really the only point. We're so used to being the advanced society, that aha! Here's how it feels to be the primitive society! It's drama and pathos on the cheap, but that's TV. Now logically, the disgust should apply doubly to even earlier historical eras, but then there'd be no point. You don't see Picard strutting around Elizabethan England saying "Bows and arrows... How primitive!" because there's no bow-and-arrow wielding audience who will thrill to the idea that hey, maybe we ARE primitive?

And it's not all that realistic, because if I was transported back in time 150 years, I wouldn't strut around main street saying "Hmmph! Horses and carriages. What ignorance!" It would be more like "Horses and carriages! Awesome! Can I have a hay ride?"

So that's about 60% - the need to excite us with the concept that weeeeeeee are the primitive people. But then there's that other 40%. The nasty part. And I think maybe I'm going to have a hard time articulating this, but there's some sort of weird moral-agency/anti-capitalism/anti-American thing going on. I'm serious. Like every human society pre 20th century can be forgiven for their vast sins, but "present day" society cannot. We are guilty. We are culpable. It's moronic.

Look, Roddenberry cooked up an interesting premise for the future of humanity - I'll grant him that - but this over the top disdain for capitalism is uncalled for. Can't anyone from the future acknowledge that just maybe capitalism was a powerful engine of progress? Here's a few bits of dialogue from the episode where the evil 20th century businessman is unfrozen on the Enterprise:

DATA

   These are not like any other
 humans I have ever encountered.
 I find them fascinating.

   RIKER
 From what I have already seen
 of our "guests", there is very
 little to redeem them. In fact,
 it makes me wonder, how our
 species ever survived the
 twenty-first century.

How about this exchange? (Ralph is the
evil 20th century businessman)

PICARD

   I do not think you are fully aware
 of your situation, or the time
 which has passed.

   RALPH
 Believe me, I'm fully cognizant
 of where I am, and when. It is
 simply that I have more to protect
 than a man in your position could
 possibly imagine. No offense,
 but a military career has never
 been considered upwardly mobile.
 I must contact my lawyer.

   PICARD
 Your lawyer has been dead for
 centuries.

   RALPH
 Yes, of course I know that, but
 he was a full partner with a very
 important firm. Rest assured the
 firm is still operating.

   PICARD
 That's what this is all about...
 A lot has changed in three hundred
 years. People are no longer
 obsessed with the accumulation of
 "things". We have eliminated hunger,
 want, the need for possessions.
 We have grown out of our infancy.

   RALPH
 You've got it wrong. It's never
 been about "possessions" - it's
 about power.

   PICARD
 Power to do what?

   RALPH
 To control your life, your
 destiny.

   PICARD
 That kind of control is an
 illusion.

   RALPH
 Really -- I'm here aren't I? I
 should be dead and I'm not.
 That's what money did for me.
 That's the kind of power I'm
 talking about.

All of this occurs after Picard has already gotten seriously pissed off that the 300 year old people even wanted to talk with him at all. And Ralph, despite being a ridiculous caricature, still gets the better of the exchange.

How about the Voyager episode where the crew is magically transported to Los Angeles in the 1990s? The very existence of earth is threatened! But by who? A hostile alien race? A mad scientist? A sentient blob of antimatter?

No actually, it's this evil corporation:



The CEO, motivated by pure greed, intends to launch a time machine that will cause devastating effects on the environment. Does he care? Of course not. Cue the diminished seventh chords and the mustache twirling.

Where's the boundary between the pure delight time travel, and the "you disgust and offend me" time travel? Is it somewhere around JFK? The World War II episodes are pretty safe. Wasn't there an original series episode where they all become Al Capone era Chicago gangsters? Wasn't there a Voyager holodeck episode about racing drag cars in the 50s? Clearly, there's a little wiggle room in the 20th century. Maybe the hatred and disgust sets in around the Jimmy Carter years.

Man do I hate Picard's moral preening. He'll wax spiteful one minute about the foolishness of humanity in creating nuclear weapons, and then the next minute he's defening his decision not to interfere and stop an alien genocide. (It would taint the purity of their authentic culture, you understand.)

Well get bent, you late 20th century hating, all other historical era loving, prime directive obeying lackey. Go dunk your head in some Earl Grey.

These Women-Only Rooms at the Gym

Here's another issue that, like my position on refusing to buckle-up on command in the back seat, I can't get anyone to agree with me on. This despite the fact that I'm absolutely right on the merits.

My gym here in Vegas (to remain anonymous) is a relatively new facility. Well appointed. Well staffed. The water fountain water is usually cold. Plenty of parking. So, generally, not a bad gym. But, a crowded gym. And I tend to go after work during their evening rush. Sometimes, you have to squeeze in a set between other people. Sometimes, you're standing on line for an elliptical machine.

So, there's this room on the first floor, for women-only, that has the works: nautilus, cardio, free-weights, workout-mats, plenty of space. And never full, by the way. I see one or two women in there, max. I don't exactly know how much good stuff there is in there, since I can't see the whole room from the door and I can't just stand there squinting through the window lest I look like some kind of perv. Who knows what kind of xanadu lies around the unseen corners? What could there be back there? A climbing wall? A smoothie counter? I don't know.

It's not fair. Why should I have to stand in line for a cardio machine while plenty sit unused in the ladies-only room? What happened to equality? What happened to the great principles of Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, and others who have appeared on our one dollar coins? Do they mean nothing?

Now let me explain exactly where I stand on this. If the gym wants to install a ladies-only workout room, I don't object in theory. But, they must do one of the following:
1) Give men a discount on membership, proportional to the reduced availability of the facilities
2) Open a mens only room of equal size and appointment.

That's all. Doing one of those thing fairs it up entirely. Notice, the whole issue of why women want these separate rooms is irrelevant to the complaint. They don't want to be hit on and/or intimidated. Personally, I think they should quit whining and grow some tougher skin, though I admit that men who try to pick up women at the gym are engaging in the worst brand of slimy behavior. The solution should be to curb the behavior, not to segregate the genders. But that's a digression. If the gym wants to create a womens-only room, that's fine - so long as you give me the mens-only room or the penis discount on membership. That would make it fair.

Of course, I don't think you'd see much enthusiasm for a mens only room. So, uh, let's go with the membership discount as the preferred alternative.

I put the issue to a female friend at work, who as you might expect, took a contrary position. "Deal with it." was the substance of her rebuttal. She got quite animated and seemed to have as strong an opinion about it as I did. I pressed her for a more robust argument, and she actually came up with a savvy one. She said something along the lines of "You never hear women complain when we get overcharged at the dry cleaner. Or for a haircut."

Me: "Haircut? But women get all that fru fru shit done when they get their hair cut. Men's cuts are simpler."

Her: "What about women with short hair who just want a simple hair cut? Why should they get charged double?"

Me: "hmm.........."

Her: "Whatever you pay at the dry cleaner for a shirt, they charge double for a women's shirt, even though its the exact same process."

Me: "Really? That doesn't seem fair. Wait a minute. Aren't women's shirts all silky and scented and dainty and what-not? Don't they require extra care?"

Her: "No! It's the exact same process!"

So okay, she's got a point. Now, my position on the womens-only room at the gym is unchanged. Two unfairs don't make a fair. But I now hereby stand for haircut and dry-cleaning gender-based pricing reform. And I am against all other such bullshit raw deals.

Someday, when I'm on a one dollar coin, you'll all realize I was right.

Awareness

Is it me, or is "Awareness" completely worthless? All this ribbon wearing, all the marching - can someone articulate what the point is? What does it accomplish? "We want to promote awareness." What does that even mean?

Let's say you care passionately about an "issue". And by "issue" I mean one of the issues that currently is represented by an awareness ribbon. Wikipedia has a list here. If you really want to make a difference for, for example, cancer sufferers, wouldn't you donate money? Volunteer at a hospital? Lobby for more public funding for research? Something along those lines? How exactly does wearing a ribbon, or marching to promote "awareness" do a damned thing? Who, specifically, in the audience of the awareness pageant wasn't already aware of cancer? And, if their awareness is temporarily heightened, what exactly does that achieve?

I am unconvinced that "awareness" does anything at all besides advertise the do-goodedness of the ribbon wearer and/or provide a outlet for frustration for people who want to make a difference but have no idea how. "But girls need to know the importance of doing regular checks for breast cancer." Agreed. But isn't communicating that message the rightful job of parents, teachers and doctors? Why exactly do you want that message communicated via parade? Isn't that less effective?



Someone coined the word "Slacktivism" to indicate someone who pretends to be an activist but doesn't actually do anything besides making the most superficial and lazy gestures. Ribbon wearing is cited as textbook example of slacktivism. Now, I actually don't agree 100% with this perspective. I can be an incredible slacker activist if I sit at home in my underwear, eat doritos, and occasionally click my mouse to donate money via paypal to cancer research. In my opinion, that's 100 times as valuable as a high energy, ribbon wearing dude who spends all his free time promoting "awareness". The awareness guy is doing diddily shit, accomplishing nothing except fueling his own superiority complex, while I'm greasing the wheels on actual research.

But of course, he cares so much that he sees it as his mission to educate others. By not wearing a ribbon, clearly, I must care less than he does about cancer.

Helpful

Not Helpful

This sort of ties back to my old complaints about political protests on the streets. What do they ever accomplish? What CEO ever heard the commotion on the street below, walked over to his venetian blinds, pushed them open between his index and middle fingers, looked through the crack at the throng of determined protesters on the street and said "My God. What have I done?" Nooooooo one. And what has ribbon wearing and "awareness" ever accomplished, besides giving useless people a vague sense of accomplishment? Nothing!

The Tidal Wave of Condescension You Get From Your Doctor When You've Researched Your Own Symptoms

God forbid I should intrude on their staggering expertise. How dare I presume to deign to even imagine that I might actually contribute something to the conversation. Shouldn't I just keep my mouth shut when I'm sitting up there on the crinkly paper? After all, only one of us went through half a dozen grueling years of list-memorization, followed by another half dozen years of taking urine samples on graveyard shift. So what could I possibly know about my back pain?

Plenty, I think. I could read a layman's primer about it on the internet - maybe go through one of those symptoms analysis websites - maybe ask a few questions on a few forums - and then maybe develop a highly reliable working understanding of the common causes of back pain. But is that going to impress my internist? What do you think?

Look, obviously the doctor has the real expertise. Obviously he's drawing from a much deeper well when he diagnoses me. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do some cursory homework before I pay for the doctor visit. I typically don't go to the doctor until I've exhausted all possible over-the-counter type avenues and done as much internet research as I can. But if I tell the doctor something like "It's got all the signs of a slipped disc." then my friends you have never seen such drippingly hostile, barbed, venomous condescension.

It can take one of two general forms. One reaction is the pissy one. It's the "please don't waste my time with your amateur theories" exasperation. These doctors take it as a personal insult that you would even offer some kind of analysis of your own condition, because it implies that you don't view them as the incense-waving, all-knowing shaman that they want you to think they are. The second common reaction is the tidal wave of patronizing, infantilizing condescension. The doctor takes on the attitude of a man who finds his dog looking at a newspaper. "Awwwwww, who's reading the paper! Who's reading the paper! C'mere little guy - is the Dow up today! Who's my big boy!"

WTF? You wouldn't get this from any other kind of professional. If you told your mechanic the brakes were feeling a little sluggish, and that maybe it was a weak piston on the caliper, would he blow up in your face? Would he say "Hey, who's the mechanic here?" Would he say "Suuuuuuuure it's the piston on the caliper! What a bright young man you are! Do you want to be a real mechanic some day?" No, of course not. He'd say "Okay, I'll check it out."

I'm not telling the doctor what I think the problem is because I want a pat on the head, It's because a) I'm doing him a favor, and b) because I would like to be an active participant in the process. I'm trying to be the Robin to his Batman. The Igor to his Frankenstein. I am just... trying... to help.

What doctor ever tells you to study up on your condition and recommends a book? What doctor ever invites you to become more educated on the principles of diagnosis? They don't, do they? They enjoy your ignorance. They savor it. Not necessarily because they're panicky that you'll read a book and put them out of business. It's because they've been taught since day one that they will be the keepers of the sacred knowledge. That's the doctor's reward as he slogs through med school - he knows the exclusive club he's about to join. But it's not enough that he has this mastery. Everyone else has to be ignorant.

Again, compare it to almost any other scenario where the layman comes to the specialist and tries to demonstrate that he's read up on the specialist's work. The specialist would normally be flattered. At least, he'd feel a little warmth toward you that you had taken the time to learn something about what he does. There'd be no belittling sneer. No "You've read the holy book!?!" anger and venom.

Look, doctors - it's only natural as the internet matures we will see self-diagnosis websites that just get better and better. True, it's very hit and miss right now. But even now, I guarantee you for any weird symptom you can do a google search and find 5 people all complaining of the exact same problem, followed by the advice of doctors advising them what it might be about. In the future, trust me, Dr. Clippy will be running circles around you.

"Paging Dr. Clippy. Dr. Clippy, you're needed in surgery. Dr. Clippy."

Dr. Clippy will be able to upload your medical history, then ask you 100 questions, then narrow down the diagnosis possibilities with what I promise will be a ridiculously high batting average. You doctors need to understand that the vast chasm of highly specialized knowledge between you and the average Joe is about to become irrelevant. You doctors - you aren't particularly great geniuses. Your great skill was memorization. You're a bunch of walking medical encyclopedias. And Dr. Clippy, who's a much more reliable memorizer of facts, is about to be able to diagnose anything that you can, and there's not any reason to think he can't do it much better.

So when I come in with (gasp!) an opinion about my groin pain, maybe at the very least you should take it seriously, and lose the 'tude?

Why are Actors All so Damn Fruity?

Remember, in high school, the clique of drama-club guys? That group that was always in every school play? The skinny, turtle-necked guys? Sometimes a little goth? Maybe a little with the tight pants and the scarves and the berets, carrying around dog-eared Eugene O'Neil paperbacks? Not necessarily homosexual you understand, just... deeply fruity.

My problem is that, and this has been confirmed to me over and over, the actors we watch today in TV and film are merely the adult versions of these people. Which is to say, anytime you cast a movie or a TV show, every part has been cast from this same limited, anemic, fruity pool of talent. If you're looking for a gifted 25 year old actor, then you're looking for someone who made a commitment in adolescence to study the craft of the stage. Which is to say, an overly sensitive, highly artistic fruit of a young man. That's how you get a gifted 25 year old actor. Which is fine I guess if you're casting a Woody Allen movie and every other scene takes place in a gallery party or a SoHo loft. But when the time comes to cast some real manly men, you can't get any real manly men. You can only get a sensitive drama-club guy doing what he thinks is an impression of a blue collar, masculine dude.

To be fair, occasionally you get someone like Schwartzenegger, who broke into the business just because of his physical attributes, and not because of any "muse". So sometimes, you can pluck someone from real life and make an actor out of them. But it's rare. And actually, I tend to enjoy those performances the best. But generally, we're stuck with fruity actors trying to portray non-fruity non-actors. Sometimes they succeed. Usually they don't.

Leo as.... Howard Hughes?

Adrien Brody mans it up in King Kong.

Isn't it a weird let down when you watch your DVD extras and see these interviews with the actors, and you discover to your amazement that someone like Tom Wilkinson, in real life, is not some bad ass at all but is instead someone who talks about his "muse", and gets very animated about Shakespeare, and waxes romantic about some theatrical golden age, and so on? And you're like "This is the real Tom Wilkinson?" "A art-house fruit whose dinner table conversation is probably completely insufferable?" "Tom, Tom! Say it ain't so!"

Tom Wilkinson: Bad Ass

Fooled you!

And it gets worse. The guy in the film who plays his son was his school's drama-club weirdo. The guy playing the villain was his school's drama-club weirdo. The entire cast was each, individually, their own high school's sensitive, fruity, drama-club weirdo. Down to the last carefully coiffed guy. And these our our idols! Our sex objects! Our national celebrities who have the ear of the entire media whenever they have any opinion on politics, culture and law! The drama club clique!

The problem, at the most fundamental level, is that those who become actors were drawn to it at this impressionable high school level - and not because they were particularly good at it. No one has a childhood where the dad says "Wow son, you sure do know how to act! Have you considered studying it and maybe pursuing it as a career?" Not a chance. Rather than ability, it's a defect of ego and character that draws someone to dramatic performance - these people who constantly need to show off, be the center of attention and get a round of applause. If it was really about talent, then the high school drama coach would be more like the football coach. He'd try you out, tell you honestly that you had no talent, and you'd be gone. But the drama coach admires your passion and wants to nurture it, no matter what your abilities.

I say we elect a new profession as the pool of talent for all future movie casting, future celebrities and commentators on politics and culture. How about locksmiths? It can be like a rotating stewardship. I guarantee the acting would be better and the characters more authentic.

How Can Lotteries Claim They Have a $1 Million Jackpot When the Winner Only Gets About $250,000?

I've never personally won a large lottery or gambling jackpot, but boy will I be pissed when I do. For those who don't follow these things, the way these enormous lottery jackpots work is like this: If you win, say, 100 million - you can either accept the money in 20 annual payments of 5 million each, or, you can just take 50 million right now (approximately) and walk away.

What this means, to put it as plainly as I can, is that you've only won 50 million. You didn't win 100 million. Sure, you could stockpile your 5 million payments for 20 years and then show me the whole 100 mil, but you could take the 50 million lump sum, invest it safely, and produce the same 20 year outcome. In other words, you've only won 50 million.

And then, even after you've been given the $50 million instead of the $100 million, you've got to give half of that to Uncle Sam. To put it simply, this blows.

So we've ended up with a state of affairs where any posted jackpot or huge cash prize is really only going to net you ONE QUARTER OF THE WHOLE THING if you actually win it. Does this get anyone else as angry as it does me?

How about I sponsor a lottery, only 1 dollar to enter... And the grand prize is a cool million. Yep, I will pay you a million dollars. However, the prize will be paid out in the form of an annuity payment of $1 a year. For a million years. Don't worry, it will be a trust and payments can continue to go to your descendants. Or... if you don't like that idea - you can take one single lump sum payment of $14.28. Which, assuming a generous interest rate, is how much my prize is actually worth.

But hey! A million dollars right! No. No it's not a million. And this lump sum, annuity payment bullshit is no different. It's just a lie. That's all it is. I propose that all stated jackpots and lottery payouts be publicly advertised, displayed and posted as the post-lump-sum, after-tax amount. So if the prize says 5 million, and you win - you actually get handed a tax-free check for $5 million. Am I wrong? What position would you rather be in? a) You win a $5 million jackpot and get handed the tax-free check for the whole amount, or b) You win a $20 million jackpot, and then you find out later that it really only adds up to about 5 mil?

In situation A I'd be jumping for joy. In situation B I'd be seriously pissed off. The local TV reporter would put a mike in my face and say "So Rowsdower, how does it feel to win $20 million?" And I'd be like "Uh, that's... $5 million, Jim. It's just $5 million." He: "Did you ever imagine you'd be a millionaire 20 times over?" Me: "Well, like I said, there's no $20 million. It's only $5 million." He: "How are you going to spend $20 mill-" Me: "Look would you shut up about the 20 million please! It's JUST 5 MILLION."

This is just common sense everyone. Let's stop inflating our jackpot promises up to these lofty imaginary numbers. Post-lump-sum, after-tax figures only. Sure, the powerball will never get up past 50 or 75 mil anymore, but I think we'll all be a little happier for the honesty.