• The Author
  • Walking

Dispatches From Dystopia

~ "What man by worrying can add one cubit to his span of years?"

Dispatches From Dystopia

Monthly Archives: February 2016

A Lost Day-Realization Reaffirmed

25 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I made the mistake of going on Facebook and looking at political posts from friends, some I agreed with, some I don’t. Politics on Facebook is a game for losers.
Which raises the question, have we forgotten how to think? Do we know how to use facts to forge an argument?

Next comes the realization that I am happier blogging my thoughts on WordPress. I will save Facebook to keep in touch with the nieces and nephews in faraway places or right across town. I will enjoy the pictures of children and pets. I will post an occasional thought-provoking article. The truth is Facebook is the Romper Room of political thought, where adult children of all political stripes can be the immature brats that is consistent with a limited worldview.

Sitting Here, Resting My Bones

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

After a ten day hiatus, forced by a cold, I went back to power walking. The walk felt so good.  I did the usual four miles, stopping about a mile through to chat with a neighbor I had not seen in a while. Even with a 2 minute interruption I had a good walk.

Right now I’m watching a DVD, Cuba Island of Music. It deals with Cuban music, but kind of preachy and didactic, without the energy of Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club. Of course, Omara Portuondo, Ibrahim Ferrer, or Compay Segundo have yet to appear in this film.  Bad Cuban music is an impossibility. The Afro-Cubano rhythms are powerful, seductive, erotic, and inviting. One simply needs to dance! They just finished a segment on Santaria, the syncretistic native religion with African indigenous and Catholic elements,

Life without the Brace of Doom, is a delight. I still have some back pain that rears its ugly head when I try to sleep. So I sleep on an odd schedule.  There are times when I lie in bed, wondering if sleep will come. Then I get up and read. Pretty soon it is 2 or 3 AM.

There is another aching pain I have, the longing for sexual intimacy, sexual passion. It cannot be ignored. It is not a “thing to do”, like brushing your teeth or ironing a shirt. It is the consummation of the love I feel for my wife, my partner, and my lover.  Another chance comes to break the logjam.

Timing is Everything-A Postscript.

22 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I talked to the Claims Examiner and the money is headed my way. I have my short-term claim paying through to 11 November and then the long term (6 months of disability) disability insurance starts. Same idea, different pockets.

Timing Is Everything

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Evidently the best time to talk to a claims examiner at an insurance company about a disability claim is Friday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when the claims examiner picked up the phone on the first ring. Fully expecting voice mail, I found myself speaking with Jessica, the claims examiner. I was immediately reminded of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry does a monologue about calling someone, only to be disappointed when the person answers and there is no rollover into voice mail.  We had a brief and friendly conversation. She did have the doctor’s statement and  patient notes. She would review with the appropriate people and get back to me within the hour. We shall see, but my experience with her tells me she does what she says she’s going to do. Soon I will know if the logjam has been breached.

The insurance companies have protocols and procedures to be followed in order to review and pay (or not pay) claims.  I liken it to court etiquette at Versailles in the Eighteenth Century or in Vienna during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  If my “papers are in order” (use your best Major Strasser from Casablanca voice), the claim will be paid.

Stay tuned.

The wheels of fate grind on mercilessly. No word yet. And I’m tired. It will be 1800 Hours Central Time in twentytwo minutes. We ate overpriced food at a swankier restaurant, all the while waiting for The Phone Call. I am going to bed at 1900 Hours Eastern Time for some kind of rest.
Adios, amigos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Braces, Burgers, Toys

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by David in memoir

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cars, food, Surgery, Toys

Anyone who has had a spinal fusion/laminactomy  will know whereof I speak. It has been exactly ninety days since my surgery. I had an office visit today. The X-rays were taken. The surgeon came in the room and together we looked at them.  What we were looking at was whether the titanium screws that hold the fused vertebra in place were holding as the bone grafts continue to grow. They are! As a result, my turtle shell brace, called because it looks like a rig the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would wear, has been put back in the Torturer’s Closet. Now I have a soft brace, which is a smaller, manageable brace, that fits at about the waist. Black, stretchy, with velcro.

I celebrated my liberation by going to McDonald’s and ordering a Big Mac. One practically needs to take out a mortgage to buy one of these now. Sadly, the pickles, special sauce, lettuce, cheese and two all beef patties (so they claim) just doesn’t taste the same as they used to. Kinda dry. Oh well. Most people experience this disillusionment at age 25. I’m 40 years late. The coffee is good though, as well as some of the meal size salads.

I remember a place before McDonald’s came to town, called The Beacon. It had the same stuff hamburgers, fries, shakes that McDonald’s would be selling. Daddy would take us there after Church on Sunday, so Mom didn’t have to cook. We would sit in Daddy’s 1953 Nash Ambassador Super and eat. My parents didn’t complain about the food then; cheap food was a dream come true for them and we children didn’t know any better.  We liked the experience, because as a prize for buying the swill, they gave away little plastic airplanes in primary colors. With the exception of the toy B-36, the planes were jets, Korean War era  jets, the F-80, the F-94, and the legendary F-86.

We accumulated scads of these things.  They were not to the scale of the green plastic army men we had, but we didn’t care. The army men were not to the same scale as the Tonka  Green “Six-by”Army Truck we had either.  Again, we didn’t care. The idea was to have fun. Are children allowed to have fun anymore?

Wrasslin’- Joe Murnick

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Sport

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Donald Trump, memoir, Wrestling

I’m continually amazed at how memories surface. I was thinking about the Donald Trump presidential bid and, in my mind,  I compared Trump to professional wrestler Ric Flair.  I guess because both are flamboyant blowhards who lack the gravitas to be anything other than TV personalities. The memory process, like Proust and his madeleine, brought me back to childhood, when I first began watching professional wrestling or wrasslin’, to use the idiom.

Wrasslin’ showed up on my TV when I was 10 or 11. The stark Good vs. Evil metaphor took command in my head, stayed there for years til I figured out it was all fake.  There were real “characters” parading around in ugly nylon briefs, snug around blocky, bulging torsos, or long spandex tights going to mid-calf. The Good Guys, circa 1962, wore the ugly briefs, the Bad Guys, the more flamboyant get-ups.  The  Good Guys had names like George or Johnny, the Bad Guys were Kurt and Karl, Lars and Gene. Sometimes the Bad guys wore masks and came from “Parts Unknown”. It seemed so real  to my prepubescent mind and sense of justice. The protagonists would have their TV match. The Bad Guys would win through some obvious skulduggery. Between TV bouts, the host, a guy named Bob Caudle would interview the wrestlers. The Bad Guys always seemed  to be yelling, threatening to get the Good Guys at the next fight, which would be announced as taking place at  the Atlantic Rural Exposition Grounds on such and such a Friday night. That was the Fairgrounds, here in Richmond, on Laburnum Avenue. Next, the ring announcer, a man named Joe Murnick, would introduce the, uh, “competitors” for the next bout. The second bout was more of the same, but who cared?

Fast forward seven years. I am 18, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, member of the Key Club (affiliated with the service organization Kiwanis International), and participant in the “Little Buddy” program. Now our “Little Buddies” had nothing to do with Gilligan and The Skipper, The Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) constantly referring to Gilligan (Bob Denver) as “Little Buddy”. Rather, it was a program, where we would mentor under-privileged children from the poor white neighborhood of Oregon Hill.  We would constantly be having activities with the boys, getting  to know them, hopefully doing some good. One day, somehow, we Key Clubbers got to talking about professional wrestling and Donald B said he could get tickets to the matches from his uncle, Joe Murnick.  It turned out Joe was the promoter behind Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling that was based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Richmond was one stop on the circuit. Sure enough, Donald came through with tickets, we picked up our Little Buddies, and drove off to the Fairgrounds. They held the matches in the same building where they judged the livestock at the Fair. This livestock, however, came on two legs, rather than four. There were bleachers set up, and we fans sat and watched the bouts. I don’t remember who the wrestlers were that night. What I do remember is that our little 10 year old charges went nuts over the event, while we super-sophisticated 17 and 18 year old Big Buddies saw through the goings on.  So much for inculcating Middle Class values.

Wrestling went dormant about fifteen years til Vince McMahon cobbled together the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), now World Wrestling Entertainment.  Then Captain Lou Albano, Mr Fuji, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, and Hulk Hogan took center stage and  wrestling went Big Time.  My cousin Kenny was an avid follower. He could tell you any and everything you ever wanted to know about the sport. I could say, “You know Dusty Rhodes really is The American Dream.”  “Oh he is!” Kenny would enthusiastically concur. Kenny had an inexhaustible sense of fun, true joy.

Now over thirty years has passed. Our much-beloved cousin Kenny succumbed to cancer on his 62nd birthday in 2012. The Fairgrounds were purchased by NASCAR  and the State Fair moved to a new site up  I-95 near Doswell. The WWE, if it still comes to town, is at The Richmond Coliseum, a forty year-old senescent building, home now for an occasional college basketball game, tractor pull, Disney on Ice and The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. 

Giving It Up For Lent

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by David in self-indulgence

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Lent

10 February 2016 Ash Wednesday.  It’s another step in the march toward Easter and the march to Spring.  I had thought about going to Mass and getting ashes, but I did not feel like driving and, with driving, comes getting into and out of the car. That is not fun in a back brace. Instead, I stayed home, went walking, and fixed dinner.  J also informed me that Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation.  So the guilt trip was called off.

“What are you giving up for Lent?”  I am resetting the context of that question.  We love to forgo little pleasures like chocolate or Coca-Cola. This year, I am giving up the idea that I need something I don’t have to make my life complete. In the material and secular sense, scratching the itch of wanting more has us buying more or borrowing to buy more.  On a personal level, I have spent the last nine months buying stuff from Amazon. I have the app on the phone and when I am bored, I am at Amazon instantaneously. And I buy, everything from Portuguese hair tonic to Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou.  What I buy has value or meaning to me. If I read the books, and watch the videos, my knowledge would increase appreciably. I would be that much more erudite and an improved communicator. My library is well-stocked.  The acquisition phase has ended. The hard work of reading and comprehending must begin.  I will draw on the sufficiency and abundance at hand.

For the next 40 days, I will stop trying to fill The Big Empty. It takes about 40 days, 6 weeks, to ingrain a new habit. My walking since Christmas has again demonstrated that. The 40 days of Lent is about preparation for the central Christian event, The Resurrection of Our Lord.  My preparation is accepting that what I have and who I am are sufficient for Jesus to transform me. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Eine Schoene Leiche (A Beautiful Corpse)

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

This is a piece I wrote back in 2014, when euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were “hot” topics.  The parallel to fin de siecle´ Vienna was never mentioned.

The German term in the title was a commonplace saying in Vienna during the twilight years of the Habsburg Empire. Suicide was quite common in Vienna on the eve of the Great War. Better to overdose on morphine than to stick a Luger in your mouth was the sentiment reflected in the saying. Why all this morose chatter at the start of a new day, you grumble?

The news people have taken up the story of a woman in Oregon electing to take a doctor-prescribed lethal drug to end her life, rather than suffer the last stages of a dreadful and painful cancer. I should add that the lethal dosage of the drug was prescribed by the doctor for the specific purpose of ending her life. Everybody has an opinion about this and, quite frankly, I don’t care what yours is.
Like the Viennese of 1900, the culture has taken on a world weariness, Weltschmerz is the rather poetic German term. Optimism is a rare outlook today. This culture has lost its vitality.

8 February. Long Night, Big Drama

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Big Drama can be about the passion of desires consummated. Or it can be about money. Early this morning, at one and two and three, it was about money. The big drama was between my ears.
Back in 2012, I finally had the money to settle my credit card debt. The amount of money that the banks forgave was imputed to me as income. For example a $20,000 debt settled for $10,000 would mean, according to Uncle Sugar, that the banks gave me $10,000. And in a way, they did. I received a 1099 and I had to pay taxes. Only I hadn’t, yet.  Monday, I paid the bill, but I stayed up worrying and castigating J and myself for this predicament.
Funny thing is, when I wrote the check, the drama evaporated as the ink dried on the paper. Soon there was only an envelope passing in my hand, through the open car window, into the big blue metal mouth of a USPS mailbox.
Life continues.
Monday morphed into a four mile walk, a shower, a cup of tea, and a good book. Today the good book is Parisian Lives by Samuel Steward. He has a good, engaging style and I’m developing feeling for his characters. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas figure in the story. Stein is portrayed, not as a legend, but a wonderfully rich, human character.  This is a book I recommend.

Status: Overloaded.

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by David in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

It is 8:49 PM. I did my walk today, schlep, it felt like today. I was dragging my wrist heart-rate monitor. I could not figure out how to turn on the stopwatch function.  “Patience, White Boy, the Master

will reveal more of its mysteries when you are ready,” the little voice in my head says.

The device isn’t that hard. I think the brace’s physical restraints forces me to put more energy into doing the least little thing than I am willing to admit. So I make the learning curve on piddly challenges that much steeper.
Actually, I’m pretty happy today. I look forward to reading people’s blogs. And there is less drama with you guys than in Facebook. What you share in the way of problems, like aged parents, are genuine. I empathize. I’ve walked that road.
I am doing the blog on my Smartphone. Something new.

← Older posts

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014

Categories

  • #cricket
    • Cricket
  • #Grief
  • Addiction
  • Adult Children
  • Aesthetics
  • Age Play
  • alcoholism
  • American History
    • Politics
  • Amtrak
  • Animal Baby Cuteness
  • Anti-Marxist Activity
  • Art
  • Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Automobiles,
  • Baby Names
  • Baltimore
  • Big Business
  • Birthday
  • Bloggers
  • British Empire
  • Capitalism
  • Cartoons
  • Catholic Life
  • Cats
  • Civilization
  • Class
  • Classical Music
  • cooking
  • Cricket
  • Cuba
  • Cycling
  • Delta Blues
  • Depression
  • Dogs
  • Erotic Writing
  • Exercise/ Fitness
  • Existential Despair
  • Fame
  • Family
  • Fantasy
  • Fashion & Grooming
  • Florida
  • Flowers
  • food
  • Foreign Films
  • Fruit
  • Futurism
  • Gay/Straight Dichotomy
  • Gender Identity
  • Gender Roles
  • Gentrification
  • Going Dark.
  • grafitti
  • Gratitude
  • Health Issues
  • Hedonism
  • Hidtory
  • History
  • Housework
  • kitsch
  • Literature
  • loneliness
  • Love and stuff
  • memoir
  • Mid Century Modern
  • Modernism
  • New York
  • Old Cameras
  • Otakon 2016
  • personal grooming
  • Pie Crust
  • Politics
  • Popular Song
  • Post Office
  • Railroads
  • recovery
  • Refugees
  • Relationships
  • Russian Orthodoxy
  • Sacrifice
  • sadomasochism
  • seduction
  • self-indulgence
  • Sexual Identity
  • Sexuality
  • sleep
  • Smartphones
  • Sobriety
  • Soup
  • Soviet History
  • Spirituality
  • Sport
  • Suburbia
  • Summer
  • Taste
  • Tasteless Gifts
  • Tattoo
  • Tea
  • The Villages
  • Tolerance
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Urban Brutalism
  • Vietnam
  • Wildlife
  • World War II
  • YMCA
  • YouTube-Videos

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.