in other words, if you're a rich, white illegal alien, we don't want you

.

[disclaimer:  while piers morgan is undoubtedly one of the more useless assholes i can think of offhand, this story is what caught my shitfaced attention tonight i always try to rise above my own personal prejudices when it comes to defending core principles, because that's the kinda noble, high-minded blogger i am.]


think about this a minute:  here's a british citizen who's all set to finalize a multi-million dollar contract with a major american corporation which will ultimately end up contributing god only knows how many hundreds of thousands of sorely-needed dollars to our tax base--but no, our government's gonna give him shit and hold up production of his new show because he's an alien.

at the same time as this highly-productive, highly-desirable foreign petitioner is being made to jump through hoops for an american work visa, eric holder and janet napolitano are practically down at the arizona border with checkered flags waving in hordes of penniless mexicans and central americans who will each, over the course of their lifetimes, cost the american taxpayer at least three dollars for every dollar they contribute in taxes.

but hey--rich white people with shit to lose don't usually vote for democrats, do they?

finally, something sufficiently earth-shattering to drag mkf outta hibernation for a minute

she's throwing in the towel--i can't believe it.

after all the slings and arrows--bitter invective, nudie pictures, boycotts, demonstrations, unauthorized biographies, death threats--after all the crap this tough little woman has taken over the years and shrugged off, bloodied but unbowed--after all that, she lets the "n" word take her down.

god help us all.

*     *     *     *     *

[context for this post:  back in the early nineties, i literally got too sick to smoke.  three weeks later and all better, i figured what the hell--i've done the withdrawal thing, let's see how being a non-smoker feels.  it actually went great until a song i liked came on the radio, and the urge to reach for a cigarette became damn near irresistible.

and thus began my love/hate affair with talk radio.]


i've listened to dr. laura since back when she was the quiet voice in the wilderness toiling away on the graveyard shift on KFI-AM los angeles.  i remember thinking when she was suddenly plucked from late-night obscurity to helm the high-profile noon-to-three slot that she'd go national in no time.

i've gone with her through her phases--from semi-liberal and tolerant to rigid orthodox-jew and out the other side to somewhere in between.

i've followed her as she agonized over the gay issue--from laissez-faire nonchalance, to "are they a biological mistake?" [a perfectly legitimate question, btw, and one i've asked more than once], to breaking with the faith she had worked so hard to attain--i remember the day it happened, because i was listening--she said she could no longer condemn gay relationships, because "no one should have to live their life alone."

i've been there as her seemingly harsh philosophy regarding marriage and divorce and monogamy evolved over the course of many years as she (and i) listened to call after call from people who casually married and/or fucked around and had kids and then divorced, remarried and/or otherwise recoupled and then had more kids with the new guy/girl and then watched in uncomprehending horror as their original kids self-destructed.

i've listened to her initiate constructive dialogue in seemingly-irreconcilable marriages; i've listened to her reunite parents with seemingly-irreconcilable children--all in less than five minutes.

i've listened as she's made hard-resistant callers sit up and say, "my god, i never thought about it like that."

*      *      *      *      *

even when you're brilliant, the problem with doing basically the same shtick for 25-30 years is, you fall into certain patterns--when 90% of your calls become 100% predictable, you become peremptory, and that's what's happened to dr. laura.

which is why she she cut that black caller off--she heard 10% of the woman's issue and figured she could brilliantly extrapolate the other 90% like she usually does.

was she right--was the woman in question too goddam race-sensitive?  we'll never know, because the "n" word got in the way, and god knows that trumps everything else--even, apparently, the indomitable dr. laura.  and this is, ultimately, what pisses me off about this incident more than anything else:  by allowing her radio career to be ended on this note, she's given that ungodly word even more undeserved power than it had before.

*      *      *      *      *

[actually, that's not what pisses me off most--what pisses me off most is,  i will sorely miss those early afternoons happily semi-snoozing my way through the 99% of predictable calls just for that precious 1% when dr. laura still makes me sit up and say, "my god, i never thought about it like that."


and if you had any idea how seldom that happens in my life these days, you'd no doubt agree.]

if i'd known we were talking this kinda money, i'd have crapped the bed every day and made 'em spoon-feed me

.

so how much does a week in the hospital cost these days?

when you pick your jaw up off the floor, keep in mind this is just for the bed--the bills for all the various doctors and their various medications and tests will follow shortly.

the part i really love is, how since i have insurance, i get the discount [whereas, if i were some poor uninsured shlub who could no doubt totally afford it, i'd take the full hit].  and thus is the state of healthcare in america.

more than once in the past few years i've thought about chucking it all, cashing in my chips and traveling the world while i'm still young.  one of the main reasons that hasn't happened:  the thought that one little uninsured illness like the above could wipe me out.

and thus i remain an indentured (and insured) corporate servant, and probably will for the foreseeable.

[and for anyone who's considering commenting on how obamacare's gonna fix this shit--don't even, ok?]

the new mkf cocktail

.

so tonight noblesavage treats me to an early birthday dinner--essentially, the first non-work-related human contact i've had with anybody i personally know since since i got outta the hospital.

i relish the opportunity to leave the house--and to see him, because it's been awhile.  we argue the same old subjects and get nowhere as usual, but that's not what's remarkable about the evening.  what's remarkable about the evening is, faced with a panoply of mouth-watering carnivorous options spread before me, i happily opt for a simple greek salad.

that's right, folks--i'm now the "salad" guy.

wasn't always thus, i assure you.  hell, between the booze, my regular unhealthy diet plus all the crap i suddenly found myself stuffing into my face every day at the new job, i was on the verge of outgrowing my second pair of fat pants when the pneumonia struck.

and while i'm not ready to call that sudden affliction a gift, it did have some interesting after-effects.

that first night after having checked myself outta the hospital against doctor's orders and not feeling nearly as well as i insisted i did, i was scared shitless that i'd fucked up. i went to bed wheezing, still unable to draw a decent breath, but ended up getting my first good night's sleep in a week--nobody waking me up every two hours for fuckin' vital signs for a change, thank you baby jesus.

and next morning, instead of the standard hospital fare, i feasted on a fresh fruit-and-greens smoothie, courtesy of my blendtec and whole foods market.

that very afternoon i returned to work, assuring everybody i was fine [although god knows i wasn't, which everybody figured out pretty quick when i started coughing every time i tried to breathe].

whatever--that first night i headed down to the fitness center on my lunch hour, ran the treadmill up to 9.4 and did 30-second windsprints interspersed with what turned out to be overly optimistic two-minute recovery intervals [i.e., by the second round i was a gasping, coughing puddle of mush on the floor].

but the following night i did three--and two nights after that, i managed four. these days i'm up to eight with 90-second intervals, and i'm not coughing anymore.

and what's fueling this recovery? simple--the raw vegan diet i've adopted since getting outta the hospital. funny thing is, it was easy--somehow, this most recent trial by fire has killed my former urge to fill the empty with whatever cheap crap i could stuff in my mouth.

these days my diet consists of green smoothies [the one pictured above turned out to be a delicious, frosty concoction consisting of an orange, half a banana, a peach, a handful of blueberries, a huge handful of spinach, a few leaves of kale, half a cup of spring water and lots of ice], salads, guacamole, nut pates and other such vegan bullshit, and i don't miss the meat and junk food at all.

and the booze-bloat's dropping off--those last-resort fat pants i was worrying about having to upgrade are now falling off me, i'm working out again, my body's coming back, and my face is pretty much back to looking like it used to.

in other words, things are fine again, so i'm thinking maybe i should celebrate with a drink or two.

[you see where this is going, right?]

a thank-you note

.
sorry i haven't posted anything of substance lately--i haven't had much poetry in my soul [i.e., alcohol in my veins] since i got outta the hospital, so things are pretty goddam bleak around here.

but i wanted to thank my three most faithful commenters [and the random emailers--who knew?] for their good wishes--i'll try to be back with some decent content soon.

[and yeah, i did allow myself one drink tonight, but you'll be happy to know that it was all-natural, goddammit--instead of the evil 7-up for a mixer, i went with healthy fresh-squeezed o.j. and a splash of san pellegrino for the appropriate fizz.  that counts, right?]

state of mkf

you know those blogs where people just come on every day and bitch about minor shit that bugs 'em?  i swore i'd never fall into that trap, if for no other reason than because i know from bitter experience that whining about the mundane is basically just asking for the great equalizer to come down on your pussy ass and really give you something to complain about.


case in point:  a week after posting this self-indulgent nonsense, i woke up with what i hoped was only the flu; two days of denial later i'm checking my near-delirious ass into the emergency room at cedars with full-blown pneumonia [fucked up the new car getting there--prolly shoulda called a cab].

ask "why me?" in the ER but nobody has an answer--apparently it's going around.

flat on my back for four days, they're pumping serious, last-resort antibiotics into my veins around the clock and they don't have to tell me the pneumonia's winning, because i know.

[a scary, lonely time--as is my wont, i hadn't told anybody who really cares about me, so it's just me up there in room 7013]

day five: a corner is turned, and i'm suddenly back.

day seven and i'm outta there--i check myself out against my doctor's wishes, telling him i'll take oral antibiotics, decent food and a good night's sleep against one more night in that goddam hospital any day, pack my shit and, after stops at whole foods and rite-aid, drive my newly fucked-up new car home.

day eleven [i.e., today]:  clean bill of health, lungs are clear, back to normal.

and remember the stultifying job i was bitching about so recently?  all i can say now is, thank god for that lovely motherfucker and the health insurance that came with it [and yeah, as soon as i get the bill we'll play another round of "guess the total"--should be at least as entertaining as last time, right?].

down to me

Everything comes and goes
Marked by lovers and styles of clothes
Things that you held high
And told yourself were true
Lost or changing as the days come down to you
Down to you
Constant stranger
You're a kind person
You're a cold person too
It's down to you
It all comes down to you.


You go down to the pick up station
Craving warmth and beauty
You settle for less than fascination
A few drinks later you're not so choosy
When the closing lights strip off the shadows
On this strange new flesh you've found
Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf
You hurry
To the blackness
And the blankets
To lay down an impression
And your loneliness


In the morning there are lovers in the street
They look so high
You brush against a stranger
And you both apologize
Old friends seem indifferent
You must have brought that on
Old bonds have broken down
Love is gone

                                             joni mitchell, down to you

the way i keep even the people who matter at arms's length, i have no right to be surprised when they're not there for me when the crunch comes, but it's always a bitter pill anyway.