The One

We will spend the better part of the next decade tracking patient zero, the monkey, the Gaeten Dugas bats or the weird animal or whoever or whatever brought us the Covid virus.  Good luck with that.

I have had more conversations with Morrie, whoops I mean morons, about this issue that I want the planet to explode at this point and end it all.

We have a strong indication it came from waste by product found in open air markets that enabled transmission from animal to man and in turn we can then blame bats, turtles, lions, tigers and their kings, OH MY!  But we can also be sure that global warming has permitted a sea change (pun intended) that has warmed the planet to the point where animals are coming into urban areas in search of foods and bringing more than Lyme Disease with them. And then in turn the idea of road kill takes on a new meaning when they are sold in open air markets and touted as cures from everything to erectile dysfunction to cancer and in turn eaten.  And that could mean cross contamination between animals that enables further spread of disease most often found in the wild.  As if you were in a cage being looked at for dinner you would shit or piss yourself and that would drip onto the buddy below deck, like a cruise ship of old people and that buffet platter! The comparisons are endless here but in all reality we got a shit load of problems here and much of it now falls onto and because of man. Maybe that is why the virus is killing men faster and to that I have no issue, tag you’re it! As I lick my hand first!

Today I actually spoke to someone who had a friend die from Covid. Given that he is incredibly social and networks like no one I know, works in a coffee shop and is an Artist with long time residence in the area this is one source I believe.  He also hates people and we share that in common.  His friend was a 46 year old woman who exhibited a cough, runny nose and what appeared to be a severe head cold.  She went to the ER and they dismissed her as she did not have sufficient symptoms to be tested;  Again this is a disease not a punch list so here again is the problem,  Then her fever spiked, her coughing became worse and when that does happen you have shortness of breath which was when  she was  raced to ER and admitted and by then it was too late the disease progressed rapidly and her lungs filled with fluid and she died of Covid as the “official” cause of death.  Her partner tested positive and is now in hospital under “observation.”

Okay then this is what we will hear of when this ends many stories like that one.  There are many now and it is because our medical care is a dump bucket of bullshit.  Hence the reality is that this curve they speak of is about having the resources to treat the ill not to actually stop the disease as that is not happening as the piecemeal bullshit of states and their orders or not to move about in the public and of course the public’s utter ignorance, oblivion or idiocy to follow the guidelines. You know it is sort of like voting against your best interest, that.

Now why has Germany which certainly was on the radar of Covid had fewer fatalities? Well this article in the New York Times explains this and largely it was again testing, tracking and hospitalizing anyone who exhibited symptoms.

They call them corona taxis: Medics outfitted in protective gear, driving around the empty streets of Heidelberg to check on patients who are at home, five or six days into being sick with the coronavirus. 

They take a blood test, looking for signs that a patient is about to go into a steep decline. They might suggest hospitalization, even to a patient who has only mild symptoms; the chances of surviving that decline are vastly improved by being in a hospital when it begins.

Remember Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson? They were hospitalized for over a week before released as that was to ensure that the disease did not progress into lung deterioration.  Being famous and rich I am sure had nothing to do with it what.so.ever.

More than 100,000 cases were confirmed. But with 1,584 deaths, Germany’s fatality rate stood at 1.6 percent, compared with 12 percent in Italy, around 10 percent in Spain, France and Britain, 4 percent in China and nearly 3 percent in the United States. Even South Korea, a model of flattening the curve, has a higher fatality rate, 1.8 percent.
 

And of course they are German and order is not an issue.

Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other European country. Early and widespread testing has allowed the authorities to slow the spread of the pandemic by isolating known cases while they are infectious. It has also enabled lifesaving treatment to be administered in a more timely way.
“When I have an early diagnosis and can treat patients early — for example put them on a ventilator before they deteriorate — the chance of survival is much higher,” Professor Kräusslich said.
Medical staff, at particular risk of contracting and spreading the virus, are regularly tested. To streamline the procedure, some hospitals have started doing block tests, using the swabs of 10 employees, and following up with individual tests only if there is a positive result. And of course it is free.  

And tracking is essential 

A 22-year-old man who had no symptoms but whose employer — a school — had asked him to take a test after learning that he had taken part in a carnival event where someone else had tested positive. 

In most countries, including the United States, testing is largely limited to the sickest patients, so the man probably would have been refused a test. 

Not in Germany. As soon as the test results were in, the school was shut, and all children and staff were ordered to stay at home with their families for two weeks. Some 235 people were tested. 

“Testing and tracking is the strategy that was successful in South Korea and we have tried to learn from that

And clear leadership.

Beyond mass testing and the preparedness of the health care system, many also see Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership as one reason the fatality rate has been kept low.
Ms. Merkel, a trained scientist, has communicated clearly, calmly and regularly throughout the crisis, as she imposed ever-stricter social distancing measures on the country. The restrictions, which have been crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic, met with little political opposition and are broadly followed

And we have crazy dopey grandpa. And Americans are assholes. And we are fucked.  And right away I have seen that in Tennessee they are already demanding a lifting of restrictions by those in the money as they saw the University of Washington’s study that has modeled the virus apex coming sooner and in turn the time frame changes as the goal posts are moved. Again this is all theoretical as in Hoboken and Jersey City and Newark they pushed the pedal further and faster than the state overall when it came to shutting it down (despite the other Barista insistence that we do more)  and we have increased testing sites and while we have also increased positives and deaths I have not heard any hysteria about hospitals on overload.  Jersey City also contracted with a private lab to get results faster but it is already starting to decline. Again we have no way of knowing anything as it is just numbers at this point.  **An this is because of out 1000 POS cases 48 are first responders.**So again where is the population it is drawing from – the already sick and we know that is nursing homes as again the Hudson Reporter seems to be the only source for the data we have.  So again without details we have no way of knowing if were exposed like in Germany; However,  It is serious but not as it is across the river which has a broader denser population who decided running out the area was the way to stop the spread and it didn’t. Hence that is why an uptick in upstate New York as well as north New Jersey.   But the hardest hit communities are still largely secular and often the poorest.

If you are curious to see the UW study you can see your state in comparison to others here.  Again these projections are modeled on following the social distancing curves that are more strident in the areas such as Seattle, San Francisco, New York that were early to implement them and push cooperation.  Cuomo is raising fees to those who violate the order and in Hoboken it is mandatory for all residents to wear masks when outside.  He has been the most assertive due to the small size of that city and the residents who have been utterly uncooperative as this rolled along.  And yet just across the city line we hear nothing about Weehawken (they have 55 cases) as they have strong density ordinances that have prevented tight urban dwellings and residences being built  which also may be a factor.  Jersey City struggles with its “image”  and this will kill off (I suspect and yes pun intended)  some of the development as the small business that are the predominant ones will not make it and that will turn this city into a smaller town and less interesting; I just feel that in the air.

And that is where my Barista I ended the conversation about how none of this is going to end well and we were not speaking of the dead.  People die all the time and to have a surge at once is well in and of itself horrifying and this is such a situation. We have death by gun violence, our wars for nothing and of course the mass killings by Police which were a 1,000 a year and yet I don’t see the hysteria over that one by leaders commandeering the television networks and ranting and raving about that issue. No its prayers and thoughts. Its what I am doing about Covid right now!

This is a disease and much of it could have been planned for and offset with said planning but nope the great unwashed (and it appears I have been right all along with that one) will go back to well not work as that won’t happen it will take a year or two before we even see unemployment get down below the 10 million mark (and climbing) so again this is a time to hit the reset button and see why we cannot change what works and what doesn’t. Such as unemployment as perhaps that should be offset directly to the employer to administer and handle during a time of crisis as they love to say the private sector can do it all.  Well they are with medical care and you can see how well that worked out.  Again Americans are lazy fucks and that is why Congress has kept whittling away at that safety net as they know they are right about that.. prove them wrong. Vote them out.   The one way is to be active and vocal or just be the greedy lazy fucks you are.  Your choice.

So Much for That

The endless push, both as a metaphor and literally, regarding anti-bullying has done little to stave off actually bullying. There have been numerous suicides and of course mass shootings that pretty much tell you that whatever message is being sent out is clearly not working

• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.
• Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University
• A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying
• 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above
• According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying

And last week in Charlottesville the schools were closed for two days due to threats of violence.  And they are not the only ones that have had said threats as it is a growing issue across the country. Just last year several schools in Detroit were closed    Last week one in Fairfield California, another in Pennsylvania, one in Connecticut.  They may all be fake but in today’s climate it is difficult to tell.

Then we have endless violence or threats of violence against Teachers and others within the schools which  has escalated to proportions where Teachers are afraid and it is an issue significant enough to be a part of the dialogue with regards to funding for education.  Here in Nashville it was part of a town hall that Channel 5 News held to discuss the problems in the district with regards to the soon to be ex Director of Schools here.

And this issue parallels directly with the growing youth violence that dominates the cycle of news here as most crime is committed by Juveniles often well under the age of 18. 

Now race is the dominant issue in Nashville, most of the Educators and Staff of late voicing their concerns are Black, the Students they serve and are often both the victims and perpetrators are Black or of color so while the race card is tossed there is something to be examined as to what factors in that – systemic historic racism, poor employment or low employment, inadequate child and health care and of course religion all play a significant part in the marginalizing and disproportionate issues facing families of color. Why I put religion in this is because here in Nashville the largest and loudest voices of the choir of concern literally are choir members.  Few here are not actively engaged in Churches who hold great sway over the city and its political mien.  Many are like pop up shops when a controversy unfolds and immediately demand restitution or attention only to fold up the tent and reconfigure when another comes along. I have quit counting the groups and looking up their origins and tax status as I know for certain none have them as they are astro turf groups funded by whoever has the real agenda on file.  This to me became apparent during the transit debate and many of the “beards” as I refer to them go back to their day jobs or briefly consider a run for public office only to lose and move on.  It is a cycle you have to actually see to believe.

Then we have the real problems that are violence against their own.  I often feel that is the real reason little is done as it sort of solves the problem of where to house, put and deal with those from the Black Community.  Case in point was the recent shooting at an East Nashville Bar where two attractive white kids were killed and yet another man who was of color was killed the day before and only of late have they decided to connect the murder.  The other a near fatal injury has yet been solved but again it took the Police 23 hours to find the Waffle House shooter and he was less than a 1.5 miles away from the point of origin. But then the victims were all faces of color, the shooter however was not.  But that whole crime could have been prevented had the Police followed up on the vehicle theft found in the killers apartment complex parking lot. Imagine had they questioned the neighbors and with the description of the young man in place as he took the vehicle from a BMW sales lot with the keys and yet simply retrieved the vehicle after failing also to arrest him during a high speed chase the day before.  Things that make you go hmmm.

So when I read the story about the young Fifth Grader who died from an by a classmate during the school day there were things in the story missing that again make me go hmm.  I am appalled that an altercation grew to that level but then again I have actually seen one first hand here in school that hair, scalp and blood were all a part of the process as a young girl pulled a young man from a desk by the hair and dragged him across the floor. That school had been the scene of escalating issues over the two days I was there and since that time has had a series of problems with a Teacher taking a gun to school and a Coach assaulting a student.  It had already been in the news for all the fights and yet this is what defines Nashville Public Schools – horrific.  Although today I am a school where they are celebrating diversity and it is one of the few schools I love from its history to its present day it truly represents that in every way.  We have had, however, Teachers be assaulted and in turn hospitalized when children in that age cohort have assaulted them, we have School Resource Officers leave schools due to the verbal abuse and we have had many situations of physical assault student on student that includes sexual abuse as well.  It is non stop here and it exhausts me and it is why I call the schools dumpsters and the student are just trash bags thrown in with no regard.  It embarrasses me to be a part of something so vile that no one knows how to fix it and to say that it is all about race and racism that led to the downfall of the Director clearly thinks that what he did and more importantly failed to do for the faces of color would be considered racist if he did not share the same face of color.  How it gives him a pass is beyond my understanding.  

And when I watched CBS News cover a story about a Principal in Newark trying to save his students from shame and offer an option you realize that yes one man can make a difference.  And there are many Administrators and Teachers who don’t share the same color of skin, the same religion, the same gender or culture that go the extra mile to devise programs and methods to bring dignity in the classroom.  To say one cannot learn from one who is not different than they is losing the point of diversity which I am seeing all over this school today.  I wish all days were like this here but who am I kidding.

Since I wrote this another story hit the news about a rape and assault with a broomstick in a high school locker room. Not the first nor last as I recall this from Bellevue, Washington schools a few years ago, from an elite private academy outside Nashville, and perhaps the most infamous, Steubenville Ohio.   This is a story not new in the least. That is what defines rape culture, hyper toxic masculinity.  So much for that and what MeToo was about before it was hijacked by celebrity. 

  

No Parking

When I read this story last week about the man found dead in his vehicle for over a week, it could either be a very typical New York story about life and in this case death in the big city or a story of isolation and desolation when surrounded by thousands of people.

Imagine being in your car and slowly dying and not even a Meter Maid feels worthy enough to even ticket you.  Imagine that people pass your slowly rotting corpse without a glance.  Imagine dying alone on a city street and passers by do just that.

There are many elements to this story and the parallels cannot be ignored to the Male Bomber in Florida – unemployed, in his 50’s, failures professionally and personally and social isolation.  One chose one one type of “cide” as in suicide the other homicide.  As in life he failed at that.  But what does that say about our society as people who would walk by that van with its hateful missives, people knowing he was using the beach showers as a way of hygiene and another man who decided to die on the streets and feel so frustrated and alone and who had family chose to not seek help.  Nor the same for the Pittsburgh shooter (who was 46) or the Kentucky man  who had some misguided racist fantasy and a history of violence  to do what their younger halves started and they feel the need to finish. He too was in his fifties – he was 51.

Again this week I have watched my former Attorney meltdown on social media.  A man with impeccable credentials and a strong career that got sidelined with illness. Then a descent into what I suspect drug use and in turn a desperate attempt to find some reason for his declining mental health, and rather than seek a proper Psychiatrist he chose Neurologists to test for traumatic brain disorder he believed he sustained from his Osteomy.  When that proved negative going to a clinic away from his sole support network and is sure that all the childhood trauma was the result of his declining mental health.  From what his daily postings on Facebook show is a man who veers on suicidal ideation, self harm as this current week has photos of him cutting himself.  He is abusive, whiny and when not is manic taking up marathons and triathlons and other athletic endeavors even starting a foundation for those who suffer from the same health frailties  then folding it, moving to Alaska to take up photography and crab fishing and quitting practicing law.  All of it broadcast on Facebook for friends and others to comment, to provide likes and basically not think any of this is disturbing and should not be on social media in any shape.  A wife who shows up then returns back home 300 miles away leaving him in this odd facility treating him for PTSD via an experimental method and not looking at other potential diagnosis to explain his mental health.  His family history is also part of this and one can assume from his mothers suicidal issues, her own abuse of her son and in turn his leaving the family home at 16 she may have had a mental health diagnosis of her own that is similar to her son today.  But again having proper diagnostics, proper medical and mental health professionals is the key to helping those resolve issues and in turn belong and find their way in society.   And like the bookend to the mass shooters who were all in that sweet spot of under 25 the men over 50 are to finding ways that defy the norm.  We have a problem with guns and drugs and not nearly enough mental health care that is both accessible and available to offset what could escalate into dangerous behavior.

I have spent the better part of the week trying to reconcile my own anger and in turn my desire to leave Nashville as soon as possible.  I cannot speed up the healing process nor do much more than wait but it becomes a challenge when you again are isolated and alone doing nothing of meaning or of value of which society places great emphasis.  For women being “retired” or doing odd jobs it considered less an eyesore and in turn acceptable but for men this becomes an embarrassment and that sense of shame turns outward in the same way the boys do when they elect to hurt those who they perceived hurt them.   But it exhausts you to meet new people and explain your marital status, your work status and of course health so fuck it and say nothing, do nothing but keep as busy as possible with as little interaction as possible.  

Suicide rates are up with Boomers and in turn the only time I ever felt that was was after my injury the result of my dates failed attempt at drugging/raping/and or killing me.  Again I have said this many times the car accident in a perverse way saved my life. That said suicide ideation is common with head injury and I understood and while I tried talk therapy that was largely a wash so I did things my way and without help and that is how I roll.  That said it takes a toll.  But we are truly a country not divided we are segregated and in turn isolated from one another and it explains the rising tide of hate crimes, the calling the Police on people just being people and of course drugs as when all else fails, anger turned inward is depression and drugs take that edge off.

Watching the crew special on Anthony Bourdain once again I learned how they had traveled with him, worked with him and they did not know him and it was clear that while they respected him they did not “like” him and they worked around the descriptive asshole label that at least two Producers were willing to allow with amusement.  But watching the crew painstakingly try to reconcile the snarky smart man they knew with the man who ultimately took his life while filming an episode with his best “friend” Eric Ripert along clearly confused and distressed these people.  I am sure they were going “Why us and why?”as a mantra the days after.  There is always survivor guilt and shame that perhaps they shoulda, woulda and coulda done something. No, no they could. not.   I had bailed on Bourdain years ago when I realized the asshole was among us, his name calling, belittling other Chefs and Cooks while simultaneously taking up with multiple Italian women each a little more damaged than the last was not something that interested me nor did I feel to see any more parts unknown or make any reservations as they were just recycled stories like leftover meals.  And his incident in San Francisco that led him to the hospital was enough to know that he had serious issues that were being neglected.   This is the case for many of fame as they have the ability with wealth to be insular and in turn those around them are co-dependent upon them for work so they can never say or do anything to stop the propeller from turning or in turn it could turn on them.   The poor are not as lucky the spiral downhill is fast and furious not starring Vin Diesel.  But some of them before they go want to take others along with them on the ride to hell.   Did any of these men the past week think they would not get caught?  Or was that the point, infamy by death?

I perhaps sound harsh but too much compassion and sympathy are songs better left for the radio.  Self preservation takes effort and work and we all need to work on ourselves more but what about the lady or man at the coffee shop? On the bus? The dog park?  Ever had a conversation with them to recognize them and more importantly acknowledge them?  Few do and we all lose.  I love going to Kroeger’s when lost.  I can use the bathroom without a key, buy way more than coffee, get directions and be greeted by people just for walking in.  That is what grocery shopping is a chance to commune and be out with others.  Every time an act of violence occurs regardless of where the shooter takes more than lives they take personal freedom to shop, to worship,  to see a movie, to get on a bus, to just be human. That is the greatest tragedy of all as we all suffer.  So what about a man in parked car outside – stranger danger or just someone in need of help?

And the means in which to voice complaints, to pick fights with unseen enemies seems ec

Death Us Do Part

Once again a week was full of Police Violence, Gun Violence, Medical Malpractice and all that falls into the larger picture of how our society runs.  And it was a week of funerals and memorials and recollections of lives lived.  It was a long but busy week.  And I returned to work to see that while some things change some things never do.

The never ending debate over medical care continues as ways to reduce costs and raise efficiency and in turn find insurance coverage for the great unwashed.  We have gone through Medical Concierge services (do they still exist), threats to end supplements on the ACA that has enabled many to attain coverage, while simultaneously shutting out those who do not qualify and pay exorbitant coverage costs from either high deductibles, high premiums or a combo thereof.  It takes only one medical bill to send one to the hospital.   And this is just one of many stories about the same. And as we enter the renewal ACA phase in a couple of months this issue will not be abated.  Then we have the never ending Medicare/Medicaid feud about coverage and expansion of benefits.  Or just the bizarre laws and rules that have enabled hospitals to fund themselves will doing little or nothing to reduce costs and serve patients.  You know like the President who does little to serve the country but plenty to serve his interests.

We have Police shooting innocent people and again the story buried was an actress who ironically was in ER the series that brought us the great furrowed brow acting of George Clooney shot and killed in her own home during a “wellness check.”  And here in Nashville a suicidal man was shot and killed by the police in his own home. Having been subject to one of those myself I did not touch anything in my home stood in pajamas and was scared shitless out my mind as two cops diagnosed me as depressed and having anxiety.  Ya think?    Death be not welcome on this mat.

Then another story of a Police seizure of property without due course or charges filed.  Civil Assets Forfeiture is the biggest boondoggle and boon to local Police forces across the country. That and the act that enables them to attain military grade equipment at low prices with no training, need or even how to maintain and upkeep everything from tanks to grenade launchers. Sure what.ever.

I have written extensively on the subjects of Judicial Reform, the problems with the Medical Industrial Complex and the issues surrounding the ACA/Obamacare before and after Trump and over these past years I have seen little to no movement on any of the subjects.  Some promise and some rhetoric directed to them but in reality the system in entrenched in the status quo.  Perhaps a new broom will sweep  it clean and maybe the women running for office around the country will bring that with them when they enter their halls of justice and disorder.  Women are good at multitasking and house cleaning and working is something we are very familiar.

And speaking of great women the four days of funeral processions and services dedicated to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, was topped not by its seven hour ceremony but her amazing fashion choices that were from head to toe.  Even at the end Ms. Franklin shined and her music that was the soundtrack to all of our lives will live on our radios as we drive down the highway in our Pink Cadillacs.  Death as in life always glamorous and always in style.

Which brings me to John McCain.  I might have been in hiding with Trump on this one. I have never liked the man from his politics to his personal life he was never one I identified with regardless of the moniker “Maverick.”  His daughter has to be the most humorless dullard ever to comment on a TV Screen and frankly I am already burned out on his procession and canonization of this man who brought us Sarah Palin, only bucked the party to my knowledge that infamous ACA thumbs down vote that came on the heels of his diagnosis of brain cancer where he knew the end was near. Then we have his own sordid personal life where he ironically left his first wife when she was disfigured from an car accident.  Thankfully Cindy kept up her youthful looks there and  I guess Cindy thought hey we are rarely together and he has his work wife, Lindsey Graham, to keep him warm those long nights in Washington doing nothing but talking to media so in death they do finally part.

I respect that he served his country and spent many years in a prison camp to come home and continue to serve but then at what point do you say I have done enough bullshit and go and actually go do something. .   Maverick my ass and this profile in the Rolling Stone from 2008 has another tone that was no present in the endless eulogies repeated for days on end.    The only job that in America you can do literally until you die is serve in Congress, so much for swamp draining.

 I have spent the better part of the last few months discussing the problems in the “it” city that surround crime, violence and education and those three are conjoined in a way that few discuss here as most of it is by faces of color and many who are barely out of their teens.   Since this was reported in June, there have been dozens of more fatality or near fatalities thanks to gun violence here.   Before I left for vacation there was a shooting rampage that terrorized East Nashville for days.  Every day is another shooting, a home invasion, a car jacking and assorted other stories of violence and crime that is rarely discussed as a major problem in a city that relies largely on tourism.  And to blame just faces of color would mean that two cities that I just visited, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, would have greater crime as they are similar in composition and demographics when it comes to income and race.  Well no.  Irony that Chicago a much larger metro area which is constantly decried as a city wracked with violence gets the media attention while Nashville is ignored.  Why is that?

The schools and the endless problems in the schools here has become a daily update much like the crime reports.   I again have been to schools that last year were under a different outsourcing agency last year due to the problems getting subs so it was interesting to return.  One I was given a bag of popcorn and thanked which shocked me and the afternoon was fine considering what I used to experience when I went there; however, I want to point out it was a SPED class and that I witnessed much oddness in the hall by the mainstreamed class and a Teacher verbally berate a student to the point of excess where in another school in an outlying district led this Teacher to be placed on leave. Go figure as here in Nashville rape, sexual abuse and other incidents rarely are reported.  Shocking, I know.  Not really.

The other school I went to had been in the news last year due to excessive violence and once again it was as horrid as I recalled and this was two hours for an Art Teacher.  It was bizarre when the SPED Teacher pushed in late into the class with her McDonald’s lunch which she ate while reprimanding and talking to the students. My favorite was correcting the grammar.  Try not eating in front of kids or speaking with your mouth full first before reprimanding others.  The bragging that she had moved to an outlying county to a place with a pool and bought an expensive car, a Lexus, to commute was also unnecessary and well again oddly in place for this school. Again all of the above situations were with Teachers who were black and with students who were also black.  It has been repeated over and over again throughout my visits to the schools in Nashville and what led me to examine my own views about race and poverty.  It was this school when I first arrived that I witnessed the most distressing behaviors, fights and where a Teacher was found with a gun in his backpack.  I found out that the reason for this was he was afraid as Parents had been threatening him so he carried it in his car and forgot to take it out to leave in his car that day.  He left the backpack in the Library where it was found and then reported.  Where he is and what happened to that is one of many stories I have heard since relocating here.  Including a Teacher who slammed a door on a child’s hand, Teachers who are having sexual encounters with students and of course the endless sordid tales that have made it to the media regarding varying Administrators and their sexual misconduct.  Little to no gets reported to the Police or the State.  Shocking, no not really.  Again this is a district headed by an African American man, with largely African American staff and a student population that is the same.  Poverty is the only distinction between the front of the house and the back of the house.  So yes race is a factor it is just what role in this equation has yet to be explained or understood by me a white woman of means. And when anyone white questions the decisions made the race card is tossed and then then hand folds.  Only one reporter,  Phil Williams of Channel 5 has made it his business to investigate the district from hiding lead in the water to the endless other controversy’s from budget to sexual misconduct. Again there is no “union” here to protect workers and tenure is not that big of an issue when it comes to termination so really what is the issue here?

Aside from race I do see the role of the secular community from both church to education and its influence.  I feel leads to much of what I see and hear. It should not be shocking given the Catholic Church which has both Pedophile Priests and abusive Nuns in their flock.  Religion is power and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And other than Congress it is the only occupation you can serve until death. Talk about tenure!

So tomorrow is labor day of which is to honor those in labor.  Irony that again much has been done to destroy the power of organized labor and yet the phrase “hard work” dominates the lexicon next to In God We Trust as the American concept of meritocracy is tied to those two beliefs – work for the almighty dollar.    I have to laugh as that latter phrase is to be visible in all schools in Tennessee by law.  I have yet to see it but I try to just keep my head down, answer the questions asked and no more, try to ignore the children to the point where unless I am observed or their behavior is so egregious I need to intervene I am pushing through this year with the idea that my end date is nearer than I think.  As for my relationship with Nashville is not until death we do part.

So as labor day soldiers on who are those in labor?  Well we have Police for if was not for their unions we might have some way to communicate and establish expectations for what defines police work.   There are Teachers Unions that are struggling to resolve the problem in Education that means funding and overcoming the endless demands on time that cannot be fixed by a 6 hour school day. The Medical field that refuses to change despite the reality that America is not great when it comes to care and outcome and their primary care obligation seems to be profits and wages for Doctors. And lastly our communities that are wracked with violence and poverty that warehousing them in public housing projects or prisons are failing to both protect and serve anyone.  Welcome to Nashville, home of the honky tonks, low wages and high violence.  Leave your gun in the car and your wallet in your pocket.   The land of bridal showers and promises that until death us do part. 

 

Walk Bike Die

Last night I discovered the new plans (well the most recent as that changes like the wind) for the MLS Stadium down the road from my home.   They now want to add a hotel, an apartment unit and retail in addition to the stadium.   There are two major roads leading to said future stadium, now a dilapidated fairgrounds, and both are crossed by train tracks which are used and used often.  CSX owns the tracks and in turn block the intersections often for hours at a time, oddly most often during prime peak hours use in the a.m. and p.m.  There is one bus to service the area and the other bus that does go by is available week days only and only during certain times.  The area is largely residential and gentrifying and of course has no sidewalks nor crosswalks to enable pedestrian traffic that currently the two other stadiums in Nashville do at least have.

Right now the transit situation is in limbo. Irony that the transit bill failed and now the MTA has decided to go ahead to remodel the downtown singular transit station, replace buses and in turn alter lines and reduce service while the upgrades are taking place.  The times to do such is during 2-6 pm, prime commute time as most Government employees begin leaving work at 3:15 to 3:45 and the peak commute time starts at 4 pm.  Perfect time to reduce express bus services and options to travel in the city, make connections that are already challenging and all while having a massive heat outbreak with temps over 100 degrees during the same time frame.  Good planning! And it is why I rent cars with this as it is not safe to wait for buses let alone walk in this heat.  But I live close to the center of town which enables me to get to where I need to be fairly easily but that is not the case for most who work in the core of the city.   This is just one of many problems facing Nashville. 

Add to this the rising cost of housing that has not kept up with wages, but again the Chamber has said the low available jobs, the supposed 100 people a day moving here (a number pulled out of an ass) has enabled them to say wages can remain low as competition for said jobs are high. Add to this that the MEME’s (as I call Millennial morons) change jobs at an average of 24 months which high turnover enables employers to keep wages stagnant as they do not need to negotiate nor provide wage increases for performance over time.  They know it all the MEME’s!

Yesterday I went into another new hotel to go to the Stumptown coffee place they have inside.  A nice 20 y/o girl has moved here from Chicago and picked the most remote area serviced by transit, Hermitage, in where to live.  She has no car and in turn is used to the robust L that services the city and of course the walkablity that enables those to access buses and other means of transit.  Given the refurbishment of the transit station (clerks are in a refurbished container, I kid not) it has made it impossible for her to figure out her transit options.  She was at work, a man with a baby who was screaming was inside and I suspect remaining to listen to the conversation, made it difficult for me to explain that yes she has a train option that does again only run during the week during limited hours and in turn takes no time and is literally just at Riverfront Station a matter of a 5 minute walk from where we were.  She had no idea about this service or her options as well transit is a hot mess here but if you are willing to sit down and figure out options it is possible.  It is why I am particular about where I work and in turn getting there in the morning may be a combo Bus and Uber but walking, varying bus routes are truly what I am looking for as I don’t have the haste that needs a singular route. 

I have written about the failure by Nashville to have genuine urban planning and once again the City t hired someone who has been here for two years and yet this is a gig that has been on the carousel from hell, three planners in three years.   Again that is a statement that there is a problem here.  Who does this woman report to? And again what is her role?  Hell if I know even the Council wondered about this.  Well get in line.  A city well running into the red, the public schools awaiting an audit with contracts in question and signed without board approval. Nothing new as the City Hospital is facing scandal after scandals for the same.  So the Mayor too is cleaning house and yesterday the  City financial officer who saw both the boon and the bust has “elected” to leave his vaunted place in the Mayoral office after a decade of serving his master-s.  The Mayor is only one of the many players on this board game.  Nashville Scene noted that this man who is not elected wields immense power and in turn offers little to no transparency when it comes to decision making.  That is the private sector in public office, note the current office holder and his ranting, raving and rambling.  Hard to go from  a closed door where the crazy is behind it versus stepping out in front of it into the light.   Heard of McKinsey?  Well that is another like Goldman Sachs that revolves through said doors in Governments across the globe.  Beware of Consultants as they are like Attorney’s as it is about billable hours not about solutions and resolutions to a problem.   Our School district is awash with them and that may explain the budget shortfall. 

The reality is that while Nashville brags and postures itself in some delusional grandeur of a city of import the City is a walking dump.  And you cannot walk here it is not safe.  The drivers go like bats out of hell and the reality is that they are simply unaccustomed to pedestrians and cyclists.  The man who hit a cyclist on a rural road (all caught on camera) is back in the news for being a drunk  and he is not alone in the endless stories about similar accidents.  

This is another list that the area made along with 35th best place to race a child.  Wow we were that high up the list?  Clearly that is wrong.  The reality is Nashville is a 20th Century city being shoved into the 21st Century with no one knowing what the fuck they are doing.  It shows. 

Pedestrian fatalities up in Tennessee’s largest cities
Mike Reicher, Nashville Tennessean June 28, 2018

More people have been killed walking the streets of Tennessee’s largest cities in recent years, reflecting the national uptick in pedestrian fatalities.

Memphis, which nearly doubled its number of deaths over six years, ranks among the top 25 large cities for its fatality rate from 2012 to 2016, according to a USA TODAY Network analysis of federal safety data. Nashville, number 70 on the list (out of 173 cities with populations greater than 100,000), saw a dramatic spike last year, but 2018 is looking better. Knoxville ranked 47th.
An elderly female pedestrian was hit by a teenager driving an SUV who was attempting to turn left at a green light at Abbott Martin Road at Cross Creek Road in 2011.Buy Photo

“We just do not have a pedestrian culture here,” said Stacy Dorris, a physician and pedestrian safety activist in Nashville. “It was not designed very well as a walking community.”

Death on foot: Distracted driving, cell phones seen as factors

Studies in Nashville and Memphis have pointed to problems such as crumbling concrete, missing sidewalks and long blocks without crosswalks.

About 80 percent of Nashville’s pedestrian deaths in recent years happened along state roadways, including the city’s major pikes, said Nora Kern, the executive director of the nonprofit group Walk Bike Nashville. Old Hickory Boulevard is another hot spot, she said. The deadliest stretches are typically wide thoroughfares with multiple lanes in each direction, and long blocks.

In 2017, for instance, three people died on Old Hickory Boulevard, during a particularly bad year in Nashville.

The city saw 23 pedestrian fatalities last year, according to Metro Nashville Police Department statistics. The previous seven years saw an average of either 13 or 16 deaths per year, depending which statistics you examine — local police or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures. Federal data excludes crashes on private property and it includes a more narrow definition of a pedestrian.

Advocates and government agencies, both at the state and local levels, are leading construction projects aimed at improving safety. In Nashville, the city allocated $30 million for sidewalks in each of the last two fiscal years, but progress has lagged as the city spent more time planning than building. The pikes are especially problematic, Kern said, because of their width and lack of walking infrastructure.

“To go back to add sidewalks is going to be very expensive,” she said.

Her group championed a relatively affordable project at Nolensville Pike and Welshwood Drive. For $50,000, Kern said, the Tennessee Department of Transportation installed a “pop-up crosswalk” with warning lights and signage. The state has identified other dangerous areas and will be using federal funds to work through the list of projects.  **BTW I know this and there are still major problems as it is across from Walmart and the bus transit stop.  It is at least better than nothing.

Memphis pedestrian fatalities

2010: 10

2011: 17

2012: 11

2013: 25

2014: 20

2015: 28

2016: 28

Nashville pedestrian fatalities

2010: 12

2011: 11

2012: 14

2013: 11

2014: 11

2015: 14

2016: 16

Knoxville pedestrian fatalities

2010: 10

2011: 17

2012: 11

2013: 25

2014: 20

2015: 28

2016: 28

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Think We’re Alone

I wrote my thoughts about the Bourdain/Spade suicide in my essay, Suicide is not Painless. I chose not to share my struggle with the issue in 2012 when coming out of a Traumatic Brain Injury suicidal ideation is very much a symptom of the injury, so I understood that,  but also add PTSD  that was the result from realizing how I sustained said injury.  And that realization, rage and fear  was truly the driver of that car, as in between understanding TBI, PTSD, date rape drugs, medical malpractice, my down time  was spent debating and researching methods and ways in which to accomplish the end so it would be final and I would be found. I had decided on drowning and as I lived within walking distance to Lake Washington I would spend hours going to the very shore I used to walk my beloved dog along planning how and when I would do it. Clearly I never acted upon it and I would love to say I found a great therapist but alas that was not the case.

Here is the rundown of the therapists I encountered in this phase of my life: I was a member of Group Health and the first was a woman therapist who was fired shortly after our first and single encounter where she was convinced I was a pathological liar, never examined my medical records confirming TBI and noted this on my medical records (which are normally kept separate)  as she enabled me to sign off of this. Did I mention that I had amnesia during this encounter and have no recollection of this session?  Amnesia too is a symptom of brain injury and Harborview Hospital dismissed me days earlier without failing to treat me accordingly with relation to my injury.

**This has largely to do whn women or anyone does not have an advocate to defend and discuss patient care, I had insurance and sufficient credit so imagine those who do not.  But hey someone in full blown brain injury should not be responsible or trusted with their care and Harborview could give a fuck less and I sued them alone.. so if you think suicide was not on my mind think again.  I got the whole Bourdain rage when he discussed how he cleaned up without help or support.  There is a rage there that can never be assauged.**

When I finally tracked her down in private practice a year or so later and showed her my complete records and info on this disorder she apologized and admitted she knew none of it. When I asked why she “left” Group Health she lied of course as that would never change. She had a history of misdiagnosing and stepping on boundaries. How did I know this?  The second therapist at Group Health I visited following this encounter, where he showed me my “meeting” with her and in turn noted that I was again a liar and drunk despite my desperate pleas for help in finding out what happened to me that night.  It was later he began to believe me but by then it was too late.   His counsel was so idiotic that I spent most of the time doing just what he thought, lying, rather than getting the help I needed. I made up stories about my family, my ex husband and others just to kill time as I was not paying for these sessions so I saw no point of doing anything to get well.

Michael was so bad that an acquaintance had already called to speak to him about my depression and to get to some understanding, so she made an appointment as a patient to seek counsel as a method of at least seeking some professional counsel as a way to assist in helping me. She was so horrified about what an idiot he was she came clean with all this where I too confessed to my bullshit. And from that we agreed to end as it was at least of waste of time and I proved the point already. 

Then we have the last Therapist that I went to as a promise to her to find someone to help. He was a nice man but two sessions in with him demanding me to learn how to forgive myself I realized it was not I who needed to forgive I needed to understand something in which he could not provide. He also realized I just wanted to rant which frankly is correct but guess what that would have exactly been what I needed and he wanted no part of it. That I was paying for so I turned to writing and massive exercise, a Tarot Card reader and ultimately I realized I was never going to get the answers I sought. So I moved on literally to Nashville.

Why I chose Nashville is for my reasons alone and they were in fact what I needed and wanted. Once those were taken care of and the dental treatments the other reason begun I started to focus on those things extrinsic versus intrinsic. Laughing at the people here may be unkind but I find it quite healing. I still feel very alone, very angry and at times depressed but mostly because I am nearly done with why I came here and I want to leave. All in good time and all on my terms.

But again Suicide is not a universal answer to life’s problems it is just one of many. But it is the most significant and substantive.  It is the final solution.  This essay poses many of the same issues and concepts I have said in many posts and in turn offers another form of insight into why some act upon that impulse and others fail or simply do not.

I recall after my rant in Vanderbilt’s Dental Office that day and I recall how I was in Michael’s at Group Health, it was full of bullshit, manipulative and yes one of anger.  I had come all this way and just wanted teeth, I wanted a treatment plan with costs so I could plan accordingly.  To get a wrong plan with incorrect information I just lost it.  I had dealt with the shock of the public schools, moved across the country and was closing out my legal bullshit from the accident in 2012 and was simply exhausted. I had only been here six months and all of them horrific as I tried to adapt to a place I did not truly belong but came again for reasons I chose to keep to myself as I knew that no one wants to hear any one’s history, their truth, their pain.  And hence I rant, I lie and manipulate as a coping strategy and it was now finally biting me in the ass and when the Cops showed up at my door a week later my first thought:  The gig was up.  And in turn it lead me to still be angry but be isolated and I am fine with it as when I have subsequent encounters with others they remind me of that Patient Coordinator – stupid.  And stupid is as stupid does. So I now laugh at them and sometimes with but I just want to leave and when I go somewhere else it is to run to not away and that is the key difference.  No expectations, no needs, just be anywhere but here.  That may be why many do commit Suicide.  

Artificial concern for people in pain won’t stop suicide. Radical empathy might.
Our language about suffering is suffused with cliches, and they don’t help.

by Richard Morgan The Washington Post June 15
Richard Morgan, a freelance writer in New York, is the author of “Born in Bedlam,” a memoir.

You’ve heard my suicide story before. I contemplated killing myself because of heartbreak, or being beaten by my father, or job woes, or being gay, or being raped, or the come-down after a bender. I took pills once in grad school, vomited them up and stared at the mess. It’s a particularly strange blow to the ego, that slop of having failed even at death. My most recent suicide plan, several years ago, was to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Only an intervention of friends, partnering with my estranged mother, set me on a better path. All of that thinking is alien to me today. Now I don’t even joke about wanting to die.

I could perform charisma and humor, but I had what felt like zero affect. I just didn’t care about anything anymore, even myself, and I could entertain these dark thoughts with alarming detachment. That’s the suicide we all know and loathe. It’s a demonic, simplistic creature, a cartoon supervillain, a composite of expectations and tired tropes. It’s a cliche. And for discouraging other people’s suicides, the cliche is a problem.

Part of how I escaped my tedious trap was by drafting suicide notes. I would write one, wait a day, read it and then see if it still felt true. Here’s one: “How bruised does fruit have to be to become not just unwanted but also inedible? And what, then, is inedible fruit? Its purpose is gone. It is a waste. That’s how I feel: I’m a waste. A waste of intelligence. A waste of personality. A waste of talent. A waste of words. A waste of love. I cannot be this man anymore. I am weary of the performance of it — wary of it, too. When I think of ending my life, I don’t mourn the loss. I never knew that guy. He was a feedback loop of habits and obligations. He never made me laugh without feeling insecure about the laughter, and never made me cry without feeling aimless about the tears. People might miss the person they thought I was. But nobody will miss the me I was in the dark. My tears were the loneliest thing about me. Nobody ever touched them.”

Another: “Would anyone I know be proud of my life? I have been blessed with many friends and colleagues — even strangers — who are supportive and encouraging. But I am very aware of the simple truth that, at the end of the day, they are glad they don’t have my life: the anxiety, the depression, the rejections, the loneliness, the poverty, the itinerant vagrancy. In one word, the brokenness. . . . It’s not a life anyone should have. I have lived wrongly. Certainly I have had moments of life the way it was supposed to be felt. Falling in friendship at first laugh, or a lover’s caress reverberating through the decades, or seeing my byline — my idea, my mind, my way of seeing the world — solidified in ink in the world’s best newspapers and magazines. But there are so few such moments. I can count them. They were not enough. And so, by extension, I was not enough. . . . I have been gone a long time already. I am proud that I realized this in time.”

Except, when I returned the next day to read these notes, they felt like they’d been written by someone else. In the elapsed time, I had grown not content but maybe restless — the kind of restlessness that reveals a faint awareness of hope, of faith in hope. Who was this strange man who had my voice but could not tether it to my soul? Reading my notes turned me into a one-man empathy machine. I was able to hold myself, steady myself, hear myself, know myself and love myself. They gave me ideas for how to cauterize my wounds: I’d visit a Korean spa to get a body scrub, gaze at the heaps of discarded skin and think, “The old me is on a tile floor now, being washed down a drain.” These rituals worked. I can’t imagine killing myself anymore — and I have a pretty ambitious imagination. Suicide notes saved my life.

With Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain and the untold thousands who commit suicide without international attention, we seem surprised to learn that plenty of people do not, as a Kate Spade slogan went, “live colorfully” — without blacks, whites or grays. Apparently life should be a sumptuous confection, a millefeuille of giddy Oprah-resonant adjectives like “blessed” and “glamorous” and “inspired” and “ready.” Apparently we’re supposed to be a woke-up-like-this Beyoncé of flawlessness, even as we step out of an elevator having just watched our sister claw and kick our husband. There is no “perfect life.” No dream job. But we refuse to believe that; confronted with suicide, we understandably say things like Andy Spade, Kate’s husband, did: “It clearly wasn’t her.” He had to dissociate the act from the actor, its own kind of cliche.

So when depression or apathy emerges, we race to theorize about toxic secrets or “personal demons,” as Spade’s husband put it. We call it a “stupid thing, this selfish thing,” as Bourdain himself once described it. That’s a suicide we can absorb. The predictable one: the internal wrestling match. The Kurt Cobains and Marilyn Monroes. These people lost a “battle,” or their dark side “finally overtook ” them. Their soul was in a kind of car accident. They lost control of the steering wheel.

But suicide is more subtle than that. Suicide is a kind of fatal exhaustion. It knocks on your door not as a monster but as a healer making a house call. We have to invite it in. Spade held that red scarf in her hands, Bourdain held that bathrobe belt in his, and both thought, “This will do nicely.” The coroners’ reports will not bother to note if their cheeks were tear-stained, but I think not.

What we need to do is make that knock at the door less appealing. Give it less space to be heard. That’s the obvious takeaway from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report about an across-the-board surge in suicides from 1999 to 2016. In 2015, there were 18,000 homicides and 44,000 suicides in America. Suicide is 250 percent more common than murder. There is something missing in our understanding, and it is this: Empathy is not a pro-forma answer to some social problem, to be dispensed in the appropriate dose but otherwise withheld. Amid all those permeating cliches of joy and woe, empathy is too discrete, too intentional. We perform empathy like a child learning to box-step for a school dance, one-two-three, one-two-three. It’s a performance we don’t really care about.

That’s the message we send when we blurt out phone numbers for suicide prevention hotlines, as TV anchors, pundits and social media users did in recent days. I’ve called those numbers. Sometimes, they’re helpful. Often, they’re just another detached bureaucracy; it’s easy to feel processed, shunted through the protocols and scripts. It can be empty empathy. What else do we expect of emotional labor we have outsourced? (Also, repeating those phone numbers assumes they’re easy to call, that they’re not triggering, as if feeling indifferent to or incapable of calling a number isn’t just one more nudge toward suicide.)

When we search for answers to our pain and the pain of loved ones, we see empathy through the lens of danger and disease. We yell, You are not alone! Telling that to a person who feels suicidally alone is the same as asking, “Have you tried not being sad?” We are alone, all of us. Nobody will ever share in the experience of being me. I will never share in the experience of being inside any of my loved ones’ minds or hearts or souls. Empathy is not a cure for loneliness. It is merely a commitment to assert that other people’s loneliness matters, that it is seen and heard and felt as much as possible.

Empathy is about undermining loneliness by flooding it with engagement. Because sometimes, even with a face-to-face human, even with a doctor — you can check yourself into, say, San Francisco General Hospital for depression, have your medical history taken — you may still receive callous and confusing care. Seeking help or offering help is not the same as helping.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 10-to-14-year-olds in America and the second leading cause of death among 15-to-34-year-olds. More than 9 million American adults — 4 percent of us — have reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year. For context, 4 percent of Americans is roughly the population of Boston, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle. It’s not just about our broken mental health system; based on data from the National Violent Death Reporting System — which, jeez, is something we have — 23.8 percent of people who take their lives are on antidepressants. Pills and doctors won’t fix this epidemic. We need the meta-medicine of a better citizenry.

In American high schools, the CDC reports, almost one-fourth of girls have seriously considered suicide, and one-tenth have attempted it. Almost one-fifth of all students have seriously considered it. And yet where are the fights for arts and language and music programs that might channel these anxious and expressive impulses? Instead, the goal of governments and school districts in charge of high schoolers is to pass the buck onto college deans, who are broadly derelict in their duty. Of the largest 100 public colleges in the United States, only 46 bother to track suicides. Arizona State University, for instance, doesn’t tally suicides even though at least two students committed suicide there last year, but its administration can tell you the three-decimal-point GPA of every student athlete. That’s what we care about.

In the end, empathy should be a way of life and love; it should be our other oxygen. It’s not about saying, “I’m always here if you need me.” There is no if. We need each other desperately all the time. That’s what society means. That’s what civilization is. It should be the core of more than just our personal, private conversations. It should be the animating concept behind public policy, taxes, civic duty. There are obvious calls, like throwing the book at a woman who texted her suicidal boyfriend: “You just need to do it.” But what if we paid more to make homeless shelters havens instead of out-of-sight, out-of-mind hellscapes? What if we invested as much in Puerto Rico as we do in Afghanistan? What if we stopped nickel-and-diming our ride-share drivers literally to death? What if we made learning Spanish as necessary to a high school diploma as learning algebra? What if we made “How are you?” real? That’s how you end the cliche.

Suicide Is Not Painless

I have spent a week vacillating about how to approach this subject and do so in a manner that shows sufficient respect and in turn offer a perspective that may not be as acceptable and popular in a world that defines itself by followers, likes and retweets by literally virtual strangers whom you would not know if you passed them on the street and in turn would lend a hand if you tripped on the curb.  But we have a nearly insatiable need to be liked.  The recently departed Diplomat of Panama said upon his resignation that Trump demanded total fealty and if not you were immediately dismissed and considered useless. The current Republican party demonstrates much of this with their bizarre love/hate relationship with said Commander in Chief and they do so at their own detriment but more importantly that of our Country.

Social Media is an absurd name for something that is so clearly anti-social.  It opens up doors and windows into what is ostensibly your private thoughts, your life, your family and friendships or lack thereof to those whom again have an agenda that has nothing to do with improving the quality of life, yours any of those in the bigger picture.  What it does it enables others to monetize your privacy, enable law enforcement to monitor you and in turn allows other to feel free to mock, demean and “out” you in whatever way the mass do to bring harm or money and quasi fame for some.  As this was attributed to the late Andy Warhol:  In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” (for the record it is debatable if that was the exact quote and if he originated it)

I have always been oddly private which my public persona would contradict but as Libra I am a natural contrarian and this is how I find balance.  My blog is not my name, I don’t have Facebook, Instagram, etc and do not tweet under my name.  I had a hard time deciding to write under my name or a pseudonym as I think few will care and while I suspect that the first collection of essays will not be loved by all and I am fine with it.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.     [The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]”
                                                                       ― Cyril Connolly

So fame is an elusive drug and a toxic powerful one.  I decided to write because I actually felt I had a voice and a perspective that needed to be heard if only by one ear.  Writing is therapy and I find it healing.  But this is not about me oddly I joke that everything is, this is about aging, depression, rage, confusion and an examination of a life that may for some means in which to end it on one’s own terms.  Control freaks, mentally ill people, desperate people, normal people, sad people, happy people all come to terms with a crisis in their own ways and some times they come out of it and sometimes they do not.

Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote a op-ed piece in the New York Times on What is Sadness/What is Depression  following the deaths of designer Kate Spade and Chef/Writer/TV personality Anthony Bourdain.   The Spade/Bourdain deaths reminded me of another boomer of another time, Michael Hutchence of INXS, twenty years earlier.   In that time they called it an accident – death by auto erotic asphyxiation.  This was the chosen method by Robin Williams only a few years ago as well.  Did that influence the two?  Who knows.   Whatever, you need to call it it is still death by strangulation.  That is what death they chose, to choke themselves to death and slowly and not without some pain or discomfort prior to death. This is not hanging where in many cases the neck breaks, no this is choking to death.  Let’s call it what it is.  Google it as I have no intention of explaining the time frame for actual death to occur but yes there is pain and a some time before one falls unconscious. 

Last Saturday following my glorious day at Churchill Downs I came back to the hotel and CNN was airing a marathon of Parts Unknown.  I rarely watched that new version of what was No Reservations, as well as I say,  been there done that and frankly how many trips can one watch of Bourdain going to the same country time after time, shoving food down his face and talking politics?  I for one choke on that idea that a white wealthy famous man stays in a four star hotel, flies private and sits with locals for a few hours and eats meat products on a stick  to show how he connects to the common man. Pretentious and absurd.   No Reservations was by far more less calculated and the fame that Bourdain craved and in turn needed was still in its infant stage but by the end he was well enamored of his celebrity.  I recall his trip to San Francisco twice with one time him so violently drunk and out of control that he fell, hit his head and had to be taken to the hospital.  I was living in the City then and knew many who just thought he was a bad drunk and wanted nothing to do with him.  Cut a couple of years later and he is on a new network and was in Seattle twice.  Both times were about music and little interest in the food scene other than a trip to Canlis (a well established old school white tablecloth place).  The big attraction was in fact Marijuana as it is legal and the predominant trips were to the pot shops for drugs and edibles of another kind.  He nearly had a fight in a dump bar and the return visit was again largely the same.   Another year later I am in Nashville and guess who is here as well? Well go figure. Again he dined at the more established place but his visits to the local Meat & 3 Cafeteria as well the hot chicken joints were second tier and not the most famous or well established.  His visit centered on drinking and the music scene that was not about Country in the least and that was his primary interest but again food was not the point if it ever was.  Few recall his visit here and never mention in that fan fuck way many do about Bourdain.

As I grew less inclined to Bourdain as I loathed his politics (he was a well declared Libertarian) I decided to watch the marathon to see if it would change my view and my perspective and the  first episode was his trip (100th?) to Vietnam.  Not surprisingly it bored me but then the two episodes that followed had my hair standing on end.   One was to opioid areas of New Hampshire and other areas he had lived as a youth.  His own drug use was mentioned during an NA meeting and there he spoke how no one gave him an intervention nor helped him get off drugs.  He chose to as he had a seven year old daughter (she is now 11) and he needed to change to see her grow up.  He was clearly in a very introspective mood but it was a dark place throughout te episode with him almost debating with many of the recovering addicts why they wanted to remain alive or help others do so.    This was how I saw it and was tweeting this as I watched.  This was then followed  by a trip to France,  Marseilles specifically, with Eric Ripert the Chef who was with him on this last trip and found him in his hotel room. Again the prescience of thought seemed almost deliberate when you watch this episode and his endless teasing, almost taunting Ripert to get angry, to have him hate and to challenge Bourdain’s  views on enemies and on Ripert’s Buddhism.  I cannot believe that as Bourdain planned to perhaps act upon thoughts that had plagued him for decades the idea of getting the last word/laugh/irony was not lost as he descended to unconsciousness.

True I have a dark view of Bourdain but if you watched, read and knew people who knew him you may understand why I am less inclined to believe he impulsively did it after a night of eating and drinking.  Why one would do it let alone in a country that you do not speak the language, with a camera crew in tow and a friend who has known you for decades but is a spirit of light in contrast to one who is dark cannot be lost that this act of finality was done with two intents, both motivated by anger and rage.

Again I tweeted this and some fucknut on Twitter whom I don’t know but recall past threads of mental health issues promptly schooled me on depression and suicide and when I told her to fuck herself I am entitled to my opinion she informed me that I should not talk about this issue on social media.  Hey moron was I talking about myself? No.  I was talking about what I was watching with regards to Anthony Bourdain.   But in the need to be heard and the need to be in the know we don’t even read the tweets we rage about let alone care about the one on the other end who caused us to rise up off our stupor and respond.   As they say about abortion – don’t like them, don’t have one. Same with Twitter.  Someone says something you do like, stop following or reading them.  Why do you care about someone you don’t know and their opinion.   Agree to disagree and move on.

Which brings me to Kate Spade.  She had not been a part of that “world” for a decade that I knew. Her bags were not part of my world in the 80s and only with the growth of the shops that shared her name (much like dead Lily Pulitzer) did I wander in a buy an accessory or two.  I had not thought about her or what her life was as many businesses have the name on the license which doesn’t mean anything anymore.  But her death at age 55, like Bourdain at 61, did garner my attention as it is my generation whose numbers of suicide, particularly women are growing.  And again, like Bourdain, she chose to kill herself in her own home when her estranged husband was in the home but unlike Bourdain she was found by the housekeeper so her last laugh/irony/fuck you was not what I suspect she envisioned.

I would use this opportunity to talk about myself in this moment, 58, childless, friendless, without family, living in a city I loathe, working at a job I hate and aging badly – dental issues and with that all that accompanies it from facial collapse to weight gain.  But I have not really ever thought this is where I need to die and that alone keeps me alive.  I felt the same in Seattle so clearly I find whatever reason to stay alive and do not act upon the depression that nearly killed me six years ago, following a traumatic brain injury sustained from the accident where my date tried to kill me.  I will never see it any differently and I make it my business to remind myself that it was attempted murder and I lived through that so keep coming death as I was not ready then and when I am you will know after I do.

Suicide is the ultimate last final act of control and of will.  It is planned and it is thought out.  It is impulsive and full of pain or of rage or of fear or of whatever it is that led you there.  There is no one  explanation and just like snowflakes we are different when it comes to resolving those issues that have hurt you.   And those sometimes are final ones.  But it is act of pain just don’t kid yourself otherwise.   Suicide is not painless.

Have a Chair

I think we should install an Electric Chair in Congress so that anyone testifying before a Congressional Committee the Chair can provide a booster shot to encourage honest responses.  Come on don’t you think we would all like to take a shot at Pharma Bro?

And while I am virulently anti-gun I am also virulently anti Capital Punishment.  (I am working on Southern speak and “ly” or adverbing verbs is the choice of the elite)  The reality is that one would be less necessary with the elimination of the other.  And while I am malevolently infuriated (see how that works)  at acts of violence that decimate lives and communities across the globe under the pernicious beliefs that cross religion, gender, politics or just rage, the reality is that most of the murders and acts of destruction are tied to the access to guns.  And America leads on both – guns and executions.  We’re number one!!

So understanding the history of our weapons of mass destruction comes out of rivalry.  Isn’t that always the way.  Those Germans might get the bomb we need to beat them too it and kill more people first.  What? You say that the Russians might fly into space before America?  Let’s get on that right away.  Funny how you can find something good out of competition and other times not so good. This is just one of many. And of course white angry competitive men can work with Science or Sports, either way someone ends up dead, just sometimes slower than others.

Great God, he is alive!” The first man executed by electric chair died slower than Thomas Edison expected.
By Michael S. Rosenwald The Washington Post April 28

To understand the gruesome history of the death penalty, it is essential to comprehend how badly inventor Thomas Edison wanted to zap his nemesis George Westinghouse.

Their rivalry was literally electric.

Westinghouse was a purveyor of alternating-current voltage — AC. Edison developed direct-current voltage — DC. A very loud, very long-haired Australian band would a century later insert a lightning bolt in the middle of those letters, calling itself AC/DC.

But back to the 1890s.

Edison and Westinghouse, each trying to win lucrative electricity contracts, were fighting over which current was safer. This was a crucial marketing detail given that the general public’s familiarity with electricity was limited to lightning bolts.

What happened next makes the cage match between Apple and Google seem like a game of gin rummy.

Just as the two inventors were battling, a dentist in Buffalo named Alfred Southwick heard about a drunk man dying instantly after touching a generator, according to “The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History,” by Craig Brandon.

A commission in New York had been contemplating replacing hangings with electrocution. (A similar shift would take place a century later as states such as Arkansas, which carried out back-to-back executions Monday and then put another man to death Friday, adopted lethal injection as the preferred method of capital punishment.)

Southwick thought that executing prisoners with electricity would be more humane than messy hangings. He tested his theory by electrocuting stray animals around town.

On Nov. 8, 1887, Southwick sent Edison a letter about his findings, asking how best to electrocute humans.

The Wizard of Menlo Park wrote back, saying he abhorred the idea and would “join heartily in an effort to abolish capital punishment,” according to Brandon’s book.

Southwick, apparently a very persistent dentist, wrote Edison again a month later. This time, Edison had a different answer.

“The most suitable apparatus for this purpose is that class of dynamo-electric machinery which employs intermittent currents,” Edison wrote. “The most effective of these are known as ‘alternating machines’ manufactured principally in this country by Geo. Westinghouse.”

Edison’s logic was twisted, barbaric and possibly brilliant: If he could convince the world that Westinghouse’s alternating current was a swift and efficient killer, his method would be seen as safer, increasing his market share.

“The electric chair’s midwife was greed,” Brandon wrote, “the kind of pure, unadulterated greed for which the Gilded Age was famous.”

This episode led to New York adopting the electric chair as its tool of death. Edison made sure that Westinghouse’s alternating current was chosen by secretly funding another electricity engineer to quickly build the device.

The first victim: William Kemmler, a drunk who killed his common-law wife with a hatchet. Westinghouse hired Kemmler the best attorney he could find, even taking the case to the Supreme Court, which declined to overturn his death sentence.

On August 6, 1890, before the sun rose, Kemmler woke up in his cell, put on a suit and laced up a pair of polished shoes. The warden led him to a crowded room where an empty oak chair awaited him.

“Gentlemen, I wish everyone all the good luck in the world,” Kemmler said, according to newspaper accounts. “I believe I am going to a good place. The papers have been saying a lot of stuff that ain’t so. That’s all I have to say.”

The warden strapped Kemmler in, attaching electrodes to his head.

“Goodbye, William,” he said.

Then he motioned for someone to flip the switch.

“His shoulders slowly drew up as they sometimes do in the case of a man who is hanging,” a coroner later wrote.

Seventeen seconds later, two physicians determined that Kemmler was dead. The current was turned off. The room was silent.

And then someone yelled, “Great God, he is alive!”

Kemmler was breathing. His heart was beating.

“Turn on the current!” someone else shouted.

Four minutes later, Kemmler was really dead. His body took several hours to cool off. Newspapers called him the “poor wretch.”

Westinghouse was horrified.

“They could have done a better job with an ax,” he told reporters, according to several books on the death penalty.

Edison was more optimistic.

The excitement, he said, caused “some bungling.”

“I think when the next man is placed in the chair to suffer the death penalty,” he said, “that death will be accomplished instantly.”

Edison also offered some advice.

“The better way is to place the hands in jars of water,” he said. “And let the current be turned on there.”

The Hug

This morning I was watching CBS Sunday Morning when they did this story, The Hug.  Our local news showed the story earlier and I cried today as I did when I first saw the story. 

I make a big deal of the kids here in Nashville needing hugs.  From someone who is from the Northwest and paranoid about kids and “touching” I struggle with a child wanting to hug.  I walk around utterly suspicious of the people here in general as they too are suspect of those not from here despite professing otherwise;  I have said repeatedly that the phrase “Southern Hospitality” is an anathema here as I have experienced little of it.  Now true some of it is in the eye of the beholder but of many things I am, I am a great observer of nature – human or otherwise.  

I brought my anger with me here, my suspicion and doubt but I came hopeful. But as I have come to learn that it travels and packs well and that others have the same only here they mask it with a “yes, Ma’am” or a “Bless your heart.”  Passive Aggressive I thought was the provenance of the Northwest is again a dish that exists here it is just served with Sweet Tea and in Seattle ours is with a double decaff Mocha latte.

The anger that permeates in the kettle which to brew that water is what defines the red sea where I live and that sea is growing thanks to global warming as all seas are rising and they rising hot and killing everything in its path. So that reality is also a metaphor for many who live in that water’s raging path.

And as I sit now and watch the In Memorium section of the same show the hot tears are flowing just like that red sea.  There were so many people who were of “my generation” that touched my life without ever hugging me and it was just as warm and real as any physical hug.

Even I who haven’t followed sports knew all the sports stars and figures that passed this year, the musicians who I danced and sang to, the shows and the movies I watched, the books I read, the laughs shared  and the drinks I have had from a Solo cup I cannot count.  The list of those individuals who passed who touched lives in ways we may not be aware  is seemingly also uncountable and I fear my red sea is rising due to my endless tears.

So as we enter day one of the new year I ask if it will be as angry and sad as the last.  I fear that again this shit does not pack well.  I burned all the documents, papers and mailed letters to the dead letter box to those who have harmed me.  I let the smoke pour over me and realized that I would have a two hour bonfire if I was to burn them all, so I just trashed them in the same manner those who generated said paper treated me.   Then I took a salt bath to clean that negative energy away and I felt better as I genuinely  laughed watching of all things CNN and the drunk Don Lemon bring in the New Year.  Between the Mariah lip sync malfunction and the traffic accident that occurred in front of my home during it all it somehow enabled to bring the new year in in three time zones, so it too was a first.

 (Yes a man tried to outrace the train crossing, the train thankfully saw him was going too slow and was able to stop but the man’s car was duly stuck in place and for hours no Nashville police came to direct traffic and stop those from u-turning on a one way and going in the wrong direction  and having another fatal accident.  And all which is not necessary as a street is  adjacent to turn off and go back around but hey again this is So Nashville; so I went out and directed traffic in my new clean Pj’s.. and that is how I brought in the New Year)

I am exhausted from all this shit frankly.  The fighting, having conflict and listening to one idiot after another explain, justify or spew their anger on me as if I am that trash bag in which to dispose of it.  I have become as angry and as isolated as that man profiled in The Hug.

So I will have to hug myself and try to move forward into the New Year.  

Today is post one of the new year.  I have nothing more to add but I hope to write more and write a book. It is not just a resolution it is an absolution.

Day one.. hug someone maybe your life will be the one you save.

The Year at End

I think this might be the last blog post for the year. It has been horrific on every level for me personally and I suspect for others it has been the same. I have watched as Icons have passed without warning and others who I had forgotten whose last breaths reminded me of the breaths of laughter they gave – thanks Zsa Zsa.

I am not okay in any sense of the word. Immense grief, immense anger and the depression that results from both have paralyzed me in ways I had hoped were forgotten. I though my life came to an end in 2012 and it had just not in the way God planned, for whatever reason he kept me alive that night and plunged me into the most horrific past four years that I used to say was my cancer. If I survived that I could survive anything and here I sit in Nashville a city that I have come to question why I ever came here and I realize that I would have said that about anywhere as I was running from and not to anything.

I need to write books. I have no interest in freelance writing even though I could use the cash and it would keep me out of the Nashville Public Schools; however, I think it would keep me from writing what I need to write. So my resolution is to write my ass off, to ignore kids, schools and just draft, research and draft more. I need to write as I need to breathe and I need to breathe to keep living. This year took the lives of many whose time it was and whose time it was not.  And I have no intention of eulogizing or writing lengthy in memoriums about how they affected me.   When Joan Rivers and Robin Williams died the connection to my family was through them and now all these deaths are all mine, they were ones who I loved through the ages thoroughly unrequited but not I am sure unwelcome. I sat in stadiums, in cars, my bedroom, my living room or plugged in listening, singing along and just feeling alive reading or hearing about them in their lives. Some I knew and some whose work I did but it did not mean they were ignored. As in life we pass through doors and brush against strangers not realizing the electrical exchange that just took place as a natural reality that occurs in science and the affect is no less essential. 

How to make things work will come with time. I am listening to George Michael and tears are coming now after I danced my ass off in the park thinking how lucky we have been to have such fun in both youth and age all from the same song. That is a legacy worth leaving.

So as 2016 ends the year on a Star Wars like explosion I realize that there is no Hans Solo coming to my rescue and that heaven is a hell of a gay disco right now. Ah I am glad however to have my place in line held for right now, I imagine the doorman is quite picky about who gets in and as he should.

I said today to an idiot (as this is Nashville and that is all there is here) who works in the infamous clothier Manuel’s shop, that I am ending I think for now my Magical Mystery Tour and spending time just sitting at a rest stop and reflect on what my journey has brought me. He goes, “well that term has already been used and that people might not understand what you mean as it is not yours.” Okay another idiot on which to end a note of a day of tears, so I responded, “Yes I am quite aware I appropriated it and that is the point as I use it as mutual point of reference but thanks.” Then I walked out and thought I will never walk in there again. That is what I have learned in Nashville that people here are morons so walk away and out.
 
I did my self inventory already this year and I cannot do it anymore it brings no peace nor soundness of mind and without those you cannot write a last will and testament and that may be also a good thing.

A year ago I burned the names of my enemies and froze them in bags in my refrigerator and buried them when I moved as if to leave them in Seattle. Well that damn wind followed me and I did not clearly dig deep enough. So it is time to do this again and let the ashes take them with the wind to another destination

 He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle themselves away – Raymond Hull 

As George Michael now sings about faith I know that it has many meanings.  And for me Faith is a belief, a hope that there is something at the end of the road that is there to welcome you. Be it to the gay disco or to the holy roller hall of fame, whatever floats your boat, let’s just hope there are enough boats for us to find our tribe. I think I know the one I want to board and it is a hell of a party boat.

So ending this year seeing good movies, some bad ones, amazing TV and some not so amazing, reading good books and some dogs and always listening to good music as there is none bad on my playlist.

Find your playlist and dance like no one is watching. You have nothing to prove but to yourself and find the song that you can sing with all your heart and passion. Live life and live it to the end.

Happy New Year.