Saturday Song

I've been trying to
show you over and
over.

Observation

One of the things I enjoyed the most about viewing German-language cinema is that the characters looked so, well, commonplace. There is, I might add, nothing wrong with that. How refreshing to not be bombarded with standards of beauty which are as unhealthy as they are completely unrealistic. I really wish that media told young women, in particular, that it's okay to be average. There are other subtle differences, too.

Allow me to illustrate.

Example #1

Switzerland

United States

Example #2

Germany




United States



Example #3

Germany

United States

Example #4

Austria

United States

*Okay, maybe it's not all different.

Still, superficiality and stale formula have got to go.

I Woke Up with This Song in My Head

With our economy spiraling further downward into recession and no guarantee that anything in the pipeline will provide immediate relief, we are all in wait-in-see mode. Have surveyed the news this morning, I find nothing particularly worthy of my opinion, since the most fascinating news is in factoid form and it's difficult to comment on minutia. Citizens, citizen journalists, and journalists alike have no clue where we're headed and have only wagered the most rudimentary of guesses.

My dreams are frequently punctuated with music, kind of like a soundtrack to a bizarre independent movie. Having had my fill of dire news reports the day before, my memory banks decided that appropriate the closing credits should be "Saviour Machine" by David Bowie.

President Joe once had a dream
The world held his hand, gave their pledge
So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine

They called it the Prayer, its answer was law
Its logic stopped war, gave them food
How they adored till it cried in its boredom

'Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me
Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
or maybe a war, or I may kill you all

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen
You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

I need you flying, and I'll show that dying
Is living beyond reason, sacred dimension of time
I perceive every sign, I can steal every mind

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen
You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

How I Feel About the Economic Stimulus Package

Questions of a Thousand Years

Everyone is discussing the merits and shortcomings of the latest economic stimulus package and me, well, color me ambivalent. The predictable voices from the right (Socialism! Socialism! Socialism!) and left (not one dime for thieving corporate fat cats!) obscure the bill's true impact. What many are calling pork-barrel pet projects are in fact reform measures which fund previously unfunded mandates or patch holes in established programs. Waste also exists, this is true, but it appears to me that at least on Capitol Hill you can't have good without some degree of graft. Regrettably, some will use their billions in relief funds to put a down payment on a new Lear jet, but I'm not sure how any of us can stop that.

Nevertheless, the stimulus bill passed last September made a major impact in my life. It established parity between Medicaid and Medicare. As a Medicaid recipient (read: too poor for decent health insurance), I had to jump through countless hoops just to get my prescriptions filled. I also had to deal with the indignity of being denied dental care, thus having to pay out of pocket even to get my teeth cleaned. I was furthermore denied coverage to visit a psychologist. Medicaid is a federally mandated, but state run program, meaning that poorer states routinely have to cut corners to avoid draining the budget. It also means that while the government insists there be Medicaid in each of the fifty states, each state also makes up its own convoluted rules.

This disparity creates such absurdities which state that dental care and therapy are only available for those under the age of twenty-one. The lesson in this, I suppose, is that children and teens can have adequate dental care and stable emotional health, but that adults cannot. This is one more argument for why we need single-payer universal (and yes, socialized) health care. I know how much conservatives keep the Tenth Amendment close to their hearts, but I have to tell you that state's rights are only as effective as the states themselves. All powers not delegated to the Federal Government are the domain of the states, but what if the states themselves can't run their own affairs effectively? Then what? The reality is that the states with stronger economies and endless resources have much more to offer their poorer residents. The states without the benefit of wealth suffer mightily. I favor a more centralized government to protect citizens from the kind of yahoo provincialism which so often keeps the less fortunate abused by base incompetence the likes of which is rooted in ignorance.

As for me, thanks to the September stimulus package, I can return to therapy and not have to pay for basic dentistry out of pocket. If this be socialism, I'm not sure there's any way we can escape it. Marx famously predicted that Communism's arrival was a fait accompli, but that no one could truly foresee the precise moment of its arrival. To me that's always seemed reflective of the biblical passage which states that the arrival of the Messiah will occur eventually, but that no living person knows the date or time. None of us truly knows where we're headed but I'm glad that something is being done, rather than nothing at all.

In Memory of the Late John Updike

One of my most favorite poems, which is just as true now as it was when it was written in the 1950's.

Ex-Basketball Player
by John Updike

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.

Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all—more of a football type.

Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.

He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.

Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.

A Few Cinematic Recommendations

Since Friday, I've been attending Film-Neu, a German-language film festival. I have been deeply impressed as to how uniformly excellent each of the screened movies has been. Several of them represent their country's official selection in competition for the upcoming Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Ordinarily I would have never gotten the chance to see any of these in a cinema, which makes me even more grateful to see them screened before my very eyes.

American cinema is so obsessed with spectacle and profit that it could never make films this quirky and unusual. What they lack in funding they make up for in quality. Some think that money alone makes a movie, but I've always found that the reverse is true. Paradoxically, it seems that the greater the budget, the more the end result is cheapened. And having said that, I recommend each of these.




1. Jerichow

A German soldier, recently dishonorably discharged from service in Afghanistan (and as a result completely broke) lucks into a job simply by being in the right place at the right time. His employer, an unstable alcoholic, has recently has his driver's license suspended for frequent DUIs. A Turk by birth, the man owns a variety of Chinese food restaurants across the area and thus due to the nature of the business needs to be shuttled back and forth by car to check inventory and collect proceeds from each store. His wife, a beautiful, but troubled woman, ends up falling for the sullen newcomer. Their clandestine relationship intensifies to the point that plans are made to kill the husband, make the crime look like an accident, and then collect the insurance money. However, unforeseen complications arise.



2. Football Underground

A documentary lamenting the ridiculously restrictive extremes of Iran's repressive government. A German women's soccer team expresses a desire to play a game with the Iranian women's national team, which nonsensically practices for competition but never actually plays a game against an opponent. Organizers of the event run up against unexplained and completely needless delays, problems getting visas, massive problems locating sponsorship, and other frustrating roadblocks like even attaining an adequate site for the match to be held. Eventually the game is played, but a scheduled rematch is canceled at the last minute because the Ahmadinejad regime mysteriously forbids the Iranian women's team to play again.



3. Revanche

A middle-aged, low-level hood carries on a relationship with a beautiful, young Ukranian prostitute. He works to maintain the facilities at a brothel, performing a variety of odd jobs for the head pimp. Unsurprisingly, he works at the same brothel as does his girlfriend, where it is implied that they both met. One day, tired of seeing his girlfriend abused by sadistic clients he concocts an impulsive scheme to rob a bank, whereby the both of them will live off the proceeds and not have to work. The robbery goes off without a hitch until the very end. In the process of making his getaway--the girl seated in the front passenger side next to him--the duo happen across a cop. Unsuccessful in detaining the suspect, the police officer attempts to shoot out the tires of the rapidly accelerating car, intending to apprehending them both. Unfortunately he aims too high, missing the market altogther, and kills the girl with a stray bullet.

As part of the plan, the criminal ditches the car and heads for his grandfather's farm, intent on hiding out there, where his whereabouts and true identity will be completely unknown to the police. By sheer coincidence, the farm happens to be not very far away to the residence of the accidental murderer--- the cop, as well as his wife. It seems that the couple have been trying desperately to have a child, but as we find out later, apparently something is wrong with him, not her. The criminal's grandfather attends the same church as the cop's wife, so in an desire to be kind and charitable, the wife has taken to routinely shuttle the old man back and forth to run errands or to attend service on Sunday morning. While on the farm, she happens across the criminal, who has committed himself to performing grueling manual farm labor as penitence for his sins. Ignorant of his identity and equally ignorant of the connection between he and her husband, she makes a pass at him, hoping he'll come by her house later that night to consummate her desire (and more importantly, ensure her pregnancy).

From that point onward, things grow curiouser and curiouser.



4. Der Freund (The Friend)

A beautiful, but troubled young singer-songwriter attracts the attention of a shy, socially awkward college student. After hearing her perform at a trendy venue, he makes painfully self-conscious overtures to get to know her as she walks off stage between sets and orders a drink. At first, she blows him off. Later, however, he encounters her by chance at a random bar. This time she is more receptive to his presence, and asks him point-blank if he would like to pretend to be her boyfriend. Stunned, the boy asks why. "Just because," she says, and provides a vague response that leaves him even more confused.

Five days later she commits suicide. It appears that her rationale in asking him to play this role was to deflect worry from her family, who realize full well that she has a history of emotional problems, and constantly worry for her health. Ignorant of all of this and particularly ingnorant of what she has done, he calls her cell phone number a few days later, and her sister picks up instead. The sister quickly passes the phone over to her mother who asks him if he is, in fact, the deceased girl's boyfriend--a figure which she had recently talked about but never elaborated much upon. Fulfilling his obligation to the deceased girl, he answers in the affirmative. The mother then asks the boy if he will help the family prepare for the funeral arrangements.

In the process of this draining endeavor, the boy finds out more about the recently departed girl and her occasionally dysfunctional family dynamics then he would have even dreamed.

Treatment Update

The MAOI had to be stopped temporarily on Friday because an absent-minded nurse mistakenly gave me the wrong medication Thursday night. Though they were probably acting too cautiously (and I told them so), the doctors wanted me to wait a full 72 hours to make sure that the MAOI wouldn't have an adverse reaction with the drug I had been given by accident. Now enough time has passed and my regular medication schedule can resume. By Friday, I anticipate that I will be feeling much better.

This weekend I've been contemplating why I and others have this affliction. I often wonder if there is some kind of biological, primordial basis for bipolar. Often I grapple with the idea that if we have a loving God (as I believe we do) then why would He allow illness in humanity. As a genetic disorder, and as a brain disorder, bipolar is a very complex malady which is not easily understood. Likely it involves the interplay of several genes working simultaneously with each other. My illness enriches my productivity and creativity at times, but during a depressed state it renders my muse silent and my output nonexistent. I would stamp it out if I could, but I know it has formed me into the person that I am today.

Sometimes I wish bipolar could be eliminated altogether in lieu of a cure. A society which advances eugenics would have all manic-depressives either surgically sterilized to prevent passing down the illness to subsequent generations, or in extreme case like Nazi Germany, simply euthanized. Until we understand it better, the risk factors involved in wholesale liquidation of manic depression are many since that might change humanity, from a genetic view, much for the worse. Everyone's working for a cure, but even cures tread a precarious ethical ground, since no one is sure how much science, with its strict black-and-white focus, can take into account the wide spectrum of expression that is inherent to bipolar illness. In short, bipolar is here to stay, and even though I'm on medicine I know to expect the soaring highs and the devestating lows, the mood swings, and the occasional bouts where I toe the line between sanity and insanity.

Quote of the Week

Money is always there, but the pockets change. It is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.- Gertrude Stein

Saturday Video

"Lord Only Knows" is my favorite album track off of Beck's 1996 offering Odelay. Little did we know at the time that alternative music was almost dead, the music video as a entity was nearly extinct, and that MTV was about to be transformed into a 24 hour long reality TV show.

There's nothing dead
left to kill

Throwing your two-bit cares
down the drain.

Say What?!?!

I know Barack and Michelle are not shy about showing their affection for each other, but this takes the cake.

The Latest Treatment Update

Last night my Seroquel dosage was increased to 500 mg. For some reason, with time the sedative effect of Seroquel begins to subside, necessitating an ever-increasing dose. I just don't want to be like a man I met in a group therapy session who had the same issue I did and got up to taking 3000 mg of Seroquel a day. To be taken off of it, he had to be hospitalized for a minimum of a month. I suppose most of my fear stems from the fact that I know now that I am utterly unable to sleep at all without some kind of sedative. With enough problems on my plate already, it is not a comforting notion to add "insominac" onto all the other ailments with which I struggle.

Today is the first day I have taken Parnate, the MAOI inhibitor. I am looking forward to the positive effects of it because I've been in a low-grade depression now for a couple weeks. This has washed over onto this blog and made me quite a misanthrope and a sourpuss. If state of minds like these were infrequent then I'd be more tolerant of them, but bipolar is an illness with constant ebbs and flows. Recovery is a process, not a destination. Medication can control the flare ups somewhat, but at this point all they do is cap off the peaks and valleys--the highest highes and the lowest lows. I might have a ceiling for how far up I can go or a floor preventing me from falling ever downward and I'm glad I have these things, but I beg to ask for more.

My dose of Parnate will begin slowly. 10 mg today, then another 10 mg in three to five days. Within two to two-and-a-half weeks I'll be on 40 mg, which is the target dosage. I've taken my first dose today and I'm already starting to feel more hopeful. This is likely a result of the placebo effect, because nothing would work this quickly. It'll be seven to fourteen days before the dose I'm on reaches maximum efficacy, but I'll try not to second-guess a good mood.

A Quick Link for The Day After

Seven Reasons for Healthy Skepticism from The Politico.

A Semi-New Feature

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

When we speak about high expectations married to Superman comparisons in the context of Presidents, this old Saturday Night Live sketch comes to mind.

Inauguration Day

I am, of course, writing this before the pomp and circumstance begins. Invocations, speakers, processions, and tradition aside, I'm mostly hoping for a good Inaugural Address. Most are completely forgettable, full of optimistic platitudes and warm fuzzies, signifying absolutely nothing. Some have a memorable line or two, but date quickly and are soon forgotten. A few have been outright disasters. Only two have been universally hailed as superb----Lincoln's second and FDR's first.

I remember faking an illness and staying home from school to watch Bill Clinton's first Inauguration in 1993. The formalities and rituals of the ceremony were interesting, but the speech itself was largely a bore. This time around, I admit that one of the reasons I became a Obama supporter so quickly is that I have always admired those with substantial oratory skill; prior to his rise I had come to believe that in this sad day and age effective rhetoric was quickly growing extinct. One hopes that Obama will inspire a new generation of politicians and public speakers to aim for brilliance and deft speech-craft.

I have only one concern. President Obama has set the bar exceptionally high and is continuing to invite the Lincoln comparison. The instant he opens his mouth we'll half expect every word to be liquid gold, on par with his victory speech in Iowa or his speech on race in Philadelphia. I fear a letdown and will temper my expectations accordingly, though Obama has certainly risen to the challenge exceptionally well in times past. Like everyone else, I'll just wait and watch.

Quote of the Week, If Not the Year

One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.- H.L. Mencken

Another MLK Day

On this, another holiday dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and by proxy the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, I find myself surprisingly numb. How nice it would be to be a starry-eyed liberal. How nice it would be to greet the likes of battered women, urban poverty, and social injustice with a mild-mannered grin. If the personal stories of yet another oppressed minority or disenfranchised citizen moved me to tears I might qualify as the kind of position-paper, true believer. Truth be told I've known heartache and grief a thousand times over, both in my own life and in the lives of others and one more reminder of the tragedy life sometimes has to offer is just that---a reminder.

I wish I could rejoice in today's holiday, but while I should see progress, all I see is perversion. I've seen too many good people killed, too many good intentions come to naught, too many worthy plans scuttled by disinterest and sheer sloth, and too much energy channeled for lost causes in the wrong directions. Though we have elected the first Black President, we have not eliminated many societal ills, the least of which is racism. Though we commemorate today as a triumph of applied social justice, I can't help musing upon the backlash which occurred in the aftermath of King's assassination. This city, and many other cities, bears the scars of the numerous spontaneous riots which sprung up as news of his death became known. Whole city blocks have yet to be repaired and by the absence of the businesses which once operated there, still register the effects of mob violence.

Yesterday, a visitor to meeting, an activist in her own right, listened at length to my words but ended by saying: Enjoy this event. So seldom do we ever get things like this to celebrate. She was, of course, referring to the Inauguration. She may be right, but in the two months since Obama was elected I have gone from exuberant celebration to sober contemplation. Much needs to be accomplished. After tomorrow, every decision he makes will be parsed, analyzed, and methodically picked apart by the blogosphere and the media. This proverbial death by a thousand cuts is what gets to me the most. No President is immune from this kind of conduct, but forgive me if I might wish to prolong the honeymoon a bit longer.

Meme for Liberality

As always, I am against the practice of tagging, so them that wants to do this is more than welcome to partake. In other words, I'll do rules 1-3 and respectfully decline to do 4-6.

The Rules
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

______________

1. I ate raw seaweed once in fourth grade because the teacher brought some back from a recent trip to Japan and offered it to her students. Apparently it didn't sit well with my stomach, because I promptly vomited profusely all over my shoes.

2. I have an exceptionally low tolerance for stupid people talking loudly on public transportation. I also have a related low tolerance for stupid people who talk loudly on their cell phones in public places.

3. One of my biggest pet peeves is unreliable people and/or people who make lots of empty promises and then never bother following up with them. I think the Catholic Church needs to make a Patron Saint of Empty Promises. I'd buy that icon.

4. I have read the book The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath at least seventy-five times, if not more. I can almost quote an entire chapter by memory.

5. I absolutely hate getting places late, so as a result I arrive nearly thirty minutes early everywhere I have to be.

6. I got my first gray hair when I was twenty-five.

Walls and Bridges

Though I am certainly glad to see Barack Obama take the Oath of Office and begin his term as President, I can't say I feel the same about the ceremony itself. Security for the Inauguration has been, in my opinion, excessively restrictive and needlessly obsessive. Much of it is due to a lack of advance preparation--had the local police and Homeland Security given the DC area a long time to prepare well ahead of time, then there wouldn't have been as many problems afoot. As it stands, the grand plan has been doled out, piece-meal, bit by bit over the past month. Each day brings a new wrinkle or modification of what came before, which has lead to confusion bordering on anarchy.

And in contemplating this, I was reminded of the Robert Frost poem "Mending-Wall".

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

I began to think about the nature of walls. For example, there are walls separating Israel from the Palestinians. Some propose that we build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. Then there are the metaphorical and literal walls we build between ourselves for whatever reason or other. I'm sure one could expand the discussion to incorporate any number of historical allusions or personal anecdotes about the nature of walls, fences, or boundaries.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.

We build boundaries between ourselves for the sake of self-preservation, but God or fate or nature manages to tear away at them, necessitating we mend the walls of our own construction on a constant basis. In the end, why do we persist?

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out

Saturday Video

For George W. Bush