Posted 4:32 PM by sport

Tried to delete the "test" message last night, and while the procedure seemed to go smoothly, the post still shows up. Consulting "blogger help" proved fruitless, as it instructed me to do exactly what I'd already done. Further exploration yielded: "I notice you're a free user... naturally we must atttend to our 89 million paying users first, so just hold your water, you insignificant pinchpenny" ... or words to that effect.

All of which means I must carefully consider what I post, since it's all gonna stay put at least until the honorable Elijah Muhammed returns to Earth from his holy spacecraft. This mild annoyance - typical of EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING one tries to accomplish these days - reminds me to mention what's been happening with my mother. Since shortly before Xmas, she'd been experiencing bouts of weakness and dizziness. I brought her to the hospital (St Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown New York, default successor to a hellhole called Smithtown General) last week upon instructions from her doctor, a mild-mannered quack with an impenetrable accent (pc note: it is not the nationality of the md that bugs me, it's the inability to interpret any of the life-or-death information he ostensibly offers... at ease, hippie) who chooses patients' prescriptions with a dart board. I sat with her in the "emergency room" for six hours before some other doctor told me she was to be admitted. At this point I returned to my parents' house to attend to my father, who also needs regular care.

My mother lay in the emergency room for two whole days before a bed was assigned to her. This was because a heart doctor wanted her placed in ccu for monitoring and there were no available beds. So she waited on a gurney virtually unattended as loud drunks were hauled in and out, cunt night nurses and prick pseudo-doctors repeatedly ignored her requests for food, and predictable indignities and discomfort ensued. My mother is the type who sits patiently and trusts that her caregivers will give care; if she were the demanding, obnoxious sort typifying the American personality she'd get more attention. Meanwhile I called her "heart doctor" ...a real mystery man who'd apparently come in to the hospital, said hello to her and left (wonder what that visit will cost?) without a word of clarification. When the asshole finally returned my call, he had nothing to tell me yet, of course, and I asked him to please let me know what was up as soon as he could. Yes of course he would. This one had no accent at all to disguise his supercilious tone. Since experience with his breed has taught me that the one thing they resent more than a patient is a concerned family member of that patient - so they never listen to a word, making sure to radiate their godlike disdain for your petty, ignorant queries - I retiterated my request.

Dr Condescention assured me thusly: "Yes, I will keep you informed. I returned your call, now, didn't I?" What a guy.

5 days later and nothing. Today's call was returned by a different doctor, one of the asshole's asshole associates. She told me my mother was fine. This means that the routine tests have proved inconclusive and, lacking an obvious justification for expensive surgery or simple prescription, they opt to hand her off to some other "specialist" for more routine tests and further billing. By the way, after several days of my mother's abandonment in the emergency room and repeated complaints from her and myself, her condition was "downgraded" to allow her admission to a regular hospital room. In other words, the heart "concerns" stopped "concerning" the good doctors once we pestered them with a few questions as to why she'd been marooned.

I will not continue detailing this situation, since it could go on for untold paragraphs. Maybe the world was never really any better than this... maybe it just seems that way in retrospect. Certainly, human beings have always been despicable vermin who care for nothing other than their own income, status, convenience, amusement and libidos, despite their ability - alone in the animal kigdom - to invent ethics. This is what was once called "evil." But I do believe there was - for a while - some commonly agreed standard of civility and mutually feigned respect. This permitted the few who were raised correctly to interact (with reasonable efficiency) with the vast majority of stupid, selfish scumbags whose selfish stupid scumbaggery was leashed by common custom. This is no longer the case, and people like my parents are left to fend for themselves in a world entirely incompatible with their temperaments and experience.

EXTREME ETIQUETTE!!!!!!
IN YOUR FACE COURTESY!!!!!!
POLITENESS WITH ATTITUDE!!!!!!
AMIABILITY ...FROM HELL!!!!!!
RESPECT ...ON ACID!!!!!!!
THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' SOCIABILITY!!!!!
HARD CORE BENEVOLENCE!!!!!

But no sense in belaboring things, eh?

Other news:
Got a copy in the mail of "Mollie's Mix" - a budget Kill Rock Stars comp including a new song (not on Uncle) entitled "Beatles, Stepping Off The Plane." The song is a satirical comment on the habitual use of that same piece of fucking film footage in every documentary (on music, the 60s, various entertainment figures, the Boer War, air screws, cryptozoology, Mata Hari, veal, et al) produced for cable, PBS, and other venues catering to masturbatory boomers who still believe "their era" represented the apex of human enlightenment. Anyone interested can order the cd from the KRS website. It's like 5 dollars and also features respectable artists people actually listen to. Yes, that means Sleater-Kinney.

Two cd releases in two days. Well, better go tear down all the Christmas stuff.