The Olympics are Bullshit

The opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics was indeed impressive. Cute, little Asian kids singing and CGI fireworks… the whole deal. It was also complete bullshit. Every 4 yrs all the countries get together, pop in a mix tape that includes “We Are the World” and pretend to get along. Truth is that China is still a pretty shady place, and that’s not meant in the cool, Eminem way. Truth is that most countries, and most people, don’t like each other and don’t get along. If there’s more than a 10-year period where there’s no major war going on that’s a really big deal (Good job so far with this one, Europe).

The Olympics isn’t about truth. Which made it that much more ironic that Russia decided to bomb the shit out of Georgia during the games. That’s real, I guarantee you. Ask Napoleon, the Nazis or the 1972 US Olympic basketball team what it’s like to fuck with the Russians; not too good. Spain and France may mask their contempt for one another with passive aggressive tact. They may channel their respective disdain and instead play a game of ping-pong or see who can run the 200m faster, but that hate still exists.

I’ll admit that I watched a lot of the Olympics and enjoyed it. But remembering the 1972 games, anyone who recalls what happened in Munich can tell you that the world contains a lot more Black September than sugar and spice. I don’t care how many anorexic, midget mutants you get to dance on a balance beam. It doesn’t matter that you train women w/ mustaches and no breasts or menstrual cycles to run in a little oval track. The world is still an incredibly violent and frightening place filled with evil people who want to kill you and take your properties and possessions. Try to cover that up with CGI.

And just in case you feel nostalgic:

The Ultimate Asshole

One of the best movies of my childhood, even though it wasn’t made for children, was Back to the Future. The original BTTF debuted in 1986 to wide acclaim. It won an Oscar and was nominated for 3 others, technical and creative. The 7 y/o version of me couldn’t agree more. Rather than dissect the stirring music, advances in special effects or specific genre of time travel sci-fi that BTTF reintroduced to public awareness, I wanted to write about something more tangible but seemingly unnoticed:Biff Tannen.

It’s easy to argue that Biff merely represents a classic archetype of the evil villain and little more. While I agree that he does fit the standard model at first blush, on closer inspection one learns that he’s got a little extra that’s not commonly seen in films of the same pedigree as BTTF (exception being Neidermyer from Animal House). A good start to this inspection is the sequels, which although I enjoy, I don’t hold as close to my heart as BTTF Part I. By representing the Tannen character in different eras and even in different possible timelines this otherwise clichéd villain is fleshed out and given much more solidarity.

Something to notice over these different settings is that Biff remains true to the original archetype. He sexually abuses women, bullies everyone and even verbally assaults an older version of himself. Across every venue Biff is unchanged. He is the ultimate asshole. And I’m not just being lazy here as there are many words I could choose to describe him: Inconsiderate, disrespectful, ignorant, malicious, stubborn, etc. All of these adjectives add up to the same thing:Asshole. This title sounds bad if you say it out loud but many movie villains, and myself personally, have been called worse.

It’s for this reason that Biff doesn’t taxonomically belong in the same category as Freddy Krueger or Darth Vader as far as baddies are concerned. Heck Vader blew up an entire planet as casually as you or I might delete an item from a Netflix queue. Although Biff technically does commit murder by killing George McFly in alternate 1985 during BTTF part II, he isn’t in the same league of these guys. Biff is an asshole, plain and simple. Whether it’s Buford Tannen in 1885 or Griff in 2015 he’s invariably the same asshole.

Maybe it’s the “Me Generation” from which the character was created, but Biff possesses many of the terrible qualities that most people condemn, yet nevertheless experience with regularity. This is what separates Biff from most other movie villains. It could be the kid at Blockbuster who closes the store 5 minutes early for a cigarette so you can’t rent the movie your girlfriend wanted. Or that guy at work you eat lunch with on Fridays who never tips the Chili’s waitress more than 5%. I see Biff Tannen at every single desk at the DMV and post office. Perhaps Biff is your neighbor who doesn’t cut his lawn, plays death metal at 3am and lets his dog crap in your yard? Heck, sometimes Biff Tannen may even be you.

That’s the overlooked element of the Biff character. Yes he is a common heel, a bad guy with an axe to grind, but he’s universally recognizable as someone most people have to tolerate and probably interact with on a regular basis. Biff Tannen is the ultimate asshole, and true to his nature he’s ok with that label. At least he’s not a butthead, but that’s an entirely different post.

Rape and Louis Skolnick

I watched Revenge of the Nerds for probably the 100th time in my life the other day. If you’ve never seen this movie than much of this post will not make sense. Still I’ll try to describe the scene that caused me to stir. The main villain is Stan Gable played masterfully by Ted McGinley. Stan is wearing a Darth Vader costume complete with mask and cape. His girlfriend is the very 80’s hot Betty wearing her cheerleader garb.

The setting for this scene is the inter-fraternity games, kind of a carnival atmosphere with drunk college kids. Louis, the film’s main protagonist, takes note of the costume his adversary is wearing and dons a similar Vader suit. Long story short, Louis convinces Betty that he is Stan Gable. In fact he convinces her to the point of getting her to sleep with him (with the mask on, I guess). Now the movie is not specific as to the nature of the sex. I won’t get into the Bill Clinton debate of what defines sex, but Louis clearly satisfied Betty manually, orally or with full-blown penetration.

My first thought was that even with a mask on (which I guess would make oral an even more impressive feat), how could Betty not tell that she was with Louis and not Stan? I’m assuming that she had already been intimate with Ted many times. From the look of the film Ted is athletic and muscular while Louis is doughy and deconditioned. I’ve never conducted a formal survey, but I think that most people know their lover’s body very well. Body type aside, they at least will recognize their “style” of sex; their touch and proclivities.

Proceeding with the “It’s just a movie” mindset, a more troubling set of questions arise. Questions like, “Hey, didn’t Louis technically just rape Betty?”. I’m not an attorney, but growing up I remember that if a guy sleeps with someone and the woman is drunk, the act is construed as rape because the woman is not able to consent to sex due to her inebriation. I wonder what the law says about tricking a woman into thinking you’re her mate, bringing her to orgasm and then revealing that you’re just some random slob.

I realize the fact that Betty came bares no relation to the actual act of rape. If this ever happened in reality, I doubt the woman involved would just say, “Aww shucks! You got me Louis!”. I’m a bit surprised that advocacy groups haven’t petitioned to have this scene removed from further releases on DVD, etc. Not to mention the bevy of stereotypes, particularly racial, that are represented in this film. Ahh, racism and rape jokes… is that what people are referencing when they talk about “the good old days”?

Thus Faked Zarathustra

I have previously touched on the idea of self-contrived illness. It’s a very thin line to tread, especially given the wealth of information on the Internet. With the extreme price of health care, this is unfortunately an issue that physicians need to take seriously. On the other hand, missing a stroke or pulmonary embolus can have catastrophic results so all symptoms must be treated with the utmost of seriousness. Thin line, I tell ya. But I wanted to write this in a round about sort of way; starting w/ my high school philosophy class.

My personal fascination with Friedrich Nietzsche started in my angst-soaked teenage years, as it did for many people. My parents figured that these ideas were part of a phase. In college I was fortunate enough to study with Richard Schacht, one of the premier Nietzsche scholars in the world. That was 10 yrs ago and I still hold my copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra very close to my heart. This isn’t a phase, Mom.

One of the many interesting things about Nietzsche, as is the case with many people, is the fashion of his death. There is sincere controversy surrounding the exact details, and given that the records are over 100 yrs old, reliable testimonials are difficult to find. Something that can be agreed upon:At the age of 44, Nietzsche started the beginning of what would be a complete mental break down. This mental and eventually physical decline spanned 11 years until his ultimate demise in 1900.

In a popular version of this mental collapse, Friedrich witnessed a horse being beaten by two cops in the streets of Turin and ran to the aid of the animal. He flung his arms around the creature and turned his head toward the sky, crying profusely. He was never the same after this single event. As an aside, Dostoyevsky’s main character in Crime and Punishment has a dream wherein a very similar exchange occurs. And Nietzsche was known to have been influenced by the great Russian’s work.

Anyway… Nietzsche’s madness rapidly progressed to the point where he was reduced to a shell of his former self. The formerly brilliant writer was nearly aphasic and could only form partial sentences. He was fed by hand like a baby. Some reports suggest he wasn’t able to retain fecal continence (IE:he crapped himself). The poor guy went on like this… FOR 11 YEARS.

Some critics have suggested that this display was all part of a clever rogue. As if it was all an experiment or joke that Nietzsche had designed from the beginning. Others speculate that the origin of his madness may have been anything from advanced neurosyphilis, encephalitis, frontal dementia, vascular compromise or even a brain tumor. He was only 55y/o when he died, so something was going on. In medicine clinical criteria are often implemented when no objective standard (a blood test or marker) is deemed adequate to establish a definitive diagnosis. I won’t claim to know what caused Nietzsche to fall into darkness for the final 11 yrs of his life. But if you’re shitting yourself, staring out into an empty room and being force fed pureed food by spoon from a relative for 11 years…. You’re not faking it. You have my vote.

On a lighter note, here’s a hilarious video of this faker who was being prosecuted in court. He decided to represent himself and it seems like his major strategy would be the classic “I’m having a heart attack” defense. After being checked out by medical personal and awoken magically with smelling salts, he was promptly sentenced to 42 yrs in jail. The video really speaks for itself, though:

How Cocaine Feels...

Speaking with a well documented coke-fiend (one step higher than your standard coke-head), I asked him what it felt like to snort that first hit of angel dust. Roughly and from memory:

“Imagine walking to your mailbox and you notice a large, red envelope. You open the envelope and inside is a winning lottery ticket. You’ve just won $100 million! That rush that you feel for the first 10 seconds spread out over 4-5 hrs is coke. “

Almost makes you want to try the stuff, huh? He continued:

“Now you look around and notice that all your neighbors have also won the lotto. Everyone is happy and hugging and kissing and listening to loud House music. That is a coke party.”

The things I sacrificed by going to med school. I did learn about, and even see firsthand, many young people presenting with stroke, heart attack or cardiomyopathy related to cocaine use. I’ve seen some overdoses that resulted in death for patients younger than me.

After using all these a number of meds to treat a variety of illnesses, I often wondered what it would feel like to have a large dose of IV lasix or valium. Or a giant dose of miralax. Kinda gross, but it still makes me wonder. Given the hypothetical that I could use any drug consequence free (legal and health wise) I would probably choose LSD. I have a soft spot in my heart for hallucinogens. Maybe I’d use anabolic steroids, it’d be cool to get all ripped like Arnold. But drugs are never consequence free in real life. Until that changes, I'll have to stick to my weekly lotto ticket.

Wanna Get Away?

Southwest Airlines has an advertising campaign that poses this very question. These commercials customarily show a character in an uncomfortable situation, like backing into their neighbor’s car or a rock star yelling out the name of the wrong city in front of a huge crowd of people. Current events being how they are, I would love to see one of these commercials starring John Edwards with his wife at an oncology appointment getting a cell phone call from his mistress. What a classy guy. I’m getting off track here.

Imagine a good friend of yours packed up scant belongings and fled your hometown for Thailand. He doesn’t speak Thai. He left behind his car and most of his possessions. There’s a rare and interesting condition called dissociative fugue (previously amnestic) where the afflicted engages in this behavior. More interestingly, the person doesn’t retain memory of their past life. No memory of childhood or family. He doesn’t remember his own name or his address. Kind of like the movie Memento but less tattoos and more frequent flyer miles. Plus it’s real.

The American Psychiatric Association describes this condition as a “sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of daily activities, with inability to recall some or all of one's past”. That pretty much says it all. These folks really wanna get away.

As a skeptic, physician and above all a student of science I have been very apprehensive of psychiatry. It’s difficult to deal with conditions that have no confirmatory lab tests or imaging studies. No path reports to spell out a diagnosis for me. I confess that these tests do diminish the art of medicine and emphasize the science, but when someone is sick and it’s your responsibility you take whatever you can get. I have admittedly been hard on psychiatry, but I have also seen amazing progress in otherwise very sick individuals and I’m thankful for their contribution. But I’ve also seen a lot of fakers. Again the medical term for this behavior is malingering. But I prefer to be direct about it:They’re fucking fakers, we all know what that means, right?

In today’s litigious society where many would rather collect disability pay than deal with the daily 9 to 5, it’s impt for a doctor to be aware of all the situations surrounding patient’s symptoms. I’ve seen plenty of pseudo-seizures and people faking muscle weakness or loss of sensation. It’s difficult to fake loss of sensation when someone is replicating the sensation known as “sharp, severe pain”. That one is easy to weed out.

Dissociative fugue? I really don’t think this one is bullshit. If you’re willing to drop all your existing assets and move away from your family and friends, something must really be up. I’ve never actually seen a case of this condition, but apparently there is a strong link to head trauma. Given this information I’d like to volunteer to Mr. Edwards one, solid punch to the head.

Michael Phelps Goes Full Retard

A lot of people watched the Olympics this past week. Getting caught up in Michael Phelps fever is easy. My GF, who is a neurologist by training, pointed out that Phelps is not the most attractive guy she’s ever seen. She continued that although he has a phenomenal body, something about his face was not quite right. Then she asserted that he may have “Fragile X Syndrome”.

Most non-medical people have never heard of this disease. Straight from their national website Fragile X is, “the most common cause of inherited mental impairment” (I guess they don’t consider Downs to be inherited as it’s technically genetic nondisjunction). Like many other conditions, there are other physical traits associated with this illness. For Fragile X these traits include: elongated face with a prominent chin and large, protruding ears. Additionally people with Fragile X often have flat feet, ADHD and hyper-flexibility of joints. Phelps has ALL of these traits.

Now the kicker is that Fragile X often leaves patients severely retarded. From the many interviews I’ve seen, Phelps appears to be of at least average intelligence and probably more. Here are a few examples of pics that I collected from Google. Interestingly enough, one of the other signs of Fragile X is macroorchidism. That is science talk for gigantic balls, BTW.
These are real pics and the resemblance is clear in my mind. Phelps is probably the greatest Olympians and maybe the greatest athlete of all time. He has already accomplished more in his life than I ever will in mine (not to mention he has more money that I will ever see). But it’s hard for me to shake my suspicions that he’s retarded. To quote Seinfeld: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”.

From here I wanted to write about the recent controversy about the film Tropic Thunder and the use of the word "retard" becoming taboo in mainstream society. As a champion of freedom I support the ability of this word to exist and it pisses me off that people are meant to feel afraid because a word is used. As I wrote on I felt the same about "the n-word" (the very fact that it's even called the n-word tells something about the fear this word instills) and faggot, both of which are basically forbidden now thanks to the word and thought police that is the govt and the PC, shit eating lawyers that run this country. Ironically enough, I became afraid as I wrote these thoughts down and decided not to put them here. If you want the uncensored version, feel free to email me. I am such a dego, wop, guido, guinea. I guess it's still ok for me to use those words because I'm Italian. Plus they are hilarious words, in the right context.

And in case you're wondering, here is a sample clip from Tropic Thunder that is garnishing most of the controversy.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Chinese Names and Drug Company Pens

After perusing the list of Chinese medallists and athletes in the current Olympics I noticed a common bond. With names like: Meng Yan, Liu Xiang, Zhou Chunxiu, Zhang Xiangxiang, Zhu Qinan, Zhang Juanjuan, Zhang Lin, Xue Haifeng, Xu Yan and Zhang Yingying something was very clear. I don’t speak a lick of Chinese, so maybe this is where a severe gap of knowledge exists, but apparently people there REALLY like using letters that are obscure in English, particularly q, x, v, z and y. Not to mention that the whole U after Q thing clearly doesn’t apply in Chinese. Plus the name “Zhang” is much more popular than I ever imagined.

A similar trend exists in medicine, not the Zhang Phenomenon, however. Many drugs that came out a few years ago (when I finished med school and subsequently residency) used these same letters. If you’re not in health care this list might not make too much sense to you…. But I’m gonna try it anyway, ok?

Zosyn, Buspar, Ziprasadone, Quetiapine, Valsartan, Seroquel, Xanax, Paroxetine, Fluvox, Mirtazipine, Zyban, Flagyl, Xigris, Zolpidem, Valtrex, Zelnorm, Vytorin, Xopenex, Zetia (officially Ezetimibe), Quinupristin (also known as Synercid, and don’t forget Cubicin/Daptomycin!). Shit… That was just off of recent memory and I haven’t been a ‘real doctor’ in a year! If you aren’t at all involved in the field of medicine, these are somewhat common drugs that a lot of MDs use every day. Certainly you’ve heard of a “Z-pack”, right?

I did find this one, essentially dumbed down article about the fashion in which drug companies choose the names of the products, and why they favor unusual consonants. Here is this article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-10-07-drug-names_N.htm

This basically useless article has such great quotes as, “Then there's Viagra, the erectile-dysfunction drug made by Pfizer. It uses the prefix "vi" to suggest vigor and vitality. The word rhymes with Niagara, suggesting a mighty flow.” I always liked my name for an ED drug, Mydixadryl, whose clarity seems needed now more than ever.

Disappointingly I don’t know the answer to this question of Chinese first names and the penchants for big drug companies to use the same letters with an uncommon frequency. I do have many friends that are Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and even Taiwanese. I don’t think many of these people are language scholars, or are fluent in the language that represents their ancestry.

So if you’re one my friends with a marketing degree, an Asian heritage or are just much, much smarter than me, please enlighten me as to the reason for this trend. I could be totally off mark here, but it seemed like an interesting enough coincidence. Even if that is the case, I’d like to hear from you. So email me or contact me on Facebook. Don’t obsequiously recycle quietly expired Xeroxes of quixotic vitriol that has slowly zwiterred over the yrs. Be original. You’ll sleep better, believe me. Even without the Zolpidem.

Anderson Cooper v. Dina Lohan

On a recent episode of Live with Regis and Kelly, Anderson Cooper stood in for Regis. I actually watched a 1 hr TV special about Cooper’s life, which if you don’t know has got some really interesting material. To start he’s one of the heirs to the Vanderbilt fortune which means he’s part of one of the richest families in the world. He graduated from Yale and was a member of a skull and bones-type secret society. Additionally he looked his 23-year old brother in the face as the troubled youth jumped to his death off the 14 story New York penthouse in a successful suicide (although it’s hard to apply the word successful to something like that). I didn’t say it was all roses.

Getting off track here. The main thing I wanted to post was this brief rant he went on about America’s favorite little Firecrotch Lindsey Lohan and her messed up family. I’ll try to post a link to the streaming video here, but here’s a rough transcript of what was said (KR is Ripa and AC is Cooper).
Edit:Here's a decent copy of this interaction. Not the best sound quality but man.. comedy gold!

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=KJNToPNPMWM

AC:Living Lohan is just a train wreck. And, and, I watched if for a while and I finally said to myself, “I cannot believe I’m wasting a minute of my life watching these horrific people”. Brief break here and then...

AC:Living Lohan is just atrocious. I mean, these people, Do you know about these people? I didn’t know anything about these people. Apparently they’re quite well known.

KR:Right. Right. OK, Ok. Yeah, right. Right, right.

AC:And uh. There’s one, Lindsey Lohan, who is apparently quite famous for doing all sorts of things. She’s not even in the show. So somehow her mother got a show in which, because of this person who’s not even on the show.

KR:Right, so they, do they refer to her, I mean, they refer to-

AC:They constantly refer to this person who’s never seen on the show. So, I guess people are hoping maybe this other person, Lindsey, is gonna show up. But until then we’re stuck with these horrific people. And they, there’s this uh, perfectly nice, seeming, allegedly a 14 year old girl. Looks to be about 60. But-LAUGHTER

KR:Right, right.

AC:Uhh. Who is… No, I say that with concern and love. And, she, allegedly wants to be a singer and/or actor, slash performer of some sort.

KR:OK.

AC: Strip tease person, I don’t know.

KR:Right.

AC:And I don’t that she actually has sung-

KR:I’ve met... I’ve met her. No, I’ve met the, I’ve met the little, but she was a little girl when I met her.

AC:Right. And she seems perfectly nice and I feel bad for her. But at 14 she’s you know? She’s out there. Like her mom is like, “All right! Go out there. You’re a singer! Be a star!”.

KR:Right. Well, it's that, uh. I think it's. The- You know, they’re obviously a multi-talented family.

AC can’t help but start to laugh at this next assertion.

KR:The kids sing and they perform. And they’ve been in the-

AC:Yeah. All right, no. Hey, sure. I,uh. Maybe that’s in the episode I didn’t see.

I know it doesn’t take much to attack a sitting target like the Lohan family. But the relaxed way that he spoke about them and the specific adjectives he used to describe these people were priceless. Atrocious and horrific. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Sodomize ME!

I lived in San Antonio for more than 3 years during my internship and medicine residency. For those who don’t know, San Antonio is a very brown city. And unlike Chicago, where the term “brown” can apply to Indians or Asians, the brown in San Antonio was Mexicans. And while I don’t consider myself a liberal hippy, this Mexican influence really does enhance the city and bring a much-needed edge to life in an otherwise near-dead town.

Many of my coworkers and patients were Mexican. My Spanish vocabulary increased to a level of a 12 year old, although I would still need a translator to describe a colonoscopy or diagnosis of HIV to someone. One day my Intern was telling me about “Dia de los muertos”, AKA “Day of the Dead”, a big time holiday in Mexico. Basically little kids get a bunch of sugar skulls (candy) and people take a day off of work. Part of it is appreciating the living, but I think the big deal is celebrating those who have died and wishing them safe passage to the next stage of existence. I don’t know if it’s a major part of the holiday, but this Intern told me that his family writes little vignettes about each member which details a graphic explanation of their manner of death. For example, this guy was an anesthesia intern, so his sister wrote that he became addicted to narcotics and died from an overdose of fentanyl that he was injecting in between cases. He got a good laugh out of that one.

To be honest, I was flabbergasted. I always wanted to use that word, and now I have. Flabbergasted is what I was. If someone wrote a story about my untimely death, especially in a comical or slapstick fashion like that, I think I would be pissed. I quietly explained to this guy that his holiday, and partially his culture, was fucked up. His response was that typical Anglo holidays are equally fucked up, and pointed out shit like Halloween, where kids dress up as ghosts and monsters and try to scare people only to be appeased with candy. I had no good reply, because he was right. Halloween was at least as fucked up as Dia de los Muertos, if not more.

Americans may think that Day of the Dead is stupid, particularly because paying so much attention to corpses accomplishes very little. But it’s no more ridiculous than many Americanized holidays. And besides dead people, principally the recently deceased, get a ton of attention. Funerals cost $1000’s and memorial services are always going on. What I don’t understand about this Mexican holiday is why the event doesn’t translate into a better attitude about death in general. It’d be very easy for me to blame Catholicism for this (I’d wager that >90% of Mexicans are Catholic), but even basic Christian values would support a healthier view about death.

Rewind to my Intern year in the ICU. A 55 y/o, obese Mexican guy with hypertension and diabetes comes in with a massive saddle pulmonary embolus (which is a giant blood clot in your lungs). He’s hemodynamically unstable so I start thrombolytics. He starts to crash and I call IR to do a thrombectomy at 2am, and they agree that the procedure is indicated. (lucky guy, to get IR out of bed at 2am). Despite all this sweat, the guy dies in the IR suite at 4am. This huge, Mexican family comes to county in the am. The guy’s body sits in the ICU with his wife sobbing her eyes out. As I make rounds with the ICU team, it’s impossible for me to drown out the sound of her wailing. We finish rounds hrs later and the wife is still there, kids at her side, crying as if she just heard for the first time of the man’s passing. Boxes of Kleenex are mounting. She sat there and cried for over 5 hrs, when his obese carcass had to be taken to the hospital morgue.

As a devout Catholic, you’d think the wife would be happy that her husband is free of Earthly attachments. She should be ecstatic that he no longer has to see a rainy day, a flat tire on his car or pick up a check he can’t afford to pay. He’s chilling with Jesus now, right? But no, she’s obtunded in sorrow. Maybe that means she’s greedy because she’s self-absorbed with her own grief? I don’t know.

From a culture that celebrates the dead and gives them their own holiday, I expect a whole lot more than this Christian bullshit. As a physician death is never too far away. One develops a keen acceptance and understanding of death. Death becomes like a relative that you see every now and then and sleeps in the guest bedroom. He’ll pop up and you’ll say, “Hey Death, what’s up?” and he’ll be like, “Here’s $10 for your birthday, I’m just gonna take this guy here, ok?” and then you won’t see him again for another few months. I read that in China the elderly receive very little end of life care because they don’t want to be a financial burden to their families. In Europe, hemodialysis is never initiated in anyone over the age of 65 unless one pays out of pocket (I think HD is like $40k/yr). I guess if you’re 66 and go into kidney failure, you just get a shovel and start digging. That or invest heavily in lotto.

Death is normal. There’s this marketing trend to spray the word “natural” all over anything that you’re trying to sell. I can’t think of anything more natural than death. It happens to everyone: we die. But people still have this huge aversion to death, even though no one who’s been through it has ever said anything bad about the experience.

When I die, you can do whatever you want to my body. Dress me up in funny costumes and hats, sodomize me, whatever. Heck, you can make a new hole in me somewhere and sodomize that, I really don’t care. Because I’ll be dead. You won’t hear a complaint come out of this mouth, even if you do try to fuck it. I don’t think I’ll care about anything. While I’m still alive though, I should try to be nicer to people around me and take care of my family and loved ones. That’s what really important, despite how saccharin it sounds. As things are now, I don’t think there will be anyone crying for 5 hrs at my bedside at 4 in the morning.

I am Tiger Woods...NO! I am Batman.

If you’ve seen The Dark Knight as many times as I have (I won’t state the exact #, but it starts with an “F” and rhymes with “whore”) you probably qualify to be my date to the “Biggest Nerd of the Year” ceremony at Comic-Con. I don’t want to review the film here, although I clearly enjoyed it if I deemed it worthy of repeat viewings. Yes, I liked Dark Knight. It certainly has it’s flaws, and more than nitpicking ones, but overall I think it’s the best Batman movie, and probably one of the best superhero movies. Summary:It’s one of the best. Ever.

Which is the same way I feel about Tiger Woods. Again, I won’t elaborate much on why I think Tiger is the best golfer and one of the best athletes of all time. Unless you’ve lived under the proverbial rock for the past decade, you surely must have heard of Eldrick Woods (Eldrick? That name belongs at Comic-Con, too). Again, a brief recap: Tiger wins or comes close to winning almost every time he competes. He consistently surpasses everyone in an international community of one of the most challenging individual sports that exists. So Woods is the best and Dark Knight is the best; who gives a damn? Apparently a lot of people.

And most of these people cared long before a frame of celluloid was shot in downtown Chicago, posing again as modern day Gotham. The build up surrounding the sequel to Batman Begins was immense. The Tim Burton version created a reliable fanbase. Even though Joel Schumaker tried to destroy this loyal group, they held steadfast until Nolan’s attempt with Christian Bale as the caped crusader. Begins was huge itself and the public impatiently waited for a followup.

Slowly minor plot points were leaked that merely whet the appetites of fans. When nerds like me learned the Joker was the main villain, I didn’t need Internet porn for 3wks. And when girls learned that dreamy Heath Ledger would play the clown prince, the media fluttered briskly. The tragic passing of Mr. Ledger only intensified this anticipation. Anonymous sources and Hollywood insiders cited an “Oscar-worthy” performance from the fallen actor. There was no way Dark Knight could live up to this kind of hype. But to use the Joker’s line to Batman following a melee in the streets of Gotham that included the coolest Mack truck stunt I’ve ever seen, “..you didn’t disappoint”.

Similarly, a 22 y/o Tiger won the 1997 Masters by a record 12 strokes. Even before this feat he was celebrated as the greatest golfer of his generation and given a $60million endorsement package from Nike and Titleist…. and he hadn’t played in a single major yet. The pressure that these two entities must’ve endured is stunning.

Part of my admiration for these 2 fixtures is that the media does such a shit-ass job at promoting things in a conscionable/reasonable fashion. Whether it’s a presidential candidate who’s the 2nd coming of Christ or the new Coldplay tracks they compare to “The White Album”, the cable TV, radio and Internet morons are the ones reporting these stories in frantic hyperbole. They are the ones who describe every new pitcher as the next Roger Clemens and every new movie as The Godfather. Tiger Woods and Dark Knight are 2 recent times in my life when the content-free and overall heartless media machine was actually right about something. I won’t soon forget it.

Just like I won’t forget Brian Bosworth or Ryan Leaf. Just like I won’t forget Ishtar or Battlefield Earth. The newest Batman movie and Tiger remind me that every now and then the real deal is even more spectacular than the superlatives. And for a brief second, my faith in that top 2-3% of humankind is again restored. That is until I stumble upon America’s Got Talent or the newest shitty morning show starring Kelly Ripa and Whoopi Goldberg.

Pissing On/Off the Principal

The principal of my grade school was a giant of a man named Gregg Crocker. He was very kind and accordingly well liked. But for a group of scheming misfits (my friends and me) with trouble as the only item on their “To Do” list, he was the enemy. With time he became my Mr. Belding, although I was never a pretty boy like Zach Morris. He was my Mr. Rooney, but I was never as cool as Ferris Bueller. The best analogy I can make is that of Captain Hook and Peter Pan. The difference here is that Peter Pan was depicted as a noble hero and not a little bastard. No comparison fits exactly because they didn’t make protagonists that were bratty, evil kids until very recently. And besides, he was original. He was Mr. Crocker. We had a multitude of entanglements far too lengthy to document here. I became quite familiar with his office, having spent many lunch periods and after school detentions there. Over the yrs Mr. Crocker had confiscated squirt guns, steel ninja throwing stars, pocket knives, lighters and countless firecrackers from my group of friends. That fact really pissed us off.


This brings me to a defining day in our relationship. In the brutal Chicago winters, the geniuses in charge of Longfellow Elementary made a rule that all kids needed to be outside during recess. To enforce this rule, the doors were locked so that no one could enter the building at lunch. This decree also pissed us off because winter was fucking cold, and we were a bunch of skinny kids who didn’t tolerate the frigid weather well. My friends and I would put duct tape or chewed gum over the inside door lock (to prevent it from locking fully) and then enter the building when no one looked so that we could enjoy the warmth. We were eventually caught and served several detentions for this offense (very Les Miserables, if you ask me). The other way to get into the building was to lie to one of the lunch ladies that you had to urinate, enter the school and unlock one of the doors so your friends could come inside. This urination plan had a high rate of success, especially when coupled with a pathetic look and reciting, “My Mom said I might need surgery again if I get another urinary tract infection”.


One uneventful day in the 5th grade, my friend Brad and I gained access to the Longfellow during recess using this method. Only problem was I really did have to piss. Brad followed me to the Boy’s room reluctantly but agreed that the story wouldn’t stick if the lunch lady saw us walking in different directions. I approached the urinal and unzipped. My friend Brad, as I alluded to earlier, was a dick just like many of my friends and me. As such, he turned on the sink and began to splash water at me while I was trapped at the urinal with dick in hand. Brad managed to break the spigot on the sink and water flew up in all directions. The ensuing laughter did not amuse me.

“I’m going to kill you, you sonofabitch!” I barked. He continued to laugh and ran out of the bathroom, being certain to turn off the lights as he exited. So here is 10 year old Rupert, mid stream at the pisser with water flying everywhere into the darkness of the little boy’s room. I heard a rustling at the door and I decided that I was going to get that prick good. The door clicked open and I ran over to it, aiming my piss at Brad’s head. There’s a moment of spine-numbing clarity for me, as I heard Mr. Crocker exclaim, “Oh Gawd!” as his penny loafers squeaked from the water on the tiled floor. I quickly pulled up my pants and lifted my shirt over the button. The cheap, fluorescent lighting stung my eyes. There stood Gregg Crocker with a highly visible stain on his green sweater; about the same height as Brad Loe’s face. I turned to the busted sink and made some comment that it was already broken when I got there. With the water from the sink squirting out omnidirectionally, I motioned to the basin and the broken valve. My heart was pounding and beads of sweat collected on my forehead.

To this day I’m not sure why he let me go. You’d think the smell of piss on your sweater would be noticeable. Maybe he was too embarrassed to even ask a little kid. Perhaps he thought the spray of liquid that hit his chest really was water from a broken faucet. Regardless of the reason, I got away with it. Years later I would meet up with Mr. Crocker as an adult. I never asked him about that day. That would be like Peter Pan asking Captain Hook if he has to masturbate as a southpaw since the croc took his good hand; just plain mean. He surprised me by revealing his drawer of contraband, although the ninja stars were long gone by then. What didn’t surprise me was how nice he still was after all these yrs of dealing with jerky kids like me. And while I don’t believe in God in the traditional sense, I hope the thought still counts when I say: God bless the Mr. Crockers of the world.