Month: February 2023

  • ODDS and ENDS: Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Balloons, and Formal Clothes

    (Help me find the funk…)

    The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame is bullshit, but it can be fun bullshit. Like last year with Dolly being inducted. She was right, as a county singer and songwriter, she didn’t belong there. But Dolly is such a huge influential talent across all music, everyone wants to claim her as their own. Even when Dolly logically and politely protested the induction, no cared, and in the she agreed to join. See, that was fun bullshit. The fact that Soundgarden still hasn’t been inducted is real bullshit… if the RnRHoF was a real institution that had any bearing on anything. Soundgarden was one of the founding bands of the Seattle sound and grunge music. Shit, if lame ass Jackson Browne is in there, surely there has to be room on the shelf for Soundgarden.

    And China is sending balloons to spy on us, which is a novel approach. No one is surprised that China is spying on us. Everyone spies on everyone. What this reminds are the Fu-Go Balloon Bombs that Japan tried to use against the us in World War II. The purpose was to start large forest fires, but it never really worked as planned, though one bomb killed six people in 1945. (The part of the story that I find the most interesting is that unexploded bombs were found in forests years, and years after the war. There is a good chance that there are still bombs in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.) So, I’m not really surprised that China revamped the idea. At the same time, it also feels like an idea that is doomed to fail. Either it won’t travel where you want it, or it will be discovered.

    Since the Pandemic, I would say that my clothing has been rather casual. Like, casual all the time. I am comfy. I have a huge, blue cardigan sweater on, and it makes me feel like I am being hugged all day. But, I think I want to go back to wearing sports coats and blazers again. Not sure about ties, but I feel I am lacking in a sense of formality, which could be detrimental when I start interviewing for jobs again. All actions in life are a skill, and if you don’t practice those skills, they are doomed to fade away. It might be a sports coat with pajama bottoms, but it is still a sports coat.

  • Happily Discovering Erik Satie

    Of all the things I have experienced in my life, the one I miss the most is the joy, wonder and excitement of learning. The last time I really felt it continuously was back in college, twenty years ago, when I would be in a class, and some new concept or idea would be presented to me, and that feeling would come over me, and it was like a door being unlocked, or that I was closer to putting my arms around a knowable world. It was such a fun, butterflies in the stomach feeling. A sweet and innocent feeling, one that seemed to be experienced daily in grade school, yet as time picked up speed in the vessel of my life, the frequency decreased. Was the cup of my mind filling, or was my tabula rasa becoming cluttered?

    And then, oddly, quite unexpected, something will come along that will jolt that old feeling. Like noodling around Spotify, and coming upon Erik Satie, and that wonder of learning comes over me once again; Why hello old friend, I haven’t felt you in such a long time. I don’t know why Satie has inspired me in this matter, but it is where I am, and I know enough to not question it.

    You know, Erik Satie, the French pianist composer. I think I have must come by his music at one point in my life. I have a vague feeling that I was involved in a puppet show that used his music. Whatever the case, I find myself trying in engage in as much of his music as possible, and also to learn as much about his as possible. And the more I learn; I feel like I should have known about him earlier. I am aware of the people he considered to be his friends and contemporaries in music and art, so I must have seen his name before.

    Right?

  • My Insurance Wants Me Dead

    A couple of posts back, I had mentioned that I went to the cardiologist, as I was thinking I was close to death because my jaw hurt and I was short of breath going up the stairs. Sure, being out of shape and having a cavity might have been the easy and logical conclusion for my ailments, but I went to the doctor anyway. Now, I wouldn’t characterize his response to me as flippant, but he did not believe my demise was imminent. He ran some tests, nothing bad came back, but to be safe, he thought I should come back and get a stress test.

    And then my insurance stepped in. Word came from The Castle, via a voice mail from a number that was identified as a “Spam Call” that the procedure that was requested by my doctor was denied. No justification or explanation was given by the AI voice that delivered this information. But, the voice went on, if I felt that this decision was incorrect, I could appeal by calling their automated phone line, or visit their website to use their automated IM chat service. Either way, I was promised that I would not have to talk to a human, and in the reverse, they created a system where the people of the insurance company didn’t have to talk me. Thusly, human interaction is eliminated.

    I find it odd, that the for-profit health insurance industry, specifically the company we have, likes to remind us that they are in the “people business” and that “our health is their business” as well. And the more I thought about it, I don’t think I have ever spoken to a human at the insurance company in the three years we have been with them.

    Then I started to think that maybe this insurance company is headquartered in one of those empty Midtown Manhattan office buildings. That it’s just a building full of computer mainframes, and rows and rows of empty cubicles and offices. That these computers make decisions based on bottom lines and liability probabilities, which in the end, the algorithm decided that seeing if my life was at risk wasn’t worth it. I was just a datapoint. Datapoints for as far as the eye can see…

    Now I have to call my cardiologist and see if he can get this denial changed. I guess he has the phone number that connects you to a person, or a better automated AI system.