UNCF and Dan Quayle

A mind is a terrible thing to lose. Or waste. The people who came up with the original and the spoonerism were both right and somewhat clairvoyant in presaging what is emerging as an unsettling development in HIV care. I speak of the vague symptoms being brought to doctors' attention by their Poz patients. Lack of focus, memory loss, dizziness, minor motor losses, anger, confusion: any of this sound familiar? All of these things come with age or at least might come with advancing years. In a 75 year old person, such complaints draw a yawn from the doctor and a reassuring pat on the shoulder from him. But in a 45 year old HIV patient on a variety of toxic drugs whose effects on the central nervous system are known to exist, the medical profession shrugs its shoulders and suggests "further study." Out of one side of their mouths, the HIV experts claim the symptoms are due to the virus itself which sets up shop behind the blood brain barrier. Out of the other side, they suggest patients be switched to the subset of anti-HIV meds that have the unique chemical signature to penetrate it. If there is another side left, it is admitting that patients taking the penetrating drug are having just as much as trouble cognitively as the ones taking non-penetrating ones.
If I were confident that I were still in possession of all my faculties, I might be able to follow all the logic in this. But I am as certain as I am sitting here typing one mistake after another that must be back-spaced and corrected sometimes three and four times over that these conflicting bits of misinformation from the people peddling this stuff cannot be possessed of any intellectual honesty. There is no way to accept at face value anything the HIV science establishment tells us because it is so inconsistent within its own Escher-like structure as to be utterly unsustaining on any level.
The worst part of anhedonia is that you don't care about the fact that you don't care about anything anymore. I have had two people in the last week tell me they were ready to lay down and die. For the life of me-- and listen to who is using that cliche in this context-- I could think of no way to talk them out of it. Sure I tried to cheer them up by pointing out that a new Star Trek film is being shot right now for release next summer. You simply MUST stick around for THAT I whined half heartedly. But when you are staying alive by pouring toxic drugs down your throat several times a day at a cost of a grand a month, and the 95% of the world that has no personal frame of reference to HIV would just as soon pack you off to Gitmo for a high temp cremation lest you contaminate anyone else, you can't generate a lot of enthusiasm for much of anything. Including taking the final step. It's easier to plop down on the couch and listen to a record or read a magazine than to end your own life. And there really is a new Star Trek movie in the pipeline; I don't think that is a cognitive misfire in my memory bank.

Frankly My Dear

I don't give a damn about nine eleven. Even though a poll released yesterday found it was the "most important event" in most American people's lives. This just proves how out of step I am with the mainstream. And grateful to be so. Nine eleven for the rest of the civilized world is two days before the anniversary marking the end of World War One. Only here in the back assward USA do the two words conjure up the double edged sword of danger and safety to be schizophrenically fused for endless browbeating of the mentally challenged by the morally bankrupt. Hang up and dial nine one one. Last time I tried dialing my phone with the receiver hung up, the call did not go through.
The day might come when the true facts are learned about how complicit our own government was in orchestrating something that would later make people exclaim: "It was like in a movie." Funny how apt the metaphor is. But we alive when it happened will all be dead and Dubya's legacy will rival Hoover's in its Nero-esque detachment from reality as a basis for ridicule. And it won't matter then; just as nobody cares now the extent to which FDR "let" Pearl Harbor happen. Or made it happen. The fact that planes were made to look like bombs on TV was not a historical random glitch, but an elaborate marionette performance staged for the benefit of its producers. As such, it has no credibility as a legitimate surprise that turned the course of history. An example of that would be the errant assassination of the obscure Archduke that did start World War One. Instead, it's more like a submarine lurking in the depths and firing a secret weapon to rain down on the unsuspecting; then to steal away and hide or be scuttled. OK my metaphors are now hopelessly crossed and mixed and jumbled. But this handwringing and self pity and crying and flag waving is nauseating for its maudlin soap opera lack of sincerity. That is the point. And so is the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq which now exceeds 3700 and is a third more than the toll that day in September 2001. If anyone thinks that has been a fair price to pay, and that there has been a "dividend" accruing to our good will in the world at large as a result, they should seek a refund on their lobotomy as it took out a little too much tissue.
We don't have the energy or focus to rationally discuss the murder of Tillman or the half million dead Iraqui civilians or the destruction of the oldest civilization on record for the crimes they truly are. We can't begin to understand the inability of the majority party in Congress to mobilize and respond and defrock and take back what is ours. We do know that we have become death, and that we are all responsible for not preventing it or ending it. Do not ask me to ever observe a moment of silence to mark when "the towers fell." I scoff at the masses who dutifully swallow the opiates distilled by the government and MSM for wholesale distribution. I spit mine out and grind it into the dirt.

Thermionic Emission

A previous entry from June about a paralyzed athlete did generate some favorable response, so today's blog will take a similar path in hopes of keeping a new momentum going.
There is irony in the fact I belong to an internet group called Audio Asylum where the members are called Inmates. We ask each other questions about our stereo stuff and get answers back sometimes within minutes. How the US can have the highest productivity of any country on Earth while people are using their work computers to chit chat about their hobbies is a mystery for another day. Anyhow, one day I got a self-introductory note from a man named Lloyd who lives a few miles away in my town. He had seen a question I had posed about an exotic turntable and took the bold step of sending me a private message which in the bizarre world of internet protocol is sometimes frowned upon. It was good that he did violate the sacred rules because we have become audiophile buddies in just a week's time. No I do not mean virtual pen pals but actual in-person friends. He has been to my house and heard my system and I have been to his house and heard his. Now that is a benefit of the internet to the civilized world.
Rather than describe in great detail his stratospherically esoteric setup, I wish to focus on the man himself. To call him an inspiration would be to use a tired cliche and to diminish his accomplishments. Like the man from Florida who had fallen out of a tree that was the subject of a previous entry, Lloyd is saddled with a truckload of lemons delivered to him by cruel fate. Like the former tree surgeon who made a conscious decision to not vegetate and become embittered and dark after his accident, this MIT-trained architect has elected to stay in the game. His fatalistic acceptance of multiple medical problems including HIV and spinal deterioration and liver failure has been a source of energy rather than a drain on it. How that can be I cannot say. But here at the HIV clinic where I work, we treat two kinds of patients basically. One group feels violated, entitled, embattled, put-upon, victimized and oddly privileged. They keep us all in business with their constant requests and demands for every service imaginable at the lowest or non-existent fees they can get away with. The other group is where Lloyd the architect chooses to dwell. On some days, there is pain. Other days, loss of cognitive focus. Other days, digestive distress. Still other days, a roller coaster ride of all three. Working from his elaborate computer array humming in his home office, the man who was architect to the stars (Coppola and Douglas to name two) plugs away these days designing acoustically perfect listening rooms for successful hairdressers who want their stratospherically esoteric sound systems to achieve their full potential. Rather than wear his infirmities on his sleeve, he hunkers down to let the clouds pass over then resumes work. In the background might be Leonard Bernstein or Pink Floyd or Willie Nelson or Les Brown in hauntingly clear detail. The sound hangs in the room behind the flat transparent panel speakers; the dull orange glow of the vacuum tube amplifier imparting its own visual warmth to the scene. Lloyd admits all this is an extravagance "from when I had money." No apology is needed, my friend; you do yourself a great service by choosing, assembling, maintaining and enjoying the most advanced electronic sound playback equipment in existence to make your days and nights better than they might be otherwise.
Many people in the high end audio world use their systems the way penile-challenged blowhards use their Corvettes or Vipers. But most are seeking a holy grail of suspended disbelief. It's a worthy goal for lots of reasons; not the least of which in Lloyd's case being that it gives him a good reason to get up in the morning and stay up late into the night to find out if that new set of Russian military spec tubes really do brighten up the treble any. When an obsession becomes a disease that sucks the life out of your life, it's bad. When an obsession distracts you from a disease that is trying to suck the life out of you, it's good. Thank you Lloyd for showing me the right way to obsess healthy. May the Force within you be induced in me through a great invisible transformer.

Not Exactly By Popular Demand

All those who believe in Telekinesis, raise my hand.
May that set a new tone for this blog which towards the end of its previous incarnation had begun to take itself way too seriously. From now on, every effort will be made to avoid belaboring the outrageous, immoral, reprehensible, despicable and repugnant events that occur hourly around the globe and are beamed instantly to our screens. You can find them for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Instead, each entry is hoped to contain some reason for having gotten out of bed this morning. A reason that might have escaped your notice but that once on your radar will bring a ray of hope and sunshine into . . .OK, this can be taken too far. Sorry.
The promise is to not belabor; it is not to completely ignore. That was just changed in a backspacing edit frenzy. To wit: today POTUS and POC joined hands to pronounce that money is more important than reversing global warming. The Presidents of the US and China have assured the world that nothing can or should stop the unfettered flow of poisonous toys across the sea for sale at Wal Mart where prices are falling all over themselves. No level of pollution is too high; no concentration of CO2 is too intense and no toxic chemical is too dangerous to keep the world safe for (or would that be from?) capitalism.
But no that is not the truly big news today and it is not why we are here: it is to repeat the bulletin that the new iPod is overpriced and overrated according to Yahoo's consumer guru. It costs too much for what it does not do and how badly it does what it does do. What a refreshing and rare tiny point of truth hiding in the haystack of pro-consumption fanfare that otherwise floods the media constantly.
Another cause for rejoicing is the continuing meltdown of the republicans and their hypocritical double standards on sexual misbehavior. Jerry Seinfeld was quoted to the effect that with all this bathroom humor they are providing, there is no need for professional comedians. Late word is that a congressman from North Carolina will be sucked down into the triple murder investigation swirling around last month's bloodbath in Florida. That's the one the MSM can't touch for all its thorns despite its intoxicating sweetness. A gay ex-Marine is the prime suspect; he was running a gay escort service for beltway elite including Patrick McHenry who collects a couple hundred grand a year for pretending to represent rural North Carolinians. With any luck, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham will be implicated too.
This is going to be fun, watching the mighty fall and catcalling at them during their flailing descent. Splat.
For those who kept inquiring about the return of this blog, and offering encouragement and good reviews of past installments, thank you. For those who danced on my literary grave, none of your future comments will be approved. You will have to get your own blog.