Gag Reflects: My Blog

Gag Reflects: Why I Quit Smoking

Sat, 8 May 2010 12:46:48 -0400

Gag Reflects: Why I Quit Smoking
I spent the last 48 hours praying for emphysema. It’s better than the alternative.
Ever since I developed this horrible hacking cough six weeks ago, seemingly out of nowhere, I’ve been thinking that I’ve never quite coughed like this before. It comes out of nowhere, no warning, from deep in my lungs. I remember the first one. It was a Sunday morning, about six, and I woke up with this painful hack that originated midway down my right lung, somewhere near the center, and it gave way to a torrent of sputtering hacks that drove me from my bed to the living room. Molly, my wife, called to me, “are you alright?” I told her that I was fine. Just a coughing fit.
But the cough remained. I thought about the fact that I’d had three respiratory infections this long, cold, dismal winter. Ohio was a punitive little bastard from January all the way through March. Add to the cold and the sickness the fact that we’d had construction going on in the house for a month. A shitstorm of dust and all manner of probably-toxic particles floating in the air for thirty solid days. It didn’t help that I was stuck in the house all day breathing the shit from morn till dusk. So I figured, okay, it’s the residuals from all the gunged-up winter mucus and the 1940s asbestos-fest that is our bathroom rebuild.
But in the back of my head, I kept thinking, okay, between 12,000 and 15,000 cigs smoked in the last decade (a “light smoker,” I). Was this the dreaded smoker’s cough I’d avoided in the past by quitting for a week or two till the hack went away? Or was this a more permanent cousin here to make a home in my chest? So I put away the cigarettes in mid-March, more or less. I was on a book tour and I love to smoke, especially before readings and after readings. So I was still puffing away.
But in April my lungs started aching and the cough wasn’t going anywhere, so I put the cigs and other burned inhalants away. But the fucker wouldn’t give up. Hack, hack…hack, hack. Persistent, hanging around, waking me up from time to time. It got worse when I got excited, for instance, when yelling at the teevee during sports events (mostly Spurs games) or dickweed political pundits spouting their idiotic bullshit.
It made my chest sore and my throat feel scratchy. Then I got on the internet. And I started to take a look at what a diseased, cancerous lung looks like. I read up a bit on the risks associated with smoking. Yeah, I knew it was dangerous. That’s part of the allure of smoking. The whole cavalier “fuck you death, I’m not even thinking about you.” Plus, there’s the nicotine kick, powerful and immediate. The smell of a good cig, the bewitching smoke curling up on a cold winter’s afternoon. Even the sound of the cig burning down when you take a deep drag. The fact that you’re never waiting when you smoke. You’re smoking. So fuck the risks. But, no. After a couple of hours on the internet, you realize that the risks fuck you.
And so I made an appointment with my doctor. He gave me some steroids and a goofy-assed inhaler. I sucked on it for a month, and nothing cleared up. After a trip to San Antonio, during which the coughing got worse, I decided to go back to the doctor. By then, I’d whipped myself up into a near-panic. I was short of breath, the chest was aching and exhausted, and I was sure that I was very screwed. The doctor told me that there could be any number of reasons why I was still hacking my lungs out. But c’mon, doc. That’s all bullshit. This cough ain’t due to some cold I had in February or some dust, toxic or not, that was in my house a month ago. It’s The Cancer.
He scheduled an x-ray for “peace of mind.” Let me certify for you, dear gagger, that there is absolutely NOTHING peaceful about going to the imaging lab at a big hospital. There is a clear divide of the folks there because they screwed up their ankle playing basketball and The Others. The Others are there because something inside is not working right. They are not annoyed, like the wounded weekend warriors. They are fucking petrified that they are going to die. You can see it in their pale, scared faces. We all look exactly the same. Doomed.
Now, I’ve been in the x-ray hall of the damned many, many a time. I’ve had five knee and foot operations in six years. I’ve been there for MRIs, Catscans, x-rays, a dozen times at least. But never had I been a member of The Others. Let me tell you that it was a heavy-duty moment of instant Reality. They brought me in, stood me up against a wall facing some large screen, had be expand my shoulder blades, breathe in as deeply as possible and then shot the picture. Then again, this time my hands held above my head as if I was surrendering to the Germans. Another deep breath, another picture. Then I was told that I’d have the results in 24-48 hours.
The Wait was ungodly. I called my doctor the next day. Still no word. But he assured me that the odds of my having lung cancer were quite low. “Quite low” is not a comforting phrase. Not when you are hacking like a sonofabitch for six weeks and you’ve been looking at pictures of withered, blackened lungs with huge gnarly white tumors like deathly-pale fat spiders crouching in dark, haunted caves.
I started running through suicide scenarios the second night of The Wait. Who could I trust to give me the morphine overdose? I got to picturing how devastated my wife would be as my fat body started to melt and I got sicker and sicker. I thought about the kids we’d never have, about how we’d never take another trip to Paris, that I wouldn’t be there for her big successes as a shrink, that I wouldn’t be there to help her through tough times or celebrate the good ones. Because I’d be fucking Dead.
In short, I came face to face with the goddamndest case of existential dread I have ever experienced. The worst thing? That if I had small cell lung cancer, it was entirely self-imposed.
Yesterday, Friday, May 7th, I woke up and called the doc first thing. Still, no results. I asked the nurse, well when can I expect to hear. She told me that my doctor was out of town and if the results came that day, his replacement would call—provided that it was Good News. If there’s a problem, your doctor will call you on Monday.
Get that? How’s that for a cliffhanger response?
That’s when I went into full panic mode. I started to think, they probably have the news now, but they’re not going to give it to me because, well, hell—it’s not their job to break that kind of news to a patient. They don’t get paid to tell some dumbass “light smoker” that he’s got a lethal cancer. That’s what the doctor gets paid big bucks to do.
So I got on the phone, called the hospital, demanded my x-rays, which they provided, although they wouldn’t give me the “results,” that is, the interpretation of the fuckers. I picked up the cd with the x-rays and headed for my doctor’s office. I got there and told the surprised, though sympathetic nurse, that I’d like the replacement doctor to take a look and give me the verdict. At this point there was no way I was going to go the weekend without knowing what the deal was. The doctor was about 90 years old and in no mood to deal with a panicked hypochondriac in the midst of a full blown death-thrall. While I was arguing with him, the nurse got on the phone and demanded that Ohio State Hospital fax the results. I guess she knew that it was either that or call the police.
I heard the fax machine humming and the nurse gave the sheet to the doctor, who was at this point railing about Obamacare and how it was going to further fuck up timely medical results-getting. The old guy took a gander at the report. He was a stone-faced motherfucker, and he read slowly and silently. It was the longest ten seconds of my life. Then he looked at me with a bit of doctorly contempt and said “Normal.”
I think every cell in my body lit up with an unearthly delight, like God had shared his private stash of feel-good with me. It was like they’d drug my ass up on the gallows and the executioner had taken off his dark hood to reveal he was Allen Funt or that dumb-ass Aston Kutcher, and that not only had I gotten a reprieve, but the whole joyful thing was going to be aired on MTV for everyone to enjoy. I almost kissed the old bastard. I didn’t, but I did go out to the flower shop and buy the nurse and her assistant each a bouquet of spring flowers to express my undying, eternal gratitude.
Look, say whatever you want. I’m a puss. Noted. I faced the grim reaper and came up wanting. Bingo. Because I would not stop for death, death kindly stopped for me. Guilty as charged. Don’t worry, I’ve already excoriated myself for my panicky, un-manly response to dying an awful, slow death brought on by my own hubris.
I’m not trying to convert anyone to my new status as a Born Again Breather. But I owe it to my fellow Gaggers to tell them the truth. I was scared shitless. And I was spared, at least this time.
And so, I Quit.
Fuck cigarettes and fuck the Cool, and fuck the I’m a Writer bit. The cold hard truth: I’m not putting myself into depths of existential horror again, at least not over a butt and a nicotine rush. Cuz there’s NOTHING like the rush of a late-night panic that you’ve fucked up but BIG.
And that’s why I quit smoking.

RIP 2000s-Don’t Let the Doorknob Hit You...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:32:39 -0500

So, it is approximately three weeks before the new year, 2010. Wow, how did that happen? Ten years ago, everyone was terrified that Y2K would be the end of the earth and everything that was dear and holy would be lost as computers brought about the end of civilization. Nothing happened.
But the 20-Oughts will go down in American history as one of the darkest, most ignorant, god-awfully befucked decades. Ever. Or at least since the Middle Ages. Yes, I know, the Civil War was rough, so was the Great Depression, so was WW2 and any number of other shitty events in our history. But never before, excepting the shameful period when Americans argued about whether slavery was justifiable and even permissible in this “xtian” nation, have so many proud ignoramuses shoved their heads up their asses quite so deeply. They elected George Fucking Bush to office, not once, but TWICE. This doofus presided over 9/11, forced this country into two clusterfucked wars, sold the Constitution out with illegal surveillance, okayed obscene torture practices and something called “extraordinary rendition,” gave full reign to the greediest demon-hogs on Wall Street to literally steal every motherfucking thing that wasn’t nailed down, and then stuck the taxpayers with the bill. Yes, you nitwitted Tea-bagging sonsabitches, it was your preznit that brought us TARP and the bailout of Wall Street and told the rest of us to go sell fucking pencils on the corner. Somewhere in there, American Idol became the top-rated show, epitomizing by the obscenity that Americans vote more fervently for teevee show “celebrities” than for candidates in national elections. Somewhere in this decade, we started watching torture-porn (Saw 1-1000) and torture teevee (24 and Faux News). Even more perversely, Lady Gaga and Balloon Boy and professional idiot, Glenn Beck, became cultural icons.
Meanwhile, we’ve spent the decade ignoring our real problems: healthcare, poverty, the environment, a crumbling infrastructure, social justice, and the disappearance of a once-robust middleclass in order to make sure gay folk can’t get married, and that women who want their right to do as they wish with their own bodies are branded as infidels and whores.
Y2K didn’t usher in a computer apocalypse. It ushered in a decade of utter irrational fucktardery. We are a nation being led by loudmouthed morons on Fox News who inspire the bug-shit right to parade their racist, fascistic stupidity in the streets like a bunch of jack-booted brown shirts.
It is a hopeful sign that as this woeful decade comes to a merciful end, we have elected an intelligent and thoughtful president. I suppose that the growth of access to the internet has also been a positive thing. Perhaps this decade has led to a growing consciousness in regards to our environment and the very real, harrowing disaster awaiting us if we do not act to curb carbon emissions drastically.
I’m disheartened to admit that I don’t have a hell of a lot of hope for the next decade. Stupidity is on the rise. Constructive civil participation seems a lost and distant concept. Neo-fascism is on the rise. Racism is openly expressed. The bigots and hatred-spewers have become more emboldened than ever. But I can still wish. And my wishes for the new year, and beyond, are that the forces of rationality and respect for one’s common man and woman, no matter their race, creed, or sexual preference, return after this nightmare of a decade.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year.

Gag Reflects: Lou Dobbs Gets a Cap Busted in His Ass

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:59:54 -0400

I was on the intertubes last night when I read this story about Lou Dobbs claiming that someone or someones are shooting at his house. He claims it's because of his "immigration views." If I had to guess, I'd be willing to bet that someone is shooting at Mr. Hate Spew for being such a lousy journalist. Being a loud-mouthed bigot doesn't seem to carry much of a social price tag anymore.

Okay, let's get this out of the way. It's not cool that someone is taking potshots at Lou Dobb's house. Are we clear on that? Just say "NO" to violence.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, if there's anything close to karma it is Lou Dobbs having someone shoot at his house. The irony in all this is that Dobbs has the marbles to cry like a big titty-baby about the "forces of intolerance" and "hatred" which are being aimed at him! Lou Dobbs is really upset that someone wants to bust a cap in his ass. Of course, Lou doesn't have an compunction about getting on his teevee perch or his radio hate-fest and ranting about how "illegals" are spreading leprosy and TB. According to Dobbsy-boy, "illegals" are nothing but criminals who spread filth and crime everywhere they go. In fact, he spent much of last year defending the right of a bunch of armed fucknuts to run around the border playing at big boy cop, denying water to dehydrated and discombobulated human beings because, you know, they're not actually "human," they're ILLEGAL ALIENS and therefore deserve no dignity or humane treatment. Some of these play soldiers, commonly known as the Minute Men, actually engaged in a criminal plot where they robbed a Latino and in the process killed him and his 8-year old daughter. They were going to use the money from the robbery to bankroll their secessionist spin-off. Dobbs has never hesitated giving copious amounts of air-time despicable pigs like Jim Gilchrist, the Minute Men founder, to spread their hatred and create an atmosphere where a ton of American idiots feel comfortable in conspiring to keep a whole group of people living in abject misery even while they use their sweat and labor on a goddamn daily basis.

In Dallas, we've learned, cops have been issuing tickets to people who don't speak English. Is it a law that you must speak English in the U.S.? No, it is not. But apparently if you're dealing with spics, who gives a fuck? We'll just make up the rules. It's okay if you're cleaning my pool, detailing my car, mopping the floors at my kid's school, picking lettuce, roofing in 100 degree weather, or slaughtering chickens, but, Hey, Don't For One Second Forget That You Are An ILLEGAL ALIEN, lest we bust a cap in YOUR ass or pick you up in some half-assed raid because you look funny and we superior English-speaking AMERICUNS don't like the way you sound or look.

A while back, we found out we had asbestos in our basement and that it was becoming unstable. So we solicited a couple of estimates from companies to remedy the problem. Well, we had two different guys show up in shirts and ties and do their thing and give us the estimate for stabilizing 3 square feet of absestos on one of our heating ducts. 1000 bucks. So we paid. Now, did the guy with the tie show up to do the work? Hell, no. Two Mexican dudes, who hardly spoke English, who were more than likely "illegal," showed up to do the very, very, very hazardous work. And I'll bet you a nasty case of lung cancer that they weren't making anywhere near 1000 dollars to do the job.

So when I hear Lou Dobbs bitching about someone taking a shot at his 8 million dollar house, which he has largely built on his ability to spread lies and hatred about Mexican immigrants, and then think about these two nice guys who showed up to deal with my cancer-causing asbestos problem, and who are keeping their heads down and trying to support their families by doing the dirty, fucking grunt work that no one will touch with a ten foot pole, I figure, screw you Lou Dobbs. More than likely the malcontents shooting at your house are a couple of these secessionist wads who don't think you're being hard enough on the messicans.

Next time you hear some dimwit talking a ton of unsubstantiated bullshit about "them illegals," do me, you, and them a favor, and tell them to stfu unless they know someone whose willing to stand on a bloody butchering floor for 12 hours at a slaughterhouse for $50 bucks. If you got a kid who needs a summer job and is keen to spend the day stooped over in the sun cutting lettuce while the crop dusters drop pesticides on them, then maybe I'll listen to you complain about "them illegals" taking American jobs.

As for me, I've found that humanity is often a lot easier to find amongst those that too many Americans find it's just so easy to hate because they're brown and "illegal." And by the way, if you want to know what's wrong with this country, take a look at Fortune's 10 Highest Paid Executives under the age of 40* Let me tell you, I'd give more than a dollar to watch those pricks tar a roof in August.

*http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108028/highest-paid-under-40?mod=career-leadership

Gag Reflects: Why Do They Hate You?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:41:34 -0400

Yesterday, in New Orleans, a young black kid, this beautiful, intelligent fourth grader, asked President Obama why people hated him so much. The kid's face was filled with heart-breaking concern, his unblinking eyes filled with naked anxiety and innocent confusion as the president struggled to answer what had to be the most startling question he'd been asked all day. It made me think about how psyched this kid must have been to know that he was going to meet the president, how a few months ago, he was filled with overwhelming pride knowing that someone who looked like him, from a similarly humble background, had succeeded in growing up to be a man who found the answers in this hard, cold, unforgiving world. And make no mistake, Obama has done it magnificently, in the process becoming for so many a symbol of national hope and regeneration. And it made me sick to think that this boy's opportunity of a lifetime had to be marred by the hatred and unhinged filth that has been let loose on the person of Barrack Obama. So Instead of asking the president how he, a young poor black boy growing up in one of the most neglected cities in the U.S., could replicate this miracle story, this child needed to know how so many could hate him. It shamed me.

It shamed the hell out of me.

On the very same day, in the very same state, a story broke that a Louisiana justice of the "peace" had refused to marry an interracial couple because the "mixing of the races wasn't right." This clown claimed that children of "such a marriage" would not be "acceptable," thus "forcing" the progeny of such a marriage to live as unwanted outsiders. This "justice" went on to claim that he wasn't a "racist." He was even careful to note that he let his "piles" of black friends "use his bathroom."

Look, something nefarious and odious is going on in this country. Every day and night we are bombarded by the images of many of our fellow citizens shrieking that to bring healthcare to our neediest and most vulnerable is equivalent to being a Nazi. Think about that. A goddamn NAZI. These toxic pigs spent the entire summer relentlessly and publicly shitting on the principle that we as a society owe all human beings the same opportunities and care. They made it their mission to convince us that we must turn our backs on the indigent and poor, the homeless and the helpless, in the name of their perversely twisted definitions of "freedom" and "liberty."

Turn on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or a host of other hateful blabbermouths and you will hear the call to envision our fellow human beings as "illegals" and "losers" and useless leeches. Limbaugh's has called brown folk an "invasive species." He and his dittoheads call the president, and by extension all people of color, "Halfricans," "little black man-child" and "reverse racists." The contempt and hatred has dripped, dripped, dripped into our collective social consciousness to the point where that child, rather than being able to express his pride and hope for his own future, felt that he must ask the president why he is so hated.

President Obama tried his best to answer, but how could he? There is no answer capable of creating such elusive understanding in a nine-year old.

And the truth is that I've gotten to the point where I don't give a damn about the answer anymore. Black, brown, queer, and immigrant folk have been patient. They've been gracious and merciful in the extreme throughout the seemingly endless string of generations of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, racism, homophobia, colonialism, and exploitation. And yet, it hasn't been enough. In the eyes of many, we are still roaches, vermin, animals, foreigners, bringers of disease and crime. We are dirty, lazy, wanting of nothing more than a handout, of gaming "the system."

Women like my grandmother sweated and suffered their entire lives to bring their families up with a sense of pride, doing their damnedest to nurture a belief that if you worked hard and proved your worth, your humility, your generous nature, that acceptance would eventually come.

Sadly, that isn't the case. There will always be ignorance. There will always be brutishness. There will always be that urge to dehumanize those with less power because in America it's become acceptable to stomp on the faces of those who don't have a pot to piss, who don't "belong."

So I've decided that I can't play nice anymore. I won't sugar-coat my anger and my disgust with those so fortunate that they don't feel the need to give a good goddamn about the meek, the lowly, the outsider (you know, the folks Jesus championed--remember him?).

The bastards need to be called out, and they must be dragged kicking and screaming towards social justice. Right now, obscenely rich fatcats in D.C., New York, and in every other financial whore-city across this nation are trying to figure out how to make a few more trillion bucks off of the needs of poor brown, black, and white kids before the oil runs out and the environment fries us like red ants under the magnifying glass. They are sitting in their cherrywood-lined offices behind ten-thousand dollar desks devising ways to keep fucking it up, to keep ratcheting up the hatred and ignorance. They line their pockets on our division and mistrust and ignorance and it is their life's work to do so!

So I'm declaring war on the bastards. I won't play nice. When I hear the filth, I'll confront it. I won't accept living in an America where a kid is taught by his elders that inspiration is for suckers, that humility and love and concern for other humans is a twisted pathological vice.

The president's answer for that young man was that he, that we, need to keep moving forward right through the hatred. And he's right, of course. I know that it's gotten tough to keep hope alive in the face of so much ugliness and greed. But I'm going to do it despite my own despondency and exhaustion, my own frustration and anger. I'll do it for that kid. i'll do it because in the end, we can't let the bastards win.

Gag Reflects: Amongst the Hatriots

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:20:05 -0400

I'm getting ready to harpoon a frothing wingnut in the face with my crutch. I'm on the DC metro. It's September 12, and the city has been overrun with thousands of deathers, birthers, LaRouchers, teabaggers, and your general neo-fascist southern cretin. They are carrying signs that call Obama a socialist, communist, nazi, and every other asinine name in the book. They are smug and arrogant, claiming that "two million" of them attended their national KKK Rally. I look at Molly, my wife, and she says, "I fell like being provocative," and that's all I need. So I ask a pasty southerner old enough to be on medicare, why he and the teabaggers are riding public transportation. "You hate taxes so much, shouldn't you be taking a taxi?"

It takes about thirty seconds for the full car of hatriots to begin yelling at me and Molly. They tell me I'm stupid and obviously can't read otherwise I'd "know" that Obama wants to take care of "illegals" and wants to send us all in front of death panels. Don't I dare try to deny that he is from Kenya and hates America.

Several of the women are weariing stupid hats, the kind you might wear for Derby Day or some other southern bullshit Easter egg hunt nonsense. I ask one of the teabaggers if he can even define "socialism." He looks at me with self-satisfaction, "socialism is O-B-A-M-A." I tell him and the rest of the baggers that they're full of shit. That's when the wingnut on the back of the car bum rushes me, spittle flying, screaming that Obama "associates with nothing but communists!!!"

The loons have blood in their eyes now. The two lefty Obama lovers have rained on their parade. A couple of young brown shirts come at me as well. One calls me a "cocksucker," the other telling me he's going to kick my ass. Now, these days I'm all hobbled up. I can barely put weight on my left foot, and my right foot has had major surgery three times. I'm in town because there is supposed to be a PRO healthcare rally on September 13th (more on that later). It seems criminal to me that just because I have good health insurance, that I have the privilege of gettinbg multiple corrective surgeries whereas thousands of other poor buggers w/out said health insurance will be crippled and left to suffer in chronic pain because of this corrupt, inhuman system that feeds on misery and sickness for its demonic profit margins.

But the rabid teabaggers want to kill the lefty cripple. That's when I jump up, as best I can, and wield my crutch like Queequeg with Moby Dick in his sights. The teabagger thinks twice, and stops short of jumping at me, the two young brownshirts behind him, yelling, eyes bloodshot, fists clenched. The subway stops, and Molly grabs me by the shoulder and says, "let's get out of here before you get killed."

As I step out, I yell, "if you love this country so much, pay your fucking taxes!" Molly tells me that she shouldn't have encouraged me to go rogue on the metro, but these liars, racists, con artists, fascists, and morons must be confronted in the ugliest way possible. They are dead serious on destroying the Obama presidency. They lost last year's election overwhelmingly, and like good litlle brown shirts, they've decided that they will regain power through intimidation and lies. If liberals and moderates think they are going away after they shit-can healthcare reform, they are very badly mistaken.

Silence is assent.

For sophisticated, educated "elites" to think that good and valid argumentation and idealistic conviction is going to win the day is utter delusion. It is pathetic poppycock. The teabaggers have reached critical mass, and they will do watever it takes to take powe in the name of their twisted beliefs and in the service of corporate rape.

American have short memories. They seem to already have forgotten what the unbridled power-lust of the Bush regime did to this great nation. Bushco brutalized America, bankrupted it, lied us into war, sold our "good" name down the river to enrich his filthy cohort of thieves and jackals, and like battered wives, we, as a nation, seem to be coming back for more.

Get militant or watch this nation go into a tailspin. It's your choice, democrats, liberals, and sane republicans. These pigs aren't going away. They've taken a steaming dump in the punchbowl of democracy. It's up to you, if you're going to pretend the turd's not there, push it aside with the ladle and drink up in the name of some kind of pathetic "moderation." The Hatriots mean business. Do we?