A Few Things That Just About Figure

Normally, I'm really railing against something out there. Senseless violence (isn't it all?), Poverty (why would anyone be poor in the first place), overall powermad dictators slowly showing their true colors (reptilian green baby...they don't call them snakes in the grass for nothing) are just a few of the things I cover.

This time, it's a real clusterfuck.

Two years ago, just one weekend shy of my annual Samhain (Pagan!) Vacation/celebration. I fell sick. While I did go to the doctor and get better the year after did not bring a repeat. This year did. I first went to the doctor Friday morning and he and the nurse seemed to be in agreement....fuckin allergies. So after spilling an assload of cash on the meds, I thought, "These fucking swine better be right." It's a sad state in this country where you have to pay unworldy amounts of money each month, unconditionally, to receive conditional health care and even then, paying out of pocket still. I'm sorry but I don't think so. I'm a smoker, you see? Not one of my best traits but it's a fact and I have tried quitting ...three agonizing times. The first three days are the worst by far but then comes the rest of that time afterward. Pure hell trying to break the chemical addiction and then the habit. Long story short, I refuse to pay my hard-earned dollars to some swine corporation for conditional coverage for one reason. The reasons mentioned above do play a part, yes but one line on the forms I signed two years ago made me turn away from insurance altogether.

"Medicine is practiced as an art, not a science."

OH but these bastards have had us by the balls the whole time! They've pulled the wool right over our eyes right in front of us and we didn't even see it. Yeah, that's right, when I'm dead, instead of firing my ashes from a cannon in a monumentally massively explosive fireworks display from a cannon shaped like a hand with it's middle digit being the only digit erect...they can throw me into cryofreeze, splayed open in some gallery for fat corporate pharmaceutical bastards to come see. My only shame in this world was this realization when I saw that one line. I'm no canvas, goddammit! If I want to sculpt, I'll work out. If I want to be a living canvas I'll seek a tattoo artists but my insides are like an engine and I run the hell out of it. I live on one setting...high speed all the way to a sudden stop at the end and goddammit when I need a tune up, don't do some abstract expressionism on me.

Medical Science, my ass!

Sunday night. October 30th. Devil's Night.
I have to go into the ER again. Hoping that this time, I'm not going to see the same quack that saw me last time. Nails of 6Bit celebrated his birthday today and I promised him I could get him on-air on DJ Lycan's show. That however didn't happen. I now have to call him and explain to him why it didn't but when I awoke my friends noticed the coughing fit and Lycan immediately spouted, "Dude that's not allergies, that's an upper respiratory infection!"

"No shit," I said in between hacking. My Devil's Night Prank of going door to door like some evil Satanic Witness dressed in my golf shirt from Creative Oddities, holding a Satanic Bible saying in my best Robert Tilton Impression, "Have you fouuuund ouuurrrr Lord and Master Satan?" to the chagrin of this mostly pentecostal town was now a wash. After explaining things to my girlfriend Helen over the phone, even she had concluded that what it sounded like to her, were the classic symptoms of an infection.

I was pissed. My prank was over, the on-air I promised Nails for his birthday was fucked, Nightwish fired Tarja JUST when I'm starting to get into them and now I have to make a SECOND trip for what should have been over and done two days ago.

I got there, got examined by another doctor and then he breaks out with everything I'd already known. Thankfully, unlike two years ago, I don't need the bloodwork nor the chest x-rays done. This time however, things take an ultimately different turn. The antibiotic and inhaler were a given but now I was being put on a steroid. It was an anti-inflammatory, he explained, and I still don't know what part of me was ever inflamed to begin with other than my dissatisfaction with the first quack who no doubt wished to have me on cryodisplay sometime in his gallery.

The generic allegra was now null and void. I could set it aside, it would prove handy for an allergy sometime within the next two years. Any allergic reaction to anything during the spring when pollen is out and this medication would serve as a handy way to knock it out. Sweet...future investment. The cough syrup I'd continue to take, of course. Might as well for tonight until I get the rest of these scrips filled.

All's well that ends well, however, my Samhain Ceremony for tomorrow will not take place. Unfortunately, even though it's my body that is down, body, mind and spirit have to work in unison. This is a time when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. Far too risky to be going in in a weakened state performing acts which could easily leave me open to something worse. Odin will understand, I'm certain. Next year will be much different, though, I assure you as I embark on yet another Devil's Night bit of cultural terrorism, that is, provided another series of hurricanes doesn't do what it did this year.

Now, Nightwish. I'd discovered them last year and my initial thoughts were that Tarja Turunen's Operatic vocals did not mix well with Metal music at all. Needless to say I wasn't into them at all. I'm a sucker for femme-fronted bands. Evanescence, Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Liquefaction, Mankind Is Obsolete, Curse Icon, Doro Pesch (during and after Warlock) have been among the very bands to pull me through the most rotten times in my life. When I became a DJ on the internet through Hear The Pulse, I learned, against my will, of course that I would have to keep a ready supply of Nightwish in my music catalogue on my hard drive. And keep in mind, I did just that. Never listening to it, of course. Whenever I was forced by a request to put it into the playlist, I turned it down and watched the timer count down.

Then, one night about a few months ago, I was looking through the special features on my Alone In The Dark DVD. When I hit Play All on the music videos, I watched Dimmu Borgir, In Flames and after a few more videos....Nightwish "Wish I Had An Angel". I didn't know who they were until the credits on the video rolled. I was in shock. Tarja hadn't done the opera thing with her vocals. It was straight singing against the harsh and oppressive metal that was being played. I loved it so much I watched it Four Times In A Row. I wanted the song for my playlist and ....there it was on my secondary hard drive. There's no telling how long it had been there or even how many times it had been requested but now I listened to it over and over again and even learned the lyrics which were every bit as beautiful and dark as Tarja's voice. Other songs were soon to follow. Nemo, Come Cover Me and another title that translated from Finnish meant Death Makes Artists.

Like most bands that I don't particularly care for that end up growing on me, something happens. I'm like a curse to these bands, I am sure of it. It seems like by the time I'm getting into them they're broken up already or they're on the verge of it.

"OH NO! GENOCYDE LIKES US!" they scream "QUICK BREAK UP BEFORE HE KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH US!!!!"

Evanescence lost Ben Moody and we haven't heard much from them since, Nighwish lost Tarja and now....well I'll follow Tarja's career should she choose to continue it. This has to be hard on her. Especially the way they aired the letter to her out in the open and involved her husband in it. Shit move, guys.

Warlock is gone, only Doro's career continues. THEY STILL GET AIRPLAY!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA!

Next thing you oughtta address on your blog, Fred, The sad state of our healthcare. Hope to see you in the running for President one day!