The Ashford Zone | Page 791

“The Humiliation Is Complete”

Ken AshfordAugust 21, 2006Red Sox & Other SportsLeave a Comment

Posted Friday 8/18 in the morning, before Game 1:

Here we go. Five games. Four days. It’s mid-August, but it sure feels like a lot of the season rides on this series. GO SOX!

Posted Friday 8/18 in the early evening, before Game 2:

OK, so the first game went less than great. It went the way it was supposed to go, I guess. Their second best starter against a guy who’s since been DFA’d. Our offense didn’t help the case either, going a pathetic 0-16 with runners in scoring position. We can still take the series 4-1 right? Right?!

Posted Saturday 8/19 before Game 3:

Heartache reigns supreme in Red Sox Nation. In a do-or-die series, the team has laid down and died so far. Here’s hoping for a win in this game to turn things around. We can still take the series 3-2 right? Right?!

Posted Sunday 8/20 before Game 4:

Yeah, so I’m not gonna do the whole pep talk thing this time. Let’s just please salvage the series by taking the last two. Be the stopper, Curt. Just do it.

I went to bed last night with the Red Sox up by two runs in the 8th in the fourth game of the Red Sox-Yankees series.

What happened? Check out the Boston Globe today:

How could it get worse?

Here’s how it could get worse. The Red Sox can’t hold a 5-3 lead entering the eighth. Derek Jeter fists a two-out game-tying single to right in the ninth. The Red Sox can’t score after getting the first two men on in the ninth. And Jason Giambi lines Craig Hansen’s third pitch of the 10th into the Red Sox bullpen for his second home run, and fifth RBI, of the night. Two batters later, Jorge Posada smashes another Hansen offering around the Pesky Pole for a insurance policy two-run homer. That’s how it gets worse.

It really doesn’t matter what David Wells does today. The humiliation is complete. The Red Sox are now six games behind the Yankees in the loss column, so you can forget about the American League East. And if you’re thinking wild card, be advised that the Red Sox are three behind the Twins and four behind the White Sox in that same loss column.

UPDATE: Ooops. Missed this part:

The sorry summation of the story is that right now the Yankees simply do not know how to lose to the Red Sox. They take whatever Boston dishes out and they trump it. If you want to go all historical and compare this to the debacle in 1978, I won’t be the one to stop you. But that Red Sox team got back in the race. This Red Sox team has one starting pitcher who engenders any confidence at all, and he has lost two well-pitched games in five days.

And please don’t embarrass yourself by referencing 2004, either. Just don’t.

The Reviews Are In: “Debbie” Is A Hoot!

Ken AshfordAugust 19, 2006Local Interest, PersonalLeave a Comment

From the Winston-Salem Journal (the picture at the right does not accompany the article):

Theatre Alliance has set itself apart. It has become the area leader in presenting shows with adult themes, be they serious or fun.

The latest example in the fun category comes courtesy of Susan Schwartz’s Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, which opened last night in Dunn Auditorium at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.

The presentation, which originated at the 2001 New York Fringe Festival, is based on one of the most popular pornography films of all time.

But pornography is only suggested in the Winston-Salem production, directed by Jamie Lawson.

What really dominates is the kind of utter silliness that’s so bad you can’t help laughing out loud at it, like, all night long.

The plot, predictably, is thin, since it follows the storyline of the 1978 film.

It revolves around Debbie Benton (Heather Hamby), a high-school cheerleader, trying to finance the bus fare to Dallas, where she hopes to attain cheerleading heaven as a Texas Cowgirl.

Benton has just a couple of weeks to come up with the money.

Minimum-wage work won’t cut it – either for her or for her cheerleading girlfriends, who want to help her out.

The only thing that comes in the form of favors is offered through a company called Teen Services.

We’re treated to several singing and dancing young adults playing horny high-school football players and cheerleaders and to several dirty-minded men more than willing to take advantage of young girls.

The humor is bawdy. The singing and dancing benefits from energy, but lyrics and dialogue are sometimes obscured by amplified music. Girly mannerisms and expressions are played up relentlessly.

In effect, Debbie Does Dallas has become a sequel to The Rocky Horror Show, which Theatre Alliance presented several months ago.

For just a few dollars – all of which will be donated to area charities – you can buy a Debbie Does Dallas fantasy kit, which is a lunch bag of such goodies as a glow stick, pompoms and fake money.

Instructions on how to use the ingredients (and when to scream and grunt) are stapled to the bag.

The kits were a hit, making a fun show even more fun.

I also loved the seedy guys (actually mannequin representations of thesame) sitting scattered about the audience.

• Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical will run through Aug. 27 in Dunn Auditorium in the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. Shows are at 8 tonight and next Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday shows are at 2 p.m. Admission is $16, $14 for seniors and students. Reservations are suggested. No one under 18 will be admitted. Call 768-5655.

Frankly, I like Heather’s review better:

In my opinion, I have to say that the show is awesome. It is very funny and everyone is so great in their roles. Emily is amazing as Lisa and I love her singing God Must Love a Fool maybe even more than Mary Catherine (from the original cast). Teresa, Rebecca, and Cheryl Ann take their moments and run with them. That is to me, the primary reason that the show is so funny. Teresa particularly is a riot in her candle scene and with all her "Oh shit" moments. I still can’t bring myself to look directly at Rebecca during her banana scene. I’m worried I will totally lose it and not be able to finish the show, but judging from the reaction of the audience they loved that scene and I’m sure the site of the rest of us in banana costumes doesn’t hurt. Cheryl Ann delivers some of the funniest lines in the show with some real punch. I love the brief scene that we have after the Bang Bang cheer. It is so great to work with such an awesome actress. The guys get tons of kudos because they do a majority of the work by changing costumes every 3 seconds. I said it last night, but I will say it again that I think Ken Ashford is one of, if not, my favorite actor to work with. I’ve never seen anyone who was funnier onstage and to be able to share that stage with him is just a blessing. David is so very funny as Rick. I tend to take him for granted because I have work with him for so long, but he really is a great performer and his I Wanna Do Debbie solo is just perfect. Derrick may be the funniest person ever. He is really so great in every single one of his roles and he makes them all so incredibly different. I’m very glad to be doing a show where I get to work with a wonderful combination of old friends that I have been on stage with many a time and new friends who I otherwise would have never met.

Well said. I can’t think of a better cast or a funner group of people to work with. And Heather knows I love her, too. Her talents are obvious — but what really makes her special is the warmth she has both on and offstage. A good soul, a tremendous heart, and more charm than one person ought to have. Beauty isn’t only skin deep with Heather, and her effervescence not only makes the show successful, but makes being her castmate a pure joy.

Opening Night — “Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical”

Ken AshfordAugust 18, 2006Personal1 Comment

Well, the day has finally arrived. There were times when I thought it would never come together, but it seems to be okay.

I’m still a little concerned about costume changes, as well as the weak left calf. I twisted my left ankle last night during the cowboy dance, because my ankle is carrying the full load. Fortunately, there seems to be no aggrivation of anything.

So blogging may be light for a while. That’s because I’m doing Debbie.

NSA Wiretapping Held Unconstitutional

Ken AshfordAugust 17, 2006Wiretapping & SurveillanceLeave a Comment

You wouldn’t know it from the media websites, but the "Breaking News" isn’t about Jon Benet Ramsey’s killer.

It’s that a federal judge has held that the NSA wiretapping without warrent scheme is unconstitutional, and has enjoined the government from using it.

Glenn Greenwald analyzes the court opinion:

I am almost done with the opinion. Here is my analysis of the bulk of it. It is a very strong opinion in some places, weak in others, but is rather straightforward — and sometimes eloquent — in its almost always unequivocal rejection of the Bush administration’s arguments:

First, the court rejected the administration’s assertion of the "state secrets" doctrine with regard to the NSA eavesdropping program on the ground that the program has already been publicly confirmed by the administration), and that all of the known facts necessary to rule on the plaintiff’s claims — namely, that the administration is eavesdropping without warrants — are already publicly known. The court adopted upon the reasoning of Judge Walker who, as noted above, rejected the administration’s invocation of this doctrine on the same ground.

(The court here did, however, grant the administration’s motion to dismiss the part of the case challenging the constiutionality of the data-mining program, on the ground that it has not been confirmed).

Second, the court ruled that the plaintiffs have standing to challenging the legality of the NSA program even though they cannot prove they have been eavesdropped on, because they have suffered actual harm merely from knowing that the Government is eavesdropping. They all allege that they have extensive communications with the Middle East by telephone and fear that the administration is listening in without a warrant. Some are attorneys who fear the administration is eavesdropping on their conversations with their clients and witnesses, and whose clients have ceased communicating with them openly as a result.

Thus, the court held that these plaintiffs are suffering actual harm in their ability to carry out their professional duties as a result of the administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program. That actual harm confers on them standing to challenge the legality of the program. The court also emphasized, in an excellent section I will quote shortly, that it is vital to our democracy that the administration’s conduct not remain beyond the reach of judicial scrutiny.

Third, the court ruled — rather emphatically and without much doubt — that warrantless eavesdropping violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures (generally speaking, serches undertaken in the absence of a probable cause warrant). Citing the 1972 Supreme Court decision in the Keith case (more on that here) — which held that warrantless eavesdropping is unconstitutional in the context of investigating domestic terrorist terrorist groups — the court held (admittedly without much reasoning or even explicit arguments) that the same reasoning applies to make warrantless eavesdropping unconstitutional in the context of investigating international terrorist groups.

Fourth, the court ruled independently — again, without all that much reasoning — that the NSA program violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, apparently because it chills (deters) their free expression. Since they know the Government can eavesdrop without warrants on conversations of those groups and individuals deemed "subversive," the program abridges free expression in a way that the First Amendment prohibits.

Fifth, the court relied upon Youngstown to hold that the Executive’s powers in the national security area do not entitle him to act beyond the law or the constitution, and that courts are empowered under our constitution to enjoin and restrict the exercise even of national security powers when the President’s conduct violates the law or the Constitution.

OK Go Again

Ken AshfordAugust 17, 2006Popular Culture1 Comment

One year ago, I posted a link to a video by "OK Go". I liked the video because it showed how four non-dancers could do a decent job dancing to cool choreography.

Well, "OK Go" has (in my opinion) done it again:

Reach! A Lecture Musical Prank!!

Ken AshfordAugust 17, 2006Random Musings2 Comments

You’ll be charmed by this great prank from Prangstgrup,. At Columbia University, a student suddenly stands up in the middle of class and starts brilliantly singing in the style of a Broadway musical. The Professor (James Valentini) takes it all very well.

George Will Says What I Said

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006War on Terrorism/Torture3 Comments

Not that I’m brilliant, but this seems painfully obvious — the "war on terror" will not be solved primarily through military solutions, as the warhawks in the White House seem to think. No, sir. John Kerry was right. Glenn Greenwald reflects:

In his new column today, George Will makes a critical (if not obvious) point about all of that: namely, despite the fact that Bush followers spent the week crowing about the U.K. terror plot as though it validates their views of the world, it actually does the opposite. We can’t rid the world of Islamic extremism (a belief system) or terrorism by bombing it away. Will thus points out that the way in which the plot was thwarted demonstrates the foolishness of warmongering as a solution to terrorism, and the correctness of the anti-terrorist approach advocated by Democrats:

The London plot against civil aviation confirmed a theme of an illuminating new book, Lawrence Wright’s "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." The theme is that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England.

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry’s belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates’ debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point.

Greenwald then provides the proper perspective:

There is, at long last, a growing recognition that waging more wars does not make us stronger or more secure. It does exactly the opposite. Those who want to pursue our failed policy in Iraq indefinitely or who want to attack more countries — in the process alienating the whole world even more and exacerbating the Islamic radicalism which even the President says is what causes terrorism — are not people who are "strong on security." They are gradually, though inexorably, destroying our security through a mindless militarism which becomes more reckless and crazed the more it fails. And this bloodthirsty militarism becomes more desperate as the sense of weakness and humiliation felt by its proponents — including those in the White House — intensifies.

If George Will can come out and say that John Kerry was right about how best to approach terrorism and the Bush approach does nothing but increases it, then perhaps we can soon reach the point where national journalists will understand that there is nothing "strong" about wanting more and more wars, and nothing "weak" about opposing warmongering and advocating more substantive, rational and responsible methods for combating terrorism.

Bo Dietl On Islam

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006Godstuff, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

I actually worked with Bo Dietl on several occasions (back when I was doing law in New York), and while he is a great private investigator, he is as dumb as a doornail when it comes to politics and, well, everything else. From Think Progress:

Today on Fox News’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, private investigator Bo Dietl argued that Arabs and Muslims should be subjected to racial profiling because Islam is a “Johnny-come-lately” religion and Muslims “pray to someone who wants to kill you.”.

Transcript:

And Neil, the bottom line is, this is a Johnny-come-lately religion. Christians and Jews have been around for 1600 years, 1500 years before. When they’re having a religion talking about killing people, I think we should reevaluate people who pray to someone who wants to kill you.

For those just joining, Islam has been around for just as long as Christianity, and it’s the second-largest religion in the world.

Bush Doctrine Explained

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

World O’Crap introduces us to Mark Noonan, who writes:

President Bush is, indeed, a rebel – and his cause is peace. His critics don’t understand it, but President Bush figured out that the only sure path to peace in the world is to make the largest number of free people possible. The elite believes that peace is made by negotiations and supra-national organizations…but peace is really made by free people too busy getting on with their own lives to bother about attacking other free people doing ditto. This isn’t rocket science, but it is something that the overly nuanced and intellectualoid elite could not grasp – mostly because a peace created by free people is a peace which doesn’t need elitists to gather at swank places around the world to negotiate grand settlements of outstanding problems.

Bush plan:

1. Invade Iraq

2. ???

3. Create lots of free people

4. Peace!

Like Mark said, it isn’t rocket science.

The Hottest Thing On The Internets

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006Popular CultureLeave a Comment

The Internet makes it possible for the unknown to develop worldwide fame in a matter of days. Homemade videos get posted at places like YouTube, and the hot ones get passed from person to person, making the video and the video’s subject instant celebrities.

Who is the hot celebrity that all the kids are watching now?

You may not believe it, but it’s a YouTube user by the name of "Geriatric1927". He’s a 78 year old widower from the niddle of England. After being a YouTube member for only a week, his homemade videos have had 75,463 views and has 6355 subscribers.

What does he video? Just himself in front of the camera. Telling great stories about his past. Full story here.

(I’d post a video here, but the links are so busy — yes, he’s that popular, it won’t even come up).

Articles We’re Not Bothering To Read

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006Random MusingsLeave a Comment

Nathan Tabor on Plan B

Ken AshfordAugust 15, 2006Right Wing Punditry/Idiocy, Women's Issues1 Comment

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! THE MORNING AFTER PILL IS COMING! IT’S A-COMIN’ I TELLS YA!

That’s Nathan Tabor, trying to convince his readers that the Plan B pill, recently approved by the FDA and soon to be available over the counter (with proper I.D.), spells bad news for the general health care of women in this country. Enjoy Nathan’s fact-free "Morning After Mania":

Forget the threat of terrorism…the price of gas…or the struggle for families to make the monthly mortgage payments.

No, the issue on the minds of many newspaper editorial writers is whether women can get pills.

Nathan would rather talk about these other things, you see, but he can’t. Those damn newspaper editorial writers are making write on this particular topic.

At a time when some medical experts are wondering whether our population is, in fact, over-medicated, a number of editorial boards are demanding that the so-called morning-after pill be offered over the counter to women who have regrets about their sexual encounters of the night before.

Well, yyyyesss — and raped women, too.

Even if you don’t buy the notion that the morning-after pill can end an innocent human life — or even if you don’t care if it does — you should at least care about what impact easy access to this post-coital pill could have on women’s health.

Oh, boy. Do tell.

Any woman who has taken the traditional birth control pill knows that there are possible side effects — everything from the possibility of stroke to weight gain. The idea that it’s A-OK for women to ingest "Plan B" without ever expecting to encounter any negative health effects is ludicrous.

Well, that’s true. With any drug — even aspirin — there are possible negative side effects. But what are the negative health effects relating to "Plan B", Nathan? Got any specifics?

Planned Parenthood, the largest purveyor of abortions in America, issued a statement claiming that Plan B "holds the potential for improving women’s health if the FDA keeps its word this time" and permits over-the-counter access.

Hmmm. Okay, and why are they wrong?

But the fact of the matter is that the morning-after pill is actually playing Russian Roulette with women’s health.

Wow! Russian Roulette! They sound really dangerous!!! But WHY, Nathan? What makes them so dangerous? Stop teasing me, man!

As Concerned Women for America — a group which has more female support than the radical National Organization for Women — has stated, "The prescription process protects women’s health."

Obviously, they don’t know about the Russian Roulette thing. Tell me why "Plan B" is so dangerous so I can send an urgent letter to Concerned Women for America.

At a time when the Food and Drug Administration has been forced to re-examine the safety of the abortion pill RU-486, it seems odd to throw caution to the wind and remove some of the regulatory protections that could prevent women from being hurt by the morning-after pill.

Yes, yes, yes! It DOES seem odd. Why would women want to hurt themselves by contracting — um — what were the negative health effects again, Nathan? Oh, you haven’t told us yet. Okay.

A number of individuals have also pointed out that Plan B promotes promiscuity. Promiscuity leads to sexually-transmitted diseases which pose a serious threat to the health of young women. It is irresponsible for the leaders of the abortion lobby and the news media to promote non-prescription use of a drug that could conceivably cause our STD rates to soar.

Wait.

That’s it? A number of individuals (Who, Nathan? The guys you shoot pool with?) think that Plan B promotes promiscuity? Aren’t the people who will be using Plan B the most already promiscuous?

And then there’s the key question of enforcement.

But what are the negative health effects of Plan B, Nathan? Have we abandoned that topic?

You can say that the drug will only be marketed and sold to those women over age 18, but any clever teenager who knows how to lobby an older sibling or friend to buy cigarettes or booze for her will easily gain access to Plan B. And what’s to say that teen girls will not start binging on morning-after pills, once they become as common as KitKats on drug store shelves?

What, are they chocolate flavored or something? Do they get you high? Why would teen girls start binging on morning-after pills?

As Concerned Women’s Wendy Wright stated, "The person who buys the drug is not necessarily the person who will take the drug. What the FDA would have to consider is a foolproof plan to keep proxies from buying the drug and giving it to adolescents."

And let’s be clear — those proxies could include sexual predators trying to exploit teenage girls.

Wait. Is Nathan saying what I think he’s saying?

Nathan, aren’t these "sexual predators" of teenage girls likely to be, you know, male? Don’t you think that if, say, a middle-age man goes into Walgreens and tries to persuade the clerk to give him some Plan B’s, that might set off a red flag — even among the stupidest of Walgreen employees?

And let’s be clear on another point: There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the drive for over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill are part of the abortion lobby’s propaganda campaign. The lobby knows that public support for contraception is much higher than public support of abortion — hence, its insistence on calling the morning-after pill "emergency contraception."

"Plenty of evidence" = [crickets]

By the way, doesn’t effective contracrption hurt the "abortion industry" that you complain so loudly about? After all, women will no longer have to undergo expensive and invasive abortion procedures; instead, they can just take a pill. So why would the abortion lobby be in favor of this?

But, one has to wonder — If groups such as Planned Parenthood are in the business of family planning, why would there be millions of emergencies requiring a pill to resolve? What Planned Parenthood is really promoting is irresponsibility, carelessness, and, in the end, surgical abortion.

So, um, Planned Parenthood — by promoting a pill — are promoting surgical abortion? Nathan, that makes no sense.

Because, if a woman still finds herself pregnant after taking the morning-after pill, she’ll be lured into thinking that the only solution to her problem is to abort her baby the old-fashioned way.

Well, I suggest that if a woman takes a morning-after pill, she probably has no moral reservations about getting an abortion anyway. So query how much "luring" will be involved.

And so the manipulation and exploitation of American women continue.

Nathan, he’s only looking out for you women, after all.

Debbie Does The Local Health Care System

Ken AshfordAugust 14, 2006Health Care, Personal2 Comments

It all started innocently enough. A dance rehearsal for "Debbie Does Dallas" (Winston-Salem Journal preview article here). A cramp in the calf.

Damn. I should’ve stretched before starting. I’m not in my twenties anymore. (I keep on forgetting that.)

"It could be a blood clot," says Gray, looking at the swelling and bruising on my calf. "You should get it checked out. Like, now." Others echo the sentiment.

Groan. A blood clot? What does Gray know? The closest he’s been to medicine was playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.

Fine. Whatever. I’ll go to urgency care, you bunch of alarmists.

"I won’t lie to you," says the doctor at urgency care (who was in the middle of his first day on the job). "Coming in was the smartest thing you ever did."

He explains what happens if it is a clot in my leg. "If you have DVT — or deep vein thrombosis — it could result in a pulmonary embolism. It could get dislodged, get lodged again in your artery, and you die. You’ll feel a racing heart, sweating, trouble breathing . . . and then you’ll feel nothing. Because you’ll be dead. You’ll be dead before your body hits the ground."

Then it’s my turn to ask Dr. Ray-of-Sunshine the world’s stupidest question….

"So, um, is that serious?" I ask him.

"I’m sending you to the emergency room of Forsyth Medical Center right now for an immediate doppler scan. What do you think?"

He goes on to explain that the chances of it being a blood clot are small. But the consequences of it being a blood clot are grave, and that’s why he’s concerned. Whenever a guy with a stethoscope and a white coat says the word "concerned", you snap into some other mode. You start wondering about wills and shit like that. You might think that your mind wouldn’t go there, but trust me — it does. Even for non-alarmists like me.

Anyway, I like the urgency care doctor. Good bedside manner, and totally honest. I luck out getting a doctor fresh out of med school; they’re not jaded yet.

Fast forward to Forsyth Medical Center — or, as I now call it, Walmart Hospital. The lady at "reception" (which is actually just a lectern with a stool) reads my doctor’s note. I’m sure the note is written in English, but full of medical abbreviations easily decipherable by medical people. But she looks at it and she’s confused about where I’m supposed to be.

"Doppler scan," I say. "He said I needed a doppler scan — stat". Okay. I didn’t say the word "stat", but it was implicit in my voice. Didn’t matter anyway. She just looked at me like I was speaking Swahili.

"Have a seat," she says in Spanglish.

Here we go. Wish I had a book or someone to hang with. It’s going to be a long afternoon, especially with nothing to think about except Dr. Ray-of-Sunshine’s description of collapsing dead in less than one second.

I sit in the waiting room. Yup, true to stereotype, I’m the only white guy. Lots of people of every ethnicity. If there was such a thing as a redneck U.N., this would be the place.

I glance up at the receptionist who is reading my note over the cell phone to somebody. She eventually tells me I have to go to another department. She gives me a ton of directions in a language that vaguely resembles English. I’m not sure, but I have an uneasy feeling I’m going to end up at Spencers in Hanes Mall.

Um. Okay. I’ll just walk there, bitch, shall I? I mean, it’s not like I have a bad leg or anything.

Okay. Down this corridor. Right, then left. Right again. Take the elevator up to the first floor. Wait, those are "staff only" elevators. Go down further. No. Backtrack. No, this is the kitchen. Wait, what?

Naturally, I get lost. I eventually see signs for "Lobby". Well, I can ask somebody there, I think. So I hobble. Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the lobby. Nice carpet. Comfortable seats. Food kiosks offering culinary delights of dubious nutritional value (see graphic at left).

And a grand piano. Nobody is playing, but Bobby Short is being piped in, singing some song about how fuckin’ great Manhattan is during the month of June.

It’s all very nice for people who are hungry and/or want to dance while they slowly bleed or choke or whatever.

But it’s no help to me whatsoever. There’s no reception desk — nothing.

Ah, but there is a room off of the lobby with a sign reading "Cashier" — a perfect metaphor for how the medical community is more interested in money than actually providing medical, you know, care. I hobble over there.

Of course, the people in that room are cashiers (I should have figured that out). They know nothing about medicine or the layout of the hospital. "Doppler scan" means nothing to them. I’m polite to them, but I’m starting to lose it. I want to scream "Can anybody in this hospital help me?"

Mutually, the cashiers and I agree that the radiology department might be a good bet (although it’s clear that their guess is as good as mine). They "think" if I go down the hallway, take a left, then a right, then I "might" see signs for the radiology department. I hobble off.

I’m in unbearable pain at this point. It’s been half an hour since I left the emergency room to find wherever I’m supposed to go.

Fuck. No signs. I can’t find the radiology department.

I did however enter the Twilight Zone. Funny thing, hospitals. You expect to see TONS of doctors and nurses zipping about, like on TV. There was almost none of that. I would walk down a looooong corridor and see nobody. I would come to a junction and look down four loooong corridors . . . and see nobody. Or, if I did see somebody, they were too far off, zipping out of one door and then around a corner. I couldn’t get their attention.

I see three empty chairs ahead. Damn, I need to rest my leg. The swelling is so bad that I have a "rubber tire" that is flopping over the top of my sock. So I hobble to the chairs, and I sit.

And there I am. Almost an hour now since Consuela gave me directions from the ER to wherever I’m supposed to be. Heart racing. Sweating.

"Heart racing"? "Sweating"? Hey, isn’t that what Dr. Ray-of-Sunshine said would happen just before I dropped to the floor, dead?

Jesus. Get a grip, Ken. Breathe.

Yeah, fuck this. I’m going home. It’s probably not a clot anyway. And if it is a clot, I’d rather die alone at home. Better than dying alone in a hospital corridor. I’m reasonably sure I can find my way back to the lobby, and then I’ll hobble on to freedom.

Cell phone rings. Melinda is "out the door" and on her way, and won’t take "no" for an answer. She’s a nurse, so she shames me into staying. Fortunately, I suddenly see a sign that points to "Radiology Department Waiting Room (fish tank)". I’m not too keen on being put in a fish tank, but I decide to follow the arrow anyway. Hobble, hobble.

Well, it turns out that radiology was where I needed to be. The waiting room has a large fish tank with a large variety of no-confidence-building dead fish. Fortunately, the receptionists are nice and speak my language.

Scooby-Doo cartoons are on the waiting room television. That”ll have to do. Apparently, the Scooby-Doo gang is being chased by a ghost, but it’s not really a ghost — it’s just some weird dude trying to scare people off his property or something.

The cavalry (Melinda) arrives.

Okay. I’m where I’m supposed to be and someone is here with me. Things are looking up.

And thereafter for the rest of the day, I resign myself to doing whatever it is that any woman tells me to do. Which may be a good life lesson.

I never actually see a doctor throughout the whole day. Although the radiology technician was nice. She needed to scan the circulation in my leg with the ultrasound doppler doohickey. At one point, there was no circulation in the lower part of my leg though. The swelling, you see. My socks and sneaker had cut much of it off. When she took them off ("peeled" is probably the better word), there was a huge comical imprint in my left foot.

She explained that if they found a clot, I would be admitted right away — no going home or anything convenient like that. And I would stay there for 3-4 days. "I hope you don’t have any plans," she quipped.

"Well, I was hoping to do ‘Debbie Does Dallas’," I said. She gave me that quizzical "look" that everyone else in the cast has gotten from time to time. I shake my head and shrug. I really don’t feel like explaining. With my luck, she’ll be offended, and then do a haphazard Doppler scan.

Anyway, bottom line: no clot. So Gray was wrong, even though he was, in the end, right.

I finally get home at around 7:30. Put my leg up, take some meds, and apply ice.

Then it dawns on me: I still don’t know what’s wrong with my leg.

Eh. Probably just pulled something.

POSTSCRIPT: The pain got worse throughout the evening, and I had to crawl upstairs to bed. It wasn’t better the following morning, and it was still swollen. But then around mid-afternoon that day, I decided to get up and start stretching it lightly. That seemed to help. A few hours later, I was at rehearsal. Not exactly doing the hoedown all out, but I was walking pretty easily. So whatever it is, it’s healing.