A 14.5 hour workday, in three parts

I didn't intend to, but I just finished a 14 and 1/2 hour shift. My day-and-night can be broken up into three sections with wildly different moods.

Part I: 3 to 11 PM

I worked the triage desk where you see it all. I generally try to maintain a friendly and helpful manner, but today was supa-busy and I was a hard-ass. After essentially hearing, "Did they call my name? I was wandering around even though I am supposedly in pain," for the fifth time, my response became, "You need to listen for your name, we can't chase you down."

The wait time was long and wasn't helped by the number of people coming in by ambulance who bumped everyone in the waiting room down. Overall there wasn't anything that remarkable in terms of complaints, mostly the usual top five: abdominal pain, vomiting, laceration, abscess, vaginal bleeding.

Near 11, a man comes into the ER saying there's someone outside who may not be breathing. The nurses hustle outside with Security and they bring in the patient on a gurney. Wow, excitement!

Turns out she's breathing fine and faking being unconscious. Here's a hint, to pull that off you need to keep your legs still. A nurse waves an ammonia capsule under her nose for a good 20 seconds and the patient does an admirable job of pretending not to smell it. Finally gets to her though and she rears up coughing. Turns out she's likely having a self-induced anxiety attack. It's actually quite easy to make your body freak out. Hyperventilating on purpose will do the trick nicely.

A nurse sits in a waiting room chair with a paper bag to breathe into (yes, that actually works), but as soon as the nurse walks off, she stops holding it tightly to her face and speeds up her breathing. When the patient sees that we're watching her, she starts coughing. After the third such performance, one of the Security guys holds up a piece of paper so only we at the desk can read it. It says 3.50.

I know all that sounds rather callous, but we really have better things to do. Like, oh I don't know, helping people with real problems? I'm fairly green about these things and so followed the lead of the experienced staff.

Part II: 11 PM to 2 AM

I stayed late to help out since we were shorthanded and switched over to working the pediatric ER. It was enjoyably slow and I only registered a few patients. Even when they're sick, the kids can be unbearably cute.

One of my co-workers was sick and I convinced her to go home since we were so slow. Then I read most of a Calvin and Hobbes book. Time crawled on.

Part III: 2 AM to 4:30 AM

Three kids came into the ER. One was sick. One had attempted suicide. One had been sexually assaulted.


That was my 14.5 hour day. I should get to sleep. Got to be back at work at three today, but I don't think sleep is going to come soon.

Director's Cut of Got my freak on, got my geek on

After a decent amount of sleep and no longer sore gluteus maximi, I can give a more complete and rational recollection of my Saturday-into-Sunday activities.

Several weeks ago, JenK alerted me and a number of our friends that the Alamo Drafthouse would be hosting a Freaks and Geeks marathon with cast members in attendance. The Alamo has done things similar to this before and I'd always passed on going. After a successful garage sale, JenK, John, Tina, and I were flush with cash and dreams of meeting Bill. Tickets were bought and anticipation grew.

Starting at noon Saturday and going till 5 AM Sunday, we were awash in that rare substance, television goodness. And I got thrill every time "Bad Reputation" kicked in.

Watching hours of a really good show does something to me. I care more deeply about the characters than I did when I only saw them once a week. Combine that with sleep deprivation and I got practically weepy by the end of it all. Damn but it's a good show and anyone who scoffs at the idea that a television show can be art is dumb and mean and I don't like them.

After eight or so hours, we broke off watching episodes for the Q&A. In attendance were Martin Starr (Bill Haverchuck), Sarah Hagan (Millie), Steve Bannos (Mr. Kowchevski), Stephen Lea Sheppard (Harris), and Dave 'Gruber' Allen (Mr. Rosso). Messrs. Bannos and Allen were the most effusive and excited which I chalk up to them being older and more appreciative. Bannos was also a writer on the show so he had more insight. Only two questions in and we were heard the terrible news of how the show was cancelled soon after creator Paul Feig's mother died. What a double gut punch that must have been.

It was an odd Q&A in that the answers were a mixture of interesting stories, professional struggles, wistfulness, and honesty. These are not actors that have been coached by handlers and there were consequent uncomfortable moments that, now that I think about it, perfectly complement a show full of such moments. Just a few totally obsessive tidbits that aren't in the extensive DVD features:

- If an actor made a mistake like bumping into something or dropping a prop, that's the take that inevitably was used

- Lea Sheppard (Harris) went to an audition just to accompany a friend and after being encouraged to audition, Paul Feig wrote a new part just for him

- Sarah Hagan (Millie) actually learned how to play "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me" on the piano for the "Beers and Weirs" episode, but for the filming they muted the piano and had a professional playing it off-camera

- Martin Starr (Bill Haverchuck) aspires to being a poet and treated us to a pretty decent flow

After the Q&A they signed autographs and chatted with the fans, which was nice. I was wearing my Devo t-shirt and it turns out that Steve Bannos is an acquaintance of Mark Mothersbaugh. Cool. Also, Martin Starr didn't know who Devo was and so wrote a note to himself which read "Listen to DEVO". Double cool. Then, weirdly, Sarah Hagan told me that she'd just played a character on Grey's Anatomy named Devo Friedman. Huh.

After the Q&A, the audience shrank somewhat and we watched on. We'd break every three or hours and by the end, only a quarter of the audience was left and I was sad that it was over and happy that even existed. My butt was sore, I had consumed the meat of three kinds of animal, and had spent much hard-earned money on food and drink, but I was elated as Tina, John, and I walked out into the still-dark morning. Sure, aside from the actors, I could have hosted a marathon at my house, but there was something special about watching it in a theater with an audience of fellow freaks and geeks.

UPDATE:

Here's a review of sorts printed in The Austin Chronicle.

Donorcycle weekend

This weekend is the R.O.T. rally which means lots of Harleys in town and lots of ER visits for stoopid bikers mostly without helmets (hence organ donors). I worked a 12.5 hour shift last night/this morning and we had two already. Tomorrow night will likely be worse.

Really wish I could blow up a picture of a biker with a caved-in skull and parade that up and down Congress Ave this weekend. Probably wouldn't do any good.

Are you sure that's what's wrong with you?

Sparked by an incident that happened tonight, I polled some of my co-workers and found that sometimes patients don't exactly tell the truth when the ER triage nurse asks them what's wrong. Later, when the doctor sees them, they confess the real problem. So, back pain becomes rectal bleeding, headache becomes viscous fluid dripping from the penis, and the one that started this whole exploration, rapid weight loss becomes cocaine indulgence.

Sometimes though, they never fess up to what's wrong with them. Say for instance when they get arrested and a cop brings them in because their pulse is sky high. Handcuffed to the gurney, they'll deny any illegal drug use because the arresting officer is standing there. Asshat, the tox screen is going to be positive for coke or meth or whatever, quit dicking around and tell the doctor what you did so s/he can make sure you don't die. That happened twice tonight.

One of the guys loudly complained that his rights were being violated and he wanted his lawyer until a nurse told him, "Sir, this is a hospital and there are sick people here who don't want to hear about your personal problems." He continued to complain, but at a more reasonable volume. Then a clinical assistant needed to get his temperature. The patient wasn't cooperating so the CA says, "I'm going to take your temperature, orally or rectally. Your choice." Patient's mouth pops open. I almost sniggered.

Clearly he wasn't going to answer my registration questions so I left about the time he started promising lawsuits against the police, doctors, nurses, really anyone in visual range.

Interesting sidenote, if you're arrested for public intoxication and the cops bring you to the hospital, you can't refuse treatment.

The ski accident thing

Tonight a guy came in who was hit in the face with a waterski which split his upper lip completely open from the nose down. Being around the medical staff as they were treating him made me realize that I'm on the right track, I really do want to work in Trauma/ER. And yes, he'll be fine.

The stem cell thing

I want every person who is against the use of stem cells in research to sign a binding pledge that they will never take advantage of any benefits that result from such study and if they do, they have to go on national television and admit that they are gigantic hypocrites who will now and forever more stop imposing their supposed superior morality on everyone around them. Hmph.

The Deepthroat thing

Here's my poorly thought out immediate reaction:

Felt was passed over by Nixon for the FBI directorship. If he had been appointed for the position, would he have leaked the information?

Also, this guy was convicted in the '70s for authorizing illegal break-ins to the homes of people suspected of supporting the Weather Underground. Then Reagan pardoned him.

Whoo-hoo, what a "hero".

She probably just wanted a ride to Austin

Tonight I started to register a patient that might have had tuberculosis, or maybe just asthma. "Nancy" had come from Lockhart on an ambulance and a paramedic began to doubt her motives when she hopped out of the ambulance when it arrived at the hospital and began walking away. Guided inside, she was apparently a bit surly. After getting her into the system, but before going through the complete registration process, I guess Nancy decided to get aggressive with a nurse and walked out. The staff called security and the resolution is that I didn't have to be possibly exposed to TB.

Yay! No consumption for St. Murse.

*grumble* alcohol *grumble* MVAs *grumble*

Ratzafraggin people. I am in a foul mood because the ER was crammed all evening. Lots of alcohol-related car and boat accidents. Remind me why alcohol is legal and other drugs are not?

Ennui abatement

A person I know, let's called him Kangaroone, is presently experiencing a trough in the waveform of life. Having gone through several of these myself, I thought I might help by suggesting things that have helped me feel better, however temporarily:

- Coffee

- Indulging a bit by listening to The Smiths or The Cure, but then forcing myself to listen to They Might Be Giants or The B-52s

- Not staying inside with the blinds drawn

- Really good mac & cheese

- Swimming/tubing down a river with friends

- Orgasms

- Re-reading Bridge to Terabithia

- Taking a dog for a walk

- Helping someone else

Our heroes will inevitably disappoint us

I experienced a massive disconnect the other day while watching a trailer for Herbie: Fully Loaded, a movie that I can't conceive of being any good. This is party because it's a remake of a movie from the days when Disney pumped out crappy live action movies (often starring Dean Jones), but mostly because it's about a self-aware car that doesn't kill people.

Anyway, I habitually scan the credits of trailers for the writer & director of the movie. It sometimes helps to evaluate the potential of the film. I've done it for so long that I usually can lock onto the names even if the credits barely flashes on the screen. I was sneering through the Herbie trailer when it ended and I said to myself, "I can't believe this is happening again." See, the movie is written (at least in part) by Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant. I love these guys. They wrote and performed in The State and now, Reno 911, two great, funny shows.

Lennon & Garant came to Austin years ago with most of the other members of The State to perform at the late, lamented Big Stinkin' Improv Festival. I got my copy of the ridiculously useless travel guide State by State with The State signed and then saw them perform that night. At one point, the troupe moved off the stage, ostensibly to change costumes, while member Ken Marino stayed behind and chatted with the audience. Instead of leaving the stage though, the performers stopped and starting taking off their clothes down to their underwear, all while Marino continued to obliviously talk about...something, but at this point who was paying attention to him?

While the near-naked members ambled about, quietly talking amongst themselves, Marino pulled out a disposable camera and encouraged the audience to squeeze in so he could take a picture. At the count of three, he snapped the picture and on the other side of the stage, the underwear came off. Despite the long set-up, it was still a surprise. I doubt the Paramount Theater will ever again have so much exposed genitalia again. At the time I distinctly remember thinking, "Dang. The one guy I've wanted to see naked is the only one who isn't. Dang." Still, hilarious. The crowd went nuts crazy. There were more than a few people with videocameras in the audience, so if anyone has access to a recording of it, please let me know.



Getting back to the point, I was stunned to see Lennon & Garant at least partially responsible for Herbie because it continues a frighteningly trend. These guys are also credited writers for The Pacifier and Taxi. When I saw that they'd writen The Pacifier, I convinced myself that they had authored a subversive movie that was taken away and dumbed down by the studio. Clearly I was fooling myself. I'm sure they made good money, but guys, I beg of you, stop writing vehicles for the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Vin Diesel, and Jimmy Fallon.

Hmm, I meant for this to be a thoughtful argument for smart, small comedy over bland, lowest-common-denominator crap, but it seems to have gotten away from me. Oh well.

And the hits keep on coming

I told myself that I needed to mix it up a little bit and not just post about the hospital, but then things happen there about which I need to write (with proper grammar apparently).

Today a woman who I will call Donna saunters in and with an incredibly bored voice says to me, "I need to see a doctor, I feel like I'm gonna die." Wow, sure sounds like it. She repeats this to the triage nurse with no urgency, pain, or anxiety in her attitude at all. The nurse is awesome though and says, "Can you be more specific about why you think that?" Clearly nobody is buying her story and Donna drops the "I'm gonna die" thing.

This is everyday occurence in the ER, people whose complaints are out of proportion to their problem. There's also guys who maintain a steely exterior when they've got to be hurting badly, but they're a minority. One of the things that medical staff ask patients is to rate their pain on a scale from one to ten with ten being the worst pain they can imagine. It's annoying to the nurses and doctors when patients immediately and casually say, "Ten," while smacking their gum.

After waiting a couple hours, which is really not a long wait for minor problems in an ER, Donna tells me she's going to leave because she doesn't want to miss her bus. I didn't, but I longed to say, "Good luck with that dying thing."

The other noteworthy thing that happened today was a guy whose girlfriend hit him with a hammer. On the dick. Yeah.

He comes in, sees there are quite a few people around the triage desk, and says to the nurse, "I don't want to say it out loud." Quickly realizing that the nurse isn't going to lean in so he can whisper his problem, he says, "Uh, she wasn't quite Lorena Bobbitt." Gotta love a guy that maintains a sense of humor while wincing mightily from a smashed penis.

Black (metal) celebration

I forgot to write about this earlier, but some friends and I went to see Metal Storm: The Scandinavian Black Metal Wars last weekend. We were expecting a somewhat sardonic portrayal of these guys who play rawgrawgrawg music and paint their faces like melting Kiss dolls. What we got was a sober and depressing story of pointless rebellion, arson, and murder. There were a few funny bits, but mostly it was just sad how dumb and destructive these guys were.

Afterwards, in an effort to lighten the mood, I announced that Carole and I would be forming a black metal band named Milieu after the massive amount of times Norwegian journalists used the word in the film. Of course, our other two friends would form a rival band called Retinue (same reason). Then we would plot intricate schemes for destroying each other, only not really. From there we moved on to how other musical genres might settle the score. Daniel cracked us all up with a most dire twee threat, "I'll unravel your cardigan." Awesome.

Sadly, I just discovered that I missed an exhibit of black metal musician portraits that closed yesterday. Photographer Peter Beste has taken some great pictures that I find both scary and funny. I should stress that as far as I know the guys - and where are the black metal girls? - pictured haven't committed any crimes and probably are decent, law-abiding Satanists. Here's the poster from Beste's Austin show.

The kids are allright, well actually they all have a fever

I worked an extra shift tonight and did it in the pediatric ER, both for the first time. Sundays are slower than the rest of the week, but not by much. The pedi ER is mostly kids with fevers, abdominal pain, and the like. It's a lot of out-of-sorts children prone to crying when the nurses and doctors touch them. Of course, they get super-peeved when their blood is drawn.

I managed to stumble my way through registering a couple kids whose parents only spoke Spanish. They seemed relieved, possibly because I was making an effort, but more likely because it meant that soon the pestering white boy would leave the room. With time and practice I should improve. Then I can travel to Spanish-speaking countries and ask people for their Social Security numbers and whether they have Medicaid.

That's another thing. Most of the kids I saw tonight had Medicaid, which is great, but I think the reason they're in the ER for primary care is that there aren't enough pediatricians who take it. The lack of government-sponsored healthcare for everyone in the US is a massive issue for me. I could go on and on about this, but suffice to say that the haves not being able to be picky about their doctor so that the havenots can actually get medical care is an acceptable trade-off. Oh, and Canada rocks.

Moving on, I know I never want to work in labor & delivery, but working with kids in the ER might be cool. Sure they cry, but it's better than say a drunk guy with a gash on his head bellowing racial slurs.

New monkey!

Instead of sleeping in preparation for the garage sale tomorrow, I'm reading about a newly discovered species of monkey, the Highland Mangabey.



Sure it has lovely, fluffy fur, but the best part is that it honk-barks. Damn Wildlife Conservation Society for not having a sound clip. I need to know what a honk-bark sounds like.

Happy -> Sad

Fairly standard day at work, nothing out of the ordinary. I was pretty happy about the work week being over and then I saw this form

Burial/Lab Consent:
Under 20 Weeks Gestation

and I got bummed out.

Whew, busy busy evening

Very busy at work last night. Tons of patients and between 6 and 10 PM, we had 5 L&Ds. L&D is labor and delivery, also known as pregnant ladies about to pop.

*****

We see a lot of patients who only speak Spanish and I'm trying to recover some of mine from many years ago. A lot of the time I can formulate questions, I just wouldn't be able to understand the answer. So far I can ask and understand the response to, "Do you need a doctor?" and "Is this your first time here?" and "What's your name and date of birth?" It's going to be a while before I can understand what's wrong with them.

On the administrative side, I'm one of a very few white guys who doesn't speak Spanish. It's a hindrance to me, but I can always trade patients with a co-worker. The medical staff overwhelmingly doesn't and that can be a problem if there aren't enough translators around. I have to take a Spanish for Health Workers class for my degree, though I'd do it even if it wasn't required. I plan to move away from Texas after I graduate, but being passibly fluent in medical Spanish would be an asset anywhere.

*****

Tonight a married couple came in and first off the husband states his title rather than just say that his wife is ill. I'm not going to say the title or his field, but he's not an entertainer and this is the capital of Texas. That really bugged me for two reasons. First, we don't care what your job is, everybody is seen according to their medical needs. Second, how about telling us what's wrong with your wife first before throwing around your "weight"? Hmph.

The floor show

Last night a ka-rayzee woman came into the hosptial. I think she was a meth addict because she was twitchy, incredibly skinny, and her teeth were just pegs. She opened her mouth and a series of wildly disconnected phrases came out. Her main problem was her swollen foot, but there were clearly mental issues as well.

When asked her last name she said, "Doesn't matter. Whatever. I don't know." I really think she couldn't remember; meth tears up your memory something fierce. Not hoping for much, I asked for her social security number and she rattled it off without hesitation. The mind is a funny thing. Later she said to me, "I'm dead. I know they're carnivores." Oooo-kay.

I'm fairly confident that she was freaking out the other people in the waiting room with her pacing and non-sequiturs. After 30 minutes or so of that she walked to the middle of the room, and with great confidence and poise, threw off the blanket around her shoulders like James Brown doffing a cape. Then she pulled off her tank top. She was not wearing a bra. After a staffer got security's attention (the only person not staring in horror and amazement), the guard laconically said to the patient, "Hey, you can't do that." Really? Huh.

A nurse got her to put her top back on (backwards) and worked on getting her into a bed and away from an audience quicker. A man standing near my desk at the time said, "Let me know when it's decent," while staring off into the distance and clutching a Bible. It was safe by then so I told him, "You're good."

While this was by far the oddest thing that has happened so far at my job, I was relatively unfazed. And here I thought I was only jaded about music and movies.

An unfortunate method

Another hospital story:

Attempted suicide by nailgun. I saw the x-ray. It looked something like this, except through the side of the head.

And that's how your Grandma and I met

Another hospital story:

It seems that a woman owed money to her crack dealer and so paid off her debt by having sex with him. A totally acceptable transaction in the world of crack, I'm sure you're thinking. However, she neglected to remove her tampon beforehand and came to the hospital after having had it lodged deep within for, wait for it, three days. After it was, erm, extracted, she was waiting by the payment office when she started flirting with a guy also waiting. Upon seeing what was going on, an employee in the know attempted to covertly throw "Dude, no" looks at the guy without success. Ahh young love.

Sugar and caffeine, therefore twitching

This post reminded me of the summer I worked at a movie theater. On commercial fountain drink machines, you can slide up the piece of plastic with the drink labels to reveal two tabs. Push one and it dispenses carbonated water to clear out syrup. Push the other tab and it triggers carbonated water and syrup. One day, I discovered that pushing on the "both" tab and pulling back on the carbonated water tab caused only syrup to be dispensed. Two seconds later, I had created what I called a Double Coke; a Coke with roughly twice the syrup.

The night I stumbled upon this was a Thursday. On Thursday nights we stayed late to watch the movies that were going to start on Friday. This was mostly for fun, but also to make sure the movies had been built up right.

See movies are split up into about five reels and shipped to theaters in metal cannisters. Then, in a modern theater, a projectionist splices the reels together on a big metal platter from which the film unspools as it is projected. Sometimes the projectionist makes a mistake though and splices a reel in upside down. So the movies have to be watched to detect such errors.

Usually the staff congregated in one theater for a particular movie. When this happened, the theater would pay one person to watch the other movies for mistakes. I was once paid to suffer through the awful Madonna vehicle Body of Evidence.

The night I created the Double Coke, a bunch of us decided to watch Super Mario Bros. For those of you who've blocked it out, in 1993 more than a few people decided that what audiences wanted was a live-action movie chronicling the adventures of Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) as they battled King Koopa (Dennis Hopper!) to rescue the Princess. They were extremely wrong and made a terrible, terrible movie directed by four different people, including Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, The Mission).

Still, when you and your co-workers are all hopped up on Double Cokes, to the point where your hands twitch, Super Mario Bros. is hilarious. Almost as much as Cop and a Half's infamous bathroom "swordfight" almost-scene between Burt Reynolds and a small black child.

Reality

After working tonight, I no longer associate the phrase "GSW to the head" with movies and TV shows.

A tale from the psych ward

Despite striking out on my own at work rather than follow other employees around like a puppy, it was a fairly unremarkable evening. So, I'll tell a story I heard from one of my professors.

Dr. C was a student nurse at the time and was working on the psych ward. She and her fellow students heard a patient down the hall start yelling. All the other students ran the other way, but Dr. C responsibly (and bravely) marched down the hall to the patient's room.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes!" he shouted, "Get in this bed and fuck me!"

"I'm sorry sir, that's not within my duties," she stated with great aplomb, "Is there any other way I can help you?"

Without hesitation he responded, "Yes, I would like some juice."

I've boingboinged

I submitted an offering to boingboing today and it was published. Cool.

My first day at work

After rocking my chemistry final this afternoon and securing an A for the class, I reported to the hospital for my first day of work. Nothing in particular to report, but here's some quick impressions:

- Patients with less teeth than expected

- Hot cops

- The quiet click of handcuffs

- Frantic, pained, and then relieved looks on faces

- The volatile smell of isopropyl alcohol

- Waiting for something to happen

Just so you know, it would be both unethical and illegal for me to relate specific stories of patients or staff. As a result, any tales I tell here will be somewhat vague and sufficiently obfuscated.

ACL lineup is available!

The Austin City Limits Festival lineup is out!

Built to Spill! The Decemberists! Mouse on Mars! M83!! Arcade Fire!!! Awgh, yes, exclamation points. Seriously, I'm thrilled. Sure it will be hot and there will be too many people, but it's all worth it for three days of great music in my home town.

While I'm mostly pumped about the smaller acts, the headliners are pretty decent this year: Wilco (apparently a permanent fixture), John Prine, Lyle Lovett, and Jimmy Cliff(?!). Not so much thrilled about The Allman Brothers Band, Black Crowes, Oasis, or Widespread Panic (gag). You take the bad with the good. Like the chatterchairs.

Sick, again

Lack of sleep caught up with me again and I got sick Friday. Dragged myself to class to take a couple quizzes and then tried to Nyquil (actually store brand) myself well. Didn't work and I got a sinus infection and a middle ear infection. Thank your lucky stars that I don't have a digital camera or else there would be a grody picture of the orange blob that came out of my nose on Saturday afternoon. Didn't get any studying done over the weekend and can now appreciate how awful sinus pressure headaches are.

I'm on super-sudafed and an antibiotic now. Probably not going to do well on my four exams this week as I'm spacey and tired. Great timing. Fuck.

A small measure of hope

To some it may seem blown out of proportion, but I was very moved by this story of a kayaker and a couple ornithologists re-discovering a thought-to-be-extinct woodpecker. When I read stories like this and see examples of people emotionally invested in the natural world, it gives me small measure of hope.

For more detail, listen to the NPR story.


picture by Julie Zickefoose

Linking goodness

Yay! I sent the link for The Daily Show bit to Pink Dome and they posted it. Now even more people will see it, and maybe read Pink Dome which provides wonderfully snarky coverage of Texas politics (nudge, nudge).

The Daily Show's Gaywatch

Last night as I watched The Daily Show, I had a perfect hilarious/depressing moment. Jon Stewart was skewering the Texas House bill to ban not only gay marriage (already illegal anyway), but also to bar the gays from being foster parents. Really funny segment, but it made me mad all over again at the awfulness of most of Texas.

If you missed it, watch it here.

I almost teared up at Jon Stewart's palpable disgust.

Communicable disease here I come

I heard the news today, oh boy. I got a job working at a local hospital. Whoo-hoo!

Officially my title is Patient Access Representative I. What that means is that I check people into the emergency room if they are barfing too much or they picked up a rabid bat or they got stabbed. You know, whatever. Take their name, address, insurance, etc, and put them into the computer. I'm kinda like Jerry on ER, but different.

I'll be working the 3-11 PM shift, which I'm happy about. The morning shift is waaay too early for me and they won't let anyone work the 11PM - 7AM shift til they have some experience. I expect I'll do some overtime on graveyard as the summer progresses, picking up some extra bucks and freaky stories. Now that the hiring manager has mentioned it, I can't wait to learn the protocol for when the police bring in a prisoner.

This is absolutely the perfect job for me right now. When I graduate with my Nursing degree I want to work in emergency/trauma, so this will be a great introduction.

Dang I'm pumped.

Don't say anything! I haven't watched it yet.

The other day I saw the headline for an article about the death of watercooler TV talk because of Tivo and similar devices. The idea is that because people are delaying watching Desperate Housewives or Survivor or Lost by recording them on their Tivo, they can't gather round the watercooler and discuss the previous night's episodes without spoiling it for someone.

It got me thinking about a parallel phenomenon; the development of home theater systems and the ongoing shift from watching films in movie theaters to watching them at home. Both are instances of the loss of communal experience. The movie theater experience is obvious, the TV one less so. While the Lost fans probably didn't come together physically, they did temporally, and then discussed the experience the next day. When the number of people using VCRs and DVRs to shift when they watch increases, it disrupts even the temporal communality and therefore the watercooler "campfire".

Today, I made another connection through the increasing privitization of public spaces in the US. We're moving further away from a culture of sharing unique experiences physically and temporally towards one where experiences are preserved and available to indiduals whenever and wherever.

Let me back up a bit. A long time ago, communicating was very much a here-and-now phenomenon. A storyteller entertaining their tribe with tales was a one-time, physically intimate performance. You had to be there at the time to experience it. Even if the storyteller repeated a story, it wasn't exactly the same. Then, we came up with ways to record information; we created media. Pictographs, writing systems, etcetera were increasingly complex methods of transmitting ideas and experiences through space and time.

From this it's a logical supposition that the development of media is the constant process of refining the transmission of ideas and experiences through space and time. I haven't quite thought it all out, but I see a pattern repeating itself through media development, a pattern of increasing and decreasing shared experience. A simplified example would be:

theater -> novel -> film -> TV -> VHS/DVD/Tivo

Theater as a way of telling stories was and is a rigid experience. You are physically there in front of the actors seeing the performance with the rest of the audience. Then writing systems and literacy allowed people to experience the same story, but as a personal experience at random times and places through the novel. Then a new medium, film, was developed and we moved back towards a communal experience. The same story could be seen at different times and places, but you had to get yourself to a specific place and time for the screening and experience it with an audience. Then TV came along. Although you were physically tied down to a place with a TV, TVs quickly became ubiquitous. Time was the real constraint. Particular programs aired at particular times and if you missed it, you were out of luck. Finally we reached the near-present where films and television shows are available with most of the benefits of the novel. Cheap copies are available for people to see whenever and wherever they want, and we can jump backward and forward through the text to whatever degree we like.

You can walk yourself through another example:

town crier -> newspaper -> network news -> web news

Or trace one out yourself.

Now I'm not assigning value to private vs public experience and certainly there are many social factors that influence the development of media as well, I just wanted to throw out what I've been turning over in my head for the past day. The next thing I'll ponder is the push-pull of demands on our time, the pace of modern life, and the desire to see/hear/do as much as possible.

Or to put it another way:

We implement technology for time-shifting,
so events are not observed when they occur.
Everything is preserved. To be seen, eventually.
Always later, when there's time to shuttle time.
In gaining access and lack of overlap,
we've scattered the tribal pack.

My 12-year-old self is highly amused

I'm sure the gum is terrible, but that's some graphic design.




Same sense of humor with the soap products.

Finally, something medical

As I progress in my education, I hope to be able to share many more posts with relevant health information. Mostly to keep my friends healthy, but also so I won't catch anything from them; I'm selfless I tell ya.

Today I went to a presentation by an expert in handwashing. Seriously, Dr. Elaine Larson's been studying this since the '60s. She's just completed a study that looked at whether antimicrobial housecleaning products were effective.

The research design was cool. They recruited families with at least one pre-school age kid (rife with disease as they are) and supplied them with soap, laundry detergent, glass cleaner, etc. Every cleaning product they needed. The double-blind was whether the families got a set of products with no antimicrobials at all, or a set where they all had antimicrobials. Then the researchers followed them for a year noting disease symptoms and observing a lot of other factors for possible future studies.

The results were surprising. Antimicrobial products don't make any difference in preventing disease. No difference at all. So, waste of money and possibly contributing to the development of resistant strains of bactera. So stop buying them y'all.

Other cool, useful info:

The mechanical process of washing the hands is what does most of the work. Even washing with plain water (no soap) or sand (as is done in parts of Africa) works pretty good.

Amount of time spent washing means nothing unless done for a long time. No difference between 10 sec and 30 sec. Five minutes of washing will work better sure, but who does this besides surgeons and people with OCD?

Vigorous, abrasive scrubbing is worse as it not only causes more bacteria to be shed after washing, it damages the skin leaving the person open to possible infection. Oh, and you throw off tons more bacteria after you shower than before. So that clean feeling? Not so much.

Washing clothes at non-hot settings, especially underclothes, spreads bacteria (for instance, fecal bacteria) all over the clothes and doesn't kill them. If you dry them with heat, fine, but if you let them air-dry, they're still contaminated. So wash your unmentionables in hot water.

The best way to cleanse hands, for healthcare workers and at home, is to use one of them alcohol-based hand sanitizers. They work the best and won't contribute to the problem of resistant bacteria. Find one that has an emollient in it so the skin doesn't dry out.

Lastly, bacteria love fake nails. Many hospitals are banning them among their employees.

This has been the health lesson for today.



To me, this image says, "When washing a wooden hand, there is no need to use soap. Just let the water flow over the beautiful grain of your, sadly, unarticulated fake appendage." Right?

Oh my. Oh my yes.

Don't know if you've been hipped to Wonder Showzen, but it is seriously the most subversive show on television. And it's on MTV2.

It's hard to know where to start. The last three sequences I just saw were:

A cartoon about four little girls who invoke Finger Force and bulimic-ize themselves into skinny, big-eyed fashionistas to raise money for an orphange, but then spend all the money on clothes.

A hygiene film of the '50s, recut and with added voiceover so it becomes a celebration of obsessive-compulsive hand washing.

And then one of the most incredibly dense OHMYGAWD moments I've ever experienced, a cartoon titled Global Politics in 30 seconds.



It opens on a map of North America. A pink USA sprouts a pig tail and roars. Then, it pisses on Mexico, takes bloody bites out of South America, humps Africa, gives birth to three crying Mexicos, and then eats two of them. My head almost imploded from the sheer audacity of it.

I'm going to have to start taping it. Oh hey, here's the pilot. If you have Windows MediaPlayer 9, you can see more clips here.

Och, the coolness continues. The animation studio behind the cartoons on Wonder Showzen is Augenblick Studios. Aaron Augenblick sent an animated music video of sorts to SXSW in 2000 and it got in. He appears to be doing well now, and throwing music work to Bradford Reed who played his awesome pencilina in the music conference part of SXSW several years ago. So much sweetness all interwoven together.

Lament of the text-only post

Yet again, it is obvious that I need a digital camera, or really, any camera with me at all times. I’m walking across campus today when I see a guy in a full-on Donatello costume. Not the Renaissance sculptor mind you, the Ninja Turtle. Best part? He was carrying a backpack, as you do when you are a Ninja Turtle working towards that degree in, social work? Philosophy? Civil engineering? Hmm, should have asked him.

Then, within the next minute, I encountered the biggest, corkscrewiest white afro I’ve ever seen and then a girl with beautiful, vibrant purple hair. Purple-hair Girl actually threw a “see that?” look over her shoulder at me, apparently also impressed by Huge White ‘Fro Guy.

No camera, no pics. Dang.

Why did this come up at 3:29 AM?

If, for some strange reason, I was punished by being made to dress up in drag (and that's really a punishment for everyone cause I would not be a pretty lady), this would be the dress I would be required to wear. Ack.

Oh, and if you like laughing at ludicrous wedding dresses, you'll love this.

Well frick

I spent many precious minutes writing effusive praise for two movies I watched this weekend, then Firefox locked up on me and I lost it all. That fiery, world-hugging bastard. I haven't the morale to rewrite it all, so suffice to say that Black Narcissus and At Close Range are quite good movies that should be seen. Hmph.

Shot in the Dark

You: holding up the wall all night
Me: dancin' fool in the Kraftwerk shirt

You disappeared as I was on my way over to chat you up. Intentional or coincidental?

Fun time drinking and dancing with friends to celebrate the death of electroclash (in Austin anyway, I think the NYC funeral was quite awhile back) and raise some money for KOOP. Guy hitting on me smoked too much, hipster chick and I facetiously grind on the dance floor, guy against the wall runs away - funny how that keeps happening.



Mybloodyself should have pictures up soon.

360° indeed

I always told myself I would not become a linkmonkey, obsessively posting whatever funny/cool/freaky stuff I came across on the internets. Yet, here I am doing it two posts in a row. St. Murse you are a disappointment.

Anyway, Anderson Cooper is positively a gay (read the comments too).



Oh, and I totally want to record an album called Yooge Queeah.

Supreme

So I was perusing Gawker just now, and came across something that made me shake with laughter so much my bed was squeaking and hitting the wall. Hopefully my roommate won't get the wrong idea.

Gawker is often too snarky, but this is just damn funny.

Celebration of Me-ness

My friend Joolie is profiling me on her blog because I gave her a silent reader award and because it's my birthday today.

Read about me over there (follow the links at the top for Part II, Part III, etc.)

"Somewhere a vegan just exploded."

Ladies and gentlemen, The Patriot Loaf.


I am fascinated/horrified.

Now I'm really happy

Brilliant news. Patton Oswalt is going to record his next CD in Austin at Emo's this September. I can only assume that he was so blown away with the gushing love that we poured out upon him at the Comedians of Comedy show during SXSW that his neural pathways for pleasure and gratitude were permanently re-wired. See, I told him that Emo's was his kinda place. He talks about Austin here.


Brian Posehn & Patton Oswalt at SXSW
Photo by Patton


I previously wrote about The Comedians of Comedy show in Austin here and here. I am sorely tempted to drive to Houston next week for the start of the Comedians of Comedy Southern Tour.

This is going to be embarrassing tomorrow

An anonymous person told me about this. This very blog is the second search result that comes up in Google when searching for "murse", which is really strange. Who out there is linking to my blog so much? I'm mystified. And now that I think about it, who is this Slacker Manager and why is he first?! C'mon vastly tiny audience that still managed to get me to 2nd, link like you've never linked me before! Oh wait, I just linked to Slacker Manager and bumped him up. Dang.

The vast majority of the other search results are about man-purses. Ridiculous! At least Google knows what's up. It says "Did you mean: nurse", not purse. Take that all you man-purse searchin' motherfuckers.

Rational St. Murse: Wow. Why so belligerent and competitive?

Overstimulated St. Murse: Whoooo hoooo! Fuck all y'all! Yee-ha-yee-ha-yee-ha.

Rational St. Murse: I don't even know what that means. You should go to bed now.

Overstimulated St. Murse: (coming down off a sugar high and sobering up that last little bit) Um, ok.

Judy's pix

I updated my Judy's show review/slobbbery lovefest with pictures.

Horace

I was just reading about this year's winners of the Peabody Award (yay Daily Show!) when my eyes literally bugged out of my head. It seems that the director of the Awards is named Horace Newcomb. "No way," I thought as my eyes recessed back into their sockets, "But then how likely is it that there would be two guys named Horace Newcomb involved in media?"

You see, Horace Newcomb (why can't I stop typing his name? Because his name is Horace Newcomb!)) was the name of my Intro to Media Studies professor my freshman year at the University of Texas. The class was a prerequisite to taking any other Radio-Television-Film class and therefore, in an apparent effort to dissuade the dilettantes, was stultifyingly boring.

After checking a little further, I found a picture and confirmed that it is the same Horace. Wow. Good for him I guess.

What I will never forget about Horace:

- He was obsessed with Magnum P.I. to the point that he had published articles about the show and cited it constantly in class.

- On the slam tables* one semester someone wrote, "Horace has the personality of a dead platypus."

* Slam tables are the old school way that UT students share opinions on teachers and classes. They are actual tables covered in butcher paper set up around the main library during registration. Can be useful and funny.

What I did tonight instead of study

Tonight I went to see Kronos Quartet perform Terry Riley's Sun Rings at Bass Concert Hall on the UT campus. I had a free ticket from last Fall; the UT Performing Arts Center tried to boost voter turnout by giving away free tickets to students and faculty that voted in the November election. I'm not sure how successful it was.

Upon exiting the elevator at the top floor, a staffer asked "Free ticket?" I replied in the affirmative and she pointed me to my row. As I climbed to the nosebleed seats, I noticed that the entire upper balcony was empty except for my fellow voters. All seven of us. So we sat together - shoutout to my peeps in Row W, Row W 4evah! - and made small talk about the other shows we'd seen from the nosebleeds (Girl 1: Nina Simone, making me very jealous as I could only cite Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt, great but not Nina Simone great). Girl 2 pointed out the coincidence of us sitting in Row W when we all had not voted for W. Hee.

Soon the lights went down and the staff let us move down to fill empty seats. It was a good show, but far from the best Kronos Quartet show I've seen, mainly due to the material. I like Terry Riley, and maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I much preferred the "best of" tour last year(?) and the show they did with Don Walser back in '97.

I rebuke thee!

So I was reading that during SXSW, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes were spotted eating at Las Manitas one morning. Oh how I wish I had been there. Can't be sure, but I think it's likely that I would have stood up, pointed at them, and loudly declaimed, "Look everyone, it's Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. They're ruining our country and the world. Be gone vile creatures, I rebuke thee! C'mon everyone, [chanting] 'Fuck right off, we rebuke thee!'". Hmm, not sure what the anachronistic words are about, but it's what immediately came to mind.

Apparently, this guy did something a bit more tasteful, but definitely not as fun.

The soundtrack to tears

I'm starting a little project, collecting songs that made people cry and the story behind that reaction. So read on, then add a song in comments if you want.

Here are some songs that often make me cry. Whether it's the sentiments expressed, a crushingly sad melody, or just incredible beauty, I often go all blurry-eyed when I hear them. I've tried to include links so you can hear them, sorry if they're not in your preferred format. In no particular order:

"It's a Hard Life" - Nanci Griffith

It starts off a bit sappy I admit, but those 2nd and 3rd verses get the angry/desperate tears going.

"Mad World" - Michael Andrews & Gary Jules' version of the Tears for Fears song

For me, and many others I'm sure, this is inextricably linked to the final minutes of Donnie Darko when it all clicks into place. Definitely a case where the cover improves on the original (and I liked the original quite a bit). Donnie Darko is full of "oh yes" moments when songs kick in, and this one almost instantly had me choking back sobs.

"I'm Not the Man" - 10,000 Maniacs

Racial injustice and bassoon are a potent combination. I'm terribly disappointed in Natalie Merchant's post-Maniacs output, but while in the band, she was so great at narrative storytelling in rhyme.

"Untrustable/Pt. 2" - Built to Spill

I was listening to a promo tape of Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On album when this song came on. It punched into me so hard, I had to pull over on the side of the road. Really. Something about the almost constantly shifting and overlapping guitar lines gets to me.

"Annie's Song" - Sunshine Club's version of the John Denver song

John Denver is undeniably sentimental and squeaky clean in a way that can chafe, and yet, I absolutely love some of his songs ("High Calypso"? Yes please). This one penned for his wife is wonderful. Throughout he likens her to scenes of nature, powerful similes from a man who wrote so many songs about trees and mountains.

Sunshine Club's take marries stately instrumentation with fragile, slightly pained vocals that seem to say "I love you, please don't leave me."

"Velouria" - The Pixies

I don't tend to get worked up over weird love songs, but this one has something to it that's always put me on edge. When I finally saw them play it live, I said to myself "I am seeing The Pixies. I am actually seeing The Pixies and they are playing 'Velouria' and Frank Black's vocals sound awesome and I AM STANDING HERE SEEING THE PIXIES!!" Ergo, tears of joy.

"Russians" - Sting

Sting borrowed from Prokofiev and it's the music that saddens me, not so much the lyrics, which are rather leaden. I can't be sure, but I have a nagging suspicion that some ugly, familial fight happened in my childhood while Prokofieff's "Lt. Kije Suite" was playing.

"Staralfur" - Sigur Rós

This is what I want from art. Something to reach deep inside me and impel a flood of neurotransmmitters. When I saw them play in Austin, I honest-to-God went into a trance state during this song. Came out of it with tears in my eyes.

"Calling My Children Home" - Emmylou Harris version

This is a traditional old-style country song. Emmylou's acapella version with incredible four-part harmony is achingly gorgeous. When they hit the chorus, the sniffles start.

"They Don't Know About Us" - Tracey Ullman's version of the Kirsty MacColl song

Much like the above song, the key to this one is the harmony. The producer's got a Phil Spector-esque thing happening and Tracey Ullman (I know!) has a great girl-group voice, perfect for the song. Apparently female high harmonies flick a switch in my head marked "Sob". It's only gotten worse now that Kirsty MacColl died and I have that association.

"Pure" - The Lightning Seeds

This is all about my friends Jen and Scot; it's the song they danced to at their wedding reception. It made me tear up then and it's happened every time since. As I type, I'm listening to it with a smile on my face and wet cheeks.

What puts your waterworks in high gear?

The Judys kick ass!

Just got back from my trip to Houston to see The Judys and OH MY GAWD! It was amazing. I was practically delirious when they played "Don't Be a Hippie" and "Guyana Punch". This will go down as one of the most thrilling shows I've ever seen.

Let me back up. The Judys, David Bean (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jeff Walton (bass, vocals), and Dane Cessac (drums, vocals), were a new-wave band from Pearland, TX (outside Houston) in the early 80s. They were big in Texas, both as a headliner and as an opening band for the B-52s and Talking Heads, but never reached prominence in the national scene and broke up after a number of years. I became a fan later on and never thought I'd get to see this band with a reputation for highly entertaining live shows.



Recently, a great friend of The Judys, Patrick Scranton, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, so the band organized a benefit for the Stehlin Foundation for Cancer Research in honor of Patrick. Before an audience of mostly friends and family (I'm neither), The Judys put on an incredible show. Even after so long, they sounded fantastic; tight playing and great vocals. I hope they raised a lot of money, it was certainly worth it.

The show was permeated by The Judys infamous shtick. It was held in the auditorium of a former elementary school and the show started with woman posing as a teacher introducing the acts in the school talent show. First was a kid named Nicholas doing a short ventriloquist act. Then The Judys came on kicking the show off with "Vacation in Tehran".



Goosebumps. Seriously awesome. When they kicked into the next song, my friends and I ran up front with a bunch of other people and shook a tailfeather for the rest of the show.

The most surprising thing about the show is how they went all out, doing the original arrangments of "Zoo" and "Grass is Greener" as well as throwing a giant beach ball into the audience for "Her Wave" and turning on a bubble machine for "Underwater Fun".



Near the end of the show, they left the stage and after a bit of comedy from the "teacher", returned as a different band, The Swinging Seabees (I think that's the correct spelling, Seabees are the construction force for the Navy, bridging rivers and such). Dressed in milkman uniforms, they started the encore with, of course, "Milk".



The show ended with them graciously losing the talent show to Nicholas' ventriloquist act.

Aww geez, I cannot say enough how much this show exceeded my expectations. I hope they consider doing another show in Austin and finally re-release their music in a box set. In the meantime, check out a few songs on this website. To get a sense of them, I recommend listening to "Underwater Fun" off Wonderful World of Appliances, "Guyana Punch" and "She's Got the Beat" off Washarama, and "Don't Be a Hippie" off Moo.

* All photos from Patrick's website

Instead of sleep, endowment ceremonies

I absolutely should be asleep right now. I've been sleep-deprived all week and this was my chance to get caught up. After a brief nap earlier in the evening though, I haven't felt sleepy again.

So, I've spent the last three hours reading all about Mormonism on a site for ex- and questioning Latter-Day Saints, you know, as you do. Now I know it's weirder than the Catholicism I grew up in. Seriously, read about it here. Fascinating stuff.

As an outsider, it was entertaining to work out the slang that the ex-LDS use on the bulletin boards. "Exmo" for ex-Mormon, "garmies" for temple garments (special underclothes worn by TBM or true-believing Mormons), and so on. Then the voyeuristic thrill wore off as I started to understand the toll wrought on these people by an authoritarian, insular power structure that requires unthinking fealty from its "elect".

Then there's the many (fundamentalist) Christian religions that blather on about Mormonism being satanic, when the real problem is the similarities their religion has with Mormonism: one-true-religion dogma, cherry-picking from sacred texts, historical revisionism, anti-intellectualism, reliance on authority figures, the list goes on.

Then there's my huge problem with the idea of Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious faith. Not only is this faith held despite the lack of any evidence of its objective truth, it somehow has more power because there isn't evidence of its objective truth. Further, faith in something-or-other drawn from ancient religious texts is tenaciously held to even when the basis for something-or-other is demonstratively false because of course it's all a test from a god that apparently delights in playing "Gotcha! Now You Go to Hell. Tee hee." Don't get me wrong, one can be Judeo-Christian-Islamic and logical. It's the blind faith people that get me riled.

Umm, this was supposed to be about what I did instead of sleep and now I've gone all rant-y. My apologies. Did I ever mention that I went to a Jesuit high school where they thoughtfully provided me with the critical and rhetorical ability to deconstruct and reject the very religion it was founded to promote?

My mother's sense of humor

One year on April Fool's Day, my mother woke up early and snuck around the house setting all the clocks ahead. Then she rousted my sisters and I out of bed yelling that everyone had overslept and we were going to be late for school. We lept out of bed, threw on clothes, and had a few bites to eat. Only when we were on the way out the door did we notice that it was too dark outside. My mother was quite taken with her prank and cackled, we were less than amused.

She tried it again the next year, but we were ready. Then she started doing it at random times of the year. Sometimes several years would go by and she'd get us again. I don't know why she was so fixated on that particular prank. It's like she had one good idea and then beat it to death with repetition. Like a Saturday Night Live sketch.

For your edification, the top 100 April Fool's hoaxes of all time as decided by somebody or other.

Shazbot

Dear God, a TV movie about Mork & Mindy is airing next week.

The ad for it was 15 seconds long and my level of disbelief increased at a geometric rate throughout. The ultimate whatthefuck?! moment was when I realized the music playing underneath, "Don't Fear the Reaper". Yes, a song about a boy trying to convince his girlfriend to commit suicide with him is perfect for the unauthorized story of what went on behind the scenes at Mork & fuckin' Mindy.

Grrr! Rassafracka and the gnashing of teeth.

Watch the clips for yourself, I guess.

My head: redux

Today, two more strangers stopped me to compliment the back of my head. As you might recall, it looks like this



except with three weeks of dark brown roots showing.

I'm really quite taken aback with how much attention it's getting. Not just nudge-your-friend-and-point attention either, it's risen to stop-me-and-talk attention. Everybody says some variation on either "I just had to say, I love your hair" or "What's with the cross man?"

Surprisingly, no one has said, "You look stupid" or "Faggot!" At least, to my face.

I mentioned before why I did it, but I've grown tired of explaining it, so now I just shrug and say "Why not?" or "Seemed like the thing to do".

Maybe it's the tsunami/Red Cross thing, but I'm beginning to think that iconography has a more powerful effect than I'd previously imagined, especially when featured on the dorsal surface of the cranium.

What symbol should I do next year? And peace, anarchy, and smiley face are right out. Here's some ideas I'm toying with:





[Can you tell I suck at HTML? Can't even get the images on the same line]

So frickin' cool

Man do I love nature.

Some octopuses (I read somewhere that this is the correct plural since octopus isn't a Latin word) may disguise themselves and then run away on two tentacles. Check out this sweetness.

*props to the perfectduluthdayers for the rad link and photo

SXSW: notes on music

It was an off year for SXSW music. Normally I get psyched about several bands that are coming and then discover a few during the week, but not this year. I saw many bands during the conference, but only a few stood out.

Honorable mentions go to VHS or Beta and Supersystem. VHS or Beta worked a huge crowd at Stubb's and seemed rather awe-struck by how well they were doing. They do the dancey rock thing better than most of the dancey rock bands (oh Gang of Four what you have inspired) and the singer's spot-on Robert Smith vocals were both cool and creepy. I had my hopes way up for Supersystem and they kind of delivered. The energy in the room was off and they were clearly nervous, but about halfway through their set they turned it around and ended well.

Third prize goes to Jim & Jennie and the Pine Tops for their day show at B.D. Riley's. Damn but they can get me going. Piercing vocals and furious strumming are wonderful in the afternoon. I was less enthused by their recent move toward electric instruments, but the day show was all traditional bluegrass.

Second prize goes to Calexico. I've seen them something like 5 times before, but I swear they're one of the best live bands around and are not to be missed. They didn't disappoint. During their day show at Emo's and their regular showcase at Antone's, they impressed me all over again with brilliantly textured songs and a zeal for performing. "Crystal Frontier" rocked my lame ass, as witnessed by those standing behind me.

First prize is easily earned by Kings of Convenience. From the moment they started their quiet set of acoustic folk-pop, they had the audience in the palm of their hand. They began by hushing the crowd, which actually worked, despite the overabundance of music industry types. Then they requested that photographers get picture-taking out of the way and helpfully posed smiling, then "rocking out". Then, they just started to play. Beautiful. Highly recommend picking up their albums. The highlights were a version of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" where they got the audience to sing the backup chorus and a song performed with a guest female vocalist, Feist (thanks mybloodyself). I walked out of the show smiling, glad that I'd had at least one perfect moment during SXSW this year.

SXSW: notes on film

This is a bit late, but I was too busy during SXSW and too sick immediately after to recap the festivals.

Our Brand Is Crisis is a doc about the last Presidential election in Bolivia where James Carville's political consulting firm worked for one of the candidates. While not a great film, it's a solid work from a young filmmaker, Rachel Boynton. The access she got was incredible. She was able to follow the candidate, Goni, everywhere and sit in on all the political strategizing by the Greenburg, Carville, Shrum (GCS) firm.

At documenting the events and thought process of the campaign, the film succeeds. It also raises good questions about GCS going to Bolivia and applying their American brand of campaigning (something they've done in something like 15 other countries). I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more of specific critique of GCS not only taking American "innovations" like negative campaigning and focus groups into a quite different culture, but also GCS' history of working for monied, slightly-to-the-left mainstream candidates and acting like they are the saviors of progressive politics. Nevertheless, it's a solid political doc and has inspired me to find out more about GCS' global activities.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a doc developed from the book of the same name (minus the Enron: part) by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. While it is informative and has fantastic talking heads, it ultimately fails for me due to its profound artlessness.

There is a common critique of documentaries made up mostly of people sitting in a chair, talking. The rather static nature makes them visually monotonous, so most docs that, as a matter of course, have to feature talking heads cut away to more dymanic shots from time to time. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is colossally heavy-handed with its cutaways. When the talking heads compare Enron's schemes to gambling, there's a cutaway to a casino table. When the heads speak about the bull market? A statue of a bull. Duh.

More egregious was the music. The amount of the music budget could have alone financed a whole 'nother documentary, and every cue was crushingly obvious. When a talking head noted that Enron head Ken Lay was the son of a Baptist preacher, in comes "Son of a Preacher Man". When the film shows how California got fucked by Enron during the blackouts, "Californication" plays underneath. And on and on and on. Really annoying.

Ultimately, the film lays out well a fascinating subject with incredibly compelling characters, but is damaged by a relentless beat-you-over-the-headedness. Still, see it for an great examination of corporate greed, especially if you'd rather not read the book.

180 degrees away is The Devil and Daniel Johnston, an incredibly heartfelt, beautiful, and most of all respectful doc about the musician and his struggles with mental illness. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but this film moved me to tears several times.

I have always felt a connection to Daniel Johnston's music. It has a naive yet powerful quality that touches me. I defy anyone to listen to him sing "Going Down" without feeling something break inside. The film honors Johnston's ability to channel the emotional spectrum into deceptively simple pop songs, an ability that many people recognize despite his off-key voice and ragged guitar playing.

The director, Jeff Feuerzeig, has done a fantastic job of assembling a portrait of Johnston crafted from interviews with his friends and family, as well as selections from the hours of audio and video tapes that Johnston and his friends made through the years. Just one example of priceless material is the audio tape of Johnston being arrested by Park Police for drawing Christian fish symbols all over the inside of the Statue of Liberty, a tape made by Johnston himself.

Granted, being from Austin, having previous knowledge of principle interviewees (e.g. friends of Johnston Louis Black, publisher of the Austin Chronicle weekly paper, and Kathy McCarty, Austin musician formally of the band Glass Eye for whom Johnston used to open), and personally advocating for the continued existence of the alien frog mural at 21st & Guadalupe helps to establish a closer tie to the film than the average viewer. Still, I believe that anyone who watches it, whatever their familiarity with Daniel Johnston, will gain from the experience. Well, unless you're an asshole who laughs during scenes of Johnston's mental breakdown and therefore prompt me to dearly wish to beat you about the head and neck.

I wish I could have seen the end of Code 33, a procedural doc about the search for a serial rapist in Miami. While the look of the film is decidedly low-end, this only enhances the you-are-there quality to the manhunt, which is compelling. Unfortunately, I had to go to work, so I missed the end. Someday. Oh, and the filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley are lovely people with an adorable daughter.

The audience was psyched for Jesus is Magic, basically a filmed performance of comic Sarah Silverman. Unless she's performing live in your town, the film is the only way to see comedian Sarah Silverman do her whole act, since much of it is decidely TV unfriendly. Starting with the standard standup comic concert film formula, Silverman and director Liam Lynch add fresh elements like an odd musical framing device and an on-stage backup band (who knew Silverman could sing?). The material is hilarious, but only if you like Sarah Silverman's brand of edgy comedy. Here's a test, one of her jokes goes something like this:

SS: When I was 9 I was raped. I'm very conflicted about it though because I'm Jewish and he was a doctor.

Did you laugh? Then you'll love her. Did you groan? Then not so much. Were you offended? Then avoid all contact with her.

Besides the previous written about The Comedians of Comedy (wonderful and frickin' funny) that's all the films I saw (that I care to mention). If you noted that I wrote only about docs, good on you, that's where the quality tends to be at SXSW. In what is an ongoing issue, the festival attracts quality doc submissions and just so-so narrative ones. I chalk it up to reinforcing feedback. People see that it's a great place to premiere docs and which later get picked up for distribution, so the quality of docs goes up. SXSW Film isn't known as a showcase for quality narratives, so the great ones go elsewhere. Others who know more than I about the industry have made similar arguments, so I think it has merit. I just hope that in the future, some gem gets submitted to SXSW and not Sundance or Toronto therefore breaking the cycle.

A post while sobering up

Tonight I accompanied my roommates to a party of what was to be fellow grad students. It was great; white trash food, multiple games of darts, and two enormous, friendly Alaskan Malamutes. Then the undergrad boys showed up and I was roped into drinking games for the first time in something like eight years. Yes, I know, ludicrous.

So there I was with kids nine years younger than me making rules against saying the word "drink" in any tense. I did get a "cheers!" for making a Talking Heads reference, and the host of the party was playing a mix of almost exclusively college music of the early nineties. Waves of nostalgia washed over me as early Superchunk, Liz Phair, and Pavement wafted through the air and beer was quaffed all around. A decidedly odd experience at age almost-31.

Unfortunately, Jack in the Box was cleaning their milkshake machine, so no Oreo cookie shakes on the way home. Bastards. Grandma's house was doing a brisk business though.

Son you got a cross on the back o' yo head

Every year for SXSW, I do something to my hair. This year I went with an icon. I wanted something vaguely medical and the caduceus would have been difficult. So...




It was a big hit with my SXSW volunteer friends and I was continually stopped by people in town for the festival/conference. Never would have thought a pattern instead of an all-over color would be such a conversation starter. Eh, live and learn.

My face hurts

Today my cheeks are sore from all the laughing I did last night. The Comedians of Comedy show was frickin' awesome. A sold-out, packed-in crowd of Emo's ate it up and in turn made the performers incredibly happy. Patton Oswalt complained asked how he could ever go back to comedy clubs after this. Despite being time to end, he ended up continuing for 15 more minutes. For a comedian, I'm sure it's hard to walk away from an audience that adores you.

MC for the evening was Eugene Mirman impressed me. I know him mostly from his association with other comics and as the Russian kid (Eugene) on Home Movies. Funny guy and I'll see him again later this week at the SXSW music conference.

Maria Bamford did some of her great older material with a couple new jokes thrown in. She was a little off, maybe a little tired. Not a huge surprise, she connected better with the woman in the crowd.

Zach Galifianakis killed. The crowd was familiar with him, probably some from his show at UT last year, and ate it up. It's hard to single out anything in particular, he was just on and connected with the crowd well. Did his normal one-liners while playing piano and his "characters", a few I hadn't seen before.

Brian Posehn did a great set, heavy on the geek, sex, and poop jokes which endeared him at least to the men in the room. He tried out a few new jokes which, while needing a little work, seemed to work well. Funny guy.

Patton Oswalt closed the show with an amazing set. He clearly ran out of newer material and pulled out older stuff (he's incredibly prolific) to satisfy the appreciative audience. I think he should record his next album in Austin. At one point he had a, well, not a heckler per se, but a guy interrupting him drunkenly shouting, "Retarded Chewbacca!"

Patton responded, "What?! I don't... That's the weirdest heckle ever. How do you even respond to that?" Then he tried to actually do a retarded Chewbacca which didn't really work but was funny anyway. After a bit more pondering on the whole situation, the drunk guy climbs on stage and puts his arm around Patton. Security approached but Patton was handling it okay and the guy wasn't angry or violent. Slurring mightily he kept saying, "This guy. This guy," while pointing at Patton. After security gently ushered him offstage, Patton cracks, "Ladies and Gentlemen, my publicist." Then, Zach comes out, staggering and says, "What am I, on stage or something?" Lovely.

I can't summarize Patton's act completely (though I totally fell in love with him because of it), I do want to touch on one bit at the very end. He sets it up by explaining that he flew his and his fiancee's parents to Las Vegas and they all went to a Cirque Du Soleil show. He'd never seen it before and was stunned to see all these red state folks loving, "The gayest thing I've ever seen! There's a hoop on fire and a tiger dressed as a butler and three clowns jerking off on a ghost. It's French and wet and on fire. Why do these conservatives love it?! Apparently this is the way for the gay people to make progress. Can we put on tuxes, kiss, and make a life-long pledge to each other? No faggot! How about I blow my boyfriend on this trapeze? Great! We'll bring the kids."

Soooo good.

Al Franken in Austin to launch Air America

Al Franken just spoke at a SXSW panel. The timing of SXSW coincided with the launching of the Air America affiliate in Austin, or perhaps it was coordinated. The first part of the panel was a interview with Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith for airing on PBS, then audience questions. It was fairly ordinary, nothing Franken (and many others) haven't said before. In addition to the Corpus Cristi station already airing it, Air America will debut soon in Dallas, San Antonio, and Brownsville.

The most amusing part of the panel was when Franken noted, ruefully, the call letters of the Austin station: KOKE. This after the San Diego station yukked it up with K-Liberal San Diego, or KLSD.

Wocka wocka wocka.

SXSW: unseemly offers

Last Thursday I was explaining to fellow volunteers that when coming in for a work shift at the convention center, parking on the east side (of the highway) is readily available. There were many doubtful looks as the east side is the beginning of the "bad part of town", as if that really applied in Austin. So I explained that in all my many years of parking over there, only once had I been offered oral gratification in exchange for crack money. She asked, I demurred, encounter over. Easy as that. Despite this, my fellow volunteers remained largely unconvinced. More parking for me I guess.

Friday night marked encounter number two. As I walked down the street back to my car, a shuddering, clanking rust-pile that could be charitably referred to as a car pulled up beside me. The following conversation occurred.

Woman: Hey man, wanna buy some trees?

Me: No.

Woman: You know what that is right? It's weed.

Me (entirely in my head as I wordlessly walk away from her): I know what trees are. I just don't want to buy your crappy skunk weed at outrageously inflated "SXSW" prices.

Woman: Whatever man.

Make with the funny

Here is the article I wrote about the Comedians of Comedy tour and documentary coming to Austin next week featuring Maria Bamford (superduper), Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, and Brian Posehn. These are some of my favorite comics and I'm trying to be cool and not spazz out over this bounty. I'll post the full transcript of my interviews with Maria, Zach, and Patton as time permits.

I first saw Maria Bamford on the Tonight Show something like 5 years ago and was blown away. I'd never laughed so hard at a from-out-of-nowhere comic. Soon after, her Comedy Central special aired and I fell in comedic love. That is, love of a comic, not funny love. On her next trip to Austin, I went to see her live with a couple friends and we suffered extreme stomach and facial muscle ache. That's a good thing. We make it a point to see her every time she performs in town and my Tivo is set to automatically record all her appearances. I actually sat through more of Charlotte's Web 2 (a sacrilege) that I ever care to again because Maria was the voice of Charlotte's daughter Joy. Ah Tivo, you show me more minor guest appearances than I ever thought possible.

I first saw Zach Galifianakis on Conan one night and the sheer oddity was enough to interest me. He was also hilarious, so that helped. Later, I fortuitously saw him at Bumbershoot in Seattle and his set was so frickin' amazing that I went back again for his next one. I must admit that because of this I was prepared for the audience participation bit and in a rather Martin Prince-ish fashion willed him to call on me. So I sat in a chair on stage (because Zach gets lonely) and laughed. Zach called up a young girl as well who, by all appearances, not only got his jokes, but loved them; just howled. On stage though, she sat totally silent and looked bored. Zach would do a joke, then turn around and look at her, nothing. It was priceless, couldn't have been planned better. Afterwards, Zach took the time to chat with me and we marvelled at the difference between her off-stage and on. His Comedy Central special is also great and I dearly wish I had tapes of his short-lived VH1 talk show Late World with Zach. I watched Bubble Boy and can confirm that Zach's two minutes of screentime are the best two minutes of the entire movie.

I've never seen Brian Posehn do a long set, just clips and then his work on Mr. Show. So I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

I think the first time I heard of Patton Oswalt was because he was doing staged readings of the script for The Day the Clown Cried, the infamous film where Jerry Lewis plays a clown in a Nazi concentration camp (read the Spy magazine story about this incredible, uh, thing). What a great idea (the readings, not so much the movie). Anyway, I saw Patton at Bumbershoot as well (different year from Zach) and laughed my ass off. Patton Oswalt is an incredibly gracious person. After the show, I stopped to express my appreciation and he actually listened and genuinely thanked me. He's definitely acerbic and puts on a grumpy attitude on stage, but off stage? Adorable and sweet, like a puppy. His Comedy Central special last year killed me. Tibecian scream singers? Yes please.

Dear lord I'm being gushy. Well, I can't help it. If someone consistently makes me laugh, the love must be shown.

Maria Bamford interview

Here's the email interview I did with Maria Bamford. Email afforded her the time and focus to think of truly bizarre responses that are nevertheless so very Maria.

St. Murse: Why did you want to be part of the Comedians of Comedy documentary? Why do you think you were asked to be part of it?

Maria Bamford: My main reason for being in the documentary was the money. And the prestige. I love money and prestige. And I think I was asked to be a part of it because the producers knew I was pro-money and pro-prestige. That's what I've always stood for and I've never wavered.

St. M: Why does the kind of comedy you four do seem to work well in rock clubs?

MB: The Rock club audience is non-sedentary - it stands and has freedom of movement. It has to get its own drinks. It's this kind of mass pioneer spirit that canappreciate the likes of Patton Oswalt and Co.

St. M: What unites you as performers? What divides you?

MB: What unites me with the performers is the excitement/fear that- if there were some sort of natural disaster or emergency quarantine while we were at the club and we were stuck together for 7 or 8 days, trapped in a green room with just some Crystal Geyser water and Twizzlers, then the comedy masks might fall and while performing the tasks of human survival - washing eachother's hair andmaintaining long periods of eye contact - we decide to start a family.

St. M: Tell me about the experience of riding around in a van of, presumably, somewhat stinky guys?

MB: Well, let me tell you, I'm a bit of a stinkpot myself sometimes! I dribble skim milk and oats on my shirt front to start the day off, then I fart around (literally!) and recite my Oprah affirmiations. There are some things that Allure (by Chanel) can't cover up! I also - much like my dog- have overfunctioning anal glands that sometimes secrete during overexcitement(morning radio shows, scarf-knitting).

St. M: Pitch me your dream sitcom.

MB: After having a nervous breakdown on stage at the Detroit Comedy Castle, I move back in with my parents in Duluth, MN. I play every character (including the love interest and dog). It will be called "Homeward Hound".

St. M: Your Tivo score was impressive this week (Dennis Miller, Dharma & Greg, Charlotte's Web 2). Is there a critical mass of appearances that will trigger an explosion of Maria Bamforditude that will sweep the nation?

MB: To reach critical mass, we need to have a core group of volunteers who are willing, on March 15th, to ride their bikes (skateboards welcome) to the Capitol. For 12 hours, a circling vortex of people who really care about the future of our world will perform bits from my 1999 Comedy Central Special in unison. No registration, just show up!

St. M: What makes you laugh?

MB: My dad, sister, mom, friends. My neices and nephews. Funny words and faces. Loud noises. Tickling around my soft areas. Ellen Degeneres. 12-step groupshares. My own foibles.

St. M: How long does it take a joke to cycle from when you write first write it and think it's funny to when you've said it so many times that it's not funny back around to funny again? (illustrative example: the Sideshow Bob rake scene from the Simpsons) Or is it a linear sequence so that it just keeps getting unfunnier the more you tell it?

MB: It is funny the first time I tell it. The second time - almost as funny. The third through 22nd time I tell it it is confusing and nobody knows what I'm getting at. The 23rd time, I have it memorized and my confidence and voice inflection convince others that it is funny - or that I have obviously worked very hard on it and deserve an applause break.

Zach Galifianakis interview

Here's the email interview I did with Zach. He was a bit busy, so we conducted it by email.

St. Murse: Why did you want to be part of the Comedians of Comedy documentary? Why do you think you were asked to be part of it?

Zach Galifianakis: I was forced to be part of the documentary by Mr. Patton Oswalt. There was a kidnapping and promises of meeting Wayne Brady. I never got to meet Wayne and the kidnapping involved a bow and arrow. I am part of it because of my of my 9-13 year old demographic pull.

St. M: Why does the kind of comedy you four do seem to work well in rock clubs?

ZG: I am not sure. Sometimes regular comedy clubs like Uncle Chuckles, SirLaughs Alot, Talk to the Hands and such tend to bring in a crowd that expects a certain stand up form. And the rock venues seem to have more of an anything goes feel. Maybe I am wrong.

St. M: What unites you as performers? What divides you?

ZG: What unites me with these particular performers is that we all share a love for Summer Stock. What divides us the fact that these guys do angel dust most afternoons while speaking admiringly about Laura Bush. I on the other hand enjoy a 20 year Tawny to unwind whilst waxing poetic about composting.

St. M: How close are you to going off on the next industry person who suggests that you'd get more work if you shaved your beard? (I assume that this happens, though maybe not)

ZG: I have been told by some members of "Team Galifianakis" to get rid of it. But if I shave it off I look just like Jude Law and it gets confusing.

St. M: Pitch me your dream sitcom.

ZG: I just want to be superimposed into old episodes of "Full House". So I could say things like, "Trust me you guys, when you get to be adults you will be such tools for Teen People. Get out why you can. Please just trust me on this one." Or maybe I would say, "I know the both of you are only two, but in about sixteen years, Bob Saget is going to talk about you guys in a very sexual way in his stand up routine in and it will creep you out."

St. M: What makes you laugh?ZG: Guys wearing two cell phones on their belts. And Entertainment Tonight.

St. M: With the repeated showings of Bubble Boy and Out Cold on Comedy Central, how long before you amass enough wealth and influence to be a viable candidate for public office?

ZG: I wasn't in those movies. All my movies have been really smart foreign films. Stories about an old Hindu canoe maker. My films usually involve plot lines where perhaps a kite saves an orphanage. I would never be in a snowboarding [movie] with Lee Majors where one's penis gets stuck in a jacuzzi jet.

SXSW previews

I've written a few previews of SXSW bands for my school paper, yesterday it was The Ditty Bops and Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

I want to like The Ditty Bops, but I'm also suspicious of them. It's an odd feeling, I've not been able to suss it out.

TFSP are great fun live, especially in an audience of people who know nothing about them. Here's that radio documentary they did for BBC Radio 1 during SXSW 2004. It's fun, for me anyway, to listen to musicians interviewing musicians about SXSW and Austin, both of which I have no distance from.

Today's paper had bits I wrote about Enon, Supersystem, and Calexico (scroll all the way down).

Enon has consistently gotten better over time.

Supersystem are my #1 gotta-see band for this year. I love pleasant surprises and their CD was one. I hypothesize that the amount of rump-shakin' I engage in at their show will be more than at the Moving Units show and less than the Junior Senior show. So that's pretty high up there. If only I were far enough along in my statistics class to calculate the likelihood of my hypothesis.

Calexico are magnificent and I dearly love them. I want to have Joey Burns' baby. Not because I'm hot for him, but just as a measure of how much I respect and his songwriting and voice. And if John Convertino wants to...

You know I'm torn here. At first it was going to be about if John Convertino wants to teach the little tyke to play drums. Then I had a sudden desire to get a little blue and make an untoward suggestion about how John Convertino could be more, ahem, intimately involved. Then I was apalled at my lasciviousness and trailed off, hence the ellipse. Then I became weirdly confessional and so wrote this paragraph. Which though blatantly obvious, I've just pointed out. ~How very metatextual.~*

Wow. I really need to go home and stop wasting your and my time.

*Some time, years ago, some friends and I decided that we needed a way to denote sarcasm over email because we engaged it in so often. We settled on surrounding the sarcastic text with tildes. So there you are, ~as if you cared.~

An over-the-top declaration

Several weeks ago, I was playing poker with my regular poker buddies. Todd had bet all his money and I was trying to figure out whether to call him. This took a bit of time and so the conversation moved on among the other players. Gay-ness came up somehow and also that I am full of it, gay-ness that is. Todd said with (turns out fake) surprise,

"I didn't know John was gay."

I quickly saw this as an opportunity to simultaneously gather information on his poker hand and maybe crack up my friends, so I grabbed my Flaming Lips hat which reads

the FlAminG lipS

jammed it on my head and loudly proclaimed,

"Yes Todd, I like cock!"

Not only did the table erupt in wild enthusiasm (laughter, palm slapping, hooting), but I got my read and called Todd. Turns out we split the pot, but the exchange will live on in infamy within our poker circle.

Lord do I love the flipping and the spinning

This semester of school is much harder than I anticipated, so I haven't had much time to write. I could fill this page with tales of academic woe, but I can't have this turn into a emoto-blog. Er, a whiny emoto-blog that is. I think it's fairly clear that this has a fair dose of righteous indignation emoto-blogging.

Anyway, a newspaper article I wrote about Cirque Du Soleil's show Varekai was published today. If you'd like, read it here. I profiled an act that involves tremendous amounts of flipping and spinning, my favorite athletic thing to watch.

I was initially resistant to Cirque when I heard about it years ago. When I saw it on TV, I was of two minds. The costumes and music are ridiculous, but look at what they're doing! Incredible! Eventually the sense-of-wonderment side triumphed. So I've travelled to Dallas to see Dralion and Varekai, and saw Allegria in Austin. My main motivation in wanting to go to Las Vegas is not to play poker, but to see the Cirque shows there. So I guess I'm a fan. Still not buying those damn CDs though.