Monthly Archives: June 2020

Over two months after the peak of the COVID crisis here in NYC, the fallout is starting to become more and more obvious among my colleagues in the ER. We tend to be a stoic battle-hardened bunch under normal circumstances – but the experience of attempting to treat patients during the pandemic seems to be breaking even the strongest among us.

It’s becoming clear there will eventually be a mass exodus of healthcare workers traumatized by what they saw and were forced to do, by the feeling of utter helplessness in a mass casualty event. I’m beginning to hear docs I work with talking about “exit strategies.” Many nurses I’ve worked with and admired as role models for years now possess an eerie “1000 yard stare.” There’s a photo of myself taken during the height of the pandemic where the disassociation in my eyes is haunting and obvious.

This, BTW, is how I will look for the next several years at work, until there’s a reliable vaccine. For 12 and a half hours each shift no one will ever see my face again. I can smile but no one will know it. It’s difficult for patients and colleagues to hear and interpret what I’m saying because of multiple layers of PPE. It’s like trying to administer care in a scuba diving suit under water.

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the whole thing yet. I’ve learned not to ignore internal trauma, yet I also understand that healing and perspective take time and work. Sometimes a lot of both – the mind works and heals at its own pace.

The biggest mindfuck for me is knowing my job could kill me. But I counter this thought with the fact that this is what I do – and besides, nowhere is safe. At least at work I have protective gear.

This is just the new reality. At the end of the day we have no choice but to adapt. At least in my job I can attempt to help others in need.

So there’s that.

You know that shit you love that you’re embarrassed about because you think no one else would get it? You’re probably right, but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it. It’s part of what makes you unique.

Own it.

What about those things you believe strongly about but keep to yourself because you don’t think other people would understand?

Own it.

The music you love that no one seems to know about?

Own it.

The things you’re interested in that no one else seems to even be aware of, therefore you think they wouldn’t be interested?

Own it.

Your age?

Own it. You’re not kidding anyone anyway.

Your sexuality or gender preference?

Own it.

Here’s why: In the long term you’ll feel better about yourself and have more friends and respect.

Just do it for christ’s sake. Treat other people with compassion and don’t judge, but be who you are.

Let your freak flag fly.

Kinda havin’ a Betty Davis riot here – this is just some of the coolest, most ridiculously slamming ‘70s funk ever. I think I’m in love – no, I know I am:) Betty Davis is the real deal. One of a kind – original.

Let’s start with Nasty Gal. Once the band hits the groove (maybe beat 3 of the first bar), this might be the deepest pocket I’ve ever heard. I find it impossible to stop listening to.

Then maybe check out the first two tunes off her second album: Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him and He Was a Big Freak (“I beat him with my turquoise chain” is the first line of the song). WTF?!! Clearly the groove is no accident because every tune, on each record, with different musicians – all have a pocket deeper than the Mariana Trench.

Musically you can hear her influences but the way she puts it together is unique to her.

Betty Davis – she’s a motherfucker Ya’ll. Dig it.

I’m not talking about Betty Davis the Actress – I’m talking about Betty Davis the funk visionary.

She became Betty Davis after being Ms. Miles Davis for one apparently very long year in 1968. Betty Mabry before that. Her influence on Miles cannot be overstated – she was the primary catalyst that helped spark his transition from acoustic jazz to electronic fusion. She was 23 and he was 42. They were both on fire, so it wouldn’t last long. Betty wasn’t going to be subservient to anybody, and that included Miles.

She made 3 albums from 1973-1975, and holy fuck, they were other-worldly good. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know her – I didn’t either until I recently saw the documentary “Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different.” She was so far ahead of her time, there was no way for her to be accepted by the music/entertainment industry. Kind of like a female Prince. In 1973 no one was ready for that.

She was a visionary black woman who was calling the shots. Pop culture had no precedent for her – she must have scared the shit out of record executives.

It’s an interesting and kind of tragic thing to discover artists like this. They appear to be game-changers, and then they’re gone. The world wasn’t yet ready for what they had to say, but they still changed the game from the inside by influencing other artists who heard them.

All hail Betty Davis. Nasty Gal indeed…

In your job, or your art – really, in anything that’s important to you – if there’s some aspect of it you hate; this is where you should focus your energy.

You hate it because you suck at it.

The timeless poetry of Curly Howard, giving voice to my inner cretin. Sigh…

Some days are better than others.

There are many interpretations of gaslighting, but for the purpose of this post let’s go with this: To deny someone’s reality as a way to manipulate their behavior.

There are more examples than I could possibly list, but the one I’m thinking about now has been going on for for at least four years. Let’s put it under the heading of cultural gaslighting.

Fake news.

It was never easy to get unbiased news, but standards of journalism and accountability had been in place for at least a hundred years before the advent of this unfortunate tool of manipulation was unleashed on the masses.

It’s purpose is pretty transparent: take away people’s belief in these institutions as resources, able to dive deep and provide explanations for complex social phenomena, and what do you have left? A population you can manipulate by feeding them “real news” which of course is just bullshit designed to further the current power structures agenda.

Now, the news organizations themselves didn’t help matters by becoming so partisan, instead, many of them fell into this trap. But this was partly a result of the fact that it is a particular group of people in our government that foment these lies.

The problem is that in this case the ones gaslighting the population succeeded. If enough of the gullible public is confused and now mistrusts credible sources of information, who do they turn to for the truth?

The liars of course.

Even if you find the narrative obtuse, this is one of the most astonishingly beautiful films ever made. Hitchcock was at the peak of his powers when he directed this in 1958, and it is iconic – every shot is stunning. It even features a couple of shots that, if not entirely groundbreaking, had certainly never been pulled off with this degree of sophistication.

The story is convoluted, but Hitchcock has stated more than once that it was his most personal film. It’s essentially a multi-layered metaphor for his relationship with women, which is, unsurprisingly complicated.

This is one of those films that reveals itself with age – that is to say, when I saw it as a young person, I was drawn to the mystery and beauty of the experience without really understanding it. But of course great art is like that – it can draw you in without you fully understanding why.

Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak are perfect – Kim’s performance is particularly nuanced, even though at first she seems quite remote. By the end you are completely drawn in by her portrayal of this duplicitous yet beguiling woman. Viewed through the lens of today’s culture, it’s very patriarchal, sometimes even misogynistic – but that’s all part of the story.

I recently watched a restoration supervised in part by Martin Scorsese, and it is achingly beautiful. The cinematography by Robert Burks is both dream-like and hyper-real, the colors gorgeously saturated. And the score by Bernard Herrmann is hauntingly beautiful – once heard, never forgotten.

The two ground-breaking camera shots I referred to earlier? One is the “vertigo” scene where Jimmy Stewart is looking down a flight of stairs, apparently achieved by both zooming in and physically pulling the camera back at the same time. It’s a shot seen many times since then, but the first time you see it it’s quite a trick.

The other is a 360 degree closeup of Stewart and Novak embracing that seems continuous but appears to take place in two different locations still the same time.. Like most of this film, I have no idea how it was done, all I know is that it works.

This whole movie appears to take place in some alternate universe, one that Hitchcock invented. This is what great art does.

It transports you to a place you never knew existed.

Come gather ’round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

– Bob Dylan