Old Man Talk

I'm old. When you read this, I will be older in accordance with that convention regarding birthdays, wherein you age a year all on one day. I hate convention but it's all I've got so I embrace it like a bald man embraces his comb-over.

The Special Theory of Relativity says that you don't age so much as you hurtle, at enormous speed, up your world-lines in the space-time continuum. (I've always wanted to say "up your world-lines.") It's a good thing we are hurtling into the future where nothing has happened yet. If we hurtled into the past we would constantly be stubbing our toes and banging our noses against events that have already been, and is/would be there now, were now to become then.

[Above: A depiction of a naked man hurtling up his world-line. Not 100% accurate. Though it may appear that his past light cone is hurtling up him, I can assure you that is not the case.]

Another good thing about being old and getting older so fast, for me, is that it runs out my biological clock. Barring an unforeseeable catastrophic medical miracle, I will miss the 22nd Century. I've read that the 22nd Century will be the pits. There will be no oil and no coal, so even though there will still be hair dryers and toaster ovens, they won't work. Or, thanks to solar and wind power, they will work if you make an appointment with the power company in advance, or can wait until hurricane season. There will be no food banks, either, because there will only be just enough food in the world to feed the rich.

Here's something to ponder: Food is essential to good health. If you've got scurvy, the prescription is going to be a lemon. But lemons, and all other foods, are over-the-counter. So drug plans won't cover them.

The practice of drug plans not paying for OTC medicine is what I wanted to talk about this week. Being old, it's taken me 5 paragraphs to get to it. Also, being old, I take lots of medicine and some of the best stuff is OTC, and my drug plan won't pay for it, so it's personal.

Doctors are helping patients deal with this situation by prescribing alternative medications that are not OTC. This trick also works if your drug goes generic and gets bumped off your drug plan's formulary. If the patient can't afford Tylenol® in the quantities he needs, prescribe an opiate, instead.

A prescription-only drug can be re-evaluated by the FDA and made OTC, at which time drug plans will stop paying for it, even though the drug has not changed and the consumers' needs for it have not changed, and even if a doctor continues to prescribe it. What prompts the FDA to make the change in status is evidence that the drug is safer than previously supposed. So, if anything, it should be prescribed more. Instead, patients get switched to prescription-only drugs that as a rule are more dangerous.

If we could only get the principle established once and for all that it's people's health that matters and not the health of drug companies, we could have the sort of health care we deserve. We'd also get, as a side benefit, the means to direct public funds to end homelessness and malnutrition in this country, when doctors can prescribe food and shelter, and public health plans have to provide them.

I should live so long.

Bonus Meander

Let's manage our roads like drug plans. You'd have a Road Plan. You'd opt in at the beginning of the year. There'd be a list of roads you'd be allowed to use at reduced tolls. All other roads would be pay as you go, full price. If the roads listed weren't right for you, you could shop for a new plan for 2009. In the meantime, you get what you got, except the Road Plan company can raise the tolls or drop any road off your list at any time between now and Dec. 31, 2008. If you don't like it, what are you, a communist? Why don't you go live somewhere they don't have roads?

[Below: Your Road plan may pay for you to drive northbound on Aurora at certain hours, but make you pay to drive south. This will be called Managed Transportation Care. We already have this, only they call it "HOV lanes."]

Old Fart Wises Off

Good news! Thanks to the Democratic Convention occupying the media, there has been no actual news lately.

This gives us here at Adventures in Poetry – meaning by us, me, Copyright Dr. Wes Browning – a chance to take stock of our life. A chance to sniff the winds of our change and dip our toes into the pools of our stagnation. To audit the account books of the psycho-social-biological records of our historic being. To see to whence we have arrived, and from whence we have departed. And to see who or what is all that in the cargo hold, and why is there a woman in our bed wanting something.

Well, first of all, we are old. We just did the dreaded calculation and discovered that our current incarnation has been breathing air for 20,000 days and a little more than an extra hundred. As a mathematician, let us put that number in perspective. That's one more than 19,999. If he saw 20,000 Republicans laid end to end, Rush Limbaugh wouldn't raise any moral objections. Jules Verne talked about 20,000 leagues, but we don't know what a league is, we're a mathematician, not a damn encyclopedia. If you saw 20,000 pigeons flying toward you, you'd wish you had an umbrella, etc.

We once saw a guy walk on the moon live on television. We saw the assassination of an assassin live on television. We saw several wars live on television, so many that we lost count, sometime around about Panama. Most of them we're unnecessary and a huge waste of lives, health, and money.

History used to happen in black and white, but now it's always in color. Conversely Red Square isn't red anymore. There's nothing left for conservatives to be better dead than, which must be disorienting for them.

We have lived to see the amazing Wolf Blitzer ask Jesse Jackson, in Jesse's capacity as a black spokesperson, why did Barack Obama, a black African immigrant running for the Senate, not speak before the Democratic Convention in Boston using the same kind of rhetoric as did Al Sharpton, a black African-American reverend who had been running for president. Why oh why, Jesse?

Just yesterday, after living a thought-filled and examined life for over 5 decades, we arrived for the first time ever at an adequate working philosophy. This was facilitated by the able conversation and intellectual assistance of our regular companion, the afore-mentioned wanting-something woman and person on whose kitchen floor we have sometimes slept, Anitra Freeman. With her help we came up with this: "Good things now, bad things later." When in doubt always refer to that formula. It's a plan of action that can't go wrong. For example, by using it, you will never force yourself to save dessert for after the asparagus again. You will know all the times that it would be better to be home in bed than. You will learn to appreciate the paper plates of life, and the other disposables. You will shower for the fun of it, not because you have to. There is the way of wisdom.

We have been homeless four times in our life. We mention this in part to fulfill our unwritten contract with Real Change and the Real Change Editorial Committee. Every column we write is required to make at least one mention of homelessness, directly or indirectly, or one local politician must be made fun of, or two national politicians, or we must directly advocate for at least two of the following: minority rights, free pizza for Real Change volunteers writers and "editors", free/more/better treatment for recovering [insert addiction here], cats.

Duck licking. Speaking of speaking of duck licking, every column should contain at least one non sequitur, and one abuse of logical accuracy, which may be the same. But that has nothing to do with the unwritten contract. We have digressed.

We have lived in the same subsidized housing for almost 7 years now, the same housing funded by the Housing Agency Formerly Known As Seattle Housing Authority, the housing that was granted after 14 months on a waiting list, the housing that was promised to me as being permanent, the housing that is now threatened by Bush Administration cuts in Section 8 funding, the housing that we will never move from until they haul my cold lifeless never-to-be-homeless-again body out of it. Or until they come up with something better. Like that'll happen.

18 for the Third Time

Let's whine about getting old!

Aging stinks. I just found out I've been eligible to join AARP for four years already. Gack.

At least I've had plenty of practice getting accustomed to this situation. It all started back in '84 when I was driving a cab and sleeping in the '69 Rambler. Something about sleeping on the front seat of a Rambler plus malnutrition plus nearly dying of exposure plus being rejected by normal society for months at a time resulted in premature gray hair.

So it was that when I was 35 a little back seat 6-year-old passenger of my cab said to me "You're old, aren't you?" Aren't little brats just adorable? I think so.

Immediately I looked for ways to cope with my new-found old age and I've been coping ever since.

Coping Mechanism Number One: Surrender. Not being able to do anything at the time about the sleeping in the car and the malnutrition etc. I decided to accept my new senior status. My first act of surrender was to go to a movie and announce proudly -- without being asked first -- that I wanted an adult ticket, because I was sure now that I was indeed an adult, finally. (If I was going to be a senior, I figured I had to pass through the intermediate stage.)

My second act of surrender occurred at the Jack in the Box, when the pasty-faced teenager behind the counter offered me the senior citizen discount. I took it. He didn't check my ID; I didn't check his IQ. Happy times.

Coping Mechanism Number Two: Avoid hitting up on 18 year olds. We all have a tendency to react against our old age by trying to curl up with someone who lets us forget it. This, I have learned, is a huge mistake. Besides spending money too fast, the young ones take too long to train and they don't remember anything important. That is why I now happily belong to Anitra "only 8 days younger" Freeman. My problem with her is just that, being 8 days younger, she can't remember the days from July 9 through July 16, 1949. Also, she refers to me as "the old fart." Also, she spends money too fast.

Coping Mechanism Number Three: Denial. A lot of people tell me denial is a bad thing, but I think it's peachy.

So for example, I have not just turned 54. Instead, I have turned 18 for the third time. Another fun form of denial is to skip celebrating birthdays altogether and start celebrating birth minutes each day. Not only does this mean you get cake and ice cream more often (or in my case more beef and bean burritos), but it spreads the pain of aging out thinly. "Oh yes, I'm older, but only by a day."

Of course the drawback to that last technique is that I am now at least 19,723.5 days old as you read this. I'll be twenty thousand in about 9 months. Ouch.

Coping Mechanism Number Four: Schadenfreude. Hey, it could be worse. I could be Strom Thurmond: 100 years and no longer counting. Or even unimaginably worse, I could be Chante Mallard, and be spending at least the next 25 years of my life, if I should live so long, waiting for parole on a fifty year sentence for killing a homeless man by neglecting to get aid for him after hitting him with my car because I chose to drive while being drugged out and stupid and not caring about any other human being except myself. I'd rather be 54 than be her any day.

Coping Mechanism Number Five: Whining.

Why does whining get such a bad rap? It's a victimless crime. (Anitra says this is not true.) It's like self-gratification: we all do it, if we have any sense. It relieves tension almost as well as watching reruns of our favorite TV garbage. Let's show whining the respect it deserves. Our mental health depends on it.

Abate My Ass; No, Really

Today's new word is carminative. Try to figure out what it means from the context!

One loose end is tied. A while back I ranted righteously and justifiably about the incessant cowboy music at 3rd and Pine, courtesy of that intersection's McDonalds. I am happy to note that said McDonalds is now gone, so we may all be spared the unwelcome musical invasion in our lives when we walk the sidewalks there, at least until a new obnoxious tenant moves into that space. I am unhappy to note that this outcome has been achieved by normal business development, when it should have come about by this city's always unfairly applied Noise Abatement Ordinance.

Here's a rule of thumb for you guys in Tom Carr's office: if a business PURPOSELY pipes music OUTSIDE of it's own establishment, that is an INTENTIONAL disturbance of the peace. That is grounds to pursue legal remedy. The public doesn't want to be unwillingly subjected to Hank Williams, no matter how good his stuff is. We want to be willingly subjected to it, in the privacy of our own homes. So abate that.

One loose end unravels. As of this writing, Street Outreach Services (SOS), in the same neighborhood, has been evicted. SOS is part of the solution. Their loss can only make the Pike/Pine area worse. As matters become worse, they will likely lead to some business down there subjecting passers-by to bubble gum music. The city will do nothing. I will have to be committed.

For those of you too young to remember bubble gum music, imagine Britney Spears with no midriff showing, hair in pigtails, singing in such a way that you are really genuinely convinced that she's a virgin after all.

Speaking of drugs, I am now one of the biggest drug users in the country. In the world. I am taking drugs for everything. The following is in the direction of a full disclosure. The cover-up will consist of the omissions.

To begin with, there's the Beano. Without the Beano, I would be a social outcast. Until the discovery of this miracle drug I had to rely on that old-fashioned carminative, cumin, or cummin, as it is sometimes spelled. A man can only take so much cummin.

My favorite drug is something called Olanzapine. Sometimes people say to me, "Wes, why are you such an atypical non-psychotic?" I'm not your everyday non-psychotic because I take an atypical anti-psychotic, Olanzapine. It makes all of the rest of you bearable so that I don't mind spending the rest of my life with you and even feel like communicating off and on. Otherwise I would go back to my corner and talk to my extensive collection of plastic figurines and damaged wind-up toys. I love my damaged wind-up toys.

Another fun drug is Wellbutrin, which as the name suggests makes you one happy butrin. I'm not actually taking any Wellbutrin right now because I'm going through a little phase in which it has been decided that I'm happy enough for now, thank you very much. Whee!

Then there are all those meds that counter the old-paunchy-guy syndrome. It is simply unbelievable how much of a pharmacy it takes to lower an old guy's cholesterol and drop his blood pressure. I'm personally taking a statin, a diuretic, and a beta-blocker everyday. I'm told they are working.

Before I forget: a carminative is an anti-flatulent. Did you get it right?

So, to sum up, not counting the carminative and the cover-up, that's five high-powered meds I'm taking every day, all legal and all socially sanctioned. And I'm just one crazy old fart out of millions.

Do yourself and America a favor. Proudly invest in our great pharmaceutical corporations. Today, a brave new country, tomorrow, the world.

Shelter Canaries Needed

It Also Rhymes With Hoots

Or Opus 222, Pity Our Poor Proofreader

there's a kind of thing i need to say

i'd like to say it if I may

there's a little talk i'd like with you

if it's something that you'll let me do

there's a subject i need to talk about

i hope you'll hear me and you won't run out

it's a subject that requires the utmost arts

i need to talk about our --

-- how can I be delicate here? People make certain smells. The smells are accompanied by certain explosions, sometimes. At other times, they are silent, stealthy. Once, I could swear I felt one crawl up my back before it circled my neck and tried to strangle me.

I love cheese. I love beans. If I weren't a social creature I would eat rice and beans twice a day, covered with cheese. I would have eggs and cheese for breakfast, beans and cheese for dessert, eggs and cheese when I get depressed, beans and cheese whenever I wanted to celebrate. I would be so full of methane I'd have to wear one of those triangular "inflammable" signs you see on gasoline trucks.

It's not just because I'm eight days older than Anitra "too bipolar for you" Freeman that she refers to me as "her old fart". She is also using synecdoche. That's a poetic term that means allowing a part to stand for the whole. Anitra should know, she's suffered all my parts. Still, with all that, I must say in all modesty that I am not the fartiest old fart there ever was. Not by a long shot. I could introduce you to some guys that'd blow your nose-ring clean off. And they're not all that old. Some of them are just in their twenties, living lives of unpromising futures.

Flashback to four years old: Mommy and Daddy are going "out" and everybody gets in the car except the dog. It starts out being a big adventure ("we're going out! yay!") until the car rolls up to a one story puke green building connected to a playground surrounded by chain-link fencing. You find out that while Mom and Dad will be "out", you will be "in", in a prison they used to call a nursery. Since your parents have done what you thought at the time were far worst things, you imagine that they are abandoning you to this place, to spend the rest of your life there. In other words, eternity.

You scream, you kick, you threaten to stop breathing, but nothing works. They drive off without you. It's only after they are gone that you start to notice the smell. It's the smell of rancid milk mixed with essences of diaper pail, Pine Sol, and Clorox. But that's just the beginning.

Three hours later you're still there, and the wardens inform you and all the other inmates that it's beddy-bye-time, and they set up the beddy-byes, and there be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. For the beddy-byes be only six inches apart from each other, and it be Poot City in that hell-hole. You try to sleep not because you want the rest but because you know that sleep, the little death, brings a deadening of the senses, and Oh do they want to be deadened.

But alack, sleep never comes! Oh, it comes for the OTHER, with their stinking extroversion, their relaxed approaches to social mores, their loose sphincters. Sure, THEY sleep. Not you, not the sensitive one, not the one in agony, the one who really needs it.

Back in the future: you've been homeless for weeks. Someone finally tells you about a homeless shelter you can go to. Something in the back of your mind tells you to be wary, but you go anyway. They make you sit through a sermon to get dinner. While you wait for the sermon to start they hand you a sheet detailing the rules. You find out you will be sleeping on mats.

You get a peek into the room where all the mats are laid out, six inches apart from each other. Then you hear the others, whispering the bad news.

"Bean stew for dinner tonight. Again."

-- Why shelter is not enough.