Broken People

I love movies about broken people.

I always have to decompress after being swallowed up by the medical community. Voluntarily wandered in to the clutches of medical america today. Pre fucking surgery.

Such an impersonal place. An abundance of phony optimism.

I hate being the victim. The patient. Issued a fucking bracelet with my name and stats on it. Like a corpse with a fucking toe tag.  

Subject to personal questions rendered impersonal by sheer repetition on the part of medical personnel. Like a fucking factory. I walk out of the room, some other victim wanders in, the same questions are asked.

No inflection, no empathy, no emotion.

Had to get tested for Covid. Had my blood pressure taken. EKG. Blood sample taken. Temperature.

100 questions by a medical technician. 100 questions by an anathesiologist type expert. Sign this. Sign that.

Spit out of a faceless, nameless, impersonal building into the light of a beautiful day by 11 am.

So I came home and watched Fargo.

Jesus, what a movie. Perfect blend of insanity, despair, tenderness, violence, naive love, dark humor, and the very fragile nature of what it is to be human. Fragile. Fragile. Fragile.

DESPERATION. Shit, man - we are all desperate. Every human wakes up to a morning in their life when they realize they are desperate. Holy fucking Christ - this is my fucking life? I hate this fucking life. How did this happen? What do I do now?

And the suicidal answer is - Nothing. There is nothing I can do. It is too late. The mountain is too big. The weight of failure is fucking crushing me. No choice but to keep crawling forward on my hands and knees until I die.

"And you may ask yourself - Where is that large automobile? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. What is that beautiful house? Where does that highway go to? Am I right? Am I wrong? My God! What have I done?"

Once In A Lifetime. Talking Heads. I love that song. It is every person's reality. And nightmare.

Affliction. One of my most favorite movies. Nick Nolte. Jesus Christ, man - you want to watch a man meltdown under the burden of life? Slowly, step by step, burdened with his upbringing, burdened with his reality, burdened by his warped and broken perception?

He keeps falling and crumbling and breaking and hurting himself and hurting those he loves until he is completely undone.

Devastating. Fucking devastating. Grow some balls. Watch the movie. It depicts life the way it really is.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Sean Penn. Falling Down. Michael Douglas. Watch these movies. Watch spines broken under the weight of just living a life. I fucking love these movies.

Because they are real.

Many years ago my personal physician was a man around my age. We used to talk. Really talk. Human to human. No condescension. He understood me. He understood the indignities of getting older. We related.

He retired. And the medical community changed. Now they operate out of fear and intimidation. Recently when I said no to a flu shot the doctor said to me "People your age die from the flu."

Are you fucking kidding me? This is what passes for medical advice?

They are always pushing for new prescriptions. As if the doc gets a commission. Which would not surprise me.

I have changed doctors because I was disgusted with the way they treated me.

Is this a fucking used car lot?

So, yeah - I watched Fargo today after being chewed up and spit out by the cold-hearted medical community.

And it felt just right. A story about a broken man desperate to save his life, to change his life, and who ultimately destroys his life. In a very big way.

Can't wait for next week. Can't wait to wear a "johnny". It makes me feel so dignified. Can't wait to endure all the impossibly positive chatter that will be directed at me until I finally succumb to anesthesia.

I wish I could undergo anesthesia every fucking day of my life.