It’s been about a month since the last blog entry and I’ve written a few pieces edited by Carol about Gwyneth Paltrow’s blog. I written a few other windbag pieces that Carol is editing.
Carol taught me the concept in journalism of evergreen pieces. It’s where you write a piece in the Stone Age and it will still be as evergreen fresh as yesterday’s newspaper when it’s finally published. I wrote the Gwyneth pieces awhile ago thinking they were evergreen, but if I don’t post them soon they will be as tasty, as that sour milk hidden in the back of the fridge right behind the open Arm & Hammer Baking Soda to remove the rotten smell.
Sooo....I just thought of a secret someone told me yesterday. I twice wrote and deleted it as it was an amusing story, but it was a “secret”. I was torn between revealing and concealing, so the typing and deleting repeatedly. I hate to not pass on amusing stories.
Sooo... why was I holding out onto the Gwyneth pieces to post? Well, I was getting so caught up in the epilepsy research, I figured it was gonna be a long time between blog posts so I might need an evergreen piece now and then to prove that this website hasn’t completely folded up shop and gone the way of the Dinosaur.
I read a great piece about a week ago in the New Yorker by a Western Medicine doctor, Atul Gawande. It was mesmerizing. I’ve probably spent four hours reading and rereading this article. I bought the magazine, so I can’t give you a link. I guess he has an audio interview on the New Yorker’s website. I haven’t checked it out, but I will one day.
Anyways, in the New Yorker there’s a comic drawing of an old cavemen with a scraggly beard in Stone Age garb taking a break from pushing his boulder. It’s set in a corporate office, like we’ve all probably worked in at one time or another. Drab lifeless cubicle work life.
Behind this guys is a typical corporate middle manager with paunchiness and ill-fitting suit. The manager says to the rolling boulder guy something like, “Sisyphus when you have a moment, I’d like to talk to you about your status report”. And Sisyphus has this puzzled look on his face that says, “Boss have you got a clue, what I’ve been working on.” I laughed real hard. Probably too hard, as it was hitting too close to home. I obviously feel what I’m working on here has incredible value to humanity. But I sure feel, at times, like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill and these blog postings are my status reports to you.
The story yesterday, I can’t tell, is about an incredibly stupid thing an CEO said in a “pep talk” given via video to the corporate employees. I got wind of it and wanted to pass it on. It was classic corporate stupidity, much like the middle manager asking Sisyphus for a status update. It was told to me by someone who really can tell a joke and he would know what you call those drawing in magazines that tell a joke.
Jesus, I’m not being cute. I don’t remember what this comic drawing thing is called. I really don’t. Well, that’s par for my course because years ago I was walking out of the corporate office where I worked in a cubicle. I’m walking out with my same buddy, who told me the story yesterday. I was wearing a suit as was he. It was our corporate uniform.
I didn’t have an umbrella. I stepped just outside the revolving door. I stuck out my hand out as far as it could go as I’m checking for rain. He has a puzzled look on his face. I don’t feel any rain on my hand. I look back to him and say, “ Great, it’s not raining yet. Let’s go”.
He says, “You’re kidding me -- right?” I say, “What are you talking about”. He says, “You’ve worked here for years. You’ve walked out of this revolving door a million times. You know there’s a huge overhang (over your head).”
I look up and yep there’s an hummungas overhang to protect us valued employees from rain falling on our ill-fitting suits. I just shrug, because sometimes I don’t have a clue and yep it’s fun to laugh about it.
Sooo... if I could tell you what this bigwig CEO said to the employees, you’d say it was a tie who was stupider -- me sticking my hand out checking for rain that day or that CEO giving that clueless (un)-pep-talk. I can’t violate my sources. Not that source -- as my buddy is the comic golden goose. I need his stories to pass onto you. Let’s not ruin the comic cash cow or any other pathetic analogy that might come into your head too.
It’s time to clear out the old moldy Velveeta cheese blog pieces from the fridge. I thought Velveeta had enough preservatives in it to keep King Rutten Tutten (from Three Stooges archeological digging folklore) preserved until the end of time, which will be soon at the rate we’re raping the planet.
Today, I’ll start writing the first real piece on epilepsy. It’s gonna be Chinese Medicine nuts and bolts. I’m truly stoked. I've done the legwork. I’ve imagined the nuts and bolts all coming together in my head. It’s gonna be simple. I hope it will be as persuasive and as informative about medicine as Atul’s article in the New Yorker. The jokes are over for now. It’s time to put away our childish things, just after I clear out my fridge of Gwyneth pieces and a few other smelly, and hopefully amusing, ones.
Don’t worry, I’ll pick up those childish toys again. What’s life without a few laughs?
