Balls and Walnuts
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At the rep
Rialto Theater, South Pasadena, California
For the first 21 years of my life, I had a repertory theater close at hand. I grew up less than ten miles from the Rialto Theater, a lovely old place with neat architecture which I was about to call “art deco” until I read this:
Construction of the Rialto Theatre began in 1924 featuring the Spanish Baroque architectural style with Egyptian touches by noted Theatre designer L.A. Smith. Note the Batchelder tiles drinking fountain in the lobby, complete with picture tiles. The Auditorium features plaster ornaments, colorful stenciling, organ screens supported by harpies (half woman, half vulture) and a glaring mythological gargoyle with red eyes staring down from the proscenium arch.
You probably know the Rialto. Remember The Player? Tim Robbins kills that dude in the back of the Rialto. Remember Kentucky Fried Movie? The “Feel-A-Round” skit was filmed inside the Rialto.
At the Rialto, I saw Polanski’s Macbeth, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the 1973 Christopher Lee version of The Wicker Man. Can’t remember what else I saw, sadly enough.
I went to college at 17. Berkeley had the UC Theater:
How sad — they’re not showing movies at the UC anymore.
At the UC Theater, I saw Pink Floyd’s two films, More and La Vallée (you younguns: yes, Pink Floyd made more movies than just The Wall), Lawrence of Arabia, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Paul Scofield’s King Lear (sublime), and Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet (trash). My girlfriend & soon-to-be fiance accompanied me to Labor of Love, a hilarious documentary about the making of an X-rated movie.
I think we had a repertory theater when I was in med school, but they never had anything good. French films without subtitles, I’ll bet. So I guess I got out of the habit. But really, where better to watch an old Bogart and Bacall film? And what can be better than an all-day festival of Hammer horror films or Ray Harryhausen’s stop-action mythological beasties?
Yeah, I miss those theaters. Last 20 years of my life have been a spirit-sapping procession of multiplexes.
If I get rich, I’m opening a rep.
You may regale me with repertory theater memories now.
D.
Your ass deserves the very best
My room at the Lodge came equipped with a Washlet Toto, which sported a warmed and cushioned seat, front and rear bidets. I tried both bidets, but lacked the equipment to appreciate the former. The rear bidet was a revelation. Push a button, and a narrow, warm water jet hits you in the ass. You have to scoot around a bit to get it into the right spot, but the learning curve is shallow. I figured it out the very first time.
A wee knob allows you to control the water pressure, and at max pressure, I’m sure it could handle the toughest jobs. And even if you don’t require the max pressure, go for it anyway and revel in the sparkly clean sensation of an asshole well scrubbed.
Was there a blow dryer? I never did figure that out. Toto’s new product, the shapely Jasmin, features a warm air dryer. And, oh, they’re not called toilet seats anymore. Call ’em docking stations.
O’Brien, me, and an anonymous hoo-ha
It all began innocently* enough.
Erin O’Brien wrote:
What the eff is this?
Check it out, then follow me below the fold.
So the meeting hasn’t been pure torture.
Not quite as painful as wiping out under a wave, sand and saltwater scouring your eyes and flooding your nose. No, this meeting has been more akin to a hairshirt, or self-flagellation, or an icewater enema.
In other words, if I put myself into the proper mindset, it’s almost enjoyable.
Our Noble Purpose*: to devise a dynamic action plan optimized to transform our hospital into a sustainable system which will thrive in the 21st Century healthcare market. Anyone flashing on Catbert yet? Seriously — I wrote these things down as the meeting progressed:
Sustainable system
Drill down
Building a transformational action strategy
Jack Russell Terrier
This last was the high point of the morning. The resort owner’s pooch kept coming round to socialize, and it was a joy to hear the guy running the meeting say, “I love this dog!” while his eyes are saying, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
This morning, I also learned a new acronym: EBITDA, which means, Earnings Before yatta yatta shmatta. PROFIT, as best I can tell.
Once we broke into discussion groups, life improved. Guess I’m a better talker than a listener. I surprised myself by opening my yap a fair bit, mostly to crack wise at the head honcho’s expense. Two examples . . .
We were given this one handout, a Venn diagram with four intersecting bubbles: money, doctors, services, and leadership. Head Honcho (HH) wanted us to keep these priorities in mind during our discussion groups, and went so far as to instruct us to close our eyes and visualize the four bubbles. (Oh, I almost forgot. Know what we were doing this morning? Visioning. And I thought you needed to suck blotter paper for that.) So, eyes closed, I said, “I see Money, but the other bubbles read Food, Sex, and Sleep.”
When we were brainstorming Money, meanwhile fretting over the average age of our nursing staff (half of whom will probably retire in the next five years), I said, “So you need to improve the overall payer mix, right? What the hospital needs to do is upgrade the employee retirement health benefits, thereby improving our EBITDA.”
HH said, “Now, see, that’s what I call . . .” He faltered a moment. Then, “Oh. You were being facetious.”
I resisted the urge to say, “Well, duh.”
“I really appreciate your sense of humor,” he said.
But his eyes said, “Where’s my .22 when I need it?”
D.
*The HH’s fair-haired and high-breasted assistant really told us that this morning. Our Noble Purpose. Why am I flashing on Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk? Oh, yeah — Navin had a Special Purpose.
Sigh. I think I’d rather have a special purpose than a noble purpose.
If there’s a hell, mice will eat my balls
While writing to a friend this evening, I realized that the high point of my research career was growing mouse ears in a petri dish. No, I wasn’t the guy who grew a human ear on a mouse’s back — not even close. Growing recognizable mouse ears in tissue culture was good enough for me.
Mouse fanciers, please read no farther. Even you gerbil fans might give this a second thought. Those of you who consider mice to be vermin and snake food may read on.
Follow me below the cut for mouse ear pix, plus a bonus pic I found while rifling through my slides.
Altered States
Ken Russell’s movie Altered States came out in 1980. I saw it the following year at the UC Theater, a repertory moviehouse a stone’s throw from the Berkeley campus. What must have been serious, sensitive stuff most anywhere else in the nation was, for us, high camp. Best part came soon after the protagonist (William Hurt playing a scientist and doing a laughably unconvincing job of it) has, in short order, dropped some hallucinogens, placed himself in a sensory deprivation chamber, and regressed to an ape man of Falwellian paleolithicness.
Hurt’s research associate (Charles Haid), upon discovering Hurt’s miraculous transformation from suave-witty martini-sipping academician to grunting zoo-sleeping feces-flinger, declares — paraphrasing here: “This is the breakthrough of the decade! We have to study this further. I know, we’ll advertise in the Student Union!”
Whereupon all us college kids burst out laughing. To this day, I wonder if the line was intended as comic relief. Kinda like that scene in Terminator II when Linda Hamilton dreams of the Los Angeles skyline dissolving behind a mushroom cloud. How come no one else in the theater was laughing?
Jerry, We Hardly New Ye
Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007, dead at age 73
Jerry on homosexuality
“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexualsâ€
“Homosexuality is Satan’s diabolical attack upon the family that will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America.â€
“[homosexuals are] brute beasts…part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.â€
Jerry on the separation of Church and State
“The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own countryâ€
Jerry on feminism
“It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men’s movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakeningâ€
I listen to feminists and all these radical gals – most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men – that’s their problem.
Jerry on religious tolerance
“If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human beingâ€
Jerry on 9/11
“…throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”
I take it back — we knew ye only too well. Don’t let the Gates of Hell hit you on the ass.
Quotes from ThinkExist.com, and The Quotations Page.
D.
Can I resign now?
Sorry for the kvetching post tonight. I’m tired and grumpy — a typical Monday.
Eighteen months ago, when Dr. M asked me if I would like to be Vice Chief of Staff for 2006, I said yes without much hesitation. I had been contemplating writing a hospital-based murder cozy a la Murder on the Orient Express (hospital CEO dies following a routine operation, turns out EVERYONE has a hand in the killing), so I thought all these meetings might give me material.
Yeah, right. Funny how these things don’t pan out like you think.
No one ever told me Vice Chief of Staff was a fast track to Chief of Staff, and no one ever told me the Chief of Staff has three meetings a month (sometimes four), and no one ever told me that Vice Chief of Staff had a lot in common Student Body Vice President and nothing at all in common with Miami Vice.
Damn. I could have done Miami Vice.
None of that, though; and it keeps getting worse. Our hospital’s Strategic Planning Meeting is this weekend, and as Chief, I am obliged to attend. To give you some idea of the hell I can expect, at a recent meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Trustees actually voted that we should have less free time at the meeting, leaving more time for “work.”
Thank God I have Summer Devon’s books on my Blackberry.
We’re also expecting (forever expecting, much as the supermarket tabloids perennially predict the Second Coming) the Feds to arrive any day now for a surprise inspection. The source of tonight’s angst: my darling Medical Staff Coordinator, AKA Teh Haaawtest Pentagenarian I Know, sent me a three and a half page document listing questions the Feds asked another hospital medical leadership team along with the suggested answers.
I don’t understand the answers or the questions. Here’s the only question I understand:
Q: Does MEC [Medical Executive Committee] meet monthly or quarterly? A: Monthly.
But the rest is jargon. What does this mean:
Q: On an aggregate level, how does the hospital do in meeting community needs? A: Board members are community members selected for expertise in certain areas; broad knowledge of community also info of how well we meet needs, ambassador program, patient satisfaction dashboard.
It’s written in shorthand for someone who already knows the answers — little reminders. It does nothing for me. (This only reinforces my desire to teach my son how to write for any occasion.)
I wonder if it would help if I insisted on a rewrite in plain English. But no . . . the only thing that will really help is if I’m on vacation when the Feds arrive.
On the other hand, I take some sustenance from Alberto Gonzalez’s recent testimony before Congress. If he can answer every question with “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember,” why can’t I?
D.