Just for shits, I decided to see if I could find my first concert on YouTube. Since it was back in 1995, I didn’t think chances were that high that it was on there. Sure, people were taping shows for the bootleg market, but did they do it for every show? And if so, would they upload them to YouTube?
It took me all of 5 seconds, and there I was just a few people away from stage right on the floor:
Yup. This was my first show. Smells like Children hadn’t been released yet, so the masses hadn’t heard their cover of “Sweet Dreams” yet. In the last year I had picked up the soundtrack for the Stephen Dorff/Reese Witherspoon movie SFW where Marilyn Manson had their song “Get Your Gunn” used. Then during the summer of 95 while I was going to SAT classes, during break I went to the Wherehouse in Palos Verdes that had Marilyn Manson’s first album Portrait of an American Family on tape. And that fucking hooked me. After the demented Willy Wonka introduction, the first words were “I am the god of fuck.” That’s what I needed to hear when I was 16.
I think I went to this concert with my friend Fernando who was the only other person I knew at school who had heard of them. I know we definitely went to see Ministry the next spring during their Sphinctour stop at the Palladium since he gave me my first cigarette — I was going through not only AP tests but also had to deal with the sudden medical issues of my dad who was half a country away. But I remember as we were in line getting into the show, I saw this girl Moro from my Korean school there. It was at this point where we became best friends throughout the rest of high school.
The show was fucking great. As creepy and ugly as Marilyn Manson made himself especially at this time, I was fucking engrossed with Twiggy. I had the biggest fucking crush at the time. Maybe it was the dreads. Although I did catch my breath at the very beginning when he walked on stage on stilts.
I had to take my SATs the next morning at 9. So was it really the best thing for me to go to this show the night before? I don’t know. I ended up getting a 1400 on them, so I think I did a good enough job. And I never saw them again. While I did like Antichrist Superstar, I really did not like the explicit flirtation with fascism. I understood it, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. And after that I had moved on to other things.
But for that one night in 1995, it was just perfect.
Yup, there I was, 5 years ago, late Friday night/early Saturday morning in the emergency room at the Little Company of Mary hospital in San Pedro. It was then and there when I almost died.
As that Friday progressed at work, I started get a dry cough. I didn’t think too much about it. It was probably because I was out the night before at the Bonaventure for Brendan’s birthday. That was a lot of talking which probably made me raspy.
As the night wore on, the cough kept getting worse. If only I could get whatever is clogging up my airways out, it would be better. I tried going to bed at 11 and put on old episodes of Sex in the City to lull me to sleep. But I could not get comfortable since I was coughing more and more.
I then figured a hot shower might loosen up the phlegm in my chest, and I can finally get some rest. As I was scrubbing down, I realized that there was no clog per se that I needed to cough out. No. I, in fact, could not breathe.
I tried to calm down so I could dry myself off, clothes myself and get myself to the hospital – since I lived alone, there was no way I was going to die and have my body be found days later in the bathtub completely naked. At the very least I should be a lot skinnier if my body is found naked. That really is a horror.
Thankfully I was able to clothe myself, and somehow I managed to drive myself to the emergency room as I kept gasping for air. I did have to run a red light because it was on a fucking timer and not a sensor. Fuck it. It was almost midnight, and there was no one on the San Pedro streets. Aside from that, I managed to get to the hospital in one piece.
To show how far my condition had deteriorated in the 45 minutes or so from when I started to go to bed to being at the check-in desk at the ER, I had gone from an annoying cough every minute or so to barely able to get the words, “I. CAN’T. BREATHE,” in between gasps as I tried to stay as calm as I could but finding it impossible because oxygen was not getting in. They took my vitals at the desk and the only thing I remember was my blood pressure being 212-over-something.
They got me in right away and gave me the oxygen-through-nostrils thingee (which I have learned is called a nasal cannula,) gave me tons of antibiotics and blood pressure meds and took about half of my blood supply for tests. I did an EKG, chest x-rays, a couple of breathing treatments and all, and they gave me an initial diagnosis of pneumonia. All in all I was in the ER for about five hours before they got me a bed in intensive care.
All day Saturday in the ICU, I was constantly complaining about how hot it was. I was sweating through the bedsheets like no one’s business. And since I was hooked up to monitors, I couldn’t get up to pee, so they gave me a bucket. It’s a good thing I’m a fucking pig and will piss in front of anyone. The breathing treatments continued that day, and I was progressing well enough to get a room on Sunday. Between the breathing treatments and the endless hours of nothing, they couldn’t tell me definitively what was wrong with me. They stuck with the pneumonia story even though there was no illness that led up to this. But whatever. By Monday I was well enough to be released.
A couple of things that kept running through my mind:
I need to get out of here ASAP so I don’t go broke. The daytime ICU nurse, a middle-aged Filipina lady, kept telling me not to worry, that insurance would take care of it. Did she think I was fucking stupid? This is the fucking United States of America. That’s why I drove myself to the fucking hospital. While insurance covered most of the $40,000 bill for my weekend, my share ended up being just over $3,000.
I’m really bad at selling my illness. So aside from Sammy stopping by 10 minutes to get me a phone charger and moving my car from the emergency room parking lot to the normal hospital parking lot, and my cousin Gina and her mom staying a while on both Saturday and Sunday, no one came. Not my mom, aunts other cousins or anything. I mean, I told them that I couldn’t breathe but I got myself to the ER so I’m feeling better but I didn’t know when they would release me, but no. No visitors. I guess I better make sure my dying actually has me sound like I’m actually dying.
A couple of days after I was released, I went to the doctor to follow up on all of this. Well because my high blood pressure was out of control, it caused my heart to say fuck it. I had heart failure. Stupid me. I thought that if my blood pressure would kill me, it would give me an aneurysm, that I’d feel dizzy, have headaches and all of that good stuff. But I had none of that. I felt perfectly fine. Until that Friday when fluid started collecting in my lungs because my heart was enlarging. Fuck.
So even though I didn’t feel like I was actually dying while I was in the hospital, I guess I could have died. Serves me right for joking that I would be dead by 40. Prophecy almost self-fulfilled. But really, it was all underwhelming. I felt like I was in a Peggy Lee song.
Now it’s time to find some sort of new routine that I need to follow. What I really hate is that the busses only run every 40 or 50 minutes even during peak hours out there in Arcadia, so it’s really inconvenient for me to take Metro to work. And since there is very little traffic during my commute, driving is a viable option for me.
First Day at Work
Here is a photo of me at my new desk at work looking oh so eager. And below is a photo of me realizing my Funemployment days are coming to an end:
Standing at White’s Point
But that’s all I have to report. No I didn’t finish Gravity’s Rainbow. And now I’m going to fall asleep.
I got back from the Apple Valley getaway. Despite all of my neurosis, it was very nice to relax in a pool for a couple of days. I got some color, as you can see above, and while I didn’t finish Gravity’s Rainbow, I did get to page 400 — just past the halfway point. I did have a moment of stupidity while in the water, though. I was reading in the pool, and I was really diligent about keeping the book above the water and keeping my hands dry. But as I was readjusting my position after an hour of reading, I let my guard down and allowed the book to touch the water. Fuuuuuuck. It wasn’t a lot of water, so no big foul. But ugh.
I received the instructions for my first day of work on Monday meaning Funemployment will be ending in a few days. While I’ve been good at keeping thoughts of work at bay the last few weeks, they’re now starting to slip in. I haven’t even gotten there, and I’m already figuring out the meetings I will need to schedule, the equipment and software I will need to request. And trying to figure out the schedule I want to keep and how to arrange my life around it. Once I realize I’m doing it, I try and clear it from my mind. I guess my cats will need to do a better of job of keeping me company. Stupid deadbeats.
I’m out in the middle of the desert. While last year I went to a house that sat on a 5-acre plot of land in 29 Palms with nothing around (NOTHING!), this year I am at Madd’s boytoy’s house in Apple Valley that is armed with a pool. It’s not quite the middle of nowhere solitude that I do like, but I must admit that the convenience is quite nice.
Since I am exactly one week away from the new job, my plan is to take the next couple of days lounging pool side, accidentally gulping a ton of chlorinated pool water and finishing Gravity’s Rainbow. It’s a hectic action-packed schedule, I know, and I can only hope I don’t wear myself out before I go home on Wednesday.
I find it weird being a houseguest. I’m used to either renting a hotel room or getting an Airbnb where I am alone. I don’t feel I can truly be 100% at ease no matter how close I am with the person — and Madd is one of my closest friends. I always want to be considered a good houseguest, so I’m always walking on pins and needles trying to be as inoffensive as possible. There’s a specter of judgement that hangs in the air regardless if it is true or imagined.
This is the reason I live alone. I can deal with judging myself — I’m a fucking idiot so I can easily disregard what I think.
The other thing that weirds me out is that I don’t have the alarm or garage door opener, so I feel a bit trapped. Actually, it’s more that I feel reliant on someone else for things and my well-being, and I really hate that feeling.
Poolside in Apple Valley. Gravity’s Rainbow porn and foot porn!
Regardless, I am enjoying relaxing and attempting to turn my mind off. Let’s see how it goes.
I think I need to learn how to do this Funemployment nonsense. After leaving behind Disney and Hulu on Tuesday, Wednesday I slept in and only went to the grocery store. Yesterday I managed to get a TB test for my upcoming job then hung out at IKEA with Madd. Which brings me to the photo above: I figured I should take the time today to purge and reorganize and re-everything my apartment.
But after taking a look at this shit and realizing I don’t know where I want to put it, I just want to do this:
Baba dead to the world on the couch.
I do have big plans in setting up a room divider curtain to block off my bedroom area and moving my desk to the “nook-ish” area by the entrance to create more of an office area. I know, this is a fun and exciting vacay!
Actually I am planning on escaping from here with Madd and going to her boytoy’s house out in the desert on Sunday and spend a few days just lounging by and in the pool and hopefully turning a different shade of pale. My goal there is to fucking finish Gravity’s Rainbow. Then after another couple of days, I start the new job.
Maybe I’ll see about getting buttfucked or whipped or fisted tonight…
I finished my final full week of work at Hulu/Disney. Tuesday is my last day, and the minutes sure are dragging.
I went back to the Santa Monica Hulu office on Wednesday for the final time, and I guess I expected to feel something. I wanted to miss the place where I spent almost everyday from 2017 to March 2020, but I felt nothing. Sure, I’ll miss some of the people I worked with there (but not others). But the fucking traffic driving there or the half-mile walk from the Metro station to the office were really fucking annoying. And the fact that Disney rebranded the buildings during the pandemic and getting rid of our beer and wine kegs really took the Hulu identity away from the campus. So as I left the building for the last time after saying goodbye to some of my coworkers, there was no looking back and turning into a pillar of salt. It was just a Wednesday afternoon as I walked to the Metro station to get home.
Now I have two more working days left. How long with they last? Will they kill me before I leave?
Love and Rockets – Haunted When the Minutes Drag (1985)
I’m glad I’ve stuck it out. Now that I’m a few chapters into the second part, the narrative is a lot easier to follow. Instead of random circular vignettes that leave you dizzy and lost, things are following a more linear path. Don’t worry, it’s not a linear narrative. There is a musical dance number with lab rats! It’s fucking insane, but at least I know what the fuck is going on.
Most importantly, however, I came to the portion of the novel that got its Pulitzer prize revoked. In this Part II, there have been a few sex scenes, and this particular one didn’t really raise my eyebrows. It’s a standard BDSM scene until… Well…
As I’m reading this part, I’m realizing there are a lot of details that I missed thanks to the obtuseness of the first part. I figure I’ll have to go back and read those 180-or-so pages much more carefully. Nevertheless, it’s a very fun read. It’s funny, fucked up, strange, and not as shitty as it seems (literally!)
The executive building at the Disney lot in Burbank.
I rarely post anything work-related here because what I do for eight (or so) hours a day is really the least interesting part of me, if there is anything interesting in here at all. But every now and again, something interesting happens that compels me to write about it.
On Wednesday, I put in my two-week’s notice at Disney (nee Hulu.) I’ve been looking for a new job seriously since April, and I’ve finally got the match. I will be the Accounts Payable and Purchasing manager for a mental health non-profit (the irony) starting on September 25. I’ll actually post details later about what the last two years of being there was like and what got me to look for a new job, but for now I’m just counting the days until my last day on the 12th.
You can’t imagine the sense of relief I got when my recruiter called up telling me I got the job and then getting on Zoom with my boss to put in my notice. With the whole neurochemical mosh pit going on in my head, I felt free. I can plan vacations again. I don’t have to worry about the stupid shit the Bob Iger says in public. It just feels like a huge heavy burdensome page is being turned, and I can move into the future feeling light. Well, as light as I can be with my fat ass.
But as happy and idealistic as this all sounds, I do know that there will be a lot of challenges at the new job. I’ve worked at a non-profit before, and I’m well aware of the nightmares it involved. I also know what the current situation is there, so I’m not under any illusion this is going to be a cakewalk.
And, in the back of my mind, there is always a cynic there tempering my expectations. I’m always brought back to a Groucho Marx quote: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
But for now, I will bask in the joy of saying goodbye to Disney.
Here is an email I wrote to my cats’ foster mother as they turn two today. She had kept up with them thanks to my Insta, but since I got rid of it she hasn’t seen them. So I thought I would send this over. Also I just bought this cactus scratcher hammock thingee this past weekend, and they both fucking love it. It’s rare that they cuddle with each other, so I had to quickly take this photo. Aren’t they the cutest things you’ve ever seen? They’re MY babies!!!!!
I hope you are doing well. I know I have gotten rid of my Instagram account, so I wanted to share this picture with you as the now named Mama and Baba turn 2 years old in a couple of days. I was logging off of my computer from work, looked over and there they were cuddling together. I couldn’t help myself.
They are doing well. Baba is very much attention-starved and loves his pets and belly scratches. Although he is not a lap cat and does not like to be picked up, he still wants to be the center of everything.
Mama is still a very anxious cat. She still seems to just tolerate me and will run on a dime to hide under my bed if she feels just a hint of fear. For a while she would only let me pet her in three places: on the dinner table; while I’m sitting on the toilet; right when I get into bed for the night. There she loves being pet and her belly scratches. But other than that, she will run away if I try to get close to her.
But lately she’s been more open to me and wanting pets everywhere. She’s also not running away quite as much. She will slow-blink at me, so I know she is comfortable with the idea of me. She does present her belly. So she’s a complex one, that’s for sure.
Both of them are great jumpers. They love to play and love to annihilate the evil red laser dot. Sometimes a fly will get into the apartment, and they are both piss poor hunters.
But they are both the most well-behaved cats that have ever claimed me as their human. They don’t act up, and they seem content to explore all the different nooks in my loft.
Well, that’s the update on them. I hope you are doing well, and I promise I won’t that this long to send you a picture.
