Category Archives: muttering to myself

Consolation?

It may be worth keeping in mind: the crazy person is generally the last to see that he is crazy.  This is consolation and worry both and reminds one of the opening assurances of the insane narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe:

 TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly –very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! –would a madman have been so wise as this?

Ombudsperson

I know it’s a childish thing to expect, particularly after practicing law for ten years, that there would be a fair arbiter you could appeal to to uphold basic fairness.   It’s like expecting there to be a record, and making statements for the record.  You know, when the appeals court looks over the record, you dig, they’ll see I’m right and the judge was wrong.  You think there’s really a record?   Heh.

“Watch out for that weasel,” a colleague once warned me about a certain judge.  “They have a foot switch that turns the recorder on and off so he can edit what goes into the record on the fly.  If the tiny red light on the side of his name plate goes out, you are not being recorded.   So when he takes a long pause and says ‘so, you refuse to answer the question, counselor’, right after you’ve answered the question, he already has his proof of your refusal to answer because what you just said was not recorded for the record.  You have, in fact, already refused to answer, on the record.  So don’t speak unless that red light is on, and ask him why you are off the record if the red light is off.”

“Damn,” I remember thinking, though, on reflection… duh! 

While I was dismayed, and a little angry, to finally learn that there is no corporate Ombudsperson at the Allen Pavilion to visit with a stack of Obamacare bills, some of which I owe, some of which I don’t, some of which have the wrong payment amount demanded in them, one of which is currently in collection, I am not really surprised.   That Ombudsperson would be overwhelmed, her job impossible to keep up with, the billing irregularities under the complex new law are as numerous as the stars in all the galaxies.   The guy at the billing window at the Pavilion tells me I have no idea how many problems patients have been having with multiple erroneous and ridiculously high bills.  

Want to make a record?  A better idea than worrying about that is to simply go fight City Hall.  Or practice until you find your way to Carnegie Hall.  Or go back in a time machine and buy a cheap suit from Robert Hall.   Next guest!

Email to my sister

In the score one for madness column, this email to my sister:

I know the “review” of Tekserve is too long.  Brings to mind the famous Mark Twain apology for the long letter (sorry, I didn’t have time to make it shorter)… I have to just be done with it and get to the next task.   Each of these tasks contains some measure of frustration— which makes the entire menu a bit unappetizing.  
 
I figure if someone goes on Yelp to check reviews of Tekserve, sees zero stars and the first paragraph, fine, my job is done.   If you want more details, click “read more” and get the whole ugly story, see if I’m just being a pissy crybaby or not.   The guy who owns the company will get the whole thing emailed to him, the long, detailed YELP.  Done.  I don’t expect the prick to do anything to change anything anyway.  
What could he do at this point to make it right that his store dicked me around for a total of over 9 hours of wasted time for me (days after I dropped $2,500 there)?  And glared at me and told me silently to go fuck myself at the end?  A guy who runs a store with a culture like that is unlikely to do anything in any case, and fuck him anyway.  You know what I’m sayin’?
 
Spent 28 minutes on the phone with Columbia Doctors this afternoon, two different Patient Services numbers, both insist the $507 for the 20 minute meeting with the useless PA is what MY insurance company agreed I have to pay.  Take it up with insurance, with my senator, with The United Nations.
 
Fit to be tied, then, work keeps getting complicated with new learning curves on the new macBook, plenty of frustrations with the enormous changes they’ve made in the new operating system to all the programs the kids use.  If I brought this new macBook into a classroom, though its 4 times more powerful than the one we use now,  I couldn’t run the workshop with it.  The geniuses at Apple have finally defeated my child-friendly design for a student-run production studio with radical “improvements” to make the macBook more closely resemble an iPhone or other IOS device.  
 
Being right, having an innovative program that could help many kids, being subjected to unfairness nobody should have to put up with, none of it means anything in our corporations-are-people-too society.  Listen to Obama talk to Marc Maron on WTF– the coolest, most relaxed, reasonable guy in the world, certainly the coolest president.   Look at the details of many of the things Oybama’s doing — hoy boy, Cheney would be smiling– if only Obama wasn’t a… you know.  
 
Obamacare, his signature achievement:  Is it better that pre-existing conditions are gone, that millions more are insured, that fewer Americans will die unnecessarily every year to preserve the obscene profits of the American health care industry?   Absolutely.  Isn’t it progress?  OK, it’s a step in the right direction.  Is it perfect?  He readily admits it’s not– now we have to fix it– without unfairly upsetting the profit expectations of those private corporations who expect to keep making billions.  That this corporate calculus, admittedly (though you’ll never hear him say it) necessitates fucking a certain number of Americans, hopefully only a few million… well, that’s unfortunate for the people affected, although millions of others are still far better off than before.  Let’s not talk about the millions of Americans still not covered, OK?  Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
 
As he talks about all the progress we’ve made, his administration has made, I kept thinking of the children of recently freed slaves, born in 1868, free blacks under the amended US Constitution.   Was it better to be born free than a slave?  Absolutely.  Was Jim Crow and lynching and Black Codes for 100 years bad?  And the Supreme Court continuing to rule, until 1954, that all this was perfectly legal under the Constitution?   Yes, it was very bad.   But, on the other hand, if that baby born in 1868 lived to be 147 years old he’d get to see a day when people started realizing that flying a Confederate battle flag over a U.S. government building is the same as flying a swastika flag over a German government building.   And we don’t publicly use that terrible word anymore, we say “the n-word”, right?  And the son of an African man and a white woman as president?  See, that’s progress?  No?   You can’t say it’s not, can you?
 
After today’s rant about Obamacare Sekhnet told me, once more, to write an editorial for the NY Times on the theme of  “Don’t take it personally”.   Systemically Obamacare is an improvement over what existed before, the elimination of the grotesque loophole of “pre-existing condition” alone was worth the fight, giving the medical industry financial incentives to prevent disease rather than profiting off billions in late in the game testing and treatment, also, good idea.  Millions more Americans have health care, many for free, and if you find yourself among a few million who are fucked by the details of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, feel unprotected and that the care you are mandated to buy is not affordable, you must realize that it’s nothing personal.  Yes, it’s your problem, true, but take courage in knowing that you are not alone in being fucked by this wonderful program.  It’s nothing personal.
Look at it this way: would you rather be fucked with the right to be hospitalized (at no expense beyond your premiums and deductibles) when you finally have a stroke or without that right?  Hmmmm?   Think about it.
 
Got to somehow finish the 90% done marketing stuff relating to my program, though it feels impossible to gracefully dance off that last 10% in the current mood I’m in.  
“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm,” said Winston Churchill, getting drunk as a skunk and sleeping til noon.  “But the question is– what does it take to remain encouraged?”
I’d go out and walk a couple of miles, keep my streak going, but there’s a thunderstorm pissing down at the moment.
 
Wee wee wee!
Biting my own foot off,
Nnnnnngggggg

Instead of anything productive today…

In spite of myself, could not stop until I’d written it all down:

The service department at Tekserve has a sign telling customers how much they want us to leave happy.   I left yesterday after a series of long ordeals, promised work still undone,  feeling thoroughly urinated on.  I will never set foot in Tekserve again, unless I am in the neighborhood and need to use one of their handy, clean bathrooms. Tekserve touts its independence and superiority to the famously superior Apple Store, though it offers perhaps the worst service I have ever been subjected to.  Their bathrooms, though nice, are no nicer than the ones in the Apple store, where, for all their sometimes attitude, the service is also much better.  Their technicians and managers do not misinform customers, nor, in my experience, are they untruthful.

I recently bought a new macBook from Tekserve and dropped off the current one to have a larger hard drive installed.  The current one was working perfectly, I merely wished to expand the hard drive space.  I explained to the service tech that I wanted to be sure the drive that was being replaced was fully backed up, I’d brought an external drive.  I explained that I needed the thousands of frames on the new hard-drive and wanted an additional back up as well.  I held up the external drive.  He told me Tekserve couldn’t perform that service but assured me I’d get the old hard drive back.  I pointed out that there was no way to access data from the removed drive.  He told me they could box it, for $40, and I’d have in effect an external hard drive.  I paid for this service, which was $75 when the labor was added.  I asked about replacing a rubber foot on the bottom of the machine.  He didn’t think they had the foot, but would make a note for them to look for one and replace it if possible.

When I returned the following day to pick up my laptop I got my ticket and was told I was next.  Twenty minutes passed.  It was now 20 minutes to closing time.  I looked for a manager.  Eventually one arrived and explained that the end of the day is the wrong time to come in.  He brought out my computer and the boxed hard drive.  There was no data from the prior hard drive on the computer, none of the files I needed were on the new hard drive.

“But you have them on this external drive,” said the manager.  He explained it was only a matter of a few hours to migrate them all over to the new hard drive.  I’d been there almost 40 minutes at that point and was peeved to learn I had hours of work to do in order to use the computer for my children’s animation program.   The rubber foot, still missing, was an easy fix, he said, something they did as a courtesy, but as the adhesive takes two hours to dry I’d have to come back for the computer the following day and wait again to pick it up.   I expressed reluctance.  

He offered me an Uber car to take me home and a generous $25 to compensate me for any inconvenience.  I declined both, pointing out that I hadn’t been informed at any point that I’d have hours of work to restore the laptop to usable status.  In the end he gave me the job “for free”, meaning he waived the service charges, in light of the misunderstanding, the incompletely done job and the hours of work they had given me to fix it.

The hours of work included a couple of extra hours manually updating every now non-functioning app the kids use and keeping my fingers crossed that the new version would be compatible with the one they knew how to use.   One of the main apps they use, iTunes, could neither be opened nor updated.  

I called Tekserve the following day.  I was told the manager was in a meeting and would call me back when he got out.  He did, and only 24 hours later.

When I explained the situation to Gary MacDonald, another service supervisor,  he read the service notes and insisted I’d been fully informed about the problem with the old drive and that I’d already had a generous discount and that, in essence, I seemed to have a negative attitude.   I managed to remain patient.   Eventually he expressed regret, admitted it shouldn’t have happened the way it did, that he wanted me to be happy.  He told me to bring it in, everything would be fixed promptly, the rubber foot replaced, use his name, ask for a blue ticket, I’d been seen right away, no wait, everything would be taken care of, I’d be happy.  He gave me his extension (464) and invited me to call when I was coming in so he could expedite things, also gave me his email address.

That he didn’t return my call was understandable.  I was just informing him when I’d be arriving to have the work done.  I used his name and was given a blue ticket, told I was next and, sure enough, my wait was only 15 minutes.  The tech guy behind the counter corrected me,  I hadn’t been given a “blank” hard drive, if it was blank it wouldn’t have had the Operating System on it.  I stood corrected, told him none of my data had been transferred, the old hard drive had not been mirrored, cloned or migrated to the new hard drive, that I hadn’t been informed of this til I picked it up, that I’d had to migrate the files and update all the apps myself.  That iTunes was now non-functional.  

His opinion was that this made no sense.  He assured me that iTunes was native to the Operating System and that it was no doubt my unfortunate unsophistication that made me unable to find it in the apps folder.  I invited him to open iTunes.  He was unable to.  This seemed to stun him.  He began looking for fixes on the internet.  He was as unable as I’d been to find any for OS 10.6.8, which Apple no longer supports.  He told me he still uses 10.6.8 and loves it.  I told him I love it too.  I suggested he get Gary MacDonald, the supervisor who was familiar with the entire situation.  He disappeared into the back. Five minutes later he returned with Gary, who had me retell the entire story.  

After some negotiation they agreed to reinstall iTunes and replace the missing rubber foot, though they were reluctant to commit to re-install the iTunes library as it could take a bit of time.   I assured them I could install the library as long as iTunes was there and that waiting two hours or so was no problem, and that I’d be about 20 minutes away.  They verified my contact number, promised somebody would call as soon as the machine was ready.  I thanked them and shook both of their hands.  The whole process had taken less than 40 minutes, not exactly an instant drop-off, but, under the circumstances, I was glad the thing was finally being done.

When two hours passed I called for an update, as the email from the service department had invited me to do.  I left Gary a message at his extension asking for a quick update.  I called to speak to someone in the service department, heard four minutes of music and was told nobody was available and invited to leave a message.  I did.  An hour later, having heard nothing, I headed up to the store.  I was determined to pick up my computer, make sure it was fixed, and leave without uttering a syllable.  I made one last call.

This time, after the four minutes of music, and hearing once more that nobody was available, I said peevishly that my next call would be to the Better Business Bureau.  At that exact moment I had a call waiting beep and it was the service department, 40 minutes prior to closing time, informing me that the laptop was ready to be picked up.  (The email informing me of this was sent 18 minutes prior to closing time, when I had already been waiting in the store.  You can read their punchy email at the bottom of this post).

The blue ticket meant I was next, after anyone else waiting with a blue ticket.  I asked to speak to Gary.  The kid told me he’d find Gary, but he was busy greeting others, giving them blue tickets, explaining that they were next.  He called a couple of other blue tickets who were next before I was next and finally turned to see me sitting sullenly in the last seat available, leaving Gary a message.  He pointed to Gary, at the counter behind me, along with three other Tekserve employees, helping another customer.  “There’s Gary,” he said.

I walked over to Gary who would not make eye contact.   After a minute of this I rudely interrupted. “I’m here to pick up the computer your service techs disabled.  I don’t intend to come back into Tekserve unless I have to piss (I pointed to the bathrooms) as you people have been pissing on me since I dropped off the laptop for repair two weeks ago.”   Two security guys prepared themselves for more.  I returned to the last seat in the waiting room.

Gary came over to where I was sitting.  He informed me that I cannot speak to him that way in front of customers.  I informed him ​that was a matter of opinion.  It was now 20 minutes to closing time.  He hadn’t called me, he said, because I said I’d be coming back in 20 minutes.  I told him he should learn to listen, asked why I’d come back in 20 minutes for a job that wouldn’t be completed for at least two hours.  Instead of an answer he said it was unfortunate that he couldn’t give me the good news about my computer because of my attitude.  

He went back to finish with the other customer and a moment later called me to pick up the computer and sign some paperwork.  He made minimal eye contact as he struggled to complete the paperwork, the laptop he’d started on didn’t seem to be working.

 I opened the laptop, noticed the battery was almost completely drained, and did not find iTunes on the dock.  He told me it was in the apps folder.  I asked him to put it on the dock.  He did.  I opened it, it worked.   “What was the good news about my computer?” I asked.

“It’s fixed,” he said.

“It’s restored to the condition it was in before I brought it to Tekserve, you mean,” I said, then tried the other apps the kids use.  Only one would later need to be updated. again.  I turned the computer over.  The rubber foot had not been replaced.  Gary had apparently had enough of my bad attitude by then and said nothing when I pointed it out.  It was now closing time.  I left Gary to sign whatever name he liked to the paperwork he was working on and headed toward the door.

I asked the security guard at the door for the contact information for the owner of the store, as nobody else seemed to give a rat’s ass about a customer’s very unhappy experience.  He had no idea, of how I could contact the owner, but listened to the bones of my story and took me over to someone who could help me. 

This fellow listened attentively and when I described what I’d write on Yelp told me that one of the owners personally responds to every (presumably negative) Yelp.  I asked for the man’s contact information, but this was not something routinely divulged.  I told the guy I’d hear from him after my Yelp, I supposed.  I was then given both David Lerner’s name and his top secret email address david@tekserve.com.

The worker, at as much of a loss for how to make things right as I was at the moment, suggested he could possibly extract an apology from the service manager, which I declined.  He urged me to contact David directly rather than tell the ugly story on Yelp.  I asked if he thought I owed David this courtesy.  He maturely declined to insist that I did.

Their service email is below, and reading it I discover: hey, they never sent me their survey!

My takeaway:  these guys are pretty much all assholes.  The culture in the store is an asshole culture.  Good marketing, very, very poor service.  Stay away is my advice.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Tekserve Service Department <servicestatus@tekserve.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 7:42 PM
Subject: Your Tekserve Service is Complete (SRO #3-161-520)
To: fuckyoucustomer@asshole.com

SERVICE REPAIR ORDER: #3-161-520

The day has arrived! Your SRO is ready for pickup.

Please bring your receipt or a photo ID when you come for pickup.

We want to make your pickup as easy as possible. Let us know if:

  • you would like someone else to pick it up. Email us their name and we will add it to the record
  • you would like to have your computer or device messengered or shipped to you
  • you would like us to recycle a machine that cannot be repaired instead of picking it up

Contact a Service Manager directly at: servicestatus@tekserve.com and they will make the necessary arrangements.

Once you have picked up your order, we will send you a survey to find out how we did. We really do want to make sure we are the best place in town. Please respond to our survey with any feedback you’d like us to have.

Thank you for your trust in us.

Want to Make the Most of Picking up Your Computer?

  • Come to afree seminar or personalized training
  • Get a new case, printer, display, tablet, iPad, iPod, headphones or one of each
  • Ask us about Thunderbolt, Fusion Drives or any other new Apple-compatible technology. We love questions almost as much as we love answers
  • Tell us your problems. If a Mac can fix it, we’ll tell you how.

Store hours and directions

 

Storytelling

“I am feeling more and more like a melancholy ghost,” he said to nobody.  The dust looked at him apathetically.   “Of course,” he thought, drawing in a deep, dusty breath.

We humans are moved by stories.  That’s why gossip is sometimes hard to resist.  He did what?  She thought… what the hell WAS she thinking?  Fucking humans… can you believe?   And if it is hard enough to believe, but still possible to understand as unmistakably true… or even mistakably true, damn, you got the kernel of a good story there, son.

A lawyer successfully making her case tells a story the jury believes is more true than the other story.   A huckster selling you a rock you can keep for a pet, triggers that childish belief in magic, begins the story in your head — what if a rock actually needs love and care as much as we do? Some ingenious fucker sold millions of rocks to Americans as pets by planting that story.   Hey, nobody said we’re a nation of geniuses, but we got good hearts. 

I have a story to tell, but not here.  My story must go into a slideshow I have to get back to work on.   It’s the story of young children that society is in the inexorable process of preparing for lives of tragic outcomes, getting a chance to flourish, create and shine.  It’s a funny story, and an unlikely one, and tricky as hell to tell with the right tone.  I need people to buy the idea, and give me money to fund it.

I note in passing, in outgassing, (and since I’ve already noted it and only have to cut and paste it)  the difference between the story I need to tell and the stories we are happy to slurp down during our leisure.

The difference between giving attention to a sales pitch and a TV series is that the TV series, if it’s good, hooks you on a story that pulls you in.  A good sales pitch must do the same, but I can’t remember the last time one did that for me.  
 
I recently saw 16 episodes of an engaging TV series called Rectify.  An innocent guy spends 20 years on death row for the murder of his high school girlfriend before his determined little sister gets him out on a DNA mismatch.   We see him in solitary, flashes of his nightmare life there, his one friend in life– the condemned guy in the cell next door, a repentant and sweet guy who shot into a car as a gang initiation and killed a 3 year-old girl….they become best friends talking through the grate, as the psychopath in the other cell tries to break the sensitive protagonist’s spirit.  As I set out the bones of it I’m already feeling it’s a compelling story. 
 
And it gets much more so when he gets out, and is a mess, and the small Georgia town is divided between those who embrace him as an innocent, blessedly exonerated man and those who don’t believe in the technicality of DNA and see him as a confessed and duly convicted rapist and murderer (we know he isn’t either of those, and so our horror at injustice is engaged) and, in any case, a weird and clearly disturbed guy they want to beat the crap out of, as several in masks finally do when he goes to visit the grave of his murdered girlfriend.  
 
After the brutal, possibly deadly beating in the cemetery, the brother of the murdered girl removes his mask and makes sure the protagonist sees his face through bloody eyes before he passes out.  Then the brother pisses on his broken body.  When the protagonist finally gets out of the coma, and the hospital, he declines to press charges when the corrupt but conscience stricken sheriff runs down and arrests the ringleader.  “It wasn’t him,” he says, looking stoically at a photo the sheriff, who knows it was, holds out to him.  The sheriff leaves in disgust.  Everyone in town is confused, and it is another proof that there’s something seriously wrong with the guy.  Some of us can’t help watching this kind of story.
 
A sales pitch, on the other hand, tells a calculated story that cheerfully invites the potential buyer to envision the wonderful things the product will deliver to them.  How will this product make my shit life feel marginally better?  Unlike with a story containing enough human complexity to hook us with its narrative mysteries, and we are ready and happy to be hooked, if the hook is there, we are on guard against a sales pitch, which must also disarm us.  
 
A totally different exercise in story-telling and the reason watching five hours of an enthralling drama, if you have the time, is never a chore, and watching a sales pitch of any duration is something you are programmed to mute and go take a mental piss during.  There is great art involved in crafting a winning sales pitch, as in telling an engaging story of any kind, and there are similarities in both kinds of storytelling, but differences too.   If you get paid to make commercial pitches, well, at least you get paid.  If you do them on spec, well, hopefully you enjoy a good challenge and love the work itself, eh pardner?

Heh.  I’m sorry, what were you saying, Dusty, old boy?

Political bite of the day

From my congressman, who recently voted against giving this and the future president the authority to negotiate international trade deals in secret and have them voted “yes” or “no” in a fast track toward his or her desk for signature:

While I voted YES on the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to extend AGOA, I am not fully supportive of the trade package which I believe should be more inclusive to ensure our workforce is better equipped with education, jobs training and modernized infrastructure. I will continue to fight for measures that will make certain Americans are globally competitive.

And let us sign his name to it:

Sincerely,

Charles Rangel

What is TAA?   Let’s see:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would aid workers who lose their jobs due to international trade deals. The measure previously passed the Senate and now goes to President Barack Obama’s desk. Obama has said he wants to sign the worker aid bill and the “fast track” trade authority bill. Fast track has already cleared Congress. Just six House Democrats voted no on the aid bill. Most Democrats voted against it two weeks ago to slow the fast track bill, but were ultimately unable to defeat the trade authority sought by Obama.

Miscellaneous Maunderings

Finally got myself to call to find out what I actually owe to the hospital that has been so charitably taking care of small matters for me.  I was looking to make an appointment to bring my stack of contradictory bills to an Ombudsperson at the hospital.  The woman I reached could only deal with bills from “Columbia Doctors”, which was disappointing, since only a fraction come from them, though all services are, admittedly, performed by Columbia Doctors.

“Sir, you won’t let me help you,” said the exasperated woman at the number on the bottom of my medical invoice.  She was starting to lose her temper so I became more conciliatory, paused, spoke more softly.  She eventually admitted she too would find it frustrating to receive multiple incorrect bills from several related, but completely separate subdivisions of the corporate entity she works for.   She herself is a Patient’s Advocate, if only I’d let her help me.  
 
“Sure,” I said, “I’d like you to help me.  What can you do for me?”
 
She eventually came close, I could feel her leaning for a second, to admitting that $507 to see a physician’s assistant, even if she had been helpful (though in my case she wasn’t), did seem a little expensive for the Affordable Care Act, especially seeing as my insurance company had already paid $314 to them for the same services.  It turned out the $507 had been billed in error, it was actually currently only $437, as far as she could tell from her end, which didn’t include the $327 in lab fees.
 
As for an Ombudsperson who could look at all the invoices, she was not aware of the existence of such a person, she was in a billing office somewhere in NJ.  I’d need to organize the many duplicative and inconsistent bills from each department and call each separate department to determine the amount I actually owe on each invoice. 
 
“The $100 refund check was not from us, sir, as I already told you several times, except you seem intent on being pissed off instead of letting me help you, we are Columbia Doctors, that check came from New York Presbyterian (formerly Columbia Presbyterian) Hospital.  We have nothing to do with them, you have to call another number, as I’ve been trying to explain to you.  We are completely different departments.”   
 
Good news for me though: my visit with the clueless physician’s assistant is down from $180 to $110.  The $180 bill was an error, they sent it prematurely.
 
My new macBook, which I bought Monday to complete work for the nonprofit I hope to see thriving in the near future, while it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t seem to work, is under warranty and will be replaced if I drag it down to the store.  The one I had refurbished on Monday, and spent hours uploading its former contents to along with multiple updates and fixes last night, now has all but one crucial program working again.  
 
That one crucial program… a mystery, and it’s no longer available on-line.  It worked perfectly on Monday, it’s dead on Tuesday.  Bring the computer back in, we’ll have a look, says Attila, a nice guy and the first and only one to give me any help over the phone at Tekserve, the independent alternative to the Apple Store.
 
Wrote this down a few hours ago, while waiting for a promised call back from the manager of Tekserve, which, naturally enough, never came.  I should just call and read it into the Moth pitch line answering machine, no?
 
My father was a brilliant and funny man; he was also a ruthless prick.  My sister named him the D.U., the “Dreaded Unit”, and the name was pretty apt.  I spent more than 40 years trying to make peace with a father who regarded me as an adversary from the time I was a baby.  At around 40 I learned, from an older cousin, of the atrocious abuse my father had endured as a child.  It explained a lot, gave me insight and sympathy I hadn’t had before.  My story is about our conversation in his hospital room the last night of his life.
 
In other news, notice arrived today that my internet service is going up by around 30%, they’re sorry they forgot to mention that the $34.99 I’ve been paying was a PROMOTIONAL deal.  Starting today It’s only $10 more a month, for the next twelve months, another promotion for a loyal customer like me.  The provider’s got a monopoly in this area, the only slower speed option is only $14.99, but its too slow for wireless service.  Tiffany was good enough to give me a one-time $10 credit, like a kindly dollop of vaseline for an irritated bung hole.  God bless America and the citizen corporations it works for.
 
I will be heading down to see the motherfuckers at Tekserve again tomorrow, most likely.  I am so happy about it, a third trip there in four days, I could shit.  Perhaps I’ll wait til I get there.

Granted

That you have, with increasing cunning, greatly limited the chances of any but a few for having anything like that prosperous life advertised constantly on TV, movie, smart phone.

Granted, you have planted bitter hopelessness in the lives of millions, while smiling and taking bows, and praising your own exceptional greatness and generosity.  

Granted some of your most generous ilk made $45,000,000 last year, mostly in speakers’ fees, speaking off the cuff, and you are very droll and charismatic.

Granted, those fated to have almost nothing will get ever less and the three hots and a cot in a privatized facility will begin to look good as a free alternative to grad school.  That or going for the glory and ending in a hail of bullets.  

Granted, a family of one cannot actually live on $400 a week, but that is way too much to expect successful people to pay for unskilled, menial help.

Granted, the rantings of one silent, solitary voice here don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world.

I don’t know where this song comes from, I certainly don’t recall choosing it among all the songs in the world.  But while there is breath here to sing it, sing it I will.