GET OUTTA THE WAY!—A STUDY OF 10 COMMON AMERICAN OBSTRUCTIONS.

Same as it ever was.

Who can obstruct, these days, better than Americans? In saying that, I mean the prevention of basic, everyday access to the right of way or the prevention of progress on a sidewalk. “Get outta the way!” you may think (or bellow). Let’s take a look at 10 frequent violations of the kind, in hopes that just one violator will recognize the error of his or her obstructions.

10. You Saw Me Jogging. I know this because our eyes met. Unless you suffer from Oppositional Jogging Perception Disorder, you could’ve concluded that I might like to keep running without breaking stride. Yet you saw fit, at the last moment, to obstruct my path. Not only that, but you unleashed Bitchy-Face. Other than its normal swerve, the earth—didn’t move. It’s called side-walk for a reason. Your side and my side. Eh?

9. The Couple Who Can’t Be Parted. You’re so in love that, to walk single file for three to five seconds, to unglue your hands, would be a violation of everything that Republican Art has taught you. But hey: I’ve got news. Temporary separation will help you prepare for the trauma—should your love crumble. Oh, I don’t mean to suggest that you’ll split up. You might stay together—you, your partner, and your Crumbled Love.

8. Escalator, Part 1: Stopping at Top. Every American should be taught a course in Basic Physics of Everyday Conveyances. The escalator is a Continuous People Delivery Machine. It will continue, that is, to deliver people. So, if you pause at the top (“Gee, where am I, America?”) the escalator will, by the sheer genius of its automated mission, continue to mash people into your dorsum. Can you just take, like, three steps forward?

7. Escalator, Part 2: Standing to the Left. The course in Basic Physics of Everyday Conveyances will also contain a module entitled, Some People Like to Walk Up. These people will pass you, on the left. Unless, of course, you establish yourself on the left, and cannot be budged. What are you doing over there, anyway? Thinking about beef? Beef and cheese? Beef and cheese and bun? You could do that thinking—to the right!

6. Tipping the Scales (Plus). No, really, if people don’t start to demonstrate a little more restraint at the buffet, the economy will slow, and slow, until there is little (if any) commerce. How so? Will anyone be able to get anywhere on time? Will there not be substantial—human—obstacles to ordinary ambulation? “It was not automobile traffic or poor weather or Act of God that made me late for work but Third Party Obesity, again.”

5. Baby Carriages Seating Two Toddlers Abreast. You could’ve chosen double decker bus perambulator, you could’ve chosen stretch limousine perambulator, you could’ve chosen Winnebago perambulator with trailer hitch, you could’ve chosen motorcycle with sidecar perambulator, you could’ve chosen two perambulators and enlisted crony to push one but no, you’ve pinned me between hydrant and tree and dookie of dubious origins!

4. Dog Walker Allowing Loose Leash on Multiple Pooches. Adding yet another canine to the ruckus of canines you already cannot manage just seems like the next logical step in the Choose Your Own Adventure version of your life. In one possible ending, the dogs run circles about you, until you’re bound by yards and yards of gentle leader. In another ending, you must survive, huddled in the gutter, by feeding on a peanut butter Kong.

3. Texting While Walking. Your phone says R U there? It asks Where R U? R, it goes, U 2 biz E? But you’re trying to go three hours, okay, one hour, without texting. Your phone vibrates again, a text, in your pocket. U H8 me, it says. A moment later, you’re not only reading, but twiddling a reassuring answer, when you step into the global warming doggie water bowl set in front of the gelato store. ‘Victim of attack!’ you text the texter.

2. Driver Halfway through Intersection Metered by Stop Sign. Why stop at all? I mean, I get it—you want to act like a thug, at the helm of a 5,000 lb hunk of machinery versus a pedestrian (me) who offers 168 lbs of opposition, even as I have chosen to let you motor on through. The sign shouldn’t say Stop. No, it should read “Go Halfway Then Crawl But Not Before You Project Wimp Menace To People You Have Never Met.” 

[Expletive!]

1. Unnecessary Bicyclist Passing Language. The bicyclist said, “On your left.” Then he said, “No, no, on your right!” Then he said [Expletive] as his bicycle crashed into deep foliage or rocky stream. He was not obstructed. He just couldn’t bike and say “On your left” at the same time, so he created a hindrance, a hindrance of the mind. It’s vaguely amusing that his little dinky bell went “ding ding” as his Schwinn punctured the hedge.

MY TRAVAILS WITH THREE PARTICULAR POPS TO THE CROWN: TWO THAT BUCKLED ME AND ONE THAT PRODUCED THE BLACK LIGHTS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS, BUT IN ALL THREE CASES I DID NOT DROP.

1. Karate Class

My instructor had chosen me, the scrawny teenage equivalent of an Everlast bag, to stand in the middle of the circle. All around me stood my classmates, fifteen men, each the keeper of his secret number. I hopped around, my fists in gloves, the left at my waist, the right thumbing my nose. I hopped and snorted. “Cut it out!” one guy said. “This?” I suggested, thumbing my nose. “Shhh!” my instructor whistled. “He’s making me laugh!” said the guy. “Shhh!” my instructor whistled. “But in a real situation,” I reasoned, “I could do this kind of crap to disorient—like, uh—fifteen guys dressed in karate outfits who’d happened to pick a fight with me.” I caught my instructor; he had dropped his forehead into his palm. A pause ensued that grew ominous. The cloudy day radiated dry dirty light. “Eight!” shouted my instructor. Nobody moved on my periphery. A set of eyes square in front of me betrayed the impending motions of an assailant, number eight, charging toward my back, and as I wheeled to deflect a sure midriff kick, a fist puffy with the foam padding of a red glove divided my face into districts of grief. In time, both eyes would blue-blacken and a piece of my nose would harden into a chipped edge, but at the moment, a classmate (last name S——) had intended to batter the back of my skull, a lunge that had sinister implications. He didn’t high five, didn’t apologize. He’d been a combat veteran in a forgotten war, not a shameful war, but he’d been a veteran of dim, desperate battles which nobody could name. I hadn’t heard this; I’d overheard this. A few weeks later, he broke wind so violently in the lavatory he blew many squares of toilet paper outward from the stall in which he’d been seated—an impossible fart. After tapping out the last of a whiz, and reorienting my protective cup, I asked him whether he’d done a lot of that kind of thing in the army. A few beats expired, he in the stall, me at the sink. “I mean,” I clarified, “delivering a cheap shot during practice.” Two low blows don’t a fair fight make—I know, I know.

2. Florida Ave.

After bidding my chums goodbye, after trouncing down the staircase from the railroad-style jazz flat, high on the free horns of Vandermark and Rempis, I turned toward home on a foggy Sunday night just shy of mild, in February ‘07. The corner of 14th and U glowed with varying levels of intensity: fast food chicken, sneaker emporium, city services shuttered, walkup hookah, gush of white streetlamp, traffic lamp flashing caution, uneven code of bus hydraulics. A block later, the islands at the gas station did modest business and the articulated convenience store did modest business, cab drivers and maybe a single thumping sports utility vehicle. The firehouse slept. The police precinct house slept, ringed by a circle of vacant cop cars. A block later, I cruised beyond one set of basement steps too many, when a large figure—“robust flab”, I want to specify, but a head taller and impossible girth of arms, too—bounded toward me, punching me on the outcropping of bone (or what is that?) behind my right ear. A second night overtook the first night, like a wash of garbled language, darker, but lit, the borders unfocused, but constellated, a level of blackness that implied, perhaps, just one more level of blackness—before dire repose. In this second night, I continued to walk, if staggered. Hands searched inside my bomber jacket, the outer pockets of my bomber jacket, and endlessly, the two back pockets of my dungarees. I instructed my body several times to twist free before I did, delivering a few severe impersonations of competent self-defense which nevertheless broke the fellow’s posture against a brick sidewalk corrupted by decades of anxious tree roots. I bounded into a convenience store, but that wasn’t home. I bounded into a coffee shop, but that wasn’t home. The second darkness dissipated, returning me to a comprehensible position at a cross street near my apartment. Inside, on my couch, I discovered what the mugger could not: my wallet, pocketed in front, the location of which bought precious, revitalizing moments.

3. KIX Concert

I attended a KIX concert years ago in a shopping mall, maybe in a hotel ballroom. At some point, a few hundred colorful balloons fell upon the band, thus the venue had to feature balloon dropping capabilities, even as the rainbow of these festive items choked the lyrics of the power ballad—“…when I go out in the evening / to the night clubs / and I get my head just right…”—that the hair metal singer had been warbling. Yes, I wore a mullet haircut. No, I did not own a Camaro. (I drove a pre-owned red Honda, thank you.) A few weeks earlier, I had performed a valorous act but had injured my good paw, a valorousness which required surgery, and the surgery required a clunky club-like cast that involved most of my arm below the elbow. Then, I’m standing at the bar, drinking from a flagon of flat beer with my off-hand, when a meathead comes up to me, like a meathead outta hell, the hell of the concert. Everything in the world had rejected this dude except the fifty pound Weiders at the gym. “Nobody’s signed your cast,” he said. “I’m waiting for the right person,” I admitted. “Your arm’s not broken,” he alleged, jabbing a finger into my sternum. “In fact,” I added, “it’s under repair.” A vein ticked in the meathead’s neck, choked by the blue band of his t-shirt collar. A syllable like “Roo?” came out of his mouth. He projected the sorrowful hunger of a formidable dog who’d been ordered—by a turtle flute—to bite the air beneath my chin. He clipped me on the button with a slow, muscular uppercut. My entire body jiggled downward, toward the floor, which stopped it, but forced the jiggle to return, my casted arm rattling around, my neck rubbery. A minnow of beer—like a boxer’s mouthpiece—leapt out of the flagon I maintained with my off-hand, but I kept my footing. “Whew,” I huffed. Personnel surrounded us, friends, bouncers, friends of bouncers, until the matter got sorted out, the perpetrator begging forgiveness. “I thought it was a prank,” he said, “like a tough guy contest. Nobody signed his cast!” I waved for a pen. “Here,” I proclaimed. “Be the first.” And he signed it, “K-I-X ass!”, the typo perhaps unintentional, the punch taken.

DID YOU ‘MAKE THE LOVE’ IN MAKING LOVE? OR WERE YOU MADE LOVE TO? A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR INTIMATE ASSIGNATIONS.

But who is making the love? 

Every so often in the wake of an amorous encounter a person may question the give-and-take dynamics that he or she experienced. He or she may ask, Wasn’t I the one who made the love? Even in cases of auto-gratification the questions may linger in the mind of the auto-gratifier. I was the only person there, he or she may reason, Surely I was in control! For these and other queries, let us take a proper look.

For a person in a coupling:

Does one define ‘making the love’ as (1) the entire arc of events or (2) the moment of greatest achievement? Consider how, in a play or film, one character can ‘steal the scene’ so to speak. It may be that the true love-maker precipitated ‘the final act.’

Positioning is important but it doesn’t always dictate who made the love. Many people can still make the love despite positions of (seeming) geometric disadvantage. “How so?” you may ask. Muscle tone, for starters. Cunning and guile. Yoga?

Many people like to assert that ‘making the love’ is a 50-50 proposition. In that, each partner contributes equally to 100% of the amorous encounter. Of course, there are many possible ratios: 10-90, 70-30, 51-49, 22-78, (-22)-122, to name a few.

Problem-solving skills may be important in bringing to fruition a love-making attempt. They do not confirm, however, who made the love. One may solve for height differences or changes in atmospheric conditions, thereby enabling the partner to make the love.

One might argue that, when traveling in the southern hemisphere, the otherwise docile partner made the love. When in fact, the dominant partner still made the love, only in the opposite direction. Consider the employment of a compass for sub-equator maneuvers.

Even as colorful language (i.e., ‘dirty talk’) or any other ‘bedroom fetish’ may contribute substantially to the amorous rhythm, it is important to remember that the ‘talker’ or the ‘fetishist’ may serve, in fact, as an “egger-on” rather than the actual love-maker.

Did you pay for a good dinner? If so, chances are the other person made the love to you out of sheer gratitude. Man, people are hungry these days! If you’d like to make the love—next time consider nudging the dinner tab toward your partner.

Perhaps the horse-action saddle makes the love.

For an auto-gratifier:

When auto-gratifying with all-natural equipment, the biggest question may be: did your hand make the love to you or did you make the love to your hand? This question is not so easily answerable. Did your hand seem especially buoyant after the encounter? If using your off-hand, then it may feel as if another person were making the love to you.

When auto-gratifying with a device, consider the nation of manufacture. If ‘Made in China’, for example, then perhaps the peoples of China are making the love to you. The power source may also be the provider—that is, Duracell may be the love-maker. Too, the device’s materials (blow-molded plastic, synthetic rubber) may also make the love.

Resources for the love-makers:

Beer

Music

Poetry

EVERYTHING IS A BURGER.

If you “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” then what’re you talkin’ ‘bout, just bein’ friends? That’s a burger. Van Halen’s a burger. Similarly, if you “Feel Like Making Love” then you’re not really making love, you’re just feeling like it. (Who doesn’t?) (Who doesn’t feel like making love?) That’s a burger. Bad Company’s a burger.

What kind of music does a financial instrument play? Songs about executive salaries built upon the manipulation of your debt, that’s what. I think I smell a burger. The guys from Accounting head out to lunch. “I don’t want a burger,” they say, but they order fish ‘n’ chips / chips ‘n’ salsa. That’s a burger. Alternative to burger’s a burger.

This entrée was invented out of necessity many years ago in Europe, by a class of people known as the Burghers. They lived in burghs (e.g., Pittsburghers) and they were busy, so they required a convenient repast. A chain sprung up, Burgher King, run by Old MacDonald. You’ve heard of him. He had a Firm, C-E, C-E-O.

“Duck Duck Goose” is a burger. They might as well stop calling for Red Rover, and instead, send burger right over. This land is both your land and my land because it’s a burger. Fifty strip-malls, fifty strip-clubs, fifty strip-searches, fifty strip-mines sewn into the little square on the flag. Pledge allegiance to the burger, citizen.

Your alarm clock wakes you, is a burger. (Explanation: time’s a burger.) You lie in bed listening to the news, is a burger. (Explanation: radio’s a burger.) You miss your train, and as a consequence, you miss your meeting, is a burger. (Explanation: sloth’s a burger.) Somewhere in the city wafts arena rock. Wafts the burger . . .

JUMP AROUND: THE 25 GREATEST JUMP BLUES SONGS (+5 EARLY JUMPS) (+5 NOVELTY TUNES) WHICH YOU MUST LISTEN TO BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT MUSIC THAT REALLY ROCKS.

Roy Brown: the greatest jump musician?

In a previous post dedicated to exemplary American musicians, I shied away from determinations of greatness, and opted, instead, to establish importance. It felt sturdier to crown Louis Armstrong as the most important American musician than to propose a greatest American musician, who, in all likelihood, would be John Coltrane. I need not recite the many arguments in favor of Armstrong’s enduring influence on trumpet, cornet, dixieland, swing, gravel-sweet singing, scatting, composition, ensemble playing, band-leading, ambassadorship, typewriting of letters, collaborative recordings, in-public performance, and most substantially, the virtuosity of the soloist. The essence of Armstrong spreads out amongst many players of many instruments. Armstrong informs one generation, and that generation informs a subsequent generation, adding elements of Armstrong, either tacitly or in plain view. “Really?” you say. Even Cypress Hill’s joke about “[hitting] dat bong” the way that “Louis Armstrong played the trumpet” in their 1993 pop hit “Insane in the Brain” demonstrates that the man’s legend appeared generations later, in hip hop and rap. (Louis, too, happened to be fond of weed.) One would have to present a mountainous argument—over many months of intense negotiations—to chip away at one corner of one brick in the Great Wall of this proclamation. Satchmo’s greatness is considerable, too, but he’s probably not the greatest American musician.

As America’s popular music for many decades, jazz underwent numerous transitions. In one change, the central instrumentation in many recordings switched from brass to reed, from trumpet (and perhaps clarinet) to saxophone. Coleman Hawkins, by no means the first jazz saxophone player, nevertheless has been credited as the first jazzman to endow the instrument with significance. Numerous followers—Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane, to name three—would build their own idioms upon this foundation. Coltrane, in particular, can batter a listener to rubble, if we can define “batter” as (Coltrane’s) relentless invention across many forms of voice, and if we can define “rubble” as the shocking moments of (the listener’s) emotional realizations. At the beginning of Coltrane’s career, before he appeared as a sideman on several monumental Miles Davis records—including the Workin’, Steamin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’ series, as well as Milestones and Kind of Blue—he played with rhythm and blues groups in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Lewis Porter’s masterful biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music, describes R&B gigs in the early to mid-50s with bandleaders such as Johnny Hodges. According to Porter’s book, the Hodges band toured with several rhythm and blues stars, including Billy Eckstine, Ruth Brown, and the Clovers. Benny Golson, a sax player also retained by Hodges, “marveled at the things [he] heard [Coltrane] play” on the tour. Trane famously entertained a number of influences throughout his career but where did this R&B sound originate?

Illinois Jacquet's solo on "Flying Home" inspired other horn players.

At the very least, jump blues began with a variety of groups active in the 1930s, including orchestras led by Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway, and Lucky Millinder. These early songs featured hopping rhythm, rambunctious horns, and increasingly mischievous lyrics. Just as jazz began to adopt the saxophone as its central instrument—to deliver the fleet or searching or muscular work of the soloist—so did jump blues offer rowdy saxophone solos, “jumps” if you will, in the midst of a tune, and oftentimes, woven throughout a piece. Arguably, the most famous early jump saxophone solo belonged to Illinois Jacquet, a sideman at the time with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His workout on “Flying Home” in 1942 inspired saxophone players to emulate his honking sound. Indeed, many horn players would dwell in the upper or lower registers of their horns, effecting the kind of chaotic riotousness that drove audiences to crash around and scream. Audience members couldn’t seem to believe what they were hearing; it nourished a need of theirs that they may not have been able to articulate, in advance. I wonder if the musicians ever expressed similar feelings. Jump blues burned brightest from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. The music would eventually be covered, gentrified, and absorbed by other genres long before Miles Davis affixed the flickering embers of jazz to wailing electric guitar lines in A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and the album’s outtakes, among other jazz-rock material. Still, jump music added shape to rock, R&B, and avant garde saxophone from its wealth of rowdy excess.

White audiences hadn't heard anyone like Big Jay McNeely.

The heroes of jump have nicknames like Tiny, Big Jay, Big Mama, Sugarboy, Mr. Five by Five, Big Joe, Fats, and Bull Moose. They are criminally under-celebrated. Here are, in chronological order by date of recording, 35 greatest hits—25 prime jumps followed by five early numbers and five magnificent novelties:

Eddie Lockjaw Davis: “Ravin’ at the Haven” (1947)

Roy Brown: “Boogie at Midnight” (1949)

Ruth Brown: “Hello Little Boy” (1949)

Freddie Mitchell: “Pony Express” (1949)

Johnny Otis: “Good Ole Blues” (1949)

Wynonie Harris: “Bloodshot Eyes” (1950)

Tiny Bradshaw: “I’m Going to Have Myself a Ball” (1950)

Joe Liggins: “Going Back to New Orleans” (1950)

Roy Milton: “Oh Babe” (1950)

Big Jay McNeely: “Insect Ball” (1951)

Jackie Brenston: “Real Gone Rocket” (1951)

Big Mama Thornton: “Hound Dog” (1952)

James Sugarboy Crawford: “Overboard” (1953)

Jimmy Rushing: “Mr. Five by Five” (1953)

Big Joe Houston: “All Night Long” (1954)

Big Joe Turner: “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (1954)

Bill Haley: “Farewell So Long Goodbye” (1954)

Ray Charles: “I’ve Got a Woman” (1954)

Johnny Sparrow: “Sparrow’s Nest” (1955)

Dave Bartholomew: “Shrimp and Gumbo” (1955)

Amos Milburn: “Chicken Shack Boogie” (1956)

Louis Prima: “Oh Marie” (1956)

Fats Domino: “I’m Walkin’” (1957)

Memphis Slim: “Steppin’ Out” (1959)

Long John Hunter: “Grandma” (1961)

(+5 Early Jumps)

Jimmie Lunceford: “Rhythm Is Our Business” (1934)

Stuff Smith: “Old Joe’s Hittin’ the Jug” (1936)

Cab Calloway: “Do You Want to Jump, Children?” (1938)

Sammy Price: “Monkey Swing” (1939)

Lionel Hampton: “Flying Home” (1942)

(+5 Novelty Tunes)

Louis Jordan: “Caldonia” (1945)

Bull Moose Jackson: “Shorty’s Got to Go” (1945)

Paula Watson: “Hidin’ in the Sticks” (1948)

Lucky Millinder: “Who Said Shorty Wasn’t Coming Back?” (1950)

Big Bob Dougherty: “Bullfrog Hop” (1962)

The great Louis Jordan.

Some may quibble with my placement of Louis Jordan amongst the novelties, but I am as partial to these songs (and Jordan) as to the prime jumps. Jordan, an alto sax player and bandleader, recorded a number of great songs—including “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”, “Beans and Cornbread”, and “Knock Me a Kiss”—but “Caldonia” is a special song. Other jump songs recorded by other artists refer to the character, Caldonia, who, despite her awkward appearance, inspires the singer, Jordan. He tells the listener that he’s “crazy ‘bout that woman ‘cause Caldonia is her name.” Indeed.

ENCOURAGES FLORIDA TO ADOPT A “STAND YOUR ELEMENT LAW” THAT WILL AUTHORIZE LETHAL FORCE IN EARTH, WIND, OR FIRE

No more peninsula and panhandle but the grip and the barrel.

The editorial board at Blood And Gutstein hereby acknowledges that the “Stand Your Ground Law” provides a far too narrow zone of safety for neighborhood watch captains patrolling the mean streets of gated communities in Florida. We therefore lobby the state to adopt a greatly broadening Stand Your Element Law, which would enable these same captains to shoot unarmed teenagers in tunnels, when aloft, or amidst conflagrations. This protection would extend to fiery religious ceremonies.

More people are digging in the soil these days, leading to scenarios in which neighborhood watch captains might have to patrol deep, deep in the Earth, and if these community watchdogs encountered teenagers wearing suspicious tunneling garments, they should feel empowered to “Stand [Your] Underground.” Of course, if anyone encountered a figure underground, wearing a hood-up, it could always turn out to be the Grim Reaper. The law, however, should still empower a neighborhood watch captain to discharge his weapon into Death.

Similarly, more and more people are bungee jumping and skydiving and engaging in rhythmic trampoline encounters, necessitating armed neighborhood watch volunteers to patrol the Wind. These same watch captains must patrol, by necessity, the increasing number of recreational blazes, including jamboree Fire, hootenanny Fire, and hee haw Fire, not to mention the ritual biblical sacrifice of he-bullocks, she-nannygoats, and gender-neutral muttons. If troubled in these Elements by the presence of an unarmed teenager wearing a hairshirt, the community watchdog member should feel licensed to “Stand [Your] Airspace” or “Stand [Your] Smoke”—because where there’s Smoke, there should be (gun)Fire.

In all seriousness, the editorial board recalls the gist of a passage from Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, in which the “Monster”, aka Cody Scott, narrates some of his time in prison. Many “gunslingers” had been incarcerated with him, yet these inmates, who had depended upon firearms for their street toughness, did not fare so well behind bars, where fistfights were more the norm. We have to wonder just what one community watch volunteer was even doing with a firearm (especially in the placid confines of a gated community) and whether this volunteer would have disembarked his automobile in the first place if his only option (in a confrontation) was a fistfight.

We are remiss, of course, in not including Water among these Elements. A Floridian community watch volunteer (think Everglades) might encounter a unarmed teenager dressed as a crocodile, an alligator, a manatee, a feral hog, or a python—you know, clad in that kind of hoodie. In which case, Blood And Gutstein fully supports the “Stand Your Swamp” defense. Oh yeah.

MY PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH THREE ADMINISTRATIONS OF GENERAL ANESTHESIA: HOW IT WORKED ONCE AND FAILED TWICE BUT IN EACH CASE THE OPERATION PROCEEDED TO CONCLUSION.

1: Stomach Procedure

My gastro doctor gave me a general so he could scope my upper guts, et cetera. As things got blurry, the nurse told me I looked like Jerry Seinfeld. (Months earlier, a pimp made the same observation as I jogged past him and his creamy Mercedes at night outside The Ascot Lounge, where three women, decked out in shiny gold dresses, sang, “Seinfeld! Seinfeld!”) The medical team had installed some kind of device in my mouth that would accept the scope and when they introduced the scope to my throat, I responded with a long helpless burp, a free-jazz burp that sufficiently impressed the doctor, who scrutinized me. “AAAGGGHHH!” he screamed, nearly dropping the puppeteer controls of the scope. My eyes were wide open. “He’s not asleep!” I couldn’t speak, on account of the machinery jammed down my esophagus. I thought ‘Ha! Now you can’t talk about me!’ The nurse said, “Ha! Now we can’t talk about him!” Later, in the recovery room, the nurse added, “Seinfeld would’ve gone to sleep.” I asked the doctor what were the weirdest things he ever saw in someone’s stomach. He spit out his tic tac as the question must’ve caught him off guard. “A full size tooth brush,” he reasoned. “Also an undigested snake head.” I called him Dr. Gold— when his name was Dr. Wein—. He told me, in return, that I probably had a terrible condition. I’d have to take medication the rest of my life and we would have to schedule an appointment to discuss biopsy results. In the end, I didn’t have any condition at all, and on the appointed date of the dire appointment, the doctor sat beside me in a crisp white jacket. He didn’t really remember me (he had a busy practice) but he patted me on the back with the negative biopsy findings and rattled a few tic tacs in his hand, as if they were festive peanuts.

2: Wisdom Teeth

My oral surgeon gave me a general so he could saw into my upper jaw and lower jaw, to remove four impacted wisdom choppers. He and the nurse pumped me full of old school sleeping gas. Long past the junction when the oral surgery manual would’ve read, ‘Hey, enough of the gas already!’ he was pumping me full of sleeping gas. Did he say “Count to one hundred?” Did he say “Recite the alphabet backwards, starting at Z?” I have no idea because my eyes were blinkered. It was as black as death only it was black so it wasn’t death. (It was not unlike ‘the black lights of unconsciousness’ that boxers detail—boxers, that is, who’ve been knocked out—except there were no lights whatsoever, just the faintest rhythm of respiration.) I could tell time in there—I could tell time whatever I wanted—so I gave time a good piece of my mind—“Hurry the F--- up!” I said. (To time.) The doctor’s name was Bird or Turd. He and the nurse were crouched over me as I ‘came to’ but they were looking into my mouth with worried brows. Had I swallowed something during the surgery that they should discuss with me? Had they sawed into the proper part of my jaw? Was this some kind of elaborate Intervention concerning my oral hygiene habits? Before he discharged me, Dr. Turd told me to take as many painkillers as I wanted, so I did. I took so many painkillers that I woke up one night unable to move, with a sensation of falling into the earth. I didn’t die. But death seemed near.

3: Hand Surgery

I had done something valorous but part of me, in the process, passed through a window, leading to lots of blood, and I severed the nerve fiber in my thumb, so my hand doctor gave me a general before she attempted to reconnect the tissue. A curtain had been established between my elbow and the careful motions of the surgical instruments. I lay there, on the operating slab, considering the ceiling, the overhead lights, the ductwork, the electrical apparatus, and the ventilation, when a moon-like face, with overgrown eyebrows and nasal hairs, appeared above me. He hovered there, looking deeply into my eyes, a man wrinkled by his difficult experiences. “How’s it going?” he said, at last. “Okay,” I replied. “You’re supposed to be under,” he observed. “Yeah,” I said. “But you’re not,” he added. “I am not,” I agreed. “Unless I’m dreaming.” The face shook. “You’re not dreaming,” said the lips. “If you say so,” I sighed. “Are you in pain?” he said. I thought about this. “I feel some pressure,” I explained. “Do you want me to give you something?” He patted his pocket. “You mean you’ve got something in your coat?” I said. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m in charge around here.” He spread out his arms to indicate the entirety of the operating theatre. “Really?” I said. “Believe it,” he said. My surgeon then materialized beside The Moon-like Doctor. “He’s supposed to be under,” she stated. “Yes,” went The Moon-like Doctor, “he and I were just speaking about that.” She flabbergasted her hands this way and the other way before returning to the other side of the curtain, even though I think the surgery was over, by that point. “Well, so long,” said The Moon-like Doctor. “Wait a second,” I called. “Do you have many conversations like this, with patients who are supposed to be under?” He laughed but didn’t answer. The hand doctor casted my thumb. I was 19 years old. I would be less opposable than before but given the surgical intervention more opposable than if I’d opted, simply, to cleanse the original wound of its glass. In short, I could still resist.