for anyone auditing the course, this would be a fine blog to skip

sometimes I need to do an entry for me, just to get my thoughts straight about what might be happening to me medically. there are a lot of components.

so...way too fine a detail...though I won't promise a complete absence of personality...just a level of navelgazing that will even bore me reading it later.

yesterday was all good from the outside, all learning which is invaluable, and all not so great from the inside. didn't feel particularly good for most of it, for reasons.

to start with, I didn't sleep. at all, or hardly. 5am I'm wondering what the fuck? because I need sleep worse than ever. what's the body doing now?

about the same time, it occurs to lisa...in a dead sleep, or a troubled one...that we had both spaced my taking my bedtime Dilaudid.

which means, I spaced it. she is on board to help. but it's all up to me, and I know it.

we divide up the pie chart of responses well in times of trouble, do lisa and I. I go right to adrenalin fueled calm problem solving...holding on tight...she goes omigodomigodomigod, then to some shameandblame, then to generating solutions which may or may not have perspective to them. but...if no one did that...it wouldn't be as easy for me to bypass that stage and stay clear. I have designated emotional drivers, who hurt and cry and get too involved and rejoice for me, so I can just keep going. and I need that kind of fanfare...this is no one's walk in the park.

they are also there for me at times I need reassurance and general mommying. oh, yes, and every other second of the day for everything I could need or want, from orange juice to Sky, to the untruth I realize needs to permeate the house, that I am attractive, and have always been.

the answer I came up with - to how not to skip that dose again...is to slightly shift when I've been taking the Dilaudid. it's been four times a day, about every 6 hours, at 8am, 2pm, 8pm, and at the last wink before bed, to make the distance between the night and morning dose as small as possible.

problem is...lisa goes to sleep...I come to bed...I space (once, all told)...and it's not good.

so I think if I do the Dilaudid more with the landmarks of the day...8am breakfast (oh, yeah, I get a hot breakfast every morning), 1pm lunch (which I'd been cheating the 2pm back to 1pm anyway so that the Decadron has less effect on my sleep), then 6pm dinner and 11pm solid night dose, that lisa and I will both still be up, and the time will be specific, etc.

this gives me 5 hour cycles, not so off from 6, and 11pm to 8am to wait at night...but the Dilaudid morphine stuff when I need it, starting to sleep. and mornings...the last part of my waiting for a sleep bus which sometimes gets me and sometimes does not...have been the best feeling part of the day.

so, we'll see. don't want to schedule anything at midnight or 7am...too late and early.

so...I slept some after 5am. but lisa and I both got up tired.

with a 9:15 appointment for Dr. Gore exciting both of us. I had nothing but good to report. the chemo had been well tolerated and was over...I was feeling good and strengthening. we looked forward to lessening the Decadron dose slowly, and other non curative helpful decisions.

from the beginning, as it so often does when something isn't good with sleep and rhythms, it felt like we were brushing the hair of the dog the wrong way.

hassles with the oxygen tanks. hassle getting a wheelchair at the hospital. hassle with the front desk not wanting to do labs before I saw Dr. Gore so she could see them. waiting, waiting. hassle with the oxygen tanks in the hospital. sleepy sleepy.

a great meeting with Dr. Gore, although at Warp Starbucks. tried my best to rev up and be clear and exhaustive. janice had wanted me to ask her...so...i know that there can be periods of increased energy before someone dies...but...have you ever seen anything like this before????

I did say that, but I said after...of course you have. you've seen a lot.

she said it is, however, unusual.

yeah, leave it to me to be unusual. me and cindy lauper.

we'll take it this time, though.

had the best labs experience of my life, which is to say the least. no pain at all from the stick. no problem at all drawing the blood. Theresa is a genius.

I felt a little pressure to take the pleur-x catheter out immediately, from both lisa and Dr. Gore. you remember the tube in my abdomen that was supposed to keep draining the fluid in my right sac around the lung, to give me more breath. it was still in there, but over the last three weeks, we had hardly gotten a drop the four or five times we tried to drain it.

without x ray or c t scan, I felt a strong recommendation from Dr. Gore that it come out, and come out yesterday.

of course, she and lisa are the ones who see it...I can't. and as long as it's in , the risk of infection is there.

I tend to move slowly, and sometimes especially when things could be in my favor. I hate being like Neo in the Matrix movies, where instead of going to a phone booth to travel between the inner and outer worlds, that I have two cell phones with me, the port and this catheter. the person who would most gain if it were gone would be.....me!!! me me me!!! I could shower with impunity, never having to have lisa change that dressing after.

it was like the fanny pack...I felt some pressure to do it before I might have done it, but once done, what a relief!

so I went with the pressure when Dr. Gore got a last minute appointment in IR to remove the catheter. 12:15pm. better than using a whole other day to do it.

between then and the actual procedure...the worst hospital employee encounter of my experience. beyond a little disappointing, beyond not just up to snuff, beyond not making the grade, all the way to territorial, belligerent, and totally wrongheaded in an injurial way.

we were at IR at 11:45am. the word was that insurance needed to ratify the procedure, and we were waiting back to hear from them. it was also lunch, probably for insurance as well as IR.

waiting isn't awful...we asked to be added at the last minute, we can be good about making our end work.

we watched as the oxygen tank ran out and became quiet.

now, I am on 13 liters at home. it's so not a big deal to some folks, so crazily spendthrift to others. me, I feel it gives me every o2 advantage. I have been thinking about going down a bit at home, once the chemo was over. I was at 10 for the trip today.

lisa was beside herself, talking to anyone who would listen about my need for air. we probably both had the visual of a fish out of water...I remembered when Aquaman and Aqualad had to be resourceful to get water after 24 hours out of the sea. but this was somewhere between oversight and emergency already.

the guy who eventually told me that I would not be allowed to sit here and use up "his" tanks like that. he literally turned the tank to 6, and then 4. and he was not to be moved. lisa "went all mama bear" on him....

I had a different approach. I said, you're really willing to contravene a doctor's orders to lower my oxygen?

he said, I'd like to see those orders.

lisa said, have you seen his charts ? do you know anything about his case?

no

I very quietly said, it's hard for me to believe that anyone can just come along and make decisions against a doctor's orders. would you like to talk with Dr. Gore about it?

yes, I'd like that very much.

now, he was the first person we've met in the hospital who not only didn't know Dr. Gore (referred to her as him), but didn't look fearful at the prospect of getting in her way. and my guess is he never ever thought she'd call back. it took about 8 minutes.

"turns out," he said, "you really do need the oxygen."

have a nice day.

yeah, it was every bit as ugly as it sounds. and immaterial to any telling of my story. but this blog's for me, and, ouch, dammit.

I have a strong programming that the more important something is, the more important it is I don't freak out about it, but work for what is best.

also, I am fond of saying...the dog with the smallest yard barks the loudest. now...whose tanks are they, really?

but watching him "man up" and watching lisa mama bear...I was aware that the question was whether I would be dealing with one out of control person, or two. making it two never, ever helps.

I never understood why, with the people I watched backstage at Telluride or at the folk festivals, why they were so over the top friendly. was Mick Jagger? Bob Dylan? it was a convention of the form.

now I know. those people needed you, whoever you are, on their side. they needed not only to leave a good impression, but to seem like someone you'd go the extra mile for.

I relentlessly good vibe my medical people. learn each name, ask about them. how you holding up? busy out there.

I mean, Christ, they're saving my life!

but also...I want to be someone someone would go the extra mile for. not just because I want to be a good guy either...I am going to need those miles, I think.

when I got into IR, and on wall oxygen at last, the nurse was from Louisiana and very pretty in a very French way. I said to her, well I had some trouble with oxygen out there. she said, I heard. I said, that guy is pretty much that guy all day every day, isn't he. she said he sure is. I said it can't be easy.

the nurse who did the procedure was not up to snuff on the new computer system...asked the intake questions, didn't save the answers. the nurse who prepped me asked again and did. it was a good team.

that kind of procedure involves a numbing shot or three... Snickers bars which make regular shots seem like Milk Duds chocolate...and some sensations like nothing you've ever had. not awful...not long... no sedation or anaesthesia necessary...just something you want eight secnds after to say, I didn't like that.

but it was done. in at 9, out at 3. and I'm more me than I was, for being more only me and not augmented.

took a killer nap when I got home. thought about working...had a visitor coming at 7...but Body Knows Best. took the second Dilaudid at 3pm after the procedure.

Dr. Gore had said that Dilaudid, orally, is considered for every 4 to 8 hours. if I ever wanted to, I could back down from four times a day to three. it wasn't really time crucial.

she also was the first person I've heard say that Dilaudid doesn't really do much for anti-inflammatory...that it's strictly a pain thing.

in the pattern of the day, she talked about what it would be like in future to come off of it.

point of this self indulgent writing is...by 9pm last night...I wasn't feeling great. it had been a day, I was still tired, and I had decided that taking the last Dilaudid, at 9pm six hours after the previous, would leave a long space before next morning's 8am; if I wanted to get on the new 11pm schedule, this would be the time to do it. so I waited. with the information that...I was not feeling the well being I was used to.

now...it could well be that a seven day chemo thing could still be felt several days later. need to stay open to that.

but at 10:30, when I broke down and went for the dose...I kind of immediately felt the world shift back toward its regular axis.

ok...even more TMI alert!!!

one of the battles team Bennett fights here at 708 is a fiendish and quite uncomfortable butt rash. man! so twice a day, lisa mans up and uses a three coat system on it...then I lay for half an hour with it exposed and drying. often I sleep. I did last night, rolled over at 11:30pm and went to bed. woke up at 4.

so...better.

took an internet break, lay back down...but drifted through strange troubling dreams and trying to get to sleep for a long time. long time. finally here now...but...feeling kind of the normal of the last weeks.

Scott, what causes the sleepy eyes during the day? what caused the not quite feeling right last night? is fewer drugs always going to be the answer, until I am free of drugs enough to try another study? should I really let myself focus away from the time that is being bought for me now, cherishing it but maintaining no denial that these days will end and I'll be right back where I was, ready to knock on the Big Door?

and...what about AudioQuest? how can I get what I need while I feel good and while the guy there is in such a generous place about it?

I'll keep an eye on the Dilaudid...mild mood enhancer? pain deterrent, but easier breathing drug as well? and for lingering chemo effects...the half life doesn't just drop precipitously, I'm thinking. the cycle is monthly, so there won't be any more for another two weeks plus. I asked about radiation again, and she's going to ask about that.

Dr. Gore, that is. I gave her Stewart's CD, which she had me sign, somewhat bashfully...and some homemade no sugar peach pie for her lunch dessert. lisa would never have done it...it was a fine vintage Monday, and a little broken up. me-- I say, gimme. I wished her well on her supercharged but at least a little more rested way, feeling blessed again to be under her care.

today, I hope, will be a more normal feeling, more normally scheduled day.

perhaps in it, I will consider how Rocky and Bulllwinkle caused the 60's.

not exactly shutout ball

but not so far from it.

final score in the P.C. bowl...palliative chemo...Scott 6 1/4, chemo 3/4.

a banner day for the Rockies, anytime.

in the four day infusions, day three and a couple of days after were the worst. in the five day cycle, it was day four or so and a day after dosing stopped.

this time I didn't notice much through day 4 at all. didn't feel that off. nausea, fatigue, hair loss was mentioned...

day 6 and 7 this time, and yesterday day-after-dosing-ends, I was being forced to let in some droopy eyed tiredness...though it seemed I could close my eyes entirely and still talk for half an hour. stayed pretty linear, too.

the thing about sick is, it's halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness. so, sleep is uncomfortable, but waking equally fidgety.

this was a problem until the late 1940's, and the invention of television.

post millennially, the "busy box" that fills the gap between sleep and being up is the computer. its interactivity is most often minimized in that role, however...

but even editing, I had to accede and put myself down for a nap when my eyes drooped...or let company know that it really isn't them, that they belong in a fully waking cycle but that I was having a dozy one, and needed to go lay down for a bit.

especially since sleep hasn't changed much at night...I just let myself do it. when hungry, eat; when tired sleep.

as with most real time fact finding missions, my study results are muddied. was the chemo

the sleepiness? was it the decadron hills and peaks, the steroid? how is the amiodorone affecting it all?

last night came an unintended experiment that may hold an answer or two.

Faithful Followers of the Blog...I can see in 15 years, "easy as following a blog" being a new permutation of an old simile...will predict what happens here next...yes, the dreaded Inset Topic.

I am fascinated with Regis.

not my medical pillbox, of which Brian got the joke immediately when I named it Regis. a little more fascination with that last night would have served me well.

but, actually, Regis Philbin.

and not from when he was on WOR TV when I was growing up in New York. he seemed the oiliest of media sycophants then, along with , say, Army Archerd and Joe Franklin.

to me, they were part of what gave social a bad name.

al of that changed when catherine, a true love of mine and quite a bit younger than me, got me into watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" while it was first airing, then later on with dinner. if a show is on every night at 6pm, I may well end up watching it a lot.

I've always had the love-hate relationship with social. I was undersocialized as a child, having no really attractive role models for it and also having headspace that usually interested me much more than grade school conversation. but there were profoundly upsetting times associated with my not knowing the rules of playground and prom etiquette...lot of loneliness, lot of picking on, lot of tears.

all of the 18 seconds I saw Regis with Kathie Lee, he was putting cucumbers on his eyes for beauty and oiling up the latest media darling. ptui.

but no such folks on "Millionaire". and Regis held all power from his seat. what kind of despot would he be?

surprisingly, to me, focused on his normal contestant in their 15 minutes of fame. on their side...but nobody's pushover. ready to get testy. ready to play his celebrity card.

last night he encouraged a person not to use a lifeline, but to go straight for the answer their gut told them.

it was a siiiiiiiiiiiimple question.

but the guy got it soooooooooo wrong.

Regis raised his voice just a little and said, I don't know why I get involved with these people!!

it rang true...in a cover your ass kind of way.

if the contestant has been dating the same girl five years, he'll ask her...so is he ever going to pop the question?

a little drop of brusque cuts through a lot of grease for me. but he does it...and no one holds it against him! can life really work like that? times when I swallowed stuff, would I have been better liked had I shown a flash of real?

he really wants each one to win. and he'll actually tiptoe over the line, to help them! if you understand Regisspeak, that is.

so I watch the show, mildly interested by the questions, the thought that goes into what makes a good question, sometimes wondering if i have the answer right. more interested in the emotions of the contestant. but fascinated with how Regis is doing, how to read him. whether there is any tape holding down a corner of social that I could pick at, and try to learn how to express myself more in a social context that would work for "them" and for me.

last night, that passion kind of clouded my linearity, and I took the wrong set of pills from Regis Pillbin. the evening set in the afternoon.

I have some twice a days, one (chemo) once at the beginning of the day, one (Dilaudid) every six hours or so. one with mealtimes. etc. etc. etc.

instead of heart medicine at 8am and 8pm, I got it at 8am and 2pm. none in the evening.

I did get the Dilaudid every six hours. I don't want to mess with that stuff.

but I was watching my pulse rate and oxygen saturation. 02 was still sky high...97/98...but pulse rate was like 88 to 92 through the night. and, I would wake up and have to wait before I could get back to sleep.

so...I guess I'm thinking, the Amiodorone is doing the job of keeping the heart in it's low seventies rate wise. and the drowsy seems to me chemo linked. that's my story, until other evidence surfaces.

it's hard being a one person scientific study, as there really isn't a CONTROL group!

oh, don't worry. irrelevancies are still part of the mission of this blog. Honey West...Anne Francis in that and Forbidden Planet. Forbidden Planet alone could be the study of an entire blog entry!

just not this one...

strengthening continues apace

yes, here in the Man from U.N.C.L.E blog, formerly Scott Bennett's Medical Mystery Tour, I'd like to go off topic for a second and write a health update.

did I say health? if I can't say curative, can I say health?

does it mean I am in denial about the incurability of my cancer, to think in such terms?

you can tell that the real issue for me is not the hospice vs hospital wars, curative vs palliative, or even Dr. Gore's admonishment that "we are not going to beat this one"

it's my being told what thoughts are ok to have, what thoughts are not.

and, Lord knows, no one said that to me. only that holding onto reality is going to necessitate acknowledging some hard hard facts, and all but eliminating what we wish could be possibilities.

no one wants me not to pray for, dream of, imagine a miracle cure. the woods are full of those stories, fuller perhaps than of people they are true of.

but what we are experiencing right now, my Team members, is Miracle Management.

everyone will sign up for managing the disease. curative, palliative...find the best way to Manage the disease.

well, the success has been nothing short of a Miracle.

Miracle Management. I'll take it.

a substantive indicator...I stopped turning to the fanny pack of Dilaudid around my waist for boluses, chosen boosts of injected drug, over a week ago. pain relief wasn't needed, breathing was pretty much short but comfortable, they weren't helping me sleep (not that I wouldn't turn to melatonin before morphine for that), it didn't elevate my mood...more like made me twtich...

I stopped.

inset topic: Diseases of the Very Smart.

oh, yes. they are at much higher risk than the general population for some debilitating troubles.

the worst needle/ IV/ port experiences I have had have been directly attributable to one of these diseases:

namely, the Inability of Genius to See its Limits.

I get the temptation. in group after group, you're not even in the same group. the first place you go in your mind with a problem no one else ever gets to. it becomes a mater of sheer time and practicality, getting people to follow you...we all get home for dinner in time that way.

the part where you question your judgement gets pushed further and further back, until it's like Jabba the Hutt's legs.

then, one day, you really need it.

Sally was the best nurse I had, through my stay, in terms of what she knew, her patient involvement, the level of her discourse...lisa and I agreed, pretty much a genius nurse.

in a field with, throughout, next to no clunkers.

I have a permananetly installed port on my starboard side. (I never know how much to assume today's blog reader has read of earlier posts; I do some summing repetition sometimes...)

in the hospital, it was felt like a second access might be needed in case of emergent care. this means one whole hand's strength and ability would be taken away by a needle in it all the time. I fought it valiantly, and in vain. Sally came to do the stick.

it was miserable. three times, in either hand, no success.

but each time, she could not give it up. each time she worked it, moving the needle inside me and sticking again and again.

I can do this. I can do this.

a different nurse, in the morning, set it up quickly and cleanly, and the IV was never used.

real genius is knowing when, indeed, duh, you are not going to get this thing done, you need to withdraw.

one of the most intelligent ideas I've ever seen illustrated in a film was in George Lucas's first movie, THX 1138. it concerned a dystopia where "the System" controlled every moment of a person's life, including giving control drugs from birth which made you feel ok about the life you did have.

it was profoundly smart to me (though the smartest thing mentioned is still to follow) when the hero told the system...I need something stronger.

he was still willing to toe the line...but it just wasn't working for him so far. he needed a drug to smooth his growing discontent away.

eventually, he sought answers more out of the box...in this case, out of the dome that surrounded the city, that none were allowed to leave.

so he fights off the giant pain stick police robots and heads for the edge of the dome. he narrowly escapes, in a way Lucas films would later take on as a feature, and he is on his way with the giants catching up with him slowly.

out of nowhere, in their police radio brains, the giants get a message : WARNING! THE PROJECT YOU ARE ON HAS GONE 6% OVER BUDGET! RETURN TO BASE IMMEDIATELY!!

they do. he reaches the Perimeter, and sees his first sunrise.

an autocratic, compulsive, robotic, rigid rule forcing any genius to acknowledge his limits. I doubled the percentage, and immediately adopted it as a genius-like guideline. in every field, I'll say, but music.

one of the hospice nurses, who check in on me now at home, is amazing. never lets a dang thing slip. you figure, a dozen medications, some of which are controlled substances you can only get a few days worth of at a time, how would anyone keep track? in her 16 track mixing board, she deals with all of it at the same time, and hits every mark.

I need her.

but it came time to change my port access, the needle the Dilaudid was going into. to take the old out, and stick a new one in.

you're not supposed to know how not to do something. believe me, I know the headspace.

but she didn't. and after three tries, never got anywhere.

it really bothered her - which also made me worry. to do something you don't know how to do is one thing...to keep doing it while beating yourself up and kind of freaking out...another thing we engineer types are not supposed to do.

Monday she calls all on fire with this great idea.

she'd brought it up to the docs at the round table meeting in which everyone talks about everyone, and all agreed that it would be just fine if I could take my Diluadid orally, since I was using such a small dose.

no sticks. no port access. and...no fanny pack!

see, beneficial change brings up the same wariness in me that problems do. how much do I really want to mess with what's working?

but how much have I been inexorably drawn to what's Even Better.

I asked if she would call the vacationing Dr. Gore about it. within an hour she had, and received Dr. Gore's ok.

so....drum roll please...I walk this house in a Long Green Tube, as Lefty Frizell might say, but ta da! no fanny pack with a basal rate of Dilaudid. pills suffice.

I stood at my closet yesterday for a minute, holding onto nothing, deciding leisurely what shirt to wear.

I've been peeing standing up.

I've been getting things my own damn self, cleaning up this or that mess, moving better, stronger. feeling literally better every day.

moving so slowly towards resuming playing, doing singing I need to do.

today is the last day of the etoposide chemo. still no real concrete "down" feelings from it...I'm starting to associate tired drooping eyes more with recent Dilaudid than a chemo pill in the last hour. now, the traditional down days came after the end of the chemo...but...we have seen so far, and we will see.

strengthening continues apace.

phew! glad that's over!!

Top Brass. ring any bells?

it was a 50's hair cream. like Wildroot creme oil, Charlie. Charlie was how the viewer was addressed. or Brylcreem, with alternate barbershop and all female chorus ads .

but Top Brass addressed its viewer/ buyer as "Tiger", from the lips of a Jackie Kennedy dressed and coiffed woman on a tiger skin rug. you couldn't make that commercial today, between NOW and PETA.

the point is...that woman was Barbara Feldon.

she of the "Never Never Affair" cited in the last blog. but of fame that would surpass either work easily in Mel Brooks' spy spoof tv show, Get Smart!

guys, get real for me here...Maxwell Smart...is there a more confident loser anywhere? the shows turned on his catchprases, the mystery gets solved at the end of the half hour...but if Max doesn't bungle, isn't obnoxious, doesn't make you cringe...there's no show, right?

and yet Barbara seems not to see a thing. she mothers him, lectures him, makes excuses the way any good dysfunctional family member would...Max's oblivion to her love for him, as well as any emotion not found in a second grader, just made us want her all the more.

we never needed to grow up, socialize, get competent, face adolescent rites of passage...she could purr them all away.

she was all the Yanks were to know of Emma Peel...the Mel Brooks version.

if there are Get Smart books which expand CONTROL ...the U.N.C.L.E- like organization Smart, Chief, and Agent 99 (Feldon) worked for along with Sigmund and Hymie the robot...into an acronym, I never read them. I have nothing on KAOS, either.

those aren't the reasons I am losing sleep at night.

My father thought that show was the funniest thing to hit the planet. so...we got to see it.

I remember him reciting the classic "Craw" bit to us over and over again. Get Smart! has a certain spyish rhythm, but its comic pacing was much more Grossinger's, much more the Borscht Belt, much more like my father's formative experiences watching vaudeville.

Smart meets the stereotype Asian villain in one episode. he is "The Claw", and we accept his Sidney Toler aphorisms and TV approximation of an Asian accent the way we accepted Jewish indians on F Troop.

Smart does not.

"permit me to introduce myself, Missa Smalllt. I am The Craw."

"you're The Craw???"

"no, no, not The Craw, The Craw!!!"

repeated to ever increasing frustration levels.

Dad thought that was one for the ages. I would estimate, 9 and up. I don't have the 138 episode collection on DVD, almost half a year of half hour dinner shows...though I still remember 10 of the 15 total jokes used in it. The Cone of Silence. ("what??") "would you believe...?", "sorry about that, Chief"

these phrases wove themselves deliably into our language.

last footnote...a lot of conspicuous casting came from this genre.

North By Northwest, Hitchcock's irresistible tale of an innocent (though sophisticated) man drawn into a dark world of cold war intrigue, featured not only Edward Platt as a lawyer, later to play "Chief" on Get Smart!, but Martin Landau as Van Damme's oddly menacing henchman, he later of Mission: Impossible. and of course, the head of the spy "alphabet soup" in the movie was Leo G. Carroll, who played Mr. Waverly on U.N.C.L.E.

but wait...there's more!

"The Project Strigas Affair" starred...wait for it, Adam Sandler...starred both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Inspired casting, Mr. Roddenberry. and also Otto Klemperer, not captain Kirk but Colonel Klink, in Hogan's Heroes.

yes, yes, this is what you get in these pages instead of the latest health news from Team Bennett. sigh. but to some degree I've really lived my life by these priorities.

and don't you hate it when someone immediately follows an intensifier with a qualifier? like above? I really kind of hate that.

The Technological Hierarchy

for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.

David demanded to know. but even had he not, I heard from Paul, who said he still owned all twelve U.N.C.L.E. paperbacks and the only two Girl From U.N.C.L.E paperbacks printed. and Stewart, who also professed great love of the show.

I have not heard yet from anyone who, like myself, owns all 105 episodes on DVD. if anyone can take a guilty pleasure way, way too far, that be me. every night for over three (happy) months, 48 minutes of U.N.C.L.E with dinner.

but I think the real question is burning in the brains of the Readership, those of They who think this subject is worthy of any brains at all...

just how guilty is this pleasure?

I mean...was the series always shooting for camp? the writing...cold war spies out to save the world...had to be called serio-comic...by the time Batman came out, the series completely yielded to the not-to-be-taken-seriously side of the tube.

but...was it...bad? and if so, was it always bad? and if so...why do we remember it is being so..............good? could it be.....us?

I mean, not to unnecessarily deepen the trench - but one of my studies as I follow my media preference for intelligent dumb comedy is exactly this question -

is there not something in every show, however tongue in cheek, that is designed to have a direct impact, made to be taken seriously? if not, can the show really work at all?

if we don't care at all...and, let's face it, there is no real reason we should care...whether or not Dr. Evil succeeds in getting his "one millllion dollars", if we don't have a moment of empathy when Austin tries to play the "Mr. Tambourine Man" CD on a 45rpm record player...can we enjoy the bright colors and hijinks of the film?

some folks don't enjoy it anyway.

but the point is...a song, a TV show, a movie needs to find its level of cartoon. it needs to know what its world is, what can and can't happen in it. and then stay there. once you make a movie about The Green Lantern...my favorite DC superhero, and also the nickname for my new microphone...you can't resolve the plot by having King Brian, the leprechaun from Darby O'Gill and the Little People, trick Sinestro into making one too many wishes.

you can have a villain whose super power is that he was reliably lucky...that some impossible fortunate coincidence always enabled his plan to succeed. like, that Hal Jordan had parked his car on the street during the six hours a month it is designated for street sweeping, and got towed. it's vaguely within the level of cartoon you've established. similarly, you don't really want Robin to be embarrassed to go out and fight crime because of a bodacious zit at the end of his nose...in the movie, let's say...whereas in "Teen Titans", that is exactly what you'd expect to have happen to him.

no one...no one!!...would ever tell you that that we really ought to be taking the Spinal Tap movie more seriously. that it was meant as drama, and to be evaluated for its Shakesperean heft.

but when Nigel goes backstage to be a "messenger", at least over here in my world, you can hear a pin drop.

it fascinates me that the stupidest smart dumb comedy still needs the viewer, in some way, to take it seriously, and even more incredibly that we, as smart people suspending our disbelief in hopes of a worthy storytelling experience, can still be willing to do exactly that.

of course the hero wins!!! especially in this kind of joint!! you really, at 59, need to watch all the way through to make sure that happens?? the third time?? it's fiction! it's made to order! it's made to give us reliably what we can't rely on in our lives!

last night, on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the question was, what was true about the fictional character Harry Potter? that he a. lived in New York, b. wore glasses...

anyone but Immanuel Kant would choose b. and get the $500.

but what if we predicate something true about a fictional character? he wears glasses...but could he do that, if he did not exist? so if it is true that he wears glasses...Harry Potter, and all seven books, exist somehow, somewhere.

a laugh riot, eh? except for Anselm of Canterbury.

he proposed one of the middle period ontological proofs for the existence of God by saying...when we say, God is that which, greater can it cannot be conceived...we are speaking in an intelligible way, which can be understood. thus, what is referred to either exists only in thought, or in both thought and reality. but since in thought we can always conceive of something greater that what we just thought of (but wait! there's more! you get two Snuggies and a Pajama Jean for the same low price, plus separate shipping and handling)

then God must exist in reality.

to put too fine a point on it, Kant countered that existence is not a predicate. that you cannot say of a fire truck, that it is red and has a siren and also exists. things just don't work that way. once you go there, you can posit the existence of all sorts of ultimate things...greatest island, greatest pizza (reader's choice), greatest version ever of "Dark Star".

existence is not a predicate. just as you cannot bring up the subject of the King. because the King is not a subject. try parsing a sentence with those rules.

I will also put too fine a point on my answer to the question posed so so far above, Weary Reader.

be at peace. U.N.C.L.E could be quite good. even beyond Illya Kuryakin's allure to both chicks and unconventional role model seeking guys. beyond star charisma and cool gadgets.

I cite in my defense, "The Never Never Affair", starring Barbara Feldon and Cesar Romero.

it was an inclusion in every U.N.C.L.E episode, the outsider propelled into a world of espionage they had never dreamed of. in this case, the coup is that Barbara already works at U.N.C.L.E, in the Portuguese translation department. but she is bored to distraction, and looking for just a taste of the front lines.

that's all I'll tell. except to say, it's good...watchable today with nary a moment of guilt. you wouldn't say, theatrical, but you would say, involving. and it finds and keeps to its level of cartoon surefootedly.

we come to a storytelling ready to be manipulated, hoping that the teller can do it well. U.N.C.L.E. did sometimes do the job.

and, of course, if teller is sufficiently skillful, then we don't have to be caught wildly suspending our disbelief like children. a real embarrassment saved there.

me, I suspended my disbelief for Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich when they put out their Zorba the Greek sounding hit, "Bend It". I'm lost. those of you who can, save yourselves.

Dave, next visit, let's throw that episode in the DVD player.

p. s. wouldn't this reading have been more fun if you had not Googled the THRUSH answer?

tsk tsk.

p.p.s. I was too young to have caught Bond books, or the movies before Goldfinger. but the organization he battled in the early Ian Fleming books was SMERSH. actually (yes, I Googled this) Stalin made up the name...a Russian acronym, so no letter filling in for me...but the SMERSH in the books was a far broader outfit than Stalin's unit.

U.N.C.L.E., the only one with periods. hmm...

we'll leave CONTROL and KAOS to another time.

two topics, and two half topics:

1. napnea

2. da studio es da bomb!!

taking the second first...I guess the real point of the studio stuff is that I am feeling well enough and strong enough to set it up (sometimes with help), and able to work in it and run it.

weak. on oxygen. still no bargain.

but able to fill in some holes, get some folks what they want.

that is such a dream for me. another Walk in Heaven. yesterday with Don and Mary...until something turns out not to have worked...I was able to fix a couple of things up to give them some options, and put my tracks for them on a hard drive for Jim's studio.

not like climbing a fourteener, I daresay. but a dream for me.

the day before with Lost Alamos was pretty full on. I want to put at least guide vocals on their material, so that even if someone else records the parts for real later, they'll know how the parts were meant to work. plus, there's one song that is finished except for vocals...if we can get those done, my beautiful and expert friend James Tuttle has agreed to mix it, and it could be available for download on the Lost Alamos site...also available as some tangible return on the project I was hired to produce almost three years ago, which became the project of producing us, the band, instead.

I've been saying that what I trade, through these medical days, is one kind of I-don't-know for another. when I went into the hospital, I didn't know. I just didn't. now...I don't know. I just don't.

but I'll take this I-don't-know over that one, all day every day.

I haven't, the Reader may expect, been singing.

if I didn't sing for that many weeks when I was healthy...it took awhile to get my voice to do anything. anything.

putting down guide vocals...my voice started to smooth out a little. it may smooth out more as I reach, if I can continue to.

but the air stuff...I don't know. I just don't. take the oxygen out, do a couple of takes, put it back in. use the studio to the fullest to piece parts.

I joke that I have four O2 tanks in my living room to get more air into my recordings.

but...I sang on the new mic.

I say it's da bomb!

Mary Huckins, bless every cute and talented hair on her head, took pictures of it.

and when I was doing the guide vocals, I tried to get them so that if at some point it became more valuable to have actual Scott vocals on the project than actual good vocals, there would be no oxygen noise, etc. to keep that from happening.

we'll all find out together, shan't we, what is down that road, and how long it winds.

I've held a guitar.

times when I had not played for weeks, even before all of this, it was always a looooong way back.

but outside maybe of general strength issues, it's not like there's a direct major physical impediment stopping me from practicing guitar, maybe kind of getting it back a little.

I'm not promising anyone that I will never play again.

I promise that I'll find the good three notes, and play them first, if I do start to play again.

I realize that, maybe especially for the now ironically named Unassisted Living (Ken Morris, Peggy Dennis, me), that my vocal parts are even more necessary to having a band presentation than any and all instrumental tracks I might have done.

guys, I don't know.

but I'll find out on a great mic.

***********************insert tertiary topic here...the BNB

yes. I have had over a week, maybe two without a Big New Problem. (for a bit, they seemed to be coming two a day)

but today is a day of a BNB

Big New Blessing.

non-medical variety.

and I'm always non-specific about unfathomably wonderful gifts...how big, who gave them...it tends to be embarrassing to folks.

but the efforts in concert of a number of angel people have enabled me to end up with a cable for my studio (and every other music I ever play) that mere mortals could never ever aspire to having. I'm telling you. no one alive would not experience sticker shock at it, and no one alive would believe how generous people , including one I haven't even met, were to make it happen.

Dear Supportive, Enabling Reader, I feel I should tell you those things as well, so as to make the things that inspire me and make me smile do the same for you.

better sound.

may my days here allow for time time time to enjoy it. every pull to not only life but what I make of my life counts towards inspiration and wellness. towards healing and being careful, but not playing small; looking to the future seems like the genius response to what I am going through.

this will help me listen towards the future.

and

maybe

it will allow me to keep 78% of the studio permanently set up in the living room. so each track is easier to approach. without asking folks to change cables and lug stuff.

******end of topic #2 1/2

the joke is, ok, number one, we need to get organized, and B.,

napnea.

that's what my sleep has become. I'll sleep for an hour and a half, be awake 45 minutes, sleep for an hour and a half. if I do it four times a night, I consider I have had a night's sleep.

but it ain't what I want.

maybe I need to look at the naprosyn I'm taking. I don't want naps...I want giant droughts of healing, in sleep. if I am on dilaudid, a morphine, then why is Morpheus no more accommodating?

today's BND...Big New Drug...may solve that.

started the etopaside today.

that's the famous "palliative chemo" drug Dr. Gore prescribed. I've held off taking it, though I've had it since Friday...I wanted a few more days of feeling my best, while company and sessions were coming through.

............see if you can see this coming...I don't know how it will affect me.

so I have nothing scheduled for awhile, for the greatest response- ability.

but, guys...it's a move. on the chessboard. maybe not the chessboard of beating the cancer. but the chessboard of more days like today.

something that could help.

and if it induces a little fatigue...makes me sleep though the night...I could be ready for that.

last 50% topic...

Longsuffering Longterm blog Readers...have you ever seen me use an emoticon?

I'm guessing not.

and it goes with this idea I have about masculinity, which as anyone who knows me knows is really the most important quality I try to cultivate:

I am not cute.

I used to read the Man from U.N.C.L.E books. only to fill the time between when the show was actually airing. I remember the villain of one was named "Tixe Ylno", because his name spelled Exit Only for the western world.

this guy wrote this book in a bar someplace.

anyway, a foxy female spy said to Illya Kuryakin, "say, you're cute!"

he replied, "Madam, I am not cute. A batch of mongrel puppies is cute."

I thought it was a good distinction.

so, leave the emoticons to the mavens of cuteness in this world, say I. but I did kind of decide to strike back when I received some sideways (literally) email from a very cute source, and did this:

l l l l l l l l ( l l l l l l l .................I said, ATTENTION, soldier!

maybe a couple more:

}{ (United Artists, like on the Hard Day's Night album cover!!)

as the British loan officer said, #4# >*

(pound for pound, this is greater than I'm asked to risk)

Scott

p. s. United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. I knew someday, lives would depend on my knowing that answer. like "Klaatu barada nicto" which is what you say in The Day the Earth Stood Still if you need to stop the robot from destroying the earth. thought it might come in handy.

now...without Googling....Mr. Waverly and his boys fought the world conquest dreams of THRUSH.

anyone know what that stood for? I'll write the answer in a subsequent entry if there is popular demand...ok, any demand whatsoever.

palliative chemo.

that's what the genius of Dr. Gore's mind labelled it on her sheet of new medical recommendations.

I think going in to see her was the good idea from my not quite as genius side of the brain trust. compared to the last time I saw her, I'm a different guy.

the whole time I was in hospice, I never made it into the bathroom. now I'm wobbly, but moving from room to room, even putting up and tearing down equipment.

every day still seems better, stronger.

Dr. Gore was very clear. we are not going to cure this thing, she said.

she said, though, to my continued request for a C-T scan and or chest x-rays to determine if the pericardial fluid was returning, if the tumor was shrinking, she said she could tell by seeing me what my story is even better than she could on those scans. I don't believe she knows if my big lung tumor has shrunk, is shrinking...she knows I have not shown any signs of afib for like 5 days now. pulse rate in 70's, and in rhythm.

I went with her. it's obvious I'm doing better.

so I phrased the question, how much healthier do I need to be before we would reach for things to attract even more health...at the risk of something actually curative happening?

she said, the thing about a Phase 1 study drug that would make it...I don't like to say, impossible, she said, but very very very hard...is that they insist you not be on any medications before you enroll. the trouble with the heart would be particularly vexing, in that they don't know what effect a new medication has on a healthy person's heart. they want to make sure the drug is the sole cause of any effect.

heart...and difficulty breathing, the amount of oxygen I'm on.

I can't imagine doing a study and not having the latticework of drugs that has obviously helped me.

so...no Gleevec like study drug for me right now.

but no time like the present, she said, for some low impact, oral, stabilization/ management oriented chemo.

palliative chemo, she called it.

because she is going to see if it can fly under the radar. if I can take the oral chemo and still not bring the division of hospice versus hospital, comfort versus curative, down full force on me.

goals for this new drug, etoposide, would be stunning, stabilizing, even possibly shrinking the cancer. but mostly buying some more time.

I'll pay. buy me some time.

she said, very small side effects compared to anything I've had.

fatigue, nausea, vomiting.

vomiting...haven't had that yet....

she said if she were a gambling woman...which, she said, she is not...she would bet that I would not have any side effects at all.

so we have the drug. I still think I'll start it on Monday rather than tomorrow. Dr. Gore will be gone all next week...resting, I think...she looked so tired today. she would see me the week after...but not, she said, till I have taken a full seven days worth. no point even checking in til then.

I'll spare you the list of other smaller decisions we came to.

except for her saying...I'm a pediatrician. I know butt rash.

she has tricks for it, from caring for kids...

backing off to half a dose of decadron for the afternoon one. less munchies...less speed writing rapping...less awake at night. not easy to cut way back at once...but I like this idea.

fading now...sleep, there is no other lover, I swear I wish to be true, so you can heal me as no one else can.

but...final note...

I asked pointedly if I had heard her say that, if present measures have good outcomes, if I continue getting stronger...that at some point, it would not be impossible to consider a study.

she said she can see these steps towards my comfort and strength possibly leading to the day I could do a study. wouldn't rule it out out of hand.

palliative chemo.

good night, Gentle Reader.

here's what I always meant by "a walk through Heaven"

in my little stitched together firmament, where I don't believe we hold onto our lives for ever but life holds us forever, I have nevertheless had this image from a vaguely New Testament origin.

it's been resonant enough that whether it ever literally happens or not is almost secondary for me.

in this visualization, I am walking through Heaven, with company from my life. I am me, my memory and consciousness continuing,

but not me, in that I've now seen the answers from the back of the book...remember in grade school texts, like math texts, how they would often print the answers to all of the exercises in the back of the book, secure in the knowledge that any student who didn't already understand the process wouldn't be able to make hide nor hair of the answers either?...

so I am walking through Heaven, but not at that point hashing out these answers, secure that even what I do not understand is understood in this realm. no longer taken by anger, suffering.

yeah, what a relief for you and me both.

I take the first walk with my mother, who also is in Heaven...I'm not in this visualization sure who wouldn't get to be there, whose afterlife this would not be...and she is equally free of her anger and suffering. equally more her "real" self, by which I mean, without the agenda that made our lives both miserable when I was a child.

and we are laughing.

I'll come back to that.

also in my firmament quilt is a piece that does too much for me to want to let go of - that , as star children, who we are sent down to to be our parents is based on their need, the world's need at the moment, our ability to withstand the waves of hurt and dark that it will be our lifelong assignment to try to damp down,

those things, and choice...that we volunteer for our parents, that we have something to say about where we go.

so a departing star baby might say, in the way that there is communication there, don't send someone more precious to that man and that woman...that angel boy could never make it. it's a tricky, hard assignment - let me try to be the one to do it.

ok, might come the dispatch, but it isn't going to be easy.

my mother and I are laughing on our debriefing walk.

"man, was I sure right when I picked you! what a mess!"

"ok, ok, but I had my own assignment, and that had been no picnic, either. I mean...I was clueless..."

"well, Mom, we both were clueless."

"but you, you didn't make a damn (sic) thing easier, Scott. here I was, just starting to get around the corner trying to commit to stuffing my angel voice where I'd never hear it and living to express anger...then here's this little ball of will, everywhere, yelling out everything that showed me every day how impossible that choice was going to be!"

laughter

"want me to say I'm sorry, Ma?"

"no, no, it's why you were there...I just...if I'd known..."

"you knew"

"yeah, just...well...wasn't that a time?"

"quite a time, quite a place, quite an assignment. I took on about as much water as I was able to bail for most of it."

"yes, and I didn't notice your choices for light and for anger springing all the way back once I was watching you from up here!"

laughter

"in that world, we're always looking for some scapegoat to blame our choice for either life of anger on...someone or something about life that made us close down, go away..."

"Scott, I wasn't the reason for your angry choices any more than you were mine, no matter how many times we tried to say we were."

"I know I tamped down some small bit of wave from the Depression and the World Wars, but I was an angry guy...not clued in by any means, but..."

"but you did what you were meant to do when we had you...to do one person's share towards light and growth, to go beyond us. I was always so proud of you up here, even when you were still trying to figure things out."

"and Mom, as determined as you were not to show me sometimes, I never lost sight of your halo, of this you. decades later, I would find some capacity for beauty, some taste for the light of that world, and realize that it had its origins in what I had seen in you."

"well, couldn't we have completed our assignments without being quite so hard on each other???"

laughter

"nah."

a series of walks through Heaven, with my father, my sister, maybe others I was touched by in my time in the material world, now fast becoming, in Heaven, totally immaterial.

I go through this long exegesis because, 1. I can. pixels are cheap., 2. if not here, where?, but

because this last week has been a series of walks through Heaven for me.

even though I am still an angry, willful cuss somewhere between curmudgeon, cantankerous, and contrarian, holding doors closed for decades just because that is what I do, I have felt more ready in my present context to give my arms a rest and look at where things are today.

I pretend otherwise, but it's probably the forced perspective of the guy considering Transition.

this has been the most social two weeks on my life. it continues.

you guys know, I would be doing gigs, sessions, meet and interact with people on that basis. push the button for me today, and I'd go right back to it.

I haven't chosen to "visit " much. schmuck.

I'm choosing it now.

ok, dammit, I'll name names.

it was a walk through Heaven yesterday and today with Dave Bell, my archetypal friend from high school, in some ways my last (til modern times) male friend.

it's lightening the relationship to call it a Bromance. we were close. to say we had stuff that got in the way sometimes between us is also to just say...we were close.

in the brother - Lennon/ McCartney - kind of usual relationship way, we started out by marvelling at our common interests...reflective thought, playing guitar, listening to music, maybe a healthy side order of living in the late 60's and whatever that next decade was.

at some point, the appetite for self definition starts to ask for distinctions within the partnership. I 'm still becoming shocked at realizing how competitive I could feel with David...who sees himself full of "can'ts" but in my eyes had a lot going for him in the world I would never have...

over time, Dave found the love of his life (I didn't), took on "the beast" and became a lawyer, had kids, and and became much more involved in philosophy and religion than I knew I would ever. in my own standing in my way way, I kind of took on the music and more music aspect of life. kept reaching for better sound, more playing music and the kinds of skills it got me to develop.

we didn't stay in touch so much after awhile, and I don't know that either of us went on to new frontiers of male friendship, either. we had the warm feeling of having had something, the ache of missing it.

I felt a beautiful generous Dave who flew right here to see me this week. not above reminiscing, not held back about sharing his present stuff with me. fun, and a walk in Heaven for me. I felt there was much left undone, unsaid when it was over.

but I had I had a strong sense of ok, back then was then, and the 80's was then, and three years ago was then, and this isn't.

I think if I Miracle Cured...I'd want to have some times with this guy.

a walk through Heaven.

I should sleep. but he wasn't the only one. I've heard people say to me in the past two weeks, oh, yeah, I'm over all that old shit you and I went through now. it's an amazing thing to hear. and can I face straight up in the mirror that I've been more ready to be over that old shit now too?

I'd better.

I have been for a few years now threatened by new male friendships. as in, Scott, let this in or just give up.

if occasionally challenged, still I don't give up. atrial retentive little Scott boy. you can't control which way you're heading always, but you can always control which way you're facing.

I'm going to try to speak with Dr. Gore by phone tomorrow. it's time to find out some stuff.