Socialize it!

I am a big fan of socialized medicine, and cannot understand why other people do not feel the same way. I do know that there is a political philosophy where a big government that controls too many facets of an everyday person's life is not liked. I agree with that in theory to an extent. I don't see why the government should be spending my hard earned tax dollars (and everyone else's tax dollars) on things that don't work or programs that did work and now either don't or are useless. The first thing that comes to mind of wastes of tax dollars is the current war in Iraq, but I'll leave that alone. There are other things that should be fixed first, like farm subsidies. There was a period after World War II when the US government paid farmers more money for their crops, or paid them not to grow anything at all, to keep prices artificially high. This practice still goes on, and it doesn't seem right that here in the US we are growing food that we don't need, and protecting high prices on the food that is grown.
Back to my main topic: I don't understand why there is such a big outcry against socialized medicine from the common man. I would think that it would be a good idea if a person was able to walk into a hospital without having to show insurance cards, and wonder what the copay is, or what the deductible is, or wonder if the insurance is going to approve the visit at all. I would like to think that the government should provide the basic services, and health is a biggie. Without people, there is no America to protect. How can people engage in a war on terror if they have no insurance because they keep on raising the rates?
That might be a bit of a stretch, but I can't understand why so much money is going for national defense and so little is going for health care and research for potentially curing diseases. Oh,
that's right I do, special interests. It turns out that the manufacturing sector in this country has a lot of pull, and they get the tax breaks and the legislation. And then there is the pharmaceutical industry. I understand that they have to make money in order to run their businesses and to pay the inflated salaries of the CEOs but some people need drugs. We eliminated polio in the developed world, but it still exists in some countries in the world. There are AIDS patients who can't afford drugs because they had the bad luck to be born in Africa (sarcasm of course). They need drugs and the multi-billion dollar drug companies won't sell the drugs for cheap or allow generics to be made because of patents they hold, which keep the drugs out of the hands of the people who need them the most. In the US, the drug companies are allowed to charge whatever they like for their drugs, but in other countries (Canada, France, UK) the government refuses to pay over a certain amount and the companies always cave in. They then make up for their losses by charging us a shitload. It is very sickening.

Boring!

I am currently bored by the state of modern music. I'm not just talking about rock music (which has been in decline for a while) but the whole deal, even hip-hop which is enjoying its popularity.
I was watching MTV's Sucker Free yesterday, and the two videos that came on where the new T.I song, and one of those Southern rappers with a song based on a dance (I don't remember who it was, but it doesn't matter). The T.I. video had Wyclef Jean in it, because he produced it. It wasn't anything special, usual T.I. The next video I think is the epitome of what is wrong with rap. It isn't the guy's fault, I understand he wants to make a video and a record and make some money, but the record companies seem interested in songs that they can sell rather than establishing artists with staying power. More one hit wonders plugged into a formula: catchy songs with dances that people can dance along to the song to. But it isn't just the danceable stuff (or snap as my friend Matt calls it) there are other songs by rappers and groups of rappers that will be one hit wonders: "Party like a rockstar", "A bay bay", "Sexy Lady". This seems to be the trend unless there is some "hardcore hip hop" that gets popular or gets exposure, which doesn't seem all that likely.
Rock music is in a sad state also. There are new bands that are gaining popularity and exposure, but they have a very generic sound. I was driving yesterday and heard the new single by the band Flyleaf. It was an alright song, nothing too special, very generic rock sound to it. I liked the chorus melody, but it seemed like that something was missing from it. That is how I feel about the majority of the rock bands now. Nickleback, Breaking Benjamin, Staind, 3 Doors Down, they all have a generic rocking, but not rocking too hard sound. It is almost baffling that they are getting popular (I say almost because most of the people I know like all that stuff).
Another thing that bothers me about rock music is K-Rock in New York. After Howard Stern left the station to go to Sirius, they switched to an all talk format. They called it Free FM, because satelitte radio is a pay service, but you can get talk for free from them. A few months ago they switched back to the station that they used to be, because of the failure of the talk format, now with Opie and Anthony in the morning and music all day after them. The station is back, and so is the same exact playlist. I don't understand why in 2007 they play the same music they did in 1997. Stone Temple Pilots, Metallica, Nirvana, all the bands that I grew tired of because I heard the same songs over and over again on the station. They do try to play newer stuff, but it is new stuff by established artists like Incubus and Tool. They do play some of the newer bands, like Flyleaf, but that is usually reserved for their online "station" called K-Rock 2, which I think is terrible. I don't understand why they don't play the newer or less established bands on the air like they used to. They used to have different shows and programming, now they are almost like a rock jukebox, I don't even think they hired DJs yet, and they switched over 4 months ago.

2007 NFL season predictions

It is the most wonderful time of the NFL season, training camp and the beginning of the pre-season. I say the most wonderful time, because for a few weeks, most of the teams in the NFL think they have a chance of winning the Super Bowl, and in reality there are 6 or so teams with a legitimate shot at it.
Now, it is time for me to make my predictions for the upcoming NFL season. Division winners are at the top and in bold and the wild card teams are in italics.

AFC North
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Cleveland

AFC South
Indianapolis
Tennessee
Jacksonville
Houston

AFC East
New England
New York
Miami
Buffalo

AFC West
San Diego
Denver
Kansas City
Oakland

NFC North
Chicago
Green Bay
Detroit
Minnesota

NFC South
New Orleans
Carolina
Tampa Bay
Atlanta

NFC East
Dallas
Philadelphia
New York
Washington

NFC West
Seattle
St. Louis
San Fransisco
Arizona

Playoffs:
First Round:
AFC
Baltimore vs. Denver
Indianapolis vs. Cincinnati
New England and San Diego have byes

NFC
Seattle vs. Carolina
Dallas vs. Philadelphia
Chicago and New Orleans have byes

Second Round:
AFC
New England vs. Baltimore
San Diego vs. Indianapolis

NFC
Chicago vs. Philadelphia
New Orleans vs. Carolina

Third Round
AFC
New England vs. San Diego
NFC
New Orleans vs. Chicago

Super Bowl
San Diego vs. New Orleans
winner
San Diego

There are my predictions for the NFL season. I expect these predictions to be wrong, but screw it, that is why I can edit the posts later.

What it is shorty

I'll be the first to admit that I am a Kelly Clarkson fan. I was a little late getting into the game, I'm not one of those who followed her career all the way from American Idol, but got into her music after the second album. I think most people got into her music after the second album, which went multi-platinum, and made her an international superstar. Now she has a third album out that has much controversy around it. Apparently she got into a bit of a tiff with her label head (Clive Davis) over the marketability of the album. I thought that it was up to the label to sell it, and the artist to record what they wanted. I don't understand how some people get jobs as A&Rs or CEOs in the music industry because it all seems like it is a matter of taste or opinion. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff that the major labels thought would sell that didn't and vice versa.
I can't understand why Kelly Clarkson got so much heat for the album that she put out. The album is still a pop album, it isn't like she put out a death metal album or anything. It has songs that can be played on the radio, and it does have the slower ballady type of stuff. The songs sound like any pop stuff that you can hear today, nothing that is too different. The sequencing on the album is a bit odd, it goes from upbeat to ballad too often. But overall I think it is a good album, nothing that will ostracize her from the pop world.
The main point of contention that her label will have with the album is that it didn't sell like the previous one. The album has barely went gold (500,000 copies) in about 5 weeks since its release while the previous one sold over 6 million copies in the US. But I would figure when you sell millions of records for the company, they should be able to give you some kind of freedom or input into your next album. They used to do that back in the day, Led Zeppelin III had cutouts and whacky artwork because they sold so much with the first two albums. Shit, they even got their own imprint on Atlantic (Swan Song Records) because they sold so much.
My main point is that they shouldn't hate on Kelly. I think it is a good thing when an artist who is perceived as a puppet tries to do their own thing. She is done being the singer that the American Idol people want her to be, and I applaud her. If anything the whole thing has kept her name in the news, I saw something on MSN today about whether or not her career is over because of the whole new album deal, and it doesn't appear to be. Everyone has hard times and what not in their career, but if they do what they want then that is good for them.

Henry Foolin'

If there is one thing I cannot understand, it is how movies are done nowadays. It seems like the big Hollywood studios have no problem rehashing the same story lines, with new characters and locations. I guess it makes a shitload of money so they do it.
Another thing I cannot understand is sequels. There are a lot of sequels being made, it seems like everyone wants a franchise. But sometimes the sequel is unnecessary and feels like it is only made for the money. One example is the movie Fay Grim. Fay Grim is the sequel to the movie Henry Fool. Henry Fool is about this eccentric guy who comes to a shit town and gets a creepy looking garbage man (Simon) to start writing poetry. Simon causes controversy and eventually gets his stuff published, and becomes a popular poet, after his previous attempt was not successful. Henry during the whole movie, is trying to sleep with any woman with legs (he was previously arrested for statutory rape and sounds like a pseudo-intellectual spouting cliches (" An honest man is always in trouble, remember that Simon.", being an example). Later in the movie, Henry ends up knocking up Simon's sister (Fay) and they get married. Henry comes home one day to find a neighborhood girl, Pearl in the basement apartment. Pearl's mom was being beaten by her husband through the whole movie, and after Pearl says that she is afraid of going home, Henry decides that he is going to do something about it. He goes over and ends up killing the stepfather, and gets in arrested. It turns out that Pearl offered to give Henry sexual favors for killing the stepfather, and Henry once bailed out has to go out on the lamb. Henry escapes using Simon's passport and plane ticket (he was supposed to go to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature) and that is the end. It was a pretty good movie, I know my language doesn't seem like the best, but I liked it, I thought it was pretty well acted.
Henry Fool came out in 1997. Ten years passed and the writer/director of the movie wanted to do a sequel. The sequel is called Fay Grim and continues with the story of everyone. Well, not exactly. It turns out that Henry is now a big star since he bailed on the charges, and his memoirs are a hot item. There is now an international web of intrigue that surrounds the characters as everyone wants a piece of Henry's memoirs to make some money off of them. They contain his times in Chile during the overthrow of Allende which implicates the CIA agent (played by Jeff Goldblum in his worst role ever). In order to get the memoirs back, Fay goes to Europe to get the volumes that the French have. It turns out that the Israelis switched the books, and they contain codes for satellites. Fay gets the books, but the French agent switches them for the real ones, and Fay ends up with them after secret agents are shot in a stairwell (in the worst action scene ever.....they use slow motion frame by frame type of thing that conveys no action....and there is no blood, I have never seen a movie where people get shot fall down to the ground and don't bleed....how are they hurt). Fay sneaks away to Istanbul to find the other books and Henry. While in Istanbul, she meets with a man who is a terrorist who Henry tutored for a bit (like Simon), she apparently wants to see Henry who is under the care of the same man. After a bit, Fay gets a call to drop the books off on a ferry that is going across the Black Sea. Jeff Goldblum's character chases Fay down to Istanbul and searches her room. Fay calls her friend who was waiting in the hotel room for her to come back, and threatens the CIA agent. They later are looking for Fay on the street, when her friend escapes and they get in a van to follow someone who just committed a crime, when it explodes. Fay's friend meets her at the sweet shop, and is shot by a cop. Apparently she is considered a Russian terrorist, but they never really elaborated on that. Fay goes down to the dock, where Simon (who started the movie in jail and got out as a deal for Fay going to Europe to get the books) put the books on the ferry to have them smuggled to Odessa. Fay ends up missing the boat, and as it is pulling away we see Henry looking back at them. The end.
As I write this now, I still have no idea what the fuck was going on. Apparently this kid touching poet was an international man of mystery who was in Chile and Afghanistan and all these other places when things got hairy, which is totally different from the parolee who drank a lot of beer and chain smoked. I cannot put the two pieces together. It wouldn't be that bad if the movie stood on it's own, and we had no previous experience with the characters. But after you spend two and a half hours (Henry Fool was long, but still a good movie) developing characters, it makes sense to use the same characters in the sequel, not to use the names and have different people with different emotions and such. Simon had one facial expression in the first movie, which was and expression less, but in the second movie, he moved his face muscles to wince and such. I was confused with all that. Also, Fay was a white trash girl who would fuck anyone who moved in the first movie, and in the second movie she is responsible while caring for her child and acting like she cared about things. I couldn't follow that.
I wish I could ask Hal Hartley (the guy who wrote and directed both movies) why the second movie was so different from the first. I say I wish, because his website has no email link on it. Only information about buying and distributing his movies.
I must say that Fay Grim is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. The budget seemed it was wasted on the location shooting (Berlin, New York, Paris, Istanbul) so they didn't have any money left for special effects (remember what I said about the shootout, it happened two other times), editing and the cast. I know the cast (especially Jeff Goldblum and Parker Posey) aren't bad actors, but they give the worst performances of their lives in this movie. It is trash, and like most bad movies, everything has to be right to have it be bad. The script, the directing, the acting, and it all comes into line in this piece of horse shit. I cannot say enough about how bad it is. It is in my opinion the worst sequel ever. Go and see it if you want to see a confusing movie, that will leave you asking questions. Questions about why the movie was made in the first place.

The earth is alive?

This Saturday 7/7/07 marks Al Gore's Live Earth concerts for awareness about global warming. While I agree with the cause, I don't really see how a concert will make a difference. They tried global concerts for awareness a few years ago with Live 8, for debt relief to Africa. They staged free concerts around the world, and in between acts showed videos of people who supported the cause. Most of the people where wealthy entertainers who could have ponied up some dough for causes like this. Or maybe it is just the image that they set out there, that they are rich, I don't know. But not asking for money, only awareness seems weird to me.
The Live Earth concerts, for the most part, do charge the people who attend them. The concert at Giants Stadium in my home state of New Jersey features some big acts like Kelly Clarkson and Bon Jovi, and I know those tickets weren't free. That makes me think that they are actually raising funds for the cause and not just paying lip service to the whole thing. I do know that Mr. Gore is an environmental activist with his speeches and movies, but with concerts the whole message thing might seem tacked on. There haven't been big political concerts in while, since the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, that have raised significant awareness for a cause. There could have been another one, but that was the last one I remember, and that one faded from existence. The concerts for a cause seem to be a passing trend every few years and I wish it wasn't like that, but getting all these big acts on one stage for a cause does seem a bit empty. I would rather see the artists donate some of their money to the cause at hand, and do the show for free, or not charge people to go.
I would like to see Live Earth be a success, and that there is something being done about global warming or climate change, whatever you call it. But I really cannot stand Al Gore. I didn't vote for him once, and I won't vote for him again if he runs and wins the nomination of a party (I doubt he'll run or win). But global warming is a serious issue that is being addressed by these concerts and I do hope that awareness is raised, not just among concert goers, but by people who are in governments who can do something about it.
On another note, I'm glad to see that Kelly Clarkson is doing a show this summer. She recently canceled her entire summer tour due to lack of ticket sales, due to the buzz (or lack their of) surrounding her new album. I am a Kelly Clarkson fan, more so for looks than her music, but I do enjoy her music. She did a half hour long special on Fuse a few weeks ago, where she sang some new stuff. She looked really good on it, I like the chunky not on tour Kelly, rather than the skinny Kelly. From what I've heard of her new album, it is pretty good. I liked the last one (Breakaway) and from what I've heard, the new one (My December) is more personal and dark.

Something I can't understand

For some reason, it is the minor annoyances that I find the most troubling instead of the big life and death things. While I was at the hospital last Wednesday for my chemotherapy treatment, the port that they implanted in me didn't work the way they wanted it to. The whole thing behind the port is supposed to be a place where with one needle they can inject me full of cancer killing goodness and they can also take some blood out to test it. They were unable to take the blood out with the first try, and were forced to do it the other way. After the nurse took my blood, she put a cotton pad on it and taped it down. The tape they use is the stickiest stuff that I have ever dealt with in my memory. I have been going through all this medical stuff that long, so I don't consider myself an expert on medical supplies, but this could be the worst tape ever. It has been more than a week since I took the stuff off (8 days) and I still have a mark on my arm where it was. It looks almost like a burn scar. It is really weird. I never knew of tape that ripped off part of your skin. As if it isn't bad enough that I have cancer, now I have to worry about the tape they use. Maybe I should steal some of the tape and use it on some people. That would be funny.

Nascar is not a sport

With all the hype and attention that is surrounding NASCAR recently, I would like to remind everyone that it is not a sport. I refuse to put people who drive cars in a circle for hours in the same category with people who run around and throw a ball around a field. People who drive cars around in a circle for hours are NOT athletes. NOT athletes. I understand that it takes some kind of skill and practice to drive at high speeds around the track, but they are not athletes. People who exert some kind of physical ability like running, jumping and throwing are athletes.
I don't understand the whole NASCAR thing, I'll admit. I don't understand how people could watch on TV or live cars driving around in circles. Especially cars that are no more than moving billboards. I especially don't understand why they have NASCAR on the radio. Where my dad lives in Virginia, they cover the races on the radio. With real sports I can understand listening to it on the radio, but in NASCAR the cars are always in motion, and it wouldn't be exciting unless there is something happening (like a crash). It seems like it is almost a completely visual experience.
Another thing that annoys me is arena football. Arena football is football played by guys who couldn't get into the NFL or CFL or NFL Europe. Saying that I can't get into any of those leagues, but would you watch me on TV? Then why watch second (maybe even third) rate football played on half the field and indoors. It just seems wrong. The quarterback will have 5 touchdowns a game, but the field is so small that all you can do is pass.
I used to play soccer when I was younger, and during the winter the thing to do was to play indoor soccer. Something seemed wrong with that, and the same thing bothers me about arena football. It is weird and I don't like it. Yes, that is what it all comes down to. Canadian football is weird also (with it's 55 yard, or centre line and it's 3 downs) but I've gotten used to it. And their players do try to play in the NFL, the Jets signed Ricky Ray of the Edmonton Eskimos a few years back after they won the Grey Cup. He didn't play, but at least he got the chance. I can't think of any arena football guys who got a chance besides Kurt Warner, because the quarterbacks in arena football have inflated passing stats because of the nature of the game, unlike the CFL.
Canadian football is a sport, arena football is not. Fuck arena football.

The $10,000 question

I'm a third of the way through my chemo regimen and the bills are mounting up. I have applied for charity care through the hospital, but that won't cover everything. I have bills that are from people associated from the hospital, or do work in the hospital but charge for their services separately. The Rutgers insurance covered some of the biopsy of my neck, but nothing else. I have a $7,000 bill from the radiologist, where I got testing done, sitting around. I also have a bill for over $1,500 from the anesthesiologist which was due in full upon me getting it. The total of the bills that I have is over $10,000. I'm not sure how I am going to be able to pay for all of this. One of my friends suggested that I declare bankruptcy in order to get time to pay for all the bills. That seems a little rash right now, since I don't know what would go into that and how much everything will be at the end of the treatment. But for now, I'll deal with the treatment and the side effects of it all and worry about how to pay for it later.