Facebook Follies (Updated!)

I joined Facebook this week. I’m not really the last holdout, but I'll bet I’m close. I actually did join a few years ago,  and to show you how serious I was about it, this was my profile photo*:

I signed on and immediately was swarmed, like a hive of angry murder hornets, with people who were clamoring to be my friend. I panicked, signed off and deleted my account. I batted away all entreaties to rejoin from friends until this week. I have an ulterior motive, of course. I'm writing a book, Tougher Than the Rest, a fictionalized version of my life, centered around the time leading up to my double lung transplant**

I wanted to promote the book, so I figured Facebook was the way to go. I signed on and quickly made a bunch of new friends and reacquainted myself with some old ones. Cool. 

I did post the first five pages of Tougher... and received some nice comments. On the advice of a friend, I tagged about nine friends to alert them to the post. Facebook quickly flagged that egregious behavior with "Your comment goes against our Community Standards so only you can see it."

Facebook asked ne if I disagreed with the decision and I said no, although I wished I could have said "Fuck no."

An hour or so later, my stepsister sent me a message saying she enjoyed the post, and ended with "Love you." I sent her a message that said, "Love you too," which was flagged with (see above).I disagreed with that, too.

My friend Carl saw a post recently that said, "I can't wait for Joe Biden to die,"  which did not violate community standards. Maybe I'll send a post that says, "I love Joe Biden," just to see what happens. 

I don't think I'm long for Facebook. 

Addendum: This racist, misogynist, incendiary, hateful, and overall dickish comment was flagged by Facebook. It was the answer to a nice message from a friend about my writing: 

* For you kids out there, that's the famous mugshot of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, not really me.

** If you regular readers of The Ego Has Landed are sick of hearing about the book, try to imagine how sick of talking about it I am.

Song of the Day: Roger Clyne was a member of the Refreshments, who were responsible for the theme to King of the Hill, the greatest TV theme of all time. This is from their album, Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy.

 

Bonus song! (How could I resist?)

Plastic Plea

I’ve been kicking it old school* with my transplant-related diabetes for going on nineteen years. I’m type 1, which means I’m insulin-dependent. That has required me to check my glucose levels by pricking my various fingers about twenty-seven-thousand times** over the years. Yes, ouch. High glucose readings (generally, above 180) usually mean I need to compensate for my pancreatic insufficiency by injecting insulin. Despite how onerous it all sounded back in 2004, I got the hang of it fairly quickly. My A1C, a measurement of average blood sugar over a three month span, has mostly remained under 7%, the generally accepted baseline for diabetes.  I consider myself both lucky and proud.

I saw my endocrinologist today and he gently suggested, for the fourth or fifth straight visit, that I join the 21^st century (my words) and graduate from all that finger stickin’ to a Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitor. A GCM, a sensor that is a disc about the size of a quarter, attaches to my belly with a plastic applicator and, through apparently some sort of witchcraft, sends continuous glucose readings to my phone.  Each sensor lasts for ten days, and then you just pop it off and attach another. How can you beat that, right?

Well, mostly. The problem isn’t with the GCM, which works very well. The problem is with the delivery system. Each new sensor comes packaged inside the applicator and after the sensor is applied, Dexcom says on their website, “throw out the sensor and applicator following local guidelines biohazard waste.” That big hunk of plastic, the size of a urine sample cup?*** I was so disappointed to find that to be the case, that there isn’t a program to return those for sterilization and reuse. This world is drowning in plastic, and more than ten million Americans tossing out those cups every ten days, well…

I tried emailing Dexcom to discuss this subject. If they answer I’ll tell you what they said. 

* The first and last time I will ever use that expression.

** I did the math.

*** See?

                 

Song of the Day: Mike Campbell, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his new band, the Dirty Knobs. They already have a second album, but this is the title track from their first. Kinda like Tom Petty meets the Stones.: 

He Don’t Want to Grow Up

On August 28th, 1990, my friend and coworker Daina told me some new guy was starting work that day. "His name is Carl Cafarelli, and you're gonna love him. He's so funny and he loves music as much as you do," she told me.

Two understatements.

Daina introduced me to Carl, and I said, "Too bad about Stevie Ray, huh?" (Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash the previous evening.)

And Carl said, the very first thing he ever said to me, "That's what he gets for flying LaBamba Airlines."

As he likes to say, "You gotta be quick!"

The very swell 443 Social Club on Burnet Avenue in Syracuse last night held, as Carl put it, "the world's loudest book release party in recent memory" to celebrate his very swell new book, Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With the Ramones. His book is available locally and also directly from Rare Bird Records.

The "loudest" part was provided by Perilous, a band featuring members of "regional superstars, The Trend, Pauline and the Perils, Hurtin' Units, and Screaming Meemies” as well as former and current Flashcube Paul Armstrong's Boston-based band 1.4.5. Earplugs were available but were no match for the sonic (and excellent) assault from both bands.  

Carl read a few excerpts from the book and then ended the evening by, no doubt, fulfilling a lifelong dream as he, backed by 1.4.5,  sang "Rockaway Beach.”

Song of the Day: (This is where Carl's video would go if I weren't sixty-six years old and knew how to imbed it), The original will have to do:

 

Excitable Boy

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced thirteen new members this week, and I felt very old reading the list (that's because I am old.*) I applauded the choices of Link Wray (why did it take so long?) and the Spinners (ditto) but was mystified by some others because (*see above). 

I am accustomed to the angry and bitter tenor in the weeks that precede the announcement of new members to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Baseball fans are, to use the technical term, lunatics. Often, all that teeth-gnashing leads to exactly zero inductees. The (possibly) best player of all time, Barry Bonds and the (possibly) best pitcher, Roger Clemens, are essentially banned by the writers over suspicion of steroid use (the suspicions are very likely true, but without absolute proof, how do you leave them out?) 

Sorry for the digression. This was supposed to be about the Rock Hall. Anyway, I was saddened that, nearly twenty years after his death, Warren Zevon was once again passed over. He had a long and critically acclaimed career, with the commercial highlight his 1978 album, Excitable Boy. That album featured the FM smash, "Werewolves of London," and other sardonic songs such as "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," "Lawyers Guns and Money," and the title track, which contains the romantic lyrics:

After ten long years they let him out of the home

Excitable boy, they all said

He dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones.

Well, he's just an excitable boy

How do you leave a guy like that out of the Hall of Fame?

 

Song of the Day:  You probably know Linda Ronstadt's version of this song. Warren's is a lot harder edged. Listen to the last verse. Very different from Linda's.

I take solace in the fact that if Zevon was alive, he wouldn't give a shit about being skipped over.

 

Poverty

No, not the economic condition of lacking enough money for housing, food and other essentials.

Poverty is a cat. My nephew Ben is staying with me for awhile and he brought his three-year old black-as-the-depths-of-outer-space cat. Ben named him "Poverty" as a nod to his (Ben's) economic state. Ben (not Poverty) is working hard at his new part-time job and hopes to get a car soon.

Poverty is curious and gets into everything. He also likes to scratch the furniture. Ben got him a scratching post, to which Poverty says, "Nah."  I bought some spray that is supposed to stop the scratching, but hahaha. I've been using a spray bottle to condition him, still to no avail. Otherwise, he is a well-behaved cat, content to, like most cats, laze away most of the day, When I'm watching TV he will hop up on my lap and put his face about three millimeters away from mine, then settle in and snuggle with me. 

The three of us are still adjusting to each other, but I think things are gonna work out fine.

Song of the Day: The original--by Eddie and the Hot Rods--is supremely swell. This Flashcubes version destroys it. 

Just a song this time

I mean, what else do you need? 

Thanks to all of you who took the time to say you liked the book so far. I appreciate it.

Song of the Day: A deep, deep cut, this one from Bruce's box set, The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. One day, I repeated it six or seven times in the car, the mark of a great song--or a madman. Maybe both. 

.

(Title)??

9:00 PM: Ready to write a scintillating blog post. Ready to go!

9:02: Will put some music on for inspiration.

9:02-9:09: Hit “shuffle” after unable to decide what to play.

9:10: Don’t like that song. Skip.

9:10:10: Skip.

9:10:21: Skip.

9:11: Good song. Ok, here we go.

9:11-9:12: (Taps fingers).Stares at blank screen.

9:14: Skip.

9:15: Hey, where’s my phone? Uses “Find My Phone”.

9:16: Found phone but battery is at 8%.

9:17: Locate a charger, plug in phone. Says “Software Update” available. Might as well do it now.

9:18: Stares at blank screen.

9:18:20: Skip.

9:19: Ooh, that index finger fingernail is bugging me. Get nail clippers.

9:20-9:22: Might as well trim all of them.

9:23: Maybe I’ll make some coffee.

9:24: Stares at blank screen.

9:26: Skip.

9:27: Pours a cup of coffee, then throws it in the sink. What was I thinking? It's too late for coffee.

9:29: Puts fingers on keyboard, ready to type. Ok, I just need a title!

9:30: Hear a beep. Was that the smoke alarm? Tests both alarms, all okay.

9:31: Skip.

9:32: Stares at blank screen.

9:34: Hears the beep again. Pauses the music and listens for a minute. Nothing.

9:35: Skip.

9:36: Stares at blank screen. Oh, hell, I’ll tackle this tomorrow.

9:37: Skip.

9:38: Shuts computer off.

Song of the Day: Ian Hunter will be eighty-four in June. Four years older than Joe Biden. This song features the soon to be eighty-three Ringo on drums and the relatively youthful former Heartbreaker Mike Campbell on guitar.