Howdy Y'all & Happy Holidays! I'll say that as I know people of many faiths...not everyone celebrates Christmas. Deal with it.
If you've been following my saga, then you know that life has taken an upswing for me lately. It's been a really rough couple of years...but it's all working out. Whew!
Over the past year, my typically crappy health took yet another turn, and I was diagnosed with diabetes (aka...The Beetus). That was all I needed to hear! Aside from the physical complications that come along with it, it's a damned expensive disorder to have...especially for the poor and uninsured...like me!
Luckily, my broke ass had found the Birmingham Free Clinic, down in Pittsburgh's Southside. WOW! What a great bunch! I contacted them last spring. I was broke, just about to run out of my heart medication, and really didn't know what to do. (For you Fox News lovers out there, NO...going to the ER is not a viable option. An ER visit costs, usually, $1500-2000.00. A doctor's office visit is usually $120-200.00. If one doesn't have the latter, they surely can't afford the former.)
I looked online for Pittsburgh free clinics and found the Birmingham Free Clinic (run by the evil empire itself, UPMC). I sent them an email, explaining my situation and asking if they could help. Due to the overwhelming number of poor and uninsured in the area, they are usually swamped on the few days per week they can see patients. It basically works on a 1st come, 1st serve lottery...and on a good day, they can accept 20 patients. This means showing up a few hours before they even open...and still no guarantee you'll see a doctor.
On my 1st visit, I wasn't going to make the cut. As soon as they opened the door, the folks waiting swarmed! I was clearly (and loudly) dismayed. One of the nurses asked what my visit was for, and I told her it was for my heart medication. She snuck me in! (God bless you little lady!)
Since then, the BFC has been my source for health care...and I'll tell you this for nothing, THEY DO A GREAT JOB! They always make sure I have my medication...especially the one that I wasn't taking regularly because of it's price. In the overall scheme of things, it's not that the medication was overly expensive...but most months I had to choose between that pill and, oh say...the light bill. Or food. Not a fun position to be in.
Now before you ask "Why didn't you just apply for welfare and medical assistance?"...I did. And was turned down every time. The next time some talking head tells you that the 'gubment' is 'giving away benefits to illegals and welfare cheats', you tell them I said they're full of shit. Your chances of being approved are only slightly better than winning the lottery. Even with a history of chronic health conditions and a negative cash flow, I was still turned down.
The folks at the BFC took excellent care of me! In fact, they even made sure that I got my annual blood work (which I hadn't had for 2 years) to make sure that my meds weren't destroying my liver. On the down side, this same blood work is also what diagnosed my diabetes. On the upside, the folks at the BFC went out of their way to help me out! I have since lost 30+ pounds, my blood sugar is perfectly normal, and I'm hoping to be off of my diabetes medication by spring. Yeah...that's how good they are! Some of the staff even call just to check in on me and make sure I'm OK. Now THAT, my friends, is service! Tell you what...go price the cost of blood work. If your insurance covers it, be thankful!
Like I said, things are on the upswing! I'm not out of the red yet...but I have a new, decent paying job that I enjoy. I've had some money coming in recently, and I've made a decision: this is going to be my Christmas gift...the gift of being able to give and help out someone else. I think that truly is in the spirit of the season.
Hey, money is tight for everyone...I understand that. Everyone is out spending money on presents, and cookies, and all of the good stuff. But...if you can, donate a few bucks to the Birmingham Free Clinic. It's a gift that will definitely keep on giving. You will be helping out a fellow human being who really needs your help. Maybe they just need an employment physical so they can start a job, or maybe, like I was, they're an undiagnosed & uninsured person with a chronic illness. You might just help save a life. So, if you can afford a couple of bucks, donate. If you're really strapped, I understand. I've been there. But if you can help out...do it. It's the best gift you can give.
Donations
How You Can Help
In order to continue to provide the best possible care to our community’s uninsured and underserved, the PHCUP is always in need of corporations and individual donors who underwrite the cost of supplies and medicines:
Your Donation of $20 provides an uninsured patient with one primary care clinic visit, including pharmacy services. (Actual cost per visit is $120—$100 in-kind provided by volunteer health professionals).
Your Donation of $50 provides an uninsured, diabetic patient with one month of medication.
Your Donation of $100 buys three new blood pressure cuffs, or more than two-months’ worth of multiple medications for an uninsured patient with high blood pressure.
Clinical Support - $10,000 needed annually for medications, equipment, medical supplies, immunizations, and patient education materials.
For more information on ways to support PHCUP, please contact Gary Dubin at (412) 647-9113 or dgary@pmhsf.org. Donations to the PHCUP are tax-deductible.
The BFC helped me. I plan to help them as much as I can. It'd be great if you could too! Here's the link for more info:
https://www.dom.pitt.edu/dgim/phcup/donations.html
Happy Holiday to all of you and here's wishing you and yours and happy, joyful, and prosperous new year!
-MM
Friday, December 19, 2014
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
I Can't Breathe!
"I can't breathe!"
If you've never experienced this, then you don't know what scary is. I've experienced it a few times. Twice, due to using too many drugs, a few times due to reactive asthma, and once when I was literally choking to death. (I was clinically dead for 7 minutes, followed by a week in a coma) I've had guns in my face. I've been stabbed. I crashed a car at 120mph. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is as terrifying as not being able to breathe.
Now imagine that the reason you can't breathe is because another person, another human being, is causing this. Worse still, imagine the person causing you to NOT BREATHE is someone you should be able to trust. Someone you should be able to trust to NOT kill you.
How fucking scary would that be? Think about it.
I won't go into the details. Sadly, it's all over the news...and it should be. Sadder still, it never should have happened. Justice is not being served.
Just imagine, if only for a few seconds, that you cannot breathe. You know you're about to die. Now imagine this is due to a public servant using excessive force.
This can never be allowed to ever happen again. Never.
If you've never experienced this, then you don't know what scary is. I've experienced it a few times. Twice, due to using too many drugs, a few times due to reactive asthma, and once when I was literally choking to death. (I was clinically dead for 7 minutes, followed by a week in a coma) I've had guns in my face. I've been stabbed. I crashed a car at 120mph. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is as terrifying as not being able to breathe.
Now imagine that the reason you can't breathe is because another person, another human being, is causing this. Worse still, imagine the person causing you to NOT BREATHE is someone you should be able to trust. Someone you should be able to trust to NOT kill you.
How fucking scary would that be? Think about it.
I won't go into the details. Sadly, it's all over the news...and it should be. Sadder still, it never should have happened. Justice is not being served.
Just imagine, if only for a few seconds, that you cannot breathe. You know you're about to die. Now imagine this is due to a public servant using excessive force.
This can never be allowed to ever happen again. Never.
Back To Back In Black
I'm an AC/DC fan. If you're 'of a certain age', and enjoy rock & roll music, chances are you are too. But here's the thing...as great as the Back In Black album is, I was sick of it within weeks of it's release.
Yeppers, even back in 1980, radio stations were killing music by putting certain songs into heavy rotation. Sure, these were, and still are, GREAT songs...but damn, enough was enough. It wasn't the only album available but you'd think it was. It was everywhere. I don't know many of my contemporaries who didn't have a copy...whether it be on vinyl, cassette, or (gasp!) 8-track. Many updated to a CD copy 10 years later. Why? The record is just that good.
Yes, I dig the album...but pretty much ignored it for years...because I just couldn't get away from it. Eventually, I'd hear one of the tracks on the radio and crank it up...giving it it's due. BIB is really one of those records every band wishes they could record. Song after song was just awesome. Not a runt in the bunch. But it's popularity overshadowed how excellent it was. EVERYONE was listening to it...and listened to it, seemingly nonstop, for years. It was easy to get sick of it. Too much of a good thing.
Here I am, 34 years later, listening to Back In Black, start to finish...again...and it sounds as good as the 1st time I heard it. I was 14 when it came out. I was a young, budding guitar player...prone to rehashing Hendrix and The Beatles, as well as bashing out punk riffs and the latest "new wave" hooks by The Cars or whatever band I was into that week. Sure, I learned the AC/DC riffs...it was de rigueur for us back then...but I did not want to listen to the record. If "You Shook Me" came on the radio, I either switched the station, left the room, or openly ignored it. Like I said, too much of a good thing.
That said, for a record to still sound fresh decades after it's release really says something about the quality. This is just basic, balls out, raw rock and roll. These cats aren't masterful musicians...but they know how to rock! They always have. I saw them in the late 70s as the opener for another act. They blew me away. Loud and raw...the way rock and roll is best played. They were tight! Bon Scott was a wild man. Angus Young looked demented in his school boy outfit with his Satanic-looking Gibson SG. By the time Back In Black was released, the world was ready for them. I just wasn't ready to be drowned in their music.
Their subsequent releases were good...but let's face it, nothing matched Back In Black. If they never recorded another note...they would be remembered for this one record. It wasn't their first, but it was definitely their best. I've heard lots of bands try to cover these songs...and no one does them justice. Let's face it, no one can sing/scream like Brian Johnson.
23 years after it's release, I was playing my first show in Australia. Being cursed/blessed with being a smart ass...I introduced the world to my rockabilly version of "You Shook Me" by way of introducing it as "a song by Australia's #1 rockabilly band...you might have heard of them, they're called AC/DC." This led to 8000 Aussies going nuts. I was treading on hallowed ground...and could have easily been viewed as the asshole many see me as. But it worked. The Aussies seem to share my sense of humor...and there I stood, leading 8000 ockers and ockerettes in a sing-a-long, rockabilly version of one of their nation's greatest musical exports. On my next Australian tour, I was often asked to play "the Acca Dacca song." I was even informed that a member of the Young family was in attendance at the first show, and it was shown on television. The Young brothers even enjoyed my take on it. Talk about a humbling experience! Damned live television...if there's a copy of it anywhere, I've yet to find it.
So here I am...48 years old...and reliving this monumental album. I've heard each of these songs at least 100 times over the years...but they still sound as great as that first time around. I have it playing full blast...and damn, this is what rock and roll is about. No one can do it like these cats.
AC/DC have a new album. It's being touted as "defiant" and "rebellious", etc. Hogmuffins. It's AC/DC doing what they do...playing AC/DC-style rock and roll! This comes as naturally to these cats as taking a shit. I look forward to hearing the album. I'm sure it's going to ROCK! Thankfully, I rarely listen to the radio these days, and the internet is too busy with it's flavor of the minute...so I doubt I'll be overwhelmed to the point of running from it. And that, kids, is a good thing.
Yeppers, even back in 1980, radio stations were killing music by putting certain songs into heavy rotation. Sure, these were, and still are, GREAT songs...but damn, enough was enough. It wasn't the only album available but you'd think it was. It was everywhere. I don't know many of my contemporaries who didn't have a copy...whether it be on vinyl, cassette, or (gasp!) 8-track. Many updated to a CD copy 10 years later. Why? The record is just that good.
Yes, I dig the album...but pretty much ignored it for years...because I just couldn't get away from it. Eventually, I'd hear one of the tracks on the radio and crank it up...giving it it's due. BIB is really one of those records every band wishes they could record. Song after song was just awesome. Not a runt in the bunch. But it's popularity overshadowed how excellent it was. EVERYONE was listening to it...and listened to it, seemingly nonstop, for years. It was easy to get sick of it. Too much of a good thing.
Here I am, 34 years later, listening to Back In Black, start to finish...again...and it sounds as good as the 1st time I heard it. I was 14 when it came out. I was a young, budding guitar player...prone to rehashing Hendrix and The Beatles, as well as bashing out punk riffs and the latest "new wave" hooks by The Cars or whatever band I was into that week. Sure, I learned the AC/DC riffs...it was de rigueur for us back then...but I did not want to listen to the record. If "You Shook Me" came on the radio, I either switched the station, left the room, or openly ignored it. Like I said, too much of a good thing.
That said, for a record to still sound fresh decades after it's release really says something about the quality. This is just basic, balls out, raw rock and roll. These cats aren't masterful musicians...but they know how to rock! They always have. I saw them in the late 70s as the opener for another act. They blew me away. Loud and raw...the way rock and roll is best played. They were tight! Bon Scott was a wild man. Angus Young looked demented in his school boy outfit with his Satanic-looking Gibson SG. By the time Back In Black was released, the world was ready for them. I just wasn't ready to be drowned in their music.
Their subsequent releases were good...but let's face it, nothing matched Back In Black. If they never recorded another note...they would be remembered for this one record. It wasn't their first, but it was definitely their best. I've heard lots of bands try to cover these songs...and no one does them justice. Let's face it, no one can sing/scream like Brian Johnson.
23 years after it's release, I was playing my first show in Australia. Being cursed/blessed with being a smart ass...I introduced the world to my rockabilly version of "You Shook Me" by way of introducing it as "a song by Australia's #1 rockabilly band...you might have heard of them, they're called AC/DC." This led to 8000 Aussies going nuts. I was treading on hallowed ground...and could have easily been viewed as the asshole many see me as. But it worked. The Aussies seem to share my sense of humor...and there I stood, leading 8000 ockers and ockerettes in a sing-a-long, rockabilly version of one of their nation's greatest musical exports. On my next Australian tour, I was often asked to play "the Acca Dacca song." I was even informed that a member of the Young family was in attendance at the first show, and it was shown on television. The Young brothers even enjoyed my take on it. Talk about a humbling experience! Damned live television...if there's a copy of it anywhere, I've yet to find it.
So here I am...48 years old...and reliving this monumental album. I've heard each of these songs at least 100 times over the years...but they still sound as great as that first time around. I have it playing full blast...and damn, this is what rock and roll is about. No one can do it like these cats.
AC/DC have a new album. It's being touted as "defiant" and "rebellious", etc. Hogmuffins. It's AC/DC doing what they do...playing AC/DC-style rock and roll! This comes as naturally to these cats as taking a shit. I look forward to hearing the album. I'm sure it's going to ROCK! Thankfully, I rarely listen to the radio these days, and the internet is too busy with it's flavor of the minute...so I doubt I'll be overwhelmed to the point of running from it. And that, kids, is a good thing.
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