2 Apocalypse Of Cute

2009-06-13T17:53:32Z

Hello folks!

My new DVD, "Apocalypse Of Cute", has been mastered and has begun its production run. It will premier at AnthroCon 2009 and be available to order from Rabbit Valley afterward! The DVD features my 60 minute stand up performance from AnthroCon 2008 and an extra bonus feature. The live 2 Sense Show from AnthroCon 2007! I have uploaded not one, not two, not three, not eight hundred and six, but FOUR -- four previews of this DVD for you to look at.

Hope you enjoy!

Out West!

2009-06-09T21:36:19Z

Hey all!

So, I'm out on the west coast right now. Just finished Califur weekend and am vising the folks I will be moving in with when I move here in a couple of months. It was great performing for you west coast furries again after so many years. You guys were wonderful to me and it was great getting to talk with you and entertain you again.

As you may have noticed, I've been a little scarce. I want to apologize for that. There's been no 2 Sense and recently, no FA:N shows or rants either. Well, I haven't dropped off the planet. I wanted everyone to know that there is going to be a slight drop off of my web material over the next few months due to the process of moving. You know how it is... You pack up your satanic altar, hand grenades and portable, junior Kthulu summoning kit and then it's really a pain to dig it back out in order to work. Once I get set up in California, all your favorite me-stuff will be coming back, and more than likely, it will be better than before. 2 Sense 2.2 will get started. Even FA:N will be going to video. There will be more video rants and short movies from me. (I'm even considering re-doing many of my old audio rants into videos. Any ideas?)

I wanted to let you guys know that in spite of the move and the lack of shows, I will still be doing live stand up performances at AnthroCon, Eurofurence and it's possible I'll be performing at Megaplex in Orlando, Florida as well.

Thanks for being patient with me during this. Honestly, no one is more ansy for me to get back to work than I am. Once I'm out west for good, I'm going to do what I can to make the wait worth it for you guys.

Relocation.

2009-05-24T08:39:16Z

Folks.

I know it's sometimes difficult to tell when I'm being my character and when I'm being myself. That's supposed to be part of the fun. Truth be told, there've been very few times when I have been *out* of character to the public.

Right now, I want to be real with you guys. I want to talk as the actor/stand up comic who plays the character you all know. For those of you who've met me in person, you know the me I'm talking about. I have an apology I would like to make. It may turn out a bit lengthy. You don't have to read it. I think it will make me feel better just to say it.

For the last couple of years, I have not been a very good entertainer for you guys, and I want to say I'm sorry. My rants have shallowed off, my stand up material hasn't been its best, my shows have been sporatic. I don't want to make too many excuses for myself, but there has been a reason this is happening.

You see, a few years ago, I lost the most special person I've ever had in my life. And along with him, I lost quite a few good friends. Many of the people in my life that I felt were solid, and whom I used to help define my own life suddenly weren't there anymore. The only way I can describe how I felt would be to say I was devistated -- something of a smoking crater of a person. I felt like I'd lost my whole family at once.

I'm sure many of you out there have had similar situations in your lives. And I'm sure you know how much you just felt like crawling into dark cave and wasting away. Well, that's what I did. The cave was called Michigan.

I came to Michigan to hide. It was my dark corner to crawl into and be broken, deal with my issues and rebuild myself. I've spent the last three years drunk, in my room, barely coming out to do anything unless it was a convention performance. The people around me aren't especially supportive of my creative indeavors, but that isn't their fault. I've surrounded myself with people who are emotionally supportive instead because that's what I've needed, and in that respect, they've helped me more than I can express. They've been there for me as I've laid around broken.

As I've been in this emotional hole of mine, I knew I couldn't just drop off the planet. I enjoy being an entertainer even when I'm not at my best. So I wound up doing the minimum. I did produce some things, but I didn't grow artistically. I didn't learn anything. I didn't improve. My heart wasn't in it. Being drunk 24 hours a day didn't help my motivation either.

I wanted to let you all know that I'm ready to crawl out of this hole now. And I'm sorry for having been so distant. I came here to lick my wounds and put myself back together. With the help of some very special people, I've been able to do that. And now I'm ready to put my attention toward making others happy again, instead of devoting so much of it to keeping myself from falling apart. Now that I'm back on track emotionally, I can be artistic again, and I find it's the first thing I want to do.

In August of this year, I will be moving to Los Angeles. I have someone who is willing to be an agent for me. I'll be performing in comedy clubs around California. The 2 Sense Show will start up again, this time as a live video stream. There will be more rants and other kinds of videos. Hopefully more music too. In short, I apologize for being off the ball for the past couple of years. I needed the time to be broken. But I'm feeling better now and I'm ready to get back to work.

As a side note, I will be performing at Califur here in a couple of weeks. Come out and see the show!

Owl.

2009-05-21T18:19:15Z

This fucking rocks.

I have no idea what it is, but it rocks.

I've got competition.

2009-05-14T15:31:24Z

Dude. If Obama wasn't the President, I'd love to see him doing stand-up. Some of these jokes are just brilliant. It's good to know he knows how to make fun of himself... and others.

Metal Alert!

2009-05-08T13:44:13Z

I stopped listening to metal when its spirit all but died out around the mid 90's. Yeah, there are a few bands who do traditional sounding metal, but to me, it just sounds like they're faking it. Every now and then though, I will find a new metal song that will bring me to my knees. It will be more metal than I can handle! It will tear my beating heart out and show it to me and it's so lovely.

I found one last night! The song is about five years old, but I just now found it. I thought maybe there were others who hadn't heard it.

This song is for true metalheads only. No one else can listen. ......Okay, the rest of you can listen too.

I can't believe how much of an anthem to furries this song is. It's almost a perfect metal song, if there is such a thing.

First read the lyrics, then watch the video. If you are a metalhead, expect to get a few boners.

(And, I know people will say it, so I'll answer already. Yes, I have heard of Nevermore before. Yes, I know this isn't a new song. Because it's in my LJ doesn't imply any guarantee of "new-ness".)

LYRICS

We are the nothing grating against the norm
We are the something that will not conform
No one understands what we've been given

We are the useless by-products of soulless meat
We are all gone we all sing the same tragedy

Open wide and EAT THE WORMS of the enemy
We are the enemies of reality, in a world that's unforgiving

Waiting to sanitize bastard tongues
To purify the ignorance that hides the sun
The less you understand the more you're driven

Packaged and processed the masses are force fed
The standards they judge us on swallow the rot we shed

Open wide and EAT THE WORMS of the enemy
We are the enemies of reality, in a world that's unforgiving

Breathing dust and decay while I'm sipping
Human trust and betrayal
Losing faith once again
Take my hand my friend, my foe, I am enemy

Open wide and EAT THE WORMS of the enemy
We are the enemies of reality, in a world that's unforgiving
Open wide, EAT THEIR WORDS, become what you most fear

2 Sense Update.

2009-05-07T04:07:44Z

I know a lot of you out there are wondering what the status of 2 Sense is. I've been getting a lot of e-mails about it and I'm glad to see you guys are anxious for the next season. At this point, I'd like to let you in on our plans.

I know it has been a long time since the last season, but there is a good reason for that. Toward the end of the last season, I began realizing that internet radio shows, while certainly fun, are getting a little out of date. When 2 Sense started, there weren't a whole lot of quality internet radio shows out there, especially for the furry fandom. I believed our community should have something they could listen to in the internet radio world, thus 2 Sense was started.

Now however, I'm happy to see that many more people have jumped onto the podcasting wagon and are using their voices to express themselves and entertain others. It's an even more beautiful sight to see that furries are doing this as well!

To get to the point, I feel that 2 Sense is no longer needed in a radio form. There are so many wonderful furry radio shows out there to choose from, it just doesn't feel as though 2 Sense is breaking any new ground. It is for this reason that 2 Sense will be turning into a TV show. Because of some very generous donations from 2 Sense listeners, we have been able to upgrade our equipment, and when the next season begins, every episode will be broadcast live on Ustream.

Just as when 2 Sense first started, not only will we be aiming to make a TV show for furries, we'll be aiming to make the best damn furry TV show we possibly can. We want to give something to the world that furries can be proud of. At the same time, we will also continue to upload the audio files onto the website for those who like listening when they can't watch. There will be segments from your favorite 2 Sense characters in the audio version and hopefully, in the video version too, eventually. There will be discussion of headlines, gore news, viewer mail... essentially, it will be the same 2 Sense you remember, only now it will have the dimension of video added to it.

We will have access to a space in which we can build a studio and even space for a respectable sized audience for furries who're in the area to come and watch the show in person, if they wish.

Now, if this sounds a little bit like a pipe dream, keep in mind that most of the equipment we'll need for this has already been obtained. It's already a reality. Donation money we've received has already gone to purchase 8 video cameras, tripods, rackmount audio components, a teleprompter, high quality radio mics with stands and spider mounts, pop filters, cables and adapters and other odds and ends. We will have a video mixer on loan from a generous donator. All that is truly left to do is to put this equipment together and construct the studio.

There is still a lot of work to be done. It's likely that 2 Sense won't return until sometime toward the end of this year. But I hope that when you see what we've done, you'll understand the work that has been put into this time.

If there's any suggestions you guys would like to offer on the future of 2 Sense, now would be a good time to toss them in!

Who are you?

2009-04-28T08:00:37Z

"Dear 2. If my parents ever found out I was gay/furry, they would kick me into the streets with no place to go, take away all I have, brand me with hot irons, beat me with chainsaws, discontinue my nipples and disown me. What would be the best way to go about telling them I'm gay/furry?"

You would probably be amazed at how many times I hear this question or similar variants. The first few thousand times, my immediate reaction was to pound my face into the desk until I passed out, and after regaining consciousness, clawing my way to the keyboard to type with a trembling, bloody hand, "THEN DON'T TELL THEM, YOU TARD!"... just before I'd collapse onto the floor, dead.

After a few years of this, I started to become extremely curious why so many people would be willing to sacrifice their families, friends, homes, nipples and everything they have for a meager moment they can stand a sliver of their private business in the spotlight in front of everyone who cares for them and, whom they know will reject them for doing such a thing. So, one day, just when I was about to lose consciousness from the blunt trauma to my face, I stopped for a moment and asked... "Why? Why do you so desperately need these people to know this specific piece of private information about you?"

I asked the next person and the next the same question. And I discovered something interesting. Without fail, the answer was always, "Because I want them to know who I truly am."

At first, this puzzled me. Then, when I became sober, it still puzzled me. So I took a dump. I always think better when I'm taking a dump.

What exactly makes up a person? A person is made up of a million different elements. What his favorite color is, how well he can climb a tree, what his talents are, where his aspirations direct him, how much money he's willing to pay to take a shit at a coin operated toilet. All these elements come together to form a person.

But what causes a person to elect a single one of these elements to be "who I really am"? What, out of the million different things that culminate into "you" do you choose to identify yourself with? Which tiny piece of you do you pick to stamp onto your forehead for the purpose of labeling yourself?

Is it random? I don't think so. People don't generally stick their hand into the proverbial Power Ball tank of personality and pull out the element by which they will forever title themselves.

How then, is this element chosen? By what criteria do we select the one millionth of ourselves to present to the world when they ask, "Who are you?" But even more perplexing -- why would anyone choose the preference of the gender they'd rather rub their sexual organs against to do this job?

Picture a somber scene. A troubled and nervous teenager, anxiously entwining his fingers sits in a chair in front of his father. His posture is straight and defiant. His chin is gritted in solid determination. He says, "Dad, I have to tell you something."

The father raises an eyebrow and acknowledges with a gruff, "Uh huh?"

The teen takes a deep breath, pauses for a moment and then, with a tear streaking down his cheek, his voice crackles, "I like corn."

It's a little silly, isn't it? No one would consider an enjoyment of corn to be "who I truly am." But for a moment, let's what-if.

What if, in this world, no one thought for a moment about a person being gay? What if it was a normal or natural as anything else. It had no social repercussions, no one talked about it or even really thought about it. If you told someone you were gay, you got a reaction much like if you said you think grass is itchy.

However, in this same world, corn is taboo. It's used to point out undesirable people. Its enjoyment is employed as an insult and in questioning a person's moral values. "I don't trust you, corn eater!" Though there is a small community of people who insist, and rightly so, that there is simply no reason to judge people based on their enjoyment of corn, this community is seen as dangerous, immoral and threatening. Business owners pretend to support them for the sake of putting on an anti-hate facade.

Would this conversation be so strange then? Would being a person who enjoys the taste of corn become "who I truly am" in this case?

I believe that the reason so many people have decided that "who I truly am" is gay or furry is because people pick the most controversial elements of their personality to present to the world. People don't want to define themselves by something that no one gives a crap about. They want who they believe themselves to be to get a reaction. To get attention and notice. Even if the scale of the element they choose is no bigger than any other element. Even if it would otherwise be seen as personal, private business. Whether it will delight people or piss them off, we choose to define ourselves by that which people will have the biggest reaction toward. How many African Americans define themselves as being black? Now, how many caucasians define themselves as being white? Being black has a history of causing a much bigger reaction than being white.

My advice to the teen who has decided that he simply must tell his loved ones "who I truly am", in spite of the hell they'll turn his life into... Why don't you sit for awhile and think about just who you truly are. Perhaps being a person with a warm home, parents and friends is more of who you are than just "a gay person".

Bird Brain #3

2009-04-17T07:37:36Z

There will be another Bird Brain show on Ustream, Friday at 10pm Eastern time.

On this show, we're going to try something a little different. Other than talking through comedy ideas, I will also be recording the next FA:N show live for the audience, as long as the equipment Gods will let me.

See you then!

Anthropod.

2009-04-10T10:03:23Z

Hey guys! I just thought I'd let you know that I was a guest on the AnthroPod Podcast this week. Matthew Ebel, myself and the host of the show, Flain, discussed a lot of interesting topics and had a lot of fun! If you'd like to listen, check it out here...

http://www.anthropodcast.com/

Furverts

2009-04-09T21:22:36Z

**Warning! Controversial opinion ahead!** (Expect some waah.)

A new book as been released called "Furverts", by Michael Cogliantry. It's all about the "secret" lives of furries where we put on animal suits and fuck each other blue in the face. I'm sure the book will sell pretty well because people who claim to have minds cleaner than the Virgin Mary's pap smears just looooooove to read about people so backward and twisted that they'd rather screw the high school team mascot than one of them. It's meant to be a train wreck. So much so, that the book even includes pictures of people boffing each other in fursuits that are *obviously* nothing a furry would ever wear. I suspect they just paid some poor college kids to pose in some store bought Halloween crap, just for effect.

Since the news of this book has hit the fandom, there has been a lot of bitching and whining. A lot of furs trying to defend the upright and proper character of the furry fandom. A lot of bawling that this book will make us all look bad.

Give me a fucking break.

This is OUR fault. You want the furry fandom to be an all-inclusive sub-culture? Well, here we are, welcome to it. You can't decide one minute that it's okay to tie an animal tail to any random fucking interest that walks up to the door and call it "furry", then, when people start pointing and laughing, stand up and complain that the fruitcakes we openly welcomed in don't represent us. It's ludicrous.

A grown man who just wants to wear diapers, a girl who wants to parade her leather slaves around, a guy who gets an erection from being wrapped in latex, a chick who makes her farm animals fuck her... slap a pair of ears on them and suddenly they're furries. And damn anyone who tells them they're not welcome in our group. Damn anyone who tells them they don't belong. But as soon as the cameras are pointed toward these people and they're fucking and sucking each other for the national media, we throw up our hands and reject them as "just a few weirdos we couldn't manage to keep out." We tell them it's not what furry is about. We say they don't represent us. One minute, it's practically a furry crime to ostracise anyone for any reason, and then next, we're whining that we're misrepresented because of the focus on the creepy bastards that we insisted on openly including.

We can't have it both ways, folks.

The furry fandom has become a catch-all for anyone with interests so weird that no other group will accept them. And it has happened because we don't have the nuts to set a definition to who we are and tell those who don't share our interests to find somewhere else to go. Anyone who knocks on our door, slinging around an erection for child porn or warm cheese mold is welcomed right in because we don't have the balls to say, "Sorry, but this is not who we are!"

The furry fandom is no longer about anthropomorphic animals, cartoon characters or mythical creatures. It's become a place where any crazy fuck on the planet feels entitled to be able to openly express whatever unconventional object or idea drives him to orgasm in his bedroom closet at night. And it has become this way because we invited them in! And it will continue to be this way until we find the responsibility to collectively seperate what is furry from what isn't.

Until then, none of us has any right to whine about bad press. If you don't like the way the furry fandom is portrayed in the media, don't blame the few weirdos they were interviewing because we're the ones who told those wierdos to come to the party.

Suddenly!

2009-03-31T03:34:34Z

2 And Jibba's Sudden Improvisational Broadway Theater Play!

10 minute warning. That's it!

Bird Brain!

2009-03-29T17:08:54Z

Well, the ideas in my idea book have piled up and it's time for me to think them out and see which ones might make good material.

Soooooooo... There will be a Bird Brain show tonight on Ustream at 10pm Eastern time!

I know it's a little bit late notice. The last one was even later. I'll try to announce it a day in advance from now on.

Anyway, enjoy!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bird-brain

In with the new!

2009-03-27T02:23:09Z

Folks!

I'm happy to say that along with being a new Twitter-er, some of the new things I've been working to get ready are coming to fruition. There are two things I would like to let everyone know about tonight.

First, I am starting a movie club, here on Live Journal. I've run into a lot of people lately who are interested in movies, yet haven't seen very many of them and don't know where to start. Movies have long been a great passion of mine and I'd like to share what I know of them. The club will be much like a book club. Every week, we'll all check out a movie and then discuss the different aspects of it and consider each other's opinions on it. Generally, I don't prefer any certain genre as much as I do a good story. So if you're a fan of good movies and would like to have some good recommendations, along with discussion about the films, go to http://2-films.livejournal.com and join me in exploration of some of the best films ever made.

Secondly, I have a new show. This is a live video show on Ustream and it will likely happen two or three times a week.

You see, developing new comedy material is an interesting process. It's different for everyone who does it. Personally, I take events that effect me emotionally, such as things that happen to me personally in my day, or stories I hear about on the news, and I will talk them out. I will grab a tape recorder and begin talking through my feelings about them as though I were in a theatrical setting. This gives me new ideas and lets me capture a certain feeling for how I might present the material on stage. Sometimes I find new material and sometimes I don't.

It occurred to me the other day, if I'm recording these thoughts anyway, why not broadcast them?

The show is called "Bird Brain" and will basically be my process of spazzing over recent events in the attempt to make comedy out of it. Some of it might be offensive, some of it might be sappy or emotional, some things might make it to stage and some won't. I will be paying attention to the chat window because I believe feedback might lend more insight or send me on tangents I might have not thought of before. If anyone wants a glimpse into the way a comic makes their material, this might be something interesting for you. Or, if you just want to see what twisted things fly out of the recesses of my brain that might be too harsh for stage, then you might like it too.

The show is here. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bird-brain

The first show will be tonight at midnight, Eastern time. It will be something of a test show, since I haven't done this before. For those who tune in, I'll see you there. I'll also embed a video window here, so you can watch it from my LJ if you decide to.

It's alive! ALIVE!

2009-03-25T05:33:50Z

Agent Elrond strikes again.

*hugs* You're awesome, Elrond.

Twitter.

2009-03-24T16:08:27Z

I thought it would be interesting to see how long it would take for a bunch of people to start following my Tweets if I never even told anyone I was on Twitter. The answer... about two weeks.

In any case, that was interesting to know. So now, I'll just make a little note here to let folks know that I'm on Twitter if you want to see what I'm up to all day.

http://twitter.com/2_gryphon

See you there!

Back from FWA!

2009-03-24T10:02:35Z

Well, I've returned from FWA. I want to thank the staff for running such a great event and apologize that I wasn't as accessible as I usually am. I barely got to say hello to some of you.

FWA's new hotel is... massive, to say the least. But it's good that they've moved because with the number of furries there this year, there'd have been no way to stuff them all in the old hotel. The hotel was so big that it fit FWA's near 1500 members easily and still had room for another few simultanious events from other groups. And it was in a very good location. There were all kinds of foodz and boozez around the area to love with face.

Unfortunately, I can't comment extensively on the programming or events at the convention because I was making sure to take it easy on my leg, so that I wouldn't bust any arteries back open again. Though I did happen to catch Matthew Ebel's show (which was just amazing). Coming from someone who is also a stage performer, the magic he weaves on stage makes me terribly jealous. I also made sure to watch Uncle Kage's show, who can still weave just as engrossing a tale as he could when I first saw him perform 84 years ago. It's a constant pleasure to work with him on stage, and I continue to learn things from him every year.

Though I wasn't able to participate as much as usual, I must say, my experience of FWA was wonderful. Having been there the first year, it's amazing to see what it's turned into in such a short time. Everyone had a wonderful time and, perhaps I'm mistaken, but for as large as the con has become, everyone still seemed very relaxed. There was narry a long face at FWA, at least as far as I could see... unless they were horses. Or collie dogs. And even the folks from the non furry events just seemed to be more curious about us than hostile. Many of them came to our event space just to get some pictures and talk to us. Hell, by the end of the con, some of the bartenders were wearing ears and tails and remembered us by our furry names.

Though I'm bummed a little because I wasn't able to get around as much, I have to say that taking time to relax and smell the roses... or in this case, the fanboys... did turn out beneficial. I'm always running around conventions so much that I don't have time to stop and really talk to people. It was very nice to be able to do that again, and I wound up making a few new friends, which is rare for me.

First, I'd like to acknowledge RB. He's the guy who I wound up rooming with after I asked for roomspace for a poor bird. I've seen RB here and there for years now. He's always seemed like a great guy. And this weekend was my first real chance to hang out with him and talk. It turns out, he's every bit the upstanding personality I suspected he was. We shared some great conversation and a bit of booze and I think I can say I have found a new friend in him.

Second, Matthew Ebel. I finally grated up enough nutsack to go to his dealer table, congratulate him on his show and offer him some booze and company for awhile. I knew that he probably gets offers like that all the time, so I didn't truly expect him to come. I just wanted to make the offer. However, to my surprise, he decided to take me up on it! I was thrilled! Let me tell you first hand, he's a highly intelligent, passionate and energetic person. A true artist. We tossed back a few and talked about performance, furries, politics and religion. He's an exceptional human being. And also a bird! I had no idea he was a fellow bird! An ospray! I don't know if he feels the same, but I really had a good time hanging out with him and I now I consider him a friend.

Finally, I'd like to give a shout out to Captain Jack Sparrow. I've seen him at many conventions before and interacted with him on several occasions. At FWA, fate decided that we should wind up in my room getting trashed together and I was delighted to find that he and I have a lot in common. The last time I saw Jack he was a little depressed. Apparently some rival pirates were giving him a hard time and he was a little upset that he was going to have to kill them later. I hope he's doing okay. As a bird, I have to say that knowing Captain Jack a little more closely, I would be happy to sit on his shoulder and ask for crackers... but only when no one is looking.

Thanks to everyone who came up to me to say hello. It was good meeting all of you. Thank you to the guys I sat next to in the artists alley! You guys were loads of fun to hang out with and you even gave me pr0n of my character looking through a window. You rock! Thank you to the artist who allowed me to share dealer space with you! Ich liebe Sie. Sie sind wunderbare Gesellschaft. Und Sie kosten gut. Nom.

Thanks to everyone who gave me gifts! Such as the bottle of Jack Daniels, (that was nom), the pretty gryphon head pendant, the hand written calligraphy letter and the drawings. I love all of them.

Hello to all my fellow birds who were at the convention, including the cute little gray one I find myself fawning over all the time (I hope your broken wing is better) and the owl who wandered into Trader Vic's and said, "Someone got to buy dis owl a DRAAAAANK!"

Finally, I want to give a shout to Mohito, the Tucan. She spent some time hanging out with me, but she left a bag with her bird head in my room and I never saw her again to return it! I've brought it home with me, but I have no way to contact her to let her know. If someone knows how to contact Mohito or Captain Jack, please let me know. I'd like to get this back to her!

Thanks for a great FWA everyone. Hope to see you next year!

FWA!

2009-03-17T11:48:27Z

I know that since my little unscheduled hospital stay has happened, some folks have been curious if I will still be attending FWA. The answer is yes!

I'm still using a cane to walk long distances, so it's a little more difficult than usual to get around. Because of this, I canceled most of the panels I had been set to host there. I probably won't be seen quite as often as I usually am at conventions, as I'll need to spend at least a certain amount of time being stationary and not straining myself too much.

However... I WILL be doing a comedy show. And I will also be spending time just hanging out around the hotel. I'll probably just be a bit more stationary than usual.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all this weekend and having a good time at my favorite southern convention!

Terror: The Director's Cut

2009-03-05T20:37:04Z

I am now home from the hospital and recovering from the tests.

I want to say that I've been to a lot of hospitals in my time and University of Michigan Hospital is the absolute cream of the crop. I've never been treated so well as a patient. I've never had a staff so concerned and attentive. I'm very happy that I had the good fortune to be able to go through this experience in the hospital that I did.

A lot of folks have had a lot of questions about my experience on the operating table. Some of you have wanted more details on what happened and what I experienced, particularly during the dying part. For those folks who are curious about more, I've written a detailed account of what I went through. I have certainly learned that a lot of the cliches about death aren't true. And I'm more than happy to talk about what I experienced. So, if you're interested...

I'll start on Tuesday morning.

The procedure they were recommending, called an Eletrophysical Scan, had been explained to me the day before. I spent most of the day finding out more about what was involved, what the risks were and gathering the opinions of a few close friends and family members. Then, the staff gave me overnight to think about it. I would make my final decision when they came to see me that morning.

I didn't get much sleep that night. And when they came to see me in the morning, I did not want the procedure done. I explained this much to Dr. Eagle. However, I had decided that emotions shouldn't be a factor in a decision like this, and as much as I didn't want to do it, I was going to agree to the operation.

That was that. They scheduled me for the procedure at 11am, only two and a half hours from then.

At about 11:20, transport came for me. At this point, I had to force every bodily action I made that contributed to the procession of this madness. Every step toward the awaiting stretcher that would take me to the operating room was against my will. Staying in the stretcher as they wheeled me through buildings and into a waiting room seemed to go against instinct.

You have to realize that for over half of my life, I have had a mystery heart condition that had never been diagnosed or even witnessed. Everyone had always thought I was crazy. When my first palpitations appeared when I was 12, they frightened me terribly. In response to my pleading for a doctor because my heart was skipping beats, my parents sent me to a psychologist instead. I cannot count the number of occasions I've gone into the emergency room because of an abnormal heart rhythm or chest pain, just to have the doctor look at me and say, "Sir, you're in your 20's. You don't have a heart problem. Stop wasting our time." One doctor even suggested I ask a psychologist about anti-psychotic medication after coming to see him about my heart palpitations.

Now, not only had doctors witnessed and recorded one of my attacks, not only had they given it a name and explained to me how dangerous and deadly it had the potential to be, but I had to finally come to terms with the condition that had FINALLY been diagnosed, how dangerous it was and how my whole life was going to be affected by it. And this had all happened in one day.

And now, I was being wheeled to a room where these same doctors were going to purposely CAUSE this heart malfunction of which they, just the day before, had been stressing the severity! They went to great lengths to get me to realize, for the first time, that this heart condition I'd always seen as a semi-casual annoyance was actually potentially life-ending, just before telling me that they intended to intentionally induce it!

My instinct was to get the hell out of there. I had to concentrate on other things to keep myself from jumping out of that stretcher and running.

The transport people wheeled me into a waiting room -- white tile, curtains, smell of disinfectant, sterile. Every voice induced an uncomfortable echo. A friendly nurse began to stick electrodes to my chest and hook me up to an ECG machine and an IV stand.

Soon after, a young, Japanese man came in. He was the EP technician who would be controlling the computer which controlled the electrode catheter which controlled my heart. He explained a bit more about what he would be doing to me and afterward, handed me a clip board with a document to sign. The legal document stated that were I to die, have any allergic reactions to blood transfers or x-ray dyes, need emergency surgery because of the procedure or in any way came away from the operation with any debilitating, lifelong conditions as a result of what they were about to do -- I would not hold them legally responsible.

I forced my hand to write my name on the paper.

The Japanese man left the room and a young woman came in. She explained that she would be handling my sedation. "Ooh, drugs?" I thought. This, I was interested in. She told me that for the procedure, I had to remain conscious. The reason for this was because if they knocked me out, my breathing would have to be done by a respirator. Often, an irregular heart rhythm is corrected by our natural breathing responses to the sensation. Taking a deep breath or coughing can actually hit a kind of "reset" button on your heart rhythm and kick it back into the correct timing. Since a respirator could never mimic this, I had to stay awake and breathing on my own, with my own conscious reactions. The sedation, she said, would allow me to be conscious, but would relax me and cause temporary amnesia of the entire procedure.

This was good news to me! I said, "So, once you give me that, I'll just wake up and it'll be over?" She explained to me that there were no guarantees. That most people remember nothing. And some people remember a few details. But I likely wouldn't recall much, if any of the operation.

Now, if this had been the case, my story would now say, "And just after that, I suddenly became aware of being in the recovery room! It was all over!"

...You'll notice that doesn't happen here.

The young woman left the room and I was left alone with my thoughts for what felt like an eternity. It was a bad time to have nothing to do but think. Just the other day, I was at my computer desk, working on material that I hoped would be entertaining for furries. Now, suddenly, I was on a stretcher waiting for this nightmare to play out. It seemed like such a short time for such a big change to happen.

After around an hour and a half, an attendant came in and asked if I was ready. "No," I said. "And if you ask me again any time between now and when I'm 90, the answer will still be no." She furrowed her brow a little. "But, let's do it anyway," I said.

She smiled at me and popped an upbeat tone into her voice as she began to wheel me across the hall. "Well, we're ready! We're all ready for you, and you are the star."

My immediate thought... "Finally, a stage I don't want to in the middle of." And she wheeled me into the operating room.

The room was COLD. Uncomfortably cold. But I was too busy getting an erection over the technology to notice that for long. The place looked like the bridge of a federation ship, or perhaps one of those infamous anal probe implantation labs in an alien flying saucer. In the center of the room was a black, padded operating table, like a wide, stretched office chair laid completely prone. Directly over the table was a box with an orifice which would aim right down on my chest.

The staff wheeled the stretcher adjacent to the table and I carefully scooted myself onto it and laid down. Anchored from the ceiling, at the opposite end of the table from my head, was a jumbotron of flat screen monitors on an adjustable, steel elbow. The monitors were in a diamond kind of pattern. Behind the monitors was a glass window. Inside was a little room where the Japanese technician I had met earlier was sitting and starting up his systems. The rest of the room was filled with medical odds and ends. Tanks of gas. Steel tables with sharp things on them.

The young woman, along with another man and woman I hadn't met walked into the room, chatting casually about an interesting time they'd had at a certain restaurant in the recent past. I didn't know if I was comfortable with their nonchalance or not. When one of them suggested the white chocolate mocha whatever-the-fuck cappuccino, I pressed my fingers together and in the most doctorly way I could, said, "Yes. I concur." They just looked at me. Not even a hint of a smile.

The new woman began to stick more electrodes on me and the bank of screens in front of me began to flutter to life, one by one. The centerpiece of the monstrosity was the most detailed and visually beautiful ECG display I have ever seen. It spanned across a square of four individual, large screens and represented every electrical signal in my heart with a series of perhaps a dozen bright green lines, waving and bouncing rhythmically, crossing each other's paths and... practically dancing!

"Is that me?" I asked.

"It certainly is!" The new woman responded.

My new best friend, the drug lady said, "We're going to stick a couple more things on you, then I'll give you some happy juice."

Yeeesss! The happy juice! The stuff that will make this all be over. I was very much looking forward to seeing that needle go into my IV because I knew that's the last thing I'd see before I was being wheeled out of this beautiful and frightening room. And I was very anxious for that, especially seeing what it was they were about to stick on me. They were large, thin, rectangular pads with shiny metal on one side and a wire attached to the bottom that lead to places unseen. They placed on on the right side of my chest and one on my back, and I knew right away what they were for. Why pay a guy to stand over you with "the paddles" when they could stick them right to you? The pads were for zapping me back after they'd killed me.

I laid down and everyone in the room got into position. The technicians surrounded the table and started producing straps from the edges of the table. When they begin to strap down my arms, I protested! One of the women said to me, "Sir, people have certain instincts during a procedure like this. If your instinct is to jump off of this table, you're going to rip that catheter down every major artery in your body. And if that happens, no one on Earth will be able to save you."

What could I say? She was right. I laid still and allowed them to strap down my arms and legs. It wouldn't matter in a moment anyway. The drug lady said, "Okay, I'm going to get you started here." And stuck a needle into my IV and pushed in a good amount of magic fluid. I breathed a relieved sigh and looked up at one of the monitors. For a moment, it got fuzzy. I thought, "Here we go. I'll be out of here in no time."

But the monitor stayed there. I began considering the puzzling thoughts that this portion of the time line that is my life should no longer exist. I realized it shouldn't be the future yet, but when that future gets here, I should never have been continuing to stare at this monitor, as far as my brain was concerned. Yet, here I was. Still staring at the monitor and watching my heart rhythms.

I rolled my head toward the drug lady and said, "Uh... kinda feels like about three shots of whiskey." And at that moment, I began to curse my experience with alcohol. It'd been five days since I'd had any booze. All this drug lady had done was return me to my usual state before I entered the hospital. I suddenly felt more "normal" than I had since I was admitted. My brain was used to operating competently while doped up. I can deliver an hour or more of memorized monologue with a brain impaired enough to cause most people to fall down. And this little shot of giggle juice was going to make me forget THIS?

The new man came to my side and sat down. I felt the first injection on my leg. It didn't hurt terribly bad. He gave me another three or four, but after the first one, I only felt a bit of pressure. I'd become interested in the fluoroscope display on Ye Olde Wall Of Me. It was a live x-ray of my heart, bouncing around dutifully in my chest cavity, just minding its own business. When suddenly, from the top of my heart, I saw two thin lines extending down into the center. The catheter! I was still waiting for the guy down there to put the thing in and he'd been spending the last few minutes threading it through my arteries. I didn't even feel it!

Then I felt a little bit of panic. This thing was about to start. I could see the catheter inside my heart. And I was still here! I rolled over once again to the drug lady. "Hey, I don't seem to be in the recovery room yet. Could you set the time machine a little faster?" At this, I did get a slight giggle, which I'm proud of. The drug lady came and again, squirted more fluid into my IV. I waited for a few seconds.

...wonderful. Another two shots of whiskey. Hell, a couple more and I'd be ready to get up in the morning.

I was screwed and I knew it. But one thing the squirt of giggles did was give me a little extra courage. I realized I was going to remember more of this than I was probably supposed to, but suddenly, I was feeling defiant. Fuck it! Let's do this thing! Bring it, bitches! Kill me! Kill me hard!

I stared at the beautiful, dancing lines on the screen ahead of me and dared them to show me something new. A voice came over a speaker from the little room. "Okay. Let's start with JY-12." The ECG screen suddenly flew into a new dance. Orange lines appeared over my green ones, I can only assume they were the computer's projected input. They started bouncing over my green lines and red marks appeared where the two intersected, all flowing from one side of the board to another.

At the instant the orange lines appeared, my heart was racing as though I'd just run a mile. I could feel it thumping painfully, pounding blood around my system. It didn't speed up to this point, as I'd always experienced in my life, it was just suddenly there. After about ten seconds, the orange lines disappeared. The technicians watched the screen for what my green lines would do in response to the orange ones that disturbed them. There was a short moment of nothing and then a ker-thump from my heart and a blip on the screen and my heart went right back to its usual routine without so much as a shrug.

I thought, "Heh. Eat that, orange lines! Come back and I'll kick your ass again!" I probably shouldn't have thought that. The next few invasions from the Republic Of Orange were more speed tests. Different heart rates, higher and lower. I began to get used to them in a way. Once you knew what was going to happen, they weren't so bad.

"Okay, going to abnormal. RF-9," was what I heard over the speaker. The next orange lines to show up weren't so friendly.

The screen spiraled to life with what looked like an interference pattern of orange marks, jumping from the higher green lines to the lower ones. And instantly, I knew this one was different. It felt... bad. Wrong. Not painful, but... incorrect. Unusual. It felt almost like my heart was beating in reverse. It was slightly familiar from what I'd experienced with my own rhythm problems in the past. My heart felt like it was sloshing in my chest.

The orange lines went away. But this time, my green ones continued the pattern the orange ones had introduced. They didn't want to go back to their usual rhythm. I felt like I needed to gasp for breath constantly.

"Cough!" one of the technicians said. At first, I didn't realize she was talking to me. "Sir, we need you to give us a big cough." I pulled in a breath and gave them a good, hard cough. My heart was still sputtering uncomfortably. "Cough again!" And I did. And this time, I felt a satisfying ker-thump, as my heart was re-set and fell back into a normal rhythm. I panted a little, never realizing how good a normal heart rhythm could feel.

However, I didn't get to enjoy it for very long. The next orange pattern came up, sweeping around in a kind of circle in much the same way the last one did. This one wasn't painful at all. It felt like part of my heart was beating in my stomach and part of it in my neck. The orange lines disappeared and my green pattern had taken on a rather swirly look. I was instructed to take a deep breath, which I did. And then to cough, which I did again. But this time, my heart didn't ker-thump back into its original rhythm.

I had stopped paying attention to the screen. My chest began to feel hollow. The beats of my heart had turned into a very light, quick sputtering. Now and then a hard beat would hit, as though it was trying desperately to kick start itself again, but it never stopped the fluttering. Soon, even the kick start beats were getting weak. Everything in my chest was just an asynchronous flittering. I began to feel tingling in my hands and feet that swept into my arms and legs, thickening into a penetrating vibration all over. I felt my face get cold and my ears started to ring. Then, my vision began to break up into little spots and get fuzzy. The voices of the technicians sounded far away and though I could hear them clearly, I couldn't understand what they were saying. Speech turned into a series of sounds that eventually washed into the background.

I was hit with an emotion. It was more about myself than anything I'd ever felt. And I thought, "This is it. This is the proverbial "end". And it's MY end. Not someone else's. MINE. This is how it goes down." And it almost felt like the answer to the ultimate question. There was a kind of relief in just knowing how my death was happening. The vision and hearing I had left were suddenly something I couldn't pay attention to. I won't say they "faded". They were just stuffed into the background and unable to be grasped.

And then... well, this is where everyone says, "everything went black". But that's not how it happened. I can understand why people say it. It's the simplest way to describe an indescribable experience. However, things do not go "black". Black is an identifiable thing. What I faded into wasn't identifiable, because identity of anything had gone away. It's impossible to describe what I "faded" into, but I'm going to try my best.

It wasn't a place, a thing or an idea. Yet something was there. It was, let's say, a thought. But not a thought made up of words or images, but of bits and pieces of everything, tangible and intangible. Part of this thought felt the way yellow looks. Part of it had the impression of a large size. Some of it looked like tiny portions of different bits and pieces of things that I had seen and imagined in my life -- a section of air conditioner vent meshed with the texture of shag carpet. Part of it sounded like a section of time in which a car engine had been running. Part of it was the feeling of vibration. None of it meant anything. It was just there. Bits and pieces of random neurons firing off to make a thought that was composed of... anything. Anything at once, removed from the discrimination of what SORT of things they were. It was a thousand different random things -- the feeling of the distance of a foot in length, the recognition of a television commercial, the impression of a color, the knowledge of the location of my index finger when it's raised over my head -- all stripped of their names, purposes and meaning and woven together into...... an impression. An impression that slowly shifted, allowing new elements to fade in and other ones to fade away. I didn't understand it. I didn't want to understand it. There was no "me" anymore to wonder why I wasn't understanding it. It was there and it was everything.

This is the "black" that I faded into. It's a place where there are pieces of anything at once, none of which can be understood, grasped, sorted or differentiated. It's all there and all of it is one thing. Everything. That's the only thing that can be understood. It's everything. Not "nothing", as many people try to say you fall into. When I died, I faded into everything.

There was everything and then, there was acceptance of everything. I didn't need or want. I didn't care. There was everything and it was accepted for whatever it was.

That was my last memory.

If there had been time after my last memory in which there was nothing at all, I can never know that. I suddenly became aware of the things around me again. I didn't "fade back in". Everything I was seeing and hearing was already there, and always had been. I just began to comprehend them again. I understood time again. The things I was seeing and hearing were once again identifiable. And the first thing I identified was the feeling of having been hit with a brick wall seconds after the impact. There was a terrible, nagging thought racing through the back of my mind, insisting that something was wrong. Maybe that *I'd* done something wrong. There was no place to point an accusation, it was just the feeling of, "Bad! Badbad! Something wrong here! Very bad!"

This feeling faded quickly as I heard someone out of my left ear say, "And we're at sinus."

Without even looking up from his work near my leg, the new man said, ever-so-nonchalantly, "Welcome back, Mr. Davis."

I blinked a couple of times and my first words were, "Thanks. I wouldn't want to miss the next "Lost."

Not even a smile.

My feelings then went in very specific order. Relief that I was alive, elation that I had been dead, fear that I was still on an operating table and could go through it again, and then determination to get through this thing.

As if nothing had happened, the technician called out the number of the next pattern and my heart started flipping in loops again. The orange fuckers came several more times, swashing my orderly green lines with their chaos. Most of the time, my heart corrected itself fairly quickly, but I didn't have the nuts to insult them again, even mentally.

This went on for about an hour. Then the drug lady came over with a different injection.

"Sir, we're going to inject some adrenaline into you. Sometimes these rhythms can be triggered by that and we'd like to see the results."

The injection went in and, all at once, I had same feeling you get when you look out your windshield and see that the car in front of you has stopped and you're still speeding toward it... only without anything happening at all. More orange bastards came through to play with my green lines and adrenaline. After that, I received another injection designed to slow my heart rate. That was probably the creepiest moment of the procedure. No orange lines this time, but a terrible sense of anticipation as I waited for the next beat of my heart for what seemed like forever.

After the injections, it was time for another round with the Orange Army. And this time, they were pissed! The patterns on the screen got more and more intricate. And in my chest, became more and more painful. At one point, I asked the drug lady to give me another hit. I insisted that I was remembering more than I wanted to.

Her response was, "How do you know?"

I said, "Because I'm still here!"

She said, "But it's not the future yet. Of course you're here, because it's now! But how do you know you will have been here when it's the future?"

I was actually amused by this line of questioning. It was a refreshing little brain puzzle in the middle of this horror. However, I truly didn't want to remember any more of this. I said to her, "You remember my joke about missing the next episode of Lost?"

"Yes." she said.

"Why do I?" I asked.

She gave me another shot.

The final shot did make me a bit loopy, but not enough to forget the next barrage. Most of them, I survived. Two of them, I did not. I found myself sinking into the same "everything" as before, and then suddenly aware again.

The final pattern on the ECG was the most beautiful one yet. And the most painful. The screen lit up with a final, last ditch push by the orange, moving in a sine wave pattern up and down my green lines, jumping from one strand to the next. It looked like a Winamp visual plug in. And at the same time I was noting how beautiful it was, I was letting out an audible "ARRGGGGG!" from the pain it was causing. I didn't feel any particular beat in my heart during this one. Just a sweeping, stinging pain running circles around my chest. I did begin to feel a bit of pressure in my head, as though I was hanging upside down, but the pattern was stopped and my heart resumed its beat on its own. I may not have won every battle, but I whipped the final assault.

And just like that, the procedure was over. The technicians began to pull the equipment off and out of me. I was wheeled out into the hall where Jibba immediately greeted me with a smile. It was very good to see him. In fact, it was very good to see everything.

Death sucks, I will attest to that. I will not lie and say it was a comfortable, peaceful, warm experience. It was uncomfortable, painful and confusing. However, because it is the end -- the infamous, ultimate termination of everything that's important to us, we tend to imagine that it must also be the ultimate in fear, pain and despair. That's just not true. It's a painful and uncomfortable event in just the same way that painful and uncomfortable things happen in our lives from time to time. It's a very crappy 3 to 5 minutes of life. It just happens to be the ones at the very end. And it's certainly not worth spending 60 or 70 years in fear of. Death is going to happen to us all. It's a crappy thing. But it's probably not as crappy as most people imagine it. The worst thing about death is if the thought of it causes you not to live life. Worry about death when it comes. It's not that bad. Concentrate on life while you're alive. That way, when death does come, you can be happy with how you lived.

The most beautiful thing I learned from this was not a matter of spirituality, but humanity. I'm not a spiritual person, so it doesn't matter what I think about why I experienced what I did. Personally, I think it was just an indescribable effect of my brain dying and taking my perception with it. But that taught me something.

Life is differences. That's what it is to be alive. Life IS discernment. And that's all it is.

It's not existence or intelligence or spirit or any form of higher, intangible, invisible energy that lives in our bodies. Whether or not those things exist doesn't matter. Life itself is discernment of anything and everything. Life is the difference of difference -- The ability to take "everything" and slice it into portions, sections and "things" that we can play with, use and understand. That is what it is to be alive as opposed to "existing".

And when you have the very concept of difference taken away from you, you realize that people are in 99.9% in agreement on everything! And the small amount of things we do disagree on are simply more differences. More of our ability to live, sorting other people's opinions, rather than the concept of, say, a "sound" as different from a "sight".

Our brains and bodies are designed to be alive. To have the ability to set "everything" in pieces and then manipulate and use those pieces. We are filters, moving through the infinite and screening it into the finite. It is the only way it is possible to be alive. The only way to have life as we know it is NOT to have everything on our plate at once -- NOT to know everything -- NOT to comprehend God -- NOT to be enlightened -- NOT to be omniscient. What we consider our spiritual, philosophical and scientific shortcomings are the very things that are necessary for our existence as we know it. Without our narrow viewpoints and inability to understand it all, we would be another element of an incomprehensible "all", and unable to take part in life as we understand it.

We, as people, are exactly where we're supposed to be. We're doing our function. We're in the right place. To gain what we strive for would mean losing that which allowed us to strive in the first place. We are pieces of one, large thing, investigating itself and wondering what we are.

And if we ever find out... well, that will be the day it's no longer necessary for life to exist.

Terror

2009-03-04T06:16:44Z

Today, I experienced true terror, in the fullest, most existential form I could have ever imagined. It was one of the most horrible, daunting moments of my life and I am sure it will define the rest of my existence on this planet.

First, I have a confession to make. I haven't been completely honest with you.

You see, I hate getting sympathy for things I should just buckle down and have some balls about, I don't like whining to get attention, I hate creating drama and I hate unnecessarily worrying people. So this business about being in the hospital -- well, it's all true, but I intentionally left out a few details that might make folks I care about worry.

Now, it's true, they were looking for a blood clot. But the reason for my coming to the hospital was because the heart condition I've had since childhood finally started to deteriorate. The blood clot test turned out clear from the beginning. But that wasn't their main concern.

My doctor (whose name, as a matter of fact, is Dr. Eagle) was concerned that my childhood heart condition was deteriorating to the point that I could be at risk for sudden coronary death syndrome, or, as he so bluntly put it, "What I'm telling you is, there's a high possibility that you have a condition under which your heart could, without warning, enter into a rhythm that is 350 beats per minute and you would go down right then and there for good. And from what you've told me of your profession, everyone around you would just laugh." His recommendation was immediate heart surgery. And as he described the proceedure, I began to believe that I could never face anything more frightening.

The surgeons would make a small incision in the main artery of my leg, then run electrical catheters through my body and inside my heart. At this point, they would have complete control of all the electrical systems of my heart. Their directive... to cause it to fail. They would rev it up to 300 beats per minute. Then down to 30. They would send it flailing into a library of known fatal heart rythms, controlled by computer. Ventrical and atrial tachocartias, fibrilations, cartiac arrests, heart attacks. They would observe if it would recover on it's own after stopping the stimulation. And if not, they would wait until blood pressure was too low to sustain life and then deliver an electric shock from padles to zap it back to life.

And the most horrific part... I was required to be conscious -- completely awake -- through all of it.

I agreed to the proceedure. I signed a paper saying the hospital wasn't responsible if they killed me. And yesterday, at 3pm, I layed on a table for two hours and actually experienced every failing beat, every pain, every panicked breath of perhaps a dozen different heart failures.

I died three times.

From the onset of a fatal heart rhythm, through to the point of losing consciousness, seeing my last fading vision of the world, and then nothing. I experienced these deaths with my very own body and mind. Not a simulation. For real. I was literally taken on a tour of death. If not for the jolt that snapped me back, I would still be there.

I have never experienced anything so terrifying, awesome, impactful and humbling. Nothing I have ever done in my life can even approach the magnitude of this. I've seen death. I've actually been there. And I've felt what most everyone who has ever died of heart failure has felt. I wouldn't trade yesterday's experience for anything.

(P.S. And no there was no fucking tunnel, white light, or any of that bullshit, so nyaa. However, Peter Jennings says hello.)

***EDIT***
Some people are curious about the prognosys, so I'll tell you.

The tests were a precurser to finding a defective "electrode" in my heart. Once they did that, they were going to burn it out with radio frequencies and I'd be cured. However, in doing the test, they discovered that they were wrong! It wasn't an offending electrode at all... in fact the problem isn't even deadly and can be solved with medication. So ultimately, the operation was never performed.

A little delay

2009-03-02T13:29:27Z

Well, bleah.

Originally, I wasn't going to say anything about this. I assumed that I'd be back home quick enough that no one would notice. But it's looking like I'm going to be away for longer than I thought.

I'm posting this from a bed in the University Of Michigan Hospital. I was brought here on Friday where they admitted me to the emergency room with a possible blood clot in my lungs. (They say all the air travel I do has probably contributed to it.) They've kept me the last couple of days running tests and deciding what will be necessary, be it surgery or therapy or pills or all three. And so far, every day they do more tests, they decide they need to keep me in the cardiac ward another day.

Therefore, some of the things I'd planned to do may be a little slow, and I want to apologize for that. I'd had an FA:N to do and was about to reply to my e-mails, along with writing new material for FWA.

The good news is I have a frustratingly limited internet connection. It's enough to send a post here and there. And because I have my laptop, I've been able to continue to work on my comedy material in between tests.

I just wanted folks to know about this little bump I've hit and that I've gotten held up with a few things because of it. (Sorry if I haven't called or contacted some of you in the past few days. This is why.) But that as soon as I can, I'll get back to it.

See you again soon!

Songs For Saturn... more.

2009-02-28T13:40:16Z

Some of you have asked how things are going with the music album I'm making. Well, let me tell you a story. (Sorry Uncle Kage.)

For months, my car's rear end has been thumping and vibrating (hey, put your pants back on, PERV). It had also been making some terrible noises. Sounded like a jack hammer being used on a skiddish wildcat. I knew something was wrong with it and I had to get it fixed, but alas, birds don't have money for such things. That's why I came up with the idea for the Songs For Saturn album.

So, here is my car, thumping and vibrating and making terrible noises (stop it with the rhino sex jokes). But it also had a bad battery. In the cold, it wouldn't even hold a charge for twelve hours. I got tired of jumping it every time I needed to go out, so I started borrowing Jibba's car, and decided to leave mine in hibernation until Spring.

So, one day I drive Jibba's car (which has a dented rear end tied up with a bungee... make your own jokes about that one) to the grocery store. And when I came out to go home, it doesn't start. At all. I had to leave it there. Jibba goes to check it out and he can't get it started either. So now Jibba's car is officially DOA. I scraped up the cash and bought a cheap battery for my car, and now Jibba starts borrowing mine! Vibrating, thumping and all.

After about a week, my second roommate, Snap, calls me from his job needing to be picked up. His van (whose rear end is just fat and old) had suddenly just decided it didn't want its own drive shaft. It actually fell OUT of the vehicle, laid on the street and started yelling lewd insults at passers by.

At this point, my busted, rattling, thumping, vibrating, jack-hammer sounding Saturn was the only usable car the three of us had.

Now, it was about this point that a very generous fan of mine by the name of Mother Russia donated $300 to me from out of nowhere! I didn't ask for it, he just sent it to me. He said he was anxious to hear the album and wanted to contribute to the work I was doing on it. I was floored! In fact, I was so floored that I decided to go out and get a six pack of beer to celebrate and plan out more of the album.

And then, about half a block into the trip to the store, my car finally, once and for all, gave its last gasp and died. There was a terrible CRUNCH, and the back left wheel simply locked. It wouldn't move at all. The car actually had to drag its poor, gimpy wheel back to the house. If it hadn't been for the fact that there was snow on the ground, allowing the locked wheel to slide, I would have had to abandon it in the middle of the street.

Well, now we were in a pickle. No cars. I took Mother Russia's donation, and Jibba and I (mostly Jibba) rebuilt the back end of my Saturn. It's running just fine now, thanks to a lot of hard work on Jibba's part and a donation from a kind fur.

But what now? Since my car is fixed, I don't NEED to write an album to get money to fix it! However, I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to do it anyway. Why? Well, for one, I really miss making music and I want to do it again. And two -- the donation that was given to me was for the purpose of helping with the album, not to stop it from happening. And if someone can be kind enough to donate their cash to me when they didn't have to, then I can damn well finish the project it was donated to help.

So, right now I have several ideas recorded. Some of them are just raw, hard metal. Others are more emotional electronic metal. I plan to do a bit of both on this album. I want to thank Mother Russia and Jibba for helping to get my car back on its feet (or wheels, as the case may be). You both are getting mentioned in the lyrics of the title track.

RIP

2009-02-20T02:38:10Z

http://community.livejournal.com/remember_furp/

Tragic News

2009-02-19T17:47:54Z

Through my years in the fandom, I've made a lot of friends. All kinds too! Some of them have turned out to be close friends and some have remained buddies or folks to have a few laughs with whenever I see them. But either way, they're all friends and I care about them.

One of my furry friends in particular is called Furp. He's a dragon. Some of you might know him from the AnthroCon staff. He's a very pleasant guy and seems to want to help everyone all the time. Generally, when someone gets injured or sick, he's the one who shows up first to take care of it. Not just at AnthroCon, but whenever he can. He's just one of those people.

He's a soldier and went through a tour in Iraq, though he never makes a big deal about that. He's sometimes a difficult person to hang out with because when he has a job, he dedicates himself to it. But when he's free, he's really good to toss back a beer with and have some laughs. Great personality, this guy. It's hard to describe, but he's one of those people that you just feel comfortable with him and his personality when you're around him. He's very easy to talk to.

Last night, he was cruising on his motorcycle and was involved in an accident with a drunk Marine who turned in front of him.

Furp was pronounced dead on the scene.

http://www.insidesocal.com/news247/2009/02/motorcyclist-killed-in-twentyn.html

For those of you who never got a chance to know Furp, you really missed something. I'm really going to miss this guy.

The Gryphon Or The Egg.

2009-02-17T07:05:48Z

So... Michael Phelps, the American hero who brought home more medals for our country by himself than any one person has ever won before in a single event is now a shit stain on the American flag. Why? Because the media found a picture of him toking a bong on the internet. And we all know that if a person smokes pot, that means they're obviously shitscum losers, right? I mean, someone who smokes pot can't possibly ever make something of their life...

...but wait a second...

Phelps DID.

Why shouldn't it be the other way around? Isn't it more logical to believe that because Michael Phelps made athletic history IN SPITE of being a pot smoker, maybe pot isn't as bad or harmful as we're lead to believe? For fuck's sake, if a pot smoker can win 14 gold medals in one event, then it CAN'T be the horrible, brain rotting, body deteriorating shit our parents and teachers promised us it is, could it? Perhaps, instead of Phelps being a lowlife for smoking pot, the people who think of others who smoke pot as lowlifes are just judgmental, self-bullshitting, ignorant fuck-muffins.

Personally, I don't smoke the stuff. I never really got into it. But I guess what I'm saying is that smoking pot shouldn't say as much about Michael Phelps as Michael Phelps says about smoking pot.

Just my thoughts.