Why I no longer watch the news - and what's wrong with our country

About half way through the election, I stopped watching the National News in the early morning because I have last faith and most respect in CBS, my former news source. NPR and CNN are no better and no worse. The focus on the 'rant of the day' in our national election is so irresponsible and sensationalist, that I have lost faith. If Donald Trump wins this election, it is evidence of our country's falling prey to social media and the ability to say whatever one wants - true or not - just to get a rise out of whomever reads or watches or listens to their post. Watching football on Saturday and Sunday is off the table too - when every 5 minutes I see Trump yelling lies about everything in his script as if what he says is gospel. I hear Hillary on the defensive and sounding less effective that I know she is. Either way - I wanted football, not an extended political debate dotted with football updates.

I have taken to listening to classical music upon awakening - and my days start quite peacefully now - I suggest everyone try it.

Suicide needs no explanation

When I heard that Robin Williams took his own life, I remember thinking 'makes sense to me.' and didn't think much about it afterward until people started making comments to me like 'you are an inspiration'. I always feel creepy when someone says that about me in general and really creepy when it is in relation to the fact that I have not yet killed myself. What brought this all to mind today was listening to an interview of Robin William's wife, who desperately wants to explain to the world that Robin was not depressed, he had a brain disorder that had plagued him for several years. I felt very sad when she said that she had no inkling about Robin being in a state where he could take his own life. Now, she could reconcile with herself, that a. His death was not something she could have prevented - she could not have and that there was an underlying condition that plagued him.

Anyone, who like Robin, spends or spent so much of his time acting out the persona of other people and with him, had this manic switching from one to the next has to identify with his situation. I do. His inability in any interview to resist breaking into another voice felt so familiar as so many of us need comedy to feel comfortable in most situations. For so many of us who seem happy, or strong, or funny all of the time have a dark place that we avoid. Many of my friends who took their lives while living with the diseases associated with AIDS or with any form of mental illness were just tired of the struggle and the fight. I get it. I respect their decisions. I learned that while some suicides are angry spiteful acts, many just represent reaching one's limit and not wishing to suffer any more. I respect that and pray for their happiness. I am grateful that I have yet to reach that place so that I can do some good before I go, but there is no guarantee that I won't reach the point as others have where committing suicide just makes sense. It is a sad affair, but I can't begrudge anyone's decision to do so.

ABOUT STIGMA

I have very unpopular feelings about 'STIGMA' and HIV/AIDS. From the day that I was diagnosed, I went into my boss' office - and I was only 26, and just flat out told him. I have never felt ashamed of having HIV as many have. I have lived through a lot of disease centered hardship so I know what is entailed in living with this disease from beginning to end - the good years and the bad. Not once have I ever surrendered to outside pressures to hide my status, never misled a potential date.and always felt good about my decision to be out with my disease. You don't ever have to worry about whether or not someone knows - its very freeing.

Let me tell ya, there have been several times when meeting via a dating app, I could have lied to get laid, but that just seemed wrong in so many ways. To be honest - I was never hurt if someone said that they didn't take dating lightly, and don't sleep with POZ people  because they knew that they didn't want to introduce HIV maintenance into their lives. I know exactly what they mean, and empathize. I don't feel Stigmatized or slighted because I have HIV, some people do - I maintain that
everyone has the right to decide what they do and don't want in their lives.

I am not talking about men of different cultures and ethnicities from mine who judge people for having HIV infection, as they think it brings shame on the family, etc. I cannot speak to a situation where someone feels that they are in danger of physical harm because of family mores. That is different.

There is a tendency for various groups of people to play victim where in many cases they are making it up. There is an off-color win in that posture for those who practice being victims. I don't choose to live that way. I find it terribly self destructive.

When I read about and listen to interviews of people who think that their HIV status has caused them to feel stigmatized in everything that they do, I frequently find myself asking the question: So, what was your part in the situation?  Think About it.

I think that in many cases, people make their own misery. I certainly did,but after being forced to answer that awful question 'what was my part in it?' I was forced to realize how much of it was of my own doing. I hated the process, but it was, in the long run. completely freeing.

My next post will be on ACTUP. If anyone reads it, I am sure that some people will take MAJOR exception with what I say.

The Assumption of Good Will

The founders of the first software company I worked for were geniuses. They had a good technology, strong corporate partners, and excellent visionary skills; the standard kit for executives starting-up new companies. They also had a guiding principal which has proven to be one of the most powerful practices ever to enter a board room. This principal they called 'The Assumption of good will.'
Over my 20+ year career in software, working at 4 different start-ups, and given the opportunity to watch how many of our customers and colleagues treated each other, I grew to appreciate how lucky I had been in my career life. I went from a super-political, gossipy Fortune 100 company to the world of really smart people, all of whom were too intelligent and humble to ever feel the need to brag, over-exert any control that they might perceive they had over anyone else. All of us were secure in our knowledge set, willing to share it whenever asked by anyone, and unbelieving that anyone as brilliant as our co-workers could possibly be puzzled by what we did. Real, honest-to-goodness trust and respect were the norm, and anyone not on board with the prevailing corporate culture stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, and tended to move on fairly quickly.

The genius of those first two founders was not only the practice, standards generated, and rewards-a-plenty from their good-will policy. They took it a step further in making it a requirement for employment at their company. So, they gave those not accustomed to their corporate culture a chance to learn how to adapt and fit in. I came from such a different environment as prior to my foray into the Corporate World, I worked, albeit briefly, on Wall Street for a Venture Capital firm run by 2 extremely wealthy, strong-willed twins whose dad had previously had a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and basically put them in business. I discovered that wealth was not the end-all and be-all of my world as the personalities associated with that environment were some of the meanest, greediest, most dishonest people I have ever met. Something always had a subtext, money was power, period. It drove me to drugs and inches away from taking my own life. I have always been one to experience things to learn about them as I was and am still a firm believer that experience is the greatest teacher. It's a shame they don't give out doctorate degrees for experiencing the actualities of what they teach or fail to teach in graduate schools. 

Now, I have tried to extend this practice in all of my life with disappointing results. Getting sober - really sober was the first and essential 'STEP'(oh I just hate that word 'step' sometimes) to cleaning up my own behavior. I admit, it has been very difficult to ween out things like sarcasm and judgment from my personal practice, although tolerance of those things in myself gets shorter by the day. Dishonesty, one of my most frequent lapses has surprisingly become quite easy for me as I have discovered the true freedom it offers me. I take myself out of occasions where lying is an option, and because I really don't feel like I have anything to hide anymore, I tell the truth. I have learned - again the hard way - that truthfulness is not the road to popularity. It's simply not worth it to me to 'get anything' if I have to lie about it. I have also learned that telling some people the truth - to their face - and thinking that they understand that I have no reason to lie to them is frequently a big mistake as many people that I encounter as an advocate for the rights of HIV Positive People, Seniors, and the Disabled are constantly in information control status. Just laying one's cards on the table is threatening to many more people than I ever imagined.

It is a self made hell one creates when everyone is suspect of 'something'.

The reason I have gone into this topic is my disappointment and frustration with people who marginalize and discount disabled people, especially older disabled people. I have lived in a wide variety of housing types including home ownership, market rate rental apartments, apartments supposedly specially appointed for seniors and disabled folks, and various room mate situations which I don't really count as my own housing. It is remarkable to me just how much malfeasance finds it's way into the affordable housing process especially when it is targeted for disabled folks. I just don't get it.

So, if you ever find yourself in charge of any group of people, big or small, and you think that an environment where everyone realizing that they are all in the same situation - working toward a common goal - would benefit by everyone being on each others team, so to speak, and truly wanting the best for each and every other person in the endeavor, then try it. Mandate 'The assumption of good will'. And mandate it in a way that allows for anyone who simply can't work that way to move on with no hard feelings and a good referral.

When this actually works, it blows you away. There is always the risk that all of your colleagues will turn against you and your new age, lovey-dovey pinko commie ideas, and you will be the one that needs to leave. I'm just sayin......

Day 2 as promised - uggh.

well About that Demerol thing - I am a cocaine addict - in recovery - haven't used in over 12 years - and, Yes my life completely changed for the better once I stopped using. I have been to so many treatment centers and been inundated with all sorts of recovery information, so much, in fact, that if you totalled the number of hours I spent in classroom like groups over the years, I have amassed PhD level expertise in addiction, brain chemistry, neurophysiology, disease and recovery.
At first, I didn't even know why such a big deal was being made of the whole thing - I just went to these places like 'The Meadows', Betty Ford, Brentwood AA and Beverly Hills AA and sundry other in patient places where - plus or minus 20%, they all had the same message. I didn't get sober until I stopped going to anything - including AA, because it didn't make sense to me to waste everyone's time and effort - especially mine - as long as I was still secretly fantasizing about using.
When I finally - and I mean finally was ready, it just happened. I remember in my 5th year, I was at home and looked at the clock and it said 5:30 - that was the time every day that the craving would start and I would start scheming about the when, where, and how I was going to start the routine involved in getting loaded. So, at 5:30, that day, I wasn't even thinking about it. It blew me away. I just felt normal and did normal things - wow! What a relief.

I called a couple of friends that put up with my craziness during my using and when the first one answered the phone,  I yelled 'Its fuckin 5:30 - can you believe it???' He replied 'well congratulations, you can tell time - when did that happen....what a revelation.' I then explained what I was talking about, and being a good AA Zealot, he said - ' I haven't seen you at a meeting in a while.' And so it goes. My reason for this digression is that I knew that IV Demerol was so wrong for me that I can't express how unfortunate it was that there were no other options, and that I had to get it every day for 5 months. It led to an awful and thankfully my last relapse. Now, I intellectually should forget what I am about to say, but I am not yet ready to do that - In AA and therapy groups, people will say at times 'well, nobody held you down while they injected that stuff in your veins - it was your choice.' I think you probably know where I am going with this - it was an unfortunate situation that thankfully God determined I could recover from. This was the beginning of my committed belief in God having a purpose for me and that I had work to do.

What does all of this have to do with long term survival?

It is an example of why getting sober has been essential, along with God's grace, to my continued survival. I was not a God person most of my life, in fact, I still hesitate a nanosecond before saying the word. I was raised in the empirical world of scientific proof. I had to have so many examples where if something hadn't been in my corner, I wouldn't be here. Now I think it is just part of me.

I came from a family of helpers. I was the kid in the neighborhood who, instead of getting candy on Halloween, I carried that orange cardboard coin bank and when people answered their door, I would say 'trick or treat for UNICEF'. During the last 14 years, I enjoyed the hospitality of Cedars Sinai Medical Center for over 70 of my 82 operations. I am using the word enjoyed quite loosely. For most of that time - as many of the operations involved my spine, I was legally disabled and living on SSDI.
My issues, except for a couple of comas, were physical, not mental. As I got farther and farther away from my last hit of cocaine, my mind got clearer and clearer - and as I have a pretty fertile mind, If I hadn't had volunteering, the HIV Commission, Disability Board, etc - I would not have survived. Helping others - which had the pleasant side effect of taking my self centered mind off of me for a change, is how I have found and still find purpose in life.  There is more - much much more. - tomorrow.

How I have survived (I think) for so long - part 1

Its been a while since my last entry - I have made a pledge to myself to be a daily messenger from here on in, or at least until blogs have been superseded by some 'newer better' thing, as happens often in this world. 

I want to start talking about what I think has kept me alive this long. Some of these factors are of a spiritual/internal nature - others quite the opposite - although everything ties together.

For me, when I had to stop my career work, I was at the pinnacle of my career in A.I. involved software start-ups, and had started my dream job 3 months before I was forced onto paid medical leave because as the COO (a former wall street attorney who was so miscast in his role)put it - 'Jim we like you here - you have a job here - you will always have a job here, but you are scaring the other employees and I am putting you on 3 months paid leave - now go home.' I felt like I had just faced the firing squad. I did not trust this person and I felt like I was abandoning my dream. I had a lot of inside work that still needed doing.
To tell the rest of this story has taken a chapter in my never-ending memoir draft. What I can say is that I should have just let the job be and taken care of myself. Instead, I tried to manage the world around me (that never works) and I almost killed myself. I had faced little illnesses in the past - but this time I faced a fungal sinus infection (Aspergillis) that was 1mm away from breaking through to my brain. I survived 5 months of daily 4 hr Amphoteracin infusions - in the old days when you saw a bag or bottle of Ampho - which is a thick electric yellow fungicide that barely kills the fungus before the host - above someone's hospital bed, chances were that the next time you would see that person would be at their memorial.
Why/How did I survive? 
First - I never felt that sick - it just felt like a persistent cold - but not like death was even in the realm of possibilities. I literally told myself  - out loud - in private - every morning, that I simply wasn't dying. As much as I could, I led my life as if I didn't have a PICC line in at all times nor had to drag a pump around to hydrate me between doses - I went to restaurants, the gym - had to leave the pump at home for that, shopping, and driving. Admittedly, since the protocol requires 50-150mg a day of IV Demerol as pre and post medication, a couple of times I should not have been behind the wheel. The good news is that I made it through. Also, not giving a hoot about and judgement I received or trying to look good allowed me to be ill and heal. I learned a lot about myself then.
So, I guess if there is a lesson here, of course take what works for you, for me it goes like this. 
Act as if illness is just one of those challenges that are part and parcel of long term survival. Names tend to scare me at first blush, but trusting my feelings was my big lesson. Adhering to prescribed medical protocols is crucial.

I am going to stop here. I do want to say that I had plenty of examples of friends who would catastrophise everything and look to blame someone. Those people, most of whom are no longer with us, seemed very unhappy and looked sickly. I don't judge them - we do what we can with challenges that are as all encompassing as AIDS can be. I just tried something different and it worked and works for me.

More blowing out of my windbag tomorrow!

AIDS Comes to my house, the beginning of my 'real' journey.

Let's talk about good ol HIV today. I was thrown quite  a curve ball a while back when, after several months of ignoring the pains in my joints, it became almost impossible for me to walk. I have been an athlete since high school - everything from a college tennis player to a bodybuilding competitor in my mid and late 20s - to a mtn bike racer in my 40s - always hitting the gym and maintaining my weight along the way. Losing weight when one is not trying to can send any serious bodybuilder into a fit - if you want to try it out- just innocently mosey up to a big guy in the gym - whether you know him or not - when he is checking himself out in the walls of mirrors. Then, with the intonation of a complement, say 'Wow, you're really trimming down, it looks great.' If after his initial reaction is whatever it is passes, he starts examining himself even closer and heads to the scale for a weigh-in, you will see what I mean. I had gotten past that phase in my life, but when someone told me I looked like I was losing weight, until the last 14 years, I couldn't help thinking 'Oh no, I have AIDS wasting syndrome'. I was still 240 lbs, which may as well have been 340 lbs, but I couldn't see the lunacy that my thoughts portrayed. I went into that awful PTSD moment of being in any one of a number of my friends' hospital rooms, gazing at what was left of them just before they died and being terrified and convinced that I was next.

I wasn't expecting to see 30, now I am 58, and in my 39th year of HIV infection. So, back to when I was no longer able to walk without excruciating pain. I went to have a CT Scan with contrast at - you guessed it - good old reliable Cedars Sinai. I was in the waiting room after my scan when an older man whom I had never before seen came into the waiting room and after looking around and not finding what he was looking for, said 'did anyone see an older man with severe back problems - probably in a wheel chair, leave recently? No answer. Is there anyone here that just had a spine CT with contrast? I said - 'Uh, that would be me.'

'No, these are not your films, this person would not be able to walk at all.' he responded. Then he said 'Is there anyone here whose phone number ends in 7557? Once again I replied,
'uh, gulp that would be me.' as I felt the blood rushing to my face which became fiery hot and I started pouring sweat.
'are you okay to come with me for a minute?' He asked gently. I nodded and we went back to a consultation room. On the way, he introduced himself as the on-call radiologist, and that he was in the process of writing the report for the films.

Next, he apologized for having jumped to conclusions, and then he showed my my images. I almost fainted - he went to get me some cold juice and a cool, wet cloth to put on my forehead.

I was shocked and a bit puzzled by what I saw as there were so many things going on that I intrinsically knew were not normal, to wit he told me that what I have been told many time before, that I am not a doctor, and not to jump to conclusions. 'OKAY, I AM NOT A DOCTOR, NOR AM I BLIND, DOCTOR, I said in the most balanced voice that I could muster at that moment.

He then told me that 'this is the kind of result I might expect to find in an older person, say someone of 80 years or so, with severe osteoporosis who had taken a fall. He advised me to see my spine doctor asap and that he would post the report within the hour.

This is when I went into 'detached mode'. I compartmentalized all of my emotions like fear, sadness, anger, frustration, etc., and put them somewhere deep in my psyche. I do not recommend this approach to dealing with one's feelings, but it was what I knew and how I had always proceeded. to be continued......

AIDS Hits Home, another piece of my personal journey with AIDS.

Before I continue in the story of how what happened to me happened to me, I feel the obligation to say that it took me many years and many failed attempts to find my purpose on this earth. In the early days of the epidemic, I was merely a bystander, a scared one - but I did nothing about my feelings or those of my fellows. It was in 1986, when I lived in DC and was planning a visit to my first lover back in San Francisco that the magnitude of what was happening to my adopted community finally hit me.
I called George, whom I assumed would outlive me and all of our mutual friends, and he asked me what I would like to do while I was there. He suggested having some people over for a reunion dinner. I thought that sounded great. Then he asked me who I'd like to see so that he could extend invitations to them. The first five people I named were all dead. DEAD. Suddenly I was out of ideas and not so sure I wanted to do any planning at all. I wasn't even sure I wanted to make the trip, and as it turned out, I had to postpone that trip for 2 years because George had been hospitalized with Pneumocystis three days before I was to travel.

Part of me wanted to run to his bedside, and part of me was too scared to do so. I knew, empirically, that I could not 'catch' Pneumocystis from him, but my emotions took control, making me not want to get near him on the one hand, and jump in his bed attempting to contract his illness and suffer with him on the other. I had very grandiose visions of martyrdom, in a glorified way that upon investigation showed how sad and scared I was.

AIDS had finally hit home and sooner than I would have liked, my best friend Joe would be in NIH, with his brain gradually being devoured by the bug that causes Toxoplasmosis. I had started to include Joe less and less in my life because of his constant denial and dismissal of what science and his doctors were telling him was going on in his body. I found that the more I tried to reason with him about the possibility that he, like myself, might be HIV positive, the more resolute he became about the contrary. To be truthful, he was pulling away from me as much if not more than I pulled away from him over this disagreement. Either way, that fateful day that he failed to show-up for a buying trip in New York, trips he professed to love, I knew that something had happened. I didn't come close to imagining the seriousness of his travail.

I, along with his secretary, and his other good friend Jeff, whom I had not yet met, had been calling repeatedly with no result. Jeff went one step further and called the police with whom he broke in to Joe's apartment. There was Joe, lying on the floor at the foot of the stairway that led to his loft and roof deck. The wall, the stairs, and Joe, all were coated with his own feces as he apparently had a seizure at the top of his stairs, and as it typical in that situation, his bowels emptied during the event. He was alive, yet unconscious, and in the best hands imaginable. When I think about it - I feel like I was there - as I did see the aftermath during one of the cleaning sessions. This is one of the scenes that haunts me during my PTSD moments. Prior to starting my writing again, PTSD had almost faded away. It's okay. I am prepared for it this time around and don't want to ever forget what it was like since if I do I won't be able to tell youngsters about what happened.

I feel so numb writing this, I wish I could accurately describe just how disconnected from everything around me these brief visits to the past make me feel. Emotions affect me so strongly, which really puzzles me. I don't think I am supposed to figure this one out. I just have to stop writing now and honor these feelings whether I want to stop or not. Bye for now.

The new Me - time to start actually blogging

I have finally decided to do my daily blogging as I had planned to do prior to yet another 'am I in or am I out' couple of years landing at Cedars Sinai, which, thank god, I am done with at present. 

I wake up at 3:00am - as my dad did before me and after his dad did before him. I watch - or more correctly listen to the 'Overnight' and 'Early Morning' news broadcasts on the local CBS affiliate as I have had cable TV removed from my house. My productivity was in the toilet, so to speak, with that big color picture box leering and yelling at me about starving puppies and the like - so I yanked it. Here's the rub - antenna TV works just fine for news, etc., so once again the box yells my way for a bit in the am. Ya know what - I get to yell back at it, and I do.

When I hear most of the nonsense that is fed to us listenwatchers (my word), I can't help but yell or can I? Ah yes, the magic of the blog. For instance, the entire Republican Roadshow is more damaging to any of their candidates’ images than all the money spent on ads by the Democrats in the last 10 elections could ever be. Some facts according to Jim:

1. The country is tired of Bushes - period. Bringing 'W' out on the stump is like someone bringing out Joseph McCarthy because he is a good American. George Bush and more importantly his director and controller - Dick Cheney were the most harmful, destructive force ever to plague the White House. Are we forgetting that 'W' lost the popular (and would have lost it all if Florida hadn't been stolen thanks to old JEB's handiwork) election for his second term. The war that did nothing but de-stabilize IRAQ, etc. outside the US and Inside our country, it made a few specific people much wealthier - like the Bushes and the Chen's - while absolutely throwing our nation into a recession that exposed new lows in the character of Bankers, Oilmen and Republican Legislators. I need to mention the little known Cheney (a nick name) Bill that the Republican congress passed that was created by Cheney, for Cheney Family Wealth and nothing else. HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO BLIND AND STUPID ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY BE CONSIDERING ANOTHER BUSH MEDIATED PLAGUE.
2. Cruz and Rubio or smart-ass, lying punks - who think if they yell the loudest that people will believe the lies. Rubio yelled - 'not in 80 years has a lame duck president had the gall to nominate a supreme court justice' - uh - he seems to have forgotten the Republican demi-god Ronald Reagan who did the same thing. Cruz never answers any accusations - he just smarts off like a sanctimonious pig - but the reality is that he is a young inexperienced punk who knows less than nothing about Diplomacy.
3. Now this one is one I just do not understand - the whining corpulent self-declared Chanteuse - ADELE. SHE CAN'T SING - PIANO MISFIRE OR NOT - IT WAS SHE THAT WAS SO DARN FLAT AND UNABLE TO MAKE EVEN THE 'EAST NOTES' IN HER GRAMMY APPEARANCE. Her songs are all whining miserable pooor me songs - you'd think that she would get the message from whomever it was that she is singing to in that droning tome with the 'called a thousand times' refrain.  How does she make that attractive? She wouldn't have made it past the first audition on Star Search, or any of Simon's shows.
4. One other thing having been a fat kid who got healthy after high school - and happy by the way, I do not understand the celebration of fat people. Take away the look issues, which are daunting - trust me, what about people's health. Carrying around an extra 200 or more lbs. like the sweet black female actress whose name escapes me, is bad for you, your heart, your ability to breathe, your ankles, etc. BY cheering someone’s fatness, we are enablers of the worst kind. It saddens me that this argument has been contorted into a judge not lest ye be judged issue. I am glad now, although at the time it was difficult for me, that my jock judge loved me enough to tell me the truth. So, don't we love any morbidly obese people enough to save their lives?