Isiah Washington is no plantation slave

In this ridiculous CNN report, Isiah Washington, the former Dr. Burke on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, shows he’s quite the victim:

“Well, it didn’t help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime, [sic]” he said.

“I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that ’some people’ were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I’m a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn’t go around saying ‘Yessah, massa sir’ and ‘No sir, massa’ to everyone?

Hmm, I guess simply being an asshole never factored into it. Calling a co-worker a ‘faggot’ more than once could be grounds for dismissal in any job, depending on the circumstances. This is show business, though, and the opinions of fickle fans (and sponsors) matter more than Washington’s sense of justice (and it’s not like he’s an A-list superstar, or anything to begin with). Maybe there was racism on the set, and this is all that was needed for ABC to axe (as in the cutting implement, not the verb, ‘to ask’) Washington, their “dilemma” solved. Chandra Wilson, the other Black cast member doesn’t seem to be saying there’s a racist element on the set. But she keeps her mouth shut and doesn’t get “uppity,” I’m sure Washington would say.

It just astonishes me (well, maybe not) that certain obviously talented and educated people in the Black community resort to slavery allusions in the unfairness of how they are treated today. Not even Jim Crowe–slavery.

This isn’t Roots, this is 2007. Grow the fuck up.

Two new black holes (belatedly) discovered

This is true–although their existence has been known for some time now, the data is finally confirmed that these two entities are indeed black holes, the most powerful physical phenomenon in the known universe. The gravitational force exerted by a black hole is so massive, that not even light traveling at velocity of over 186,000 miles per second can escape. The two entities are currently named MySpace and YouTube. If light can’t even escape, imagine the crushing power exerted on one’s time!

But seriously, I have enjoyed YouTube ever since it came out, but like most people, only to watch little ditties people forward me and get a good laugh. I had no idea that there were soap operas and all sorts of things broadcast via people’s webcams–like I care about the dating life of some chick who’s known only as “T1f4nny.” Please. However, I discovered a phenomenal thing that has been sucking up all my time recently–vintage classical music videos and other rare performances. (yes, this is where you guffaw mercilessly at my geekiness) I’m talking rare footage from the 50s or 60s of Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, or David Oistrakh not previously seen outside the (then) Soviet Union or, on the other side of the spectrum, pristine (as much as YouTube can handle) footage from a live concert in Japan last year of Arcadi Volodos from someone’s camcorder. 99% of you have no idea who these people are, and that’s OK–trust me when I tell you that these are giants of their respective instruments (and yes, they are all Russian, but that’s usually the way I roll, musically).

To see what I mean, go here to watch a clip of Volodos from somebody’s frickin’ living room for crying out loud, playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” from A Midsummer Nights’ Dream (arranged by Vladimir Horowitz and Volodos). All those words will mean nothing once you hear the first few notes, but please keep watching at least past 1:20 because that’s when the fireworks start. Now what kind of chance would I ever have had to see Arcadi Volodos in the first place much less be privvy to a private performance?! Thank you Internet, thank you YouTube.

As for MySpace, up until a few weeks ago, all I knew of it was “where the kids hang out online” and that it was always associated with various pedophile scandals since, obviously, that’s where the “kids” hang out. After hearing enough comments from some people in class about what they read, I finally logged in expecting to see nothing but teenage crap. Oh. My. God. 1/4 of the planet has a profile on MySpace, and now I do too (which is pretty irrelevant considering I never go there, but you need to create one to see much of anything). I think perhaps HALF of my medical school class actively maintain their MySpace profile, and within a week of signing up, I got a random email from a person who went to my high school asking if I remembered him (I didn’t). I had no idea so many “older” folks actively frequent MySpace. I have enough problems keeping up with blogging and emailing, so I’ll leave the MySpace to others, but from what time I did spend on there, it was obvious it had complete “black hole” status, following so-and-so’s friends, comments, etc. It’s similar to blogging in a kind of LiveJournal or Blogger way in it is a pre-built community, but SOOO much deeper and bigger. And far more hideous. I swear people’s MySpace profiles look like a scary glimpse into a schizophrenic mind.

As much as finding/following profiles of pathetic pop star wannabes on MySpace is loads of fun, I’ll stick with YouTube.

Do you Bling? No, I have a brain.

From the Bling h₂O website (written with ‘h’ because the apparently the Hollywood elite don’t know that there are no lowercase letters in the periodic table):

Bling H2O [note the inconsistency of the logotype presentation] is the inspiration of Kevin G. Boyd, Hollywood writer-producer. While working on various studio lots where image is of the utmost importance he noticed that you could tell a lot about a person by the bottled water they carried. [I suppose my Kirkland H₂O would label be as a janitor.]

[Bling's] mission was to offer a product with an exquisite face to match exquisite taste. The product is strategically positioned to target the expanding super-luxury consumer market. Initially introduced to hand-selected athletes and actors, Bling H2O is now excitedly expanding it’s availability… Bling h₂O is pop-culture in a bottle. But it’s not for everyone, just those that Bling.

Bling H2O comes in Limited Edition, corked, 750ml, recyclable frosted glass bottles, exquisitely handcrafted with Swarovski Crystals.

This stuff costs $35 a bottle, $420 for a case of 12 (no savings for you!). For water. The same stuff that falls freely from the sky.

I am imagining the genius of Mr. Boyd, as his little minimum wage army armed with glue guns, dab cheap-ass Swarovski knock-off crystals onto these frosted bottles before filling them with water from the hose outside his LA house. Apparently Paris Hilton uses these to give to her dog, Tinkerbell. That’s about all you need to know.

You see, this kind of ridiculous excess is why people from impoverished, oppresed 3rd-world nations see the United States and hate us so much. But it’s ok: we have good will messengers like Madonna, who will adopt/steal their children one at a time.

(what does this have to do with medicine and/or Mexico? absof-inglutely nothing. I’m just procrastinating studying for a pharmacology exam. )

And now for something completely different

This is a major departure from my usual posting, but I love Soviet-era culture. It’s not a “Oh, what a wonderful time it must have been during Stalin,” way but rather a never-ending fascination. I also love anything dealing with the CIA, KGB or espionage in general; I’m a total sucker for a good spy movie/story. Did you know that in Russian culture a wide-mouthed smile is perceived as someone laughing, so that Westerners traveling there would often get odd looks like “What are you laughing at?” when trying to be friendly? It’s like the norm is flat affect, and what we’d consider a chuckle is downright hilarity. Or at least used to be that way–perhaps things have warmed after 15-some-odd years of glasnost. A quick perusal of my music library also shows huge leanings towards 19th and 20th century Russian composers, by far. I even joked about subjecting my future child to Shostakovich as early as possible (before I even knew she was already conceived!)

Imagine my delight when I discovered a site full of authentic Soviet-era propaganda posters! (The linked poster’s caption reads, “Chatterbox–a gift to the enemy!”) I love the sneering, “I’m turning you in” look of the guy in the background–priceless. Through a small attempt at learning Russian about 5 years ago, I can read a little bit of simple words, but to enjoy the site you’ll need to make heavy use of Babelfish.

I know this is probably not for everyone (probably only me), but I thought I’d post something interesting and different.

Britney’s Pregnant Again!

Break out the potted meat and Boone’s–it’s a celebration, and nothing but the good stuff! Actually, I knew this last week, but didn’t pay much attention because I was too busy and somehow it didn’t surprise me. Except today I found out that the new spawn is 5 months along. Damien Sean Preston is 7 months. TWO FRICKIN’ MONTHS AT BEST (assuming her cycle restarted regularly immediately after delivery, which is unlikely) and she gets knocked up again! Jesus, Mary and Joseph…this chick is born to reproduce. Too bad she chose the guy on the corner that washes windshields.

Weaving this back to med school, I can say without having done a day of ob/gyn rotation that I know I’d never want to be an ob/gyn (OBG). No, it’s not the hours, the 14251:1 female:male ratio these days, or even dealing with the, shall we say, “messier” parts and functions (not the least of which is childbirth itself). No, I’d never be an OBG because I’d probably lose my license in the first few years of practice. I come from an area of high welfare mother prevalence, where having another child is a financial advantage to a degree (in spite of no job) because then you get more as a household, and one more mouth to feed isn’t that much more. I’m not kidding.

At some point I’d just snap, fake/forge a consent form, and I’d tie their frickin’ tubes under the pretense of some other pelvic procedure. I’d be doing society a favor. I’d eventually get caught, then not pay off my $500k student loan debt, be forced to declare bankruptcy, lose my wife and kids, yatta yatta. It wouldn’t be a good scene. Why put myself through all that? Better to stick a “safe” residency, like medical transcription or clinical transportation. heh.

I know Brit/KFed’s new bundle of trailerpark joy is not being funded on a dole, but I can’t help but draw parallels here. I know it’s insensitive, unethical and all that to say that some people shouldn’t [further] reproduce, but damn!

Solitude

I am alone; Claudia left this morning back the states for her final weeks of pregnancy. It’s for the best of course, but I can’t help feeling it still sux. Even though I don’t always (usually) have time to go places as often as she would like and usually wind up just being homebodies, even though I am holed up in my study almost 80% of the time I’m at home, it’s still comforting to know someone is there, even if you don’t get to talk that much. I’m just not the person that sees a situation like this and thinks, “Party at my house!”  Although it’s not a bad idea… heh.

So, to pass the time all day while she traveled/got settled (because I couldn’t really concentrate for study purposes otherwise), I did the following:

• Watched History of Violence (pretty good), Flightplan (almost as bad as Contact–I am never watching a Jodie Foster movie again), and about 4 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
• Played more Splinter Cell (Pandora Tomorrow, not started Chaos Theory yet) on Xbox
• Organized Ziploc bags (click “More” below before you think I’m OCD )

As you can see, there was absolutely no academic anything in the above. I feel good, because a day like today (save my wife leaving for 2 months) is exactly what I was aiming to have, at least part of the time, when I had my “vacation” a couple of weeks back. I feel like I’ve spent some decent decompress time, and I’m ready to move on, at least for now.

Oh, and just for the record: Ellen Pompeo (Meredith on Grey’s Anatomy) needs a serious intervention for her anorexia. When a disposable surgical cap looks like some kind of clown prop it’s so big on you (I don’t want to think about the rest of her wraith-like body) it’s time to check yourself in. When Lara Flynn Boyle calls you because she wants to know your “secret,” that’s another clue. I’m just sayin’…

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Histology and Halo

I expected to use this alone time to see how my study habits changed, and I found out something very interesting: I can’t stop playing Halo 2. There is a Halo tournament next week that some friends from class are organizing. Nobody (at least that I know of) in it is any kind of fanatic player, but I thought I’d take the extra quiet time at home to dust off the Xbox and refresh my skillz.

Mistake. It interfered with studying for my Histology final, and that’s with my already having finished the game once when it came out! A mark of an awesome video game is if I play it regularly, because normally, a) I am not a gamer, b) I don’t have patience, and c) I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, so if I choose the game, there’s something good about it.

At the risk of sounding like a total geek (way too late, I suppose) here are some things I like/dislike about Halo:

• Incredible score, visuals, action
• Just the right balance of complexity and ease-of-play
• Halo2’s switch to the Convenant POV
• Regular save checkpoints: I don’t have patience to “solve” something in a RPG before I can turn the unit off to go do something else, and I have the luxury of playing for 30 minutes (improbable, but at least possible) to blow of steam
• I don’t like that Halo2 was WAY too short
• I wish there was some non-linearity in the game, although its absence is also what makes it so playable
• I hate The Flood. Every level that involves them makes my stress level increase 5x. I know that’s the point, but still…
• There are few things more satisfying than a cowardly swipe of a plasma sword behind someone’s back in a multiplayer game, that’s for sure, especially if said victim thinks he’s hidden waiting to snipe you.

It’s been fun, but it needs to stop because I am getting behind. Diversion is OK–even needed–but I need to space it out more. I chalk it up to being discombobulated with all the changes this week.

As for Histology, I am so glad this class is over. Hopefully the grades will be out by the end of the week so I’ll have the hard evidence I need to know that I’ll never have this teacher again! YAY!!

Dubbing is evil

I’m watching the Oscars in the background which here in Mexico is broadcast on TNT live. I’m appreciative of the live feed, but do they have to dub? If they can close-caption live, why can’t they subtitle live? Ok, fine. I can deal, and the silver lining is that the dubbing voices are over the live voices, so if you tune out the Spanish, you can hear the original. But why oh why do they have to dub an actor biography over EVERY single clip that isn’t live? Basically, they do a nomination, show the clip, and instead of seeing the clip, I have to deal with sports-radio-style play-by-play stats. WHY?!?

Black Friday

I didn’t even realize today was Black Friday until I saw it on the news. Did I miss a national memo? Is my hypotryptophanemia (see yesterday’s entry) making me forget something obvious? A right-wing person I know blogged that he thought Black Friday sounded “[not] very Christmas-y to me. Sounds kind of perjorative and negative to me.” Aside from the knee-jerk “perjorative” comment (the last thing I thought was anything having to do with African Americans), I have to agree: there is nothing “Christmas-y” about waiting in line at 4AM at a Wal-Mart …. let me repeat that so it can sink in this time …. Wal…Fucking…Mart, not Nordstroms or hell, even Toys-R-Us……waiting in a line with people who are acting like ferrets on crack waiting to get into the store or (more like me) pissed off zombies who can list 100 things they’d rather be doing if you gave them 5 seconds but they are there because [insert spouse or family member] conned/threatened/blackmailed them into going. (yes Virginia, that’s a run-on sentence)

I have already alerted my family to the fact that if it can’ t be bought by a Mexican Indian (meaning indiginous Mexican, not an emigre from Bombay) it isn’t going to be given. As much as I’d like to not be a poor student once again to be somewhat more generous with presents, I won’t miss the buying frenzy that starts this weekend. There are some advantages to being here; not having to deal with “Black Friday” is one of them. I’m just waiting for someone to come out with the “Grandma Black Friday Smackdown” video from the inevitable assault-and-battery incidents that always occur today trying to get the hard-to-get toy fad or $10 DVD player.

Sulu is Gay

Straight from the Not-Actually-News department, George Takei, the helmsman on the original Star Trek series, has finally come out of the closet publicly. I guess he thought we should all know, but anybody who has seen him in anything since the “Next Generation” Star Trek movies and other appearances since kinda had their gaydar klaxons blaring “Red Alert!” anyway.

“The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.” Good for him. Out of respect for Sulu, I won’t make any “where no man has gone before,” or “final frontier” jokes. It would be wrong and in bad taste.