Let the recycling of old material begin!

Some of you may have seen this before, but I was on deadline and I needed a post, so that’s that. (The editors here at GITGAW are demanding as all git out.) Also, someone needs to shed some light on this little-known band, and that someone is I. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Beatles Quiz!
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Sounds silky smooth on the album, but this track had to be spliced together from two separate studio versions of the song — no mean feat considering they weren’t recorded at the same tempo, or even in the same key. Is it:

1. Strawberry Fields Forever
2. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
3. Magical Mystery Tour
4. Tomorrow Never Knows

Paul McCartney: Look what you’ve done. You’ve made a fool not of everyone, but of yourself, by writing what voters in a 2004 poll deemed “the worst song ever.” It’s:

5. Yesterday
6. Let it Be
7. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
8. Ob La Di, Ob La Da

John Lennon was so gaga over this actress that he had long-suffering wife Cynthia grow out her hair and have it dyed to look more like the object of his affection. She was:

9. Sophia Loren
10. Brigitte Bardot
11. Elizabeth Taylor
12. Sharon Tate

The alarm bell neatly kicks off the “Woke up, fell out of bed” sequence of A Day in the Life — but that’s not why the alarm clock was brought into the studio. The original reason?

A. Paul brought it in as a joke to keep John awake
B. John brought it in as a joke to keep Ringo awake
C. George brought it in as a joke to suggest he was just ‘clocking in’
D. John brought it in to remind Paul how little time he had left as an innovative songwriter

This song includes a slang reference to someone taking a poop in the street. Gross. Well?

E. Happiness is a Warm Gun
F. A Day in the Life
G. I Am the Walrus
H. Come Together

Paul’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night is referred to in the film repeatedly as a:

I. Mean old man
J. Clean old man
K. Dirty old man
L. None of the above

Some say Paul was killed in a car accident in 1966 and replaced with a look-alike. Album cover “clues” that he died include:

M. Paul looking to the side on Revolver
N. Paul’s back to the camera on the back of Sgt. Pepper
O. Paul barefoot in Abbey Road’s ‘funeral procession’
P. All of the above

Including the anguished “Yeaaaeeahh” scream as a word, how many words are in I Want You (She’s So Heavy) ?

Q. 13
R. 18
S. 22
T. 26

Helter Skelter inspired Charlie Manson. But what song inspired the raw sound of Helter Skelter?

U. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
V. You Really Got Me
W. I Can See for Miles
X. Smells Like Teen Spirit

If not for Ringo suggesting Abbey Road, the Beatles’ last studio album might have been called:

Y. Africa
Z. Everest
&. England
%. Liverpool

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Answers – 1, 8, 10, B, E, J, P, Q, W, Z

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The Price of Progress — NDE #6, part one

So I found out in November ‘07 the cancer had not only come back to me but brought a friend to shack up in the lungs. It had officially metastasized, making it eligible for inclusion in a New Yorker article. (I tried submitting a piece there but it was too inchoate.) This was serious business, something not to be left to the bumbling docs of the Midwest. It was time to go straight to the top, to the front-page-of-the-Times shaman, the only one who could save me.

LMAO. Literally.

Winter was spent scanning and planning. Three months, or a third of my expected lifespan back then, gone away. Finally in February the treatments began: The FOLFIRI regimen with a kicker of Avastin. Dr. Times (or probably his nurse) warned me the side effects of Avastin may include something, something, and something else. I wasn’t paying close attention because when you get chemotherapy they warn you about 200 problems that could crop up and 199 of them never will.

So I had to go back and check the website to remember that “Treatment with Avastin can result in the development of a potentially serious side effect called GI perforation. In clinical trials, these events occurred throughout the course of treatment and in rare cases resulted in fatality.” In case you hadn’t figured out by my getting colorectal cancer when I was a 34-year-old vegetarian,* ladies and gentlemen, I am a rare case.

It went like this: Working out at the Y, leg pressing 500 120 pounds, I suddenly feel something snap in my posterior. Arrrggghhh, perhaps it’s time to cut this workout short. I go home and it’s sore (my ass, not the home) but I figure it’ll go away. Next morning, still hurting — worse.

Next day is Thursday and it’s unbearable. It feels like there’s nothing in between the bones and the chair whenever I sit down, and whatever I sit on seems to be made of concrete. Early afternoon I drive myself to the ER, wait five hours, and tell my story to the doc. He examines me briefly (i.e. pokes around until he hears me scream) and we agree to treat it as a sprain. I’m sent home with happy pills and instructions to ice it.

Friday, pain.

Saturday, pain.

Sunday. What do I remember about Sunday. Wasn’t feeling so hot. Had a turkey-on-bagel sandwich for lunch. Hour later, BROARRRRGHAGHHGH puked it up. Still didn’t feel so hot. Around dinner time I went into the bathroom, closed the door, and wondered why I was looking at the ceiling and why my wife was making so much noise.

Oh, right — I’d fainted!

Paramedics get me on the stretcher. This time I don’t have to wait five hours to be seen by the ER medics. I tell them how I strained a muscle in my ass, but they seem skeptical. Because I seem septical — the skin over most of one rear hemisphere has turned red. The surgeon on call came in for a chat with the wife.

“Your husband’s very sick.”

“Could he die?”

“Yes.”

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*A Judd Apatow film starring Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd! Coming soon!
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Don’t make me edit. You wouldn’t like me when I edit.

I know what you’re thinking. Here he goes again, picking out a minor ambiguity in an AP article, fixing it for our enlightenment and acting like it makes him a journalist. Oh no, this is much more important. This one doesn’t call for the red pen* so much as it calls for the writer to be punched in the face.

That’s right, Christopher “S” Rugaber! I’m callin’ you out! We gonna throw down!

In a recent AP article, Chrisagaber drops a dime on the federal government, exposing to all that the deficit for fiscal 2009 could reach a cool trillion. That’s a lot of cabbage. Sounds like a big deal. Tell it Chris!

The federal government ran a record budget deficit in November, putting Uncle Sam on track to post an all-time high annual shortfall of $1 trillion or more.

A direct, one-sentence lede.† Very nice. The next paragraph is also straightforward and helpful. But then, the deluge:

The increased red ink stems from both lower tax revenue and increased spending that is a result of the recessionary economy. The government is receiving less in business and personal income taxes while spending more on programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps.

Oh, yeah. We’d have that budget balanced by now if it weren’t for all those losers who got shitcanned and are eating lunch on the taxpayer dime. I didn’t even know we still had food stamps! I saw Super Size Me, I know poor people are fat. Cut that entitlement out so we can go back to that budget surplus thing.

In fairness, Rugaber (whose full name is an anagram for ‘Our Graph Bitches Err’) does get around to mentioning that little business about nationalizing the bank industry. You know, that thing that costs around $700 billion, or 21.2 times what we spent in 2007 on “food stamps.” By the way, it’s actually called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program now. Oh, SNAP!

And by the other way, did you notice that the budget for oh SNAP doubled between 2000 and 2008 ? That surprises me quite a bit, because I really thought the Bush Administration tax cuts would benefit the poverty-stricken most of all. Way counter-intuitive.

I’m not getting paid enough to look up how much we’re spending on unemployment insurance, but I’ll wager my first billion that it’s quite a bit less than the cost of keeping Citi out of Chapter 11. It probably costs less than the wars we’re winning all the time, but we keep those off the books anyway.

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*Blue pencil? Pink eraser? Orange stars, green clovers?

†Knowing why they spell it lede — $40,000. Wait, we did this already. And actually, now that I think on it, my J-School degree cost around $50,000 because I had to enroll in an extra semester just because I turned in my thesis ten years late. Point is, I try to appreciate any value I can get out of this sunk cost wherever I can. Go on, ask me about ‘half-mast’ and ‘half-staff,’ the pleasure’s all mine.
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Do I have to do everything around here?

Innocently perusing the fark headlines, I check out a story about San Francisco restaurants encountering a new breed of customers: The non’trée. You know, they buy an appetizer instead of an actual meal because times are so tough. No entree. Get it? Ha, ha.

As entertained as I was by the lead and the first graph though, I quickly ran into trouble with the nut graf,* which had me grasping for the editor’s pen:

Not since 9/11 have Bay Area restaurants, whether it be the fancy, white-tablecloth ones or the cozy neighborhood hangouts, seen such a lull in business. But this time, restaurant owners say, it’s worse.

I am currently in a chemo fog so cloudy that I can no longer play “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on the guitar. But even I can see these two statements don’t jibe with one another. Maybe you can too. This is the worst it’s been in seven years… no, worse even! It’s worser than worst!

Surely we can find a Bay Area foodie who can tell us the last time it was really this bad. About the great truffle panic of ‘85 maybe, when Stars had to offer two-for-one deals and Jeremiah Tower wept openly into a bowl of arugula. Or how after the quake on ‘06 Sam’s Grill resorted to selling catfish, nothing but catfish and scrod.

I’m guessing you might not even need the services of a crusty old caterer to learn the last time there was this much of a drop off. I’m willing to bet that we only have to go back an extra few months and we can rewrite the passage this way:

Not since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 have Bay Area restaurants, whether they be the fancy, white-tablecloth ones or the cozy neighborhood hangouts, seen such a lull in business. But this time, restaurant owners say, it’s worse.

You’re welcome, San Francisco Chronicle. Happy to help.

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*Knowing the phrase “nut graf”? $40,000. Old gag making fun of old ad tagline? Priceless.
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