daily kvetch

Yesterday morning I woke up and immediately noticed there was a marked worsening in my hearing. My left ear felt as if it was stuffed with a wad of cotton wool, sounds came through tinny and muffled, there was even a slight bit of pain. Since I have a bunch of gigs lined up and since we're moving and I can't afford to blow off any work, I immediately went down to see my ENT specialist. The secretary took pity on me and gave me an appointment later the same day.

All I can say about the treatment I got is that as far as I'm concerned, private health cannot arrive too soon. I can't help but think that if I paid the quack specialist who treated me a decent amount of money from my pocket I would have gotten a bit more than his perfunctory, patronizing and cold two minute treatment. This was the third time I went to see this particular golfer physician. He hardly looked at my chart. He didn't know who I was. He patronized me in the worst possible way, casting doubt on the fact that my situation had worsened ("That's impossible!", end quote) For the record: I never expect miracles of doctors. If he thinks this condition is untreatable, so be it. But I do expect some attention and some good old fashioned decent bedside manner.

I am actually a supporter of public medicare. It's obvious that the U.S. system has many substantial, systemic problems. No one should go bankrupt or suffer because they cannot afford a physician. On the other hand, nothing can replace the energy and incentive that immediate payment provides. I don't see why I should have to wait, suffer and agonize for weeks if I can afford an hour or two of a doctor's time. Some sort of a mix of private and public delivery is surely possible. It seems to be working very well in Scandinavia and in other European countries and I don't see why we couldn't adopt it here. In the meantime, I'm scheduling an appointment in Buffalo. What a great advertisment: The United States - the great safety valve of Canadian medicare

Other than that, nothing much is new. We are still in real estate limbo. Right now, we're waiting to hear whether an offer we have made on a nice house in Vaughan will be accepted. If it is, I'll need to get my ear better and get my ass back on the gig circuit as soon as possible. Every penny will be needed to pay for the bank's our house. (as you can see I've discovered the HTML strikeout tag)

As a quick aside: I listened to the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album in the car the other day. (an exhaustive analysis of the record can be found here) I was seriously underwhelmed. Sorry to offend any Beatle fans. I used to be one myself. No doubt there are some classics on this album. In my extremely humble opinion, "Girl" is by far the best cut. "Michelle" has a marvelous melody but is undermined by wooden playing. I don't know....when I listen to Motown records from about the same era, the playing is vastly superior and the production quality a lot better. The Beatles wrote some superb melodies but in hindsight a lot of their stuff seems pretty mediocre. Ok, sue me!