Oh, Technology: Stop Driving a Wedge Into My Ass Already, Will You?

A couple of years ago, my wife and I and another couple went on a joint vacation to Lancaster County during July 4th weekend. We toured some fucking place-- I don't remember what the hell it was-- and this bitch in a bonnet tour guide tried to lay some smack down on us about how the Amish way of life-- eschewing electronica and whatnot-- is the way to go because, clearly, "technology is driving a wedge between us."

Really, we all know it's about them not paying taxes. But I won't tell anybody if you won't. It can be our little secret.

It's hard to convince a habitual blogger with a 3G cellphone that technology is driving him apart from other people. I mean, really-- I don't need technology to isolate myself; I'm quite adept at doing that on my own. And I was socially awkward before Aspergers became cool, too.

Technology brought me and my wife together on Tuesday night to watch Watson fucking annihilate Ken Jennings and that bearded D who looks like a yacht playboy from the '70s. I have no doubt that the IBM technology that was on display from the 14th-16th of February on Jeopardy! brought a shitload more people "together" than Jeopardy! normally does. Outside of assisted living facilities and minimum security white collar prisons, that is.

While the spectacle was just a big advertising handjob for IBM, I've got to say, I was pretty fucking impressed. And it takes a lot to impress me-- believe me, people have tried and, outside from perfectly performed patter songs or athletic amateur porn flexibility, attempts to impress me generally don't measure up. "Amadeus" at the Walnut-- America's oldest theatre-- left me overcome with the blah's. And we left at intermission, courtesy of my wife's migraine.

(I was all set to ask her if we could go before I knew she was really going through it.)

You know how kids are always like, "Daddy! Look at me! I'm doing a headstand" or some shit? My kid's going to have to be reading the evening news behind a desk in his bedroom with make-up on his eyebrows for me to take notice.

Ironically, though, while being brought together in front of a piece of technology (our flatscreen TV) to behold a piece of technology (Watson) kick the ass of a skeevy guy and a Mormon, the piece of technology that I marveled at the most on Tuesday night had nothing to do with IBM or Mormonism. It had to do with Jefferson University Hospital.

In our viewing area, as those of you who are blessed to live near my zipcode can attest, there was a slick, fancy-pants commercial put together by the super-skilled and probably still virginal A.V. folks at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

(NB: I think it's funny that hospitals have commercials, but that's a post for another day.)

Anyway, this piece focused on the Endoscopy Department and relatively decent-looking physicians whose first language is English were discussing the merits of newly-developed (say it with me now, Amisherkinderlings) TECHNOLOGY that the hospital's researchers have recently developed.

Get this: it's a fucking camera inside a pill. You swallow it, and they follow its path through your intestines and they can diagnose what's wrong with your smacked-up G.I. system.

And then, you poop it out!

Amazing, right?

My wife, who has GERD, (HIPAA VIOLATION!!!!) turned to me after the commercial's conclusion, slackjawed and said,

"Holy shit! That is so fucking cool!"

"I KNOW!" I exclaimed. And then I got hit with a stroke of genius. "What if they could mount a mini camera on a penis--"

"Oh, Jesus," she said. That's right. Here it comes-- too late to stop.

"Yeah! And you get a guy to fuck a chick who's having, like, vag problems! And the doctors are sitting there in the control room watching it zoom in, zoom out. Zoom in. Zoom out! Get it?"

"Oh," she said, "I get it."

"And then you get a gay guy to put the camera on his dick when some other gay guy has prostate cancer, or rectal cancer, and then you fuck him with the Dick Cam 2000. It's GENIUS."

Technology driving us apart-- please. What a crock of shit. I guess no Amish chicks'll be getting their sick pussies fucked by the Dick Cam anytime soon.

Coolification

What the hell is going on?

Seriously-- don't you sometimes watch yourself some TV and that exclamation/rhetorical question just slips effortlessly from your lips? My wife and I just saw an advertisement for something called "Nat Geo."

"What the fuck is 'Nat Geo?'" I asked Goodwife Apron.

"I dunno," she replied.

And then, at the commercial's conclusion, the emblem of a small, yellow rectangle with a globe inside of it appeared on the screen, and the words "National Geographic" fanned out across the screen and the deep, resounding bass voice of the announcer commanded you to tune into "Nat Geo."

Nat Geo.

What the hell is going on?

Who is the marketing genius who was hired to flip up National Geographic's pink Izod polo shirt collar? Come on. You can't just slip a pair of Ray Bans on a motherfucker and call it "cool." Or "Nat Geo" for that matter. The thing is, National Geographic wasn't cool when it was a magazine, and it isn't cool now that it's a cable channel. And it never will be. Period. I don't care what you call it-- "When Gazelles Attack," "So You Think You Can Hibernate?," or "The Bestial Rape Channel," sorry-- it's just National Geographic. Now, granted, National Geographic magazines are probably the publication where I saw my first pair of unadorned breasts, and I give obligatory props for that. Yes, they were a pair of floppy pancake-lookin' things, tenuously attached to the chests of several women from the Yanomamo tribe, but full nip is full nip. And these nips were full, no doubt. Like the hubcaps on a Hupmobile.

Still, why does a storied, venerable institution like National Geographic feel the need to coolify itself? What does it stand to gain?

It's happening in my city, too, and I'll bet it's happening in your city, too. Yes, even yours, Morgantown, West Virginia. The coolification of stodgy, stolid institutions to attract a younger, hipper crowd. I never thought, for instance, that hospitals would have much trouble attracting young people. I mean, young people flock to hospitals every day for a colorful variety of maladies-- from sexually transmitted diseases to closed head injuries from dumbass motorcycle-without-a-helmet stunts to multiple gunshot wounds (this is Philadelphia, after all). But hospitals are definitely marketing themselves on television to the youngins.

Take a look at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

They're working a couple angles in the name department. They sometimes go by "TJU" but they're not satisfied with mere abbreviations-- oh, no-- their television ad campaign, which must be costing them millions and millions of dollars an on-air minute, usually ends with "Call us by our first name. Jeff."

Now, that's kind of funny, because it's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, right? Shouldn't we be calling them "Thomas" or, at least, "Tom?" I mean, how fucking stupid can you get. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson took a big, bloody shit in his coffin when that commercial first rolled out on the airwaves.

Then there's the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, I admit that this is a fucking mouthful, no doubt. Since my wife had surgery there, I've had to say that name a lot, and I've used several of its abbreviations in casual conversation, but it always landed me and the folks with whom I was conversing in confusion-- because there are too many coolisms/abbreviations. There's UPenn. People think you're talking about the school. There's Penn Medicine. Well, there's like, five Penn Medicine satellite campuses all across the suburbs, so people in the burbs can pretend like they're getting Penn care. They're not. Then there's U of P. Well, that just sounds nasty. There's also "HUP." People think you're a drill sergeant. Nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about. It's awesome.

We've also got this cute little museum downtown. It's called "The Benjamin Franklin Institute." Well, it was called that, but now it's commercially known as "The Franklin."

Seriously.

They also call it "TFI" on their website. No doubt this is to honor those in South Philly who, when friends ask if they're going to see the new Star Trek exhibit and where is it showing, they, adorned in their traditional wife-beaters, gold chains and smoothing back their shellaqued hair respond,

"Yea! I'm goin' to The Fuckin' Institute! You's wanna come?"

The Famous & The Dead

David Carradine...

Farrah Fawcett....

Ed McMahon.....

and, the grand Daddy of them all...

The Queen of Pop.

June has been a pretty bad month for celebrities. I'm glad I'm not a celebrity. I wouldn't want to die in June, particularly this one. It would be a real bumfuck to die during one of the coolest Junes in recent history.

But, you know what they say about death: you don't get to choose. Unless, of course, you're a suicide. You don't have to worry about me on that score, though. Way too much to live for. Way too scared.

Though I'm by no means a suicide risk, I do have to say I'm not altogether too thrilled about waking up tomorrow and hearing people memorialize and mythologize Michael Jackson. My place of employ is going to be electrified with moronic, dunderheaded, pointless drivel about him, and I kind of wish I could spend tomorrow locked in my basement, just kind of let it all pass by without having to listen to any of it-- that would be seriously fine by me. I don't want to listen to people remembering practicing the "Moon Walk" in their parents' basement while wearing feet pajamas. I don't want to hear about some dickhead's first kiss to "Beat It." I mean, who would have their first kiss to "Beat It" anyway? I mean, I'm sure more than a couple pre-adolescent boys had their first kisses that way down at the Neverland Ranch, but that's their problem.

I wonder about the EMTs and paramedics who responded to the 911 call, though. I do wonder about them. I wonder how I would have behaved had I been summoned to render aid to Michael Jackson. It was obviously a critical emergency, and I'd like to think that I would have been all business, but, it's Michael Jackson. I mean, how can you actually tell he's dead? I guess that's where cardiac monitors come in. Can you just step back and picture yourself giving CPR to that man? I mean, fine, as a healthcare professional, you'd be using at least a barrier so your lips wouldn't have to directly touch Michael Jackson's dubious lips, but still... Just picture it.

Weird.

Also weird-- they're going to perform an autopsy on him, probably tomorrow. How'd you like to be the coroner in charge of that one? Wouldn't you be petrified of what you'd.... find.... in there? I mean, again, it's Michael Jackson. Who the fuck knows what's hiding in there? Maybe he had a titanium duodenum retrofitted, or a small, waterproof music box that plays "Black or White" during digestion. There could be small animals living inside there. Way fucked up. Couldn't pay me enough to cut that shit open and take a peek. Sorry.

As part of my EMT training, I was required to attend an autopsy at the morgue of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. The deceased was your typical old lady-- distended belly, pale, flabby skin. Her wristbracelet said she was 87. No toe-tags. I guess that's just in the movies. She died of cancer but, since she passed away in the hospital, I think an autopsy was required. The gentleman in charge of the morgue at Jefferson was conducting the autopsy, and he cautioned me about professionalism and decorum around the dead.

"A couple years ago, I had a bunch of EMT students in here observing an autopsy on a deceased gentleman. When I cut into the lining of the stomach, a small piece of feces popped out, sailed through the air, and landed on the head of the deceased. This one EMT student, who I later found out was at the top of her class and was certain to graduate with distinction, blurts out, 'Wow! I guess he's a real shithead!' Well, I threw her fucking ass out of my examination room and, when the autopsy was over, I called the head of your EMT program and had her kicked the fuck out. So, just so you know-- in here: you watch your ass, and your mouth."

Needless to say, I was a very, very quiet EMT student for this autopsy. With my mouth, as long as it's open, there's the risk of trouble, so it was firmly shut. I helped him weigh the various internal organs. I helped him saw through the skull to expose the brain. After the top of the skull was off, he told me to cup my hands beneath the deceased woman's head. He snipped around the brain a few times with the forceps and, before I knew what was happening-- plop! -- her brain was in my hands.

You never forget that, I expect.

The philosophy behind requiring EMT students to attend autopsies is, I suppose, to get them comfortable with death, or at least acquainted with it. As a healthcare provider, you're going to be exposed to death eventually, so it probably should be done first in a controlled environment, where you're not responsible for the demise of the individual who has passed on. Plus, it's an incomparable anatomy lesson-- far better than any ditto sheet or textbook illustration.

It does smell worse than textbooks and ditto sheets, though. If you think regular, live old people smell, and they do, try being around a dead one whose rectum has just been cut open.

They say that an autopsy robs a corpse of its dignity, but I think people who say that have never actually been to an autopsy, at least not one conducted by the chief coroner at Jefferson Hospital. This man treats his corpses, well, like patients, and that's not always an easy or expeditious thing for a coroner to do. I trust that the coroner who stands before the corpse of Michael Jackson will do likewise, though I'm pretty sure Michael Jackson's dignity was lost a long time before his final breath.