I'll Probably Never See "Citizen Kane"

My wife is currently struggling with the concept of being human, and forgiving herself for being so.

Oftentimes, I'm pretty reasonably comfortable with my humanity, my flaws and my foibles, my acne and my wrinkles, my blunders and my anxieties. Sometimes, though, I just can't seem to shake the fact that, when it all boils down to gravy, I just don't measure up.

Measure up to what, of course, the question becomes. To whose standards? To what level? To whose ideal?

Probably my own, though I think society bears some of the blame here. I love blaming society. It makes me sound so, I don't know, Proustian.

???

I'm deeply flawed. I say racist and offensive things. I'm often insensitive and pernicious, I'm all over four-letter words like they're my best friends or chicks I want to fuck.

(See?)

I'm a hypocrite and a charlatan and a faker and a dirty old man and a complainer and a dreamer and an insipid coward and a concealer and a crybaby.

And I've never seen "Citizen Kane." And I probably never will.

Why?

I don't know. I'm just not that into black-and-white films. The only black-and-white stuff on film that I really love are "3 Stooges" shorts, and I only really like the ones with Curly. Shemp I never really got into very much, Joe Besser is just a wimpy, gay stereotype, and Curly Joe DeRita was, well, a fourth-rate Curly impersonator, and not a very good one at that.

Oh, and I love "Dr. Strangelove," of course. I think it's illegal to call yourself a Peter Sellers Freak without loving that movie. Plus, it was James Earl Jones's first on-screen role. I mean, it's a piece of history in so many ways.

But "Citizen Kane"? I don't know-- just doesn't interest me. Sure, I've seen clips. And I've heard about sticking the fucking camera in a hole in the ground a hundred times. And I know it's, like, #1 on the AFI Most Important Contributions to Cinematic Whatever of All Times.

I know.

But, it's just something about it. "Rosebud." Whatever. That style of acting, it's just so... representational. So affected. So... uninteresting. And Orson Welles is probably going to come back from the grave and give me a nipple-twist for saying this but, like, in the grand scheme of things, who gives a shit if I've never seen "Citizen Kane"? It makes me an imperfect connoisseur of the film medium, for sure.

I'll admit that. It does. So does never seeing, "Gone with the Wind." Or "Inherit the Wind." Or "A Mighty Wind." Basically, all those windy movies I've kind of just skipped over for whatever reason. I don't know, I'm sure a cunning psychologist could come up with something pretty enticing about that.

Can I really say, "I love movies" without ever having seen "Citizen Kane," arguably one of the most influential movies ever made? I don't know. I get away with saying "I love Mark Twain" without ever having read much of his novel writing.

Does that make me something of a cheat? Does it make my enthusiasm for a subject matter somewhat hollow?

Or, does it make me human?

I don't know. But, either way, I'll probably never see "Citizen Kane." Why? Because, truth be told, I'd rather pop in "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" and laugh my ass off as Peter Sellers destroys his own apartment trying to engage Burt Kwouk in yet another Cato/Clouseau battle royale any day.

And that, if anything, makes me about as human as I can be.

How Are You?

I work with lots of people. In fact, I've never worked with this many people in my entire life. At my last job, it was me and the boss-- that was it. And that... was a problem. At the psychiatric hospital where I work, I work with many people. Nurses, psych techs, allied therapists, social workers, nurse managers, supervisors, administrators, and the janitors, whom we refer to as "environmental service attendants," thank you very much.

Oh, and who could forget the patients? Not if we tried.

When you come into work in the morning, there are lots of people to greet, and/or they greet you. As soon as the metal door closes behind me, there are staff members sitting, guarding, walking-- there are patients walking, staring, meandering, draped in blankets, doing the slipper-shod, Thorazine Shuffle along the halls. Some are disheveled and disorganized, some are pretty well put together. If you're green, it's occasionally challenging to tell who's a staff member and who's a patient, in certain regrettable instances.

No extrovert by any means, I do make it a point to say "good morning" to as many people as possible when I come into work. There is one staff member with whom we exchange businesslike "Sir's" accompanied by an officious nod. It's nice to have established routines after only three months.

The response to my "Good morning" is invariably "How are you?" or "How're you doing?" I never answer. I didn't really notice that I do this, until I started working in this facility with dozens and dozens of people, and I've caught myself doing it every single day I'm at work. When someone asks me "How're you doing?" I always say, "How are you?" The person in question usually responds with "Good," or "Fine," even though they're usually probably not, and we move on about our business.

I don't know why I do it. Have I decided that how I'm doing is irrelevant-- that I would most likely spout out something that isn't true anyway, so why bother? Am I afraid of saying something dumb, like, "Peachy" or "Ducky"? Or am I hyperaware that the convention of asking people how they're doing and expecting an answer that never reflects the truth isn't a practice worth engaging in?

I don't know.

Every now and then, there's someone at work who will turn it around on me again-- who will catch the avoidance technique that I'm using and call me on it: "Well, how are you?" they'll insist, and I'll be forced to meekly state that I'm "fine."

I rarely am. Whoever is? I'm relieved that I've now worked here long enough that people stop asking me, "So, how do you like it here?" which is a terrible question to ask a new employee, especially if they work at a psychiatric hospital. What are you supposed to say? I invariably replied, "Well, it is what it is." People invariably laughed.

It's no better than asking a newlywed, "So, how's married life?" That question always made me want to vomit straight into the eyes of whomever asked. What a ridiculous, obnoxious, intrusive, insipid question. What the hell are you supposed to say to that?

"Well, it's very much the same as non-married life was, except now I have a ring on my finger and a shared bank account. We don't have a shared email address or customized license plates with our initials, because that's gay. We talk a lot, listen to NPR, watch ridiculous television, laugh, fight, go shopping, and, on a really good night, there's chocolate and/or intercourse."

Maybe I'm just no good at being human, because that's really all this is-- these silly conventions that we've adopted to give us something to say to each other when, probably, there really is nothing to say-- or nothing that ought to be said. This is why I infinitely prefer writing to talking, and I wonder now why I resisted blogging for as long as I did-- because, if someone had told me long ago and far away that there was this great new way to express yourself and you never had to communicate orally with another person, never had to pay heed to societal conventions, never had to worry about saying something idiotic, or stress about awkward silences, or awkward non-silences, man-- I would have been all over that shit.

By the way-- how are you? I really do want to know.

Oh, The Humanity

I almost threw up at my new job yesterday.

It wasn't because, as a psychiatric technician and allied therapist in a psychiatric hospital, I am exposed to pee-pee and poo-poo, and patients who enjoy creating mayhem and artwork with both. No, I don't especially mind that. It also wasn't because I am exposed to patients who like to... expose.

"lookatmytitslookatmytitslookatmytitsaforeifuckinkillyoumotherfucker"

I... didn't. And, fortunately, she didn't, either.

I almost threw up at my new job yesterday not because of the patients, but because of the staff. My coworkers. My.... peers.

I almost threw up, but I didn't-- because I couldn't even bear the thought of eating after what I saw and heard today at work. Plus the fact that my day started at 7am and my lunch break was at one. What was the point? My appetite was ruined, as was my outlook on mental health as a profession, and my faith in this facility and my zeal for this job.

Gone. Awesome.

Patients were openly ridiculed by staff, openly insulted, openly... threatened.

Staff Member: "How 'bout I come over there and cut you? I'll come over there and cut you so bad your own mother won't recognize you. I'll fuck your motherfuckin' shit up."

Staff Member: "I'm about ready to shove that walker up your ass."

Staff Member: "Hey, did you know that everybody with your last name is a fuckin' queer?"

Staff Member: "Can you say, 'I'm the turtliest turtle in the turtle pond' while wiggling your head around?"

Staff Member: "Do you even know what your name is? Do you know how to tie your shoes or are you still wearing those retard referee sneakers?"

Staff Member: "You're a homo."

These same staff members would then harshly reprimand patients who exhibited sexually inappropriate tendencies-- which isn't hypocritical at all. They fudge paperwork, they slack off on the ward, they're all related or they're all fucking each other-- or both-- and their inattentiveness and inappropriate actions and reactions led to an outburst of violence today that could have been avoided.

They're mostly tattooed college kids-- one has multiple lip-piercings and, really, I wouldn't mind the lip-piercings if they were on the lips of someone who was even mildly appropriate with the patients. They make fun of patients, imitating the noises that the most severely disturbed patients make, right in front of them. To them, in reply.

When a patient approaches a staff member, the default response is invariably,

"WHAT?!"

or "What the hell do you want?"

Or, they're just ignored. A patient can be standing three feet away from a staff member (this is the required distance we're supposed to keep from them) asking a perfectly sane question like, "Do I have courtyard privileges today?" and the patient can be ignored for any number of minutes. But it's the direct verbal abuse that made me want to vomit, and I probably would have had there been anything in my stomach.

Fortunately, there wasn't.

When I took this job, I didn't think it was going to be all peaches and plums, or even apple tart, but I didn't think I would be working with people who exhibit such routine and such open hostility and disdain for the patients supposedly under their care, I didn't think I would be working with the scum of the earth-- disenfranchised people in it for the paycheck and, apparently, the opportunity to fuck with people who have limited cognition, limited coping skills, and unlimited vulnerability.

Yes, the patients are inappropriate-- but they have that excuse of being, you know, crazy. Schizophrenics are supposed to act bonked-up, the psych techs kind of don't really have that excuse. We're not supposed to be the borderlines and the manics and the bipolar.

But, it's not just the patients who get "institutionalized." It's the staff, too.

Management likes to make a bit to-do about the fact that many people who work at this facility have been there for fifteen, eighteen, twenty, even twenty-eight years. And that sounds very nice, but when you see the burn-out, when you see the hostility, when you see brutality-- well, maybe such longevity isn't such a great thing.

It sounds stupid to say this, but I think that the openness of the obscenity-laced, threatening interactions with the patients, which the technicians then tried to manipulate to confuse the patients into forgetting what they had just said, that openness was the most horrifying thing. There are supervisors and nurses and videocameras everywhere-- and, clearly, nobody seems terribly concerned about that. And, clearly, I can't imagine anybody would be terribly concerned or surprised if I reported this to my supervisors.

Hopefully, the state will be both concerned and surprised when I find another job, posthaste, quit this one and report it to the Department of Health and Department of Public Welfare.

Sometimes I joke about being twelve-- when I call my closet's green doorknobs "Elphaba's nipples," I feel twelve. Oftentimes, when I get a new job, I feel twelve, too. I get wooed, positively swept off my feet by lofty mission statements and palaver from VPs and managers about proper protocol and professional conduct and ethical standards, and they pile horsehit lovingly onto my plate until I practically need a bib.

And then.... I actually start the job.

Proverbs 31:10 asks, "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

I know it's a rhetorical question. I know it's just supposed to be longing and beautiful. I know it's just a job. But I also know that I cannot permit myself to be counted amongst these people, to wear their I.D. badge, to park in their lot, to swipe at their timeclock, to sign my name on their papers. And maybe that means that I think I'm rubies and they're costume jewelry.

And maybe I don't give a damn if it does.

A Right Down Reg'lar Royal Queen

The media is really funny.

So, Michelle Obama met Queen Elizabeth II.

Big fucking deal.

So, Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth II touched each other's shoulders and backs.

Jesus Christ! Please excuse me while I go change my pants.

Thousands of angry protestors are clashing with police officers outside the Royal Bank of Scotland. The country is up-in-arms, world leaders are meeting to decide the fate of nations and to debate significant economic and strategic global policy, and what are the papers concerned with? Some alleged social faux pas committed by two well-meaning adult women who, I'm pretty sure, can decide what kind of contact is and isn't appropriate for themselves.

I've never heard such idiocy before in my life. It's like Michelle stuck her finger up the Queen's bumhole and gave it a twist, for Christ's sake. The two women got along, so there's an issue. If they hadn't gotten along, there'd have been an issue. Nobody's ever satisfied. Maybe they should have started tweaking each other's nipples while humming "Scotland the Brave." That would have really given the papers something to talk about.

Not that they need the help-- even when there's no story whatsoever, they make one up.

I think it's amusing how prudish and uptight reporters pretend to be when it suits them. On Fridays, they can all go fart on pub stools and drink till their noses are as red as strawberries, hit on women and bash everyone from Obama to midgets, but in their columns there is this attitude of superiority and arrogance that they can barely struggle to maintain.

"Michelle Obama touched the Queen!"

Well, I'm sure that, if it were really a problem, the Yeomen of the Guard would have wrestled her to the ground and stabbed her through the head with their pikes and spears.

And, not to sound like a third grader, but, the Queen touched Michelle first.

British culture is certainly steeped in tradition and rigidity, but we are all human, after all. I'm pretty sure the Queen shits just like the rest of us, though the paper she uses is probably of better quality and is perhaps emblazoned with the Windsor family crest. I think the Queen probably took to Michelle because Michelle Obama isn't a snob or an elitist, she isn't obsessed with whether or not she's saying and doing the wrong thing-- and I'm sure that the Queen, who has probably felt suffocated by tradition and formality her whole life, finds that refreshing.

We humans make faux pas all the time. We're constantly putting our hands in the wrong places or putting our feet in our mouths or overcorrecting and offending-- we're always insinuating or deflating, insulting or revolting. We need to get the fuck over ourselves and just be.

We need to touch each other more. There's too much distance. Too much aloofness. Too much blogging.

The Queen-to-First Lady contact is a good thing-- it's a message to us all:

It's okay to be human.