Wednesday, February 18, 2004

"My, how you've grown!" I can't believe it! Chingy has turned Rudy into a video ho! 9:19:50 PM    Holla back []

"I'm going pro!" So I'm making my way to work through the Valley and see a white van with a hand-stenciled sign stating "Association of Professional Tossers" and a logo featuring a silhouette of man in baseball cap crouching down. My first thought was aren't all tossers amateurs?. Anyway, the association does exist. 9:09:29 PM    Holla back []

Cirque du VA (part 3) Seen on a bulletin board in one of the exam rooms: Bomb Threat Checklist 1. Exact wording of the threat: 2. Ask these questions: A. When will the device explode? B. How wil it detonate (timer, movement, radio contact, etc.)? C. Where is the device located? D. What part of the building is it in? E. Who are you? F. Can we help you? 3. Caller's voice and manner: (circle) Calm               Angry              Excited Slow               Rapid                Soft Loud              Profane             Laughing Sobbing         Distinct            Slurred Disguised      Stutter              Lisp Incoherent     Raspy             Deep Cracking         Accent            Nasal Male              Female              Familiar If famliar, whom did the caller sound like? What background noise did you here? 4. Date and time the call was received. 5. Reciever's name: Call your Team Leader or designee immediately. Make two copies of the report. Give one immediately to your Team Leader and the other to the responding law enforcement agency. Team Member's Name:   8:57:44 PM    Holla back []

I'm Back I got an e-mail to renew my Userland account, reminding me "Oh! I've got a blog". I have all kinds of excuses why I haven't updated (computer's too slow, Radio Userland crash-prone, etc, etc.) But now, I'm back and I have a question: Is it socially acceptable to fart in public restroom? 8:49:43 PM    Holla back []

	Thursday, October 30, 2003

Cirque du VA (part 2) Seen on a T-shirt worn by a patient at the VA hospital: due to my AIDS I won't be KISSING anyone's ASS 12:36:06 AM    Holla back []

	Sunday, October 26, 2003

The Commercialization of the Christmasization of Halloween (or Nightmare becomes Christmas) Adjusting old curmudgeon hat... OK, when I was growing up, Halloweeen was this anarchic, crazy holiday where we got to stay up late and learned the virtues of extortion.  Now, as I drive around LA, I see people decorating their lawns with ghosts and bats, putting up orange lights, and there are all of these organized costume parties. What's up with that?  There are "pumpkin patches" sprouting up in locations that will conveniently morph into Christmas tree lots in a couple of weeks. It's bad enough that Christmas has become this overadvertised consumption frenzy, that's what Halloween should be about! 1:04:36 AM    Holla back []

	Saturday, October 25, 2003

Parting the waters under the medulla oblongata of...mankind In New York City, you can always spot the tourists because they're looking up. In Hollywood, the tourists look down. 12:22:35 PM    Holla back []

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together You've got my Dali in your Disney! No, you've got my Disney in your Dali! Can't wait for this really cool collabo from 1946.   12:18:47 PM    Holla back []

	Wednesday, October 01, 2003

(True) Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics On Monday, I was assaulted with the following headlines: Poll: 63 Percent Want Davis Out of Office (KCBS) Poll: Davis in peril, Schwarzenegger shows strength (CNN) Davis replacement for 40 percent asked is Schwarzenegger (CNN) Poll: Californians Widely Favor Recall, Schwarzenegger Leads Poll (NBC) Having lots of experience reading science news botched by the mainstream media, I went to the primary literature, the Gallup poll.  The information I gleaned directly from the Gallup organization website suggested very different numbers depending on whether you were looking data from "registered voters" or the ill-defined "probable voters"."   The results from the registered voters is much more in line with what other polls have been showing. In addition, Gallup qualifies their definition of "probable voters" and states: "It should be noted that the estimation of the likely voter pool at this point for this very unusual election has a higher than usual degree of uncertainty attached to it, primarily because it is a special election involving an unusual recall provision, and one involving a major media star as a leading candidate. Usual voting patterns may well be disrupted. " Oh and as far as Schwarzenegger being the clear frontrunner at 40%, again this is among "probable voters" who already represent a selection bias towards those favoring a recall. Look at complete chart (note the margin of error is ±4 which puts Bustamante and Schwarzenegger in a statistical dead heat): Of course, I didn't hear any of this on any of the major news outlets (and quite frankly, I'm not surprised). 2:01:55 AM    Holla back []

	Monday, September 22, 2003

First-Name Basis Overheard at a Brentwood Coffee Bean Actress:  I really love that new movie, Lost in Translation. Writer/Producer Type: Oh yeah, I hear Scarlett is great in it. Actress: Oh, so you know Scarlett? Writer/Producer Type: Uh, no...but I'd really like to work with her.   12:01:28 AM    Holla back []

	Thursday, September 11, 2003

"Cheats and Liars" Research to (Nearly) Die For. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the mind can leave the body as it hovers near death, but actual data is hard to come by. Now a team of researchers in Britain will try to provide some. [Wired News] 11:03:36 AM    Holla back []

	Tuesday, August 26, 2003

S&M Rx I don't think I'm learning about this mode of therapy in residency (courtesy of Die Puny Humans). 6:41:57 PM    Holla back []

	Monday, August 25, 2003

Just Stay With It I told myself there's no way in Hell I'd do it again. I must be crazy if I try it again. But there I was, two weeks ago at 7 am on the Venice boardwalk stretching with about 1000 other people getting ready to train for the marathon (like my man at NegroPlease.com).  On the first day of training, I ran into fellow designated Marathon one-timers who just as surprised to see me as I was to see them again. But when push came to shove, I actually enjoyed the experience of training with such a huge group. What I loved about working with LA Roadrunners in particular was the joy of experiencing all of the diversity of LA. There are runners/walkers of all shapes, sizes, and colors from all walks of life (no pun intended). Last Saturday morning, I had the honor of running along side last year's oldest LA marathoner, Ernie.  He is 90 years old and is training for his 11th marathon in as many years. While jogging along the beautiful Pacific Ocean, I asked Ernie about his life and the secret to his longevity. The retired electrical engineer told me "Just stay with it". It sounded like good enough advice to me, but I suspected there's probably more. I got a hint of what it may be on our way back from the turnaround point.  Ernie told me that during last year's marathon, he was six minutes shy of the world record for his age group. This year, he decided to join the training program and work on his diet in order to grab the world record. I was amazed that it wasn't enough for this 90 year-old man to complete a marathon, but that he wanted the world record.  And I think that it's this desire to do better, to strive for more that really keeps us going. I'm thinking about this against the experience of recently watching "The Hours" about three depressed women having extreme difficulties "just staying with it".  One of the take-home messages of the film is that life itself is life-affirming.  Not unlike Ernie's secret to a long healthy life. 11:02:54 PM    Holla back []

	Friday, August 22, 2003

"So that happened" Paul Thomas Anderson (with the exception of "Hard Eight") has set most of his movies in Southern California, more specifically in the San Fernando Valley. I'm a big admirer of his work and like his quirky sensibilities. He always has some scene when some wacked-out shit comes out of nowhere but somehow doesn't seem alien or foreign to what's going in the movie. For example, frogs raining from the sky in "Magnolia" or an organ being dumped out of speeding minivan in "Punch-Drunk Love". I had a similar surreal experience coming back home on the 10 freeway headed into downtown LA today. Typical rush hour traffic going about 20-25 miles an hour and about 3 cars in front me, I see a brown Japanese late-model station wagon slam casually into the center divide, smashing the side-view mirror and scraping the entire driver's side. The car corrected itself back into the fast lane and kept driving. And everyone else around just kept driving. I just kept driving, not believing what I just saw. But it struck me as a quintessential PT Anderson moment. Or maybe an LA moment. After all, in the birthplace of freeway shootings and televised car chases, what's the big deal with a car carelessly careening into concrete as long as it doesn't hit my car? Bonus points to whomever can guess what movie the title quote is from. 1:22:36 AM    Holla back []

	Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Hey baby, what's your sign? Interesting body art from those wacky Canadians. 11:22:41 PM    Holla back []

	Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Quote of the Day You have to live where you are. -- My mom 4:22:06 PM    Holla back []

	Friday, August 15, 2003

Meta done betta Saw "American Splendor" today. Excellent movie. It makes "Adaptation" (which I loved) look like a major cop-out. I believe that this film, along with "Ghost World" are creating a new genre of comic-book movies which not only take comics as source material, but recreate the experience of reading a comic. I wonder if Optic Nerve has been optioned... 8:37:55 PM    Holla back []

In Honor of Al Franken A "Fair and Balanced" blog entry...   7:53:50 PM    Holla back []

	Thursday, August 14, 2003

Mashed-Up When West African slaves were brought over on the Atlantic, they were told to abandon their old gods, the orishas, and convert to Christianity.  In order to continue to worship their old gods in the presence of their new masters, the slaves changed the orishas' names and images to that of the new saints.  This is how syncretic religions like Santeria were born. I witnessed old gods in different clothing at the House of Blues last night watching DJ Z-Trip spin.  The master of the live mash-up brought together such improbable combos like Janis Joplin and DJ Shadow, Outkast firing "Bombs over Baghdad" over Tool, and Jay-Z rapping "not guilty...y'all better feel me" on top of Jane's Addiction.  Although Limp Bizkit made it cool to like both metal and rap a while ago, it was still a trip (pun intended) to see white boys flashing devil's horns to Talib Kweli. 10:15:59 PM    Holla back []

	Monday, August 11, 2003

Untoward Side Effects When I saw this story, it reminded me of a VA patient I saw in clinic who developed a distinct change in his behavior after an operation for Parkinson's.  He had a procedure called a pallidotomy where surgeons lesion a portion of the basal ganglia overactive in Parkinson's.  After the procedure, his movements normalized considerably but he spent hundreds of dollars a dayonline downloading pornography. When he wasn't doing that, he was being "serviced" by his wife up to sixteen times a day.  According to both the patient and his wife, all this transpired shortly after his operation.  This particular case combined with others I've seen in the literature further indicate that aberrant behavior can be localized. This also brings up the spectre of psychosurgery. But if certain surgical manipulations of the brain can cause negative changes in behavior, why not postive changes? Of course, the problem is who determines what is positive change. 8:46:44 PM    Holla back []

	Thursday, July 31, 2003

The Art of Selling Drugs Came across this via Boing Boing. 9:18:36 PM    Holla back []

	Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Creativity and Madness I've been reading Raymi's recent blog entries and readers' comments regarding her new sobriety and adherence to treatment with great interest. It's the flip side of what I'm used to seeing when I see patients "getting better".  I've heard patients tell me that the medications make them feel "duller" and "not as creative".  It's a tricky balance finding the middle ground between no personality, no sense of self, being less creative vs. disruptive, destructive, and dangerous behavior.  What would you do if obtaining sanity meant losing your creativity? 8:17:56 PM    Holla back []

	Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Revenge of the Metrosexual I had a weird channel surfing experience flipping between "The Man Show" and the new show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy".  There was a scene of a man's nipple hair being shaved and I wasn't sure what channel I was on until the camera pulled back to reveal Jimmy Kimmel's hand on the razor! In a show full of them, the most disturbing double-entendre from "Queer Eye" had to be the following grooming tip:  "Work the product in from the back." Now I know why Pat Robertson has been praying so hard. 11:24:18 PM    Holla back []

No wonder...   "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 2:53:17 PM    Holla back []

	Friday, July 11, 2003

Random Patient Quotes "I'm not the dumbest stick in the woods." "I have more expectations than Mrs. Havisham." 4:59:29 PM    Holla back []

Photoblog Reloaded I just noticed that the Buzznet script displays the latest 5 photos uploaded to the site. So keep an eye out for new photos uploaded to the blog through Buzznet on the right hand side. All photos are taken with my Sanyo 8100 phone. 4:21:41 PM    Holla back []

	Thursday, July 10, 2003

Reality Reloaded I just watched a movie called "Final", a DV production starring Hope Davis and Denis Leary.  This movie was about a psychiatrist (Davis) trying to understand the paranoid, futuristic delusions of her patient (Leary).  It was very much in the same vein as "K-Pax" or "Crazy As Hell".  What's interesting about all of these movies is that they derive their dramatic tension from the notion that the patient may be correct and it's everyone else that's crazy.  Often times, unless the delusion is bizarre, you have to give the patient the benefit of the doubt.  Especially in LA, where people claim to be all sorts of things as a matter of course.Your patient just may be in the Witness Protection Program. Her husband may be having an affair.  Sometimes there is a right-wing conspiracy.  I remember I saw a patient in the ER at Harbor-UCLA brought in for questionable suicidal and bizarre behavior on an involuntary hold.  He told me that he had to get out of the hospital because he had a development meeting with executives at NBC.  Yeah, right.  After checking out collateral sources of information, it turned out he did have the connections he claimed.  Unfortunately, he missed his meeting. 5:57:17 PM    Holla back []

	Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Photoblog 9:15:51 PM    Holla back []

	Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Non-Therapeutic Uses for the Internet June 10 — The discovery Sunday of the bodies of four young Japanese men in a car at a vista point near Mount Fuji appears to be more evidence of a grim new trend in the prosperous country — group suicides of strangers who meet over the Internet. The suicide pacts, which have resulted in at least 18 deaths since February, are shocking to experts, even in a nation plagued by an astronomical suicide rate. 10:08:36 PM    Holla back []

	Monday, June 09, 2003

Life(B)log From Warren Ellis' blog by way of the AP:    Coming to you soon from the Pentagon: the diary to end all diaries — a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch.     Known as LifeLog, the project has been put out for contractor bids by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the agency that helped build the Internet and that is now developing the next generation of anti-terrorism tools.     The agency doesn't consider LifeLog an anti-terrorism system, but rather a tool to capture "one person's experience in and interactions with the world" through a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user. Everything from heartbeats to travel to Internet chatting would be recorded. Maybe my patient wasn't so crazy after all. 8:20:29 PM    Holla back []

	Thursday, May 29, 2003

The Importance of Friends I always used to think it was so endearing when guys would say that their wife was their best friend. That was until I got to know one of my patients, let's call him "Mr. Sinatra".  Mr. Sinatra is a WWII vet who came to the VA after being slapped with domestic violence charges by his wife of 60 years. That's right, 60 years.  It seems that 60 years of abuse was enough for Mrs. Sinatra.  When Mr. Sinatra went before a judge he was put on probation and mandated to attend anger management classes.  Homeless, friendless, and family-less, Mr. Sinatra ended up in our emergency room.  Mr. Sinatra, who looks like Joe Pesci at age 77, states his wife was his best friend, he chose her over his family, and now that she has a restraining order against him, he has nowhere to go.  In the same breath, he describes his German wife as "beeyoootiful" and as a "cheating Nazi slut and hooer" who he never should of married.  What struck me as particularly disturbing about his predicament was the lack of social support outside of his marriage.  As he tells me (almost daily), "I have nothing, that bitch controls everything!"  This is a man who for 60 years burned bridges and has alienated everyone, including most tragically, his wife.  Now at age 77, he's utterly alone, reflecting and ruminating on how "the only woman [he] ever loved" could do this to him. Fortunately, after a couple of weeks in the hospital, Mr. Sinatra is beginning to look forward.  Last week, he contacted Gloria Allred's office to help him with his legal problems.  No, I kid you not.   7:49:01 PM    Holla back []

	Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Cultural Competence...Gone Wild! As discussed on this morning's Kevin and Bean show on KROQ: The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County.... 11:22:15 PM    Holla back []

	Saturday, May 03, 2003

Cultural Competence The need for cultural competence was well illustrated earlier this week when I noticed one of my patient's looking more restless on Monday then he did last Friday. Reviewing his chart I saw that he had been put back on a higher dose of his antipsychotic medication. Earlier in his hospitalization, we backed down on the dose because he was having side effects, namely restlessness. So when I investigated why the dose was raised again over the weekend, I was shocked. The patient was noted to be more agitated that weekend, being intrusive and using inappropriate language like the word "nigger". Now, in some cases, these would be reasonable signs that someone's behavior is out of control. However, let me tell you something about my patient. He is a 20 year-old black kid from Inglewood who greets me with a pound on the fist. To someone like him, "nigger" isn't necessarily inappropriate and certainly doesn't merit increasing his antipsychotic dose. In defense of the covering team of doctors, the patient was acting up in some other ways. But, this story brings up one of the troubling things about psychiatry. We are always trying to evaluate what constitutes "normal" or "appropriate" behavior. Sometimes it's easy, clear, and culturally independent. Other times you just don't know. But you always have to look at the patient in the context of their environment, their family, and their culture before coming to any conclusions. 2:48:17 AM    Holla back []

	Monday, April 28, 2003

On the corner of Barrington and San Vicente... Guy with too many buttons on his lapel: Is this where you catch the 6? Me: Sorry, I don't know. Guy: Are you an actor? Me: No. Guy: Are you in the industry? Me: No. Guy: Sorry, man. Have a nice day. 10:50:19 PM    Holla back []

Coachella Had a great time at Coachella last Saturday. For a great description of the bands I saw, check out Piss & Wind. Other cool accounts of the festival here. 10:46:13 PM    Holla back []

	Friday, April 11, 2003

Delusions of Blogging I am currently taking of care of a patient who believes that all of his writings, drawings, and thoughts are being captured by tiny hidden monitors and uploaded to a secret website.  He doesn't know the URL, but thinks everyone else knows it but won't tell him.  However, his brother knows the password that will give him access to the site.  Unfortunately, since my patient is completely psychotic and his brother has no idea what he's talking about, my patient wants to kill his family for not telling him about the website. According to Medline search, the earliest publications about Internet delusions appear in 1997.  Most of the delusions are described as the persecutory or controlling type.  What is interesting about my patient is that the content of his fictional website sounds much like a blog.  With webcams and innovations like AudBlog, the future of blogging may not be too far from my patient's delusion. 8:39:26 PM    Holla back []

Thank you, Tony for linking to my blog. Now I feel guilty about not updating it more often. 8:08:03 PM    Holla back []

	Monday, March 31, 2003

You Dropped the Bomb on Me...Baby I didn't want to comment directly on Gulf War II, as there is a lot to say and many others saying it (like Piss and Wind's COW (coalition of the willing) count).  But I was struck by the words of a Canadian reporter on NPR clearly shaken by his eyewitness account of the second Baghdad market bombing.  To me he summed up the argument against war by simply stating, "People don't want to be bombed to be liberated." 7:49:45 PM    Holla back []

	Monday, March 24, 2003

Ripple Last Saturday, I had one of the busiest on-call days I've had in my 20 months of residency. I think that tension can be just as contagious as the flu or SARS.  For over 24 hours, the ER had at least two patients at all times who were there for suicidality, anxiety, agitation, or just being downright psychotic.  It's as if the damage and destruction emanating from the Middle East had a ripple effect extending to LA that was diminished yet palpable.  Like the pets going crazy before an earthquake, but we have yet to feel the aftershocks. People freak out for all kinds of specific reasons, but as I alluded to in an earlier post, there's something to the notion of "something in the air".  And in the case of this weekend, the something in the air was what was found on the air.  I don't know about you, but being told about grisly video of POWs and casualties was more horrifying that actually seeing it.   Unfortunately, it will probably get worse before it gets any better. 7:59:08 PM    Holla back []