this is beginning to suck...worse

my knee is not improving.  i'm on day 3 of acupuncture and the progress has slowed.  i think my biggest worry now is being plunged deep into debt by surgery with no insurance.  so, i researched the injury and surgery last night only to find no definite numbers except how long i would probably be out of work afterwards.  suffice to say, it's too long.   i've had various crazy ideas thrown my way like flying to england and getting it done there etc.  not going to happen.  my situation of no health insurance as a bartender/musician is ever so common in NYC and mine is a good example of how fucked the american healthcare system is.  for years, i have refused to participate in the system as is (as well as not being able to afford it).  i've had a check up once in 8 years and forget about the dentist, that went out the door when i left home.  thing is, if i had regular check ups, this might have been detected and prevented.  that is a big plus side to socialized medicine, preventative care.  in a country that is willing to go to preventative war, you'd think it could happen.  

 i had a funny conversation about medicaid with a medic friend of mine the other night.  after finding out i made $3000 too much last year to qualify, he proceeded to tell me about people he has to pick up for various bullshit like headaches or wanting to be taken from one hospital to another because they know that a cab will cost more than wasting tax payer money (not theirs) and valuable emergency resources on an ambulance.  with story after story i was aghast of the flawed medicaid system.  i can't get fixed to get back to work (and believe it or not, my work is a necessary evil)  but a woman who wants out of central booking and feigns illness only to be outed by the insertion of a catheter or the woman with 6 kids in a one bedroom with a headache who wastefully calls 911 soley because she knows she can and its easy, will be covered in full. basically the system works in favor of those who have more people in their household, so have more kids.  why not?  the system will take care of them.  it's frustrating.  i guess i will have more on this when i actually go to the hospital and start the process.  

one thing i did do yesterday besides write depeche mode-esque opuses, was finish my demo's of the gay for johnny depp.  this is always a somewhat arduous process for me because it is written and performed in (somewhat) character.  one of these songs was a bit of a revelation.  it was based on the idea that the "enemies of our country" want to destroy our way of life because they "hate our freedom" and what they see as western materialism and gluttony.  hmm, it dawned on me how ironic it is that it wasn't a foreign terrorist who has recently brought down the US, but a domestic one.  the greedy capitalist.  they did it in a way that the freedom haters could have only dreamed of, the near collapse of our banking system, amongst other things.  i'm definitely not an authority on any of this but it just seemed strange that for a split second, i thought of the various "businessmen" who's greed we have to blame for our current economic predicament as terrorists.  they certainly aren't "freedom fighters", it's all in the definition, right? 

i found this today, it's pretty amazing.  a mid seventies, 3 piece, all black, proto-punk group from detroit called death.  this never came up on my obscurity radar before and it could be because i was a fan of the very unrelated metal version of the moniker from florida and drag city just released their demo's from 1974.  this is great stuff!!!