Vichy Water – Author's Blog Just another WordPress weblog

 

 

 

Before we talk about the paucity of Jersey winter snow, here are a few words about Linda. Life is a bowl of cherries as my friend, Linda Chorney sings on her Grammy nominated album “Emotional Jukebox.” I said goodbye to her the other day as she headed west to warmer climate and proximity to Los Angeles for the February 12^th Grammy show. Being a tease sometimes, I did mention that the temperature in New Jersey from the day she left hit 85 degrees. I tongue and cheek the institution of global warming, which is real and might make me a millionaire one day. The millionaire deal; if I live well inland, and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean rise because of melting glaciers and ice formations, then one day, but only for a short period of time, according to the Army Corp of Engineers, whom I play scrabble with on line, I’ll have beach front property. One of the corpsmen told me the beach front property deal might only last one season and to sell quickly then run to Western Pennsylvania.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because a few Facebook groups are concerned with meteorology (many of the groupies are known in some parlances as snow weenies; those folks who live for blizzards and paralyzing snows and read a plethora of futuristic computer reports and charts like North Atlantic oscillation) I’ve decided that New Jersey will not have any snow this winter so I don’t have to buy a snow blower (my source of snow removal moved into his own NYC apartment last June). Passing mid-January the other day, and no sign of significant snow well into February (the weenies are depressed and are already looking at long range forecasts for next December. Well some of them. Others have just given up and are hanging out in Reddit) I’ve been gloating on my decision not to buy a snow blower. My next door neighbor, Charlie Brown, agrees with my wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, ceremoniously I ran around the house in shorts and a red Rutgers tee-shirt yelling, “No wire hangers and no more winter snow.” My tolerant wife of many moons thought I was crazy after all these years. I call it unbridled enthusiasm. Oh the ‘no wire hangers;’ it comes from the movie ‘Mommie Dearest’ when actress and Pepsi stockholder Joan Crawford, a very bad lady, yells those words constantly to her abused little daughter, Christina, who later wrote the mother of all tell-all books about her mother.

So I never watched ER the TV show. Actually I never really watch much television; a lot of underlying reasons for such behavior. Give me liberty, some news, biography, discovery, college sports, history and old movies and I’m OK you’re OK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Years ago CBS  TV produced ‘Dallas’ starring Larry Hagman, glamourizing oil rich Texans. One season the story line went off a tangent and CBS resolved that by coming back and scripting the whole year as a dream; an easy way to get out of a bad original script, except viewers like me, who actually wore a J. R. Ewing cowboy hat around the streets of suburban Jersey, wasted a viewing year. No wire hangers and no more insipid television. My wife watched ER.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this wife comes home from work last week with a sore throat and high fever. A higher fever the following morning means emergency room. I love the word triage; makes me think of ménage. I’ve got 6 years of pharmacy studies under my skin so I know things.  We’ve got vitals and a pulse off the chart and with an abnormally high fever and sore throat, probably a strep throat; an untoward bug for a lady adult to have. I would’ve rushed blood tests to make sure it was strep and get her on IV antibiotics, start cardiac drugs to slow the heart (pulse), throw in a blood thinner(anti-pyretic for the fever) because atrial fibrillation. But hours go by, nothing happens and ineptitude is in the air ducts and heating system. And that poor downtrodden weary patient rep in a suit too short, exposing faded argyle socks; he avoided additional contact with this husband who had all kinds of acquaintances and threats to run to yet another suburban hospital for appropriate care.

 

 

 

 

 

On the other side of midnight and a curtain separating ER beds is an aged European lady, barely able to speak English. She’s alone and rang for the nurse for an hour, calling out for help in broken guttural sounds but no help comes because life is for the living and she has no one to be an advocate; there’s neglect, uncaring and microbes all over this sad excuse for an ER. The old woman even called in desperation to a custodian with mop. Then it hit me. She was Father Damien Karras’s mother from the movie ‘The Exorcist.’ A cold wind blew on my face; chills ran up and down my extremities. I could hear her calling for ‘Dimmy,’ a term of endearment for her son.  Out of gripping fear of Mrs. Karras, and being possessed, I started walking to the nurse station to help her when finally a nurse approached with an extra blanket; the poor woman was cold; it’s the winter of my discontent with Emergency Room care in suburban New Jersey. One of my favorite movies was ‘The Hospital’ starring George C. Scott. Had I slipped through that wormhole, time stuck in celluloid? For three days I drifted into medieval times of plagues and famine. They sucked her blood three times a day for every kind of test; I later learned some of those tests were wasted days and nights; just good for the paper chase of reporting to the insurance company to pump a bill up and secure profits for the hospital. I know that.  What a business for someone to check and cross check hospital tests with what’s billed and what’s actually done or the best yet, needed.  I surmise major crimes of deceit. It’s all in the game as Tommy Edwards sang. Get thee to a nunnery but stay the hell away from suburban Jersey ER rooms.

You Tube Tommy Edwards “It’s All in the Game”

 

 

 

 

 

If you are so moved or curious, you can go back and look at my blogs from March 11^th 2011 and April 23^rd 2011 when I began hating the NCAA (watchdog of college sports). It all began last March when Rutgers Men’s basketball team played St. John’s in Madison Square Garden’s Big East Tournament. All the big money wanted St. John’s to win and play Syracuse the next day. Near the end of the game, Rutgers (a huge underdog) was about to upset St. John’s and cause a lot of bettors to lose ( I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those losers was the head of the Big East Conference.) So the three referees (under the eyes of the NCAA) did everything they could to help St. John’s by not calling five egregious fouls on them which would’ve put Rutgers on the foul line and then in front of the world and the announcers (and me) walked off the court with nearly two seconds left which was enough time for Rutgers to make a three point shot and win.

 

 

 

Unheard of in college sports but imagine the pay day these referees got for fixing the game and all the money gamblers made. The NCAA loosely comments on the game and moves the three crooked referees out of Madison Square Garden for the remainder of the tournament. Personally, I hate the NCAA because no one oversees them; a neat monopoly. Some of NCAA executives make $300,000 a year plus for more than 30 years. They spit in the eye and there’s still silence across the land. I bring this up because one of the referees from the St. John’s game (Jim Burr) officiated at Rutgers versus West Virginia last week. Rutgers somehow got seven fouls called against them early in the game and West Virginia had none against them. I listened to the announcers when a West Virginia player threw a vicious elbow at a Rutgers player, enough for a flagrant foul, but nothing was called against West Virginia and Jim Burr was there and the NCAA is a vile crooked organization. Now I need a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with raisins from sunny California.

I champion the absurdities of life. The American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans salary for the year was $651,957 plus expenses and we all donate to them. I’m also a bit of cynic. The hype is beginning for the end of the world next December. I expect the hype to pick up and become intense by summer, somehow coordinated with the political landscape. Enough people start to buy into the hype, become fatalists and start living for each day by spending large amounts of money on seven-layer cakes, new zoot suits, a weekend in Dubai, a new car, a few packs of cigarettes and six month subscriptions to periodicals.

 

 

The effect becomes measurable across the land.  Consumer spending increases and factory orders are up and unemployment drops. Economy is booming by the time kids knock on your door and ask for ‘Trick or Treat.” A lady on the street where I grew up in Newark preferred to give us a trick with a deck of cards. She had a heavy Fidel Castro accent and disappeared one day and not until now, being a fully matured cynic, do I wonder what happened to her. And I’m suddenly inspired to close off this blog by saying what Walter Cronkite used to say and he was the most trusted man in America, “And that’s the way it is”  How’s that for a blog ending?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Important note. Here’s a wonderful music video to listen/watch on You Tube featuring Linda Chorney, right from here in New Jersey, Grammy nominated for Best Americana Album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F3XLPk_9juo

Also a great article about Linda Chorney in Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120120/us-music-grammywatch-chorney/

Also a very worthwhile cause to read up on:

Butterfly Circle of Friends.    http://www.butterflycircleoffriends.org/

 

 

CONTACT INFORMATION

website:  http://vichywater.net

Facebook:  Cal Schwartz

Twitter:  Earthood

Email: earthood@gmail.com

book trailer. hey its 65 seconds long

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qj2ko9gcC_M

 

 

 

IMPORTANT LINKS

If on Facebook check out this NJ Discover site:

 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000125711074

 

OR   www.njdiscover.com   

 

ARE you in search of another blog that is also outspoken, unique BUT refreshingly, topically unbridled which means uninhibited ????  Meet   LINDA CHORNEY:

http://lindachorney.wordpress.com/

 

 

Immortality Institute (which represents advocacy and research for unlimited lifespan)

http://www.imminst.org/

 

LINKS TO VIDEOS.  Please Watch.

 

1.   ZOMBIE WALK   October 22, 2011

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfFA-y115nc&feature=autoshare

 

2.  VETERANS DAY NJ VIETNAM MEMORIAL

Nov 11, 2011

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYwkaa_xreg&feature=related

 

3.  RANDALL HAYWOOD & JAZZ CONCERT

Nov 19, 2011

Randall Haywood and Victor Jones Interview from Chico’s House of Jazz Asbury Park

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNohzH8AHvM&feature=player_embedded

 

 

Linda Chorney’s Album