Sometimes, I really wish that I COULD go insane...

Well. My younger brother went through outpatient surgery on Tuesday for a torn rotator cuff (I think that's what the doc said) in his left shoulder. They got ride of bone spurs and some other things, also, and then, hooked him up with a self-medicating pump. Oh, yeah. From what I've seen before, he's in real pain.

My most painful part of the episode is when, listening to him talk to the intake clerk, as to HOW he was hurt. Apparently, on his job (he's a teaching assistant at one of the local high schools) he and several other people were trying to catch a bat, and in the process of dealing with The Dark Knight, hurt his shoulder. Of course, Workman's Comp is covering everything.

This is where I get semi-snarky. Oh, and trust me when I say that I'm not bitter - I'm just PISSED OFF!

We now enter the Wayback Machine and head back to Early June of 1998. I'm at work (I was a TV producer at a non-profit here, behind the Corn Curtain). It's after five on a Friday afternoon, and believe me - I wouldn't be here, except for the fact that Commander McBragg ( not his real name - the Executive Director of the non-profit I worked for) made it very clear that we were to finish up the commercials for his own personal radio show. Dilbert (my boss - not real name), my boss, wants to leave, so he takes off a few minutes early.

This is where the 'you know, you were so STUPID!' sign should have lit up. I should have left as he did (after all, he's the boss, and if things aren't finished, well, feces do follow the naural incline of highly-elevated rock formations as gravity allows, correct?) No... I'm trying to be a good worker. Just as I finish up, I get bitten on the inner right ankle by a spider.

Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider, he becomes the Number Three superhero of all time, and the signature hero of Marvel Comics (not to mention the 'modern take' on superheroes started in the 1960's)... do I even have to mention the hot redhead? I get bitten by a spider, and well, let's just say that the last decade of my life has been, with a few minor moments otherwise... unpleasant.

Long story short. I couldn't work any longer at the job (after suffering for thirteen months trying to continue, getting NO medical assistance from the company and visibly getting worse - I should have made them fire me), I get NO assistance from the company or Workman's Comp (I'll write a movie on that one day) and basically, the world turns its collective back on me.
Lawyers? HAH! Not a one of them has been a bit of help! Yes, I know the correct quotation from Shakespheare, and oh, when he says that you were never your own man since, he speaks the Truth of the Ages.

I've never met a lawyer that I've liked. Perhaps it's just prejudice based on my own experiences, but the more I've experienced The Law and it's warrior-priests- and -priestesses, the more I agree with William W. Johnstone's character of Ben Raines. Also, the more I've experienced Lawyers, the more I laugh at the collective fantasies of law shows on television... especially lawyers that are driven to help people, and who (while wanting to make more than a decent living - a laudable goal) are less about making money and more about actually helping people who need it by acting as their guides and protectors through that which we know as The Legal Process. Tell me something - when you graduate from law school and pass the bar, do they take your soul out of your body and implant a demon within, the way they do in the Buffyverse? It would explain the last decade...

Of course, there was one exception. That guy helped me when there was absolutely no reason for him to, and there was no profit in it for him. To him, and the few lawyers that actually bring honor to a profession sorely in need of same... thank you.

The rest of you counselors can go fuck yourselves. Bit of a change from fucking over the rest of Humanity, and the occasional pig, goat, sheep or uncle that you occasionally indulge in.

Back on track. Aparently, in Peoria, Illinois, catching bats is part of the stated job duties of a teaching assistant, because Workman's Comp covers it, but if you're a TV producer and you get bitten by a brown recluse spider while at your desk doing the duties that the top man in the organization specifically stated you were supposed to complete - and that you otherwise wouldn't have been there to BE bitten in the first place - you're not entitled to compensation, because your job description doesn't cover being in places where you could encounter a poisonous spider.

For one moment, let's overlook the passage in my employment contract that I laughing referred to as the KKK - 'the Kunta Kinte Klause' - because it specifically states that your supervisors can ask you to perform any duties outside your normal job description as they may reqire. Instead, let's look at a partial list of duties that I performed as a producer for the non-profit I worked for as a TV producer:

* event videography, where I covered minority-based talent shows for long periods of time (say 7-10+ hours) in a park during late summer. Poisonous insects, angry attendees, gangbangers, sweltering heat, and basically standing still for hours while pointing a camera at people who only THINK that they're talented (although a few good acts do appear sporadically).

* video surveillance, in wwhich I was ordered, over the course of several days, to videotape the renovation of a recretion area in order to ensure that EEOC regulations were being carried out in that minority workers were being employed on the site.

* The (thankfully nixed) idea my immediate supervisor had of doing a story on drugs, with our filming actual drug deals taking place.

So, naturally, given the above, being bitten by a spider is MY fault.

Sometimes, over the past decade, I've been able to understand those shooters who go into workplaces and shoot the bosses. I DON'T condone it by any means whatsoever... but after almost ten years of advancing lymphedema, lower legs swollen up to the size of a Hollywood starlet's waist, lots and lots of pain, people looking down their noses at me AND with the news that TPTB deemed my brother's bat-catching worthy of medical care but being bitten by a poisonous spider while typing at my desk isn't... yeah. I can understand.

I guess I SHOULD be thankful. In a conversation that I had with the insurance adjuster, an unpleasant woman named 'Uncaring Insurance Adjustor Bitch', she mentioned that I was not to be compensated because 'even though I was injured ON the job, I was not injured BECAUSE of the job. Flabbergasted, I asked, 'Let's change things around. Let's say that - instead of being bitten by a poisonous spider, I was at my desk, doing my job, and someone came in and shot me. Would you compensate me then?"

Her answer: "No. We wouldn't."

The Law is horrible because of people like her - and Arctic Thigh Sweats, the Arbitrater for the Workman's Comp commission here in Peoria, who made the comment just before my drumhead WC trial "You're offered $10,000. I think it's a good deal, your lawyer thinks it's a good deal - do you think that you know more about it than us?"

Well, considering that I wasn't looking for money (aside for lawyer's fees) but instead wanted my medical bills paid and medical care provided to help me get back to work... yeah. Hey, Jackass and Jerkoff, my (laughs hysterically) 'lawyers', were only in it for the money, too - and then, threw the case last January.

A former friend phrased it perfectly: 'The Law, under normal circumstances, is not designed to serve the people who abide by it."

Oh, yeah. Commander McBragg - the Director? Annoying and morally unclean on two counts:

(a.) In the thirteen months between the injury and my leaving, he never even once asked 'How are you? Are you okay?'

(b.) A little over a year before I was hurt, he did an interview on the TV show I produced for his company, and he talked about his time in the Marine Corps. He mentioned about not being treated well, and how he promised himself that, someday, if he were in thesame position, he wouldn't treat his people the same way he was treated.

You know, lie to other people if you have to. If you must. If you feel that you can get away with it.

However... please don't lie to yourself. I mean, if you take a blood oath (which is what he did, in his own phrasing) and then go back on it... just because you don't like someone. That's when they lose respect for you. I mean, look - I'm a dick. I freely admit that - but I honor my word. (That's left me high and dry on a couple of occasions, but your word is your word.) If you don't want to go back on your word, then don't give it - but if you do, you can't take it back 'because I don't like you as a person!' Watch The American President, and check out President Shepard's speech on defending free speech. America isn't a great country because - how did Kennedy say it? - we do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. It's not easy to help someone who you don't like, and yet you know it's the right thing to do. Hey - I'll think you're crazy in some instances... but I'll respect you as a person - and when you're in the soup, I'll be there for you.

Do I even have to being up the issue of a Marine that doesn't keep his word? Do I really need to even go there?

And, returning back to Earth orbit of this post, my brother's back home. He's doing better; he's able to eat not, and he's managing the pain better, as well.


As for me... somehow, there's still a part of me that thinks that things will someday get better.

Of course, the rest of me looks at that other part and bluntly informs it that a belief such as that - or Anne Frank's belief that people really are good at heart - are in fact certain indicators of a spiritual immaturity that the perpetual bitch-slapping seminiar that we call Real Life will rectify in due course.

I really need a piece of sweet potato pie right about now... or maybe some steak fries...

Peanut butter sandwiches and beer. My idea of comfort food for dudes since college. That's what I could use, right about now.

A blow job wouldn't hurt, either. After the sandwiches and beer, though. One must maintain a healthy sense of priorities.

End of rant.


P.S. - Went back and changed the names of the guilty, at the advice of someone smarter than me. Allowed me to add a touch more snark to the post. Thanks, old boy.