For You

For those of youse who regularly read my posts, you know about tomorrow (see below). Thanks ever so much for all the kindness and concern.

Since I don't have internet access at home (damn, I HAVE a toaster, but internet...maybe my washline could get me wifi...Huh?...Huh?)

So, I'll see you when I see you. I'm nervous about it. I am somewhere between not wanting to do it and wishing it were done already.

But wishes, as you know, are only dreams looking backwards.

See ya, pals.

Joe

No One Loves A Fat Man Except His Grocer And His Tailor

The above was a test of the Emergency Blog Arena Football System. I wrote it, like I would write "free food" to test how many millions of you good folks would respond if a fat guy wore a jump suit to a wedding. Now to today's blog.

It seems like all of the soap operas are going away, except mine. Next Thursday, I report to my Doctor, Ron Popeil, and will have the surgery done in his back room. Doctor Popeil, many of you will remember was the inventor of the pocket skin cancer scraper. Dr. Popeil and I will bend over the sink where he does his laundry, and he will scrape the cancer off my nose, in a flash, for just $19.99 (plus tax, except in Texas).

I'm not too worried. Ron has had lots of famous patients in the past (the Joker, Two Face, Nixon, Popeye and many more) and is quite good at what he does. When I figure out what that is, I will post it here, on the blog, after I stop bleeding. He also cuts hair and does circumcision, of both I will also partake. And why not? I need a haircut (not too much on top) and my Rabbi checked all the boys last week, and said I'm not Jewish enough. Gotta do what the Pope says, ladies.

During the surgery (for real now, dudes) the doctor will scrape a little of the bump off of my nose, until they don't see anymore cancer in the laboratory. Then he'll take a little skin from my "smileline" and use that to plug up the hole he made with his pocket cancer knife. I could have saved everyone time by not getting the cancer in the first place! But I wanted to meet Ron Popeil anyway, and he won't come out of his room unless you have something. Did I do wrong?

I'll probably be back here on the blog once or twice before the squeezin' begins on Thursday. After that, it depends on how I look. If I get a Robert Taylor, I'll be back in the ring right away. If its a Larry Fine, I'll be in my apartment, looking out of Art Linkletter's old favorite window.

Updates, as they exist.

I lied

On my last post, I wrote that I was more concerned about how I was going to pay for the operation than the skin cancer itself.

Hello, I'm Joey, Master Bullshitter Of 2010! We're going in and pluck it out a week from this coming Thursday. And though I usually only look in mirrors constantly, I find myself (and boy was I lost) looking as much as possible, wondering just how much of a Robert Taylor quality I will lose and gain that of a Larry Fine. I don't need no fucking Larry Fine hanging on my face, thanks.

The doctor said there will be a line where they will go into the "smileline" area, and strip out enough to plug the hole in my nose. I have two, both pick just fine, thanks. I don't want another one. Besides it wouldn't have any boogers anyway. I'll have to ask the doctor if I can even go back to my regular nose pickin' when this is all over.

All over. I suggested to the doc and his nurse that once someone gets a skin cancer then he is more likely to come up with another one. Right I was, though he just nodded and said yes.

So what does the future hold for Joey? The world waits while the doctor prepares his plane tool, and dives in looking for my bodily junk.

Joe

Skin Cancer

Yep. Like old Shep, I have the little c. I went to my dermatologist a few weeks ago (well he ain't MY dermatologist...but I had been to him before for something, some shiney thing or something back in the ninties, and besides, I didn't know anybody else).

When I get there, I point out to the really nice and sexy P.A. (that's Physician's Assistant for those of you not in the trade) this bump on my nose I've noticed for off and on for God knows how long. She took a biopsy (she did it for FREE! Yikes! Man. She knew I did not have insurance and said it was gratis). Our old political doctors in Washington would have you believe that M.D.'s are only out for what they can grab, and only THEY, yes, only they, can reform this evil system run by devils whose pitchforks are primed to make you need an ass fixing. Is it the political docs who are the ones making us sick?

I got the call a couple of weeks ago. It was malignant, as the P.A. and the doctor who stepped in to check on me thought it was originally. The nice lady on the phone said I needed to come in and see the doctor.

Today the doctor had a real good look at the thing and had studied my biopsy. Look, boys, I was worried more about not having the money than the cancer itself. I knew it was the least of the cancers, Basel Cell Carcinoma, and was slow growing. But as the P.A. said today, while they don't spread into the nodes and other goods in your body, it can eat up your nose and affect your face. It's a little 'un, but it needed to be done.

The whole place was crowded with docs and nursies, and P.A.'s and patients, and extra people who are kind of like doormen. Except they don't open the doors and such to get you taxis and coffee, they man the desks, and like dealers in Vegas, rake in that dough.

Here's the part you people need to know. When the doctor came in, he explained what we needed to do, how he would do it, and then, he, the doctor himself, the one with all of the degrees on the wall, talked to me about the money. He knew I could barely make the office visit payment. He realized that if I didn't have this here thing broken off the side of my nose, weird things could happen to my face. So this "greedy member of the medical establishment" sat down, and said "we'll work with you on the payments". PAYMENTS! GD, Mommie, I was ready to go to the Payday Loan Store over by Down and Out Streets, and borrow the money at Five Billion percent (which is their right...their money, their terms). But the doctor said we can get the payments on this operation (which could run as much as much as $2,000) down low enough for you to be able to make it out ok. My words, there.

I NEVER Want to hear another word about Dear Leader Obama reforming health care for everyone. Consider this my friends. Human beings, given the chance to be charitable and considerate of the problems of others will VOLUNTARILY help little 'uns like myself, if the alternative is dire. Not always, but many more times than we are given credit for by the government. Those fat asses in D.C. who would have trouble putting a band-aid on a baby, want it all for themselves. Eventually, ALL FOR THEMSELVES! Christ, help me stop them!

My doctor could have had some dick in greens tell me "that we need payment up front". You know like barbers and politicians. But when given the chance, the people of this world, not out of responsibility, but in of acts of kindness (random if you want, this Doctor never saw me before today) step up to the operating table and hold the whole world on their shoulders.

Us little people thank them.


Joe Postove

Art, Art, Where Art Thou Art?

My Art is dead. No, not the art of my blog which has been on the Internet since 2005. But rather my more important Art. The Art I grew up with and fained illness many times to skip school, so I could watch House Party, his daytime TV show which lasted until about 1970.

I loved him more than even Bob Keeshan. Captain Kangaroo kept me sedated until I was about 15, but when the show left the air, Bob Keeshan became an advocate for government "help" for television. Bob, who became world famous with a bunny rabbit, bear, a couple of big pockets, a moose, and ping pong balls, didn't believe that commercial tv could please kids the way he did my generation. They do, and he was wrong. And besides he just didn't look right without the Captain's suit on. I miss my captain too.

But I'm writing about Art Linkletter. He died a few weeks ago, just short of his 98th birthday. I had the cake, pies, Kool-Aid, shorten and longening breads, whistles, and breadsticks for another great birthday celebration like the ones we'd been having for years.

I miss my Art. On the 12th, I shall do nothing but sit by his favorite window in my apartment and cry.

Come home Art. Please start breathing again. We NEED you.

Joe Postove

Drink Up!

It is quite appropriate that Independence Day is a legal holiday the day after the fourth this year, because I need a drink...bad. And a fifth of anything would do me good to bring in the New Year.

I have often been tempted just to kick politics to the curb, stop reading the papers and listening to NPR (yuck...but they picked my pocket to put on their show, so I might as well listen) and lock up the house and just walk away.

But I can't. Who would empty the pay toilets downtown, or hose down my special "clean whores" on Monday afternoons? For that matter, who would rumple my sheets or butter my bread on Fridays, before the sabbath cometh in?

But I yearn to take that walk. Or bolt up the doors and hermitize myself. I guess I'm waiting for the results of November's elections to see if we can install a new regime, not the same as the old regime. If we (Tea Party folk, libertarians, good Republicans, and the occasional stray Democrat) can clean up the mess from '08, then maybe I'll stay and get in touch with my inner being. She might need to go downtown.

WHAT...WHAT? She would go downtown for a new outfit or eat at Ruby Tuesday's. Not to use the toilets. Though she does have a free pass. It says on the pass "365 plop plops a year, plus unlimited #1's". I'm quite proud of the way we conduct our pay toilet chain. By the way, both on the fourth and the fifth we will have a free buffet and marching band at all of our locations. Come on down and go some, huh.

Tomorrow, when the beautiful people are sunning themselves into a skin cancer, remember the constitution of the United States, and the men and women who died for our freedom.

And we here will celebrate the fourth and fifth with due humility and reverence for those who have gone before us.

Joey