A Surprise in the Mailbox

     Sure, I'm interested in social issues and economic questions. But I'm not particularly interested in politics, because politics represent the advertising and public relations aspects of governing, focusing on deceptive messages, irrational appeals, oppositional research and negative labeling.

     In my opinion the Democrats are terrible. The Republicans are even worse.

     I'm also not particularly enamored with the current state of our economy -- the low wages, the lack of opportunity, the reliance on fossil fuels and other resources that will likely get all used up, but not before fouling our environment, choking our air and super heating the atmosphere.

     Nevertheless, I was very impressed when I went out to my mailbox on election day -- although not for the reason you might think.

     Our mail usually arrives in the afternoon. So on Tuesday, as usual, I took the dog out to our mailbox around 3 p.m. Sometimes the mail has been delivered by 3 p.m., sometimes not. (The dog doesn't care.) The mail hadn't yet arrived on Tuesday.

     Like everyone else, we've been receiving truckfuls of negative political ads in the mail, mostly oversized postcards with draconian messages about candidates who are STEALING MONEY FROM OUR SCHOOLS! (photo of crazed middle-aged white male with dollar bills hanging out of his pockets), politicians UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION!! (black and white photo that looks like a mug shot), candidates with MONEY LAUNDERING MACHINES!!! (photo of $100 bill hanging from a clothesline).

     There are candidates who are GIVING AWAY OUR PARKLAND, who WON'T PROTECT OUR FAMILIES, who have VOTED TO RAISE PROPERTY TAXES, who are AGAINST THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE, who have RAISED THEIR OWN PAY, who are part of the WAR ON WOMEN.

     So anyway, I stopped back at our mailbox on Tuesday evening, as B and I were getting home after voting, and I saw yet another pile of junk mail crammed into our box. Oh jeez, I said to myself. Will these politicians ever stop? For Chrissakes, the election is over!

     I reached in, pulled out the pile of mail, stuck it under my arm, and brought it up to the house where I dumped it on the kitchen table. Wait a second, I thought. I didn't see the familiar dark, black, ghostly warnings of the negative political ads. Instead, the pile looked cheerful and colorful and happy. What's going on?

     So I reached down and spread out the mail on the table. No political ads at all. Not one! Instead I glimpsed green triangles and red splotches and bits of silver. Yes, what we had instead were at least a dozen catalogs featuring . . . Christmas items!

     So, yeah, by Dec. 25 we'll probably be just as sick of Christmas as we were of politics on Nov. 4. But I have to hand it to them. They are efficient! The switchover was timed perfectly. The very day of the election, the changeover from political advertisements to Christmas catalogs was accomplished seamlessly. No overlap. No wasted effort. Our capitalistic democracy in action!

Can Medical Care Be Free?

     I'll start with a personal note. I recently made an appointment for my annual checkup and was told that if I wanted to see a physician's assistant, then the checkup would be free -- fully paid for by Medicare -- but if I wanted to have the checkup with my doctor, then it would cost me $185.

     Would my Medicare Advantage plan pay the $185? No. Medicare Advantage only applies when Medicare has already paid its share. If Medicare doesn't pay, then Medicare Advantage doesn't pay. So, if I want a checkup with the doctor, I have to pay $185.

     At first, I was appalled. I thought medical insurers want us to focus on prevention, which is what an annual exam is all about, because prevention costs less than treatment. And my doctor knows me a lot better than a physician's assistant who's never even seen me before. So I feel like I'm trying to do the right thing, yet am being penalized for it (although I do not know if this policy is set by Medicare, or somehow set by my medical group).

     But I recalled a conversation I had with a friend of mine recently. Honestly, I wouldn't want to trade places with him. His wife has Parkinson's and a few other medical issues. He has a family history of heart problems, and has been wearing a pacemaker for several years now.

     Last spring he went into the hospital to have his pacemaker replaced. He was complaining about the bill. He said the original bill came to $135,000 for the procedure. His insurance company (he's not yet on Medicare; he still has medical insurance through work) negotiated the fee down to $70,000. Then the insurance company paid $63,000, or 90 percent.

     So my friend got billed for the $7,000 balance. He refused to pay it. In his view, if the insurance company was only going to pay $63,000, then it should have negotiated a $63,000 price. Why should he be stuck in the middle?

     Now, mind you, my friend could afford to pay $7,000. He's a lawyer. He's not rich, but he makes a good salary (even though, at age 66, he's scaled back his working hours). Anyway, his pay is at least good enough for him to own a second home in Florida and drive an Infinity.

     But I could see, he really didn't think it was fair for him to have to pay $7,000 for his pacemaker. Then he revealed that the hospital is now suing him for the money. And he expects to turn around and sue his insurance company.

     Now, put aside the fact that he's a lawyer and is more familiar with the court system than most of us. He's disputing the bill his way. But I wonder if I was in his position, would I dispute the bill? I'd do it my own way -- probably call them up and plead poverty and try to settle for a lower amount -- but would I be right in trying to get out of paying that $7,000?

     Then I read a story in the NY Times called "Unable to Meet the Deductible or the Doctor." A woman got insurance through the Affordable Care Act, but the policy has a $6,000 deductible. (By comparison, according to a survey by the Kaiser Foundation the average deductible for individual coverage in employer-sponsored plans is $1,217.) She had a brain aneurysm in 2011. Now she's supposed to get a brain scan every year. But according to the report, she skipped the brain scan this year -- because she'd have to pay for it herself, since she's responsible for her first $6,000 of medical bills.

     The idea behind a high-deductible plan is that it protects people from going bankrupt if they get a severe illness. But it leaves them on their own for less-than-catastrophic situations. And in many cases, people will simply skip the care they need, because it costs money. Sometimes they can't afford it at all; sometimes they can afford it but it would cause some hardship; and sometimes they just don't feel like they should have to pay.

     The Times story cites another woman who has a plan with a $1,000 deductible. She avoided going to the doctor for an ear infection, because she'd have to pay for it herself. Another person was "shocked" when they were billed "over $1,000" for an emergency room visit. And the list goes on.

     No one expects doctors and nurses and medical technicians to work for free, do they? And all that machinery costs a lot of money. We're not outraged when we have to pay our rent, or use our own money to buy a car or go to the grocery store -- all expenses that are just as necessary as accessing medical care. So why are we outraged when we have to pay a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars to save our lives, or extend our lives, or alleviate excruciating pain?

     One problem with medical bills is that they are so arbitrary, so random, so completely out of our control . . . and so ridiculously high that they seem unreal. It's like funny money.

     I don't know the answer. But I'm not so outraged anymore that I have to pay $185 to see my doctor. I just hope he doesn't find anything wrong with me . . . I'm not sure I can afford that!

Remember Him?

     His name was William Henry Pratt. He was born in London, the ninth child of a well-off English family. He went to local schools and attended King's College London, studying to go into the consular service like his older brothers, who all became distinguished members of the British foreign service.

     But William was the black sheep of the family. He was bowlegged, and stuttered as a child, and had a lisp. He dropped out of school and went to work as a farm laborer. Then at age 20, he up and left for Canada.

     Sometime around then he caught the acting bug, and he appeared in several stage shows around Canada. He made his way to Hollywood where he found work acting in silent films and film serials. But the movie business was pretty tough, even back then in the 1920s, and he had to support himself by digging ditches and unloading trucks.

     Around the time he landed in California he changed his name -- in part to seem more exotic, and in part to protect the reputation of his family back in England. He had, after all, become an actor. Nobody knows where his new name came from -- perhaps from a novel with a character called the Prince of Karlova. The actor himself claimed his stage name was actually a family name from one of his ancestors who hailed from Eastern Europe. But his only daughter didn't believe it.

     He slowly built up a reputation as a competent actor, specializing in playing the villain in his early movies (he made well over a hundred films in all). He appeared in two hit films of the time: a 1930 prison drama called The Criminal Code, and a 1931 movie Five Star Final, in which he played an unethical newspaper reporter.

     But it was another 1931 film, based on an old novel by Mary Shelley, that made him famous. The mad scientist was played by fellow English actor Colin Clive. The hunchback assistant was portrayed by American actor Dwight Frye (who was also Renfield in Dracula). And the monster himself was played by William H. Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff, who wore a bulky costume with four-inch platform boots, and plenty of makeup.
     

     Boris Karloff reprised his role in Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein, and also appeared in different roles for House of Frankenstein and the 1958 version Frankenstein 1970.   

    Karloff appeared in other movies as well -- Scarface, The Lost Patrol, The Raven, The Body Snatcher, The Tower of London. And in the 1960s he narrated a TV special of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. But he remained best known for his horror films and particularly for his role in Frankenstein.

     Karloff was famous for playing sinister characters in the movies, but in real life he supported many charities, and every year he dressed up as Father Christmas and handed out toys to disabled kids. He was married five times, and had the one daughter by his fourth wife. He spent most of his life in America but never became a citizen. He returned to England in his final years and remained a British subject up until his death in 1969. He also never officially changed his name. All his life, on legal documents, he would sign his name "William H. Pratt, aka Boris Karloff."

     Boris Karloff followed in a rich Hollywood tradition started by Lon Chaney, who gained fame in 1923 as the tortured Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and also played the phantom in Phantom of the Opera. His son, Lon Chaney, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps, playing in The Mummy, The Wolf Man (and also portraying Lennie Small in the 1939 movie version of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men).

     Then there was Bela Lugosi, famous for Dracula, who also appeared with Karloff in The Raven and Son of Frankenstein. The horror hall of fame also includes Vincent Price (The Pit and the Pendulum and The House of Usher); Peter Lorre (The Raven and Beast with Five Fingers); Claude Rains (Invisible Man and The Clairvoyant).

     Most of these old films have been updated and remade over the years. And we, in our contemporary movies, have our own monsters -- vampires, zombies and all those computer-generated ogres that crash across the screen. We also have other modern monsters, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lector. Or maybe our latest monster is The Ebola Virus.

     But they're not quite the same, are they?

     Happy Halloween!

What's Life All About?

     I just finished reading a novel called Night Film by Marisha Pessl. What I didn't realize when I started the book is that it's a perfect story for Halloween.

     I won't trouble you with a review or plot summary, except to say the story stars an investigative reporter Scott McGrath, who goes in search of the secretive movie director Stanislas Cordova. The elusive director is celebrated for his artistry and brutal honesty. But he has also produced such awful and terror-filled films that regular movie houses have stopped showing them. Now people can only view Cordova movies by special invitation to clandestine underground locations.

     McGrath's search touches tangentially on the black arts and magic potions, and includes visits to a ramshackle tenement building, a spooky mental institution and a secret gathering in the dark of night at a remote castle far down a deserted, windy beach.

     At one point McGrath breaks in to Cordova's private compound in upstate New York, called The Peak, where he is trapped in a maze of underground tunnels. The only light he has to guide him comes from his book of matches. He strikes a match every few minutes, carefully rationing the matches so he doesn't run out and get left in complete darkness. He stumbles through the black catacomb, feeling his way along the wet, slimy stone walls. His foot bumps into something. A body? A pile of bones? He strikes a match to see. It's a discarded dress, which he bunches into his backpack. Then he accidentally drops his book of matches. He feels around frantically on the dirt floor. Nothing. He cannot find them.

     Now it's totally dark, as the walls close in, and he searches blindly for a way out . . .

     It's a long, rambling novel with many twists and turns -- you'll tire of the story if you're not ready to spend a considerable amount of time searching through the torturous and tangled web of another world. But it's a great read if you like that sort of thing.

     The book always seems to have something important to say . . . but it also always seems to be just out of reach. Until, I think, the end.

     The final pages bring us an interview with the mysterious director. Cordova tells us, "Our lives are flowers that bloom brightly, and then they are gone." And this is what he says, just before he excuses himself to step outside for a moment . . . and then disappears:

            "My films are just stories. But that is all
             we have. The stories we tell others and the
             stories we tell ourselves. When you talk to
             the elderly, men and women at the end of their
             lives, you see that's what's left behind as the
             body disintegrates. Our stories. Our children
             will decide whether or not to keep telling them."

Why I Don't Like to Travel

     I think I'm feeling a little dyspeptic and curmudgeonly today, in part because I've been looking at expedia, homeaway and other travel sites. Also, this post is at least partly in response to my friend Meryl Baer's post called Top Ten Reasons I Travel. And so I hope this is taken with the tongue-in-cheek spirit in which it's intended.

     Besides, it's not that I hate traveling, detest vacations, or am afraid to be away from home. I say, if you want to travel, go right ahead! It's just that, sometimes, I get the feeling that if you're retired, and you don't travel, then people think you're not making the most of your retirement, and you're somehow letting everyone down.

Are we having fun yet?

     Now, I admit that I've been going to Florida, or else Arizona or southern California, every year since I left work in 2002. But the motivation behind that is not the search for adventure, but the search for warmth, the need to escape cold, snowy weather. I simply want to stop shivering for a couple of weeks.

     B and I have also taken some vacations that require a few hours of driving -- to Cape Cod, western New York, South Carolina. We've made many trips to Pennsylvania where B has family. But I do it . . . not reluctantly, really, but I do it hesitantly, because . . . well, because I don't really like to travel.

     Why not? Here are my Top 10 reasons:

     1)  I don't like to drive. I mean, I don't mind driving around town, but the prospect of a three or four or five hour drive leaves me with a feeling of dread. Driving is so boring, as you stare for hours at the unending and unvarying ribbon of road ahead of you, only punctuated by the drug-addled truck driver who lumbers uphill at 40 mph, then careens downhill at 80 mph (and you know his brakes don't work!), or else the occasional crazy NASCAR wannabe who suddenly jumps into your rear-view mirror, then tailgates for ten minutes before lurching around and shooting ahead, usually without so much as the use of his or her direction signal.

    2)  I hate flying even more. The long, traffic-choked trip to the airport; the police-state atmosphere of the airport terminal. And then . . . they pack you into this aluminum tube and jettison you off into the skies, whether it's dark or raining or snowing, no matter what. And that's before air turbulence sets in and the wings start flapping up and down!

     3) I do not like walking around and looking at things -- like a museum, a park, a "picturesque" neighborhood. Or, why-oh-why do we always at some point when we're on vacation, end up in a mall?

     4) We have friends who've been trying to get us to go on a cruise. See # 2) above, except you're trapped on a big smelly boat, not in a claustrophobic cylindrical tube, and you're not breathlessly waiting for the air pocket portending sudden death, but that first lurch in your stomach signaling a major episode of food poisoning and the subsequent violent emission of bodily fluids.

     5) Then you get to your hotel. I don't stay in the presidential suite of a five-star hotel. I'm in one smallish room that smells of disinfectants, with two big beds and barely enough room to turn around. It's simply not as comfortable as my bedroom at home.

Which one is mine?

     6)  Along the same lines, a lot of things you do when you travel are exactly the same things you do when you're at home! You eat; you sleep; you go for a walk; you sit on a lounge chair and read a book. Why is reading a book on a hot sandy beach, slathered in creams and oils, while still exposing yourself to skin cancer, any better than sitting at home and reading a book in the comfort of your own well-worn easy chair? Then there's golf. I like to play golf. I have my usual group at home, and we play at any one of about a dozen perfectly good public courses available to us within a half-hour drive. You go on vacation, you end up with a bunch of strangers on a golf course that's too difficult, too unfamiliar, too frustrating . . . and to add insult to injury, it's too expensive!

     7) You inevitably get lost.

     8) I don't like being a "tourist." I don't know what I'm doing. So it makes me feel like a "mark."

     9) The alternative is the packaged tour. And that makes me feel like a "customer" who's buying a standardized "product" . . . and the person who's smiling at me is smiling only because they're angling for a generous tip.

     10) A lot of places you go -- especially if you go too far -- they don't even speak English! What are you supposed to do then?!?

     Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to expedia and homeaway and figure out what I'm going to do this winter. Florida, or Arizona? I gotta book a flight, and find a place to stay, and figure out what I'm going to do. Hey . . . I said I didn't like it. I didn't say I don't do it!