The joys of healthcare in America

Welcome to hell (world)

Bad title, I am aware.

Circumnavigate this body

The last thing I did before leaving Chicago for surgery was see John K. Samson play. Despite being a Weakerthans fan for nearly two decades, I never got to see them, and I’d only seen John play solo once before. When the show was announced months ago, I bought

The joys of healthcare in America

I am having surgery tomorrow

Believe it or not, it's true

The joys of healthcare in America

I just want to dance at your funeral

Because I already paid the band

The joys of healthcare in America

Just one big, moist bag of garbage

It's all the same to me, man

The joys of healthcare in America

Mark your calendars, friends

I wasn’t expecting to have any news for you this week, but I got a call on Friday afternoon saying they had a surgery date for me, and that date is November 26. There’s no use in pontificating about this too much, but given that I had two

The joys of healthcare in America

Tell me how does it feel

Or something like that.

The joys of healthcare in America

If I had a choice don't you think I'd make it?

Waking up before 4 a.m. feels like a cruel joke.

Yob

Clearing the path to ascend

When I first started having my symptoms, the ones that sent me to the hospital and kicked off this whole ordeal, I was also becoming obsessed with the band Yob. For years, I didn’t get them. I gave their album Atma a pretty poor review when it came out,

The joys of healthcare in America

Cleveland rocks!

I was shaking in the waiting room. Everything I said in my last post about being mentally prepared for disappointment was true, but no amount of prep was going to make me feel okay when I was on the cusp of it happening. I couldn’t talk, and I couldn’

Joan of Arc

Eventually, all at once

Since a lot of people have been asking what’s happened over the past couple weeks, allow this to be a brief rundown on the current goings-on. In short, because I’ve not been having the best experience at the local hospital, I’ve decided to get a second opinion

Iron Lung

Let me up, I've had enough

Since writing that piece last week, I’ve been asking myself why anyone has felt compelled to read this thing. Initially, I was going to use this space to write about music in a more casual manner, much like my good friend Dan Ozzi is doing over at REPLY ALT.

The joys of healthcare in America

You said, "I will keep my focus 'til the end"

When I quietly started this newsletter a couple weeks ago, it was with the intention of writing about music in a way that I couldn’t on any of the sites I freelance for. It was about being unburdened by the process of pitching editors, or having a harsh word