Chuckie and the Health Care Debate...

The reality of our national health-care crisis was recently brought home to me in a sudden and dramatic fashion.

In mid-October, our sweet family member Charles (aka Chuckie to his friends) was struck with a sudden, severe and very life-threatening form of anemia, known as IMHA (Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia.) For some unknown reason, his body had developed an autoimmune condition, where he started destroying his own red-blood cells. Over a weekend, we went from household discussions of, “He feels warm, do you think he’s sick?” to a Sunday-morning possibility of emergency surgery. That weekend we also spent a lot of time climbing up a steep learning curve about how the immune system functions.

Among the factors in the treatment of his case is that Charles has no health insurance, save what a Visa card can provide. We were making treatment decisions with the consciousness that a price tag was looming somewhere in the future.

Thankfully, Charles’ treatment was far more effective than anyone suspected it would possibly be. Just a day after his internal medicine specialist started his treatment, he was up and around, and doing the kind of inappropriate sniffing that would get you kicked out of most respectable bars. We were elated when the nice veterinarian said our Chuckie was well enough to go home.

Yes, I realize that many people may think I’m being melodramatic about a dog’s illness. Yet Chuckie’s sudden disease brought home the reality -- the fear and the terror --in the possibility of losing a loving creature who is so close to your heart. Chuckie’s lack of insurance made me realize how horrible it would be if one were faced with a comparable situation for an uninsured human family member. In light of the emotional trauma of serious illness, the added financial concern is almost too much to stand.


I’m so glad that Chuckie had access to an impressive level of health care that has—cross your paws—allowed him to recover from what is an often fatal condition. It also clearly illustrates the need for many Americans to have a better health care plan than Chuckie. Sadly, some of them don’t have better health insurance than a dog.

It seems I'm going to Japan...

Whenever I travel, I always keep a diary. In longhand, in a small journal. That's so dark ages. So I'm looking at trying one of these blog things for my travel documenting needs!

Observing Michael Jackson's death in Memphis (2009)

Mourning Jackson on the streets of Boston, Mass.

It’s the week of Michael Jackson’s funeral, and I’m waiting for the last flight out of Memphis. Everywhere in the deserted airport you can hear CNN blaring about breaking developments in the Jackson case.

A woman beside me is wearing a Jackson memorial shirt featuring the likeness of a cherubic Jackson 5 –era Michael, engulfed by enormous angel wings. Nearby, I overhear a conversation about the price increases in Jackson vinyl albums.
Amazingly, Jackson is simultaneously both dead, and right back at the forefront of popular culture. It’s a trick not many people manage.

I find it both supremely ironic and tragic that I’m seeing all this in the Memphis airport. It’s a space where you just can’t avoid Elvis. In Memphis, it’s amazingly easy to forget “The King” died on a toilet, with an overly potent drug cocktail in his system, and long past the peak of his career.

I was eight when Elvis died. That night as I was going to bed, my mother came in and turned on the bedside radio so that I could drift to sleep listening to Elvis music and the updates about his death. She thought it was an important historical moment that I should experience.

Yet at the Memphis airport, it’s like Elvis never left.

Cronocrimenes at Fantastic Fest (2007)

Tim League of the Alamo and Nacho Vigalondo during the Cronocrimenes Question and Answer session following one of the first screenings of the movie in the states (2007).

Growing up in the small working-class refinery town of Deer Park, Texas in the eighties, I tried very hard to escape the place without actually leaving.

Being hard-up for a time travel or teleportation device, I used the very best substitute I had: homemade cassette tapes of the 70’s punk and new wave bands that I loved—like the Ramones and Blondie. Closing my eyes with the stereo on, I could nearly always escape the depressing industrial area.

So, when I went to watch the world-premiere of the Spanish time travel movie Cronocrimenes  aka Timecrimes on opening night of Austin’s science-fiction and horror movie festival Fantastic Fest, I was surprised and delighted to bump into an old friend. My pal: the song “Picture This” from Blondie’s 1978 multi-platinum selling “Parallel Lines” album, featured as an integral piece of sonic set dressing in the movie.

With the film’s poster reading “A trip back in time……from present to crime”  it isn’t exactly a spoiler to reveal that a key character keeps going back in time, trying to fix what’s gone wrong at one particular moment.

When the character returns to that moment the song “Picture This” is playing.

 Not familiar with the song? Not surprising. Even though it hit number 12 in the UK in ‘78, it wasn’t exactly a bit hit here. If my friends hadn’t fired up their ‘80’s record players, I’d never have heard it.


The idea that music has a transformative power isn’t exactly a new concept. Otherwise, why would I have been surrounded by so many people who surely remembered the 60’s when Bob Dylan played ACL?


For the premiere of the innovative Spanish-language/English subtitled “Cronocrimenes” writer/director/actor Nacho Vigalondo was in attendance answering questions. So I asked him about the use of the song.

It turns out the tune ended up in the film partly because the crew was playing the song a lot while they were making the movie. Thus when it came time to pick a song to clarify that the hero was back in the same place at the same time, the lyrics of the song seemed to fit the film.


“The lyrics for “Picture This” are so close to the movie” Vigalondo said quoting the lyrics: “Picture this - a sky full of thunder.” Indeed, a clap of thunder is a plot point in the film.


 I suspect that if I’d grown up in big city surroundings, that I might not have held on so tightly to the music of another time and another place—trying by sheer will to get myself to New York’s mythical CBCB’s club in the 70’s.


All in all, the film’s surprising use of the song shows the influence of our friends, coworkers and neighbors on our lives, perhaps especially on what we’re listening to.

No matter how global our world and economy gets, sometimes it matters most what the people closest to us are listening to.  If we love them, sometimes we’ll end up loving what they love as well.


(This column was slated for the  Statesman in 2007 but  didn't have space to run before the second time this film showed during Fantastic Fest. These pictures were taken with a borrowed point-and-shoot. I'm a slightly better photographer now.) 

Why Austin Shouldn't move the Animal Shelter

In April, a tragedy occurred in our backyard.

After years of stalking and chasing, one of our dogs finally caught our neighbor’s white cat, Emma, who had slipped though our fence.

The result-- 120 lb pup vs.  fluffy lapful—meant that rushing Emma to the animal emergency clinic couldn’t save her.

It’s a given that in the natural world predators chase prey. Cats chase birds. Dogs chase cats. It’s the cycle of life, though that doesn’t make it any easier for the humans involved.
Emma’s untimely death got me thinking.

According to Town Lake Animal Center shelter director Dorinda Pulliam, on April 30, 2006, the day of Emma’s death, 26 cats were put to death at the shelter. That week (April 30- May 4) 96 cats were killed. Last fiscal year, 5396 cats were euthanized. Many of whom were doubtless sweet, fluff-balls like Emma. I fear our a new animal shelter isn’t going to improve those numbers.

 Austinites recently passed a bond package to build a new animal shelter. The location: Levander Loop, in East Austin near Airport and 183, former site of the Texas School for the Deaf.

Moving the our animal shelter from its current central location is a poor choice. Of course, I may be biased because back in 1990 I adopted a kitten from the shelter, partly because I was able to easily find the facility by driving down Lamar.

Originally I was opposed to moving the shelter because I didn’t really understand where the new location would be. Now, after visiting the Levander Loop site, I’m even more opposed to the move. The awkwardly situated site won’t provide more patrons for the facility, certainly not casual drop-ins. This is key, because local animal rights advocates tell us that many Town Lake animals go to new homes in central and west Austin.

Unlike central Austin, the Levander loop location businesses don’t generate extra traffic to the area. While our economy  needs purveyors of concrete pipes and vivid orange tractors, these businesses don’t draw casual traffic. You go there because you need a new backhoe, not to see what new colors are in stock. The only browse-worthy  business I found nearby: Goodwill on Airport. Imported luxury vehicles weren’t cruising the streets.