Angry Song

 The photo is Totally 80's, but they were actually a pretty good little band

Yet another obscure song reference graces today's entry.  "Angy Song" was the ill-fated hit single from the eponymous debut album of the 80's group Shot In The Dark.  Caught up in the implosion and eventual bankruptcy of RSO records, the album received little promotion, and despite solid reviews, disappeared.  Today, one former member is a photographer specializing in Playboy-style cheesecake shots of Asian girls, another is dead, the victim of a rare form of cancer, a couple are successful LA session players, and lead guitarist Peter White has left tuneful rock for the soft sweet ooze of "soft jazz."  Soft jazz is like creamed corn: it takes something wonderful and satisfying and beautiful, and mushes it and mashes it and reduces it to this bland pulpy stuff, gummed by geezers in rest home cafeterias.  So things didn't really work out for Shot In The Dark, but thirty years ago, they wrote some spankin' good tunes.

A lot of things are making me angry today.  I'll limit my rant to one. 

 His only disappointment?  It's a temporary cast.  Ah, to be 13 again...

My son broke a digit yesterday, in a PE soccer match.  Playing goaltender, he threw himself in front of a shot, jamming and fracturing his thumb in the process.  We have pretty good insurance, and we only had to pay a couple of co-pays, a reasonable deal.  Our pediatrician agreed to see him immediately; we went straight from the school to her office.  At 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, she found a nearby orthopedist who was willing to take X-rays and set the fracture.  Even though we spent roughly 5 hours in doctors' offices, the process was pretty great.


It was not painless.  My son was lying on an examining room table, and the orthopedist turned to us and said, "You have two options here.  The thumb is fractured and needs to be reset.  I can send you to the emergency room, where they have anesthetics and it will take about five hours to get things taken care of, or I can reset it here, where I don't have any painkillers and it will hurt for a little while."  Before we could answer, my son said, "Just get it over with."  His thumb was grotesquely bent, not Joe Theismann's broken leg grotesque, but still mighty ugly.

The doctor wrapped one arm around my son's, holding him by the wrist.  With his free hand, the orthopedist grabbed the purplish, swollen thumb, and manipulated it back into alignment.  Noah didn't squeak during all of this yanking, although at one point he seemed to levitate about four inches above the examining table.


It's awful to see your child in pain.  I had tears in my eyes, my wife had tears in hers.  Noah was stoic.  We recently began using the name of a certain Roundhead leader as an epithet around our house (we are strange people); as we drove home, my son said, "When he did that, all I was thinking was, 'OLIVER CROMWELL!'" 


What makes me mad about this is that my thirteen year old understood, instinctively understood that sometimes, bad stuff happens.  And sometimes, the only way to rectify the problem is to square your shoulders and grit your teeth and accept the fact that it's gonna hurt some.  And then it gets better.


I am mad because this amazing, funny kid is just a few years removed from entering adulthood in a world where those qualities -- personal accountability, personal sacrifice, patience and Hope -- are considered liabilities, not strengths.  

I don't even have the energy to write about my recent encounters with Mormons who Love Benjamin Netanayhu, or Mormons Who Think Obama Is The Antichrist, or People Who Think Jesus Looks Like Dan Fogelburg.  And don't get me started on ERROR 0x00000044 that has plagued my computer for lo these last few days.  

There are a lot of people (and computers) who deserve swirlies.