Apologies for my lack of posts this summer. I’ve been away most of the time and unable to access a computer very often. Some quick updates:

I heard the new Jimmy Eat World single “My Best Theory” last night. It has a bit of a dance rock vibe to it. I need to let it grow on me.

Today I went to the Apple store assuming that there would be more iPhone 4s in stock since the initial blitz; but no, they were out. Simply put, I must have it.

I rarely say this, but I’m working on a new song that rocks.

More coherence to come in the Fall.

In the Fall of 2004, I wandered down to the common room of my college residence and found a few neighbours watching a show about a plane crash. There was a pretty girl on the run from a cop in what appeared to be a flashback heavy show, not dissimilar from Prison Break. I always figured shows like that were unsustainable because the circumstances of the show (eg. a plane crash or a prison break) forced the climax to come too soon (eg. escaping the island or prison). After all, how much can you write for characters stuck in one space for so long?

Of course I dismissed the show and thought it was no good. I then proceeded to forget about it entirely for the next 3 years, save for a brief moment where I caught a glimpse of an episode where two characters were underground looking at television sets. I thought, “What in the world has this show come to?” In the winter of 2008, a co-worker proclaimed it the best show on television. Still, however, I remained unconvinced based on my initial impression.

Another year passed and when the show’s fifth season was on, I finally decided to give it a chance. I downloaded the first 10 episodes and uploaded them to my iphone. Without considering the morbidity of it, I watched the first episode on a plane to Florida. Even on the tiny screen, I was utterly captivated. The opening sequence of Jack rescuing people from the plane wreckage was more intense than anything I’d ever seen on television.

The rest is history, really.

I quickly made my way through all of the first 5 seasons (my record was watching 12 episodes in a day) and caught up to where the show was airing live with 3 episodes left to go in the fifth season.

This year I watched the show’s sixth and final season along with everyone else and became somewhat of a superfan. Like much of the internet fan base, I partook in extensive theorizing about the show’s many mysteries. It made it more fun, trying to piece the puzzle together. Along the way there were times where I got heated about some of the decisions made by the writers, especially when it came to revealing (or not revealing) all of the island’s mythology, but mostly I was very enamoured by all the twists and turns.

Last night, the show ended. It was a glorious two and a half hours where I felt like I was saying a heart-wrenching goodbye to all my best friends. The final ten minutes sealed it all for me and erased any qualms that I had about unsolved mysteries and the decision to spend 50% of the final season on an alternate reality. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t yet seen it (other than with the image above), but it was so incredibly moving. The music, the acting, it was all just so stunning.

Now I’m not quite sure what to do with myself…

Aside from incoherent twitter updates, I haven’t had the chance to sit down and tell what happened this week.

Monday, May 3 was a difficult afternoon for me. Full of meetings and work to do, I could hardly make it through with the kind of cold I was developing. I knew the next day I’d be home sick. Problem was: I was also sick just three weeks prior so to justify missing more work I would have to go to the doctor.

Tuesday morning I felt even worse. My head felt like a brick and I was coughing heavily 3, 4, sometimes 5 times a go. I made an appointment for later that afternoon.

I got on the subway and went downtown. Once I met with the doctor, I shared my symptoms focusing mostly on my sickness, but I also shared one seemingly unrelated thing: I had been short of breath since returning from vacation in late March.

On my last night in the Bahamas in March, I had severe back pain. I had no idea from what, my best guess being that it was from diving in shallow water at the beach earlier that day whilst playing football. In any case, it was excruciating and limited my sleep. The next day, I flew home and, on each of the 3 planes, I was beside myself, having a great deal of difficulty breathing. The passengers next to me on each plane must have wondered, “What is wrong with this kid?” I wasn’t sure what was going on, but anxious to get home, I just wanted to get through it and figure it out later.

For the next month and a half, I felt short of breath. Walking down the street made me huff and puff and I seemed unable to sing properly, with my breath running out faster than previously. Unfortunately, the very thing that some believe makes our health system work prevented me from doing anything about it.

I’d be interested to know how many people who have serious illnesses stay home and do nothing to avoid the perils of hospitals and health care such as waiting and bills. If anyone finds a study on this, I’d be curious to know. Either way, I’m fairly convinced that if all of these people actually went to the hospital, it would severely bog down an already bogged down system. Of course the flip side is that you’d probably get a ton of hypochondriacs who actually freak out over nothing. Ultimately it’s a fine line I suppose.

The other issue is that I had grown skeptical about what could be done about “minor” illnesses. For example, a couple of years ago, I discovered that I had a small case of post-nasal drip and it was affecting my singing. I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor who put a camera up my nose but determined that he would do nothing. Surgery would be too invasive and there was no prescription that could eliminate it. Thus I was stuck between having a problem big enough that it was affecting my way of life and having too minor an illness to do anything about it.

Was I going to do something about this one? The answer is yes, just not right away. I just didn’t think it was life-threatening and thought it might go away in time.

After informing the doctor of my breathing issue, he seemed to take it seriously, which was nice because I wanted to be able to sing again (my first thought, of course). He did the old stethoscope thing—something I never thought resulted in anything. However, a minute later he said he couldn’t hear anything on my left side and that I might have a collapsed lung. An x-ray would be needed to prove it, though.

I was sent across the street to an x-ray place and after having them taken, the radiologist pulled me aside and said in a very concerned tone, “You have a fully collapsed lung and need to go to the hospital.”

“Yeah?” I said.
“Yes . . . you’re Jonah, right?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, well you look fine, but you still have to go.”

What did it? My best guess is when I jumped into the pit of cave water in Bahamas from 15 feet up because it was the only high impact thing I did.

I was definitely concerned, but I realized quickly that I’d been living like this for over a month. I had been exercising at the gym like normal; I had been trying to sing (unsuccessfully); I had been going to work; I had been driving; the list goes on. So while the radiologist and the office staff were frantically gathering my x-rays and reports to take to the hospital, I had to tell them to calm down. Once I received the materials, I left, got in a cab and went to the hospital.

The next 3 days were a bit surreal. Most hospital visits are, but I just never thought it would come to that. I was admitted a little over an hour later and underwent a procedure that involved a small tube being inserted into my chest so that air that had entered my chest cavity and was pressing my lung down could be sucked out. The result was that the lung was allowed to re-expand on its own.

While I was able to be in the company of friends and family during the days, staying overnight in a hospital alone is always an interesting experience. I hadn’t done it since I was 12. Although there are other patients in the room and nurses on call 24 hours a day, you’re really, really alone. It’s then when you really have to fight to get better.

The time allowed me to re-acquaint myself once again with Sigur Ros and the ( ) album, but more importantly left me wondering how fragile we are. Here I was, a seemingly healthy person in the best shape of their life, completely at the mercy of chance. I guess sometimes things just go wrong inside.

I remained in the hospital for two nights and left on Thursday, May 6. Now at home, I’m recovering but also paranoid that I might relapse. After all, I have little control over what goes on in there. It makes me understand exactly how post-heart attack victims feel. The anxiety is very real.

I have always tried to avoid living in fear. I try not to be fooled by media scams, the swine flus of the world, overly insuring myself and my property, and I really try to give every stranger I meet the benefit of the doubt. Simply put, I don’t ever want to prevent myself from doing something out of fear.

Times change, however, and it becomes more difficult to do so as the clock ticks on.

Peace.

I’ve never been the biggest Tarantino fan in the world, although his movies are definitely unique in that you know you’re watching one of his when you see one. The dialogue is always ten times slicker than you could ever dream up and most scenes have some kind of shocking element to them.

Inglorious Basterds was a relentless 2.5 hour push and pull on my stomach. I suppose the nature of espionage lends itself to creating tension. Every scene makes the audience ask the question: “Does this Nazi see through the act?”

The movie really puts the holocaust back in perspective. I hadn’t seen a WWII movie in a while and this one certainly did a good job of portraying the evil involved in rounding up and killing Jews. And despite the criticism I usually pass upon those who justify aggression based on the belief that Jews and Israel remain in similar danger, I felt myself teetering while watching the film.

Well, I’ve really gone and done it this time…

My personal computer of 6 years crashed out of nowhere Sunday. And of course I had never made a backup of my files. Sure it’s inconvenient to lose almost 20 GBs of downloaded music, but the real irreplaceable stuff is 7 years of pictures, all of the original files which make up this website, and all of the original masters for every song I’ve ever recorded.

Stay tuned…

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, which has brought me back to times I’d rather forget.

Three years ago I was completing my last year of university and often spent 3-4 hours a night staring at the ceiling. It was probably a combination of stress, neurosis, and fear.

When I was a kid, being awake in the middle of the night, alone, always scared the shit out of me. Even though technically you’re more defenseless while asleep I suppose, I always seemed to think it provided some sort of protection from physical and emotional harm.

The lowest point of my poor man’s insomnia occurred when I decided to watch 1984, the movie, at 4 am. I guess when you’re up for hours and have no way of turning your brain off, and thus your body, watching a scary movie is the right thing to do.

Yeah, stupid.

And that said, I’m going to bed.

Goodnight, I hope.