Mel Green at Story Phile Thursday June 6, 2013 8pm

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Mel Green at I LOVE A GOOD STORY the Fanatic Salon Theatre Sunday December 16th 4pm

(lots of FREE street parking! EASY. Right off the405) Lots of talent, for one hour, in one room, for $10bucks. Ya just can’t beat it! See you there.

Mel Green will be joining Story Tellers Bruce Gray, Christine Blackburn, Pete Goldfinger, Michael Kass, Robbi Morgan Walberg, and music by Down Home Syndrome

Your Hosts- Lauri Fraser and Chris Pina Reservations 310-850-8814 or 310-622-2046

3815 Sawtelle Blvd. Culver City,90066 (Southwest corner of Venice and Sawtelle)

Can’t wait to see you!

Mel Green at Dylan Brody’s Thinking Allowed Saturday September 29th 8pm

BK2 – Meet Your New Disease

My dog-walking outfit consists of a black glove on my right hand (the poop bag hand) and a black surgical face mask with the bio-hazard symbol etched in gray on the muzzle. When I saw it online I thought it had a certain outpatient chic. However, I’m concerned of the scare-factor for the general public: guy walking towards you, Bull Terrier, black glove, face mask—biohazard symbol—got your attention?

But I happen to live in Los Angeles just a few blocks from the Hollywood/Highland intersection with its hordes of sunburned tourists being shadowed by almost as many cartoon rubber heads, mascara-lidded Captain Jack Sparrows and Marilyns perspiring in their blonde wigs. Point being, in my hood, the mask/glove combo will likely be taken as a half-assed pass at doing a Michael J. If I wore sunglasses and the hat I could probably pick up a few bucks while getting the dog detail done.

Then I hear it. A leaf blower rounds the corner of a building preceded by a cloud of dust and debris made up of (at least in my imagination): the fecal droppings of a half-dozen species in various stages of  decomposition, used cotton swabs, wadded tissues, discarded band-aids and desiccated condoms. In short, a billowing cloud of infectious disease that will envelope me, travel my nasal passages into my lungs where it will take hold and infection will bloom. I’ll be hospitalized, treated with massive doses of antibiotics.  Then another, more resistant hospital-born super-bug will appear. After some astonishingly pricey I.Vs of experimental Hail Mary concoctions cooked-up by Pfizer, I will die. Death by leaf blower. I cross the street.

Such is the stuff of daily life after a routine blood panel revealed a disturbingly low white blood cell count. You know there’s a problem when your doctor calls you at home regarding your recent blood test.

“You should come back in and let’s re-do it,” he says in an alarmingly neutral tone. “Must be a mistake at the lab. Let’s run it again.”

“When?” You ask.

“Now,” he says.

You become dutiful—he’s the new sheriff. While you sit in front of him he goes over the results of your second test (from a different lab just to be sure). The results are identical. He picks up the phone, dials a hematologist (a personal friend of his) and elbows you an appointment in three hours. “You’ll be fine,” he says. “Sometimes people’s bone marrow just gives out. You have insurance.”

Bone marrow? I figured it would be heart or maybe liver or lung; something with the esophagus—a stroke perhaps? All conditions related to my addictive nature—those middle years of cocaine and vodka, the tumbler of rum & coke endlessly freshened, shots of tequila backed with a Marlboro Red.  Bone Marrow? Not even in dreams, but it does have a deep, bluesy resonance—after all, it’s down in your bones.

Dr. Sally is my kinda gal: horse pictures line her office; medium-length silver hair parted in the middle and she’s ready for work. She runs yet another blood test (in-house, she’s got her own robot-like machine which I will come to know very well over the following months).

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“Fine, except I’m sitting here in your office.”

“I would put you in the hospital, but I’m afraid you would get an infection.”

“Hospital? Really?”

“On a scale of 1-10, 10 being normal, your immune system is at a 2. You are at high-risk for infection. You need to go home, monitor your temperature every four hours. If you have any kind of fever you are to go immediately to the ER and give them this piece of paper (my paltry blood count). You are not to travel to any third-world countries, don’t eat sushi or deli; cancel your gym membership if you have one, no gardening and don’t pick up dog poop.”

Well, there goes India.  My wife, being a former Kathak dancer, sees India as her spiritual home. And then there’s our delayed honeymoon to Istanbul fading away. I manage a wry smile as I envision telling her, “But honey, the doctor says I can’t pick up his poop.”

It’s the Sushi directive that sends my spirits tumbling. In my heaven you’ll find me tucked at the quiet end of a sushi bar presided over by my own sushi chef for an endless round of Omakase so fresh and inventive it fairly wiggles as I pop each morsel of raw, bacteria laden fish into my mouth, followed by a sip of the most subtle of sakes and then the next tiny plate arrives … according to Dr. Sally, I may as well point a gun to my head and spin the cylinder before tugging the trigger. Hai!

It’s a long walk back to the car from Dr. Sally’s; I seem to be moving through a medium heavier than air. I’ve been here before emotionally, but fear always arrives looking fresh. When I was 14 my adoptive father informed me that my biological father was dying of Huntington’s disease, a genetic disease that would, in the case of juvenile onset, likely kill me before my thirtieth year. Obviously, I ducked that bullet. Anyone who has read my book Marker knows the story intimately. However, here I am at 61 and I get to experience it all over again—a variation anyway on my being at risk for an early death, but this time it’s no mistake.

Diagnosis: MDS (myleodysplastic syndrome) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myelodysplastic_syndrome

I’m in good company: Carl “billions and billions” Sagan, Roald Dahl, Susan Sontag and Nora Ephron all died from complications related to MDS.  If I got very busy or even desperately notorious, I would be unlikely to claim a comparable fame, but at least we’ll share a common line in our obits.

The Problem Is I’m Healthy.

MDS is asymptomatic—I have no sickness or any symptoms of illness. I was diagnosed after a routine blood panel—I was concerned about my cholesterol which is down. So I got that going for me.

From all outward and visible signs, you’d think I was healthy. In good shape even. Until I get sick and then I’m in for a bumpy ride. That is the illusion I’m living:  there is no pain, no visible wound, no seeping buboes. It makes it difficult to remember how truly vulnerable I am. There are bruises that appear occasionally from minor collisions with everyday objects and they are slow to go away. But other than that, there are simply no daily reminders staring back at me from the mirror … just the voice in my head when I see the pink-haired girl at the curry counter, who is not wearing sanitary plastic gloves, reach down and adjust her ankle sock around the fresh tat before she ladles up my order from the steam table—“Is she the one that will kill me?”

UP NEXT:

“My Bone Marrow Biopsy or Hey, Where Did Everyone Go?”

Mel Green at I LOVE A GOOD STORY the Fanatic Theatre Sunday April 15th 4pm

(lots of FREE street parking! EASY. Right off the405) Lots of talent, for one hour, in one room, for $10bucks. Ya just can’t beat it! See you there. Not for kids this month.

STORYTELLERS: Keith Blaney,  Loretta Fox, Mel Green, Michelle Joyner, Vicki Juditz  MUSICAL GUEST: Ali Handal

Your Hosts- Lauri Fraser and Chris Pina Reservations 310-850-8814 or 310-622-2046

3815 Sawtelle Blvd. Culver City,90066 (Southwest corner of Venice and Sawtelle)

Can’t wait to see you!

Mel Green at Spark Off Rose Monday April 2, 2012 7:30pm

Theatre Palisades

941 Temescal Canyon

(Between PCH and Sunset)

For tickets/reservations: http://www.sparkoffrose.com

Mel Green at Vlad the Retailer Tuesday December 6, 2011 8pm

Mel Green joins Rick Shaprio at Vlad the Retailer Tuesday November 29, 2011 8PM

Mel Green at Flatrock Theater Lajitas Texas Saturday October 29 8pm

 

On Investing: Self-Interview #2

Q: Here we are again with author, raconteur Mel Green with some, should I call it investment “advice”?

A: Let me get this pill down and I’ll be right with you … there, all better.

Q: So much fear out there in the investment world, Mel. Housing is still going down, a volatile stock market, what does a regular American do with his or her money?

A: I chose the stock market. The exhilaration of watching a stock plummet from thirty dollars to two in a single day simply can’t compare with the long slow process of watching your real estate slip underwater like an armless child.

Q: I take it like so many others, you have lost money in the stock market.

A: Of course. That’s the point. Everyone has the wrong idea about making money in the stock market, “Oh, I want to get rich playing the market.” No, no. I use it as a way to protect myself.

Q: Really. How so?

A: I managed to get into the stock market when the DOW was well over 1400 …

Q: At its peak then?

A:  It’s called “timing”. I timed the market so I got in just at the very top right before the big crash.

Q: I’m sorry to hear that.

A: But it was brilliant! With the losses I have incurred I should never have to pay taxes until I’m well into my eighties.

Q: But don’t you have to actually make money to benefit from any tax breaks?

A: And I am well prepared should that occur. I consider these huge losses as a preemptive strike against any future profits.

Q: So you would advise people to get into the stock market regardless of the consequences?

A: Well, not now you moron. It’s dropped too low. Wait until it goes back up and then if you’re diligent … again—it’s timing.

Q: Certainly an original approach.

A: Not for everyone. You’ve got to have the right meds.  Pass me that other bottle would you …

Q: Do you see any investment opportunities other than the stock market?

A: I’ll be bidding on one of the old space shuttles soon to be offered on Ebay.

Q: Ah, envisioning a space museum of some sort?

A: No, douche bag. I am not envisioning a space museum. I think they got another trip left in them.

Q: Trip? You mean to the moon?

A: Of course to the moon, Alice! They got at least one, maybe two moon shots left in them.

Q: That’s a complicated undertaking. Wouldn’t you need NASA to do that?

A: Hell no. Gas the thing up, sell tickets to rich assholes, hire some bat-shit crazy pilot from the Reno Air Race to fly it. Toss in a case of champagne and some vomit bags and you’re good to go.

Q: But that seems so risky.

A: Exactly.

Q: There could be disastrous consequences to such an endeavor.

A: Only if it’s done right. Think of the losses: equipment, personal injury lawsuits, damage on the ground from a botched re-entry. The list boggles even the most medicated mind.

Q: A messy enterprise no doubt.

A: Just another bump on the road to discovery.

Q: Perhaps. However, a venture of that scope would require considerable capital. What about the small investor, the little guy looking to ease into something less ambitious?

A: Prison.

Q: You are referring to a penitentiary?

A: Penal Colony, Labor Camp, Super Max—whatever you can get your lame ass into before they fill up with Investment Bankers. Imagine the money saved on rent and food over the years not to mention wardrobe, travel expenses, health care–all paid for by the state which is really just another way of saying paid for by the poor suckers out there who are actually paying taxes—not me!  Oh, make no mistake about it–prison is the most reliable retirement package out there.

Q: I won’t ask how you intend to gain entry into one of these facilities.

A: Make your way to Wall Street and strangle the first prick in a suit that’s not carrying a protest sign.

Q: Are you advocating violence as a means to social change?

A: No, of course not. But starving to death lacks drama.