Personal: CT & IVs

Not dying, far from it.

Yesterday I went to memorial, pensively and very worried I drank the hospital kool-aid while waiting for my CT scan. Luckily I had my friend Jill with me. She asked at the last minute if I wanted company, and secretly I wanted to scream “Yes, yes, yes!” but I have really a hard time displaying my excitement, especially when it comes to the hospitals. I didn’t want to feel like she was taking a grumpy puppy to the vet. I asked her several times if that’s what she really wanted to do on a monday morning. I mean, there are so many other cool things to do on a monday...Right?


“It’s going to be boring…and there are sick people... you’ll just sit there... I’ll be cranky... needles make me cranky… it’s a hospital not a jump house… I’ll tell horrible jokes… like real cranky… really?” She smiled and said something along the lines of “Yes Brady, I’m sure I want to go with you.” I beamed, but not bright enough to see hopefully. After multitudes of treatment visits its going to feel nice being one of those people with someone in the waiting room. I debated on taking a picture, but I don’t know if that would have been real appropriate or even genuinely decent thing to do. Hospital selfies? I mean I do have cancer, so who could get mad? I could see the tagline on the photo, “So this is Jill and I in the Cancer ward. Ignore the mummy in the wheelchair. All smiles!”


Since July my mind has been overloaded with statements concerning mortality rates, life altering side-effects and self deprecating thoughts. I've seen a slew of medical staff that range from the gentleness of a warm cloth upon my forehead to those with the subtly of smashing a cinder block through a car-window. After I finished my chemical beverage I walked to the CT room and lied down on a matted table awaiting robotic directions. The nurse took ten minutes to find a vein in my right arm -- nothing. She then searched the left. Nothing. She looked confused and perplexed. Scratching her brow she pressed a buzzer,


"Stacy, could you come in here for a moment."


Stacy, an older women with a buttered brunet bob of a hair cut waddled in.
"Can't find a vein can we?" She chuckled, "We'll it's a good thing I know a thing or two about sticken'!"
I didn't really know what to do, so I chuckled with her. "Yeah, it was always hard for me back in the college days too... Ha ha..." My joke trailed like a kid who hadn’t been invited to the party. She then began to slap the top of my wrist. She was probably killing two birds with one stone: If that joke is true Brady you deserve more than just a slap on the wrist and where is that vein?!
"Oh boy, well this will have to do."
"Are you ready?"
"This will hurt."


She plunged the inch and half long needle into my wrist. I twinged and grunted.
"I know... I know it hurts but it's only for a second."
She dug licking her lips. Such a concentrated face for one who is currently inflicting pain.
Then, with a smile, "Ah! There we are."
She plugged a tube into my wrist and connected it to bag full of liquid pus.
"Now lie still and just follow the instructions... You may feel warm and queasy but it dissipates quickly."
I nodded my head and rested it upon the paper towel covered pillow.
The machine buzzed and lit up like an engine on an age spaceship.
*beep, wirrrrrrr, beep*


"Please, take a deep breath."


A voice from deep space began to vocalize its authority like an old speak n' spell.


"Please, hold your breath."


*clank*


"Your cooperation is necessary."


*clank*


"Thank you for your cooperation. You may breathe normally."


I slide beneath a radiated hula hoop like a pizza.


"Please, stay still. Thank you."


*wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*


"Please, hold your breath. Thank you for your cooperation."


"Thank you. Your scan is now complete."


I got off the table feeling warm and fuzzy. The nurses assured me that the feeling would go away shortly. And I hoped it did because the warm feelings downstairs made it feel like I had simultaneously pissed and shit my self. If I was drunk I might have asked for a reward, but no, sober as a bell and double checking every inch of pants for a sign of wetness. None, okay we’re good
I walked back to the waiting room to find Jill waiting for me. If comfort had a face, she created it. I was one of those people again, not alone.
"You ready?"
"Yeah... Let's go home."
The rest of the day I couldn't think about anything else than that the robot. It had all the answers. In its data banks it contained the prevalence of how my body was handling the tumor. It was a long day.

So, this morning I woke up knowing that at some point I'd have to see my oncologist. It was like knowing that an ex girlfriend was waiting for me at school, probably by my locker with a slew of ugly information. My gut told me pack an extra pair of pants in the car. I sat in the waiting room; I was not one of those people today, I was alone. I was called by the sweet ladies over the intercom to the lab so they could draw my blood. No sign of him. They stabbed me, drew my bloody and gave me a unisex band aid.


Lame.


I went back to the waiting room and sat there twiddling my thumbs. Wheelchairs zoomed in and out with crippled bodies hacking up god knows what. The overheard conversations were just like the ones I myself had my first day; people holding back their bruised faces and old ladies drawing bible study quotes from their slacked jaws. Overwhelming. Still no sign of him.


The intercom buzzed.


"Brady Effler to the nurse's assistant area please."


This is it.


I walked back to their desk and there he was standing in large white cloak holding his clip board.


"Brady, good to see you. The nurses are going to take care of you, but we need to talk. I'll find you soon, okay." Every thing was said with a smile. But they always smile. “We need to talk?” People still say that these days?! No one should ever say that. He wandered off down the hallway, cloak billowing flashing his striped socks every other step. Was this how Harry potter felt when Dumbledore said some cryptic shit -- frustratedly "special"?


The nurses came up to me and I did what they asked of me. I felt like a bear in the circus. Hop up on this, get down from there, stick this in your mouth, clip this on your finger, wave to the crowd, don’t scowell, etc...


After about 15 minutes of performing in the center ring, they moved me from the crowd and into a holding pen, aka just another waiting room, but smaller and built for face to face conversations.


As I was waiting I heard my oncologist outside talking to another voice, and everything was muffled.

"... tell him ..I'll be...


shortly ... discuss ...


...don't.... results... take


treatments are... preliminaries..."

The door opened and a blonde lady stepped through the door with fuchsia Nikes' indiscreetly grabbing my attention. Just her shoes. That's all I know.


"Hi! I'm Amy. Dr. Daniels assistant. How are you today."
With really no time to process what I didn't hear, I had no other option besides.
"Peachy, yeah. I'm just ... Peachy."


She asked me the typical questions:


How's your pain? - fine


Pelvis bothering you? - not as much


On a scale of one to ten? - one


Are sleeping alright? - sort of


Pooping well? - yes


Sexual activity? - no


Any rashes? - no


Numbness in your hands? - no


Numbness in your feet? - no


Taking all your pills? - yes


Any loss or change in sexual drive? - no


Nausea? - yes


Any case of vomiting? - no


Any blood in your urine or fecal matter? - no


Sunlight bothering you? - no


In general is everything okay? Sure







There was a knock on the door.
Finally.
Thank God.
Dr. Daniels peaked his head through the door and smiled.
"You all set?"
I wanted to scream, "just fucking tell me!" but I just nodded and said, “Yep…”
Amy nodded her head and gave him a binder. He waved it away, instead he walked up to me and reached out his hand. "We'll congratulations Mr. Effler. You tumor is dying."


If he had gripped my hand any harder or smiled any wider I would have lost it. My eyes were like cages, trying to keep a flood of mice like tears from running down my face. This was the first set of good news since... Well ever since they told me I was lucky that I even found out about the cancer. I felt lucky and I felt I undefeated.


Amy was smiling too, but her shoes combined with the higher archaical placement of sexual and bathroom questions made me want to give the least amount of attention. Ever.
"Your tumor is no longer looks like a sphere. Rather is collapsing in on itself and becoming more of a cone shape. So all in all. It's dying and this is exactly what we wanted."
He was like the hot girl where you felt like superman after 5 second conversation, “Yeah, it’s 10:15”... . I just wanted him to keep talking. Come on baby don’t stop. Keep talking. Any time he seemed to veer off track I made it point to come right back. I'm not letting this one get away.
“Your blood levels look excellent, your kidneys and liver are functioning extraordinarily well and you look very healthy.”


May I cry now? No, still more questions. I gotta keep this babe talking before she goes off and finds the quarterback, aka that one patient with the glittery crown that makes all the nurses laugh. What a show off. I have cancer too you know… I’m just not old and cute. The rest of the conversation was about my meds, my pelvis and how stem cell surgery will be the catalyst.


“Well that’s all I have to say Mr. Effler.” He shook my hand and smiled. “I hope you have a good day.”


As I left the hospital, I may have skipped, or at least to best of my ability. You know, fractured pelvis. I knew I had to tell everyone… It’s now a reality to me. I can fight this. I have a future. Somewhere out there is the one, somewhere out there is the house, somewhere out there is the job, somewhere out there is life.


And if I stay focused, I’ll make everyone remember me, forever.

10 Cover Songs that are in My Library. (10 - 6)

Covering your tracks... 10 songs at a time.

I am a cover person and I'm not talking blankets (Well I do really like jersey sheets, but that's beyond the point). Discovering a well done cover song is like finding a needle in a needle stack from a parallel universe that is currently occupied by robots going through puberty, a.k.a. that slut called Youtube. Okay, maybe that was a little harsh, but when anybody can prop open their macbooks and record themselves it get's a little old and arduous finding "gems" like this...



I will apologize for three things: 1) I'm sorry that if you sat through the whole thing for wasting three minutes and twenty seconds of your life. 2) That it was a Barenaked Ladies. 3) For the one hardcore Barenaked Ladies fan-dude out there reading this, I'm not maliciously attacking the group, I'm just saying... they doesn't age well bro.
Finding good covers are hard to come by but there are couple good friends that can help us weed out the bad ones, such as the A.V. Club and the website Covermesongs.com. In your free time I'd suggest that you give them a gander. But let's start with my personal top 10, and in no particular order.

#10 I'll Be There // Sun Kil Moon (The Jackson 5)

I've never been a huge Jackson 5 fan. That whole "ABC" song drives me crazy. But besides that song, I respect them for what they have done for music and that generation in particular. But this cover goes straight for the heart.
If you've listened to Sun Kil Moon this cover might not be news to you but if you haven't, he's like the Americana heart break of folk music, or an Iron & Wine that is less annoying. His cover is soft and majestic, it practically melts your heart on the spot. I know I sat sniffling thinking two things: "I wa-wa-want to da-da-dance to this at my weddings" *sobs* and the other "Why did I ever show that bitch this song?!"
You can download the song Here.

#9 Mr. Brightside // Playradioplay! (The Killers)

I have several friends that love to dance. As for me, I'll only dance if I can just stand there, holding my drink while some girl does here butt-rumble thing or I think it's called twerking now? But even that weirds me out. My buddies will usually pull the speakers out on the back porch and blast Justice, M83 and/or Girl Talk and by the time I'm tossed the porch is a break-beat giggle fest. So when I happened upon the cover of I had an immediate smile because for one, I could be like "Hey! I'll stand there and watch a girl dance to this!" and secondly there SO MANY covers of this song and this is the only good one. Let the memories flow my friends.
You can download the song Here.

#8 Sweet Dreams // Marilyn Manson (The Eurthymics)

Synth can be creepy, even back in the 80’s and back in 1984 the Eurthymics had it down. The original song delivers sinister tones tailgated with glass bottles clanks and major piano chords that vibrate the static drums. Was this song made in a factory that manufactures road-kill teddy bears, we'll never know. Needless to say its no surprise that Marilyn Manson decided to crank the creepiness up to 11. He slows it down and scraps the piano for a distorted guitar that crawls up your spine. The amount of fuzz and buzz fronted by his hair-raising whispering screams really perpetuates the atmosphere of the song to a whole new level of oddity. Oh, and I also really like the song. It's good for Halloween, so be sure to hang on to it. 
Couldn't find a "proper" download but here's a link the Song. 

#7 Jolene // The White Stripes ( Dolly Parton)

My original #7 was going to be "Landslide", covered by the Smashing Pumpkins, but honestly it just got annoying after the 70th time I heard it, but this gem -- shivers up my spine. Jack White, with his tenacious attitude, cranks this country classic. The White Stripes tapped into the rawest emotion this song could contain and just plainly, but not simply, rocked it. I'm pretty positive it has the power to melt faces. It's truly a work of rock art. Sadly there are few ways to hear this song. It was captured live for one of their tour DVDs, so if you can find it, hats off. But thank God for Youtube right?!
Here is the link the best sounding video I could find.

#6 Idioteque // Amanda Palmer (Radiohead)
Idioteque has always been one of my favorite Radiohead songs and when I found out that Amanda Palmer covered it, (and on the ukulele none the less!) it's safe to say that I flipped out. I mean it's that crazy lady from the Dresden Dolls and that song "Coin-Operated Boy" about killed me in high school. So at first I was scared, I mean it was like handling my favorite Tamagachi pet, I didn't want her to kill it... I'd have to start all over. But my fear quickly dissipated upon listening to the cover. She really captures the overarching idea of the song, a dissonance that is created through panic. At some points it sounds like she is hammering on the top of the fret board, trying to communicate this idea of stress and anxiety. The drums that waltz into the song shape the song into one of the best covers I’ve heard in a long time. The art form here is awe-inspiring. So thanks Amanda, you're cool now. 
You can download the song Here.

Stay tuned for 1 - 5!
(also feel free to email me your favorite covers at bradyeffler@gmail.com)

5 Songs We Use Not to Talk. Pt. 2

#2 The Fragmented Sentence.

Built To Spill // You Are

"Everybody knows...

Everybody knows...

That you..."

It was early September of 2011, during my last full semester at Lee University, when the trees had just begun to malt -- shearing colors of gold and orange. The wind was perfect, as if the breeze was a tiny little boy who had happily gotten lost in an open air super market, dashing from side to side clustering my hair. It was perfect. I was happy, I was content and I was looking forward to the future. I wasn't day dreaming like any normal 23 year old dude at the time. Instead of thinking of ways to pull pranks on my friends, what kind of beer I wanted that evening or if it's to early to call my girlfriend to make out -- rather I was thinking about a career, my upcoming semester in England and if Target had any gnarly sweaters on sale. (or pea-coats! I love pea-coats!) But then my phone rang, it was father on the other line. He sounded pensive and serious, but this wasn't far from the norm so I said "Hey/What's Up" and he responded with "Poppy died...".

I attacked the phone receiver with a battalion of untrained soldiers equipped with the standard edition rifle tears. These are my tears, there are many like them, but these are mine. Each sentence was more whimpered than the last. My eyes had contracted a fever, and it wouldn't go away. That day, like my grandfather, I couldn't leave the same way I came. I needed my car and roads I had never seen before. My tongue was riding as fast at it could on the phone, but when silence is your best friend... it's not very fast at all. I don't know how many phrases I belted out on the phone, there are so many that one seems to use when dealing with death that it get's annoying fast. So I'm sure you might be able to relate to my list, contracted like a disease:

• How did it happen?
• But why? 
• I just saw him!
• I don't fucking believe...
• Is Mom alright!?
• I'm coming home right now.
• ...shit 
• What should I do?
• I... I ... Are you okay?

After I hung up the phone I thought about running, just running. To my car, I don't know, perhaps. Any direction will do. Motion, it seemed like a good idea, a much better idea than standing in the middle of a christian campus swearing like a sailor and craving a cigarette. If I just ran to my car, maybe I could... maybe I could... I don't know but maybe I could just fucking... do something, but what's the point, he's dead and it's not like we had a dinner reservation.
So I just walked.
I popped in my head phones and started slowly. My feet felt like fat slippers soaked in kerosine as I tromped to my vehicle. All the trees seemed so repugnant as if it's not a big deal to have an arm full of dead droppings. The hot sorority girls laughing on the corner looked fatter and I could feel the lack of depth permeate from their skulls, as if they were empty boxes of soggy light. God that walk sucked. It wasn't until I got into my car that it really hit me, I need to call my girlfriend.

She picked up the phone

"Hey! What's up?"

"My grandfather just died..."

"The one out in California?"

"Yeah... Poppy."

"Are you gonna be okay? Do you need to see me?"

"No, no... I'll be okay. I just needed to hear your voice..."

The conversation didn't last much longer than that because unlike my feet, my tongue couldn't put one foot in-front of the other. It was stuck in a suffocating pattern dryness, sealing it's self to the roof of my mouth.When I got to my parents house later that day it didn't get any better. I had no words, just... just a mouth full of pythons and a fist that needed to placed properly in a door. I kept on trying to comfort my Mother, but I couldn't say anything good. The next day passed and the funeral arrangements where being made. The family decided that my mother and my sisters would fly out to California to be at the small family gathering where they would spread his ashes in my grandmothers garden. The night I found out I wasn't going I cried like a child who had seen his blood for the first time. As We Were Promised Jetpacks would say, it was a far cry from all that was dead inside. I couldn't go because I had "exams", so I had to write a letter to give to my grandmother. My condolence letter. My hated for school spiked significantly that day.

My girlfriend at the time, who was much younger than me, tried her best at comforting me but it just wasn't working. She was lost in the torrent of choice-less words and my hot-n-cold comfort zone. I had no way of communicating. It was like I was deaf and trying to tell her that I was having a heart attack, it was useless. After the deluge of "I'm sorrys" and "is there anything I can do" I left her place. I went home to write that letter.

I dug through my iPod while it was on shuffle, pecking the skip button and getting pissed after every track. Sometimes I think I torture my self for no good reason and love it.
I would scream at it,
"No. I don't want to listen to Damien Rice right now you twat!"
"What! No! Frighten Rabbit and Copeland are OUT of the question!"
I was secretly hoping it would jump to Guernica by Brand New because I wasn't going to pick it my self. That song always upset me, and I wanted to be the distorted hum of one sad and lonely alcoholic. And if the fate of the shuffle wouldn't pick Brand New then my second wish was that it would land on Pedro The Lion's "Suspect Fled The Scene". I just knew from the the bottom of my heart that if I picked those songs on my own that I'd be inflicting a ridiculous amount of pain on my heart, so I was hoping fate would do it for me. When your as sad as wordless poet, you don't argue fates cruel and provocative hug, you just accept it with a pinch of poison. But then shuffle did it again, it saved my soul. It landed on the one song that I usually associate with the moment when the prettiest girl smile, the whole "cat's got my tongue" thing, where she's just to beautiful to look at. The sliver rectangular angel started to play "You Are" by Built To Spill.

 The fragmented sentence, an iota of tangibility, the mouthful of crumbs that came dribbling out of my face and my figures began to scoop them up like puzzle pieces. I played the song over and over and over and over and over and over. I sent it to my friends, my girlfriend and anyone that would listen. I felt like a seventh grader trying to tell his parents that he got shoved in a locker at school yesterday. I wanted to shout the guitar patterns, break windows to the drum beats and steep in the memory of my grandfather while the guitar solo painted every memory I had with him. This hot sense of odd pleasure drove me to room for hours.

There are only five words in the entire song. "Everybody/knows/that/you/are" but the way it is sang invokes an irresistible amount of feelings. Doug Martsch, the lead singer goes in rounds as if he knows, this is all he's got and this is all he can say and it's the only way he can tell you, so it's odd, but it's perfect.

It's perfect.   

And it was perfect.

Here's a small portion of the letter that I wrote: "...throughout my childhood Poppy played a key roll in my developing years. I couldn't think of a memory that encompassed what he truly meant to me. Poppy was much more than a memory to me. He was a legacy of ideals. Ideals that started me down the pathe of being an artist, an artist that encapsulates mystery in truth and love through nobility. Poppy was an artist and now so am I. He gave me the inspiration to play each key with fervor and integrity. Each string to be strummed with an intimate passion and an ear to always listen closely to my heart... Poppys brush strokes have painted the most beautiful foreground and now it is my duty as his grandson to take up the brush and make something beautiful for the world to see and for the world to feel..."

The fragmented sentence is one of the most powerful songs we can express to an individual. It's the moment when words aren't enough, we've lost the ability to even define our selves and the situation, so we let our most powerful form of express take control -- for me, the music. As a young man I find my self in phases in my life where I am left with nothing but the music, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Whether it's the death of a close relative, the lowness from exiting a relationship or the metaphorical Triton in the road, because let's be real, these days it's no longer a fork, and we are left with invisible character defining art. In these phases our internal soul cries out to others in ways that we can not express. We might even feel guilty or angry because there's an unfulfilled tension that is created deep within our psyche, but there's a way out. Don't say it, just play it.

Now when ever I hear this song I think of two things. The first is that sometimes in life the best way to tell someone that you love them is through art. The second thing is this: your art will inspire, cultivate and move people in ways that you never knew and perhaps will never know. I never told my grandfather that I started playing music because of him. I never told my grandfather that he taught me to look for beauty in all things. But I told him I loved him and I'm sure that rolls over into heaven. 

What's your fragmented sentence?