October 31, 2007 - Are We Scared Yet?

It’s Halloween, the night when costumed little ones take the long and lonely walk up to houses of people they barely know, ring the doorbell and hope for the best. I can still remember the butterflies in the stomach, back when I was numbered in that company: the heady combination of exhilaration and fear.

Today, my role is limited to carving the jack-o-lantern. I try not to make him look too scary. He’s a sort of open-for-business sign, an invitation to the little ghosts and witches and ballerinas and football players to step up and dig some “fun-sized” chocolate bars out of the black-plastic witches’ cauldron.

Claire and I miss the days when our own kids were young enough to go trick-or-treating. Fewer and fewer kids stop at our door each year, it seems – despite our glowing pumpkin beacon. It has more to do with the fact that there are houses on only one side of our street, than anything else. These kids get smarter every year. They know the streets where they can maximize their take are those that have houses on both sides, and close together.

Maybe it’s because it’s Halloween, but today’s New York Times – responding to the recent anxieties about antibiotic-resistant bacteria – has a little article, called "How Scared Should We Be?", on the relative risks of dying from various things. Some of these comparisons are rather bizarre: such as the one that says you’re more likely to die from being bonked on the head by a falling coconut (150 cases a year, around the world) than being killed by a shark (62 cases in the United States).

Here’s a portion of a chart indicating various causes of death:

Heart disease: 652,486 deaths annually (1 in 5 risk)
Cancer: 553,888 deaths annually (1 in 7 risk)
Stroke: 150,074 deaths annually (1 in 24 risk)
Hospital infections: 99,000 deaths annually (1 in 38 risk)
Flu: 59,664 deaths annually (1 in 63 risk)
Car accidents: 44,757 deaths annually (1 in 84 risk)

Down at the lower levels, risks include:

Lightning: 47 deaths annually (1 in 79,746 risk)
Train crash: 24 deaths annually (1 in 156,169 risk)
Fireworks: 11 deaths annually (1 in 340,733 risk)

Am I scared, now, of dying of cancer? Not as much as I used to be. Part of that is because my prognosis is actually better, now, than it was, pre-treatment. But that’s not the whole story. When you live with this kind of threat for a while (and it’s now been nearly 2 years since my diagnosis), you do get used to it. It becomes part of the background noise.

Yeah, chances are pretty good that cancer’s what I’m going to die from, in the end. But, when will that end be? Hard to say. Indolent lymphoma takes its lazy old time, and typically lets itself get beaten back down into is hole numerous times, by a succession of treatments, before rearing up and doing its worst.

Bottom line is, I don’t have time to feel scared. I have things to do, people to see. Odds are, my disease’s progression is more likely to be spaced out over years (or, in the best case, decades) rather than months. So, I can put the fear off a while longer.

Happy Halloween!

Pentax Letter to Customers

With the announcement that, effective March 31, 2008, PENTAX will become a wholly-owned division of the HOYA Corporation, we felt it was important to communicate what we see as the benefits of this merger to our customers.

Also, I would like to clarify one statement from the "Public Notice of Execution of Merger Agreement". In this notice, it mentions that "PENTAX will be dissolved on March 31, 2008 in conjunction with the Merger". This does not mean that the PENTAX brand, its products, or business will cease to exist. In simple terms, this statement refers to the fact that effective with this merger the fiscal entity, PENTAX Corporation and its shares will no longer exist or be traded on the Japanese stock market.

In fact, becoming a division of HOYA will create flatter corporate structures and enable new business areas to grow, ensuring agility and speed in management decision making and ensuring appropriate allocation of resources. From my view as the new President of Pentax Imaging USA, this is good news for our future and yours as a PENTAX photographer.

Here's the link to our message to customers and business partners:
Pentax Letter to Customers

October 30, 2007 - Blind Men Meet Elephant

I read an insightful article today, a New York Times review of a new book, The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center, by Charles R. Morris (Norton). The review, by Pauline W. Chen, is built around an image that describes our ungainly health-care system: the familiar fable of the blind men and the elephant.

The story originated long ago in India. It’s been immortalized in poetic form by a nineteenth-century Englishman, John Godfrey Saxe:

It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The poem goes on to tell how each of the blind men walks up to just one part of the beast. One, touching its side, imagines the elephant as being like a wall. Another, running his fingers along the tusk, describes the elephant as like a spear. Still another, handling the trunk, thinks it like a snake. And so on, and so on. None of them comprehends the big picture.

The poem concludes with these stanzas:

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

It’s a suitable reproof for those who approach questions of religious dogma with false surety, born of fragmentary experience. Chen, the Times reviewer, deftly applies the story to two aspects of the broken health-care system in our country. The first is the problem – familiar to many patients who have spent time in a hospital receiving multiple tests – of too many specialists and not enough general practitioners. Each specialist concentrates on his or her part of the body. Too often, it’s up to the family-practice physician – the doctor with the least-exalted position in the medical pecking-order, and therefore the least clout – to oversee the patient’s overall treatment and head off problems such as drug interactions and tests whose results cancel each other out.

The second way Chen uses the blind-men-and- the-elephant story is with reference to the competing financial interests – doctors, hospital administrators, insurance executives, pharmaceutical salespeople, attorneys, legislators and others – who are scrambling over each other to carve out their own, individual piece of the health-care pie.

Who looks out for the integrity of the whole system? Too often, no one.

Very often, success in medical treatment is built on mastery of details. That’s why we have specialists. They have the intellect and training to sweat the details.

Yet, there’s also a place – an especially important place – for those with the inductive-reasoning ability to synthesize the details and glimpse the big picture.

Chen concludes by mentioning an “artisanal” value system Morris identifies in his book. The persistence of this value system, despite all the external factors that are assaulting it, is critical to the success of the American health-care system. It’s a time-honored professional value, “one that has little to do with institutional allegiances or administrative management objectives, but rather with ‘internalized systems of ethics and the expectations of other professionals.’ And that, at least for now... may be the part of the elephant that saves us all.”

Artisans in medicine. May their tribe increase.

(10.29.07) Recommends:

(Really) Free (Not Really) Secret Sigur Ros Show.



In order to get a wrist band for this free show you must show up at Amoeba in Hollywood between 6-9pm tomorrow. And as luck would have it, you were already planning on being there for the free Sondre Lerche in-store performance.

Who says LA is an expensive town?

OT: Red Sox win World Series

Yes, this is totally off topic, but I had to share this photo of my oldest son who produced all the live webcasts for Fox Sports during this year's World Series. He's standing next to Red Sox pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka, after they clinched the series last night against the Colorado Rockies. Please ignore the exif data, as this photo was taken with a PowerShot SD1000 (smile). Now that the Sox have won the baseball championship, all that's left to make my sports year complete is for the Patriot's to win the Super Bowl!

(10.29.07) Recommends:

More David Dondero Youtube Videos.

It's been all David Dondero all the time around here lately. This might not stop for a while. You people need to buy his albums and attend his shows.

(10.28.07) Recommends:

David Dondero, "My Fuse Is Lit."

So last time we spoke we were hyping the David Dondero/Richard Buckner show at Spaceland in Silver Lake. Dondero played this song. It was eerie. Evocative. Provocative. Angry. Sad. Goose bumps.

The world around us rarely makes sense and we turn to art for some kind of explanation or some sense of comfort or at least a sign that we're not the only ones who feel the way we feel. This song doesn't offer an explanation or a sense of comfort, but we do feel less alone in the world when we hear it. And there's comfort in that, we suppose.

The version performed last night seemed to have more lyrics, but here's a version of the song performed earlier this year.

October 27, 2007 - Carrying Death in the Body

This morning, in the nowhere-land between sleeping and waking, a scripture verse comes to me. I've learned to pay attention to the thoughts that slide across the surface of my mind during such a time, which is often a riot of creative ideas.

The verse is, "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our bodies." I feel a clear conviction, during that sleepy time, that the verse has something to do with my cancer.

After I awaken, I look up the citation. It's 2 Corinthians 4:10. The full context is as follows:

"But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you." (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)

Were I ever called upon to preach a sermon about cancer, this passage would be a pretty good place to start. Having cancer is like carrying death around in our bodies. But – looking at it in a spiritual, rather than in a merely medical way – it's not just any death. It's the death of Jesus.

It's a cross. That's what cancer is: a cross we have to bear. Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus himself exhorts his followers to be cross-bearers: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). A cross is a weighty burden, to be sure. Yet, Jesus promises us, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me... for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:29-30).

I remember reading, somewhere or other, a caution connected with the verse about cross-bearing. "Don't apply it to just any variety of suffering," some biblical scholar or other was warning (I'm paraphrasing, here). "The cross was an instrument of unjust oppression, so that verse shouldn't be used as an all-purpose answer to any suffering, especially not illness. The cross-bearing language ought to be reserved for political oppression – and, not just any oppression, but suffering accepted voluntarily by the victims as an act of public witness."

OK, if we're splitting theological hairs, I can buy that, but it still opens up worlds of meaning for me to view physical illness as a sort of cross. I suppose even Paul's thinking along similar lines as he speaks of "carrying in the body the death of Jesus." No, cancer wasn't inflicted on me by some persecutor. And no, I didn't choose to accept it. Whether or not I would have said, "OK, bring it on," would have made not one bit of difference as to whether or not I got sick. Yet, when it comes to long-term, chronic illness, we patients all reach the point when we discover we do have a choice. We can either choose to be victims, letting the illness drag us along passively, or we can reach out and actively shoulder our burden.

It's a sort of judo move. Practitioners of this martial art learn, early on, that a tried-and-true way to victory is to move in the direction your opponent is moving. Is your adversary throwing a punch? Don't meet the blow head-on. Rather, grab hold of his wrist and pull it towards you, but slightly away from your body. Your enemy will be suddenly unbalanced, and you will triumph.

Taking up a cross is kind of like that. When Jesus, in Gethsemane, prayed, "if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want," he was practicing a sort of judo move against the forces of death (Matthew 26:39). When he stood before Pilate, baffling the hard-bitten Roman governor by his resolute and impassive acceptance, he was practicing a similar move (Matthew 27:14). When he died with such dignity that his head executioner declared, in wonder, "Truly this man was God's son," the forces of evil were thrown to the mat (Matthew 27:54).

Yet all this is just about dying well. There's more, in the Christian gospel. Much more. The ultimate miracle, of course, is that God declared final victory over death by raising Jesus from the grave.

It's comforting, on a simple human level, to realize that Jesus knew suffering. If Jesus is the son of God, then that means God is no stranger to human life, its agonies as well as its joys.

A stanza from a contemporary hymn comes to mind:

"Not throned above, remotely high,
untouched, unmoved by human pain,
but daily in the midst of life,
our Savior with the Father reigns."

("Christ Is Alive!" by Brian Wren)

"Daily, in the midst of life," Jesus Christ dwells in our midst. We carry within our bodies his death: whether it's rapidly-mutating cancer cells, or the slow death from old age that comes eventually to even the healthiest among us.

One of the great secrets to living is how we choose to respond to that realization.

October 25, 2007 - Showing Up

Woody Allen once quipped that "95% of life is showing up." Today I earn a handsome certificate of merit, just for showing up.

It's my 25th reunion at Princeton Theological Seminary. At the luncheon, I'm called forward to receive an elegantly-printed piece of paper, declaring that the seminary and its Alumni/ae Association "pay tribute to the faithful ministry of Carlos E. Wilton."

Now, in case any of you may be thinking I've just won the ministerial equivalent of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, let me make it clear that every member of the Class of 1982 received one of these things. There were about eight of us there, out of a class of maybe a hundred or so. All we had to do, to be so honored 25 years after our graduation, was to keep breathing – that, and show up at the reunion.

The 50th reunion class outdid us in that regard. Judging from the number of reserved tables in the dining hall with "1957" placards on them, they had four or five times the number of classmates turn out. Sure, these people are all retired, and have a little more discretionary time to pull up stakes and travel, but I think there's something deeper going on here.

I can tell, from paging through my old student photo directory and recalling the stories I’ve heard, that quite a number of the men and women I graduated with are no longer in parish ministry. Some got caught in the cross-fire of church conflicts. Tired of dodging bullets, they got up one day and simply walked off the field of battle. Others committed ethical lapses of the financial or sexual kind. Still others – many of the bright women who trailblazed their way into seminary in the 1970s and 1980s – discovered that the congregations that welcomed them as earnest young associate pastors weren’t so eager, a few years later, to invite them as seasoned professionals to sit down behind the pastor’s desk. Tired of gazing up at the “stained-glass ceiling,” they left for other occupations. As for the rest of those graduates who are now MIA, I suppose they just drifted away, for whatever reason.

Judging from the number of tables set aside for the Class of 1957, I don't think there are so many MIA ministers in that group. At their graduation, they were pretty much all young men in their twenties, so there was no sexism or ageism to contend with. They started out doing ministry in Eisenhower's America – probably the most congenial time in history for mainline Protestants. True, they persisted through the turbulent sixties and seventies, but the church in that era – while assailed from without – still had plenty of internal momentum to keep it going. By the time the eighties and nineties rolled around, and church-leadership pundits started pontificating about "the end of Christendom" – meaning, by that, the end of the unofficial Protestant establishment in America – these people were already at or slightly past mid-career, so there was little question they would stay the course, no matter how unbreathable the atmosphere seemed to be getting outside the ecclesiastical airlock.

When I think of what I’ve been through, medically, in the past couple of years, I realize how easily I could have become one of the MIA ministers. If my cancer had been of a less easily-treatable form, I might not have been able to jump in the car and drive over to Princeton to pick up my one-size-fits-all, suitable-for-framing certificate.

I suppose I could treat it as my diploma from the School of Cancer. I’m not done with that instruction, by any means – I’m enrolled in a few graduate courses, at the moment – but I feel like I’ve finished with full-time studies for now. (And a good thing it is, too, that I can say that.)

A number of friends at the reunion, from various class years, know of my health situation and ask me about it. A surprising number of them have discovered this blog somehow, and visit it from time to time. After I give them the lowdown on my general condition – how I’m out of remission but in “watch and wait” mode – I find myself saying how much cancer has taught me. It’s true. It’s been one of the most formative experiences of my life (although not one I’d wish on anyone).

No one offers you a certificate of merit when you finish chemotherapy. But, they should.

(10.26.07) Recommends:

David Dondero.

Wow. We cannot believe that it is 2007 and we're only just now being exposed to David Dondero. We live in an era of refrigerators and fax machines and internets and we're really just now finding out about this? Amazing. You're gonna take one listen to the mp3 we're offering today and you're gonna say, "Hmmmm, this voice really, really reminds me of a certain young troubadour from Omaha." And then you, like us, will wiki David Dondero. And then you, too, won't believe that it's 2007 and you're only now learning of the connection. Unless -- and this is entirely possible now that we've actually thought about it -- you are much hipper than us and already know about David Dondero, in which case we're gonna have to ask why the eff you didn't bring this gentlemen to our attention sooner?

Well, enough wondering already. Because for those of us in Los Angeles, we've got quite a treat this weekend. Not only is Mr. Dondero in town, but he's opening for Richard Buckner -- a true hero of this blog -- at Spaceland. More info here.

So, if you're in LA and you know us, come on out. If you're in LA and you've somehow stumbled upon this blog, come out and let's meet. We like meeting new people. By the time the show starts, KU will possibly be 8-0 in football and moving up in the BCS ratings. Writing that is almost as insane as not finding out about David Dondero until now.

So, check 'em out, saddlecreekers:

David Dondero -- Rothko Chapel -- mp3.

More to hear at his Myspace.

(10.25.07) Recommends:

House Passes Health Bill but Gains No Republican Votes.

(10.25.07) Recommends:

House to Vote on New Child Health Bill.

(10.25.07) Recommends:

The Onion v. Pitchfork.

(10.24.07) Recommends:

The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.



It seems like every week we've been putting up new Bloodshot releases. Well, Bloodshot must be employing press release writers whose aim is specifically to get us and those like us to bite on these bands. Because when we get the following in our inboxes, our electronic ears perk up:

Chicago-based chamber pop collective The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir aren’t your typical debauched rock stars reveling in a pastiche of self-destructive clichés. Leading a band that’s shared the stage with both the Arcade Fire and Ira Glass, Spoon and Dave Eggers, it’s clear that lead singer, guitarist, and keyboard player Elia and his scrappy group are comfortable straddling the divide between the debased rock ‘n’ roll world and the high-minded literati. As it turns out, both shoes fit. Not content with merely performing with some of the most notable names in independent music, the band has explored their connections with the literary and theatrical worlds, performing with Eggers, DeRogatis, This American Life’s Glass, author Joe Meno, and Saturday Night Live regular Fred Armisen.

And Aspidistra was the accompanying track. We like it. So up it goes. There's more to get into at the bands myspace page.

Oh, and speaking of Myspace. As we're sure you've heard by now, today Microsoft threw a large chunk of change for a 1.6 pct stake in Facebook. We particularly liked the following quote from this Times article:

Mr. [Lee] Lorenzen and other Silicon Valley investors are often dismissive of MySpace, Facebook’s larger rival, which has more than 110 million active users and is owned by the News Corporation. “MySpace is not based on authentic identities. Facebook is based on who you really are and who your friends really are. That is who marketers really want to reach, not the fantasy you that lives on MySpace and uses a photo of a model,” he said.

We laughed -- literally LOL'd -- when we read this. We used to be embarrassed by Myspace. But at some point we learned to stop fearing it, and embraced it. Outside of Rhapsody, we're not sure there's a better tool for discovering new music than Myspace. And that's why we think the VC following world is missing the boat with their recent, incessant Myspace bashing.

(10.23.07) Recommends:

White Rabbits.

So the transition to moving to a new city and a new neighborhood has been made smooth due pretty much exclusively to the generous and large-hearted people who we know. They've cooked us meals. They've invited us over to play Scrabble. They've invited us out to shows. Frankly, we're still trying to figure out what we bring to the table and why these generous people continue to return our phone calls, and reply to our text messages and emails. But in the mean time, we'll just go with it. So the latest in our burgeoning list of cool things to which cooler-people-than-we have invited us was to see Tokyo Police Club at the El Rey.

Long time readers will remember that we've been batting our eye lashes at TPC for a while now. They were, we're happy to report, really fantastic live.

But before they hit the stage, White Rabbits had the place up and dancing. We had not heard of White Rabbits before tonight, but we have a feeling they're gonna be a pretty indispensable part of our music collection going forward. And I'm not saying this just because they're quasi-hometown homies -- they got their start in Columbia, Mo. They had the crowd whipped into a frenzy, and anytime an opening band can do this, attention must be paid.

There's very few things we enjoy more than walking into a show, completely unaware of a band, and walking away converts.

It happened tonight. Check 'em out for yourself.

October 24, 2007 - Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture"

I'm still pondering a segment of the Oprah Winfrey show I watched on Monday.

I'm not in the habit of watching Oprah (nor any other daytime TV show, for that matter), but I did set my TiVO to catch this one. I did so because I'd read in Kris Carr's Crazy, Sexy Cancer blog that she'd scored a guest invitation to this mother of all daytime talk shows. I wanted to see if she had anything new to say.

Oprah's theme that day was what the dying have to teach us. About a third of the show was devoted to Kris, and the rest to Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Personally, I found Kris' segment less interesting (not because of any shortcoming in her presentation, but because I'd heard much of it before, viewing her film). Randy was quite a different matter. This was the first time I'd heard of him – despite the fact that videos of a lecture he gave at Carnegie-Mellon are all over the internet, and he's been featured in news articles and on several other network talk shows and news broadcasts.

Randy's got pancreatic cancer, and the doctors are giving him 2-3 months to live. You wouldn't know it from looking at him – he looks the picture of health. He even did some one-armed push-ups, just to demonstrate how fit he is.

Yet, beyond a doubt, Randy is dying – even though he's experiencing few symptoms right now, and has no pain. He's already had a Whipple operation – a radical re-sectioning of his stomach, liver, intestines and other internal organs – as a last-ditch effort to buy a little time. In a few months, his liver will cease to function, the cancer will spread to surrounding tissue in his back, his intestines will shut down and he'll experience severe, unremitting pain (although much of that can probably be mitigated by narcotics, provided he's willing to sacrifice his mental acuity).

It's about the worst diagnosis imaginable. But, that's pancreatic cancer for you. It's a stealth cancer that almost always evades detection until it's too late, then brings on a swift and painful death. In the various support groups I've been part of, I've watched how people who can glibly discuss all manner of grisly treatments and side effects fall into a respectful silence when the words "pancreatic cancer" are mentioned. There's so little hope of recovery.

Carnegie-Mellon evidently has a distinguished faculty lecture series known as "The Last Lecture." Those invited to speak in this venue are challenged to imagine they have but one final lecture to give, on the topic of their choice – then, to deliver it. Randy is the first lecturer in this series for whom the instructions are no mere thought- experiment. For him, they're all too real.

He gave the lecture, he says, not so much for the university, as for his three small children. They're so young that, as they grow up, they will have only fuzzy memories of what he was like, personally. This videotaped lecture is his one, best chance to record for them the principles by which he has sought to live his life.

Oprah had Randy deliver a Reader's Digest version of his one-hour lecture on her show. You can view the whole lecture elsewhere on the internet, but the Oprah mini-version is here:



Cancer – especially pancreatic cancer – is the most demanding teacher ever. Randy's done a real service to his fellow human beings, in refusing to bow before this teacher's brutally harsh discipline. Rather, he has wrested the lesson from his disease's icy grasp and shared it with us.

Thanks, Randy.

(10.22.07) Recommends:

Malajube.

We're late on this one, we know, but better late than never. We're here now and we're enjoying the view. It will be weeks before the following two songs stop playing on repeat through our speakers:

Malajube -- Montreal -40°C -- mp3.

Malajube -- Étienne D'aoút -- mp3.

(mp3s from iheartmusic.net via CBC Radio 3)

(10.21.07) Recommends:

Luke Temple.

Remember that time when you were in the fourth grade and your teacher went up to the chalk board and wrote, "A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama!" and you actually thought to yourself, Man, dyslexics get all the breaks sometimes. Then you went home and cried yourself to sleep because above all else you are emo and you couldn't believe that such horrible thoughts were fermenting in your brain?

Well, all those feelings came rushing back to us when we stumbled upon the music of Luke Temple this weekend. And by this, we mean that when we first heard his music we thought to ourselves, A Man, A Voice, A Guitar, Based in Brooklyn: Huzzah!

Listen to Saturday People. Just a little dash of banjo goes a long way toward creating a tasty treat, right?

Luke Taylor -- Saturday People -- streaming audio.

(10.20.07) Recommends:

Getting over yourself.

Since I try to shield my fragile self from popular discussions of politics, I'm not sure if it's still trendy to ask What's the Matter With Kansas? At any rate now, in addition to that inconvienent truth that Kansas has a Governor who is a female and a Democrat, we have this to consider.

(10.19.07) Recommends:

Del McCoury Band Live on NPR.

There is no finer bluegrass band in the country than the Del McCoury Band. Here they are in a live in-studio performance on NPR. Enjoy.

October 18, 2007 - My Designer Drug?

An encouraging development, today, in a news release sent around by the Lymphoma Research Foundation: a company called Biovest International has announced that a vaccine for indolent, follicular Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma – the kind I have – is poised to move on through another stage of the FDA approval process.

The word "vaccine," as applied to this kind of cancer treatment, is used differently than in other contexts. When most of us think of vaccines, we think of preventative measures: a tiny, weakened sample of a viral disease – such as polio or influenza – injected into a person, that teaches the immune system to fight off the disease in the future. Cancer vaccines likewise teach the immune system to fight off disease, but they're not given as a preventative measure. They're given as treatment of a disease already begun.

Another difference is that cancer vaccines are not mass-produced nor mass-distributed. They're designer drugs, in the truest sense of the term. Each vaccine is custom-made – fabricated in the laboratory, with samples taken from a particular patient's abnormal cells (in the case of lymphoma, from cells taken, via surgical biopsy, from a cancerous lymph node).

Biovest, says the press release, "announced...its regulatory strategy for its Fast Tracked Phase 3 clinical trial of its anti-cancer vaccine for the treatment of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, BiovaxID. The trial was begun by the National Cancer Institute in 2000. The Company performed a data lock in September 2007 and anticipates having an interim data analysis of unblinded data on the primary endpoint of disease-free survival for BiovaxID completed and publicly disclosed by March of 2008."

I don't understand all these terms, many of which belong to the rarified world of government regulation. I assume the phrase "data lock" means the Phase 3 clinical trial is winding to a close, and that the drug will soon be ready to move on to be considered for FDA approval.

The news release goes on to speak of "a survival rate of 95%" and an "outstanding safety profile of the Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials." It's PR-speak, of course, but if there's experimental data to back those words up, it's all very encouraging.


For a little while in early 2006, there was discussion of my perhaps being eligible for a clinical trial of an NHL vaccine. That was just after my diagnosis, when the doctors still thought I was dealing only with follicular, indolent lymphoma – not the aggressive variety as well. Until the revised pathology assessment nixed that possibility, Dr. Portlock suggested I consider joining a clinical vaccine trial. Whether or not this was the Biovest study, I can't recall.

In any event, it's encouraging news. If there's an up side to "watch and wait," it's that the longer I wait, the more likely I am to be rewarded with some research breakthrough that will result in a new treatment that will make a difference for me.

(10.18.07) Recommends:

House Sustains President’s Veto on Child Health.

October 16, 2007 - Pushing Paper...Or Not

Lately, I haven’t been sweating the details.

It’s not that I don’t know how. Administration has always been one of my gifts. I’ve even worked full-time in higher education administration (Director of Admissions and Assistant Dean, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, 1985-1990).

I do know how to keep track of details. Since coming down with cancer, I just don’t want to.

My desk at the church is piled high with papers. “I’ll bet you know where everything is,” a kind visitor will remark, beholding the sight. The scary truth is, I don’t know where everything is. (And this, from a person who used to lecture seminary students on efficient ways to organize a desktop.)

Having gone through chemotherapy and come out the other side, the thought of spending an afternoon doing something so mundane as filing has no appeal whatsoever. So, I just don’t do it.

Last April, facing a huge backlog of financial record-keeping that began when those love letters from doctors and insurance companies started packing our mailbox, there was no way I could have gotten our tax information to the accountant on time. So, I asked him to file for an extension. Yesterday was the do-or-die deadline, and I was on the phone to the accountant as late as 3 in the afternoon, answering his last-minute questions so he could file our return electronically. I could have submitted our information to him much earlier, but my recently-acquired aversion to details got in the way.

It seems like there are so many other, more important, things to do. Like preaching. And writing. And other things that – in my naive hope, anyway – may leave some sort of legacy. Compared to those pursuits, clearing off the desktop just doesn’t rate. These days, I only feel like doing things that feed my soul.

I’m quite sure there are nasty things hiding out under that pile of paper that will come back and bite me eventually. The thought of that is enough to concern me, but not enough to compel me to action.

So, what’s going on, here? I’m still trying to figure it out.

It’s possible that I’m mildly depressed. Depression is a common- enough side-effect of cancer, and I’ve heard how – ironically – the black clouds often descend only after treatment is concluded. When I’ve had a task before me – getting through chemo, consulting with specialists about a stem-cell transplant – depression hasn’t been on my radar screen (it may have been there all along, I just didn’t know it). Now, as I’m navigating the featureless fogbank of “watch and wait,” I’m becoming aware of how lonely it is out here. I’ve been thinking I need to find somebody (a dual-qualification professional, one who knows cancer as well as psychology) to talk with about how I’m coping – and maybe I will.

It’s often said that depression is anger turned inward. Surely, cancer’s given me plenty of things to feel angry about. The problem is, it’s hard to direct that anger anywhere constructive. There’s nobody to blame for giving me cancer (unless I blame God, and that leaves me in a theological conundrum). My doctors have been doing a great job treating me. My family’s been wonderfully supportive. Other than the people who send me all those window envelopes, I really can’t blame anyone – so, maybe I’m subconsciously punishing myself, through self-destructive behaviors like letting the papers pile up on the desktop, or procrastinating on paying bills.

All this is leaving me with a lot of questions, and not a whole lot of answers. I feel different, this side of cancer treatment. I am different. Just how, I’m only starting to figure out.

In the meantime, I wonder – will I ever see my desktop again?

(10.16.07) Recommends:

Trendwhore.ca

This is the site that yesterday shook the blogosphere to its very core when it presented the world with its Bruce Springsteen/Arcade Fire videos. Even though the site has apparently only been around since July there's pretty much no reason for most blogs to continue. Blogging Jesus has arrived, and he's Canadian. Of course.

And as long as we're mentioning blogs that are rendering the blogosphere obsolete go here several times a day. We mentioned this blog a while back, but truth be told we could -- and probably should -- mention it every day.

(10.15.07) Recommends:

Manchester Orchestra's cover of Annuals' Brother.

We thought Annuals' Be He Me was one of the strongest records of 2006 and it didn't even come out until October, perhaps even exactly a year ago tomorrow? Well, happy anniversary people. Because Annuals are now hitting the road with their Atlanta-based friends Manchester Orchestra. And in honor of the 20-date slate of shows, a vinyl 7" containing each band covering each other's tracks will be available at the shows. Obviously 7" vinyl is way too music hardcore/underground/snobby for us. I mean, all we've got is a crappy laptop which is certain to crash at any second, taking with it most of the music we've purchased over the last five years, and a rickety CD player that makes most of our CDs skip. Luckily for us Luddites, a few of the songs showed up in our email this morning. Take a listen, wontcha?

Manchester Orchestra -- Brother (cover) -- mp3.
Annuals -- Brother (original) -- mp3.

First Shots with 18-250

I've been so busy in the past month that I haven't had any free time to take photos. I stayed in Colorado this weekend and we had our first snowfall at my condo (elevation 7,000 ft). Caught these photos of a deer right across from my balcony. Photos shot with the K10 and the new 18-250mm lens. Focal length: 250mm; F/8.0 at 1/180 sec. No adjustments to image and no cropping.

(10.14.07) Recommends:

Joe Posnanski and The Soul of Baseball.

Now that we're into the meat of the baseball playoffs, it seems like an appropriate time to mention Joe Posnanski. There may be no better baseball writer than the Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski. He is a sports writer for people who otherwise hate sports writing. He very well be a sports writer for people who otherwise hate sports. He is gentle and humane and charming and not afraid of real, genuine emotion; his column's are like mini documentaries; he has the traditionalist sensibility of someone who has understood the joy of baseball since his earliest days, yet is intellectually curious enough to listen to outside voices (in Kansas City he was incorporating the work of, e.g., Bill James and Rob Neyer long before the release of Moneyball); he is occasionally, literally, laugh out loud funny.

This summer I discovered that he that started a blog in promotion of a new book.

The blog is a must read. The one caveat is that while in his columns he is "sports writer for those who hate sports writing," the blog tends to be more "baseball writer for people who spend at least two hours each day contemplating which baseball team had the best powder blue uniforms in the 1980s." (Please feel free to leave your votes in the comments) Of course, for baseball fans, this is an utter treat. There are 8 months of archives and it might take a few days to get through them all, but it's hard to imagine you'd be sorry for doing it.

Then, at some point at the end of the summer, he decided to scrap the blog because it was taking up too much time (hahahahaha!). But fear not, nerds, JoPa is back. His latest entry -- the first I've read on the new site -- is a 5,700+ word (!!) opus ostensibly about LeBron James' YankeeHatGate, but ends up telling Posnanski's crushing history as a Cleveland Sports Fan (he's from Cleveland). It's pretty classic Posnanski. The word "stunning" and the phrase "we're lucky to have a writer like this alive" are far too overused in our culture. But there's simply no way of getting around the fact that they both apply to Joe Posnanski.

(10.13.07) Recommends:

The Airborne Toxic Event.

We were laid up, sick, in bed all day yesterday. First we thought it was one of those innocuous 24-hour bugs. Then we thought maybe it was something more serious. We were feverish and we worried we were dehydrated. So, we walked to the market (the people of California call their grocery stores "markets") to pick up some Gatorade. We almost fainted four times on the way to-and-fro the market. Then we could not "keep" the Gatorade "down" and the funny/gross/educational thing about that is when you drink red Gatorade followed by blue Gatorade it does, in fact, come back up green. Who knew. So we were convinced that we would not be able to keep our body temperature down or our vital organs replenished so we were sure we were going to die.

Then, we remembered how the night before we had eaten a Caesar salad for dinner. Caesar salads, of course, are made of lettuce. And everybody knows that California lettuce was recalled last year due to E.Coli concerns. So naturally, we were convinced we had E. Coli and were going to die at any moment.

Then we convinced ourselves that we noticed some weird smell in our apartment. We were convinced that there was some kind of weird mold growing somewhere, the breathing in of which would slowly, surely, kill us.

Which brings us to the point of this blog entry. Since we were convinced that we were literally on our death bed probably due to breathing in mold, we naturally went looking to verify our symptoms on the internet. We Googled "toxic airborne" which, when we look at this search string now, makes little-to-no sense to us. But at the time, we were under an insane feverish delusion. At any rate, the first search result was for The Airborne Toxic Event, which is a band from Los Feliz, which, for people not familiar with the area, is a somewhat hipster-LA neighborhood.

So I clicked on the link.

Immediately the song "Does This Mean You're Moving On" pops up.

74 listens later, and we think our impending death, too, is moving on.

Here's a youtube video of the song:

October 12, 2007 - Not My Type

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from Brenda, my case manager from the stem-cell transplant program at Hackensack University Medical Center. She told me the HLA typing for my brothers, Jim and Dave, has come in. Unfortunately, neither one is a match. Each of them is what she called a “half-match” (whether that’s a formal, medical category, or just a way of saying, “Close, but no cigar,” I have no way of knowing).

I confirmed with her what I already thought to be true: that, should it appear at some future date that a stem-cell transplant is advisable, the transplant doctors will have to conduct a search through the National Marrow Donor Program to find a compatible donor.

I knew this could be a possible outcome. With a one-in-four chance of sibling donors being compatible, and two siblings, my chances were a 50-50 coin-flip. Still, it’s a bit of a disappointment. Even though the transplant option is on the back burner for now, it would still be nice to have that extra measure of security – of knowing that a compatible donor is waiting in the wings.

According to the National Marrow Donor Program website, I’m not alone: 70% of transplant patients don’t have a compatible sibling donor, and have to rely on an unrelated donor search. These searches take a little time: 51 days on the average to locate an individual donor, and less than 2 weeks if a compatible unit of frozen umbilical-cord blood can be found. This is why it’s a good thing that I’ve gone through the preliminary registration process with Hackensack already (despite my insurance company’s refusal to cover the typing test for Dave – a decision the hospital is appealing on my behalf).

I’m very grateful to Jim and Dave for stepping up to the plate, all the same. It’s a wonderful thing to have family standing behind you.

(10.10.07) Recommends:

Making it big on the stock market.

Some have been suggesting for a while now that our economy is in the throes of another bubble. And while talking about personal finances publicly is always a faux pas, the fact that some of us are making out like bandits in this current climate is faux real.

Learn the game of mergers and spin offs and this too may be yours some day:



Go ahead, click on the picture. Get a close up of that dollar amount, you know you want to.

Awwwwww, yeah. What up, ladies in the audience? You like all those digits to the left of that decimal place, don’t you?

Now, I know what you’re all (I’m speaking to the ladies and the non-ladies now) wondering: the only number that could possibly be larger than the number on the check is the number of readers of this blog. How will this newfound wealth effect you, our humble editor? We come to learn about the new and the underappreciated; will we continue to get our irregularly updated filling if you cash in and sell out and move on? With an excess of cultural outputs, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you (woo woo woo).

Fear not. There will be some changes around here obviously. How couldn't there be? But change is what sustains us. I am transparent and want to assuage your fears. I want you to sleep soundly knowing that you can take the boy out of the middle class, but you can’t take the middle class out of the boy. Following find a list of How Things Will Change:



Oh, Law school! How paid off are you now!



Oh, Fire place! How your flames will burn high and warm and will shine like a beacon of hope for your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, once my treasure stuffs your bosom full of logs!



Oh, Chris Ware signed art! How you will remain an anchor, even though you're only a print, in my new room financed by my bounty and dedicated to nothing but the art of our most important graphic designers.



Oh, Tickets to the shows of our most ambitious and compelling musicians! How my treasure will no longer require me choosing between you and tuna fish sustenance!



Oh, Brooks Brothers sweaters! How to choose between Cotton or Cashmere or Lambswool or Shetland or Camel Hair or Merino or Saxxon Wool? Why not have them all!



Oh, Window-unit air conditioner! How you will soon be replaced by central air! Our break up -- It’s not me, it’s you, that’s true: see, central air uses ducts to distribute cooled and/or dehumidified air to more than one room, is not plugged into a standard electrical outlet, and because it is located outside the home, it offers a lower level of noise indoors than a free-standing air conditioning unit! -- will be somber yet amicable.



Oh, Book of poems! How I will no longer have to rely on your sad truths to make ends meet! Art is my muse, but capitalism is my daddy. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large. I contain multitudes).



Oh, Paper shredder! How you will soon grow in size and blade strength and shred speed now that I am a Noted Industrialist and must be protected with ever-greater vigor from all the foils of identity theft!



Oh, Jif Peanut Butter! How I can now afford to send you on that fancy date with Jelly for which you've long pined!



Oh, Jif Peanut Butter, again! How I can now afford to store you somewhere other than in the shower!



Oh, Chuck Taylors! How I can now get you in 365 different colors, one for each day of the year!



Oh, James Gatz! Even though I was not named after you, how you become my spiritual guide as I enter my own Gilded Age!



Oh, Second home! How I will be kept up at night, Gatsby, wondering do I summer in West Egg or East Egg?

---

So there you have it. While there are Big Changes in store, it’ll be the same as it ever was around here. And now you’re probably also wondering: how do you find the time to work and play and live and love and discover new and underappreciated cultural voices and make a killing in the public financial markets?

Well peeps, if I got all Rich Dad Poor Dad on you, I’d have to charge you $16.95 each. But as it is, I’m willing to break down the secret behind my financial freedom into a manageable formula.

Start with the fundamentals...:



...Understand the competition...:



...Learn to count...:



...Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run...:



...Repeat after me: it's a subtle blend of science and art...:


...a subtle blend of science and art...:


...never underestimate the value of a puffy shirt...:


...or a big yellow hat...:


...and this, too, can be yours: