Chapter 26

At the crossroads


BD: I can't do this anymore. I have to get away from this.
JimB: Define "this".
BD: Take this badge. Take this agenda. Bury my guns in the ground.

I am standing at the crossroads
there are so many roads to take
I stand here, riddled with doubt
as if by doing nothing
I could find my way out.

Genevieve replied: Merde, merde, archi-merde.
(A word-play on Archimede, the first doctor dude.)

G. Theus brought us Americana music. Hank Williams, Carters, Cash, Calvin Russell. All Cecil's favorites.

JB: So that's it, eh? Compulsory waves of mourning and guilt and we could have done more.
Marty: We could have done less. He made his own decision. Don't second guess him.
BD: I don't know which way to go.
JB: You maintain the illusion of choices
BD: I am a free man; a self-choosing free will. Every morning when I get up I look in the mirror and I choose to be that person for another day, and I take full responsibility for everything I do and think and be. I have choices.
MM: What is that, an Anglican fortune cookie?
JB: He writes for Hallmark in his spare time.
MM: I hope they pay him by the word.
JB: It's Big Pharma that pays him by the word.
MM: He's a double agent.
JB: A triple agent.
BD: Cynics. I am surrounded by cynics.
JB: Try this one: The future lies before us. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
MM: Yeah, that is vomit-inducing. That's the Unitarians.
BD: I hate all of you. Who let you in anyway? This is private property.
JB: Oh, private property, is it? Scratch a hippy, find a red-neck.
MM: I'm really scared. Aren't the hippies always on acid?
BD: I am in mourning and you are all cruel and unusual. You have no respect.
MM: Respect? R-e-s-p-e-c-t? Best way to get respect is to carry a gun.
JB: Yeah, Darcey and Krazy were saying that about the difference between democracy and liberty. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting about what to eat for supper. Liberty is the lamb pulling out a gun.
BD: Go away. This is not funny.
JB: Define "this".

One road leads to paradise
one road leads to pain
one road leads to freedom
but at the crossroads....
they all look the same.

Choose.

Choose - like eenie meenie minney moe?
May as well flip a coin a few times. This place don't make sense to me no more. Two plus two now equal whatever optics are required to spin the story if they get caught.
Is there any use to any of this? One out of three medical researchers falsified, altered, or substituted the primary conclusion of their research. I mean, whaaaaaaa??? And they judge us, they decide when to switch off Anuket's microphone when she points out that their research on Parkinson's contains laughable falsehoods; they decide to unplug the 48 GDNF volunteers, without getting around to actually meeting any of them; they judge us - that there is a crime wave of Parkies, that 20% of us get into addictions that are damaging to ourselves and to society - 20% of us supposedly lunge for sex and gambling. This news, from people who cheat 31% of the time on research into health and disease. With your money. With no accountability.
But so what? So what? Why in God's name are we having anything to do with these people. How did we get addicted to watching the nightmare world they live in? Quick now: name the type of drug that makes us all out of control, it's not levadopa, it's the agonist drugs, right, right? Okay: here's your homework for tonight. Remember this for a few days: The lawsuits are about the agonists, not about the levodopa, but the purpose of the agonists is to assist the levodopa in getting into your brain, and to replace the side effects with another set of side effects. It's the agonists, such as Mirapex, that are taking away our free will, and then, our freedom. There is widespread agreement that this is amazing progress.
I beg to differ, but I just don't feel like begging anymore and I really, really don't give a shit if I differ. I am not asking for anyone's approval; I don't care if I am a minority of one on every issue. I have lots of experience being a minority of one. Doesn't bother me at all.


Spel checkk:
U n neveeer seee praakkinsons becuase we olny go outt in publcik when drugs allow. So u never see us whne it is realy badd.;. when we shakke and cannott type our eee-mails look like thissss.
Aoccdrnig to rsscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Dr. Levitin was right. It is (also) a mental illness. Of sorts.

Anuket, hold your head high. You are exotic, you are special. You already know what many others have yet to find out, about the fate of all. You can be anything you want. In your secret life, as the stealth Parkinson's researcher, so feared by the Parkinson's Industry that they routinely switch off the microphone or delete your comments whenever you question one of the "scientific" assertions of the PD Research Cartel, I need you once again, once again, to find out for me what goes on with the Mirapex lawsuits, and the confusion about how many of us go mad with gambling fever and crazed hypersexuality. The reports on it get worse and worse by the month, as if it was contagious, which it cannot possibly be.

There were roads I never traveled
there were turns I did not take
there were mysteries I could not unravel

PAGING DR. HU Bin, I need to talk to you. I know you read this. Last I heard u were traveling thru China setting up PD clinics. I need to get your help for the Korean TV show. It's major - a whole series, 3 or 4 or 5 hour-long segments, nation-wide. I need you and Olie and one of the Morris dancers to meet with them. First country to step forward and say "We will". Let's get all of Korea up dancing.
Plus I am at the crossroads, and there are many roads to take.
One path leads to sacrifice
One path leads to shame
One path leads to freedom
but at the crossroads
they all look the same.

Thanks, Bin. That was the fastest response anyone could do. I will put together some information about the Korean situation. It's going to require some people to focus on getting some messages across, especially the message of beauty. I checked and I think it is three hours, about how dance has effected people's lives. Let's get their whole country up dancing. Or at least their Parkinson's people.

Genevieve e-mailed the group to say that losing Cecil is very discouraging, very depressing. She said it's like you tell your story to the shrink, and he suddenly gets up, runs screaming through the waiting room, and hurls himself out of the window, of the 20th floor. It's discouraging for everyone in the group; and therein the selfishness of the decision.

Cecil was tough as nails. If he couldn't hack it, where does that leave us. But he suffered more, we reassure ourselves. His condition had been for many years dramatically worse than any of us. And we distance ourselves from him. We have to believe that this is not our fate. And yet we admire him. The life that he had lived, and that look on his face, of being totally, utterly tired. The man was tired. Like Hank Williams, like Lenny Bruce, he didn't want to live any more. Have you ever heard a robin weep?

I've traveled many roads
and not all of them were good

Calvin Russell and Cecil both did time for armed robbery.
Many decades ago.
And they followed the path from chaos to art.