My Random Life | Elbrecht's Corpuscle

Dumaguete

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Elbrecht

[Dumaguete, Philippines, August 2008]

—–

As I approached the coffee shop, a man dressed in military camos pulled open the door for me, an AK-47 cradled in his right arm, his index finger comforting the trigger. I had been in Dumaguete for less than a day, but I was already certain my life had been forever changed.

“Hi Joe!”, blurted the young man working behind the counter as I stepped inside the coffee shop. I made eye contact with the AK-47 wielding security guard, as a means of thanking him, and of course, to make sure I was not about to have the butt of an AK-47 come crashing against my skull. These are the thoughts which enter a man’s mind when he’s in a foreign country and greeted by a firearm.

“Joe” was a term used to acknowledge the presence of a white guy in this city, and likely, throughout the entire country of The Philippines. A quick glance at the rest of the patrons assured myself that he was speaking to me. I was the only “Joe” in the joint, as well as the only one I had seen in the past day. [Or that I would see in the next week.]

“Jane” was the term of endearment used to greet a white woman, as Samantha had relayed to me when I landed; we would be “Joe” and “Jane” the entire week.

—–

So not only was I on the complete opposite side of the world from I had started this journey, but I was being allowed, basically encouraged, to assume a new identity. It seemed like something out of a Jason Bourne movie. Tropical island, new identity, beautiful woman at my side.

Of course, I was not a brain-washed assassin, but I was on vacation, so why not pretend.

—–

I made my order at the coffee shop quickly, as there were only a few choices, and the young man working behind the counter repeated it in perfect English. Samantha had arrived in Dumaguete three weeks earlier for this reason in particular: the locals were well versed in our native language. The other reason was their cheap labor, but it was English that started the ball rolling.

When the coffee was ready, he handed me the styrofoam cup, chimed “Have a great day, Joe!” and I turned to see my friend at the door. He was still in camos and carrying an AK-47. I had not imagined it. He smiled and opened the door for me.

—–

He would be the first of innumerable well-armed Philippino men I would encounter in the upcoming week. Apparently every store in Dumaguete felt the need to intimidate potential bandits with a dose of lead poisoning.

During my journey from Boston to Dumaguete, a trip paid for by my girlfriend’s employer, I hadn’t really considered what I would encounter in The Philippines. I simply felt lucky to get the experience to travel for free to a new country.

My overnight lay-over had been in Hong Kong, so I had gone from a major US city to a major global city to a relatively small University town in Southeast Asia. When I strolled through the streets of Hong Kong, I was reminded of nYc, except I could not read any of the street signs.

—–

When I strolled through the streets of Dumaguete, I was not reminded of anything. I had no similar experience from which to draw.

Home to Silliman University, Dumaguete had well-educated and English-speaking men and women who were looking to start a new career. My girlfriend’s employer desired access to this exact population, but also individuals who were able to work during the “US night hours” for a US-based company… for significantly lower pay than would be required in a city like Boston.

—–

Dumaguete fit the bill.

However, the well-educated and English-speaking population was surrounded by the polar opposite, a significant number of destitute, non-educated, non-English speaking Philippinos who had limited access to anything I would consider basic necessities.

—–

I had experienced poverty first-hand in my adult life prior to my arrival in Dumaguete, but this poverty was nothing like what we have in the US.

While Samantha slept during the daytime hours [she was working US hours to stay in constant contact with her home office in Boston], I would meander around Dumaguete, hailed as “Joe” by every small child, grown adult, elderly woman, and AK-47 wielding Philippino I met.

One morning I strayed over a mile from the city center where we were lodged in an upscale hotel and found myself in abject poverty.

There was no running water, simply a spigot where little boys and girls would carry a bucket and then pump on the handle so they could rinse themselves back in their shack. Chickens flapped their way down the dirt-strewn pathways.

—–

I walked in between the shanties and each time a child would see me, he or she would shout, “Hi JOE!!!”

When I pulled out my camera a couple of times to take a picture of the ocean, one would invariably get louder than the others, until I would turn, see them smiling as bright as the sun beaming down on the Pacific ocean, and snap a picture of them. Then they would scatter, only to reassemble a few moments later.

It seemed like something out of a UNICEF commercial; and I was walking through it, completely phased by what I was experiencing.

—–

The more I wandered the borders of Dumaguete and Silliman university, the more I saw and the more I thanked my lucky stars for being born in Wichita, KS, rather than one of the bazillion locations on planet Earth where a day-to-day struggle to stay healthy and alive is real; even in the 21st century.

Semblances of American existence had permeated their life, like Coca-Cola and crappy rubber basketballs, but even these were found only in the city center.

Obviously the island nation of The Philippines is not a homogenous poverty-stricken death trap, but when you compare the resource availability of the poorest of the poor there to our socially secure structure here, it is night and day.

Numerous other experiences had already made me appreciative of my life prior to that week in The Philippines, but by the time I landed back at Logan, I was irrevocably changed.

—–

Not in a “I’m gonna donate money to help poor orphans in The Philippines” type of way. But in a “I’m one lucky son of a bitch who shouldn’t take for granted any opportunity or allow anyone else tell me how my life should turn out.” Being born in a mid-sized Midwest city had given me that chance.

If I had been born in a shanty in Dumaguete, Philippines, I would be lucky to be opening doors to a coffee shop for “Joe” while wearing my military camos and cradling my AK-47.

—–

the one percent

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Elbrecht

—–

In the Fall of 2011, while in the midst of studying for my first medical licensing exam, a time period in which most students become so immersed in learning the filtration properties of the proximal convoluted tubule of the kidney that they can’t tell you the day of the week, I managed to catch a glance of the New York Times every once in a while.

What I saw was amazing; the type of social uprising with which Stalin would have thought intriguing. My interest in Occupy Wall Street, bristling in nYc’s Zuccotti Park, stemmed more from an educated curiosity than a support of the movement, but its occurrence and my observance provided a daily reprieve from the mind-numbing studying.

—–

And perhaps more importantly, if everything went as planned, if all of my hard work, hours of memorization, and time spent differentiating between the etiologies of monocular glaucoma and retinal detachment, I would become part of a different one percent.

The Occupy Movement, as it became known, was an example of the age-old battle between the “haves” and “have nots”, except on a grander scale, as the “have nots” were meant to be representative of the 99% of American’s who do not possess the majority of our Nation’s private wealth. Wall Street, with it’s perceived “fat cat” mentality, was the optimal target, emblematic of the wide gulf between wealth and poverty in our country.

—–

My curiosity was piqued for multiple reasons, not only because of the precipice on which I found myself, but because I believed our immediately digital world was bringing this tale directly into anyone’s home who was willing to log on to the internet, click a link on YouTube, or haphazardly skim a front page article in any leading newspaper.

It’s not as if I was surprised by the willingness of many Americans to embrace the Occupy Movement (until it descended into mass chaos); most Americans long for the financial independence they feel has been squelched by the One Percent.

—–

Given my education and opportunities I have been and will be afforded because of it, I have a hard time agreeing with that mentality. The economy does not work in a way that is “understandable” to most Americans; I don’t mean to belittle the knowledge of most Americans, but I truly believe it.

The economy on which America was founded basically depends on such a massive inequality between the 99% and their villainous opposition.

Yet, I digress, as the One Percent I associate myself is not the behemoths of industry, finance, and politics embodied in the fervor of the Occupy Movement. Instead, my access point to the One Percent is my profession: a physician in America.

—–

When I awoke from the immersed slumber of studying for the aforementioned medical licensing exam, which once passed allows medical students to participate in patient care in a hospital setting, I had ample time to re-acclimate myself to the goings-on of America. At the forefront was the Occupy Movement, which in Boston where I resided, was taking place not far from South Station.

While awaiting my 3rd year of medical school schedule, I decided to journey to several major cities on the East Coast and Midwest where I might be placed in order to investigate the hospitals at which I might train; or choose not to train at, depending on what I concluded.

Included in this whirlwind was New York City, the birthplace of the Occupy Movement.

—–

My association with the One Percent is not one I am “excited by”, as in, I am not looking forward to the day when I am afforded financial independence because I am a well-compensated physician. In fact, at no time in the entire process of deciding to reverse course on my entire professional career and become a physician was I motivated by the idea of making money.

This is due in most part to the reality of having a much more lucrative career in any number of other fields without incurring such massive financial debt in the process. Despite such a fact, the average income of a physician, even when including paying off said debt, will afford a comfortable salary and lifestyle (idiotic purchasing habits and tendency to live outside of exorbitant means, notwithstanding).

—–

https://youtube.com/watch?v=akiVi1sR2rM

—–

And so it is this fact, the one in which I possess an education which allows me to be well-compensated, that puts me in an overlying bracket of the One Percent.

I certainly do not anticipate accruing the assets necessary to be part of the 1% of Americans who possess >50% of the individual wealth in this country, the scourge of the Occupy Movement, but I do possess an education far more in-line with the ability to do so than a massive majority of people.

Yet, within my colleagues, I have experienced a disconnect with these facts. Even in my current physician standing as a Resident, in which my salary is fixed despite the hours I practice, my income is larger than the average American family of four.

—–

I repeat, my income as a single, white, male is larger than the typical American family income.

An example of this disconnect arose when my fellow Residents and I were gathered together to sign new contracts for the up-coming year. Our Program Director made a quick joke about our slight increase in pay, which was lamented by one of my colleagues.

She noted how awkward it was that hourly employees of the hospital could be rewarded with an end of the year bonus, but our current status as Residents, prevented us from any such potentiality.

Our program director quickly pointed out how despite our “low-wage” we still made significantly more than an hourly employee who was eligible for an end-of-the-year bonus.

—–

Such a disconnect is not uncommon within the Resident physician echelon, as I have been hearing about it from every friend and colleague in the medical field since long before I joined their ranks.

But for my salary, in two years it will double. Or triple. Or quadruple. Or quintuple… or… whatever I want it to do depending on the number of hours I want to work, the type of physician practice I join or don’t join, the geographic area in which I live, and any number of other factors I chose to include.

To have those options almost seems ludicrous to me. But they are true.

And at times, the possibility of making a salary more recompense with my education and expertise enters my mind when I glance at my bank account and calculate how much goes towards paying school loans.

—–

Another colleague, after visiting the home of one of our faculty, remarked to me how humble her home was. This was despite the fact it was located in a well-to-do neighborhood and the obvious investment evidenced by the interior of the home. He wondered why a physician would choose to live in such a place, “unless she’s not really into money.”

I was not alarmed at his callous miscalculation; it’s incredibly common amongst the One Percent I will soon join.

Even now, when my salary is a little egg, waiting to hatch after a few more years of incubation, I can appreciate the gulf between the 99% and the 1% as it was laid out during the Occupy Movement. The “have-nots” will always want to be a “have”.

—–

By the time my sojourn across the Midwest and East Coast landed me in nYc there had been rumbles of the approaching demise of the Occupy Movement. Story after story, video after video, documented how it had lost its initial intention, but I needed to see it for myself.

The evening I arrived I slept on the couch of some close friends. I awoke the next morning, jumped on the train and headed straight for Zuccotti Park.

I stormed up the subway stairs ready to embrace the chaos I had heard so much about, but it was gone.

All of it. In the midst of my previous day’s travels and late arrival, a plan had been put in place and executed to end Occupy Wall Street.

—–

The end of a movement. The end of my curiosity? It all enhanced my desire to not be a member of the One Percent, despite a plotted collision course with exactly that mentality.

Charlie’s Angels

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Elbrecht

After four years of accumulating a lifetime of memories, bar tabs, and academic minutiae, I decided to push it to the limit and spend two more years at my Alma Mater.

No, not as a super senior or Van Wilder-esque playboy. But as a graduate student.

Those two years added to my plethora of ridiculously bone-headed experiences with women, unforgettable nights with friends, and even some real life responsibility as I transitioned from 22-year-old college grad to 24-year-old ready to take on the world. Which I did.

But one of the more memorable stories of those two years in graduate school at Miami University actually occurred because of something that happened my senior year.

I was at a bar with some grad school colleagues when a random guy came up to me and said, “I know you!”

It was early in the night, and as such, I was stone-cold sober. This guy was not. I typically remember when I’ve met someone, a skill that has come in handy over the years. Yet, I had not one iota of recollection for this guy. And I told him so.

But he insisted he knew me, so I glanced at my friends, hoping he would simply wander off in a drunken stupor. As he stood there for a few moments, searching his alcohol-laden mind, I politely informed him he must be mistaken.

Until he came up with the second greatest case of mistaken identity I’ve ever experienced… except in this case, it wasn’t mistaken.

The light bulb popped on in his brain, his pupils dilated to the size of dinner trays at Harris Dining Hall, and he revealed the following: The previous week he had sat down for an interview with the one, the only, Charlie Coles, head basketball coach at Mother Miami.

As a sports reporter for the Miami Student, this guy had behind-closed-doors access to the Miami legend. While seated across from Charlie in his office, asking him about the prospects for the upcoming season, he took a peek at the one picture Coach Coles had propped on his desk.

In it, Charlie was flanked by four random dudes, three to his right, one to his left, looking like a group of five buddies sharing some ice-cold brews.

I was one of those dudes.

One picture. On Charlie’s desk. And I was in it.

I believe my response to this random guy’s revelation was: “You have got to be ******* kidding me.”

—-

When I was a senior at Miami, probably a year before the aforementioned encounter with Captain McDrunk occurred, two of my housemates and I enrolled in Basketball Theory [see #3 in the link]. It was taught in a small auditorium at Millett Hall, by one of Miami’s all-time greats, Charles Leroy Coles.

My housemates Wacky Matt and Rustang joined me in the lecture hall, along with several other Miami fans who were hoping to get some insight into the crazy character roaming Miami’s sidelines.

It also happened that Charlie made the freshman basketball players attend this bi-weekly 8AM lecture, so we got a closer look at some of the guys we would hopefully be cheering on during the season.

I had been attending Miami basketball games, sitting on the metal bleachers along the sideline, since I was a freshman. And every game, there were numerous moments where if you took your eye off the action, and glanced over at Charlie, you would see him contorting his face into a wide-eyed “I can’t believe I just saw that”, a slack-jawed “that was the most terrible play in basketball history”, or stone-faced “I would still be able to start for this team.”

So when it was suggested we all take Basketball Theory, it sounded like the most brilliant idea of our college career. Of course, Juice, our other roommate, was too busy taking Weightlifting, or maybe it was Quantum Engineering for the 22nd Century, to join us. (He was taking one of those classes, I swear.)

Standing behind a lectern at Millett Hall, Coach Coles would call out attendance at the beginning of every class. The class was around forty students, so it would naturally take 2 or 3 minutes to get through everyone. But Charlie was not natural. In any way.

Calling roll would take 5 or 6 minutes because every time he would struggle to pronounce someone’s name. Now I know what you are thinking… “That seems natural. I’m sure there were some strange names or something.” But you are wrong.

He would struggle to pronounce the names of his players. He would call out, “Nate Van der… Nate Van… der… Nate, Van, Der, Sluis?” And then he would become animated as if he was on the sidelines and say, “Oh! Nate! Yeah, Nate! There you are big fella!“, pointing at the 7-foot tall Redhead sitting directly in front of him.

Now either Charlie played me for a fool each time he did that… and he did it with either Nate, Tim, or one of the other freshman every morning… or he really wasn’t sure who the hell his players were based on their names. Honestly, I’m still torn to this day as to which it was.

—-

Early in the semester, my housemates and I attended the Miami-Michigan football game in Ann Arbor. Somehow Miami had secured a sacrificial spot at the feet of a College Football Dynasty, with but a glimmer of hope that a red-shirt freshman would emerge to lead the Redhawks to victory.

Unfortunately, Miami got walloped by Michigan… but the highlight of the experience for my roommates and I occurred two hours before kickoff… when we were roaming around the tailgating and spotted the Miami Alumni Hospitality tent.

Like any brash 21 year olds, we thought our Alumni status was all but secured… I mean, for god’s sake, we were taking Basketball Theory, and in Juice’s case, Weightlifting… (oops, I guess it wasn’t Quantum Engineering for the 22nd Century)… surely we would finish our undergraduate tenure at Miami in strong GPA fashion.

So we strolled up to the tent and spotted some ice-cold brew dogs in a cooler and went in for the kill. But there he was, a Miami legend, throwing back one of his own.

Despite my somewhat impeccable memory, I can’t recall which of us approached Coach Coles, but he seemed to genuinely recognize us and said in his Ohio-hill twang, “Hi there boys.”

If he were any other man, I would be certain he realized three of us were in the lone class he was teaching that semester, or that all of us bled Miami Red at a multitude of basketball games.

[Rusty and I even attended a game against Dayton where Miami had only 9 points with six minutes to go. Brutal. God-damn Brutal. Worst game I ever saw. No joke. Thank god for Brian Edwards, who scored 7 points in 4 minutes to prevent the lowest scoring Division I performance by any team since the shot-clock was invented.]

But this was not any man. This was Coach Charles Leroy Coles. Miami Legend. All-around superstar human being. And quite possibly, the most likely guy to not remember any of us. Or so it seemed.

With Coors Lights in our hands, and Charlie with his trademark smile, we had someone snap a quick picture.

The five of us. Forever immortalized. On that fine day.

With the semester winding down, and Rustang, Wacky Matt, and I toiling over our final projects for Basketball Theory, (and Juice designing a work-out routine to make John Basedow blush), photos from the fateful Fall day were developed.

And therein, was the photo.

Rusty thought it would be a classy move to sign a copy of the picture, “Good luck in the 2001-2002 season! – Oxford Circus”, and hand deliver it to Charlie on the last day as we were turning in our final projects.

—-

As it began to sink into my head that Coach Coles had chosen to place only one picture on his desk, one in which I happened to be in, I believe Captain McDrunk could see the light bulb going off in my brain.

A huge smile came across my face.

Captain McDrunk outstretched his hand, so I grasped it in my own. And after a firm embrace, we parted ways.

In this one guy’s mind, I was a legend.

But the true legend in that picture was Charles Leroy Coles. A Miami Man. A Miami Legend. Love and Honor.

Sportsworld

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Elbrecht

—–

My father was sitting beside me the first time I had a naked woman in my lap. I was 16.

We were supposed to be going to Sportsworld, one of my favorite places to go during what I thought was my relatively normal childhood. My father informed my step-mother we were going to use the batting cages, ride the go-carts, and play some skeeball on a Saturday night; turns out one of my father’s favorite places to go during what I thought was my relatively normal childhood was Jezebel’s.

Both Sportsworld and Jezebel’s were on the outskirts of the ever-expanding city limits, but they were in completely opposite directions from my father’s home. After driving a mile in the “wrong” direction, it dawned on me Sportsworld was no longer our final destination. I simply sat in the passenger’s seat as Sportsworld got further and further away.

When we arrived, my father calmly told the bouncer, “This is my son. He’s 21.” The bouncer only glanced at me. By the age of 16, I had already been mistaken for a grown man several times, but typically it was while wearing slacks, a button-down shirt, and tie; not while wearing mybaseball cap, glasses, and cargo shorts.

—–

The bouncer waved me through; identification was unnecessary. Ending up at Jezebel’s that evening, rather than Sportsworld, was simply another example in a long list of why I had learned to distrust my father.

As a concept, distrust had been carefully weaved into our relationship several years prior. At the age of 7, my father entered my bedroom, put his hand on my shoulder and told me he was leaving our family. He was blunt and unapologetic, laying the blame at someone else’s feet and talking to me as if I could possibly understand his rationale; I did not.

—-

—–

The TV was on in the background and my eyes darted from the screen to his face as he relayed how he would not be there in the morning. As he lifted his hand from my shoulder and exited the room, his words were searing into my brain.

Somehow, I slept soundly that evening, but when I awoke the next morning, he was there. It was as if the previous night had been a dream. I wondered if I had misunderstood what he said; the weight of his hand on my shoulder had been so heavy. And so real. My 7-year-old brain wondered what changed. Only years later would I identify the feeling I had when I saw him the next morning as trust being smashed like a mandolin with a sledgehammer.

—–

Distrust was brewing. Eventually, he did leave. Seven years later. And the morning when I awoke and he wasn’t there, I knew why. He hadn’t come into my room the night before and repeated his reasoning to me. And I didn’t need him to. I still remembered his words, the weight of his hand on my shoulder, from when I was a child. If he had come to me again, I would have waved him through, as calmly and coolly as the bouncer at Jezebel’s.

—–

As I was being directed to a table near the main stage by my father, nearly six months had elapsed since I had moved away from my hometown of Wichita. My mother had decided to leave the place I had always known as home, forcing a decision to be made individually by each of her children as to where we would live. At 15, my options were limited.

I could stay and live with my father and my new step-mother or pack-up my life, leave my friends, and embark down a path of no return. The concept of trust, having germinated from an unrecognized emotion, which I had been unable to identify at the age of 7, was fully functional by this time.

Subsequently, when my father got married to a woman I had only met twice, I was completely aware that I did not trust him. He had not even bothered to invite us to the wedding, a civil ceremony in another state.

He simply relayed it as a fact one morning while dropping my brother and I off at school. This certainly factored in my decision as to whether I should stay in Wichita or embark to parts unknown; it made the decision to leave that much easier.

—–

Thus, my father must have viewed my six-week stay in Wichita during the summer of 1996 as a bit of a homecoming, but also as a chance to recover something he had lost; Me.

Driving the go-carts and playing video games seemed to me like a reasonable way to spend a Saturday night. But my father thought watching naked women grind on his son was a better idea. And perhaps a way to win me back. In the blink of an eye, I went straight from green-as-can-be to strip club veteran. By the time we left, I had put a dollar bill in places only possible if a woman weren’t wearing any clothes.

I suppose it was his own version of “The Birds and the Bees” speech.

—–

I roughly translated it as: “Have money. Women will get naked. And sit in your lap.”

Not too much in there about birds or bees. When I was living in nYc a couple years ago, a woman I was dating asked about my parents and my father in particular. Over the course of my sharing, the story of my night at Jezebel’s with dear ‘ol dad cropped up. It probably wasn’t the best example of his parenting, but it was a close approximation.

I believe her response was, “Holy shit.”

Alas, it wouldn’t be the last time he would suggest we visit Jezebel’s together. But by the next time he offered I was a grown adult, and didn’t feel like it fit with the holiday spirit after spending the morning feeding the less fortunate. When he suggested we go back to “Sportsworld”, I politely declined, despite his pleas.

As we pulled into the driveway on that humid summer night in 1996, fresh off a once-in-a-lifetime Dad and Son outing to the strip club, my father looked at me with his sheepish grin: “Remember, if she asks, we were at Sportsworld.” Naked women snatching up dollar bills is not exactly what I expected from my night. When we left his house I was prepared to a re-enact Death Race 2000 on the go-cart track, not witness fully-nude Flash Dance on the Main Stage.

—–

Then again, I had already learned all I needed to know about trust from this man.