Saturday, November 23, 2019
Three movie reviews
I just finished three recent musical biographical films. All of them had fine acting and visuals; the difference in their impact is all about the story, as chosen by the writers and directors.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman" had similar stories: glamourous gay rock star struggles with identity, changes his name, has an evil manager/lover, wild parties, loyal friends who he abandons, and so on.
However, from the very first scene, Rocketman establishes itself as a journey of self-pity. Our protagonist clearly states he feels bad and wants to know why. No one cares about him, and neither does the audience.
In contrast, BR establishes itself as a journey of ambition. The talented boy wants out of his ordinary life and is willing to work hard to do it. You may or may not like the guy (he *is* kinda whiney and makes a lot of trouble for himself) but you have to admire his pluck. He's gonna work for it!
BR had the tragic advantage of being about a man who died; he faces an unfair death, which is a powerful story. The equally promiscuous and whiney Rocketman (I have no idea whether either portrayal is accurate, nor does it matter) ultimately suffered no consequences but emotional pain - sad enough but the natural fate of most of us.
Thus the final scene has Rocketman triumphally confront the demons of his past ... a worthy achievement of interest to no-one but himself ... whereas BR gives a massive farewell performance in service to starving people. This is a glorious moment we all feel good about; every song in that segment is about the hero bravely accepting death while performing one ultimate good deed. (He even takes positive steps to earn reconciliation with his family and friends; Rocketman's Best Friend simply comes back one day without any effort on Rocketman's part.) This is all the more frustrating because the coda to Rocketman talks about his very worthy charitable work which is left out of the movie. The protagonist is left looking like a selfish kid who lucked into massive talent, suffered because the world is full of jerks, and eventually decides to grow up. This is not very interesting.
---
Someone made a dreadful strategic error by shooting "Rocketman" in the Magical Realism style. MR works with "Birdman" or "The Color Of Water" because we know these aren't real; whether Birdman is really talking to the protagonist or is it all in his head creates story. In contrast, in Rocketman all the magical scenes do is make you wonder: is this happening or is it just symbolic?
For example, a steamy sex scene (presumably abbreviated to preserve its ratings) is followed by a shopping trip with the Evil Lover/Manager. All very well, but the movie realism of the sex scene totally clashes with the fantasy shopping trip. When are we supposed to stop seeing "what is happening is actually happening", and go into "it's just a musical number expressing a mood"?
What I learned from this movie is that Magical realism is incompatible with montages. Montage is a useful movie device where we accept rapid changes of scene to show the passage of time and effort. But because in Rocketman we learned in previous scenes (where people floated or doors opened into Wonderland) that we can't trust our eyes in this story, we never know whether the concert montage is showing a series of different events and thus the passage of time, or one event where the costumes morphed, showing ... what?
---
And finally ... the singing. Singing like Freddy Mercury or Elton John is not so easy, but it's a foundational skill in such a film. Somehow the music in "Bohemian Rhapsody" is great to listen to; I don't know how they did it and I don't care; it totally worked and supported the story.
"Rocketman" vocals are uniformly awful. For the first song, I thought the director was trying for an effect: that the young singer was just not that good. It never got better. Throughout the whole film, we could never understand with our ears why anyone was buying records of this flat karaoke. In a story whose fuel is the awesomeness of the music, it was as disconcerting as the Three Muskateers dropping their swords or Batman punching himself in the face.
---
The third movie, "Yesterday", was pure honest fantasy, and the most fun of the lot. The story was a solid Hero's Journey with the great music of the Beatles given a new spin. "Help!" in particular had an emotion and sincerity I'd never seen before.
I don't know whether it wasn't bigger because the Beatles generation is running out of steam or whether ... let me be direct ... race was a factor. The lead was perfect for the part; his character was believably ambitious and conflicted and funny; his love interest was smart and sweet; and they are of different races. Too many audiences are still not comfortable with the concept of a man of color being an authentic Brit and the true love of a beautiful and competent white woman. This is all the greater pity because their love story feels authentic (apart from the 2nd-Choice lover abruptly disappearing) and drives the story.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the best of the three and will be worth watching 20 years from now because it is a true hero's journey excellently crafted, but "Yesterday" will be good fun to watch then too.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman" had similar stories: glamourous gay rock star struggles with identity, changes his name, has an evil manager/lover, wild parties, loyal friends who he abandons, and so on.
However, from the very first scene, Rocketman establishes itself as a journey of self-pity. Our protagonist clearly states he feels bad and wants to know why. No one cares about him, and neither does the audience.
In contrast, BR establishes itself as a journey of ambition. The talented boy wants out of his ordinary life and is willing to work hard to do it. You may or may not like the guy (he *is* kinda whiney and makes a lot of trouble for himself) but you have to admire his pluck. He's gonna work for it!
BR had the tragic advantage of being about a man who died; he faces an unfair death, which is a powerful story. The equally promiscuous and whiney Rocketman (I have no idea whether either portrayal is accurate, nor does it matter) ultimately suffered no consequences but emotional pain - sad enough but the natural fate of most of us.
Thus the final scene has Rocketman triumphally confront the demons of his past ... a worthy achievement of interest to no-one but himself ... whereas BR gives a massive farewell performance in service to starving people. This is a glorious moment we all feel good about; every song in that segment is about the hero bravely accepting death while performing one ultimate good deed. (He even takes positive steps to earn reconciliation with his family and friends; Rocketman's Best Friend simply comes back one day without any effort on Rocketman's part.) This is all the more frustrating because the coda to Rocketman talks about his very worthy charitable work which is left out of the movie. The protagonist is left looking like a selfish kid who lucked into massive talent, suffered because the world is full of jerks, and eventually decides to grow up. This is not very interesting.
---
Someone made a dreadful strategic error by shooting "Rocketman" in the Magical Realism style. MR works with "Birdman" or "The Color Of Water" because we know these aren't real; whether Birdman is really talking to the protagonist or is it all in his head creates story. In contrast, in Rocketman all the magical scenes do is make you wonder: is this happening or is it just symbolic?
For example, a steamy sex scene (presumably abbreviated to preserve its ratings) is followed by a shopping trip with the Evil Lover/Manager. All very well, but the movie realism of the sex scene totally clashes with the fantasy shopping trip. When are we supposed to stop seeing "what is happening is actually happening", and go into "it's just a musical number expressing a mood"?
What I learned from this movie is that Magical realism is incompatible with montages. Montage is a useful movie device where we accept rapid changes of scene to show the passage of time and effort. But because in Rocketman we learned in previous scenes (where people floated or doors opened into Wonderland) that we can't trust our eyes in this story, we never know whether the concert montage is showing a series of different events and thus the passage of time, or one event where the costumes morphed, showing ... what?
---
And finally ... the singing. Singing like Freddy Mercury or Elton John is not so easy, but it's a foundational skill in such a film. Somehow the music in "Bohemian Rhapsody" is great to listen to; I don't know how they did it and I don't care; it totally worked and supported the story.
"Rocketman" vocals are uniformly awful. For the first song, I thought the director was trying for an effect: that the young singer was just not that good. It never got better. Throughout the whole film, we could never understand with our ears why anyone was buying records of this flat karaoke. In a story whose fuel is the awesomeness of the music, it was as disconcerting as the Three Muskateers dropping their swords or Batman punching himself in the face.
---
The third movie, "Yesterday", was pure honest fantasy, and the most fun of the lot. The story was a solid Hero's Journey with the great music of the Beatles given a new spin. "Help!" in particular had an emotion and sincerity I'd never seen before.
I don't know whether it wasn't bigger because the Beatles generation is running out of steam or whether ... let me be direct ... race was a factor. The lead was perfect for the part; his character was believably ambitious and conflicted and funny; his love interest was smart and sweet; and they are of different races. Too many audiences are still not comfortable with the concept of a man of color being an authentic Brit and the true love of a beautiful and competent white woman. This is all the greater pity because their love story feels authentic (apart from the 2nd-Choice lover abruptly disappearing) and drives the story.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the best of the three and will be worth watching 20 years from now because it is a true hero's journey excellently crafted, but "Yesterday" will be good fun to watch then too.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
I Photo Where I Park
At last night's West Seattle Time Bank potluck and meeting.Whenever I park in a place that is new to me, I take a picture of my car and enough background so I can locate it again. Sometimes this results in an unexpected beauty.
At The Gates Foundation
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Log 2019-11-20: Use It Or Lose It
I took another "Use It Or Lose It" day on 11/20, not being willing to run the risk that we would not have another shutdown in late December. (My friend Leslie lost some of her days when this happened last year.)
I took the Lawline CLE "What I Wish I'd Learned in Law School: Running the Ethical Office in the 21st Century" which had a lot of interesting tips.
I tried to organize my work at home as if I was working at home for myself. I have a lot to learn about organizing myself and - most importantly - keeping myself on track when I don't have an outside party to report to. This is something I can learn, since many others have done so.
I took the Lawline CLE "What I Wish I'd Learned in Law School: Running the Ethical Office in the 21st Century" which had a lot of interesting tips.
I tried to organize my work at home as if I was working at home for myself. I have a lot to learn about organizing myself and - most importantly - keeping myself on track when I don't have an outside party to report to. This is something I can learn, since many others have done so.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Our Fraudulent Health Insurance System
Today I made progress on my research into our fraudulent health insurance system.
1. Aetna had refused to pay 50% of ordinary dental care that we had contracted. My provider was out-of-network so I did not expect full payment, but the brochure had a lovely big pie chart that said 50%. Instead, they paid about 20%.
The customer service representative told me to ignore the pretty pie chart showing "50%", and read the footnote in small type referring to an "allowance". They don't pay 50% of charges; they pay 50% of a secret allowance schedule.
The CSR objected to my use of the word "secret". They refused to publish allowance information or make it available to me in writing, but if I called in before treatment they would tell me over the phone what they would "allow" for that particular dentist and treatment.
This was not mentioned in the brochure. As the CSR stated, "All insurance companies work this way".
I have no reason to doubt that insurance companies may work this way, but it's not how most consumer transactions work. We expect to be told at the time of the contract what we're getting; otherwise there is no contract. To reserve the right to keep the benefit hidden unless you phone in at the time of the treatment - and not to let you know at the time of signing the contract that you have to do this - is tricky at best and within the ordinary meaning for fraud.
2. Aetna also refused to pay one claim at all. The CSR helpfully explained that the dentist's claim had not included the tooth number that the work was done on. The CSR helpfully said they would call and get the information, so perhaps something could be paid on this.
I didn't ask why that information was not requested before, or why they did not tell me they wanted more information. The answer is obvious: Insurance companies exist to make money. They make money by denying claims. They will deny your claim if they can. They have no motivation to ask for information that will result in paying a claim.
OTOH the dentist just wants to get paid. They have bills to pay too. All the time that goes into filling out forms to submit to insurance companies is waste. If they can submit a claim and then bill me when it is denied, fine; they get paid either way.
3. One may object to the term "fraud" since that word has a technical legal definition. However, it also has a common language definition: using trickery to profit in commerce.
Aetna and other insurers may be insulated from legal accusations of fraud by the clever language of their brochure, the general practice of the insurance industry, and the fact that they are fantastically wealthy organizations with no human sense of morality. But in the ordinary language of human beings: they are frauds. They use trickery to take your money.
4. What I have learned so far:
* It's not the CSR's fault. They're prisoners too. Blow off your steam before or after the call.
* Never to agree to an insured procedure without calling the insurance company first and getting a quote.
(If you're in an ER, good luck!)
* When your claim is denied, contact both the provider and the insurance company to see WTF. Maybe you can squeeze a little out of them.
* Think about whether some sort of reform would make sense. What if all the time wasted with billing codes and customer service calls were put to providing service?
* It's not the CSR's fault. They're prisoners too. Blow off your steam before or after the call.
* Never to agree to an insured procedure without calling the insurance company first and getting a quote.
(If you're in an ER, good luck!)
* When your claim is denied, contact both the provider and the insurance company to see WTF. Maybe you can squeeze a little out of them.
* Think about whether some sort of reform would make sense. What if all the time wasted with billing codes and customer service calls were put to providing service?
Log 2019-11-18: Insurance Issues
I had to burn some "use it or lose it vacation time, so I took today off to work on insurance issues.
I had tried most of the year to get glasses through the insurance I had been paying for. My carrier Aetna Vision Kaiser refused to provide benefit other than a discount on eye exam, so it seemed pretty useless. I went ahead and got glasses through Costco, since Costco has always treated me right.
Today I decided to follow up. I called and was transferred and was given another number and eventually got a CSR who looked for the provider closest to me (something I hadn't gotten before). I expressed reluctance to go all that way (...although it wasn't really very far...) the CSR said "Due to limited providers, may be eligible for out of network claim" and mailed me the paperwork to apply. This seemed reasonable enough.
I then called Benefeds and canceled vision insurance for next year, because it's still better to go to Costco.
I called Benefeds to find out why I had gotten so little covered this years. When my claims were eventually denied, the dentist sent me to collections. I paid in full ended my relationship with that dentist, you can be sure.
Eventually the CSR said that the dentist's claim for Scaling and Root Planing had not supplied tooth number; the CSR will call office to get that. Imagine this: if either the insurance company or the dentist had identified this problem I might be still using the services of that dentist. This is another healthcare screwup that has nothing to do with the delivery of health, but just the stupid arrangement of the way we pay for healthcare.
Vision Care
I had tried most of the year to get glasses through the insurance I had been paying for. My carrier Aetna Vision Kaiser refused to provide benefit other than a discount on eye exam, so it seemed pretty useless. I went ahead and got glasses through Costco, since Costco has always treated me right.
Today I decided to follow up. I called and was transferred and was given another number and eventually got a CSR who looked for the provider closest to me (something I hadn't gotten before). I expressed reluctance to go all that way (...although it wasn't really very far...) the CSR said "Due to limited providers, may be eligible for out of network claim" and mailed me the paperwork to apply. This seemed reasonable enough.
I then called Benefeds and canceled vision insurance for next year, because it's still better to go to Costco.
Dental Care
I called Benefeds to find out why I had gotten so little covered this years. When my claims were eventually denied, the dentist sent me to collections. I paid in full ended my relationship with that dentist, you can be sure.
Eventually the CSR said that the dentist's claim for Scaling and Root Planing had not supplied tooth number; the CSR will call office to get that. Imagine this: if either the insurance company or the dentist had identified this problem I might be still using the services of that dentist. This is another healthcare screwup that has nothing to do with the delivery of health, but just the stupid arrangement of the way we pay for healthcare.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Process Shows Priorities
There are all sorts of ways to proclaim your priorities, but what you really do shows what your priorities really are. Even more telling is the process of choosing what to work on next: is it systematic or careless? What is the system?
I think about this as I practice my organization for post-employment.I need the time to work on things that really interest me but as I see from my practice in the time I've taken off to practice, my procedures in practice are not like the way I get things done at work. At work - as at St. Ed's - there are many processes for scheduling and monitoring work. In such an environment, I am very productive. When working on my own, however, I do not practice time and subject management. I'd like to have the discipline to do that, but so far it's not my personal style. Instead, I tend to work by urgency, freely rescheduling as higher urgencies bubble up. What I need to do, then, is to use a system in which this sort of thing works.
For example, earlier in the day I posted my standard 4freeCLE materials, did standard cleaning and cat care. This is a system I have worked out pretty effectively. For Sunday, I intended to work on friendship and networking by participating in a Sunday soup swap, spent a lot of time cooking and packing the soup, and was well on track when I got a text from Jeff Holy asking to meet for a drink and chat. My first impulse was to regretfully turn him down, as I am busy. But: I wanted to do both. Meeting Jeff is not an easy thing, due to geography, and it's always worthwhile. It was definitely worth working out the timing, and if I was late to the soup party, well there would be a next time.
And so it was: We had a nice lunch at the Roanoke as Jeff and I talked about life. He was headed out to a conference on the Penisula so a longer lunch would not have worked anyway. I then went to the soup party and discovered I was spot on time.
I'm not sure what the lesson is here except that it very much helped to schedule things as they come up so that when a new opportunity comes up, I can figure out how to slot it in,
I think about this as I practice my organization for post-employment.I need the time to work on things that really interest me but as I see from my practice in the time I've taken off to practice, my procedures in practice are not like the way I get things done at work. At work - as at St. Ed's - there are many processes for scheduling and monitoring work. In such an environment, I am very productive. When working on my own, however, I do not practice time and subject management. I'd like to have the discipline to do that, but so far it's not my personal style. Instead, I tend to work by urgency, freely rescheduling as higher urgencies bubble up. What I need to do, then, is to use a system in which this sort of thing works.
For example, earlier in the day I posted my standard 4freeCLE materials, did standard cleaning and cat care. This is a system I have worked out pretty effectively. For Sunday, I intended to work on friendship and networking by participating in a Sunday soup swap, spent a lot of time cooking and packing the soup, and was well on track when I got a text from Jeff Holy asking to meet for a drink and chat. My first impulse was to regretfully turn him down, as I am busy. But: I wanted to do both. Meeting Jeff is not an easy thing, due to geography, and it's always worthwhile. It was definitely worth working out the timing, and if I was late to the soup party, well there would be a next time.
And so it was: We had a nice lunch at the Roanoke as Jeff and I talked about life. He was headed out to a conference on the Penisula so a longer lunch would not have worked anyway. I then went to the soup party and discovered I was spot on time.
I'm not sure what the lesson is here except that it very much helped to schedule things as they come up so that when a new opportunity comes up, I can figure out how to slot it in,
Log 2019-11-17
Today, as on most Sunday mornings
- I prepared a plan for the day (which I varied from considerably)
- I blogged the photos I'd posted on Facebook this past week
- I cleaned: took a shower, cleaned the cat boxes,etc
- I tried to avoid wasting time on social media; it is comparable to a drug that does provide a high and eats up lifetime
- I worked on Toastmasters - in particular, evaluaton for Jovica's speech (It's hard not to just give 5's across but that's not helpful) and worked on Catherine Klimkowski's award registration on the Toastmaster's website
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