Gay Marriage Protest Footage May 26, 2009

This is a video clip I made of my experience on May 26, 2009 when I protested for Gay Marriage Rights in West Hollywood, CA. That day in the state of California the decision was made to oppose gay marriage. It was the first time I protested for anything and the entire experience was very moving. The video reflects some of the more captivating moments that evening.

Time Flies

Chapter 1: Monday Morning

It was about 2 months ago. The day started like any other, my I-phone’s alarm sounded at 5 am and after two 5 minutes snoozes, I rolled out of bed, hopped in the shower and prepared for another exciting Monday morning. I was working on the Adult In-Patient Medicine service, which means as a 2nd year Family Medicine Resident, I was in charge of what was supposed to be a team of about 8-10 patients in the Telemetry, Medical & Surgical wards of the hospital. I had one intern to supervise and my Attending Physician (who oversaw my work and provided help if needed) was taking a very laissez-faire approach to me, essentially letting me run the show. While I must say that I was excited at the notion of being the guy in charge, I was also somewhat nervous. After all, this was my first rotation as a 2nd year Resident, and being kind of rusty, I thought that more supervision would have been better than less, especially when it came to managing the care of Stroke, Heart Attack, AIDS, Diabetes, Congestive Heart Failure, Pancreatitis, Cancer and Comatose patients. Moreover, we had just moved into a brand new hospital and everyone’s census was over-capped – meaning that my team was supposed to have no more than 10 patients, but because the hospital had more patients than could accommodate, I was in charge of 15 people instead. I personally feel that many people just wanted to see the new facility and they really didn’t need to be in the hospital at all. Now you might ask, “If the hospital only has 465 beds, where do the extra patients go?” Answer: they stack people in the ER hallways on gurneys like sardines as they wait for beds to become available, but they’re technically still “admitted” to the hospital. What’s even more amazing is that although Kaiser spent over $600 million dollars for this new facility, they didn’t spend any money on hiring some much needed additional staff. The result: the Residents, aka the workhorses, pick up the slack.

After a short trip in Angelina down Sunset Blvd, I entered the free physician parking lot and walked briskly to the entranceway by the Emergency Department. While there were many entrances to the hospital, I liked choosing this one, as it gave me an idea of how busy the ER was and also provided the quickest route to the Resident Lounge where my day would begin. The clock was ticking, and at this point, every minute of my day was accounted for - even a brief 2 minute interruption in my schedule to wait for a dysfunctional elevator or to have to return to my car because I forgot my ID badge, could result in not having enough time to review someone’s low Potassium level or miss a blood culture result that came back positive for Gram Negative Rods, requiring me to immediately start antibiotics for suspected life threatening sepsis. It can become a challenge not to lose sight of the big picture but I frequently remind myself that being a doctor isn’t just about correcting lab results and making sure all of your daily notes are completed before rounds, it’s also about taking those extra 2 minutes to stop and talk to a patient’s family member you see in the hallway or to provide relief to someone you see in need of help, even if that means being late to a meeting or breaking a promise to a nurse to “be there in 5 minutes”. You see, as a Resident, you’re expected to be in 3 places at once, at all times. Your pager is going off every 5 minutes and you’re usually 3 pages behind – each page being a task or intervention that takes more time. Yep, this is part of residency, and no one except for doctors truly understands this.


So I enter the resident lounge and per RJ ritual, I start a pot of coffee, a daily vice which I left behind once I left Seattle. I’ve been the first to arrive every day since I’ve started. During my Navy Internship, I’d be in the hospital at 5:30 a.m. starting my day. In contrast, starting later than 6:15 here in L.A. would make me feel guilty (although most other residents come in between 6:30 and 6:45, depending on what service they are on). One of the other advantages of being the first to arrive, is that I’d get dibs on the best computer in the lounge – it’s located right next to the printer (so I don’t need to get up every time I print one of my notes), and it’s one of the few computers that has its own cubicle and doesn’t share the workspace with another computer. Within 3 minutes I’ve entered about 5 different passwords to acquire mainframe hospital access, I’ve accessed my team list of patients, and I’ve poured myself a cup of hot Jo. The day has officially begun.

Chapter 2: Coach Jimbo

Team A Patient List: Resident Dr. Matyas TOTAL PATIENTS: 15 File – Print.

Now I quickly review the patients and their diagnoses and I make decisions about the complexity of the patients and which patients I should allocate to my intern. (Intern = the first year after graduation from medical school. Should you know what specialty you want, for example, Family Medicine, then your internship year becomes your first year of Residency, but no matter what, your 1st year post graduation you’re called an “Intern”, then you graduate and become a “Resident”). Interns are allowed to be charged with up to 6 patients, being supervised by the Resident (me). Luckily, Joel was a very competent Intern who had also become a good friend of mine over the last 3 months. He required very little supervision, I could trust his decision making and when he needed help or was in over his head, he’d ask for my assistance. (This is a quality which few doctors share because most believe they can handle everything themselves).

So let’s see, the primary diagnoses of my patients today, and I say primary because most patients have multiple diagnoses and the typical “problem list” of a single patient went something like this:

1. Left Parietal Lobe Ischemic Infarct (aka – a bad stroke)
2. Congestive Heart Failure
3. Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic, Type 2
4. Hypertension, Uncontrolled
5. COPD
6. Hyperlipidemia
7. Obesity

Each problem, keep in mind, requires interventions, a treatment plan, imaging studies, lab studies, consults to other services, phone calls, etc. But let’s get back to today’s primary diagnoses: I think I’ll give Joel the new stroke, the rule out heart attack, the alcoholic with Pancreatitis, the homeless guy with the GI bleed, the uncontrolled Hypertension and finally, the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma relapse lady. I’ll take the guy dying of AIDS, the comatose stroke lady whose family won’t let die in peace, the other MI, the CHF, the un-witnessed fall, and hmm, this looks interesting, lightheadedness with mildly elevated Troponin levels.

So now that that decision is made, I have to alert my Intern, via a text message paging system which I access from the internet. Within a minute he responds “Got it.” We next have 90 minutes, give or take, to accomplish the following before morning report. First I must review each patient’s electronic medical record, looking for notes addressed to me from the nurses, notes from other doctors of events that happened overnight and notes from other consulting services. If present, they must be read. Next, I have to create my own note for the day. This “Progress Note”, is basically the proof that I am reviewing and managing my patient correctly every day and addressing all of the things that need to be done. It also lets the other services know what my thoughts are on my patient. The components of a Progress Note from top to bottom are as follows. First, identify yourself and what service you’re on, then in a brief sentence or two, state how the patient did overnight, e.g. “Patient resting comfortably, states pain in chest still present but improved, still reports dizziness with ambulation and states “I almost passed out last night””. Next is the objective section. This is where the meat of the note is. In this section I review all of the patient’s medications (usually about a dozen or so), ensuring the dose is correct and seeing if any changes need to be made, I review the person’s vital signs (temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and respirations), their intake and output (how much they ate/drank/and how much urine they made), their physical exam (as assessed by me), and I electronically import and review their lab work for the day – Did their Sodium levels drop again?, Did their Red Blood Cells rise appropriately after the transfusion? Did their pancreatic enzymes drop? Did the Troponin cardiac markers rise, indicating infarction? Each lab requires thought and interpretation. Now that I’ve done all that, I can formulate the final section of my note – the “Assessment and Plan”. You start by identifying ALL of the patient’s medical problems (like I did up above under the “Problem List”) and for each problem you list the cause, if known, and what I plan on doing about it in a few concise bullets. Now the note may be electronically signed and I can move on to the next patient. Once all the patient’s notes are completed, I can move on to the second task to accomplish in my 90 minutes – printing the notes so I’ll be able to present them during morning rounds with the Attending. Next, task 3 is to actually walk around the hospital and see the patients. In about 2 minutes or less, I’ll briefly see each patient on my list, do a quick physical exam and let them know what things will be done with them today. It pains me to spend only 2 minutes with the patient in the morning, but I know I will spend time with the patient more later in the day, and usually, patients are sleeping at 7 a.m. anyway. Finally task 4 is to meet with Joel and ask how he did and if he had any questions on any of his patients. If we’re lucky, we can meet in the cafeteria to scoff down a bagel and some juice, but this is a rare occurrence.

It was this Monday morning when I was about to see my last patient, the “dizziness guy”. I walked into the room, introduced myself and started sizing up the guy, doing my mental assessment if you will. He was a jolly man, looked about 50ish in age, white complexion, and alert for it being 7 a.m., reading the newspaper. He was thin; he had grey hair, a few liver spots but otherwise looked healthy as a horse. I wondered what he was doing here in the CCU (Coronary Care Unit). He looked at me and said “Doc, nice to meet you. Yeah I had some chest discomfort yesterday and the ER Doc said he wanted to run some more tests on me, so he brought me in here. I got a great view of the stadium though from this room. You know I used to be a coach for UCLA?” I looked down at my census and noticed his age was 80! This guy didn’t look a day over 55 or 60. I was shocked. “Yeah Doc, I love coaching, still do in fact, but not as much now, only when they need me. I got a big game coming up this weekend though so if you could do what you need to do to get me out of here quick, I sure would appreciate it. The team’s doing pretty good this year. Are you a UCLA fan? You married Doc?”…quite the conversationalist this guy was. I couldn’t really answer “I’m not married, I’m gay, sports don’t interest me and I really don’t have time to chat” because I think this guy would have dropped dead right there. [First do no harm, right?]

“No, I’m not married, one day I suppose”, I began, “and I hear the team IS doing well this year. Let’s see just how far they’ll make it though.” This was a typical response of mine when I would get backed into a sports corner. It’s easy and leaves a lot of room for interpretation and assumptions.

“Well, you can call me Coach.”

“Alright.”

As I looked down at my watch I noticed that it was 8:05! I was late for morning report! Shit, I quickly said my goodbyes to Coach and high tailed it to the 7th floor conference room. [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] Crap, my pager! It’s the ER. You would think ER pages deserve an immediate response, but in the grand scheme of things, if something is going terribly wrong with an ER patient, the ER nurses are well trained to handle it and ultimately, it is the ER Physicians who are in charge of their patients, even if they’re admitted to us. So I think I’ll wait until after morning report to return this. [Ding Ding] Hmm, just got a text message on my I-phone, I wonder who that could be.

“Morning sexy! Thanks again for having dinner with me last night. I had a great time.” This propagated a grin which was difficult to get rid of as I walked into the conference room late for the morning report case. But it as a good date and I welcomed the 10 second pause :)

The lecture was on a rare form of congenital heart disease called Takasubo’s, quite interesting. 15 minutes into it – [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep]. My pager goes off again as I get a few soft looks of distain from the loud noise it’s making, most likely because I had just changed the battery the day prior (a task which took me 5 days to accomplish because “finding a triple A battery” was very low on my priority list). Anyway, in contrast to cell phones in a movie theatre, most other doctors don’t get angry when they hear a pager in the middle of a meeting. In fact, most drown them out. While it would be courteous to remember to put your pager on “Silent Alert” before every lecture or meeting, the fact of the matter is, there are just too many other more important thoughts floating around in a Resident’s head to remember to silence your pager, like “do I really think this guy is having a heart attack? Should I give that guy another 2 units of blood? Just where do I think he’s bleeding from? Why won’t she stop having seizures? What am I missing here? I wish there was something I could do for this guy but he’s dying of AIDS and there’s nothing I can. Why won’t that stroke patient’s family let their mother die? - she’s on a machine to breath, a tube in her stomach to eat and she’s going to be non-responsive in a coma forever.” And sometimes a few thoughts like “He was a really great guy last night, I wonder if he’ll ask me out again? OR “My car payment was due today and I forgot to mail out my rent check, dammit.” OR “I hope my mother’s surgery went well today…I have to remember during lunch to call her and check up on her.” AND often “I’ve had to piss for 2 hours now but haven’t had the time”. Yep, silence your pager is rarely in the forefront of your thoughts.

[Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] Crap, it’s the 6th floor paging me. Now I know the nurses there aren’t as skilled as ER nurses, but this lecture only has 5 minutes left. It can wait. But then two minutes later [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] and it’s the same nurse. Either she’s being a pain in my ass or there’s something really wrong. I can’t take the chance. I get up and go use the phone.

“This is Dr. Matyas, I was paged.”

“Hi Doctor, this is the nurse taking care of your patient in room 6779.”

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

“I saw that you wrote an order for Potassium 20 mg IV to be given over 2 hours.”

“Yes, that’s right, I did.”

“Do you want me to give it?”

Now these are the calls I dread getting in the middle of the night. The pointless confirmatory calls made by incompetent individuals. I felt like shouting at her, “Now what the hell do you think? Would I write an order for something if I didn’t want you to give it? And why did you page me twice? Was this an emergency? (Clearly it was not.) Is there any reason why you wouldn’t give the order the way it was written? I write hundreds of orders a day, if every nurse called to confirm---“
But instead I replied congenially, “Yes, please, as soon as you have a moment to.”

“Ok Doctor. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for the page. Goodbye.”

So after morning report we meet the Attending Physician in a different conference room and sit down to present to him all of the patients. He decides if he agrees with our Assessment and Plan or if he wants to make any changes to it. Usually, if he’s a good Attending (and we have the same one for a 2 week period at a time, even though we are on the service for 4 weeks at a time – what does that tell you?) he’ll provide you with some teaching and learning points on the people, rather than just have us ramble off like drones. In the middle of this event, at precisely 10:30 a.m., the UM team pages me for the daily update. The UM team or “Utilization Management” team, is a group of people composed of a social worker or two, a physician and the supervising case manager. They want to know just how many people I think I’ll be discharging today and what is the likelihood that people on my service will go home to make room for the other Sardines down in the ER. They also help expedite tests, for example Coach needs an Echocardiogram for his heart and the UM team will help make sure this can happen in a timely manner so he can get out of his hospital for his game on the weekend. While they are there to “help me”, their agenda is to churn and burn – get people out of the hospital as soon as they are ready. And they’re under pressure by their bosses, and so forth.

[Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] Shit, oh wait, that wasn’t my pager it was my Attending’s.

“RJ, can you get this for me?” he states, handing me his pager.

“Sure.”

As I return the page for my boss, a stern voice on the other end tells me he needs to speak directly to my boss, who we’ll call Dr. D. for the moment. Joel and I look at each other because we don’t know what’s going on. Then Dr. D hangs up and just looks blankly out at us.

“Everything ok Sir?” (I like dropping the military Sir once in a while) “Anything you need?”

“No, that was the Chief.”

“The Chief?” I asked, wondering what he meant.

“…the Chief of the hospital. He paged all of the Department Chiefs to tell them that the hospital was overflowing and that we all needed to discharge patients from our service to home.”

I started to laugh. First of all, I won’t discharge anyone home that I don’t see fit to leave the hospital. I don’t care if the President of Kaiser himself tells me to do so. As the Team Leader, I’m often the only patient advocate that my patients have. Second, does this guy have any idea about how sick my patients are? I’m not going to discharge people if they’re not ready, just so they can relapse and come right back in again.

“We’ll see what we can do.” Dr. D said with a half-smile. (I could tell he was under pressure.)

Alright, after rounding, we see the new patients and some of the really sick patients together. This takes us to about 11:30 a.m. before we split up and our Attending will look at me and say “Good Job. Page me if you need anything R.J.” that will be the last I hear from him until my daily update at 5:30 p.m. before I try to leave for the day (unless I’m on call).

“RJ, I’m in clinic this afternoon, just so you know, I won’t be here all afternoon.” Joel tells me.

Twice a week we have Family Medicine outpatient clinic, in other words, we leave the hospital to work across the street in the clinic. While it is exciting to get out of the hospital and actually see patients in a clinic setting, like we one day will when we have our own practice, what this means for me is that I’ll be managing all 15 patients myself during the afternoon instead of having to address issues for just my own patients (and not Joel’s). Plus, if there are any patients that need to be discharged (a process which takes up to an hour per patient), if Joel doesn’t finish this in the next hour or so, I’ll be doing it this afternoon alone, along with 20 other things and being in 3 places simultaneously.

[Ding Ding] another text message alert, but I don’t have time to look at it at the moment. I’m going to set my phone to vibrate, even though the switch always loosely slides back to audible alert on my I-Phone. I wish I had time to get that fixed.

Alright, I have to return some of these other pages I’m behind on. But as I’m on the phone…[Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep], then 2 seconds later [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep], then again [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] (for some reason a huge influx of pages occurs between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.).

“Yes, this is Dr. Matyas.”

“Dr. Matyas, I just lost the pulse on Mrs. ‘S’ in room 7558! I think she’s coding!” a frantic nurse states.

“I’ll be right there.” I say. Joel asks what’s up and I tell him I think his patient in 7558 is dying. He says, “I didn’t hear a hospital wide code blue though.”

“That’s because the patient is DNR.” I tell him.

So we high tail it to the 6th floor where we can hear the alarms from down the hall. I enter the room, my patient, who is 100 years old (we nicknamed her the “Centenarian”), had a massive stroke several days earlier. Her son, an 80 year old Russian man, is sobbing frantically over her mother’s bed. “Do something! Why aren’t you doing anything???”

“Mr. S, I’m so sorry, there’s nothing that I can do. We have to respect your mother’s wishes. She wouldn’t want us to do CPR.”

Just then, the mother’s faint pulse goes to flat line in front of us. She’d dead. I whisper to the nurse watching “Time of death 12:14”. [Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] I hit the silence button on my pager. The son is weeping uncontrollably. He’s very attached to his mother because they were both in concentration camps and his mother escaped with him at an early age. They survived a long hard Russian winter and fled to the West during World War II. He feels a sense of obligation to do everything he can to save his mother the same way that she saved him 75 years ago. But he can’t.

[Vibration] – it’s my I-phone on silent alert, a text message, "When can I see you again sexy? Wanna grab a coffee tonight?"

I express my deepest condolences to the patient’s son as I disconnect all the wires from her and gently pull the tube out of her throat/lungs and the tube out of her nose/stomach. I put a blanket over her arms up to her chest because as her son spends these final moments with his dead mother, I feel like in some way making her look more presentable and propping her cold body to a more resting position shows respect and makes her son a little bit more comfortable. Next I exit the room to write the mandatory death note. The discharge summary I’ll have to do later though when I have the time.

At this point, it’s 12:35 p.m. I’m late for my lunch lecture at 12:30, I’m starving, I’m 5 pages behind in responding to and I have a slew of things to follow up on with my other patients, including following up on Coach’s Echocardiogram results.

“RJ, I’m going to try to get some work done on my patients before I go to clinic.”

“Ok Joel, let’s meet up in 30 minutes at the cafeteria.”

Finally, a chance to return some pages, here goes:

Page #1 “Dr. Matyas, the family of your patient in 7890 would like to speak to you about their son.”

Page #2 “Dr. Matyas, I just brought your patient in 6332 (Coach) back from his Echocardiogram. I’m paging you like you asked me to.”

Page #3 “Dr. Matyas, Mr. G in room 6771 is saying he’s having bad chest pain. Can you come take a look at him please? And also, with your other patient in 6774, she just had a bloody bowel movement.” (I hate the double task pages!)

Page #4 “Dr. Matyas this is Dr. “M”, I wanted to talk to you about patient 6332’s Echocardiogram results. (Coach). Yeah, he’s going to need a cath. His EF is 20% and there’s severe MR, MVP and AR. He’s probably going to need triple bypass surgery at least. Be sure to let him know and I’ll get there later on to consent him.”

So let’s prioritize these tasks RJ – first, go make sure the guy from page #3 isn’t having a heart attack and make sure it’s just that bad hospital pudding giving him some reflux. Then, make sure the other lady isn’t actively bleeding from her ass, because if she is then she’ll need to go to surgery and I’ll have to page the Gastroenterologists immediately – but it’s probably just a hemorrhoid. Then talk to the family from page #1 about their dying son, then tell Coach that his heart is pumping only about 1/5th the blood it should be, that's why he's dizzy, all of his heart valves are failing and he’s going to need invasive high risk bypass surgery which could kill him. THEN maybe grab a bite to eat for lunch and start the discharge summaries and follow up work on my other patients while Joel is in clinic.
[Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep] [Ding Ding]. Shit, I forgot to call my mom.


Chapter 3: Reflection.

Death. I've always had respect for him, but my month working in the ICU I've had to work beside him every day. It's amazing the amount of self reflection you do when you realize that he can come for you at anytime, anywhere. One day a sweet 84 year old woman was excited at the notion of taking her husband home after a short hospital stay for a relatively benign problem. Her husband told her to wait outside while he used the restroom before leaving and when I responded to the code blue page I found him lifeless on the floor. Despite my 20 minutes of CPR and IV medications, he died. And during the last moments of his life, I could smell Death. I could feel him. He looked at me from the shadows grinning, knowing that there was nothing I could do to get in his way.

What's interesting is that death only comes when he wants, and sometimes he gets lazy. Last Thursday I had a meeting with the family of one of my ICU patients. The purpose was to convince them to let their mother die in peace with some dignity. She had multi-system organ failure: kidney failure, liver failure, adrenal failure, respiratory failure, heart failure, sepsis with bacteria, herpes and fungus growing in her blood, yet her family could not accept that this poor 65 year old woman was dying - lying flaccid and unconscious on the bed, intubated with a machine helping her to breath, on a continuous infusion of medicine (Levaphed) to maintain her blood pressure, with warming blankets to keep her from falling below 93 degrees (as she did every night), on hemodialysis and with several antibiotics battling away in her blood. Despite all that, she was full code - meaning that even though this woman has no chance what so ever of a recovery, meaningful or otherwise, the family wants us to pound on her chest, shock her and do everything we can to keep her vegetative body alive. I see her emotionless eyes every morning, swollen and hazy. She yearns for death to come and take her, but he won't.

I go to the gym as much as I can. It helps me to process all of this. I reflect every night before bed - on my day, on the loved ones who've passed, on my life. Sometime I see their eyes. Sometimes I hear the sound of the rib cage bones cracking, as often occurs when I do CPR. Sometimes the foulest stench of death lingers just beneath my nose before I shut off the lights. But what disturbs me most sometimes, is how we get used to it...

One Friday our Attending bought us lunch from a great Mediterranean restaurant to commemorate our last day of the rotation. Hummus, Falafel, Tabouli, Pita, Chicken. I took off my doctor's jacket and started to dig in. One minute later: "Code Blue ICU". We all looked at one another and ran to the floor. One of my colleague's patient's was crashing. The husband, who had been there all day by her side in case anything were to happen, stepped off the floor for a minute to get some food. I started CPR, started the code. She had a previous stroke that left her completely debilitated, requiring a machine to breath. Nothing was working, then finally, a faint pulse, we brought her back! She was stable and 15 minutes later, we went back to our Falafel as if nothing happened. 10 minutes later, "Code Blue: ICU" - it was the same patient. She went flat line again. This time it didn’t look good. She defecated herself as usually happens right before death; blood contaminated with Hepatitis was oozing from every orifice of her body, I saw death approaching from the corners, laughing as the patient’s husband was innocently enjoying his jell-o downstairs where there was no cell phone reception to call him. But, after she died, we washed our hands and we went back to our Falafel for the 3rd time. The fresh strawberries for dessert were plump and juicy!

Over the last 3 months I’ve had discussions I never thought I would. I’ve had thoughts I could barely make sense of. I’ve been faced with difficult decisions and faced challenges I wasn’t sure I could overcome.

Coach was faced with a decision: Have triple bypass surgery which would allow him to live for about 2 years with a 25% risk of dying during the surgery OR not have the surgery and only have 6 months to live. He chose to have the surgery, and he lived. He said that he had loose ends which he needed to take care of.

The ICU patient eventually died after suffering for an additional 2 weeks because her family wouldn’t pull the plug. Because her family didn’t pull the plug, they were spared the blame that they killed her. Was her 2 weeks of extra suffering worth their peace of mind?

All I know is, death can come at any time. We must cherish the moments we have together now and never take any of them for granted. If you have the chance, never pass up the opportunity to tell someone you love them, or tell them “I’m sorry”. Death lurks in the shadows.


Chapter 4: Life in L.A.

Alright guys, as I sit here on vacation in Hawai’i, I know that I made the right decision in going to Los Angeles. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, despite a seemingly morbid entry. I’m actually enjoying my residency and the people there are truly great. I’ve made some great friends and I’ve been focusing a lot of energy into the program and making friends there. I’ve come out to everyone there, and while this was a big deal for me coming from a military where I had to be closeted, it was not a big deal for them. In fact, their response was, “RJ, this is Hollywood!”

I’ve had a falling out with a good friend Eli and I can’t seem to figure out why. I’ve tried to patch things up but for the moment he chooses to stay away. I’ve reconnected and grown close with some new people, my friend Jacquie, who is becoming one of my best friends in L.A., and reconnected with my ex-boyfriend (10 years ago) Armando, who is now becoming a good friend. I’ve dated a few guys, but haven’t connected with anyone on a deeper level yet, and that’s ok. I know one day I’ll meet that someone and I can’t wait for that day!

I’m not nearly as buff as I was and I’ve only been able to work out about 3 times a week, and I’m ok with that for the moment. It’s good not to obsess about your body anyway and I have my priorities in order right now.

My family is good and my friends are supportive of me here in L.A.

All in all, life is great and this is my first chance to stop and take a breather to update my blog. Time flies!

Oh, and I posted a few videos on my facebook page, tell me what you think. One of them I included in this blog. It's of me and several of my colleagues, of course, done up RJ style.

:)

Hollywood

This is a video of my friends Jacquie, Eli and I as we went for a hike to Runyan Canyon in Hollywood, CA, January 10th, 2009. As you can see, it was a beautiful, sunny, 85 degree day in Los Angeles and this was one of my first days after moving from Hawaii.

The video quality isn't the greatest, but you can get the idea. :)
(For the better quality full screen video, go to my Facebook page)

Adventures in La La Land Part 1: “RJ Arrives and the Earth Quakes”

It’s a land where dreams are lived, where advertisements are displayed on vibrant LCD billboards in the sky and movie stars grace the cobblestone streets. Where the population wipe their asses with flushable baby wipes and everyone has a skin care regimen. In this mythical land, monthly gym membership costs exceed 150 dollars and people pay 50 dollars for their cars to be hand washed. Pets stay in luxury Pet Hotels that are nicer than The Four Seasons and personal messieurs will massage your canine for a mere 500 bones. The internet may be free, but the parking is not and no where will you find a parking “lot” - all spaces are subterranean and a trip to the local Target can easily become a 10 dollar parking adventure, if you’re lucky enough to escape without being hit, dented or honked at. In this land of 450 dollar Chanel sunglasses and hundred dollar haircuts, attitudes are free but the drinks are not, and if you don’t have money, you better fake it like you do. Yep, this is L.A.! And let me tell you people – I’ve never seen anything like it before.

My first week here has been eventful and Angelina & I have been exploring this strange, new land with eyes wide open. She loves the new GPS maps that are displayed on her screen and she’s excited that here on “the mainland” she can pick up the XM Radio signal. She’s had to toughen up a little bit though, after a bully parked beside her and assaulted her last night! While she left the altercation (that I never witnessed) with nothing more than a driver side door scratch – she was quickly reminded that there’s no ‘aloha’ in this place! In fact, just this morning she was feeling particularly cocky, all shiny and proud, until a 2009 black Lamborghini pulled up right next to her. The freshly suited model driver and the billion dollar boob job sitting in the passenger seat simultaneously looked over at her, unimpressed. Angelina didn’t bat an eye, but as the light turned green, Angelina was left coughing up exhaust.



As for me, I’ve done a lot for a mere week. I joined an overpriced gym named Equinox. And while there are perks - unlimited lavender scented towel service , a eucalyptus steam room, a staff that cleans your treadmills and picks up your weights after you, interactive cardio equipment synced with the dozens of Plasma TVs and the tip of the iceberg – a FREE, yes I said FREE Equiniox tee shirt (100% cotton), it just doesn’t seem worth $153./month to be able to say that I got a gay stare from former ‘N Sync star JC Chasez, or to say that when I was doing incline dumbbell curls, Fabio stopped to ask me if I was “finished using my weights”. (Incidentally I said “No”.)

I signed a lease on an amazing place called “The Rob Clark”. (www.therobclark.com) It’s right on Beverly Street near all the famous stores, where the paparazzi chase down the stars every day. Last night I had to make a trip into Beverly Hills to meet my landlord and I shared an elevator up from the parking garage with some famous older actress whose name I of course could not place. But the highlight of my night was when Meadow Soprano (what’s her real name??? Jamie-Lynn Sigler I think) looked at me when I passed her on the street. She looked at me like I was a cockroach. Anyway, my landlord seems really nice – he’s 22 years old and his large solid gold watch that had some really long name probably costs more than what I’m worth, many times over. I think he was gay and at first I was intimidated at this meeting by his ‘glam’, but I decided to turn the tables by taking off my sweatshirt revealing my tight black tank top underneath. His 120 pound frame started to quiver while beads of sweat started to form on his forehead, as he lost focus and caved in when I asked him to let me occupy the premises a week early and provide me with an extra remote and spare key to the place. Hey, my grandmother always said that the rich and famous pee and shit in the same pots that we do, and while that may be true, it can be nice to have a good looking body and a set of baby blue eyes to flash when your wallet doesn’t come through for you sometimes.

My second night here I met with my long time friend Armando, who invited me to a movie premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. It was awesome! We walked in and the actors of the film (who weren’t that famous since it was a horror movie) were on the red carpet getting their pictures taken. It was very surreal. Then, just before the movie began, a very loud sound occurred and the building shook momentarily. I looked puzzled but then Armando looked at me and said, “Earthquake”. It was so cool but the tremor came in at a mere 4.5 on the Richter Scale and it wasn’t “The Big One” that I’m convinced is going to happen at some point during my time here.

I went to work to stop by and fill out some paperwork and the Program Director gave me a great big hug. That put me at ease a bit. I don’t start orientation until Jan 26th and my first official day is slated to be Feb 1st. I have to say I’m excited to start working again after months off, and I’m even more excited at the notion of a paycheck – because this town is freakin’ expensive! I haven’t registered my car with CA plates yet, but I hear even that is several hundred dollars!

I’m very fortunate to have some friends in this town – Eli, Jacquie, Armando, Luciano, Joey…and they’ve been very hospitable, introducing me to people and taking me to some great places for brunch and dinner. Eli, Jacquie and I went for a great hike to Runyon Canyon on Sunday to enjoy the beautiful, sunny 85 degree weather that we’ve been experiencing all week. All of my friends are saying that I brought some ‘aloha’ with me.



I even met a pretty great guy,…he’s cute (ok, very sexy), he seems genuine, intelligent, ambitious, and accomplished for his age (29). We have a lot in common – we’re both world travelers, both Sagittarians, both positive, optimistic guys who believe that nothing in this world is impossible. It’s too soon to tell where this new relationship is going, but if it turns out to be nothing more than friends, it’s given me hope that there are quality guys in this city and not just the shallow, superficial, stuck up types that I’ve been forewarned about.

Well, that’s about it for now. My goods don’t arrive until Jan 22nd so I’ve been crashing on Eli’s floor. While I’m grateful, I’m looking forward to moving into my new place. I leave you with my address and some pics of this past week.

Dr. Robert J. Matyas II
141 South Clark Drive
Unit 103
West Hollywood, CA 90048

PS - if you haven't seen my new facebook video entitled "Hollywood", check it out!!!
:)

"Live Your Life" (DJ Kiera and Ryan P Remix)

My brother-in-law Mike and I took my niece Kiera and nephew Ryan to the "Toddler Play Area" of the Dulles Town Center in Virginia. 30 minutes of rammy, screaming toddlers, 3 hours of video editing from my new Sony Cybershot camera (courtesy of Victor) and several beers later, this video was the final product of a very fun evening! Enjoy!

Hau Oli Makahiki Ho! (Happy New Year)

2009!!!
I've never felt so positive, optimistic and energenized than I feel right now, at this point in my life. We live in a world where change is happening all around us. Make yourself a part of it and bask in it! People are starting to feel proud to be Americans again, and while we know there is an uphill battle in front of us, I feel that for the first time in a long time, people are motivated to fight it!

2008 was by far the best year of my life - I made peace with people that I never thought I could, I reconnected with my father on a comfortable level after 12 years of silence, I made some amazing new friends, I made a freakin' movie! I did a lot of traveling, I got promoted to Lieutenant Commander, I got accepted to the Residency of my choice and I'm moving to Los Angeles in 4 days! I got a tattoo. I fell in love with an ex-boyfriend again, I cried, I laughed about it. I fell in love during a trip that I won to Cancun, I cried, I laughed about it. I got into the best shape of my life, I joined a very expensive gym. I "came out" to all of my Marines and Sailors during my going away party when I separated from the military and they all didn't care a bit - in fact, they took me out to celebrate (and many of them told me some surprising things themselves). I surprisingly stayed in touch with and even grew closer to a few select Soldier's Angels, which have become a part of my life now (even though I don't get to talk to them as much as I would like). I joined Facebook. I finished my commitment to the military after 7 years!

Let's take a break and look at some Outs and Ins of 2008/2009...

Dr. RJ's Outs and Ins of 2007/2008 (as per my U.S. Sensus):

OUT / IN:

Honolulu / Hollywood
Smooth Bodies / Chest Hair (trimmed of course)
Gay Rights / Vampire Rights
DVDs / Blu Ray Discs
Short Marine Haircuts / FoHawks
Pomegranate / Acai Berry
Expensive Diesel Tee-Shirts / Hot Volcom Tank Tops
Buffy / Tru Blood
Lindsay Lohan & Leona Lewis / Lady Gaga
My Space / Facebook
RJ (since he's not Active Duty any longer!) / still many gays in the military
Smoking Cigarettes / Protein Shakes
Absolut / Three Olives
Bud Light / Coors Light
Fossil / Nixon
Fast Food / Whole Foods
AOL / G-mail
Rainbow Roll / Tobiko with Quail Egg
TV Antennae / High Definition Digital Cable
Bush / Obama
Oppression, Stupidity & Embarrassment / Change, Charisma & Patriotism
Jose Cuervo / Patron XO Cafe
Paula Dean / Healthy Eating
Empty Bank Accounts / Using "The Secret" to get money
complicated TV shows, like "Lost" / Easy TV shows like "Entourage" and "Tru Blood"
Wolverine / Watchmen
Mapquest / GPS
Watching porn on websites like X-tube / Buying Blu-Ray porn :) lol
LOL / actually laughing
long impossible to read blog entries / "Conciseness is Niceness"


So what lies ahead? Surely an amazing year! As far as my New Year's Resolutions?

Alright, here goes:
1. Stop sneaking the occasional cigarette when I have a few drinks (hey we all have our faults. I may be a doctor, but I'm not perfect.)
2. Continue to live your life by "The Four Agreements" (my favorite book by Don Miguel Ruiz)
3. Continue to use "The Secret" and be grateful for everything you have each and every day. (It was one of the things that got me through Iraq and changed my life.)
4. Work hard and focus on your Residency this year.
5. Start paying back all of your school loans and learn to be more frugal...that means no more Peter Lik artwork RJ!

AND NOW, SOME OF RJ's TOP TEN LISTS...

DJ RJ's Top 10 Crossroads Songs of 2008: (available on I-Tunes)

#10 Duffy - "Mercy" (Gareth Wyn Mix)
#9 Janet - "Feedback" (Ralphi Rosario Mix)
#8 Rihanna - "Disturbia" (Jody Den Broeder Mix)
#7 Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love" (Moto Blanco Mix)
#6 Britney Spears - "Womanizer" (Radio Mix)
#5 September - "Cry For You" (Jackal Mix or X-Mix)
#4 Timbaland - "Apologize" (Lenny B Mix)
#3 Ida Corr - "Let Me Think About It" (Fedde Le Grande Remix)
#2 Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis - "Just Dance" (Tony Arzadon Remix)
#1 Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up" (Ralphi Rosario Remix)

Honorable Mentions:
Annagrace - You Make Me Feel
Ercola - Every Word (Wendel Kos Mix) [the most played dance song around the globe for '08]

Top 10 New Friends Made/Grew Closer With During 2008:

#10 Ersan Kapan
#9 Marissa Myers
#8 Adam Mitchell
#7 Michael Vacirca
#6 Karen Yamada
#5 Jennifer Cho
#4 Kevin Blickfeld
#3 Mike Clausen
#2 Joseph Esser, aka "Frog"
#1 Katherine Solomon

Top 10 Photographs of 2008:

NUMBER 10:
"Josh's Dirty Thirty in San Francisco"
One of my best friends Josh turned 30 this past year, so friends from all over the world gathered in San Fran to celebrate it. I surprised him and rented a limmo to pick him up at the airport (with Katherine). We drove around San Fran for a while, sipping on Moet and riding back and forth over the (cloudy) Golden Gate Bridge. Great times. "Crossroads...Meibos Limmo...You're Hot!"



NUMBER 9:
"RIMPAC" - After 7 years in the Navy, during this past summer I boarded my first ship. (Kind of ironic huh?) It was 4 weeks on board the U.S.S. BonHomme Richard sailing around the Hawaiian islands doing a training mission. I loved it.



NUMBER 8:
"The Pitstop" - On the way to Cancun, I laid over in Phoenix, AZ for 10 hours. Of course, the Phoenix crowd gathered for a short, but very fun night of debauchery! "Hawai'i's in the house!!!...round of drinks for the bar on me!!!!"



NUMBER 7:
MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) Banquet. We posed for GQ! How'd we do???




NUMBER 6:
Jacintha Brown's going away party. While it was very sad to see her and Tia leave, it was an amazing party - as you can see!



NUMBER 5:
Easter Weekend at the Mondrian Hotel in Scottsdale, AZ! It was this weekend that I met Katherine Solomon for the first time and concurrently had the best Easter of my life - no family, no ham, no baskets or Easter eggs, just cocktails by the pool, best friends and shrimp cocktail!!!



NUMBER 4:
The tattoo - I'd been wanting to get one for months. I waited until 4 hours before my flight out of Hawai'i, but I finally did it!



NUMBER 3:
"Team Rasta Skydiving" - I went skydiving with some of my best friends over North Shore, Oahu in August. It was on my life "To Do List" for a while. It was amazing, if not nauseating...!




NUMBER 2:
"Cancun, Me, Mike Clausen" ...Leona Lewis and Jordin Sparks to follow in a few months!



NUMBER 1:
The leading actors of 'Halloween II: The Escape of Michael Meyers' (the horror movie I made) on the way to the Red Carpet Premiere of the movie release, making a pit stop in front of our limmo.



HONORABLE MENTIONS:
1 - Victor, J-Cho and RJ during Victor's visit to Hawaii.


2 - RJ on a Ducatti for the first time - foreshadowing for 2009????


3 - RJ and Mike, at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. Nuff Said.


4 - The Horror Movie Poster by Dana Tannakka - it came out amazing! (P.S. - That's actually Josh in the costume on the poster)


5 - MDA 2008, you had to be there


This month in the Northeast was busy but awesome! I spent some quality time with mom, went to the annual Christmas Eve Party at Rena's House (which I had a lot of fun at - can you believe that hot young looking thing in the picture is turning 40!!!...)



I had the annual Bethlehem Brew Works lunch with Jan and her boyfriend Anthony (also in the pic is my sister Kelly, brother-in-law Mike and me)...



I had lunch with Barbara Delia and my mom...



I met with an old friend Mike Vacirca and spent an amazing weekend in New York City seeing him, Katherine, Joseph and some other friends...








...and I even organized a medical school reunion with 4 of my best friends and I in New Brunswick, NJ --- we all lived together for 3 years in a med school fraternity named Phi Sig but have lost touch over the past few years. It was awesome catching up with those guys.



That's about it everyone. I'm super excited to leave for L.A. in 4 days, and while I'm a little nervous, I know that great things await me. I want to wish everyone a very safe and Happy New Year! May good luck be bestowed upon all of you and may my friends overseas stay safe and rest easy knowing that they are are in our thoughts and prayers every day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Yeehaw 2009!

(PS Click "Follow This Blog" on the top right portion of this page to be notified of updates to this blog, as I'm going to stop sending out blog update e-mails to everyone in the near future.)

Christmas Season in the Northeast

The last time I can remember it happening was about 25 years ago. I was about 7, and it was almost time for bed it the little town of Nazareth. It was a cold Winter's night and my dad had lit a fire in our black, cast iron, wood burning stove. I remember this night because we had just finished eating a few chestnuts which we cooked atop the stove. It was at that moment that I heard the announcement, "There is a Winter Storm Warning in effect for the Lehigh Valley with snow accumulations expected to exceed 6 inches overnight. Stay tuned to the morning news for school closings..." I remember going to bed with a certain excitement about myself, I had a smile on my face and knew that it would take some time to fall asleep, for the prospect of the first snow fall was in the air (along with the notion of a day off from school).






Last night I went to bed with that same energetic buzz! Granted - instead of smoke from the wood burning stove, the smell of a burnt out electric mixer was in the air (the motor couldn't handle mixing all of the cookie batter and I accidentally blew it out when the dough was too thick). And instead of being nestled all snug in my bed as a child, my feet were now sticking out of the end of my mom's spare Twin. And instead of sugarplums, there were very different visions dancing in my head. Nevertheless, I fell asleep hoping it would snow, and when I woke up for a glass of water in the middle of the night, I had to sneak a peak downstairs to see what it was like outside...





When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but tiny little snowflakes from both far and anear. The Rte. 22 Highway lights on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave a luster of midday to the objects below. This morning I woke up and like a school boy who just heard on the radio "Nazareth Area High School - CLASSES CANCELLED!", I was suprised to see snow on the ground. It was my first real snowfall in a year and it was nice!



Now while the holiday season can be filled with joy and peace, not before long does it become apparent that the holly plant has the sharpest leaves of any if its parasitic predecessors. Put simply - this season can suck balls! Three weeks ago, in Hawaii, shopping at the grocery store for some last minute Thanksgiving trimmings, I heard that annoying high pitched Salvation Army bell. What's worse, the 500 pound Samoan blocked the entrance to the store, so in essence you had to "pay the toll" to get past him and enter the store.

This past week my Christmas Cookies burnt...








...my rental car was all but smashed in when an anxious Walmart shopper was anxious to pull in a spot not 2 spots away from a vacant lot.

My friend Barbara Delia had her debit card stolen in Philadelphia and because the thief charged several hundred dollars at the local CVS before the bank stopped the card, she won't have her money back until the paperwork from the bank gets processed in several weeks, causing her to be unable to buy the holiday gifts she wanted for her friends and family.

Many will be alone this Christmas as every piano key from radio Christmas Carols cause tear after tear of regret to drop from their eyes.

Many have deteriorating health, or have friends or family with medical problems. They wonder if they'll make it to see next Christmas, or even next year.

Many are poor, or homeless without so much as a roof over their heads. And when their Christmas snow falls, it falls on the box or blanket that they live in.

So when I find that the Grinch appears and wants to steal my Christmas spirit, I do one of two things. First, I stop and take a moment to realize how grateful I am for all of my blessings. That I have the friends around me, and not just the 196 friends that I accumulated on Facebook in the last mere 72 hours, real friends like Jan & Victor that are there for me if I need them. I have my family that cares about me - my sister Kelly, Mike, Kiera, Ryan, and my mom (though she can drive me nuts, I love her dearly). While I know many that are overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany in war zones or treatment areas, I can trust in God and trust that my prayers, cards and packages will greet them with a smile and in some way help to keep them a little safer. While I have fears of my future, concerns about the present, and occasionally regrets from my past, I trust that God has a plan and that we must remember the true meaning of Christmas, remembering Christ's birth in a manger in the quiet town of Nazareth, not more than 2 miles from where I write (well, you know).

If none of these things can comfort me, then I do the next best thing:
GET A PHILLY CHEESE STEAK FROM PAT's OR GINO'S FAMOUS STEAKS!!!!









As Christmas Day approaches with more anticipation that the Season 5 Premiere of LOST on Wed Jan 21st on ABC, I leave everyone with a few Christmas tips...

1. If you see Absolut Los Angeles Vodka and think it might be good, it's not, it sucks.




2. If you want a festive holiday cocktail for your party - do 'Three Olives' Pomegranite Vodka, with a splash of Pomegranite Liquor and Limited Edition Diet Pomegranite 7up. It takes great and you can make up some fun festive name for it if you're creative enough.

3. Don't cook your cookies on the bottom rack in the oven and if you've been cooking all day, remember: your oven might be hotter than 350 degrees if it's an old one.

4. Be friendly and kind to others, especially those less fortunate.

5. Don't get stressed! So if you receive a Christmas Card from someone that you didn't send a card to yourself, don't fret, just be grateful and thank them the next time you see them. Chances are you won't need to worry about the problem happening next year.

6. Don't buy Baileys for ANYONE as a gift - it's so 5 years ago. Let someone try something new, or give a nice bottle of Sparkling Wine instead. (Maybe my sister will post a few suggestions for us in the comments)

7. Brazilian Acai is the new Pomegranite!

8. RJ's Birthday is Friday. I'll be 33.

9. Say a prayer or make a toast that includes our troops overseas.

10. To save time, do your holiday shopping on-line (I did ALL mine on-line this year). You can even go to www.hallmark.com and personalize greeting cards with your own message for .99 cents and have them delivered to your door in 3 days! Use the website www.goodshop.com and you can donate money to troops overseas AND shop at all your major stores at the same time!

and finally, don't lose sight of the true spirit of Christmas. Start a new holiday tradition this year that doesn't involve money - my family stopped stocking stuffers and instead, we each write down things we are grateful for with one another and put those in our stockings and read them on Christmas morning! Be kind to others, even those that have wronged you. (Yes Jan and Victor, I'll probably contact and see my father at some point, because its the right thing to do). Spend time with your family (tomorrow I'm taking my mom to lunch in Philly with Barbara Delia and taking them to the Philadelphia Orchestra for their holiday show). And remember, when all else fails, comfort food!!!!!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!