I had been told I had 12 months or so to live when I launched this blog a year ago.
Turns out, I outlived my initial pathology and might even keep going for years to come. So, it only seems natural to update my personal vendettas, all of which I assumed I only had a year's time to clean up before my death.
To my dear cousin Dr. Barbara Hirsch, the famous Great Neck Endocrinolist:
Have no fear, go visit my mother, I won't be there and won't bother you. Make sure my mother tells me the date and time so I won't run into you, but I'm sure we can arrange things to avoid any conflicts.
To my dear brother Ira Dressner, coach and soothsayer of Surprise, Arizona:
Best of luck in the Coaching/Ministerial/Secret Powers profession. We have a new dog named Zaggy who is too aggressive with other dogs. We would gladly pay for any advise or pendants which would help us out with our beloved Cherrier.
All is forgiven, Dear Dr. Ira and Dear Dr. Barbara. You don't have to forgive me or ever see me ever again, but I wish you both well in all your Doctorial duties and your rich personal lifes.
I'm looking for some new personal vendettas to enrich my personal life, but am open to any new candidates.
I'm having an MRI on Tuesday and want to hear the results of the MRI before making any new decisions.
Jules and I went to drink a beer last night at the Cafe Royale on Post and Leavenworth. This is my favorite bar in San Francisco, conveniently located on the border of the Tenderloin and the Tendernob.
There's great people watching here, especially at night. The cafe, really a bar, seems to be a gathering point for hipsters in the dynamic Tender/Entre/Nob area.
Jules and I sat by the large plate glass windows and watched a guy score crack at the corner of Leavenworth opposite our table. It took about 10 minutes for the dealer to arrive and the client was getting very nervous. But finally, the dealer showed up, goods and money were exchanged and everyone left happy. Kind of.
It was a beautiful moment of personal growth and bonding between son and father.
I was dragged out of a New York wine event by an ambulance while I was having convulsions.
I was whisked to an emergency room out of Dante's Inforno, where they did an MRI and discovered a brain tumor. A couple weeks later, I was told I had 12 months or at most 18 months to live.
This was a disturbing experience.
As it turns out, after more complex research, I have a type of tumor that loves to be treated with chemotherapy and radiation and which can respond. Maybe I'll even last another 20 years. Who knows!
I'm now off chemotherapy but still on anti-convulsion medicine. The tumor has been sternly challenged and is lying dormant. I'm back to semi-normal activities, but still suffer fatigue. I have neuro-muscular damage in my right left which might be improved, but which will probably always be there in some form.
I'll be doing a tasting in San Francisco this morning of live wines. Like them, I am delighted to be alive, delighted to be around friends, delighted to love nature and all the people around me who I can give love and enjoyment and who give it back. I hate being sentimental, but what the hell....
Denyse, Jules, Alyce. Kevin, Sheila, Shawn and Lee. My mother. The departed Buster and now Zaggy. Donna, Keven, Wheeler, David Lillie, Linus, SF Joe. Fifi, Jorge, Coppo, All our caring vignerons who did so much to keep up my spirits. The folks who drink our wines who sent generous e-mails. Vicki, Bettina and all the great doctors I have seen at NYU. My neighbors in Poil Rouge and Rick Franco and Eddie Wrinkerman and a cast of thousands who are going to be pissed off I didn't mention their names.
Thank you for everything.
I'm holed up in a hotel in Downtown San Francisco and have been channel surfing.
Modern television seems to be dominated by Jay Leno and celebrity Cake Baking shows. The celebrity bakers make elaborate contests that are judged by a panel of cake experts and an excited champion is declared on each show. The odd thing is nobody ever eats the cake, they just admire the hugeness and design of the creation.
I have no idea what is going on here.
My son and I ate a three hour lunch at Chez Panisse. This is my fourth meal at Alice Water's mecca to great ingredients and simplicity and as always it was a fabulous meal.
It is the the accumulation of so many little things. Only Alice Waters can turn Celery root salad into a sublime experience. Even the little fava beans with the squid were almost painfully delicious. Squid, halibut were also insanely fresh and intense and digestible. No crazy mix of sweet and bitter, or sweet and salty. Just clarity and yummyness. Not to mention the best radishes in North America.
Its the anti-Food Network, anti-Star Chef experience.
Jules and I drank a bottle of Catherine and Pierre Breton's Vouvray Dilettante in the interest of international viticultural harmony. Let bygones be bygones and lets all go forward with lively wines.
I can't wait!
Keven Clancy, Jules Dressner and I will be heading right over to the Tacqueria on 25th and Mission. No trucks for us, I need to sit.
Everyone is doing it so I decided to get together with a few musical friends and record a CD.
Basically, it is 23 variations on Chuck Berry's classic song "Little Queenie."
I was very proud of my work, but still had several close friends and colleagues preview the CD before I released it to the world. To a person, they all strongly advised me to suppress the recording. They felt it would be embarassing to me, my company and my loved ones. The image of an older guy with Brain Cancer, a porcelain gall bladder and four vascular bypasses plaintively singing to an underage girl seemed repulsive to many of my friends. Everyone also seemed to agree that I have no singing voice and sounded like a Cantor from Queens, New York trying to get down and dirty.
But dreams go on:
I got lumps in my throat
When I saw her comin down the aisle
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me and sweetly smiled
Well there she is again
Standin over by the record machine
Well she looks like a model
On the cover of a magazine
But she's too cute
To be a minute over seventeen
Meanwhile I was thinkin'
Well if she's in the mood
No need to break it
I got the chance and I oughta take it
If she can dance we can make it
C'mon queenie let's shake it
I said go, go, go, little queenie
I said go, go, go, little queenie
I said go, go, go, little queenie
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be proud of nine years of wine blogging or ashamed of myself. Anyhow, here is one of my first posts from nine years ago.
Charles McCabe, My Favorite Critic
I get so sick of Parker, The Wine Spectator and all the various other wine journalists that I often think of Charles McCabe, my favorite critic.I should note here that I do like Steve Tanzer, who I know personally, for being more reasonable than the his colleagues. And of course, Steve is a helluva-a-guy!
McCabe was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle along with Herb Caen -- a powerful one-two morning punch for City residents. I lived in San Francisco from 1975 to 1980 and greatly enjoyed both columnists, McCabe was perhaps best know for his motto Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art, but I always remember him for his muckraking columns against America's razor blade manufacturers.
McCabe's theory was that America's razor manufacturers were intentionally making blades that required weekly replacement. Periodically, they would develop new shaving technologies that were seemingly superior -- the twin-edged and then triple-edged blade come to mind, although McCabe did not live to see the triple-edged. At product launch, these new blades would be extremely-sharp and last weeks. But as months and years went by, the razor companies would purposely lower the level of razor quality, ensuring that once again the shaver had to replace the blade on a weekly basis. This would create a perceived market need for an even newer technology and a new product would be introduced yet again that would work fine for several months and then once again degrade in quality. Ad infinitim.
I was very happy with Gilette's entry into the triple-edged market and was perhaps one of the first consumers to buy the Mach III when it was introduced. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with the performance of this machine, I was enthusiastically converted to Gillette's contention that this was the most important shaving innovation since the 1960s (although I was too young to shave until about 1968). But two years have gone by and I note that the blade cartridge, which seemed almost immortal at product introduction, now requires constant replacement. And those hard to get smooth spots are becoming the impossible to get smooth spots.
Happily, Alyce Dressner, my 12 1/2 year old daughter, constantly peruses the Drugstore.com site and I learned that the Schick company has now come up with its own triple-bladed system, the XTreme III (Schick XTreme III Site). Of course I immediately seized the opportunity to order these new razors and found the overall experience to be qualitatively superior to the Mach III. But still, it lacked the excitement that was there when the Mach III first came into the market. The XTreme III is incrementally better than the Mach III, but nothing more than that.
During this time of disappointment, I accidentally tried out another Schick blade. I am currently going to a physical therapist three times a week to remobilize my chest. My chest, which was once mobile, was recently cracked open to make way for four heart bypasses. Or quadruples bypasses, as they say in the medical trade.My physical therapist turns out to be organized like a luxury gym and oddly my insurance pays for the whole shebang, including the luxury showers outfitted with luxury cosmetics and razor blades. Just this week, they changed blades from an uninteresting Gillette disposable to a fascinating ergonomic Schick twin blade that I had never seen and that I decided to try out. What a shave!
It is not principally the ergonomic design of the razor that makes it so interesting as it is the inclusion of the One-Push Cleaning System. The shaver pushes this button during the shave and a clever mechanism pushes a small plastic strip between the twin blades, quickly dislodging any dirt or whiskers that might lead to clogging and eventual blade dulling. Again, I cannot recommend this blade highly enough and hope all interested readers will take the time to look at Schick's inspired web site dealing with this new technology: The Schick ST Disposable. Not only is this the best blade in the marketplace but it is also one of cheapest -- I bought a 15-pack today at Rite-Aid Drugs for only $5.99! Of course, there is always the possibility that the razor will go dull in several months or in a year. But until then I'm convinced.
There is a lesson here for wine lovers. They've been making twin-blades and disposables for some time now. Finally, it is an incremental improvement to an old and tested design that qualitatively advances the shaving experience. Not fancy new shavers or elaborate blades. The market always come back to the tried and true and demonstrably effective. Novelty, for the sake of novelty, eventually fatigues.
There is a lesson here for wine lovers.....
According to their web site:
Louis/Dressner $15
Thursday November 12, 2009, 6:00 PM
Internationally famous importer and wine blogger, Joe Dressner, will be here pouring hand-harvested, native-ferment wines of France and Italy.
The shop is located at:
384 Hayes St
(between Franklin St & Gough St)
(415) 863-1104
www.arlequinwine.com
The tasting is open to everybody (over 21-years-old) and I am offering valet parking to the first three people who show-up.
You can come meet me and taste our wines if you're a card-carrying member of the wine trade.
Farm Wine Imports will have an all-star cast:
Featuring
Joe Dressner and the wines of Louis/Dressner
Jose Pastor of Vinos & Gourmet
Steve Edmunds of Edmunds St. John
Local debut of the Champagnes
Cédric Bouchard & Ulysse Collin
Larmandier-Bernier
More bubbles from France, Italy, Spain
Indigenous varieties, unique terroirs, well-farmed, un-manipulated, digestible wines.
The trick is you have to RSVP by calling:
408-644-2077 Jeff Vierra
415-999-8944 Keven Clancy
The tasting is in a small room and attendance will unfortunately be limited.
My colleagues are making millions of dollars and I house my living room television set in an armoire with the doors falling off.
I'm just an honest guy, trying to make an honest living, selling honest wines.
I'd earn a lot more money in the spoof market, but I'd have to go to The New York Wine Experience, be friendly to everyone in the Wine Industry, talk endless about product and brands, and accept phone calls from the Sopexa people who tell me they are now the official promoters of the Beaujolais and I better be nice to them if I want The Wine Spectator to review the 2006 Michel Tête Juliénas. The 2006 Michel Tête Juliénas has not been on the market for two years and the Sopexa is calling me for details about the market penetration of this wine!
This morning, I fell on 56th Street while trying to clean the droppings of my wonderful new dog Zaggy. Some guy valiantly offered to help me up. My suspicion is that he is not a member of the Wine Industry, but I didn't ask him.
MasterCard has a sentimental commercial about how their are things that money can't buy. Like your children, your spouse, and your wonderful in-laws (in France they call the in-laws the "beautiful family). But let me assure my readers, selling great wine made from great terroir by creative, hard working and militant peasant/vignerons is something that can't be beat. I'm proud of what I do, even if I will never have the money of the spoof merchants.
You can't have everything. I can't even lean down and pick up dog droppings because of the neurological/muscular damage I suffered on my right foot from my brain tumor. But between Buster and now Zaggy I have had two wonderful dogs, both of whom were mutts and who cost me only a token fee when they were rescued from Kennels. They were/are sometimes wild, crazy, badly trained and uncivilized. I didn't have the money to hire first-class trainers for these two pooches and I don't care.
We don't have any great brands or products that sell in millions of case.
Thank goodness.
Not to mention my son and daughter!
My doctor told me today.
I had x-rays to figure out why I am having so much pain in my right rib.
My ribs are ok, but I am now the proud owner of a Porcelain Gall Bladder. I thought this was something they sell on the Home Shopping Network. Turns out that years of calcification lead to having your Gall Bladder in this state. According to a site I found on the internet, I might have Gall Bladder cancer!
Here's what my Gall Bladder looks like:
He's looking for our wines in Minnesota.
I had no idea that Extract was a family name.
No one can explain what's going on!
We're all left flummoxed.
Bordering on the brink of bafflement!
There are lots of visionaries out there but I'm feeling old, feeble and blind.
Breaking apart on the brink of bewilderment!
There are visionaries out there who see better than I.
If only I could see what they see.
I only see a vine, a vigneron, a wine and happy people drinking those wines.
A guy from Detroit told me at our tasting that it I was so 1990s.
Over 477 people attended our two day tasting in New York last week.
Some attended twice and some attended three times.
Frankly, I couldn't believe it was happening.
Unfortunately, it gives the illusion that we are fabulously successful company with gobs of money.
In reality we are brinkering on the brink of bankruptcy!
Many people ask what the differences are between the two days.
Both days will have the same all-star group of vignerons serving the same wines.
But this is a portfolio tasting for our entire book, and there will be additional wines served each day. Each day's list of complementary wines will be different.
The vignerons have about 70 wines and each day there will be another 90 wines served. Frankly, Thursday the 29th looks much more interesting and I might skip the Wednesday tasting.
Many people say we're nuts to have a two day tasting. But frankly, who can actually taste 350 wines in one day. This way, you'll have the time to taste in a leisurely fashion without being elbowed by the other annoying people who will be in attendance.
See you then!
Tom Wark, the PR Guy/Blogger has featured me in his ongoing series on wine bloggers.
I've insulted this guy many times but he has been remarkably gracious to me.
Go figure!
To read this article go to:
Joe Dressner Talking Lots of Stupid Shit
Don't miss this fabulous event! Two days of joy and delirium.
October 28th and October 29th.
Our entire portfolio and a salute to the famous Loir-et-Cher.
You need to be in the wine trade or a crony of ours.
Get in touch with us if you want an invite.
This is an RSVP only event.
Took the bike out in the middle of the afternoon from the office.
All went well.
Took it out tonight to ride home.
Went flying off the bike on 4th Street.
Oops.
I rode my Swiftfolder bike to work today.
From the East 50s to Dubai-on-the-Bowery.
I went very slowly and very carefully.
It is nearly eleven months since I had a major convulsion and found out I had brain cancer.
I would never have guessed I would be on my bike so soon....let alone up and about and alive.
All my love and thanks to my family, friends and colleagues who have been so supportive over the past months.
You can now go back to treating me with contempt and disgust.
Joe Dressner
I went to my car today and there was a package left for me. I opened it up and there were several notes detailing the creepy things I have done over the years. Creepy, creepy and creepy. Frankly, they were all true.
One of the major creepy things I am guilty of is begrudging Betts & Scholl their recent four million dollar windfall.
I don't know the guys and have nothing against them. People make lots of money for doing truly repulsive things that belittle, hurt or kill innocent people and certainly these guys can't be accused of any such thing.
What I object to is their pretending to be "winemakers" in Australia, California and Hermitage. C'mon....they are two guys with day jobs, one in Aspen and one in Miami. They are not "winemakers" and they are running on hype, pretense and posture. The crazy thing about America is they are being rewarded, rather than condemned, for their efforts.
We just went through an economic blow-up with people selling derivatives of derivatives of derivatives. All with no real product or value. The economy collapsed.
Isn't it time to call a halt to such lunacy? Wine is rooted, an agricultural product, which was here before and which will be here after credit derivatives come and go. Wine comes from the earth, not a marketeer's cynical playbook. The key to all great wines is the vines, not a business plan.
Betts & Scholl got the idea to create a label, plop that label on wines, and say they were the "winemakers." Betts & Scholl then got lots of great reviews (Betts was already a well-known sommelier and had plenty of contacts) for the winemaking they never did. Their wines got critical praise and the next step was to parlay a virtual winery with no facility, no vines, no nothing into the big sale. They didn't say there were importing wines or selecting wine, Betts & Scholl were winemakers.
This is not winemaking and it is not a négociant model. In principal a négociant buys grapes, must, juice or makes wines and then blends, bottles and then plops their label.
I import wine. None of the wines say Mis en Bouteille par Joe Dressner à East 4th Street, Dubai-sur-le-Bowery."
For me, what is beautiful in the wine world is the seemingly lost world of growers who work their fields well, bottle their wines and then go out and sell them. Artisan has become a cynical term because everything is now working on an "artisan" basis. Even Aspen and Miami "winemakers." But there are real artisans out there all over Europe and even here in America we have the beginning of a movement. Artisans who are in tune with nature, not Powerpoint presentations.
For me, what is cynical about Betts & Scholl is that they always knew they were not "winemakers." Betts is a well known sommelier and no doubt a talented and charismatic guy. I don't know anything about Scholl other than he is an art collector, seems to have money and has the same last name as the people who make the foot care products. The Betts who picked wines for Little Nell didn't pick wines based on gimmicks or hype, but insisted on some honesty in the wines presentation and what was in the bottle. He knew what a "winemaker" is and is not.
I received a note today from a wine lover I respect thanking me for Ariana Occhipinti's wine. I thanked the person, but noted that it is Ariana who deserves the thanks not me. I'm the importer, she does the work in the vines and the cellar.
I firmly believe "chacun son métier."
Everyone has their craft, everyone has their place.
I called the two of them "shysters" in the post below.
I have now changed the phrasing to "cynical operators."
Sorry.
Certainly, there was nothing fraudulent about the sale of their company. The liquor houses have attorneys and I'm sure they knew exactly what they were buying. I'm also sure that Betts and Scholl were not pretending that they had anything other than a virtual winery.
Which makes the purchase of Betts and Scholl even more astonishing!
Two guys just made a quick four million dollars selling a virtual winery. One guy is a sommelier in Colorado, the other guy is an art collector in Miami.
Richard Betts and Dennis Scholl have made some highly rated wines from the Northern Rhone, California and Australia from the comforts of Betts' home in Aspen and Scholl's home in Miami. How they do this logistically is a mystery to me, but I suppose they didn't do the pruning of the vines with their own hands. Perhaps they stay in touch through Twitter and Skype.
Anyhow, its quite a feat and they just cashed out to the tune of four million dollars. Castle Brands just bought the operation, along with the continued services of the dynamic duo. Castle Brands is a wonderful purveyor of such high class beverages as Boru Vodka, Gosling's Rum, Pallini Limoncello, Raspicello and Peachcello, Knappogue Castle Whiskey, Clontarf Irish Whiskey, Jefferson's Presidential Select and Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon, Sam Houston Bourbon, Celtic Crossing Liqueur, Brady's Irish Cream and Tierras tequila.
The two lucky winners of Castle Brand's largesse say they needed to align with a professional company because they were now producing 5,000 cases of wine and were overextended. Marc Ollivier at Domaine de la Pépière produces more Muscadet than 5,000 cases and still manages to run the estate without selling out to Gosling and Boru for four million dollars.
That could change, if M. Ollivier moves his base of operation from Maisdon-sur-Sevre to Vail. He may have no choice but to accept four million dollars.
We live in a country where people don't have medical coverage but two cynical operators with no vineyards, no facilities, no real history and no track record can sell a virtual winery for four million dollars and no one raises an eyebrow!
Anyone up for buying the Brooklyn Bridge?
Denyse and I adoped a Cherrier on Saturday.
Zaggy is an adorable Chihuaha/Terrier mix who weighs all of nine pounds and who is an compulsive face licker. She's adorable and we're delighted to have her join our home.
I call her Zaggy, some call her Zagzag, and one person calls her Doctor Alyce Zagzag.
All the importers are releasing CDs and I need to issue a CD to keep competitive.
I hired a great crew of loose and freewheeling professionals at NYU Langone Medical Center to jam with me and my brain tumor.
My first CD is a compilation of the best hits of my June 20th 2009 MRI and my September 8th MRI. Me and the boys are calling the CD: That Lonesome Stroll Down that Cancer Highway.
This is something I've always wanted to do and happily I've been able to use some of the down time from my chemotherapy treatment to get this project going.
CDs are for sale for $13.99. Proceeds go to Wine for Life, an organization that doesn't exist yet.
I saw my Neurological Surgeon today.
He said the results of my last MRI were fabulous and I couldn't be doing better. The tumor has shrunk to a manageable and tiny-weeny size (a medical term I first learned this morning while reading Neurology Today in his waiting room). He was wildly enthused and thought the results were fantastic.
The only problem is that the nerve damage done to my right foot and lower leg is probably permanent. I can improve usage of my leg and it has already improved greatly from the low point of several months ago. But my Doctor tells me that I will never fully recover motion and I will probably hobble about for the rest of my life.
Of course this is a setback and disappointment. It means I won't need one of those electric go-carts that you see the handicapped using around town. What's the point of being handicapped if you can't race your physically-challenged colleagues?
The other thing I was hoping to do was to take the M-15 Bus during rush hour and make the driver mount me in my scooter and piss off everyone else on the bus by the 10 minute delay while I get strapped into a safe position. I would take it only one step down 2nd Avenue, make the driver unstrap me and maneuver me down to the ground (once again pissing off all the passengers) and then scoot right over to First Avenue and take the M15 a couple of stops uptown.
I could do that all day.
Instead, I will just hobble about with a cane and probably trip somewhere and crack my head wide open. To accelerate this process, I'm looking to buy a bicycle this week.
Tom Delay has been eliminated and they've asked me to join the gang!
I'm going to be the first dancer with brain cancer ever featured on that fabulous show.
Watch out, I'm practicing my moves, even though my right leg is not responding!
This is a new fad. Celebrity wine importers are now trying to become just plain old celebrities.
This is the American Idol era, after all.
See you on TV in three weeks!
I'm organizing a new lobby group called Wine for Life.
I think it is time for the Wine Trade to stop blabbing about Resveratrol, the Mediterranean diet, and other research as if wine is a magic get-well potion. Millions of people in this country have no medical insurance and the entire system is totally screwed. America is the only country in the industrial world which does not view medical coverage as a right of every citizen and it is time for this to change.
I just found out on Tuesday that my brain cancer is sleeping. I'm now off chemotherapy, radiation and all the other accouterments of the cancer lifestyle.
I had to pay some of the more than $400,000 fees involved with nine months of cancer care and treatment, but the amount was truly trivial. Happily, I have good insurance from Louis/Dressner Selections and I was mostly covered. I had access to a great team of doctors who guided and treated me through this crisis and I still have money in the bank.
I am certain that if I had walked into an emergency room with no insurance I would be a dead man now. I see no reason why people all over the world suffer from poor medical care and I would like to give back and support the movement to end this in America and to strengthen medical resources abroad.
Here in the wine trade, we talk about health as a way to get people to buy more wine. Screw that, let's do some lobbying to help people in unfortunate situations who are not getting the coverage they deserve. I am asking members of the wine trade to join me in this fight.
This is no joke (something I am often guilty of doing). Wine is a celebration of life and we wine merchants and wine producers should lobby to make certain that the celebration is not limited only to those who have money.
Open those bottles for everyone!
Please e-mail me at:
thewineimporter@fastmail.fm
Let's hope that Obama gets confrontational.
This country needs guaranteed medical insurance for everyone. Medical care should not be a luxury but a right, a right of every citizen.
My personal brain cancer tumor, has seemingly calmed down and is stable (see my report yesterday). I have been billed $408,632.12 since I found out I had cancer last November. I have had wonderful health care given by talented and compassionate professionals.
I can only imagine what sort of care I would have received if we didn't have a health plan which pays for all this attention. Every American should have the right to see qualified professionals and to get the best care possible.
The real "Death Panels" are the free market ones which allow wealthy wine importers to skate through brain cancer dangers and have happy endings, while others suffer and are financially ruined receiving mediocre health care.
Obama needs to take a forceful stand and this country needs to move forward.
My tumor is stable and not making trouble.
I had an MRI today, having finished off eight months of radiation, chemotherapy and incantations.
I can stop incantating and now only have to go every two months to get an MRI and see my oncologist. Then three months, then six, etc.
So, I will be surveyed but for the time being I'm ok.
My right foot and leg is still crippled, but hopefully I can get some of that back over the next year.
Being amongst the physically handicapped is tiring, no fun, and limits your options in life.
But it could be worse. At least I'm alive!
I embrace life, my loved ones, Mayor Bloomberg, Jesus Christ and the departed former City Controller Mario Procacino.
The next question is where does this leave Captain Tumor Man? Should I just go back to my old joedressner.com blog? I still have a Brain Tumor but it probably is not immediately menacing and I don't want to play for sympathy. On the other hand, it can always pop right out of remission and rears its ugly head. It's still around!
By the way, I haven't said it in a while and don't want to forget. My brother Ira Dressner is a deluded lunatic. My cousin, Dr. Barbara Hirsch, the famous Great Neck Endocrinologist, is a horribly selfish, self-involved brat who never made the psychological move out of Leona Court in East Meadow.