The main attraction in the ER waiting room: a guy I’ll call Angry Dude whose vocabulary was impressive if you’re the sort of person who appreciates the many uses of the F-word. It was like a performance art piece titled “F— This Hospital, F— You, F— Everything.”
Alright, folks. Let’s get real. If you’re part of the brigade of protesters shouting down Israel on college campuses, I’ve got news for you: America is not impressed. You think you’re raising awareness at UCLA or some Ivy League institution, but the sad truth is you’re just making a lot of noise for an audience that most of the country already dismisses as over-caffeinated trust-fund kids.
If you really want to make a splash, let me offer some advice. Don’t aim your demonstrations at the lecture halls and dormitories of America. No, no. You want to go big. You want to get attention?
You need to storm the ER at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Yes, that Cedars-Sinai—the medical mecca of Los Angeles, a place as famously Jewish as a bagel smeared with cream cheese and lox, wrapped in a copy of The Forward. That should be right up your alley if you’re aiming for a target steeped in Jewish history. Plus, here’s a bonus: the ER security at Cedars is practically nonexistent. Just ask me—I found out firsthand.
Earlier this week, in a rare attempt to display domestic competence, I decided to do a little cooking. Let me tell you, the results were nothing short of catastrophic. Picture this: I was standing in the kitchen, juggling pots and pans like some kind of past-middle-aged culinary circus performer, when—wham!—I slipped, went airborne, and head-butted the refrigerator door handle like I was trying to open it with brute force. My wife found me on the floor, blood everywhere, looking like the aftermath of a Quentin Tarantino film. She took one look at the scene and knew—no steak bleeds that much.
Off we rushed to Cedars-Sinai. And let me tell you, the ER there? It’s an experience. The place was packed, overflowing like it was offering free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. I was pretty sure we’d have better luck getting out by Thanksgiving. They’d even converted what used to be the driveway into a makeshift overflow waiting area. We took our place among the masses, me with my head injury, my wife with her ever-patient sigh of, “Why do I always end up in these situations?”
There we were, minding our own business, when we noticed the main attraction: a guy I’ll call Angry Dude. Now, Angry Dude was performing a one-man show in the ER waiting room, and believe me, it was a sold-out event. He was about 35, had a complexion as dry as the Mojave, and was hurling obscenities at everyone in sight. His vocabulary was impressive if you’re the sort of person who appreciates the many uses of the F-word. It was like a performance art piece titled “F— This Hospital, F— You, F— Everything.”
After about two hours of his running commentary, most of the other people in the waiting room had either moved out of earshot or given up on life entirely. Me? I was too dizzy to move, and besides, I was fascinated by the audacity. Here was a guy running his mouth in a hospital that’s allegedly one of the best in the world, and no one—not security, not staff, not even the vending machine guy—was lifting a finger to stop him. You’d think the place was being run by a group of overworked nuns who had taken a vow of indifference.
Eventually, after listening to Angry Dude yell about everything from his wait time to systemic racism, I decided to act. I approached the security guards—who had earlier checked me for weapons, explosives, and any other contraband I might use to accidentally hurt myself—and I explained the situation. “Hey, there’s this guy. He’s throwing snot rags on the floor, screaming at people, and generally making this a less-than-pleasant hospital experience.”
They nodded, thanked me for my concern, and did…nothing. I guess they figured if they waited long enough, the guy might just evaporate into the ether.
Fast-forward another few hours. It’s now about 4 p.m., and Angry Dude is still at it. At this point, I’m wondering if maybe he was the one who should have been seen first, if not for his physical health, then certainly for his mental state. But nope, he’s still sitting there, verbally terrorizing the room like a one-man riot. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they called me into the ER hallway. I was ushered into a new waiting area where, naturally, the entertainment followed.
That’s right, Angry Dude made his grand reappearance, this time in the actual ER waiting room. He was storming through the hallway, shouting about discrimination, demanding that only a Black doctor be allowed to touch him, and throwing in his usual smorgasbord of F-bombs. This was, mind you, after six hours of yelling in the outer waiting room. No one stopped him. Not the staff, not the security, not the invisible hand of justice that was supposed to keep us all from murdering each other.
Eventually, the loudspeaker crackled to life with a call for security, which was reassuring—until it wasn’t. A few minutes later, I saw Angry Dude being escorted into the ER by a couple of hospital staffers, not arrested, not restrained, but being talked into seeing a doctor. I can only assume they were trying to placate him in the hopes that he’d finally shut up. Well, it worked—at least temporarily. He vanished into the labyrinth of the hospital, presumably to be seen by a doctor who was praying to every deity imaginable that this guy didn’t sue Cedars for whatever perceived wrongs he was yelling about.
Finally, around 6:30 p.m., I was seen by a doctor. He was friendly enough, though his bedside manner was more “SportsCenter” than “Grey’s Anatomy.” Within two minutes of walking in, he was asking me about the Yankees and whether I thought they had a shot at the World Series. “Well, Doc,” I said, “if I can get out of here before Game 1, maybe I’ll have time to place a bet.”
“But I don’t think the Yankees are going to win,” I tell the Doc and his nurse. “My late pal Pete Rose, who used to know about these things, once told me there were never any sure bets in the World Series, but to be sure I knew what I was doing before laying down any bets against the team that wasn’t with the home-field advantage during the seven-games series.
“So , the Dodgers not only have Shohei Ohtani, the best player in the game, they also have the home-field advantage during this World Series. And so I won’t be wearing my Yankees cap to the opening game because, unfortunately, the only place I know of with worse security than Cedar Sinai Medical Center is Dodger Stadium, especially their parking lots where drunken sore loser fans sometimes beat the crap out of fans wearing caps and gear of visiting teams…”
Meanwhile, in the background, Angry Dude’s shouts echoed faintly from some distant corner of the ER, like a ghost haunting the very concept of patient care.
I tried to bring up the whole “security issue” with the doctor who put a dozen stitches into my scalp, but he shrugged it off, muttering something about the guy being sent to the psych ward. Did I believe him? Absolutely not.
My guess is Angry Dude walked out of Cedars-Sinai later that night, having somehow achieved his dream of being seen by a doctor of his choosing, and maybe even got a prescription for whatever medicine his life required, not to mention what he might’ve stolen.
So, my advice to the protesting masses? Skip the college campuses and head straight for Cedars-Sinai. If you want to make headlines, take over their ER. The place has all the chaos and none of the oversight. You can yell all day, toss around some medical equipment, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll even get someone to see you for that headache you’ve been complaining about.
And if you’re really lucky, they’ll just let you right in—security won’t mind one bit.
TONY CASTRO, the former award-winning Los Angeles columnist and author, is a writer-at-large and the national political writer for LAMonthly. org. He is the author of the forthcoming novel The Book of Marilyn. He can be reached at tony@tonycastro.com.
