Category: art

My Last Hospital-Administered Skyrizi Infusion

$320-per-minute infusion in progress (it takes just over an hour).

What does one wear to a $20,000-a-dose drug infusion? At least one person suggested a tiara and evening gown.

Arriving at the hospital

One Skyrizi intravenous infusion dose is 600mg, or 2.1164 .21164 ounces. At $20,000 per dose that’s $9,450 $943,333 per ounce.

CORRECTION: my math was off by a factor of 10. Via JO 753 in a comment below:

“There are 28.3 gramz per ounse. 600 milligramz iz .6 gramz, so an ounse iz 47 dosez. Thats 943,333$ an ounse.

No wonder they can run commercialz for this stuff all day.”

The Queen on her throne.

For comparison, gold is $2,051 per ounce, as of this writing. So Skyrizi retails at more than four fourty-six times the cost of pure gold.

I could have saved so much money if I’d gotten infused with pure gold instead of Skyrizi.

Since starting my Crohn’s disease adventure I’ve learned that basically no one pays the retail price of these drugs. Instead, an insurer pays a fraction, and the rest is written off by the pharmaceutical company and hospital so they can claim they’re “charities” and avoid taxes.

Mmmm, money.

It would be like if I charged $150,000 for my $150 Drawings. Customers would still pay $150 and I’d set up a “financial assistance program” to generously cover the rest. Then I’d mark a net loss of $149,850 per drawing, which I could write off my taxes if I made enough to pay big taxes in the first place, but I don’t because I stay just below the poverty line so I can continue qualifying for Medicaid which pays for my Skyrizi.

Hospital money is fake.

That’s the difference between someone who buys a cheap tiara and fake movie-prop money off Amazon, and someone who is actually rich.

My friend Minette, who took these photos, thought a shot of my back was important.

Anyway that’s it for my hospital-administered Skyrizi infusions. My next $20,000 dose will be a 360 mg/2.4 mL “single-dose prefilled cartridge with on-body injector”. That’s $15,748 $157,222 per ounce, equivalent to about 7.68 76.8 ounces of gold.

$157,222 per ounce
$2,051 per ounce

Gold is looking like a real bargain right now.

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My Disciplinarian

“I admire your discipline,” said a friend, referring to my extremely strict, narrow Crohn’s diet. But there’s nothing to admire, because it’s not SELF discipline. It’s being subject to a brutal, sadistic “disciplinarian” that punishes the hell out of me if I make one false move. If you had this taskmaster you’d be “disciplined” too.

(Not a $150 Drawing, but looks like one.)

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Maya’s Request

As you know, requests for my  Hundred Hundred-and-Fifty Dollar Drawings are limited to two words or less.

But on March 11 I found this in my Twitter DMs:

Could you draw this as a picture for me

“it is a prime opportunity to get inside the tent with a goal-line defence, unless a clear upstream threat, accompanied by actionable intelligence, pops its head up”

Normally I’d say no, as that is batshit and impossible. However the request came from Maya Forstater, who explained:

It is a present for Helen Joyce – she has been training military types on how to write as a side-gig and this is the kind of thing they say.

Given the commissioner and the recipient, it was a challenge I couldn’t refuse, although I charged more for the extra words plus hazard pay (risk of head explosion). But first I gave it to AI art generator Dall-E:

Clearly this was a job for a human being. I felt so needed.

Although it was impossible to convey everything in the request, I did my best:

“it is a prime opportunity to get inside the tent with a goal-line defence, unless a clear upstream threat, accompanied by actionable intelligence, pops its head up”

Looks like I won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon.

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GENDER WARS playing cards in progress

When a friend recently suggested a deck of playing cards featuring major players in the “gender wars,” I knew I wanted a set. I tried to find other ways to make it happen – photographs? Filters? AI art generator? – but decided the most expedient option was to just do it myself. Which isn’t particularly expedient, as a deck requires 54 designs (if you include 2 Jokers).

I generally suck at caricatures, but decided my limited skills would have to be adequate. I Can Do Hard Things, just not perfectly.

This is probably my most successful caricature so far. Do not expect this level of resemblance throughout the deck.

Working furiously, this week I made the first suit, Hearts. Red suits (hearts and diamonds) will be more-or-less gender critical, and black suits (clubs and spades) will be more-or-less transactivist. If this sounds like inside baseball, it is; that’s why my friend suggested a deck in the first place. I’ve turned into a gender nerd, and “civilians” have no idea whom I’m referring to when I gossip. Edutainment!

I want to crowdfund for this project, but as I don’t trust any major crowdfunding platforms, I just set up some PayPal pre-order buttons. Yes I know PayPal sucks too, all online payment platforms suck, and cryptocurrency is still too volatile.

Pre order here!

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