Newscoma

Dear Carter,

When different sides of an issue say that you are against them and they want you “back”, you are doing alright. This is the number one rule of being in the news business. If you were always on one side of an issue, that would be not be newsy. That would be punditry. You do mix it up, do the dismay of everyone. But that’s what news is all about.

I bet you already knew that.

The mere idea that people think you are jumping into the progressive movement seriously makes me smile and run for the bottle of Advil. Although I do not agree with you about your views on homosexuality and immigration and a plethora of other things, I do believe you have a real good nose for seeing into the dangers and amusements of political rhetoric which is where I think you shine. And this is why I keep coming back to Volunteer Voters.

And, I find, we talk about you, us liberals. We either want to throttle you or find ourselves tongue-tied that you made a really good point. You keep me, at least, on my toes.

If you have everyone talking, then you are doing what your supposed to be doing. Also, there may be a time in the near future that I read something you pen and shut my eyes real tight, wishing I could come to WKRN and scream “What the hell” but as I’m not geniunely a violent person, you are safe. Because, Carter, that’s what I believe you are supposed to do. You are supposed to create a dialogue and I think you do.

I like that you aren’t really on anyone’s side. That, Carter, is cool, And you’ve proven time and time again that you can dish out it out but you can take it as well.

Respectfully from the Liberal base of one in Hooterville,

Newscoma

I watched American Idol. As Squirrel Queen refuses to watch it and she is covering high school basketball playoffs right now non-stop, I thought I’d tune in and see what was going on.

First of all, I really would like it if Simon Cowell would come over to my house, tell me the truth (because he does, I think) and I could get on with my life. My impression was very similar to things I heard last week. Don’t get me wrong, he has a smarminess about him, but I know lots of smarmy people and I’m okay with that. I guess I would have to buy one of those huge Coke glasses for him to drink out of, but I think he could give me some decent career advice.

It was very karaoke but I liked the second kid in the hat who scatted and the Jack Osborne lookalike guy was pretty good too. Homer was pulling for the guy who used to be the back up singer and although he has a set of pipes, he sort of made me fall to sleep.

I think this American Idol phenomenon is the oddest thing.

Homer, bless her little pea-picking heart, loves it. She really is fun about it and it made it fun for me.

But could someone tell that Jackson judge that if he says pitchy or dawg one more time, I’m going to throw something at the television.

Enough already.

Just chiming in.

I think a link dump is in order as today’s post was a bit emotional. Let’s sit back, relax, have a brandy or a Milwaukee’s Best. Whatever soothes your palate and makes you feel groovy.

Shall we dance? Yes, I think a nice Cha-cha is always good for the soul.

Jed, I want to be in the vast sea as well.

Raymond Finney, not Lowe, of whom I get googled all of the time is the main topic of discussion over at Cuppas.

It is seriously a wonderful funny, funny read via Aunt B.

Please run, do not walk, and read the words that Hutchmo lives by. He made me smile with this one so hard my face almost melted off my face.

Bitter Betty, I’m so jealous.

Seeing Julie happy gives me a happy.

And finally, I love horror movies and I really think I want to see this.

This is a weird time for me. Every February, the bitch of the month I really despise, I ground a lot of this to the fact that tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of my mother’s death.

I go through this every damned February. Now, you must understand as I write this annoying autobiographical pause, that my mother was my best friend. She, Homer and I were extremely close. We did a lot together and she was a good mom if I say so myself.

I may be 41, but you never get over losing a parent. The cancer she had was really horrible and we saw this lovely, vibrant woman disintegrate before our eyes over a period of 14 months.

We said goodbye a hundred times a day in little ways. I said goodbye the last time I saw her play the piano (she was playing Mozart) because I knew it would be the last time. I said goodbye when I noticed she wasn’t comprehending what was going on a television program she liked and that her mind was playing tricks on her and she was seeing something very different than what I was seeing. The cancer metastasized into her brain in messy tumors that cut into her cognitive ability so it destroyed the mind and the body.

I can’t tell you how many times I would watch her and know that something she was doing was for the last time. And each time, I said goodbye in my heart.

You have no idea how many times I said goodbye. It was a gift, I know that because so many people don’t get to say that word to their loved ones. But it didn’t make it any less hard knowing she was dying. Waking up in the morning, knowing my mother was dissolving in front of my eyes, and that this beautiful woman was evaporating because her body, as all bodies do, was betraying her and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it but love her.

Yesterday, Scout, who is one of those people that is very kind, asked me if I wanted to talk about it. She’s been around me enough to know that February, the bitch of a month that it is, is clearly a time where I go through reflection, fear and the rest of it.

I declined when she initially asked, because it still hurts. It’s still weird to talk about the that time in my life taking care of someone who was terminally ill. It’s hard to explain in words the depth of that hurt. It’s hard to explain that there wasn’t a choice because it was my mother and that I wanted to save her.

But later in the day, I did start talking to Scout about it over a beer and it was like I couldn’t shut up. It was one of the first times I actually talked to someone else about my mother’s last moments. There were no angels singing, there was no sense of purpose to it all and I’m not going to romanticize it. It was death. Very straight forward, her small ravaged body tired of radiation and chemotherapy, her body tired and her spirit, although not broken, bruised. The nurse told us to tell her to go and we did. And it wasn’t pretty or beautiful or any of those things you see in the movies.

Her body stopped. Because she died from respiratory failure, it was messy.

And she just died.

And then immediately, before we knew what was going on, the nurses came in and life at the hospital began in a surreal slow motion that to this day is hard for me to talk about. My mother turned green. I wish I was joking, but I’m not. There was so much radiation in her body that she just turned this green color. The last thing I said to my mother’s dead body was “Mom, you’re green.” I smiled because she would have appreciated my half-hearted attempt at a joke and walked out of the hospital room and walked into the hall looking for my father who I was going to ride home with.

I didn’t cry right then, I waited. I think that is why I cry about it every February because I didn’t really cry then. I went into action mode. There were things to be done. People to call, arrangements to make, a father to heal. People came, they hugged us and I smiled all through it because funerals, I have discovered, are for other people more so than they are for the family. There was no time to comprehend that my mother, a woman I adored, wasn’t coming back.

And that I was on my own. No more words of advice, no more kicking my ass for being an idiot.

There was a nothingness. A hole I still have trouble filling.

Grief is an odd, choking thing, isn’t it? I’m crying now because it’s been nearly a decade, a fourth of my life, that I haven’t had my mother and I miss her.

She was only 54 years old. And so I’m sort of stuck this week because I still grieve as does Homer.

So in honor of her for the next couple of days, be kind to each other. Say something nice to someone. Just be well.

We’ll be back to our regular programming here at the ‘coma in a little while.

I watched the Oscars. Not with the fever pitch that Squirrel Queen did, but I sat and thought Ellen was funny.

This is the first year that I haven’t seen the movies except for Little Miss Sunshine, so I really had no opinion about anything.

But here are my observations:

1. I just realized last night I have a crush on Jack Black. This is very surprising to me.
2. I did like Melissa Ethridge’s song, but I have to say that Jennifer Hudson blew Beyonce off the stage. Man, she is good.
3. Helen Mirren in sexy and I hope one day when I grow up to be an adult I can exude that much sensuality. Man, she floats.
4. When you send George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola out on the stage to give the Best Director award, were you surprised that Martin Scorsece finally won? Glad he won, but seriously. No hints given away there.
5. The Shadow people were pretty damned cool.
6. When Al Gore won, I smiled. Big.
7. If Al Gore is kidding like he did about running for president, I have a feeling he won’t be tossing his hat in the ring UNLESS he waits to see what he’s up against later in the campaign. Let us remember that the election is 20 months away.
8. Did I mention the election is 20 months away. Wait. I did.

So it’s over. Still waiting on Jim Varney to get that Life-time achievement award.

I really think that you guys need to go over to Lynnster’s blog and read her latest.

You guessed it, Campfield again. But the words of her advice in her post about politicians and blogging are really right on target.

Lynnster doesn’t really politically blog (She’s much rather write about The Replacements or the weird hours of job) and that is why her post is so important. She is, however, a person who has the right to question her government.

Man, if I was a blogging politician I’d get my hiney over there right now. Pronto.

It is darned good advice.

Terry Frank responded to a question I had regarding her relationship with her newspaper as that was the one thing I had several questions about.

I added her response to my original post here.

I appreciate her answering my question.

A few things before bed:

Sean Braisted discusses the new liquor law legislation. Apparently Rep. Marrerro and Sen. Flinn have it up for perusal.

It’s Girl Scout Time in Middle Tennessee. Kathy T. is tired.

Republican and Democratic Governors are speaking about the drain on National Guard troops over at the LA Times.

This is the most wonderful thing over at Kerry Woo’s house.

I’m with you, Big Orange Michael. *sigh*

If you like liberal snark, this is funny.

And Bryan makes me laugh with this post because this has happened to me. (Not the story, the circumstance.)

And, yeah, I thought it was clever as well.

And that fine picture I have up top of this post came from the always fun Monkeys for Helping.

Okay, I have to just throw this in here. Back in the days of dinosaurs and vinyl, my mother had an album by James Taylor called “Sweet Baby James”.

Yeah, he was hot.

It’s weird getting older. Taylor is on the Oscars now and all I can remember is how seventies sexy he was on that album cover. She would play that album for hours and it resonated with me at a very young age.

And yeah, he was cute on the album.

Not only is he getting older, but so am I because this is what I remember.

Photo

Squirrel Queen is doing the oddest live blogging of the Oscars I’ve ever seen.

It shouldn’t be missed.

If you are a Stephen King fan, here is a post over at Cinematical about King attending ComicCon. You might dig it. Here’s an excerpt:

What is the overall theme of The Dark Tower? “I would argue that if there’s an overall theme to The Dark Tower, it’s one of evolution. You don’t get what you want immediately. Sometimes you have to try more than one time. I’m not going to get any closer to a spoiler than that, but if you’ve read all the books you know what I’m talking about. Sometimes you don’t get it right the first time, or the second time, or the fiftieth time — there has to be an evolutionary process. Let me just say this — because I know that some of you are Harry Potter fans — when you do a long volume work, it’s essentially one work. When you get to the end, you’re always going to piss off the fans. They are pissed off because it’s over

There are many more goodies over there so head on over. 

Okay, I know I bitched about Wednesday’s Lost episode, but I still dig the show. But then I read this and got to thinking …

Will quality matter, though, if Lost is getting killed by the press? Would lapsed or new viewers want to give the show a chance after reading about it online? Most viewers would not want to bother with a show that was not expected to last beyond a fourth season. As a fan, I worry that the overwhelmingly negative media attention will discourage interest in the show. An even bigger concern is that the Lost writers will heed bad advice and move away from the elements that made it successful in the first place.

It’s a valid pop cultury sort of argument. I will continue to watch Lost. I like it, but it seems there is a lot of juice in this post over at TV Squad.

I’m waiting to see what happens.