Monthly Archives: May 2017

• I'm starting to think James Comey's going to go down in history as the man who cost both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump the White House.

The Mystery of the Mysterious Glass…

It's been a month plus a few days since my wonderful friend Carolyn Kelly passed away. Everyone, including one of her doctors who phoned the other day, keeps asking me, "Are you all right?" Yes, I'm all right. Honest. I've had a ton of things to do like cleaning out her apartments and managing legal papers and I still have some of that…but I had somewhat gotten past Carolyn's death before it happened, if you can understand what I mean by that.

Over the next few weeks here, I'm going to write a few pieces about the experience. If any of them make you uncomfortable, please just skip them and move on to the next post, which will probably be about what a truly horrible president Donald Trump is turning out to be. But I write about some things just to sort out my own thoughts and feelings, and sometimes I post them here because I think/hope that something in what I write will help someone else out there. If it doesn't, it doesn't…but that's kind of the secondary reason for my writing it. The first is usually for my benefit.

Writing helps me. A lot of other things helped me through the period, one being a fine team of palliative care doctors at Kaiser Hospital. Before Carolyn, I lost people close to me including my mother and my father…but I had somehow not even encountered "palliative care." I only knew what it meant from afar. It means — and I am here cutting-and-pasting from another site —

Palliative care (pronounced pal-lee-uh-tiv) is specialized medical care for people with serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

Palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of doctors, nurses and other specialists who work together with a patient's other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment.

— but I'd never worked with such a team. I can't tell you how impressed I was with the kindness, the understanding, the efficiency and just the general caring from the squadron we had. When I was in for a check-up from my own physician, I mentioned to him how terrific these folks were and he said, "I'll let you in on a little secret of the medical profession. Most palliative care people are terrific. The job attracts the people with the largest hearts and the greatest empathy. You will probably be even more impressed when you begin dealing with hospice."

That also proved to be true. The last week or so of Carolyn's life, two hospice nurses took turns pulling twelve-hour shifts to be with her. I sat for hours with the "night nurse," a young woman of about twenty-eight who was so sharp and understanding, I'm sure she could have worked in any area of medicine she chose. She chose hospice because, she said, it was there that she felt the greatest sensation of actually helping people — the dying person and their loved ones, as well.

I was reminded of a friend of mine from high school who I've written about here. He's semi-retired now but he spent his entire career as a doctor working in an emergency room. Every time they tried to promote him outta there — even though the so-called "better position" meant better money and hours — he said no. He told me, "They keep wanting to put me in a job where I'll shuffle papers and refer people in pain to specialists. In the E.R., I actually do things to make the pains go away. That's what I became a doctor to do." How can you not respect someone who thinks like that?

The palliative care and hospice people made it possible for me to do something which I have learned is vital in one's life when you have a challenge like the long, long months in which Carolyn was dying and nothing was going to stop that. I had to keep my own life up and functioning, writing scripts and meeting deadlines…oh, yeah — and earning money. Even with good insurance, what went on with Carolyn was not cheap.

I could not be unavailable when she needed me for something but I also could not devote every minute to her care. Maintaining my perspective and judgment were essential, not only for myself but for her. You can make a situation worse by over-reacting as well as under-reacting. You need to constantly ask yourself, "How big are the problems today?" Only then can you effectively deal with them.

You also have to know what you need to do yourself and what you can/should delegate to others. Others could change her pajamas or dole out pills or prepare her food as well as I could or, probably, better. None of them had as much trust as she placed in me. None of them could make her smile or laugh as much as I could…or reassure her that someone who loved and understood her was watching out for her, taking care of her bills and her apartment, etc. My assistant John could deliver items to her but I had to be the guy in charge.

When they'd done as much as they could do for her in the hospital, we moved Carolyn at first to what they call a Skilled Nursing Facility — and at this one, the "skilled" part seemed mostly correct but not always. It was more often correct when the staff there knew she had someone like me around to supervise and complain.

Then she spent eleven months in an Assisted Living Facility where the remainder of her life played out. The nurses there were great and we quickly found the proper balance of what I had to do for Carolyn and what I could trust them to handle.

They really loved her. So did a lot of the other residents in the facility. Until things got really bad, she was the sunniest presence there, making all assume she was much younger than she was and offering kind words plus that great smile to all. When John or I went to the market for Carolyn, she'd usually ask us to get some candy or fresh fruit she could pass out to the other residents. It seemed to actually help Carolyn — her mood if not her health — to do that.

A number of cartoonists we knew — including Jim Davis, Sergio Aragonés and Scott Shaw! — sent "get well" drawings which Carolyn put up on her wall. Other residents would stop in to see her gallery and be very impressed that Carolyn knew such people. She put one of the Pogo collections she edited in the communal library and got us a few new Groo the Wanderer fans by passing around copies she asked me to bring her.

There was a woman there…I guess she was in her late eighties. The last month or so, she didn't see Carolyn because Carolyn was confined to bed in her room. Every time this woman spotted me in the hall, she'd asked me, "Is she any better? Is she any better?" The answer was always no and I felt bad for this woman that I couldn't say yes.

I mean, I could have engaged in some phony optimism. I did a certain amount of that with Carolyn for months but I knew how it was going to end and after a time, Carolyn did too, especially after Kaiser turned her case over to the palliative care department. She stopped asking me, "Do you still think I'm going to make it?" At some point though, and without discussing it, we mutually agreed to be more realistic. We didn't talk much about dying but we spoke less about not dying…because we both knew that "not dying" was not going to happen.

Friends keep asking me, "Was there a moment when you knew it was almost over?" Yes, several. A year or so earlier, Carolyn had signed an Advanced Care Medical Directive which essentially said that if and when the time came that she was unable to make medical decisions for herself, I would be legally empowered to make them on her behalf. Even if you're in great health, you should have one of these…though as I type this, I realize that I need to make out a new one. Mine still says that if I can't decide for me, Carolyn will.

When the palliative care folks called and said, "As far as we are concerned, you are now deciding for her," I knew she had weeks, not months left. One of her doctors had laid out a timetable for me of what would happen and when. If you added about 16 days to every approximate date he gave me, he was right on the money. In the next few weeks, there were other indicators that the end was closing in on us but that was the big one.

I'm sure someone reading this will write and tell me of a horrible experience with palliative care and/or hospice. Don't bother. I'm not saying they're all infallible or even good. I'm just telling you my story and expressing my gratitude to some fine doctors and nurses. I cannot begin to tell you how much they helped her…and in many ways, they helped her by helping me to help her. I'll write more about this in a few days.

• The good news is that Trump wants a full investigation into the Russia scandal. The bad news is he says, "Ivanka will do a thorough job!"

John Cleese is doing five podcasts for BBC Radio called John Cleese Presents. You can hear the first one and all subsequent ones here and I believe each one will be online for 28 days but I wouldn't count on that. Thanks to all of you who let me know about this.

Going this evening to see this lady…

Eric Levitz lists 19 things that are — shall we say? — odd about Trump firing Comey. Stranger and stranger.

Folks I know and respect keep telling me, "This time, Trump's gone too far." They're sure the latest lie or action is going to bite him in the ass and bring down the whole house o' cards…and then it doesn't. But if you keep predicting something like that with someone like him, you'll eventually be right. I think the guy's going to crash and burn. I just don't know if it'll be the firing of James Comey or the next thing or the one after. But something will. Here come the links…

• Frank Rich thinks no matter what kind of stooge gets installed to derail any investigations of Trump and his administration, it won't work. And Rich makes a pretty good case for why it won't work.
• There are a lot of outraged editorials today about how we need a special prosecutor and it shouldn't be, say, Ivanka. Here's John Cassidy with one.
• Here's an article that compares what's going on to Nixon's infamous Saturday Night Massacre. And here's another. And still another.
• Jesse Berney on the "creepy feeling" that while Comey deserved to be fired, there's reason to fear how Trump is eliminating anyone who could hold him accountable for actions or misdeeds.
• Matthew Yglesias on the Trump/GOP strategy to defend the American Health Care Act. It seems to be to just lie about what's in it and what it will do…and then if someone points out the lie, you dismiss them as biased and/or to say, "Well, that's their opinion. I'm entitled to my opinion and that cutting $880 billion from Medicaid couldn't possibly result in reduced care and higher fees."

The timing of Comey's firing was such that most of the late night shows couldn't do very much with it. We'll see what they have for us tonight. Could be brutal.

Here are two very funny men: John Cleese and Peter Cook…

Now-Unemployed FBI Director James Comey was speaking to an office full of FBI personnel today when he heard that he'd been fired by President Trump. I thought Trump only fired people in a boardroom and told them to their faces.

Everyone's speculating why. Was it because Comey was incompetent? That doesn't seem to be much of a disqualifier in this administration. Was it because his investigations were getting closer to linking Trump to wrongdoing? That's what a lot of folks are saying; that Trump wanted a puppet in there who would clear him and maybe use the FBI against his political enemies. If he now appoints Chris Christie or Rudy Giuliani to the post, that will seem to confirm that theory. Right now, I don't know and neither do all the folks out on the 'net trying to guess what's up.

A lot of them are recalling the infamous Saturday Night Massacre of Watergate. Here, Ed Kilgore discusses that concept. And here's a nice primer on Watergate for those who are either too young to remember or did too many drugs back then to even be aware of it.

A lot of folks who hate the American Health Care Act have written or spread the word that under it, rape would be considered a pre-existing condition. There are many shameful, harmful things about the bill and that would certainly be another if it were true. But it's been debunked in a number of places including Politifact and the Washington Post.

I have found those two fact-checking sites to be pretty good — and come to think of it, I should mention Factcheck.Org and I sometimes come across others that don't do it full-time but do it responsibly when they do it. Once in a while, I think they confuse an honest mistake with a deliberate lie, or call someone a fibber for what seems to be like just bad phrasing…but for the most part, I think they do the job. If you don't like them, I hope you have some dispassionate source that you'll trust when it tells you something you maybe don't want to hear. Seems like there are more and more people out there these days who don't.

You can divide Americans into two groups a great many different ways but one that occurs to me more and more has to do with how they react when some news story or statistic that supports their worldview turns out to be erroneous. Some people say, "Okay, I guess I was wrong about that." But some just seem to want every possible "fact" that confirms their beliefs and they don't want to turn loose of any of them. At WonderCon, a woman told me that nothing will ever convince her that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, end of discussion.

Years ago, I might have tried challenging her set-in-concrete belief. In this case, it truly was the end of the discussion. She didn't want to hear it so I didn't see any point in saying it.

Please don't tell me that every single bad thing out there about Donald Trump is true. Or every single bad thing about Obama. Or about Bill or Hillary or George W. or Bernie or whoever and it isn't just people. It can be every single alleged "fact" about Climate Change or Gun Control or Health Care or cole slaw or —

Wait. Every single bad thing you've ever heard about cole slaw is true, including those reports that I made up about how many people each year die from just the sight of the stuff. But that's the only topic where that's the case. I slip once in a while but for the most part, I've given up trying to even talk with certain people who are relentless this way. The other day, I declined an invite to a party where two of them will be present.

One will just go on and on about how we need to build a cell like the one they put Hannibal Lecter in and throw Hillary Clinton inside and toss the key. Okay, fine, I like Hillary and he doesn't and I think that the fact that even her worst enemies in power won't charge her with a crime is significant. He thinks — he knows — it's because she has blackmail evidence on all her enemies. She somehow didn't use it to stop them from attacking her during the presidential campaign but it's all that's keeping her out of the slammer.

Anyway, you'd figure being around that guy would irritate me and make it hard to have a rational discussion and it does. But the other guy is the same way about the Bush family who I happen to think did harmful, dishonest things…and I don't want to be around him, either.

I think I've just had enough of people who make bad arguments along with the possibly good ones; who work backwards from "I hate this person" to believing every possible rumor or bit of Internet gossip; who even believe stories on parody websites that admit they're spreading "fake news." I'm not even going to waste my time talking to a Trump supporter who insists Donald won the popular vote or that he deserves credit for job growth that took place before the inauguration.

To me, they're all like I am about cole slaw. The only difference is that I'm kidding and they actually believe that crap.

Once upon a time, the name "National Lampoon" denoted work by a group of young, brilliant writers and cartoonists. Now, it's something that appears on projects of dubious quality and even more dubious connection to its roots. What brought it to this condition? Here's Benjamin Wallace with a real long article about what it's been like lately in NatLampLand. Nothing in the magazine or its branded movies was ever as absurd.

I'm in no great hurry to see the new Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler. Next trip to New York, if it's still running and I can get tix without selling my car, I probably will but I'm not a huge fan of the musical itself and I'll probably see it wishing she was just doing her concert show instead.

Hey, you know what Al Jolson used to do when he was in a book musical? Sometimes, he'd just stop the show — literally — and break character. He'd walk down to the footlights and ask the audience, "Say, how's about if instead of doing the rest of this play, we send the actors home and I'll just sing to you?" The audience would always cheer its approval and that's what would happen. They wouldn't finish the play. He'd sing "Swanee" and "California, Here I Come" and all his other hits, sometimes for hours. The orchestra always had that sheet music handy because they never knew when he was going to do that. Wonder how everyone would react if Bette tried that some night.

Anyway, her Dolly cast album is coming out shortly and previews of it are all over the 'net. At the moment, for what I assume is a limited time, you can hear the entire thing here. On various forums, debates are occurring between theater buffs who love it and those who feel that its makers have made a big orchestra sound like a small orchestra and lost a certain brassiness that the Jerry Herman tunes seem to require. I'm not taking sides on this one. Decide for yourself.

Too busy today to even post about how terrible Donald Trump and/or the Republican Health Care plan is. Perhaps you can find someone else on the 'net who feels that way. I will be back later or maybe tomorrow.

I suddenly seem to be on a "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" kick here.  This is that number from a recent British production, as performed at the 2016 Olivier Awards, which were handed out in London's Royal Opera House. The only performer I recognize is Richard Kind, who's playing Nathan Detroit. I did a little detective work on Google and it would seem that the gent playing Nicely Nicely Johnson is Gavin Spokes. If it isn't, my apologies to him and to whoever it is. I don't care for the little add-on section to make the song jazzier but it's performed well…