The Terrible Extracting Price of Cancer
The Terrible Extracting Price of Cancer
Author Trigger Warning: This is not light reading on the topic of cancer. It is what I have had to live through with the disease as I continue to fight for a cure. If you truly want to understand what it is like for a patient to go through this journey from the inside, then read on. If you are not prepared for the sort of darkness this disease brings it may be best you pass on reading this post.
March 23, 2017. 9:27am
That was the exact time my life changed forever. I went to the doctor with something that for over two months had been eating away at my normal life. Before I walked into that office on that fateful day, I had been slipping in my day to day activities. I walked down a long hall at my work literally leaning against the wall. My knees often buckled when I rose from my seat. I tried to make myself eat lunch, buying the smallest amount of food that seemed at the time I purchased it would be enticing enough to eat – it often wasn’t and I’d stop only after a few bites. Nothing tasted right. I knew something was horribly, horribly wrong. For over a month I hid it from my husband. I said nothing, I just did my best to shower and get ready for work and slowly crept out of the bedroom and with wobbly knees I was so unsure of I made my way slowly down the staircase to the car (once seated I was safe for the journey) and then I drove myself to work.
My day to day for the first two months of that year were sketchy. Thankfully, being a network engineer I didn’t have to visit too many people at their desks when things went awry. I could use remote technology to remotely control their systems and rectify the situation. If it warranted further assistance we had it within our power to ask for one of the operations crew to make the physical visitation to assist. So, for the most part I could stay rooted to my chair and desk while I continued to play that things were still somewhat normal. Lunchtimes soon turned into me just putting down the back seat of my car and trying to rest for a half hour or so to gather my energy to finish the day. Once the trek to my car was so bad I nearly fainted in the parking lot. I was scared to the point of absolute silence over what I was dealing with. I tried every way to do things as normally as I could.
It was a lie I told myself. Because I desperately wanted it to be true.
Have you ever watched Lord of the Rings? I’m sure you have. It’s one of my favorite series of films. But lately I’ve come to see it analogous to my diagnosis of cancer.
I even had a moment like Frodo, Aragorn, Gimli, and Gandalf (with the others) at the Mines of Moria where they struggled to find the phrase to open the gates and enter. I called my doctor with the symptoms I’d been having. This was in February. I explained everything that I was dealing with and the scheduling nurse informed me that it would be three weeks before I could see him. I took the appointment. What else could I do? I asked that if there were a cancellation please call me and let me know.
When I saw the doctor on that fateful day, and his preliminary examination startled him, he asked why I had not informed the nurse of the severity of my situation. I told him what I said and he shook his head and murmured something about how they want to hear a certain phrase that would escalate the necessity for an earlier appointment. Somehow I missed the memo on that secret decoder ring phrase that would have gotten me an appoint sooner. I grumbled a bit inside, casting a heated gaze at my husband along the way but it was what it was. We had to deal with where we were at that time. But after he had me wheeled down for the ultra sound it was confirmed, I had a tumor and it was most likely cancerous.
I had no feeling about it. I couldn’t grasp onto anything inside to tell me how to feel about those words from his mouth. I just nodded and glanced at my husband but said nothing. Flash back a year ago and I was eating breakfast at the dining room table, my granddaughter was watching cartoons (it was a Saturday morning) and I remember as I finished up something in the back of my mind said, “You’ve got cancer …” I had to no reason to think that. I felt fine.
It was fleeting and I soon forgot about it. But I recalled it the moment the confirmation of my disease left the doctor’s mouth. I think this is why I couldn’t grasp at anything to express what was building inside over this shocking diagnosis. The next thing he said was that on Monday, the 26th, (this was a Friday morning) he wanted me at the hospital for surgery to remove the tumor. I had two days to prepare over the weekend. Now, up to this point I did everything in my life to avoid being in hospitals. No broken bones, no prolonged diseases or ailments that would require a stay in a hospital of any kind. I detested being there – even to visit others. Now, at 52, I was going to have my first operation. I was terrified.
But I dutifully went to the appointment, went through the process of being prepped for the surgery and even tried joking with the nurses while I was being prepped. Oddly enough, it was an outpatient surgery. As soon as I came out of it I was sent home. Two days later I was back at work. It all seemed so surreal. A part of me was missing, the cancerous part, but still it was something I was born with that was now taken from me – leaving me marked as some sort of freak. It was then that the cancer began to voice itself. Like Smeagol, Gollum began to whisper to me.
“I have you now, my precious …” Don’t laugh. It felt very real. I walked around much better and was able to start eating again in a normal fashion. But still that voice that I had cancer lingered. I knew the battle was far from over. In a week’s time from the initial surgery I had to go for a PET scan to see what residual cancerous cells still existed. This was news to me. I didn’t know that I could have it elsewhere once the tumor had been removed. The PET scan revealed that I had cancerous cells in various places along a chain of lymph nodes that lead to where the tumor was. I would have to have chemo treatment to eradicate them from my system.
The good news, according to my oncologist and my husband (who has a medical background having practiced medicine early in his career) was that the type of cancer I had was 98% curable. I had one of the “good ones” …
Nothing felt great about it. There was no “good” in any of this.
And still that Gollum voice raged inside … with over tones of Darth Vader: I have you now … don’t think you’ll get away that easy.
Slowly I informed a few people I trusted at work what I had. Luckily, the company was a big advocate for cancer (often having huge company wide drives to donate for research for the disease and for additional resources to be funded). One of the programmers, a Brit ex-pat who I got along with came over and revealed to me he was dealing with stage 4 colon cancer. But his prognosis was excellent, he was beating the cancer. He told me that if I ever wanted to talk – during lunch or whatever – he was there for me. Then he gave me two points to take to heart: 1) Allow myself to feel (without guilt of any kind) what I wanted to feel; and 2) Find a support group – “You’ll need them more than you know.”
I have followed his advice on those two profound points and it has what’s kept me sane through out this long battle I’ve been on.
So where’s the darkness I warned of?
It’s been here all along. It whispers to me. When I cut up an apple to have as a mid-day snack, it whispers, “Enjoy this, it might be the last time you eat one.” When I’ve been writing, working on my latest novel, I type out a couple of thousand words and then I feel the need to nap, it’s there too, whispering, “Can’t keep up with what you used to do, huh?” I don’t sleep soundly now. Even with the drugs my oncologist prescribes to assist with that. It’s a restless sleep – with that Gollum voice ear worming into your mind terrible thoughts of how others close to you will deal with your death. You panic, you toss and turn trying to shut it down, find some sort of peace from the constant whispering that it does.
You know what else it does to you? I makes you one of the best actors on the planet. Laurence Olivier (were he still alive)? Bring it Larry, it’s on. I can out act normalcy to yours any damned day. My whole life is one long scene that has no resolution, no curtain call, no bows. I smile, I make jokes, I converse, all the while that Gollum voice has a hold of me inside, eating away at my resolve to present myself as I always have. Make no mistake, it’s an act. Underneath, I am white-knuckling it every damned day. Nay, every damned second.
In group we talk about how the disease affects our lives and those around us – our loved ones (friends and family). It often comes up that there’s that little squinch that happens to their bodies when our friends or family ask, “how are you feeling today?” – it’s almost imperceptible but it’s there. A slight pull back of, “Just say you’re fine so I don’t have to know too much.” So, you learn to edit yourself on the fly. You lie if you have to. To comfort them. Because that’s part of the gig now. This disease has you by the proverbial throat and is whipping you around like a favorite dog chew toy but you’re expected to say, “It’s okay, I’m dealing with it,” and move on so they feel they’ve done their part to inquire, but also your part to not say what’s really fucking happening. As if by imparting some small part of it they, too, will catch it somehow. That the mere exchange will cause those cancerous cells that have clawed their way into every part of you will some how choose that moment to release themselves and fly out of your mouth and into theirs.
It’s absurd, but people react to you very differently once they know you have it. There are exceptions, certainly, I am speaking in broader terms here. Family and friends who have been exposed to others who have had cancer and actually helped them through it, get it. They ask you sincerely and there is no pulling back in their body language. They know all too well what is raging inside: the anger, the hurt, the freakish Gollum like feeling that overwhelms you at every turn.
This disease is insidious. It robs you of your normalcy. It takes, cleaves and eats away at everything you hold dear in your life. I watch others complain of everyday things like co-workers or some asshole on the freeway, etc. I want to scream at them how I’d like to have those troubles again! How dare you give me your common place problems!
Instead, I blink, holding back angry tears, and just smile as best I can and nod while listening to their simple problems in life.
Or seeing their accomplishments. One part of me, the small part that used to wholly be me, is happy for them and celebrates what they’re going through. But the majority of me grows darker, more malevolent over their happiness. I don’t want it. I fight it. I don’t always win. But I still fight. Please know, the fight is there. Fucking tears …
My husband is a tremendous support. While I try to sleep at night he is busy researching for immuno-therapies that are on the rise and are providing wondrous cures for all sorts of cancer now. We are entering a new age of treatment – one where radiation, surgery and chemo will be a thing of the past. The trouble is, they are all in clinical studies that you have to match up to. So, he combs the net at 2 to 4 in the morning searching for studies that I might be a fit for. This is the same man that examined over 3000 pages of my medical records to distill them down to a narrative that we can present to any doctor or specialist we see that gives them exactly the points they would be looking for from a doctor’s perspective – sparing them the effort to comb through those records themselves. They often thank him profusely for the effort. It shortcuts our time with them and we can get to the heart of the matter. He’s truly a superhero when it comes to my care. And it’s not easy on him. I see the toll my disease is extracting from him. He’s tired, too. Being 16 years my senior it’s quite a bit for him to take on being the caregiver in this situation. I do what I can to alleviate that as much as I can but sometimes it can’t be helped. I hate myself when he has to do something for me. Not because it takes from him insomuch as I can see clearly how much this disease has robbed me.
And to be clear about the rigors of chemo – it is different for each – mine required a hospital stay for six days. The chemo would start at 10am and continue through the day and into the night ending at 6am the following morning for EACH cycle. I had roughly three hours to be free of that pump machine they had me connected to. Oh, and to make sure that the effects of chemo weren’t too harsh I set up a maze with the pump machine that I had to navigate amongst the table tray and the side cabinet next to my bed that let me know if I could do it without hitting anything that I was still in some sort of control of my muscles. That the neuropathy that the chemo causes hadn’t crippled me to the point of not being able to maneuver as I needed to. All the while I had to fucking get through it without pissing myself. But I did it so that each time I could get through the maze of tables, cabinets and that five pronged wheeled pump machine and still make it to the bathroom I was doing good. It sounds meager, I know. But to me, it meant the world. Don’t think I am not crying a bit as I write this knowing this is the level my life has come to.
There is this pervading feeling that like Frodo you are carrying the ring to Mount Doom. And every little horrible thing it does to Frodo along the way you can completely identify with it. You can’t have a moments rest from it. You can’t put it down and walk away just to breathe and feel like it’s going to sort itself somehow. It’s a race. It’s exhausting. And your beat. Like that chew toy you feel whipped around, battered and bloodied lying in a swill of piss and mud and someone inside of you says “Get up! I’ve got more where that came from.” And you’re strong because you’ve endured. But you’re tired.
So. Very. Fucking. Tired.
Tired of editing yourself, tired of lying to others saying you’re getting through it okay when you’re not. Raging at the disease every time it whispers it’s malignance to you. Watching yourself waste away – the chemo it is said adds ten years to your life from an appearance standpoint. I see it. It’s like those years were robbed of me in just one year of fighting this disease.
Yet, I am tempered in that anger and rage because there are those in my group who have been battling it longer than I have. There are some who are resigned that there is no cure for them in sight. They manage the rest of their lives knowing that chemo will be a part of it until they take their last breath. So, I count myself lucky (so far) to be amongst them but not in their shoes. “There but for the grace of God …” right? I’m an atheist through and through but I get the meaning behind that phrase.
I just received a call from the Cancer Center that is overseeing my case as I write this post. My PET scan has been approved by my insurance. With the last of my chemo completed this is the moment where we see if it did its job in getting rid of everything. Even if it’s clean this time, I have to have another six months from now and check it then. This is the nail biting time. A recurrence can spring up at anytime if the chemo wasn’t completely successful. So, while I have gone through two full rounds (four cycles each) of chemo to address my cancer, I am still feeling shaky that it took. The reason I stand on this is that my cancer has not behaved like these types of germ cells should – slow moving and responding well to chemo. I’ve been both resistant and the disease spread from two tiny spots on one lymph node in December to spread along my lymph chain within a matter of weeks. So, no, I don’t hold out that chemo did it’s job. I am expecting something to be there and that my journey to fight this thing will rage on.
And I am scared. I am fighting for my life while trying to keep a smile on for the rest of the world to see when all I want to do is scream to the heavens “Why me?!”
I write, escaping into my novels for some refuge from the Gollum voice telling me there’s no Mount Doom in my future. If I let my characters voices clog my head I can’t hear that Gollum creature trolling around back there. But I feel the blood it extracts from me – even when I can’t hear it. I’m strong … but I’m tired.
So, very, very, tired.
Until next time … (fingers crossed)
– SAC
When Reviews Fail Authors
When Reviews Fail Authors
-or-
Much Ado about – Wow, uh, really?
Okay, so bear with me here… I’m mentally rambling on an concept that I want to chew on. Tangents will abound. My sincere apologies if you aren’t quite in the mood for it. Don’t say you haven’t been warned …
So I know people are entitled to their opinions. I know that those comments and feelings that they have on any topic is part of the game. I get that. Having spent a great portion of my life on the stage and having to deal with people’s opinions of the work on offer at the time is part of the gig that I signed on for.
But in this information age I think that it carries far more weight that it’s worth really.
And before anyone grouses out there about my going off on a tangent (you were warned, after all) we all best remember that trolling is a very real thing and can be very detrimental (if not outright scary) when it comes knocking at your door.
We ALL know this “guy”… don’t we?
The problem is that everyone who isn’t a content creator thinks that their opinion trumps all who came before or after. And sometimes, shockingly enough, touted as being more profound than the creator who did the, uh, ya know: creating!
And I get that we want some sort of feedback as a creator. It is part of the cycle, isn’t it?
But then I read several reviews (and, to be clear, they aren’t all regarding novels, either) where the “review” is little more than a synopsis or a book report of what happened. If we all wanted to know that why would we read the book or see the movie or whatever?
I’ve always said I want an honest review of the work – with all of it’s blemishes and beauty marks as they may be. I am not afraid of criticism – as long as it is warranted. Haters who just love to bash something or do the equivalent of a “drive-by” assassination of the work simply for their own personal aggrandizement or back patting, is rather pathetic and will get an instant cold shoulder from me.
BUT, if you have a specific gripe or take on an element of the work that didn’t work for you – yay you! Doesn’t mean I have to buy into it as its creator – after all it is still my baby. My creation, my world.
So why the rant? Why the extolling and waxing prosaic on trolls, wanna be reviewers, and general haters?
Because I am sort of over the whole “what do you think about it.” At least on a personal level. I think Gore Vidal said it best when it came to the style of a writer:
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” ― Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal circa 1948
Great words. I’ve taken them to heart really. But then again, Vidal pretty much has been a beacon of intellect for me – it’s where I ground myself as a creator. So for me, as an author, I am really not so wrapped up in what others think to the point where it could cause me grief (especially if it appears they have an axe to grind with my work or are just generally mean spirited – that sort of muck rises to the top like floaters in the ocean from a broken sewage main).
What I do sort of grouse about is the terrible language that seems to permeate most of those reviews. In one I saw someone wrote that they didn’t like the vocabulary used (when it was clear that they meant dialog – I won’t cite the actual work out of kindness to its “author”). And they went so far as to confuse dialog with inner-monologue. These aren’t esoteric terms, people. And I re-read it several times to make sure that it was dialog that was the intended meaning. It was. But they used vocabulary – why?
Alas, sadly, that wasn’t the only instance.
In a very real way I sort of see the logic of why in traditional publishing they had that whole gatekeeping to qualify for publishing. Agents and inquiry letters were involved. There was a certain symmetry to it. And a real effort had to be made by an author to be heard. Now, not so much. They were there to ensure that the work was of, at the very least, a certain degree of quality. Experts who knew of proper story construct and characterizations.
Now, with the way things are anyone can (and often do) publish their works and are clearly in it for the adoration they think they so richly deserve. Most of the self-pubbed stuff out there is shit – poorly written, constructed and edited (Jesus, are there ever some crap-assed editors out there). And I am not saying this because I’m a Bitter Betty and want adoration coming my way. It’d be nice but it is NOT a requirement on my part. I will write either way. Why? Because I like what I am doing with it. I like putting worlds together, having characters grapple with it all. I love fleshing out their idiosyncrasies and foibles that have them blunder spectacularly to whip up the inherent drama (as a great opera singer friend of mine once said whilst we were backstage waiting to go on: no one ever comes to a happy opera – meaning: drama drives all).
And even in comedy, there has to be a small sliver of pathos or drama to create those peaks and valleys that allow us that a-ha moment of enlightenment that tickles both our funny bone and our intellect.
But for the most part, I think most reviewers voice an opinion to see their own name in print somewhere. Oddly enough, I actually read reviews. Not because I am envious of some other author being lauded upon to the point that brown-nosing is involved. Or as SJD Peterson once told me:
“…to the point where they are blowing so much sunshine up my backside that I get a sunburn from it.”
Yeah, I get that. There are those reviews where the audience member is simply enthralled with the idea that they are in some way interacting with the author on a personal level and need to praise them to ensure their being counted amongst the author’s favorites. And to a small degree, in some instances, that is sort of true (in a slightly, tilt-your-head-like-the-RCA-Victor-Dog sort of way). I mean it is no different than someone gushing over their celebrity crush or admiration for say, Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest work. I may applaud his performance, I may swoon over his choices as a fellow thespian – I may even be so lucky to have half-a-minute to converse with Cumberbatch himself and tell him so. Does that mean my opinion should be elevated because of this? No. I may have interacted with him but in no way does it mean I take whatever he created and say it has anything to do with me (other than a shared experience).
Even I’m a CUMBERBITCH – just sayin’…
But with books, I dunno. I mean, they are a bit more intimate because it is just you, the reader, and the author who is imparting their imaginary (in the works of fiction) worlds to you. So in a very real way it is an audience of one. I get why so many readers feel a kinship with their favorite writers. But that line does get blurred by them an awful lot.
And let’s be honest here. Most of what is out there isn’t written for longevity in the populace. It isn’t written for posterity sake. It’s fluff – pure and simple. Most of it is written from the firm belief that “this one will crack through and become a big time best-seller.” It’s all about the sale, isn’t it?
The majority of them don’t make it. In fact, most never will. I read somewhere that like the world economy, the author spectrum is that 5% of authors make nearly all of the money made in books while the other 95% scramble for monetary crumbs. Oh there’ll be those fleeting books who find an audience several years or decades later (some even finding their “mass” audience and adoration after its author has long departed this mortal coil).
But it doesn’t mean that the reader has any real claim on the work at all. They may invest themselves in the work, they may even draw analogies from it and liken the experiences of their beloved characters to their own mundane existence, but they are never really a part of the work. Not to my mind, at any rate.
Take my latest, Angels of Mercy. Marco, Elliot and the rest of the ensemble cast have no knowledge of the reader’s part in the story (even if Elliot feigns breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly – yeah, okay, that might’ve been a bad example on my part). They will continue to tell their tale the same way every time the book is opened and someone reads it’s opening line:
“My day at the Q went pretty much like any other day.”
Elliot will always begin the story this way. He won’t alter it for the reader because the reader may be in a particular mood. Those words will be the exact same thing each time the book is opened and read. Period.
Yet, as a reader, those same words can mean a great deal of things given the kind of day they are having. The reader does imbue a part of themselves into it on their part. So I get the connection to the work. But to my mind, and way of thinking, it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) change the dynamic of the work. Unless, of course, that the work was created with the sole intention of selling like hot-cakes. Then we’re talking a sell-out sort of arrangement and not a work that was created because its creator was artistically inspired to create something from a whole lot of nothing.
I get why audiences exist. I get that they will have a takeaway from the experience. But what I grouse about is that there are some pretty fucking stupid people out there who don’t have the life experience (some are born, live and die in the same patch of land they’ve been on their whole lives – how myopic can you get? I mean even a poor man can start walking one direction and be somewhere totally foreign to them within a day), they don’t stretch the meaning of their existence to grow and see what life truly has to offer. In most cases, they just have a general languishing apathy toward anything that would remotely give new meaning to their existence – save for the random book or movie they might experience.
Unfortunately, those are usually the same individuals who feel compelled to write about works as if they have something to offer in the conversation. I come to this conclusion because of people I’ve talked with who are avid readers but purposely do NOT review the books they read. Why? Because they either don’t have the time or the inclination to share their ideas with anyone else. They are in it (reading) for their own personal gain or pleasure from it.
So what are we left with? Book report reviews (seriously, I saw one that made a feeble attempt at a real review by writing a small and concise synopsis of the work before their actual review – thankfully they did their best to avoid spoilers for any blog/review readers who might happen upon the piece). Yet when they moved on from that brief book report, the actual review consisted primarily of expounding upon the synopsis they just wrote- thereby completely negating why they wrote the synopsis in the first place, leaving the last few sentences as bread crumbs on actually reviewing the work at all.
What are my author pal’s takeaways from it? “We don’t read them unless they’re great.”
Yeah I get that. It’s a lot of hard (and often very lonely) work that goes into them. Appreciation is nice if just for the – “wow, you really did that, didn’t you” sort of thing and not necessarily because it has any real entertaining value to it. Purely an appreciation of the mechanics and effort involved. And that’s a very good thing to feel from others – just an acknowledgment of the accomplishment of finishing it.
That’s great! Well done, you!
Angels of Mercy – Volume 1: Elliot
Fabulous words to hear, indeed. But the rest of it? Eh, not so much. Then there’s the added issue of authors who have padded reviews. Works that are reviewed by readers who just laud the work when it’s only been out for a day or so. Wow, uh, really? I mean when I released Angels of Mercy – Volume One: Elliot, one other author had 7 reviews ON THE SAME DAY OF RELEASE?! How in the fuck is that possible? I mean I know there are beta readers but seriously, this author writes a “book” every couple of weeks. I’ve read one of them – not much to get worked up over. Very thin plot, weakly drawn characters (despite how many fans were gushing about the powerful writing involved).
Seriously, is the bar that fucking low, now?
Perhaps that’s why the life-experienced deprived individual has a voice now. Because the works themselves are not very meaty to begin with. And the brevity of the works… what’s up with that? I can’t be bothered with a short novel. I know some love them. I am not of their lot. Not by a bloody long shot. Hell, I wrote HO’M,O – Henry O’Malley, Omega (a.k.a. – The Shrill of Sparrows (thanks Amazon for that clusterfuck of titles)) as a short novel and it KILLED me to be so damned curtailed in the writing. While I don’t think the story suffered from weakness in the prose because of this, it isn’t what I would’ve originally done. But it was a NaNoWriMo story so I knew it was going to be short as it was written in a month as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge.
But yeah, maybe the rise in mediocre reviews is because there is a lower standard of the works that are out there. I don’t know. I do know that by and large, I am somewhat disinclined to just buy a work because it’s on the cheap and got a boat load of 5 star reviews. Though I am just as guilty of playing the 5 star game. And it rankles me that I do. I struggle with it constantly. But I hired a mainstream promo group and they’re all about the self-promotion as my part in the game – I paid good money for it so I gotta be “all in.“ I bargained for that when I hired them so yeah, guilty as charged on that score. Actually, if it’s on the cheap that is usually a BIG red flag for me. Not saying it has to be worthy of competing with a bracelet from Tiffany’s where price is concerned, but a 99¢ priced novel or novella isn’t going to make me want to buy it on price alone. I played that game early on with my e-reader and have a ton of books I’ve tossed aside as unworthy of my attention.
Instead I’ll read crap-assed review after crap-assed review until I find one that I think is well written and THEY will be my barometer of whether it will interest me or not. In most cases I am simply disappointed that 95-98% of the reviews out there hold very little resemblance to an actual in-depth review that takes a serious look at the work at hand.
And that’s a real shame. I maintain that I will always trade thinly written 5 star reviews for a single gay or questioning boy who decides what I wrote spoke to him and his world – that I made that sort of connection to someone else, who like me, was desperate for a voice to say – You’re okay kid. Things are gonna be okay, somehow. Confirmation that my world, as imaginary as it might be, gave him a bright beacon of light to find a way in his own. That review may not be the best written, but if I can get a strong sense that it’s written with heart and deeply felt? Yeah, that’ll get my vote every time. I look for those reviews. I may write for me. But I also write for that guy and it’s those reviews that matter to me most.
Until next time …
SA C
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IT’S TIME TO PAR-TAY!
IT‘S TIME TO PAR–TAY!
31 Days of Brannan – Day 30
(The EVE of Jay’s San Francisco Concert @ Bottom of the Hill!!!)
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TODAY’S PLAYLIST: Jay’s VERY BEST MOVES!
So I was going to find something deep and moving from Jay’s catalog. That was the plan. That’s what I had envisioned when I started this back on July 1st. I would credit Jay with his deeply evocative lyrics, his lovely, dark prose, his haunting melodies and incredibly layered musical compositions.
That’s what I thought I’d do…
BUT I CAN’T! I am fucking over the damned moon that at the time I am writing this tomorrow, I’ll be watching Jay himself spin the magic that his fans have come to expect, that frequently comment on his youtube channel about how much they love what he does. Fans just as dedicated and just as fervent as I am. Hell, even my granddaughter competes with me on that score. Some days I think she wins. Some days… certainly not every day.
Jay’s a fixture in this house. In my car, on my iPod – he keeps company with other out gay artists and classical geniuses that are part of my repertoire. Brannan is next to Borodin and Bach. Housewife is right along side É Lucevan Le Stelle by Jose Cura. In my world he has the same place as Amadeus, as that other gay artist that his held in very high regard in my mind – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. To my way of thinking, when you consider the times of these two geniuses (yes, I consider Jay’s prose to be deep and emotive enough that I give it that status – he speaks to the same fears and the same hopes and dashed dreams that I went through many years before he was even born – somehow his existence in many respects mirrored my own – so yeah, he gets a FUCKING genius status in my book – period.)
So Jay and Pyotr are equivalent – very different in their approach and scope of their work, but given Pyotr’s love of pretty boys – Jay would certainly have garnered his interest if he was around these days. So yeah, I think even Tchaikovsky might’ve been a Daddy admirer of Jay were he in the here and now.
But that’s beside the point right now. For me, I want to celebrate the musical joy and brilliance that is Brannan’s work. So for that, no deep evocative and emotive piece. No, instead, I’m just letting Jay dance his hot gayboy body all over the damned place.
Seriously, some boy better grab that soon – were I only 25 years younger… and unattached and not have a family of my own and… yeah. Okay. That was a lost cause even before I began that sentence. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t snag that – I mean c’mon boys – what’s not to love there?
Anyway, enjoy Jay doing what he ALSO does best – shake his money makin’ body all over the damned place.
I can’t wait for tomorrow night. It simply can’t come soon enough – though when it does, I am sure it will all seem like a dream, one that I won’t want to end. It’s about as fan girl as I can get at my age. I’m good with that. Jay’s work is certainly worthy of this kind of adoration and fandom. Your work touches my past, even though we’ve never met, it gives me a journey of my own. My foray into writing my own works, of creating my own worlds – and for that I am grateful for that creative nudge.
Enjoy!
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
