If I should (nearly) die...

"Morbid fascination with death" is a term often attributed to people who spend an inordinate amount of time thinking or researching the subject. One who doesn't look close enough might make the mistake of painting me with such a brush. They'd be wrong, but not as far off as you might think.

I was listening to NPR's Fresh Air again today, and an E.R. doctor was on, talking about the many decisions and circumstances involved with impending death. It not only brought to the surface the struggles during my own mother's last days (and years), but considerations about my own. That makes two fantastic, provocative interviews in a row - nice going F.A.!

A degree of intrinsic comfort is afforded to me whenever it comes to thoughts of my own demise. Maybe it's because I'm fat and happy and live a comfortable life, that the specter of Death appears distant, that the idea is not discomforting or threatening. Perhaps it is because the idea of The End represents in part a laying down of life's burdens. I don't welcome it, but for some reason I take a measure of pleasure in recreationally considering its aspects. I've cheerfully blogged about the topic before, focusing on the practical matter of disposing of my bloated, smelly carcass. Today I'll muse on my medical concerns, assuming we get the chance to see death coming, rather than an abrupt end where practical medical arrangements are not a factor.

The consideration of all of the desires, possibilities and circumstances involved in a person's foreseen-but-unavoidable death are more than another mortal should be saddled with. If the slightest care is taken to consider the wants of the decedent-to-be, there are no wrong answers. Do the best you can, more or less - that's plenty.

I certainly have my own worries and desires should something awful happen to my corpus ridiculi, but they wax and wane and slosh around in my head, and what I want now at a chubby and spry 37 may not pan out if I am stricken with a disease or simply the effects of old age. With that in mind, it borders on the narcissistic to demand from family, doctors and/or lawyers that this or that be done to the point of lawsuits and squabbling. *I* don't even know for sure what I want. I'm not comfortable at all with feeding tubes or respirators or transfusions, but since I'm not burdened with an organized faith to tell my how to live (and die), thank god those religious points are moot. Plus, I'm not currently prepared to anticipate the labyrinthine possibilities before they (probably won't) happen, much less write them all out. Call me lazy, but I'm taking the cheap and easy way out; call it my legacy.

My desires are more about practicality than pride, although pride can factor into it. My concerns aren't much different than many people's, including those I heard of my parents' when such discussions were necessary: comfort versus pain, and care versus cost. If I'm in pain, numb me. If I'm drooling, moaning or unresponsive, do what you can stand. Unfortunately, with the state of modern care, the cost of hospital stays dwarf the same stays in luxury hotels, so long term care is just out. I'll be goddamned if my hanging on for another month is worth the cost of a home or massive, crushing debt.

Bullet.

Even if home care is an option, it's not a likely candidate, especially if I'm unable to think, communicate or care for myself in basic ways. I don't doubt that my family loves me enough to wipe my ass and feed me a few times a week, but I've seen households that live that way and it is repulsive to me on the same level as torture. Not only does it trouble me (maybe this is where pride comes in, I don't know), but in that event I would consider my caretakers/loved ones the tortured more than myself.

This whole discussion changes direction on a dime - what if there's hope of a cure or other uptick? What if there's question about who owns the legal right to decide? God save me from being a Terry Schiavo. These are the excruciating twists that madden good people, and I don't want any part of it.

Again: bullet.

Smother me with a pillow, pull my plug or trip over my oxygen hose before I or anyone I care about suffers from any unanswerable questions, impossible ethical knots or horrendous financial responsibility owing to the our collective, hideous inability to assemble a fair method of funding and managing a medical care system.

On the other hand, if I'm rich as a lord or my insurance is top-notch at the time, hey, let's talk about this for a minute. Fluff my pillow, and swab my aft deck, and be quick about it. But otherwise leave me out of it, and let my loved ones lose not a moment of sleep about it.

Fight Night - iss awn!

The UFC is revving up and letting loose tonight with a new Fight Night, free on Spike! After that, it's the season premiere of "The Ultimate Fighter," the only reality show I know of where the players don't just threaten to beat each other up, it's part of the format!

Hoo, I'm gonna enjoy it... Grab me a beer, willya?

John Cougar Melancholy

I was fortunate to catch an interview with John Mellencamp on NPR this morning. I'm still a fan of his, having begun listening to his music in the early 80's or so. I enjoyed his songs about loneliness and areas of society (both the corners and the wide-open spaces) brimming with inequity, as well as lighter, more hopeful fare.

I've heard him on the "Bob and Tom Show" syndicated radio program and found him to be surprisingly funny. The NPR interview and his writing on his website revealed him to be surprisingly articulate as well. With all this surprise, you'd think I expected him to be some dull, grunting moron; certainly not. His sense humor was just so well-developed, his written observations and concerns very deep and clearly-expressed. Maybe it's the format of his music that scrambled my expectations: a three-minute song is a very different from an hour-long interview.

Anyway... I digress, but then, that's what this damned blog is for, isn't it?

The point I'm trying to thrash towards is that I haven't bought a Mellencamp album in years, maybe decades. I want to, and it may be largely because of the history and nostalgia I share with an artist whose music I started enjoying during my adolescence. Maybe that's enough.

However, I stopped buying albums because they stopped being any fun for me. For several albums up to that point, the songs had become drearier and sadder, and fewer of them on each album even tried to have hope or humor. The number for the Suicide Hotline should have been printed on each album cover. Specifically, the last music of his that I bought was a CD single of "Key West Intermezzo/I Saw You First." It was a longing work about a girl he saw but didn't approach, or something - it's been years. So, for one thing, I don't know what the fuck an "intermezzo" is, and for me the song was another masochistic wallow in depression.

I also saw what I thought was a strange rise in a techno-pop beat which really threw me. It just wasn't what I thought of when I thought of John Mellencamp. On the other hand, he's always had a rebellious and independent streak, and so I figured: "If this is what he's putting out, it must be what he wants to do," as opposed to something a corporate goon had forced him to do. I figured the artist was moving and growing away from me as a fan, and so I let it go at that.

Has it gotten any different? Is he still banging out despondent tunes with synthesized percussion that alienates me as a listener? I don't know. Judging a book by its cover, I see that his discography since has been largely black-and-white works of a down-looking John M. The NPR interview proclaims: "...Mellencamp is in the midst of a folksy, pessimistic streak on his new album." It doesn't give me a lot of hope.

Has he forgotten the hopeful half of "It's A Lonely Ol' Night?" where a black hole of desperate loneliness is balanced with the prospect of sharing that lonely ol' night with another forlorn soul in the cold emptiness? What about the tragic pointlessness of "Rumble Seat," and how it turns around and declares:

"Tomorrow is a new day
Gonna make these dreams come true
I'm gonna believe in myself
I'll tell you what Im gonna do
I'm gonna stop puttin myself down
I'm gonna turn my life around"

I haven't heard the kind of gritty optimism and insouciant rebellion John had sung in a helluva long while. I miss it a lot. I'll check out some samples on his website, and see if our tastes have adopted closer parallels. I hope so.