America's Comeback Kids

The New York Times headline read, "For Giffords, House Comeback is One Too Many."

It's funny to me how a mere headline can hit you, instantly, and make you feel something you didn't know you were going to feel. I mean, if I understood my college journalism class (which I took over the summer so I could have an occasional awkward coupling with my Catholic girlfriend who was doing summer theatre, thank you very much) that's part of what a headline's supposed to do. It's supposed to be quick, sharp, and it's supposed to hook you, to con you into reading the rest of the story.

Well, this headline kind of worked. It was quick and sharp, and it hooked me-- but I didn't read the story. Blame it on the Amazing Shitting Twins, who prevent me from doing, well, anything these days. Except blogging. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME, YOU LITTLE SPIT-UP PARASITES!

*Ahem.* Sorry.

Maybe I should read the article before writing this post. That's generally how it's done. The best lesson I was ever taught as an undergraduate theatre major was "never audition for a play you haven't read". I mean, no shit, right? But I don't have the time to both read AND write these days. So, I'm going to be one of those people I can't stand, who comment on something they haven't read. Actually, sort of, but sort of not. See, I'm only commenting on the headline, which I have read.

The headline in The New York Times, to me anyway, reeked of a sort of intrinsic disappointment. It was as if to say that Giffords recovery has been remarkable, inspiring, (warning, the word I hate) amazing, but it's just.... short of perfect. Just shy of the American ideal of the person who beats all the odds, who defies all the expectations, who does the un-doable.

To me, the fact that Gabrielle Giffords is still alive today, that she is a living, breathing human being after taking a bullet to the brain is comeback enough. Why should she be expected to return to Congress? Now, she may have had that expectation for herself, and that's fine, one cannot poo-poo a person's expectations for him or herself, but what about what we expect. Had she returned to Congress, this country would have gone apeshit, falling all over itself to post laudatory Facebook status updates featuring pictures of her in her smart business suit, sitting in her tufted leather chair in the House. But why would that be something to celebrate? Why is Gabrielle Giffords going to her physical therapy appointments not something to cheer about? How about her eating a bowl of cereal? Why do we encumber the sick or the injured or the unfortunate with these inflated and conflated ideas and ideals about what "comeback" and "success" and "recovery" mean?

After my wife had her brain surgery, I had to bathe her, and make her meals, and drive her places. I had to endure conversations with her where she spoke at such a high pitch and such a fast rate of speed that I could not understand her. She learned to drive again, to use her left hand again. She went back to work. She regained her place in society. But she can't play the bassoon anymore.

Is my wife just short of the ideal American recovery?

We're the country that invented the phrase "the comeback kid". We love that shit. We eat it up. Runners with one leg beating the balls off their able-bodied competitors with the use of a prosthesis. The homeless girl getting the scholarship. The black kid from the ghetto going to Harvard.

What's... wrong with us? Unfortunately, our warped notions of what it means to be successful in this country inspire people to do things that might be better for us and our egos and our insecurities than things that are necessarily better... for them.

Watching the news, I just want to stand up and scream, "LEAVE THIS WOMAN ALONE! STOP IMBUING HER WITH YOUR OWN FAULTY EXPECTATIONS! GET YOUR FUCKING CAMERA OUT OF HER FACE AND OUT OF HER LIFE!"

It's not bad enough she had to get shot in the head on camera, now the cameras, and the expectations, will just never go away.

On September 11th, 2001, I remember how the late Peter Jennings and other dapper news anchors like him lauded the first responders who went back to Ground Zero again and again and again and again. Shift after shift after shift, police officers, medics, firefighters working seventy-two, eighty-four, ninety-six hours straight with no break. No masks. No fear. Well, I'm sure there was fear. And we ate it up-- the footage of those men and women in the prime of their life sifting through the rubble looking for their fallen brothers and sisters, looking for the fallen brothers and sisters of New York, tirelessly, frantically, endlessly, and we all cheered them on. But there was nobody there when those formerly healthy police officers and paramedics and firefighters were diagnosed with a plethora of cancers, and the great American public was not at their too-soon funerals, as the bagpipes bleated out their mournful dirge for these former heroes who, well, couldn't quite overcome adversity.

But, damn, they tried-- didn't they?

Well. Almost.

Whatever Happened to Just Being Sad?

News moves at a blistering pace these days.

Soundbytes. Blips. Thumbs moving at incredible speeds on teensie QWERTYs. Tweets. Updates. Messages. Blip. Bling! Glang. Streaming tickers on the HD flatscreens in front of the elliptical machines at the gym. NPR. FOX. Everything in between, and everything beyond.

We're practically gagging on information and spin and doctrine and palaver. No, we are gagging. And, yet, we are anything but gagged. All of us, spewing and spouting, our mouths hundreds of paces in front of our minds-- left in the neuron dust. Bye-bye, brain. Won't be needing you very much today.

Googling "Gabrielle Giffords" at 4:35pm on Monday afternoon yields 76,900,000 hits. Approximately. Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. What is all of that? Is it information? Is it what we need to know, or want to, or dare to? What it is, I don't know. Now, after I hit "Publish," it'll be 76,900,001 (approximately) and I am disgusted with myself, almost to the point of wretching, for contributing to this profane noise, this internet abuse of a woman in a medically-induced coma, abuse of the corpses and memories of the victims of this appalling tragedy, this obscenity.

Hi. Here I am, another lout, contributing to the bloody mess. What a punk.

I swore up and down that I wouldn't. Of course I did. After all, it is just my style to eschew and reject what "everyone else" is talking about, as if I am some sort of badass, counter-culture barometer. Please-- what a fucking, very unfunny, very transparent joke. I promised myself I would write about something silly, maybe about different uses for bras (put one in the freezer overnight and then set it on the coffee table, fill it with candy. Haha-- what a comic genius) or some commentary about-- I don't know, inane food products or the way people look at you after you exit the restroom at work. I thought, "Yeah, well, that's what my readers want or need right now-- some levity to distract them from saturating over this deplorable situation." Like I'm going to come save you from the New York Times. Like I'm Chevy Chase, falling over a ladder.

Please.

I guess I realized that I ought to stop horseshitting myself, and you, and accept that there was, in fact, something about all of this that I wanted to say. It hit me while I was listening to Terry Gross interview some schlocko journalist about the very loose gun laws in Arizona, and, "would stricter gun laws have maybe prevented this tragedy?" She asked him questions about concealed weapons, and whether or not the Glock semiautomatic handgun would have been outlawed under this provision, or that, and how this "alleged shooter" in this incident did purchase his gun legally, but didn't have a concealed weapons permit and under what circumstances could a police officer (if one had been at this event) have stopped the suspect and frisked him after seeing that he had a concealed weapon, and I got so fucking furious I wanted to scream:

TERRY: IT IS CALLED A "CONCEALED WEAPON" FOR A FUCKING REASON, THAT REASON BEING THAT IT IS CONCEALED ON YOUR PERSON AND OUT-OF-VIEW OF OTHERS, LIKE, SAY, A POLICE OFFICER, EVEN A NON-EXISTENT, FICTICIOUS, HYPOTHETICAL POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS NOT EVEN AT THE SAFEWAY WHERE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WERE SHOT.

Then she pissed me off even more by asking, "Well, what about unconcealed weapons? What sort of questions would a police officer ask someone who had an unconcealed weapon?" This stumped her guest.

"Well, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't ask anything."

I was very upset by this point. How ridiculous was this conversation? I just couldn't take it anymore.

Was it the fault of the store that sold the gun?

Was it the fault of the second Walmart that sold the ammunition?

Was it the fault of the parents for not notifying authorities of bizarre behavior?

Was it the fault of mental health practitioners for not notifying the state or the criminal justice system?

Was it the fault of the court that threw out the arrest for drug paraphernalia?

Was it the fault of lax mental health reporting duties?

Was it the fault of law enforcement for not adequately stationing officers at the scene for VIP protection detail?

Was it the fault of the Secret Service and/or the FBI that does not provide routine protection details state-level politicians?

Was it the fault of Sarah Palin and her stupid fucking little target symbols on that map that I can't stand to hear another word about on Facebook or anywhere else?

Was it the fault of the vitriolic state of political debate in this country?

Oh. My God. Oh, my God.

Please.

We are so thirsty for answers, to insatiably horny over assigning blame, so unstoppably greedy when it comes to our relentless, pounding search for scapegoats and reasons and division or healing that any reason, any dignity, any sense of proportion or pause is just thrown right out the window. Mr. President, a moment of silence is a good start, but it's hardly sufficient. Maybe you should have ordered a day. Or a week. Could you, sir, have ordered us some time to just be sad?

What the hell ever happened to just being sad?