Beautiful Soul.
OM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/arts/television/tom-davis-saturday-night-live-comedy-writer-dies-at-59.html?smid=pl-share
And a piece that Tom wrote about his “de-animation” for a Hudson, New York art gallery, Incident Report.
Tom Davis, Christ Weeping Into The Taconic
The Dark Side of Death
By Tom Davis
The good news: my chemotherapy is working and I’m still buying green bananas.
The bad news: two years ago, before we knew it as MDD (Michael Douglas Disease), I was diagnosed with tonsorial squamous cell carcinoma, a/k/a head and neck cancer. After surgery, I elected to go with radiation therapy sans complementary chemo, which was probably a big mistake. The malignancy unexpectedly spread to the bones of my pelvis and lower spine, where it has been munching away without thought of its host’s well-being. It’s now described as “exotic and aggressive,” but it’s getting its cancerous ass kicked by taxotere, a drug that imitates the chemistry of the European Yew tree. Made in China, of course. I’ll be using it, or a related drug “for the rest of my life,” which could be as long as two more high-quality-of-life years. I’d be thrilled with that.
There are side effects, the two weirdest being a “recall effect,” in which radiation sores reappear, and neuropathy in my fingernails, which are in the unpleasant process of falling off. Ow. I’ve lost hair from all over my body. With only a little bit of white fluff on my head, I visited my mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease in Minneapolis.
“Now I want you to take all your medicine and your hair will grow back,” she said cheerfully. “I think you look a little like that bird Woodstock in Peanuts.” I’ll take that; better than Uncle Fester.
My old comedy partner (Senator) Al Franken, volunteered to draw my hair back on with a magic (more…)
