My Uncle's Nephew, Redux

July 24th would've been my Uncle Jim's 70th birthday. As I said when he passed away in 2008, there's no right way to die at 52. In all honesty, Jim's death hit harder than either of my parents, but in hindsight I have some mixed emotions. I'm also trying not to repeat what I said on the 10th anniversary of his death. In some ways, he lives vicariously through me. 

My uncle could be low-key creepy. When he inquired about school and I brought up a female classmate, without a beat he would ask "is she hot?" (I had to start using they/them pronouns whenever he asked.) In Summer 2006, I attended a pool party at my friend Brittany's house. I put a photo of us on Facebook and Myspace; I'm in an olive polo shirt, she's in a green bikini. When we were cleaning out my uncle's office 2 1/2 years later, I found a printout of that photo, except I was cropped out.

My uncle put family first, but in hindsight he couldn't get out of his own way. In the early 2000s, he was too proud to admit that his parents (my grandparents) needed more help than he could offer. We put Grandpa in a home and eventually hired Visiting Angels for Grandma, pretty much at his protest. Three years after his death, Visiting Angels became insufficient and we put her in a home; he would've fought that, too. 

As I've stated in past blogs, my only living family are my sister and some cousins. The majority of my relatives died in old age; Jim obviously didn't. I have a "found family" of friends that I can fall back on, and Barb (his girlfriend in the 2000s) is still a presence in our lives. In spite of my struggles, I can only hope he's proud.

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Ten Years On

January 18th marks ten years since my father died. It was the unfortunate culmination of a nearly three-year battle with brain tumors and lymphoma, and I've spent most of the weekend trying to compose my thoughts on this unfortunate milestone. 

Ken had undiagnosed autism, I'm almost certain. He was a man of many quirks: he almost always wore black slacks; he had an obsession with the stock market and read the business section of the newspaper first; he had very few friends, and most of them lived out of state; he thought Tic-Tacs functioned like aspirin and vitamins and consumed them in large quantities. He was 46 when I was born; there were all apparently habitudes from before I was born. When he learned how to use a PC late in life, my sister and I realized his Yahoo search history was mostly three things: NASDAQ quotes, baseball scores, and Filipina porn.

Peccadillos aside, his second-greatest obsession was sports. Between him and my roommate passing 18 months ago, I miss having someone around the house that I can talk baseball and football with. That weighed heavily on me as I watched the Bears-Rams game last night. Both men would've been entertained, even if the outcome wasn't what we wanted.

On the flip side, Ken's passing meant avoiding nearly a decade of political arguments. My father was a third-generation center-right Republican, and one of his last lucid political thoughts was that was "leaning toward John Kasich" in the 2016 primaries. I have little doubt he would've come around to Donald Trump's "clown show" (his words) but not necessarily get dragged into the conservative misinformation outlets of the internet. I remember how annoyed he was that I had skepticism about the war in Iraq in early 2003, insinuating that I was brainwashed or imprudent in my own right. Beyond that, I was cautious about expressing my two cents about world affairs face to face.

For my original eulogy post, click here.

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Room For Another

 My roommate, Cord Friis was killed in a traffic accident on July 20th. He was heading home from a memorial when a Prius hit his motorcycle; he died from blunt force trauma. This was a eulogy I intended to give:

I can’t say I knew Cord for a long time. We were roommates for a little under five years. I moved into the apartment in November 2019, mere months before the pandemic shut everything down. We hit it off almost immediately. We both grew up fans of The Simpsons, and we would occasionally quote lines from 90s episodes to each other. In this instance, I am reminded of the end of the season seven episode “Two Bad Neighbors,” where Homer meets former President Gerald Ford. Basically, Ford walks up to Homer and asks, “Do you like football? Do you like nachos? We can drink beer and watch the football game.” Cord straight-up said we had a lot in common and that this would be a good living arrangement. 

I cannot understate what a luxury it was to have a chef as a roommate during peak COVID. We feasted like kings. However, Cord was used to keeping second shift hours and was a perfectionist in the kitchen. Thus, dinner wasn't ready most nights until after 10 PM, but damn was it good. I’m not a broccoli cheddar guy, but he made exquisite broccoli cheddar soup.

As you’d imagine, Cord and I frequently talked about sports, especially football. We bonded over Da Bears; if I heard him screaming at the TV, I knew he had the game on. Even though he was a Cubs fan, he tolerated my 2015 Royals World Series flag in the dining room. It was a treat to have someone I could talk sports with in the house, something I hadn't enjoyed since my father died 8 1/2 years ago.

Cord was also a prankster, and when I first heard Cord was in the accident, in the back of my mind I thought he was pulling a fast one. Then I realized he wouldn’t leave behind the cat and the plants without any notice, let alone a fridge filled with his groceries. With that said, Meowser is fine, but she’s still a little confused. The plants haven’t said a word.

In the days following his sudden death, it was a challenge to go about my normal routine. My friend and improv partner Dan Anderson invited me to a Cubs-Brewers game at Wrigley that following Tuesday. After the game, I tried my luck at getting autographs outside the Brewers’ team bus on Sheffield Avenue. The first player to stop outside was a relief pitcher named Jared Koenig, and I was taken aback by his resemblance to Cord. You can Google him right now if you don’t believe me. Regardless, Jared signed my baseball card, and he was polite and gracious with the fans. I suppose I took this weird coincidence that everything must be just fine.

With that said, I had intended to say most of this out loud at Cord's celebration of life last Saturday. I want to thank Marcy and Jillian for trying to give me an opportunity to say a few words; the time never came. There was a Bears preseason game, and I was imaging that he'd be emotionally invested in that meaningless scrimmage. Regardless, I’m sure Cord would’ve appreciated this memorial.

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Somehow Shatterproof

 (Ed. note: here we go again. I wrote this before President Biden dropped out of the race. More on that in a few days.)

There is no polite, let alone cogent way to say a Donald Trump assassination attempt was inevitable. Just because something like this hasn't happened in most of our lifetimes doesn't mean something this ghastly couldn't happen. Even though his fellow conservatives will make this out like when John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, early reports indicate it was more like when Squeaky Fromme tried to take out Gerald Ford. (The major difference is that Fromme completely missed.) Trump has also tied himself in history with Teddy Roosevelt and Robert F. Kennedy Sr, two candidates that were targeted on the campaign trail. For that reason, the MAGA base is galvanized even more, their obsession ignoring that Trump's facial injury in the incident was the result of shattered plexiglass from the TelePrompTer, not a bullet.

Why do I insinuate that an attempt on Trump's life was inevitable? For nine years now, Trump has pandered to 2A and the NRA, a faction of conservative Americans that the GOP kept at arm's length for decades. His cult of personality has forced the Republican Party to pivot harder to the right, with a higher threshold for more extreme ideas and policies. That is not to say the now-deceased shooter was necessarily a disciple, but it's hard to deny he was encouraged. Additionally, while I would never condone murder, his agenda remains naked and concerning. 

Which brings me to his running mate and the RNC clown show. JD Vance has little in common with Trump besides being a pampered opportunist with a penchant for fabrication. He was a staunch never-Trumper conservative until it wasn't convenient to to do, then started suckling on the teat to advance his own political career. The convention itself had exactly two tolerable speeches; one was an earnest effort by Don Junior's teenage daughter, the other by a nonagenarian World War II vet (or as we call them nowadays, Antifa). Otherwise, it was recycled, exhausting vitriol in a moment when such discord was almost inappropriate.

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Through a Freshman's Eyes: "Snakes on a Plane" Edition

 It's graduation season yet again. Another batch of high school seniors have achieved the minimum requirement of being a U.S. representative from Colorado. All joking aside, it's time for my annual "mindset list," as Beloit College used to publish every summer. This year's high school grads and incoming college kids were mostly born between late 2005 and mid-2006, and I try to explore their viewpoint of the world so far in their young lives.

With that said, if you are matriculating this year...

...New Orleans has never flooded.

...it has always been possible for a woman to be Chancellor of Germany. 

...Vicente Fox was never President of Mexico.

...the Vice President of the United States never shot a guy in the face.

...you've never shopped at Marshall Field's.

...you never found a severed finger in your Wendy's chili.

...it has always been possible to get a face transplant.

...Twitter (or X) has always existed.

...the Playstation 3 has always existed.

...Google has always owned YouTube.

..."sexting" has always been a thing.

...the Chicago White Sox have never won, or played in, a World Series.

...everyone knows Magnolia Cupcakes are crazy delicious. 

...you might run into Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph on a campus visit.*

...TV Guide has always been standard magazine size and never had local listings.

...you might also run into a girl who claims Enrique Iglesias is her nephew.

...Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were never married.

...Bob Denver, Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Robert Wise, Sid Luft, Donn Clendenon, Simon Wiesenthal, Don Adams, Hamilton Camp, Nipsey Russell, August Wilson, Charles Rocket, Rosa Parks, Geoffrey Keen, Link Wray, Eddie Guerrero, Pat Morita, Vic Power, Richard Pryor, Eugene McCarthy, Michael Vale, Vincent Schiavelli, Patrick "Blue" Cranshaw, Lou Rawls, Jim Zulevic, Shelley Winters, Wilson Pickett, Chris Penn, Coretta Scott King, Wendy Wasserstein, Moira Shearer, Grandpa Al Lewis, Betty Friedan, Franklin Cover, Elton Dean, Peter Benchley, Ray Barretto, Harold Hunter, Curt Gowdy, Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver, Darrin McGavin, Harry Browne, Jack Wild, Kirby Puckett, Dana Reeve, Gordon Parks, John Profumo, Boom Boom Geoffrion, Slobodan Milošević, Maureen Stapleton, Oleg Cassini, Ray Meyer, Buck Owens, Jackie McLean, Gene Pitney, Proof, Muriel Spark, Steve Howe, John Kenneth Galbraith, Louis Rukeyser, Floyd Patterson, Jim Lemon, Lloyd Bentsen, Desmond Dekker, Craig "Ironhead" Heyward, Billy Preston, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the dog from "Frasier," Randy Walker, Kenneth Lay, Syd Barrett, June Allyson, Red Buttons, Mickey Spillane, Jack Warden, and Carl Brashear have always been dead.

*both had babies in Fall 2005

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James Swiglo, 1956-2008

My uncle died 15 years ago last week. I blogged my raw emotions the day he was buried, almost oblivious to the history that was being made that evening. I've also discussed my, uh, inheritance. 

Uncle Jim was a flawed man, but as I said a decade and a half ago, there will never be a right way to die at 52. Part of me can imagine him now at 67, gradually turning into his father (my grandpa), a reactionary grouch. Both of them had a fearful, paranoid side. Regardless, Jim was the kinder of the two. They had a volatile relationship that was sort of patched up when my grandfather died in August 2002, though I found it weird that Jim suddenly kept Chuck in a high regard after his passing. 

Jim's passing was a tipping point in my mid-20s. I was less than a year removed from college, and I was treading water. I was back in Downers Grove, isolated and kind of flailing. I did not want to spend my entire adult life living with my folks --like he did-- so it eventually inspired me to take improv classes. Also, this was the first in a string of deaths in my immediate family, mostly in my parents' generation, extending to my aunt's passing a few months ago.

For a lot of my relatives, their time had come. In my uncle's situation, he kept his pancreatic cancer under wraps until he couldn't; I learned a few years later that he turned down treatment. He was on borrowed time anyway, he surmised, but it also jibed with his pride and his frugality. (Again, he wasn't perfect.) My uncle and mother argued over how to take care of my grandmother, and with Ma taking the reins, Grandma was able to get more thorough assistance. Given everything that has gone on in the world (and my family) since 2008, maybe this "what if" is best left to my imagination.

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Kay Allard, 1945-2023

My aunt, Kay Allard died on May 25th, one week after her 78th birthday. A memorial was held on June 21st.

My sister and I didn't know she passed until Tuesday.

We were equally livid and confused as we stumbled upon the news. I had not heard from Aunt Kay since late March; I last texted her in mid-June to share an old photo we'd found. My sister had commented that we hadn't heard from her in awhile, and we noticed over the weekend that our calls were disconnected and texts were bouncing back. My sister called the Naperville Police Department to do a welfare check; they called back to inform us that she'd passed two months ago. A memorial service was held and attended by "family and friends," and this vague phrase also appears in her obituary. 

We had to get to the bottom of this communication breakdown. Eventually, my sister got a hold of the hospice service that Kay hired (and assisted in the service). Aunt Kay had mentioned earlier in the year that she was going to have pacemaker surgery, but she didn't specify when. The procedure was just before her birthday; after the surgery, a number of complications arose, including a series of strokes. It left her incapable of speaking or operating her iPhone, and no one knew how to unlock it. For a self-described ambassadorial extrovert, it feels awful knowing she essentially died alone and in silence. 

I had a stronger relationship with Kay than my sister. I would attribute any issue between Kay, my mother and my sister to personality clashes, and I’ll leave it at that. We texted about monthly, but I hadn't seen Kay in person since my mother's burial in June 2017.

Kay was the last direct connection to the Kansas City side of the family, even though the Allards moved to LaGrange, IL in 1951, not long after her sixth birthday. With her gone, my living family is now down to my sister and some scattered cousins. 

Kay did not live alone. Even though she was widowed in 2004, she was the primary caretaker for her husband's sister Delores. She is developmentally disabled and was shuffled around most of her life until landing with Kay and my late Uncle Ray in 1995. My sister and I were told that Delores was moved to a dementia facility in Tampa. 

There is still some mystery to this. My sister and I have cousins in southern Illinois that we are not close to; they apparently organized the memorial service. I don't believe we have their contact info. On top of that, we don't know what will happen to Kay's belongings; we believe her will cites our father (who died 7 1/2 years ago) and Delores as getting the majority of her inheritance. 

Given how abruptly we found out our aunt's passing, I'm still processing my thoughts. Had things going according to plan, the onus of writing a eulogy would have rested on my shoulders. Though Kay was not the reason I went into education (a long story in itself) I inherited her passion for teaching writing and helping students generate ideas. She was an English teacher at Glenbard East High School in Lombard, IL from 1981 to 2001 and taught at College of DuPage in some capacity from 1973 to 2022. 

I feel some guilt about this. Even though I last texted Kay in mid-June, she hadn’t texted me since late March. I wanted to do lunch or brunch or something to that effect, but couldn’t find the right time to ask. COVID compounded the perceived distance. Until I can fully embrace her passing, all I can say beyond this is that I hope she’s at peace.

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Through a Freshman's Eyes: "Batman Begins" Edition

When I heard my Blackhawks had won the NFL Draft lottery, I was briefly taken aback when I learned the crown jewel of this year's class, Connor Bedard, was born in July 2005. It also means this year’s high school graduates and incoming college freshmen weren’t alive to see the first half of the 2000s. It’s hard to fathom that someone born five years after Y2K can now play Lotto or enlist in the military. 

With that said, if you are graduating, or have graduated, high school this month…

…Gmail and YouTube have always existed.

…King Charles III has always been married to Camilla.

…Prince Harry has never done Nazi cosplay.

…there has never been sectarian violence in Ireland.

…you always knew W. Mark Felt was Deep Throat. 

…you’ve never seen any Ukrainians wear orange.

…it has always been possible to clone dogs.

…Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings have never anchored a network news broadcast.

…Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were never married.

…Pink Floyd has never played live.

…Rich Hill has always played baseball.

…you have never attended a Montreal Expos baseball game.

…the New York Yankees have never blown a 3-0 series lead in the ALCS.

…there has never been an ugly lockout that wiped out an entire season of the NHL.

…you don’t know what the phrase “malice at the palace” has to do with basketball.

…”The Office” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender” have always been on TV.

…”Family Guy” was never canceled and “Doctor Who” has never been off the air.

…Johnny Ramone, Russ Meyer, Scott Muni, Richard Avedon, Joyce Jillson, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Ken Caminiti, Christopher Reeve, Pierre Salinger, Ray Boone, Anthony Hecht, Steig Larsson, Yassir Arafat, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Cy Coleman, Ed Paschke, Dimebag Darrell, Johnny Oates, Jerry Orbach, Will Eisner, Virginia Mayo, Johnny Carson, Vicky LaMotta, John Vernon, Max Schmeling, Ossie Davis, Arthur Miller, Dick Weber, John Raitt, Hunter S. Thompson, John DeLorean, Barney Martin, Johnnie Cochran, Mitch Hedberg, Frank Perdue, Terry Schiavo, Pope John Paul II, Saul Bellow, Dale Messick, Debralee Scott, Prince Rainier III, Percy Heath, Herb Sargent, animator Joe Grant, Thurl Ravenscroft, Eddie Albert, Oscar Brown Jr., George Mikan, Anne Bancroft, Lane Smith, Paul Winchell, Shelby Foote, Luther Vandross, Admiral James Stockdale, James “Scotty” Doohan, Hildegarde, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and Robert Moog have always been dead.

If I allegedly missed anything, here’s last year’s list.

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The Ghosts of Conservatism, Past and Present

(Ed. note: please forgive the delay. I've been having issues with my laptop.)

George Herbert Walker Bush left a mixed legacy. Nearly every good deed he committed as a public servant was cancelled out by something shortsighted or outright bad. The first time I ever really paid attention to politics was when Bush ran for reelection in 1992. His one term in office was "Reagan lite"; depending on how you look at it, that could be praise or disdain. He was a throwback to a time when politics weren't personality-driven (read: boring) and there was a place in the GOP for moderates and centrists. History will remember him as a middle-of-the-pack president: not a failure, but not a man who defined a generation of Americans, either. He was competent, which was more than we can ask for now.

The memorial in DC earlier this month was only allegedly anti-Trump. Rather, the service reminded people of positive character traits that Bush 41 had that the current president seems to lack, without calling Trump out by name. It was a subtle compare and contrast: an okay presidency alongside one rife with division.

With that said... we have to stop assuming President Trump will resign. The man lacks the self-awareness to admit he's not only cornered, but in over his head. Worse yet, impeachment will likely die in a GOP-controlled Senate. Michael Cohen is going to prison for sending hush money to a porn actress, and Michael Flynn is (probably) going to prison for collusion. More members of Trump's inner circle will be implicated and left for dead, but the heart of the beast keeps going. Forgive me for repeating myself, but one hopes the Democrats will get their act together in 2020.

Next week: the year in music, 2018.

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His Uncle's Nephew

Monday, October 30th marks ten years since my uncle, Jim Swiglo died. It was the culmination of a whirlwind two months where he went from hospitalization to hospice to death. I was not aware until he told me that September that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, but I did not know until several years later that he kept his medical issues under wraps until the secret was no longer sustainable.

Indirectly, Jim's death was the catalyst for me to start taking improv classes. I was in a creative rut at the time; I was dissatisfied by doing stand-up, and frustrated by the lack of performing options in the suburbs. I had to broaden my horizons in some way, and commuting to Old Town once a week was a start. Jim was 52, living with his mother, and seldom traveled. I did not want to become him, and I still don't.

As such, my social circle bears next to no resemblance to what it looked like in Fall 2008. Granted, some friendships disintegrated, but most of my high school and college friends are either too busy or too far away. I'm very selective about who I communicate with from Salem Radio Chicago --where I was employed at the time-- but most of them no longer work there. I attempted to go out on Halloween with "Sandra" (the topic of two past blogs) but I really just wanted to talk to someone. Even in a close family, I felt alone in my mourning. In 2018, improv and comedy dominate my social life; I felt like I had a much stronger support system when my parents passed in 2016 and 2017, and I'm beyond grateful.

Given how young Jim was when he passed, I do wonder what life would have been like had he lived into his mid-60s. I fear that he would've almost certainly voted Trump, and would have been oblivious to #MeToo. He wasn't socially conservative per se, but even in 2008 his backward attitude about women would have been hard to ignore. He died before the Bears signed Jay Cutler (who he would've hated) but he would rub the Cubs' World Series title in my face. There are little quirks of that I don't miss: his random singing, his tendency to chew gum with his mouth open, the way he would tuck his undershirt into his underpants. In spite of that he was a good man, a generous soul who put family first.

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Flood Lights: One Year Later

The end of May offers two milestones for me, one slight and one substantial, yet both unfortunate. This past May 19th would have been my 10th anniversary at Salem Communications, an experience that I looked back on in 2011 and 2015. I acknowledged the milestone by texting my old boss (see image below) and briefly looking back at the bullet that I dodged. I am still in regular contact with two other people from that office. Nearly everyone else can stay in the past.

My mother has been dead for one year. It has a mercurial, up and down year of transition for my sister and I, but we move forward. It seems oddly fitting that I would spend this somber anniversary in Omaha, Nebraska, where I found out my mother had passed. I take solace in the fact that I had fun at the improv festival, just as my mother would have wished during last year's trip. I reconnected with a high school friend, while establishing new professional relationships with other improvisers. My sister stayed at home, taking care of the garden that my mother used to spend countless hot afternoons. Even though she visited my mother's grave on Sunday, neither of us felt inclined to dwell.

My relationship with my mother could be contentious at times, but I think about her almost daily. I tried to be as supportive and considerate as possible in those last few years, but I bristled at times as she grew increasingly needy and fragile. Her love was unconditional and unwavering --as any mom should be-- even when it felt smothering and overprotective. Even though my mother was front and center with taking care of my grandmother, there were often instances in the last five years or so where my sister had to juggle Grandma and both of our ill parents. When mom passed last May 27th, it was like a weird burden had been taken off our shoulders. Her parting gift was letting my sister and I move on.

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Next Week: my 13th annual fantasy Emmy ballot.

Random Notes, September 2017

So much to say, so little time:

+ It took a hurricane or two to finally get the Trump controversies off the front page. For better or worse, its a diversion; Hurricane Harvey was an astonishing tragedy, one of larger scope than Katrina but better managed, and the aftermath might linger on for a decade. Hurricane Irma, hammering Florida as I write this, could be just as bad. President Trump is probably grateful to not be hounded by the Russian collusion controversy (among other things) at least for a moment.

+ I'm going to be somewhat disappointed if this is the end of the Moose/Hos/Alcides/Lo-Cain era in Kansas City. All four are pending free agents, and any attempt at making one last playoff push with this core group has sputtered. My Royals are playing .500 ball when we should be right in the thick of things. On one hand, we've set a team record for home runs in a season where MLB overall has seen an uptick in power stats; on the other hand, our pitching has been pedestrian. We'll be okay in the long run, but I don't want to wait 28 years for another title run.

+ While I'm glad the summer is over, the stress continues. I'm back to working as a substitute teacher after spending 2 1/2 months mostly at home, so I'm relieved that I don't have to dip into inheritance and rainy-day money much longer. I also have a temp position lined up that, if all goes to plan, will keep me steadily employed for about three months. On the other hand, I'm the executor of my mother's estate and I'm still wading through paperwork. My aspiration is to finally move out of my parents' house by November 1st, but money is still an X-factor.

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She Never Saw the Flood Lights

As most of you know by now, my mother passed away on May 27th and was buried earlier this week. Without going too far into detail, this is a transcript of the eulogy that I read on June 7th:

"For those of you didn’t know my mother, allow me to give you an idea of the person she was:

Where my father was well-traveled, my mother spent 95% of her life in or around Downers Grove. She was born at Hinsdale Hospital, grew up in Downers and Westmont, graduated high school from Downers North, spent 17 years working at the Marshall Field’s at Oakbrook Mall –where, incidentally, she met my father—and lived nearly her entire life in DG. She did some traveling, though her idea of a distant, faraway excursion was either Lake Geneva or the family farm in Coldwater, MI.

My mother was quirky. She was fascinated by rubber ducks, and when we moved into our current residence in 2004, she gave the hallway bathroom a rubber duck motif. When the Egg Harbor Café in downtown Downers started giving away mini-rubber ducks, my mother adorned them all over the dashboard of her 2010 Mercury Milan.

At the same time, my mother and I did not have a lot of shared interests. She was fascinated by classic cars, I was not. Her record collection was loaded with Barbra Streisand and original Broadway cast recordings, and I had no interest in either. I like baseball and hockey, but she vehemently hated sports. She liked sugary snacks –she had a sweet tooth—and I was cautious about what I ate.

Sharon watched a lot of TV, but as I just alluded to, our tastes in TV shows varied significantly. She liked old school, rural-based shows like “Green Acres” and “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and even though I don’t hate either show, the appeal was lost one me. My mother and I did have two shows in common: “M*A*S*H,” which is an evergreen, but we were both surprised to discover we both liked “My Name is Earl.” That might have been the only TV show we made a note of watching together, more often than not. On the other hand, there was no hesitation deleting “Two Broke Girls” from the living room DVR. We didn’t have the heart to tell her the show had been cancelled, either.

My mother knew how to push my buttons. Half the time it was hard to tell if she was oblivious but well-meaning, or she knew precisely how to annoy me. She had a tendency to forget to tell my sister and I about a special event like, say, a neighbor’s anniversary or a block party, until the last minute. If Ma was upset about something, she would make Bridget test me or call me to tell me she was upset, rather than doing it herself.

Sharon was also a luddite. Her distrust of modern technology bordered into irrational hatred. Maybe it was because her side of the family were farmers and mechanics, and had no need for such things, I don’t know. Regardless, because of her stubbornness we didn’t have a PC in our house until 1998, we didn’t have the internet until 2002, and we didn’t have cable until 2008. She had a cell phone, the most basic phone Verizon could make, and she turned it on maybe once a month, in case of emergency. Ma didn’t even have an email until maybe three years ago, and it was my sister’s responsibility to check it once or twice a week.

As some of you know, Sharon had a laundry list of health issues. She had been in and out of hospitals since was five or six years old. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. At one point in the early 1980s, her immune system failed and she spent three weeks in a plastic bubble. To her, a hospital stay was somewhere between an annoyance and a diversion. Please forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but my sister and I were convinced that regardless of everything she had gone through, she would somehow persevere and live into her 80s.

The last chapter of her life more or less began in February 2015. She had a cardiologist appointment at Good Samaritan Hospital here in Downers; during a routine check-up, the doctor discovered 70% blockage in four of her arteries, as well as an aneurysm emerging in her aorta. They performed quadruple bypass surgery immediately, but because Sharon was underweight –I don’t want to say fragile—they held off on treating the aorta until she was on firmer physical footing.

Earlier this year, my mother was complaining of dizzy spells and blurred vision. A visit to a prominent neurologist revealed that she had an aneurysm in the right hemisphere of her brain. In early April, she was underwent brain surgery at Rush Medical Center on the near west side of the city; even though it was an elaborated and complicated procedure that only a handful of neurosurgeons could perform, it has been perfected, and best-case scenario my mother would have been out of the hospital in three or four days.

Then complications arose. The brain surgery was a success, but it inadvertently ruptured the aortic aneurysm, so two days later my mother had heart surgery. She had two stents placed in her body in the span of 2 ½ days. She went home over a week later, but the moment she walked into the house, she complained of abdominal pain; she couldn’t hold any food down, and within 2 ½ hours Bridget had called the paramedics, my mother was sent to Good Sam, and then 12 hours after checking out she was back in the ICU at Rush. She ended up getting a third stent, connected to where she had heart surgery less than two weeks before.

After nearly a month at Rush, my mother was cleared for rehab in early May. The process of getting back on her feet had its ups and downs, but she did the maximum 20 days covered by the insurance and finally home –for good, we thought—on May 24^th. She was exhausted and still not holding food down, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to go back to the hospital. Sharon insisted she needed to get back into her daily routine at home, and she needed a few more days. I had left for the Omaha Improv Festival that Friday morning; Mom was “hangry” but moving about the house. I said “I love you” one last time just as she lied back in her bed for a late morning nap.

When I was on the road, my sister called to tell me that she called the paramedics again; she was battling the abdominal pain that she had six weeks earlier. She spent the night in the ER before going into the Critical Care Unit at Good Sam. My sister visited her that Saturday; Mom was being fed through an IV, and she was gradually becoming her normal self again. When my sister drove home, the physician on duty called to tell her Mom had gone into code blue. My sister rushed back to the hospital; she had stopped breathing and suffered significant brain damage. My mother was wired to a phalanx of machines, and just for a moment she was able to breathe without artificial means. However, she stopped breathing again soon after, CPR was performed, and in spite of the nurses’ best efforts she flatlined.

It would be remiss of me to not mention that Sharon was a “dog mommy.” We have two dogs, Duke (a Maltese-Poodle mix) and Henry (shorthair Dachshund). The older of the two, Duke was originally a Sweet 16 present of my sister’s, but soon enough became my mother’s dog. Duke would follow my mother around, sleep on her bed, and whine whenever she left the house. With the health issues my parents had, it became too much of a hassle to take the dogs out on walks. We had no choice but to have the dogs do their business in the backyard, which was a hassle of sorts after dusk because that side of the house is very dimly lit. When my mother was in rehab, my cousin Tom installed a small panel of flood lights with sensors in between the shingles and the gutters. Even though my mother was home for 2 ½ days after –notice the recurrence of two and a half in this eulogy—she never had an opportunity to see the lights. Whenever I’m out with Duke or Henry at 10 o’clock at night, I’ll look at those flood lights and think of Ma. She would’ve been quite impressed.

Ma, you’re going to be missed. To those of you who attended today, thank you for coming."

(554)

Mark A. Peterson 1978-2017

I was surprised and astonished to hear of the passing of my online friend and real-life acquiantance Mark Peterson. After nearly a month of uncharacteristic silence on Twitter, I learned rather abruptly of his death on February 25th, six days after the fact. Mark had been battling colitis for the last five or six years, and an epic flare-up in mid-January resulted in an extended hospital stay. Whether his death was the result of C.Diff or a previously unknown ailment, I guess we'll never know. A memorial service had been held, and as I write this Mark has likely already been cremated. I found out about his death while on a road trip, so I haven't been able to articulate my thoughts until now.

For those of you that were regulars on TV Tome or TV.com in the mid-to-late 2000s, he was known simply as mp34mp, that opinionated fellow in the SNL, Conan, and sports forums. After he was ignobly banned in 2009, he resurfaced under the alias Dolph Rudager, and maintained that alter ego on Twitter, his sole social media platform. I bonded with him on a variety of levels: we were both from the west Chicago suburbs (he was from Naperville, and I grew up in Downers Grove, we were comedy and music nerds, and we were ardent Chicago Bears fans. That alone was enough to fuel a correspondence that lasted just over 12 years.

In an indirect way, our connection was yin and yang. Where I usually took the high road in internet discussion boards, Mark could be an argument waiting to happen. His presence at TV Tome and TV.com could be polarizing; he was frequently sarcastic and bilious, and had strong opinions that often veered into the minority of the site's groupthink. Even if his penchant for asseveration wore you down, Mark never resorted to name-calling or character assassination. Mark's true weakness was that he was opinionated, and that his opinions were in multitudes.

It was only a matter of time before other site members began to report Mark. CNet was bought out by CBS/Viacom in late 2008, 3 1/2 years after CNet bought out TV Tome's founders and overhauled the site. This noble effort to create a high-quality, all-encompassing TV episode guide and discussion board struggled to make a dent in a crowded market, and the new bosses assumed it was because of internet trolls. The decision to exile Mark and at least a hundred other regular users brought the glory era of TV.com to a halt, and the beginning of its gradual decline into a co-opted clickbait site with a fledgling "community." Alas, Mark found a way to return a few months later --it took me a moment to realize he was Dolph-- but the diminishing rate and quality of discussion was enough to turn him away on his own volition.

I only met Mark once in person. I had a table at a card show in south Naperville, and toward the end of the day he dropped by to say hello. Mark drove a 90s model Ford pick-up truck, and scuttled across the parking lot in 30-degree weather in a light zip-up hoodie. He was tall and a little gangly, with big expressive eyes. I wasn't sure what to anticipate, but he turned out to be gawky and a little awkward. His opinions were legitimate, but he expressed them in a timid and skeptical manner. We spoke for about an hour before we went our separate ways. Mark suggested going bowling sometime, depending upon my schedule. Once he started having back issues, which then segued into colitis and other ailments, the suggestion was shelved indefinitely. Mark suggested going to a White Sox game last summer, specifically for throwback jersey giveaway, but we both forgot that we'd even discussed going. Perhaps we dodged a bullet.

Through email, IM and Twitter, I was able to paint a clearer picture of what Mark was about. He was a loner, a quiet do-it-yourself type living in a small house in unincorporated Naperville. Mark was an only child, and he had a strained relationship with his parents, who psychologically abused him. He was fascinated by greasy fast food, especially White Castle and Arby's, but also adept at cooking. Mark was also a whiz with Photoshop. As for late 2016, he was coming out of an on-again, off-again relationship with a woman in a messy divorce. Mark was living on disability, and was only working sporadically after his last construction job in the late 2000s. His political beliefs were somewhere between libertarian and moderate conservative.

Even if Mark could be trying to be around, he shouldn't have died the way he did, nor as abruptly or as quietly as he passed. He was perennially thirty-something going on 60, ready and willing to be the ornery crank that shouted at kids to get off his lawn. He had just a handful of friends in real life, but was part of a greater community online. In a way, he returned the favor; we seldom agreed on anything, but he was one of my first followers on Twitter when I finally joined in August 2011. The inherent brevity of 140 characters fit him like a glove. If he disagreed with or was annoyed by a tweet, he would say so in a half-joking manner. Mark Peterson wasn't a close friend but his presence, intangible as it often was, will certainly be missed.

NOTE: I will update this post in the next day or so to include a picture of Mark.

(544)

Somewhere Over the (Partisan) Rainbow

I don't believe I've ever intentionally spoken ill will of the dead. When Justice Antonin Scalia passed away a few weeks ago, rather than just say "RIP" on social media, I admittedly deferred the idea of criticizing a polarizing figure in American politics. I still received some flack from my Facebook friends, even though I didn't say anything specific about Justice Scalia. (I had my qualms, but so did a lot of other people.) One could argue, however that the Republicans that control both houses of Congress may have overreacted the most.

Judge Merrick Garland, a fellow Chicago native, is the third and likely last person that President Obama has nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court. His first two appointees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were left-leaning justices replacing fellow liberals on a court that tilted right. Garland's potential appointment will allegedly tip the scale to the left, or at least that's what the GOP fears; Garland has a history of being a moderate/centrist, a swing vote on a court that is now deadlocked at four and four.  In any other era of American politics, Garland would be a model nominee and have a swift confirmation. In a polarized Washington during an election year, he might not even get a hearing.

As of this writing, the only elected Republican to meet with Judge Garland is Sen. Mark Kirk, a fellow Illinoisan. It's an election year, and I can see why the GOP is trying to save face; they want to wait until Obama is out of office in nine months, apparently in total disregard of who might succeed him. At the same time, this group of senators was elected by their constituents to serve their country, and by refusing to give Judge Garland a hearing indicates a refusal to do their jobs. There is nothing to indicate that Garland is a liberal firebrand or would have any detrimental value to the nation's highest court, the GOP is simply being obstructive. A political party that is trying to vain to prove that they have ideas is doing everything but that. Whether they confirm or reject Garland, I'm not spending my tax money on a group of old men sitting on their hands because it allegedly compromises their principles.

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A Death in the Family

This past Monday evening, my father died after three-year, on-and-off battle with lymphoma. When he entered hospice on January 8th, my immediate family assumed that he would stick around until February. When I visited him the day before his passing, he was weak and breathing heavily but it didn't seem like his demise was imminent. Early the next morning, the hospice service called to let us know he was on an oxygen machine, and our mental prognosis shrank from weeks to days. I went to work, and about an hour or so after lunch I received a text from my sister. I called her back, and she told me it was now a matter of hours. I ended up leaving work early --it was a temp job, and the likely need for bereavement leave ended the assignment a few days early-- so I could be by my father's side. We all said our last words, and since I was the latecomer I opted to go last. I remained at the nursing home hospice from 3:15pm to about 8 o'clock, and somewhere around 5 a family friend picked up dinner for me. I went home that evening to get some tasks done; when my family got the inevitable phone call around 11:20 that night, we ran back to his room to watch my father's corpse be carried and wheeled away to the mortician.

In the end, the father's mind remained relatively sharp; it was his body that ultimately failed him. This was a man who was prone to making assumptions, partially because he had a slippery-slope mindset and partially because my sister and I hated having to explain things to him. I visited my father the day before he entered hospice, and he seemed to think he was going home. I was keenly aware that he wasn't going back to our house; he was more or less confined to a wheelchair, and we weren't going to retrofit his home with ramps. My mother was doing most of the heavy lifting figuratively and literally, even after having bypass surgery last February; she was exhausted, and was ready and willing to let someone else handle my increasingly feeble father. When he was moved from the third floor of the facility to the second, he was livid; either he was annoyed that his family had completely deferred his care to the nursing home, or he had transitioned from denial to anger in Kubler-Ross' five stages of death. Yes, it was more cost-effective, but there was only so much we could do at that point.

Even though I've talked extensively about my family health issues on this blog, I really hadn't said much on social media; just a handful of allusions and that's it. A select handful of friends knew the whole story about my parents' respective medical woes, and I only explained what was going on when it became too unwieldy to circumvent the truth. On the day my father died, I folded my hand; I summarized everything that had transpired since March 2013, and explained to friends and acquaintances why I had been so elusive and under the radar in the last couple of years. What I didn't expect, however was the unconditional love and support I received from my peers; people I had seen in almost a decade offered heartfelt condolences, and I was overwhelmed with texts, emails, and messages. I was, and still am, at a complete loss for words, and I can't begin to describe how grateful I was for everyone's kindness.

Even though my father passed away four days before I wrote this blog post, the wake and burial have not been held yet. My Aunt Kay, my father's last remaining immediate family member, was in Oklahoma over the holidays to visit her long-distance boyfriend near Tulsa. My mother, sister, and I are still confused as to why she didn't get back to Illinois in time to say goodbye to her older brother; her excuse for now was that her boyfriend has health issues and doesn't have any family, an alibi that we only partially believe. Hopefully the drama will subside when my father is memorialized this weekend.

Miss you, Dad.

KEN DEWITT ALLARD - 10/22/37-1/18/16

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The Legacy of Jan Hooks

With Saturday Night Live approaching its 40th anniversary this year, it's hard to fathom that we're inching closer to the prospect of seeing former cast members of old age. With the exception of World War II veteran Herb Sargent (who passed in 2008), the "In Memorium" reel is filled with actors and writers that died much too soon. Earlier this week Jan Hooks, one of the greatest female cast members in the show's four-decade history, died suddenly at age 57. Hooks had been sick for some time, though her illness has not been disclosed. A New York City resident since the early 1980s, this eulogy was probably the best I've read in the days following her passing.

If I had to pick my five favorite all-time female cast members, in chronological order I would choose Gilda Radner, Nora Dunn, Hooks, Amy Poehler, and Kristen Wiig (though Wiigy's spot is in close danger, thanks to current cast member Kate McKinnon). We all know Poehler is a bona fide TV star and Wiig's fledging movie career has already seen its ups and downs, the first three women on this list are known predominantly, if not almost exclusively, for their work on SNL. Much has written and said of Radner's influence on comedic actresses in recent decades, but people either intentionally ignore or overlook her very underwhelming career after Studio 8H. In fact, Radner might be the first alumni to be dismissed as "well, she was funny on SNL..."

From that perspective, Hooks' career trajectory is not dissimilar to Radner's. Like her frequent partner in crime Dunn, Hooks was a linchpin of what I usually refer to as the Renaissance era of SNL, part of arguably the greatest and tightest ensemble in NBC's veritable sketch comedy show. Where Dunn alienated the show's producers (including her ex-boyfriend, Lorne Michaels) by refusing to share a stage with host Andrew Dice Clay --and after a PR fiasco, was soon fired-- Hooks left on her own volition after five years. And yet, both Radner and Hooks spent their first post-SNL decade in the wilderness, Radner with questionable and often mediocre film projects, Hooks relegated to work as a character actress. Her greatest champion was fellow SNL alum Martin Short, who cast Hooks as his wife on both his short-lived self-titled sitcom as well as various projects with his alter ego Jiminy Glick. It wasn't until various medical issues in the mid-2000s forced Hooks to stop striving for elusive stardom.

So why did Radner, Dunn, and Hooks all struggle? Movie stardom was an attainable goal, yet it never really happened (assuming Dunn did not inadvertantly burn bridges for the Diceman episode). Of course, you could say the same thing about the entire Renaissance cast; Dennis Miller is infinitely stronger at stand-up than acting, Dana Carvey pulled a Radner and attached himself to some lousy scripts, and Kevin Nealon, Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman found steady work in supporting roles. One could argue in hindsight that these actresses were overshadowed by their male co-stars, a viable argument given the "boys club" reputation SNL had through the mid-1990s. There was a misogynistic pecking order, and Dunn, Hooks, and Victoria Jackson took their place near the back of the line. Radner loved John Belushi like a brother and he seemed to recipricate the affection, but I doubt they ever saw each other as true equals.

Glass ceilings and internal sexism aside, Jan Hooks will go down as an all-time great in the SNL annals and one of its most underrated and underappreciated talents. She was a consumate team player, a star that shined both individually and alongside the extrordinary talent SNL incubated in the late 1980s. Outside of late Saturday nights, she was a versatile and clutch supporting actress, doing memorable work on TV series like "Designing Women," "Third Rock from the Sun," "The Simpsons," and "30 Rock." She accomplished quite a bit in 25-plus years as a working actress, and I hope her passing offers a fresh and positive perspective on a talent gone too soon.

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Passing The Torch, Part 2

Around the time of my 27th birthday last year, I found myself lamenting the last "pure" days of my youth. Over the past few weeks, my aimless pondering found a focal point of sorts. About two weekends ago, a man named Phil Patnaude died under mysterious circumstances near Belmont Harbor in Chicago. Patnaude graduated from my high school a year before I did, and the sudden death of such a promising young man rocked the community. I barely knew the guy, but his passing dominated my news feed on Facebook. He was unquestionably assertive, a go-getter, a leader and an achiever. Suicide or not, very little about his death seemed to make sense.

As it turned out, this was a case where bad things came in threes. Around the same time Patnaude perished two other Downers Grove North alums, both around my age, also died suddenly. Unlike the type-A Patnaude, these other two boys were underachievers --out of respect to their grieving families, I will not share their names-- and were barely mentioned in my old yearbooks. Their deaths didn't grab the local media's attention; in fact, I found out about their passing via word of mouth on Facebook, almost like a weird afterthought. A part of me wondered if I should mourn or just walk this off. More than anything, I was spooked by this abrupt barrage of mortality, by three deaths that happened much too soon. Is it survivor's guilt?

From my experience, unless one's passing garners the attention of the local media, you find yourself wondering how someone could passed away so young, and yet you'll never truly find closure. For example, if this person made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq or Afghanistan, you'd right away. If said person had a prolonged illness and heroically fought this malady to the bitter end, same thing. If it's anything else, everyone --including the family-- keeps mum. Maybe its that level of modesty and Catholic guilt you only find in the midwest, I'm not sure. In those cases, a life isn't celebrated, but a death invokes an unexplained shame.

Next week: my 2012 baseball preview.

My Last Post of 2011

I must confess that I didn't watch too much drama this past year. "Mad Men" sat out the past year, episodes of "Breaking Bad" and "Boardwalk Empire" currently collect dust in my DVR, and I don't have Showtime, which ruled out critically praised fare like "Dexter" and "Homeland." By default, my viewing habits gravitated almost entirely towards comedy this year. With that said, here are my favorites from 2011, the year in TV:

BEST SHOWS

1. Parks & Recreation, NBC. This ensemble comedy, part workplace comedy and part small-scale political satire, was as consistently funny as anything on TV in recent memory. Amy Poehler is still the star, but Nick Offerman was the unquestioned breakout as stoic libertarian and manly-man Ron Swanson. Memorable Episodes: "Ron & Tammy: Part Two," "Fancy Party," "Lil' Sebastian," "Ron and Tammys," "Smallest Park"

2. Community, NBC. Boy, am I glad I stuck with this show. The genre-jumping and inherent weirdness may turn off new and/or casual viewers --so much so that the Greendale gang are on hiatus-- but where P&R hits for average, "Community" hits for power. If only it could get some Emmy lovin'. Memorable Episodes: "Intermediate Documentary Film-making," "Paradigms of Human Memory," "Remedial Chaos Theory"

3. Bob's Burgers, Fox. Arguably the funniest new show to air on network television in 2011, "Bob's" blends its absurdity and protagonist's constant slow burn with a big heart. H. Jon Benjamin is delightfully understated as the voice of Bob, but Kristen Schaal is a force as his sociopathic youngest daughter Louise. With Fox's aging "Animation Domination" lineup growing more erratic by the week, this proved to be a welcome source of fresh meat. Memorable Episodes: "Sacred Cow," "Art Crawl," "Spaghetti Western & Meatballs"

4. Childrens Hospital, Adult Swim. No less peculiar than "Community" but far less attached to reality, "Hospital" has transcended its initial parodying of medical dramas into something more bizarre and gut-bustingly silly. On top of that, each episode is 12 minutes long so you can watch an entire season in just over two hours. Memorable Episodes: "Ward 8," "Stryker Bites the Dust," "The Chet Episode"

5. Modern Family, ABC. Yes, this show has been a tad uneven since that stellar first season, but when "Family" meets it target the results can be quite entertaining. Memorable Episodes: "Someone To Watch Over Lily," "See You Next Fall," "Treehouse"

BEST EPISODES

30 Rock, "100." The fifth season of Tina Fey's sarcastic ode to all things NBC had a renaissance of sorts last year, but it peaked with an hour-long indicator of its syndication eligibility. The event was like a wedding: "100" had something old (Liz saving the show yet again), something new (Michael Keaton as a creepy janitor), something borrowed (Dean Winters from the Allstate commercials), and something blue (Rachel Dratch, no spoilers here).

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Palestinian Chicken." The high point of CYE's New York season aired when the action was still in LA, with our anti-hero using ethnic cuisine as a bouncing ball for marital infidelity, Israel-Palestinian relations, and the loneliness of being a "social assassin."

Louie, "Duckling." I was torn between choosing this episode or the pitch-black suicide fable "Eddie," but I chose Louie's misadventures on a USO tour with a baby waterfowl as a stowaway. Delicately toeing the line between patriotism and discomfort humor, the ending of the episode is sweetly slapstick.

The Office, "Goodbye Michael." Considering how lazy and middling the Andy Bernard era of Dunder-Mufflin has been, I think most fans of the show will concur that this should've been the series finale. Instead, we'll have to settle for the series' last great episode. Why didn't Steve Carell win an Emmy for his troubles?

Onion News Network, "Real America." The fanboy in me had to give The Onion's basic cable offspring some TLC. Again, this was a tough pick but I went with the "episode" where the cable-news parody put a spotlight on a group of indigenous midwesterners hosting representatives of congress like they were foreign ambassadors. To host the summit in a bowling alley was just ingenious.

--+---+--

How can I sum up 2011 without being glib or vague? This was a year where we was said goodbye to heroes (Andy Whitfield, Cliff Robertson) and villains (Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gadhafi, Kim Jong Il). We bid adieu to well-endowed women (Jane Russell, Maria Schneider) and giant boobs (Silvio Berlusconi, Ozzie Guillen) alike. On a personal level, this was a year of triumph (improv) and struggle (financially justifying to Chicago), of success (losing 17 pounds) and failure (the never-ending job search). My resolution for 2012? To stop using parentheses for dramatic effect.

In Memoriam: Gerry Rafferty, Duke Snider, Dave Duerson, Suze Rotolo, Jack Lalanne, Len Lesser, Mike Starr, Joe Morello, Thomas Roeser, Warren Christopher, Geraldine Ferraro, Sidney Lumet, Michael Sarrazin, Elisabeth Sladen, Randy Savage, Elizabeth Taylor, Harmon Killebrew, Paul Splittorff, Jeff Conaway, Clarence Clemons, Seve Ballesteros, Dick Williams, Betty Ford, Sherwood Schwartz, Lee Roy Selmon, Bubba Smith, Amy Winehouse, Sen. Charles Percy, Al Davis, Steve Jobs, Norman Corwin, Heavy D, Dan Wheldon, Andy Rooney, Smokin' Joe Frazier, Bil Keane, Patrice O'Neal, Dobie Gray, Harry Morgan, Paul Motion, Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel, Joe Bodolai, Leo Gardzielewski, and Jeanette Dickinson.

See you next year!

My Last Blog of 2010

When you think about it, 2010 went by like a blur. I guess time flies by when you're fruitlessly mailing and e-mailing resumes to prospective employers. In all seriousness though, with the exorbitant amount of free time I had during the Summer and Fall of 2010, it doesn't seem like the year is almost over. From a media perspective, it was a year of buzzwords: from Eyjafjallajökull to "refudiate," from vuvuzela to WikiLeaks, it was a solid 12-month span for gibberish and foreign proper names. It was a great year for pop culture --especially TV and music-- and a terrible year for almost everything else. (Forgive me if this blog seems a little slipshod; there's so much to reminisce about and too little time to express it.)

THE BEST TV SHOWS OF 2010

1. "Mad Men," AMC. Jon Hamm was runner-up for EW's Entertainer of the Year, and for good reason. Besides two strong outings on SNL and a dilligent performance in The Town, his portrayal of enigmatic '60s ad exec Don Draper has nearly made him a TV icon for our time. The show itself has also benefitted with Hamm at its center, turning out a somewhat polarizing season of bravura performances and clever writing. Notable Episodes: "The Rejected," "The Suitcase," "The Beautiful Girls."
2. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Comedy Central. As inherently political as TDS might be, the show is first and foremost a parody and skewering of a mass media that can't bother to be objective anymore. People have caught on, too: on any given night, Jon and his "correspondents" are pummeling Leno and Letterman in the ratings. Notable Episodes: TDS doesn't really have episode titles --it's a talk show, mind you-- but there's plenty of clips on Hulu, YouTube et al. that prove my point.
3. "Parks & Recreation," NBC. With "The Office" slowly fading into the sunset, P&R has become Thursday night's best and most underappreciated comedy. Amy Poehler earned a well-deserved Emmy nomination as eager small-town bureaucrat Leslie Knope, but Nick Offerman and Aziz Ansari were snubbed outright. If only more people would catch on... Notable Episodes: "Sweetums," "Telethon," "The Master Plan."
4. "Modern Family," ABC. No show balances laughs with low-key charm quite like the blended Pritchett clan. It's a family sitcom at heart, though not always family-friendly, but honest and grounded enough to keep you tuned in. Few shows have ever captured the complicated dynamic of a strong, lasting marriage quite like Mod-Fam. Notable Episodes: "Airport 2010," "Strangers on a Treadmill," "Halloween."
5. "Community," NBC. Talk about patience and perseverance: I put this show on my best of 2009 list on the heels of two strong episodes following an uneven start. I'm relieved to know that my praise was a sign of things to come, as "Community" has really come into its own in the past calendar year. "Modern Family" notwithstanding, this show has quite possibly the best comedy ensemble on television. Notable Episodes: "Modern Warfare," "The Psychology of Letting Go," "Epidemiology."

Honorable Mentions: "Boardwalk Empire," HBO; "In Treatment," HBO.

Best Show That I Need to Start Watching on a Regular Basis: "Breaking Bad," AMC.

Best Random Guest Appearance: Norman Lloyd on "Modern Family." Forget about Betty White for a moment-- it's a marvel that the 96-year-old thespian still manages to nab steady work. Best known as the last surviving member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater players and as Dr. Auschlander on "St. Elsewhere," Lloyd is a living legend that 90% of the populace knows nothing about. I almost didn't notice him when I saw the "Manny Get Your Gun" episode, which either says something about Lloyd's advanced age or his workman-like ability to disappear into a role.

Worst Random Guest Appearance: Justin Bieber on "CSI." Do I really need to explain this?

Worst Show of 2010: "Bridalplasty," E! Aspiring brides-to-be compete for boob jobs and facelifts in a narcissistic, disturbing, and altogether sad mash-up of "The Swan" and "Say Yes to the Dress." Case evidence of reality television and their obsession with the lowest common denominator.
Runner-Up: "Outsourced," NBC. If this were halfway decent, I would've forgave NBC for handing Park & Rec's time slot to this culture-clash single-camera comedy. Instead, "Outsourced" is more or less the Indian "Amos n' Andy," playing to stereotypes about spicy food, funny accents, and polytheism like a New Dehli minstrel show. Saying this show is an accurate depiction of an Indian workplace is like saying Sbarro is the cutting edge of Italian cuisine.

THE YEAR IN NEWS
　
My Favorite Political Cartoon of 2010: This.

In Memoriam: Miep Gies, J.D. Salinger, Eric Rohmer, Doug Fieger, T-Bone Wolk, Merlin Olsen, Lynn Redgrave, Dennis Hopper, Sen. Robert Byrd, Lena Horne, Ronnie James Dio, Rue McClanahan, Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, John Wooden, Gloria Stuart, Greg Giraldo, Robert Schimmel, Tony Curtis, Jill Clayburgh, Barbara Billingsley, Tom Bosley, Leslie Nielsen, Dino DeLaurentiis, Elizabeth Edwards, Ted Sorensen, Maurice Lucas, Pat Burns, George "Sparky" Anderson, Bob Feller, "Dandy Don" Meredith, Roy Neuberger, Richard Holbrooke, Steve Landesberg, Blake Edwards, Teena Marie, Gardner Kissick, and "Still Bill" Johnson.

Finally, because I haven't posted any in awhile, here's a couple of Top 5 lists to wrap up the year.

Five Obscure Monty Python References That Might Work as Names for Bands:
1. Hovercraft of Eels
2. Whicker's World
3. The Machine That Goes Bing
4. Kamikaze Highlander
5. Toad the Wet Sprocket*

Five Tips for Aspiring Grad School Students:
1. You have at least six bodily fluids you can donate to pay for tuition
2. If the school crest has a bottle of trucker pills on it, you're in good hands
3. Don't be afraid to consider moving far away to earn your masters or doctorate, as you will never see your friends and family anyway
4. As impressive as the publication of your epic research paper might be, it won't score you a free Whopper at Burger King
5. There is a growing perception in American culture that baccalaureate degrees are "the new high school diploma" since in the last 25 years, job growth has stagnated for Americans that stopped their education with a bachelor's, so imagine how far that masters will get you in the long run

SEE YOU IN 2011!