The crazies on the crazy

January 12, 2011January 12, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

I don’t know who’s scarier — the grinning lunatic who guns down a congresswoman, a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, among others, or the assclowns who are in the public eye because some folks treat the ballot box like a drive-up window at Mickey D’s after the bars have closed for the night (“Oh, just give me whatever.”)

Take Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Terror Babies), who thinks some folks (not him) need to tone down their rhetoric. Or Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-McCarthyism), a neotard who equates health care with terrorism — and who chairs a House committee on higher education and lifelong learning. And of course Caribou Barbie herself, who just can’t bear to see a TV screen bereft of her image, a grinning clown mask hung on an empty skull. A big shout-out to John “Get Off My Lawn” McCain for dropping this flaming sack of moose shit on the national stoop.

It must all be terribly frustrating for the staff at “The Daily Show,” with satire running a very poor second to reality. As Steve Benen at Political Animal noted, “The jokes write themselves.”

Home again, home again

January 11, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

Miss me? I drove to California for Theresa Coursey’s memorial service, and while it was swell to be among friends, people I hadn’t seen in a spell, a guy likes everyone to be present and accounted for, and we were one fine woman short.

Theresa’s service drew a standing-room-only crowd, the sort we’d all secretly like to have, but few of us deserve. Theresa had it coming. Her husband and their children all spoke, and if there was a dry eye in the house it was not one of mine.

Afterward we ate and drank, talked and took long walks, and after a few days together we all scattered, returning to our lives in Prescott, Philly, Tempe, New York, Colorado. But I’m still thinking of Theresa, wishing I’d spent more time around her, and I know I’m not alone.

Being present these days is not always easy, but it remains vital. In “Taking the Path of Zen,” the late Robert Aitken Roshi recounted the evening message of sesshin as given at Hawaii’s Diamond Sangha:

I beg to urge you, everyone:

Life-and-death is a grave matter,

all things pass quickly away;

each of us must be completely alert:

never neglectful, never indulgent.

That’s my evening message to you. In the morning, the comedy will resume.

What is the sound of one wheel spinning?

January 2, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Zen, Zen, Zen, Zen. I heard that for an hour yesterday as I rode the Cateye trainer in my office.

Or I would have, if I hadn’t had the iPod cranked up to 11. Led Zep’, Elvis Costello, Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton and the great Les McCann-Eddie Harris tune, “Compared To What,” recorded live at the 1969 Montreaux Jazz Festival.

That sucker sure makes the wheels go round faster, despite the dualism of the trainer, aboard which which one seems to be both asleep and working at 114 beats per minute.

Theresa Elizabeth Coursey, R.I.P.

January 1, 2011January 2, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Theresa Elizabeth Coursey, Jan. 15, 1956-Dec. 31, 2010

Theresa Elizabeth Coursey didn’t get to see 2011. She finally lost her years-long battle with cancer on New Year’s Eve, after spending Christmas Day in the hospital, missing her 55th birthday by just a couple of weeks.

Her husband, Chris, an old friend, college roommate and colleague, brought her home to live out the remainder of her life surrounded by family. But she was not without friends in the hospital. A veteran nurse, Theresa was treated “like a rock star — the mentor around whom no one wants to make a mistake,” he said.

We all kept hoping that cancer would make a mistake, but mostly it doesn’t. Theresa was already a two-time breast-cancer survivor in 2008, when she rode The Breakaway Mile Ride in Santa Rosa as the Amgen Tour of California came to town.

But the disease sought out other targets of opportunity — first a lung, then her brain, and finally it held dominion everywhere. Though she battled it through round after round, enduring surgeries, radiation and chemo’, she was fighting outside her weight class, as are we all. That bell finally rings.

We wish peace and rest to Theresa, and continued courage and strength to Chris and their children, Diana, Andrew, Colleen and Alex.

• Late update: Theresa’s obit in The Press Democrat, her hometown paper.