A Man On Stage

I’ve grown quite fond of Christo­pher Hitchens. Sur­pris­ing, since I met the man on the set of The Daily Show when he was (and still is, I imag­ine) an ardent advo­cate for war with Sad­dam. I thought he was a smarmy over­weight pud­ding of a man, and I cheered when Jon Stew­art did that thing he does when he, like, goes all cool ‘an that.

But over many mean­der­ings around Inter­net Square, I’ve found myself bump­ing into Hitch mid­way through an intellect’s stroll. The first was by way of mutual friend Stephen Fry. The two were busy lay­ing siege to two mem­bers of the Catholic Church, in an effort described best as inim­itable. I enjoyed how “Well, yes, but…” Hitchen’s deliv­ery was; it was a wel­come turn from Richard Dawkins’ “Oh? Godlov­ing­douch­esezwhat?” approach so fes­tered over athe­ism nowadays.

I began to read his work. His love of the fancy was evi­dent. But the man can write — aston­ish­ingly well, by any stretch. And his insights wan­der the neigh­bour­hoods of wry­ness and smart with a cool kind of casu­al­ness many strug­gle to drive through.

Equally amus­ing were his colonies of fans. Over the course of many a com­ments sec­tion, they’d be found wax­ing lyri­cal over each and every one of his offer­ings. A pub­lished excerpt from his mem­oirs Hitch 22 net­ted many lurid thoughts try­ing to play in Hitchens’ key. It made me won­der if a the­sis had ever been writ­ten about syco­phan­tic mim­icry on the inter­net, and if not, would the Hitcha­teers be a great place to start.

Though our acquain­tance is quaint by most people’s reck­on­ing, I was sad­dened to hear about the lark­ing great god-gunner’s recent diag­no­sis. Hitchens is rid­dled with the Big C, a sit­u­a­tion he admits he finds utterly banal. He’s not so much resigned to fate, rather utterly bored by how pre­dictable it’s unfolded. A life-long smoker/boozer under­go­ing chemotherapy–how des­per­ately mainstream.

I think it would be a great shame to lose a prick like Hitchens this early (the man is in his early 60’s). His take on come­dian Glenn Beck’s DC rally is indica­tive of a mind on top of the world around it. But it’s still a smug mind, a snob’s mind; but an insight­ful mind we’d be loathed to find a suc­ces­sor for.

His “raw” descrip­tions of treat­ment in this month’s issue of Van­ity Fair were the first “sick news” I’d tasted since I picked up ill­ness #4.

Last Thurs­day, I was diag­nosed with Ulcer­a­tive Proc­ti­tis, an ail­ment more pleas­ing to say than, well, just about any­thing else, really. It’s the lat­est addi­tion in an alto­gether tedious pat­tern of dis­ease col­lec­tion, start­ing with Autoim­mune Hepati­tis in 2007, Type 2 Dia­betes in 2008, and Pri­mary Scle­ros­ing Cholan­gi­tis in 2009.

It’s never been my inter­est to ask the big “Why me?” of the uni­verse. As Hitchens him­self points out, the answer is a lazily uttered, “Why not?” Mine has never been to con­tem­plate, to whine, to com­plain — but to find some­thing bet­ter to do. It’s partly the rea­son I’m learn­ing music for the first time since 2000 (gui­tar, huz­zah), and entirely the rea­son I’m swim­ming full time agan.

As an extra incen­tive, I’ve estab­lished a spin­off from the Yel­low Peg Auc­tions. Enti­tled “The Yel­low Peg Triple 25,” this hare­brained scheme sees me, Jean-Michel, div­ing head­first into some kind of water catch­ment, and mov­ing back and forth in a swim-like motion for 40 lengths each and every day — a  kilo­me­tre, as it were. The goal being to swim 25 kilo­me­tres every 25 days while I’m still 25-years-old. Once I hit 26, it’s fudge cake and undy­ing fat­ness for this dough boy.

There’s noth­ing pro­found to offer about the endeav­our, sans the num­ber 25 fea­tures a lot, and it forces me to get out of bed some­time before 9am.

I refuse to allow my sense of inter­est and intrigue to go qui­etly into the night. The oppor­tu­ni­ties lying at my feet do indeed reach out beyond my years, beyond my diag­no­sis, and into a nev­er­land only the mind’s intu­ition knows the lim­its of. Any­thing else, as Hitchens would say, would be capitulation.

Also, there are talk­ing cats on YouTube to see.