The Tumor of "In My Life"

Not to kill everyone's festive mood of IML love/hate...and I do love this show! But...

My friend just recently said he has a brain tumor. And suddenly IML came into my head and I almost started laughing at the show. Not good. But once I got the visions of flying fairies and dancing skeletons out of my head, I began to think about this.

Now, the show is so campy and is such a big joke that putting something serious like a brain tumor in it seems wrong. But I sort of shrugged it off for the overall enjoyment of the show.

Just recently, however, I sort of put everything into perspective.

The show, despite its best efforts, ends up making a joke out of this. Now, fortunately, my friend is going to get treatment (he may have to withdraw from school) for the tumor. It seems like it will be, more or less, a routine operation for tumor-removal, etc.

But just thinking that his condition could be worse, like J.T.'s (the blindness, etc.) it really makes you wonder what Joe Brooks was thinking.

I mean, there's really no disease he could have used that would be bad enough to cause such flairing emotions, but not bad enough in context of the show, but still...

So, I know we should take it with a grain of salt, and all that, but I just wanted to put this out there.

Sorry.

A New Brain is William Finn's autobiographical tale of being diagnosed with a brain tumor, although it wasn't one and has some other fancy long name. Anyway, while the show is a good mix of humor and drama, pretty much all talk of the disease, especially by Gordon, is told with humor. Don't really know what I'm trying to say, but just a thought.

I think IN MY LIFE makes lemons look bad.

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I had a serious problem with "A New Brain"'s treatment of brain disease. I liked several songs out of context, but the overall tone was so cute I wasn't sure quite how to respond. I half expected the tumor itself to turn up in white tie and tails and do a tap dance.

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