Goodbye Denny Crane

My fight with mad cow

John Grisham novels spawned a spate of legal comedy/dramas on television.

“The Practice” copied an English program. It created the character of Alan Shore. In real life, most of my friends were trying to decide between being Attacus Finch and Mitch McDeer. To be a decent lawyer you had to have an animal in your name. Almost none of them realized their vision. The real world is like that.

“The Practice” didn’t resonate with me, even though it had great speeches. I liked James Spader though. He was often described as an adjunct member of the Brat Pack. I couldn’t stand the Brat Pack. This went on until “Chaplin” surprised everybody.

At the turn of the Century, I’d been calling myself a moderate Republican for more than 12 years. The new century changed and challenged everything I thought I believed. Osama Bin Laden, Dick Chaney, and God himself conspired to unsettle me.

I had essential friends that worked for Hailey Barbour, important to him, but they were more important to me. I had plans for who would be Mississippi's first republican governor, which I knew had been coming for a while before it did and believed it should.

Jack Reed or Gil Carmichael seemed the most logical choices to me. Eight years of Mabus and Eight years of Reed should put us in a good spot. Both were very pro education, but from different parties. Both Reed and and Carmichael had been Republican long before every dixiecrat jumped ship and became Republican.

This never happened. Bill Crawford wrote a book about how the Mississippi GOP passed over Carmichael, despite all he'd done. I'm a big believer in dancing with the one what brung ya. The Mississippi GOP disagreed. Cracks were forming between me and them.

I had personal issues with Fordice long predating his run for governor by ten years. When he left Miss Pat to live alone in the Governor's Mansion while he lived it up in Madison with an old flame I quit being civil about it. I know all about old flames, but “mother-fucker” was a word I used a lot. Couldn't he have waited?

Barbour was a guy Id been watching for a while. There were no “mother-fucker” issues where he was concerned. I still consider him my favorite governor of the last thirty-five years. Sorry Tate.

Nobody could have forseen the opening years of the twenty-first century. Monica Lewinsky seemed like a fart in the bathtub compared to what we were facing and did face.

I’m writing a book with a friend telling the story of Mississippi Camelot as a coming of age story, both mine and hers. Trying to pin down an exact timeline for Mississippi Camelot I'm thinking maybe Winter’s second failed run for governor to the second year of Katrina. It'd be funny if i started it with the whisky raid on the Country Club involving Winter and Warren Hood, but that's too early. It will get a mention though.

There’s nothing like an act of God to change your perspective on everything. Camelot didn't just end. It burned to the ground. Then the gulf of Mexico washed away the ashes. Jackson filled up with every gangster evacuated from the ninth ward in New Orleans. They didn't get along so well with the local gangsters. Here we go.

As the centuries changed, my personal life was on rocky ground. My health was in the shitter. A loveless mairrage didn't help. Millsaps was starting to take on water and neither the board or the president had a plan. I was having issues with God himself. I did what I often did as a child, I retreated into television. “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” were at the top of the list. Both struggled with the things I struggled with. Free-will, good and evil, faith and science, love and fate.

A comedy, “Boston Legal” was the spin off of “The Practice”. The cast was remarkable. Starting with James Spader, they added René Auberjonois and Bill Shatner. Star Trek Easter eggs were part of a almost every episode. After the first season, they added Candice Bergen. Long before Murphey Brown, I'd been following her because of her father. The rest of the world followed her because of photos of the nineteen year old Bergen at Truman Capote's Black-and-white Ball appeared in Life magazine. She was pretty enough, but ugh-blondes! They're no good for you. Ask my simian friend from Skull Island. Oh! That's right. You can't. He's DEAD because of a blonde.

The first three seasons they went through every rising starlet in the business, but by the third season settled on Betty White and Tara Summers. You cant tell me White wasn't a starlet.

One convention of the show was that they used comedians from the sixties and seventies as judges. Shelly Berman and Henry Gibson were my favorites. Gibson played a self-hating homosexual. A bold move for a man his age at that time. His wife seemed ok with it.

At the core of the show, was the friendship between Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Sometimes it reminded me of the friendship I had with Brent, and sometimes the friendship between me and Lance. Every episode ended with Denny and Alan drinking scotch and smoking cigars on a balcony overlooking Boston.

Crane was entering the early stages of Alzheimers disease. The brain plaque wasn't advancing, but the specter of age and death hung over the character. Knowing he'd never again be the man he was, he called it “Mad Cow,” which was a hot topic in the news.

Denny was conservative, Alan was liberal. On a balcony overlooking Boston, they smoked cigars, talked about women, and trashed out the issues facing America the mortality of men, and the meaning of friendship. Denny Crane crying about his lost grateness and the sword hanging over his head reminded me of the nights Lance cried trying to direct his last play, “Dangerous Corner.” As far as the world knows he directed every moment of that play and made every decision. Im okay with that. I don't like mad cow either.

On Hulu, I've been revisitng Boston Legal, all five seasons. Watching two or three episodes a week, its taken most of the summer and all of the fall. The end is coming though. I only have five episodes left. Mad cow wins again.

Not really considering it, I think i wanted to experience the show again because I miss how we handled things at the turn of the Century. It was the last time I felt comfortable as a Republican.

I voted for McCain because I'd admired him for decades. When Rush Limbaugh started attacking the McCaine-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, I wrote off Rush Limbaugh.

There was a moment at a campaign rally where a woman asked McCain what he thought about Obama being a communist, Muslim, from Africa, who hated America. McCain said “no ma'am, senator Obama is an honorable man who I disagree with on several key issues.” If I wasn't already all-in for McCain, that would have convinced me.

It should be noted that the current president started all these false narratives about Obama rather than dealing with the issues. Speaking decently and honestly about your opposition is a test of manliness. I started out that way with Trump, even though everyone I knew in New York hated him, including the blonde who killed King Kong. He soon used up all those cards. My patience is long, but it's not infinite.

I’d like to be a Republican again before the mad cow takes me. When a new republican sent some guy to take pictures of Thad Cochran’s wife in the bed she died on, I knew my time in the party was up. Even if Thad wasn't my cousin, it'd still be up. This wasn't the party I joined. What I’d like to do and what the world allows are two different things.

I suspect, I'll die with an “I” next to my name as someone who spent his last years caucusing with the Democrats. Mad Cow wins again.

I'll miss nights on the Balcony with Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Friendship and mentorship between men is sacred, but the world is changing.

I've been thinking of teaching Mary B Sellers to smoke cigars. Im pretty sure she's already ok with Scotch. There's a distinct chance her mom will beat me to pulp. She'll surprise you though, she may decide to join.

I'd like to do some good before the mad cow takes me. I suspect with me, it'll just be a matter of this old heart giving out. I've put him through a lot. Mad Cow comes for every man. Im not afraid.

Good night Denny. Goodnight Alan. Pop-pop Jerry. Goodnight Shirley, my love, give your father and your brother Charlie my regards. Nite Paul and Carl. Lighten up, will ya. Goodnight, Katie your brilliance and kindness remind me of a real world lawyer I know. I'll miss your attitude Bethany, you made me realize dwarves can be sexy. Goodnight Boston. I'll miss you.