Why can't I wrap my head around church and religion and faith, but hymns and spirituals and gospel sung in just the right way stir my soul and fill my heart?  

I can't stop listening to the first 6 tracks on Welcome Wagon's debut album!

New Cancer's Eve

Today, my aunt, who I'm especially close to, was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her pancreas.  

In working on all the hospital documentaries that I've worked on over the last four years, I've been around a number of sick and cancer laden people.  With what goes into telling their stories, the countless hours spent with them, we get to know these people very well.  It's natural to feel empathy for them and their families.

I'm asking myself now, was it really empathy I was feeling?  When it's happening to your own family it feels different.  This is someone who through the years has eaten what I've eaten, breathed the air I've breathed, who's blood isn't much different than my own.  

It's different when it hits close to home. 

  

Croquet (The Game of Kings)

Random King Family Fact:

We play croquet every Christmas (and every other family get together).

Drinks, Coats and Keys (One Night in Chicago)

My friend, JT, looking dapper in his winter hat and coat, appears a bit drunk in this photo. He's actually not drunk at this point, but it's a sign of things to come on this night out in Chicago.

After dinning at an Argentine steak house, myself, JT and his wife, our friend Todd and his fiance, spent the rest of the night at Todd's neighborhood watering hole shooting Jameson chased by PBRs. There were a number of unappetizing Red Bull drinks that lead to some of us dancing wildly in our bar stools and left all of us with a hefty hangover.

In Chicago, like New York and London, it seems that everyone, men and women, wears the same knee-length black winter coats. And they all end up in a fluffy black cluster on the bar or restaurant's coat rack. As you can imagine, it's quite a chore to locate your jacket at night's end, when you're in a druken state. And JT's druken state is more severe than most people's. We jokingly refer to it as "Weekend at Bernie's." Basically his body goes limp and all verbal function ceases. He nothing more than a tree trunk in the middle of bar room with drunks swirling all around him.  

Fast forward to the morning after and JT and I passed out at Todd's friend's apartment. I awake to the daunting task of finding our way back to Todd in a snowy, cold and unfamiliar city. Despite a bright, shinning beam of light that's resting comfortably on his face, JT is not waking up. Only repeated shaking manages to wake him.

His Jameson, Red Bull, PBR haze is worse than mine, so I help him put on his coat as a cab waits outside for us. Once the coat is on him, in a gravely voice, he says, "Where's my coat?" I say, "This isn't your coat?" Maybe I'm in as much of a haze as JT.  "Nope." In fact, it's nothing like JT's coat. It's gray, not black. It has a zipper, not buttons. And, it's an XXXL, or four sizes too big for JT! Todd's friend Shelly alertly checks the pockets for any of JT's possessions. Pulling something from the jacket, Shelly asks, "Are these your keys?" "I don't have any keys," responds JT. Digging deeper into the pockets, Shelly pulls out a second set of keys, followed by a third, fourth, and fifth set! JT, Shelly and I all look at one another and immediately realize that JT accidentally grabbed the designated driver's jacket. "Whoa," says Shelly! "I got all my stuff," remarks JT insensitively.

Shelly agrees to return the jacket to the bar it was taken from, but that does little to fix the miserable night that at least six people endured. During the cab ride back to Todd's, JT and I dream up scenarios people furiously yelling at their DD and angry drunks locked out of their homes on a bitter Chicago night.       

Over the next 48-hours we would recount this story a dozen times, each time to Todd's delight. It's an utterly perfect drunk story we all agree.  

Just hours before leaving Chicago we get word that Shelly has JT's jacket. We trek into the belly of downtown Chicago to retrieve it... In a moment of perfect irony, the jacket that's supposed to be JT's jacket is not, and now someone else is pissed off.  JT ultimately leaves Chicago with a number of enemies and a new Brooks Brother's coat that fits him perfectly.