Following Felons

I followed this raccoon around a parking lot on Saturday and he was in my dream last night. So I guess that's how that works. In my dream, it was sunset and I was trying to help him over a fence. In reality, the guy was out remarkably early and his reaction to me was just to stop now and then and stare at me curiously. He didn't seem very afraid, maybe because he could probably tear my face off if he wanted, but he didn't seem very hostile either.

On Friday night, I watched The Late Show with David Letterman because Artie Lange was on. It's really weird how everyone on The Howard Stern Show went from dealing with the shock of Lange's attempted suicide, to dealing with his absence and then, somewhat abruptly, going to a mode where they avoided mentioning him except to make it clear that Stern didn't want him back on the show for his own good. Well, Lange is on the radio, and he has been for weeks though I didn't know it until I saw him on Letterman--Lange has a sports radio show with Nick Di Paolo which streams completely for free at nickandartie.com.

I don't have the remotest interest in sports, and Di Paolo is rather a hostile conservative, but he's funny when he's not talking about politics. And Lange somehow makes sports stories interesting even to me, though I don't understand half of what he says. It's my lack of interest in sports that keeps me from listening to entire shows, I think, but Lange has that natural gift for telling stories that makes me keep going back. Mostly, though, it's made me feel less inclined to listen to radio altogether. The Stern Show has less lustre knowing Stern can't bring himself to let Lange back on. I think he should honestly ask himself if having Artie on drugs is worse than having no Artie at all.

Which is not to say I think Artie is using--just that I think it's useless to speculate or to try to control what he does in his personal life. The only thing shutting someone out accomplishes is shutting them out.

I do think Lange's got a self destruct programme still running in him. Something about the way he awkwardly worked in a suicide joke at the end of his interview with Letterman. But he also clearly seemed like a guy who needs friends.