Comedians

Janey Godley, the Scottish comedian, has died from ovarian cancer at the age of 63. 

Images of her solitary protest against the US president’s 2017 visit to Turnberry golf course, armed with a “Donald Trump is a cunt” placard, won progressive hearts. (source)

She was younger than me. It always weirds me out when folks with less mileage on 'em croak. I’m still here and these talented, kind people aren’t—is that really fair? Survivor's guilt anyone?

I’m unfamiliar with Godley’s work (apart from her great protest of the most embarrassing and disgusting “human” in the US) but I understand she was a friend of fellow Glaswegian, Billy Connolly. Were they at all similar. I absolutely adored Connolly's stand-up comedy. He reminded me of George Carlin. I'll need to find a clip of Godley performing.

Like Connolly, Godley was sexually abused as a child. Godley by an uncle, Connolly by his father. That they both survived and turned their respective horrors into trenchant, razor-sharp, spot-on wit is buoying—it gives me hope.

Side note: Connolly retired to Key West in 2018. Other famous freshwater conchs? Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Judy Blume, Jimmy Buffet, Truman Capote, Robert Frost, John James Audubon, Shel Silverstein, Harry Truman and the poet Wallace Stevens who got into regular bar fights with Hemingway and Frost.

I visited Key West once in the early ‘80s. It was nice but not so much my scene—too touristy. If I was to leave Massachusetts, what island paradise would I go to? If it was easy to accomplish citizenship-wise, I think Iceland would be quite good. Someplace tropical? I’m not keen on hot temperatures, giant insects, and hurricanes. Wait, wait, you say that Iceland has active volcanoes? Meh. Those seem safer (maybe just easier to outrun) than tropical cyclones with 74 mile per hour wind.

 Also, I've not heard about Icelandic poets beating up on each other. Maybe they only engage in fisticuffs over Brennivín (AKA the black death) at home?