Escape

As you may recall, I’m not much of a teevee watcher BUT I’m utterly hooked on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and I'm wicked sad that we only have four episodes left until the end 😢. The last time I was this obsessed with a show was when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on.

I mean, please recall: it was the late ‘90s, I was being wheeled away to spine surgery – the one where I was given 50/50 odds of coming out with zero use of or feeling in any part of my body from the tits down. I knew this was going to be an epic, marathon operation. I was sedated but still awake enough to speak. Before the orderlies rolled me out, I turned my head to The Amazing Bob and Jen and said, “don’t forget to tape Buffy.”

First words to Jen on coming out of anesthesia in recovery? “Did you tape Buffy?” I had my priorities in order and shit!

Nicholas Brendon, the actor who played Xander on Buffy, died on March 20th in Greencastle, Indiana. I only just found out. He was 54. Practically a kid. Brendon had a heart defect and spine issues (cauda equina syndrome – necessitating several surgeries), but mostly his body was damaged from years of heavy alcohol and drug abuse.

Apparently, unlike his goofy but caring, stalwart, supportive, good guy Xander character on Buffy, Brendon was a violent, abusive twat. He was busted in 2015 for strangling his girlfriend in a Saratoga Springs, New York hotel room. He was arrested two years later for assaulting another girlfriend at a hotel bar in Palm Springs, California. 

There’s also the little matter of his grand theft, criminal mischief, robbery, and other assorted charges.

I wonder why he chose to move to Putnam County, Indiana of all places. He was born and raised in Southern California. What’s the draw of Indiana? I mean, I lived in the state for a couple of years as a kid (HATED it). We were only there because Daddy was getting his doctorate at the university in Bloomington.

Supposedly Brendon wanted to get away from the Hollywood grind to focus on his mental health. That line sounds like it covers lots of subtext, as in I’ve burned my very last bridge in California and I’ve got to get to a place where no one knows who I really am and what I've done.

Reports also say that he wanted to get away to paint. You can’t do that in LA? His family claims he was selling his art online but there are more than a few people who claim to have never received the paintings they paid for. Eh, who knows.

It came out at some point that, when he was 10-years-old, he’d been sexually abused by a teacher.

"I think about it every day of my life and I wonder how it affected me. Did I stop growing emotionally?" he added. "When you're molested for a couple years and you're blamed for it by the people who are supposed to be your protectors, there's going to be a lot of confusion and a lot of sadness.” (source) 

Jesus. Child abusers and their enablers really need to be exposed, harassed, stripped of all their assets, and unmercifully put down. 

What an awful, ugly mess.