King Cooper

I thought I was over that whole JAMA announcement hoo haa. You know, the one in which DCIS is not going to be called cancer anymore.

The main irritant in that whole mess for me was the blaring headlines, which did not explain the situation to the un-cancer-y. I begrudgingly give credit to a podcast in which the Sloan Kettering doctor pointed out that yeah, maybe DCIS will wind up being nothing to worry about for most people, but it still sucks for the 1% who manage to develop cancer from it (he did not say “sucks” but his mannerism and attitude indicated it—and for that I respect him). When I learned of the JAMA report, I read about it in a NY Times pieces, and this same doctor’s protestations were not mentioned until about the 13^th paragraph—and no one but the most dedicated of cancer readers will get that far into the article.

I remember wincing when I read it. It reminded me of the fuss a couple of weeks earlier. One headline got repeated on various internet stories over and over and over: “Alice Cooper Slams Mumford & Sons”. If anyone bothered to watch the linked video like yours truly, they’d see Cooper say he actually liked the band and only objected to the fact they were categorized as “rock music”—and he didn’t even accuse the band of calling themselves this! More or less, he was grumbling about the state of rock, claiming there is very little of it out there these days. The two groups he referred to as still carrying said torch for rock—Foo Fighters and Green Day—have each been around for about 20 years, hardly spring chickens, those dudes. Granted, Cooper said a few loopy things in the clip—I mean why does anyone need to eat a steak to produce great rock? Whatever dude—but he never slammed anyone, and I resent the lie the headline used to hook people into clicking to their sites.

Yeah, yeah, linking Cooper and cancer is a stretch, but is it? I’m so tired of misleading headlines, of truths being buried so deep into articles that no one notices, and no one challenges the reports, and no meaningful conversations are had. Just headlines. No one reads details, no one even trusts details anymore. I’m tired of it in every topic, cancer especially.

Even more, I’m tired of no new news.

Honestly, that DCIS-is-NOT-cancer thing was not a new topic, the JAMA report was just making it more official. I’d already read conversations in breast cancer communities supporting the idea that it is cancer-to-be or others slamming those with DCIS as not having “real” cancer. That topic I won’t touch with a ten foot pole!

So tired of the same old shit. I want something new, something I’ve never heard or seen before. What brought on this renewed fuss about that old incident?

I sit here writing this as I watch the nominees for the 2013 VMA nominees. I see pop starlet after pop starlet lip sync in their videos and I am shocked that the videos have not changed for over 10 years. The same cliché shots: young singer in water with heavy eye make-up, giving the camera the come hither look; the hand on hip with seductive hip twitch, again with the come hither look, the same line of sexy women back up dancers. It is as if these girls grew up watching videos with the sole goal of starring in videos EXACTLY like the ones they grew up with—innovation be damned. And the boy bands are exactly the same too. One video’s plot suggested a boy band change their image to the classic Village People look. I found myself wishing someone WOULD dress up like the Village People. Sure it was done before but at least only once—because what I’m seeing has been done like a million times.

Technology changes every five minutes these days—always new software I gotta learn, a new phone I want but gotta wait 2 years to have (and then I have to learn it). But I’m stuck with the same pop tartlets and the same cancer news. WTF?

Headline news, cancer news, pop culture news—PLEASE gimme something new! And someone give me Alice Cooper’s email address. I wasn’t much of a fan of his growing up; I began liking him later in life when I started listening to his radio programs. But best of all I suspect him of being a fellow curmudgeon–maybe he is King Curmudgeon Cooper. I think I need to hang out with him, we can curmudgeon together about the state of rock, of cancer, of culture.

Author: Cancer Curmudgeon

Oct 2010 diagnosed with Stage 3, HER2+ Breast Cancer. Completed treatment Jan 2012. Waaaaaay over pink. Applying punk rock sensibility to how I do cancer. View all posts by Cancer Curmudgeon