Say what you want, Ted Turner is one of the great adventurers of our time. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about him winning the America’s Cup (and being falling drunk during the celebration), reintroducing Buffalo as a viable commodity, or ignoring people who called him insane when he launched a little known project called CNN. (Who’d watch 24 hrs. news anyway right?)
Anyway, I miss him. The guy with no great education who reinvented our culture. This came up tonight because I was visiting a friend – Deke. I can’t say Deke is a close friend. We met down at my fav watering hole and we played poker together down there and tended to hangout together when there. I wasn’t always there but he was there just about everyday last couple years at least.
His mother was ill – alzheimers – and he took care of her pretty much everyday until earlier this year when he had to have her put in a nursing home because it became too dangerous. So, last year, we had ill mothers we were taking care of and could relate.
I can’t say we’re close friends. Outside of the watering hole, we never did much together. Then again, I don’t think he has any real friends at least not around here. Before my trip, I stopped by a couple times to check on him because he wasn’t doing so well physically. I think I am the only one who is stopping by and that is kinda sad. It could happen to any of us (don’t kid yourself and think you’re an exception, the world can be a cruel place) but it is tragic in a way.
I know part of it is his fault because he has spent most his time drinking beer and smoking cigarettes but still, it is tragic. More tragic is that now the beer and cigarettes have caught up to him. I would say he is slowly dying. He suspects the same. He has a doc appointment now every week for bone tests and they have him on a half dozen pills. Fortunately, he is a vet so the bill is paid for.
He called me last week, wanting to go out. He hadn’t been out anywhere really in a couple months so I promised to pick him up this week and take him to the watering hole to see people and buy him a beer or two. We talked for like an hour but he didn’t want to go tonight. I could see that physically he wasn’t able.
We talked tv, he watches a lot of it these days. He use to read, like 2 books a day, but now he doesn’t have a desire to do that anymore. So entertainment is tv. Enter Ted Turner. When Ted Turner ran TBS and WGN and TNT they started the craze to do original programming. They’d repeat the movies etc. but didn’t do like tv now and just repeat, repeat, repeat until the audience was nauseated. When he ran CNN, that network actually was forced to news. Remember them fighting to get into Baghdad during the first Gulf War? Today they wait for I-reporters to tell them something and keep their fingers crossed it is accurate.
Ted Turner would also speak his mind and be blunt about it. He didn’t cower in a corner and worry about offending someone or whether he was PC. It didn’t matter. Got something to say? Say it damnit and then do something about it. I can remember Ted Turner pissing off the Christians, Wall St., sportsmen, ESPN, and half the people he took advantage of in business.
Yeah, I miss Ted Turner.
