From the Bed of Big Daddy Graham

Longtime Philly comedian and radio guy Big Daddy Graham is currently recuperating from major back surgery and fighting throat cancer at the same time. He’s been off his overnight shift at WIP and in his bed 90 percent of the time. Every week he chronicles his recovery … and tells us just what the hell he’s thinking about while he’s spending all that time in sack.

ON THE MEDICAL FRONT
Well, the worst of times have arrived. The docs told me this was gonna happen at the end and, brother, were they correct. It’s throat cancer, right? So imagine having your entire mouth full of thumbtacks 24/7 and you get the drift. There’s about 15 of them stuck in the top and bottom of my tongue and the rest I just chew on. Every minute, every day.

Because of this I can’t eat. I have to drink bottle after bottle of this bullshit concoction called Ensure. Oh, it’s just loaded with vitamins. Sure it is. Everything loaded with vitamins taste like crap. Meanwhile, since I’ve been trapped in bed most of the time, I’ve been watching a ton of ballgames. Phils, Flyers, NBA playoffs — and every stinkin’ commercial is for food. REAL FOOD. Pizza, bacon cheeseburgers, succulent steaks. IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY! I never realized how much of our day is consumed by eating and talking about eating.[SIGNUP]

“Hey, what do you want to eat?”

“Where do you wanna eat?”

“What time you wanna eat?”

It never ends. And the docs are telling me I might not get my taste buds back for months and that they may never be the same again! What’s the point of being cured? Why live if I can’t get drunk on my ass and hit up some late night spot to eat a giant cheesesteak with fries AND onion rings?

Back to my mouth. The only remedy that has given me any relief at all has been this prescription “magic mouthwash” that I use to chug down three percosets every six hours. No problem, right? WRONG. Anyone reading who has ever taken those happy pills for any long length of time knows it comes with one tiny drawback. You can’t take a dump. And when it finally happens, look out!

Today, after two days of Milk of Magnesia and a vial of stool softeners, it appeared like it was finally gonna happen. 8;30 a.m. I feel movement. PRAISE THE LORD! Uh, not so fast. It was 10 a.m. before I finally got off the john. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack like Elvis. Eye-watering pain. I now have first-hand knowledge of childbirth. It was so huge that it took three flushed to go down. I felt like Quint from Jaws — “Three barrels, it can’t just stay there with three barrels.”

I immediately called my buddy Billy Boyle. Why? Because he’s Irish and no one can chat up a bowel movement like the Irish. (Okay, maybe the Jews) What a morning! And this was before I went to Jefferson for more radiation and chemo.

FROM THE BED
Do you know that this weeks episode of 24 featured three guys getting knocked out by one punch? Our hero, Jack Bauer, didn’t really want to kill these guards, but he still needed them out of the way and quiet for a while. Boom! With one shot to the jaw he would literally put them to sleep. It doesn’t happen that way in reality. However, in action flicks it’s a common occurrence. One punch and they are conveniently out for for as long as you want. I knew a guy in real life who was knocked out with one punch. Wanna know why? He was dead! True story. . . . As great as LeBron James is, I still wonder if he’ll ever win the whole thing. He’s a man without a position, that’s why. (By the way, NO ONE gets away with traveling like he does) . . . . What’s funnier? The fact that Phils security thinks is cool to TASER a goofball, who by that point was obviously not gonna hurt anyone, or the fact that the next day 80 percent of Philly thought that the taser was completely acceptable. Personally, I think it was WAY out of line.. . . . . Happy 35th birthday to the hottest woman on the planet (next to my wife, of course), Christina Hendricks. . . . .

I watch TV with the close captioning on. All the time. It’s fun to watch what it does with curse words and such. But I noticed something last night. Whenever anyone says the word “God” in ANY capacity, the closed captioning uses “_ _ _.” Even if it’s used in a sentence like, “God, that’s incredible.” And this is forty years after the recording of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” Man, that religious right controls everything! . . . . .Just finished reading Tony Bramwell’s Magical Mystery Tours, a cool book written by a man who was a glorified, do-everything-behind-the-scenes go-fer for The Beatles for years. In it, he totally destroys Yoko Ono as an evil, selfish bitch who single-handedly brought down the greatest band ever. That’s been my opinion of her forever and it was great to see it in print. . . .PLEASE watch Breaking Bad, it’s that great. . . . .If I had that annoying chick from the Progressive Insurance commercials murdered, do you think I would burn in hell or march right through the pearly gates?