White Light

So I just kept breathing my friends
waiting for some god to choose
saying this ain't the day that it ends
'cause there's no white light and I'm not through
I'm alive I'm alive
And I've got so much more that I want to do
Was it music? Was it science that saved me?
Or the way that you prayed for me?
Guess either way I thank you -George Michael

Once again, the universe wanted me to know what was going on with one of the musicians I loved as a young teen.

George Michael's bizarre coma recovery

The singer and former Wham! frontman scared his doctors by speaking his first words in an accent totally different from his usual dialect.
Michael, who normally talks like the London native that he is, found himself inexplicably using a distinctive burr from England's West Country for a couple days. Since he'd just spent three weeks in a coma due to a life-threatening case of pneumonia, medical staff feared this meant he'd suffered brain damage.

This story is bizarre, I'll grant you, but also awesome. At least it is for me because

1) George Michael!

2) You may recall I have some experience with people suddenly speaking in accents not their own, though I am pretty sure the girl in fourth grade was screwing with me

3) One of my favorite of Fred's near death stories from his childhood is the one from when he was five and, after being hit by a car, was in a coma for a few days. The doctors had prepared his family for the worst case scenario ("he may never wake up and, if he does, we don't know what condition he will be in"), but were allowing extended family to see him. Fred's Grandma Mary walked into the room, Fred opened his eyes and said, "Grandma, do you have a present for me?" Grandma Mary, being the quick thinker she was, said, "Oh, I left it in the car" and proceeded to buy him a Snoopy stuffed animal at the hospital gift shop. She told me that story when I first met her in 1995 and I was so young, I don't think I fully grokked all its nuances; at the time I thought it was an amusing illustration of the roles grandmas often play in kid's lives, but now I understand she probably had to restrain herself from buying him every stuffed animal the gift shop had because relief makes one giddy.

Michael noted that although his doctors were concerned, his family was just so relieved to have him awake that they found the bizarre accent hysterical.

So, yeah, George Michael is back, prouder than ever, maybe louder than ever. The song is really good and the video, well, no one makes videos like the refugees from the 80s. They remember when it was an art form in and of itself. Dunes, Zebras, Kate Moss in a fur coat as a coin flipping Angel of Death! This is how it is done people!