Senile, Mad, Old People

Senile, mad, old people. That's what I thought after leaving Tom Brokaw's speech last night. No, I am not talking about Brokaw, though I don't agree with many of his left-leaning views and my girlfriend is pretty convinced he farted on stage at one point. No, I am talking about the 97 year-old Crow Indian chief who blessed the anchorman at the hour 23 mark. He went up on to the podium and talked about Crow Country for awhile (not Montana, I might add) and its bountiful buffalo, deer, antelope, potatoes, berries, women picking berries, buffalo, and deer. Then he either mispronounced Tom's name deliberately or was senile (at this point, your guess is good as mine). Poor Brokaw then tried to tell the old chief his very PC story about riding a horse on his Park County ranch and thinking about Chief Plenty Coup, and how he tells his friends how Indians were here long before us and were still important to this country. The old man interrupted Tom at the beginning of this blaaag, saying he was going to sing now (stop talking!). So he did. He sang for a long time, stopping periodically to say, "Why is no one looking at me! I am Tom Brokaw!" Yes, the Crow Chief said that, and I don't understand why. At any rate, he ended and the anchorman could finally stop looking so damn awkward up there. I thought this was an appropriate story, since we are starting with King Lear, where an old man goes mad and senile. Maybe the geezer last night wasn't, maybe I am just really bad at judging, but his handler sure looked perturbed.