I Really Give a Whitt About This Guy; I’m Hoping That You Will, Too

You need to know up front that this eventually will become a shameless plea for GoFundMe donations, so get your credit and debit cards ready now. Then go to this link: https://gofund.me/c8778f10

Because I don’t know anyone in my circle of beloveds who needs or deserves a blessing more right now than my man Alan Whitt.

Sometimes it feels as if I’ve known Whitt — I don’t recall ever calling him Alan — all my life. I’m certain I’ve known him almost all of my professional life.

He joined the staff of the Grand Rapids Press in West Michigan shortly after I was hired there in the mid-70s, taking my place as the paper’s “cub reporter” and shattering my uniqueness of being the only Black male journalist on the staff. (But I liked being unique!) Then when I moved on up to the Motor City and took my job as rock music critic and eventually TV columnist at the Detroit News, Whitt followed me there, too, pursuing his passion as deputy sports editor. We didn’t see each other as much as we did in GR, working in different departments on separate floors, but it was somehow cool and comforting just knowing we were still in the same building.

Whitt went on to far greater heights, winning Emmys with ESPN’s SportsCenter and launching his own successful travel business, Allure Quest Travel Experience, LLC, specializing in luxury cruises and romantic vacations. (Stroke of genius, if you ask me.) His achievements have come as no surprise to me, since it seems like Whitt has always been following behind me, then trying to one-up me. 

And usually succeeding.

So when he found out he needed an organ transplant, it wasn’t enough for Whitt to just have a kidney transplant, like I did 11 years ago tomorrow, Nov. 18. Oh NO! Not him. He had to have a kidney transplant AND a heart transplant — at the same time!

When I heard the news, memories of all the uncertainty, the fear, the depression and the anger over feeling my body was betraying me immediately came flooding back. Then I imagined doubling down on all those emotions, knowing my heart was circling the drain, too.

“If I hadn’t received a new heart I would have been dead in a year,” Whitt acknowledged during one of our several conversations since suffering his initial heart attack in December 2019. “That’s just the reality. I’ve got a long, long, long, long road to go. Like the rest of my life.”

Whitt says he started having heart problems as far back as 2009, but the betrayal became complete while he was in a movie theater in Nashville, where he lives with his wife Gloria, watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with his son-in-law, Marcus. “I could feel it coming,” he recalls. “I texted Gloria and she told me to get to the emergency room immediately.

“I got up to walk out behind the seats and I just passed out. My son-in-law had to call 911, and they came and took me to the hospital. The doctors decided I needed a pacemaker and a defibrillator, so they put them in my chest.” 

Alan and Gloria, on his 70th birthday.

The rest of his life, which I pray will be long, happy and healthy, will never be the same. Whitt was hospitalized for a month, followed by three months of isolation and a seemingly endless string of doctor’s appointments. “Until February of this year,” he says, “no one had ever even mentioned the word ‘transplant’ to me.”

Then came the wait and worry to find a matching donor. Whitt has not been told the identity of the deceased person whose organs he received, although he does know both heart and kidney came from the same person. The old reporter in him sussed out that his donor was male, young, possibly an athlete or at least in very good physical shape, and may not have died by natural causes.

But at least the dude’s heart and kidneys survived intact, and in this case that’s all that matters. 

Whitt estimates he has had upwards of 10 surgeries over the past four years in Nashville’s Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital network, which he says helped heal his soul as well as his body. 

“It’s a Christian hospital, which I really love,” he says. “While the doctors and nurse practitioners were working on me, another nurse would be holding my hand and praying, and they don’t mind. I love this hospital. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

After his successful transplant double-double, Whitt endured three 45-minute rehab sessions every day for weeks. He had to use a rollator to get around until he could work up enough strength to graduate to his father’s walking stick. He’ll be taking handfuls of new drugs, including a strict regimen of anti-rejection pills twice a day, exactly 12 hours apart, for the rest of his days. And at least for now, he is undergoing a heart biopsy once a month to make sure there are no signs of rejection or abnormalities. 

And if that weren’t enough, Whitt and Gloria have been living like nomads with no permanent address, staying in a hotel for more than two years. Why, you may ask? Because a tree crashed through the roof of their house during a violent storm and destroyed their living areas, leaving it to insurance and contractors to wage war over the repairs. 

You ever heard of the Perils of Pauline? Well, this real-life soap opera could be called the Woes of Whitt. 

Gloria and Whitt had to remain apart for weeks, as he needed to remain in isolation while she really needed to work in order to keep some income flowing in. His daughter, Alanne, came in from Ohio to help care for him. And, as you probably could guess, as soon as Alanne left his side in isolation she contracted COVID. (She’s fine now.)

Oh…my…gracious.

Whitt can’t possibly work, at least not for the foreseeable future. And with all the expenses connected with his medical care and just everyday living, the couple’s bottom line could use a serious transplant of cash. 

That’s where you come in.

Through it all, Whitt says, “I tell you, man, I know that I’m blessed. I’m feeling stronger every day. This isn’t anything that I did. This is God taking care of me. Because everything had to be perfect. If there was one glitch it could have screwed the whole thing up.”

Alan Whitt is one of the most decent, talented and worthy dudes I’ve ever known. He’s definitely the only Ohio State Buckeye I’ve ever liked. He knows how blessed he is to still be with us; now he needs us to give him a little help.

There is a GoFundMe account established in his name, including updates on his condition. Here again is the link: https://gofund.me/c8778f10

Won’t you please consider giving as much as you can, especially present and former members of the Detroit media and anyone who has worked alongside him over his career?

As always, I would never ask you to do anything I hadn’t already done myself.

Get healthy quick, Whitt. The cruise ships miss you.

Happy Kidneyversary to Me: Celebrating A Decade of Death Defiance

Beewee and Me, Just Out of Kidney Surgery 

Ten years. I can hardly wrap my mind –– or my body –– around it. It's almost unbelievable.  

It's my transplantiversary.

On November 18, 2011, a decade ago today, my life changed forever. I was lying in a bed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, drifting in and out of anesthesia and thinking about a 6-year-old girl I didn't know and had never met, and how her parents' unbelievably selfless act might add some overtime to my game of life here on Earth.

Three years earlier, to my great surprise, I was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney failure. They say that at Stage V you should start checking your insurance policies and consulting morticians, so all in all Stage IV wasn't so bad. 

But once your kidneys start heading south, they won't see the Mason-Dixon Line again. I was going to need a transplant, sooner than later. And prior to that I probably would have to go on dialysis.

Here's the point where I can't understand why everybody doesn't believe in God. When I received my dire diagnosis I was living alone in Detroit, divorced and downsized out of a high-paying job, unable to afford COBRA insurance and barely holding on to my rental house. This is generally what's known as rock bottom.

Then, on an online dating site I was canceling the next day, I met this indescribably wonderful woman named Karen. She lived two states away in Champaign, Ill., so I knew there was little chance of ever meeting her, much less launching a relationship. But we had tons in common, eventually began talking and/or texting daily, and before I knew it I was on a plane to central Illinois to hold her in my arms. She knew everything that was going on with me health-wise and never batted an eye. 

A year later we were married.

Wait, it gets even better. I moved out of Michigan for the first time in my life and relocated to Champaign so that Karen – better known today on social media as BeeWee, abbreviation for "Best Wife Ever" – and I could be together. She works for the University of Illinois, and I am firmly convinced that the main reason the State of Illinois is in such constant financial peril is because the health insurance for its state employees is so phenomenal. I had barely set foot in the state as the spouse of an employee, and it was like, "Oh, you need a kidney transplant? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? No problem! Welcome to the Land of Lincoln."

Kidney Crusading at a Local Hospital

For more than a year I was placed on peritoneal (pair-it-on-NEE-uhl) dialysis, the gentler, less invasive form of assisting your kidneys I have since championed for renal patients old and new. Then, after a few false alarms, we finally received THE CALL: a kidney had been found for me from a deceased donor, and it appeared to be an ideal match. How fast can you get to St. Louis?

How fast can this car go?

As I was getting prepped for surgery, I remember the nurses must have broken every HIPAA regulation in the manual, so eager were they to tell me about their donor. "Do you know whose kidney you're getting?" they kept asking. Uh, no, I didn't, but apparently I was the only one.

The story was all over the news in St. Lou, and one nurse called it up online to show me: a 6-year-old girl, apparently in perfect health, suffered a brain aneurysm on the playground one sunny morning and died on the spot. And her parents, in the midst of their sudden, devastating grief, made the decision to donate her organs to others. 

As my transplant surgeon suggested to me, I was receiving "the perfect kidney:" it was a flawless blood and tissue match, and at age six her experimenting with smoking, alcohol and drugs was probably minimal.

I named my kidney Cheyenne, in her honor. She's a teenager now, and sometimes she can get a little rebellious, but for the most part she has seemed completely content and productive in her second home. I take tacrolimus (tack-crow-LEE-muss), a leading anti-rejection drug, twice a day, every day, exactly 12 hours apart since 2011 to try to keep her happy. (Anyone who knows my commitment to punctuality can imagine how challenging that has been.)

I have never met or communicated with her parents, by their choice. However, I may try to reach out to them once again on this 10th anniversary. I have always wanted to hug them verbally, if not physically, to let them know what their gift has meant to me. Many times I think about all the things I would not have accomplished or experienced had I not been here for the last decade:

BeeWee and Me, at Our Son's Wedding

Deepening my love, appreciation and admiration of my Karen, who really is the BeeWee.

The experience of being a father, as we shepherded Karen's brother, Jordan, through his high school years.

The two books I have ghostwritten, and the fascinating one I'm working on now.

My advocacy for kidney transplantation and peritoneal dialysis (I'll never forget the man who gave a knockoff Jimmy Choo – or was it Jimmie Chew – handbag for my wife as thanks for recommending peritoneal dialysis, which gave him more freedom to sell purses out of his trunk), which led to me serving two years as the ESRD (End-Stage Renal Disease, or kidney failure) Patient Representative for the State of Illinois. The whole freakin' state. 

That being one of the factors leading to my being named a Distinguished Alum by my Alma Mater, Hope College in Holland, Mich., in 2019. As the first McFarlin to attend college, how I wish my parents had been alive to see that. 

Uniting hundreds of couples in my role as a wedding officiant (under the business name Wholly Matrimony 4U), including the marriage of my son Jordan and his fiancée Graycie last summer.

Emceeing my 50th high school reunion.

Finding an amazing church, Mattis Avenue Free Methodist, that has deepened my love of God and my daily walk with his son, Jesus.

And having more time to spend with you, my readers and friends who mean so much to me, and writing this blog post to you today.

Cheers to us all. God bless. Here's to another 10 years!

It May Not Be the Bee's Knees, But I Hope My Knee Will 'Bees' Better

This is about how my knee feels now. Every day.

I am scheduled to have left knee replacement surgery this Wednesday (April 14, 2021) at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. A few random thoughts:

• This will be my first major operation since my kidney transplant at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis on November 18, 2011. (Great Googly-Moogly! That was 10 years ago! I just realized that. Suppose I should think about doing some sort of anniversary tribute later this year.) And to tell you the truth, I really don't know how I feel about this week's procedure.

• My surgery initially was scheduled for March 2020, about a week before the world as we knew it flipped upside down and corona became way more than the name of an imported beer. My joint replacement was canceled due to a sudden, urgent need for hospital beds. Then it was aborted a second time in November when the virus spiked again. As a result, I have been in relentless, agonizing leg pain for more than a year, Biofreeze and IcyHot my constant sidekicks.

I have not been a happy cowboy.

As another result, I find myself approaching this week's operation with a feeling of...well, really, no feeling at all. I'm not excited or anxious or nervous or relieved. I was bitter for quite some time over the cancellations and the knowledge that my suffering continued through no fault of my own. But when you've been in pain day after day for months, it sadly becomes part of your normal existence. You learn to live with it. If you can call that living.

(Many deep thanks to Danny McFarlin –– absolutely no relation, unless his family once owned mine –– the physician's assistant who kept me reasonably sane between surgical disappointments with a series of cortisone injections in my knee. He really gave me a leg up.

My Surgeon: 'No-Pain Bane?'

(Too much?))

And while I'm told the pain will be worse after the procedure, at least initially, at this point it's all relative. Besides, fool me twice, shame on everybody. When I'm actually on the gurney with an IV in my arm and being wheeled into the OR, then I'll know it's really going to happen. Until then, I'm keeping my emotions on lockdown.

• The orthopedic surgeon performing my procedure (a total left knee arthroplasty) is one Dr. Robert Bane, who by all accounts is the Dr. Kildare of east central Illinois. I am not exaggerating when I tell you every single person who's asked about my operation has broken into a broad, knowing smile when I answer, "Doctor Bane," followed immediately by, "He's the best."

OH! I misspoke. One woman at my church replied, "I tried to get Dr. Bane, but I couldn't get onto his calendar. (Pause.) He's the best, you know."

Even other doctors praise his holy name, which is rare indeed. Last week my cardiologist broke into a broad smile when Bane's name came up. "You're in good hands," he reassured. Ironically, I have yet to meet him: we conversed briefly via Zoom many months ago, but due to COVID I will not meet the man in person who's going to cut into my flesh until I'm on the table preparing for the anesthesia. I'm in the hands of a near-total stranger. He is, quite literally, the Bane of my existence.

I am absolutely positive I am not the first one to come up with that.

• I know times change over the course of a decade, but I don't remember ever jumping through as many pre-surgical hoops as I have for this procedure. I have had a complete pre-op physical, new X-rays, bone density screening, blood pressure monitoring, a consultation with my cardiologist. Bathe with a special soap the night before and the day of surgery. Sleep on clean sheets. Stop taking vitamins and all supplements. And, of course, the obligatory COVID-19 test. 

Good news: here you can take the COVID test without having to leave your car. Bad news: It entails pulling into a line as long as the ones giving out free food these days and enduring what seems like a drawn-out, confusing and disorganized process. Very good news: The Carle system requires patients to simply run a Q-Tip around both nostrils, rather than jamming a stick past the eye and into the brain. Extremely good news: I tested negative, so we can continue to communicate.

• I suddenly came to realize one reason so many pre-op tests are required is because I'm not as young as my brain keeps telling me I am. I was blown away by the number of contemporaries who responded to my Facebook announcement of impending knee replacement with comments like, "Had mine done years ago," "Had both of mine done" or "You won't regret it." One friend even sent me a book of healing techniques after surgeries! Good Lord – my friends are getting so OLD! So thankful I'm retaining my youth.

My knee, without a scar. For posterity.

• I am also required to watch a video on knee replacement surgery provided by the hospital. Now, I expected a slick, well-produced instructional piece; after all, Carle owns about half the property around these parts and as a foundation pays no taxes. Instead I got a droning, hour-plus YouTube lecture apparently pulled directly from a long-ago seminar. What a disappointment! I have drifted off every time I've tried to watch it. The clock is ticking. 

• I was grateful that my pastor, Herb Coates, specifically mentioned me and my upcoming surgery during his congregational prayer last Sunday. Prayers are always welcomed. However, since I was manning the Welcome Desk next to the front door after the service, I was an easy target for every parishioner who wanted to inquire about the operation –– which seemed like every parishioner. I swear, I think some of them seemed to care more about my surgery than I do. Is that a good thing?

• I am also so, so grateful for the advancements in medical science. Knee replacements are commonplace now but practically unheard of in America until the 1970s. I think of my Aunt Carrie in Palmetto, Ga., God rest her soul, who made her living by cleaning the local movie theater. In those days you were lucky to have any job, so she worked on her hands and knees, picking up candy and all manner of filth brooms couldn't reach, well into her 80s. What unbearable pain she, and so many other laborers, must have endured! 

I'll think of you Wednesday, Auntie. Just before the lights go out.

Taking My Best Shot: Pondering the COVID Vaccine Controversy

I recently received my second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Free at last! Free at last! Thank drugs alrighty, I'm free at last! Can I get a "Whoop! Whoop!" 

They even give you a sticker!

I know some in our society would prefer to give me a "Nope! Nope!" Obviously, I prefer to disagree.

I never dreamed that being old, Black, diabetic and having my immune system permanently compromised so as to preserve an adopted kidney could ever be positive attributes. But hey! Whatever plunged the needle into my arm faster was OK by me.

In a sense, receiving the second shot does feel kind of liberating, like getting out of jail. (A feeling which, sadly, I have experienced.) We all have been imprisoned by this coronavirus one way or another, either by being homebound or shackled financially. The vaccines offer us at least the promise of a return to full freedom and normalcy somewhere down the line.

Herd immunity? Of course I herd of immunity. I just don't know when it will arrive.

Injection numero dos also made me feel a bit special, to be honest, as if I had completed a long and valued quest. And if you think that sounds like overstatement, watch the nightly news any evening. You'll see thousands of Americans standing in line for vaccines, asking when they can get their vaccines, wishing they could receive a vaccine and wondering aloud what will happen after their vaccines are administered.

They're the shots heard 'round the country.

Upon arriving at the hotel ballroom that serves as my city's main COVID injection site and completing the necessary paperwork, I was escorted to a very pleasant older woman who was serving as a public health volunteer. Before executing my second shot, she placed a sheet in front of me listing possible side effects.

"After I got my second shot," she sweetly informed, "I had a fever the next day. Then I got chills, and a pounding headache that just would not go away. My injection site swelled up and hurt ––"

I stopped her there. "Are you trying to scare me out of here?" I asked, laughing. Indeed, as I spoke an electronic banner on the wall behind her listed all those "Common Side Effects," adding fatigue to the list.

A Shot in the Arm for America.

Didn't matter. It was going to take more than that to deter me. I had waited too long, worried too much in public settings. I took the shot, sat quietly for the 15 minutes they ask you to stay to make sure there are no immediate allergic reactions, then went home. Easy peasy.

The next day I experienced very mild soreness at the injection site in my left arm. That was it. The sum total of my side effects. Now the CDC is reporting that, for reasons they haven't yet determined, women are 80 percent more susceptible to intense reactions following their second shots than men. 

Sorry, ladies. 

I think I reacted stronger to the response over my initial Moderna shot. I posted the momentous event on Facebook the day after and while reaction was mixed and mostly positive, every Black person who commented on my decision was concerned at best, critical at worst. Even my own sister commented, "Jim, you actually took that shot? OMG, why? I don't know, l'il Bro, but I'm praying everything comes out all right. Love you. Please keep me updated on how you're doing."

Dang, Jacqui, I'm doing great so far. It's not like I'm on a ventilator! In fact, that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid. But that type of immediately negative response from African Americans is not uncommon, from everything I'm reading and hearing. And I think it has absolutely no connection to that infamous "Tuskegee Study" of 1932, the government-sponsored research in which 399 Black men who had syphilis, but were not informed, were recruited to study the effects of the disease. Very few people still breathing remember that abomination firsthand. 

However, these things are true. This just in: Nobody I know enjoys getting stuck with needles. As a diabetic I've injected myself virtually every day for 11 years; I'm still waiting to like it. Naysayers complain the vaccines were developed far too quickly, from too many different sources not to be suspect, while all the time Mr. "It's-No-Worse-Than-the-Flu-It-Will-Pass-Over-by-Spring" was patting himself on the back instead of protecting the nation. 

Who can we trust? Black folks demand. While we disparage, African Americans are three times more likely to die of coronavirus than Caucasians. Oh, my. 

My dear friend Karen Dumas, former chief communications officer for two Detroit mayors and one of the wisest people I know, called out of the blue as I was writing this to say hello. I casually asked if she had received her shots and to my great surprise, she said no. Nor does she intend to, Karen added, and she has rebuffed all efforts from friends and civic leaders to use her bully pulpit as a high-profile Black Motor Citizen to encourage others to roll up their sleeves.

Oh, so you're making a sociopolitical statement against the historic abuse and exploitation of African Americans as medical guinea pigs in this country, right? Once again, to my shock, she said no.

"It's because nobody knows what's in any of them," she explained. "I watched an interview with Dr. Fauci where he said everybody should get the vaccine, then at the end said it won't absolutely prevent you from getting COVID and may not prevent transmission of the virus. So what good does it serve?

The Moderna Missive.

"Two vaccines need two doses. Another needs only one. Two have to be kept at the North Pole, the other one you can store on your back porch. Can you mix the vaccines? What happens if you do? There's just too much going on too fast, so I'm staying away. I'm good."

Actually, I can't mount a convincing argument against any of those points –– except perhaps that we don't know what's in the flu or measles vaccines either, but the majority of us take those injections routinely without a second thought. 

And speaking of Detroit mayors, how about the current officeholder, one Mike Duggan, seemingly going out of his way to make my adopted hometown look foolish and cast himself as the village idiot? I have met Duggan on several occasions and I know he's smarter than to publicly declare he's refusing to allow the new one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to cross the city limits. But that's what he said, because "Moderna and Pfizer are the best, and I am going to do everything I can to make sure the residents of the City of Detroit get the best."

Really? Really? Give me a break. Regions of our country are literally begging for additional vaccine doses and Duggan is turning them away? If he's truly serious about giving Detroiters the very best, how about making sure all the streetlights work at night? Mowing the vacant lots? Paving the potholes on Woodward Avenue? Sheesh.

Meanwhile, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, more than one in five Americans (22%) say they will get the vaccine only "if required for work, school, or other activities," or definitely will not get it at all. Hey, their lives, their choice. It is a free country, after all.

Here's how I look at it: The development of multiple COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year could be just as much a testament to modern scientific brilliance in the face of a potential disaster than some slapdash attempt to appease our government and a frightened public. To date, more than half a million Americans in the past 12 months said something to the effect of, "I'm not worried about this coronavirus crap; they're blowing it way out of proportion." Those people today are either six feet underground, scattered across some body of water or stacked in the back of a refrigerated semi. 

We've all got to die of something. I'm just determined that for me, it will not be this.

Besides, I've been entrusted with a precious gift, a donated kidney that has served me excellently for more than a decade. It's my responsibility to protect it with all methods at my disposal. True, we don't know what effect the vaccines will have longterm, but we know what COVID-19 is doing right now. And while we do have free will in this nation it is the UNITED States of America, contrary to what our politics have shown us lately. If most of the country takes the vaccine but a significant portion does not, we may be no farther ahead than if we had no vaccines at all.

Even though I'm now fully inoculated, I continue to wear a mask in public and adhere to social distancing, more for my fellow citizens than for myself. There is so much light at the end of our tunnel now, a return to normalcy is right around the corner. Take the shots. Wear the mask. Let's all cross the finish line together. Above ground. 

Can Kidneys Create Comedy? I'm Trying to 'B Positive'

 Hey, this is a joke, right?

Annaleigh Ashford and Thomas Middleditch (CBS)

I know CBS, comedy superproducer Chuck Lorre – and I – sure hope so. Many jokes, in fact.

My ears did a double-take when I first heard it: among the shining lights of the network's COVID-compromised 2020 fall TV season, the first new sitcom to arrive in the vaunted CBS prime-time lineup, is a show about kidney failure and organ donation.

Sounds like a laugh riot, huh?

B Positive, starring Thomas Middleditch and Annaleigh Ashford, premieres at 8:30/7:30 Central Thursday, Nov. 5, comfortably nestled between two of Lorre's greatest hits, the return of Young Sheldon at 8 and the eighth-season return of Mom – sans Anna Faris – at 9. Sort of a Lorre Lane, if you will. Few comedies could have a more secure launch pad.

As a kidney donor recipient myself (nine years and going strong, thanks), advocate for organ donation and former renal patient representative for the State of Illinois, I was eager, if a bit apprehensive, to see B Positive. I tracked down the CBS media representative for the series in Los Angeles – I'm the former TV critic for The Detroit News and Detroit Metro Times, among other publications – and asked to review the pilot episode. It isn't available, I was told three times, and who do you write for again?

However, as I go online now and see the pilot reviewed by heavy hitters like The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, I see the show was available...just not for me. But I am undaunted! I guess what CBS and most other networks may not realize is, in their fervor to promote new shows by offering online "sneak peeks" and promotional clips, you can nearly watch an entire pilot episode in bits and pieces. 

Which I did. So there, CBS media lady.

Now, B Positive has some, well, positives going for it. Lorre is the sitcom Midas of his era, and anybody who can mine years of laughter out of fat people in love (Mike & Molly), alcoholics in recovery (Mom) and a pack of insufferable genius nerds (The Big Bang Theory) has to be given benefit of the doubt with this delicate subject matter. 

Marco Pennette, the creator and executive producer, Lorre's creative teammate and writer of the first episode, received a successful kidney transplant himself in 2013 so he's got first-hand memories. And Middleditch, fresh off six seasons and an Emmy nomination for the HBO series Silicon Valley, was said to be the hottest property in Hollywood this pilot season.

He stars as Drew, a slightly neurotic therapist and recently divorced dad who gets the news no one wants to hear: his kidneys are headed on a permanent vacation and he'll need a transplant, fast. "Start with family," his doctor advises. "They're usually the best match."

"Oh, great," Drew moans. "A Republican kidney."

Instead, he has a chance reunion with Gina, a former high school classmate played by Ashford, a Tony Award winner on Broadway whom you may remember from Showtime's Masters of Sex. Gina is a boozy, flighty, mildly annoying party girl – she remembers Drew as "the one guy I didn't hook up with in high school" – who offers him one of her kidneys almost on a whim. However, she's got to remain clean and sober for at least three months to donate, and that's one portal where the laughs pour in.

Transplant Pals. (by Pamela Littky, Warner Bros.)

Drew and Gina have kind of an oddball but engaging chemistry, not unlike any two characters on Big Bang, and if you pay close attention you will see a lot of old favorites on B Positive. The delightful Sara Rue (Popular, frequent Big Bang guest) is Drew's ex-wife, and look for the immortal Linda Lavin – yes, that Linda Lavin, Alice herself – as one of the seniors on the minibus Gina drives for a living.

Is B Positive funny? I laughed some, especially at a surprisingly broad slapstick scene on Gina's minibus, but laughter is the aural equivalent of beauty: in the ear of the behearer. Here's what I'm concerned about:

How long can they let Drew suffer and deteriorate before his transplant? A full season, or longer? As anyone on dialysis can tell you, the waiting is the hardest part.

Will they let the audience know that organ donation is not a frivolous, spur-of-the-moment decision, but one that should be carefully considered and discussed with family, friends and doctors? Giving up a body part, even for the best of reasons, is serious stuff.

Will they stress that Drew and Gina need to prepare themselves, both physically and emotionally, for the transplant and that it is major surgery?

Will someone let Gina know that some nephrologists (kidney specialists) advise against young women of child-bearing age donating a kidney because it may lead to higher risk of gestational hypertension and preeclampsia?

Maybe I'm overreacting. Perhaps I'm too close to the subject matter and need to let go and trust fellow kidney recipient Pennette will do the right thing. However, to my knowledge this is the first sitcom ever to deal with kidney donation and transplantation, and there may be a reason for that. 

Hey, if the show increases the conversation about organ donation and gets more people considering the option, that can't be bad. In terms of the show itself, however, for now B Positive deserves no more than a B-minus.

I Can Feel That Knee On My Neck, Too

Now THAT'S Symbolism.

I received an early morning call today from a dear friend in Metro Detroit. She was consumed in tears.

“How are you?” she asked urgently. “How are you feeling?”

During her morning walk while her mind was free to wander, she flashed back to an incident some years ago that I had all but forgotten. She had invited me to join her and her husband one Sunday morning for brunch and asked me to pick up a few bagels on my way to their home. Maybe some lox, too.

At the time I could have used some friendly company. I was recently divorced and so wiped out financially that I was driving an old raggedy Ford Taurus I borrowed from another friend. (Friends are great, BTW.) I bought the bagels and headed for their house in the affluent community of West Bloomfield.

Driving slowly while searching for their house number, I was suddenly accompanied by flashing red-and-blue lights behind me. Profiled. DWB.

The officer informed me that my license plate tag had expired — hey, wasn’t my car — and he could not allow me to drive the vehicle. It would have to be impounded. That put me in the unbelievably embarrassing position of having to call my friend to explain my situation. She and her husband came out to find me, we all watched as my car was towed away and, after a very animated and melancholy meal, they drove me home.

Today my friend was overcome by the memory, by the "what if." As humiliating as that experience was, she knows now — and I knew then — it could have been far, far worse.

The unforgivable Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers has galvanized, inspired and inflamed our nation like no time since perhaps the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It is triggering individual flashbacks. And the other morning while rinsing the soap out of my silver goatee in the shower, where apparently I do my best thinking, it suddenly hit me: there is a clear connection between all the cataclysmic events of 2020, from the spread of COVID-19 to the worldwide protests and shameful property destruction in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. 

It actually made my brain hurt a little bit when the revelation hit me. I’ll share my theory with you in a minute. 

First, though, I have to acknowledge that my West Bloomfield caller was not the first Caucasian contact I’ve received on this issue in the past 10 days. It’s no shock, really: in the little West Michigan village where I grew up, I was the only black student in the entire school system. I lived among them. I learned their ways. Sometimes I felt like Jane Goodall should study me. Thus, in confusing and chaotic times like these, some white friends instinctively reach out to me for answers or perspective.

Now, I've read numerous columnists over the years (Thaddeus Howze and the great Leonard Pitts come to mind) who say they're sick and tired of trying to explain to white people what it's like to be Black in America. I couldn't disagree more. 

Growing up where I did, I am certain that for hundreds of people I may be the only Black person they know –– or at least, the only one they feel they know well enough to ask serious, direct questions about race. Just like my journey through kidney disease and a successful transplant has made me "Kid Kidney" for many with renal concerns, so have I become the official African American Advocate to many Caucasian acquaintances. It is not a responsibility I sought out, but it's one I would be a fool to renounce.

My standard response used to begin, "Well, speaking for all Black people everywhere…." However, I've come to appreciate that when someone musters up the courage to ask a sensitive, uncomfortable question of someone they consider a friend, sarcasm should not be the first response. And if they don't comprehend the answer the first time, that's no reason to quit. 

White people in America, from the richest to the wretchedest, have been cloaked in a protective layer of privilege since birth, and many don't even understand it or acknowledge it. When they respond with that wide-eyed vacant stare, like a child or a foreign visitor, you may need to repeat the message several times before comprehension is achieved. 

Earlier I received a text from a high school friend who requested some clarity. Actually, she was posing a question from her neighbor, the mother of two young boys. "She is trying to explain to her four- and seven-year-old sons how a police officer could be arrested," she wrote. "The real issue is, how could a police officer do something so bad?" 

She was referring, of course, to Derek Chauvin –– what a perfectly ironic surname ––  the discharged, disgraced, soon-to-be-divorced white Minneapolis police officer who now owns the most famous left knee in America. 

Chauvin, whose criminal charges have been upgraded to second-degree murder, and three other officers detained Floyd May 25 for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. In the ensuing detainment, the other officers (whose names aren’t worthy of mention here) held him in place, face down on a city street, while Chauvin pressed his left knee into Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

To the surprise of some people, Floyd died.

In the video that now has been viewed worldwide, Chauvin appeared nonchalant, almost casual while cutting off his victim’s breath. He had his hand in his pocket, staring into space and staring down onlookers. This week, the three other cops involved also were charged with crimes in connection with Floyd’s death.

Forget what I said earlier about not being sarcastic with my friends. I texted back, “I’m tempted to say that if your neighbor’s sons are white they have little to worry about, but that might be flippant.” 

And while I believe that to be true, and the sentiment was echoed this week by no less than former President Bill Clinton, I then got specific. “I guess the bottom line is, there are bad people in every walk of life: bad politicians, bad judges and, unfortunately, bad police officers. That doesn’t mean that everybody in a particular line of work is bad.

“Tragically, I’m certain Chauvin was employing his basic training techniques; he didn’t just make up that knee-on-the-neck move on the fly. And I’m just as certain he’s heard suspects gasp, ‘I can’t breathe” who were just faking it to get some relief. This time it went too far, and he was the one who got caught with his knee in a jackpot. It’s tragic and inhumane and gut-wrenchingly painful, but the more troubling question is: how many Black people have been treated the same way by police with no cell phone or video to record it?”

No human being should die like that. George Floyd lost his life lying prostrate in the street. In broad daylight. Like a dog. Over 20 bucks. Twenty bucks. And every African American person in this country knows, at some deep, elemental level, it could just as easily have been them.

It’s what gives Amy Cooper the unmitigated spite to sic the police on a Harvard-educated African American man in New York’s Central Park, guilty of no crime more serious than asking her to leash her dog. It’s what gives a pack of rifle-toting Georgia yahoos the self-proclaimed right to shoot down a Black jogger for stopping to inspect a house under construction. And it’s what gives almost every Black American a constant churn of uneasiness deep in their pit, knowing their personhood could be challenged at any moment.

Memorials to George Floyd Are Going Up Across the Nation.

Look, I fully appreciate that all things considered, I came out pretty well in the life lottery. I grew up in a solid two-parent home, received an excellent education from kindergarten through college, enjoyed a long, satisfying career. I have an amazing, caring wife. I sit on the Board of Trustees for my Alma Mater, Hope College. I have been asked to be considered for enshrinement in the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.

But on the wrong night, on the wrong street, in the wrong car, none of that would mean crap. 

Everybody knows that. And that’s the problem. 

Early in my career I spent several years covering the police beat for a newspaper in Grand Rapids, Michigan — I guarantee you the first person of color ever to have that assignment. I was at police headquarters every weeknight, went on ridealongs, got to know most of the officers by name. Yet to this day I remember the time I was driving home from work late at night, “minding my own business,” when The Man pulled me over.

The patrolman stepped out of his cruiser and strolled imperiously toward my driver’s window. I had been taught, as all young Black men sadly still should be, to keep my hands at 10-and-2 on the wheel and make no sudden moves for my license or registration until asked. I rolled down my window, he looked inside and muttered, “Oh. It’s you.” Then he turned around and walked back to his vehicle, visibly disappointed. I have always wondered: what did he have in mind?

Still, I have the utmost respect for law enforcement personnel. They’re the ones running toward the danger when everyone else is running away, they patrol neighborhoods you think at least twice before entering, and they see humanity at its most repulsive nearly every day. They probably should have mandatory sensitivity training at least once a week. 

They are walking, tightly-wound bundles of PTSD. And as the British politician Lord Acton said almost 200 years ago, “all power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When the po-po stops you in your car, on the street, or crashes through your front door, for those moments they have absolute power. It’s always potentially volatile.

And lest you think the concept of systemic racism targeting Blacks in this country is fictitious or overblown, consider this: Chauvin’s wife Kellie, a former Mrs. Minnesota who can’t race to her divorce attorney fast enough, was born in Laos. She is a person of color. Yet whatever ethnic enlightenment Chauvin had developed through his marriage was forgotten on the streets of Minneapolis. 

We have seen the unjust murders of African Americans trigger large-scale demonstrations in this country before. So many, in fact, and in such rapid succession that it seems the hunting license for open season on Blacks has no expiration date. Yet the George Floyd protests feel more intense, more insistent, a movement spreading worldwide with no signs of diminishing soon. I think I know why. Here’s my theory:

Floyd’s murder came at just the time when the nation was beginning to loosen its “stay at home” quarantine caused by the coronavirus. The operative word here is disproportionate. 

COVID-19 has sickened and killed a disproportionate number of African Americans compared to other populations in this country. Meanwhile, as the economy nosedives, Blacks are losing jobs and income at a disproportionate level. Millions are filing for unemployment benefits. They’re confined in their homes day after day, getting sick or losing loved ones, watching their finances dwindle with no relief in sight. Pressure is building.

There are no public gatherings. No hugs. There are no sporting events for momentary diversion; and Kobe Bryant, the greatest male athlete many people in this generation have seen perform, dies in a sudden, shocking crash.

We have a clueless, heartless president who has given racists and white supremacists permission to emerge from their basements without fear of reprisal, and who now feels unleashing our armed forces on U.S. civilians is a solid plan. You remember that pressure cooker your mama used to have on the stove? The pressure is building, building. 

COVIDQuarantineJoblessnessKobeTrumpBreonnaAhmaud: it all runs together. A steady stream of 2020 indignities. Simmering, churning anger. Pressure. Time on our hands. We can't breathe.

Then America sees a video of a Black man with a white policeman's knee on his neck? The ultimate symbol of oppression? Oh, NO! The lid blew off! 

George Floyd’s death was not more important or egregious than that of other Blacks who have died at the hands of police this year. It was simply the release valve, a matter of timing, the perfect storm. His name is easily chanted; say his name. And the storm shows no signs of diminishing, certainly not before his public funeral service in Houston June 8 and private burial the next day. No one can breathe at the moment.

The only good thing about 2020 so far? It’s half over.

The bad news: it’s only half over.

Please Say a Prayer For My Man, Alex the Great. He's Got IT.

Alex and Me at the Book Launch Party for "The Booster" in '19

When he picked up the phone, after the fifth ring, I didn't recognize his voice. And that's saying something, because I can call to mind that voice  –– so warm and round, so sonorous and articulate –– anytime I think of him.

I posted some goofy photo on Facebook the other day that made vague reference to the coronavirus, and among the comments was a totally unexpected response from Alex Kimbrough's wife, Rosalind. It simply said, "Call Your Buddy Alex!"

These days, when anybody says "Call your buddy" who lives in disease devastated Detroit, you do it.

So I did.

And he does.

They say it's only a daily, brain-numbing drumbeat of numbers, advisories and Trump denials until someone you love is stricken by "the virus." And I see now that it's true.

Because while I have been moved by the recent deaths of distant friends and notable names in my former Detroit home, people like the amazing drama educator and devotee Brenda Perryman, former Aretha Franklin intimate Willie Wilkerson, and legendary restaurateur Otis Knapp ("Mr. FoFo") Lee, this is now a entirely different dimension entirely.

Because you see, Alex Kimbrough is my boy, in that inflection African American men use to describe another man who inhabits his innermost circle.

And Alex Kimbrough has COVID-19.

I suppose Rosalind wanted her husband to tell me himself. My late afternoon call woke him up, which was not completely uncommon: as morning news director for Detroit's FOX2 (WJBK) for as long as anyone can remember, more than 30 years at the station in all, his workday typically begins in the wee small hours.

But once I sensed that his weak, gravelly speech was more than the sound of someone being awakened from a deep slumber, I immediately felt guilty. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. My own breathing was becoming sporadic.

"She didn't tell you?" Alex asked me. "Well, it's good to hear your voice."

He doesn't know when or where he contracted the illness, but who does? He had just been released after spending five days at Providence Hospital, and never needed to go on a ventilator. Thank heaven for all blessings, great and small.

Alex in His Element, Here Directing Aretha's Funeral Coverage

But Alex almost was at a loss for words –– which for him would be literally unheard of –– when trying to describe how much pain he was, and continues to be, in.

"It's worse than the worst flu you could ever have," he rasped. "Don't get this, Jim. Do NOT get this. You don't want this."

Alex said the higher-ups at FOX2 have advised him to take all the time he needs to recover, to not even think about returning to the control room until he feels 100 percent. Wise decision. The station wants to protect one of their, and Detroit's, great natural resources.

In addition to his work at WJBK, in his "spare time" Alex has freelanced directing programs for Detroit Public Television (WTVS) for more than 20 years, and freely lends his talents to other Metro Detroit productions as well. For a brief period he even worked for the Detroit Lions. When Aretha Franklin's sudden death in 2018 left local and national broadcast outlets without someone to coordinate the TV media pool, Alex was recruited to spearhead the coverage, more than eight hours live and nonstop.

He is so highly regarded by his peers that he has served as president of the National Association of Black Journalists' (NABJ) Detroit chapter, vice president of the local branch of NATAS (National Association of Television Arts and Sciences, the Emmy people), and has long been active in the local chapter of the Directors' Guild of America.

And you would be hard-pressed to find a more devoted or passionate alum of Detroit's famed Cass Technical High School: Alex's regular "Cass Tech Moments," usually connected to a fellow grad who appeared on a FOX2 morning show, are the stuff of social media lore. His proposed documentary on Cass Tech, which he's been working on almost as long as I've known him, has become a permanent agenda item whenever we talk.

And atop it all, Alex Kimbrough is a loyal and loving husband to Rosalind, and a doting dad to their only son, Brandon. He's been a BMW –– Black Man Working –– for an entire career, committed to providing for his family. He's just a good brother.

And now here he is, recovering from the menace that has gripped the nation and virtually ground America to a halt. An African American man fighting to regain his manhood in an epicenter of the epidemic that seems to disproportionately impact Detroit's black people. Damn.

I almost feel guilty or selfish asking you to pray for someone who appears to be on the back end of coronavirus when so many have lost so many to this disastrous pandemic. However, like I said, the abstract becomes achingly real when it suddenly affects someone you know and care about.

So, if you are so inclined on this Good Friday, and beyond, please ask God to lay His healing hand on Alex Kimbrough and help him to make a full recovery.

After all, who else is going to finish that Cass Tech documentary?