Living with Lewy Body Dementia
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease
I’m looking for suggestions as we enter the Halloween season.
I’m just going to start with one song that is big time on my playlist right now. My NP is a Brummies song, and it really has nothing much to do with Halloween other than it’s “Haunted.”
I’m counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
ALBUMS: Suite for Susan Moore (1969); The Shock of Grace (1981)
MVC Ratings: Suite 3.5/$$$$; Shock 3.5/ $$$$
My vinyl collection of Tim Hardin is not representative of his work. The essential Hardin is caught mostly in his first few 2 albums and also in compilations with those songs from the first two.
I have a compilation of some of his more obscure experimental songs and a key album that fed that compilation. Suite for Susan Moore is as provocative as it is frustrating. Interesting jazzy acoustic guitar is spoiled when Hardin goes on these spoken word jags that sound more dippy than trippy. Too bad because there was clearly interesting music going on.
Allmusic.com has an interesting take on this part of his career: Even the folkier and more upbeat tunes had a casual and distended air: Hardin added to the strangeness by occasionally reciting somber poetry, both unaccompanied and to meandering, jazzy instrumental backing. The drowsy mood, both affectionate and vulnerable, is more important than the message on this haunting album. That means it’s not recommended as the first Hardin recording for neophytes, but it is recommended to those who already like Hardin and are up for something more obtuse than his early records.
His better known songs — which I have somewhere on CD — are well-cover classics and near classics: ‘Reason to Believe;’ ‘If I Were a Carpenter; ‘Lady Came from Baltimore’; How Can you Hang on to a Dream.’ ‘Black Sheep Boy; ‘Misty Roses,’ ‘Don’t Make Promises’ and more. Some of those like ‘Reason’ are classics. (I like Rod Stewart’s version of that song as well as Hardin’s.)
I really like all those listed above except ‘Carpenter’ which just irritated me as it was covered by what seems like every crooner who crooned. Also I can’t listen to it these days because the “would you have my baby’ line reminds me too much of that awful Paul Anka song “Having My Baby.”
On the vinyl I have, as I said, there’s some interesting jazzy-blues work but at this time Hardin was deep into the heroin. The Vietnam veteran of the U.S> Marine Corps. died of an overdose in 1980. He is buried near his hometown of Eugene, Oregon.
I onetime had an idea of doing a book profiling Tim Hardin, Elliott Smith, and Chris Whitley, all pioneering songwriters whose voices were as distinct as their lives were troubled and cut short. Artists whose legacy teeters on the songs that are left behind.
I thought of it when I started taking my youngest, Claire, to school at the University of Oregon in Eugene and upon learning Hardin was from there and Smith was based in Portland. Dunno, bit depressing, but also I thought the three would be interesting case studies, exploring the parallels. Sadly I think I’d start already knowing the parallels: D&D. Drugs and Depression.
Video below shows couple of Hardin’s classics.
(Scene is End of the Line Tavern in the year 2525)
Old Timer: “People say it’s climate warming or global changing or some shit like that. Ha. They been having them for years. The one in 2511 is legend.”
Of course Prosby knew the 2511 storm. Everyone with a well-made Walkie Talkie knows that one. Cat 5 with sustained winds of 220 mph. Turned St. Petersburg into Florida’s Venice.
Forty-foot storm surge dug its own canals.
Old Timer: “Glad I wasn’t down there at the time. You know 678 people died.”
Both men knew that much of Florida is underwater now. There is some dry land in Bithlo, but then you gotta live in Bithlo.
Lightning storms and meth heads made it difficult to venture out in that area of Florida anyway. Refugees from the now underwater Daytona Beach came to occupy Bithlo bringing more drugs upon drugs.
Prosby looked for the bartender, sat in silence for a while and then asked a question of the Old Timer.
“What is it then that storms coming out of nature keep getting bigger and bigger. If not climate change, what is it? God trying to kill us or trying to scare the hell out of us?”
“Don’t be skeered,” Old Timer said. “Just watch the spirals.”
Unconsciously Prosby put my hand on my gas mask, a high end military grade CBRN. Most folks wore them outside and lived in highly filtered airtight homes or apartments. If you didn’t wear one outside, it would only take a month or so before you were coughing up blood.
“Spirals? You mean these hisicanes and hurricanes?”
“No, something bigger,” he said, strapping on his pistol as he made a move for the door.
TO BE CONTINUED…
ALBUM: Jamboree (1986)
MVC Rating: 4.0
‘Fear of God’ off of their third album is the perfect song to show the uninitiated what one key element of the Athens, Ga., music scene sounded like, especially as that sound proceeded to emanate out of Southeastern university towns all through the 1980’s.
Athens, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill.
REM and the B-52’s were the most successful purveyors of the scene if not the sound. REM created a new sound with the jangly Byrdsian guitar cut through with the lead singer’s heartfelt mumbles. B-52’s had a frenetic pop-punk sound. Guadalcanal Diary featured both styles. ‘Cattle Prod’ is right out of the B-52’s playbook, which also crosses over with Atlanta’s Swimming Pool Q’s (anybody remember ‘Rat Bait?’)
Guadalcanal Diary’s members were mostly from the Atlanta area but made sure they were connected to the Athens scene.
Other bands in this arena — ‘Let’s Active,’ the dB’s, Pylon, Love Tractor, the Brains, Primitons. The ‘Athens’ influence is much bigger than that of course and remains a creative spot for cutting edge rock music, having spawned or adopted bands such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Widespread Panic and Drive-by Truckers, Of Montreal, among many others.
It’s hard sometimes to figure why some struck big and others didn’t.
But evidence from REM is perhaps as simple as its songs.
They have sold millions and here’s why: ‘Losing My Religion,’ ‘Fall on Me,’ ‘Orange Crush,’ ‘It’s the End of the World,’ ‘Man on the Moon,’ ‘E-bow the Letter,’ ‘Stand,’ ‘South Central Rain,’ ‘Leaving New York,’ ‘Radio Song,’ ‘Half a World Away,’ ‘The One I Love.’ I could go on (Imitation of Life, What’s the Frequency Kenneth). Many of those are songs that’ll be around a lot longer than the band members themselves.
If you want to look at it that way. And I do.
Personal favorites: Orange Crush. and E-Bow the Letter.
Part 1
It is the year 2525, and a storm described as ‘apocalyptic’ is barreling down on Florida and Alabama’s Gulf Coast.
The TV reporters hyperventilate and exaggerate their inability to stand in a stiff breeze.
But this is a big one. The biggest they say since the National Weather Service upped the gender equality correctness by calling the boy’ hurricanes, ‘hisicanes.’
This is Hisicane Donald.
Millions of Americans stared, transfixed by the spiral on TV screens.
Counterclockwise swirling. Hypnotizing.
It looked like the cosmic spiral of our galaxy.
Everybody asked: When is landfall? Where is landfall? When is that TV reporter going to be conked in head by a wind-driven coconut?
Hisicane Donald’s path had been surprisingly fast moving.
And it is upon us now.
Some people had chosen to flee, pack up the car and head out. Others chose to stay, shoring up their houses with boards and their doors and yards with sandbags.
And some, hesitated, caught up in staring at the spiral and wondering if it is really worth running from or should they just ‘hunker down.’
This is historic. Never been seen before, the TV blared.
“This your first ‘herckun?’ Old timer nursing a 16-oz PBR asks.
Prosby had just walked in and sat down at the End of the Line Tavern.
“Oh no, no,’ Prosby said.
Soul Sisters: Caring, love as I rearrange everything
Hello again, and?
Ain’t life grand?
Now that you can see it.
Now that you can be it.
Any other explanation doesn’t stand
How it’s all connected, perhaps not quite perfected, like the best can come from breaking with the plan
Every place
My love for you I find
In heart, body and mind
Let go, let go and shine
Yes is the better answer, like a clinging leaf is the better dancer, most of the time
For more of what I call ‘Attempted Poetry’ hit the so-named button on the right of yuor screen or just click here: https://myvinylcountdown.com/category/warning-attempted-poetry/
ALBUMS: All Out (1972); Gone Crazy (1973)
MVC Rating: All Out 4.0/$$; Gone Crazy 3.5/$$$
Hey folks. Grin is not a household name but you vinyl record aficionados ought to seek it out.
It’s a band fronted by Nils Lofgren in the 1970s. Nils is not exactly a household name either but after his youthful foray in Grin, he became a member of bands formed by some major household names: Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band and Neil y Young’s Crazy Horse. Not bad. Two of the best rock singer-songwriters of our era. (Actually Grin happened while he was in Crazy Horse.)
Lofgren is an excellent guitarist. But don’t come to Grin expecting life-changing music, like you might have found when you first heard Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen.
I think those two saw a musicality from Lofgren that covered a lot of ground. I think they also must have seen some bright rock and roll fun spirit in his music. Lofgren is a classically trained musician (classical accordion, according to his Wikipedia page –is that a joke?). Glad he ventured into rock and roll as I doubt I would ever be blessed with his music if he was 2nd chair accordion in the Los Angeles symphony.
Anyway Grin is a fun garage band styled group from Lofgren’s early life. The album covers are wild and they alone may be worth the $10 or so you may have to pay for a used copy.
What is a ‘household name’ anyway?
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In these blogs, I wrote a little earlier about the Grateful Dead.
Short take: I really never have understood the ulra-passionate appeal for a band whose songs, at least half, sound like sleepy Americana tunes, a genre that didn’t exist — at least in name — in the Dead’s heyday. Or it could also be described as Ronnie Lane music, only without the deep English musical accent that British musician layered on vocals and music.
I did promise further research into the Dead, noting that the only vinyl album I had was ‘Terrapin Station.’ So since that time I found some Dead I’d had digitally, namely the albums ‘Workingman’s Dead’ and ‘American Beauty.’
Of course like many listening to music in the 1970s, I knew ‘Casey Jones’ and the classic band on the road song, ‘Truckin’ ‘ which blesses us with one of the shrewdest summation lines of these years: “What a long strange trip it’s been.”
So this little additional homework has left me with two observations.
ALBUMS: Their 16 Greatest Hits (1971); Golden Grass, The Grass Roots (1970);
MVC Ratings: 16 Greatest 4.0/$$$; Golden 3.5/$$$
This is a case where I knew the artist and bought a couple of greatest hits albums that I probably wouldn’t have ordinarily have bought. Well, maybe in my youth I might have pitched a few bucks for them.
I was always partial to Top 40 hit machines and man, Rob Grill and gang put together a string of hits that have squeezed out chart spaces alongside rock legends like the Beatles, Aretha Franklin and Rolling Stones.
I knew Grill while I worked in Florida, the 1990s. Rob and his wife, Nancy, were part of a neighborhood of young families in aptly named Lake County. We’d gather at someone’s house and grill out or whatever. After we moved to California we lot touch.
Even though I was having cookouts in the backyard, I didn’t know who Rob Grill was at these dinners until someone, after months, told me. I didn’t know Rob Grill from Adam but as soon as I started humming the Grass Roots songs, I was surprised at how many were rolling around in my head.
Fun fact: They started out the Grassroots (one word) then changed it to two. You can see it on the two album covers I have published with this story.
He never really talked about his music, maybe a little bit. I told him I had a cover version of Midnight Confessions by the Blake Babies that was interestingly odd. Rob kind of smiled and said something about whether he or the band got any residuals from that.
I remembered the Grass Roots from their songs, Midnight Confessions, Let’s Live for Today, Soon or Later. and Temptation Eyes. So while Grill helped sell millions of records worldwide, he had no trouble fitting in with his boat and fishing pole. That’s the reason Grill, a native Californian, came to wind up in Lake County: fishing, and Nancy, who was disc jockey in the Orlando area when they met.
Rob retired at a relatively early age, married Nancy and picked a county outside Orlando known for its fishing (maybe not in that order.)
Rob died following complications from a stroke in 2011. RIP Rob. He was reportedly listening to Live for Today on headphones as he died.
About the music? The well-honed British influenced pop, was their bread and butter and the Top 40 was where they focused.. But at times, you’ll hear some soul and jazz.. Midnight Confession, their biggest hit, had some swinging horns on it.
The Grass Roots have had singles on the Billboard 100 21 times. They have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide.
In their career, they achieved two gold albums, one gold single and charted singles on the Billboard Hot 100 a total of 21 times.
This is an opinion column by Mike Oliver, who frequently writes about his own diagnosis of Lewy body dementia and other health, life and death issues.
So who told Ted Turner, CNN magnate, that his newly diagnosed Lewy body dementia is not fatal.
Is he just playing it down?
Because I’ve got news for him: It is 100 percent fatal. You get it you die.
Like a lot of diseases, right? No.
What Ted has, Lewy body dementia, shortens lifespans. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, on average, do not. (Some say Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s shortens life 2 or fewer years.)
There is no cure for any of these degenerative brain diseases.
Turner, the billionaire TV cable mogul, said in an interview today on CBS This Morning that he has been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.
“It’s a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer’s. It’s similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer’s is fatal,” Turner told Koppel at his 113,000-acre ranch near Bozeman, Montana. “Thank goodness I don’t have that.”
I don’t think Ted fully knows what’s coming. Maybe he does. But it sounds like Turner — like the vast public and, most troubling, the medical community — doesn’t have a clue about what he has.
The fact is that Lewy body dementia is not a form of Alzheimer’s disease and, not that a debate over ‘severity’ of the diseases accomplishes much, Lewy’s damaging symptoms can be equal to or worse than AD, if that’s even possible. Both kill the brain eventually and every step of the way you lose a little more control.
Turner said something else that goes to the heart of my mission:
“But, I also have got, let’s – the one that’s – I can’t remember the name of it.” (Bold emphasis mine.)
(MORE ABOUT THE UNDERDIAGNOSED DISEASE: LEWY LEWY, CALL IT BY ITS NAME)
Turner said, “Dementia. I can’t remember what my disease is.”
Too often patients don’t know what they got, some doctors know little about it.
I seek to raise awareness of this disease. I have — with generous help from the community — conducted two basketball tournament fund-raisers for Lewy body research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I have written quite a bit about it for my blog and AL.com. Go to my website and click on the Lewy Dementia button for some of my writing.
Come join me Mr. Turner.
Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia, and it was undiagnosed. He thought he was going crazy. The suicide I believe could have been prevented. The knowledge itself would have helped reduce anxiety. And with treatment targeted to Lewy body, not Alzheimer’s, not Parkinson’s, he might have had some good time left.
In the interview aired today, Turner said something that puts a point on what has become a mission of mine: Raise awareness for Lewy body. I write this right now on my laptop slowly in the hunt-and-peck mode because my right hand can’t type. Lewy body can present with Parkinsonian symptoms on top of the cognition issues.
Lewy body disease (LBD) is a umbrella term which covers Lewy body dementia, which I have. It’s been two years since I was diagnosed. I guess you would say I am in early stages and still highly functional.
But Lewy isn’t going anywhere.
Lewy body dementia will kill you on average 5 to 8 years after diagnosis. There are several sources for this including Mayo Clinic (other sources say 4 to 7 years or 5 to 7 years.)
Lewy body disease presents symptoms that include impaired cognition, and the kind of tremors associated with Parkinson’s.
Lewy body dementia has changed my world.
You have a choice to get interested in what may kill you prematurely and do what I’m doing: Spreading the word. I’m a columnist for an AL.com and write about Lewy body dementia frequently here and on my music blog: www.myvinylcountdown.com
I have never heard anyone describe Lewy body as being milder than Alzheimer’s. They are two different things and affect everybody differently. But Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients have less of a reduction in lifespan than Lewy body dementia patients.
Mayo Clinic says this:” Lewy body dementia, also known as dementia with Lewy bodies, is the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Protein deposits, called Lewy bodies, develop in nerve cells in the brain regions involved in thinking, memory and movement (motor control).”
Let’s find a cure.
Reach me at moliver@al.com and see my blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com