I extended my website domain name ownership today. I was worried that I’d wake up one day (or that I wouldn’t wake up one day) and the domain name wouldn’t be there.
It was due to expire in August. I have re-upped for 5 more years on the domain name, myvinylcountdown.com (I’ve also re-upped with Blue Host for 3 more years to host my WordPress.org site.
I’ve been told it’s a good one, domain name that is.
Ramsey Archibald came up with it in a brainstorming session with me. (Actually more of a brainsprinkling session.)
But for me it’s a good positive sign I think, extending the contract. Those following this blog about raising awareness for Lewy body dementia may know that the average lifespan of an LBD patient is 4 to 7 years after diagnosis. I’m two years in, so that leaves me on the upper side with: 5 years.
I don’t know if I’ll make it or not, but I’m optimistic. When I get there I’ll roll it over another 5 years.
And if David Bowie were still alive, i’m sure he would write a sequel to his dystopian song “Five Years.’
ALBUM: Fire Town In the Heart of the Heart Country (1986)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
For some reason, I have great clarity on how or at least why I bought this.
Critic Steve Simels, then of Stereo Review magazine, said it was one of the best records he had heard. Ordinarily I’d take that with a grain of salt. But Simels was the guy who said Tonio K.’s ‘Life in the Food Chain’ was the best album he had ever heard.
So I bought that Tonio album sight unseen (or unheard. Remember no samples online in those days, about 1978). And Simels was right, more or less.
Foodchain is a helluva an album. And to this day, I consider Tonio K. to be one of the underappreciated artists of all time.
This Fire Town album? Not so much. Now this is a very good album, very catchy songs that make you want to hum. But they aren’t plowing new ground here or showing us anything we haven’t heard. Very midwestern sounding, country rock or pre-Americana. BoDeans would be a touchstone. They are like the anti-Wilco, with bright cheery tunes and optimistic outlooks. Like John Denver with more electric rock guitar.
The singer’s voice is too generic for me, not bad, but doesn’t quite have that quality of making the listener believe he’s meaning what he’s saying. The songs are actually excellent and one can see where Simels might of thought he was seeing the NBT, a new Eagles or a new Crosy, Stills & Nash. But not quite. However this, like Tonio K., is an underappreciated gem.
I wrote the AL.com post not as a request for some pat-on-the- back or attaboy because our profession faces danger at times. As one of the commenters on my column wrote, we knew we what we were signing up for.
Well, that’s true to a degree. At 22, graduating Auburn University in 1982, I probably had no idea I’d be called into an active prison riot a few years later.
For this column, I wrote about some specific cases, that I had personal experience with to vividly show that violence against journalists, or anybody, is not a joke, Milo. This shit is real.
For the opinion column, I got some reaction from fellow Chauncey Baily Project cohorts Josh Richman and Tom Peele to talk about that project which investigated the shotgun shooting death of a journalist in Oakland, Calif.
Oaklanders know the story too damn well. Someone with a shotgun out to kill a reporter.
The 2007 killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey on a city sidewalk was the last slaying of a domestic American journalist over a story.
Until Thursday.
The only thing surprising about the newsroom killings of five Annapolis Capital-Gazette employees is that it didn’t happen sooner. Jarrod Ramos, the alleged shooter, had a longstanding complaint with the paper over a story about his conviction for harassing a woman.
Ramos’ animosity ran on for years through two failed lawsuits in which he represented himself. Then, Thursday, he blasted his way into the paper with a shotgun and killed four journalists and a sales representative.
It came days after Yiannopoulos called for death squads for journalists. He says he was kidding and wrote those words only in a private text. But then he posted them on Instagram.
It was a minor news story, this tragedy at the doorstep of the Oakland Tribune.
But it was a gut check for news people who every day write about and present such tragedies. These stories dot our paper, usually summed up in a few brief paragraphs, daily doses of dead bodies — shootings, stabbings, fatal car wrecks and, occasionally (though not often), a public suicide like this one.
But this one was different — it came to us. On a Friday afternoon, the suicide of Mary Jesus jerked us into real life in real time.
That was her name, oddly, Mary Jesus. And, ironically, she was upset about a possible eviction and being homeless for the holidays.
At 1:50 p.m., feet dangling off the ledge, she slid off the seventh-floor roof holding her nose with thumb and forefinger — as if she were taking a plunge into the water. She hit a light pole on the way down, twisted and slammed face-first into the concrete sidewalk near the building’s front door.
Six floors up, through open windows, reporters and editors in the newsroom heard the eerie, collective gasp from the crowd of onlookers. It was an unearthly, anguished sound of more than 100 people simultaneously drawing air. And then, there was the sickening thud.
I’m being silly but something has me a little shaken, or maybe the word bemused is how best to describe how I feel about this. Bear with me.
I wrote a story about lightning today for AL.com. I was going to put a photo I took many years ago, on I believe Fort Walton Beach or Destin on Florida’s Panhandle.
Probably 25 or 30 years ago, my wife, Catherine, and I had just pulled up to the beach and despite a gathering storm got out to walk. I saw lightning and grabbed my camera. I ended up getting a nice shot of two lightning bolts out in the ocean reflected like a mirror-image on the wet beach. This was the days of real film so I really had no idea what I had until later developed. But when I saw it I went to camera store and had it enlarged and framed. I was proud.
My wife, not quite as impressed as I was with my lightning photo, has tolerantly let me hang it — in the basement.
Anyway I decided to take a picture of my picture last night to use as an illustration for a column, which was about my longtime near obsession with the cosmic qualities of lightning.
One of the stories I tell in my article today is about a golfer who had his silver cross, which was on a chain around his neck while playing golf in a thunderstorm. The cross vaporized as the golfer was hit by lightning on the Florida course. He lived, but the lightning left an indelible mark. The lightning flash boiled the cross leaving him with a permanent scar in the shape of a cross.
So when it came time to add a photo of my photo, I was shocked. I took about eight snaps. One was different from the rest. One of the two bolts appeared to be in the shape of the cross. So I’m not one who thinks it’s a miracle when an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich. That sold for $28,000 by the way. Hmmm.
This is the same photo which is hanging in my basement. The cross appeared in one of eight shots I took. See second picture, lightning bolt on right shaped like cross. In the third picture I circle the cross/lightning, but it’s seems kind of hard to see. To the naked eyeball, the picture looks like the one on the left. So to be clear, there is only one photo. I snapped multiple shots — 8 — within about a 5-minute period. My guess is there was some kind of lighting change that happened as I moved to a slightly different angle? But still baffling. And added on to other inexplicable ‘coincidences’ — here and here — I am beginning to think I have a brain disease.
I’ve reviewed 167 albums on my way to knocking off the 678 that makes up my collection. That means 511 to go. I do them and post them in alphabetical order, for the most part. That number you see beside the reviews is where that record fell in the countdown.
For example King Sunny Ade is 678 and 677 because his two albums I own made up my first post.
Below are my Top 10 music countdown posts based on hits (pageviews). The next Top 10 are my blog essays on various topics often related to my dealing with having Lewy body dementia.
Neuroscience says this one song reduces anxiety by 65 percent
Given the venom I’ve seen spewed toward the Eagles, I’d guess it’s not ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’
I don’t know the science behind it but I do know music has helped me tremendously in my fight against Lewy body dementia, a degenerative brain disease (cousin of Parkinson’s).
I can think of lots of records/songs that help me relax, like George Winston or the soundtrack to Local Hero or some Miles Davis. Catherine, my spouse, has CDs specifically designed to help her meditate and relax
So what about this one song Hack Spirit is telling us about?
The website writes: A team of UK neuroscientists conducted a study on sound therapy. Participants had to attempt to solve puzzles, which induced stress, while wearing sensors attached to their bodies. They then had to listen to different songs while researchers measured brain activity and recorded their heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure, reports Inc.com and Ideapod.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top track to produce a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date was “Weightless” by Marconi Union.
Well, I listened to the song and it sounded like the quieter parts of a Pink Floyd album. You know where they just drift off into a low rhythm space. It’s just like that — though at any moment I expect to hear David Gilmore’s guitar phase in. Tangerine Dream might be another reference point for you aging Baby Boomer rockers.
I did feel relaxed and almost felt like a nap after listening to ‘Weightless’
Kind of cool. If you’re feeling extra stressed Hacker Spirit has found nine more sleep inducing tunes and have posted them on their site hackspirit.com, including one by Adele and one by Coldplay.
Every Saturday I post a round-up of this blog for readers of AL.com
Here’s this week’s top of the story. Click on link at bottom to read full piece.
It’s Saturday and time for my vinyl countdown AL.com update.
I have five artists here taken from my collection of 678 records, which I am trying to count down (review and list) before my degenerative brain disease makes it impossible. I have so far reviewed more than 150 records on myvinylcountdown.com blog. I encourage you to explore that blog for the countdown plus essays on life, journalism, basketball and whatever might be on my mind.
But every Saturday I do a catch-up, reaching back into the archives, for those who may not be following my blog regularly, and offering up condensed versions of those on my blog. Today I have five widely divergent records (remember I collected these in the ‘1970s and 1980s when I was in my teens and 20s.) As regular readers know I also do a NP (Now Playing) to show the latest reviewed piece.
In the Kurtis Blow review I recall an incident that inspired my headline: Lesson in racial profiling.
The numbers represent where the albums are in the alphabetical, descending countdown format. In other words 678 would be the first record I reviewed (King Sunny Ade, whose A-name put him first in line).
That’s the stated mission as we started the day late last week.
I was leaving the office for a road trip from Birmingham to Sumter County in western Alabama.
Destination: Epes.
Road trip with two of my favorite people: my wife, Catherine, kin to Mamie Willis. And dear friend Mary Porter.
But first we had to stop in Livingston. Catherine and Mary, both Presbyterian pastors, had to be there for a church meeting. Livingston’s close proximity to Epes gave Catherine the idea to go check out some family lore and see Miss Mamie.
I resisted at first.
Epes? I know native Alabamians who say, ‘Oh you mean Opp.”
“No, Epes.”
“Spell it.”
E-P-E-S.
Epp-es. EEEPS.
No, one syllable Epes, soft ‘e’.
I think you mean Opp.
Every town around here is 20 miles apart, that’s how far the horses could go in a day, an Epes resident said.
I decided I’d like to go. I thought about how much I enjoy seeing the rural south (having lived in Alabama, Georgia and Florida for a combined total of about 35 years of my 58-year-old life).
First Presbyterian Church in Livingston where we began our search for Miss Mamie.
First stop a pretty small town white-painted church, First Presbyterian Church in Livingston, next to the University of West Alabama.
I was a little worried about the church meeting. Was I even allowed to be here? Don’t make me stand up and introduce myself, I thought. This was an actual church service, complete with preacher, communion, the whole nine yards.
Then there was a meeting about the business of the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley. This is the governing body in the region if central Alabama for Presbyterian USA churches. This was a room full of preachers. Fun fact: Lady Bird Johnson attended service at this church once with a friend back in the 1960s, I learned.
A tall, thin and quite young looking man, the Rev. Barrett Abernathy, was the church’s pastor. I must admit when I saw the sermon title “Interpreting the Tongues” I kind of shrank down in my pew. Place was packed. How do I escape? Catherine caught me eyeing the door and grabbed my hand.
Then the pastor made a joke about the sermon title and rolling around on the floor and I interpreted that as we were NOT going to do that. Heh heh, I chuckled nervously. Then I remembered they were serving barbecue for lunch. I can do this.
“Give me Jesus,” Quincy White sang beautifully. “When I come to die. When I come to die. Oh when I come to die, give me Jesus.”
And then the pastor read scripture Acts 2:1-21.
I was feeling a little light headed. It was about time for my LBD medication.
A sudden storm was blowing hard winds and rain outside.
The pastor read from the text: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”
How did he do that? I wondered.
“Cretans and Arabs–in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?'”
That’s what I was thinking. Then I got it. The passage was about communication. A journalism sermon. Communication foments relationships, takes emphasis off differences.
Then he read: “…and your old men shall dream dreams.”
I snapped from my reverie. Barbecue time. Church had ended. We went to lunch.
The barbecue, from a secret recipe, was awesome. I found out that this area in the Black Belt has 7 barbecue clubs.
Valerie Burnes, who teaches at the university, told everyone about the clubs as we were chowing down….mmmm sauce so good with the pulled pork. The clubs are set up differently from club to club but most meet at a community center and cook up a bunch of barbecue. They do this once a month as a community event. Some cook whole pigs, Burnes said. I made a note to look up a public TV report on the clubs.
But we were late to look for Miss Mamie. The rain had let up. We found a guide in the church office administrator Janice Greenwood who lives in Epes, so we would follow her there. It was some distance as the crow flies, was my only understanding.
Janice, who has a dog named dammit (get off the couch dammit!), said in the old days this used to be a thriving community. Before the Depression.
“There was a boarding house-hotel, three banks, a drug store and a stockyard,” she said.
There’s nothing there in downtown Epes. (Oliver)
The town’s name came from a doctor named John W. Epes, who sold the land for a depot to the Southern Railroad, according to encyclopediaofalabama.org
Now Epes is a dying town. In 2000, population was 210; in 2010, 192; 2016 estimates: 169.
Epes is where people die or people leave and don’t come back. It’s a geographically beautiful area on the Tombigbee River sitting on the white cliffs, Jones Bluff. It’s the same kind of chalky limestone exposure that was made famous in the song “White Cliffs of Dover.”
We stopped in what used to be downtown. Guess it still is downtown except there’s nothing there but empty buildings and a train track that you can follow down to the Tombigbee River and the white cliffs. Somewhere the town folks say there is a place they call ‘the waters’ where folks bathe for its healing powers.
Catherine’s father, William J. Willis, grew up in Epes. The 95-year-old Navy veteran served on a ship during World War II in the Far East. He has all kinds of fishing stories about the Tombigbee.
The white cliffs of Epes on the Tombigbee. (Oliver)
The water moccasins, he said, would climb up the limbs of the riverbank trees and drop into your boat.
Moving away from downtown, we continue our mission to find Miss Mamie. With help from Janice, we found the site of Miss Mamie’s schoolhouse. It had burned down some years ago. Now, near where the school used to be, there’s a somewhat decrepit fire station, which doesn’t look ready for business.
School house where Mamie taught, now gone. (Oliver)
So where do we find Miss Mamie? Janice gave us directions down an overgrown backroad white with the chalky limestone. But she said she wasn’t going any farther. Good luck, she said.
Man this is off the beaten path, I thought, kind of eerie. Did anyone notice how Janice didn’t come down the dirt road with us? Don’t be silly my wife said. She was driving. Mary and I absorbed the almost surreal beauty of the green pastures, deep woods and the sound of nothing but birds. Deeper in we went to the point we wondered if we’d ever get there. Catherine talked about Miss Mamie, which is what her students called her. Way back in the day when 2nd graders sat next to 4th-graders sitting next to 6th-graders. One room.
Then in a beautifully green clearing on the left, we had reached our destination.
Here it was, surrounded by a chain link fence. Unlocked. We entered.
Henagan Cemetery, Epes, Ala.
The flat grave marker of Mamie Willis, mother of William, grandmother of Catherine was easy to find. She was amongst an outcropping of old Willis headstones. She was buried in1990. Not enough time for the ravages and decay of time on her grave marker.
Her marker read:
Mom
Mamie A. Willis
August 24, 1895
February 26,1990
Other Willis headstones, though big and impressive, didn’t fair so well with the weather. Some were barely readable.
Some dated back to the 1800’s. What a discovery: a line of Willis’ all resting in one beautiful place. Catherine was pleased. It’s a goldmine of family ancestry information. Catherine’s sister, Martha, the family historian will likely take lead on whether there are new family insights found here.
Mamie’s marker
rNew insights or not, it was a lovely spot and a lovely day. I said I might reconsider my cremation plans and get planted in this oasis of rural western Alabama.
Bye Bye Miss Mamie
Thanks for teaching us that the journey means more than any destination.
So many train songs. I think I said that in my last train post.
To update: We (namely me) made a train list dedicated to Railroad Park, which we love. We also would love to see a children’s choo choo there or at the least a steam engine artifact or something. Anyway, we made the list more or less as an awareness campaign to get folks thinking about it. The official version is that a choo choo train doesn’t fit into the park’s long-term vision.
OK, I hear that. I suppose visions can be corrected (reminds me I need to make an eye doctor’s appointment soon. But I digress).
So we made the list, I published it here and on AL.com and something bugged me. I decided I didn’t like our 8th pick ‘Casey Jones’ by the Grateful Dead. Sure it’s a classic, but the cocaine fueled train song seemed inappropriate for a discussion involving children.
So I asked for and received lots of good suggestions for replacements (see below). Now I am making what might be a controversial decision. I am replacing ‘Casey Jones’ with two relatively obscure songs by the seemingly obscure, but not really, The Kinks. They are one of my favorite bands which you will find out more about later in myvinylcountdown.com
The replacement songs: ‘Lonesome Train’ (relatively new from head Kink Ray Davies.)
And: ‘Last of the Steam Powered Trains’ (relatively old by the Kinks as a group).
I am going to have those two Kinks selections share the No.8 position in the same way PPM’s ‘500 Miles’ and ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ share No. 1.
Now without further ado here are the Top 10 (er, 12) train songs. be sure to click on the Kinks videos at No. 8 to hear the replacements.
BTW, all of your suggestions, thank you very much, are listed after the Top 10 list.
10: Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”
I know i’t old school heavy metal, but I like it, like it, yes I do.
9: Cracker “I See the Light”
Not really thought of as a train song but it is in a punch line sort of way. I just like this song. And if you listen you’ll see why I picked it.
8: Kinks “Lonesome Train” and “Last of the Steam Powered Trains”
Two good ones but rather obscure. I’m doing my part to change that.
I saw them live years ago and this was the only song I remember. (Maybe it was the only song they played.) If your kids aren’t head banging after Ozzy, they will be by this one.
4: This Train Is Bound For Glory”- Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe – The Old Crow Medicine Show
Good time video almost pushed this higher. Lots of granola and moonshine for this crunchy group of hippie/ roots rockers on a classic, train bound for glory.
3: Bob Dylan. “Slow Train Coming”
Just a good song. Underrated Dylan. Good live version. Alabama angle:
I had a woman out in Alabama, She’s a backwoods girl but she sure was realistic
She said, boy, without a doubt, you got to kick your mess and straighten out, you could die down here, just be another accident statistic
2: Gladys Knight and the Pips. “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
‘I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine.’ Enough said.
1 (Tie): Johnny Cash. “Folsom Prison Blues.”
Yes, I copped out and have two as my No. 1. A tie. But I got to those last two and they are such great train songs which by definition must have a train-whistle ache about them. After doing this, I looked back and realized I don’t have ‘Peace Train’ by Cat Stevens or some other popular choices for train songs (e.g. Last Train to Clarksville)
But when it came to final two, I could not choose between them. Cop out, yes. But you tell me what to cut. Nevermind, I know which one it will be.
Anyway, it should not be this Cash song. You could do a whole top 10 train songs by Cash alone. And this song might arguably be called a prison song. However, I say, this has one of the most recognizable openings of any train song ever. “I hear the train a coming, it’s coming around the bend.” The train where people are in fancy dining cars, he laments, reminds him every day of his lost freedom.
1 (Tie)_ Peter Paul and Mary. “500 Miles”
Shuddup. I will defend this No. 1 pick to the ends of the earth or at least 500 miles.
Honorable Mention: Stoney Larue. “Train to Birmingham”
We’ll start you off with an Honorable Mention. New song it may crack the list with a little more time. JA introduced this one to me. Has crying, lying, dying and Birmingham, oh, and a guitar full of blues. Great song. The studio version has a little sad sounding fiddle.
Here is my other honorable mention: Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and I was considering Clash “Train in Vain,” then I realized that except in the title, there’s no train a-comin’ in the lyrics. In fact, no train at all unless I’m missing something.
Here’s a list of great train songs submitted by readers. Don’t worry they’ll be on somebody’s train song list somewhere down the line.
“Love in Vain” Robert Johnson. The legendary blues guitarist who influenced Clapton and a legion of rock guitar slingers.
“Orange Blossom Special,” Johnny Cash.
Elizabeth Cotton or Pete Seeger, Freight Train. Cotton is an amazing woman. Check out this video.
Paul Simon’s “Train in the Distance.”
Aeorosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’ the rollicking cover of old blues song, also done by the Yardbirds.
‘Last Train to Clarksville’ by the Monkees.
The Nields’ “Train.” Leave it to my good friend Bob to come up with something I’ve never heard or heard of — and it’s a great piece by a female duo.
“Waitin’ for a Train” by Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, another legendary folk singer (complete with yodels).
“Peace Train” by Cat Stevens
City of New Orleans” The Arlo Guthrie version of the Steve Goodman song.
Syd Straw’s “The Train that Takes You Away.” Great, if not obscure, song.
Gary Clarke, Jr’s bluesy rocker, “When My Train Pulls In.” Audience loved him so much they serenaded him before he launched in bluesy train song.
“Throw Mama From a Train — a Kiss a Kiss.” The Sandpipers. Funny funny. Thanks Marvin.
Nanci Griffith – 1) So Long Ago. 2) Southbound Train. Nanci has a few train songs in her and I like them all.
Janis Joplin – Me and Bobbi McGee. Um, this is possibly my favorite all time song. Not sure it’s a train song, though the protagonist is ‘headin’ for a train, feeling nearly faded as my jeans.’ Kristofferson wrote. Found this video of an aging Kristofferson doing this — pretty amazing:
Eagles – Train Leaves Here This Morning – Pleasant. Not so sure the Dude would like it.
Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Historic account of real event as Gordon liked to do.
Wreck of the Old 97. Classic country sung by Johnny Cash and others.
Desperados waiting for a Train –Guy Clark (several other versions), including the aforementioned Nanci with Clark.
“The Train Song” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Chattanooga Choo Choo —classic, written by a songwriting duo while on a train called the Birmingham Special. Would have been a slam dunk if they named it the Birmingham Choo Choo. (Or, perhaps, not)>
“The Locomotion” original by LIttle Eva, babysitter for Carole King. Later Grand Funk Railroad.
And one reader says it would be a ‘travesty’ to get rid of Grateful Dead entirely so the reader suggested Dead renditions of “Big Railroad Blues” or Willie Fuller’s “Beat It On Down the Line,” either his original or their cover of it.
Mike Oliver is counting down his 678 vinyl records before he dies.
This is the regular Saturday column where I showcase some of the 678 vinyl record reviews I plan to review on my website.
I’ve reviewed 151, still have 527 to go.
This is a race, you see, to get these done, reviewed and put up on my website, before my brain disease gets me.
Recenty I posted that I had decades ago lent my Deep Purple live album ‘Made In Japan’ to someone who never returned it. I said jokingly if anyone out there has it, please leave it on my porch no questions asked.
Last week AL.com cartoonist J.D. Crowe walked into the newsroom and handed me the live album plus a copy of ‘Machine Head’ in primo condition.
