The Sky Fell on Alabama Long Time Ago

Sunday is a beautiful cold day.

People are quiet inside. Waiting for redemption.

I decided to go to church. There was good discussion on the environment drawn from a book called Beyond  Eden.

“Do we really have stardust in us?” I ask.

“In Alabama we do,” Arthur said. “They even wrote a song about it.

“Stars Fell On Alabama”

Arthur is funny.

I can’t forget the glamor
Your eyes held a tender light
And stars fractured ‘Bama
Last night

I was at First Presbyterian Church Birmingham, one of the oldest, if not the oldest church in the city. The church, started  in the 1870s, fractured over Civil Rights or related issues in the 1960s.

It’s right across the street from the YMCA.

With snow on the ground outside, we sang ‘In the  Bleak Midwinter.’

My wife, the Rev. Catherine Oliver, is interim associate pastor at First Presbyterian.

The Rev. Catherine Goodrich is head of staff.

Goodrich led a thanksgiving prayer and said this to the congregation:

We give you thanks for this community and pray this morning for our state.

The eyes of the nation are focused on Alabama waiting to see if we believe that  all people are created in the image of God,

if we believe in the separation of church and state,

If we stand on the side of love and if we believe that the poor and the vulnerable should be protected.

Send your Spirit, Oh God, that all may heed the voice of justice, hear your call to compassion and embrace paths of peace.

 And a long time ago, in 1833,  stars fell  on Alabama. Someone wrote about it in 1934:

We lived our little drama
We kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama
Last night

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Money, that’s what I want

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

In my recent review of the Brains, I wrote that the Atlanta band’s hit song, ‘Money Changes Everything,’ is one of my Top 10 or Top 15 rock songs of all time.

Well that might have been a little hyperbolic.

It made me think of all the songs about money. Money alone. I think my ‘money’ song will be strong up against other money songs but when you talk all-time I realized how big a universe that is.  There are tons of money songs alone and some very good ones. Here are just a few:

  • Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.
  • Money by the Flying Lizards (and others, including Beatles.)
  • For the Love of Money by the O’Jays.
  • Money by Pink Floyd.
  • Take the Money and Run by the Steve Miller Band.
  • She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer.

I think my favorite song about money  will remain the Brains (and/or) Cyndi Lauper’s version of Money Changes Everything. But not sure the song ranks in the Top 10 or 15 all time list.  As for the money list  I admire  the Dire Straits tongue in cheek piece. Pink Floyd’s is a classic, and I really like the O’Jays tune.

But sticking with my Brains here.

If you have other suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comments

Christmas Music: Unleashing the Beast

So we went out yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving and got a tree and spent a cheery evening putting it up and decorating.

Now the rule in our house, and it is my rule (rarely broken), and that is there is to be no Christmas music until AFTER Thanksgiving dinner. That’s because long before Dec. 25, maybe even before December, you will become physically nauseated when a happy holiday tune comes on if you start any earlier. (Holiday music tolerance varies from person to person).

(I’ve thought of setting the deadline back some like Dec. 15, but I think by Thanksgiving the dam is ready to burst. The fuse on the Christmas bomb has been lit and already blowing its confetti, ribbons and wrapping paper everywhere. There’s no stopping it.)

So, this year, like most years, I put the music on Friday while tree decorating with family. Now I have a few vinyl Christmas albums but I’m not reviewing those here.

My main listening device for Christmas music is my 120 GB ‘old school’ iPod (has about 7,500 songs on it now). There are  625 songs on my Christmas playlist. I’m going to post 15 of these using our random shuffle method.

That is, for those of you who have not played 5 at 5: Put your device on your Christmas playlist and hit shuffle. Then write down the first 15 songs you shuffle to. Feel free to post your list on comments to this post by clicking on the headline of the post. Here’s mine:

  1. Away in a Manger/Honey Boy (reggae)
  2. Let it Snow by Dean Martin
  3. Home for the Holidays by Perry Como
  4. Adeste Fideles  by the Roches .( I just bought the Roches Christmas album yesterday on vinyl, $2 at Reeds downtown Birmingham. Not bad for one of my  favorites, which I’ve long had on CD.)
  5. O Holy Night by Peter Holsapple
  6. The First Noel by Elvis Presley
  7. Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Los Lonely Boys
  8. Mysteries of the Christmas Mist by Sufjan Stevens
  9. The Wonderful World of Christmas by Elvis Presley
  10. Someday at Christmas by Jack Johnson
  11. Joy to the World by Sufjan Stevens
  12. Silent Night Medley by Hanson
  13. Gift of the Magi by the Squirrel Nut Zippers
  14. Greensleeves by John Coltrane Quartet
  15. Peace Child by the Indigo Girls

Overall, totally random, some good, some bad, some, well, nauseating. Happy Christmas everybody.

Top 5 Christmas Albums

Here’s the Roches. Awesome:

 

 

5 at 5 (another Friday round)

Here we go again. It’s time for 5 at 5.

It goes like this, at 5 p.m. (or any time you wish)  pick up our music storage devices, whether they are  I-Pods, cell phones or other and set it to random play all songs.

Then we share our lists  and argue about who had the best list or laugh at what came up the fact that my first song was Justin Timberlake.

I have 7,494 songs in my I-pod. And due to some kid usage of my 120 GB I-Pod, there are some that I can’t explain like how Justin got on. I will post this and  encourage others to post their results in the comment section (by clicking on the title of this post.

Post in comments by hitting the title of the post and scrolling to the bottom.

Here’s mine:

My Pony by Justin Timberlake

Fast Freight by the Kingston Trio

I Am the Walrus by the Beatles

Point A by Michael Hedges

Tell it Like it Is by Aaron  Neville.

 

 

10 at 10

Okay here we go , , I”m going  for 10 at 10.

Remember how to play, random shuffle all songs and let’s see what your first 10 are.  Just like 5 at 5.

If you want to play put your results in comments.

Here’s my shuffle 10 tonight:

“Wake Up’ Arcade Fire

‘The  Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders;’ Sufjan Stevens.

‘Breathe’ Sean Paul

‘Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?’ Waterboys.

‘Stickshifts and Safety belts;’ Cake

‘Jealous Guy,’ John Lennon.

‘Eight Hundred DollarShoes’, Elton John and Leon Russell

‘Daydream,’ the Lovin’ Spoonful

‘Ballroom,’ Bill Frisell

‘We are Each Other,’ the Beautiful South.

 

Catching up (Update )

I’ve done 25 album reviews now. And overall post count is 32.

BTW, my last post about the Beatles was a little joke. I actually am familiar with the Beatles. I have other Beatles discs and I am planning to review them. It’s hard because what’s left to say about the greatest and most influential rock band ever? I may save them for last or later in my ‘B’ category.

Mike’s records

If you didn’t see it,  AL.com ran a piece on my Best Worst song  bit .It contained an informal poll and last I looked Bread and Butter was winning. The comment section contains numerous best/worst candidates.

Another reminder. At 5 p.m.. Central (or a little before that): Don’t forget 5 at 5 today. Just put your five songs in the comments section of the original post.

So, 25  records down, 653 to go..

As we like to say in Alabama, let’s get her done.

 Some People are Mean

(Tattered coat of not many colors features  right shoulder rip.)

I was standing in line at a local Birmingham brewery on a crowded Friday after work. There were two people trying to serve about 50 people at a time.

Guy at my right shoulder disturbs my reverie by tapping me on the shoulder.

“Nice jacket,” he says.

Slightly discombobulated by the compliment, I managed to get out, “Thanks.” I start to look at my jacket with new eyes. Oh this old thing,  I thought silently, surrendering to the force of flattery.

“Where did you buy it?” he asked.

I didn’t hear him at first and was frankly becoming confused by all of this attention from some random guy in a beer line, but I politely asked him to repeat the question.

“The coat, where’d you get the coat?” He was oddly smiling.

I mean this was an Alfani, brand of the esteemed Macy’s department store chain. But I didn’t tell him that. I was holding back a bit now – that would be my walk-off homerun. It’s an Alfani my man, I would shout  in jubilation..

I told him it was a little worse for wear and I believe I got it at a thrift store. I had been reading about the B-52’s and their thrift store chic for a post on my blog. So it was all that came to mind.

(I later remembered that  I really got it at a Ross bargain store in Northern California, which might have made it  even more chic). Not just a thrift shop but a multi-hundred store chain of cheap clothes and clothing rejects.

But somehow my body was telling me something my mind wasn’t processing.

My mind was telling me: Here’s a fellow human being, making a connection – that’s what life is all about.

My body had something else to say: Fists start clinching I move my feet to get square.

“Did you buy it all wrinkled and crumpled up like that,” he asked, touching the jacket with disdain and laughing at me, yes, at me, before turning away toward the bar.

At that time I realized I had a small rip on the back of my right shoulder right where he was standing.  Catherine had long ago pointed it out. But myself being an astute observer of popular culture knew that ‘rips’ and ‘tears’ were good. People BUY clothes like that, right?

But I was momentarily stunned as what just happened sank in. I stood there with a flood of reactions washing over me, shame, confusion and stupidity. How could I let someone do that to me?

Then I felt anger, thinking: “I’m going to knock his ass out.”

I quickly dismissed the dumb notion of violent retaliation, but I was sad for my reaction and for the victims of bullying who face far worse every day because of things they can’t control, their skin color, sexual orientation, weight, and heritage.

Not trying to get too heavy here. But I am a short-timer. I have Lewy Body dementia. And I find myself wanting everybody to live Rodney King’s dramatic call for getting along. I don’t think my emotions that day were the result of my disease. I think they were representative of what happens every day starting in houses where people yell, and at jobs where folks are demeaned.

It wasn’t that this ‘incident’ was so egregious or harmful. I’m a big boy at 57.

And yes, I believe I could’ve kicked his ass.

But that I would ever want to is what makes me sad.

The Best Worst Song Ever (Winner)

A  couple of weeks ago  I posted my runnner-up for Worst Best Song Ever. The competition is stiff but 1964’s ‘ ‘Bread and Butter’ by the Newbeats  had the right ingredients: inane lyrics so bad they are funny; a catchy ear worm tune that you wish you could purge from the jukebox in your head.

And, if you remember this post, Bread and Butter had a secret weapon. A happy looking grown man with a falsetto that sounded like the noise coming out of Linda Blair’s mouth when her head  did a 360.  And there was video evidence that the three young men could not dance.

But that  was only good enough for second all time.

The winner contains similar ingredients: inane lyrics; catchy earworm tune so powerful  a prescription is required just to listen to it.  People I have tested it on have wandered around for hours with glassy eyes singing softly Na Na Na Na.

(‘And then we can Na Na Na’, indeed, double entendre much?

The frightful video features  a Dutch Mountain Man with a powerful voice trading vocals with a sprite of a woman with a delicate voice who alternately seems afraid of and playful with  her King Kong partner. He covers his face and plays peek-a-boo with his violin.

Ultimately for no reason, he picks her up like a sack of potatoes.

Words cannot capture the virus that is this song . Check out the video below to see Mouth and  MacNeal (yes that’s their name) ‘perform’ “How Do You Do.’

An experiment at a children’s pre-school  showed powerful  results of the song’s mind controlling properties as nearly every child after only one listen began chanting ‘How do you do Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na.’

5 at 5, a random shuffle game

OK, I’m introducing a new thing. Actually, it’s an old thing.

A random play, shuffle I-Pod show down, a ‘game’ we used to play when I was at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek. (Hat tip to Chris, Michelle and Andrea.)

It goes like this, at 5 p.m. we would pick up our music storage devices whether they were I-Pods, cell phones or other and set it to random play all songs.

Then we’d share our lists of the first five songs that show up on the device. We would share  via email and argue about who had the best list or laugh at what came up.

I have 7,494 songs on my I-Pod. And due to some kid usage of my 120 GB I-Pod, there are some songs that I can’t explain how they got there or even what they are.  I will post my list below and would encourage others to post their results in the comment section (by clicking on the title of this post).

I’m doing this at 8 a.m (Central), for this post, as a  warm-up to my 5 p.m. launch (Central time). I am adding my 5 p.m. Five in the comments, not a new  post.

I won’t likely do this every day but we’ll see. Remember random/shuffle all songs on  the device and write down the first five that pop up.

Here are mine:

“You Will Go Free’ Tonio K. (One of my favorite songs.)

Dream On’ Aerosmith. (Classic rock.)

Haneros Halallu’ Le’eyla (A prayer after Hanukkah candles are lit).

Stringman’ Neil Young.(Fairly obscure Neil).

Sometimes She Forgets’ Steve Earle. (Country-blues).

So there we go

Let’s see what you got.

Click on this post’s title to submit your top 5 random songs in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

God thing?

Whoa! Hang on.

I don’t know what to make of this thing that just happened — this ‘God thing,’ as my Presbyterian pastor wife Catherine would say.

I’ll admit up front that I’m uncomfortable talking about God. I’m private about my beliefs, though, as mentioned above have been a pastor’s husband for many years. Mainly,  I’m uncomfortable because God is, well, hard to explain, at least to my degenerating brain. But I do believe in Her.

As many know I have Lewy Body dementia and I’m using this blog to promote awareness of this disease which has no cure. The backbone of the blog, which I started several  weeks ago,  are reviews of my vinyl record collection. The number of records I’ve collected over the years is 678.

I have pledged to review them all, disease be damned.

Yesterday, Oct. 18, 2017, I wrote a blog post called “Broken legs, basketball, Lewy body and workarounds.”

I referenced a well-known study, called the Nun’s Study. The study found that positive thoughts or some other unknown brain stimuli may help avoid the ravages of Alzheimer’s and presumably, other dementias. Even when later autopsies found brains filled with the plaques and tangles that indicate Alzheimer’s disease, some of those nuns showed no symptoms during their lives.

I find this very positive and have mentioned the study before about how I hope my brain can develop ‘workarounds’ to stop  or mitigate the damage by Lewy bodies, those unwanted proteins that are killing my brain cells.

Then, scanning the NYT article about the nuns,  a number jumped out at me. From the New York Times (the circle is mine).

So got that? The total number of nuns in the study? 678.

Whoa.  678..

That’s the same number of albums I own and will review on myvinylcountdown.com

I got goosebumps.

Catherine got goosebumps.

Goosebumps from God.