I feel a kinship with the Lewy Body Dementia Association staffers. I’ve written for their website. I’ve laughed with them, shot hoops with them, gone to Vegas (Lewy conference) with them, worked with them to raise money for research and awareness.
They’ve been good folks. Now they’ve come out with a checklist that is giving me a headache.
But it’s not their fault.
The LBDA checklist is good. But probably because I have Lewy body dementia and I am trying to cover same dementia. Things get complicated. With a Lewy on your back.
So the source of my headache? I decided to fill in the boxes on the 2-page list of symptoms. Do I shuffle when I walk? Yes. Not all the time though. Do I have a weak voice? Yes. Sometimes. Do I have hallucinations? Yes, but rarely. Does my handwriting/typing suffer or change. Yes but well controlled with medication.
And on and on with the symptoms with me checking about 90 percent of the 40 or so boxes but I was left with a desire to add more context beyond checking a box.
LBDA recommends that you take it to the doctor where you could then give context to each of these two dozen or so symptoms. Again great idea. But by then you may have forgotten the nuances . For example, do I drool? Depends on what’s cooking, no, sorry couldn’t resist. Real answer, rarely.
So, anyway, my headache came on when I saw that i was checking nearly every box and appeared near death. When in reality, I feel OK much of the time. I am definitely not criticizing this great idea but i have one slight suggestion to make it more useful.
It’s easy as 1-2-3.
Below is a partial piece of the checklist which I have quickly filled in with my 1-2-3 grading system.
The 1 means frequently; the 2 means occasionally and 3 means seldomly or rarely. Leave blank if never.
And that’s it. I think I may try it at my next doctor’s visit and report back.
I just realized that I am glad I cut the list off where I did lest I share to the world my grading on constipation, delusions and sexual dysfunction.
Here’s a great album I picked up just about a year ago so not really a growing- up album. But I can make the link. Nyro wrote ‘Eli’s Coming’ a romping rock and roll radio hit for Three Dog Night off of a live album. I did dig that song at a pretty early age , 13 or 14.
Her original of that however is not on this one, which is an album of cover songs. The group Labelle sang throughout this album. The songs are soul and R&B that she grew up listening to in the Bronx. Song’s like the title cut, Jimmy Mack, Spanish Harlem and You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me. Now that i think about it, I was listening to these songs as well.
With Labelle chiming in, this gets real good real early. A real good record, worth looking for more of her music.
I’m not ready to judge the content therein but these three albums I received for my recent birthday are fantastic to look at.
From top left it’s Bright Eyes’ “Fevers and Mirrors.” That’s a mirror which actually reflects. So you are on the album cover.
Clockwise it is a new Peter Buck solo album called “I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again.” It’s a picture with a Day-Glo shine featuring a bicycle in the foreground and Peter, of REM fame, looking out over the water in the background.
Across the bottom is the gatefold of “Country Squire” by Tyler Childers. It looks like the same Day Glo artist only there’s a barn a goat and a recreational vehicle involved.
This reminds me that it might be time to do another round of MyVinylCountdown cover art standouts. You can see what I did here.
I am 60 by the way, going into year four of my diagnosis of Lewy body dementia.
ALBUM: ‘Little Criminals’ (1977) ‘I Love L.A. promotional EP (1983)
MVC Rating:Criminals 4.0/$$; LA 4.0./$$
I recognize the talent, the barrel-roll piano playing, the sardonic voice, the intelligent if not overly ironic lyrics illustrated by his biggest all time hit ‘Short People.’
Sure it was a send-up of prejudice and discrimination, sung from the point of view of a narrator so over the top that you couldn’t believe the singer was for real. Could you
Some people did. I would say get over yourself. But I found myself disliking this song because in 1977 it shot to No. 2 on Billboard and the refrain “Don’t need no short people round here” was always on the radio.
I thought it was funny at first but some of my best friends were short people. I came to a point where I disliked the song. I do agree with Randy Newman’s take in which Wikipedia reports he said:: “I had no idea that there was any sensitivity, I mean, that anyone could believe that anyone was as crazy as that character. To have that kind of animus against short people, and then to sing it and put it all in song and have a philosophy on it.”[
But Newman is good at what he does. having written some good songs. On this album I particularly like ‘Baltimore’ and ‘Dixie Flyer.’ I also have a single of ‘I Love LA’ — another song where you can’t take the words at face value.
Satire is funny. Satire is mean. Sometimes satire is funny because it’s mean. I get that. We get to make a choice about whether it’s funny or not and why or why not.
@ronhurley1961 John Hurley was one of the, if not the most talented people that I have ever known. I met him when I was 17 years old in Birmingham Alabam at Bob Groves recording stuido. He was there recording a friend of mine named Mike Gunnels. He drove a red sports car and always wore sunglasses. He stayed at my house and honored me with his friendship. That was over 40 years ago and I miss him to this day. He recorded the album “Street Gospel” shortly after and it is still my favorite.
It looks like it says:
FIRST LINE: Nov –14–1973
SECOND LINE: Happy Birthday “Mom” <unsure of the last word on line 2>
THIRD LINE: All the best —
FOURTH LINE: and you have! < not sure about <have>
ALBUM: ‘Aerial Ballet’ (1980, reissue of 1968 album)
MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$
Harry Nilsson won a Grammy for Best Contemporary male vocalist for the song ‘Everybody Talking at Me.’ The song by Fred Neil is a strong Top 40 ballad used in the controversial (at that time) movie ‘Midnight Cowboy.’
The song feels a little like something Glenn Campbell or Joe South might have done. The other highlight, a song Nilsson wrote, is ‘One.’ I feel like I’m the only one who likes prefers the Three Dog Nights’ version.
Nilsson had a strong voice and was a good songwriter. One also might expect he would be a little more well known. After all this is the man who gave us that classic ‘Coconut’ remedy (Put the lime in the coconut drink it all up — Not on this album.)
I think Nilsson also did the definitive version of ‘Without You,’ the Bad finger song.
A few songs have Beatlesque overtones. Nilsson was a drinking buddy of John Lennon when Lennon temporarily broke up with Yoko Ono. They were wild then.
This is better than I thought. I bought this brand new in Athens, Ga., at about 17 or 18. I heard the song ‘Summer Eyes” on the radio and then trained my ears on the DJ’s voice as he said ‘New one from Nite City, which features on keyboards Ray Manzarak of the legendary Doors.
I like ‘Summer Eyes” still, Nite City and ‘Love Will Make You Mellow.’
I’m not sure if that’s what the radio guy said or not. But it’s pretty much what happened. I’d say half of my inclinations to buy something new came from either radio– which should be no surprise — or hearing a new one at the record store and asking who was on the turntable. This usually endeared me to most record store clerks except the orneriest ones.
“Hey man, what’s that playing,” I’d ask.
“Little band called Kid Creole and the Coconuts,” he’d say back. “You might also check out Dr. Buzzards Savannah Dance Band.”
“Cool, thanks,” I said.
I do have this one and Kid Creole and Dr. Buzzard thank you very much. Several great albums from those guys.
One of a pair of Kid Creole albums I have.
So how about Nite City? Doors collectors definitely. Like I said it was better than I remembered, and Summer Eyes could have been a hit. But overall this slice of 70s rock had lyrics that were too clilche’. Jim Morrison was slinging W.B. Yeats next to some of these lyrics:
When i walk in your fantasy/ Do I look like reality?
When I start talking like a Bantam cock/does your heart start beating rock rock rock.
From Allmusic.com: Manzarek’s keyboard work is as intelligent as ever, while guitarist Paul Warren and bassist Nigel Harrison (later of Blondie) play with gusto throughout. The weak link is Noah James, a decent vocalist who strains far too hard for a dash of the late Morrison’s lyrical abilities.
ALBUMS: Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits (1981); Always on My Mind (1982)
MVC Rating: Greatest Hits 4.5/$$$; Always 4.0/$$
My early memories of these go back to my graduation from Auburn University, my marriage, and my first career-like job as special correspondent to the Birmingham News.
I worked out of a house I rented on 15 acres of land on Nesbitt Lake Road in Jacksonville AL. Rent $250 a month. It got cold out in the country with only space heaters.
I lived there with my newly wedded wife, Catherine. (H.S. College sweethearts. Still sweethearts.) My dog, Maggie, a Border Collie/Shelty -like dog, smartest I’d ever had. (No offense Lucy, Molly and Gus.)
I was out in this idyllic corner of Calhoun at the behest of my employer, The Birmingham News. We put up a rope swing on a hill in the front yard. We were still kids, Cat and I. And having the time of our lives on a weekly paycheck of $169 (After deductions).
My beat as a reporter was Calhoun, Etowah and Talladega counties. And it was a hard scrabble living for many who lived in this area. (Writer Rick Bragg grew up around these parts and he later bought his mother a house on Nesbitt Lake Road (after we left.) I later worked with Rick at the Birmingham News building downtown on 4th Ave North and 22nd Street.
But before I end this little pre-history, I have to say living out there could also be cold and lonely and very real and alive with insects, wild turkeys, deer, stray dogs, and occasionally a loose farm animal, like a pig who had wandered from across the street. One night we stopped at the closest establishment, a little restaurant and beer joint at the end of Nesbitt Lake Road, not far from town. We noticed some young people playing cards — nothing harcore here, it was UNO, a mindless popular game at the time. We took notice because we knew the game well.. The participants included soldiers from nearby Fort McClellan. We stayed a while watching them and talking.
Next day we found out a woman in the group shot a man to death at the table they were playing cards on, the result of a lover’s spat, the police said.
In this beat out in rural Alabama, I covered murder investigations , including Audrey Marie Hilley, dubbed the Black Widow because she killed her husband with arsenic, and tried to kill her daughter and other relatives by the same method. She disappeared after being charged and lived under aliases in different states for years before being brought to justice. She died of hypothermia in the woods near a prison she had escaped.
That was one of the wildest crime cases I remember covering. I believe one of the Birmingham’s Tom Gordon covered the trial. I did cover another case of Billy Wayne Waldrop, who thought it would be good idea to carve his initials in the body of a person he killed: BWW.. Waldrop was sentenced to death and was executed about 20 years ago.
There were other stories, the infield hijinx at the Talladega 500, the body of and unidentified teenager on the side of the road in Talladega, a visit to the abandoned house where a family was all murdered years ago. The door creaked open when I pushed it. It was empty. There was and old dusty calendar on the wall opened to the month and year the slaughter had occurred.
I also met and spent some time with an ambitious deputy prosecutor from Gadsden (or near Gadsden). His name was Roy Moore. Yep that Roy Moore, the former federal judge who became famous initially for his placement and then refusal to take out from the Federal Court building a large stone carving of the Ten Commandments.
For all of this, I worked hard learning the trade that involves asking questions and communicating to readers in a most timely fashion.
On my turntable nearly every night was Willie Nelson, his soothing but pleasant voice making everything all right. Occasionally, on the weekends, I’d put on the Stray Cats. Updated 1950s music. My two albums, one a two-record greatest hit, just about covered the highlights: On the Road Again, Whiskey River, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Angel Flying too Close to the Ground (where he beats the hell out of his bass string on his guitar.) The guitar — Trigger — with the hole in it from wear. Of course his hit at the time was ‘Always on My Mind.’ Since it wasn’t on the Hits album (too new) we bought ‘Always on My Mind,’ album. it was my wife’s favorite song at that time.
Later when I moved downtown to Birmingham, I went to see Willie play at the Alabama State Fair. I was on the second row with about eight people from the Birmingham News.
The front row, at this outdoor concert with chairs. sat, wrapped in all sorts of leather, a biker gang. We tried hard not to spill any beer and cheap nachos on them.
A live album from 1977 by power popsters The Nerves.
ALBUM: The Nerves Live! (Recorded 1977; Released 2009)
MVC Rating: 2.5/$$$$
It’s apropos that I throw this in after describing Northern PIkes, the Canadian band, as sounding like some of the power pop music coming out of So-Cal. Specifically I mentioned the Plimsouls, the Beat and The Nerves. All of whom had some shared members such as Paul Collins and Peter Case.
I rarely buy new vinyl, I’m a bargain hunting sort of collector and I have a hard time paying $25 for a a record. Especially after getting some amazing records in the $1-5 range. It’s a little more work, sure, but that’s part of the fun.
So I splurged when I saw this Nerves record, a record of lost live tapes on violet vinyl I had the Plimsouls; I had the Beat. I enjoyed that music.
So this seemed a natural Christmas gift to myself two years ago, I believe it was WUXTRY in Athens, Ga. I don’t regret the purchase but and there is a but. This record sounds like hell. Like they only had one microphone hanging from the ceiling in a loud juke joint. You know why it sounds like that? Because it was recorded with one microphone hanging from the ceiling in a loud juke joint.
This is for archivists and completists, which on this one I took one step closer to becoming. I know many of the songs on this record already so I could pick them out and it was fun to see them in a setting in the wild like this. But for those interested in this genre, should probably start with some other albums by Peter Case or the Plimsouls or Paul Collins.
However when the inclination is just right, and you turn this up to about 9, you will be transported to this noisy bar called the Pirate’s Cove in Cleveland Ohio, May 26, 1977 with a noisy and melodic band power pop band called The Nerves.
I told my wife, Catherine, it has been a wild ride the past few weeks, and I’ve been emotional. (I can get my shoulders rubbed with that.) Lots of life events. First a friend died at 58. It’s a sad sad story. She was my wife’s maid of honor in our wedding — and they were like sisters in high school when I started dating Catherine. Carole even lived with Catherine when her parents moved and Carole wanted to stay to finish her senior year in high school. I included a tribute in my lyrics post. I went to her memorial. I brushed away a tear or two.
A 3-year-old was found in a dumpster. I used to cover the cop beat and courts. I’ve written about vile acts and unfathomable cruelty. But like the proteins killing my brain cells, these stories are taking a toll on me over time. I ranted a bit in a column that I think shows those internal struggles.
I wrote a memoriam to a colleague whose birthday is tomorrow. He died 10 years go come Nov. 29.
I went to a wedding in Tallahassee where beautiful Megan was married to her longtime sweetheart. I had all three of my (grown up girls, a boyfriend and husband and my wife. We all crammed into a big rented van (seats seven) and sang our way all the way to Tallahassee.
Stairway to Heaven, Four Non-Blonds “What’s Up” “Free Bird” ‘Earl Must Die’ and “I Shall Be Released” as done by Kevin Kinney drew the loudest singalong response. Megan and her family had been back door neighbors in Florida. The girls used to talk through the privacy fence — that’s how they became friends. Next they started using ladders taken from each garage to climb over and play. Finally Jim, their father, and I said enough. We took a saw and cut a door out of the fence, added hinges and a latch which they could open from either side by use of a screen and, voila, instant two-home compound. It would not be unusual to wake up in the morning and find one of the girls from the other house going through refrigerator or vice versa. “Help yourself,” I’d say, rubbing sleep from my eye. Of course I cried at the wedding, but not as much as I wanted to. It took a manly effort not to. Stupid gender rules.
I get feedback from time to time that people don’t see my stories. One thing is most of my stories are online only and not in the newspaper, so you won’t see me much there — just occasionally. The other factor is I write a lot on my blog which you are reading right now: www.myvinylcountdown.com . Some of these blog posts go on to AL.com posts or vice versa. Good Idea to put that website address on favorites and check every day or every other day for new content. But then also every week I publish in AL.com and sometimes that post is on my blog and sometimes it’s not. One way to check for that is go to the ‘search’ button at the far right top of the AL.com website screen and type in my name Mike Oliver:Al.com. It should give you a list of recent writings of mine.
Thanks for everybody’s support. I feel like I’ve been distracted from my music by other blog posts . So I’m going to jump on those. I finally am out of the ‘M’s’ unless I find some stragglers.
Couple other things. It was reported that Joe Henry, one of my favorite recording artisfs has Stage 4 prostate cancer. He’s my age. I don’t have him on vinyl thus he has not made my list. But now, maybe for my birthday I’ll get what I can that he does on vinyl. I have about five or so of his CD’s. My favorite I think is Trampoline followed closely by Scar and Kindness of the World.
So it’s been quite a week. I also filed the 12th and latest story, a fun, hopefully funny dystopian serial series that is at once silly and dumb. And to top it off it has no redeeming value. Gotta read it now, I hear you thinking. Must start from top, the first one and read in sequential order otherwise it’ll make even less sense than it does now. You can find them all in the website bar at the top that says Hisicanes and Hurricanes (A Serial Story)
I dedicate this post to Challen, a colleague at AL.com, who emailed me this morning to say he had Tonio K.’s ‘Life in the Foodchain’ cranking and thanked me for recommending it.
You know Challen, it’s kind of like carving the turkey, it’s kind of like mowing the lawn, everything gets to a certain dimension, winds up on the customer’s plane and then’s gone …
