His and Hurricanes (Part 11)

This is a serial story.

Scene: The Ocala People’s Forest in which lies Alexander Springs. Prosby tries to get to the portal in his efforts to go Underground to rescue Burneese. But dangers, such as lightning fast gators and the killer Abe Lincoln robot await.

Prosby was on high alert now. He’s was lucky to get out Boybando, even though he believed he could  have killed Justy with two well placed blows. He was walking the old 441 highway under a misty dark day. It was always a dark day these days, but this one was particularly dark. He passed Zellwood. He got close enough to Lake Apopka to smell it.

And hear the gators.

The gators over the decades had adapted to the algae choked body of water full of bones and submerged cars. They were smaller than the 10-footers you used to see there. But they were twice as quick and had more endurance when running.

A good 5 or  6 -foot  gator could top out at 25 mph for about 40 yards. The old way to escape a running gator was to serpentine, run side-to-side while continuing to go forward. The old big -300-pound-beasts beasts couldn’t follow the cuts and wore out after about 15 yards. But over hundreds of years there were fewer of the slower, big birds to catch and gators evolved to catch the smaller faster ones. Also squirrels, racoons, wild dogs and the occasional stupid human.

These new ones could catch you at about the 15 or 20-yard mark, bite off your foot so you couldn’t go anywhere, and drag you by your remaining foot to the lake . There they would submerge you in the water and let you rot for a few days in the pea-soup of a lake until the flesh fell off the bone – kind of like a cross between pulled pork and rotten sushi.

Prosby scanned the dark wooded area near the lakefront for the orange orbits that signal shiny gator eyes Seeing none, he kept walking.

The Ocala People’s Forest was no place to let your guard down as he passed by the towns of Eustis  and Umatilla. On the fringes of the forest in makeshift shacks lived drug makers who constantly fought each other, the meth makers versus the psychedelics producers who had a symbiotic relationship with the forest people, the descendants of generations of Hippies, societal dropouts who have camped in the forest for hundreds of years — and always stayed one step ahead  of the law, both local and federal. They lived deep in the enormous forest and at any given spot they were watching you – you couldn’t see them, but they could see you.

Prosby heard a voice, deep, forceful, robotic.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field …”

It was Abe Lincoln the DIzney Bot. The  killer Dizney bot walked like Frankenstein out of a dense wooded area into the clearing about 20 yards from Prosby. The Lincoln bot droned on.

“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground.

Prosby noticed the bot didn’t really have hands – but at the end of one arm was an 18-inch dagger, and on the other was a small whirling circular saw that he kept turning off and on. WHHHRRRR WHRRRR.

The bot was walking at quite a pace toward Prosby.

Prosby tried engaging. “Hey Abe, whassup? Nice morning to recite the Gettysburg Address, no:?’

Honest Abe didn’t appear to be lying when he said, “I am programmed to kill you and I will kill you.”

Prosby knew the portal – Alexander Springs — was about 100 yards into the thick wooded area where the bot had just emerged. He figured better now than ever and decided against running away. He would run, taking an arc around the bot, dive into the spring and make it to the portal. Getting inside the portal required a rather deep swim downward. You have to able to hold your breath for at least a minute to break on through to the other side.

Prosby ran.

The bot followed, stiffly but swiftly still speechifying:

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

Prosby saw the still waters of the spring and heard the WHHRRR behind him. There was little pain as the circular saw sliced into Prosby’s back like an electric knife carving a Thanksgiving turkey. It was a non lethal  wound Prosby thought. Defense was on his mind. He turned about 10 feet from the water to face the fake Abraham Lincoln who was running and winding up to do more carving. With the whirring buzzsaw advancing swiftly toward Prosby’s  face, he dropped to the ground on his sliced-up back and placed both feet firmly in the 250-pound life-sized robot’s midsection and pushed. Using the bot’s momentum against him, he pushed his legs like a squat sending Abe catapulting through the air. The bot completed a spectacular full flip before landing feet first in the spring.

Oh yeah. Prosby remembered with a smile, you never see Dizney bots swimming. In fact full submersion fries the bot’s circuits. Sparks shot out like Fourth of July fireworks. Abe thrashed around before slowly sinking like a melting witch.

The robot died gurgling the words of a long ago president who dreamed a dream for America. That the evil of killing, brothers and sisters, will be somehow turned to good.

’… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, (gurgle) under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the (gurgle) people, for the people, shall not perish from ..(gurgle) …(silence) …..”

“The earth.”

Posby finished the last two words as the robot sank into the springs like just another stolen car into Lake Apopka.

Prosby drifted into unconsciousness.

This is the 11th in a series. Meant to be read in ascending order from 1 to 11 ….

To be continued …

Daily Journal Thurday Sept. 5, 2019

Checking in to organize my thoughts. With the blog I can do these things — kind of like thinking aloud. As always appreciate help from the cheap seats. (There are no luxury boxes in my forum, sorry).

I’m working on a piece outlining my strategy to beat Lewy body dementia, based on my trial and error successes so far. I think it will be worthwhile for patients, caregivers, family and friends. This should be ready by Monday if not sooner, keep checking.

On the music front, I’m going to take a look at the most underrated albums, artists and songs in my collection (emphasis on IN MY COLLECTION). I’m still trying to figure out the format and the content. As always, I appreciate suggestions. I’m hoping to drop this over the weekend in close proximity of my regular My Vinyl Countdown column which points out that, in a way, Lewy body dementia is underrated in that it is often overlooked, misdiagnosed, misunderstood and not given credit for being the devastating disease it is.

NP: Gayle McCormick

The Meters/Neville Brothers/Aaron Neville (solo) — 310, 309

ALBUMS: Fire on the Bayou (Meters 1975); Fiyo on the Bayou (Neville Brothers 1981) Make Me Strong (Aaron Neville, 1986)

MVC Rating: Meters, 4.5/$$$$$; Neville Brothers 4.0/$$$$; Aaron Nevile 4.0/$$$$.

Before the Neville Brothers were the Meters, playing New Orleans bayou roots music or whatever you may call it. I call it ‘swamp funk’ because there was some funky music going on. Art and Cyril Neville were in the Meters and the Neville Brothers.

Aaron Neville, who went on to become the best known of the four Neville brothers, as his voice, described as that of an angel singing, seeped into the public consciousness in a big way in during the 1980s. The Aaron album here is a compilation of early songs including the hit “Tell It Like It Is.” It might be the least expensive record here if you can find it. The Meters album is a collectible that will likely cost more than $25 (see MVC ratings explained) depending on condition.

Unfortunately my Meters record has a crack in it. Yet it still plays with very little surface noise right over the crack. I’ll keep it but likely will limit its playing time as I am worried it might damage my stylus. You should be able to find the Neville Brothers album for $10 to $15 in good condition (VG+).

I think I have reader in L.A. who might enjoy this Neville Brothers singing a classic ‘Brother John’ melded with Iko Iko (see video below).

A playlist lost for 31 years is found (blog version)

I found a 31-year-old mixtape playlist made by me in the 1980s recently.

This was a list of songs on one side of the 90-minute cassette. The list below represents the other side.

I don’t have the tape but this list, tucked into the inner folds of my wallet, is eye opening because it chronicles musically a particular time in my life. I will comment briefly on the songs below but first. some background.

I was about 27 or 28 and had left the Birmingham News after five years. I went to work at the Orlando Sentinel. I was living in Leesburg, FL, for my first reporting job at the Sentinel. And that’s where I think I assembled a tape to send to my colleagues back in the Birmingham News newsroom. We had a running game to see who could find the best songs no one had heard of.

I wrote a list of the playlist to keep for myself and I’m not sure why except perhaps anticipating sometime in the future we would open this time capsule and talk about the tape, see how our tastes have changed or rediscover lost music from my past. Prescient, I think I can say in retrospect.

It’ an eclectic bunch of songs heavy on rock, alternative, New Wave, and what we call now Classic rock. I think I made the tape the old fashioned way with vinyl, turntable and cassette deck — although some of these cuts I believe came off CD’s which were starting to get a toehold in the market, and I was an early adopter. I took pride in mixtapes. I still know these songs but some I haven’t played in dozens of years. And some I’m not sure I have or where I got them.

How did it stay in my wallet all this time? I have changed wallets since then but not much. I have a rotating set of wallets and I think I went back to an older one right around the year 2000. The older one had stuff in it that I must have just let ride in wallet — business cards, receipts I think I should keep but don’t really need to.

Here’s my song-by-song thoughts:

Eleventh Dream Day “Rose of Jericho.” Underrated band alternative hard rock with female vocalist. Good band. I actually like. with its rock harmonies, the song “It’s All a Game’‘ better than Jericho.

Dreams so RealRough Night in Jericho” another good alt-rock song from the Athens, Ga., scene.

I see I scratched out Green on RedZombie for your Love.” Too bad, that’s a good one but I think i had this on CD not vinyl.

Mekons “Club Mekon” I just reviewed this one for My Vinyl Countdown. i have speculated that this was the last vinyl record I bought during this eral

Soul AsylumCartoon.” This band received some success on MTV with a song called “Runaway Train” about runaway teens.

Pylon “Stop It” Athens Ga., band tried to catch a ride on the attention brought to the college town by REM and the B-52’s. This one is a real screamer, cathartic for Vanessa Briscoe.

Alex BradfordLord Lord Lord” Some good old fashioned gospel.

Darden Smith2000 Years” And some new fashioned gospel.

Here’s the list for the other side of the cassette:

Flaming Groovies “Shake Some Action.” A garage 1970s band that played music 1960s music. Home base was San Francisco. Camper Van Beethoven covered this great song.

Posies Golden Slumbers” A band from the Northwest that played tuneful alternative songs with hints of a Beatles/Byrds influence.

Big Star “Ballad of El Goodo” Band that famously didn’t make the big time featuring Alex Chilton who belted out “The Letter” as lead vocalist of the Box Tops when he was only 16.

Blackgirls “Happy” I’m going to have to go back to listen to this one because I have no memory of it.

Love “Alone Again or …” Classic 1960s band and song coming from the classic album “Forever Changes.” Covered by Suzanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet in one of their covers records.

Quicksilver Messenger ServiceFresh Air” Another California Bay Area rock, a little psychedelic with kick butt guitar playing on this one.

Camper Van Beethoven “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” Cover song of a Status Quo psychedelic-era song. Well done.

Toad the Wet Sprocket “Come Back Down.” Another one I remember nothing about. What’s a wet sprocket?

Would you bend over for a dime? (blog version)

I walked over a dime the other day..

Saw it, shiny and silver, and strode with my dog on a leash, right over the dime on a sidewalk. I barely thought about it until I started thinking about it.

I used to pick up pennies. I think now I would bend down to pick up a quarter. This is terrible, I began thinking. It’s money for goodness sake. I can certainly see passing over a penny, maybe even a nickel but a DIME. I’m now walking past one-tenth of a dollar. I could buy …. um, ….what can I buy with a dime? Used to be a dime to call someone from a telephone booth.

What’s a telephone booth? You ask.

Aye yi yi.

Is it inflation or aging? Or both. I sometimes let my shoes go untied rather than bending over with my aching back and tired knees and ankles.

But I say a part of it is the erosion of American values. My grandparents were Depression-era folks who knew how to save money and make things last. My now deceased father-in-law was a child of the Depression in way small town Epes (In Alabama near LIvingston).Bill Willis would take one tissue, tear it half and put it in his pocket for later use — all before blowing his nose in the one-half tissue that was left. That can save a lot of tissue over time. Toilet paper too, I suppose, but I’d rather not go there.

So what is your coin cut-off. Pictured at the top of the story are a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, a Liberty dollar coin and just for fun, a $2 bill and some sort of Asian coin like thing that I was given for good luck in California. Don’t know what it is exactly but I would definitely stop and pick it up.

Which one, If you saw them lying on a sidewalk, would you stop, bend over and pick up?

I guess I learned that my threshold is not a dime.

From here on, I vow to stop and pick up dimes. I’ll assess nickels on a case-by-case basis.

Sorry pennies but for me a penny saved hurts my back more then the meager return on my investment.

But I’ll keep my eyes on the PPI. (Penny Pinching Index).

Lee Michaels — 311

ALBUM: 5th (1971)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Lee Michaels had a big hit: Do you know what I mean?

“It’s been 14 days since I don’t know when, I just saw her with my best friend. Do you know what I mean?”

This is strange on several levels.

It’s better than I remember it. I knew I bought it as a teenager for the hit song ‘Do You Know what I Mean.’ It came out in 1971 and I remember turning up the car radio when I was about 12 and living in Indiana. No, I wasn’t driving. (It was in my corning cars heyday.)

As years rolled by I didn’t play this album in its entirety very much. Michaels has a half-decent soulful voice. There’s a drum and a little electric organ (Hammond?). The instrumentation is almost minimalist with the organ shouldering most of the music. And Michaels can play that organ.

Interesting because it doesn’t really feature or sound like most rock bands at the time. There’s a gospel choir on several tracks as Michaels may be showing us where his roots lie. Merry Clayton, the soul belter who made the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ send tingles down your spine (in a scary way) makes an appearance on ‘Keep the Circle Turning.’

Listen to his one Top 10 hit:

Mozart — 312

ALBUM: Mozart Greatest HIts (1984)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$

Well, I’m not going to be the one to give Mozart anything less than a 5. And the sound is good, digitally remastered from newly remixed original master tapes.

So I was on the front row in ’83 and he came out impeccably dressed, running around the stage with a wig and make-up. Wait a minute that’s David Bowie.

But. I never saw Bowie live here. Must have been Roger Daltry of the Who. His long curly blond hair seemed like a wig anyway.

And of course I never saw Mozart alive. It was 1762 when this prodigy was 6-years-old and leaving people talking about the Next Big Thing. The liner notes say this kid from Austria could play any instrument, violin, piano, harpsichord and vocals. Vocals? Never knew that.

He could hear a song he didn’t know and could play it back note-for-note. At 17, he had already written 150 works of ‘incredible variety,’ the liner notes say. After that came 500 compositions, many considered masterpieces.

. But i think I may have to change the wording of my Motown post where I called Michael Jackson’s early work as the best music ever by an 11-year-old performer.

This album was actually played by me many times. And it’s not just easy listening music with its orchestral presentations of grandeur and pomp.

Picking this record up was part of my record buying strategy of getting a sample platter before ordering the entree. After this I joined a Classical music record club and actually have a nice collection of about 30 classical CD’s, wherever they may be.

Y’all have probably heard this one:

EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK

Motown 20/20 — 313

ALBUM: 20/20 (a compilation of Motown hits)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

If you have nothing on the Motown label, this is a great record to get a taste of Motor City’s hit factory. These days, I don’t listen to this much. It was a good primer for me and led me to explore artists. But I’m more likely to pull out an album by Marvin Gaye or my Smokey Robinson two-record set then listen to this hits compilation.

Although if I suddenly have a hankering to hear ‘Keep on Truckin’ –– which does happen sometimes — I’ll grab this one because I don’t think I have that great bit of 70s dance music on anything else.

The ABC album by the Jackson 5 was one of my first full length LPs. And the Jackson 5 song ‘I Want You Back ‘ is the world’s best song led by an 11-year-old lead singer.

You cannot not dance to ‘I Want You Back.’

This two record specially priced set (when it came out anyway) hit some key figures but is hardly definitive.

Of the 20 songs on here Diana Ross (with and without the Supremes) has four slots; Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson have four slots; and Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye have three slots each. The Temptations, Eddie Kendricks, the Commodores and Smokey Robinson and his Miracles round out the list of very familiar (and mostly great) songs.

The Monkees — 314

ALBUMS: Greatest Hits

MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$

There are several examples of successful ‘assembled’ bands that made music, or at least pretended they were making music.

The Archies come to mind; Josie and the Pussycats, the Partridge family and Spinal Tap for that matter. The Rutles were a band parodying the Beatles.

I haven’t researched all ‘fictional’ bands but I can’t believe there’s any one of those that was or is more successful than the Monkees.

The Monkees have sold more than 75 million records worldwide, according to its Wikipedia entry. That makes them one of the top selling groups of all time with hits such as Last Train to Clarksville“, “Pleasant Valley Sunday“, “Daydream Believer“, and “I’m a Believer“.

I think their hits, many from the Boyce/Hart songwriting tandom, sound pretty good. I especially like (I’m not) Your Steppin’ Stone’..

In a 2012 interview, Dolenz described The Monkees as being “a TV show about an imaginary band… that wanted to be the Beatles that was never successful.”

Looking back I find it kind of weird — the show I mean. It was almost like pre-psychedelia TV effects (sped-up action, filming in reverse, the in and out camera lens thing. I’m sure there was some backmasking going on. “Mom, what’s in those Fruit Loops?”

I was about 9 and 10 years old, and a big fan. I remember it coming on about 11:30 and it usually capped off a full morning of cartoon watching. (Superceded sometimes by chores my mother would give us). So end of the Monkees or Johnny Quest would be a signal to the beginning of a long afternoon outdoors. Had to be home by sundown.

Old ears, wax and ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ (Blog version)

This is an opinion column.

I’m here today to talk to you about hearing loss.

What?

I SAID I’M HERE TODAY TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT HEARING LOSS.

What? We’re NEARING SLOSS? We’re FEARING FLOSS?

No, no, no. HEARING LOSS..

Hearing loss happens to all of us getting older. It makes you feel left out because you  can’t hear what they are saying behind your back anymore.

 I went to Costco to get some hearing aids but they took one look at my ears (two looks actually) and said I need to go see an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat doctor). So I did. I’m  supposed to put drops in my ears for a few days and go back next week to get rid of what was called an ‘occlusion.’

I understand that to be packed-in ear wax.

So gross. I’m writing about my own ear wax.

Hey Oliver don’t you write about music?

My answer: Hmmmm. Hearing loss and rock music. Wonder how that might be related?

Yes it is documented that loud music – just like loud construction noise, can be harmful to hearing.

My ears rang for days after the Who concert in the 1980s in Atlanta.

The music at concerts may not be as loud as it was in my day with the Who, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and KISS making ears bleed from coast to coast. Punk rock. Loud.

Healthline.com reports that long exposures to sounds over 85 decibels (dB) can cause hearing loss. Concerts tend to be about 115 dB or more, Healthline says.

Old man tip: Wear earplugs to concerts.

It’s like using sunscreen at the beach, a must do.

Don’t wait until you’re 50 to do it. Put them in now so you won’t have to put hearing aids in later. (Price check:  Hearing aids are expensive like $3,000 to $12,000 for a pair.)

Young ears brutalized by decibels turn into deaf ears as you age.  Besides the ‘occlusion’ I also have nerve damage. Do I need hearing aids? Stay tuned I’ll find out next week.

Now back to my vinyl records – or known by another name: Wax.

Mike Oliver who has Lewy body dementia often writes about living with that disease and other health and aging issues.. See his blog here.