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Dementia Free Day: How too much information can be bad (blog version)

Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little ears what you hear — Sunday school song based on Bible passage in Luke

As a lifelong journalist, I’m all about information. Open records open meetings. Free speech. I say no secrets is the best way to run a government and, for the most part, your personal life.

But also in my experience as a journalist in Alabama, Florida and California I’ve seen burnout.

I learned to protect myself but you can’t always. I didn’t want to see the crime scene photos of Chauncy Bailey, a journalist and colleague in Oakland Calif. but after I pushed the photos away I snuck a glance. He was shot in the face with a shotgun.

I cannot unsee that.

Covering the cop beat in Birmingham years earlier a similar thing occurred when a police detective said “Hey this is what we were working on. He threw the envelope with photos of the crime scene. They watched me pull out a 70-something-year-old woman who was stabbed more than a dozen times. I passed the hazing of a cub cop reporter by not throwing up.

So I learned to avert my eyes and steel myself: When a decomposing body of a heatwave victim was taken out of her house; when a female murder victim was pulled from a quarry; when people broke down and screamed in anguish at funerals of children; when a man cried showing me the spot where he found his dying brother, carried by a tornado 100 yards from his house.

When I was offered to cover an execution while working at the Orlando Sentinel, I declined. When a woman threatened to jump off the Oakland Tribune building in a suicide, I chose not to watch as the street filled with onloookers.

But I heard the the eerie simultaneous gasp of the crowd below when she hit the pavement. I can’t unhear that.

I guess i am hoping to give you a strategy, however ineffectual, and as a warning, however meaningful it may be.

I am three years into a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia. The average lifespan after diagnosis is 4 to 8 years.

I am scared. I am sad. I am angry. I am resigned. All those things at different times but I’m also practicing my strategies learned in the past.

That doesn’t mean I will stop gathering information about my disease or listening to others’ experiences in memory care centers, in support groups and in YouTube videos.

On YouTube I watched John and Dawn’s achingly beautiful video. It shows what will likely happen to me. I doubt I will watch it again, because that would be too much. I’m linking it here but don’t watch if you are not up for it right now. Self protection.

I wanted to do something funny with this post. I was going to propose a Lewy body dementia free day. A day where patients like myself and caretakers like my super strong wife, Catherine, and my daughters Hannah, Emily and Claire could have a daylong respite from encountering, talking, reading, watching anything about dementia..Lewy Free Day.

Maybe the symptoms will go away for a day. Maybe that burning feeling on my neck will go away. That my fingers will return to their past nimbleness. I actually took typing in school and could get 50 to 60 words a minute. Now I find myself hunting and pecking.

What if we had one day a week as Lewy Free Day.

We all know that’s a pipe dream. But we can choose a day –i’ll say Monday — to mindfully focus on what is positive in our lives. Watch an uplifting movie, read something not about dementia. Make your favorite dinner or go out. Put off any non-urgent actions related to dementia care or research or talking about new symptoms until the next day.

Don’t even joke about dementia. Finger to lips to anyone who brings it up.

On this day, dementia doesn’t exist.

Lewy Free Day or, to broaden it out, Dementia Free Day. T-shirts could be made:

‘Dementia Free Day’ on the front.

On the back: ‘Don’t forget.’ (or vice versa.)

I’m putting my Dementia Free Day for Monday on my calendar.

Otherwise I’ll forget.

For AL.com version go here.

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David Lindley — 360, 359, 358, 357,

My four David Lindley albums.

ALBUMS: El Rayo X (1981); Win this Record (1982); Mr. Dave (1985} Very Greasy (1988).

MVC Rating: El Rayo X, 4,5/$$$; Win This Record, 4.5 $$$; Mr. Dave, 4.0/$$$; Very Greasy, 4.0/$$$$.

It’s been said that David Lindley can play any stringed instrument put before him. Just give him some string.

The eccentric looking musician — long unkempt locks, plaid shirts, psychedelic pants, bushy mutton chop sideburns — was the antithesis of smooth, suave So-Cal performer Jackson Browne, whom Lindley backed on much of Browne’s discography and live shows.

That’s probably why Lindley’s side projects were so much fun. His eccentricities — kept in check while playing a note perfect lead on ‘Running on Empty’ for example were finally his to accentuate.

And he did, mixing covers of obscure reggae rasta tunes, blues, country with scorching slide guitar and other instruments you may not know.

For example, on Very Greasy , Lindley is listed as playing slide guitar,
Bouzouki, Saz, and mandolin. I know mandolin and slide but not the other two. Apparently they are lute-like instruments from Turkey and surrounding areas. (At least he used existing instruments with a track record unlike 10cc ‘s Godley & Creme who went noodling around with middling success on their self-made Gizmo.)

It should be noted that Lindley in his younger days won the Topanga Banjo/fiddle contest in California five times. From 1966 to 1970 he played in Kaleidoscope, a band he co-founded.







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Little Richard — 361


ALBUMS: Precious Lord (1985)

This is an interesting record from one of the founders of rock ‘n roll.

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$$

Son of a church deacon, who severely punished Little Richard after catching his son wearing women’s clothes , Little Richard aka Richard Wayne Penniman clearly had some personal issues in his life — sexuality conflicts and substance abuse.

According to various sources including an autobiography, Little Richard’s father’s church duties in Macon, Ga., were augmented by a moonshine and nightclub business. So somewhere therein lies a reason or two why Little Richard bounced back and forth between being ‘born again,’ singing gospel and secular music that pushed the bounds that society had laid down for sexually explicit content at the time.

Long Tall Sally, Tutti Frutti, and Good Golly Miss Molly are three of his bigger hits whose vocal stylings influenced everyone from Paul McCartney to Wilson Picket.

The record company had to hire someone to clean up the lyrics forTutti Frutti, for example. This 1985 gospel record is not listed on Wikipedia’s discography although you can buy it on vinyl on Amazon for about $17. I bought this new back in 1985 after wandering into a store in one of Birmingham’s mostly black neighborhoods. That’s where I also found a Birmingham Community Choir record, which I feature earlier in my countdown.

This album is not well recorded and that’s why I give it a 3.5, rather than a 4 or better. It sounds like it was recorded in a cavernous empty church with one microphone dangling from the ceiling. An echo-ey and distant feel.

That said, the singer shows off an amazing voice and range. Glad I got it

ALABAMA NOTE: In one of his bounce backs to religion in the late 60s, he attended Oakwood College (now University) in Huntsville. It is a historically Black Seventh-day Adventist institution,

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Little Feat — 363, 362


ALBUMS: Sailin’ Shoes (1972); Hoy Hoy (1986)

MVC Rating: Sailin’: 4.0/$$$; Hoy: 4.0/$$$

Little Feat and its leader Lowell George started with a foundation of Southern blues rock a la the Brothers Allman, added a touch of the Brothers Neville and topped it off with some funky Brothers Isley.

When I think of Little Feat I think of their song Dixie Chicken and the great swinging opening:

I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis
And the Commodore Hotel
And underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle
Well she took me to the river, where she cast her spell
And in that Southern moonlight, she sang a song so well

And the refrain that sticks in your brain like gum on a shoe on a hot day.

If you’ll be my dixie chicken, I’ll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland .

Lowell George formed Little Feat after leaving Frank Zappa’s Brothers, er, Mothers of Invention. George said he was encouraged to leave Zappa because Frank, who eschewed drugs, didn’t like the drug references in the George song “Willin’. This is seemingly ironic given that the Mothers had released the psychedelic album of the ages in ‘Freak Out’ — but, oh yeah, with Zappa he wasn’t laughing with them, he was laughing at them. (Tripping hippies, I’m talking about).

‘Sailin’ Shoes’ was the second in a handful of consistently good albums. As the band started to fall apart in the 80’s, Lowell George went on tour behind a very good solo album, ‘Thanks I’ll Eat Here.” See MVC review,

He died in a motel room in Virginia, the victim of his appetites for drugs, alcohol and food, especially food. He reportedly weighed more than 300 pounds at death.

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Leaving Trains–364

ALBUM: Kill Tunes

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

This was not one of my usual purchases. Meaning back in 1986, I was not a big punk fan. But I learned to love the Clash and later in the 1990s I really enjoyed Rancid after discovering their music while living in the SF Bay Area.

But SST-labeled Leaving Trains leaned more to Black Flag and the Dead Kennedy’s, which usually for me fell on deaf, and I mean deaf, ears. So even though Leaving Trains was perhaps closer to Black Flag than the Clash, they lightened it up a bit and played power chords with a Power Pop sensibility — like the Beat or the Nerves.

Led by semi-maniac Falling James Moreland, their album ‘Kill Tunes’ is considered — from what I’ve read to be their best. I remember having to order this, Chuck @Wuxtry Birmigham set me up,

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David Lasley — 365

ALBUM: Raindance (1984)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$

David’s 1984 solo album, Raindance, is a tantalizing mix of soul, doo wop, hip hop and balladry. 

And as vinyl on the used market it’s about $3 — a big bargain. <NOTE: This has probably gone up since writing this several years ago.>

His cranky rap song “Don’t Smile at Me” (warning language)* still makes me smile all these years later. I’m pretty sure I bought this after seeing James Taylor at Auburn University in like 1983 but the album says 1984 – and I was gone from AU by then.

He tackles all styles here, maybe too many, as if he finally gets to be a frontman and decides to show everything he has got. And he’s gotta a lot, this blue-eyed falsetto soul singer. Note: Don’t really know if he has blue eyes — that’s just the industry’s way of saying they are white singing soul. Like Hall and Oates.

Besides Taylor, Lasley has been back-up singer for a whole host of artists, including Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Aretha Franklin and Luthor Vandross.

He is listed in the credits of this blog’s countdown artist Garlland Jeffries.

*Now guaranteed higher clicks.

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Ronnie Lane–366

ALBUM: Slim Chance

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$

On any given day, this album may be my favorite and this underrated British musician may be my favorite rock ‘n roll character.

Check out a documentary on this lovable guy on YouTube and learn about how he bought a rundown farm and began traveling to gigs in a dilapidated travel camper only to miss said gigs because it broke down. Took him days to travel to venues.

Lane died too early of multiple sclerosis on 1997 at age 51.

He was born in 1946 on April Fool’s day.

He wrote a song about being an April Fool.

I have Ronnie Lane all over the place, my Small Faces and Faces records, a collaboration with Pete Townshend (see Annie) that’s excellent and collaboration on a movie soundtrack with Ron Wood. Love all the above. Except for Faces, the other albums have not yet been reviewed in my alphabetical countdown. (I’ve just started the L’s).

Lane first gained attention in Small Faces and Faces where they came up with ”Ooh La La’ and ‘Itchykoo Park.’

Lot of videos in this post but they work better than my words in explaining this whimsical Leprechaun. RIP Ronnie.

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Lake–368, 367

ALBUMS:: Lake (1977); Paradise Island (1979)

MVC Rating: Lake 4.0/$$$; Paradise Island 3.5/$$$

This is a German band (sang in English) that had some minor success on the radio with a couple of songs, including ‘Time Bomb.’ My knee-jerk reaction would be to say they are Yes-lite. But the better description would be Styx’s German cousin.

So what’s the difference between Lake and Styx, Asia, or Toto? Record sales is about all I can see. Lake has the same skill-set: highly professional musicians who can put a polished sheen on a radio-friendly sounding tune.

They definitely were aiming for the radio, unafraid to lop a healthy dose of syrupy strings over there rock balladry — see ‘Do I Love You.’ Or is that keyboards?

My wife enjoyed this band, more than me. And that’s how I came to have these.

The band did receive an honor from MyVinylCountdown by being named by me as a band that should have had a bigger hit in the song ‘Jesus Came Down.’ It’s about Jesus coming back and being disappointed in what we’ve been doing. Now who might be behind this little outcome? I don’t know, who could it be? Ummm, SATAN. (Thanks for pointing that out church lady.

Both the albums I have, their debut and the second one, are almost interchangeable. They are both good solid examples, of the polished guitar and keyboard rock that came out of car radio speakers in the late 1970s and 1980s.

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The Kinks -380, 379, 378, 377, 376, 375, 374, 373, 372, 371,

ALBUMS: Live at Kelvin Hall (1968); Lola versus Powerman (1970); Kinks on Pye (1970); Everybody is in Showbiz (1972); Preservation Act 1 (1973); The Kinks Present a Soap Opera (1975); Sleepwalker (1977); Misfits (1978); One for the Road (1980); The Kinks, A Compleat Collection (1984).

MVC Ratings: Kelvin 3.5/$$$$; Lola 5.0/$$$$$; Kinks on Pye $$$’: Showbiz 4.0/$$$$; Preservation Act 1 4.0/$$$$; Soap 4.0/$$$; Sleepwalker 4.0/$$$: Misfits 4.5/$$$; One for the Road 4.0/$$$$; Compleat Collection 4.0/$$$

*The numbers besides the title or artists’ names on the record reviews indicate the ‘countdown.’ In other words, with the Kinks now reviewed I have moved 10 spaces closer to my goal of reviewing my 678 albums in, more or less, alphabetical order. I have 368 records to go.

The Kinks are something else. Most times they are like no one else.

I heard them in a record store in high school in Athens, Ga. Nope it wasn’t WUXTRY where down the street my buddy Chuck would fix me up with records; the WUTRY where Peter Buck was handing out opinions on music when he was working there, before REM.

No, I don’t remember the name of this record store, down by the barbershop where they’d lather up your neck and take a straight razor to it. There was a guy in this store who played the Kinks all day and all of the night. Seemingly.

So I accumulated 10 Kinks records, most used, and I fell for the brothers Ray’s and Dave’s harmonies, Ray’s storytelling songs, Dave’s crunching and lyrical guitar, and their whimsical sense of humor.

This all came out of a brother-to- brother relationship that was mercurial at best. They fought so much, they were thrown out of the United States during the British invasion initiated by the Beatles, missing a payload of money as the Brits rang the till in America. But that was the Kinks.

Before getting kicked out, the Kinks were pioneering quirky singles like Stop Your Sobbing, heavy metal before it existed, ‘You Really Got Me,’ and “All Day and All Night” where Dave famously slashed his speakers to get a ‘fuzz’ effect on guitar.

Of course, Van Halen famously covered the 1960’s song and by the time I saw them in the late 1970s, Dave Davies in concert would give a nod to the VH version with a guitar assault in their live version of ‘You Really Got Me.’

My first Kinks album was either a Pye collection Vol. 2 or Lola (can’t remember) and, no, I didn’t immediately pick up the idea that Lola was about a transvestite. I was like, no, wait, and ‘so is Lola.’

From the used Pye compilation of early Kinks. I began to really appreciate the melodies and lyrical songcraft songs like ‘Till the End of the Day; Stop Your Sobbing; Dedicated Follower of Fashion Sunny Afternoon, Nothing in this World and Set Me Free.

Probably my favorite compilation I don’t have on vinyl, only on CD: The Kinks Kronikles. If I were starting off on a Kinks collection I would buy it first, then probably the Pye collection — just get a used record of Pye — not the giant boxed set unless you’re loaded. Another great album I don’t have on vinyl is Arthur, which is fairly well represented on the Kronikles compilation.

After losing out on the British invasion, the Kinks went on to a period that many critics deemed slow if not bad. I disagree. The Preservation Act records and Soap Opera era. I think there’s really good music in there. Soap Opera, to this American kid, was like a documentary on English life. The songs are part of a story, so may sound funny to a listener who is not in to sitting down and listening all the way through. But some songs are good on their own. Such as Sweet Lady Genevieve from Preservation Act 1.

The Kinks mean a lot to me for another reason beyond music. My high school love interest (now my wife Catherine) actually enjoyed the Kinks. This was about 1977-78. During her senior year, she had some serious surgery involving her gut, to put it in layman’s terms. She had the surgery, recovered a few weeks and we were off to Atlanta to see the Kinks at the Fox Theater. Kinks fanatic and friend Brian was driving. She told me later she wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to ruin the fun. But once we got there she basically collapsed with gut wrenching pain. She was throwing up.

Luckilly we were a block away from the very hospital where she had the surgery. Otherwise, we were told in no uncertain terms that a longer delay would have killed her. That perhaps justified my bad behavior of screaming at them when they asked us to stop and fill out pages of forms.

She lived, thank God. And we even went to another Kinks concert about a year later, same venue. But it was only recently when we were talking about it that I said, ‘Funny thing, but the second surgery involved fixing a ‘kink’ in your intestine.’

Wha??? We laughed at the ‘coincidence’ but Catherine stands firm that it was no coincidence — she doesn’t believe in coincidences . WOG, I call it, for Wink of God. She says going to see the Kinks that night saved her life by putting her immediately in the hands of the hospital and surgeon who knew the medical history. That it was a kink needing fixing was the WOG, so she would say.

OK I am going to give you my off the beaten path Top 5 Kinks songs that aren’t Lola — with links..

  1. Well Respected Man: This represents a Kinks’ go-to: applying whimsy to satire in a mostly loving way.
  2. Waterloo Sunset. Just a beautiful song with lovely guitar by Dave.
  3. Nothing in this World. Another early beautiful song, haunting melody, about broken relationships.
  4. (Tie) Misfits/Full Moon. The 80s stuff is better than people think it is.
  5. (Tie) Sunny Afternoon/Apeman

Of course I cheated with two ties. But I cheated for a good cause. And I didn’t even use Rock N Roll Fantasy.

Or Victoria.

Which was a favorite of my daughter Hannah when she was living on Victoria in British Columbia.

I could have picked five songs off of my Lola album as well. If you noticed you will see I gave it a 5 out of 5 rating. I believe the only other 5 rating I have (so far) is Carole King’s ‘Tapestry.’

And of course, the real deal of a best Kinks’ song is on the video blow. Don’t know how I forgot this tears-of-a-clown Klassic.

Check out Dave Davies on this blog for a couple of solo projects he did. Also, although I disagree with her on the Arista years, the music writer altrockchick has one of the best written takes on the Kinks I have seen.

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Peter Himmelman sends My Vinyl Countdown excellent, hard-to-find vinyl

Peter Himmelman, a Minnesota-born, California-based, singer-songwriter, rock star of cult-level status and observant Orthodox Jew, sent me three vinyl records recently in support of my effort to get the word out about a prevalent but little-known brain disease.

Woo hoo! I was so excited to rip open that box and play some new Himmelman music, which I find to be of the highest order.

Himmelman like a few of my favorite artists had not, heretofore, to my knowledge, put out LPs. Now that I have this vinyl, I can add him to the countdown. (In another post I will review his three albums.)

So how did this come about that a semi-famous rock star, Bob Dylan’s son-in-law, send me three excellent out-of- print vinyl records? Therein lies the story, a story about this singer, this journalist and my wife, Catherine, a Presbyterian minister.

FOR THE FULL STORY, PLEASE CLICK THIS

Himmelman’s ‘The Boat that Carries Us’ album cover.