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Dunk? Me?

Did I say dunk?

Ha ha. Funny for a minute there I thought I said I would dunk by our next March Madness.

Funk. Yeah that’s what I meant. I would add more funk to my listening list and this blog.

Ha ha. Dunk.

Sandwiched between great athletes Buck Johnson and Trent RIchardson at MikeMadness 2018. Hoping their talent rubs off on me.

Well it’s the morning (or two) after and you can see my state of mind about my vow to dunk. AL.com colleague  John Archibald said if I do it — dunk, that is, — he will donate $1,000 to Lewy body disease research. I have unofficially heard three other colleagues say they would do the same thing.

Before I get too many pledges let me continue with more research. It’s not encouraging so far.

The $1,000  checks seem pretty safe. The more research I do, the more questions and doubts I have. I’m 58 and losing brain cells and muscle tone as we speak.

Then I read a long story in Sports Illustrated  about a guy at 42 who never dunked but embarked at a rigorous training expedition to dunk. And he did, eventually. His method? Four or five workouts per week  —  and it took him nearly a year. Not what I want to hear. A well-meaning commenter said that Spud Webb at 5-feet-7 inches can still dunk at 47.

Great.

Mike points to his defender John Talty where he is going to shoot from. That’s called swag.

 

 

Webb, who WON FIRST PLACE WITH A 360 DEGREE DUNK IN AN NBA DUNK CONTEST, can still dunk.

The closest model I have so far is this 42 year-old Sports Illustrated guy who at 6-feet-2 dunked for the first time. Did, did I mention, it took him a year of excruciating exercises?

I started today on my training nonetheless. I went to hot yoga with colleague John Archibald. It was great and I’m going to do it again — if they let me.

As I was preparing to go I realized I lost my glasses. I went back in the yoga room where it was now wall-to-wall people.

Excuse me  I lost my glasses I said as I stepped  over people in twisted poses and contorted faces. Their eyes expressed disapproval. All that and we ended up finding my glasses elsewhere — in the locker.

I have learned something in my research. I need to have ‘swag.’

I think that’s short for ‘swagger.’ That’s a place of supreme confidence that my YouTube watching has taught me that dunkers have swag. Mac McClung, a  viral video sensation in High School,  has swag. The phenomenon of McClung is at least partly a racial thing. He’s white and ‘White Men Can’t Dunk,” as the Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson movie  pointed out to America.

To make it all the more interesting McClung, who played for a small  high school  called Gate City in Virginia, is going to Georgetown where white basketball players over the past few decades have been more rare than a yellow cardinals.

But that’s a whole different topic and suffice it to say I am white and I can’t jump. I’m also 58. I also have Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease that will likely end my life earlier than I was planning on. So, besides counting down my vinyl records on this website, I will now train to dunk.

I figure I have a good two  years before I finish my records. I credit my blog with being therapeutic, keeping my mind active. The dunk training will be a way to keep my body active.

I’d be lying if I said the disease hasn’t affected my memory and my muscle strength and stamina.

So here am searching for my swag and my glasses.

And I’ve always got the ‘out’ when I show up at Mike’s Madness next year and people start calling my name and asking me when I’m going to show the dunk.

Dunk? I don’t remember anything about a dunk.
Really?

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Steve Goodman– 447

ALBUM: The Essential Steve Goodman (1976)

MVC Rating: 4.5 $$$$

The best way to introduce Goodman is through the songs he wrote. Songs that were often made famous by other people.

  • City of New Orleans — Arlo Guthrie’s version made this a standard, covered by Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Chet Atkins, and Willie Nelson.
  • Somebody Else’s Problems
  • You Never Even Call Me By My Name   — This send-up of country music lyrics got an uncredited writing assist from John Prine. David Alan Coe made it a country hit.
  • Donald and Lydia
  • Jazzman
  • Don’t do me Any Favors Anymore
  • The Cubs Anthem — Go Cubs Go — His most sung song.

Goodman died of Leukemia in 1984 at age 36.

Fun fact: He was a high school classmate of Hillary Clinton in Chicago..

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Godley – Creme — 448

ALBUM: L

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Yes the album is called ‘L.’ This almost became a Frisbee when I first heard it. I was a big 10cc fan but this … this was 10cc stirred in with Frank Zappa and Dr. Demento. In fact in “Sporting Life” which sounds like a Zappa song, there’s a voice that sounds like Mr. Frank, so much so that I had to check out the credits — didn’t find him listed. Now I like some Zappa but let Zappa do Zappa.  I knew I wasn’t losing my mind when I heard this lyric:

“Does getting into Zappa mean getting out of Zen,’ is an actual lyric in ‘Art School Canteen which follows the Sporting Life and Sandwiches of You, a song I actually like.

This was the second album after these two left 10cc using a guitar synthesizer type of instrument they invented called ‘The Gizmo.’ Not sure what it does or sounds like even now. It might be that zither-sounding strum on ‘Sandwiches. bit no it’s not listed as being in that song.’

Ah, funny reference to their old fun hit ‘Donna is in ‘Group Life.’ Punchbag is interesting (as all this interesting) but I’m sure I’d understand it more if  I knew what ‘fourth form punchbag’ means.

The instrumental ‘Foreign Accents’ has some good funky and crazy sounding sounds but, again, I though they were showcasing the Gizmo and it’s not listed for that song.

All in all it’s an ambitious record, which I would expect from 10cc spinoff. But if is too Art School Canteen-ish. I’ll stick to my 10cc when  I want a little pretentiousness with my contentiousness.  Checking around on the Internets I find some crazy devotion to G&C, especially this album. I’ll keep trying.  ‘Business is Business ‘ at the end of the  album finally gets to the not so avant gard point. “That the record people  and people in general don’t get us and we hate M.O.R.’

Sorry, but I’m not in L  ove.

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Dexter Gordon — 449

ALBUM: One Flight Up (Reissue 1985)

MVC Rating: 5/$$$$$

Great jazz combo here from 1964. Led by Dexter Gordon, this is a jazz classic. I got as a cut-out reissue from 1985. If I see a cut-out or discounted record with Blue Note on, it I’ll buy, no questions.

The band, which includes Donald Byrd, Art Taylor, Kenny Drew and Niels-Henning Orsted, is tight.

Byrd almost steals the show with his tasteful rapid fire trumpet runs, like automatic fire — pup, pup,pup – landing like marshmallows, soft and sweet. Particularly on his song, ‘Tanya’ which covers all of side 1.

Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the jazz movie ‘Round Midnight.’

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Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five — 450

Vinyl 12-inch single  (1983): NewYork New York

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$

I was an early listener to rap/hip hop but by the time it exploded I had pretty  much lost track. Here’s the legendary progenitors (so to speak) of rap music as we know it. Sounds funny and outdated now though still catchy  to a degree.

GM Flash put it on the map with ‘The Message.’ I got their second ‘big’ single ‘New York New York.’ It was like in my preceding review of Eddy Grant where I got the album released after his big hit ‘Electric Avenue.’

But I bought this one in Birmingham new after hearing ‘The Message’ a bunch of times. Kind of shows you how I think. I wanted the newer disc because I thought it would be even better than big hit. I thought it was better or at least similar, but sales did not reflect that.

New York New York big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems

I also bought Kurtis Blow on vinyl about this time, called ‘Party Time,’ again not his biggest record. (That would be ‘The Breaks).’

On vinyl that’s about it for my hip hop collection. Though I have  on my iPod a number of rap artists, courtesy in many cases of my three daughters. Let’s see (rolling through my trusty 120 GB classic iPod)  I have some Lil’ Wayne, Beastie Boys, Rhymefest, Kanye West, Eminem, 50 cent,  and Nas. Most are songs singles not full albums though. But I’ve lost track of  the scene for the most part (since my daughters moved out).

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Dizzy Gillespie — 454

ALBUMS: New Faces  

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$

Now I’m not huge into jazz but I have some good  jazz records.

I have this Dizzy; a Dexter Gordon Blue Note label album; a Harry James record; some Miles Davis; John Coltrane on CD);Teo Macero, another Blue Note special of Bud Powell, one of my favorite jazz pianists along with Errol Garner. I also have some rock/soul/jazz fusion, if that’s a thing, Steve Howe, Dixie Dregs, Sea Level, and Glenn Phillips.

And going A to Z, I also have some Chet Atkins and Frank Zappa that I would consider jazz or jazzy.

And I have Louis Armstrong, one of my favorite old schoolers,  mainly because my father was a big fan of Satchmo, and I heard it at an earl age around the house.

The cool thing about this album is it brings in some newcomers — at least they were new in the 1980s when this was made, including Branford Marsalis, who went on to be the bandleader for Jay Leno for a couple of years and is one of the top saxophonists in the world.

So this has old man Dizzy, he of the bent trumpet and swollen cheeks, has rounded up some youth to make a contemporary jazz record with some old stuff mixed in.

The sound jumps out of the speakers, I must say, which I like on all vinyl productions but especially jazz. I like the trumpet player right in the room with me. I know this seems like my ongoing advice, but this is a good pick in a used record store, high high quality jazz in the ‘bop’ style with an old cheek-ballooning patriarch overseeing some  top notch jazz youngsters.

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J. Geils Band — 455

ALBUM:  Monkey Island (1977)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

This is one of those straight ahead rock and roll groups that through persistence, solid chops and staying together finally hit the big time.

This album was the precursor to their Top  40 sales of ‘Freeze – Frame’ and ‘Centerfold.’ MVC does’t care for these later ‘MTV’ hits so much. Monkey Island in 1977 was the album where they were straddling both worlds.

This album, Monkey Island, I bought as a cut-out in high  school in Athens, Ga.  Played it a fair amount  actually. Some good old-timey songs like ‘I Do’ and the Louis Armstrong song, ‘I’m not Rough.’

‘So Good’ lives up to its title.

The title track is a little out of character. It’s a multi-part epic of a song with long (good)  instrumental intro and oblique lyrics.

The album is a near-miss but the group’s following albums helped give the band — who never thought a harmonica shouldn’t be used — some retirement money. J. Geils, founder and guitarist, died in 2017.

The band caught my attention with an earlier single called ‘Must Have Got Lost’ in which singer Peter Wolf  does a rap intro before rap was even a thing. See video below.

That’s not on Monkey Island. But I will include a Monkey Island video too.

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Tear-jerkers and Lewy

Quick catch-up here on some of the things happening in MyVinylCountdown – land.

I’m firing blogs off left and right lately so keep checking this site for updates.

You can get new post alerts via email by going to the comment section. Here’s how to do that: ‘click on the title of the post, for example, Bobby Goldsboro’. 

Then scroll down to bottom of post and you’ll see an email box. Click inside the box and a check-box asking if you want notifications.

The Bobby Goldsboro post, where ‘Honey the’ song is deconstructed by me makes me think of putting together a  Top 10 list of tear-jerking songs.

  1. Honey by ‘Bobby Goldsboro’

There I started. Now go. to the comments and add your challenger song or songs to ‘Honey.’ Or, you can email me your selection at moliver@al.com

(Maybe we’ll actually do it like we did on Top Train Songs.

In recent weeks my most popular posts have been:

Rub your dog behind the ears while you still can 

Robin Williams was killed by Lewy, the brain disease that won’t be named 

New song about Alabama could be next great state song 

 

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People with dementia, chronic diseases and their doctors benefit from ‘progress report’

 

 

 

 

 

 

As many know I have dementia with Lewy bodies, a brain disease that has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Another person with Lewy shared with me something I think that will be highly beneficial, not just for folks with Lewy but for those with other chronic diseases as well.

Let’s call it a “Report Card for your Doctor,’ or ‘Progress Report for Doctors and other caregivers.

{To see full report click here and scroll down}

 

This running document is something you update between doctor visits.

Thanks to a fellow ‘Lewy’ person and his wife, caregiver,  I am able to share an example of how this works right here.  It’s pretty self-explanatory. I have taken out the names  for privacy’s sake.

I think this could be a life prolonger or at least a life comfortor, especially  for those with memory issues as changes in symptoms are so important for the doctor to know about. Everyone in this situation has gone to those hard-to-get appointments with a neurologist only to remember that you forgot to say something about something. This puts it all in black and white and would serve as a patient-doctor conversation.

I think publishing this is helpful information on two levels: 1) For everyone with a chronic disease to  use to improve diagnosis and treatment, and 2) More specifically for those living with Dementia with Lewy bodies to see the chronicling of the disease in a real person.

To see the full report (if you missed the link above click here.

 

 

 

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Bobby Goldsboro — 456

ALBUM: Bobby Goldsboro Greatest Hits (1970)

The tears wrenched out of human beings by Bobby Goldsboro can be measured in gallons.

Hundreds, thousands of gallons.

‘Honey’ was a huge worldwide hit in 1968 for Goldsboro, born in Florida but who grew up in Dothan and attended Auburn University. Bobby Russell, who wrote  ‘The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,’  was ‘Honey’s’ writer.

It was a sentimental tissue-thin manipulation of a song. It was the best of songwriting, and the worst of songwriting.

I’d admire the suspense and mystery built up around the singer’s descriptions of his wife/lover. The La-Tee-Da casual storytelling style draws you in as it drops foreboding hints all the way.

My critique is that the words are often silly, and combined with the syrupy strings, comes off as maudlin. And the casual storytelling style, once you get the whole picture, is kind of  creepy.

That said, the songwriter used some deft devices to make this sad. For example never really telling us what happened requiring our brains to think harder to speculate what happened a la ‘Ode to Billie Joe.’

My mother, a longtime educator, gave me this album recently, but we used to cry in the car over it decades ago. It was a No. 1 hit in the U.S. and charted all over the world.

So again the overarching question here is what happened? She died, but what other clues are there.

Let’s react to the lyrics and find out.

Song lyrics italics, my comments bold.

Honey by Bobby Russell, performed by Bobby Goldsboro

See the tree, how big it’s grown 
But friend it hasn’t been too long
It wasn’t big (good open, foreshadowing)
I laughed at her and she got mad, (what was so funny?)
The first day that she planted it
Was just a twig
Then the first snow came and she ran out
To brush the snow away
So it wouldn’t die (Foreshadowing, concisely paints picture of soft-hearted, sentimental person. Was the tree somehow going to be cause of death? Listeners are tuned in now)
Came runnin’ in all excited,
Slipped and almost hurt herself (So she’s becoming clumsy but husband  thinks it’s hysterical)
And I laughed till I cried (throwing the word cried in there is like a subliminal message readying the tear ducts.)
She was always young at heart,
Kinda dumb and kinda smart (Well you are no rocket scientist either BoGo..)
And I loved her so
And I surprised her with a puppy (Uh oh gratuitous puppy introduction: he’s pulling out all stops in the manipulative attempt to make you cry).
Kept me up all Christmas Eve two years ago (aw he loves her so much,  he not only gave her the puppy but lives with the dog causing sleep deprivation).
And it would sure embarrass her
When I came in from workin’ late (working late, huh?)
‘Cause I would know
That she’d been sittin’ there and cryin’
Over some sad and silly late, late show (again showing how ‘endearing’ her sentimentality is.)
And honey, I miss you and I’m bein’ good (Working  late, huh?)
And I’d love to be with you if only I could (here we go again, hint hint: Where did she go?)
She wrecked the car and she was sad (Oh my gosh is she going to die of car wreck injuries?)
And so afraid that I’d be mad
But what the heck
Though I pretended hard to be
Guess you could say she saw through me
And hugged my neck
I came home unexpectedly
And caught her cryin’ needlessly (Needlessly is certainly in the eye of the beholder. I mean, did she get bad news like perhaps she was DYING!)
In the middle of a day
And it was in the early spring
When flowers bloom and robins sing
She went away (Reach for tissue.)
And honey, I miss you and I’m bein’ good
And I’d love to be with you if only I could  (Sure about that?)
One day while I was not at home (Working late again?)
While she was there and all alone
The angels came (Good gosh, the Hell’s Angles took her out. What in the name of everything holy were you involved in, man?)
Now all I have is memories of honey (tears)
And I wake up nights and call her name (tears)
Now my life’s an empty stage (tears)
Where honey lived and honey played
And love grew up
And a small cloud passes overhead
And cries down on the flower bed (more tears, some blubbering)
That honey loved
And see the tree how big it’s grown
But friend it hasn’t been too long
It wasn’t big (good writing example, coming full circle)
And I laughed at her and she got mad
The first day that she planted it,
Was just a twig (sob)
(One question: Can a twig grow into a tree?)
Other songs on his ‘Greatest Hits’ never approached the sales and popularity of ‘Honey.’ His first hit was “See the Funny Clown,” who happens to be crying on the inside. The song is way inferior to the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles hit “Tears of a Clown.’ He also had a hit called ‘Watching Scottie Grow,’ that for some  reason isn’t on this album.
Goldsboro has another song on this disc called “The Straight Life” with lyrics that kind of blow my mind. Here’s the second verse of the song.:
Sometimes my thoughts may find me in Mexico,
Drinking tequila going out of my mind
Having a ball on a couple ‘a bob,
Treating the ladies to corn on the cob,
Leaving the straight life behind
Huh? First off, couple a’bob is an English term for money not Spanish. Tequila will make you nuts but not sure about the hi jinks behind a tequila and corn cob party.