Living with Lewy Body Dementia
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease
I am building words with letters pulling them from deep inside my head.
Flipping them out with my tongue, word sequences, nouns verbs adjectives: Words.
Stop it with a period when your thought is through.
But don’t stop too long or you will lose you
-Mike Oliver-
A
LBUM: Don’t Mind Rockin’ Tonight (1978)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
In the liner notes it says pub rock was no cliche’ in those days.
I’m not sure when or if it has become a cliche’ but this is pub rock by definition.
“Down in the swamp, Daddy put the bomp in my soul.” Don’t know exactly what that means but ‘Daddy was a preacher.’ Later Mama, a Texas lady, taught him how to jive.
This is a compilation of two albums. Kind of odd but that’s the way they did it because theirs was a short-lived pit stop on the way to other bands.
The band was Sean Tyla (later of Tyla Gang), Nick Garvey and Andy McMasters, (both later of the Motors ), Martin Belmont (later with Graham Parker and Rumour). Dave Edmunds was close friends and sometimes a producer.
There is feel-good rock and roll playing here: ‘Coast to Coast’ rocks like nobody’s business. ‘Fireball’ and ‘Love’s Melody’ stand out. Reminded me at times of Danny and Dusty whom I earlier reviewed.
I thought at first that ‘Daddy put the Bomp’ was an early 1960s cover of a song called “Who put the Bomp (in the rama lama ding dong). But apparently it’s two different songs. This came out while I was a senior in High School. Yep. It ages well, if not me. Also seems like this one may be a little collectible as it was a short-lived band that never got much promotion in the US.
Here’s an old Bomp song here by Chuck Prophet (of Green on Red). I think it’s a hybrid re-make of the 1961 version. But not sure.
Here’s Ducks Deluxe ‘Daddy put the Bomp.’
ALBUM: The Drifters, Their Greatest Recordings, the Early Years (1971)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$
Dion and the Belmonts picked up a lot of big hits the Drifters did first: Drip Drop, Ruby Baby and Save the Last Dance for Me.
Dion and the Belmonts, reared in Italian neighborhoods of NYC, of course, were bringing black R&B influenced Doo-Wop to white audiences. These early years, the Drifters had the wonderful Clyde McPhatter. Over many years,the Drifters ended up being more of a franchise, with rotating quarterbacks.
Ultimately they recorded one of the best songs of that era and genre, Under the Boardwalk. I love that song. But I also totally enjoy the rawer R&B sounds from the early years represented here.
One song, the opening one on this album, didn’t get released until this collection in 1971. From 1954 a song from McPhatter had executives running for cover and stopping its release. The song was ‘333.’
Lyrics like this were why: “Good Times, cheap wine, young chicks, so fine, there’s a whole lot of ecstasy, any time you fall in 333.” A little too hot for 1954.
Other hits for the Drifters in these early years include: Money Honey, Fools Fall in Love and There Goes My Baby.
Their slyly subversive take on Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ sells nearly as many copies as Bing Crosby’s version, according to the liner notes. Their version of that classic Christmas song holds a firm spot in my Christmas rotation.
Train train, take me on out of this town. Man. There are a lot train songs I’m learning.
Catching regular blog readers up to date on a couple of things:
I first posted my train song list on my blog. Then I added some commentary and a concern and posted my list — same list –on AL.com.
In that last post I told readers I have been dissatisfied with my blog post list of train songs, namely the Grateful Dead’s ‘Casey Jones.’ Not a big Dead fan anyway, and the performance by Jerry Garcia is lackluster and has ‘cocaine’ running all through it. So I made a call out for replacements. Based on emails, texts and comments from stories, here’s a list we can draw from to replace Casey Jones (unless there’s an outpouring of support for that Dead song?)
I am amazed at the quality and depth of the selections, these aren’t all of them, I had to do some pruning. But it is a good many.
I’m going to make the final decision, here are the suggestions and I will make a pick by the weekend.
ALBUM: The Doors Greatest Hits (1980)
MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$
Man, what do you say about the Doors? They became a phenomenon while lead singer Jim “Lizard King” Morrison was alive and an even bigger one after he died in 1971.
As Rolling Stone magazine in 1981 famously put on the cover a photo of the handsome lead singer with this headline: Jim Morrison. He’s hot, He’s sexy, and he’s dead.
It had been 10 years since he overdosed in Paris on drugs after many months of erratic behavior including arrests for drugs and exposing himself at a concert. But the band’s music was seeing a resurgence surrounding a book and a movie.
I truly believe this Greatest Hits album is all you need. They had the best-worst discography of all time. In other words they had some amazing songs that you wondered where they came from — because they would be side-by-side on albums with some truly awful stuff.
On this album most of the songs are good, even excellent except for the godawful psychedelic tune Not to Touch the Earth, which like Five to One, thankfully not on this album, showcases everything bad about the band, trippy psuedo poetry from Morrison, and psychedelic guitar-organ interplay.
But then there was the good stuff.
Compare the aforementioned horror Five to One to LA Woman. In the latter song the band kicks into a thump thumping blues rift and Morrison’s words suddently make some sense, not profound but propelling what is essentially a long jam song with speedup-slowdown parts.
Drivin’ down your freeways
Midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman
So alone, so alone
So alone, so alone
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light
Or just another lost angel, city of night
Mr. Mojo’s rising …
The musicians were good. Morrison strained too much on his voice. He certainly thought it was better than it was, but it was effective most of the time and he was the quintessential good looking, hard partying, artsy leaning, rock star. Robby Krieger on guitar was above average. Ray Manzarek on keyboards was outstanding and probably the real brains behind the music.
The thing I find fascinating stepping back on all this is how good some of the good songs were. Light My Fire is a classic that Frank Sinatra could have sung. So is Touch Me. And Riders on the Storm is timeless. Roadhouse Blues is a raucous rock and roller, also with timeless feel.
The lyrics are poetry, rarely great or even good poetry, but fitting right in and often doing their job as lyrics to Doors music.
On glaring omission on this collection is The End, famous for its Oedipal overtones and the darkness of death. It was featured in the movie Apocalypse Now — but it’s a long dark song and I’m not missing it here.
OK, I have to tell you my prank story involving Morrison and Birmingham News colleague. Ready Tom?
Nah, not yet, going to save that for a post solely dedicated to pranks.
This is not my last post. At least as far as I know this minute in time.
Because I have an incurable brain disease my life will likely be shortened; I just don’t know by how much.
So this has me thinking about my last post.
I’m still getting along pretty well at 58 after my Lewy Body dementia diagnosis about 20 months ago.
Why think ahead to my last post? I don’t really want to think about it. How bad I’ll be when I can no longer type. I may not even know my last post when I write it.
But I’m thinking about it because I want to make the life I have now as precious as I can. With full knowledge of my assets and deficits, financially and physically.
I want to make decisions directly related to those things. I want to provide for a smooth transition for me and my family. Let’s call it transition defense.
Let’s make super difficult times into not-so-difficult times. It’s easier to smile, laugh and be with your loved ones if you aren’t worried about how to pay the light bill after retirement.
Everybody is going to die. There has been no change in the human mortality rate in, oh, forever. It’s holding steady at 100 percent. (Trust me, I keep my eye on this stat.)
Death should be an open conversation. My wife, Catherine, as a pastor who has worked as a Registered Nurse as well, has visited and cared in both of her roles for dozens of critically ill people in Florida, California and Alabama. Too many didn’t leave instructions or at least legally binding ones. She has helped from the patient’s advocate view to make sure the patient’s wishes are kept.
That means questioning our health care systems where doctors are taught to save and prolong life but not how to prepare for death. The system is set, intentionally or not, to financially incentivize interventions and heroic measures. When the patient is a pain addled 95-year-old person, open heart surgery may not be the best idea . The system doesn’t do death well.
Have you thought about it? Like I’m doing here. Got a will? Power of attorney? Does your spouse or someone you trust know about all savings accounts, investment accounts, retirement funds? Passwords?
Heck, I’ve got more passwords than brain cells at this point.
If you have a spouse will they stay in the house? Or downsize? Maybe it’s time to think about downsizing now. Maybe you should look at assisted living facilities or step-down communities that provide increasing care depending on your health situation?
Do you have a financial plan for retirement? Other than waiting for Social Security. Are you at the age where you need to start moving the stock heavy positions in your IRA or 401(K) to safer havens like money market, cash or bonds?
Seek advice from a fee-only financial adviser. In other words, one who will take a flat fee, say $300, and build you a financial plan without trying to sell you any investments for which he or she may get a commission. Ongoing financial oversight of your investments generally costs about 1 percent of your holdings.
Have you talked about death specifically. Funeral. What do you want to do with your body? Cremation? Have your ashes shot out of a cannon like Hunter S. Thompson? Pour the ashes in the ocean.
Do you want your wife or husband or trusted love one to authorize pulling the plug or do you want your doctor to make every effort to keep you alive? Do you want that at age 85? age 95? Age and condition would be key considerations.
There’s a specific thing called Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) which you would need to discuss with your family. What happens when you become incapacitated and can’t make the decision yourself?
I do know I don’t want to consume a lot of health care resources when I’m too incapacitated to blow my own nose. I would like to say goodbye in a final column, go home and kiss Catherine, Hannah, Emily and Claire on the cheek then slip quietly out the back door..
‘Night night,” I’d say.
So my idea about having a permanent children’s train ride at Railroad Park in Birmingham seems to have fizzled for now.
But it did make me think of train songs.
There’s a milion of them it seems and they are running around my brain.
Proposal to RR Park: I’ll be DJ and play my Top 10 choo choo songs (Plus my two honorable mentions if we have time). On vinyl. At the park.
So, dedicated to Railroad Park, sponsored by myvinylcountdown.com, here are my top 10 train songs. Plus two honorable mentions. I am judging these on a complicated formula that involves how much endorphins are created in my brain as I listen to each song.
Now, with the brain monitor hooked up, here we go:
Honorable Mention: Stoney Larue. “Train to Birmingham”
We’ll start you off with an Honorable Mention. New song it may crack the list with a little more time. JA introduced this one to me. Has crying, lying, dying and Birmingham, oh, and a guitar full of blues. Great song. The studio version has a little sad sounding fiddle.
10: Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”
I know i’t old school heavy metal, but I like it, like it, yes I do.
9: Cracker “I See the Light”
Not really thought of as a train song but it is in a punch line sort of way. I just like this song. And if you listen you’ll see why I picked it.
8: Grateful Dead: Casey Jones
Classic, but not at the top of my train list.
7: Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Midnight Special”
CCR didn’t have many, if any, bad songs. This train song was one great one.
6: “People Get Ready (There’s a train a-coming)” Curtis Mayfield/ Impressions
I do love it when Rod Stewart sings this song but I have to give this to the original.
But Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions are hard to beat. Here’s Curtis by himself with guitar, beautiful.
I saw them live years ago and this was the only song I remember. (Maybe it was the only song they played.) If your kids aren’t head banging after Ozzy, they will be by this one.
Good time video almost pushed this higher. Lots of granola and moonshine for this crunchy group of hippie/ roots rockers on a classic, train bound for glory.
3: Bob Dylan. “Slow Train Coming”
Just a good song. Underrated Dylan. Good live version. Alabama angle:
I had a woman out in Alabama, She’s a backwoods girl but she sure was realistic
She said, boy, without a doubt, you got to kick your mess and straighten out, you could die down here, just be another accident statistic
2: Gladys Knight and the Pips. “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
‘I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine.’ Enough said.
1 (Tie): Johnny Cash. “Folsom Prison Blues.”
Yes, I copped out and have two as my No. 1. A tie. But I got to those last two and they are such great train songs which by definition must have a train-whistle ache about them. After doing this, I looked back and realized I don’t have ‘Peace Train’ by Cat Stevens or some other popular choices for train songs (e.g. Last Train to Clarksville)
But when it came to final two, I could not choose between them. Cop out, yes. But you tell me what to cut. Nevermind, I know which one it will be.
Anyway, it should not be this Cash song. You could do a whole top 10 train songs by Cash alone. And this song might arguably be called a prison song. However, I say, this has one of the most recognizable openings of any train song ever. “I hear the train a coming, it’s coming around the bend.” The train where people are in fancy dining cars, he laments, reminds him every day of his lost freedom.
1 (Tie)_ Peter Paul and Mary. “500 Miles”
Shuddup. I will defend this No. 1 pick to the ends of the earth or at least 500 miles.
Here is my other honorable mention: Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and I was considering Clash “Train in Vain,” then I realized that except in the title, there’s no train a-comin’ in the lyrics. In fact, no train at all unless I’m missing something.
Jerry Sloan never won a title either as a player or a coach but he is considered one of the top NBA coaches of all time.
The Salt Lake Tribune has a great profile of the 76-year-old man struggling with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. As a basketball loving Lewy body patient myself, this story sent me looking for tissues.
So who is Sloan? Tribune says:
Sloan is an icon, a reminder of the franchise’s glory days when they made back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals in the late ’90s, back when Hall of Famers John Stockton and Karl Malone pick-and-rolled opponents to death seemingly every night.
I remember those Jazz teams well, often had or were close to having the best won-lost records in the league.
My own pick-up game with my Old Man Hoops League is waning but I’m still doing it. Sloan, though slowly losing brain function, is still going to Utah Jazz games. In fact it’s the centerpiece of his life.
Stockton and Malone pick and rolls should be required viewing for every aspiring basketball player. If I was a hoops coach, I’d put together a tape with dozens of Stockton-to-Malone P&R’s for my players.
We even use picks in our Old Man Basketball League. We are especially fond of the illegal picks that resemble downhill blocking in football. (Some of us have even called illegal picks. Ha. Funny.)
Seriously, a legal pick is simple and efficient and still works after all these years.
Our knowledge of Parkinson’s and its mean younger cousin, Lewy Body dementia, is limited. Our treatments don’t work all the time. There is no cure. Both Parkinson’s and Lewy are the result of excess proteins in the brain, but no one has figured out why the protein’s are there, smothering the brain cells.
As the Tribune article says, the disease strips your mind and your motor skills, but not overnight. There is time to exercise, be with loved ones, keep the mind active and hope your brain’s neurons are setting good picks. Jerry’s wife Tammy Sloan keeps Jerry’s schedule very busy with activities and social functions.
I used basketball to describe my situation earlier in a column for AL.com
Here’s part of what I wrote: There are cases in the scientific literature of people who upon autopsy were found to have brains that indicated Alzheimer’s disease yet during their lives they showed no symptoms. Researchers say their brains apparently found “work-arounds” to the plaques and tangles that are believed to be the root of Alzheimer’s.
So that has me hopeful and encouraging my neurons: Come on you lightning quick neurons, put the Stephen Curry crossover on those proteins and get to the hoop.
I’m still playing, but I can relate to what Sloan is feeling. I just found my glasses before writing this Sunday afternoon. They’ve been missing for a week and a day. (I’d love to joke and say they were on my head but, thankfully, I’m not that bad yet.)
If Sloan wants to play a little 3-on-3 for charity this summer, we might be able to arrange that. Or, maybe just one-on-one, Lewy Jerry against Lewy Mike. What am I saying? He’s 6’5” and was a smashmouth player for the Chicago Bulls before his long-term coaching stint in Salt Lake.
Before each game, Shawn Brown and his staff go over the list of VIPs and scan the crowd for people to highlight on the 24-foot-tall video board that hangs over the court at Vivint Smart Home Arena. It doesn’t matter who shows up, though. After four years of directing the Utah Jazz’s in-game video operations from the scorer’s table, Brown knows the man in Row 11 will get the loudest cheer.
“The reaction for him is bigger than any celebrity,” Brown says. “Everybody loves him.”
The crowd of 18,000-plus will erupt, maybe even stand in ovation. Tammy Sloan will tap her husband lightly. This, predictably, is his least favorite moment of the best part of his day.
“I always try to avoid that as much as possible,” Jerry Sloan says. “That’s not who I am, and that’s not what I’m about. I just love the great game of basketball. I’ve been involved with it my whole life. I enjoy that. I still enjoy the game.”
Friday morning started with a visit to, at least by Tammy Sloan’s estimation, the only man in Utah who hasn’t been following the Jazz’s first-round playoff series: her husband’s doctor. It has been just more than two years since Jerry Sloan revealed to the world that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia, diseases that have begun to strip the mind and motor skills of one of the greatest coaches in NBA history.
ALBUM: Dr. John’s Gumbo (1986 RE Alligator Records)
MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$
Say you are planning a party. A party where music would be up front. But then the president comes on and declares National Music Conservation week.
President’s edict is that parties may play only one vinyl record the entire party.
Seems plausible? Right?
Well here’s the party record I’d recommend, Dr. John’s Gumbo.
It is danceable, hummable, sing-with-able and eat cajun food-able. Iko Iko can be played 29 times straight without diminished pleasure, scientists measuring brain activity have discovered.
Add on to Iko Iko songs like Mess Around, Big Chief, Stack A Lee, Let the Good Times Roll and you got a party veering toward that shaky ground between ecstasy and agony. The agony is caused by the imbibeable forces the album propels, however those effects won’t begin until morning. Health specialists recommend that you stay away from the song Iko Iko for several days before easing back in at low volume.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
RIP Charles Neville
Here’s an excerpt of what I posted on AL.com today:
This is the regular Saturday column where I showcase some of the 678 vinyl record reviews I plan to review on my website.
I’ve reviewed 151, still have 527 to go.
This is a race, you see, to get these done, reviewed and put up on my website, before my brain disease gets me.
Recenty I posted that I had decades ago lent my Deep Purple live album ‘Made In Japan’ to someone who never returned it. I said jokingly if anyone out there has it, please leave it on my porch no questions asked.
Last week AL.com cartoonist J.D. Crowe walked into the newsroom and handed me the live album plus a copy of ‘Machine Head’ in primo condition.
Read more here
Here’s what J.D. brought me. I’m out, gotta go ‘Space Truckin’
