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Uh huh. Um.

Let’s call this my Daily Journal, (put date here).

I’m stuck right now. And p;art of the intent of this blog is to describe what is happening. I took an extra pill for my hands which don’t want to type.

Sometimes right after lunch I get more ‘Lewy.’ And I have several tasks ahead of me. Typing slow. I bounce around ideas in my head.. Lewy bounces them back. I can’t stay long on a train of thought. I think of a song. I feel calmer. I still do’t know how these columns are going to turn out. I have these great ideas but they slip. One thing I just remembered: What to do with CDs . I hope I saved the link. There was a beautiful bird bath.

Here let me find it . https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/24-wonderful-diy-ideas-with-old-cds.html

Pretty cool, huh?

Uh. ‘

Sort it out. Stay focused.

Back to a story on what we are doing with the money we raised over the weekend. How much? What research is it paying for? Target alpha-synuclein proteins. How? Who won Mike Madness. Ask about nonprofit status. I’m feeling better. I got this. Though I just remember I need to read back over some of my posts because I was noticing typos but wasn’t in the edit mode. Now I’ve forgotten which post they are in. I think I have 400 posts or more llive.. I learned of a third person who told me they are reading the posts from top to bottom or bottom to top.

Uh huh.

This is my journal as it sits right now. 2:18 p.m. today July 25, 2019.

Everything is OK right now.

Back in at 3:11 p.m. Had news today from two acquaintances. Different situations: the on who received the diagnosis of Lewy body had been long seeking explanations for a variety of symptoms. He was in much pain physically and psychologically. He welcomed the diagnosis. Another person I’ve talked to is starting to exhibit some classic symptoms. He’s praying he doesn’t have Lewy body dementia, but he’s preparing himself for the worst.

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Mike Madness: Best one yet

The T-shirts were turned up to Purple.

Myself JD Crowe, John Archibald, and others who did not deserve such treatment, got dunked in a giant container of water — and that was after the main event.

At least 20 teams clashed on the basketball courts at UAB Rec Center fSaturday for the annual Mike Madnss basketball tournament to raise awareness — and money — for the little known and misunderstood disease Lewy body dementia. And we had a raucous crew at Trim Tab Brewing where I made a foolish attempt to moonwalk in my socks on a concrete floor while Karaoke-eying to MJ.

WIthout a doubt, it was the best Madness yet. The first year we raked in $13,000; last year, $12,000 — and we are still tallying but expect to pass each of those years. My ambitious moonshot goal of doublingup at $25,000,however, is likely out of the realm. Money will go to research at UAB and the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

Stay tuned for more numbers, team winners and more in social media, ALcom and this website: www.myvinylcountdown.com

So many thank yous to all who helped and contributed — which you can still do at www.mikemadness.org

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Exclusive interview with my brain

Mike Oliver, who writes frequently about his battle with a fatal brain disease,Lewy body dementia, finally gets some one-on-one time for this exclusive interview with his brain.

ME: Hey brain I need a report, what’s going on up there. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days.

BRAIN: Well you should know, it’s your brain up here.

ME: Don’t get smart, brain. Remember you sent me some wrong information yesterday. I thought I saw a herd of cats in our yard having a tea party. I knew instantly it was a hallucination of course.

BRAIN: Yeah that was my bad, these little alpha synuclein proteins are tough little critters; they put the alpha in alpha. They took a couple million of my neurons yesterday and slimed them.

ME: Oh that must have been why I got up at 3:30 a.m. and went downstairs for no reason. I woke up staring at a wall.

BRAIN: I tell you, while I, er, we, have billions of neurons, I can’t keep taking these kind of hits and do my job.

ME: Well listen to me, Brain, I appointed you head of this organization for a reason. I have to say you were the leading candidate by a wide margin over the heart. Don’t get me wrong, I like the heart, but I can’t always trust it.

BRAIN: Yeah I hear you. Too sentimental.

ME: I just need you to play smarter here. This is a serious thing, an inflow of unwanted alpha snoopy proteins.

BRAIN: That’s alpha synuclein … you are confusing words Snoopy is a cartoon dog and you heard alpha and went with the dog thing.

ME: Me?

BRAIN: Well, right, US I guess. The latest research is that the bad proteins may be coming from the gut and climbing up to the brain where they wreak havoc, especially on memory.

ME: Really? Who did that research?

BRAIN: Well you read the same article, right?

ME: Oh, I guess I did. Which brings up another thing my memory sucks, what’s going on with our memory banks?

BRAIN: Well the Tactical Team is holed up in a previous unexplored storage space for the memory. I think they are trapped there like Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

ME: Well, keep up the fight. We may not have the strength to beat them head-on, but we can surely out-think them.

BRAIN: Well that’s a good thought.

ME: Thank you.

BRAIN: Thank you? I thought of it.

ME: No you didn’t. You just processed it for me to know. Look we don’t need to waste time arguing, let’s go get ‘em.

BRAIN: Yes I agree, but I feel a nap coming on.

ME: Funny, me too.

Please help us with your donation or participation in MikeMadness, a basketball tournament (and much more) to raise money for research and awareness of Lewy body dementia and other dementias. Go to www.mikemadness.org to see how how you can help.
Story originally appeared AL.com

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Don McLean — 329, 328

ALBUMS: Believers (1981); McLean (1972);

MVC Rating: Believers 3.5/$; McLean 3.0/$.

You know it’s difficult to break into the entertainment business and make a career at it. Ask Don “American Pie’ McLean. He broke in big time by writing and singing one of the all time classic songs. But as good as that song was – and I loved everything about the song and would sing it at the top of my lungs in the car with my parents – it was like a lightning bolt a flash of mighty heat and light. And then gone.

It was a song that crossed intergenerational boundaries. Singalong chorus, clever allegories.

The words were an elegy to Rock and Roll. Some took issue with the apparent conclusion that rock died (or at least lost its innocence the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash. The song is smart has a good tune and McLean was the right voice for it.

So what happened after ‘American Pie’? I may have had the 45 at one time but mainly I listened to it on the radio and wasn’t buying many records around 1971. I know he had another minor hit with ‘Vincent,’ a good song but no American Pie. Last year, when I saw a couple of McLean albums in a bargain bin, I decided to see what this guy was like and why he didn’t do more songs that were that good.

So for $4, I have two McLean albums, a self-titled one and Believers. I came away underwhelmed. Not that these folk songs were bad. There were some very good songs, nice melodies, interesting words on here — but nothing took off to the next level. I think I would benefit from hearing from a big fan of McLean’s, someone who can steer me to what I’m apparently missing.

McLean may be talking about himself here in ‘Bronco Bill’s Lament” of his self-titled album.

“I’m an old man now with nothing left to say; but oh God how I worked my youth away; You may not recognize my face; I used to be a star; a cowboy hero known both near and far.”

Even if McLean has had some slow years, he looks back fondly at his career.

In a 2014 interview with the Advocate he said:

“From an artistic standpoint, I’m taken somewhat seriously, or appreciated, everywhere. I’m happy about that because this business can be cruel and demeaning. The years have been good to me because the stature of my songs has increased rather than diminished.”

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Flea Market vinyl: let MVC be your guide (blog version)

Reed Books has an interesting and eclectic mix of inexpensive used records including those going back into the 40’s and 50’s.

I love going to the flea market when there’s records involved. On the Fourth of July I pleaded with Catherine to take me to a 50 percent off sale.

To those just catching up: She thinks I have too many records and that I should be giving/selling records, not buying small stacks every time I walk by a bargain bin.

But, alas, my idea of counting down my childhood and young adult record picks has now morphed into something new. After a couple of decades in boxes, I now have my albums in a perfect ‘man-cave’ venue.

I am becoming (dare I say it) a collector. A bargain collector. Although there are new reissued vinyl records that I have bought or received as gifts, my big thing is going through dozens of Herb Alpert and Ferlin Husky and 101 Strings and Mantovani records to find a hidden gem.

I listen to something on vinyl every morning. I have become in my wife’s words: obsessive. Maybe so but at a dollar a record, i’m not putting too much of a dent in my bank account.

AL.com Version of this story

And I think music helps my condition: Lewy body dementia. Not only the music but the sorting, the alphabetizing, the checking for value — the highly entertaining event of learning of a new artist or song that you love and had never heard before.

Music collecting, if you are that way inclined, is a perfect supplement to the medications that those of us with dementia take. (as is exercise).

I didn’t intend to pick up my old records and become a collector — it just turned out that way with the added benefit of telling folks about dementia from one who has it.

Of course I’m biased but I think my blog might steer you to some albums that can be found as great bargains. See the ratings and expected ‘for sale price’ on many of my 300-plus I have already posted.

 

From Stevie Wonder’s ‘Hotter than July’ album:

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Bob Marley — 339

ALBUM: Legend (1984)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$

The five key shapers of my love of music are all men. I say that only because I just noticed it as I began writing this. The father of three daughters I don’t feel sexist in this regard, but maybe I am.

My five key shapers are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Wilson Picket/Otis Redding, Prince and Bob Marley.

Hank Williams Sr. barely missed the cut.

I cheated I know with Redding Pickett, but they were big soul belters that startled this skinny kid in Georgia when I first heard them and fell in love with their songs. (Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You by Pickett hooked me from the radio.)

Prince was my James Brown, Little Richard altogether as those guys were before my time. And Prince channeled these guys (Sly Stone and MJ as well) into some of the most dynamic music of the 80s and 90s.)

British invaders, The Rolling Stones, some might say is too much like the Beatles but that’s not true. They are very different. At first it was the Beatles creating everything a rock band would be, good vocals, good songwriting, good musicians, genius production and engineering. The Stones came along and deconstructed all of that. Raw, simpler, looser. Black music for white kids who wanted the guitars turned up on blues-based rock. A lot of my friends were one or another: Beatles or Stones.

Then came Marley. Jammin’ with an aromatic cloud overhead. I didn’t expect to like him, but grew to love his music which could be rebellious, politically aware and sweet and kind.

Songs like ‘No Woman No Cry’ and ‘Redemption Song’ and ‘Is This Love’ and ‘Stir It Up.’ If you haven’t tried Marley start with this one, a compilation of ‘hits’ called ‘Legend.’ Another favorite I used to have on vinyl but is MIA was ‘Natty Dread.’

‘Babylon by Bus’ is a good two-record live album.

From Natty Dread’s No Woman no Cry

No, woman no cry
No, woman no cry
No, woman no cry
Said, said, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
Ob-observing the hypocrites
As they would mingle with the good people we meet (meet)
Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost
Along the way (way)
In this great future, you can’t forget your past
So dry your tears, I say

And no, woman, no cry.

Speaking of women. I swear I have lots of women, on record that is. My beloved Catherine introduced to me to Carole King and Carly Simon.

I have Heart, Janis Joplin, the Bangles, Diana Ross, the Marvelettes, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Stevie Nicks, an all-female hard rock group called Fanny, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynettte, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Nancy Griffith, Indigo Girls, the Shirelles, Melanie, Joan Baez, and many other ‘mixed’ groups like B-52’s, the Crams, Mamas and Papas, Sly and Family Stone, the Staple Singers, a Group called Smith, Eurythmics and so on.

While I enjoy much of those none were pivotal to me in transforming or greatly expanding my musical tastes. Janis and Aretha were close. But by then I was softened up to listen to them. Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers BTW has one of my favorite soulful voices.

NOTE: After I published this I realized I did not mention Dolly Parton. I watched her show with Porter Wagoner on black and white TV, probably in the late 1960s, early 70s. Sunday mornings. Been a fan ever since.

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The Mamas & the Papas — 340

ALBUM: Fairwell to the First Golden Era

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

Perfect harmonies. Big bold singing voices. Mama Cass. California Dreamin.’

These are the things I think of when I think of this singing group.

And during their prime, they really were larger than life.

California Dreamin’ is such a perfect ‘state’ song. It made me wonder what the best song about a state is? That one has to be near the top.

Well there’s ‘Georgia on My Mind’ as sung by the great Ray Charles. Of course ‘Sweet Home Alabama. Sweet Virginia by the Stones. Yellow Rose of Texas a traditional folk song but Hoyt Axton is known for his version. Private Idaho by my hometown band B-52s . This could go on forever but don’t forget this one: “The Moon is Bigger in Alabama.”

This greatest hits album also has Creeque Alley, kinda of a here’s-how-we- got-here song that has the memorable line: And the only one getting fat is Mama Cass.

Their song ‘Monday Monday’ could also start a list-sickle song like the state songs. ‘Manic Monday’ by the Bangles via Prince; Tuesday’s Gone by Skynyrd; Friday on my Mind by the Easybeats; I Dont like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.

There’s more. Hit the comments if you want to add more. Because there are many, but I’ve got to go, trying to make that Midnight Train to Georgia.

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Daily Journal, June 4, 2019

Tuesday’s not gone yet. In fact it’s only 10:58 a.m. my time (Central). As I said in a previous post, I was going through some fluctuating symptoms the past few days. So much better this morning as I can type.

Fluctuations in symptoms is a hallmark of Lewy body dementia. I see it as the ultimate donut and hole cliche’. In other words I am thankful it is not just one long descent. I am thankful that I have a donut on some days. (No wonder I can’t shake this extra weight).

Describing the symptoms is hard for me to put my finger on it, literally, when I have those symptoms but let’s just say I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin, feel fidgety and fine motor skills like buttoning shirts, typing, and tying my shoes become frustratingly difficult. Coping mechanism? Maybe half a tab of carbidopa/levodopa or get out and walk or both.

I have doctor’s permission to up my dosage slightly during these events. It’s good medicine but it was developed to treat Parkinson’s not Lewy body specifically. I also take a med created for Alzheimer’s patients to help with the cognitive issues. I don’t know how that is working, but somethings going well as I’m three years into this thing and still playing basketball.

In fact at the MikeMadness tournament I am getting excited about seeing who is going to come in second.

Because they may as well go ahead and put my name on the trophy now.

I’ll be wearing my No. 33 Boston Celtics jersey.

Let’s outro with my greatest therapeutic treatment: Music.

I love to listen to the slide guitar intro by Lynyrd Skynyrd for the song Tuesday’s gone — beautiful.

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Daily Summary May 21, 2019

Ever think about the calendar? Man if somebody hadn’t invented a calendar it would be tough sledding.

And to break it down into 12 months was genius. Otherwise we’d be dealing with one long sequential number.

“What’s the date today honey,” asking my wife.

“It’s January 2,321,300,” she smiles looking at her smart phone. “Maybe this 2.3 million weather will let up. Can’t wait for some cooler weather in the 2.4 millions.”

“And is it Monday?” I ask.

“Honey, it’s always Monday,” she said.

HEALTH: Feeling so much better today than Monday. Fluctuating going on. Muscle soreness and some odd sensations like heat on my neck and wobbly legs every now and then. But all minor invisible ailments that don’t affect me too much — except for the right hand problems.

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Daily Journal May 20, 2019

So one person says there’s a Walmart commercial featuring Cocker that may have spurred some interest.

WalMart? Interesting. What song?

Another reader suggested was an American Idol singer, Wade Cotas, who did a spot-on version of Joe Cocker’s version of the Beatles ‘With a Little Help from My Friends.’ Cocker sang it at Woodstock.

(Cotas is good but after side by side watching I have to give Cocker the edge. )

Nobody seems to put more into a song than Cocker.

—–

Health-wise, I’m noticing my fluctuations. I’ll be a little shaky and a little more cloudy one day and on the next day I feel much better — almost feeling like I don’t have a disease. I am thankful for any time I get pre-disease clarity and try to time it to my work.

Sounds more difficult than it is — even though there have been some posts that I accidentally published with missing words and stuff.

Reminder Hoopsters: Assemble teams for Mike’s Madness only two months away. Here’s the link:

https://mikemadness.org/