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Daily Journal, Aug. 5, 2019 Mass shootings redux

Another Monday morning. The big story is a pair of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas.

On May 19, 2018 I published this poem on this blog. Still relevant:

The News Today

I read the news today, oh boy

Who  is dead. Who is not. They train for this.

Active shooter drill. Lock the doors.

The door locks from the outside only.

Put a door stop in it.

The door swings  out.

The shooter  is coming. The shooter is active.

Right up the hall.

Silent prayer.

Silenter and silenter.

Where are the doors?

Just thinking during silent prayer.

Hey did you hear the one about arming the teachers in Alabama?

Just thinking during silent prayer.

Silenter and silenter.

Preschool teachers thinking about the best way to shield their students 2, 3,  and 4-year-olds.  With their bodies.

We’re going to be playing a little game let’s see how many can get in the bathroom.

Real drill in Birmingham, Alabama.

High school students thinking about that troubled guy. Is that a trench coat?  Is this guy  going to shoot me? Is that  guy going to shoot me?

High school kids making a last will and testament.

Bullet holes in stained glass.

Hey isn’t that how the light gets in?

Bullet holes in classroom windows.

Isn’t that where the light streams in?  Where the bullets get out?

Rejection to that connection. No more bullets, no more bullet holes.

You know,  I read the news today.

Oh boy.

How many holes in the dead, in the living.

We must count them.

We must count them all.

The End.


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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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Melanie — 324, 323

ALBUMS:The Best of Melanie (1977): From the Beginning (1974)

MVC Rating: 4.0/ Best $$; Beginning $$

Melanie jumped into public consciousness with her Woodstock performance. Candles in the Wind Lay Down, Lay Down) is a showcase for her amazing voice projection.

Funny, how most people remember Melanie for a child-like nursery rhyme with sexual innuendos ‘Brand New Key.’ Song (to me) yucky.

But I do love Melanie’s ‘Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma.’ Everyone who has been edited understands this sentiment.

I’ve got a couple of old Melanie albums. The anti-war Lay Down you would think would seem aged but to me it’s quite the opposite — it is powerful, especially when she’s singing with the Edward Hawkins singers as seen on the German video below.

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Jared Mees — 325

ALBUM; Life is Short (2016)

MVC Rating : 4.0\$$$$

It might be hard to find a used copy of this modern album which came out in 2016. So my 4 dollar sign price rating means it will likely be up to $20 for a copy. Could be more.

Mees is a Portland eccentric (not judging here, just accurately describing). He sets himself immediately as a contrarian as he sings on the first song of the album:

They say life is short but I say it’s long

That’s kind of like saying: They say the sky is clear but I say its gray

He sings in a sing song-y voice that sometimes sounds like a sardonic Cat Stevens and other times like Mr. Rogers.

He sings about the media and the ‘echo chamber’ effect and prays to Jesus to not allow him to become: an asshole.

The videos are pretty interesting and funny. I received this as a birthday gift from my Portland-based sister who picked it out by describing my musical tastes to the record store clerk.

Haven’t had a long time with it, but I think the clerk may have done well..

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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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Taj Mahal — 332

ALBUM: Anthology Volume 1

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

This album is like a folk-blues version of Dr. John’s ‘Gumbo’ album.

Whereas Gumbo featured a lot of classics and standards of the various music styles surrounding New Orleans (zydeco, e.g.) Taj is doing the same thing with blues.

Both musicians are such well studied students of their music that each of those albums could be used as examples in a 101 class of their respective music interests.

This has Blind WIlie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues” and “Six Days on the Road” leading off side 1 and side 2.

A classically trained musician, Mahal can play multiple instruments. His father was an African/Caribbean singer. His mother, too, was musical. Taj said he realized over time that the music in his house wasn’t what was coming over the radio in the outside world. So he did what all good cooks do, he blended songs, layered on his influences — everything from hip-hop to jazz to old blues and country.

This isn’t on the album but if this obscure 1990s track from Mahal doesn’t get you up on the dance floor, gyrating like their is no tomorrow, then nothing will.:

Squat that Rabbit

Like Dr. John or maybe more than Dr. John, Mahal, sprinkles a few originals and they are good (see Corrina). Most selections, however,,. are old classics such as Statesboro Blues or ‘Fishing Blues.’

Wikipedia says: Mahal often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific .

Early in hi s career — 1964 — the three-time Grammy Award winner played in a band with Ry Cooder called Rising Sons. The album was not released at the time but apparently was reissued in the 1990s on Legacy.

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Daily Journal, June 20, 2019, One Brain and a song edition

I was invited to speak this morning at an Alzheimer’s lecture series in Birmingham sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. It went well.

I was pleased to be invited but I didn’t want to ‘lecture’ in the negative meaning of that word. I told my story of diagnosis. I talked about my decision to ‘come out’ in my early stages and told them I believe I can be an advocate as a writer describing what I am going through for as long as my illness allows me .

I also touched on the lack of awareness people have on the subject of Lewy body dementia.

Well, I believe I heard them say that they would help promote MikeMadness. That’s a great start. We may be different diseases but we are all one brain. (Um I think I should work on that phrase a little.)

Still room for more teams in the hoops tournament for Lewy bod dementia awareness and research. See www.mikemadness.org

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Malo — 337

ALBUM: Malo (1972)

MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$$$

Wow, look at that cover on this album by a band named Malo.

When I first saw it, I thought of the cover art on Abraxas, Santana’s great second album. Obviously different covers in color and all — but similar in other striking ways, attention to detail, beautiful people from another time and place. Maybe it was the same painter?

I put it on the turntable and what did I hear. A jamming rhythmic Latin-tinged, multi-piece band with trumpets, electric guitar and lots of shake rattle and roll. Man it sounded like early Santana led by Carlos Santana.

So not surprisingly as I checked out the names of musicians, I noticed Jorge Santana. He is, I found out, Carlos’ brother. As an early Santana fan, I couldn’t believe I never heard that. As a decade long dweller in Marin County, California, where Carlos lives and is frequently spotted driving around in his convertible(s) I never knew he had a brother in a band or that I had never heard of the band. Of course I believe, the band no longer existed by the time I got there in 2001. They had a Top 20 hit with Suavecito but you don’t see this album around at least not on the east coast.

Maybe they should have re-thought the band’s name. Malo in Spanish means ‘Bad.’

The Malo album cover is from a painting by Mexican painter  Jesus Helguera.

The Abraxis cover was from a painting called Annunciation by German-French painter Mati Klarwein.

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Steve Martin –338

ALBUM: Let’s Get Small (1977)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$

I got this record around my junior or senior year in high school in Athens, Ga., and Steve Martin was taking off.

From writing for sketches on TV on shows such as the Smothers Brothers, he moved quickly to being an on-air comedian. His Saturday Night Live appearances boosted audiences by the hundreds of thousands. His ‘Excuse Me’ and “We’re just two wild and crazy guys’ became national catch-phrases. Then he went to movies. Some good ones Father of the Bride, All of Me; Some not so good, Dead Men Don’t Wore Plaid, Pennies from Heaven.

The Jerk in 1979 is along with Airplane, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura Pet Detective, among the best lowbrow comedies of an era, punctuated with pratfalls and bathos.

Martin, Robin Williams and especially Jim Carrey drew heavily on the physical comedy of Jerry Lewis. But took that style to new and different levels.

But Martin was no lowbrow draw. Inspired by his philosophy classes, Martin considered becoming a professor instead of an actor–comedian, Martin’s Wikipedia page says..

“It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non-sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, ‘Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!’ Then it gets real easy to write this stuff because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non-sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up.”

That comedy was on full display on the ‘Let’s Get Small’ album.

On ‘One way to leave your lover’ he starts a lament about his girlfriend whome he lost one tragic night. I feel responsible Martin tells the audience. We were at a party and she had too much to drink. She snatched the keys from my hands. I told her no don’t go but she wouldn’t listen.
Then Martin pauses and says: “So I shot her.”
The audience doesn’t know whether to laugh or what.
He waits and then adds: “With a shotgun.”
Martin is chuckling a sinister chuckle.
Non sequitur delivered.

The comedy is good and the record is inexpensive. Should have no trouble finding for under $5.

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