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Eddie Hinton — 423

ALBUM: Very Extremely Dangerous (1978)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

My memory of Eddie Hinton is a sad one.  He was playing at the Nick in Birmingham, or was it the Wooden Nickel still in 1985?

The small Birmingham mainstay was sparsely crowded. The college kids and 20-somethings didn’t have a clue who Hinton was. A Swamper. A blues singer who sounded a little like Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett. A man with a fan club in Sweden but little recognition in  his own state.

Near the end, he was picking up a few extra dollars mowing lawns.

My good friend, writer Tom Gordon, did an excellent piece for the Birmingham News dated April 4, 1985. The story was called ‘Rocker on the rebound.’  I wish I could link to it but can’t find it online. I  have a coffee stained   paper copy of the story that I keep  in my Eddie Hinton album, ‘Very Extremely Dangerous.”

On this night in 1985, Hinton was attempting to make a comeback.  I was there. And he was very, extremely drunk.  Long before Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction, Hinton had one on stage that night involving the fly on his pants.

Hinton’s album ‘Very Extremely Dangerous’

He wasn’t well, and the power of addiction was on vivid display. He died in 1995 at the age of 51.  I do have the album. If you listen to a couple of cuts (on video below) you will understand why I call  him one of the best blues singers most have not heard.

Gordon in his 1985 piece describes observing Hinton singing in a Decatur recording studio. Gordon writes:

Later, after an hour or more of recording, his face shiny with a thin film of sweat, Hinton seems almost sheepishly shy when someone compliments his singing.

“I try to put all my being into it,” Hinton says.

Writer Bob Mehr in the Chicago Reader wrote about how people were often shocked when learning he was white:

British critic Barney Hoskyns, writing in Soul Survivor magazine in 1987, called Hinton “simply the blackest white voice ever committed to vinyl.”

In fact, Hinton’s likeness was famously and intentionally left off the packaging for his debut LP, 1978’s Very Extremely Dangerous. Hoskyns was backstage after a mid-80s Bruce Springsteen concert, where a few members of the E Street Band were singing along to the record, and recalls their reaction when he told them Hinton was white: “They were as dumbfounded as I was.”

Hinton’s voice draws the  attention, but it is his songwriting and  guitar work that frequently earned him a paycheck. Elvis Presley’s “Merry Christmas Baby’ — that’s Hinton on guitar. He played guitar on albums by Boz Scaggs, the Staple Singers, and Percy Sledge. He has had his songs recorded by Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Cher and Greg Allman.

So he achieved some success. But it was his voice that truly set him apart. He just couldn’t bust through to the stardom his talent deserved.

Listen to his rendition of ‘Shout Bamalama’ and hear the man’s soul.

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MVC blog update, through the looking glass

Ever wonder what are those numbers near the title of each My Vinyl Countdown  blog item.

It is there at the top next to the singer’s name. Some know that’s the number of records left to go before having done them all. So for example, Broken Homes is 624 and that means 623 were lef  to review  at the time that was being written. THe Head and the Heart was the last blog I did so it is at the top of the website, counting down in alphabetical order. The H&H is at 429.

So if you knew nothing about the numbering, you could assess which letters I have been through by picking on of the Letter categories to your right.

For example I’m on the H’s now with Jimi Hendrix, Heart, etc. In C’s we had the Carpenter’s, Eric Clapton. There are more than 200 musical posts.

My goal for my records is 678 which I counted before I started this thing about 14 months ago. That number definitely won’t stand as I have been receiving records and yes, occasionally still buying, records. But 678 has been my number I’m sticking to until the end and then maybe we’ll start down an Odds ‘n Ends list with whatever’s left over

TO find older material, the search field works really well on laptop/desktop. Not so sure on mobile.

Upcoming: I’ve decided to file a short update on my fitness training each week, the quest to dunk.

My Bucket List item.

 

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George Harrison — 437

ALBUM: Thirty-Three & 1//3  (1976)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$ (NOTE: I bought several months ago the latest reissue of George Harrison’s classic ‘All Things Must Pass,’ which I mention in another post.

Here the man who was one-quarter of the Beatles seems in good spirits.

He even lets off a little steam with a critique of the court case which found Harrison guilty of plagiarizing. His song, My Sweet Lord, sounded too much like the Chiffon’s ‘He’s so fine.’

And. It did.

But George is going to be passionate in a song defending his side. And George’s ordeal with the legal battle highlights the fine line between borrowing and plagiarism. (See Led Zeppelin.)

Harrison is so easy to listen to. Great, underrated voice and some good solid guitar playing and songs that, while not quite Beatles, you can easily hear at least one-quarter of the  Beatles.

With “This Song’ he  delivers a scathing (for him) rebuke of the plagiarism controversy. Of course George lost that dispute and  the songs do sound very much alike. But I don’t think he did it on purpose.

This Song l

This song has nothing tricky about it 

This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know 
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright

When the Beatles broke up I was just becoming aware of who the Beatles were at about 10 years old.  My mother dropped me in downtown Athens at the Georgia Theater – yes that used to be a movie theater before becoming a music venue — where I went in to see ‘Let it Be,’ the bittersweet documentary of the Beatles recording one last time before breaking up. I was alone. Yes that’s kind of weird, but I’d often go see movies by myself as young’un. Saw ‘Vanishing  Point’ my favorite B-movie when I was 12. But I digress.

Billy Preston played on Thirty-three and 1/3.

Beatles became my favorite band and probably shaped  my future view of rock and roll.

When they broke up, it was hit or miss for me in getting their solo material.

My brother had ‘Venus and Mars’ and ‘Band on the Run from McCartney and listened to those sometimes inane — but rockin’ — albums. I never bought a Ringo record, bless his heart. I’ve had several John Lennon albums including his classic, but dark, first solo album.

The one thing I regret is not having picked some more Harrison, especially All Things Must Pass. I am  going to pledge that I will use a coveted bucket list item to listen to  All Things Must Pass all 3  records in the box from start to finish.

On this album, 331/3, ‘Dear One’ is a personal favorite.

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Grin — 442, 441

ALBUMS: All Out (1972); Gone Crazy (1973) 

MVC Rating: All Out 4.0/$$; Gone Crazy 3.5/$$$

Hey folks. Grin is not a household name but you vinyl record aficionados ought to seek it out.

It’s a band fronted by Nils Lofgren in the 1970s. Nils is not exactly a household name either but after his youthful foray in Grin, he became a member of  bands formed  by some major household names: Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band and Neil y Young’s  Crazy Horse. Not bad. Two of the best rock singer-songwriters of our era. (Actually Grin happened while he was in Crazy Horse.)

Lofgren is an excellent guitarist. But don’t come to Grin expecting life-changing music, like you might have found when you first heard Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen.

I think  those two saw a musicality from Lofgren that covered a lot of ground. I think they also must have seen some bright rock and roll fun spirit in his music. Lofgren is a classically trained musician (classical accordion, according to his Wikipedia page –is that a joke?). Glad he ventured into rock and roll as I  doubt I would ever be  blessed with his music if he was 2nd chair accordion in the Los Angeles symphony.

Anyway Grin is a fun garage band styled group from  Lofgren’s early life. The album covers are wild and they alone may be worth the $10 or so you may have to pay for a used copy.

What is a ‘household name’ anyway?

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Somebody needs to tell Ted Turner his brain disease is fatal (blog version)

This is an opinion column by Mike Oliver, who frequently writes about his own diagnosis of Lewy body dementia and other health, life and death issues.

So who told Ted Turner, CNN magnate, that his newly diagnosed Lewy body dementia is not fatal.

Is he just playing it down?

TedTurner.JPG

Because I’ve got news for him:  It is 100 percent fatal. You get it you die.

Like a  lot of diseases, right? No.

What Ted has, Lewy body dementia, shortens lifespans. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, on average, do not. (Some say Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s shortens life 2 or fewer years.)

There is no cure for any of these degenerative brain diseases.

Turner, the billionaire TV cable mogul, said in an interview today on CBS This Morning that he has been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

“It’s a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer’s. It’s similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer’s is fatal,” Turner told Koppel at his 113,000-acre ranch near Bozeman, Montana. “Thank goodness I don’t have that.”

I don’t think Ted fully knows what’s coming. Maybe he does. But it sounds like Turner — like the vast public and, most troubling, the medical community — doesn’t have a clue about what he has.

The fact is that Lewy body dementia is not a form of Alzheimer’s disease and, not that a debate over ‘severity’ of the diseases accomplishes much, Lewy’s damaging symptoms can be equal to or worse than AD, if that’s even possible. Both kill the brain eventually and every step of the way you lose a little more control.

Turner said something else that goes to the heart of my mission:

“But, I also have got, let’s – the one that’s – I can’t remember the name of it.” (Bold emphasis mine.)

(MORE ABOUT THE UNDERDIAGNOSED DISEASE: LEWY LEWY, CALL IT BY ITS NAME)

Turner said, “Dementia. I can’t remember what my disease is.”

Too often patients don’t know what they got, some doctors know little about it.

I seek to raise awareness of this disease. I have — with generous help from the community — conducted two basketball tournament fund-raisers for Lewy body research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I have written quite a bit about it for my blog and AL.com. Go to my website and click on the Lewy Dementia button for some of my writing.

Come join me Mr. Turner.

Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia, and it was undiagnosed. He thought he was  going crazy. The suicide I believe could have been prevented. The knowledge itself would have helped reduce anxiety. And with treatment targeted to Lewy body, not Alzheimer’s, not Parkinson’s, he might have had some good time left.

In the interview aired today, Turner said something that puts a point on what has become a mission of mine: Raise awareness for Lewy body. I write this right now on my laptop slowly in the hunt-and-peck mode because my right hand can’t type. Lewy body can present with Parkinsonian symptoms on top of the cognition issues.

Lewy body disease (LBD) is a umbrella term which covers Lewy body dementia, which I have. It’s been two years since I was diagnosed. I guess you would say I am in early stages and still highly functional.

But Lewy isn’t going anywhere.

Lewy body dementia will kill you on average 5 to 8 years after diagnosis. There are several sources for this including Mayo Clinic (other sources say  4 to 7 years or 5 to 7 years.)

Lewy body disease presents symptoms that include impaired cognition, and the kind of  tremors associated with Parkinson’s.

Lewy body dementia has changed my world.

MikeMadness T-shirts.jpgTrisha Powell Crain

You have a choice to get interested in what may kill you prematurely and do what I’m doing: Spreading the word. I’m a columnist for an AL.com and write about Lewy body dementia frequently here and on my music blog:  www.myvinylcountdown.com

I have never heard anyone describe Lewy body as being milder than Alzheimer’s. They are two different things and affect everybody differently. But Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients have less of a reduction in lifespan than Lewy body dementia patients.

Mayo Clinic says this:” Lewy body dementia, also known as dementia with Lewy bodies, is the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Protein deposits, called Lewy bodies, develop in nerve cells in the brain regions involved in thinking, memory and movement (motor control).”

Let’s find a cure.

Reach me at moliver@al.com and see my blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com

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Dunk or die trying: a 58-year-old man with a potentially fatal disease will dunk y’all (blog version)

It occurred to me the other day that I’ve always wanted to dunk a basketball.

So I’ve decided that by mid-July, about the time of our next Mike Madness basketball tournament to raise money for Lewy body disease awareness, I will dunk.

Bucket list item.

That’s right, I will throw it down on a 10-foot goal. This 58-year-old white man with a brain disease who has never dunked in his life, will SLAM.

Hah!

Colleague John Archibald heard me thinking out loud about this scheme and said, No, you can’t dunk. He laughed. Then he put his money where his mouth is: He said he will donate $1,000 toward  Lewy body research and awareness.

$1,000. Wow.

This man who plays basketball with me –and has half of my 4-inch vertical leap– must have some inside information. Oh yeah, he’s seen me play. My philosophy as I’ve aged is playing basketball without jumping because too much can go wrong when you’re in the air. But this won’t  be in a game.

There’ll be no big players ready to swat it away. I just rise up and BAM. I can visualize it. I can do it if I try hard and believe in myself. You can tell I just saw the Mr. Rogers bio-pic. Can you see Fred Rogers on the court? Soft blue sweater. He might be good. Never judge a book by the cover he used to say.

Despite Mr. Rogers’ well-intentioned philosophy, I have doubts bigger than Shaquille O’Neal,

This is where I need help.

I have several questions:

Does anybody know of anyone over 55 years old who can dunk?

Does anybody know of anyone who trained to dunk, especially later in life and accomplished it?

Does anyone know of someone with Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia who can dunk. The muscles in my arms are getting weaker from the disease, I can tell. My outside shot has diminished some. But I still have bad days and good days. My legs, I don’t think have been affected strength-wise.

I hear there are machines today that target specific muscles that can help. I don’t want to buy a super expensive machine though especially if it has dubious outcomes. I always have the Y.

I want to dunk. I want to rise u p 8 inches above the rim palming the ball and slam it through.

Dear readers please respond but remember it’s not official yet, until I do a little more research.

Archibald Googled ‘who is the oldest dunker?’ The first answer was 63-year-old Julius Dr. J Erviing can still dunk.

Not sure that gives me much comfort. The best dunker in NBA history can still dunk.

Here’s how I break it down:

Against me: Disease and age.

Favorable to me: I used to be able to grab the rim (about 30 years ago). I am 6 feet and one-half inch tall.

I weigh about 185, having gained about 20 pounds over the course of a year.

I think I need to drop about 15 pounds or more to get to my old playing weight.

I know the odds are long, but if nothing else I’ll get in shape and it will give me another deadline – like counting down my 678 vinyl records at MyVinylCountdown.com .

Speaking of records, it should be a record of some type if I do indeed dunk.

Onward to research. (Typing, typing Into Google.):  ‘Was Mr. Rogers ever able to dunk.’

Slightly different AL.com version here.

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Yay. $12,000 more for Lewy body dementia fight. Go MikeMadness

This posted earlier  today on AL.com.. 

Saturday was one of the most entertaining days of my life.

Why?

The charity 3-on-3 basketball tournament MikeMadness, after weeks of hype and hoopla, was played at UAB Recreation Center. It was by all accounts a rousing success.

We raised $12,000 with possibly more coming in, easily passing the $10,000 goal, just as we did last year in our inaugural tournament. In two years we have raised more than $25,000 forLewy body dementia awareness and research.

Lewy body dementia, is the second leading cause of dementia (after Alzheimer’s disease). The money is going to UAB and the Lewy Body Dementia Association. More on that in another column.

It’s not too late to donate by going here: www.mikemadness.org

So why was this one of the most entertaining days of my life?

Because I saw friends and family getting together, making new friends, playing competitive basketball and laughing. And besides a few bruises, jammed fingers and sore muscles, no one was hurt.

I got to play with my brother David, and two athletic nephews Joe Oliver, and Jake Vissers. We came in fourth of 14 teams. There were also three ‘elite’ teams that played their own mini-tournament.

Oh yes, and Buck Johnson, former University of Alabama and NBA star said he really liked my little left-handed runner in the lane. Oh shucks Buck.

Johnson was in attendance along with Trent Richardson, former running back in the NFL and at the University of Alabama. They delighted more than 100 fans and players throughout the gym by stopping to chat, pose for pictures and play a little round ball.

“I really appreciate what you all are doing,” said Johnson, who said he had a loved one with dementia.

Both played some, giving kids and grownups stories to tell their grandchildren (“I stole the ball from Buck Johnson,” I overheard one say.)

I want to thank so many people, those who donated money, time or just plain good words. There are too many to list but I want to single out several who put exceptional work into this: Ramsey Archibald; John and Alecia Archibald; Paul Blutter, Dan Carsen, Julie Vissers; Catherine, Lori and David Oliver; John and Joe Ellen Oliver; John Olsen; Jim Bakken; Kevin Storr (and UAB); AL.com and Michelle Holmes; and John Hammontree;  There are so, so many more.

I’m thinking ahead to next year

As I told folks on Saturday, spread the word about Lewy body dementia. It needs money for research but we need to get the word out. As one who has  been diagnosed with the disease, you can imagine I’d like a little more awareness coupled with urgency.

We need to name it: Lewy body dementia.

Mike Oliver is a columnist who writes about living with Lewy body dementia among many other topics. Reach him at moliver@AL.com . And follow his blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com .

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Robin Williams’ birthday is on the same day as MikeMadness Lewy body event

This is an opinion column by AL.com’s Mike Oliver. See another version of this AL.com.

All this time I never noticed the ‘coincidence’ about the date. The MikeMadness charity basketball tournament date on July 21.  We picked it because it was approximately the same Saturday date in mid-July as last year’s tournament to raise money and awareness for Lewy body dementia – which I have.

I never knew it was also Robin Williams birthday. Until yesterday.

The birthday is an interesting coincidence, because Williams’s wife blamed un-diagnosed Lewy body dementia for his suicide.

When was that? His death date, I wondered.

It was on Aug. 11, 2014, Robin died.

My autonomic system came to life, a tingle, goosebumps.

On  Aug. 11 (2016) was the first time I was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease. It was a Parkinson’s diagnosis, later switched to its lesser known cousin, Lewy.

Coincidences? How many coincidences do you have to have before they are not coincidences?

Some folks,  including my wife, the Rev. Catherine Oliver, associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church Birmingham, say that they don’t believe in coincidences.

So what does that leave us with? God? Messages from the universe? Robin Williams?

Albert Einstein said: “A coincidence is a small miracle when God chooses to remain anonymous.”

Writer Simon Van Boov said: “Coincidences mean you’re on the right path.”

But that leads you  to the question why is God leaving breadcrumbs, parceling out hints like we are all playing a Milton Bradley board game?

Some may be thinking right now, that a couple of dates lining up with Robin Williams and me and our tournament isn’t off the charts coincidental.

678sign.png

But let’s put it in context with other coincidences surrounding my disease.

The Numbers

If you all remember I’ve had other strange connections. One involved the famous scientific nun study which studied dementia in hundreds of nuns over their lifetimes.

One of the promising things about the study and the one I wrote about was that some nuns, upon autopsy, had Alzheimer’s, the leading type of dementia. But a small subset of those whose brains showed the ravages of Alzheimer’s did not present symptoms while they were living. This suggested there may be a self-made work-around that the brain is using in some cases. I wrote a story.

robinw.jpg

Months went by and I picked up a New York Times story on study again and started reading. Then saw the number. It said the study consisted of 678 nun participants.

What? That’s the exact number of albums I am reviewing. I did the counting myself right before I started my MyVinylCountdown.com blog last year. Now that kind of blew me away, I always start thinking about what are the odds of those two random things being the same number? A lottery-like long shot, you would think?

Some say either nothing is a coincidence or everything is a coincidence. Perhaps a coincidence is just an event that has much lower odds of occurring than something else.

So maybe it’s all about the odds. The numbers. After all, conception itself is a game of odds. Life is a game of  odds – which trees get the best sunlight, which rabbits are the fastest.

nun snip.JPGNYT story, circle is mine moliver@al.com

M.I.T.. professor Max Tegmark, author of our Mathematical Universe said in Scientific American that our universe isn’t just described by math, but that “it is math in the sense that we’re all parts of a giant mathematical object.”

Tegmark recalls Douglas Adams spoof  “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” that the answer to the ultimate question qbout existence and the creation of  the universe is 42.

That’s a little physics humor there.

 

 Who Am I

This next coincidence that has occurred regarding me and my disease seems like you could figure some odds on. But this one shook me more than the others because it was very palpable. It was a weekend day and I set out to do a little cleaning of my room, vacuum, dust, pick up clothes etc. I brought my IPod player and put it in a stand because music is my work partner. I put the whole 120G IPod (the Classic model) on random play. There were 7,500 songs being shuffled.

At one point while I was cleaning, I got inspiration for a blog post, basically about existence, who we are in the world.  Are we our brains? (A good question from one whose brain is under attack.) The title would be ‘Who Am I.

louie.jpegMike Oliver | moliver@al.com

I ran downstairs and began typing away on my laptop. I don’t know how much time went by — but more than an hour. I came back upstairs, walked into my room where the music was still playing on random play. It took me a while to process this one.

The Who were on my IPod playing “Who Are You’ — you know the song with the recurring chorus that goes ‘who are you? who who, who who’? This  is an IPod that could play 20 days straight 24 hours a day, theoretically, never playing the same song from the 7,500.

I actually felt afraid for a minute, wondering if someone else was in the house pranking me? But how would they know what I was writing?

Coincidence?

Lastly, as I was thinking last night of writing about all this, I was casually running through some records. . On one shelf there was a big box set of some classical music. It was covered up with albums so I knew it hadn’t been pulled off the shelf in a while. I picked the box up and underneath it was sheet music with words and notes and cords for a song.

The song? “Louie  Louie” by the Kingsmen.

When I saw it, I remembered I had seen it before like 10 or 20 years ago.. I had forgotten about it. And I have no idea why we even had it in the first place as nobody in our house really plays music and that  frat boy Animal House anthem from the 60s would be an unlikely choice for anyone.

Coincidence? I don’t know so.

Mike Oliver writes on many topics but often about Lewy body dementia. See his blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com  See how you can help by going to www.mikemadness.org . Happy Birthday Robin.

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Fire Town — 486

ALBUM: Fire Town In the Heart  of the Heart Country (1986)

MVC  Rating: 4.0/$$$

For some reason, I have great clarity on how or at least why I bought this.

Critic Steve Simels, then of Stereo Review magazine, said it was one of the best records he had heard. Ordinarily I’d take that with a grain of salt. But Simels was the guy who said Tonio K.’s ‘Life in the Food Chain’ was the best album he had ever heard.

So I bought that Tonio album sight unseen  (or unheard. Remember no samples online in those days, about 1978). And Simels was right, more or less.

Foodchain is a helluva an album. And to this day, I consider Tonio K. to be one of the underappreciated artists of all time.

This Fire Town album? Not so much.  Now this is a very good album, very catchy songs that make you want to hum. But they aren’t plowing new ground here or showing  us  anything we haven’t heard. Very midwestern sounding, country rock or pre-Americana. BoDeans would be a touchstone. They are like the anti-Wilco, with bright cheery tunes and optimistic outlooks. Like John Denver with more electric rock guitar.

The singer’s voice is too generic for me, not bad, but doesn’t quite have that quality of making the listener believe he’s meaning what he’s saying. The songs are actually excellent and  one can see where Simels might of thought he was seeing the NBT, a new Eagles or a new Crosy, Stills & Nash. But  not quite. However this, like Tonio K., is an underappreciated gem.

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Lewy Lewy. Come on, call it by its name!

See updated article, click  here.

Great news breaking a few days ago from AARP — you  know the’old folks’ lobbying group.

I have forgiven them a long time ago for inviting me to join them when I was 50. Now at 58 and a card-carrying member, I have a new beef with the group.

And it comes out of the praiseworthy announcement headlined online like this:

AARP Invests $60 Million to Fund Research for Cures to Dementia and Alzheimer’s

“This move reflects our ongoing commitment to people with dementia and family caregivers”, wrote Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO of AARP.

Later she writes:

More than 6 million people in the United States suffer from various types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, and those numbers are growing at an alarming rate. Based on current projections, by 2050 that number will exceed 16 million, or about 1 in 5 Americans age 65 and older.

My beef? 

She never mentions anywhere in the article the name of  the 2nd leading form of dementia after Alzheimer’s:   Lewy body dementia.

I wish I could say I was surprised. But Lewy body is the disease with no name it seems. Name it. Lewy Lewy.

Lewy Bodies in the brain.

I was diagnosed about two years ago. They say the average lifespan is about 4 to 7 years, (some stats say 8 years) after diagnosis. Of course there are many exceptions. The Lewy joke is if you know one Lewy patient, you know one Lewy patient.

I have been trying to raise awareness of this disease ever since I was diagnosed. It’s important, I believe not to lump all dementia cases together. Lewy may have similar symptoms as Alzheimer’s but it’s a totally different malfunction in the brain. Lewy body’s brain malfunction more closely resembles Parkinson’s disease.

Many primary care doctors, based on the anecdotal evidence I have received from readers, are not familiar with Lewy body dementia. Patients don’t know to ask about it. Yet I continue to see its name omitted in stories about dementia. Say its name: Lewy Lewy.

Some in the medical field call it a disease that’s on a spectrum with Parkinson’s, and that seems  possibly is true. But if we’re lumping all research  under the nomenclature ‘Parkinson’s’ or Alzheimer’s we may never discover, much less cure, a separate disorder called Lewy body dementia.

Say its name. Lewy Lewy.

It’s kind of like now we are building Spacehip Research to launch into space with no destination beyond planets Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Hey what is that  planet we just passed? Not Pluto, it’s Lewy Lewy.

What to do?

Read up on the disease. Go to the website of the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

I have a blog where I count down my vinyl records to raise awareness; In addition to lots of music reviews, it has lots of stories about my experience with the disease. It’s called www.myvinylcountdown.com,    

At my website hit the ABOUT ME button for more, er, about me.

Read about the AARP money by hitting the headline with the big letters at the beginning of this column.

Last year a fund-raising basketball tournament in my name raised $13,000 for the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

This year we have the 2nd Annual Mike Madness basketball tournament.  Sign up to play. Or just come to watch on July 21 at UAB Recreation Center. Hurry sign up to play is July 15.

If  you can’t come, please consider a donation. This year,  in addition to LBDA, we are giving to UAB for Lewy body research. We are much excited about that.

Details here:: https://mikemadness.org/

Help spread the word by saying its name: Lewy Lewy.

(Or singing it.)