So sang Warren Zevon in "Life'll Kill Ya," the title track to his next-to-last album. And as we all know all too well, some do get those diseases. Turns out that Alice B. Fogel is one of those people.
RSD--Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy--is its old name, Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome the new, updated, one. By any name, it's an autonomic nervous system disorder, related in some ways to both Multiple Sclerosis and Muscular Dystrophy: with CRPS, the central nervous system keeps reacting to a simple injury (sprain, fracture, stroke, even surgery) as if it were continually new. It sends these messages to the brain, which goes into action to heal this "new" injury, though it may be months old (Alice broke a bone in her foot in September; that's what led to this situation, and, while that bone is healed, the foot is not). The body's own defensive actions cause it to eat itself, in a manner of speaking: bones, muscles, joints, skin are all targets of the body's defensive reaction, which can lead to atrophy of all of those things. It can spread to other parts of the body, spontaneously or through other actions; Alice's fall also resulted in a tear of the meniscus in her right knee, but she may not be able to have surgery to repair that, since that could worsen her disease, or at least give it another point of attack. And the pain that comes with and from RSD can be excruciating.
Alice got her diagnosis about a month ago. At that time, I sort of glossed over it, thinking, "Okay, she has this thing, but it'll pass. It can't really be that serious." A week or so ago, she sat me down and explained thoroughly and in detail what it all meant. Turns out it is that serious.
At this stage, we know that this is going to be life-changing somehow (obviously it already is for Alice), but it could have larger ramifications as things progress and we see exactly where they're going. Will she still be able to hike or run, two of her favorite, necessary, restorative pastimes? She's hoping "yes," but the future, someone said, is hard to predict. While, as she was told by one Dr. "There's no such thing as a 'mild' case," thus far A's pain is not constant, and seems to be manageable. I know, I know: easy for me to say, but she's a very tough woman and has a high tolerance for pain. I like to think that almost 30 years with me has contributed to the building of that tolerance. We all do what we can....
Although it may seem somewhat weird for me to post this on a blog, Alice asked if I would be the one to spread the word, as she just wasn't up to the task, and this seems like an effective way to inform lots of our friends and family quickly. It also feels like an opportunity to alert folks to the existence of this disease, which I was pretty surprised not to have ever heard of in my 60 years here. If I had just heard of it in another person, I'd likely have both "poohed" and "poohed" it, but now that it's in my life, I can't avoid it, and it feels important to sound an alarm about it.
Because CRPS/RSD is fairly rare, medical people don't often even consider it as a possibility until it's too late, but if it's caught in the first 3 months, through treatment (primarily Physical Therapy) its effects can possibly be reversed and eliminated. Unfortunately, even though she had tell-tale symptoms all along, it was almost 5 months after Alice's injury that it began to dawn on people that this might be what was happening. Seems like good information to have, to at least raise the possibility early if you or someone you love is in a potentially similar situation.
After all, the verse that lends this piece its title ends "Some people get to die in their sleep/ At the age of a hundred and one."
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
All The Diamonds In This World....
"We are stardust" sang Joni Mitchell in "Woodstock," and that was a pretty cool Aquarian image, with grains of truth--as well as the stardust--in it. But it turns out that we are something even cooler, if only, when we are conscious, latently, nascently, incipiently. We are diamonds.
This morning I was in the incredibly luxurious (relatively speaking) cab of my tractor (it's heated, has both a radio and a CD player--hey, my driveway's almost half a mile long; I'm not gonna shovel, and I think engine noise is bad for your hearing)--listening to Weekend Edition on NPR, and I heard the most marvelous and interesting thing I've heard in ages. There's a company in Switzerland (and, it turns out, at least one in the US, too) which takes human ashes and turns them into diamonds. Who could ever have imagined that, or thought to do such a thing, or that that would be possible?
I find that nearly magical to consider: we can have jewelry--a necklace, earrings, anklets, rings, nose rings, who knows--made from a loved one. Or even a hated one, if you wish. There have been as many as nine diamonds made from one person's ashes (Chances are that person didn't eat enough carats....). And they're almost all blue, which I love, having spent much of my life in that condition, if not hue. The blue in the diamonds may come, they (there "they" are, again) think, from trace amounts of boron in the human body. Really? "Trace amounts" are enough to color the whole thing? That may explain why a few diamonds come out black: "trace amounts" of evil, perhaps? But you'd think there'd be more of those, then. And boron? It's a rare element, caused by "cosmic ray spallation." And we're right back to the stardust again.
The major drawback to the ashdiamond process is that, in the humanash factories, diamonds are created just the same way as they are in the wild: through the application of enormous amounts of pressure. What--there's not enough pressure on us before the ovens? First life, then a blast furnace, then subjected to intense pressure? I think I'll settle for being a lump of coal.
The songs, then:
All The Diamonds In The World Bruce Cockburn
Big Blue Diamonds Van Morrison
Black Diamond Bay Dylan
Black Diamond The Replacements
Blue Diamonds Rusted Root
Diamond Ernest Ranglin
Diamond The Guggenheim Grotto
Diamond Joan Armatrading
Diamond Dust Jeff Beck
Diamond In The Rough Shawn Colvin
Diamond Joe Dylan
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend T-Bone Burnett
Diamonds At Your Feet Muddy Waters
Diamonds In The Rough John Prine
Diamonds On My Windshield Tom Waits
Diamonds In The Coal John Stewart
Diamonds Made From Rain Clapton
Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes Paul Simon
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Fabs
Rubies And Diamonds Carla Olson & Mick Taylor
Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pink Floyd
I Dug Up A Diamond Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
Heavy Pressure Tanita Tikaram
Under Pressure David Bowie
Pressure Neil Young
Tuesday, noon till twoish on www.wool.fm. See ya then. In the meantime, shine on brightly.
This morning I was in the incredibly luxurious (relatively speaking) cab of my tractor (it's heated, has both a radio and a CD player--hey, my driveway's almost half a mile long; I'm not gonna shovel, and I think engine noise is bad for your hearing)--listening to Weekend Edition on NPR, and I heard the most marvelous and interesting thing I've heard in ages. There's a company in Switzerland (and, it turns out, at least one in the US, too) which takes human ashes and turns them into diamonds. Who could ever have imagined that, or thought to do such a thing, or that that would be possible?
I find that nearly magical to consider: we can have jewelry--a necklace, earrings, anklets, rings, nose rings, who knows--made from a loved one. Or even a hated one, if you wish. There have been as many as nine diamonds made from one person's ashes (Chances are that person didn't eat enough carats....). And they're almost all blue, which I love, having spent much of my life in that condition, if not hue. The blue in the diamonds may come, they (there "they" are, again) think, from trace amounts of boron in the human body. Really? "Trace amounts" are enough to color the whole thing? That may explain why a few diamonds come out black: "trace amounts" of evil, perhaps? But you'd think there'd be more of those, then. And boron? It's a rare element, caused by "cosmic ray spallation." And we're right back to the stardust again.
The major drawback to the ashdiamond process is that, in the humanash factories, diamonds are created just the same way as they are in the wild: through the application of enormous amounts of pressure. What--there's not enough pressure on us before the ovens? First life, then a blast furnace, then subjected to intense pressure? I think I'll settle for being a lump of coal.
The songs, then:
All The Diamonds In The World Bruce Cockburn
Big Blue Diamonds Van Morrison
Black Diamond Bay Dylan
Black Diamond The Replacements
Blue Diamonds Rusted Root
Diamond Ernest Ranglin
Diamond The Guggenheim Grotto
Diamond Joan Armatrading
Diamond Dust Jeff Beck
Diamond In The Rough Shawn Colvin
Diamond Joe Dylan
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend T-Bone Burnett
Diamonds At Your Feet Muddy Waters
Diamonds In The Rough John Prine
Diamonds On My Windshield Tom Waits
Diamonds In The Coal John Stewart
Diamonds Made From Rain Clapton
Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes Paul Simon
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Fabs
Rubies And Diamonds Carla Olson & Mick Taylor
Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pink Floyd
I Dug Up A Diamond Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
Heavy Pressure Tanita Tikaram
Under Pressure David Bowie
Pressure Neil Young
Tuesday, noon till twoish on www.wool.fm. See ya then. In the meantime, shine on brightly.
Monday, January 6, 2014
They Daid, But We Can Still Hear 'Em
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's time for another installment of "Dead Musicians On Parade." I think I did this once before, at least, and I think it oughta be an annual thing, as long as I'm still lookin' down at the blades of grass, not up at the roots: this week I'm'a celebrate those musicians--of varying stripes and caliber, but people who've affected my musical life--who went on to the Final Take in 2013.
We're all goin' there, and likely we're all gonna leave something behind here, some evidence that we once existed, but these folks have left artifacts burned right into wax' or onto tape, or dancing in The Cloud, or whatever it is they do these days. Some are way better known (Richie Havens, J.J. Cale, Ray Manzarek, Lou Reed) than others (Reg Presley of The Troggs, Jackie Lomax, Clarence Burke of The Five Stairsteps), but they all had careers of some duration and achieved some degree of fame--even enough to be sold on iTunes, which likely won't be true for most of us. So, nothing profound even attempted this week, just "thanks" and "glad you were here awhile" to some who are no longer. Such as:
The Birds And The Bees Jewel Akens(I loved that song when I was 11)
I Touch Myself Divinyls (Chrissie Amphlett, lead singer)
Blues In The Night Bobby "Blue" Bland
Fire Ohio Players (Sugarfoot Bonner, lead singer)
Ooh Child The Five Stairsteps (Clarence Burke, lead)
That's All There Is To Love Donald Byrd
After Midnight J.J. Cale
Cajun Moon J.J. Cale
Call Me The Breeze J.J. Cale
Crazy Mama J.J. Cale
Magnolia J.J. Cale
Love You Till The End Pogues (Phil Chevron, guitar)
Pretty As You Feel Jefferson Airplane (Joey Covington, drums)
Have You Seen The Saucers Jefferson Airplane
Blame It On The Bossa Nova Eydie Gorme (yeah, that's right)
Papa Was A Rollin' Stone Temptations (Otis Harris, vocals)
Volunteers Jefferson Airplane
Do You Love Me Dave Clark Five (Rick Huxley, bass)
Funny How Time Slips Away Ray Price
Glad All Over Dave Clark Five
I'm Going Home Ten Years After (Alvin Lee)
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got...) Marian McPartland
Just Like A Woman Richie Havens
Night Life Ray Price
Riders On The Storm Doors (Ray Manzarek, keyboards)
Rock And Roll Heart Lou Reed
San Francisco Bay Blues Richie Havens
Sour Milk Sea Jackie Lomax
The Spy Doors
Wild Thing The Troggs (Reg Presley, writer/lead vocal)
You're Still On My Mind George Jones
Freedom Richie Havens
Obviously, some of these folks were more important to me than others: five J.J. Cale and only one Lou Reed (in fairness, I did acknowledge Lou's death in an earlier show)? Three Richie Havens? Again, it's my freakin' show, innit? Besides, how can you go wrong with The Ohio Players, The Pogues, George Jones and Eydie Gorme all on the same playlist? That's what makes WOOL great! See you Tuesday from noon till two-ish.
We're all goin' there, and likely we're all gonna leave something behind here, some evidence that we once existed, but these folks have left artifacts burned right into wax' or onto tape, or dancing in The Cloud, or whatever it is they do these days. Some are way better known (Richie Havens, J.J. Cale, Ray Manzarek, Lou Reed) than others (Reg Presley of The Troggs, Jackie Lomax, Clarence Burke of The Five Stairsteps), but they all had careers of some duration and achieved some degree of fame--even enough to be sold on iTunes, which likely won't be true for most of us. So, nothing profound even attempted this week, just "thanks" and "glad you were here awhile" to some who are no longer. Such as:
The Birds And The Bees Jewel Akens(I loved that song when I was 11)
I Touch Myself Divinyls (Chrissie Amphlett, lead singer)
Blues In The Night Bobby "Blue" Bland
Fire Ohio Players (Sugarfoot Bonner, lead singer)
Ooh Child The Five Stairsteps (Clarence Burke, lead)
That's All There Is To Love Donald Byrd
After Midnight J.J. Cale
Cajun Moon J.J. Cale
Call Me The Breeze J.J. Cale
Crazy Mama J.J. Cale
Magnolia J.J. Cale
Love You Till The End Pogues (Phil Chevron, guitar)
Pretty As You Feel Jefferson Airplane (Joey Covington, drums)
Have You Seen The Saucers Jefferson Airplane
Blame It On The Bossa Nova Eydie Gorme (yeah, that's right)
Papa Was A Rollin' Stone Temptations (Otis Harris, vocals)
Volunteers Jefferson Airplane
Do You Love Me Dave Clark Five (Rick Huxley, bass)
Funny How Time Slips Away Ray Price
Glad All Over Dave Clark Five
I'm Going Home Ten Years After (Alvin Lee)
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got...) Marian McPartland
Just Like A Woman Richie Havens
Night Life Ray Price
Riders On The Storm Doors (Ray Manzarek, keyboards)
Rock And Roll Heart Lou Reed
San Francisco Bay Blues Richie Havens
Sour Milk Sea Jackie Lomax
The Spy Doors
Wild Thing The Troggs (Reg Presley, writer/lead vocal)
You're Still On My Mind George Jones
Freedom Richie Havens
Obviously, some of these folks were more important to me than others: five J.J. Cale and only one Lou Reed (in fairness, I did acknowledge Lou's death in an earlier show)? Three Richie Havens? Again, it's my freakin' show, innit? Besides, how can you go wrong with The Ohio Players, The Pogues, George Jones and Eydie Gorme all on the same playlist? That's what makes WOOL great! See you Tuesday from noon till two-ish.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Only Connect--Assuming You Have Signal
I've been thinking about connection and disconnection, nearness and distance, a lot lately. Maybe it's just end-of-year-stock-taking, maybe it's part of the aging process, maybe I'm just seeing the world becoming increasingly fragmented in spite-- or maybe because-- of our personal technological and communication devices and the "advances" they provide.
Only Connect is the title of a book about connecting reading and writing, written by a former professor and colleague of mine at UNH, Tom Newkirk, about those connections and about how connection in general is essential to being human. The title is lifted from a passage in E.M. Forster's novel Howards End: "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." I'm always struck, when I quote real and accomplished writers, how ballsy it is for me to throw my little onanistic bits out there; I can't help but suffer by comparison, and yet there it is....
Humans are a social species, as, I guess, what species isn't? But given our constantly shifting and developing ever-more-sophisticated means of communication, isn't it ironic that we actually have less and less personal communication, about less and less essential stuff? It's easy to discover what someone had for breakfast or what they're doing at any given moment, 'cause we tell each other those things way too readily. How much of the real, important, soul-searching-and-connecting stuff gets out there, though? I'm afraid that it's less and less, and maybe because we're so inundated by the trivial that we don't even know what's important anymore. Connection kills the beast and the monk(!), socializes us, and lets us know how alike we really are. Some of you who read this may be stunned that I think this way, but I guess sometimes--or often--perception is reality.
Saw a Louis C.K. special recently on HBO, I think. I don't love some of his stuff, as it's too crassly and gratuitously vulgar for me (shocking, eh? I do have some standards, though), but he can be a pretty brilliant and incisive social commentator. One of his bits concerned an experience he had at his daughter's dance recital; as the performance began, suddenly every parent in the audience held up cell phones to take photos or video of their darlings' every movement. The cameras, of course, were directly in front of the parents' faces; effectively, they were blocking the real, the here-and-now, in order to record the event to be viewed later, maybe--do people really look at that stuff after it's happened, after it's recorded? Or do they just post it to MyFace for friends, relatives and strangers to ignore?-- and in inferior aural and visual quality. As C.K. put it, the resolution's way better in real life. I was thinking of that when I commented on people camping out for days over Thanksgiving in order to stock up for Christmas, choosing the one event over another or, in this case, reality for a technologically reproduced facsimile. The actual is sacrificed for a virtual representation at one remove, at least, from reality. How can that be good?
Another sign of the coming apocalypse, or maybe just another indication of fragmentation and disconnection in society, is the practice of people foregoing land phone lines for cell-only. Now, I get the rationale economically, and it may be a really minor point, but back in the olden days, when you'd call a phone number, there was an air of mystery or uncertainty involved. Who was gonna answer? Were you going to speak with the person you were intent on calling, or with their spouse, or a kid, or babysitter, aunt, uncle, grandmother--who? It was nice sometimes to talk, even briefly, with someone other than the ultimate object of your call. How else would you get to chat with a kid, to learn about what was happening in someone else's life, get different news or info? Now, we call a personal phone, know exactly to whom we'll speak, and that's that. It may be more efficient, but it feels like something's lost in that efficiency, that some sort of societal connection is lost in the name of putatively more efficient personal communication.
It will be interesting to see, if we have time enough left for much further adaptation on this planet, what effect the fractured communication and connection modes we're embarking on will have on us.
The preceding was written on Sunday, and I fully intended to polish it, finish it, publish it, maybe even ish-ish (whatever that means--I just realized there were lots of "ishes" in that lisht) it, and play all of the "connection" and "together" songs I had but, alas, as if to illustrate fragmentation and distance, it ain't gonna be. So, as of Monday: no end-of-year show, no well written, cogent, coherent blog post: just stuff. At any rate, Happy New Year to all, and may we all get what we wish for, and not necessarily what we deserve.... Hope to see you all back here next week, but the future's so hard to predict, innit?
Only Connect is the title of a book about connecting reading and writing, written by a former professor and colleague of mine at UNH, Tom Newkirk, about those connections and about how connection in general is essential to being human. The title is lifted from a passage in E.M. Forster's novel Howards End: "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." I'm always struck, when I quote real and accomplished writers, how ballsy it is for me to throw my little onanistic bits out there; I can't help but suffer by comparison, and yet there it is....
Humans are a social species, as, I guess, what species isn't? But given our constantly shifting and developing ever-more-sophisticated means of communication, isn't it ironic that we actually have less and less personal communication, about less and less essential stuff? It's easy to discover what someone had for breakfast or what they're doing at any given moment, 'cause we tell each other those things way too readily. How much of the real, important, soul-searching-and-connecting stuff gets out there, though? I'm afraid that it's less and less, and maybe because we're so inundated by the trivial that we don't even know what's important anymore. Connection kills the beast and the monk(!), socializes us, and lets us know how alike we really are. Some of you who read this may be stunned that I think this way, but I guess sometimes--or often--perception is reality.
Saw a Louis C.K. special recently on HBO, I think. I don't love some of his stuff, as it's too crassly and gratuitously vulgar for me (shocking, eh? I do have some standards, though), but he can be a pretty brilliant and incisive social commentator. One of his bits concerned an experience he had at his daughter's dance recital; as the performance began, suddenly every parent in the audience held up cell phones to take photos or video of their darlings' every movement. The cameras, of course, were directly in front of the parents' faces; effectively, they were blocking the real, the here-and-now, in order to record the event to be viewed later, maybe--do people really look at that stuff after it's happened, after it's recorded? Or do they just post it to MyFace for friends, relatives and strangers to ignore?-- and in inferior aural and visual quality. As C.K. put it, the resolution's way better in real life. I was thinking of that when I commented on people camping out for days over Thanksgiving in order to stock up for Christmas, choosing the one event over another or, in this case, reality for a technologically reproduced facsimile. The actual is sacrificed for a virtual representation at one remove, at least, from reality. How can that be good?
Another sign of the coming apocalypse, or maybe just another indication of fragmentation and disconnection in society, is the practice of people foregoing land phone lines for cell-only. Now, I get the rationale economically, and it may be a really minor point, but back in the olden days, when you'd call a phone number, there was an air of mystery or uncertainty involved. Who was gonna answer? Were you going to speak with the person you were intent on calling, or with their spouse, or a kid, or babysitter, aunt, uncle, grandmother--who? It was nice sometimes to talk, even briefly, with someone other than the ultimate object of your call. How else would you get to chat with a kid, to learn about what was happening in someone else's life, get different news or info? Now, we call a personal phone, know exactly to whom we'll speak, and that's that. It may be more efficient, but it feels like something's lost in that efficiency, that some sort of societal connection is lost in the name of putatively more efficient personal communication.
It will be interesting to see, if we have time enough left for much further adaptation on this planet, what effect the fractured communication and connection modes we're embarking on will have on us.
The preceding was written on Sunday, and I fully intended to polish it, finish it, publish it, maybe even ish-ish (whatever that means--I just realized there were lots of "ishes" in that lisht) it, and play all of the "connection" and "together" songs I had but, alas, as if to illustrate fragmentation and distance, it ain't gonna be. So, as of Monday: no end-of-year show, no well written, cogent, coherent blog post: just stuff. At any rate, Happy New Year to all, and may we all get what we wish for, and not necessarily what we deserve.... Hope to see you all back here next week, but the future's so hard to predict, innit?
Monday, December 23, 2013
So This Is Christmas....
Well, then, let's try this again, shan't we? Seems like only a year ago that I had this ginormous show planned; Xmas was on a Tuesday (my show day), we didn't have huge plans, I'd missed tons o' shows 'cause of work, and so I was gonna do a 4 hr. marathon. Well, life got in the way, what with illness and hospitals and all that lovely stuff, so lo, it did not come to pass.
This year, conditions and events are somewhat similar: I'm in the midst of building a house and so have missed a few shows; illness, injury and strife elbow their way into our lives; Xmas Eve, not Xmas, falls on Tuesday this year, but, hey, close enough for jazz, right? So I'm gonna condense last year's playlist into a 3 hour show, and see what happens. The fates may yet have other plans, but I'm'a act as though I can pull this one off.
There was a little piece in this Sunday's Times about how radio stations' going to an all Christmas format in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was, as the article put it, "rocket fuel for ratings;" stations see their listenership skyrocket when they provide a steady diet of holiday-cheerful songs. Jesus (so to speak), I'd open a vein if I had to play (or listen to) nothing but that stuff for a month. For a few hours, though, I might pull it off, although my playlist is hardly traditional or even (surprise, surprise) Christ-centered. One wrinkle I've added is to combine two or three (or four!) song titles which have, on their own, nothing to do with Christmas, into a medley that, borrowing a portion of each song's title, combines to form a traditional Christmas song title. F'rinstance, The Rolling Stones' "You Got The Silver" played back-to-back with Dylan's "Ring Them Bells" yields, in someone's twisted mind (hello!) "Silver Bells." Doc and Merle Watson's "Frosty Morn" and John Prine's "Humidity Built The Snowman" give..., well, you probly get the idea. So here's a playlist:
Christmas Must Be Tonight The Band
It's Christmas Time James Brown
Kung Fu Christmas Christopher Guest/Nat'l Lampoon
Merry Christmas,Baby Lou Rawls
Friend Of Jesus John Stewart
Bach: Cantata #22, Jesus nahm.... Yo-Yo Ma, et al
Jesus Christ Arlo Guthrie
Christmas With Jesus Josh Rouse
Jesus Was A Capricorn Darrell Scott
Jesus Was A Cross Maker Judee Sill
Jesus Just Left Chicago ZZ Top
Jesus Is Just Alright Doobies
Christmas Time (Is Here Again) Fabs
On Christmas Eve John Hartford
Christmas Time Blues John Lee Hooker
Christmas Time Is Here Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
Christmas Time Ray Charles
Christmas Ain't Christmas The O'Jays
Father Christmas The Kinks
Getting Ready For Christmas Day Paul Simon
Variations On The Kanon By Pachelbel George Winston
The Rebel Jesus Jackson Browne
Trip With Jesus The Union Underground
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis Tom Waits
Christmas In Kyoto Michael Franks
Christmas In Prison John Prine
Christmas Morning Lyle Lovett
Christmas Morning Loudon Wainwright III
Christmas Wish NRBQ
Jesus, Etc. Wilco
Tell Me What Kind Of Man Jesus Was Big Bill Broonzy
Jesus Wrote A Blank Check Cake
C'mon Jesus Firesign Theatre
Come On Down Jesus John Kongos
River Joni Mitchell
Birthday Fabs
Silent Eyes Paul Simon
Night Bruce Springsteen
You Got The Silver Stones
Ring Them Bells Dylan
Frosty Morn Doc & Merle Watson
Humidity Built The Snowman John Prine
I'm Walkin' Rick Nelson
Winter Stones
Wonderland Michael Franks
Little Big-Time Man Dirk Hamilton
Heavy Metal Drummer Wilco
Boy Darden Smith
We The Roches
Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd
You George Harrison
Merry Go Round The Replacements
Christmas The Who
Oh, come on, give the no-singer some, to contra-indicate Jim Morrison. Anyway, I hope my too-clever-by-half-self-indulgence doesn't stop you from listening, or at least enjoying vicariously. Happy Xmas. (War Will Never Be Over).
This year, conditions and events are somewhat similar: I'm in the midst of building a house and so have missed a few shows; illness, injury and strife elbow their way into our lives; Xmas Eve, not Xmas, falls on Tuesday this year, but, hey, close enough for jazz, right? So I'm gonna condense last year's playlist into a 3 hour show, and see what happens. The fates may yet have other plans, but I'm'a act as though I can pull this one off.
There was a little piece in this Sunday's Times about how radio stations' going to an all Christmas format in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was, as the article put it, "rocket fuel for ratings;" stations see their listenership skyrocket when they provide a steady diet of holiday-cheerful songs. Jesus (so to speak), I'd open a vein if I had to play (or listen to) nothing but that stuff for a month. For a few hours, though, I might pull it off, although my playlist is hardly traditional or even (surprise, surprise) Christ-centered. One wrinkle I've added is to combine two or three (or four!) song titles which have, on their own, nothing to do with Christmas, into a medley that, borrowing a portion of each song's title, combines to form a traditional Christmas song title. F'rinstance, The Rolling Stones' "You Got The Silver" played back-to-back with Dylan's "Ring Them Bells" yields, in someone's twisted mind (hello!) "Silver Bells." Doc and Merle Watson's "Frosty Morn" and John Prine's "Humidity Built The Snowman" give..., well, you probly get the idea. So here's a playlist:
Christmas Must Be Tonight The Band
It's Christmas Time James Brown
Kung Fu Christmas Christopher Guest/Nat'l Lampoon
Merry Christmas,Baby Lou Rawls
Friend Of Jesus John Stewart
Bach: Cantata #22, Jesus nahm.... Yo-Yo Ma, et al
Jesus Christ Arlo Guthrie
Christmas With Jesus Josh Rouse
Jesus Was A Capricorn Darrell Scott
Jesus Was A Cross Maker Judee Sill
Jesus Just Left Chicago ZZ Top
Jesus Is Just Alright Doobies
Christmas Time (Is Here Again) Fabs
On Christmas Eve John Hartford
Christmas Time Blues John Lee Hooker
Christmas Time Is Here Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
Christmas Time Ray Charles
Christmas Ain't Christmas The O'Jays
Father Christmas The Kinks
Getting Ready For Christmas Day Paul Simon
Variations On The Kanon By Pachelbel George Winston
The Rebel Jesus Jackson Browne
Trip With Jesus The Union Underground
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis Tom Waits
Christmas In Kyoto Michael Franks
Christmas In Prison John Prine
Christmas Morning Lyle Lovett
Christmas Morning Loudon Wainwright III
Christmas Wish NRBQ
Jesus, Etc. Wilco
Tell Me What Kind Of Man Jesus Was Big Bill Broonzy
Jesus Wrote A Blank Check Cake
C'mon Jesus Firesign Theatre
Come On Down Jesus John Kongos
River Joni Mitchell
Birthday Fabs
Silent Eyes Paul Simon
Night Bruce Springsteen
You Got The Silver Stones
Ring Them Bells Dylan
Frosty Morn Doc & Merle Watson
Humidity Built The Snowman John Prine
I'm Walkin' Rick Nelson
Winter Stones
Wonderland Michael Franks
Little Big-Time Man Dirk Hamilton
Heavy Metal Drummer Wilco
Boy Darden Smith
We The Roches
Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd
You George Harrison
Merry Go Round The Replacements
Christmas The Who
Oh, come on, give the no-singer some, to contra-indicate Jim Morrison. Anyway, I hope my too-clever-by-half-self-indulgence doesn't stop you from listening, or at least enjoying vicariously. Happy Xmas. (War Will Never Be Over).
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Tubercular Bells
Okay, so this title is obscure and convoluted even for me, and thus, I fear, needs explanation, although I know that dissecting anything kills it.
1.) 'Tis the season of bells, of various sorts: jingle, silver, sleigh, and cash register (yeah, yeah, that's a "beep" now, but you know what I mean). Even that most iconic of Christmas movies, It's A Wonderful Life, albeit in its dark middle section, has a scene wherein Nick the bartender repeatedly opens the register drawer and gleefully says "Dig me--I'm giving out wings" after Clarence has informed him that "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," and of course the movie concludes with Zuzu echoing that line.
2.) The cash registers' ring has become the most holy of bells in current American Xmas (Christ is definitely gone from this view) celebrations, as we literally trample (sometimes to death) and tase our fellow "humans" in an effort to beat them to deals on merchandise we and they often don't need or want. Xmas has become a sort of secular Confession; in the Catholic orthodoxy (and I may be oversimplifying a bit), one sins and sins, then receives absolution from those sins by confessing them to a priest and doing a minor penance--a couple of "Our Father"s, a few "Hail Mary"s. In our American Xmas celebrations, people can apparently treat others--up to and including their children and other family members--like shit all year and then be cleansed by showering them with lavish gifts 1/365th of the time. And in order to be able to buy those gifts at the cheapest prices possible (we want some form of absolution, but not at full retail, for Christ's sake), we have caused stores to open on Thanksgiving day, promising fabulous savings. People camp out in front of their chosen store for days, eagerly awaiting the possibility of somehow saving money, while ignoring the holiday right in front of them, Thanksgiving. Store clerks have to work on Thanksgiving now or risk being fired, people somehow feel pressured into joining the herds, throngs, packs or risk missing out on something apparently important to someone. We have traded one holiday for another; giving thanks for what we have has been superseded by giving gifts to expiate the guilt for what we have not (done). Consumed by guilt, perhaps, we are driven to consume gilt.
3.) Wendell Berry (essayist, novelist, environmentalist, poet, former tobacco farmer from Kentucky--hey, nobody's perfect) has noted that when Tuberculosis was prevalent, into the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was often called "consumption," and known as "the wasting disease" because one of its effects was significant weight loss--sufferers wasted away. Berry made the connection between the wasting of that form of consumption, and the effects on our lives and on our very planet of our culture's ravenous and insatiable consumption and waste of goods and resources. Waste is waste. Ain't it ironic that our destructive consumption reaches its feverish apogee annually when we are ostensibly celebrating the birth of an ascetic savior whose major teachings concern caring for the poor and afflicted.
4.) In 1972, William Friedkin directed a movie called The Exorcist (full disclosure: I'm the person from my generation who has never seen the film). I trust that you all know its basic premise; if not, you can Google it. Basically, it deals with demonic possession of the body and soul of a young girl, and two priests' attempts to exorcise the Devil. The main theme song to the film was "Tubular Bells," by Mike Oldfield.
So there you have it: the bells, consumption in a couple of senses, the impression that far, far too many Americans become possessed by possessing at this time of year, and the theme music for it all.
Whew. It's enough to make your head spin.
Some songs, then:
Caravan Van Morrison
Black Friday Steely Dan
Maximum Consumption The Kinks
Shopping Trolley Beth Orton
Trick Bag (Shoppin' For My Tombstone) John Lee Hooker
Mannequin Shop Paul Westerberg
Last Of The Big Time Spenders Billy Joel
Window Shopping Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Time To Spend Chris Smither
Can't Buy Me Love Fabs
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty Billy Bragg
Try Some Buy Some George Harrison
Buy For Me The Rain Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Somebody Buy Me A Drink David Johansen
Buy It In A Bottle Richard Ashcroft
I'll Buy The Replacements
You Can't Buy My Love Robert Plant
Ain't There Something Money Can't Buy? Young-Holt Unlimited
Ring Them Bells Bob Dylan
Painted Bells Boz Scaggs
Tollin' Bells Butterfield Blues Band
The Bells Laura Nyro
Bells Monty Python
Junk Paul McCartney
Singalong Junk Paul McCartney
Junk Victoria Williams
The Gift Bruce Cockburn
Gifts Bruce Cockburn
The Sweetest Gift Sade
The Gift David "Fathead" Newman
The Greatest Gift Robert Plant
Tubular Bells Mike Oldfield
See you Tuesday, noon till two, wool.fm, "tollin' like the tongue of doom."
1.) 'Tis the season of bells, of various sorts: jingle, silver, sleigh, and cash register (yeah, yeah, that's a "beep" now, but you know what I mean). Even that most iconic of Christmas movies, It's A Wonderful Life, albeit in its dark middle section, has a scene wherein Nick the bartender repeatedly opens the register drawer and gleefully says "Dig me--I'm giving out wings" after Clarence has informed him that "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," and of course the movie concludes with Zuzu echoing that line.
2.) The cash registers' ring has become the most holy of bells in current American Xmas (Christ is definitely gone from this view) celebrations, as we literally trample (sometimes to death) and tase our fellow "humans" in an effort to beat them to deals on merchandise we and they often don't need or want. Xmas has become a sort of secular Confession; in the Catholic orthodoxy (and I may be oversimplifying a bit), one sins and sins, then receives absolution from those sins by confessing them to a priest and doing a minor penance--a couple of "Our Father"s, a few "Hail Mary"s. In our American Xmas celebrations, people can apparently treat others--up to and including their children and other family members--like shit all year and then be cleansed by showering them with lavish gifts 1/365th of the time. And in order to be able to buy those gifts at the cheapest prices possible (we want some form of absolution, but not at full retail, for Christ's sake), we have caused stores to open on Thanksgiving day, promising fabulous savings. People camp out in front of their chosen store for days, eagerly awaiting the possibility of somehow saving money, while ignoring the holiday right in front of them, Thanksgiving. Store clerks have to work on Thanksgiving now or risk being fired, people somehow feel pressured into joining the herds, throngs, packs or risk missing out on something apparently important to someone. We have traded one holiday for another; giving thanks for what we have has been superseded by giving gifts to expiate the guilt for what we have not (done). Consumed by guilt, perhaps, we are driven to consume gilt.
3.) Wendell Berry (essayist, novelist, environmentalist, poet, former tobacco farmer from Kentucky--hey, nobody's perfect) has noted that when Tuberculosis was prevalent, into the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was often called "consumption," and known as "the wasting disease" because one of its effects was significant weight loss--sufferers wasted away. Berry made the connection between the wasting of that form of consumption, and the effects on our lives and on our very planet of our culture's ravenous and insatiable consumption and waste of goods and resources. Waste is waste. Ain't it ironic that our destructive consumption reaches its feverish apogee annually when we are ostensibly celebrating the birth of an ascetic savior whose major teachings concern caring for the poor and afflicted.
4.) In 1972, William Friedkin directed a movie called The Exorcist (full disclosure: I'm the person from my generation who has never seen the film). I trust that you all know its basic premise; if not, you can Google it. Basically, it deals with demonic possession of the body and soul of a young girl, and two priests' attempts to exorcise the Devil. The main theme song to the film was "Tubular Bells," by Mike Oldfield.
So there you have it: the bells, consumption in a couple of senses, the impression that far, far too many Americans become possessed by possessing at this time of year, and the theme music for it all.
Whew. It's enough to make your head spin.
Some songs, then:
Caravan Van Morrison
Black Friday Steely Dan
Maximum Consumption The Kinks
Shopping Trolley Beth Orton
Trick Bag (Shoppin' For My Tombstone) John Lee Hooker
Mannequin Shop Paul Westerberg
Last Of The Big Time Spenders Billy Joel
Window Shopping Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Time To Spend Chris Smither
Can't Buy Me Love Fabs
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty Billy Bragg
Try Some Buy Some George Harrison
Buy For Me The Rain Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Somebody Buy Me A Drink David Johansen
Buy It In A Bottle Richard Ashcroft
I'll Buy The Replacements
You Can't Buy My Love Robert Plant
Ain't There Something Money Can't Buy? Young-Holt Unlimited
Ring Them Bells Bob Dylan
Painted Bells Boz Scaggs
Tollin' Bells Butterfield Blues Band
The Bells Laura Nyro
Bells Monty Python
Junk Paul McCartney
Singalong Junk Paul McCartney
Junk Victoria Williams
The Gift Bruce Cockburn
Gifts Bruce Cockburn
The Sweetest Gift Sade
The Gift David "Fathead" Newman
The Greatest Gift Robert Plant
Tubular Bells Mike Oldfield
See you Tuesday, noon till two, wool.fm, "tollin' like the tongue of doom."
Monday, December 2, 2013
"...Writers Wrote Books, Thinkers Thought About It..."
What is a life well-lived? What that we do is of value, and to whom, and for how long, and why? I raised those sorts of questions last week in thinking about my friend Tom who died recently. MA, PhD, immersed in music, literature, art, drama, traveler of the world: Tom lived a full and filled life, emptied by dementia long before actual death. We all know on some level--however much we'll actually let the fact sink in--that we're gonna die, and that it's pretty unlikely that we'll carry memories of our lives, learning and experiences with us, any more than we'll bring cash or, if you're Egyptian royalty, cats.
Why then do so many of us take in as much as we can, immerse ourselves in the Arts or travel or mindless consumption (see next week's post for more on that, I think)? Is it denial of death? Is it a way to leave something of ourselves behind, some lasting monument that says "I was here once, goddammit! Attention must be paid!"? Denial of death becomes assertion of existence; I don't think that the two are necessarily the same.
Much to my family's chagrin, I am not a traveler, at least in outward realms. I don't have a bucket list, a need to walk on the moors or loll about in Tuscany, or see Disneyland. And yet books and music and art and even this stupid blog are of immense importance to me, as a way to experience the lives and thoughts and emotions of other humans, to connect, to draw from and perhaps even add to the enormous trove of the talents and thoughts humans have created and left behind. But again, why? If I am extremely fortunate I will have all of that within me, accessible, until I shuffle off. But of course that's already not true and, given family history, a lifetime of actively ingesting corrosive substances and now being passively exposed to an incredibly vast array of body- and soul-destroying chemicals, it's increasingly likely that my mind and memory will journey to the elsewhere before my body does.
In her first book, Elemental, Alice B. Fogel wrote a poem based on a writing exercise I used to use in my classes which took the familiar phrase "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" and used it as the title and jumping-off point of an essay we'd all write. I think some cool stuff came out of that, because it sort of forces one to be reflective, to think metaphorically, and to make connections that might not naturally occur to an 18 year old--or most 50 year olds, for that matter. Here are a few lines from that poem, "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear:"
Meanwhile, we paint our self-
portraits on everything
imaginable, then hold
them up like mirrors.
Our mercurial brushes
grow longer, our skills
more acute. Dust clouds
the vision, tinder
to the eye. So we burn
trees to save the forests, burn
air to fly afar. We do, we say.
We can....
Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it in Cat's Cradle,
We do, doodely do, doodely do, doodely do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, Muddily do, Muddily do, Muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.
And maybe it's as simple as that: we do things because we can, often don't consider whether we should, and the devil take the hindmost. What an interesting group of organisms.
Here're some songs for this week's show, then, on Tuesday from noon til two on wool.fm:
Age of Reason Wake Ooloo
There's A Reason A. A. Bondy
There Is A Reason Alison Krauss & Union Station
Finally Found A Reason Art Garfunkel
Ain't No Reason Brett Dennen
Reason To Believe Bruce Springsteen
Reasons Earth Wind & Fire
Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 Ian Dury & The Blockheads
All The Right Reasons The Jayhawks
Reasons For Waiting Jethro Tull
Two Good Reasons John Gorka
Reasons To Rise John Stewart
Reason To Cry Lucinda Williams
No Reason Nick Lowe
Reason To Believe Rickie Lee Jones
Reason To Believe Rod Stewart
Any Reason Tanita Tikaram
The Reason Thunderclap Newman
Give Me One Reason Tracy Chapman
There Must Be A Reason War
Turning Point David Lindley
The Point Of It Yo La Tengo
Do You Realize? Flaming Lips
Let The Slave Van Morrison
Spark In The Dark (On The Moody Existentialist) Alpha Band
Take It Where You Find It Van Morrison
That last, whence comes the title of this post, has become my favorite Van song and mantra. Hope you'll listen and like.
Why then do so many of us take in as much as we can, immerse ourselves in the Arts or travel or mindless consumption (see next week's post for more on that, I think)? Is it denial of death? Is it a way to leave something of ourselves behind, some lasting monument that says "I was here once, goddammit! Attention must be paid!"? Denial of death becomes assertion of existence; I don't think that the two are necessarily the same.
Much to my family's chagrin, I am not a traveler, at least in outward realms. I don't have a bucket list, a need to walk on the moors or loll about in Tuscany, or see Disneyland. And yet books and music and art and even this stupid blog are of immense importance to me, as a way to experience the lives and thoughts and emotions of other humans, to connect, to draw from and perhaps even add to the enormous trove of the talents and thoughts humans have created and left behind. But again, why? If I am extremely fortunate I will have all of that within me, accessible, until I shuffle off. But of course that's already not true and, given family history, a lifetime of actively ingesting corrosive substances and now being passively exposed to an incredibly vast array of body- and soul-destroying chemicals, it's increasingly likely that my mind and memory will journey to the elsewhere before my body does.
In her first book, Elemental, Alice B. Fogel wrote a poem based on a writing exercise I used to use in my classes which took the familiar phrase "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" and used it as the title and jumping-off point of an essay we'd all write. I think some cool stuff came out of that, because it sort of forces one to be reflective, to think metaphorically, and to make connections that might not naturally occur to an 18 year old--or most 50 year olds, for that matter. Here are a few lines from that poem, "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear:"
Meanwhile, we paint our self-
portraits on everything
imaginable, then hold
them up like mirrors.
Our mercurial brushes
grow longer, our skills
more acute. Dust clouds
the vision, tinder
to the eye. So we burn
trees to save the forests, burn
air to fly afar. We do, we say.
We can....
Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it in Cat's Cradle,
We do, doodely do, doodely do, doodely do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, Muddily do, Muddily do, Muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.
And maybe it's as simple as that: we do things because we can, often don't consider whether we should, and the devil take the hindmost. What an interesting group of organisms.
Here're some songs for this week's show, then, on Tuesday from noon til two on wool.fm:
Age of Reason Wake Ooloo
There's A Reason A. A. Bondy
There Is A Reason Alison Krauss & Union Station
Finally Found A Reason Art Garfunkel
Ain't No Reason Brett Dennen
Reason To Believe Bruce Springsteen
Reasons Earth Wind & Fire
Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 Ian Dury & The Blockheads
All The Right Reasons The Jayhawks
Reasons For Waiting Jethro Tull
Two Good Reasons John Gorka
Reasons To Rise John Stewart
Reason To Cry Lucinda Williams
No Reason Nick Lowe
Reason To Believe Rickie Lee Jones
Reason To Believe Rod Stewart
Any Reason Tanita Tikaram
The Reason Thunderclap Newman
Give Me One Reason Tracy Chapman
There Must Be A Reason War
Turning Point David Lindley
The Point Of It Yo La Tengo
Do You Realize? Flaming Lips
Let The Slave Van Morrison
Spark In The Dark (On The Moody Existentialist) Alpha Band
Take It Where You Find It Van Morrison
That last, whence comes the title of this post, has become my favorite Van song and mantra. Hope you'll listen and like.
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