Here’s to you, Big Man

Former Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band member, Rock Sax legend, Clarence Clemons, seen here performing last November, died June 18, 2011 from stroke complications (AP/Rhona Wise).

A WILLful Assist
This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been inspired by something that Will Stegemann wrote. You may know him as @BeTheBoy on Twitter, who, coupled with his equally brilliant and lovely spouse, TeeVee industry writer Nina Bargiel (@slackmistress), comprise a one-two punch of avant garde creative goodness that’s sometimes hard to describe, but always a party for the imagination.

And while I really dig both Nina’s edgy hipness and faster-than-your-own-neurons-can-fire wit, Will’s stories just have a way of ‘getting to me,’ particularly when he writes about his late father, who passed away in 2009.

Will seems to use his blog as a vehicle similar in style and purpose to my own; he doesn’t appear to seek engagement with an audience so much as with himself, particularly on subjects of family and his childhood memories. And whether or not that’s actually the case, it is how his posts speak to me.

Yesterday was of course, Father’s Day, and I was hit with a double-dose of BethePoignancy. Will posted a wonderfully-woven tribute to both his late father and the renowned Rock Saxman, Clarence Clemons, who died Saturday from complications of a stroke suffered last week. Clemons’ was a that loss I felt deeply but initially struggled to find a way to accurately express when I first heard the news late Saturday morning. He was 69 years old, a fact that alone was staggering to me. It didn’t seem possible that he could have even been in his sixties, let alone pushing seventy — which in and of itself is a testimony to the passion with which he lived and played music.

All in the Family
A number of aspects to Will’s story touched me profoundly, not the least of which was his experience of first encountering Springsteen’s music as a child in the 1980s, when he internalized his Pop’s everyday-affinity for the Boss’s sound to the extent of play-imagining the E Street Band as stand-ins for his own flesh and blood.

I was particularly tickled by Will’s reference to a live version of Springsteen’s Rosalita that was a particular favorite on his Dad’s car stereo cassette deck. It just so happens that the song was recorded at a club show in 1978 that I myself had desperately tried to attend, but was unable to get my hands on what few actual publicly-accessible tickets were available. I ended up having to settle for listening to the show being broadcast live on the radio, on now-defunct Los Angeles FM Rock station, KMET (I’ll relate the sad story of my own ‘Sunset Boulevard Freeze-Out’ at another time).

However, I mostly wanted to give a tip of the cap to Mister Stegemann for so accurately highlighting the concept of Springsteen’s band as a family, and as such, a pseudo-extended family that of all of the Boss’s fans can relate to — even through the eyes of a kid. It’s a most fitting metaphor and something that has escaped my ability to properly process over the years, as I’ve sought to find a meaningful framework on which to hang the feelings I’ve always had for Springsteen and Clemons in particular. To me, the two have always been a family; a nearly inseparable entity. And while Bruce’s solo work has always been great, I’ve never felt it matched the impact of that achieved together with he and his musical siblings: Clemons and the E Street Band.

Will’s post caused me to ponder just how much that connective vibe of Bruce Springsteen’s persona and early music resonated with me as a 19 year-old in the mid-70s, a point in time when Will’s life was just beginning.

I became cognizant of Springsteen’s music, late one August evening in 1975, hearing Born To Run on the radio for the first time, and as such, being immediately introduced to the soprano sax of Clemons (a.k.a., The Big Man), busting through the airwaves as a part of the E Street Band’s signature sound. For me it was a wonderful new discovery. However, compared to Will’s father, I was merely an AJ-come-lately.

Having grown up on Long Island, NY, Will’s dad (who was just two years older than me) had the unique perspective of being in the same geographic area as the Asbury Park, NJ phenomenon, perhaps knowing of him or actually being a fan before Springsteen hit the big time. Stegmann’s Pop had been a well-seasoned fan for years and went on to raise his kids with an appreciation for The Boss as well. Will’s blog post, Riding With The Big Man is required reading, whether you were an avid fan of Clemons or were only marginally acquainted with his contribution to the sound of the artist who quite frankly was The Beatles of his generation.

As part of my previously mentioned aborted blog post on Springsteen several months ago, I began to write about my initial encounter with The Boss’s music, of which Clarence Clemons’ dynamic presence played a huge part. I’d like to relate that anecdote right now, in The Big Man’s honor.

My World: Rocked
Like so many others, I was blown away by the sound of Born To Run, Springsteen’s third album — but the one that truly made him a household name when it hit the airwaves in the summer of ’75. For me it was one of the truly seminal musical moments of my lifetime; the kind of deal that makes it impossible to forget the first time you experienced something so different, so powerful, that you simply had to stop and say, “Wow! WHO. WAS. THAT?!”

And that’s quite literally what happened, late one night in August 1975, within a few days of when the album was first released. At the time I was three months into my first experience of living away from my parents’ house; sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a pair of roommates in a highly-questionable neighborhood in North Long Beach, California.

On the night in question, I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, but the chronic insomnia that was my constant companion during my teen and early-adult years wouldn’t allow me to. As usual, my clock radio was tuned to 95.5 KLOS in Los Angeles, and as also was my habit, I was listening to music while waiting for the Sandman to show up. Since it usually took more than an hour for me to fall asleep each night, I always figured that I might as well spend the time enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: listening to music. It never occurred to me that perhaps my indulging that fave pastime also had plenty to do with why I’d always had trouble falling asleep in the first place…but I digress.

Anyway, I remember just lying there, like so many other nights; staring at the ceiling. I had to get up at 3:00am to go to work at the grocery store the next morning; I remember feeling particularly anxious that I might sleep through my alarm if I didn’t grab some shuteye soon.

Then it happened. My little clock radio nearly jumped off the nightstand — or so it seemed.

The introductory signature blast of Max Weinberg’s booming drum beat, along with The Big Man’s foundational sax note, and Springsteen’s guttural, biting lead guitar riff sent a chill down my spine. Born To Run was rocking my world.

“Who IS that?” I thought.

Initially, I turned my head and stared at the radio, reaching in to turn the volume up and continuing to lean closer and closer until, by Clemons’ bruising mid-song staccato sax bridge, I was completely perpendicular, with my feet on the floor, seated at the side of my bed, fully engaged in a sound like none I’d ever before heard.

There was NO way I was getting to sleep now.

I’m not sure if the DeeJay ever gave the artist’s name after the song was finished, because I remember having made it a point to listen extra hard to the radio the next day, in hopes that I might hear it again and learn the identity of that awesome new band that played it.

I also remember that the part I liked best of all was the sax.

It was without a doubt, the most memorable moment from the five months I spent in that dingy old apartment on 56th and Orange, in an area bordering North Long Beach and South Central Los Angeles. We were located just a couple of blocks north of the gang-infested Carmelitos Projects and a few blocks south of the Compton city limits. It wasn’t a real fun place to be, but it served its purpose for the brief time that I was there. I roomed with a buddy I’d known since junior high school and another acquaintance from my church group, but at that point I probably would have shacked up with Freddy Krueger for the chance to get away from the Nightmare on Lave Avenue that was my existence at the time living at home with step mom Maxine.

I am most happy to say that my love affair with Springsteen and Clemons has lasted considerably longer.

A Window into the Soul
It’s abundantly easy to canonize the departed, especially artists, the output of whose professional lives have touched you in a manner such as that of something as accessible as popular music. It’s like falling in love with a painter, based entirely upon his body of work; never mind that in real life he was a pretentious jerk, who kicked his dog, beat his wife, and ignored his children in private — or even in public. All we know is how awesome his works of art made us feel.

By all accounts, Clemons was a genuinely good guy, and while I could be wrong, I rather doubt we’ll see any ‘Daddy Dearest’-type tell-all accounts from either his four sons or five ex-wives. Does that mean his closets were completely skeleton-free? No, but then, whose is?


One thing is certain; the bond between Clemons and Springsteen defined their music; which in turn defined my love for it from the moment I heard that first note. Even without having heard a note, you could see it in the cover photograph from Born To Run (above).

In a Huffington Post article, posted soon after Clemons’ death, entitled, Why Clarence Clemons Matters to Race Relations, Ben Mankiewicz offers a poignant rendering of the classic image, featuring Clemons & Springsteen:

“Iconic is a wildly overused word, but the cover photo of Born to Run — Bruce Springsteen grinning and leaning on Clarence Clemons' broad shoulder — is a powerful and memorable picture, one that meets the standard for iconic rock n’ roll images. And its status is rooted in the beautiful story that picture tells.

You’ve got this enormously talented, giant black man -- literally “The Big Man” -- saxophone between pursed lips, essentially supporting Springsteen. The look on Bruce’s face is honest and authentic, a genuine moment captured in a photo shoot. There's a giddiness in Bruce's smile: “I'm working with my friend,” he seems to be saying, “and our music has never been better.”

The photo made an instant impact on me, long before their music did.”

Actually, for me the events were reversed. It wasn’t until weeks after I first heard BTR that I actually saw the album cover, but I too was mesmerized by the volumes that photographer Eric Meola’s image spoke in just a glance.

The combination of how the music and the imagery made me feel was nearly indescribable; the feelings of joy, inclusion, friendship; a shared passion for life; an unbridled excitement about the future’s unlimited potential.

Thirty-six years later, my feeling of loss is nearly as indescribable, as no doubt is Springsteen’s. In eulogizing his friend via a statement posted to his website yesterday, Springsteen confirmed with insightful eloquence what I already knew, yet couldn’t express:

“He carried within him a love of people that made them want to love him.

“He created a wondrous and extended family.”

Here’s to you, Big Man, our big brother. Thank you, so very, very much. Rest well.


*    *    *    *    *    

finis

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 6 of 6)

It's Tuesday, May 24, 2011, Day Six of my six-day blogaversary celebration for AYBABTU. Today actually IS the site’s seventh blogaversary, and as such I thought I’d change things up just a bit. Up to now I’ve been reposting of some of my more obscure, yet favorite stories over the life of this blog, however, today’s entry isn’t exactly all that obscure.

On the afternoon of Thursday August 6, 2009, I received the shocking news via a news alert email I opened at work. Filmmaker John Hughes had sustained a fatal heart attack at only 59 years of age. Hughes was best known for the coming of age film, ‘The Breakfast Club’, a touchstone classic for millions of GenXers. And while I wasn’t attached to his most famous work, Hughes’s demise hit me in way that was nearly as painful. I loved his work as well, not necessarily for the subject matter of his films, but for their essence and the way they made me feel.

Combine Hughes’s death with that of what seemed like half of Hollywood that horrendous final year of the new millennium’s first decade, and what you get is a fairly good representation of how all of 2009 went for me. At that point I was three months out from losing my job at The Company; already feeling the sand beginning to give way beneath my feet. I remember that day having that sickening sense that the loss I was feeling wasn’t an isolated happenstance; it was a wave that was ready to break over my head.

It’s a moment in time I wish not to forget, but rather, to celebrate.

It was was one of those periods of melancholy in my life that somehow have the opposite effect on me than they seem to on other people. No, I’m not a masochist, but just the same, I don’t run from pain either; I embrace it, because the sun will indeed come up tomorrow. When it does, the pain will subside, but I find that the memories of times you’ve had to really fight just to get through is always the best reminder that you are indeed alive.

That’s why this story is special to me, although that has little to do with its relative lack of obscurity.

There have been and continue to be, blog posts that receive more hits from the search engines on a cumulative basis, but no other post that I ever wrote received more traffic in the week that it was first posted than this one. And I can’t take credit for that either. A person I mention in the follow-up to this post, a young woman who had maintained a penpal relationship with Hughes over the years since ‘Breakfast Club,’ received a great deal of attention for her own blog’s reaction to his death, and was kind enough to link to my story, greatly enhancing its ‘Google juice.’

So whether you are a fan of John Hughes or just want to get a better handle on why I’m so weird, here is final installment in my blogaversary reposts series for this year.

Happy Birthday, AYBABTU.

Enjoy...

SATURDAY, AUGUST 08, 2009

He Made Us Comfortable in Someone Else’s Skin

What a lousy year…
I’m really not in the mood to write today, but I feel I must. I need to do so in order to pay tribute on at least a somewhat timely basis to the passing of yet another luminary in our culture whose life has come to a premature end; a man whose movies defined a generation in a way that may never be duplicated: reknowned 1980s writer/director/producer, John Hughes.


_{Photo courtesy Cinetext/Allstar}

Over the past three months I’ve started and stopped at least four stories regarding the notable lives that 2009 has claimed; the list is staggering. It seems that each time I try to express my regret for one of the individuals who has passed, another one drops off and I’m once again crippled by grief and have to set it aside.

On June 25th we experienced the double-whammy of losing both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson within mere hours of one another. And though these were the two who captured the attention of the TeeVee news magazines for weeks, there were others who preceded them. Giants of significance to me, in the personal, entertainment, pop culture, and political arenas; names like Ed McMahon, my Father In-Law, David Carradine, Dan Miller, Chuck Daly, Dom Deluise, Jack Kemp, Bea Arthur, Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych, Paul Harvey, James Whitmore, Andrew Wyeth, and the great Ricardo Montalbán.

But the Grim Reaper wasn’t finished in June; he kept right on going, and has in just the past six weeks claimed the additional lives of Walter Cronkite, Robert McNamara, Steve McNair, and Karl Malden.

Now if you’re looking at that list and either scratching your head because there’s a bunch of names there you either don’t recognize — or in whose passing you weren’t quite moved enough to really feel bad about, well, no worries here. Chances are you’re not 53 years old, have split your lifetime between LA and Nashville, and/or are married to the daughter of a late, former Apollo 11 Moon Mission engineer.

You Just Never Know
We all have our own individual list of people that have touched our lives; its not the same for everyone, just as we also wield our own sphere of influence that touches the lives of others.

Sometimes that influence is through incidental contact; other times it’s quite intentional. Sometimes it’s a part of our job; other times it’s none of our freaking business. Sometimes our influence is a good thing; other times it’s the worst thing that we could possibly do to another person.

There’s one constant in all of this however, and that is that we never know.

We never know how just a look from us can change another person’s day; how an encouraging word can either make or break a child; how the conscious decision to NOT let our ill mood affect our response can make all the difference in the outcome of an inter-personal situation.

We never know how years of direct exposure to another soul can either mold that person’s character for good, or cast an irrevocable die of pain upon their life.

We just never know.

My all-time personal favorite quote — the single greatest influence I have ever received from a poet, is displayed in the masthead of my blog. It’s not from a poem, but is from the heart of a wise and inspired poetess, Maya Angelou:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This has become my mantra; something I attempt to use to govern my actions; to make each and every contact with another person a positive one, because…you never know.

A Hughe(s) Loss
John Hughes probably had a clue, but I doubt he ever knew just how influential his movies were, or how much he would be missed when he left us this past Thursday.

I sure as hell didn’t know how it would affect me.

And the thing is, at the time I heard the news, I really didn’t know why I was so shaken.

Perhaps it was just the straw-that-broke-the camel’s-back of this god-forsaken ‘another one bites the dust’ kind-of-year.

Perhaps it was the fact that just a few days earlier I had actually done a Google search on Hughes to try and find out what he was up to. I hadn’t heard anything about him making movies in what seemed like forever. Was he ill or just laying low? Why had he dropped out of the limelight? Why had he not directed a single feature film since the early 90s?

And then came Thursday...and he was gone.

The irony was simply too sharp. I really had to swallow hard as I read aloud to my co-workers the news of John Hughes death from the press release I received via email late Thursday afternoon.

I felt as though someone had punched me in the gut.

The man was 59 years old — just six years my senior. I had no idea. I’d always assumed him to be was much older than that. I’d never even seen a picture of him prior to that news release.

I guess I knew a different John Hughes. The filmmaker I admired was perhaps different than the one whose movies you connected with as a teenager. I was well beyond my teens in the 1980s, but instead was traveling through my late twenties and into my thirties by the time Hughes’ films exploded upon the scene.


Hughes’ original Brats: (clockwise from left) Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, and Molly Ringwald
_{Photo courtesy WashingtonPost.com}

I was, by MY generation’s directive, almost ready to join the ranks of ‘those not to be trusted’ when The Breakfast Club hit the theaters in 1985.

Oh, and did I mention, I what an ASS I was back then, too?

In the mid-80s I used to bristle at Generation X, as they recently had been dubbed. The kids born after the mid-60s; those malcontents who listened to Punk Rock, dyed their hair chartreuse, and spent their time yakking about ‘No Nukes.’ These were the age and experience group that John Hughes’ films were directed to the most.

I realized at the time that this must have been how my parent’s generation felt about me and my mates in the 60s, when the first so-called ‘generation gap’ formed.

I was aware of The Breakfast Club, although not necessarily cognizant of Hughes per se. What I did know, however, was the ‘Brat Pack’ — this group of up-and-coming actors, and how they were being hyped as ‘the next big thing’ in Hollywood. The Breakfast Club was ostensibly the birth of the Brat Pack, as noted in the 1985 New York magazine cover story which popularized the phrase.

Yeah, they were brats alright, I thought. Kids these days.

I just rolled my eyes.

But as has so often in my life been demonstrated, I later realized that I needed to stop assuming things that weren’t necessarily true. I mean, you know what they say about ASSuming…

So I went to a different ‘Brat Pack’ movie that came out that same year: St. Elmo’s Fire. It wasn’t a John Hughes film, but its ensemble cast featured three of the Breakfast Club’s five principles, including Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson.

I loved it.

But enough about brats; back to John Hughes.

An Overdue Present
I may have given the Brat Pack a second chance in 1985, but would continue to be late to the John Hughes love-fest for another five years, until a screaming kid would force us to take him to a movie about another screaming kid: Macaulay Culkin in his portrayal of the precocious Kevin McCallister, in Hughes’ comedic masterpiece, Home Alone.

Our kids were ages eight and six in December, 1990, and Home Alone was all the rage among most of the young parents we knew. So after much cajoling from our son Shawn, we treated the kids to the now-classic Chrismastime flick — which they loved.

However it was I who received the long-overdue present at the movie theater that day: the gift of John Hughes.

There are two movies from the Early 90s that simply enrapture me, not necessarily for their production values, or even their story lines alone, but rather the aesthetics created by the combination of those two elements that infuse the mind of the viewer.

One film, about which I’ve written fairly often in previous stories, is City Slickers — both for it’s breathtaking cinematography of the West and its humorous-yet-gripping truths about a man saying goodbye to his youth.

Home Alone is the other, and probably for exact opposite reason. Oh it’s funny, silly, and all of those things that one would expect from a plot about a young boy who believes he’s made his family disappear, but there was something more in it for me.

Home Alone reconnected me to my childhood — not that I ever spent any time fending off burglars by greasing up the basement steps or pretending I was a gangster joyously filling my enemies full’a lead.

What I got out of the movie — and the numerous other John Hughes films I would subsequently rent and devour over the years that followed, was pure John Hughes; a guy who was a child of the Midwest, just like me; a child of the 50s and 60s, just like me; and a filmmaker who poured out just the right amount of that part of his life into every movie he made.

I don’t really know how else to define it, but the ‘feeling’ of Kevin McCallister’s neighborhood in suburban Chicago is exactly how it ‘felt’ in similar settings throughout the Midwest I grew up in. The flavor was unmistakable to me. And amid all the movie’s laughs and high-jinx was the poignancy of this connective tissue that bound it all together.

This wasn’t just a movie about a kid in suburban America, it was a movie about me. And I’m certain that the way Hughes affected me in Home Alone is the same way so many GenXers felt about The Breakfast Club.

He made us feel connected.

John Hughes didn’t just make movies about teens; he made movies about the human spirit — weaving characters into whom we could lose ourselves and identify; seeing our lives through their eyes for just a little while, and then returning us to reality a little more enlightened; a little more encouraged to go out and make the world our own. He had a remarkable ability to speak to the heart, whether in laughter or in angst, making us comfortable in someone else’s skin.

And he will be missed.


Next: John Hughes — addendum

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 5 of 6)

It's Monday, May 23, 2011, Day Five of my six-day pre-blogaversary celebration for AYBABTU, reposting of some of my somewhat more obscure, yet favorite stories over the seven-year life of this space.

I’m beginning to see a pattern here. It would seem that many of my favorite posts are thoughtful, rather sad tributes to people in my life who have died. Yesterday it was Johnny Carson, today it’s my step-mom Maxine, and tomorrow it will be filmmaker John Hughes. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself...

Anyway, one thing I wanted to mention regarding today’s repost is how much I wish I’d taken Latin in school; it’s a fascinating language for me, largely because so much of our English words are based on Latin derivatives. And being the latter-day etymologist-wannabe I’ve become in my old age, I could poke around a Latin/English translation website for hours – which is what it appears I DID in coming up with the title for this story.

However again, I don’t want to get too far off-track here, except to say that I now realize that when I wrote the story back on June 1, 2010, I goofed a bit in my self-translation of the title phrase Secundum Memor, which, allegedly, is Latin for, In Accordance With Remembering.

The problem is that in actual Latin usage the words would be transposed. It should be phrased, Memor Secundum, with the preposition secundum following its object instead of the other way around, as I’d mashed it up via an online translator. Oh those crazy Romans; maybe I need to get to know their language a little better if I want to use it.

But all levity aside, this is another serious post and one that’s especially close to my heart, as its subject is the woman with whom I shared a turbulent, emotional, quintessential love-hate relationship in my youth. Nevertheless, there was perhaps no person I ever more wished to be accepted by than my step-mother, and thankfully, in the end, I was. Enjoy...

TUESDAY, JUNE 01, 2010

Secundum Memor

For me, Memorial Day is always at least a day late
My father served in the army during WW II, but luckily for my family, didn’t see any time on the battlefield. He’s still with us today; a hale and hearty 86-goin’-on-87 year-old.

None of my aunts and uncles lost their lives fighting for our country either.

I didn’t have any friends or relatives who died in Viet Nam (that I know of, anyway), save for a high school buddy of my late brother David, Glenn Bailey, for whom I always say a prayer each time the calendar rolls around to the final Monday in May.

I don’t believe either of my kids have had friends who’ve lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan; nor have any of our family friends with children in current military service dealt with the anguish of such a fate.

Even my most famous soldier-relative, WW I’s most decorated, Sergeant Alvin C. York, who defied incredible odds and employed legendary valor, managed to come through his tour of duty in The Great War with life intact.

So, that being said, Memorial Day, apart from a general reverence on behalf all of the men and women who fought to secure my freedom, had never been all that personal a day of remembrance for me.

That is, until ten years ago today.

June 1, 2000 was the day my step-mom, Maxine was laid to rest.

She died that Memorial Day weekend from a viral infection, which suddenly overtook her body during recovery from a previous surgery. It was shocking; unexpected; devastating. She was 78 years old, but had always been in good health. However that began to change following a second knee replacement in 1999 and a subsequent series of complications, including removal of a benign tumor and a staph infection, which she was recovering from at the time that the secondary viral infection took over and ended her life.

The stormy relationship Maxine and I shared is well-documented, yet the loss I still feel each June 1st has never abated; and I doubt, ever will.

For the vast majority of my adult life, I was on wonderful terms with the woman who raised me; who taught me responsibility, and “the principle of the thing.” But it hadn’t always been so.

The lessons she delivered were hard and unrelenting; the same way that she had learned them, growing up during The Great Depression. I had every reason to rebel; every reason to hate her, but I endured, and eventually won her favor.

The years seemed to mellow her, but I’m not certain of that. All I know for sure is that her stance toward me changed after I became an adult. She often made it a point to let me know that finally, I had “done good” after years of not-so-subtly suggesting that I never would.

I learned the definition of forgiveness through my step-mother; not by her example, but rather by God’s provision of my opportunity to grant it unto her, despite all the reasons I had not to.

Ten years later, now with adult children of my own, with whom many of the same issues of will that my Mom and I battled having come and gone, I see things through different eyes; even more so now than I did ten years ago, when I stood at the podium of Forest Lawn’s Church of Our Fathers, delivering her eulogy.

There are always two sides to every story; dual points of view, both seemingly ‘right’ in the eyes of those who hold them. Whether it was hers or whether it was mine that was the correct one is immaterial.

What is important, and what is that part of the substance of my character gleaned from my relationship with Maxine, is that there is good in every situation, no matter how dark or daunting. A battle of wills does not always declare a victor, nor does it always brand a loser.

Maxine taught me that there is more than one way to love.

Thanks, Mom.


finis

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 4 of 6)

It's Sunday, May 22, 2011, Day Four of my six-day pre-blogaversary celebration for AYBABTU, reposting of some of my somewhat more obscure, yet favorite stories over the seven-year life of this space.

Seeing as though we apparently missed The Rapture, I thought that today I would reprise a story about someone who at least lives in Comedy Heaven: the legendary King of Latenight, the late Johnny Carson.

The post, The King Is Dead...Long Live The King originally appeared on Monday, January 24, 2005, the day after Carson’s passing, as my tribute to a longtime hero of both my childhood and adult life. Johnny Carson defined an entire genre of television and certainly, just as well defined a big part of the lives of his millions of fans throughout his show’s 30 seasons on the air.

It’s almost unbelievable that today marks 19 years since, quite literally, Carson’s swan song: Bette Midler’s rendition of ‘One For My Baby’ at the close of the penultimate Tonight Show With Johnny Carson (the actual final show the following night, on May 23. 1992, included no guests besides sidekick Ed McMahon and previous Tonight Show video highlights).



At any rate, in tribute to that, and because I’ve always considered this one of the most heartfelt stream of words ever to proceed from my fingers...Enjoy.

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2005

The King Is Dead...Long Live The King

Sorry to interrupt, but this can’t be helped.
It was my sincere intention to complete my current series before I went on to any other subject. The story of my brother’s current battle with Alzheimer’s Disease has taken more than six weeks so far, and it’s been excruciating to try and get through. As a matter of fact, I’ve got plenty of other story ideas I want to get to. They’re all lined up in queue inside my head just waiting to be written as soon as I can get this current gorilla off my back. However interruptions happen, such as my side posts at Christmas and New Years, because they’re holidays that merit such timely recognition. Now another event has occurred, which in my world deserves similar pause and reflection.

The King is dead.

No, I’m not talking about Elvis — he’s still working the graveyard shift down at the 7-Eleven. I’m not talking about some Middle Eastern potentate or even the King of Beers. I’m talking about the King of Late Night. I’m talking about Johnny Carson.

Johnny passed away around dawn Sunday morning in his Malibu, CA home, apparently due to complications from emphysema. It was no doubt the result of his many years of cigarette smoking, which makes it all the more disgusting and painful for me to take.

You see, I come from a long line of smokers. I am the only one of all my brothers who has never smoked. My Dad quit 22 years ago after having smoked on and off for 23 the previous 43 years. All of his family have been heavy smokers, including my paternal Grandfather, who himself succumbed to emphysema in 1973. I guess that makes Carson’s death a little more personal for me. And it also makes me a little more angry because it circles back to add a stinging reminder as to my own failure as a parent; the fact that despite the example of our family’s history I apparently couldn’t make a strong enough case to prevent my own children from becoming smokers themselves.

Shawn and Amy tell me that they are mostly ‘social smokers.’ They acknowledge that it’s a harmful habit and that someday, they will definitely quit. But as I’ve told them to no avail, I’ve grown up around it and would dare say that I’ve known quite a few more people in my lifetime who after only smoking for a few years have tried to quit and found it extremely tough. How tough, I can’t say, because thankfully it has never been my problem; yet it’s obviously something that’s difficult to deal with, so why start in the first place?

Okay, okay...I’m veering way off course here. It wasn’t my intent to make this post a rant about smoking. I’m not a cigarette-Nazi, and quite frankly it doesn’t bother me to be around it; after all, like I said, I grew up with smokers; I’m used to it; it’s not a major issue. What I do have an issue with is the fact that it has killed yet another person; a person I grew up with; a person I truly loved and thought the world of: Johnny Carson.

You all know who he was, but if you don’t have a clear recollection of actually witnessing him host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, you likely don’t know what he was. He was a pioneer. He not only defined the genre of late-night talk, he was The Beatles of talk show hosts. He set the standard. He broke the mold.

In the 1960s, when I was between 8 and 12 years of age, there was no cooler treat than being able to stay up until 11:30pm to watch The Tonight Show. I always felt so ‘grown up,’ getting the chance to laugh at the sometimes racy, certainly ‘adult-oriented’ humor of Johnny and his guests. Carson defined the now standard concept of the comedic monologue to begin each show; now it’s standard practice. It may not have started with Carson, but he became the standard-bearer for its use to subsequent generations of comic talkshow hosts to follow.

I know that a lot of you thirtysomethings probably think that Johnny Carson was a little old-fashioned, compared to the raucous, zany or hip, urban styles of David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Arsenio Hall. Certainly they all fed off of the Carson genre and added their own special augmentations, most of which are both funny and worthy of praise in and of themselves. But if you were to ask them (and all have been asked over the years) who is the greatest of them all, to a man they point to Carson.

Everyone watched Carson. Of course the fact that there was no cable in all but a fraction of U.S. households in even the latter years of his run didn’t exactly hurt his ratings. But the fact is, Johnny Carson was the definition of water cooler discussion. His show was what everyone talked about in the office the next morning. His monologues were often the topic of discussion for morning radio DJs throughout the country. And perhaps as importantly, all America knew that if someone made an appearance on the Tonight Show, either as an interviewed guest or a musical performer, that person or band was important. They had made it. That’s how significant Johnny Carson’s influence was.

Johnny & Ed
I had actually been thinking about Carson recently, and wondering how he was doing; it seemed amazing how time had flown since he left the public eye. After leaving The Tonight Show on May 23,1992, he basically went into seclusion, making public appearances very rarely and television appearances almost never.

Carson’s sidekick for over 30 years, Ed McMahon would go on, following The Tonight Show to enjoy perhaps his greatest celebrity with the syndicated Star Search TeeVee series, while also putting his face on seemingly any show or product he could throughout the decade of the 90s.

Yet even as McMahon’s public presence began diminishing over the past few years, I was still hopeful to see Johnny to resurface at some point. Unfortunately he stuck to his guns just as he’d said he would when he announced, “When I retire from television, I’m going to stay retired from television.”

And now he’s gone...and I feel like shit.

I feel as though someone just reached into my soul and ripped out a huge chunk of my childhood, not to mention a good part of my adult life. I don’t know anyone my age who didn’t think the man was The Man. He was, quite frankly, a hero to my generation; someone to be admired.

Johnny Carson was 79 years old; not exactly a spring chicken, but three years younger than McMahon, who is now 82. Not that I would have ever wished it upon him, but I always figured that Ed would be the first to go.

The Boy Who Would Be King
When we were kids, my brother Alex and I would pretend that we were Johnny and Ed. I was Carson, of course.

We would do imaginary interviews with greats like Jimmy Stewart (with me doing double-duty with an extremely lame Jimmy Steward impression). Of course Zha Zha Gabor would always stop by with her legendary cat and her even more legendary question to Johnny (which I would learn only years later are merely urban legends). And of course, Carnac the Magnificent would make an appearance as well, giving the answers to Ed’s questions before they were even asked.

But now all these years later I hold in my hand the LAST question. It has been hermetically sealed inside a mayonnaise jar, sitting on Funk & Wagnall’s porch since noon today.

The question is a simple, “Why?” However, we’ll never know the answer. Carnac won’t be making any more appearances.

The King is dead.

Long live the King.


_{Photo Courtesy Carson Productions, Inc.}

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 3 of 6)

It's Saturday, May 21, 2011, Day Three of my six-day pre-blogaversary celebration for AYBABTU with some reposts of some of my somewhat more obscure favorite stories over the seven-year life of this space.

Today's entry is one of my favorite music-related posts, a concert review from November 4, 2004, of one of my all-time favorite rock guitarists, Joe Satriani.

Surfin’ with the Aliens

Rock ‘N Roll’s Mister Clean
Joe Satriani. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, it could be for a number of reasons:
a.) You're a not a man.
b.) You don't play electric guitar.
c.) You’ve never played air guitar.
d.) You were born after 1987.
e.) All of the above.

If those five items don't describe you and you're still at a loss, perhaps the title of his breakthrough 1987 release, Surfing With the Alien will roust your memory. Perhaps now I've got your attention, if for no other reason than because you're wondering, "What the hell could a song with a title like that be about?" And of course, the answer to that is, "It doesn't matter," because the song has no lyrics, like nearly all of Satriani's body of work, covering 18 albums and spanning 18 years.

Without getting into an unnecessarily involved history of the term, “heavy metal” as a definition of big-sounding genre of guitar music was first coined in 1969 by John Kay and Steppenwolf with the phrase, “heavy metal thunder” in their classic hit, Born to be Wild. Since then artists from Alice Cooper to Lamb of God have etched their mark on a genre that has ambiguously flowed in and out of the pop mainstream.

Despite hitting its pop stride in a big way during the mid-to-late 1980s and early 90s, Heavy Metal has typically existed on the outskirts of the establishment; a rebel without a cause; rife with testosterone-driven power and élan. Metal can be liberating, but can also be dark and tedious. A stalwart of rebellion from the 1960s on in one form or another, it’s the kind of music that teenage boys feed upon; and that which typically drives their parents up the wall.

Metal can be gritty; raunchy; nasty even — and that’s not always a bad thing. It’s
also not always a good thing either.

Joe Satriani’s sound, on the other hand is “clean” Metal — in nearly every respect — from his shaved head to the seemingly endless procession of gleaming guitars he pulls out to play onstage. He is, quite rightfully known as "the guitarist's guitarist." He actually used to teach guitar in San Francisco, attracting the likes of Metallica's Kirk Hammett, Larry LaLonde of Primus and the acclaimed Steve Vai as students. He is in my opinion the preeminent Rock ‘N Roll guitarist of his generation, bar none. Eddie Van Halen? Puh-LEEZE. Joe has both the improvisational and melodic chops to carry his music without vocalist in his act. His guitar does the singing. His albums are 99.5% instrumental. And they rock!

Joe Satriani is different. Some Metal digs ditches. Joe’s Metal soars above the clouds.

Rock ‘N Roll Heaven in the Mother Church
Last week I saw Joe Satriani in concert for the first time after loving his music for 17 years. It was a decidedly different crowd than I was used to seeing at the Ryman Auditorium on a Thursday night. The gender ratio was about 20-1, male-to-female. There was a decided tinge of male essence in the air; and for the first time in the ten years that I’ve been attending concerts at The Ryman, the lines into the men’s restrooms far exceeded those of the women’s.

It was an older and largely blue-collar crowd. I’ve probably not seen that many work shirts all in one auditorium since the union strike vote meetings I attended back in the 1970s as a member of the AFL-CIO. It was almost comical to see all these pudgy, graying, middle-aged guys standing and pumping their fists after nearly every song. You could just about guess that it was all they could do to resist the urge to break out their air guitars and play along with ‘Satch.’

And just as the crowd had a blue-collar makeup, so did Joe Satriani’s work ethic onstage. He played from 7:30pm sharp until 11:00pm with only a 15-minute break in-between. This dude is no glam-rocker. His look was understated and cool, with his signature wraparound shades, a plain black t-shirt, blue jeans and black boots. His backup band featured drums, bass, and rhythm electric & acoustic guitars, but they were clearly in the background.

Not really knowing what to expect, I was sort of expecting a little more in the histrionics department from Satriani, but to his credit, he’s not a very ‘showy’ performer. He does however really step into his music; the deep emotion and joy of his instrumental intercourse is readily apparent in his body language and the incessant smile on his face. The only thing that’s ‘bigtime’ about Joe is the quality of the sound emanating from his axe. Whenever he graciously addressed the crowd, he almost seemed embarrassed by the cheers, which on this night were more than raucous.

I couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable experience, unless it were possible for me to be close enough to catch the dozen or more guitar picks he showered the first few rows with throughout the night. Nevertheless, my vantage point was more than adequate to see the man and capture the experience.

As I had hoped, Satriani borrowed most heavily from his still most commercially successful album, Surfing With the Alien, performing five of the album’s ten songs and finishing the show’s final encore with the classic title track .

A week later that concert is still ringing in my ears. I had always wondered whether or not Satriani would be able to match the output of the recording studio in a live setting, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Much has been made of the fact that a number of Satriani’s former students have now gone on to greater fame than he has. For all of his acclaim in guitar player circles, due to the lack of marketability of all-instrumental rock albums, Joe, while often nominated, has never won that elusive Grammy Award. He has long since been given the playful title of the ‘Susan Lucci of Rock Music.’

Yet the oversight hasn’t bothered him enough to consider combining his efforts with a vocalist (à la Carlos Santana), to produce an effort that the general public would more readily embrace. I really respect him for that. He has said that doing so would detract too much from the music in the way he conceptualizes it. He really does write his music with the idea that his guitar has a voice.

And I’ll always love to hear it sing.


finis

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 2 of 6)

It's Friday, May 20, 2011, Day Two of my six-day pre-blogaversary celebration for AYBABTU, reposts of a few of my personal favorite posts that you may have missed, and a few that I, quite frankly, had all but forgotten about myself until I decided to do this retrospective.

Andy And Me
Today’s retro post is another in what I consider to be one of my more personal back-glances at my professional career, and yet another reason why I will never feel as though my life hasn’t been absolutely full.

For anyone my age, the image below is unmistakable; its artist as easily identifiable as a Renaissance master. Andy Warhol was perhaps the best known pop artist of my lifetime. And inasmuch as his timeless, ‘Marilyn’ is perhaps his best-known work, his greatest contribution to pop-culture may in fact be a written quote rather than his trademark painterly photographic treatments.


_{© 1962 Andy Warhol}

In a 1968 exhibition catalog for his exhibit at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Warhol penned the wildly-famous and oft-used pop-culture maxim, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” The quote’s popular paraphrase, “15 minutes of fame,” is attached to seemingly every ephemeral, one-hit wonder-celeb that comes down the pike these days, in essence, giving prophet’s credence to Warhol’s famous line. And while its sarcastic, quasi-derogatory inference may be an insult to those who crave fame’s fickle favor, for regular folks like you and I, it can be a subtle vote of accomplishment to actually see the product of your own hard work reflected in even a modicum of recognition; to realize even your five minutes of fame.

For when it all comes down to it, in my opinion, sometimes close is more than close enough.

Enjoy.

Still Scratching My Seven Year Itch (Day 1 of 6)

A Royal Awakening
Today is Thursday May 19, 2011 and I just got a jolt of adrenaline from my visit to the blog of a dear old friend; someone with whom I rarely communicate anymore. She was the very first person to let me know that this blog was more than merely an online diary; that there actually was someone out there. She became AYBABTU’s first commenter, in my third post on May 25, 2004.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made reference to the story about Queenie’s inaugural comment, but now, years later, I come back to it because it holds such a strong place in my heart.

We each started our blogs that same month, as did thousands of others during Blogger’s historic upgrade of early ’04. We became enthusiastic supporters of each others’ work for several years thereafter, but gradually, as has been the case with many, we each eventually fell off the pace as life took precedence.

However on a nostalgic whim today I decided to check up on Queenie’s blog and was delighted to discover that after having dropped out completely for more than a year, she has recently begun posting again.

And just as great (to me, today, at any rate) is the fact her blog still looks exactly the same now as it did in 2004, so I was immediately transported back to seven years ago, when this wonderful adventure of blogging began for both of us.

And then suddenly it registered that the anniversary of AYBABTU is just a few days away, as is Harold Camping’s prediction of the coming of The Rapture, supposedly happening this weekend, on Sunday May 21st.

So, I decided that just in case the world comes to an end as we know it a few days before my seventh blogaversary on May 24th, I wanted to mark the occasion a few days early.

As a matter of fact, I think I’m gonna make this a running theme this week; a sort of ‘The Six Days of Blog-mas’ if you will.

Each day I’ll post a brief blurb regarding the life of my blog along with a link to one of AJ’s (other) Greatest Writs that's not listed in my ‘best of’ page (in the nav bar above). To be honest there are a few favorite stories that I’d been considering regurgitating anyway, so this seems like as good a time to do that as any. Hopefully you’ll find them enjoyable to read again, or for the first time.

Blogaversary Post #1
Anyway, for today I give you, Random Ruminations of A Man Left To His Own Devices (Part II). It’s the humorous part of an early two-part post from June 2004, on a pair of topics that came to mind while I was left on my own by my wife for the weekend.

Part two is a site more enjoyable read than part one, which now in retrospect I find to be a rather bitchy whine about the shortcomings of male friendships. You can read it if you want, but don't forget to wear your hip-waders.

Enjoy, and I’ll seeya tomorrow!

Technical Writer?

Hello again, old friend.
Y’know it’s amazing, but I almost feel like tearing up every time I sit before Blogger’s ‘New Post’ interface and begin to type. You see, this blog really holds a special place in my heart, although you’d hardly know that by how often I post here.

Anymore, it seems whenever I go into the Blogger post editor (which has certainly changed since 2004 — but not all that much) it’s kinda like seeing an old friend with whom you share a warm, yet long-distance relationship. Every time you see each other, the memories of good times; the way you supported each other; the way you completed each other — the emotions all come flooding back.

Then, after spending a little time together, you say, “Man, this has been great. We really need to get together more often.”

Nonetheless, before long you find yourself continuing on with your busy life, never quite breaking away from the now-hardened habits that took you away from your old friend in the first place.

Then, the realization; that for me, I’ve found a new friend — two, really. I write for a paycheck now, as a technical writer at a local software company, and in my spare time I write another blog about hockey, and my local NHL team, the Nashville Predators.

Both circumstances have been a tremendous blessing to me and have provided a great deal of satisfaction to me as a wordsmith.

I've even gone so far as to finally launch my own domain, ajinnashville.com. I've moved my free Wordpress.com-hosted hockey blog there, and originally intended to do the same with AYBABTU. In fact, that was the original intent of this post, to announce the fact that this space was moving.

But now, after looking deeply into the eyes of my dear old friend for the first time in months, I’m not so sure. I’m gonna have to weigh the pros and cons. We’ll have to see. Aside from the sentimental value and longstanding loyalty I feel for Blogger, there is a more practical reason for me to leave AYBABTU in place. I’m rather proud to say (and was totally shocked when I discovered it recently) that I now occupy the #1 Google search position for the term, ‘personal blogger’ and I’m not real sure I want to risk the possible surrender of that with a move to a new domain.

The advantages of moving the hockey blog made it a no-brainer. While I still do it purely for my own enjoyment, I'm now being approached by sponsors and want to take whatever opportunity reasonable to at least make a little dough from blogging (although I sincerely doubt it will ever be more than chump change). At any rate, it was necessary to move away from a fixed platform to a self-hosted circumstance to really take full advantage of sponsorship opportunities and requirements, so I finally went ahead and made the leap.

I'll need to do some research on the ‘google juice’ aspect of a potential redirection from blogspot.com to ajinnashville.com, but my initial thought is that while I may at some point create a second, more narrowly-themed personal blog on my new domain, I’ll likely just leave this one be.

Not that I expect a whole lot of SEO geeks will be reading this post, but if there are, and you’d be kind enough to weigh in with an opinion on what the best way for me to go would be, I’d certainly appreciate it.

Re: The Awkward Pause
As far as the future of this blog is concerned, as always, I have nothing but the best of intentions. I have a backlog of story ideas, including a number of ‘Unfinished Business’ stories left that I’m doggedly determined to complete and back-post.

I am not finished with you, my old friend. Somehow, some way, I’ll make the time. We’ll remember the old stories, as well as the ones that have yet to be told.

...And we’ll get together then, yeah. Ya know we’ll have a good time then.


finis

For the 11,680th Time, Marry Me?

Mixed Messages
I know I haven't officially announced it here yet, but something wonderful is in the offing. This past February 14th, my daughter, Amy, became engaged to a young man that Michelle and I both approve of and like very much. No official wedding date has been set as of yet, but if the stars align properly, it’ll be sometime late this fall.

Naturally, for about a month now, the wheels have been spinning in earnest amongst my two favorite females. It’s an extremely exciting time for Michelle and me. We, like most parents, I would assume, will be experiencing a rite of parental passage unlike anything else in seeing our daughter make that all-important next step in her life; in many ways becoming the complete person she’s always dreamed of being.

But believe it or not, that’s really not what this post is about.

There’s another blessed event to be celebrated, today, as a matter of fact. It’s an annual event that is at the same time exhilarating and frustrating for yours truly: Michelle and my wedding Anniversary.

Exhilarating, because it still gives me the same goosebumps and lump in my throat that it did on St. Paddy’s Day, 32 years ago today, when I stood before a brightly sunlit window, gazing into the morning sky and pronouncing, vocally, “I’m getting married today, and my life will never be the same.” And 11,680 days later, indeed it has not been.

However, it’s frustrating as well, as this year, like many of the years before, the most we can afford to do to celebrate our anniversary is go out to dinner and exchange heartfelt sentiments via the poignant-as-we-can-find anniversary cards from the local card store.

But this year (knock on wood) the reason is a good one; I started a new job after more than a year of unemployment, after being laid off by The Company I had worked for eleven years previous. I’m still in my 90-day probationary period, so I don’t have any available vacay days until the first of next month.

So we’ll perhaps postpone any plans of a real celebration for later on in the year, when I do have plans and will take Michelle on a genuine vacation. We just can’t do it now.

However, to be honest, it’s not like we never do anything special on our anniversary. We’ve managed to celebrate the ‘big ones’ like the 10th, 20th, and 30th in style. The most recent of course being the weekend we were able to enjoy at the Opryland Hotel two years ago. Now THAT was fun, and something I really want to do again. I guess once you get the taste for something like that, it makes subsequent occasions when you don't do it seem that much less satisfying. But no doubt I’m being harder on myself than I probably need to be.

Michelle is no diva. She’s not high-maintenance. She is as unassuming and undemanding as a man could want in a life partner. Each and every day she makes me realize what an incredibly lucky guy I am to be the man she chose to love for the rest of her life.

And thus is revealed the twain of my daughter’s impending nuptials and the anniversary that marks 59% of Michelle’s and my current lifespan, spent together.

Wait. Did I say twain? I meant Train.

Early Adoption
I could (and likely will, someday) devote an entire post to my longstanding admiration for a band from San Francisco that was more or less discovered in Nashville.

Some of my fondest musical experiences in this town occurred in the late 90s, during a series of music festivals designed to highlight local and regional, unsigned talent: the late, great NEA Extravaganza. It was a week-long celebration of nightly, multiple-venue showcases that was wildly popular in Music City before petering out near the decade’s end. Music industry officials mixed with fans in packed clubs and concert halls throughout downtown Nashville, hoping to see ‘the next big thing’. For music hounds like moi, it was beyond great.

At NEA’s 1998 festival, Train headlined the Aware Records Show at 328 Performance Hall. Within a few months of that appearance, the band was signed, and hits like Meet Virginia were all over the radio, nationally.

Without hijacking the story any further at this point, let me just say, I came, I saw, and I was smitten, particularly when soon thereafter, Train also performed a free, Who’s on 3rd show, at 3rd & Lindsley Bar and Grill. That evening nearly everyone in attendance got the chance to meet the band, and came away really feeling as though they’d gotten in on the ground floor of something special.

From the subsequent release of their 1998 self-titled debut album to their current, 2010 smash release, Save Me San Francisco, Train has subsequently established itself as one of the great American pop bands of their era.

Lead singer, Patrick Monahan’s soulful, yet wildly resourceful voice is unlike any other I’ve ever heard, and particularly on their current effort, runs a gamut I previously didn't believe possible.

However, it was the lyrics to one of his new new songs, one bearing his trademark improvisational style, that really wowed me.

Guilty Pleasure
I’ll have to admit it, my wife has won me over on a few TeeVee shows I once swore to myself I’d never watch. One is ABC’s, The Bachelor. I started watching it with her three years ago while, in the midst of moving into our new house, we had to spend six months in an apartment, with but one decent TeeVee to watch.

This season’s finale was last Monday night, and as part of the final video montage of bliss, depicting glimpses of the reality series’ final contestants’ love connection, a tender ballad played in the background.

It was soft enough (and my hearing is bad enough) that I couldn't quite make out who the artist was. However, what was clear was the predominant phrase in the song’s chorus: Marry Me.

It was totally appropriate as The Bachelor season’s swan song, as Brad, the young man looking for love, made no bones about the fact that he was looking for permanent love; he was looking for a wife.

When we heard the song, Michelle and I immediately looked at each other and said, nearly in unison, “What a cool song!” We didn’t have to state the obvious; we were thinking bout Amy’s wedding.

Michelle immediately commissioned me to find out who sang that song and where we could get it. I agreed and began searching online. I was both delighted and embarrassed that top Google search result for “Marry Me” was a YouTube link to the video below:



I was obviously delighted because it was so easy to find. There were several links to Train’s official website in reference to the song. A little further down the page was yet another link to a The Bachelor-related blog that confirmed the song’s appearance in season finale episode, suggesting that “...we’ll always associate this song with The Bachelor.”

Weeel, maybe, maybe not.

By now you might be wondering, if I claim to be such a dedicated Train fan, why I didn’t immediately identify the artist when my wife asked; surely I already owned Save Me San Francisco, right? How come I didn’t know the song?

Well, that’s the embarrassing part. Fact is, I knew that Train had come out with a new album last fall. However, buying music wasn’t quite at the top of my disposable income budget during the previous year and a half, when I was out of work for 14 months.

Sorry, My bad.

However the song is definitely on my radar now; in fact I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for the last three days.

After watching the awesome video and investigating the lyrics, I have decided that whether Amy wants Marry Me to be played at her wedding doesn’t matter; I now associate this song with my marriage instead.

You see it’s not about one special day. It’s not even about a single marriage proposal. It’s about the daily commitment; the daily renewal of the ever-elastic bond of marriage; it’s about is the way I feel toward my wife.

Thanks to Train for putting into words what was for me, a previously indescribable feeling; for one of the greatest Anniversary gifts I could ever receive, or give.

And today, for the 11,680th time, I give it to you, Michelle.

Happy 32nd Anniversary, Sweetheart.


Forever can never be long enough for me
To feel like I've had long enough with you

Forget the world now we won't let them see
But there's one thing left to do

Now that the weight has lifted
Love has surely shifted my way

Marry Me
Today and every day

Marry Me
If I ever get the nerve to say
Hello in this cafe

Say you will...Say you will

Together can never be close enough for me
To feel like I am close enough to you

You wear white and I'll wear out the words I love
And you're beautiful

Now that the wait is over
And love and has finally shown her my way

Marry me
Today and every day

Marry me
If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe

Say you will...Say you will

Promise me
You'll always be
Happy by my side

I promise to
Sing to you
When all the music dies

And marry me
Today and everyday

Marry me
If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe

Say you will...Say you will

Marry me

_{Words & Music © 2010 Partick Monahan and Train}


finis

Dance

I love my wife, and I know she loves me. We love each other despite the respective compulsive behaviors we continually embrace that drive each other a little crazy sometimes.

For example, I acknowledge that I suffer from Dishwasher Palsy; that affliction in which a person’s hands cease to function beyond the act of setting dirty dishes in the sink (as opposed to continuing on that extra foot-and-a-half to place them in the dishwasher).

On the other hand, Michelle suffers from a malady that seems to run rampant in her workplace, called Office Email Forwarditis, in which she seems helpless to resist the urge to forward every chain email she receives to at least a dozen other people and then, in turn, to me as well.

These electronic missives of folly generally fall into a narrow range of categories. Many are somewhat offensively political in nature. Others are simply goofy larks involving some Baby Boomer’s waxed nostalgia for ‘the good old days’. And we've all seen those embarrassingly juvenile collections of silly images, featuring various snide and/or corny captions, usually screaming at you in 36-point Comic Sans or Brush Script (IN ALL CAPS, OF COURSE).

As a graphic designer, these emails often give me the urge to jump off a cliff. As a rational, thinking person, I sometimes have my doubts as to whether or not the originator employed those same capabilities at the time they were dreaming these things up.

Nonetheless, I never delete them out of hand. I always at least give glance to each email, because every once in awhile Michelle will surprise me with a winner; a chain email with a difference; one with a sentiment that rings true, regardless of its level of trite sappiness; a message whose aim to remind us how precious our time on this planet truly is and how we need to make every minute count; one that is right on target.

The email she sent me on Wednesday was like that. I really needed it too, as I had received news the day before that truly placed the whole concept of ‘life’ into perspective for me once again.

Another Episode of ‘Life Interrupted’
This past Tuesday, my morning oatmeal was soured by a Facebook message from my cousin Jeante, announcing that yet another victim had been claimed by our family’s curse of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (EOAD). Another of my maternal cousins has followed her mother and elder sister into heaven years earlier than she ever should have. She was 54; the same age as me. And even though we hadn’t spoken nor even occupied the same room since we were kids, this courageous woman was extremely special to me, via the familial and experiential bonds we shared on numerous levels.

‘Cheryl,’ as I’ve referred to her here in my blog, had battled the disease through active participation in AD research for the better part of the past 20 years. She was a pioneer, an invaluable asset in the field of Alzheimer's research.

Over the last quarter of her life, she had been in a unique and harrowing position of awareness, knowing of the death sentence that had been imposed upon her from birth. At age 35 she became aware that she carried the familial gene that has inflicted the horrible reality of EOAD upon generations of my maternal family tree. However in response, she didn’t retract in fear; she didn’t shut down but rather, became activated, and for the next 15 years, courageously volunteered in the research efforts of the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer's Disease Center, as well as in clinical trials of various other institutions in her local area.

She had learned the devastating truth of her condition just prior to the round of tests involving my entire extended family back in 1992, where, under the auspices of IU’s Dr. Martin Farlow, a precursory test for the disease had recently been discovered.

Her decision to become an ongoing participant in the institution’s research involved at least two cross-country trips per year from her home in Oregon to Indianapolis. And while the experimental drugs she helped test likely lengthened her lifespan, in the end, they only postponed the inevitable.

Nonetheless, she considered it a worthy effort; and so it was, as the clinical trials in which Cheryl participated were among those involved in the eventual development of the now-commonly prescribed AD drugs, Aracept and Nemenda. These drugs serve to slow down the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, and in cases of the longer-developing, non-hereditary, so-called ‘sporadic’ variety (most common in elderly populations), can indeed extend a victim’s mental viability a great number of years.

Unfortunately, the aggressive variety of EOAD that has plagued my family isn't nearly so inclined to be denied for very long. Cheryl’s onset was largely delayed into her late 40s, which is several years removed from the average typical beginning of onset in our family’s experience (usually between the ages of 39-41).

And to be sure, by comparison Cheryl would have no doubt been taken from us years earlier if not for the drugs that she helped to be developed. That her own onset symptoms were delayed for so long is no doubt a tribute to the drugs’ success.

At age 54, she lived at least 5-6 years beyond the established pattern of those in our family who had previously succumbed to EOAD.

Although she knew that she carried the gene indicating she would develop Alzheimer’s since 1991, Cheryl wasn’t positively diagnosed until 1999. I didn’t hear anything about her condition until about five years later, when she would have been around the age of 48 — the same age my mother and one of our uncles were when they died. Her elder sister Denise had passed at age 49, however Cheryl remained well-functioning for several more years.

Albeit only over the phone and via email, I finally got to meet Cheryl’s husband Mike a few years ago. He revealed to me that it was in 2005, after she’d gotten lost driving to the office of her longtime physician that they knew her disability was entering the final stages.

Another Long Goodbye
Cheryl was bright and vivacious; I’ve been told she could charm the spots off a leopard. She was a successful businesswoman, working as a manager and buyer for a major department store chain for more than 23 years. But most of all, her husband loved her. Mike, like many other spouses of AD sufferers, has gone through hell and back to be there for his best friend.

Upon realizing that her onset had progressed to the point that her faculties were deteriorating rapidly, Mike, still in his mid-forties, took early retirement from his career as a successful printing company executive to spend as much time as possible with Cheryl while they still had time to enjoy life together.

He purchased a touring motorcycle and the two of them set off for adventure, traveling the United States from Portland to New York City; from Arizona to Alaska; soaking in every moment, feeling every emotion, and bonding as never before. These were the fleeting memories that Cheryl carried with her unto the end; until her thoughts became a morass of brief glimpses and confusion.

Mike began fund-raising efforts in Cheryl’s name through Alzheimer’s Memory Walk events in his local community, consistently being one of the top money-raisers to benefit The Alzheimer’s Association.

If I had a vote to nominate anyone for sainthood, there’s no doubt in my mind who’d get the first nod. I can honestly say I’ve never seen greater love so obviously expressed by a husband for his wife than that of Mike for Cheryl.

Following the couple’s travels over 2006-07, by early 2008, Cheryl’s need for constant care grew to the extent that Mike had to enlist the services of a Memory Care facility in Portland, where he was able to still spend time with her daily, but finally receive a modicum of rest from his exhausting role as primary caregiver.

Cheryl’s earthly journey came to an end this past Monday morning.

Cheryl’s death obviously brings to the forefront of my mind, my younger brother Alex, who still clings to life, himself in the final stages of Alzheimer’s onset. He’ll be 51 in May.

Alex has been on the onset-slowing AD drugs since his diagnosis in late 2004, which has helped to delay his decline. However he was diagnosed comparatively much later in the process than was Cheryl, and is currently in hospice care, likely in the final months of his life.

No, I didn’t forget about The Email
As is my wont, I now circle back to the reason I began writing this post in the first place: the sentiment from the chain email that Michelle forwarded to me this week.

It’s a fairly corny, but poignant and sweet sentiment that I would encourage us all to heed, never forgetting that life is but a vapor and that there are no guarantees. I’m hopeful you’ll get as much out of this silly verse as I did.

And as far as forwarding it goes, do feel free to cut and paste. I think this is one that everybody needs to see.

This was written by an 83-year-old woman to her friend.
*The last line says it all. *

Dear Bertha,

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time working.

Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savor, not to endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now

I'm not sure what others would've done had they known they wouldn't be here for the tomorrow that we all take for granted. I think they would have called family members and a few close friends. They might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think they would have gone out for a Chinese dinner or for whatever their favorite food was.

I'm guessing; I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew my hours were limited. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and parents often enough how much I truly love them. I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.

If you received this, it is because someone cares for you. If you're too busy to take the few minutes that it takes right now to forward this, would it be the first time you didn't do the little thing that would make a difference in your relationships? I can tell you it certainly won't be the last.

Take a few minutes to send this to a few people you care about, just to let them know that you're thinking of them.

"People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there."

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

finis