The problem with memoir is that the facts or the memoirist aren’t always sure how to close the deal (or tell the story).
I’m not sure what Neil Ratner could have done with this, but it isn’t fully baked. What we know is that he wasn’t inclined to be a doctor, but he became one. And he wanted to be a drummer, but he became a doctor. At the same time, it’s a slice of the rock ‘n’ roll life, starring two of our faves, Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer.
And Doctor Ratner is an affable host. (Click the link at the end to visit his website, which covers other aspects of his career.)
Last week Taylor Swift’s new album dropped and broke huge. She also released a video tribute to New York City, explaining why she has bought a home in New York, because those of us who live here just don’t get it.
Meantime, the lower east side documentarian Clayton Patterson uses Swift’s epistle to remind us that many other musicians and others got to New York first, and paved the way for pop’s biggest star of the moment. One of them was named G.G. Allin.
I spent more than few hours in the George W. Bush Airport in Houston today. Infrastructure historians know what a boondoggle that airport was. Baseball fans know that George HW Bush president, sold everything and his name, so that the airport could be built where it is. Oh, did I mention boondoggle? Which paved the way for his son to become Texas Rangers president, a taxing job, and US president, a task better outsourced to Cheney and Rumsfeld.
From Yorkshire, produced by Chapman and Chinn. New to me. Chapman and Chinn wrote hits for Suzi Quattro, Sweet and Hot Chocolate, all recently featured here.
We’ve had some moments with the McCoys before, but that song was Sorrow.
This morning we go to their biggest hit, Hang on Sloopy, and a karaoke version that makes it dang near impossible not to blend your voice with their’s. Sing along, I dare you to not.
Cleveland lifer John Coleman suggested that I find some of Clevelander Glenn Schwartz. Schwartz was in the Measles with Joe Walsh, and preceded him as guitarist in the James Gang, but the one tune of the Measles I could find was pretty mild.
It turns out that Schwartz was the lead guitarist in the LA band Pacific Gas + Electric during their salad days (“Are You Ready?”), but had a conversion experience and left the rock and roll life to play and record with the All Saved Freak Band.
Coleman says Schwartz still rants like a batshit crazy person, but when he plays he shreds.
This tune is pretty hot, praise the lord.
Schwartz left the Freak Band in 1980 and plays out in Cleveland.
Obvious cut from a band we listened to in high school a lot, though kind of guiltily. They were uncool but rocking. I wish I could recover the conversation explaining why they were uncool. Now the song is a little overfamiliar, but the video is nice. Real nice.
My dad is old and he has lost almost everything that makes life worth living but his mind, which is still working overtime clocking the stuff that happens. But isn’t that great at enjoying the daily stuff that is happening outside himself.
I’ve spent much of the last week in the Sunshine State trying to figure out a way for him to live the best life he can in his decline. The hell of it is he can still be charming and funny, but the toll taken by his body’s decline means he’s often playing a defensive game. And he’s not that charming or funny, because even at his most expansive he’s thinking more about what he isn’t than what anyone else is.
It’s awful.
Plus, he’s pretty much constantly fending off those who want to strip him of his liberty, which is to his credit. Except that the facts of the last couple of years show he can’t really handle liberty. Given choice, he chooses badly (or at least, the way of the rotting flesh).
I think an 86 year old has the right to choose badly, as long as they’re not bringing those around them down too, and unfortunately he has a wife who is apparently incapable of escaping his vortex. So he’s not helping her, at the least.
Which makes me think I don’t want to ever get old. Oops.
