It Might Get Messy

Let me start by apologizing to the many of you out there in what I like to think of as “Docviper Land” to whom I owe email. I’ve been struggling a bit with sidebar illnesses resulting not directly from my cancers, but from the lifestyle changes forced on me in response. This has gummed up my politesse, and set me back in response. I’m getting on top of my medical issues, finally, so you’ll hear from me soon. My apologies for falling so far behind. 

OK. The past couple weeks were packed with weird-ass happenings. A major earthquake in the Himalayas shifted the Indian plate 3 meters under and raised the Asian plate 3 meters up, meanwhile wreaking havoc in the impoverished mountain villages, trashing Katmandu, burying parts of the Everest base camp at the start of the climbing season, and stranding climbing parties higher on the mountain, cut off by avalanches from the downmountain trails. Closer to home (22 miles to the meter from THIS home, in fact), the fragile social fabric of Baltimore started to come unglued when city cops arrested a guy for no legal or even plausible reason, then severed his spinal cord, killing him. A State’s Attorney filed charges against 6 officers, triggering what is likely to be a complete mess on the streets next week as pro-cop and anti-cop forces clash amid work stoppages, slowdowns, and criminal opportunism. Even closer to home—as in right here in the living room—the death of my elder MacBook Air necessitated the purchase of a replacement. Turns out that Apple “updated” their photoprocessing software. They took a simple, robust, user-friendly, effective kit and replaced it with a dysfunctional load of crap. As this is prime spring photo opportunity time, I’m rapidly filling the memory cards in my camera with pictures I can’t offload and process. On top of my medical “issues”, this contretemps is really pissing me off. Which no doubt contributes to my sudden need for increased rations of pain killers, sedatives, and tranquilizers. Or, as I like to phrase it, $%&*&^%$#$%^&*!!!.

But enough of this grumbling. It is indeed spring. Trees are leafing out, weather is warm, birds are migrating, vernal pools in the Patuxent River floodplain are packed with tadpoles (as Colin and I confirmed yesterday). My health remains remarkable for someone in my condition. While dealing with ups and downs of pain, breathing difficulties, and nutrition, I have not, at least to date, notably worsened (is that a word? Looks funky…). In stark terms, my terminal cancer has not begun its march toward that inexorable terminal end. Sure, I get uncomfortable by late afternoon, stuffed with thick mucous and background pain. But my evening meds seem to take care of it, so if I make it to 5:30 pm, I quickly put my physiology back in balance. 

And then can enjoy a quiet evening. Let’s wrap up this week with some recommendations for cool things to relax to at the end of the day. Those of you approximately my age remember those nights in the late 60s and early 70s, probably heading to the Dairy Queen in somebody’s rustbucket junker, listening to AM (gasp!) radio. With the same AM station playing in the DQ. Great music for its time, and diverse. Dead Man’s Curve. Help Me Rhonda. California Dreamin’. Eve of Destruction. Good Vibrations. Midnight Confessions. Classical Gas. Holly Holy. Arizona. Bridge Over Troubled Water. Cracklin’ Rosie. Indian Reservation. Never Rains in Southern California. These and hundreds more, the background music to the drip, drip, drip of hormones into your adolescent circulatory system. You laughed, you cried, and, admit it, you still smile when you think about the girl slinging shakes and cokes in the DQ. 

What you may not know is that all those songs, and indeed many hundreds more, were all done by a small, tightly knit group of musicians from Southern California known as “The Wrecking Crew”. For a good 10 or 12 years, if your producer wanted a hit, he locked your touring band out of the studio and hired The Wrecking Crew to give you the juice you needed. Well, it turns out that someone has finally gone back and crafted the history of the Wrecking Crew, the people, the clients, and their life and times. There’s a 2012 paperback by Kent Hartman titled simply The Wrecking Crew that is a delightful, fast read. You’ll learn more stuff that you thought you knew (but didn’t) and have a great time reading it. PLUS, on 16 June this year, the film version of the history of the Wrecking Crew will be released. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy. Granted I could be dead by then, depending on what’s going on deep in my thoracic cavity. But I’m taking the risk. Gonna be worth it. And, should I wrap up my life soon after, it’ll have that nice bit of symmetry and circular closure. From hormonal dork to cancer-ridden…uh…dork. See how symmetrical that was?

One more thing. And this one I’ve watched twice already, and still felt compelled to get my own DVD copy. Along with all that music from California, beautiful hit tunes were pumped out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama by what eventually turned out to be two studios, dug deep in the segregated south, stirring kettles of white musicians and black geniuses and firing hit after hit into the broadcast booths across the country. Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Cliff, The Staple Singers, R. B. Greaves (“Take a Letter, Maria”), not to mention the Stones, Rod Stewart, Paul Simon, Allman Brothers, and (again) hundreds more. Snag a copy of “Muscle Shoals: The Incredible True Story of a Small Town with a Big Sound”. Less than $10 on Amazon, and worth a whole lot more. 

So there you have it, sports fans. You can avoid the cancer, but take advantage of my obsessive media consumption. Rock and roll, everybody. Use ‘em while you got ‘em, because they are not forever. Even if you do have good books to read and documentaries to watch while you’re waiting for them to catch up with you… .