Billy

  

Billy saw his 17th season of snow last week. It will be his last. He has been my friend, the joy of our family for so long, the best of the best of a long line of pets. One ear up, one ear down. I’m writing this as he lays in his bed. I’m not leaving his side. It’s not my first rodeo regarding the end game of a family pet.

Almost August of 2002, just a couple weeks before tying the knot with yours truly, Mary was picnicking with a group of teachers from her school in Garfield Park. A scraggly mutt limped over to the spread, drawn to the lure of fried chicken done crispy. A couple of the male teachers tried to shoo him away. Mary, a vegetarian not protective of the Colonel’s bounty, seeing this creature who was obviously left to his means on the streets of Chicago, went to him. Stray dogs and cats have a way of finding Mary, and this one had found something better than a bucket of chicken. She saw immediately that he was hurt. There was a hole in his leg that you could put a pencil through. Was he hit by a car or on the wrong end of a set of fangs? One ear stood straight up as if he was listening to the whole world around him. The other flopped limply downward, unperturbed and trusting. 

Mary called me from the park. “I’ve got a surprise. I’m bringing home a dog.” According to Mary I was very sweet and accepting of the news. I’m sure my buried voice from deep in my chest was saying, “No, no, no, no,” because we had just got done taking care of her parent’s cocker spaniel until her messy end, and we had three cats, plus we had a honeymoon planned and what were we going to do with this street mutt. I wasn’t ready. But in my gut I knew. This is who Mary is. She is someone who is going to take care of this soul. There would be plenty of time to establish who the boss in the family was after the wedding. Sure.

We cleaned him up and gave him a hose bath in the back yard, then got him to vet. Back at the house we had just moved into, Billy proceeded to bring the charm. He was youthful, but not a puppy. Full grown, coloring like a German Shepard, but much smaller, with blue spots on his tongue and fluff of neck fur like a Chow. He was friendly, not skittish at all, and followed us everywhere. He was home.

In his prime, Billy was a hit at Independence Park with the dog crowd. He was the fastest dog there and loved to run. He wasn’t a fetcher, always deferring to the more eager of the bunch, but he loved the chase and was always friendly. The only times he’d get himself in trouble was with the sniff game, because even though he was fixed, he was quite the Romeo, and his hump-first-ask-questions-later approach often got the rebuke he should have known was coming.

Billy loved to wander. Forget to fully secure the back gate and he was gone. The first time we found him across Elston Avenue at Tony’s, trying to get a handout from exiting shoppers. When we first moved out of the city, he had several long excursions around the new neighborhood, and we were mostly lucky to find him in somebody’s back yard wagging his tail, then running to the car and jumping into the open door when we called him, but once ending up at the police station in jail. He had one amazing escape at my mother in law’s house where we staying. We had all gone out. Billy got nervous. He opened one door to the laundry room. Another door to the garage. And finally, a third door from the garage to the street. We got home to find the doors open and Billy gone. It looked like a break-in. We called the police. They circled the house, told us to stay back. Nothing. No signs of foul play. The neighbor across the street who watched as all this drama played out, said, “You know, your dog broke out of the house.” And after a neighborhood search, there he was in someone’s back yard. The door knobs on the house were the handle variety that didn’t turn, you just had to push down on them. From the inside they weren’t locked. And Billy figured out how to push down and open the door. Three times.

Today we are sad. The kids have never not had him. Matt, who named him, has loved him a long time. We will miss him. I called him the “doof” because of his occasional clumsiness, but mostly for his happy-go-lucky-i-love-everybody demeanor. Up until a month ago he was still showing his athleticism with a game we called “Go Billy Go.” He would run from one end of the house to the other jumping onto the couch near the back door then sprinting to fly onto the couch in the living room at the other end of the house. In his youth he would do this twenty times before panting to a halt. 

He has been deaf the past two years and going blind, but he still made a Superman-like leap onto the couch from a house-spanning run. Just one though. Go Billy Go! We love you Doof.

Pain, Pain. Pain

Sunday May 20, 2018

The pain in my right shoulder blade introduced itself while eating lunch with my father, and before long was telling me we needed to pay the bill. Midway on the 30 minute drive home on the tollway, I had to pull over. The pain was drastic, worse than anything I had ever known. I felt I was too distracted to drive, and called my doctor to see if I could get in immediately. I am the kind of person who goes for a yearly physical, nothing more, but this felt untenable, even for me. The doctor asked if I had done anything to warrant this symptom, and there was an obvious event ten days prior that I thought could be the culprit.

Playing Tuesday night basketball in the old  neighborhood was something I had done without injury for six years straight. I felt stronger and more fit than any time in my life. But on that recent August night, I had a collision, a bad one. I was retrieving a rebound when an opposing player, who was much bigger and stronger than me, with a big head of steam, met me at the ball. It was like getting t-boned at an intersection, where he was the SUV running the light and smacking me, the Kia Soul, on the driver side door. I was plowed into the side of the church stage behind the basket. I stayed on the floor there for a long time, cognizant of what happened, but I was afraid to move, because I was expecting something to be very wrong. I got up. Let’s play. I finished the night. The next morning I expected to be sore, but it wasn’t too bad. I played the following Tuesday, and was amused at the bruise that had developed covering my entire left butt cheek. I felt decent though, and played with no problems. Three days later I was in misery on the side of the road.

The doctor said take Advil for the pain in my shoulder and let’s get an X-ray taken. The pain had died down somewhat by the time I got to his office, and I felt like the guy who takes his car in for repair, but it won’t make the rattling sound at the garage. But after an hour or two at home, pain came back with a vengeance, with a deep, dark destruction, and I called back to the doctor’s office in desperation. My doctor had already gone home, but another doctor prescribed me opioids on good faith after my description, and urgency in my voice.

Here I am a year and a half later. The pain in my shoulder blade disappeared after two weeks, a chiropractor seemingly  took care of that, but after a couple more visits and physical therapy, the pain was in my left buttock, and in succeeding weeks, shot down my leg, and found the other side of my body which eventually became numb.

I got an MRI. When my doctor saw it he gasped. When the chiropractor saw it he gasped. When the specialist saw it he gasped. They all said variations of the same thing. Herniated discs in two places and stenosis everywhere, my spine was not a bass line, it was white noise. I would need more PT, a life time of chiropractic adjustment, constant ice packs, ibuprofen, epidural shots, and probably surgery at some point, try to push it back as long as you can. And no more basketball, are you kidding?

Three shots later, I have myself thinking about pain day and night. There have been times I couldn’t sleep in a bed, drive without intense pain after getting out of the car, and I have wondered if I can continue to work as even a part time faculty member. I rarely go see a band because I can’t stand or sit very long. I am currently with an acupuncturist who is great, and has helped me cope. He has pointed me to some Chinese herbal remedies that claim to reduce the dreaded  herniation. I have been optimistic.

But now I know it’s a ruse. A hoax. I have blamed an accident and herniated disc for my pain.

And today I ridicule the pain, although only a smidgen remains. I taunt it when I get up from sitting.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not falling for this game! You are a poseur. I have empowered you, and you think you can take over? I gave you power, and now I take it away. Be gone!”

My secret weapon is not a drug, or an exercise, or a manipulation. It is knowledge. It is knowledge that my pain has come because my brain has called for it.

Dr. John Sarno describes it all in his book, Healing Back Pain. I found out about it after seeing a documentary called All the Rage, by Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley, and David Beilinson which chronicles Michael’s experience with his pain and Dr. Sarno

All the Rage Trailer

Dr. Sarno knows my type. I:

-am a  high achiever

-expect a lot from myself

-am my own worst critique

-am the problem solver for others around me

-don’t like being judged by others

I have had painful emotional experiences in life. We all have. But it’s likely, despite acknowledging that it exists, that I have left anger underneath the wreckage. I have long been someone who avoids anger, avoids blowout arguments, and doesn’t like confrontation. Dr. Sarno instructs to make a list of the events of childhood and beyond that may have caused sadness or emotional pain. Write about them. Understand that there may be anger beneath it all. It’s okay, anger is not to be ashamed of. Acknowledge that the physical pain I have experienced is a result of my brain and not a basketball accident and herniation.

5/21

Monday morning after a weekend of feeling good. Getting out of bed, I expect the same soreness that I need to stretch out. The routine includes reading the paper on the couch and crossing one leg then the other before getting child one up for breakfast. There is some of the pain. It makes me question and doubt that what I experienced the last three days was not the new reality. I am still hesitant to trust my body, but what I realize is that the trust is in my mental process. I will have some pain in the coming days, if only because my expectation of pain is imprinted by experience over 18 months. Getting out of the car and bed and off the couch is going to get me in coming days, and I have to call it out each time. Doubt will be the foe to defeat today. I noticed that last night after a long Sunday of activity, including a graduation party, I felt some pain returning. I think that I was tired. I was irritable and angry, especially when Ronnie ate potato chips just before bed, and got crumbs all over his room. I didn’t have the same mental energy, and I regressed a step. So be it.

5/22

There were moments yesterday where my pain felt conspicuously absent. Walking the dogs can sometimes be dicey, and usually at that late afternoon time of the day when the sciatic jolts down my leg are at their worst, I have to cut the walk short. But yesterday, there was none. I almost found myself missing it, we have been so joined at the hip, pain and me. Why? I think pain has given me an excuse, it’s gotten me off the hook. Don’t expect anything from that guy, pain gestures as I grimace. And I’m given the space to suffer.

Yesterday, after writing, I rose without pain, and made it the rest of the day without. I worked out. I felt a bit sore later in the familiar places, but I knew it was a different kind of pain. I anticipate that it will take some weeks to feel strong again, to get the courage to make certain movements, and to even run. Just two weeks ago I tried to dash a short distance (out of necessity), and crumpled in the worst pain I’ve experienced. It is brandished it my mind. I didn’t drink tequila for twenty years after that eight shot mistake when I was eighteen because my brain wants to protect me. I’m guessing the same happens with pain. Just looking out for you Rick. Thanks id, but I’m taking the keys away. Someone else is driving.

October 17th
After 5 months...
Happy to report that the immediate relief I found after viewing the film and reading Dr. Sarno's books has held since I first wrote. As Michael Galinsky has reported about his pain, I am human, and pain  -free is a description I haven't truly had since I was twenty-five. But the sciatic pain that used to shoot down my leg has run away, has been banished. My sleep is no longer disturbed and I do not fear getting up from sitting after a drive or a movie. Standing at a concert can get uncomfortable, but I'm 61, give me a break. I just visited my primary physician who knows me as the guy headed for surgery someday, and after delivering my good news to him, he accepted my mind-body healing as a positive and recommended that I run to strengthen my lower body. Since my Sarno experience, I have exercised as he advised, to "resume all prior activity." I have played driveway basketball and worked out at the gym, but I have not done much running. I have been scared. My first experiences trying to run post-back pain have been spotty. I can do it, but pain creeps in and I stop. Is it in my mind? It doesn't seem like it. I hate running anyway, always have. So, I started running up the sledding hill--sprinting a short distance on a steep incline. Started with five reps, then built it up to ten. When I started to get tight, I backed off, but the next day I felt stronger and pain free. Confidence is gaining. My goal is to play full court basketball. I'll let you know.

Radio Ethiopia

I showed up for college at University of Kentucky in August of 1975, and almost nobody was in the dorm when I moved in, save for two other freshman and the R.A. One of those dorm neighbors, the aptly named Larry Dumford, a beefy, thick-necked linebacker who had been there early to report to football training camp, sauntered across the hall to peak in on me hanging posters and getting settled.  "You got a n****r on your wall, he drawled, pointing at my giant Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock poster next to my bottom bunk. I realized I wasn't in the north suburbs of Chicago anymore. During the rest of the day, I would poke my head out of the door to see if anybody else had shown up. As I peaked down the hall, another face looked down my way. Uncomfortably we both realized we couldn't retreat back to our rooms, and I sauntered the four doors down to introduce myself. His name was Keith Holland, a slender hawkish looking guy with slightly Native-American features. He was from Calvert City in the far west of the state, and as he explained, had more churches per square mile than anywhere in the country. He was a heathen, he offered, and did I want to listen to some music and get high?
The record he put on, I can remember as clearly as anything, was 1969 Velvet Underground Live. Now, in addition to my love of classic rock, I also was into Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and The Allman Brothers at the time, so I was no pedestrian listener, but this was the first time I had heard this amazing band. I had a feeling Keith and I would be friends. He was the anti-Larry Dumford. The next record was The Stooges Raw Power, another first listen, and yes, I was home. I was going to like it here.
As the semester wore on, especially into 1976, we each bought new records, most of which would drive the rest of the dorm crazy. Keith sent away for the Patti Smith Hey Joe 7", then the Horses lp. No record store in Lexington had it. As we gathered around the t.v. for Saturday night live, we'd see a band and go find the record. F.M. radio sure wasn't playing anything cool. I didn't own a copy of Horses until the nineties--I had listened to Keith's copy a million times. The first one I bought was Radio Ethiopia in 1976, and it is my favorite Patti record. I know that it isn't such a popular choice, but it struck a chord with me. The Velvets, Iggy, and Patti helped me find who I was. I knew I was a little off socially, and felt like a bit of a weirdo. I had found my equilibrium.

Two of Patti's best rock songs are on the record--Ask the Angels, a great lead-off, and Pumping, which sounded amazing in concert. Listening to Patti, and scanning her references, made me want to explore what she loved. My education began in earnest like many a nineteen year-old, and I discovered the Beats--started reading Kerouac, Rimbaud, and Genet, which coincided with our independent film study--$1 movies at the student center or Kentucky Theater where you could catch Herzog, Fassbinder, John Waters, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, among so many others.

Ain't it Strange, the second song on the record, sounded like nothing else. Eleventh Dream Day used to play it in rehearsal as a 3 piece--not sure if we ever played it out. Poppies, Pissing in a River--Patti's lyrics were so great. Lenny Kaye's guitar playing is genius on this record. The band with Jay Dee Daugherty, Ivan Kral, and Richard Sohl was a force. They did what every great band must do-- jam--the title track takes a ten minute trip. When we made Prairie School Freakout, some of the endings may have been deeply influenced by Radio Ethiopia.
We later drove to see the group in Louisville on the Easter tour. One of my top five concerts of all time. The energy there as Patti urged the crowd to storm the stage past the photographer barriers was the essence of punk rock. After the show, Keith showed Patti's brother Todd a letter their mom had written back to Keith saying he could meet Patti. Todd whisked him backstage.
We eventually found the other couple of dozen punk loving kids in Lexington, Keith moved to L.A. to become a chemical engineer after graduation, and put out the first three edd releases (as well as Freakwater, Precious Wax Drippings, Hollowmen, and God's Acre records. Sadly, the last time I saw him was when I stayed with him when I toured with Palace in 1997. Sort of fell out of touch.
Thanks for Patti Smith, the Velvets, and so much more Keith, and for changing my life.

Neil Young/ On the Beach

Day 2. Fast forward, eighth grade. The kid ended up ok. Great grades. Honors English. Nickname:Shorty. Shortest kid in class. Obviously. Mr. Friendliness in yearbook. Fortnightly, learned to ask girls to dance. Asked a girl out. Got dumped for my best friend week before dance. Christmas present Paul McCartney Ram and Neil Young After the Goldrush lps. Fell in love with the music of Neil Young.

On any given day I will give you a different answer when it comes to the best Neil Young record.
I learned to play guitar from the chord charts in the Zuma songbook. Zuma is Crazy Horse/Neil at its best. Tonight's the Night is a tour of Neil's soul. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere has the solos. On some days, I will argue for Hawks and Doves as my favorite. No, Time Fades Away! But today I unequivocally declare On the Beach the best Neil Young record. No doubts.

I wanted to be a hippie. Thing is, junior high kids are too young to be hippies. I loved the way they danced, I loved the Beatles with beards, my baby sitter was a hippie girl. Peace. Love. Understanding. Not war. Neil Young drove down from Canada to live the hippie dream, and he found it. Reveled in it. Gave it fringe. By the time I was old enough, the dream was dead. The early seventies were a bummer, man. Festivals became scrambles for money.  The drugs of choice changed from pot, acid, and mushrooms to speed and heroin. Neil's contemporaries were biting the dust. College armories burning, kids dying at war and at home. The planet was choking with pollution. Lakes were dead.

Rolling Stone described On the Beach as "one of the most despairing albums of the decade," and if you don't let the album inside your head, you might come to that conclusion. It's not. I have never listened to this record without feeling better about myself and the world around me after the last note fades. Purportedly, Neil and the band were consuming honey slides at Sunset Sound, a simple combination of cheap pot and honey. Not a recipe for despair. The record is a salve for the psyche.

The record begins with Walk On.  "Sooner or later it all gets real."
Beautiful Wurlie on See the Sky About to Rain; Danko, Levon, and Crosby romping through Revolution Blues.

Sidebar: Eleventh Dream Day's first show in Chicago, as a three piece with Shu Shubat, Janet and me, was at Armadillo Day Festival on the main stage at Northwestern. There is a recording of it somewhere, although the WNUR feed had a weird patch and all you hear is my guitar and vocals with almost no drums or bass. We played Revolution Blues. A very young Urge Overkill was playing a set near the rocks at the lake. Albini set off strings of firecrackers. They rocked.

For the Turnstiles. "though your confidence may be shattered, it doesn't matter." My favorite line, "all the bush-league batters are left to die out on the diamond" would someday meet its match in "it's better to burn out than to fade away."It wasn't the sixties anymore. Time to move on.

Vampire Blues--Neil is a beast with the one-note solo, and this song has one of the best. This is one of Neil's first appeals for the planet. Oil companies sucking blood from the earth.

Side two (which Neil wanted as side one, but gave into the advice of David Briggs) is the group of three songs with some of Neil's best lyrics ever. On the Beach slays the soul. "The world is turning' hope it don't turn away" The line that has long resonated with me--"I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day-to-day" It's complicated. Neil ends up alone at the microphone. That's okay too.
Motion Pictures seems like a down too, but consider, "I'm deep inside myself, but I'll get out somehow." And I always do, listening. "I'll stand before you and I'll bring a smile to your eyes."
And then the closer, Ambulance Blues, the best. A bit of the past, a bit of bitterness. "Burnouts stub their toes on garbage pails." The line that combines nursery rhyme nostalgia with Cassavettes: "Mother Goose, she's on the skids Shoe ain't happy, neither are the kids. She needs someone that she can scream at, and I'm such a heel for making her feel that way." And the line that leaves my wallowing behind:
"You're all just pissin in the wind. You don't know it but you are." Yes, Neil, I am. "And there ain't nothin' like a friend, who can tell you you're just pissing in the wind." Thank you Neil. Always a friend.

The Who Sell Out

Day One. I feel a little like the Monkees must have felt having to go on stage after Jimi Hendrix opened for them in 1967. My friend Rian Murphy has just finished an epic account of ten great records that he holds dear, and he has selected me to carry forth the challenge. I ordinarily find it easy to shuck these sorts of tag-you’re-it exercises, but Rian reminded me of how much I love music, and how woven it is to identity and personal history, and out of respect to the grooves and the rockin’ one, here goes. 

I almost started with the Monkees. This morning, they were on my mind. My first record was Meet the Monkees, and my parents had given me the money to go to Goldblatts to get it because I had finally raised my grades after a disastrous start to 4th grade. And I would have carried through with that album if not for the intrusions of Davy Jones songs, which are dreck. 

1967 was a rough year for me. I was in constant trouble at school, regularly sent into the hall or principal’s office. The teacher once literally threw the book at me. But at home in the haven of my bedroom, I fell in love with rock and roll. My Uncle Jay, who I shared the room with, had been drafted to Viet Nam, and had left me his portable turntable and three records: Rolling Stones/ Out of Their Heads, Otis Redding/ Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, and Bill Cosby Sings. But my secret weapon was my Sears Silvertone radio set to WCFL with the timer set to turn it off after I had fallen asleep. I was an insomniac though, and a sleepwalker and i often laid awake in the wee hours with the wonder of a.m. radio. It was in one of those moments I first heard I Can See For Miles. There was nothing more intimate or exciting as hearing those opening chords beamed to me in the black of night. I know you’ve deceived me, now here’s a surprise—this was not I wanna hold your hand. One note solo over crashing chords. 

It would be a few years after buying the single before finding the record it was on, on a rack near the registers at Jewel Foods, a fifty cent cut-out. Of course it looked absurd—Roger in the bathtub covered in baked beans, Pete with the giant Odorono deodorant under his armpit on the cover. And although the joke is played out through the course of the album, there are songs that defined the greatness of the Who, and they became my favorite band. Of course I loved the Beatles, of course I loved the Kinks, and The Rolling Stones—I would never argue that the Who were better, because it just doesn’t matter. The Who spoke to me. Pete and Keith were misfits. Punk rockers. Miscreants. Probably got in trouble at school when they were younger. 

By no means is it the best Who record. Who’s Next, Tommy, Live at Leeds, and Quadophenia all got more spins in the big scheme of things for me. Sell Out was the Who bridging their career. They had just played the Monterey Pop festival and were on their way. The record seems like a throwaway, but in addition to their highest charting aforementioned single, there are some truly innovative sounds.

A radio jingle countdown of the days of the week gives way to the backwards guitar feedback of Armenia City in the Sky, a brilliant song written by a friend of the band, Speedy Keen. (I got to play guitar on a cover of the song for Bun E. Carlos’s solo record a couple of years back—a thrill indeed!) Mary Anne with the Shaky Hands follows the Heinz Baked Beans jingle (the jingles do not detract from the greatness!), one of the many masturbation songs written in the era—I’m sure it was over my head. Tattoo is great, but the next one, Our Love Was, Is along with I Can’t See You are two power pop songs that I’m sure influenced a young Alex Chilton. 

Three songs on the b side are my favorites. Relax reaches a crescendo that blows my mind every time. There is a live version of the song I have on a bootleg, but it cuts off. Maybe my second favorite Who song next to Miles. Sunrise is beautiful, a solo Pete-sung song where he explores some of the rhythmic strumming that would define the songs of Tommy. Big Star would capture this sound perfectly. The finisher is amazing. Rael. No doubt the Beach Boys magic had been heard by Pete (we know Keith was a major fan), because there is no way some of the vocal stuff going on here was without precedent. It’s the opera between A Quick One and Tommy and contains the dna of Amazing Journey. A brilliant album closer on a brilliant album!