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One Year & Over Part 43

Old 11-13-2016, 02:28 PM
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You guys, Leonard Cohen was my hero. I saw him perform in Vancouver a few years ago, and my friend and I both agree that it was an incredible experience and one of the top three concerts of our lives. If not my top. He made me see the beauty in feeling melancholy. He was a true poet, gentleman and romantic, a really exceptional person.
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Old 11-13-2016, 05:56 PM
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Hi overs

I love 'Suzanne', brilliant song, I have it on my phone, and yes, you summed it up Inpar, beauty in feeling melancholy.

Itchy, all the best for next op, did you go fishing? Yeah, it's nice to have home comforts and a great view but there's no place like home!

It's stupid o'clock here in the uk, 1.48 am , my body clock is all over the place at the moment.but as my wonderful nannan used to say 'plenty of time to sleep when you're dead!' Lol, she was a lovely person and I loved her dearly, we didn't live close but I used to go for a week in the school holidays. Wonderful times.

My cat has just bolted in through the cat flap, bounded on the sofa and trying to climb on me, he's soaked! I've coaxed him onto his own throw, I'm not his towel, lol.

Anyways, take care overs, speak soon.
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Old 11-13-2016, 11:51 PM
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Good morning Overs.

Hedge laying season - my hands are full of prickles.

Have a magnificent Monday everyone.
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Old 11-14-2016, 01:44 AM
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When I was a kid growing up in London I never seemed to like the same music as everyone else. It was the eighties and it was Michael Jackson, Madonna, Rick Astley the awful Rock Steady Crew or the even more abysmal early boy bands like Bros or Brother Beyond. Apart from a few left over rockers like Whitesnake or the birth of thrash metal (if you like that kind of thing) they were troubled times indeed. If it hadn't been for Pink Floyd and an early U2 it would have been all too easy to just give up.

I found refuge in the sixties and seventies. The two previous decades had been comparatively so full of promise as far as I was concerned. It was all about the Beatles and Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones and The Doors. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, The Who. I loved them all and they could do nothing wrong.

Other kids laughed at the music I played. It was so old. Stuff your parents might listen to, but the more they laughed, the more I listened and the more I found out. It is easy to see now which decades of music have best withstood the tests of time.

I discovered a lot of lesser known artists as I investigated and was sorry to hear how one of my favourites, Leon Russell, had passed away this weekend. He was an inspirational band leader, session musician and all out amazing piano player. He was the pianist on so many great tracks. It will really surprise you if you look him up. He started out on the road with Jerry Lee Lewis because "it sounded more interesting than going to college". Quite a guy.

So there I was last night playing through some archive footage on YouTube of some of Leon's songs when I happened upon some footage from a TV show in 1970 when he performs the spectacular Delta Lady with a full live band. At one point the camera angle cuts to one of the backing singers who is singing every line as if her life depends on it. She looks and sounds amazing. A great singer at the height of her powers. I looked into it a little and found out that her name is Kathi McDonald. She toured with some big names and found some success herself in the US and Australia but remained largely unknown. The footage was filmed the year before I was born and Kathi was 25. I don't know why but I was shocked to find that she died in 2012. I guess it was just looking up information on a young vibrant singer and finding out that she died a few years ago in her sixties.

That's the thing about my place in the world in my mid-forties, I suppose. People who you remember being young are now old and, of course, falling off the perch. It is brought home because, as of the early 70's there are glorious technicolour images of these people being young, dynamic and fantastic.

It has reminded me how important it has been to get my priorities in order and say goodbye to the drink. There really, really is no time like the present.

Anyway, here's to Leon and Kathi and remember to make the most of it all. Have a great Monday!
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Old 11-14-2016, 02:50 AM
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Lovely thoughts, Amp.

Have a marvelous Monday, Overs!
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Old 11-14-2016, 03:44 AM
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Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was a Top 40 kid. I got introduced to Leonard Cohen's music in early 1987 via the Famous Blue Raincoat album by Jennifer Warnes. The song "First We Take Manhattan" became a staple of my college radio show.



I knew about Leon Russell from an early age. I was a bit young when "Tight Rope" was a hit, but I clearly remember his 1975 hit "Lady Blue". I later learned of his session work with Phil Spector and his touring with Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen. But it's "Lady Blue" that sticks with me to this day.



Another recent passing was session guitarist Al Caiola. You probably don't know the name, but I'm sure you've heard his work. He played on dozens of big hits from the 1950s and 1960s. His best-known recording, under his own name, was the theme from TV's Bonanza.



And thus concludes FBL's Musicians Death Report.

Have a Magnificent Monday, overs!
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Old 11-14-2016, 04:29 AM
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That was a very moving post, Amp.
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Old 11-14-2016, 04:32 AM
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i saw leon a few times at the old fillmore east

once as warmup for delaney & bonnie, and once as a headliner
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Old 11-14-2016, 09:06 AM
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Great post amp!

Fbl, thanks for the videos.

Hope your hands are not prickly Andy.
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Old 11-14-2016, 04:58 PM
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Sorry for the passing of many folks' favorite music legends.

Itchy - It's so nice to hear that you sailed through the first surgery. I love the view from your room. Nice location to recover!

Least - Congrats on nearly 7 years sober.

Rick - Congrats on the sober time. I'm sorry your amazing trip was filled with white knuckling. It sounds to me like maybe you are looking for a little more recovery in your life? SR, AA, and sober friends are an integral part of my life, comfortably coexisting with my long time friends and family.

Drake - I am sorry you're having such a hard go of it. Your post sounds like you have a lot more going on than relapses. My heart aches for you in the way that only someone who's been there - done that - felt that fear, can. Lean on us for whatever we can do and reach out for the help you need. Hugs.

IP - It makes me uneasy to pretend to be something I no longer am. You'd never find me in a bar where people are going simply to drink. If there is live music, or a game, I'll go and enjoy the cameraderie and main event. Regardless of where I am, if my focus changes from having a nice time to feeling bad about myself, time for me to go!

WWS - I'm glad the extra cancer was found and is easily removable. How are you doing?

Carlos - Sounds like a wonderful day sharing your favorite stuff with your daughter!

Amp - Keep moving forward and doing the next right thing, my friend. Now that you've tasted the sober life, you can see that drinking has no place in your next right thing!

Doing the next right thing seems to be working. I get new hires in training classes every few months and each group has at least one combatively behaved individual. I am super triggered to react to this behavior. These people come at me, then play victim - it's pretty much exactly what I "used to" do (or at least try not to do anymore). I am pulled in less each time, and recognize what's happening sooner. Maybe we are kindred spirits pulled together for healing. Or maybe they are mirroring what they see in me? (How's that for a ?)

It's ok! I forgive myself! There is still plenty of room for me to grow.

Toots, Saskia, Gilmer, Mags, RZ, FBL, Stsrgazer, Dee and all the Overs - thanks for all your support. Have a wonderful day!
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Old 11-14-2016, 06:33 PM
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Great post Amp!

As a child of the 70's, I heard a lot of Leon Russell on my FM album rock stations growing up and my vinyl copy of Mad Dogs and Englishmen was well worn.
Music from that era just seemed so important to me. It was full of idealism and or realism, something that 80's era music besides punk did not. Music made us feel something, and it was magical.

Then we began abusing alcohol and drugs, in order not to feel. Why we choose to drown out feelings, instead of experiencing them, confounds me today.

From one of my favorite Leon Russell songs,
"I'm up on the tightrope
One side's hate and one is hope
But the tophat on my head is all you see
And the wire seems to be
The only place for me
A comedy of errors
And I'm falling...

I see the analogy with my life.
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Old 11-14-2016, 09:56 PM
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Hi overs

A tooting good Tuesday to all ! Scuse the name using toots! Lol
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Old 11-14-2016, 11:38 PM
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Good morning Overs.
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Old 11-15-2016, 12:26 AM
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Toot all you like Mags!! ( do I intend that the way it sounded???)

I'm here reading, just not much to say right now. This time of year I think I suffer a little SAD. I habe a naturally sunny, optimistic nature, so it kinda gets to me when I just want to cry at dumb stuff. This is the first year in a while I will be going throu the season without ad's.
I feel a little like I'm on the outside looking in. It'll pass.

Meanwhile enjoy the peace x
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Old 11-15-2016, 03:27 AM
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Have Terrific and/or Tolerable Tuesday, overs!
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Old 11-15-2016, 04:09 AM
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hang in there tootsie!
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Old 11-15-2016, 04:32 AM
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Toots Just come here whenever you need a hug to get through the winter.

SG, I loved the social action music of the sixties and seventies. Your entire post had me nodding along with your thoughts.

Hi to all!
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Old 11-15-2016, 04:37 AM
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I'm doing OK glee. Thanks!

Have a good day everyone.
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Old 11-15-2016, 05:31 AM
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Toots, this time of year can be very challenging dealing with SAD. It has affected me for decades. It used to just hit me near the shortest days of December, but it got to the point that it began hitting me in September and lasted through April. I dealt with it by sitting under a Day Light every morning and taking SJW supplements. I also really ramped up my drinking, which of course, only made things worse. Only now can I see the bitter irony in that drinking mass quantities of a depressant because I was depressed only made my depression darker and deeper.

I am feeling so much better now that I have a little sobriety under my belt. I have not yet felt the need to use the lamp or take supplements. I am happy beyond belief that I am not waking up every morning with a black cloud hanging over me.

Of all the gifts that not drinking has brought me, not having to slog through every day excruciating minute to minute until I could begin drinking is the greatest.

I feel the relationship between alcohol and depression is not given the attention it should. The two viciously feed off of each other, no matter which one came first. I feel so many people, myself included, wasted months and years of our lives not living a full life being saddled with these issues and not being able to confront either one until hitting a personal rock bottom. It's hard to get support for either one from others. You can't tell someone who is depressed to "Just snap out of it", just as you can't tell an alcoholic to "Just have one or two." The mindset is incredibly hard to imagine if one has not gone down either one of these awful paths.

Thanks Toots for reminding me how grateful I am of the many benefits that not drinking has brought to me. Sometimes, I lose the remembrance of how terrible things were in the everyday bustle of our lives.

Life is wonderful and full of possibilities. Just never lose sight of from where we came.

Have a great day all!
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Old 11-15-2016, 07:46 AM
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Happy Tuesday Overs.



We are thick in the sh*t at work.
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