Month: January 2014

B is for the Bee Gees

The Bee Gees were worthy additions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

When I was a teenager, my sister had this album Best of Bee Gees, with all of the early hits, such as I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You [LISTEN], To Love Somebody [LISTEN], and what I thought was their first hit, in 1967, New York Mining Disaster 1941 [LISTEN], plus a couple of B-sides, and this oddity called Spicks and Specks [LISTEN].

It was only later that I discovered that Barry Gibb (b. 1946), and his twin brothers, Maurice and Robin (b. 1949) had moved with their family, including baby brother Andy (b. 1958), from England to Australia in 1958, where they would achieve some musical achievements; Spicks and Specks went Top 10 in the Netherlands, the UK, and Australia, and went to #1 in New Zealand in 1966. Their return to the UK the next year led to true international stardom.

The brothers had even greater success in the early 1970s with their first #1 hit, How Do You Mend a Lonely Heart [LISTEN], and Lonely Days [WATCH], which it was rumored at the time featured John Lennon; it did not. But then the group then went into a commercial slump for a few years until the music went into a new direction: disco. Jive Talkin’ [LISTEN] (1975) and You Should Be Dancing [LISTEN] (1976) both went to #1, but that was just a foretaste of what was to come.

The Bee Gees were assigned to do the music for the movie Saturday Night Fever. They racked up three more #1 singles – How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin’ Alive [LISTEN], and Night Fever. Plus, they also wrote hits for Tavares – More Than a Woman – and Yvonne Elliman – If I Can’t Have You, which went to #1. I remember taking a lot of grief for owning a disco album, but LOTS of people owned this collection. In the US alone, it sold over 15 million copies. “The album stayed atop the album charts for 24 straight weeks from January to July 1978 and stayed on Billboard’s album charts for 120 weeks until March 1980.”

Their follow-up album, Spirits Have Flown, included three more #1 hits, but I never bought it, or indeed any of their subsequent music until I finally picked up a career retrospective. I only have their Sgt. Pepper movie soundtrack because it was given to me. Still, the Bee Gees were worthy additions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Their HoF citation reads, “Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees.”

Unfortunately, Andy Gibb, who also had a string of hits, mostly written and produced by his brothers, died in 1988 of heart failure at the age of 30. Maurice succumbed to cardiac arrest in 2003 at the age of 53, “while waiting to undergo surgery for a twisted intestine.” Robin, who was the lead vocalist for most of the earlier hits, died in 2012 at the age of 62 from liver and kidney failure.

Only Barry, the eldest, whose falsetto voice defined the later hits, survives, and he noted sadly that he was estranged from each of his brothers when they died. Barry, incidentally, has, as a songwriter, #1 songs in each decade from the 1960s through the 2000s, and is listed in the Guinness World Records “as the second most successful songwriter in history behind Paul McCartney.”

 

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

The Obama Presidency: Five Years Down, Three To Go

Whether you see Edward Snowden as whistleblower or unpatriotic – I land in the former camp – it’s difficult to think that we would not have been talking about this had he not released the information he had.

President Barack Obama Honors TeachersI know judging a two-term presidency with 36 months to go is a dodgy proposition, but what is the point of writing a blog if not to make these brilliant observations?

THE GOOD:
I had great hopes because the very first thing he tackled was wage discrimination. He was stuck with a horrendous economy in freefall, and the stimulus, despite spending that ought to have been better targeted, had an overall good effect. GM and Chrysler were saved from almost certain death, which would have had a huge ripple effect on other parts of the economy.

The Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, was not what I wanted, as I think his team took the single-payer option off the table WAY too early. Still, the fact that it doesn’t doom persons with pre-existing conditions to, likely, no insurance is a plus, and I appreciate the provision of keeping young adults on their parents’ policies.

Although he may have become more directed on the issue because of something his Vice-President said “too early,” Obama has been strong on LGBT issues, and in particular on marriage equality. One can argue about the US participation at the Sochi Olympics, but his delegation sends a message to Russia.

Obama is rather good at speechifying. From his talks after the shootings in Arizona to Nelson Mandela’s celebration, I often like listening to what he has to say, and how he says it.

The GOOD (but late):

The commuting of the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses, when the crime, if committed today, would not have engendered as much jail time, is the right thing.

THE BAD:

Here’s what I believe: our use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Yemen, with its inevitable loss of innocent life/”collateral damage”, is creating more terrorists. If you review the news stories about the various heads of terrorist organizations that have been killed abroad, it doesn’t appear to have had any long-lasting effect on the problem.

In the case of the NSA spying, the President is only now making plans to limit its reach, as though he had been oblivious to the extent it had been going on, which I found quite disquieting. Whether you see Edward Snowden as a whistleblower or unpatriotic – I land in the former camp – it’s difficult to think that we would not have been talking about this had he not released the information he had.

Surely, the Benghazi bombing, while not the unique situation that it has been painted, was never really well explained, and, as a recent Congressional inquiry suggests, avoidable.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is awful, and it’s little wonder Congressional Democrats are unexcited about it, citing the “potential to undermine important environmental, public health and labor standards.”

While I’ll tentatively tout Obamacare, there’s no defense to the terrible rollout on the website. If it’s your signature accomplishment, you’d think you’d make sure it worked.

THE HMM:

Every credible thing I read about the IRS targeting of conservative groups, suggested that it was 1) also done to liberal groups and 2) fairly limited in scope. I suppose I should define “limited” to clarify that there was no suggestion that this was directed by the White House since some groups wanted to use it as grounds for impeachment.

The bluster about going to war with Syria sounded like a bluff to get Congress to own it, and at least got Damascus to the table. How that situation will play out is still up in the air.

The Iraq war is one which the US shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place, and now the country seems to be falling into the sectarian violence that I had feared would happen. Not sure WHAT should happen there.

Much of the media point to the negative but see photos you didn’t see from the President’s trip to South Africa.

THE UGLY:

Yeah, the Obamacare rollout was a mess, but it’s become an excuse for bad behavior of other players: Insurance Scam; How Private Insurance Companies Are Using Obamacare Fears To Rip People Off.

And comparisons of Obama to Hitler and Mao are just stupid. Likewise the notion that he is paving the way for the Antichrist.

To suggest that none of these tasteless characterizations, not to mention calls for his assassination are about race would be disingenuous. Hey, The New York Post cover involving President Obama’s selfie at the Mandela event managed to be racist AND sexist.

I voted for Obama, TWICE. Never bought the HOPE stuff all that much, but I thought he was better than McCain, certainly better than Romney. This does not mean I approve of everything he’s done; far from it, and I’m undoubtedly leaving some stuff out.

At the same time, I’ve thought, pretty much from the outset, that being the first black President was going to prove to be very difficult, with folks on FOX Noise and its allies complaining about what he had not accomplished as early as January 28, 2009. The “spontaneous” Tea Party opposition was in full swing by April; where was the honeymoon presidents usually get?

Unfortunately, he’s getting to be pretty much a lame-duck president. Still, maybe something unexpected will come around to burnish his legacy.

When does life end, and begin?

An individual is dead when he or she “has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.

lifeanddeathI had this very good friend in college named Lynn, who I started thinking about recently after I read two disturbing news stories. We met in the autumn of 1975, and within a year of that, she and I had made a pact that if either of us were seriously injured or ill to the point where the quality of life was gone, then the other would pull the plug, literally, if necessary. This was at a time before living wills and health care proxies and the like were common.

I was reading this terrible story about 13-year-old Jahi McMath in Oakland, CA, who has been brain dead since December 12, “three days after she underwent a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.” She’s been moved to a facility in New York.

As the article notes:

While laymen tend to use the words “coma” and “brain dead” interchangeably, in medicine they mean very different things.

“Coma” is the broader term used to describe a prolonged state of unconsciousness, according to the Mayo Clinic. Outwardly, it resembles sleep. Doctors may sometimes purposefully put a patient into a coma to give the brain time to heal. Comas rarely last longer than a couple of weeks…; patients can fully regain consciousness or may transition from a coma into a persistent vegetative state.

Someone in a persistent vegetative state has lost most higher cognitive function, but his or her brain shows some activity. The patient may open their eyes or exhibit small movements, but cannot speak or respond to commands, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some patients can recover from this state, according to the NIH.

A persistent vegetative state would describe the infamous case of Terri Schiavo, a “legal struggle involving prolonged life support … that lasted from 1990 to 2005,” and managed to involve Congress and President George W. Bush.

If I were in that state, I’d be OK with my health care proxy pulling the plug on me, thank you.

Both these situations are different from brain death: According to the Uniform Determination of Death Act, an individual is dead when he or she “has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.”

What that essentially means is that the brain, an extremely complex organ, no longer helps the patient function.

Thus, brain dead, as I understand it, means DEAD. You can keep the organs going for a bit artificially, so that out-of-town family can be by the bedside and ready themselves for the loss. The ventilator, at least in the short term, also makes it possible to harvest organs for transplant.

Yes, I will be an organ donor.

I was talking with a nurse friend of mine, who notes that when the ventilator keeps blood and oxygen pumping around the body artificially to keep the organs functioning, the skin looking pink and warm, even though the person is dead. But it cannot do this for an extended period before organs start to fail.

The other case I read about:

At 33, Marlise Munoz was brain-dead after collapsing on her kitchen floor in November from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lungs.

But as her parents and her husband prepared to say their final goodbyes in the intensive care unit at John Peter Smith Hospital [in Fort Worth, TX] and to honor her wish not to be left on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital was not going to comply with their instructions. Mrs. Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant, the doctor said, and Texas is one of more than two dozen states that prohibit, with varying degrees of strictness, medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant patient.
…
Her case has become a strange collision of law, medicine, the ethics of end-of-life care and the issues swirling around abortion — when life begins and how it should be valued.

In the six weeks and counting, if she is in fact brain dead, one must assume organ deterioration, which certainly must affect a not yet viable fetus.

Two sad stories, to be sure. I was talking to my PCP (doctor) a few months ago, who notes that these extraordinary, “heroic” measures are factors that drive up the cost of health care for everyone.
***
Related: How Doctors Die: It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be.

 

MOVIE REVIEW: Philomena

Steve Coogan co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pope, based on Martin Sixsmith’s book, “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.”

Philomena_posterI was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently, and Steve Coogan was on talking about the movie Philomena. I must admit that I had no real idea who he was. When I was talking at work about the fact that The Wife and I gave the movie two thumbs up after we had seen it a couple of weekends ago at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, one of my colleagues said, “But doesn’t it star Steve Coogan?” After I confirmed this, she indicated that he always plays a real jerk in movies, particularly in some comedies I had never seen.

As “world-weary political journalist” Martin Sixsmith, Coogan’s character is more than a little arrogant as he lowers himself to investigate “the story of a woman’s search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago after she became pregnant and was forced to live in a convent.” He finds the now-aging Philomena (Judi Dench) quite pedestrian. But during the journey to two continents, he develops a different relationship with her.

Coogan not only costars in the film, but he also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pope, based on Sixsmith’s book, “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee,” after he happened upon an article about the true story. AND he is a producer of the film.

Ever since I saw the film, I’ve wanted to extol its praises, including the fact that the trailer does not give away too much. But the less you know, the better your viewing experience will be. I will say the second half of the touching film is even better than the first, Dench and Coogan are very fine, at under 100 minutes it is efficiently made, and that a late American President figures prominently in the narrative.

OK, since the Academy Awards nominations were announced – it’s up for Best Picture and Dench for Best Actress – there’s been a debate whether the Church gets a pass; that, I think, is not the film I saw.

Not in an upstate New York State of mind

I REALLY liked Madison, Wisconsin when I was there in 1988. Always appreciate the state’s progressive tradition.

LONG-time blogger Dustbury asks a question for this round of Ask Roger Anything:

If a purely arbitrary decision was handed down to the effect that you could no longer remain in upstate New York, where would you first consider going?


I’ve thought on this a lot, actually. It’s pretty much a process of elimination.

Not moving to anywhere there is no fresh water, so desert states such as Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico are definitely out. California – well, is the big earthquake still coming?

I’d like to be out of direct range of hurricanes, which eliminates Florida, not that I wouldn’t have passed on it for other reasons; and the parts of the states on the Gulf coast and southern part of the Atlantic are unlikely.

Not Texas, because Texas is Texas.

I’m wary of being in tornado alley, which seems to encompass much of the center of the country from Oklahoma to Ohio.

Places I had considered before I’m now rethinking; I worry about Washington and Oregon after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, maybe not enough to eliminate them, but it’s a factor. I wouldn’t pass on all the states along with the flood-prone Mississippi River, but any place that’s flooded in the last 15 years, I can imagine flooding again.

I hear the Deep South is more enlightened than it used to be; not sure I’d want to move there.

I REALLY liked Madison, Wisconsin when I was there in 1988. Always appreciate the state’s progressive tradition. Don’t love the current governor, though.

Do I want somewhere warmer? Certainly NOT colder, which eliminates Minnesota and Maine.

Ultimately, it would be either in a small college town or a larger college town with decent mass transit in New England, but probably not Connecticut, which often feels like suburbia. Rhode Island is a possibility. I’m fond of Northampton, Massachusetts.

My pick, all things being equal, is southern Vermont. After all, Vermont was part of New York, before it was broken off to become the 14th state. Both New York and Vermont have a maple syrup tradition. And, in spite of damage from some recent hurricanes, both tend to be out of hurricane alley.

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