concerts

Two Wednesdays before last, my daily treat from Bandsintown (https://www.bandsintown.com/) included a collection of video clips of several rock icons from my day performing on the Ed Sullivan show https://bestclassicbands.com/ed-sullivan-rock-classics-2-11-18/.   I got around to watching them the Friday following – wow – and it got me to thinking of another great thing we’ve lost to Mr. Corona: concerts.  I love going to see live music.  I know watching your fave on the screen Sunday night doing one or two songs to help Mr. Sullivan put on his really big shew isn’t the same as being there live, but just watching these performances gets closer to that.  We’ve tried sitting in front of the big screen for a couple virtual concerts lately, but it just isn’t the same.

Kathy and I always liked going out for music.  We had one of our first dates going to hear folk legend U. Utah Phillips at the Ark when it was in a white house on Hill, and have haunted the place in all its successive iterations.  We were regulars at singer Susan Chastain’s wonderful jazz club the Firefly, even taking a small financial interest in the place.  To this day, some our friends refer to it as “our jazz club”.  It was there we were reintroduced to the wonders of small group jazz from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.  My dear dad approved as he loved the stuff, too, and had the stack of 78s to prove it.  I’m sorry we never got the old man over to the club. To this day, we’re friends with some of the musicians we first met at that club. We braved the traffic and crowds of Pine Knob, Freedom Hill, and Meadowbrook.  We chased down the Commander whenever he pulled his ass out of Saratoga Springs and came to Michigan to try to fill a few seats in some dive.  But the big time concert going didn’t begin till about 6 summers ago.  We realized a lot of our faves were getting up there, but still managed to show up and play somewhere now and then, with at least a fragment of their old bands.  When I announced my intention to go start seeing them in earnest to my old friend Forrest, to whose musical knowledge I cannot hold a candle, he just said “well, see ‘em before they die!”.  Our first venture was a little 90 minute road trip to Kalamazoo, where guitar-legend Johnny Winter himself was holding forth at Bell’s Eccentric Café.   Even if the show sucked the beer would be good.  Kathy and I went with a couple VHS ’70 friends: Vicksburg’s own guitar legend Wang and the incomparable and unique Rollo.  Now skinny albino Johnny always looked pretty other worldly, but when he came on stage, bent over, mostly blind, and guided by a strong man on each arm, it looked like the world to which he was most suited now was the one above.  But his hands sure did come alive when he sat down and ripped into that guitar.  He sang too, and sounded just like … Johnny Winter!   He turned in an energetic and satisfying performance.   A fine first stop on what I was calling our “Fogey Rock Tour”.  Next weekend, we ventured to Cleveland with my best Vicksburg buddies (Forrest, Northam, Eric and Rod plus spouses) to tour the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and see our Tigers lose to the Indians), a good prep for what was to come. Next stop, less than 2 weeks later, was northeast to Pine Knob (technically since 2003 DTE Energy Music Theater), where the elderly (b.7/7/40) Sir Richard Starkey held forth, helped by some of his over-the-hill rocker friends. Ringo’s been doing this since 1989, and does he put on a show! His helpers were once stars in their own right and still have the talent: Todd Rundgren, of all people, Steve Lukather, once of Toto, Colin Hay from Men at Work, and Gregg Rollie, once Santana’s keyboardist. For kicks check out Wiki’s piece on his band and see the many big names that have passed through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr_%26_His_All_Starr_Band. Ringo’s hired someone else to do most of the drumming – although he does take some turns behind the kit and is apparently a well-respected technical drummer in his own right – so he can spend his time singing, clapping and dancing. My is he in fine shape. Almost enough to make you wanna stop drinking. Each of his all-starrs takes a turn with their hits, so the tune selection is top notch. I daresay that I can recommend if you have but one outdoor concert to take in, go see Ringo. He’s still at it, was just as good when Kathy and I saw him August ’19, and I’m sure is chompin’ at the bit to get back out on the road, as are his fogey friends. You’ll have a great time ”with a little help from your friends”.

Next, we stayed right home in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater where Jackson Browne performed all by himself.  He walked on to the stage past a row of 23 guitars, lined up in the back.  He extended his arm toward them, turned to the audience and explained “my set list”.  And except for the few songs he sang at the piano, each began with his assistant bringing him one of those perfectly tuned guitars.  His songs have always been great, and he still has his voice.  I’ll allow him a little wandering into the political weeds as long as I can hear the rest.  Before another week passed, on Kathy’s birthday, a month and 2 days since Kalamazoo, we got word out of Zürich that Johnny Winter was gone, Forrest’s words in my ear.  We now carefully attend to news of the health of those performers we had seen.  Jackson is still fine, although he did contract coronavirus last March, surviving.  We haven’t kept up the percentages of our first 3 concerts, but have seen a few more pass on, all to be missed: local Jim Dapogny, Merle Haggard, Tom Petty, Glen Frey, Dan Hicks, Stuart McLean (Canadian raconteur), Charley Daniels, and John Prine (although we’d seen him before 2014).

We’ve racked up 136 more concerts since, even getting to a few clubs in Chicago in this time of COVID.  I’ve gone as far away as London, seeing Dianne Schuur at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, but that’s a technicality since I was there on the NIH’s dime to participate in an ultrasound exercise. Going to go see somebody has been a good excuse for some trips.  We’ve gone to Boston, New York City (with a side trip to Pawling to hear Marshall Crenshaw and later Tony Castro at Darryl Hall’s place), Urbana IL, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, and even Ohio (Toledo, Huber Heights, Cleveland, Kent) and Canada (Windsor, Kitchener, Kingston).  And we haven’t neglected our home state venturing from Detroit to Manistee, and hitting New Buffalo, Kalamazoo, Portage, Allegan, Buchannan, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Mt. Pleasant, Flint, Clarkston, Auburn Hills, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Sterling Heights, West Bloomfield, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Dearborn, South Lyon, Canton, and Chelsea.

Clearly, we have favored some artists.  Bill Kirchen – once lead guitar for Commander Cody and the lost Planet Airmen – we’ll go to see anywhere.  He greets us with a hug and we have good conversations about how Kathy’s NASA pep talk with his daughter got her straightened out. The Commander himself is a must see, as he recreates on his electric piano the raucous output of his old group plus the many non-P.C. numbers he’s created since.  The venues he frequents are small enough I can usually have a drink or two with him before the show.  As he’s racked with arthritis in many joints, he hangs on to what I offer as potential remedies someday.  We’re not so close with the rest of the acts to which we snug up.  But as you can see as you review the itinerary below, there are several other artists we also favor.  You can tally the numbers.  We love Marshall Crenshaw and will see him any time.  After that come the bigger acts which fortunately are listing down to lesser venues.  John Fogarty is down to casinos now and his act is absolutely fabulous.  Another one we’ll see anytime, anywhere.  The Doobies at Freedom Hill were just spectacular, with Tom Johnston with his 3 original cohorts blasting out all the energy we remember from them 35 years ago.  China grove!  Roger Hodgson was a one time at a small venue (at the Sound Board Motor Casino in Detroit), but the former lead of Supertramp took us on a wonderful journey, beginning with “Take the long way home” (“just to get it out of the way”, he said).   We loved to go see Robbie Fulks wherever he was, whether at the Ark, some Methodist church n AA, or a dive in Chicago.  His regular appearances at Hideaway, a true dive in Chicago, prompted several train trips and weekends there just to hear him.  Always well worth it.  He’s since moved to LA, so the Hideaway concerts have stopped, but he still stops back from time to time.

You can see on the list that follows all the big and not-so-big names we’ve seen.  Some other repeaters still worth mentioning: Eilen Jewel, a little wisp of a thing from Idaho who belts out soulful country-tinged tunes with a guitarist who  knows the e-string.  When we first saw her in Chicago she was 8 months pregnant, and held forth like a trouper.  Here’s my favorite tune of hers, a cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkUwWJgykFQ.  Then there’s Don White of Massachusetts, not Boston (http://www.donwhite.net/).  Wise, funny tunes, here’s one of his most touching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJFN-KCnHDQ.    And we see Kathy’s chronological compatriot, Pennsylvania’s John Gorka, whenever possible.  We’ve loved his warm baritone for 30 years, and he’s only gotten better.   Houses in the Fields.  What I think of now, but here’s another tune, the one that sustained Kathy and me when she was in D.C. and I was in A.A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1wuJI5U8EY.  Just go.

Of course , there are the regrets.  We obsessed a couple years back over going to Nashville to see John Prine, and didn’t.  And now he’s gone, alas.  We did see him at the Ark in 2010, a little after his cancer surgery.  Plus we saw that what’s remained of Jefferson Starship would be in Jackson.  Short hop.  We didn’t go.  Marty Balin with his fantastic voice was the only original left, let alone the Airplane, and now he’s gone, so there’s that chance. Problem when your idols are septuagenarians.

Sure, going to see these old fogey rockers just stuffs further their already substantial pocketbooks.  And I know you can dredge up stories of how much the tickets cost to see them back in the day.  But how much is the price for a magic ride back to your youth?  When those old familiar tunes begin, you’ll be transported back to the time when you first heard them, and isn’t that a good place?  I submit that some of this good feeling is a neurobiological trick, where the first notes of the tune trigger your memory of how it first sounded, and that’s what you actually hear.  Maybe that’s why they sound so good.  No matter, it’s an experience well worth the entry fee, and I recommend you go, as often as possible.

Concerts I’ve been to since 2014 (there’s more stuff at the end of the list)

2014

6/14    Johnny Winter; Bell’s Eclectic Café, Kalamazoo

6/27 Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band; DTE Energy Music Thtr, Clarkson

7/4. Detroit Symphony Orchestra Public Salute; The Henry Ford, Dearborn

7/10    Jackson Browne; Michigan Thtr, AA

7/13    Dave Mason’s Traffic Jam; Ark, AA

7/18    Crosby, Stills, Nash: Jacobs Pavillion, Cleveland OH

7/20. Monty Python Farewell Concert; GOT Canton 7 GDX Theater, Canton

7/25    Hot Club of Detroit; Ark, AA

7/26    John Fogerty/Jimmy Buffett; Comerica Park, Detroit

7/31    Bill Kirchen; Ark, AA

8/9      Lyle Lovett; Michigan Thtr, AA

8/20    Moody Blues; Toledo Zoo, Toledo OH

8/23    Bill Cosby; Soaring Eagle Casino, Mt Pleasant

8/24    Steve Winwood/Tom Petty; Pine Knob, Clarkston

8/27    Doobie Brothers; Freedom Hill, Sterling Hts

9/8      Eagles; Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids

10/4    Loudon Wainright III; Ark, AA

10/18  Huey Lewis; The Whiting, Flint

10/24 Lou & Peter Berryman; Ark, AA

11/6    Roger Hodgson; Sound Board Motor Casino, Detroit

11/12  Todd Rundgren; Kent Stage, Kent OH

12/6    Christine Lavin/Don White; Ark AA

12/7. Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis;Fox Thtr, Detroit

12/9    Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band; Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids

12/12 A Johnnyswim Christmas; Ark, AA

12/17  Delbert McClinton; Ark AA

2015

2/27    Commander Cody; Callaghan’s, Auburn Hills

3/10    Marshall Crenshaw; Ark, AA

3/26 Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks; Ark, AA

4/21    Diane Schuur; Ronnie Scott’s, London UK

4/23    Stuart McLean; Michigan Thtr, AA

4/27    Mr. B/Paul Keller/Yspi Symphony; Towsley Aud, WCC, Ypsilanti

5/16    Roger McGuinn, Michigan Thtr, AA

6/3      Robbie Fulks & Redd Volkaert; Ark, AA

6/5      Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox; Royal Oak Music Thtr, Royal Oak

6/6      Randy Newman/DSO, Orchestra Hall, Detroit

6/13    Bill Kirchen/Commander Cody; Bull Run Restaurant, Shirley MA

6/22    Asleep at the Wheel; Ark, AA

6/27    New Riders of the Purple Sage; Buchannan Common. Buchannan

7/3      John Fogarty; Four Winds Casino, New Buffalo

7/10    Doobie Bros; Rockin’ on the Riverfront, RenCen, Detroit

7/18    Tommy James & the Shondells; Meadowbrook, Rochester

7/19    Royal Garden Trio/Jim Dapogny; Island Park, AA

7/24. Guitar Greats: Kirchen (Bill), Volkaert (Redd), McKeon (Scott), Al-Saadi (Laith); Ark, AA

7/26    Journey; Rogers K=Rock Centre, Kingston ON

8/4      Lyle Lovett: Michigan Thtr, AA

8/9      Beach Boys/Temptations; Freedom Hill, Sterling Heights

8/11. Donald Trump; Birch Run Expo Center, Birch Run

8/15    Happy Together Tour (Turtles, The Association, Mark Lindsay, former lead singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders, The Grass Roots, The Cowsills and The Buckinghams); Little River Casino Resort, Manistee

9/6      Jackson Browne; Meadowbrook Amphitheater, Rochester Hills

9/19    Joe Walsh; Caesar’s. Windsor ON

10/20  Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard; Fox Thtr, Detroit

10/21  Paul McCartney; Joe Louis Arena, Detroit

10/23 Robbie Fulks; JAX, Jackson

11/9    Arlo Guthrie; Michigan Thtr, AA

12/11 Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra 4th Annual Holiday Pops; Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor

12/20  Jorma Kaukonen; Ark, AA

12/22  Robbie Fulks: Hideout, Chicago IL

2016

1/23    Ragtime Extravaganza; Mi Thr, AA

1/24    William Shatner; Sound Board, Detroit

2/12    Christine Lavin/Don White; Ark, AA

2/14    Marshall Crenshaw; Daryl’s House, Pawling NY

2/26    Commander Cody; Callaghan’s, Auburn Hills

3/12    Star Trek: the Ultimate Voyage; Fox Thtr, Detroit

3/19    Montreal Symphony; Hill Aud, AA

4/5      Marshall Crenshaw; Ark, AA

4/8      Lipstick and Lead (Wang): Nob Hill, Portage

4/9      Accidentals; Ark, AA

4/12    Robbie Fulks; Ark, AA

4/14    Mnozil Brass; Hill Aud, AA     

4/16    Bill Kirchen/Redd Voelkert; Rose Bowl Tavern, Urbana IL

4/21    Melvern Taylor and his Fabulous Meltones; Toad, Cambridge MA

5/8      Eilen Jewell; City Winery, Chicago IL

5/9      Community Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Showcase, Chicago IL

5/10    Fat Babies; Green Mill Jazz Club, Chicago IL

5/20    John Fogarty; Rose Music Center, Huber Heights, OH

6/4      Monkees; Caesar’s, Windsor ON

6/9      Laith al-Saadi; Liberty Square, AA

7/1      Billy Joel; PNC Park, Pittsburgh

7/2      Jessica Lee, Mark Strickland, George Jones, Jeff Berman.  James Street Gastropub and Speakeasy , Pittsburgh

7/16    Herman’s Hermits; Meadowbrook Thtr, Rochester Hills

7/18    Hall & Oates; Pine Knob, Clarkston

7/29    Jimmy Webb, Ark, AA

8/4      Dave Mason/Doobies/Journey; Pine Knob, Clarkston

8/10    Hot Tuna; Ark, AA

8/16    Asleep at the Wheel; Ark, AA

8/25    Mitch Ryder; Liberty Square, AA

9/30    Brian Wilson; Fox Thtr, Detroit

10/15  Tommy Castro and the Painkillers; Daryl’s House, Pawling NY

10/16  Jon-Erik Kellso and the Earregulars; Ear Inn, NYC

10/17  Village Vanguard Orchestra; Village Vanguard, NYC

2017

5/2      Eilen Jewell; Ark AA

5/5      John Gorka; Ark AA

5/13    Robbie Fulks; City Winery, Chicago IL

5/14    Fat Babies; Honky Tonk BBQ, Chicago IL

5/20    Steve Martin/Martin Short; Meadowbrook Amphitheater, Rochester Hills

5/26    Bill Kirchen/Jimmie Dale Gilmore; Ark AA

6/11    Paul Simon; Toledo Zoo, Toledo OH

6/30    Marshall Crenshaw y Los Straitjackets, Sara Borges, Ark AA

8/24    Bob Seger, Huntington Center, Toledo OH

9/16    Tim Allen, Royal Oak Music Thtr, Royal Oak

9/30    Sean Jones quintet, Jazz Showcase, Chicago IL

10/1    Fat Babies; Honky Tonk BBQ, Chicago IL

10/14  Petra van Nuis/Andy Brown/Pete Siers/James Dapogny/Paul Keller, Kerrytown Concert House, AA

10/20  Mary Chapin Carpenter (w/Emily Barker), State Theater. Kalamazoo

11/3    Laith Al-Saadi, Michigan Theater, AA

11/17  Count Basie Orchestra, Orchestra Hall, Detroit

12/1    Don White, Greenwood Coffee House, AA

2018

1/26    Burton Cummings                Colosseum at Caeser’s Windsor, Windsor ON

2/9      Robbie Fulks                           Green Wood Coffee House,  AA

4/14    (unknown quartet)                Andy’s Jazz Club, Chicago IL

7/27    Bill Kirchen                              Sounds and Sights Festival, Chelsea

8/22    Eilen Jewell                            Ark, AA

8/24    Invasion                                  McHattie Park, South LyonMI

9/12    Charlie Daniels Band

            Travis Tritt                               Allegan County Fair, Allegan

12/2 Detroit Symphony Orchestra: Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II; Orchestra Hall, Detroit

12/3    Bill Kirchen                              Ark, AA

2019

3/28    David Wilcox/Beth Nielsen Chapman Ark, AA

4/7      Bottle Rockets/Marshall Crenshaw            Ark, AA

4/15    Chicago Farmer/Todd Snider                      Ark, AA

5/6      Eileen McGann                                               Causerie, Kitchener ON

5/10    Jaimee Harris/Mary Gauthier                     Greenwood Coffee House, Ann Arbor

5/17    Robert Jones/Matt Watroba                       Ark, AA

6/2      Karla Bonoff                                                    Ark, AA

6/15    Bill Harley/Don White/Bill Lepp                 Ark, AA

6/19    Michael McDonald                                         Sound Board, Motor City Casino, Detroit

7/23    Tedeschi Trucks Band                                  Meadowbrook Amphitheater, Rochester Hills

7/25    Eilen Jewell                                                     Ark, AA

8/25    Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band              Santa Fe Opera House, Santa Fe NM

8/27    Boz Scaggs                                                      Santa Fe Opera House, Santa Fe NM

9/21    John Fogerty                                                   Firekeeper’s Casino, Battle Creek MI

9/29    Carol Burnett                                                  Detroit Opera House

11/1    John Gorka                                                      Ark, Ann Arbor

11/3    Savoy Brown                                                   Magic Bag, Ferndale MI

11/14  Ray Kamalay and His Red Hot Peppers          University Hospital, Ann Arbor

11/22  Boz Scaggs                                                      Firekeeper’s Casino, Battle Creek MI

12/1    Bill Kirchen                                                      Ark, Ann Arbor

2020

1/2      Cirque de Soleil; Little Caesar’s Arena, Detroit

1/12    Ray Kamalay and His Red Hot Peppers; West Bloomfield Library, West Bloomfield   

3/8      Chi-Town Jazz Festival (featuring the Bobby Lewis quintet); The Green Mill, Chicago

3/9      (unrecalled group) Jazz Showcase, Chicago

9/25    Greg Artry Quartet; Jazz Showcase, Chicago

mementos. When the concert’s over, you’re left with the memories: songs running around your head, images of the disgusting old people who shared the experience with you, the CD(s) you might have picked up, and of course the ticket stubs. Tickets aren’t much these days, just the facts printed on a little piece of cardboard, or maybe those 8 1/2 X 11 computer printouts. Kathy is a bit of a pack rat and fortunately saved most of these things from my excursions. Going through them, I picked up a few concerts I had neglected to enter on my own lists. But sometimes you get other cool stuff at concerts, like this post card of the Johnny Winter band.

Is it worth more now that he’s dead? Regardless, I’m hanging on to it.

For Roger McGuinn (leader of the Byrds) we got a whole brochure.

And all by himself, he was just terrific. Forrest can attest.

A couple months later, Forrest and his best friend Rod joined Kathy and me as we lept back to high school. TJ himself, son of Niles MI, lept a few times to punctuate his ever endearing songs, getting as much as 2″ off the stage, enough to flip his toupee a little. “Chrimson and clover, over and over…”

My beautiful wife loves Michigan

(I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, entering the football season that had not yet begun with the Minnesota game. I blew right past the Gophers and focused on State. Three games in, it’s not looking so good for our Wolverines. But, my beautiful wife still loves Michigan!)

It started pretty early.  Kathy’s mother was born at U Hospital, graduated Ann Arbor High in ‘36, and went to dental hygenist’s school at U of M, where she met med student Clutch, Kathy’s dad, who stayed on for his residency but chose to pursue orthopedics at the wider open spaces of Akron City Hospital.  Kathy was the second of their kids to be born there, so Kathy’s a buckeye by birth.  Her time at Ohio institutions Western Reserve Academy and College of Wooster did not translate into a stronger bond to the Buckeye State.  When Kathy went looking for grad school programs in Kinesiology, she saw that the program at Columbus had some attractions.  Asking her dad about the possibility of going there, he responded “sure, but don’t ever plan on coming home again”.  So she headed north up 23 to Ann Arbor, coached swimming for a while, and met me.  Together we’ve been immersed in all things Michigan ever since, helped along by those great 50 yard line season tickets her dad got in ’64.  We added basketball season tickets maybe 5 years ago and surely enjoy those outings.  For the past 11 years, she’s taught Scientific Writing in the school of Kinesiology to sophomores (“just shoot me”).  Kines is still home for many athletes, although many have drifted over to L.S.&A. as Kines has tightened its requirements.  But she still gets a lot of athletes in her class, some of the high profile basketball and football types.  Drew Dillio, slot receiver, might have been the first she noticed, who kept a low profile as he didn’t want to be taken as a dumb football player.  Some of her latest charges have no problem with that.  “Big country” Austin Davis, Juwan Howard’s returning center, is headed to P.T. school after he completes his 5th year in a Kines masters program.

Andrew Vastardis walked on to the football team 5 years ago and has taken his 6’4” 300# frame to the middle of the line as Michigan’s starting center. He has his eye on medical school.  Kathy wants him to be a pediatrician.

            So it’s understandable Kathy might take some special measures as we face what in pre-COVID time was a huge week.  Facing her class this week, Michigan State week!, she’s found a way to be decked out to show her Michigan spirit.  Those kids who already love this cool old lady will surely get a boost of Michigan Pride.  Go Blue!  Beat State!

            P.S.  That’s our stuffed wolverine, Fritz, in the background, named after Fritz Crisler

I like being old

“See here how everything
Lead up to this day
And it’s just like any other day
That’s ever been
Sun going up and then
The sun going down
Shine through my window
And my friends they come around”

– from Black Peter.  Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.  First performed by the Dead December 4, 1969 at Fillmore West.  Performed 342 times thereafter.  Cut 2 side 2 on Workingman’s Dead, released June 14, 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ka6yhEUyos.

I like being old.  I’m not a Deadhead.  That’s my brother-in-law in California.  But sometimes Hunter and Garcia are spot on.  From another Dead staple, I like where my long strange trip has led me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pafY6sZt0FE.

I’m getting tired of hearing my boomer friends bitch about getting old.  It was hard work getting to this age (68), and I like it fine right here.  I’m rid of a job that for years I thought I loved when in truth it was crushing my soul.  Good riddance.  Thanks for the 401ks.  I’ve met a whole lot of people over the years and been fortunate to stay connected to many of the good ones.  There are more good ones out there to be met and befriended, I’m sure, but I’m thankful for my base.  My knees don’t hurt anymore since I’ve stopped running, and walking everywhere seems to be just fine as a way to keep the waistline down and the mood elevated.  I can drink all the beer I want.  Whenever I want.  Wherever I want.  With whomever I want.  No one is lurking to report me to my Chief.  Of course I’m not free of consequences: calories, mornings mainly.   The boo I craved in college and got to use when I had my card is legal now, but I don’t partake as I don’t want to zone out and miss something.  I’ve accepted that I’m not going to procreate, after lots of trying.  Even if I were to meet some fertile young chika who found graybeards attractive for more than their retirement accounts, the wizened flagellate filled product my blue-pill charged member might propel up her tubes would carry such damaged DNA that any product of conception would carry too high a risk of ending up some two-headed imbecilic deformed thing  that it’d be best just not to start.  I could volunteer my high-IQ WASP DNA to a bank, justifying a few moments of solitary pleasure, but any recipient might be in for a bad joke.   I love my dear wife of 34 years, more than ever.  My partner.  My equal.  My best friend. And the physical part?  The emotion and attraction are constant, and let’s say that modern science does keep everything possible.  I am constantly in awe of her and thank the good Lord every day for sending her to me.

I paid my mortgage off in April, 5 months early given the little extra I’d been kicking in each payment.  Uncle is giving me back a little of the money I started paying him working at the print shop in high school over 50 years ago.  The Missus is still bringing in a nice check for doing something she loves and is very good at.  Walking her to and from her campus office gives a nice day’s exercise and we plan to do that even on those days when she’s forced to teach her class from the dining room table.  I don’t have to see patients anymore, so no one expects me to fix their aches and pains.  But young faculty still sometimes ask me for advice and there seems to be an audience for my writing about some things I used to do.  Any harebrained idea that comes to me can be turned into a blog post, and I’ve had over 80 since I started the thing up in January.

I have a wonderful relationship with my aged vehicles.  I have 2 Jeeps.  One, a Patriot blue 2006 Wrangler, I bought in September 2005 with the big bonus I got for having won the American College of Rheumatology Clinical Scholar Educator Award – paid over 3 years – 2 years previously.  The other, a silver 2011 Patriot came home in August 2010 to replace our maroon 1991 Cherokee that we’d bought slightly used almost exactly 20 years previously and had finally rusted beyond salvageability.   They both look and run great, and Kathy and I love ‘em more now than when we drove ‘em off the lot.   One of the Jeep dealers in town used to send a card every year asking if we wanted to sell the Wrangler and get something new.  They never got a response and several years ago I stopped getting the card. I’m not sure how much gas I buy each year, but we don’t put a lot of miles on.  I dropped the next biggest travel expense after insurance last June when I retired and became ineligible for the Gold parking pass which bled $157 out of my paycheck every month.  Now I have a retiree’s pass, which accesses any U of M  lot after 3 P.M. weekdays and all weekend, and costs me nothing.  I have parted with my 6 2-wheeled vehicles, formalizing the end of a long and loving relationship that ended little Christmas eve 2014 in the lake country of Chile when I braked hard to avoid a little dog and got thrown into a ditch where I broke and dislocated my shoulder while trashing my brachial plexus (see my March 15 post “Bye Bye Bikes? https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/311).

Steely Dan, in “Night by Night”, sang “When the joker tried to tell me I couldn’t cut it in a school town.  When he tried to hang that sign on me I said ‘take it down’ ” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cxFzHO9lfI.  This September it was all but 8 of the last 50 years I’ve done just that.  I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, except maybe LaJolla (if I could afford it).  I still have all my favorite places, add new ones, get to swim among hordes of young students (I think I draw from them like the oldsters in Cocoon did when they swam in the pool containing the alien pods).  If I want, I can even play student myself and sit in on a course or two.  The two I sampled last fall term, econ of banking and “death and afterlife” crashed when they became boring and/or too morbid.  Nothing this term, but half the classes are virtual and the rest restrict contact between teachers and students, taking a lot of fun out of the classroom experience.  I’ll take a look at the course catalogue in November to if something looks good for winter term.  Until the lockdown, there was an abundance of lectures, seminars and workshops on campus open to the public.  I filled my phone calendar from the University Record.   Fortunately, I haven’t needed much doctoring.  But if I ever do, there’s a world-class medical center a mile and a half away in which many familiar faces are tending to the sick, and would do by me if I ever became one.

David Foster Wallace wrote a book some years ago A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again.  At this age, I’ve tried an awfully lot of those sort of things and am pleased there’s no going back: running, ice skating, motorcycles, canoeing, kayaking (especially at sea), cruising (except on small boats), opera, ballroom dancing (much to the disappointment of my mate), basketball (playing, not watching), the NBA, hockey, soccer, do-it-yourself home repair, automobile maintenance (although I can still change my own oil), modern jazz (Miles Davis and beyond), lap swimming, long hair, foreign language films, golf!(I know that was my sole varsity letter, but it’s all been downhill since) , Belgian beers, smokin’ dope, political news (sorry PDJT, but I still and will always love and support you), and  bicycles (see “gone, gone, gone” https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/587).  I suppose there’s more, as life serves up a host of annoying things you’d rather not have to deal with.  DTE and AT&T for example.  But don’t deal with them and there go your lights and your internet.  But overall the pressure not to enjoy all those things is a huge burden lifted from my shoulders.  And life still has a lot of fun things, including the 7 Fs.  Football is one of them.  I’ll leave it to you to figure out the rest.

My high school English teacher Mrs. Pharriss recently wrote me: “When you reach 80, I’ve come to realize as I approach 81, you no longer think long term.  It’s odd, that adjustment, but it also heightens appreciation of the Here and Now.  Even the smallest of pleasures—like watching the hummingbirds come to the feeder or hearing the four-year-old twins chattering away while playing on their patio next to ours–brings me happiness.”  This compression of the future into a keener appreciation of the here and now is something I’m experiencing even at the tender age of 68.  I think it adds to an appreciation of the life we do have and translates into happiness.  I’m happier than I’ve ever been, partly because so much of the BS that used to bother me is in the past, and partly because I appreciate the present all the more.  I didn’t seek this or plan for it.  It’s a gift.  Maybe God’s gift to transition us from the “useful” to the “landfill”. From the basket to the casket, as Kirchen sings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WThqW7IX21w. Whatever it is, I’ll take it.

Maybe some of this happiness comes from heeding Thoreau: “simplify, simplify”.  But I take care not to overdo that, either, lest I end up like Jack, per Louis Jordan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NAUeL0D4SI

So I rest in my blue La-Z-Boy in my living room a happy and contented man.  I look forward to sharing with you all the oddball observations my undertaxed brain happens to conjure.  As Evita sang “Don’t cry for me” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpNy6xqoQa8.  Where I am is a very good place to be.  Now to just hold on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3PZ-Mju5Hk.

on Harbal

My wife and I have lived in this 1958 3500 square foot brick ranch for over 35 years.  We’re perched high atop the Defiance moraine on a little cul-de-sac nestled between Broadway and Plymouth overlooking northwest Ann Arbor.  We see the sun set from our deck every day it’s not cloudy.  We share the street with 12 other houses, all built about the same time as part of a real estate development – Fair Acres – carved out of an apple orchard when some of the land up here was still farmed.  The developer Harry Baldwin contracted his names to produce Harbal.  If you search on Google Maps you’ll find no other street with a similar name. Early in its settling, residents proposed renaming the street Defiance Moraine, since that was the geologic structure they resided atop.  One of Baldwin’s descendants came out of the woodwork to protest that the change would defile Harry’s memory, so that was that.  In 2015 when All-American quarterback and Michigan legend Jim Harbaugh came home to accept the challenge of returning Michigan Football to greatness, I proposed we rename our street Harbaugh. Sounds the same and maybe we could get Coach to come to the ribbon cutting ceremony.  My idea was soundly overruled by my neighbors, who liked our unique name.  By whatever name, we love the location, although you’ve got to go up or down the 37 degree grade Broadway hill to get anywhere, as we’re close to the hospital and campus.  My Taubman office was 1.3 miles away (with more direct and interesting walks through woods possible) and Kathy’s 2.1 miles off, a very doable walk we take each morning, weather permitting.  The houses here turn over very rarely, with neighbors right across the street coming in last fall the first new ones in several years.  Everybody knows everybody and we have gatherings throughout the year, including Tom’s very noisy affair on the fourth of July when the city permits discharge of explosive devices.  A couple neighbors have young kids, and Tom and Kara have a couple in college, but mainly we’re a pretty gray bunch.

Some houses have been renovated over the years, including ours.  Most drastic was when Tom and Doug inherited retired shopkeeper friend Jim’s little bungalow next door and tore it down to build an Italianate villa. Fortunately for sake of neighborhood appearances, the place is much more ostentatious inside than out. In 2004 we moved completely out of our house to let designer-builder Gary Rochman have at it.  We lived in 2 different houses on nearby Broadway for 6 months each.  I emptied out most of the inheritances from my dad and Aunt Dorie, who had both died the year before.  And I took out a new mortgage which was finally paid off this April.  But boy did we get our money’s worth: soaring open beamed ceilings, a new Ipé deck, a giant hot tub, a fireplace shared by the hot tub and master bedroom, a laundry room, a storage room, a back yard (previously we’d just had a steep slope the glacier’d thrown up), ash floors, and a spiral staircase leading to an observation deck on top of the roof.  Quite a few more square feet came from the bump out; fortunately, I don’t think the assessors have caught up.  Gary got us on the homes tour that Spring and still features the job on his web page https://www.rochmandesignbuild.com/whole-home-renovation-harbal-dr-1 Our house is also still featured on Houzz https://www.houzz.com/hznb/photos/whole-house-addition-and-remodel-harbal-detroit-phvw-vp~114336632. https://www.houzz. We’ve made further improvements since, this time with Uncle Sam’s help and of the green variety, installing a geothermal system 2014 and adorning our roof with 54 solar panels last fall.  Take that, Greta Thunberg! (Oops: politics, sorry).

So, we love our little hilltop home and use every inch of it, and not just to store our junk.  Indeed, I’ve been attacking that with a frenzied, focused passion since I retired – Marie Kondo’s got nothing on me – and already we’re enjoying more neatness, organization, and open space.  Get ready to check your Craigslist and eBay for bargains on homebrewing equipment, stereos, appliances, kitchenware, extra long sport coats, and plenty of other stuff.  You don’t have to come to the house to pick it up, but if you do Kathy and I will be happy to show you around.  Then you can see my view.

TDP

Tommy hasn’t been part of my life for over thirty years, except for the memories.  Soon, that’ll be all I have.

Tommy is a year and a half older than me, but was always light years ahead intellectually and academically.  He was the brightest medical student my later mentor Bill Arnold had seen at University of Illinois, and Bill recommended Tommy to his own mentor, the then young chief of medicine at U of M Bill Kelley.  After a slightly twisted training with a medicine residency and chief residency interposed with a rheumatology fellowship including a stint in Kelley’s lab, he signed on as faculty to the Division headed by the man who hired me, Giles Bole.  When I first met Tommy, he looked up at me and asked the usual question “did you play basketball?”.  I gave him a retort he didn’t expect “no, were you a jockey?”.  Little Tommy and big Bob became fast friends after that.  He attended my second rotation on the Arthritis service, where we set the census record.  I enjoyed our constant banter, and tried tripping him up with obscure references.  He later said rounding with me was like “rounding in a minefield”.  But nobody got the better of Tommy for long.  Fellows trembled under his Jesuit logic with some occasional Greek thrown in for good measure.  But we learned.  Oh did we.  Sometime after he left, the Division named the award that goes to the fellow with the best teaching skills the “Thomas D. Palella Award”, not that any winner has come close.

Shortly after I got offered a job, my beloved chief Giles got kicked upstairs to become an associate Dean.  Of course, once you have a job, it’s time to buy a house and get married, which I did.  Tommy served as my best man. 

Irving Fox was interim chief for a couple years before Kelley decided Tommy, at the ripe age of 36, was ready for the task.  As Kelley had taken on the whole department of medicine at that age, he didn’t think age was all that important, if you had the talent, which Tommy certainly did.  Tommy was a terrific chief.  Fellows loved him.  Faculty uniformly respected his fair, firm manner.  But the job wore on him and less than four years after he took it, he announced he was leaving to go into private practice in suburban Chicago and by 1990 he was gone.  I may have seen him once since.  In 2000, I bought a card and rustled up signatures of those left behind who still knew him.  The card was intentionally sick: a nice picture of Burton Tower inside which I inscribed “10 years since you jumped, and some of us still miss you”, recollecting the horrible moment on when Regent Sarah Goddard Power jumped to her death 3/26/87, witnessed by students milling to get to their 10 o’clock classes.  I never got a response from Tommy, but I’m sure he got the joke.

The little runt had a way with women.  When I arrived, he’d been squiring the tall, blonde, sassy head nurse on the Arthritis ward, whom married man Giles took a shine to, and married her out from under Tommy, who didn’t take long to find a replacement, beautiful dark-haired Julie, whom he married shortly after I met Kathy, showing me the way.

Let me allow the e-mail I posted from the plane Sunday to fellows I remembered from the 80s tell the rest of the story:


Hello old friends

I have some sad news to pass along, which some of you may know already.  I was trying to connect with Tommy Palella to send him a PDF of an article on Arthroscopy I’d just gotten into Rheumatology (Oxford).  He’d been with me in the trenches at the beginning and I thought he’d be curious as to how things turned out.  When I struck out at all my usual ways of finding an e-mail, I contacted Bill Arnold, my scopy mentor, who had known Tommy as a medical student at U of I.  I wasn’t prepared for Bill’s reply.  I’ll say to you what he wrote to me “sit down before you read this”.


Bob

> Tom is dying of lung cancer metastatic to his brain.
> He retired a year ago. In March or so he became confused and a CTs revealed tntc Mets in his brain with a mass in his chest. He is undergoing chemo.
> His former partner and one of my fellows called me with the news in May.  His wife asked that no one visit. I’ve heard nothing more in the last 6 wks.
> Tom essentially went off the grid after leaving AA. I think I saw him once in the last 25 years. He was the brightest student I ever had.
> I don’t think he wants to be contacted by any of us.


Tommy was our chronological peer but light years ahead of us academically.  I’m sure none of us can forget being victims of his Jesuit logic with a little Greek thrown in for good measure.  Pause, remember, reflect.  At our time in life, such things happen.  May you all push on many years before others are spreading such emails about you.

Bob Ike

And this is an addition after the e-mail:

Yes, Tommy liked his smokes.  I always saw it as a sort of self-medication, helping to comport his supremely superior brain to the wants and needs of us under him.  But to have that great brain slowly taken away by the cancer is too sad to comprehend, and something I’ve seen personally with my dad and with Joe, Kathy’s brother Bob’s best friend.  I suppose my peers should expect this sort of thing starting to happen at our age.  As we lose this great, smart, special man, we should feel fortunate we ever got to know him at all, and treasure the memories.

masks, droplets, aerosols and all that

You’ve got to pay attention to a professor named Siddhartha. But this is Verma not Gautama

and he’s currently studying fluid dynamics at Florida Atlantic University.

In this video, he explains and demonstrates clearly what all this COVID particle transmission and control is all about. Notice that masks are all about protecting others from you, not you from others. So those nervous Nellies walking up my way as I walk down Broadway hill and stop to put on their masks are wasting their time.

It’s not long, and the images of particles being projected are pretty amazing.

https://www.vumedi.com/video/airborne-transmission-face-masks-how-do-different-types-of-masks-protect-against-various-ranges-of-t/?token=775a5e96-e4ed-4801-949d-3345ea7ade29&utm_source=Pharma%20Low%20Priority_64048&utm_medium=Video&utm_campaign=%5BPHARMA%20LOW%20PRIO%5D%20Airborne%20Transmission%20%26%20Face%20Masks%3A%20How%20Do%20Different%20Types%20of%20Masks%20Protect%20Against%20Various%20Ranges%20of%20Transmitted%20Droplets%3F%20How%20Far%20Can%20Aerosolized%20Droplets%20Travel%20in%20the%20Air%20From%20an%20Uncovered%20Cough%20%26%20For%20How%20Long%3F&utm_content=Airborne%20Transmission%20%26%20Face%20Masks%3A%20How%20Do%20Different%20Types%20of%20Masks%20Protect%20Against%20Various%20Ranges%20of%20Transmitted%20Droplets%3F%20How%20Far%20Can%20Aerosolized%20Droplets%20Travel%20in%20the%20Air%20From%20an%20Uncovered%20Cough%20%26%20For%20How%20Long%3F&utm_term=COVID-19%20Epidemiology&link_data=eyJidWxrX21haWxfYWN0aW9uIjoiYyIsInJlY2lwaWVudF9pZCI6ODAwOTMwODI3LCJtYWlsX2lkIjo2NDA0OH0%3A1kBzPS%3ApaP8rwe2SBXDXaHri76ok-32cOU&mail_id=64048

LJ here we come!

I’ve kept a journal devoted to San Diego (La Jolla, mostly) for over 3 ½ years.  I started it when my wife and I landed there in January ’17 for my 3 month sabbatical at UCSD.  We decided it would be fun to record our impressions of the place, especially the restaurants and bars.  We intended it to serve as a guide if we ever got back there, which happened in January of this year.  The trip was good for several blog posts https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/98, https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/104, https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/108.

Kathy and I love it out there, and would move in a second if we could just come up with the $20mill for the beach house of the sort Kathy would want to live in.  My sabbatical time didn’t lead to a job offer, but doctors are among the low-paid hired help just scraping by in LJ.

Events last week prompted a new entry in my journal.  I thought it might be worth posting:

We’re going back!  We’ve been trying and trying.  Our nephew Orion’s graduation from Summit Denali School in Sunnyvale California, where his parents sent him after 6-8 years of home-schooling, was justifying a big California trip for early June – including a jaunt south to LJ -but COVID.  Then I arranged a California trip for 2021 Spring Break (early March).  Then Dr. Schlissel cancels Spring Break because COVID.  New plans are for early January, before Winter term starts.  But that’s a long way away. 

We were supposed to go to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs for a Bendcare boondoggle (https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/617), including Kathy’s July 16 birthday.  I know the Broadmoor a little as my late Aunt Ann, Austrian warbride of my late Uncle Bob, used to do the hair of the rich and pampered there for many years.  Pretty luxe place https://www.broadmoor.com/.  We booked a couple days there before the meeting to make for a nice long Colorado Springs experience.  Then less than 12 hours before we were to leave the house for the airport, I get a call from Bendcare’s chief cat-herder Mike Prondecki that they had discovered I was no longer practicing (just like in January), so I had to stay home so that those who were could come hear the important message.

Stewing over that for a couple of couple of weeks, we decided to go anyway on our own dime, add in some time in Salida to see June Rogers, Sam’s widow (https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/25, https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/56).  Kathy will be done with classes 8/21.  We’ll fly to COS 8/23, check into the Palace Hotel https://www.salidapalacehotel.com/ and spend a lot of time with June in nearby little Nathrop.  Salida is a wonderful little town, situated on the Arkansas River, on which is situated a beautiful little park, caring naught if you brought over something from the wine shop across the street to help you pass the time as you sat on one of their benches to watch the river flow by.  There’s a mountain right across the river that crazy mountain bikers like to traverse.  It bears many names (Wikipedia calls it “Methodist mountain” which is not what the guy at the Salida desk told me).  It also bears a big white “S”, which I had to tell my brother John doesn’t mean that MSU has claimed the structure, although sports teams for the local high school are the “Spartans”

After 2 days here, we’ll drive back to COS, dump the car, and take the shuttle to the Broadmoor, where we’ll spent one night in the resort, Kathy racking up spa charges.  Then we move up 8,000 feet to “Cloud Camp” for 2 days, a more rustic form of luxe, hot tub outside our cabin, and all food and drink covered.  Friday come home, Kathy gets a couple of down days before Fall term classes start on Monday 8/31.

But last night (8/4), a thought came over me: we’ll be quite a ways west anyway, why not take it to the coast?  I didn’t discuss it with Kathy but slept on it.  Maybe that’s why I woke up at 4:30.  I was going to e-mail my LJ host and friend Ken Kalunian to ask if a trip there was even advisable.  He’d been frank with me in June saying it would be folly to come out then because COVID.  Instead, I looked into specifics.  Very reasonable flights were there for a COS-SAN-DTW swing.  So, I booked them on Travelocity.  Have 24 hours to cancel if Ken or Kathy don’t approve.  I then went looking for a Windnsea Beach cottage.  La Jolla Vacation Rentals, run by one of Ken’s old girlfriends and who had rented us our places last 2 times out, had nothing, but VRBO did.  So we have a La Jolla cottage at 333 ½ Playa del Sur, 2 blocks to the beach.  Booked.  All before Kathy got up.

When I explained my fiendish plot to her, she was concerned she wouldn’t have enough time to prep for classes.  I pointed out that (a.) she’d been teaching the same class all summer and was likely “warmed up” and (b.) she’d have 6 uninterrupted hours in first class on the flight home Sunday.  She finally agreed it was a good idea to go.

I’ve checked out some of our favorite LJ haunts on line – Karl’s, Public House, Promiscuous Fork, “Lotta Dudes” (Latitude 32) – and all were open.  Ken finally checked in saying most places were open outdoors, with seating expanded into streets and parking lots.  Even some churches were having outdoor services.  Ours – LJPres (https://ljpres.org/) – was not.

So, barring a surge in COVID that prompts Gov. Newsome to lock things down again, we’re ready and rarin’ to go.  The COVID numbers have been going down.  San Diego county was never very bad.  So LJ, here we come!

Clean!

I had a COVID test last week Thursday!  The real deal where they stick a test tube brush up your nose halfway to your brain and give it a good scrape.   I got hit so hard by some bug in the middle of the night Tuesday, I told enough to the triage nurse the next day to tick off enough items that she referred me to the COVID hotline nurse who got me an urgent appointment in COVID respiratory clinic.  The Nurse Practitioner who saw me thought I just had a strept throat, but did the swab anyway.  Weeks ago I had set up a Zoom get together for some of the Vicksburg High class of ’70 (46 emails on my list, 10-12 have been signing in).  I was feeling crappy enough that morning I had my doubts I’d be much of a participant.  I sent out an email to the 46 telling them this, and mentioning the COVID stuff.  I took my first penicillin later that afternoon and felt enough better by 7 PM to take part in the Zoom.  My friend and VHS classmate Jim Northam’s invite list – for the small party at his lake house he’s throwing instead of the 50th reunion we were supposed to have the night before – looks a lot like my Zoom list.  Some intending to go to his party are sensitive about this communicable disease stuff.  One – Forrest – even emailed me (something he never does anymore) on Friday to ask about my test results.  I assured him that both the strept and COVID tests were negative.  I began to worry that perhaps some of the other guests might not be so forward with their concerns, but nevertheless uncomfortable with the situation.  For them, I constructed a placard with my COVID test results on one side and “CLEAN” in big letters on the other.  Forrest was not completely placated by my placard, sure that I was still going to give him whatever it was I’d had.


I’m all better, still with some penicillin to finish.  I was pretty limp Saturday afternoon after several hours in that withering July sun, but mercifully it got cooler by evening and I perked up.  One consequence of the illness was I went 48 hours with no alcohol other than some sips of wine while Zooming.  Bug had totally taken away my tasted for beer.  Some bug.  Think how thin I could get if I could isolate that active principle.  Happy to say I’ve totally recovered on that front.

The bioassay has been incubating for 6 days now, and there have been no positives.  All of Northam’s guests are as well now as before. So I wasn’t carrying some killer culture-negative superbug ready to wipe out my friends despite my sign, test results and penicillin.  That’s good.  These are all special friends.  The old ones are best.  So glad they’ll all get to grow a little older.

lockdowns?

I’m taking the lazy way out today, letting some other writer tell you something I think you’d like to know. I’m still not good for much after some bug hit me so hard Monday night to tally up enough points to earn a COVID test, the up the nose with a test tube brush kind. But I feel so much better after just 2 of the penicillins the NP prescribed me for what she thought was a strept throat, I think the only COVID stat I’ll be adding to is “number tested”. I get my results later today.

Steve Hayward, a political writer not a physician or scientist, wrote today in Powerline about a study reported yesterday in Lancet in which the investigators scrutinized COVID stats from 50 countries, seeing how they relate to population demographics in those countries, and to the government policies in each country. I’ll let Mr. Hayward tell you the details, but 3 things that struck me were: 1) it hurts to be rich and fat (“ Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence and per capita gross domestic product (GDP).“), 2) border closings and lockdowns did not have an effect of COVID mortality, and 3) smoking could be protective, which I’d written about before (https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/theviewfromharbal.com/448). Of no surprise was their finding that recovery rate were better in countries with better health care systems.

Since many of our leaders are itching to do it all over again, maybe we should look at what we did the first time and not repeat our mistakes. The Lancet study is a start. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/were-the-lockdowns-effective-at-all.php

For those of you who want to straight to the source, here ya go: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370%2820%2930208-X

no fat for you, Mr. Corona!

With this pandemic you never know what the next piece of news will be, or what part of the world it will come from. Every once in a while it’s good news, and todays item is very much that. And we shouldn’t be surprised it originates from that little sliver of the Levant on the Mediterranean that houses a lot of the smartest people in the world. Thank God for Israel. The Israelis don’t claim all the credit for today’s feat. They had help from Mt. Sinai, the one in New York City.

Not that I can come close to getting into the head of a scientist at Hebrew U. or Mt. Sinai, let alone duplicate the workings there, but I think it went something like this:

  1. coronavirus infected lungs accumulate fat
  2. cells stoked with fat support more efficient replication of coronavirus
  3. drugs exist to reduce fat accumulation
  4. let’s do the experiment!

Despite what those emails you get say, there aren’t any drugs to keep you from putting on fat. But attempts to develop drugs that alter lipid (fat) metabolism have going on since cholesterol was declared a problem. Since 1976, when the Japanese biochemist Akira Endo of the Sankyo Company isolated a factor from the fungus Penicillium citrinum which he identified as a competitive inhibitor of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase), we’ve had some pretty good drugs for this. Dr. Endo’s compound, which he named compactin or mevastatin, was the first statin to be administered to humans. It took 20 years to prove them safe and effective, and in 1996 Lipitor was released. The first cholesterol drug was clofibrate (Atromid-S), which increases the activity of extrahepatic lipoprotein lipase (LL), thereby increasing lipoprotein triglyceride lipolysis (fat breakdown!). Chylomicrons (the form fat takes to float around in your blood after you absorb it) are degraded, VLDLs (very low density lipoporotein, fat and protein complexes that can get into cells) are converted to LDLs (low density lipoprotein), and LDLs are converted to HDL (“good” cholesterol!). All the ‘DLs carry triglyceride (fat), but density goes up as triglycerides are pealed or eaten away. Where did it come from? Well, in 1954 J. Cottet of Paris reported that farm workers exposed to an insecticide which was sprayed from the air over fields in the region of Clermont-Ferrand in France became ill and were found to have remarkably low plasma cholesterol. This insecticide (phenyl ethyl acetic acid) had been developed by the agricultural division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). A chemist in ICI, Jeff Thorp, recognized the potential of this substance and synthesized an analogue, chlorophenoxyisobutyrate (later called Atromid-S or clofibrate). Thorp contact Michael Oliver of the University of Edinburg to gauge his interest, which was substantial. A few years with rats, then with any normal folks hanging around he could cajole to get the dose right (no review boards in those days), then finally into clinical trials in 1964. The first big trial, conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organization, was a disappointment, with excess non-cardiac deaths and gallstones being problems. Although it never received FDA approval, clofibrate was the only cholesterol drug around in the 60s and early 70s. Other safer and more effective agents were developed and Atromid-S was taken off the market completely in 1978. Fenofibrate (TriCor) was developed by Groupe Fournier SA of France, patented in 1969, came into medical use in France in 1975, and was approved by the FDA in 2004. Its mechanism of action is basically the same as clofibrate’s. While its use to lower cholesterol has mainly been supplanted by the statins, there are some patients with high cholesterol whose main problem is with triglycerides. For them, TriCor is the drug of choice. It also lowers uric acid, and is used off-label in some difficult-to-control gout patients. I have prescribed it for that purpose myself. The problems with gallstones and excessive non-cardiac death have not emerged.

Funny how what goes around comes around. A chemical made to kill pests gives rise to a drug that lowers cholesterol mainly by breaking down fat which then shows it can break down the fat in lungs on which our biggest pest of the day is feeding, killing said pest! Take that Mr. Corona! We’re gonna get you one way or another!

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/hebrew-u-scientist-drug-could-eradicate-covid-19-from-lungs-in-days-635028

Oliver M.  The clofibrate saga: a retrospective commentary.  Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2012 Dec; 74(6): 907–10.