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Upon Further Review (A Fresh Look at Some Old Rock)

February 27, 2014 by bjcorbin

After spending the first thirty years of my life being glued to the radio, collecting record albums, and reading Rolling Stone magazine, I took about a twelve year hiatus from that whole scene. In recent years, as I’ve revisited some of that old music, I’ve been surprised by how different some of it sounds to me now.  A few of the bands I used to love don’t sound that good anymore, and others seem even better than I remember them.  Here are a few examples:

Under-rated:

  • Steely Dan – I always enjoyed this bands completely unique approach to their craft. The complex jazz influenced arrangements, the exquisite musicianship, the cryptic lyrics and the sparkling production made them standout against the rock/pop music landscape. These attributes also give their best work a timeless quality that has allowed it to become classic.
  • Chicago – In its heyday, this band was one of the brightest and most innovative groups in rock music. Through their first ten albums they produced a library of compelling music, much of which remains vibrant today. Though the exploitation of the band’s name in later years diminished their stature in the rock community, a listen to their earlier work is a great reminder of what a special group this was.
  • Bad Company – Formed from the ashes of the bands, “Free”, “Mott the Hoople” and “King Crimson”, Bad Company was something of a super-group and it showed immediately on their classic (self-titled) debut album. Though their run (with the original lineup) was relatively brief, it produced five solid albums filled with a lot of great music.
  • The Guess Who – This legendary Canadian band has taken on many forms over the years, but it was the combination of Burton Cummings remarkable vocals and guitarist Randy Bachman’s copious musical skills that created their most memorable music. Between 1969 and 1970 they released classics like, “These Eyes”, “Laughing”, “Undun”, “No Time”, “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature”, “Share the Land”, and “American Woman”. Those songs alone give them a Hall of Fame worthy resume.

Over-rated:

  • Kiss – No one is likely to dispute their credentials as world class entertainers, and I would list a Kiss concert (with makeup) as a must-see event for any avid rock music fan. But as I revisited the old studio recordings it’s been hard to miss the mediocre songwriting, singing and, in many cases, playing. Other than Kiss Alive I & II, I’d be hard pressed to get through a whole album anymore.
  • Eric Clapton (Solo) – There’s no doubt that Clapton is a guitar virtuoso, and that he has played on numerous classic recordings. But as I’ve listened with fresh ears it’s difficult not to notice the huge disparity between the work he did in bands such as the Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Domino’s, and his solo recordings. His limitations as a songwriter and vocalist become far more apparent when he was not surrounded by great musicians/vocalists like Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Duane Allman, Steve Winwood… His best solo recordings have generally been songs written by others (e.g. JJ Cale).
  • Jimi Hendrix – I know that I’ll likely be lynched for including his hallowed name on this list, and it is in no way meant to disparage his amazing talent. In truth, it is more a lament over the circumstances that surrounded his brief recording career. Though every fan cherishes anything they can get their hands on, most of the Hendrix catalog is made up of poorly recorded, poorly produced snippets of songs and ideas. All of them point to the limitless potential that Hendrix possessed, but sadly, few of them represent the realization of that potential.

Lives Up to the Hype:

  • The Beatles – These guys are the gold standard by which just about everyone else is judged and after years of not hearing them, their music still sounds fresh and innovative. With all due respect to their notable individual accomplishments, none of them consistently approached this artistic level as a solo artist.
  • The Doors – Like everyone else, I was a big Jim Morrison fan, and was often mesmerized by his persona. But in revisiting the Doors catalog I was struck by the incredible talent and contributions of the rest of the band (keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger).   They were by no means simply Morrison’s backing band.
  • Led Zeppelin – English bands that loved to play the blues were a dime a dozen back in the 1960’s, but none of them quite reached the heights that Zeppelin did. Their eclectic mix of blues, folk and hard rock could be at times tender, haunting, or even bludgeoning. Going back and listening to this music only enhanced my respect for this one of a kind band.

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Thought for the Day – Doing Life Together

February 21, 2014 by bjcorbin

February has been pretty amazing so far. The first of the month found our oldest daughter moving into her own apartment. A week later, her water broke, and she had our first grandbaby (three weeks ahead of schedule). A week later we had to bring in hospice for my mother-in-law (Marilyn K. Messer), who passed away the following morning. With family and friends, we said goodbye to Marilyn on Wednesday and last night we watched our youngest daughter (& her teammates) win a league championship (both regular season & tournament champs @ 15-1) in basketball. And today (02/21/2014) is my beautiful bride’s birthday.

It seems to me that life is a long and eventful journey, and I’m so thankful to be able to share that voyage with Anita. We will have been married 16 years next month, and they have truly been the best years of my life. I am so grateful to God for who He made Anita to be and for joining us together. Though neither of us is perfect, and we are not “perfect” as a couple, we are definitely better together. As I tried to find some new words to say today, I found myself revisiting some words I’ve already said. They are truer today than they’ve ever been.

Looking at You

I see the reflection of your face in the mirror
As you give yourself yet another disgusted look
I can hear that little voice inside your head
As you wonder what I must think of you

But if there’s one thing we’ve never really agreed upon
It’s the question of your worth
You imagine that I simply put up with you
While I think of you as God’s special gift

You see a woman who’s getting older
While I see all the years that we’ve shared
You see the wear & tear of the miles
While I’m reminded of our amazing journey together

You see a woman who’s lost her shape
While I see the mother of our beautiful children
You see all the things you want to change
While I see the things I never want to live without

You say that love is blind
But I say that it has x-ray vision
You say that I am biased
And I wonder why I’d be any other way

How could I separate my heart from all the love that we’ve shared
Or my mind from all that we have learned together
How could I ever look at you like some stranger on the street
And divorce myself from the understanding of who you really are
How could I ever look into your eyes
And not see the soul that has so often touched my own

We are like two old trees
Whose roots and branches have become intertwined
It’s no longer clear where one ends & the other begins
And the only way to separate us would be to cut us into pieces

If you wonder what I see when I look at you
I see love
I see beauty
I see my destiny

Posted in Parenting / Family, Personal | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Free at Last!

February 17, 2014 by bjcorbin

It’s funny for me to hear people talk about being bored. I don’t think I’ve been bored since some time in the 1990’s. It seems to me that there are always worthwhile things that need to be done, and for us that has included caring for my mother-in-law (Marilyn Messer). It all began about 14 years ago, after my wife delivered a set of twins, before our other two kids had celebrated their 1st & 7th birthdays respectively. With four kids (and three of them being less than a year old), we were in desperate need of another set of hands, and at that time in Marilyn’s life, she was in desperate need of an excuse to get out of bed in the morning. Even though she was only 59 yrs old, she was classified as disabled, and was battling severe depression and a myriad of serious health issues. Coming to live with us was a win-win situation for everyone, and for a number of years it stayed that way. Even so, while living in a house full of grandchildren bolstered her spirits, it didn’t do anything to slow the steady deterioration of her body.

From the beginning, emergency runs to the hospital were a common occurrence and in those times, my wife Anita and I had to divide and conquer. At first we thought about alternating who would go with mom and who would stay with the kids, but we quickly figured out that wasn’t the way to go. You see, Marilyn was pretty old school and there was a huge difference in how she dealt with me versus how she dealt with Anita. Because I was a man and not her child, she was prone to be more respectful and compliant with me; whereas she was often cantankerous and obstinate with her daughter. Very quickly, I became Marilyn’s official ambulance driver, and over the years, we spent countless hours and days together in emergency rooms and in hospital wings. I held her hand through more than a dozen heart attacks, triple by-pass surgery, mini-strokes and even a bout of cancer. I was the one who had to lay down the law when it was time to transition to assisted living and eventually to full time nursing care. And even then, we’d frequently have our late night rendezvous’ at the medical center. Though those times were never pleasant for me, and almost always awful for her, we managed to form a very special bond that very few “in-laws” ever experience. I tried to make her laugh when I could, and we prayed a lot. We came to death’s door on several occasions, but Marilyn was built to last and she could rebound like no one I’ve ever known. The sad thing was that she never really got better, she’d just come to some new normal that was even worse than before.

In recent years the whole infrastructure of her body was collapsing. Her heart and kidneys were barely functioning, the blood flow to her brain was severely constricted by clogged arteries, she was legally blind and unable to walk. The highlight of her week was always Sunday, when we’d come load her in the van, and take her to church and then for something to eat. It wasn’t much, but it gave her something to look forward to. We’d actually experienced a pretty good stretch over the last year and a half, but during the holidays things began to unravel. Since Christmas, she’d been in the hospital at least four times and each time there was little they could do. Limiting her fluids helped with her congestive heart failure, but caused her to be severely dehydrated and prone to infection. Dealing with the infection and dehydration normally triggered her heart. With her fluid intake limited to 1000 cc a day, she was miserable and begging for something to drink. It was clear to me in that moment that our options were pretty much limited to letting her die in a desert of thirst or to drown in a tub of infected water. After making sure that she understood the consequences of the change, we requested that they raise her limit back up 1500 cc and made the momentous decision to not send her back to the hospital. Anything that needed to be done for her could be accomplished by the staff at her facility and Medicare (or Medicaid) was threatening not to hold a bed for her there any longer. Over the years, that place had become home for her and the staff had become like family. It seemed like that was the place to make our final stand.

Like so many other times in life, we prayed and tried to make the best decision we could; not really knowing what to expect. A few days later, my wife called to tell me that our oldest daughter’s water had broken and that her baby (our first grandchild) was going to come three weeks ahead of schedule. As I said a prayer for the little one’s safety, the Lord impressed upon me that the baby needed to come early if Marilyn was going to get to see him. Our daughter Katelyn was Marilyn’s first grandchild and now her son Jayden was going to be Marilyn’s first great-grandchild. I decided not to share my insight with anyone, and for the next several days we got caught up in the magical world of a new baby. Within a few days of getting momma and baby settled back in at home, the phone rang in the middle of night and it was Marilyn pleading for help. With the nursing home only minutes from our house, I was able to get there quickly, but there was little I could do. The fluid around her heart was crushing the life out of her. I spent the next couple of hours trying to comfort her by talking, praying and rubbing her shoulders. Eventually, she slipped into a fitful sleep, with her chest heaving for more air.

After a couple hours of sleep, I got the kids off to school and then Anita and I headed back to the nursing home. There we found Marilyn in the same miserable physical condition, but sitting with our Pastor. We hadn’t called him, but he felt nudged to go there that morning and we all prayed together. I requested that they begin to give her something to help calm her and they also prescribed something to help ease her breathing. We all knew that these things wouldn’t help her get better, but at this point we were simply fighting for whatever quality she might have left. That afternoon, Katelyn and baby Jayden came for a visit, and we were able to have that moment where she held her great-grandson. It was brief and she was groggy, but it was still priceless. At the same time, and at the request of the doctor, my wife was signing the papers to allow Hospice to take over her care. Very shortly thereafter, they began to administer morphine to make her comfortable.

Anita and I didn’t really discuss it, but for the first time in a long time, she stayed with Mom, and I took care of the kids. Marilyn’s older sister Judy came and together they kept vigil through the night. Slowly, Marilyn’s breathing became less labored and for the first time in a long time, she seemed to be resting peacefully. For anyone who loved her, it was a beautiful sight. At about 6:20 the next morning (02/15/2014), she quietly slipped into the next life. I couldn’t help but be grateful because she was finally at peace. No one knew better than I what it took to get there. I was also grateful that Anita (her oldest child) and Judy (her oldest sibling), were there to share the moment. With just a week between Jayden’s birth and Marilyn’s death, it struck me that those moments are not as different as we might think. Both seem to take place at an intersection between two worlds. With all my heart I believe that Marilyn is now in a better place, and that she’s free of the dead body that was so completely worn out by the end of her journey. I won’t miss the trips to the hospital, but I will miss the special bond that we shared. Rest in peace my dear friend – you are free at last!

Posted in Parenting / Family, Personal, Tributes | Tagged , | 6 Comments »

Technical Difficulties

February 13, 2014 by bjcorbin

We certainly live in a time of amazing technological advancements, and while many of those developments have represented a significant enhancement from the status quo, there have also been some troubling side effects. I’ve listed a few of those below:

 

• Diminishing problem solving/critical thinking skills – Our minds are like our physical bodies, they need to be exercised to remain strong and healthy. Increasingly, we have an “App.” for just about everything, and we have quickly grown accustomed to doing things with the push of a button. More and more, the technology is doing the thinking for us, and we are progressively losing our ability to do things manually. When the technology fails us, we are generally thrown into a state of turmoil, and are often unable to proceed.
• Diminishing perseverance and endurance – Since most of these advances tend to make things faster and easier, our expectations are evolving accordingly. As time goes on, our patience and tolerance for anything that doesn’t come fast and easy is waning. The emerging generations are growing up with the concept that everything in life ought to be like that, and a growing reluctance to endure anything that is not.
• Trading the real world for virtual reality – The cyber-world has grown to become its own alternate reality, and for many, it has begun to eclipse the real world. Progressively, westerners are spending a lot more time interacting with digital screens than with each other. Most have a lot more “friends” on their social networking site than actual people they associate with regularly, and many seem to be losing their ability to express themselves in complete sentences or beyond 140 characters.
• A growing “faith” in technology – Young people seem to take great pride in the technological advances of recent years. They tend to view them as a defining characteristic of their generation. And because of this, they don’t necessarily feel bound to the lessons of history. In the minds of many, the failures of previous generations are rooted in their lack of good technology. For them, there is no problem that humanity has that technology won’t soon resolve.

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All in the Family

February 7, 2014 by bjcorbin

Grandbabies

Grandbabies

At around 3:30 a.m. this morning, out first grandchild was born. Jayden Daniel (JD) McCoy arrived weighing 5 lbs, 13 oz. and measuring a little over 20 inches long. It feels a little deceptive to say that he’s our first grandchild, because Jayden’s dad (Josh) already has a two year old named “Nevaeh” whose been running around our house for the last several months. To her we are “O-Pa” and “O-Ma”; and to us, she is our beautiful granddaughter. To an outsider some of these relationships can be hard to explain. Katelyn is not my biological daughter (though I’ve been a part of her life since she was 3 yrs old). Josh and Katelyn aren’t married (though they’ve now had a baby together), and Katelyn is not Nevaeh’s mom (though she loves her like her own). None of this has come together in the way we would have planned it, but regardless of the circumstances, God has made us a family. So despite the actual bloodlines and legalities, I see Katelyn as my daughter, Josh as a son-in-law and Vaeh as a grandchild. We can quibble about the technicalities or we can celebrate the new life that has come to visit us. For me, that’s an easy choice.

Another cool aspect of the last 24 hours has to do with the doctor who delivered Jayden. His name is Ron Lopez. He was Anita’s doctor when Katelyn was born, and even though we moved after we got married, he wound up delivering our other three kids as well. Years later he moved to Chillicothe, but Katelyn has been seeing a different doctor within the same practice and planned for her to deliver the baby. When Kate’s water broke unexpectedly yesterday (three weeks before her due date), we found that Ron was the on-call doctor. He told us that this was the twentieth time in his career that he’d delivered a baby for a baby that he’d delivered. I guess God wanted Ron to be an integral part of our family as well.

Posted in Heart of "The Father", Parenting / Family, Personal | 2 Comments »

Thought for the Day – The Middle of the Road

February 6, 2014 by bjcorbin

One man’s “happy medium” is another man’s “stuck in the middle”. What represents a “balanced approach” to one, can seem like “mediocrity” to another.

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Thought for the Day – Finding the Time

February 5, 2014 by bjcorbin

Generally, the best way to “find time” for what is important is to “set aside a time” to make it happen. The former is incidental, while the latter is intentional. Thus, when we claim that we can’t seem to “find the time” for something, I would submit that we are unwittingly making a statement about our motivations.

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Thought for the Day – A Warm House

January 28, 2014 by bjcorbin

This morning, the thermometer outside my window said that it was – 7 degrees F (that’s without wind-chill). By Midwest standards, that’s cold. Of course, I was standing inside my kitchen at the time, which was a balmy 68 degrees F. As economic times have gotten tougher in the last several years it has been easy to succumb to the notion that things are “bad”, but days like today remind me of how blessed we still are. Yeah, I live in a 54 year old, non-descript house, that I’ll likely never have fully paid for. But it’s a well insulated, brick house, with a high efficiency gas furnace. Yeah, I drive a 16 year old car with almost 200,000.00 miles on it. But this morning it kicked right over when I turned the key. Yeah, the cost of food is putting a big time strain on my budget, but no one in my house went to bed hungry last night, and there’s plenty of provision in the cupboards for today as well. It’s not lost on me that within just a few blocks of our home there are people who couldn’t make those claims and that around the world, there are many people who will never experience such prosperity. When the kids were young, I used to lay down with them, and on cold nights I’d pray, “Father, thank you for a warm house on a cold night, and we pray for everyone who is seeking shelter tonight. Father, thank you for the abundance of food on our table, and we pray for everyone who is hungry tonight. And Father, thank you for the wonderful family that you’ve given us, and we pray for everyone who is alone tonight.” Today, as I walked toward my office, and the frigid air burned in my nostrils, I once again found that prayer on the tip of my tongue.

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A New Song

January 27, 2014 by bjcorbin

When a musician plays an instrument, it isn’t really the musician that we hear. It is actually the instrument’s response to the promptings of the musician. With the brass and the woodwinds it is the player’s breath moving through the inner parts of the instrument, or with the stringed instruments it is the sound of the strings resonating in response to the musician’s touch. The unique construction of each instrument conveys the breath and/or touch in a different way, thereby creating a completely distinct sound. And so it is with God and all that He has created. The Father is the Master Craftsman who handcrafts each instrument, winnowing out the inner chambers of every heart and fastening every heartstring. The Spirit is the Master Musician, whose deft touch and subtle breath creates the music that reaches the heavens. Each life has the potential to become a beautiful melody, a completely original composition and ultimately a song of praise to the Creator. Just like the ripples in a pond, the sounds that emanate from one life spread out and touch all of those around them.

excerpted from the foreword to “The Ballad of Billy Turner”.

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Thought for the Day – An Apple a Day

January 21, 2014 by bjcorbin

The best way to compel someone toward a love of apples is not to preach against oranges, or to engage in some endless dialogue as to the virtues of the Red Delicious versus the Granny Smith. Nor is it to author the definitive work on how to grow a tree. In truth, it is far more effective to be a lover of apples, who cultivates their own orchard and who allows their neighbors to freely partake of their fruit. And so it is with the man, Jesus Christ.

Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes | 1 Comment »

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