I used the following line and reference from the 1987 movie Broadcast News in a post I wrote more than five years ago.  It was true then and it is even more true now.  In fact, too true.

The line was:  “What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?”  The character who was asked the question said, “Keep it to yourself.”

Yesterday I spent more than an hour on the elliptical and tallied nearly 7 miles.  That was in the morning.  In the afternoon, I walked more than five miles.

This morning I got on the elliptical for 69 minutes and tallied 7.43 miles.  This afternoon I did a strength training workout given to me by a former Medora student.  Michael Powell was kind enough to come to my house and lead me through it five years ago.  Actually, there are workouts A and B.  I did “A” today.  It includes lifts, pushups, and some dreadful thing called “dead bug”.  I got through it today.

To keep my rhythm and pace I watch and listen to music.  Yesterday I came upon the London Live Aid Concert on July 13, 1985.  I was probably in a hay field throwing square bales that day.  This concert was a big deal.  It was the brainchild of Boomtown Rat turned activist Bob Geldof.  The concert was epic and it was all about feeding the world, as the refrain of the song Do They Know It’s Christmas? says.  In addition to the London location, the same day JFK Stadium in Philadelphia was holding an American Live Aid Concert to augment the efforts across the pond.

Today I watched the show from Philly.  In the photo above, you can see George Thorogood.  He played Madison Blues and it was off the rails good.

JFK Stadium is long gone.  That day was a long time ago.  The music lives on in my heart for sure.  I was 17 when these concerts happened.

So why Running Scared?

WIthout getting into gory details, I feel better than I have in a long time.  I had some robbers removed from my stomach last month.  Even more robbers are coming out June 14th.  Tumors, polyps, both of those words are on a piece of paper I can show you.  I call them robbers.  They were robbing my vitality.  I was severely anemic.  For how long?  Who knows?  I don’t care.

With the help of a few medicated therapies and new asthma medication…and removing those darned robbers, I can tell you that I can breathe easier than I ever have in my entire life.  I got here with breathing troubles and they have haunted me.

When I go more than an hour on the elliptical at a nice pace, I can keep going.  My lungs, for the first time in my life, are not betraying me.  I can breathe deeply and freely with ease.  It took a trip to Denver to find this kind of breathing ability before.

Yes.  I am running scared.  I am scared to death I will go back to the way it was.

For many years I have eaten well and exercised more than the average bear.  I didn’t know my will was as strong as it was.  I kept moving and kept hurting for a long long time.  I only tell myself had I not done that who knows where I would be now?  I don’t care.  I can breathe now.  I have lost pounds that did not have a chance to leave me before.  I’m not working harder now.  My body and I are finally in concert.  The sound is great.  And I know better.  That is why I am running scared.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Graduation 2023

The North Harrison High School Class of 2023 celebrated commencement yesterday. It was a great time.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I sat near the top row of the bleachers and were able to take it all in. It was a sight to behold!

I had the honor to sing a song for this bunch on Friday during graduation practice.  I never get tired of breaking out a tune I wrote with graduates in mind.

Mr. Kellems, our principal, went over the finer points of graduation during practice.  The whole ceremony turned out very well a coupled days later.

As I said, it was an honor to sing for this bunch.  I had many of them in class this year and they made it a memorable (for good reasons) school year.  Thank you!

Some of the caps took flight after the turning of the tassels.

Recording 

On Saturday, the day before graduation, I found some old friends.  My musical partner and engineer, Jeff Carpenter, and his studio.  They are both dear friends.  Both full of memories of pure sweetness.

Jeff takes care of me.  I show up with a stack of tunes and a guitar and his magic makes it sound like I belong there.

There is a true comfort I find in this space.

I had my game face on before we began.  The last time I was here was before the dreaded Covid crisis.  I had not seen Jefferson since 2019.  You wouldn’t know it.  We just took up where we left off.  Fortunately it is always like that for us.  No pulling up the ground when we get together.

When we are in this space, the hours melt like a cube of ice on the roof of a Mustang in July.

There were some nerves and apprehensions on my part.  I think that should happen.  When that goes away there’s nothing left to appreciate.  When you settle down and really start going for it, good things happen.

In Memoriam

I’d be remiss if I did not speak a word about Mrs. Janet Petty.  She passed away today at her home in Alabama.  She is the mother of my dear friend Brother Tim Petty.  Brother Tim, our hearts and prayers go out to you and your family.  I know her suffering is over.  Regardless of the circumstances, when we lose a loved one there will always be an empty feeling for a while.  I know Mr. Petty will have a time of it.  God bless him.  Mrs. Petty liked to laugh.  I was fortunate to be able to laugh with her a few times.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

So I don’t just listen to The Moody Blues, though I think I could.

Near a week ago we lost a legend in this crazy world.  His name was Gordon Lightfoot.  He was a Canadian Icon.  If you have spent time in a dentists’ office, you have surely heard his classic songs If You Could Read My Mind and Carefree Highway.  If that is all you remember, consider yourself fortunate.  If you can tell of more, consider yourself blessed.

Justin Hayward in Variety Magazine (August 23, 2019)

For years I have talked about how I discovered The Moody Blues by chance as I was looking at a heap of cassette tapes on an endcap display at a department store I would one day work for nearly a decade.  Three years later,  when I was a senior in high school, The Moody Blues were all over the radio and MTV with a new album titled The Other Side of Life.  Your Wildest Dreams, the first single released from the album, was a Top Ten Hit.  I knew something after all.

The summer after high school graduation I was in Shreveport, Louisiana living with my grandparents before I was to be off to college.  On July 1, 1986, Gordon Lightfoot’s album East of Midnight came out.  I was smitten.  There is one song on the album that saw Gordon removed from his normal comfort zone of producer.  He turned the board over to David Foster.  Foster is the guy who diverted the sound of the band Chicago in the early 1980s.  He was also the musician behind many movie soundtracks.  One of those was St. Elmo’s Fire.

The Foster produced tune on Gord’s new album was co-written by the producer and the artist.  I really enjoyed the song; it was called Anything for Love.  I was drawn to it.  The sound.  That is all I can tell you.  As a musician by hobby and heart, that is all I can tell you.  There is a sound and sensibility about music.  I can enjoy a work.  Better yet, I can “get” a work.  I got the entire album.  In fairness, Anything for Love is really removed from the rest of this album.  It has a David Foster feel, as where the rest of the album is all Lightfoot.

Anything for Love was released as a single and charted well on the Adult Contemporary Chart.  The song’s highest position was #13 on the AC poll.  Fortunately for me, KVKI 96.5 in Shreveport had the good sense to have the tune in rotation along with Your Wildest Dreams.  I am left to believe it was not a favorite of the artist, as it was not a song Gordon played in concert.

Like most of us, at the time, I knew Carefree Highway, Sundown, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,  Beautiful, and the much covered Early Morning Rain.

I kept digging.  What I found was one gem after another.  In 1993 while seeing Gordon Lightfoot singing in person the first time,  I heard him and his long-time band play the tune Song For A Winter’s Night;  the sound of those sleigh bells caressing the chorus made me look up to see if the snow really was softly falling.  Listen to this song, if nothing else.  But be careful.  You’ll be looking for time to listen to more.  Thank me later.

The last time Gordon was in Louisville in 2018, he was playing at The Brown Theatre on Broadway.  Just down from Broadway and around the corner on 4th Street, my dear wife, Carrie, and I were at The Palace Theatre listening to Boz Scaggs.  I saw Lightfoot’s bus and the truck for his gear parked down the street and I got a bit wistful.  It all worked out.

Justin Hayward is a pretty good endorsement, if you don’t trust me.  His 1965 solo single London is Behind Me on PYE Records, before The Moody Blues, has a folky troubadour essence about it.  There is a reason he too gravitates toward the music of Gordon Lightfoot.  Me, I can just appreciate it.  His chord structure and multiple tunings are beyond my guitar acumen.

Gordon Lightfoot’s songs demand your attention without you even knowing it.  Is there a better musical compliment than that?

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson