Meanwhile...

A shorty until later this week!

But first, Texas

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

I know what it feels like to be reunited with someone who didn’t know if you were alive or dead in a disaster. I know, because she told me what she went through emotionally and physically, waiting hours for something, anything, from me letting her know I was okay.

And so the images of the Texas flood disaster — the fourteen year-old in the night, clinging to a tree, rushing, black water surrounding him, yelling for his mother who is unseen but heard in a different tree; thirty-foot waters carrying away houses, homes, families;  — resonate for me because I am a member of that club no one ever wants to be in, the disaster survivor club.

My god, the Texans have a long, sad, trying recovery. As does anyone affected by a disaster, whether that disaster affects one person or an entire community. Disasters also reveal something we now need reminding of continually, that our lives, happiness, and place on this planet are about us and our connections to each other. No one during these times asks if someone is a liberal or conservative before pulling them out of a river, or dragging a hose toward a house on fire, or standing shoulder to shoulder in a wide line looking for someone lost in the woods.

I’ll support the Texas post-flood recovery, and use this moment to point out that in these times when people are labeled, demeaned, belittled, preyed upon, pursued, and attacked for reality show-style publicity, we should wake every day with empathy, compassion, and awareness of how much we need each other.

Donating to an organization that's helping is your easiest way to help. The American Red Cross and the World Central Kitchen are only two of the many orgs in Texas right now. (as I've written before, there is a lingering thing on the 'net about the American Red Cross and how it spends its money; it's old, incorrect data, I know that organization, I worked with it at many levels including several weeks for the hurricane Katrina response. The ARC volunteers are sincere people who know what they're doing and don't give a rat's patootie about politics or rumors, they simply give their daily lives to help people and communities in need.

Live Aid

Here’s Where I Was, And where I wasn’t! (part one)

I’ve got some music-related anniversaries that have passed that I'll include in part two amidst other content later this week. For now let’s go to July 13th, the 35^th anniversary of Live Aid, a remarkable fund raising concert event held in Wembley Stadium, London and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, both broadcast live.

I watched it in Sausalito, California with my then roommate and several of our mutual friends, including beloved Sal, who I would work with two years later on the Michael Jackson Bad tour. I had to do some memory data comparison to figure out why I was home to watch Live Aid and not on the road, and sorted out that Live Aid was a couple of months after I’d told my then boss Bubba, the man responsible for my music/concert career, that I had chosen to retire from the road to focus on writing (it would be many, many years before we spoke again; sigh)

Now a couple of generations on, it’s the codgers like me who remember the event, while younger generations generally know of it because of the feature film hit Bohemian Rhapsody, which, in my learned opinion, successfully conveys the look and feel of a concert’s backstage and onstage production.

Note: there is an entertaining YouTube video that uses a side-by-side realtime comparison of Queen’s twenty-minute Live Aid set and its replication in the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie I do recommend checking it out before watching the  YouTube clip. Also, this linked clip does include the music, unlike other comparison clips where the music is muted (most likely due to copyright issues).

And here are excellent, though slightly techy articles about producing the two-country event. Even if you’re ‘non-technical’ there’s much to enjoy :

The sound in London

The sound in Philly

The sound in space (not specifically sound, but I wanted the phrasing alliteration to continue. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it)

Back in a week.

MWH