They Might Be Dinosaurs. Springsteen and U2, Two Decades, Two Dominating Albums

born-to-run_joshua-tree — Bruce Springsteen and U2 with classic albums

I was reminded that it has been a while since I continued my “10 Favorite Albums” list. And as usual, once I start writing about music, I can’t stop at just one album. So today — two great albums, two very different decades in my life.

We begin in the late summer of 1975 sitting in a friends apartment (his parent’s apartment to be precise.) It was a lull in time; I was done with college, medical school would be starting shortly. I had no responsibility, nothing to attend to. I don’t remember what we were talking about, maybe another bad White Sox season. And then he put a record album on the turntable, and out of nowhere, there was Bruce.

“Born to Run” was the most exciting album in years. I was instantly hooked. I had missed out on Springsteen’s first two albums, but there was no way I was going to miss this one.

With only eight songs on the album, this was no double LP monstrosity loaded with filler. The title track got most of the early attention, with its wall of sound, its glockenspiel, its lyrics yearning to be free. But I soon appreciated other standouts. The opening track, “Thunder Road,” evolved into my personal favorite while the long moan at the end of “Jungleland, ” the closing number, became a haunting echo in my head. And I can still feel the mood of anticipation in the United Center as the piano intro to “Backstreets” welcomed the band back after intermission at the only live Springsteen show I have attended, some 30 years after “Born to Run’s” release.

It was only 12 years between the release of BTR and my album of the 80’s, U2’s “The Joshua Tree,” but it was 12 years filled with lots of changes for me. I was now married with two young children, finished with medical school and residency and in practice at Holy Family Medical Center while taking night courses for an MBA. Maybe because of all going on in my life I was barely aware of the Irish band U2. That changed with the back-to-back release of the singles “With or Without You” and “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Toss in “Where the Streets Have No Name” and those first three songs from the album became an endless loop on whatever music player I was listening to through the years. Even Roy Leonard, the midday host and show-biz critic on good-old conservative WGN Radio was a fan of the band, encouraging his listeners to buy “The Joshua Tree” in order to knock The Beastie Boy’s “License to Ill” out of the top spot on the Billboard charts.

Barb and I have seen U2 many times in the last 10 years, including the 2017 “Joshua Tree 30th Anniversary Tour” show at Soldier Field. I loved seeing the band perform all the songs on the album live, but I love even more hunkering down with a good set of headphones in a dark room and listening to every note.

Two great albums from a long time ago. They might be dinosaurs, but so am I!

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A reminder, please sponsor me and the UroPartners Team in the SEABlue Prostate Cancer Awareness Run this September. Here is the link!

https://ustoo.rallybound.org/seablue-prostate-walk/LesRunsforProstate

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Do You Have Snobby Tastes? This Zippy List Says That We Do!

I came upon a fascinating little squib in my Time Magazine Daily Email. Researchers at the University of Chicago (Go Maroons!) using data from 2016 have come up with a list of the Top Ten products that can separate the highest economic class of Americans from the lowest class. Apparently, this list is not based on the cost of the item but somehow measures personal taste. The list is summarized below.

TOP TEN ITEMS SHOWING HIGH ECONOMIC “TASTE”

iPhone
iPad
Verizon Wireless
Android phone
Kikkoman soy sauce
HP printer or fax machine
AT&T cellular network
Samsung TV set
Cascade Complete dishwasher detergent
Ziploc plastic bags

So I have to admit it, Barb and I must have pretty highbrow taste. iPhone and iPad chargers are parked in every electrical outlet in our home, symbolic of our addiction to Apple technology. When we travel, half of a suitcase is devoted to those tangled white cords.

We have been using, and been overbilled by, Verizon Wireless for years, most notably when we leave the country and try to decipher their various international plans. I have been using HP printers since my dot matrix days, though Laury claims my current one-year-old printer sounds like it is from the Stone Age. I also have a subscription to HP Instant Ink, a nice revenue stream for HP in the “give away the razor, screw ’em on the blade pricing” manner.

We didn’t intend to purchase Samsung TV sets, but when our Sony TVs had difficulties in playing nicely with our Xfinity Cable, we swapped two of the sets for comparable Samsung models. Our dishwasher gobbles Cascade Complete Tablets, although I also keep a box of plain Cascade powder under the sink for special tasks. And Ziploc bags? Until recently my bagged lunch contained three of four, with rice and carrots and cherries and blueberries all getting their own little zip; I am proud to say that in a Zen moment last month I switched to reusable plastic containers for most of those.

So by my count, we hit on 7 out of 10. We don’t buy enough soy sauce to have a preference, we just look for the one with the lowest sodium content. If that happens to be Kikkoman, so be it. And by habit, if by nothing else, Android and AT&T lose out to Apple and Verizon, at least for the time being.

Call me a snob…and don’t you dare question me about my choice of hoity-toity all-natural peanut butter. See you at Whole Foods!

A reminder, please sponsor me and the UroPartners Team in the SEABlue Prostate Cancer Awareness Run this September. Here is the link!

https://ustoo.rallybound.org/seablue-prostate-walk/LesRunsforProstate

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We Were Once Friends. Now You “Share” Hate.

How many years were we on the same Medical Staff at our sleepy suburban hospital? We were never close friends, but we could share a companionable conversation. You were a raconteur who would have everyone in the Doctor’s Lounge listening to every word as you wove your tales. You would amuse and amaze us. You opened your home for Monday Night Football on a giant screen, back when giant screens were a thing to marvel at. You had a young son, of whom you spoke fondly and frequently. When tragedy struck we all felt the pain.

You were a skilled surgeon and a teacher. Our hospital was solidly middle-class, but there were pockets of poverty in the area as well. I am sure you served that population with the same care and thoughtfulness you served all others. Maybe you grumbled at times, maybe we all did, but we never begrudged the services we provided to the less advantaged.

We haven’t seen each other for a dozen years, but when I received your “Friend” request on Facebook, I accepted without hesitation. I assumed that your feed would contain some chatter about the old days, some family pictures, some marquees with your name up in lights, a travelogue of your trips around the world. I assumed they would be things I would glance at and smile and think “he is doing o.k.”

But your Facebook life is much different than I anticipated. The posts are frequent, frightening, and disheartening. I can’t recall anything you have written yourself, the posts are items from others that you share. And they are filled with hate. They insult. They deride. They are lists of “facts” that any second-grader could prove is nonsense with two minutes of thought or research, “facts” meant to divide and incite. Most of your Facebook friends give them a thumbs-up or add an even more hostile comment. I’ll occasionally take the time do formal fact checking and comment with a link to the truth, but it is so tiresome, fighting off this hate. I wonder why this is the legacy you choose to leave for your son.

Oh, I know that the vitriol is not one-sided. I know the Democratic/Liberal/Socialist/Left has too often given up on “When they go low, we go high.” And I regret that. I take solace in knowing (believing?) that the majority of people under that great big tent do not yet fight fire with fire, or fight hate with hate. I hope we never will.

The make-up of our country has changed, is changing, and will forever change. That doesn’t make America less great, it has the potential to make America greater. Can you “Share” this fact on your Facebook posts, my old friend?
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Kitchen Confidential. A Crunchy Confession

Have you ever really screwed something up? And then tried to hide it? Come on, I know you have. It’s human nature. But it is also human nature to feel the need for confession. If you can talk about it, it really couldn’t have been that bad. And so my friends, it is time for me to bare my soul. And I promise you, no guests were injured in the making of this recipe.

We love to entertain; we designed our home to have lots of spaces for guests to mingle, indoors and out. Barb loves experimenting with recipes, a twist here, a splash of something there. But there are some recipes that are sacrosanct, crowd favorites that are never to be tampered with. So if you have eaten at our house for a summertime barbecue, you have undoubtedly enjoyed Barb’s Japanese Crunchy Coleslaw. A sweet and tangy concoction made with shredded cabbage, smashed ramen noodles (smashing noodles is fun!) toasted almonds and sesame seeds, chopped green onions, and a secret Asian dressing, it has been a staple in Barb’s recipe file for decades.

At this point, let me explain my role when Barb is in full executive chef mode. My job is simple. Like any guy on the kitchen line, I do what the boss tells me to do. It can be chopping, sauteing, shlepping, or cleaning up. My goal is not to burn, drop, or spill things, and to keep the sink clear, washing pots, pans, mixing bowls and measuring spoons as needed.

Back to our cabbage story. It was an hour before a gathering at the house last year. I won’t say which one. The large white ceramic bowl that minutes before had been used to mix the crunchy slaw sat in the sink, its inside glistening with oil. I grabbed the sponge-on-a-stick, Dawn Liquid oozing out, and set to work cleaning the bowl. Suds were everywhere, my washing-up trademark. A spray rinse and then I hefted the bowl out of the sink and into the drying rack.

And then the kitchen horror hit me. The big white bowl hadn’t just been sitting in the sink awaiting a clean-up. It had been a dead weight over a colander filled with the fully prepared crunchy salad, the bowls mass being used to compress the mixture to eliminate excess dressing. And I had succeeded-succeeded in replacing the excess dressing with my sudsy water. Panic time!

What to do, and how to do it before Barb noticed! I rinsed and I rinsed and I rinsed. The blue Dawn color dissipated. I rinsed some more. I tasted, and the salad seemed to be ok. It had retained its vinegary tang without a soapy aftertaste. I put the white bowl back in place to once again compress out the excess liquid. And then Iheld my breath. When the Chef made her taste test a few minutes later, she licked her lips and moved to the next item. I finally exhaled. And our celebration that day went on just fine.

So to our past and future guests, rest assured, we serve the cleanest food on the planet. And to Barb, sorry ’bout that!

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When is the Right Time To Say Goodbye? Five Keys for Me.

gold-watch — Is a gold watch in my future?

A colleague of mine retired recently. She and I had worked together for nearly 30 years, journeying together from Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines to our exciting adventure creating the UroPartners Laboratory. She shares a birthday with my son and son-in-law and is about the same age as I am. And at her retirement luncheon (she declined a dinner party, at which we could have had an adequate liquid toast,) one of our lab assistants popped the question to me. “Dr. Raff, are you going to retire soon?”

Of course, retirement is something Barb and I have been thinking about; something we have discussed frequently. Barb retired last month, but I am not ready to hang ’em up yet. Health insurance concerns are enough to keep me working until I can tap into what I hope will be a non-bankrupt or gutted Medicare system. And I still feel young. Maybe not as young as when I was the absolutely most junior member of a hospital medical staff or the perpetual junior member of the Board of Education, but still young enough to feel embarrassed about getting a Senior Discount. I may be a grandfather, but I am not the elderly gentleman that I remember my own grandfather to be, though I do share the thinning white hair he has in my memories.

So what will help me know when it is time to pull the plug? Five keys for me:

Health, health, health. I am presuming mine will hold up, and the work vs. retire decision will not be based on my physical abilities. Knocking on wood.
Finances always play a role. Our money advisors tell us we are ok, though a few more years will ensure all our financial goals are met.
The state of the Tri-State. We built our new home in part to shorten my daily drive. As long as I can continue to cruise down the tollway at what I consider optimal speed, my commute won’t be a factor. But if IDOT starts tearing up the roadway up again, I’ll be tearing out my hair. And I can’t afford to lose more of that.
The medical environment is continuously changing. Our type of physician’s office laboratory provides an excellent, cost-effective means of providing care for our patients, but should a change in rules and regulations put an end to this model, it might spell the end of my career.
Having a plan. What will retirement look like for us? More time with the family is guaranteed, until the kids and grandkids say “enough already.” Certainly we will travel; still so many places we want to see. Beyond that, adult education and volunteer work are appealing and have proved rewarding for retired friends of ours who have followed those paths. As long as it all leaves time for the Three R’s: Reading and writing and really bad tennis.

How did I answer my young interrogator’s question? It’s all in the definition of “soon.” My day will come, but it won’t be in five days or five months. Five years may be soon enough.

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