A Worthy Facebook Shout-Out

I see a lot of people had this for their status recently:

Every single one of you are on my friend list as a result of a conscious decision. I am not only glad to count you as friends but also as family! Let's see who in my Friend's List actually pays attention. Copy and repost this in your own bulletin. You can't choose family but... you can choose friends..

I actually was paying attention, obviously. But whether I'm going to copy and repost this in my own bulletin doesn't have anything to do with whether I was paying attention. I can't choose your status but ... I can choose mine.

Anyway, it's great to choose your friends wisely! Then to give them a good shout-out. Every one of you is precious to me!

I'm giving a shout-out tonight to you, my worthy readers. I didn't choose you. You just showed up. Thank you for that, and I hope you enjoyed your stay. If there's anything I can do at this blog to make your time more enjoyable, don't be afraid to ask. Of course I can't give any guarantees, but if it were something reasonable, I might be able to accommodate you.

Facebook And The Looming Death Of Friends

It's been a long time since I was in high school. Most of the time since then, of course, we didn't have the computers, the internet -- and certainly we didn't have the current social media sites. The one I'm thinking of is Facebook.

So, being there, we've been touching base again with old high school friends, and some who weren't exactly friends, but the times are different decades later. There they are, a bunch of old folks. I check the yearbook once in a while to see who I'm dealing with, because, to a certain extent, they look like that still in my mind.

There's been a bunch of classmates die. Not ones I've known on Facebook though. But at the class reunion, the last one, we had a moment of silence for a whole list of people.

Now I know someone on Facebook from my class who could very well die. She's got enough wrong with her, serious cancer issues. The thing here, though, is that I'm not friends with her personally on Facebook, but I know a couple of people who are friends, who say what's going on.

It's weird on lots of levels. Maybe the weirdest is that I know anything about it at all. Let's say technology had been different. No Facebook. And she dies. She would've been just like the others on the list at the reunion. I didn't know any of them were sick and dying till I got to the reunion. And I wouldn't have known about this woman.

So we're all getting in touch with each other just in time to watch each other die.

Looking For An Old Friend

I had a friend 30 years ago. She has a fairly rare name, going by the Google incidences of it.

I found one in the same town we lived in. I called and got a voice mail. The voice didn't sound like hers. So that might be a dead end. Unless it's a secretary, someone else in charge of doing the voice mails. Or maybe her voice is different. I figured I'd recognize it even after 30 years.

I'm a little nervous contacting someone like that out of the blue. But my intentions are good, to reconnect. After all, we live in a Facebook world where I'm seeing friends from 30 years ago all the time. (And their boring lives ... like mine.)

Another guy I knew years ago died, which I just heard about today. The rest of the class (a tiny minority) want to do some kind of memorial. This guy I literally haven't seen for 35 years but I do remember him even though we weren't close.

Mike Deasy

Here's a guy I never heard of before, that I know of, but he played guitar on a lot of famous records. I came across his page at Facebook. His name is Mike Deasy.

Here's a page of some of the records he's on.

These include: Nancy Sinatra "Boots"; The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds"; The Monkees (multiple albums); Elvis "Double Trouble" and the '68 TV special; Richard Harris, the one with MacArthur Park; Tiny Tim "God Bless Tiny Tim;" Paul Revere & The Raiders "Spirit of '67", and Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart "It's All Happening On The Inside," where, on my copy of that, it looks like he's thanked as "Mike Dacey," unless there was another guy named Mike Dacey.

And there's bunches more!

I think it's safe to say a couple things about Mr. Deasy. 1) He must have been (and probably still is) a fantastic guitar player. I assume you have to be pretty good to be a session guy. 2) He must have been well known that all these recording artists were ringing him up. Or do session guys hang out on a street corner waiting for a group to drive by to hire him for a session? I doubt it.

I wish I knew how to play guitar reasonably well. I should've practiced, but I didn't. And when I did I didn't really improve.

As for these albums, I don't have the Elvis "Double Trouble" soundtrack. It seems hard (or expensive) to get. But I have the DVD and it's OK. (Any fault with the songs as songs wouldn't be Mike's fault.) I like the Elvis movies where Elvis is part of a band or is a club singer, which of course is most of them.

I just got the "Spirit of '67" on CD the other day for the first time. I've had the LP for quite a while but it's beat. So Mike's on there. But they didn't credit who was really playing on a lot of these records. Same thing with the Monkees, although on the CDs Rhino has the musicians listed where they're known.

As for "Pet Sounds" I wonder if Mike has any stories about Brian Wilson. And the same for Tiny Tim.

Reconnecting

I reconnected with an old friend on Facebook. Finally, with all the "friends" I have, I have an actual old friend who was a friend indeed way back when. That's rare.

But I don't know where it will lead. Maybe nowhere. Because it doesn't really have to. There's still distance ... and all the years. It's not that I absolutely haven't seen him in around 35 years. I saw him once in the mid '80s, it seems like, then definitely in 1986. And a couple times around 1974-75. Other than that, nada.

There's "old times," then there's now. Whether there's any now for us ... I don't know. I don't know what it'd look like if there were. We're old timers essentially.

Canned Requests

Is there a place where you get canned requests like this?

If you are reading this, even if we don't speak often, post a comment with a memory of you and me. When you've finished, post this paragraph on your own status and you'll be surprised at what people remember about you...

It's no doubt true. Different people remember different things about you, maybe not what you yourself would think of immediately.