Perfect Autumn Night Friday Random Ten

I know I've been scarce; I picked up an extra shift a week at the restaurant-- a financial godsend-- and my school schedule has remained grueling. I've got another exam coming up Monday on all kinds of fun subjects-- alcohol and drug abuse, depression, bipolar disorder, suicide, etc. I've been hitting the books and online quizzes like a fiend all week.

Last Sunday, my son and I took a walk through Graceland Cemetery, a cemetery many historical figures are buried in. I'll post about that soon.

Like I mentioned, I have an exam on Monday on Psychiatric Nursing and then on Tuesday I start my new rotation, Med-Surg-- basic overall medical stuff. I'm nervous and excited. In the meantime, I'm out on the back porch sipping some Malbec, good tunes playing on my Itunes and enjoying this picture-perfect autumn night.


1. Cuts You Up- Peter Murphy
2. Yesterday's Not Here- Peter Shelley
3. The New Frontier- Donald Fagen
4. No More, No More- Aerosmith
5. Lose This Skin- The Clash
6. Wild Horses- The Flying Burrito Brothers
7. Rock'n Me- Steve Miller
8. Montego Bay- Bobby Bloom
9. Femme Fatale- The Velvet Underground
10. She Belongs To Me- Rick Nelson


Notes:
1. It's funny how certain songs can bring you right back to a time in your life. This hit from Bauhaus alum Peter Murphy brings me back to a time I can hardly believe was 20 years ago.
2. The first solo album by Buzzcocks singer Peter Shelley, "Homosapien." I just got ahold of three songs that were on the vinyl edition, but not the cd-- thanks Itunes, and thanks Ron (my friend who is the biggest Bauhaus fan I know).
3. I sense a theme going here-- solo songs from members of famous bands. Steely Dan alum Donald Fagen's first solo album "Nightfly" was brilliant, and this song bore one of my favorite videos of the eighties.
4. Hands down my favorite Aerosmith song.
5. From the great "Sandinista" album.
6. I think I have five versions of this song. Was there ever a bad version? This one is sung by the late, great Gram Parsons.
7. Remember how huge the "Fly Like An Eagle" album was in 1976?
8. Great 1970 one-hit wonder, though I discovered when looking him up that he co-wrote Tommy James' hit single "Mony Mony."
9. Brian Eno, who produced the first VU album said "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band"
10. Great country-tinged cover of a very funny (and deliberately ironic) Bob Dylan song sung by former teen idol Rick Nelson.

I'm Still Here!

This last couple of weeks have been busy beyond belief. We had our first exam in my nursing class. Since I had just gotten my textbook a couple of Fridays ago, I had a huge amount of reading to do to prep for the exam and had to get online and do a bunch of case studies. It all paid off; I got an 84% on the exam. Under the grading scale we have, it missed a B by one point. Turns out, though, that it was one of the highest grades in the class; nearly the whole nursing class-- by that, I mean every second year nursing student. Nearly the whole sophmore class tanked the exam. The average was 78%. I'm not concerned about the C; generally, my first exam of the semester is my lowest. As I get to know the teacher and the material better, my grades tend to improve.

In the meantime, I have a bunch of work to do in the next couple of days for my first clinical rotation, psychiatric nursing, which is almost over. Somewhere in there, I had some work to do to prepare for my wife's birthday, which is today. A few weeks ago, she dropped her Iphone and cracked the faceplate. Since she couldn't afford to have the faceplate fixed, she talked ATT into giving her a Blackberry to replace it. However, she was very, very unhappy with the Blackberry. Fortunately, I was able to find a place to fix the faceplate for a reasonable cost, and I seripticiously had it fixed. We gave it to her this morning, and she was delighted. The bonus is that she's going to give me the Blackberry, which I think I'll find very handy-- I frequently have to send long text-messages to classmates. We're going to switch the phones over tomorrow.

Friday, I'm hoping to have a real post. In the meantime, I'm just posting a picture of the Green Mill, a tavern just a couple of blocks from my school, in the Uptown neighborhood. It was was once owned by Al Capone, who also hung out there; if you peek inside, you'll see the booth he held court in. It's the only booth that faces toward the door.

The Green Mill has been in at least two movies. In Michael Mann's 1981 movie "Thief," it is the tavern that the lead character, portrayed by James Caan, hangs out at. In Stephen Frears' 2000 movie "High Fidelity," there's a scene where John Cusack's character Rob has a drink with his sister, portrayed by his real-life sister Joan.

And in my real life, it was where I had my first date with Cynthia, in 1992, who eventually became my second wife.

Anxieties and Goals

This weekend, things slowly returned to normal around here. My mother-in-law returned to Minneapolis, to a husband with a new knee.

The week preceding it had been a little stressful. My son's insurance autopay hits at the beginning of the month-- as does my tuition payment and rent. Somehow I pulled more than a thousand bucks out of my ass-- some good shifts, and a couple of picked-up shifts helped a great deal. As the final week of my mother-in-law's stay coincided with my second week back to school, I felt the grind.

Kim and Mel drove my mother-in-law back to Minneapolis, leaving Adam and I to have a guy's weekend here. I switched shifts with a friend of mine, so I worked Friday instead of Saturday, so that we had a rare Saturday night together. Adam had mentioned how it was in the old days, when it was just he and I; I'd buy cheese pizzas at Aldi's and we'd make our own pizzas, custom-topping it with our chosen ingredients. I got him a cheese pizza, and got myself the gluten-free pizza crusts that the Jewel's grocery store near our home now sells, and we went to town, topping our pizzas with turkey italian sausage, turkey pepperoni, veggies and a bunch of other healthy goodies; we've made an agreement to both lose weight, and I have to get my blood pressure down, before my doctor carries out her threat to put me on blood pressure meds. We ate our dinner and then streamed a Netflix movie we'd chosen.

He went back to his mother's house on Sunday, and on Monday I had something I hadn't had in ages: a day to myself.

I knew I should have been studying-- my textbook finally arrived on Friday, but I took a little time to kick back, get some stuff done around here and indulge a little in watching "Pawn Stars" (or, as my son calls it, "White Trash Antiques Road Show") on the History Channel.

As I got ready to finally sit down and study last night, I recognized the I had a pretty high level of anxiety. I took a half-hour walk in the lovely, cool Chicago evening, musing about the changes in the neighborhood in the last 24 years I've mostly lived here, and in the changes in my life. Fatherhood, unexpected career paths, old friendships that have grown stronger, new friendships, relationships, marriages. As I count down the months to my 50th birthday, which will coincide with finishing nursing school-- the same damned week, can you believe it?-- I'm alternately amazed and amused at the path my life has taken. I've quoted my old friend Michael before on this, and it bears repeating: "You want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans."

When I got home, I cracked my textbook, looking in the syllabus to see what I needed to read for Wednesday's class. I had to laugh out loud; it was the chapter on anxiety and anxiety meds.

A couple of years ago, when Cubs great Ryne Sandberg was inducted to the hall of fame, he was interviewed. He talked about a period of a couple of years when he left the game because of marital problems. He talked about how through his whole career, he would get butterflies in his stomach before each game. When that stopped, he knew his passion for the game had left. He took the time off, straightened out his situation and came back. The butterflies returned.

After I read and synthesized the material, I realized that I felt this way at the start of every class, and when cracking open every textbook. I have the irrational fear that I'm going to read it and not get it. And of course I always get the material in the end. And I know that it'll keep happening through the end of school.

Today, I had clinicals. I worked with a severely mentally ill patient, who I'll be working with for the next few weeks. On the way home, I talked to a classmate whom I catch a ride with every day about it all. We talked about the financial stresses this has caused each of us, what we sacrificed in time with our respective spouses and our kids, and sleep and everything else. And we both realized that we had no regrets whatsoever. In every regard, we had made the right decision to do this, from the standpoint of job satisfaction, economic future, job security, passion for what we do.

This journey, this path I've chosen, this decision I made over three years ago to get into the medical field is now within sight. A little over 29 weeks of school; 9 months of time. There are going to be some more months of pulling off financial miracles, some more time lost with my family, more lost sleep, more anxiety. But in the end, I"m confident I'll pull it off. In the end, there's a career in a field that not only fascinates me, but will give me the financial resources to fulfill the life goals that will require financial resources, and give me the peace of mind to pursue the ones that don't. And in the end, I realize that the sacrifices I made to do it will make it mean that much more to me.

Johnny Yen's Chicago Stories: A Tale of Two Robbers

One of the best books I've read in a long time is Bryan Burroughs' "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34." Not only was it, as Time Magazine said, "Ludicrously entertaining," it was fascinating, particularly since so many of the events depicted took place in and around Chicago.



In 1933, John Dillinger was living in an apartment at 4310 North Clarendon, about two blocks from where my nursing school is. Dillinger did not know that one of his acquiantences, Art McGinnis, was a paid snitch. When Dillinger developed a scalp problem (either "barber's itch," an inflammation of the hair follicles, or ringworm, a fungal infection of the skin), he sought medical help. McGinnis arranged for Dillinger to visit a doctor on Keeler Avenue, just south of Irving Park Road, this intersection, which is now right by where the Kennedy Expressway crosses Irving Park Road.

Indiana State Police detective Matt Leach was informed. Since Dillinger's escape from an Indiana jail cell, Leach was hot to capture (or kill) Dillinger. Private Detective Forrest Huntington, who worked for one of the banks that Dillinger and his gang had robbed wanted to wait and try to get Dillinger's whole gang. Indiana State Police detective Matt Leach had driven in from Indianapolis, also wanted Dillinger captured or dead that day. Refereeing this all was Chicago Police Lieutenant John Howe, head of the Chicago Police Department's Secret Squad.

He argued that Dillinger should pay for the death of Lima, Ohio Sheriff Jess Sarber. Dillinger had engineered a mass escape at a prison in Michigan City, Indiana in order to spring a prison friend, Pete Pierpoint, who had been his mentor in the finer points of bank robbing during the nine-year stint he served for for the ill-conceived grocery store robbery that had imprisoned him to begin with. With the new knowledge he'd gained in prison, he'd started robbing banks, but was fingered for the robbery of a bank in Blufton, Ohio, near Lima. To return the favor for springing him, Pierpoint sprang Dillinger from the Lima jail, murdering Sheriff Sarber in cold blood in the process.

Finally, the "kill or capture" Dillinger contingent won out after a Lima, Ohio officer walked into Lt. Howe's office and pursuaded them that Sheriff Sarber's murder needed to be avenged.

The group, accompanied by three cars of Chicago cops, staked out the offices of Dr. Charles Eye for several hours. At 7:25 PM, Dillinger drove up and parked on Irving Park Road, with his girlfriend Billie Frechette in the car. Dillinger walked into the doctor's office, leaving Frechette in the car. A while later, Dillinger walked out of the physician's office and apparently noticed that several of the cars were parked the wrong way. Sensing danger, Dillinger slipped quickly into the car and warned Frechette to hang on. He floored the car, backing directly into traffic on Irving.

Several of the various police cars gave chase as Dillinger yelled to Frechette to get down and gunned the car eastbound down Irving Park Road. With Chicago detective John Artery behind the wheel, Indianapolis State Police officer Art Keller started firing wildly, emptying his .38 revolver.



Dillinger swung south, to the right, at this intersection onto Elston Avenue with Artery continuing to pursue and Keller continuing to fire.

The melee continued down Elston until Dillinger pulled into a dead-end street. Artery followed him, but Dillinger rocketed the car in reverse past him and escaped. He and Frechette abandoned the car on the north side of Chicago and took a cab to another gang member's apartment, where an impromptou party was taking place. Dillinger would live to continue his crime spree until his death the next year, on Sunday, July 22, when he was shot to death in front of the Biograph Theater, which still stands today on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.



Unlike John Dillinger, who avoided killing if at all possible, Lester Gillis, aka "Baby Face Nelson" loved killing. He killed a number of policemen, bank employees, civilians and people who just happened to get in his way. Yet, he was, oddly, a family man, a devoted husband and loving father.

Dillinger worked for a short while with Nelson, but was horrified at Nelson's stupid violence; Nelson would shoot up banks and streets for no reason. The two robbers parted ways.

On April 22, 1934, Nelson gunned down FBI Special Agent W.Carter Baum near Spider Lake, Wisconsin. Despite a massive manhunt, Nelson escaped.

Nelson hid out in Iowa and then California. He was in California when he heard of Dillinger's demise. The psychotic Nelson had always resented that Dillinger was Public Enemy #1 and had a higher bounty on his head, despite the fact that he was much less violent.

In November of that year, the FBI received a tip that Nelson and his wife were scouting out a place near the Illinois-Wisconsin border for a place to hole up for the winter, The FBI prepared to hunt down Nelson in the area. The first two agents two arrive in the area were veteran agent Bill Ryan and rookie Tom McDade. The head of Chicago's FBI office, Samuel Cowley grabbed agent Ed Hollis and also set out for Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

As they drove toward the Wisconsin border, agents Ryan and McDade had a tip that Nelson was driving a car with Illinois license plate 639578. As they passed through the town Fox River Grove, they passed a black Ford that was barrelling in the other direction. The agents realized it had the plate they were looking for.

As the FBI agents turned their car around, Nelson, also turned his car around. After a series of maneuvers, Nelson's car was pursuing the FBI agents' car!

A wild running gunfight ensued. Nelson's car began losing speed; an FBI shot had hit the engine of his car.

Just then, Sam Cowley and Ed Hollis, in a Hudson sedan, passed by the gunfight. Hollis, driving, did a U-turn. In the meantime, Ryan and McDade had lost Nelson's car. They pulled their car off into a field and lay down, waiting to ambush Nelson.

Seeing Cowley and Hollis approaching, Nelson pulled his dying car off the road and ordered everybody (Nelson's accomplice John Chase and Nelson's wife Helen) out of the car.

Cowley and Hollis did not see Nelson's car until they were almost on top of it. Hollis slammed on the brakes about 150 feet away from where Nelson and Chase were waiting in ambush with rifles.

Nelson and Chase began firing their rifles. Nelson's rifle jammed, and he threw it to Chase, yelling at him to reload it. Nelson grabbed a powerful Thompson submachine gun and began firing it at the two agents. Cowley returned fire with his own Thompson, hitting Nelson in the stomach and chest, shredding his intestines.

Nelson, in pain, but fired up with adrenline, continued firing, hitting Cowley twice, once in the chest, once in the stomach. Hollis jumped out of the car firing a shotgun, hitting Nelson in both legs. Nelson staggered forward, firing at Hollis, who tried to get cover behind a telephone pole. Hollis emptied his shotgun, and then retreated firing his pistol. Nelson fired a volley from his Thompson; one shot hit Hollis in the forehead.

As onlookers from two nearby gas stations looked on in astonishment, Nelson, who it was later discovered was hit 17 times, staggered over to the FBI agents' Hudson and drove it over to his now-dead car. Tossing all the guns he could grab into the Hudson, Nelson let Chase take over the driving.

The first policeman on the scene, Illinois state policeman William Gallagher found Agent Cowley still alive. Hollis insisted that Gallagher help Hollis first. Hollis died before he reached the hospital.

Agent Cowley was picked up by an ambulance shortly thereafter. He was taken to Elgin Hospital, where he was able to report what happened to Agent Melvin Purvis. He died the next day. He is the most senior FBI agent to die in the line of duty.

Chase drove Nelson, who was clearly dying, to the tony northern suburb of Wilmette, Illinois, and took him to the home of a friend of a friend. He died shortly after, in the arms of his wife.

Chase and Helen Nelson undressed Nelson's body and wrapped it in a blanket, later explaining that Nelson was always complaining about being cold. They dumped the body near here, the gate of St. Peter's Cemetery, in what is now Skokie, Illinois. It was certainly the only gate of St. Peter that the homicidal sociopath was going to get near after his death.


Richard Lindberg's "Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago" was also a valuble resource in writing this post.

Johnny Yen's One-Hit Wonders: Albert Hammond, "It Never Rains In Southern California"

Up until the early sixties, most hit songs were written by writers and sung by singers. In the early sixties, that changed-- the day of the singer/songwriter arrived. Dylan, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs and others paved the way.

As the sixties rolled into the seventies, the political stridency of the music began to wane, but new group of singer/songwriters emerged. Don Maclean had a huge hit with his musical history of rock and roll, "American Pie," Carly Simon had hits with "You're So Vain" and "Anticipation," and her soon-to-be husband James Taylor had a bunch of hits.

From this army of singer/songwriters emerged Albert Hammond. Hammond was born in London, England, where his parents, natives of Gilbraltar, the British-held island off of Spain in the Straits of Gilbraltar, had evacuated to for the duration of World War II. Hammond returned with his family shortly after the war. He began playing in bands, including The Diamond Boys, a band that never had any hits, but played a role in bringing rock music to Spain as the Franco dictatorship began to wane and Spain modernized. With the group The Family Dogg, he had a top ten hit in Britain with "A Way of Life" in 1969.

His biggest hit came in 1972 with the folk-tinged "It Never Rains In Southern California." The song tells the story of a guy who makes his way to Southern California trying to make it (presumably) as an actor. He runs into a friend of his family, who sees that he's down and out, and he begs them not to tell his family, and to lie to them, to tell them he's "got offers but don't know which one to take."



The song is apparently partly autobiographical, though it took place in Spain, not Southern California. In Hammond's words:

"It never rains... was written in London, before we (Albert and Michael Hazelwood, the song's co-author) came to Los Angeles, and we knew we were coming, and I've been telling Mike the story of me in Spain when I started and how I was asking for money outside of the train stations because I had no money to eat and I didn't want to tell my parents. My cousin was on honeymoon then, and he came out of the train station and saw me, and I didn't even know it was him... I just asked him for some money, too. And he said "you should be ashamed, I'm gonna tell your father," and I said "please, don't tell him, he'll go crazy and and stop me doing this!" And then he took me back into the hotel, I had a bath, he gave me some clean clothes and some money. I moved on, but he did tell my father, you know. All these things like "will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it" and all that stuff came from that era of my life when I was struggling, trying to make it, trying to get from Morocco to Spain, from Spain to England, from England to America... That struggle you go through, that's It never rains in Southern California, the story of my life."

"It Never Rains In Southern California" reached #5 on the US Billboard charts, and was a worldwide smash. Hammond never reached those heights again himself, but wrote other big hits, all with Mike Hazelwood, who died in 2001. The Pipkins had a hit with "Gimme Dat Ding" in 1970 and the Hollies had their final hit in 1974 with "The Air That Breath." He co-wrote the Starship's #1 1987 hit "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," Chicago's 1988 hit "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" with Diane Warren, and wrote the 1984 Willie Nelson/Julio Iglesias hit "To All The Girls I Loved Before," as well as the theme song for the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, which was performed by Whitney Houston. He's had a number of top ten hits performed by other artists-- ironic for a guy who rode the crest of the singer/songwriter wave.

Full Moon Week Friday Random Ten

I'm not a big believer in the whole thing about craziness during full moon-- statistics have shown that there are no more births, arrests, etc. on the average when there's a full moon than other weeks. However, I've been tempted to attribute the general craziness of this week to the full moon.

As I've mention, we lost two young family members this week, my son's cousin Jason and my wife's cousin Peyton. Today, I got an email from my mother that one of her beloved Tibetan terriers, Sophie, died after a two month fight with thyroid cancer.

On top of this, we're waiting for news of my wife's Uncle Paulie, who is a delightful guy. His body has stopped producing blood cells and the doctors have run out of tricks. And I'm waiting to hear from my friend Julie, whose husband has inoperable cancer in his salivary glands, tongue and throat; though he quit smoking over twenty years ago, it's apparently caught up to him. Julie was the person who got me my interview for my teaching job in Cicero back in 2002, and might possibly be the nicest person I've ever known.

The icing on the crazy cake was on Wednesday, when a regular who's always been pretty odd, erupted screaming at me when he felt his meal had taken too long. After he called me "the worst waiter ever," "an awful person" and "despicable" (as his wife cringed, mortified), my boss finally had to throw him out.

I guess the amusing thing about it all is that I started my nursing clinicals yesterday-- at one of the biggest long-term mental health care facilities in the state of Illinois.

Tonight, we're having our good friend Robin, and looking forward to the end of this week.


1. Sweet Seasons- Carole King
2. Victim of Love- The Eagles
3. Sweet Thing- Van Morrison
4. I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You- Alan Parsons Project
5. Dancing Machine- The Jackson 5
6. Pretty Ballerina- The Left Banke
7. John, I'm Only Dancing- David Bowie
8. Morning Girl - Neon Philharmonic
9. Don't All The Girls Get Prettier At Closing Time- Mickey Gilley
10. Don't Fence Me In- Willie Nelson and Leon Russell


Notes:
1. Thought to d/l this old favorite while reading "Girls Like Us," which was about Ms. King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell.
2. Hotel California was one of the first albums I ever bought.
3. From the great "Astral Weeks" album. The Waterboys did a nice cover of this one on "Fisherman's Blues."
4. Alan Parsons was a recording engineer who recorded some great albums, including Pink Floyd's masterpiece "Dark Side of the Moon." Most of his hits were in the eighties; this was from the late seventies.
5. Hard to remember in all the craziness of Michael Jackson's life that he was an immensely talented musician.
6. The Left Banke were one-hit-wonders with their love "Walk Away Renee," but this was a beauty too.
7. Bowie shares a birthday with Elvis Presley
8. A psychedelic one-hit-wonder from 1969
9. A country hit from the late seventies.
10. Cole Porter, as interpreted by Willie and Leon

The Home Stretch, A Week In

Today, I had my clinical orientation for my Psych rotation, at a major public mental health facitlity, finishing a really good week, very welcome in a week that held some bad family news.

On Monday, the entire sophomore class met in a huge auditorium. It was truly joyous to see people I'd become close to over the last year. The class met the new Nursing Department head-- we'd gone our whole freshman year without a department head-- and met some of our instructors for the year.

I noticed some people who were gone-- Eric, Nancy and Joe. I remembered the picture I took in my first nursing clinical, and was once again reminded of the picture in the movie "The Untouchables," when Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness looks mourningly at the picture, having lost two of the friends in the picture.

Later, Monday night, I ran out to get some things-- I still needed a notebook and also needed a new watch for clinical (we have to have a watch with a second hand so we can take heart rates), and ran out to a couple of stores. At Target, I ran into Eric, who had dropped out at the end of the year last year. I told him that we missed him, and then got the happy news: he had re-entered the program, as a freshman. I was very happy about this.

The next day I heard that Nancy and Joe had done the same thing. More happiness.

More good news was that since we were all now officially full-time, with 12 semester hours, we were all now eligible for a "U-Pass," a free public transit pass that we can use any time. I picked mine up after class Tuesday.

Tuesday was the longest, coldest day of my life. My class met in the same big lecture hall, and the air conditioning was set unbelievably low-- it had to be under 60 degrees. It had been pretty cool the day before, so most of us wore long pants, despite it being a nice Chicago day. Some had even worn sweat jackets. And we still froze our asses off. Fortunately, our instructor, Mrs. Corbett, made a call down to physical services and was able to get them to fix the temperature. By the end of the six hour class (we had a long class, rather than a clinical that day), they managed to get the temperature up to a tolerable one.

My initial impressions of Mrs. Corbett were good. She's got a good balance of rigor and humor. In our regular class yesterday, she mentioned having been a Peace Corps volunteer when she was younger. She's taught at the school for nearly 40 years, and seems to have a wealth of good stories.

As I mentioned, we had our first clinical today. We're at a state run mental health facility. I got a good vibe from our instructor, Dr. Donarad, who had come out of retirement to teach the class when the original instructor broke her hip in a fall. She seems calm and fair-- far different from my clinical instructor last semester, who was unclear with directions and hostile. Talking to another member of my group, I discovered that I wasn't the only one who had these issues with last semester's instructor. I'm looking forward to a better experience. My great school week was in contrast to the bad news we got at home. In addition to the unexpected death of my son's 28-year-old cousin, who, we discovered, died of a massive coronary on Saturday, my wife's four-year-old second cousin Peyton passed away yesterday evening of cancer, which was first diagnosed when she was only six months old. It was remarkable to see this little girl fight her illness with incredible spirit and humor, and I'm relieved that she's found some peace.

Last night at work, I was talking to a friend about it all. It was hard to believe that I started this journey three years ago, when I took a prerequisite Biology class. It's hard to believe that I'm only nine months from the end of this journey, and the start of a new one as a nurse. I can't wait.

Book Review: "Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-- and the Journey of a Generation"

One of my summer reads, another Kindle book, was Sheila Weller's "Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-- and the Journey of a Generation." It had sparked my interest since I read the reviews upon its release a couple of years ago. All three women have written and performed songs I love dearly.

Weller's chief accomplishments in writing this book were two-fold. First, she kept a rather complicated narrative comprehensible-- the women's lives, and loves, overlapped and diverged, and Weller does a terrific job keeping the three sometimes intertwining stories clear. Secondly, she does an admirable job relating the three women's personal stories to their art and vice versa.

Along the way, there are fascinating little tidbits. I won't give too many spoilers, but I loved discovering that one of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs, "Coyote," was about playwright/actor Sam Shepard. I also had never known that Ms. Mitchell paired off with Leonard Cohen and Jackson Browne at different times in the sixties, or that she had dated James Taylor, attending one of Carly Simon's first solo shows with him.

Ms. Weller discusses Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain" at length, and who it could be about. Amusingly, Warren Beatty, who Simon had had a fling with (as had Joni Mitchell), was actually so vain that he did think the song was about him. Recent speculation is that the song is about music mogul David Geffen, who reportedly ignored Ms. Simon at a show in favor of Ms. Mitchell. Mitchell did write a song about Geffen-- it's public knowledge that "Free Man In Paris" is about him.

Carole King's journey is fascinating and sometimes painful to read about. King starts out young in the game with her husband and song-writing partner Gerry Coffin, producing a breath-taking list of songs that are considered rock and roll classics, and of course her own amazing "Tapestry" album. In her personal life, she endured Coffin's mental illness and brazen infidelity-- he had an affair with and fathered a child with Cookies singer Jeanie McCrea at a time when interracial relationships were very uncommon-- and some disastrous relationships and marriages. Eventually, though, King out came up on top, continuing to produce great music and even collaborating with her ex-husband.

"Girls Like Us" worked for me on every level-- as a music lover, a lover of history and a plain old gossip-hound. I suspect the book really was written for other women, but as a guy, particularly a guy who adores the music produced by these three women, I loved it too. Highly recommended.