Billy Joel still going strong

After a year of refraining from performances of live music, as is the Jewish tradition following the loss of a parent, we went last night to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. This is the third time we have gone during his almost five years of monthly concerts at MSG; I wrote about the other two in May of 2015 and in January of 2017. He was a bit under the weather last night but is still very much going strong. He says he will continue these monthly shows as long as they keep selling out, and there is no sign of that ending any time soon.

A special highlight last night was that he was joined on stage by Joe Perry of Aerosmith, who sang “Walk This Way.” Another highlight, something he has apparently done at a number of his shows but not the ones we had seen, was a performance by Mike DelGuidice, musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter, best known as rhythm guitarist and vocalist for Billy Joel's band, of Nessum Dorma, the Puccini aria from Turandot. 

As I prepared to write this, I was taken aback to read that, according to multiple media reports, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry was rushed to the hospital after his performance with Billy Joel last night, according to multiple media reports. The 68-year-old guitarist collapsed in his dressing room just after he finished “Walk This Way.” After paramedics worked on him for 40 minutes, he was taken to a local hospital. According to a statement from Mr. Perry’s representative, he remains in the hospital where he is alert and responsive," but "will be unable to appear today at Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp in Florida and apologizes to those attending."  “Perry is expected to return to the road later this month,” the statement from Perry’s rep concludes.

Here is the full set list from last night’s concert:

Big Shot

My Life

Vienna

The Entertainer

Zanzibar

The Downeaster Alexa

Goodnight Saigon

Allentown

Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed cover) (with Elliot Murphy)

Don’t Ask Me Why

New York State of Mind

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)

She’s Always a Woman

The River of Dreams

Walk This Way (Aerosmith cover) (with Joe Pery)

Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen cover, partial)

Only the Good Die Young

Nessun dorma (Giacomo Puccini cover by Mike DelGuidice)

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

Piano Man

(encores)

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Uptown Girl

It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me

You May be Right

Looking back, I see that at after the last two concerts I posted my personal favorite Billy Joel song, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” So today I am going to post “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” his summary of world history from 1949 to 1989. I wonder if he is planning to update the song at some point.

We Didn’t Start the Fire Billy Joel

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on

We didn't start the fire
It was always burningSince the world's been turning

We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Have a good week.

Love,

Rebecca

Put a woman in charge

Many years ago, on the recommendation of my friend and graduate advisor Randy, I bought an album of blues music by a fellow named Keb Mo. I cannot seem to put my hands on it now but it was probably either his debut album, “Keb Mo,” released in 1994 or his second album, “Just Like You,” which was released in 1996 and won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album the following year. I have a faint recollection of going to see Keb Mo perform at The Bottom Line in lower Manhattan, and I found a picture of him on line from a performance there in September of 1996. I must admit I had lost track of him but it seems he has released at least 16 albums over the past 25 years or so, including three more that won Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 1998, 2004, and 2017.

Keb Mo came back to my attention because I just saw that he and Roseanne Cash have released a new song, “Put a Woman in Charge,” an appropriate message in light of the significant numbers of women who have run successful political campaigns this year.

	House	Senate	Governors
Total Members	435	100	50
Women Before election	84	23	6
Women After election	96-100+	24	9+

      +numbers not final       

[Verse 1: Keb' Mo’]
Way back when
In the beginning of time
Man made the fire then the wheel
Went from a horse to an automobile

He said, “the world is mine”
He took the oceans and the sky
He set the borders - built the walls
He won't stop till he owns it all

And here we are
Standing on the brink of disaster
Enough is enough is enough is enough
I know the answer

[Chorus: Keb' Mo’ and Backing Vocalists]
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

[Verse 2: Keb' Mo']
The time has come
We've got to turn this world around
Call the mothers
Call the daughters
We need the sisters of mercy now

She'll be a hero
Not a fool
She's got the power
To change the rules
She's got something
That men don't have
She is kind and she understands

[Bridge 1: Keb’ Mo’ and Rosanne Cash]
So let the ladies
Do what they were born to do
Raise the vibration
And make a better place for me and you

[Chorus: Keb' Mo’ and Rosanne Cash]
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

[Bridge 2: Keb' Mo' and Rosanne Cash]
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
We're gonna feel the magic
When the girls take over
It’s gonna be fantastic

[Chorus: Keb' Mo' and Rosanne Cash]
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge

Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

Love,

Rebecca

Last chance - message from Google

Today, instead of this







Open Google and see this

Just one word

Smallfoot

Despite the horrific events of last weekend, we somehow managed to carry on with our plans. We were in Sharon, where we had a lovely Shabbat day with Simmie and family. Saturday night we all gathered at Dina’s house for pizza and baseball, although we left to get some sleep long before the 18-inning game ended in win #3 for the Boston Red Sox.

We had planned to spend Sunday with Eliana and Maya and settled on going to see the animated movie “Smallfoot.” It is essentially a take-off on stories of Bigfoot but rather than being told from the point of view of a human it is told through the point of view of a young Yeti. Like so many animated films these days, there is plenty of humor geared towards the adults. In some ways it was the perfect choice for a break from all the depressing news out of Pittsburgh, and for that reason I think I enjoyed it more than I might have otherwise. 

We saw the movie at the Superlux Theater in Chestnut Hill. The girls really love that place and I think they would be happy to see pretty much any movie there.

Joshua and Ella joined us on Sunday evening to watch game #5 of the series. Since Monday was a school day, they had to go home and off to bed a little before the game ended but Barry and Joshua were on the phone the minute the Dodgers’ third out in the bottom of the 9^th inning, giving the Red Sox the 2018 World Series championship. It might have been nice for the Boston fans had the Red Sox lost that game so that they would have gone back home to finish the series, but at the end of the day I suspect that having to settle for watching the win on television was a small price for them to pay.

The drive home on Monday started in the rain but we drove out of the storm about an hour after leaving Sharon. The trip took us through the beauty of the fall foliage, and I managed to get this picture through the car window.

Love,

Rebecca

Rise We Will

Listening to the horrible news out of Pittsburgh these past two days brought me back to “Rise We Will,” a song David Roth wrote and recorded in the aftermath of the bombings of the World Trade Center and released on his 2004 “Think Twice” album. The details differ but the sentiment remains the same.

David Roth Rise We Will

(Click on this link. Then click on the downward arrow in the top right hand corner and the song will then appear as a file. Double click on that file to open it and it should play.)

Revive, restore, renew, rebuild

Peace and Love,

Rebecca

One dozen treatments

My career choice, statistics, should never have been a surprise. I have always kept track of and tried to learn from details. While the pembrolizumab infusion was completing this morning, the nurse asked how many additional treatments are planned. We explained that there is no really good long-term data on pembrolizumab in bladder cancer, but we are hoping that updated data from the pivotal trial that led to the drug’s approval in this indication will be presented at the upcoming American Society for Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco in mid-February. This led the nurse to suggest that we might just continue until the drug stops working. I do not think she really meant for that to come out as badly as it sounded, but I quickly pointed out that I certainly hope we will not get to that point.

I found myself coming home from treatment and wondering just how many pembrolizumab infusions I have had so far. I was able to easily reconstruct this from my Google calendar and confirm with my on-line medical record from MSKCC, and the answer is 12 – one dozen treatments.

Dose #	Day	Date
1	Friday	23 February
2	Friday	16 March
3	Thursday	05 April
4	Friday	27 April
5	Tuesday	22 May
6	Monday	11 June
7	Friday	06 July
8	Friday	27 July
9	Friday	17 August
10	Friday	07 September
11	Friday	28 September
12	Wednesday	24 October

No one knows just how many treatments are “enough.” We did not see Dr. Iyer (oncologist) today but I believe this topic is one he intends to discuss with us over the next few months.

Meanwhile, I need to get some rest now. The treatment does leave me tired, but that is a relatively small price to pay as long as it works!

Love,

Rebecca