“There is no dark side of the Moon really, matter of fact it’s all dark”

The Blues... There are a lot of them:

Air Force, Aqua, Azure, Baby, Cerulean, Cobalt, Cornflower, Cyan, Denim, Dodger, Electric, Egyptian, Federal, Iceberg, Indigo, Midnight, Navy, Non-photo, Persian, Powder, Royal, Sapphire, Sky, Slate, and steel...yes there are a few others.

And don't forget these blues, Baby blue, Out of the Blue, True Blue, Blue Movie, Big Blue, Bluebird, Blueberries, Blue Balls, Blueblood, Bluebeard, Bluebook, Blue Plate, Blue Ribbon, Blue Monday, Blue laws, Bluenose, Blue language,  Feeling Blue, Singing the blues, and last but not least, Blue screen of death.

 Long considered a corporate color, blue, especially darker blue, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism. Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister. In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away. The cool, calming effect of blue makes time pass more quickly and it can help you sleep. Almost everyone likes some shade of the color blue. Blue is a magnificent feng shui color. The phrase "feeling blue" is linked also to a custom among many old deepwater sailing ships. If the ship lost the captain or any of the officers during its voyage, she would fly blue flags and have a blue band painted along her entire hull when returning to home port.

Blue is a universal word/color in many ways. In German to be blue is to be drunk... and of course, there are a few missing such as the shade you turn "when you hold your breath or cannot breathe", the song for extreme depression "Bluer than Blue" or "Blue Bayou", and Billie Holiday's "Am I Blue" and the sauce in Z.Z. Top's, "TV Dinners" and my personal favorite "Blue Moon"... however I don't think I would paint my ass blue for anyone. Yes, blue is very versatile and this homage to BLUE could go on for a very lengthy time, however, I think I'll wrap it up before I hit a "Blue note"...

Well.... I'll never again walk into a hospital ER, do a Tarzan yell, complain about the fact that my boomerang won't come back, and commence to do the Bertha Butt Boogie... needless to say, they strapped me to a gurney and wheeled me into a room with all manner of people in white coats. When asked what was wrong I replied, "My boomerang won't come back...and I feel dizzy". They stroked their chins, wrung their hands, scratched their heads, and pronounced me dain bramaged. After poking me full of holes with many and various needles, sticking me full of tubes and hoses, making me breathe a lot of weird noxious fumes and swallow innumerable foul and nasty tasting potions and pills they began to chant "ooo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang" which translates into "We can make him weaker and a whole lot poorer... we have the technology..... proceed to extract his wallet"...

I remember little after that... on a day soon after the chief monkey came by and pronounced me cured or a zombie...either was ok with him... After all that I managed to escape with the help of my sweet beautiful wife on June the third....as we sped away I could hear them shouting " Take two aspirins and call us in the morning"..... Home again...YES!!!!! but I never did find that damn boomerang...

I sit here basking in the glow of birthday day greetings and get-well wishes (or was that from all the candles on the cake that nearly burned down the neighborhood) wondering what's to come in my fifty-seventh year... and will I make fifty-eight? Just know I am fast losing my sight, can't feel the right side of my butt so if you feel flirty please pinch the left cheek, have to walk with a cane and what used to be my sex appeal is just my water spout...

I shall post little for a while..... it takes about two minutes to compose a post such as this in my head and an hour not counting naps to post it.....

Goodnight....and may God bless...

I wrote the following a couple of years back in the hope of educating friends and loved ones about an insidious disease:

 I am all too familiar with, and pass this along due to my own experience in being diabetic, Type 2. Diabetes is becoming all too frequent and common among American people for very identifiable and reversible reasons. Believe me when I say “If I knew what I know now when I found out that I was pre-diabetic, I think I would be living a much more robust and healthy life today.” I found out I was diabetic with type 2 in 1996 and did not heed the warnings, do enough research, or make life changes until a lot of damage had been done. I can directly trace many of the problems I have with health today to complications and damage done by diabetes. The problems started with high blood pressure, rising glucose numbers, sight problems (fuzzy vision) from diabetic retinopathy, and cuts and scratches that were slow to heal due to a compromised immune system, combine that with feelings of lethargy and depression and you can start to understand just how insidious a disease diabetes is. Yet the worst was yet to come.

In November 2009, I accepted a position as Program Director/Operations Manager with a radio station in Alabama. I initially started my career in radio while I was a young man in college and after 13 years left to pursue a career in computer technology. After nearly eleven years I grew tired of the politics and bullshit in the technology sector and decided to try to go back to something more fun and looked for a radio position when I found the position in Alabama. I had only been there about a month when I came down with a very bad sinus infection. I went to a local doctor and was treated but was not getting better. The doctor then sent me to a local hospital for a series of tests. I was informed my blood pressure, glucose levels, and EKG all indicated bad things. I really did not understand because by 2009 I was not only on oral medications but having to take insulin injections as well. The doctor and his staff were so concerned they sent me to a major hospital in Birmingham for a heart Cath and told me they did not understand how I was still on my feet and walking around. That was on a Friday, the following Monday I was in the hospital in Birmingham and the heart cath was not done until that Wednesday. During the procedure, I awoke and the doctor told me that I was indeed headed for heart surgery which took place that Friday. In the space of a week, my life took a considerable change and I was faced with my own mortality. I had a major operation in a quadruple bypass that took over eleven hours. Obviously, I survived or would not be here to write this. After several months of recuperation and worry caused to loved ones I prevailed. But the story continues…

In May of 2013, I had a stroke, bleeding on the left side of the brain in the area known as the thalamus. Again more time in the hospital and grief and worry for loved ones. And it has left me with what is known as thalamic pain syndrome, a painful condition that causes a permanent burning sensation all down the right side of my body from head to toe and nerve damage and loss of feeling in my left foot and hand as well as some eye damage. Then in 2015 to further compound things my kidneys quit functioning normally and I had to go on dialysis which I now do for four hours three days a week. More time in the hospital, complications from an infection from a dialysis port in my chest, recuperation, stress, and worry to loved ones, and of course you can imagine how this can get expensive. All of it is directly related to diabetes and could be avoided with some simple effective life changes. They are the following:

Diet - This is a major one and the one I consider most important. It is also one of the hardest but most rewarding life changes that can be made. Give up carbohydrates and starchy foods such as beer, bread, cereal, potatoes (french fries, potato chips, etc.) rice, and pasta. Stay away from processed foods and eat fresh. Vegetables, berries, and nuts are much better options, and animal protein, beef, fish, and poultry, and include dairy such as cream, cheese, and real butter (no margarine). A salad with leafy greens, tomatoes, avocado, carrot, cheese, hard-boiled egg, and a raspberry vinaigrette makes an excellent selection. The point is that what you eat is much more important than you may realize. Two things I recommend in this pursuit of better nutrition is the book “ The 30-Day Diabetes Cure” by Dr. Stefan Ripich and CNP Jim Healthy. Of course, there is no such thing as a true cure but yes diabetes can be reversed and this book can get you started. Another great resource is the KETO diet which you can find much more about at the website dietdoctor.com. It outlines much of what I have written about here. An alternative lifestyle that is much healthier but enough on this and let us move on.

Weight Control - Many people have had a reversal in diabetes simply by losing a significant amount of weight, especially those who are obese or lead a very sedentary lifestyle. Using a diet such as the KETO will help to accomplish this by cutting down on sugar and starch, which are major enemies. And finally, that leads us to …

Exercise - keep moving, everything helps. Gruesome strenuous exercise is not fun but you don’t have to go to that extreme. Just keep moving whenever you can. Walking is great for the body, some simple weight-lifting repetition and a few stretching exercises like Tai Chi also help.

Everything here can be done by anyone and the health reward will be most beneficial in the long run. What has compelled me to share this information with you? I have lived a life that has been affected by the scourge of diabetes, see the effect that it has had on my loved ones who have had to deal with my affliction and the problems it has caused, and deal with the losses it has caused me in terms of health, monetary expense and personal freedoms and enjoyment.

It may be difficult to understand why I have shared this but perhaps an account of first-hand knowledge and experience can help to make a convincing difference in the love of YOUR life. Everyone deserves a better outlook than what I have lived through. If someone had been able to share what I have written here back in 1996, I hope I would have taken it to heart. I had to do it the hard way and live through it or rather suffer through it and of course I am still here, Life goes on albeit much differently.

 His name was Tom. Thomas Dickson, yet as a child most called him Tommy and when he became a teen he preferred Tom. I knew him well, we were very close. Tom was one of those people that had a natural wit and charm about him. Never seemed to take life too seriously and was infamous for his exploits. Such as the time he mistakenly ate a whole bar of EX-LAX, when the directions called for a square. I laughed for days and it still cracks me up. When he was in the Coast Guard in California, he wanted to end his service to return to his home to be with his Mom and Sister so that he could "look" after them. He was scheduled to go to the hospital for an upper and lower GI series. In the wee hours of that morning, he got together with some friends and did a tab of LSD. They dropped him at the hospital for his appointment bright and early, still tripping. When he got to check in they gave him the usual forms and told him to go find a seat and fill out the papers.....he somehow interpreted that as go get lost. When they finally "discovered" him he had managed to find his way into the underground steam tunnels of the hospital and did not know where he was. Needless to say, he was admitted to the psych ward for evaluation, as well as the GI series... Not long after he convinced the psychiatrist to give him a General Discharge, but not until he had been put on a work detail at the hospital and was assigned to "paint" the psychiatrist's office... and did, the whole office... telephone, books, desk, chair, even the stapler and of course the floor... he even painted an obscenity under the desk drawer... So the psychiatrist believing Tom would eventually succeed in his desire to return home, recommended a General Discharge, not a medical or dishonorable but a General Discharge. Once Tom was staying with a woman and her daughter and was slated to "paint her house", while there Tom got into some sort of disagreement with the neighbor, so just to tick off the neighbor Tom started painting obscenities in large block letters on the side of the house facing the neighbor. The neighbor came over and complained to the young woman, fearing he would call the cops they took the paintbrushes away from Tom. During the night he managed to find a small brush from a paint-by-numbers kit and used it to finish painting wall-sized obscenities on the side of the house, then climbed into a tree with a pocket full of rocks which he threw at the neighbor the next morning as the guy was trying to get in his car and leave for work. Another time found Tom climbing over someone's fence to "use" their swimming pool. The guy had a nice pool and a large wooden Tiki head that decorated the pool area which Tom promptly threw in the pool. I was there when the guy came around and exclaimed to Tom's Mother "Your son threw my head in the pool!" I could go on and on. Tom left us much too early. He was born on Christmas in 1957 and died on Thanksgiving in 1978. He was one month from turning 21 years of age and I shall always remember him with great fondness. You see he was my brother, Thomas Dickson Magee.  I miss you, brother.