ir·i·des·cence

I opened the door this morning and looked out and you could have been fooled into thinking that Autumn was here - it was damp, freezing cold and windy and even the cats, who love all things natural, weren’t having any of it and shied away from the door.  I don’t blame them.

I went out yesterday to the charity shops and picked up some things.  I got a book I’ve heard about and wanted for some time entitled The Curious Incident of a Dog in The Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which is a murder mystery seen through the eyes of a 15 year old boy living with Asperger’s Syndrome.  The Onion tells me it’s excellent so I bow to her superior peely layered loveliness!

I also picked up Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Scotland on 2 videos in a boxed set for £2; a dvd for Mum called Connie & Carla; some Mills & Boon books for her; the film Awakenings which I’ve never seen all the way through; a little something extra to send out to The Onion for her birthday next month and an album entitled Perspective by Jason Becker. 

Jason’s story is one of the greatest tragedies in the music industry.  He was one half of a stunning guitar duo called Cacophony in the 80’s, alongside Marty Friedman who later went on to play with Megadeth.  His last full album was A Little Ain’t Enough for David Lee Roth when he noticed he’d developed a limp in one of his legs and felt a numbness and slight weakness in his fingering hand.  By the end of the aforementioned album, he couldn’t play the guitar without his hands shaking quite considerably. 

Well, he went through a battery of tests and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) was diagnosed.  Within 5 years, he was living in a wheelchair as the Photos page attests.  There’s a pic of him with his head on one hand and he’s sitting over a guitar, that was taken in 1992 just 2 years after his diagnosis.  If you go further down you can see him beside a tree with all his guitars around him and that’s just 3 years later and it’s like looking at a different person.  It’s such a waste, a terrible shame in musical terms though I admire his tenacity and determination to carry on in the bleakest of circumstances.

On another note entirely, I was across at Longrider’s blog when I saw this post.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Brilliant.