Tommy Performs

Not Tommy Gorman, Tommy Stinton!  The quick Tommy Gorman news is that he will be getting some super duper concentrated radiation this coming week. I cannot recall the exact name of this treatment at the moment, but tomorrow when he is receiving it, I will  post some specific details.

I believe I posted this book cover a while back in a book review. I've been trying to find books that Tom and I can both enjoy and discuss. We read Trouble Boys a couple months ago and have been listening to Replacements CDs since then.  When we saw in the Mercury that Tommy Stinton was going to perform at Bunk Bar last Saturday night, we decided to be adventurous and go. Remembering that rock performers in small venues usually start playing late, we rested up for a night of something, we really didn't know what.  Tommy was playing with Chip Roberts and billed as "Cowboys in the Campfire".  

The guy in the front of the book cover photo is Tommy. HIs brother Bob ( in the back) used to punch him and make him learn how to play bass when he was twelve, so Bob could start a band. Bob is now gone but Tommy is still writing, playing, recording and touring.  

In the 1980"s

 Now, I might be a Replacements fan, but I somehow missed that after the band broke up, Tommy spent seventeen years as the bass player for Guns and Roses. Yup, not a Guns and Roses fan.  We really had no idea what we would hear from "Cowboys in the Campfire".  Well, our idea was something country sounding.

The opening duo started at 9:00 and sang mostly country ballads.  By 10:30 Tommy came on by himself and performed a few solo songs, playing acoustic guitar. I would classify his songs as rock and rollish with a Bob Dylan edge. His voice sounded alot like Dylan to me.  Maybe he'll get a pulitzer!

He was then joined by Chip Roberts his ex wife's uncle and a talented guitar player.

"Thomas Eugene "Tommy" Stinson is an American rock musician. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the bass guitarist for The Replacements, one of the definitive American alternative rock groups. Wikipedia"


Note:  I tryed to copy and paste a current photo of Tommy at age 50, but something went wrong.  If you are interested, just google Tommy Stinton. This page was so messed up that I had to redo it, so it was actually posted before the one on SRBT.  Just so ya know.

Inside Bunk Bar. Tom and I snagged a
comfy booth to hang out in. We also had one of their
famous roast beef sandwiches, frys, and spicy cucumber salad.

Tom showing me a picture he drew long ago. It was
in a book that he brought along.

Tommy setting up.

Reflection in a mirror.

We were pleasantly surprised with his music.  And our ability to go downtown to a show and stay awake until we got home!

SBRT

Tom is having his SBRT treatment and I am waiting and using the free internet.  SBRT stands for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. It involves delivering a high dose of radiation very precisely to a tumor. It is delivered from numerous angles to focus the radiation at one small point like a magnifying glass.

Expert Radiation Oncologists specialized in this technique are able to safely deliver high doses of radiation with very sharp dose gradient outside the tumor and into the surrounding normal tissue.

Tom went through the first round of radiation with nary a side effect.  Remember...he said he was Godzilla and it made him stronger.  We hope and pray that these three treatments will zap that tumor away.  And that it doesn't turn Tom into Grumpy Cat!

No Real News Yet

The bridge and walking path to the beach

 We finally met with the surgeon, Dr. Parsons. He informed us that the rectal tumor had disappeared completely, but the one on Tom's sacrum was still there and could not be removed surgically because it could cause nerve damage. He suggested that more radiation might help to shrink that tumor.   So we have been waiting for our appointment with the radiologist, Dr. McDonald (aka the Death Angel) for the last three weeks.  We will be meeting with her later this week.

When the kids were little, we tried to spend some time at Beverly Beach State Park every summer.  Early on we tent camped.  We would bring all our bikes and enjoyed riding all over the huge campground. They put on movies and nature shows at night. When I got tired of crawling around on my hands and knees, we started renting their yurts. The yurts had covered decks, windows, futons, bunk beds, lights and heat and made camping much easier.  It took only a few minutes to walk to the beach. At one point the yurts became all but impossible to rent in the summertime because they were so popular, so we stopped going to Beverly Beach.

This year, while checking online, I saw two yurts available in October. Allison and Logan wanted to go so we reserved them. They were situated next to each other but with all the forest greenery they were also private.  Alli volunteered to drive, so we packed our camp stove, sleeping bags, and groceries into her car and headed out on a Sunday.  I don't know if Tom and I were ever the two people in the back seat for a trip.  It was fun!  "Are we there yet?"

Here are a few photos from our trip.

Tree roots in campground. This is huge. The mossy part
is about 18 feet high!

A spruce tree root mass from 4,100 years ago.

It was the foggiest I have ever seen the beach in 30 years.
Tom loves fireworks and doesn't read signs. Alli and Logan are
watching Tom hold and shoot a Roman Candle.

This was the sign we passed on our way
to the beach.

Tom roasting marshmallows at our campfire.

After our 1:00 pm checkout we decided to visit the Newport Aquarium before heading home. Logan had never been there and after growing up in Colorado, he loves the oceany things.

Alli and Logan are in a plastic bubble inside an aquarian tank with an eel.  He's a big guy.

Alli and Logan are posing by Diver Dan. Did anybody get that reference?  When I was a  really little kid I watched a television show about Diver Dan who was outfitted like the guy in this photo. He had adventures under the sea with puppet sea creatures.  Maybe it was just a local east coast thing.

Always my favorites, the jellyfish.  they are so relaxing to watch. Doesn't that top one look like a beautiful Victorian lampshade?

The aquarium has a walk through shark tank. Years ago when the kids were little, this was the area where Keiko lived.  Keiko was the star of the  1993 movie Free Willy. He had been captured in Iceland and displayed at several places including an amusment park in Mexico City before coming to the Newport Aquarium to regain his health and be prepared for life in the wild again. The Free Willy-Keiko Foundation and millions of school children donated  the money necessary to build the facilities to do this. Everybody loved Keiko.

In 1998 he was flown to Iceland and underwent training to prepare his for his release.  The idea of releasing him was very controversial.  Finally when he was deemed ready, he was released with wild Orca in August 2002.  However, about three weeks later he showed up in a fjord in Norway apparently seeking human contact and letting children to ride on his back.

His caregivers moved to Norway and conducted boat-follows for the next fifteen months. They found that he switched between different groups of wild killer whales, usually remaining on the periphery about 100-300 meters away.  Poor Keiko failed to adapt to life in the wild and died of pneumonia in December 2003  at the age of twenty seven.

Tom has a story about a time that we visited Keiko.  Maybe he'll tell it to you some day.