Still The One

Still The One.

We had our anniversary. 32 years officially married. Plus we get credit for the 13 years of living in sin. If that was sin, I’m in heaven. Or the sweetest hell ever. After forty-two years, you are still the one.

It looks like we made it.

It wasn’t always easy. Marriage is knowing when to shut up. When to forgive, but not forget. You are still the one who makes me ache with anticipation. The one that makes me laugh when you described the nurse taking your blood.

Is marriage perfect for everyone? God, no.

We still have our daily challenges. Like my selective hearing.

Not everyone gets to have these opportunities, so we say thank you. Thank you very much.

I would be grateful everyday, if not for my inherent character flaws, which make me forgetful, ungrateful, and inconsiderate. Yesterday we added unconscious to the list.

“You seemed to be somewhere else for a moment there. What were you thinking about?”

Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking. There was literally nothing going on in there.

All tools down. A blank slate.

Still, I love this boygenius version of Still The One. But then again, I love everything boygenius does.

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Rick Cluff

Recently I read that Rick Cluff died. He was 74 years old, only eight years older than me. 18 years ago, I met Rick. I was living out in White Rock, when I had a heart attack. I went through an extensive cardio rehab program, of exercising three days a week in White Rock. Rick was a well loved member of that cardio club; he would drop by to do the workouts and all the guys would crowd around him. Rick was a big man, not just in his girth, but also in his personality. He had a warmth and a charisma that was undeniable. Many people have commented on what a giving man he was.

One year later, my friend Scott Harding was injured in New York City in a late night car accident, t-boned by some kids in a stolen car ( their father’s car); the accident left Scott a paraplegic and in a wheel chair. Members of the Vancouver music community came together and put on a show at the Commodore Ballroom, which I named Hardstock. Since Scott had played with me in Rhythm Mission and Jazzmanian Devils, and was the best man at my wedding, I worked with friends Nick Jones, Gerry Barad, Craig Northey, and many others to create Hardstock.

I called up Rick Cluff to see if he would be open to having me come on his morning show at CBC to talk about Scott and Hardstock. He said yes, and we had a great interview. The simple act of saying yes was huge, as the listenership of his morning radio show was vast. We worked with a publicist, who volunteered her time, and when the night came, Hardstock sold out at the Commodore, which was not a common occurrence for local acts—even with so many bands doing a giant benefit.

Many people have remarked on what a great interviewer Rick was, and a big part of that is the essence of Rick. He was a big man with a big heart. In 2017, he retired from broadcasting and underwent a quadruple bypass surgery.

Our synergy continued as I followed with my own triple bypass in 2021. People say he died after a short battle with cancer. Not that it matters, but I did not hear what kind of cancer he had. I can’t help feeling a strange health connection with Rick, having my own issues with hearts and cancer.

He will be sadly missed by everyone who knew and loved him.

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Les Goodman Saves Canada!

It was a blast. Good friends celebrating. Not necessarily Canada, but celebrating some songs, our friendships, and this place that brings us all together.

Is Canada perfect?

Hell no! There is a horrific treatment and genocide of our First Nations, residential schools, missing and murdered women, the 60’s scoop, Chinese Head Tax, Komagatu Maru and on and on.

But there are many positives as well. Do they balance out? That is not possible. We have to continue to fight for what is right. It is important to remember, but it is more important to change. We live in the present. We still have a future.

We still have our daily challenges to be better and to do better.

Our medical system gets lots of negative reporting on wait lists etc. But consider this.

I have spent almost three years going through major health challenges.

Did it cost me a fortune?

Did I have to spend my future just to live in the present?

Did my family have to take out a second mortgage?

Declare medical bankruptcy?

The answer is no, I did not. The medical care was world class. As our medical system is paid through our taxes, we are not charged for using it.

That would be Unthinkable in the USA.

In Canada, medical treatments are covered. We can thank Tommy Douglas for that.

I had a PET scan this past week. I returned to that building on Ash and West Tenth Avenue in Vancouver, the building that houses the BC Cancer Agency. I was back by popular demand…My return was not because my cancer had returned, but rather because this was my first year PET scan, an annual checkup after a year of being “cancer clear”. This PET scan is preventative, and hopefully, not predictive of any new specific cancers.

PET scans detect areas of activity, showing possible cell growth in the body. A radioactive tracer is injected into my bloodstream, as radioactive material is drawn to cancer cells more than normal cells and appears brighter on the image of the PET scan. Experts caution us that not all cancers show up on a PET scan.

It was a strange feeling walking back into that building, where I underwent radiation and chemotherapy. I was filled with trepidation,, but also a feeling of coming home. Familiarity and fear go hand in hand.

Once you have had cancer, you are a different person. There is no going back to normal, you can only try to carve out a new normal for yourself, ideally without cancer. The kind of cancer that I had was what they call very curable. Most oral cancers are a type called “squamous cell carcinoma.” These cancers tend to spread quickly. Smoking and other tobacco use are linked to most cases of oral cancer. Heavy alcohol use also increases the risk for oral cancer. In my case, it was HPV related.

The doctors said if you have ever had sex, you most likely have had HPV at some point in your life. But for most people, the virus just passes through, however, HPV virus can lie dormant for decades. At many points in my life, I had sex. Sex was good. It went well with drugs and rock’n’roll. Was it a lot of sex? It was not a contest, it was the Seventies. At some point, I came into contact with this virus. It did not pass through, but set up a residence. Some forty years later, HPV was asking for back rent.

HPV is not HIV. It is not HOV either, the lane you get drive in if you have three people in the car. I did not have herpes or warts, just a virus that decided to nap for a long time, then manifest itself as a lump on my neck. The good news is that the oropharyngeal cancers that contain HPV tend to do better than oropharyngeal cancers that don’t contain HPV. Some guys have all the luck.

Treatments for oropharyngeal cancers have a high success rate. The five year rate of success is around 80-90%. which is pretty good odds. I say a success rate, not a survival rate. We are surviving every day we are alive.

Over the past 30 years, oropharyngeal cancer have doubled. An estimated 70 percent of throat cancers are attributed to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, the most common sexually transmitted disease. When I was diagnosed, I asked my radiation oncologist if we were on the edge of a generational timebomb. He quickly agreed, and said they are seeing an epidemic of this type of dormant HPV cancer. Given the sexual habits of most men my age, coming to age in the Seventies and Eighties, it is not surprising. Taking basic precautions became more common after AIDS, but before AIDS, no one gave it a thought. We are talking about men here. Men who liked to drink and party.

An estimated 80 to 90 percent of the population have had an infection of HPV, a virus that causes the most common sexually transmitted infection. About 7 percent of people have a form that affects the oral cavity, and only 1 percent contract the most pathogenic strains. In most cases, the immune system clears the virus within a year or two, but types 16 and 18 can remain dormant for years, even decades, before precancerous cells give rise to a tumor.

“The virus can go deep within the crypts of the tonsils,” explains Dr. Persky, professor in the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, “and that’s probably where it often harbors.”

As Phil Ochs said, come and take the pleasures of the harbour. That I did, that I did.

Patients treated for throat cancer by doctors at the Head and Neck Centre represent a broad spectrum of the population, but the majority are between 50 and 80 years of age, with men outnumbering women nearly 4 to 1. Typically, the patient is a healthy nonsmoker whose first symptom is a painless lump in the neck.

My lump was fairly large and painless when I first took notice, and sought medical opinion. The cancer had spread from my throat to the lump which grafted on to my lymph glands. The position of this lump made the decision for radiation and chemotherapy treatments fairly easy, as surgery would have been far more dangerous. They call that type of head and neck cancer surgery a neck dissection. Doesn’t that sound appetizing?

Actually, I was fortunate for having “Lump”, as I named him. Without the visual cue of Lump, I might have shrugged off the other symptoms, as mere by-products of singing in loud bands, along with my predilection for “professional drinking”.

For decades, I nursed a love of what my family calls refreshing brown beverages- Bourbon, Scotch, and Rye Manhattans. As I wrote in a song back in the Eighties called Sex and the Single Malt, “Was it Sex or Single Malt? Don’t let the booze do the talking, your love might go walking- either way, Bud it’s your fault.”

Listen to Sex and the Single Malt

The risk of contracting a high-risk form of HPV is estimated to be 14 percent for people who have had 1 sex partner, but 5 times greater for those who have had 6 or more partners. Ding Ding Ding. As Sinatra sang, Ring-a-ding-ding. I don’t know exactly how many partners I had, but let’s just say it was more than six. Not unlike the number of drinks I would have in a given evening. If you are going to do something, then do it to excess.

My treatment schedule was 7 weeks, with radiation treatments three times a week- so 21 treatments. Plus a low dose chemotherapy once a week, which along with the radiation, is used to make the radiation more effective. As many have noted, by the end of the treatment, one feels as if their throat has been cooked.

By the time I finished my treatments, I had lost about 30 lbs, going down two sizes of pants. I had also lost most of sense of taste, but happily, very little of my hair. To my hair challenged friends, I beg your forgiveness. As a Canadian, I say sorry.

My taste has come back somewhat in the past year, but I still struggle at times to swallow correctly. For the last 15 months, I have not resumed any consumption of alcohol, mainly because it no longer tastes any good, but most importantly, because alcohol is a factor and contributor to cancers in this location.

Why drink the poison when I gain no satisfaction or pleasure from it? Especially when i know it is poison. I really don’t miss the booze at all. I am happy to consider drinking a part of my former life. That was the old me.

I am pleased to announce that the results of the PET scan were good. They were clear.

To be very clear, I am in the clear. I am clear headed and clear.

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