I was pissing blood.

No, that’s not entirely accurate…I was EXPLODING blood!

I was lying on the couch reading David Pogue’s Apple book, minding my own business, when I realized I finally had to get up to pee. The urgency has disappeared since Skip prescribed the cocktail, of Avodart and Flomax. Being old and having an enlarged prostate is no picnic. They tell you to start taking medication when you can no longer sit through a movie. Then again, men never admit they’ve got a problem, at least not to each other. They say they’re fine, while being no longer able to hear their family…they don’t need no stinkin’ hearing aids!

So I stride in front of the commode…and nothing comes out.

This is kind of weird, I mean the drugs can give you a delayed start, but I feel like I have to go and nothing is coming out.

Okay…

And then it’s like someone ignited a missile, blast-off is imminent. I feel the pressure in my penis and then…FIREWORKS! Not only in the bowl, but all over the toilet, all over the rim, all over the floor.

And it’s very red and very bloody.

So I methodically start to clean the premises, and that’s when I notice a clot. I haven’t seen a clot like this since I had surgery to remove a kidney stone twenty five years ago. What exactly is going on?

I’ve had a bunch of kidney stones. But they’re preceded by ungodly flank pain. I was feeling nothing, I got no advance warning sign. Was this a result of masturbation? Mama told me not to come…

And then there’s another major event, just after I’ve cleaned up the environment.

And then I hang my dick around waiting for more and when it’s finally all said and done I go back to the couch and consult Dr. Google.

I’m not an alarmist. I’m not looking to find out I’m dying of cancer. I know how to read between the lines. Sure, I look at the AI result, but also the Mayo and Cleveland clinics and others and they all said…

No big deal. If I wasn’t in pain, had no burning sensation, which I did not possess.

Okay…

Maybe it was a passing thing.

But NO!

An hour later I have the same experience. But with anticipation, I’m better at directing the spurt. And the hours keep passing and it keeps happening and…

I ain’t gonna go to the emergency room, Google didn’t tell me to do so.

Then again, no one lives forever, and when they say there will be blood, they didn’t expect this much!

Finally, I decide to try and sleep. I can’t, and I get up to pee a couple of times and still have blood, but I figure I’m gonna be okay.

But THEN!

All of  a sudden I have this incredible pain in my legs. In the muscles. And I don’t want to get up and put on Traumeel S, I’m in twilight and I’m too cold for that.

But then the pain becomes too much. I get up and put on the miracle anti-inflammatory, and it WORKS! Voila!

Well, then I start to shiver. And it ain’t that cold. But I am freezing. Once again, I don’t want to get up, leave the covers behind, find clothing, but I do!

I put on sweatpants, and not only a shirt but a fleece over it. And just as I’m about to get back into bed, I realized I’d better don socks too.

But I’m still cold, and good luck falling asleep, I end up looking at my phone, keeping it right by me in the bed, to help me in my moment of need.

And then, after a couple of hours of near sleep, I get up to pee…

AND IT’S CLEAR! The crisis is history! And I’m so damn hot, I remove all my clothing, everything is groovy.

The calamity is behind me.

And I don’t feel a hundred percent during the day yesterday, but I didn’t get that much sleep.

But the crisis is behind me.

But Felice is bugging me to go to the ER… Why? Dr. Google said it was unnecessary, and the crisis is in the rearview mirror, I’m peeing regular urine…

So she calms down. Actually, she’s a couple of thousand miles away, but that’s another story.

So now it’s last night, the next night. And I’m in the exact same position, lying on the couch reading the Pogue book. And I get the urge to pee at the identical time, 9 PM, so I go to the bathroom and once again…

Nothing comes out, and then…It’s like I’m fighting a war, spraying bullets at the enemy. It’s endless.

And let me tell you, this ain’t no pink urine, this is crimson red, this is the real thing, blood.

Okay, now this is too much. This was unexpected.

So I go back to Dr. Google and parsing the information, I realize I should go to the emergency room.

Now I’ve got to tell you, growing up in my house it was illegal to be ill. Couldn’t happen. You had to go to school unless your symptoms were palpable and excessive. As for going to the doctor…WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ DOCTOR!

Yup, that was my mother’s philosophy. And it bit her in the ass in the end. She had a visible infection, but she kept telling everybody surrounding here she was just fine. But ultimately she went into the hospital and never came out. It was treatable, if she’d been on it weeks before, when it first manifested itself, but she figured she could will it away, that bacteria was no match for Muggs Lefsetz. Hell, she truly thought that if she kept dragging my dad around, remained upbeat, stayed in denial, he wouldn’t die of cancer, but he did!

So I’ve got a long history of not going to the doctor until it’s too late. Lost a body part in the process. I’ve improved, but…

Who the hell wants to go to the ER? At ten o’clock at night?

But I’ve got no idea what is going on, so… I take a shower, get dressed, go over there, and I’m told they’re too busy, to wait on the couch.

But then the nurse comes out and says he doesn’t like the way I look, and he’s going to give me a room right away.

Now THAT’S good!

And they hook me up with the blood pressure monitor and the oxygen sensor. And they take blood and…

They need a urine sample.

REALLY? You want a blood sample?

And I’ll be honest, I’m afraid I’m going to pee and my urine will be clear. It’s like taking your car to the repair shop, the problem doesn’t manifest itself when you’re there.

So at first the new nurse wants me to pee in bed. And gives me one of those giant plastic bottles, if you’ve been in the hospital you know what I’m talking about.

But then she thinks better of that. Says I should go to the bathroom and use one of the little cups in there.

OH NO! I need the big bottle, she’s got no idea what she’s up against here. I need room, for the volume I’m going to emit.

So, I go to the bathroom, I’ve got my dick in the bottle…and nothing comes out.

And then, the gunpowder ignites and a clot comes flying out and the bottle starts filling up… It’s a deep red, almost brown. THERE! You think I was lying?

Of course they didn’t think that. But I’ve got my mother’s voice in the back of my head, that I don’t deserve medical treatment.

So I lie there, but then the doctor comes in. Discusses the possibilities. But first, he wants to take some pictures.

So not long thereafter, by ER standards, a guy comes in alone, he’s going to drive me to the theatre. This is the highlight of being in the hospital, the trip through the halls on the bed. Usually there are two people to get you started, to align and get the bed rolling properly, but this guy was doing it all by himself.

Ultimately we got to the CT room. Yup, they gave me the contrast, you know, the one that makes you feel hot. They took a slew of pictures, then the tech wheeled me back to my room and said the doctor would be with me in thirty or forty minutes.

Well, almost two hours later…

He’s got no answers. Could be a kidney stone, but if it was, he’d see it traveling down from the kidney, and nothing was there. And I didn’t have pain. But I know my kidneys are riddled with stones… You get this old and you know your complete medical history. Like the guy starts spewing stats, saying he’s got nothing to compare them  to, my hemoglobin and creatinine, but I’ve got those numbers stored in my brain, I don’t even have to look them up.

Now, of course it could be bladder cancer. The wall of my uterus was a bit thick. And it’s hard to diagnose, so therefore he wants me to have it checked out and… Anything can happen. I know a couple of people who’ve had bladder cancer.

And he can dial the urologist on call and get an opinion, but it might take a while for the doctor to get back to him, and it’s doubtful the physician will render a definitive opinion over the line so…

I can be transferred to another hospital where there’s a urologist in the building…

You know modern medicine, unless you’re literally dying, they won’t give you a definitive opinion. They give you the facts and you have to decide. So, in my case, I ask a plethora of questions, trying to reveal nuance, and then I get the guy to admit that really, I don’t need to have a camera stuck up my penis immediately. But there is the issue, what if I can’t pee?

That’s what he’s most worried about. Because if you can’t pee, you need a catheter.

And that’s when I realize he’s going to discharge me, send me home while I’m still spewing blood. REALLY?

But he says that my counts are pretty good, and that you’ve got a lot of blood in your body. And if I’m not dizzy, which I am not… He says if I get dizzy and pass out to come back. REALLY? I mean I could pass out and DIE! But he says if I pass out, I will wake up, so…

What exactly is going on here?

Well, it could be an infection, so he’s going to prescribe an antibiotic. And I ask him which one and first he says Keflex, which I’ve had before, and I’m thinking for a minute that my opinion seems to matter, since I know a little he thinks I have expertise, and then he asks me if I want the first dose intravenously right now. OF COURSE! That’s what he thought I’d say. I mean after all, I’m THERE!

And the nurse starts preparing the injection and then I think about the shivering…so I have her call the doctor back and I ask him, wouldn’t this be evidence of an infection?

But he won’t go on record.

As for the drug? It’s not Keflex, it’s something completely different, and the pills I’m going to retrieve the following day, which is now today, will be something yet again and…

Now I’m gonna go home?

And then he emphasizes, if I can’t pee…

So they give me a printout, I go to the bathroom and leave my mark once again, the red devil, and then I walk out of the place.

And when I get home, my pee is clear. No trace of blood at all.

Huh.

And it’s been clear now ever since, but I was just lying on said couch reading the Pogue book and I must say, I was afraid to go to the bathroom. Then again, it’s not nine o’clock yet!

So what have we learned…

My initial instincts were right, to ride the tiger, to let it all play out, or hang out.

Then again, you never really know. I mean when you get old enough, the thought creeps into your brain that this could be the END! Or the beginning of the end.

I’m thinking it was an infection. I’ll get the scope re bladder cancer, but the odds of that being the case are very low, even the doc said so…

But it’s all kind of mysterious.

So I live another day. Just hoping I’m not going to explode again.

I still don’t have a definitive answer, then again, your body tells you if you need treatment. But oftentimes when it gets to that point, it’s too late.

So, I just don’t know.

Will we ever have hits like this again?

U2 released its “Days of Ash” EP on February 18th. The publicity had more impact than the music. There are six songs. Two have barely broken three million streams on Spotify, four are in the one million range, and one doesn’t even break the seven figure threshold. It’s like it doesn’t even exist. U2, one of the biggest bands in the world, with more name recognition than almost all of the acts in the Spotify Top 50, can’t get its music listened to. However the act can sell tickets. Based on its hits of yore and a reputation for unique, dynamic, stage shows.

Is this the future?

I was talking to Pat Monahan of Train. He’s a humble guy, but I told him that more people probably know “Drops of Jupiter” than any Taylor Swift song.

Of course the Swifties are going to go nuclear. But that’s not my point. The point is you just can’t reach everybody anymore.

Then again, does the music deserve that attention?

Sure, there are mediocre classic rock hits. Stuff that a youngster might listen to once and then shrug their shoulders. However, there is “Stairway to Heaven” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” time bombs just waiting to explode in future generations’ brains.

Then again, today’s music has changed. It’s harder, busier, reflective of the age we live in, which is hard. The American Dream has never been less achievable in my lifetime. People are frustrated, they need music that mimics their feelings, or is complete escapism. The younger generation loves to dance, DJs and EDM are a culture unto themselves, a significant one, that can draw more people to a live show than most of the aforementioned Spotify Top 50. But the thing about classic rock is it killed dancing. That went out with the twist and the swim and the hully gully. Classic rock demanded respect, attention, you bought the best stereo you could afford to get closer to the tunes, you wanted to get inside them. Today you listen to bass-heavy dreck via tiny earphones, a far cry from the holy grail of yesteryear, when sound was important.

So what changed?

First and foremost there was money. MTV made you famous around the world and double the price CDs threw off more cash. And with visibility you could now have brand extensions. Used to be the cash from being an artist was enough, more than enough. But it’s not that remuneration went down, it’s just that other verticals paid better, finance and tech, and the best and the brightest pursued those. Leaving us with lower common denominator creators in popular music.

People hate when I put anything from today’s scene down. Because they’re such believers.

Despite all the hype about the return of BTS, the dirty little secret is the passion, the mania, is not as big as they’d have you think:

“Why the BTS Comeback Concert Was a ‘Disaster’ for Some Businesses – The turnout for the K-pop titans’ show was much lower than projected by officials, hitting the bottom line of some restaurants. Shares in the group’s management company also fell.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/world/asia/bts-concert-seoul-turnout-hybe-shares.html

It’s in the news, but there is too much news. Such that the truth frequently doesn’t reach the public…it’s not only politics, but popular culture too.

As for BTS… Wouldn’t Frank Zappa call them “dancing fools”? I’ve got nothing against the act, but please don’t tell me to take them seriously, it’s pablum for a subset of the public, a twist on New Kids on the Block.

But I was going to write about “Summer Breeze.”

Do today’s younger generations know “Summer Breeze”?

Now if we go back to Spotify, we see that “Summe Breeze” has 321 million streams. Which is prodigious, but not close to the multi-billion numbers of young acts. But are these numbers distortions? Are the same people listening to this new material over and over again, bumping up the totals?

I mean would people listen to “Summer Breeze” on endless repeat?

Probably not. They’d get a hankering to hear it and pull it up on Spotify.

However, “Summer Breeze” is in the ether, unlike so much of the billion stream club. Meaning it is played on radio, in restaurants, you hear it. “Summer Breeze” is forever, almost all of today’s music is transient.

Of course, of course, a lot of the old stuff was banged into our heads on terrestrial radio, and not all of it was superior. I mean “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”?

Now Seals and Crofts was not a highly respected act, with rock roots and gravitas. Then again, they did peak in the singer-songwriter/soft rock seventies, which were led by James Tayalor and Carole King. People were open to this sound.

But Seals and Crofts were journeymen. And Bahá?ís. I knew this not only because I followed the rock press like it was delivered from God, but because the people in the next dorm room over were into the band, and exploring that faith.

But never forget, Seals and Crofts were on Warner Brothers. And if it was on Warner Brothers, it deserved attention, there was a reason the band was signed.

And then came “Summer Breeze.”

This was not one of today’s numbers built on one chord, based on a beat, there was a lot going on in the track. The haunting guitar intro, drawing you in, telling you this was serious. And once you were paying attention, there was a melodic construct and…

“See the curtains hangin’ in the window

In the evening on a Friday night

A little light a-shinin’ through the window

Lets me know everything’s all right”

These were not nonsense lyrics filling up space, rather the words set a place, you had a vision, you knew exactly what they were singing about, you were THERE!

And then comes the piece-de-resistance:

“Summer breeze makes me feel fine

Blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind”

And the stinging guitar after the chorus, that’s the special sauce, that’s what puts the record over the top, embeds it in your brain.

In other words, there’s a lot going on in the song. Because the song was everything. There was no dancing, no perfume…

So as soon as you hear “Summer Breeze,” it takes you away. You could be in a group of hundreds, thousands, and you’d be having a personal experience. What I remember most is driving in Westport, CT just before Christmas in the eighties and hearing it on the radio. It was one of those days where the weather vacillated between snow and rain, quite gray, but that song, it took me away, to a place of gentleness, possibilities.

Now Dash Crofts died, and I used to be able to tell them apart, but that was a long time ago… I couldn’t have told you which one he was until I saw the pictures in the obits.

But what truly stunned me was how old he was. He was born in 1938. Almost all of our rock heroes were born in the forties. The Beatles in the early forties. Crofts had been around.

And you read about his peripatetic life in said obits, leaving Texas to play with the Champs, but it is all superseded by “Summer Breeze.”

I hear “Diamond Girl” too much on SiriusXM’s Bridge, it was always B-material to me, I mean how do you reach the heights of “Summer Breeze” once again?

Seals and Crofts couldn’t. But I did like “Get Closer” and “We May Never Pass This Way (Again).” And they never did pass this way again. By 1980, the act was over, expired. But as hard as Elton John tries to stay atop the mountain, most people burn out. They get there once, and it doesn’t have the same meaning thereafter… Being rich and famous doesn’t make most people happy, that comes down to people…family, friends.

But they had this song. And even though I’ve just written about it for paragraphs, truly it is not something you can describe. “Summer Breeze” makes you feel something, an entire movie unspools in your brain, it makes you remember when. I’m not even sure these are the goals of today’s music.

We lived through a peak. At least I did. But these songs remain, some of them are forever.

And one of them is “Summer Breeze.”

The men who made it…the song has transcended them. Now they’re both gone. You could study their history, but it’s not that interesting or unique. But the song is. How did they come up with it? How did they lay it down in the studio? Well, we’re never really gonna know, because the principals are all dead. Except for Louie Shelton, a legendary studio guitarist who became a producer and masterminded the creation of “Summer Breeze.”

But still, online you can see videos of people telling you how they did it, but really no one can articulate it. It was inspiration, something they felt, running on instinct. And you couldn’t reach this peak on a regular basis, but when you did…

It makes you feel fine…

Blowin’ through the jasmine in your mind.

The records that were hits at the same time as the British Invasion.

Tune in Saturday March 28th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

I couldn’t have a conversation with Seymour Stein without him mentioning Mike Vernon.

Oh, that’s a little extreme, but Seymour mentioned Mike all the time, just like he mentioned Syd Nathan and King Records…that’s where he got his start. And once he started he made a deal with Mike Vernon to put out his Blue Horizon records in America.

But now Seymour is dead and there’s no one left to testify.

I’d never heard of Mike Vernon, but it turns out I know his music. I learned that from the few obits I found. Turns out Mike Vernon produced the legendary John Mayall album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton.”

Do young people know this record?

Keith Relf was the frontman of the Yardbirds, and their catchy hit tunes were written by Graham Gouldman. Sure, “Over Under Sideways Down” featured the fretwork of Jeff Beck, but unless you’d seen “Blow Up,” chances are you didn’t know Jeff Beck was in the group, or Eric Clapton before him.

Most people didn’t know who Clapton was until “Disraeli Gears,” the 1967 album that featured his guitar work on “Sunshine of Your Love.” People bought that, some went back to buy “Fresh Cream,” “Wheels of Fire” was gigantic and then it was “Goodbye.”

And back then, when you discovered an act, you investigated their roots, you wanted more. There were people who already owned the “Blues Breakers” album, but what truly blew it up was Eric’s success in Cream.

And it wasn’t only Eric who got a boost in status, it was Mayall himself too, he was now seen as a fountain of great guitar players, a veritable farm team. Mick Taylor played with Mayall before he was snatched by the Stones. And before all that, you had Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who ultimately formed Fleetwood Mac, whose first two albums were produced by Vernon and came out on his label to boot! It was Vernon who produced the single “Albatross”… Never a hit, it has sustained longer than the hits of its era.

Turns out Mike and his brother Richard owned Chipping Norton Recording, which I only knew because there’s a famous photo of Gerry Rafferty wearing a sweater with the studio’s name embroidered on it. “Baker Street” was cut there.

Mike Vernon produced David Bowie, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown…even the legendary “Christine Perfect” album which was released to crickets, but when Fleetwood Mac blew up with her now in it, the album was stocked in every record store…once again, people wanted, NEEDED, more.

Vernon was even a performer. He was in Rocky Sharpe and the Replays…I never knew that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mike produced “Hocus Pocus” by Focus!

But not a single person e-mailed me about his passing. Whereas if Seymour was still alive, he would have waxed rhapsodic, sent a lengthy e-mail I could have shared with my readers.

Now in one of the obits Vernon said that it was a time and place, the blues revival…but we’re only a motion away from another wave, this music has feeling, it’s forever.

And there were obits in the English papers, and I was stunned to find one in the “New York Times”:

“Mike Vernon, Who Helped Spark the British Blues Boom, Dies at 81 – He produced albums — by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton, and the early Fleetwood Mac — that defined 1960s blues rock. He also shepherded David Bowie’s debut album.

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/arts/music/mike-vernon-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WFA.EUPE.5T6FFTGj-fyy&smid=url-share

But there were no hosannas, never mind a victory lap while he was still alive. Even worse, he died on March 2nd, weeks ago, we’re only finding out now!

I don’t know if Mike Vernon belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but one thing is for sure, he belongs there a lot more than Whitney Houston and the popsters now being inducted. Vernon’s work was bedrock.

But no one seems to care.

We used to. That was our passion, our lives…we needed to know all the players. And I knew the songs, but didn’t happen to buy the albums Mike produced, so I didn’t know…whereas today all this information is at our fingertips and people know nothing.

Then again, are the people worth knowing about? Are the acts worth knowing about? They might have hits, but they’re usually not the single vision of yore, written by the act itself. And money and fame lead, whereas before they were after-effects.

But what really weirds me out is everybody who knew Vernon, and it’s not only Vernon, is passing and not only are these people forgotten, but the stories too.

It’s extremely weird.

But the music remains.

How much of today’s music will remain?

“Albatross” is forever… The Spotify Top 50?