WHO IS NILSSON SCHMILSSON?

I woke up to Nilsson singing Without You, the 1973 Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Then I noticed on the TV screen something about Nilsson Schmilsson. My first thought was that this was his real name. Turns out that Nilsson Schmilsson (the whole CD) is Harry Nilsson's seventh album, which also includes Coconut. Sure, you've heard it, for... featured in the films The Addams Family, Reservoir Dogs, Practical Magic, Dick, and Hey Arnold!: The Movie; and heavily referenced on the television show Bones.

Nilsson sings and composes. However, Without You was written by Peter Hamm and Tom Evans for Badfinger, their group, for release in 1970, and in addition to Nilsson, was recorded by over 180 artists. Paul McCartney described Nilsson's version as the killer song of all time.

Harry Edward Nilsson III was born nearly 81 years ago in Brooklyn and passed away in 1994 at the age of 52. With a 3.5 octave range, he was one of the few commercially successful stars who never once performed a major public concert. About his musical life:

By 1964 he was working with Phil Spector, co-writing three songs.
Soon thereafter, The Monkees recorded his Cuddly Toy.
1968 saw a notorious experimental film, Head, featuring a Nilsson composition, Daddy's Song. Yup, the whole movie, given 71/71 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.
In 1969 Nilsson recorded Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin, which hit #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, winning a Grammy Award, and was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy.
Also that year, a song he wrote in 1968, One, was recorded by Three Dog Night.
Nilsson Schmilsson was released in 1971.

Included Nilsson's cover of Without You, which was completed in one take.
As indicated earlier, Coconut was also in this album, and you probably did not notice, but the entire song is played using one chord, C7.

Son of Schmilsson came in 1972.
From 1973 he became a maverick, and in one incident, he, John Lennon and Ringo Starr were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers. That year he performed in Song of Dracula, a musical, with Ringo. Yes, that is the whole film.
In 1978 the Who drummer Keith Moon died in Nilsson's London apartment of drug overdose.

Was profoundly affected by the death of John Lennon in 1980. Became a gun control advocate.
Worked in 1984 with Yoko Ono on a Lennon tribute album, Every Man Has a Woman.
In 1988 did a tribute album of various artists performing Disney film songs: Stay Awake. Donated his royalties to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
In 1990 was in debt because his financial adviser embezzled all his funds.

Joined Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to sing Without You. His only live performance of this song! (Need to scroll down.)
Died of a heart attack in 1994.
Who is Harry Nilsson (and Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him)? is a 2006 documentary on his life. Watch the complete film of nearly two hours. Got excellent 86/87 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes. What a cast: Eric Idle, Micky Dolenz, Terry Gilliam, Randy Newman, Yoki Ono, Paul Williams. Robin Williams, Brian Wilson and even the Smothers Brothers. Ringo was so emotional that he just could not participate.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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