Meat Loaf RIP

It happens more often that some well known musician passes away and with that part of your own happy childhood too. Today I was extra depressed as Meat Loaf has passed away. He was such a lovely singer and my thoughts are with his wife Deborah and his two daughters. In my humble opinion, to die aged 74 is far too early but then he did have a rough medical history with Asthma, accidentally falling off the stage etc. Whatever the cause of death was, we will miss the wonderful bloke from Dallas, Texas whose music resonated with millions of his generation.

The first song I heard him sing was “Paradise by the Dashboard light”. I did not even have a dashboard until I was in my late twenties in Australia. Perhaps due to that I always experienced Paradise elsewhere but that is a different story.

My real paradise is my wife Mita and our two beautiful children Daniel and Natasha. I recently experienced “to Hell and Back” when, on December 6, I had a really bad fall with my Pinarello racing bike. A week prior I had completed the rough 220km 2021 Xaxti ride with over 2600m altitude in just about 8:38 hour. That day though was the start of my hell at 06:45, I cycled 12km into town - a standard route just across the bridge where I fell off. While normally I would always cycle to town on my own, that day I luckyily had caught up with my friend Sylvano who called for an ambulance once he spotted me 30 seconds later. My whole family, including my siblings, fellow cyclists, and friends came to my rescue. Our kids flew over to see me. Unfortunately, I have no memory of the hellish two weeks in hospital. According to my kids, my language was far from flattering due to the pain I was in. Thank goodness that was forgiven by the medical staff and I am back again to being a gentleman.

Anyway, poor Meat Loaf RIP is now gone and I am as good as back again enjoying the music he once produced and those of his predecessors like Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, CCR, James Taylor, Crosby-Stills-Nash & Young, Van Morrison, Rolling Stone’s etc. I have to face one more clavicle surgery and no cycling for the next 5 months but I can live with that. I will focus a bit more on work instead (e.g. vanillaJS microservices).

To keep listening to Meat Loaf’s music is the best way we can honour his memory.

Photo courtesy of the BBC