Hi, Big Red here. Welcome to the coolest site in the universe.

After a lot of deliberation about whether to be a part of the great social experiment of our time, the internet, I’ve decided it is in the best interest of the creature for me to offer up some of what I know and have learned in all these years. So here you go, directly from me to you.

There is a lot here. But you might notice there are no ads or memes or whatevers to hurt the experience. If they ever do show up here it could be another sign of the apocalypse.

The website is divided into several “neighborhoods”, and each of these have sections within them. First of all, of course, there’s Big Red’s ER, where you can look up and learn about a wide array of medical problems, from lacerations and injuries to heart attacks and strokes and belly pains, and get a far more helpful understanding of what’s up compared to any other Google search. So when somebody’s sick or whatever, you can go to Big Red’s ER, right then and right there. And I’ve covered most of your worries.

Besides “real” emergencies there is also discussion available on the host of urban myths that plague the modern creature, from migraines to back aches to spider bites to sinus infections and sciatica and other “minor” conditions. These impressions are the product of literally hundreds of thousands of interactions with people in the emergency department (mostly) or other primary care settings, both patients and their families. My prodigious social skill has allowed me to ask serious questions to the freaks and weirdos of the world (i.e., all of you), and gain insight. Gathering data like a good scientist. What you’ll read here is what you have taught me.

You could say I have a hobby in songwriting. In the music section of the site you can catch up to the three albums of songs I have recorded with the help of our in-house stable of musicians. There is 1996’s “This Elite Band”, a collection of my first ten songs that just about everybody loved and played repeatedly. Next we did 2003’s “Songs for the Modern Age”, which was a better recording but was less popular. So I quit writing songs for a while and wrote my book (Understanding Humans, see below), and then got back to writing songs again a few years ago. And more recently we’ve slipped into the studio and started another album of songs by yours truly, called “Images”, which is sure to be a classic.

I don’t know when “Images” will be done, but there are versions of several of the songs that are “done enough” to post. Completed versions with all the background singing and leads and other things will come later, but where we’ve captured the feel and sense for the song I’ve posted them.

The Rock Opera Some time ago it became apparent that my career was coming out in my songwriting, which I was OK with. So I decided to take 22 of the 30-plus songs I’ve written (over 25 years) and compile them as a collection called “The Modern Age”, and I am proposing it as a rock opera, where the people in it are you and everybody you know, the setting is the modern age, and the genre is “rock”.

The project became this: I would go into the studio, noodle at the piano and narrate the introductions of the songs we’ve recorded, and then play the recorded versions and do a sell job on how they fit together as a cohesive docudrama of these times we’re living. I found it to be a lot harder than I thought, because the narrator’s part can be its own feature of an actual stage production, so I had to cut out all the rambling, which took a while, and some remains. But anyway, it’s up and posted for your perusal. I guess the next stop is Broadway, right?

Actually, since these are individual songs I have alternatively referred to it as a “rock collection”, perhaps its own genre. There are 5 songs from “This Elite Band”, there are 8 from “The Modern Age”, and there are 9 from “Images”. Act 1 features 11 songs with themes that are about personal adventures and endeavors, with the backdrop of a modern age cityscape, and characters that might include “the kid”, coming of age in the modern age, which is hard, “the muse”, older and wiser, and then there’s everyone else, “the cohorts”, and their grapples with these fun times we’re living. Who sings what and all that is up to you.

Act 2 is a group of songs about all of us together as a people and as a society, where the characters are archetypal, and the backdrops simple, symbolic, and change as the tunes change. And hey, I’m just the songwriter, so artistic interpretations are hereby subbed out to any would-be enthusiast.

Maybe you’ll be able to catch up with The Big Red Solo Tour, which is any ad-hoc band I might compile to play live renditions of these songs. And usually a lot of Grateful Dead covers. Like Phil, only “Big Red and Friends”. Or me alone. I have been working for a while with some of our millennials who have learned to play instruments, and this has inspired me to learn a lot more songs by The Dead, and I hope to be able to emerge from the basement with them to play out. Old guy songwriter with a millennial band, heavy on Grateful Dead songs and rock classics. I’d go to such an event.

I’ve included discussion on the songs, and songwriting, and perhaps this could prove useful, considering how hard it is to find good songwriters nowadays. You’re here to learn, right? I’ve also been so kind as to offer tips and clues on how to sing, in a separate section of that neighborhood. There are so few people who can sing, and it’s the coolest thing you can do for yourself, or for us for that matter. Doctor’s orders: everyone can and should learn to sing.

These two neighborhoods comprise the majority of the site. In a more serious section, for no extra charge, you are treated to commentary (essays) on the unfoldings of what I consider key happenings in our culture. Hopefully these “big picture” impressions will help explain some of the Chaos in the chaos on display before you. So pay attention, there’s a lot happening. I have suggestions. See if you can see.

Importantly, I have a few recipes to offer. Not many, and I’m not a chef exactly. But especially Big Red’s World Famous Potato Salad, and the Blue Cheese Dressing of a similar surname, I had to. And you can change the world if you can learn to make Minnie Bread, my grandmother’s Italian bread recipe. I have provided this tutorial as well.

Big Red merch is available of course, somewhere. I’d like for you to consider reading my book, Understanding Humans, under my pen name, Daniel A. Shields, MD. In just 151 pages, everything you need to know to “understand” the people and world around us. It took 17 years, and everything I know, and everyone I’ve ever met, to write that book. Reading it usually takes a month, and if you can get through it, everything should look different to you. Fortunately, 14 years now since it was published, it’s all still relevant. All of it. That was the plan. You can buy it online of course (AuthorHouse). The music is on the site, and who buys CDs anymore? I have several of both the first and second albums left, but since there is no way to contact the site, you may need to pick one up at the Big Red Solo Tour maybe. Or something.

So there you go. Whatever they say about redheads, I got it bad as you get it. Thanks for stopping in.