Hello friends! This weekend I am hosting a social media event on Facebook where I’ve invited friends and Ben fans to come and share music, videos, photos, and graphics to honor Ben on the 20th anniversary of his passing. I know not everybody has Facebook, so I’m creating a special page here on my blog where I’ll add the unique things I am sharing over there.
If you look to the left you should see the heading for Pages, and right underneath that there is a link for #CelebratingBenjaminOrr. That’s where everything will be. I’ll keep adding to it over the weekend as I add to the Facebook event to keep everyone in the loop as best as I can.
Feel free to share in the comments what you’re doing today to remember Ben. I’m very grateful that we can all celebrate him together in this small way. ❤
sweetpurplejune 
Thank you so much Donna! ❤️ And what a great picture of young Ben!! He looks more handsome than ever, if that is even possible! I’ve been thinking of Ben in a different way the last couple of weeks as I get absorbed into watching college and professional football, as well as the hockey finals last week since Ben loved his sports teams, too!!! My Stars 🌟 lost in game 6 but I love them more than ever for such an exciting season!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxJDZaLmDg Thinking a lot about Ben today, listening to his music especially the quirky songs. Ben;s voice was always incredible and seemed so easy I miss his voice.
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Not feeling good today so having some good music is soothing to me.
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Hang in there, Ray. I hope you feel better soon!
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Great choice! ❤
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This song and live performance of it is one of my most favorites!!
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I don’t have Facebook so I appreciate the link over here…Ty!
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Thank you Donna. Doing things in a classy way, that is who you are. Love the photo of Ben!! xoxo
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Thank you, my sweet friend! ❤
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Decided to go a bit deeper with my thoughts today, and share the feeling I get now when I watch any performance Ben is a part of from whenever between 1978-1999.
Instead of the journey going along year by year with the band as it was happening, I (we) approach this admiration for Benjamin Orr as a complete look back. So within a single year a person can absorb and internalize the music, videos of live performances, MTV videos, a precious few audio and visual interviews, Let’s Go (thank you Joe Milliken), and other publications, and of course a few hundred photographs.
With that perspective, now a year into the Benjamin Orr Legacy, when I watch any video, what I see/feel in my mind’s eye and heart is the entirety of those 21 years. When I watch Ben sing Bye Bye Love on Midnight Special, or All Mixed Up from the Concert in England, (thanks woodray23), I see Ben then, but I also know how his story goes; and so as I watch, I see him as he was at 31, but I can’t isolate it because I also see him as 40 then 50 all at the same time. Of course it also works in reverse. When you see him perform with the Orr Band & Big People, you can clearly see Ben at 31.
Watching now is very much UN-like the first 20 times seeing all the Europe Tour videos from 1978, and the TV performances from Shake it Up or Heart Beat City. It is like you cannot UN know, or Un see in your minds eye all the years as you are watching one particular year. Naturally, I love ALL versions of Ben, including the “dark times” in ’87 which is so clear to me in the photos from the hairdresser, and after reading the Goldmine article. I wish I was there to help him through that time (ridiculous as that is).
So it is a bitter sweet feeling that has me going back and forth. I also hear in for example Wake Me Up, or the demo of Drive and a few other songs how his voice will sound in the original songs he did with in 1995. That voice!!!!
I imagine in literature there are words for the feeling I am trying to describe, I clearly do not know them. 🙂
but for now, I hope that was understandable.
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I completely understand your feelings here. It is an odd sense of omniscience, to be able to see the full course of a person’s life and have the ability to observe his different seasons at our leisure. ❤
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Silver, I really appreciate your introspective posts. I’m glad I’m not the only one LOL. I too understand where you’re coming from and relate to what you wrote.
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I totally feel you on this post. I get it. A lot of the times when I’m watching something regarding somebody I often have the same thoughts.
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Ben’s Cleveland Browns just won their 🏈game today!!!! This is thrilling 🥳after so many losing seasons!
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I’m sorry I wasn’t around this weekend but I’m going to try and catch up with what I missed. Ben was in my thoughts yesterday, though, especially. I really appreciate your comment, building upon Silver Sunday’s post, about the odd sense of omniscience in knowing the course of someone’s life, as you’re watching and listening to things which were done at a time when no one who was there when it was happening in real time could possibly know.
Also, what a great picture of young Ben. That’s a new one for me. One thing for sure, he was always a handsome one!
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I did what I anticipated for months actually, and that was take flowers to Ben’s gravesite on the 4th for his 20th year since he left us, I’ve been there twice this year and took a big old rock I painted orange and put “Heart You Ben” on it and an orange 1971 Roadrunner matchbox car but never took flowers, an excellent excuse to go back one more time 🙂 ❤ I felt like it was the closest I could get to him since he's no longer with us and I absolutely adored every awesome time I've visited there and even though 2020 has been a crazy, scarey, uncertain everything year…I've had a lot of joy "finding Benjamin Orr" and that's the Huuugest understatement of all time probably lol….oh and Donna You are Absolutely the Greatest!!! Thank you for every word and all your hard work and for sharing it all with the whole world so they can get to know the Benjamin Orr that captured our hearts too xxx's
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Paula! I’m so glad you were able to visit him again — how precious! ❤ ❤ ❤
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