Akts^Entertainment
Condition forces singer to reflect on life
‘Hunk of metal’
won’t hold back
Millions’ Allison
By Stacey McKenzie
Senior Reporter
Bright spotlights define Lori
Allison as she floats across the stage,
her hands saying nearly as much as
her clarion voice docs when she sings
for The Millions.
On July 21, Allison saw a bright
light like none she’d ever seen in her
lifetime of singing and performing.
There was no audience to connect
with beyond the light. She fcltcontcnt
and passive.
“It was very, very warm and bright.
Extremely warm and bright. I couldn’t
sec anything but bright light. I felt like
I was watching something, but I never
ended up seeing anything.”
Luckily, Allison never saw any
thing beyond this light.
Medical personnel revived her be
fore she got the chance.
“You were flatline for 80 seconds,”
medical personnel at Bryan Memo
rial Hospital told her.
Allison’s heart had stopped during
a lest to check, as accurately as pos
sible, her blood pressure and heart
rate. Doctors were looking for the
cause of Allison’s recent fainting
spells.
“A minute and 20 seconds,” Allison
said. “My heart stopped. They had to
put adrenaline in my IV to make it
start again.”
For the test, Allison laid on a table
that was tilled bit-by-bit until it
reached a 60-dcgrcC angle. If apatient
faints at that angle, there is a problem.
Allison did more than faint, she
had no pulse at all. Eighty seconds is
Michelle Paulman/DN
Lori Allison of The Millions says she thinks about her mortality more now “or in a different way”
after a near-death experience when her heart stopped for 80 seconds.
a record—as lar as her doctor knows.
When she woke up, she was cry
ing, and her head throbbed.
“And then (medical personnel) told
me I needed a pacemaker, and I was
very, very angry — very angry. I’m
26. I don’t particularly like to do
things lomy body that aren’t natural.”
That afternoon, a pacemaker —
squarish and slightly bigger than a
silver dollar — was inserted under
Allison’s skin over her left pectoral
muscle. She stayed in the hospital for
four days.
Her hospitalization “did freak out
the band,” she said.
Band members told Allison not to
worry aboutpraclicingand look nearly
a two-month break.
Looking back, Allison said she had
fainted twice when she was a child.
But it wasn’t until last year that the
fainting spells became more frequent.
They usually happened at night.
“I’d wake up, feel really weird,
and then I’d disappear. And then I’d
come back. Just very short, short th ings
— not very long.”
In January, as The Millions drove
home from the Kansas City airport
after a New Year’s Eve gig in Las
Vegas, Allison fainted—three times.
The spells each lasted 15 to 20
seconds, she said,“and that’s the long
est it ever happened.”
The attacks looked like seizures to
the band. No one could find her pulse.
When the band pulled its van over,
she said, “I thought I was upside
down.
“When your brain has the oxygen
cut off long enough, your body can
react in a seizure, and that’s what my
body did.
“So, when we got home, talking to
the doctors, they decided that it was a
seizure disorder — justly.”
- But the doctors were wrong.
Allison has a rare condition called
vaso depressor syncope, wh ich means
a nerve that should tell the heart to
speed up instead is telling it to slow
down.
A month after Allison got her pace
maker, she did another tilt-table lest.
“And I didn’t faint,” she said. “It
felt like I was going to, but it didn’t
happen, and it was really weird, and il
was great.”
After about two months of recov
ery, Allison is back at it, rehearsing
with the band about four times a week
and working full-time ata health food
store.
The Millions, a collcgc-altcma
tivc group that saw Hashes of stardom
with its release “Mis for MILLIONS,”
is working on a new demo tape and
shopping around for a new record
label.
“We’re looking at everyone — in
the world,” she said. “And we really
haven’t heard anything yet, it takes a
long lime, though.”
Despite what Allison calls the
“hunk of metal” in her chest, she isn’t
holding back when she performs.
Her expressive style is still there.
“I’vc got to kind of watch it and not
overdo it. I totally am a spa/..
“After we played at Duffy’s, I was
totally sore. I totally overdid it.”
A ILn/vn 4/A/in nnl I'n/All I II ikot
nilMV/ll UUVJ * ivy t rvi ivy tt miiui vuuv7VM
her condition.
“Maybe my body grew into this.
It’s nothing I could have prevented.”
The pacemaker is unnatural, and
somewhat of a nuisance. She has to
have it checked about every three
months. The pacemaker’s battery
might have to be replaced in seven
years.
“I don’t have to stay away from
microwaves or anything like that, just
arc welding and giant generators, like
dams.”
For all the troubles, the pacemaker
is a lifesaver.
“That’s the thing that freaks me
out,” she said. “Sometimes I just think,
'I rely on this for my life.’ You know,
I feel trapped by it sometimes. I have
little panic attacks where my heart..
. I can feel it beating, and it just freaks
me out.
“Hopefully I’ll gel used to it.”
Seeing the bright light has made
her question her mortality with more
depth and frequency.
“Sometimes I wonder, 'Am I re
ally supposed to be here, or not?’
“There I am. I’m still here. And I
should be.”
Courtesy of RCA Records
Tvler Collins brings her soul/funk sound to her second
album, "Tyler."
Collins combines past, present
for successful second album
one ot the weaker songs on Tyler.”
PPaiIpaaIa “Pain” is a track that has a ’70s
sound. The slower tracks and the in
strumentation — updated with the
’90s rap style provided by Stetsasonic
Tyler Collins front man Daddy-0 — makes this
“Tyler” song appealing.
RCA Records The sound Collins is aiming for
works, partially because her voice is
In 1990, Tyler Collins’ debut LP, not particularly high. Her low voice
‘‘Girls Nile Out,” spawned the hit blends well with the ’70s funk style
single, “Girls Nile Out,” and now she artists such as Sly Slone and George
is back with her second effort. Clinton made popular.
“Ty ler” i s Coll ins ’ altcm pt to prove When the ’ 70s sound i s pai red w i th
she is just not a one-hit-wonder artist the sound of today, the result usually
and is here to stay. is a good product, and that is what
The first release from this album, Collins has done.
“It Doesn’ t Matter,” sounds more like Collins docs show she can step into
a Wilson Phillips tune than it docs a -r
Tyler Collins song. This is probably See TYLER on 7
Artist strives for perfect beauty
as moonlighting plastic surgeon
Brian D’Amato
“Beauty”
Delacorte Press
By Sam Kepfield
Staff Reporter
What is beauty? And why do
women claim it doesn’t matter but
still go to ridiculous extremes to look
like all those anorexic models in Vogue
i or Glamour?
These are a few of the questions
Brian D’Amato attempts to answer in
“Beauty.”
Jamie Angelo, the protagonist, is
an artist who moonlights by perform
ing a revolutionary form of plastic
surgery using artificial skin.
He tries it out on famous actresses.
He converts a homely wallflower into
a superstar model.
His dabbling in creating beauty
leads him, naturally, to create the
Perfect Woman.
Angelo finds Jaishrcc, a struggling
model, and persuades her to become
his masterpiece. And she is,naturally,
a hit with the fashion world.
Until the experiment goes wrong,
polluted by oneofAngelo’scollcagucs
to get a monopoly on the process. He
is forced to go on the run, racing
toward an ironic and powerful end-'
ing.
For a first novel, D’Amato shows
i_!_IA_m i
Courtesy of Delacorte Press
Brian D'Amato’s first novel, “Beauty," was released this
month.
promise. But the pace of the book is
uneven. Where it excels is with his
describing the process, and Angelo’s
ruminations on beauty. The last 20
pages arc gripping.
The middle sags, though, from
sheer excess. If the reader is unfamil
iar with New York City art or fashion
worlds from the pages of the New
Yorker or Vogue, then certain stretches
of the book will seem to be gratuitous
name-dropping.
The reader may not even recog
nize the names, and skim over them
like the polysyllabic monstrosities
found in Russian novels.
However, if one can bear up
through the wine and cheese parties,
receptions and fashion shows, then
the book is an entertaining read.