Month: September 2017

Today’s Theme Music

Sentimentality creeps up on me again.

As I was walking, reflecting on my dreams, and writing in my head, a voice slipped past the disparate, disorganized words. Drizzle stole in past trees and fresh, cool air invited me out of myself. Looking around, I thought, “What a wonderful world this can be.”

Not always, mind you. Yeah, we know. We’ve seen the images and we’re still reading the stories.

Of course, the voice I was hearing was Louis Armstrong singing “What A Wonderful World.” Armstrong recorded and released it in nineteen sixty-seven. I first heard it before I was a teenager, but it leaped back into public awareness with the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam,” in nineteen eighty-seven. Serving in the Air Force and stationed in Germany, I saw it in a theater at Rhein-Main Air Base. “What A Wonderful World” was a sobering moment in the film, as the music was juxtaposed against the young military and the weapons of war. Of course, this is a flawed moment; “Good Morning, Vietnam” was set in nineteen sixty-five. “What A Wonderful World” came out two years later. It works, despite that flaw.

Life moves on. Rhein-Main Air Base closed. My unit and its mission, spying against the Soviet Union, is gone, as are the Soviets. We’ve lost Louis Armstrong and Robin Williams, but I’m part of an era where technology saves us from depending on memories alone, allowing us to more sharply and accurately revisit our past.  So, here it is again, “What A Wonderful World.”

 

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My 9/11

My memory of 9/11/2001. We watched television all day, looking for updates, watching the other attacks, and waiting for more attacks. Later in the week, spinning and misinformation began. We became very familiar with the name Osama Bin Laden and the group called Al Qaida.

Most believed the attacks of 9/11 were going to end up with America going to war. The Bush administration seemed giddy about the prospect. We didn’t know how much war would result. The wars continue. I can’t see the end game to it. Lives have been lost and destroyed. People have been maimed and injured. The attacks of 9/11 and our response still split our definition of what America is, and strives to be. Since 9/11, we’ve spiraled into fear. The fear is often stoked to manipulate voters, priorities, and patriotism.

President Bush started the wars. Some will argue OBL started it; some will argue it began with the first Persian Gulf War. Others will point to its origins as the period when the CIA armed and trained OBL and his followers in their battle against the Soviets. Others will say it began when the Brits carved up the middle east after World War I. Whenever it began, President Obama failed to end it; I have doubts that President Trump will succeed. I doubt his interest in ending it.

It’s a sad part of our history of secrets, revenge, and power.

Michael Seidel's avatarMichael Seidel, writer

My wife always wondered why I was up then.

I was three months into a new job, living in Half Moon Bay, California. And for some reason, on that day, I did things I didn’t do on other days. For some reason, I awoke at 5 AM. False dawn was leaning in the windows. I went downstairs. I turned on the television. Settling myself on the sofa, I turned on CNN.

All those things are contrary to my usual routines. I rarely watch TV before 6 PM, and don’t typically watch CNN. But there I was, lying on the couch, watching history. The first aircraft had struck one building. I realized the second plane had struck before the commentators as I watched the live feed.

My wife asks me, “Why were you up? Why did you turn on the television, and CNN? That’s totally unlike you.”

And I answer honestly…

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Today’s Theme Music

A memory stays with me.

The lights are low and the music is loud. I’m with friends at one of their houses, in my late teens, in the military, essentially, an adult now tasting the spectrum of responsibility by doing whatever I wanted because I was now an adult, and adults can do whatever they want, aslongaswedon’thurtanyonebreakanylawsrulesorregulationsandshowupforworkontime.

I was a responsible rebel.

So this song, “Fox On the Run,” is playing. Someone asks, “Who is this?” I answer, “Sweet.” We shout to be heard.

He looks at me and says, “Sweet what?”

“Sweet,” I answer.

“Sweet what?” he asks.

Catching that he doesn’t understand as others laugh, I say, “The group is called Sweet.”

“Oh,” he says. “I thought you were saying sweet.”

“I was.” That fired a neuron onto a axon. From it, I proclaim, “We’re all always seeking the sweet spot.”

That gains laughter. “You’re crazy,” others agree.

“Probably,” I agree.

Here is “Fox on the Run,” from nineteen seventy-four. It’s by Sweet.

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Prepped

I’ve been writing in my head all morning. Now, here I am, coffee at hand, computer set up, ready to write. I feel like a little stopped up from all the mental writing.

That’s a perfect lead to my dream last night. It was all about a foreign woman trying to marry me — though she was married to another man, and he was present, and I am married, and my wife was there — my efforts to dissuade her, and then, my adventures with a toilet.

My recent dreaming has been a dream process. For the last twelve days, I’ve been awakening, remembering my dreams, and then knowing what they meant. Some of them were very specific about what to do with health issues, such as a foot bothering me. Others were about writing, and what I should do about something troubling me. I can tell you, and you can appreciate, it feels amazing to have such dreams.

So, last night’s dream was a little bit of a letdown. What especially troubled me was the end, when I was sitting on a commode and using it, and it started going forward. It was like I was riding a riding mower, except it was a toilet. After rolling the dream details around in my head down halls designed by M.C. Escher, I told my spouse the dream. She instantly provided a very satisfying explanation.

Okay, got that out of me. Now, for the rest. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s theme song comes from last night’s activities. We attended the Rock the Resistance last night, an Indivisible fund raiser for Oregon District Two. Local talent performed. We have terrific local talent, like the Rogue Suspects, LEFT, and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. One of the songs performed was “Higher Ground.”

Written and recorded by Stevie Wonder in nineteen seventy-three, when I was still getting my eyes opened in high school, it’s an uplifting song, perfect for a fund-raiser supporting the “Resist!” movement. While dancing, singing along, and sipping a beer, I thought of the rest of the world. War in Myanmar. Flooding in Asia. Evacuations for Hurricane Irma. Eyes on Hurricane Jose. Texas and Louisiana recovering from Hurricane Harvey. Mexico recovering from an earthquake. Wars on going on everywhere, driving people from their lands into a search for safety, and wild fires burning in Canada, America’s Pacific Northwest, and California. It’s a mess, ain’t it?

It ain’t new. All these things have always been going on. War, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes have always been with us.

One hundred years ago, in nineteen seventeen, learning about other’s catastrophe and trying to help them out would have taken some time. Now, updates come by the second via digital channels, satellites, and social media, and connect us to one another.

Watching disasters and wars on my monitors and televisions while sipping coffee at home demonstrates how fast technology has outraced our thinking, culture, and politics. We’re together but isolated. We don’t need to be. Dare I say that we need a significant paradigm shift?

Yes. Technology is going to keep racing by. And look how much of it is conceived and designed in one locale, manufactured in another location, and sold and used in other places. We need each other. Meanwhile, countries are starting to man the borders to shut others out. It’s backward behavior. Fear drives many of these actions. Hatred contributes, and ignorance amplifies and sustains this backward behavior.

We’re one world. We’re one tribe. We keep spiting others, and end up spiting ourselves. Come on, people, we need to get our shit together. Time to start trying, and keep on trying, until we reach a higher ground. That’s the paradigm shift needed: we need to stop thinking in terms of nations, and think in terms of people, without regard for anything except that we’re all people.

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Today’s Theme Music

I’ve frequently reminisced in posts about songs I know and love from past eras. Each song tags itself to events going on then.

Today’s song is from the here and now. We’ve just ended a month of smoke from wildfires in Ashland. You either stayed inside, out of the smoke, or wore masks. The fires still burn and light smoke remains present, but rains scrubbed the worst smoke out of our air. I can only address our area, but I hope other areas have been pardoned from serving life with air hazardous to their health.

Life goes on. Refugees and survivors hunt safety, DACA is being strangled, the ACA is being stalked, towns and mountains burn in the American west, hurricanes pummel the east, and talk of nukes and military action ride the airwaves. This song, “Despacito,” by Luis Fonti, and featuring Daddy Yankee, provides a refreshing break from our twenty-first century Sturm and Drang.

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Blueberry

I was making a smoothie this morning. Spinach, banana, pear, blackberries, blueberries…well, you know what a smoothie is.

The blueberries were from the ones we’d picked and froze earlier this year. Opening the container lets out a burst of early summer scents.

I tipped the berries into a measuring cup. One berry remained in the original container. I tried shaking it out. Shouting, “Resist,” it hung on. I shook harder.

That didn’t help.

Resigned to using my fingers, I plucked it out. “For your reward, I’ll eat you alone.” He said nothing back. I popped him in my mouth.

He was a little bitter.

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