Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I think today’s ancient rock song speaks to human history. Listen, and let me know if you agree. A sample verse:
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won’t have to follow me
Only you can set you free
You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be
Read more: Living Colour – Cult Of Personality Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Here’s Living Colour’s 1988 song, “Cult of Personality”.
I spread the good news to my friends. “Hey, the local WalMart supposedly has the latest manscaping products in stock, and it’s supposed to be the best!”
They, twelve retired professionals ranging in age from sixty to eighty-five, responded.
“What?”
“WalMart!”
“Manscaping.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I was not put off. I’d already talked to them about anal bleaching. They often overlook these fine points of pop-culture. I’m the chosen one to educate them.
Many immediately said, “We don’t shape at WalMart.”
I said, “You might need to change your ways, if you want the latest manscaping products suitable for urbane gents such as as yourselves.”
Bill laughed. “Manscaping! I don’t have the eyesight for that kind of thing. I’d be afraid of what I’m clipping.”
“Get your wife to help you,” I suggested. “You can make it a romantic evening.”
“A romantic evening of manscaping?” Joe asked.
“Yes. Light some candles and have a few glasses of wine, and then strip down, lay back on the bed, and let her groom you.”
Bill roared. “That’d be a bloody mess. Her eyesight is worse than me.”
Andy nodded. “Enough said. No one sees me naked and I’m not interested in landscaping myself just for the joy of it.”
“Someone change the subject,” Chris said.
“Hey,” I said, “did you hear about the new waxing place in town, just for men?”
Today’s song popped into my stream as I was walking and remembering my dreams. It’s a fitting rebellion song for teenagers, husbands, wives, dejected voters…whatever.
Dredged up from 1984, here’s Twisted Sister with “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. Sing out, dance out, flex, break out.
What do you want to do with your life?
Floofwork (floofinition) – Specific tasks at home related to having housepets, such as cleaning litter boxes and brushing animals’ fur coats.
In use: “Leaving the bedroom for the kitchen, she paused five times along the way to pick up clumps of fur. Five times. She was incredulous. She’d just picked up fur when she’d gone into the bedroom not three minutes ago. Floofwork never ended.”
He was reading Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, and enjoying it. His laptop was on in front of him on the desk, and the television was playing an old movie, Jumanji. Sunday evening multi-tasking at his finest, in his opinion, reaching for another piece of Colby and a cracker.
His shifting position let him see her in her armchair to his left. She was giving him a look. Having been together for fifty years, he’d developed insights into her looks. Although many would see it as outwardly little different from her other looks, small clues in lips, eyes, and her head’s posture led him along a diagnostic path that finished, she’s about to register a complaint.
A bright smile was flashed her way. “What’s up?” The cheese and cracker found his mouth. It was so good, he reached for more.
“You need a haircut, babe.”
He shrugged, prepared to return to his book. “You’re probably right.” She was, but he wasn’t going to be so bald about it.
“I don’t understand your attitude toward your hair. Have you seen yourself ? Your hair is an unkempt mess.”
“Unkempt mess, as opposed to a kempt mess? Is kempt a word? I should google that.”
“You look like a homeless bum.”
“Isn’t that redundant? If you have a home, can you — ”
“Don’t change the subject. My point is that your hair is a mess. What’s with you and your hair?”
“Well, my philosophy is simple.” Raising a glass of pinot noir in her direction, he smiled. “Hair today, gone tomorrow.”
She was not amused.
Today’s song is a natural for the times. I started to add, IMO – in my opinion – but isn’t that redundant? This is my post, so it should be my opinion. Yet, I took the time to writesplain that to you.
Ten Years After released “I’d Love to Change the World” in 1971 as a response to the violence, protests, emerging counter-culture, resistant establishment, and war. Gosh, does any of that have any echos in today’s world? Naw, probably just me.
Like most of TYA’s offerings, the song features some powerful Alvin Lee guitar work, which is always good to hear. Beyond the rock essence of guitar and dream, these lyrics, and how they’re presented in the song, plaintive, accepting, and reflective, spoke to me as a fifteen-year-old when the song came out, but still talks to me as a sixty-three-year-old.
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do.
So I’ll leave it up to you.
I think most of us want to change the world. We also know what to do, but it’s an embattled, relentless, and exhausting process. It seems more so in the Internet era, where lies and bullshit gains instant traction and never seems to die, like the Terminator rising again and again.
So I’ll leave it up to you.
