Young, probably in my twenties in this dream, I was outside with my wife and some friends. Sunshine bathed us in what felt like a warm, beautiful day.
An unknown and unseen man was telling me that he had a car for me. Excitement growing, I laughed and joked about what kind of car this guy was giving me when I looked across the way and saw the front end and passenger compartment of a red Dino Ferrari 246 GTS.
Gasping, I asked, “Is that the car?”
See, the Dino 246 (pictured in photos) was released in 1969. I was thirteen and had discovered sports car and Formula 1 racing. When the car came out, I found it stunning. Even better, a few years later, the 246 GTS was released. This was a targa version of the same car. I’m embarrassed to admit how much I studied and drooled over photos of this car. Eventually, a plastic model was purchased and put together, and the model found space on my bedroom shelves.
But the unseen man said, “No, that’s not it.”
Disappointment staggered me. Then he indicated a black 246 GTS sitting elsewhere. “That’s your car.”
Ecstasy fluttered through me as I goggled at the gleaming black gem of machinery. The man was explaining, “It’s not a 246, but an Evo.” Even as he spoke, I saw the flares that marked the Evo. Evos privately reworked Dinos with upgraded engines and mechanical gear, and not a targa, but a fixed top.
I couldn’t believe that this beautiful car was to be mine. I asked about it a dozen different ways and the man repeatedly assured me, “That’s your car.” Most of the rest of the dream was spent riding around in the car with my wife, showing it off to people and explaining what it was.
But then came a moment when I’d parked the car and found a man with a petrol hose in his hand standing by it. Going to him, I questioned him and discovered that he planned to dose the car with gasoline and set it on fire. I firmly told him, “You are not setting my car on fire.” My voice and words were enough to send him hustling and stumbling away. I then had to explain to others who came up what had transpired as the man with the hose watched from a distance. Seeing him watching, I thought, I’m taking my car and leaving.
With a blue sky lightly skewed with faint white clouds stretched across it, we’re continuing a mild weather trend. Woke up to 33 F in Ashlandia, where the coffee houses are warm and the coffee is above average. We still haven’t had any snow on the valley floor. I think we’ve usually had some snow by now during my eighteen winters here. Won’t get any today, as stagnant air keeps clouds from coming in and the clouds already here aren’t up to dropping snow. Our temperature will test the upper fifties before the sun’s influence capitulates to the Earth’s turn.
This is Saturday, December 16, 2023.
A busy day is planned for us. Besides the usual ration of Saturday writing, errands, shopping, and chores, we’re attending the Broadway Dancers and their annual flash mob presentation on the downtown plaza. A few friends are in the ensemble, and it’s fun watching their energetic precision presentations. Later, we’re joining friends at their house for a traditional Swedish smorgasbord. Should be fab.
For reasons known only to The Neurons, I’ve got “Heart Full of Soul” by the Yardbirds in my morning mental music stream (Trademark dated). The Neurons are full of secrets and surprises but this one wins the prize. Minding my own business as I did morning things involving the floofs, I found lyrics going through my head. After a few minutes of listening and following the crumbs The Neuons dropped, I recognized the 1965 song. Its presence truly mystifies me. I don’t think I’ve heard it in decades, but I vividly remember my older sister playing the 45 on her little record player. The guitar sound mesmerized me. I didn’t know the group at all then but later learned who they were, and that the guitarist on that song was Jeff Beck.
Stay pos and free, be strong and brave, and keep leaning forward. I’ve got enough coffee in me already that I’m doing those things, at least until the caffeine wears out. Here’s the music video. Cheers
Chilly 34 F this morning, but sunshine and blue sky rule the space above the trees and mountains around Ashlandia, where the service is above average and the menus are varied. Peak temperature will be 56 F. Unlike yesterday, spring isn’t hovering in the air; it is a hazy shade of winter.
Today is Friday and this is December 15, 2023. We’re halfway through December once we pass midday. But sixteen days remain for 2023. 2024 is coming. So is winter for us in the northern hemisphere. I’m really surprised by how little snow has visited us here. That doesn’t bode well for next year’s water supply.
I don’t think I mentioned that we made our crock pot candy the other night. Pounds of nuts, bark, peanut butter chips, and milk and semi-sweet chocolate melted and stirred together and then plopped out on wax paper. Well, from many pounds of ingredients comes many pounds of candy. We bagged them up in a seasonal look and shared with others. Fourteen of my beer drinkin’ friends were gifted the treats. My wife calls them addictive. Several recipients emailed me to agree, and some even called them divine. Just tastes like the old Goo-Goo Clusters to me, minus the middle maple or vanilla.
Musically, The Neurons have surprised me with a gift song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark digitized) from an album by The Who, Quadrophenia, which was released in 1973, yeah, fifty years ago. Today’s song is “The Real Me”, a classic Who rocker — loud guitars, screaming vocals, and lots of drumming, but this one features the bassist, Entwhistles, basically doing lead guitar guitar on his bass. So cool to a teenager about to breach adulthood, and I still enjoy it. I also included a cut from the movie which resulted from the album.
The song choice by my head makes sense though in the context of our times. We always want to know who are celebrities are and what they’re really like. Beyond pop culture, we’re hunting the truth in our political leaders, too. Many will claim to be one thing, claiming they’re compassionate and religious and go to church regularly, regaling us with tales of principles and bravery, but their actions betray their claims. Meanwhile, others are maligned, being called liars and criminals despite lack of evidence. And then we meet people, or have relationships with others in which it seems like something shady is going on. Can I see the real you? I don’t know; many have become clever chameleons.
Be brave and strong and true and positive. Lean forward as others have done in our past to bring about better terms and conditions for living the best way possible. Keep advancing.
Here’s the music. There’s my coffee. Hey, ho, let’s go. Blitzkrieg Friday. Cheers
I realized after a conversation last night that I was taught to hold the door for others — man, woman, child, animal; say please and thank you; always put the toilet seat down; and clean up after yourself.
I think about them as I do them, and why I do them. What I like best is that others usually thank me for holding the door, and others often hold the door for me. That’s the kind of place I’d like us to be. At least it’s a start. Then we can build off that.
Today is Thursday, December 14, 2023, but when I walked outside with the cats this morning, it felt like we’d leaped forward into spring outside. Nothing was in bloom but the air carried spring’s sass with sunshine, a blue-ish sky featuring a bevy of small white and gray clouds that looked like turtles reflecting dawn’s light, and 46 F. Then I sneezed several times like allergies had kicked in.
Celebrated a friend’s seventieth last night with her and other friends. Now retired, she’s a world-renown forensics expert in hair and fur. Egged on by two former work colleagues present, themselves forensics experts, she shared interesting tales with us. Entertaining time was had by all.
I have an unusual song circulating the morning mental music stream (Trademark buried). For reasons which they won’t reveal, “Walk Right In” is playing in my head. This is the 1963 cover by The Rooftop Singers. I had to wiki that. The song was written by Gus Cannon in and recorded by Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers, a man and group I didn’t know of until I read it today. Mom used to play the song on her record player and sing along. The words are simple:
Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout a new way of walkin’ Do you want to lose your mind? Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on
Walk right in, sit right down Baby, let your hair hang down Walk right in, sit right down Baby, let your hair hang down Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout a new way of walkin’ Do you want to lose your mind? Walk right in, sit right down Baby, let your hair hang down
All my life, though, I wondered, what is the new way of walkin’? I remembered asking Mom and hearing laughter in response, which just vexed the hell out of me. I guess some things will always be a mystery.
I know that Dr Hook covered it later but it’s The Rooftop Singers delivering to the mmms, so I stayed with them.
Stay strong, be positive, lean forward, and enjoy the video. Coffee is in me and driving me to get up and go. Once I’m done in the bathroom, I’m out the door to the writing day. Here’s the music. You have a good one. Cheers
First, it’s a longer post than usual for me. Politics drive it. Let’s get into it.
34 F greeted me in Ashlandia, where the sunshine is bright, and winters are above average. Blue skies, wind, and sunshine followed us into this Tuesday, December 12, 2023. Already 53 F, a high of 55 F is being suggested.
I’m disgusted, again, with political news. My focus now is on Texas. My major concern focuses on the anti-abortion farce in red states, and the bullshit about the issue which they spread. Texas under the GOP often competes with Florida is spreading the most disgusting bullshit. They succeeded this time with the case of Kate Cox. Pregnant, a mother of two and resident of Texas, her physician informed her that her fetus had trisomy 18. She was told her fetus had malformations of the spine, heart, brain and limbs.
What mother wants to hear that? A devastating diagnosis, most trisomy 18 pregnancies end in stillbirths. Infants born alive with this diagnosis endure anguished lives, which are often short and painful.
But those paragons of virtue we know as the Texas GOP knows better than doctors, unintentionally ironic. Remember how Republicans always insisted that ACA, or Obamacare, would have death panels if it was instituted. Yeah, look who insists on death panels now. That’d be you, Republicans. This is their interpretation of ‘right to life’; so long as your right belongs to them, they’ll decide who lives and dies.
Observers outside of the magic conspiracy cone where Republicans often now live expected this. We all know from experience that the right wing loves to project what it does on others. Just read almost anything that Donald Trump, a documented liar now in court for fraud and other crimes, says about lying and fraud. Remember when he said anyone being investigated by the FBI is unworthy of being POTUS. *chuckle*. Now that it’s him, it’s a witch-hunt being conducted by the deep state. The deep state is the GOP’s favorite boogeyman, their reason for anything happening against them.
Kate Cox was also told that if she continued her pregnancy, it posed threats to her health and was at risk of losing her future fertility.
Nonsense, those learned doctors on the Texas Supreme Court said, denying Kate Cox an abortion. She’d, fortunately, felt how the wind was blowing and vacated Texas to get the modern health care needed in a more advanced state than Texas, which would be every blue state.
What pisses me off as much as the stance taken by these cruel Texan frauds is that back when all these harsh anti-abortion bills were passed, those outside of the GOP conspiracy bubble had foreseen the shit that went down in Texas. We were revolted when Texas pretended to care about the mother’s health and exigent circumstances because we knew Texas Republicans were not the flexible, thoughtful, compassionate, and intelligent people their exemption bill needed them to be. And they proved so at the first opportunity.
Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, horror stories started emerging of women denied medically urgent abortions for pregnancies gone dangerously awry. In response, the anti-abortion movement developed a sort of conspiracy theory to rationalize away the results of their policies.
Abortion rights activists, they argued, were deliberately misconstruing abortion laws, leading doctors to refuse to treat women who obviously qualified for exceptions. “Abortion advocates are spreading the dangerous lie that lifesaving care is not or may not be permitted in these states, leading to provider confusion and poor outcomes for women,” said a report by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute. The Catholic conservative Richard Doerflinger accused “pro-abortion groups” of spreading “false and exaggerated claims in order to ‘paralyze’ physicians and discredit the laws.”
Whether this argument stemmed from genuine denial or a cynical desire to mislead the public, a shattering case in Texas shows how absurd it is. Late last month, Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, learned that her latest, much-wanted pregnancy was doomed because of a severe genetic disorder. If the pregnancy continued, she was likely to have a stillbirth, and if she didn’t, the baby had virtually no chance of surviving long outside the womb.
She’d made several trips to the emergency room for severe cramping and what seemed to be leaking amniotic fluid. Her doctor told her that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her future fertility, and Cox very much wants more children. So she, her husband and her doctor sued the state, seeking a court order to allow her to terminate her pregnancy in Texas. If the Texas abortion ban had workable medical exceptions, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t apply to Cox. But it doesn’t, and the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, fought the Cox family and their doctor every step of the way.
Goldberg elaborates on what Kate Cox did chasing the exemption and pursuing the best outcome for her and her fetus, and concludes —
An irony here is that if the State Supreme Court had allowed Cox to end her pregnancy in Texas, it might have benefited hard-line abortion opponents. Were the state to codify clear exemptions for people in extreme medical distress, offering a sliver of mercy to women like Zurawski and Cox, its callous abortion ban might seem slightly more politically palatable. That, after all, is why abortion opponents falsely insist that such clarity already exists.
But right-wing politicians and those who support them would rather inflict unimaginable suffering on women than relax the tiniest bit of control over their medical decisions. I asked Duane if any anti-abortion groups had filed amicus briefs on Cox’s behalf. I wasn’t surprised that the answer was no.
Exactly.
In a tangent, I remember being horrified by what Donald J Trump declared when running for POTUS in 2016. There were some who suggested that he’d be different if he won because the office changed the person in it.
They were fucking wrong. All of us with eyes could clearly see what he would be. We were right, and we’re right now: his chuckling, aw-shucks comments about only be a dictator on the first day in office is total bullshit. That’s exactly what he wants.
By the way, in other Texas political news, Republicans have been battling to limit what moderators can do on Reddit. They passed HB20 in 2022. From CNN/Business:
Texas officials passed HB 20 last year amid allegations that tech platforms unfairly censor conservative speech. Social media companies have widely denied the claims, but the Texas law imposes sweeping obligations on platforms, prohibiting them from moving to “block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.”
Mainstream legal experts have said if HB 20 survives legal challenge, tech companies would be forced to host spam, hate speech, pornography and other legal-but-problematic material on their platforms in order to comply with the text of the law. It could also serve as a blueprint for other states. More broadly, they have said, letting the government force private parties to host speech would reverse decades of First Amendment precedent, which has held that the government may not compel private speech.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the court ruling in a tweet, saying: “I just secured a MASSIVE VICTORY for the Constitution & Free Speech in fed court: #BigTech CANNOT censor the political voices of ANY Texan!”
Let’s pause to savor Paxton’s celebration for the Constitution and Free Speech for a few moments.
More evident of GOP hypocrisy and double standards, to me.
I’ve had three songs taking turns in the morning mental music stream (Trademark stolen by the deep state). First up was, “I’ll Do Anything” from the musical Oliver! No audit trail showed up to inform me why that song was in the stream.
The next came up in parallel to feeding the cats and was less of a surprise, as it was “My Floof” based on the song, “My Girl”, written by Smoky Robinson and Ronald White, and originally performed by The Temptations back in 1965. “My Floof” was performed by me and the Flooftations in my sunlit kitchen. Sorry, no videos exist.
Finally, though, Jackson Browne was singing “Doctor, My Eyes” from 1972, when I was in high school. The Neurons explained, the reason for this song’s presence in the morning mental music stream is simple and drawn right from the lyrics:
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying Now I want to understand I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding You must help me if you can
Alright, I’ve vented enough. Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward. Coffee is being served, and I shall partake. Have the best day you can muster. Here’s the music. Cheers
Good morning. Today is Saturday, December 2, 2023.
I am so aggrieved today. Not due to the weather. 41 F with a high of 48 F in our sights, it’s been raining, and snow tops the northern ridge that marks our valley’s boundary. So, the weather is standard late fall trope for our area, cold, misty, dull and wet, something worthy of being the backdrop for a dystopian trudge as the earth’s course leads us around the sun and into winter.
No, the issue is that it is December and the parties and activities commence. We’re due to appear at several already, all due to my enchanting wife, who has a strong friend base who likes her and enjoys her presence. As several are couples things, I’m invited, too. I know most of the people, so they’re not strangers, and I want to be the right person, supportive of her as she is for me, but that means leaning way out of my preferred mode of being alone and writing. It also means I must play reindeer games, the term I coined decades ago for cleaning up and dressing up for December parties and activities. Top of the list is a haircut. After being required to have haircuts all the time for the military and then frequently when I was in marketing, I dislike worrying about my appearance. I tell her that I don’t need a haircut because I’ll be with her, and everyone will be looking at her, but she’s adamant that because I’m beside her, I must look pretty, so I will do so.
Yes, on the one hand, I’m being petty, complaining about being forced out to social engagements, truly a first world whine. On the other hand, going to these things is completely against my nature, and uncomfortable for me because I’m socially awkward. Yeah, that’s my problem.
Today’s music starts with making the cats’ brekkie. I’m cleaning bowls when The Neurons remind me of the movie, Twins, with Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny DeVito as the starring twins. From there, The Neurons poured the airplane scene where Arnold’s character has left his island home and is off to find his twin. Exposed for the first time to rock and roll, he’s listening on headphones and singing, “Yakey Yak” out loud, disturbing/slash amusing the other passengers. Now that’s song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark cyclical).
The song by the Coasters came out a few years after I was born in the late 1950s. I guess I heard it on the car radio, and the melody, lyrics, and voices appealed to me, because those words are seared in my mind. Some of them were used by Mom, “Don’t you give me a dirty look,” or variations such as, “Don’t give me that look.” She also liked to sing the song to me when I went to her with a request sometimes, depending on her mood.
Lean forward, be positive, and stay strong. Happy holidays. Just had my Saturday morning coffee. Here’s the music. I’m off to get a haircut. Cheers
Today is December 1, 2023. It’s Friday in Ashlandia, where the rain pours down like it’s Okinawa. We used to get some mighty downpours there.
Let me pause here to go turn over the wall calendar’s page. Made by Pete Lyons, it’s devoted to the racing I watched and followed when I was a teenager.
So it’s cold, 38 F, and rain comes down at an unrelenting pace. Wonder comes, will the sky ever run out of rain, which triggers story ideas to muse over as I feed the cats and sip my coffee. Then it’s to the news, where two large stories dominate in the morning cycle
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor died, and Rep. George Santos was expulsed from the US House of Representatives. Both are news of a historic nature. Justice O’Conner was the first woman appointed to the SCOTUS. Took just over two hundred years from the time the court was established in the early days. Progressives like me were pleased because, hey, a woman has finally arrived in a place of power and respect in the US government, but also dismayed because she’s white and conservative. Can’t have everything.
At least O’Connor upheld Affirmative Action, and ended up supporting Roe v. Wade when its foundation was challenged. In the 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, three conservative, Republican-appointed justices, surprised us with an opinion that reaffirmed the “core” of the 1973 precedent. It was an interesting opinion as they said that overtuning the precedent in the face of 1992’s political pressure would cause “both profound and unnecessary damage to the court’s legitimacy, and to the nation’s commitment to the rule of law.” That seems like what we’ve seen with Roe v. Wade being overturned by the current court, as it’s polarized the nation’s politics in a massive way and has many wondering about the SCOTUS court and its legitimacy, fearing that it’s become thorughly politicized by the right wing.
Much of my memory about O’Connor’s rulings and point of view was aided by the NYTimes’ story about her today. I thought this paragraph gave a good overarching summary of some of Justice O’Connor’s position on the matter of separation of church and state in a 2005 case.
In a 2005 case, McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, she joined a 5-to-4 majority in invalidating the display of framed copies of the Ten Commandments on the walls of courthouses in Kentucky. Respect for religious pluralism had served the country well in contrast to other societies, she wrote in a concurring opinion, adding, “Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”
As for George Santos, he’d been found to have told so many outrageous lies while practicing both shady campaign finances and personal finances, a plurality of the House Representativs finally decided it was enough and booted him. Those of us on the left cheer, “About damn time.” We felt he should never have been elected and his expulsion should’ve happened long before this, but at least it has happened.
Today’s theme music is rooted in last night. Looking at the clock as I was reading, I realized it was coming up o midnight. I thought, I’ll wait until midnight, and then get up and yadda, yadda, yadda. When I did get up to get ready for bed a few minutes post midnight, The Neurons began spinning “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett, where it remains in the morning mental music stream (Trademark floundering). The song came out in 1965 (I looked it up), when I was nine. I don’t know when I first heard it, but it’s woven into my musical being as part of what shapes me. It comes on, and my head bops and my body sways. I snap my fingers to the beat, and sing the lyrics.
Stay positive, lean forward, and be strong. I’ve been drinking coffee, and I’m verge of finishing my morning cuppa. Here’s the video. Cheers
It’s Wednesday, November 29, 2023. If you’re counting the days, November has just one more, and then December steps up to assert her presence.
A hazy shade of winter rules out there, even though it’s technically still autum, with gray cotton-candy clouds smothering sunshine and blue sky. Temperature has climbed to 35 F from the overnight low of 28 F at my house. Still dry, we still have a stagnant air warning. The air quality is moderately down because people are using their fireplaces and much of the smoke stays in the area, affecting breathing, eyes, etc.
My wife made me laugh last night. She frequently does, although the way I put, it sounds like a rare thing. Anyway, the cats had me surrounded, one on the floor beside me to my left, one beside the computer on the desk, paw on mouse to my right. I was mildly complaining about them because I was trying to get something done and they were hampering me. “Look how they look at you,” she said. “They’re like, he’s so dreamy.” LOL
Politics influenced The Neurons and their music choice today. Is that a surprise? My wife was The Neurons’ influencer. Trump and his supporters dismay her. She’s a lifelong feminist and social activist, with a long history of standing up for others and fighting for change. So, after reading some Red State news to see what was going on there, she made comments along the lines of wishing Trump was gone. I later discovered I was humming a song to myself. When I stopped to challenge what it was, I couldn’t quit remember it, to The Neurons’ delight. But this morning, I thought about it again, and bang, “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” by The Byrds (1965) cranked up in the morning mental music stream (Trademark ancient).
I initially heard the song from AM radio when it came out when I was nine. Mom usually had music on in the car as we accompanied her when she was shopping and running errands. This being 1965 and later, the cars would’ve been her big white Chevy Impala convertible or her equally huge brown Buick LeSabre. Both had interiors the size of small living rooms, with steering wheels worthy of guiding the Titanic. While I heard it there, though, I learned the song more from my older sister. She had the album, Mr. Tambourine Man. I sharply remember its faded album cover, worn from being slid around. Her little record player was only good for 45s, so she had to ask Mom for permission to playher 33s on the big Magnavox console stereo in the living room, or take her albums to a friend’s house to play them. She played it often enough around me that I later played a bit of it on guitar when I began trying that instrument. Of course, Tom Petty did the song in 1989 on one of his albums, reviving memories of the original.
The song is a quite mellow folk-pop tune. The line in it behind the childhood connection and Trump and his hateful, authoritarian stances is, “And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone.” She and I agree that we will feel better when Trump is gone. Given his diet and overweight appearance, stress from campaigning for POTUS while screaming at people till he turns purple, all while enduring four trials, coupled with his denial about his health, she and I wouldn’t be surprised if a stroke or heart attack felled him within the next few months.
Stay pos, be strong, lean forward. Coffee is delighting my taste buds even as I write. Here’s the music. Cheers
Hello, and welcome to Saturday, November 25, 2023.
The rythm of days and nights, and darkness, sunshine, and weather continues in Ashlandia, where the nights are cold and the furnaces are working hard. Last night saw a delivery of 28 F, not bad if your usual is 0, but not pleasing if your usual lows are around 33, which is our range. It’s 43 F now with the weather wizards telling us that a scorching 53 F is within reach today. It is blue sky, sunny, and dry.
Coming home from Friendsgiving on Thursday night, I called up some of Mom’s old sayings she used as we drove home. Fer instance, the one about the little piggies going to the market, etc, ending with one going wee, wee, wee all the way home. Then Mom always like announcing, “Home, sweet home,” when we turned onto our road and our house came into view.
So I did those things Thursday night, annoying my wife. This sequence invited The Neurons to plug “Last Child” by Aerosmith from 1976 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark off) intermittently since then, because the chorus is “Home, sweet, home.” So that’s today’s theme song, with the video being an accoustic version.
Hope you have a tremendous day. Stay strong, be positive, and lean forward. Coffee drinking has commenced here; let’s hear the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 