Category: childhood

Thursday’s Theme Music

Good morning, and welcome to the third rock from the sun. It’s Thursday, March 4, 2021. (I think — or so says my computer, calendar, and Fitbit, but can they be trusted? They could be part of the fake news conspiracy.) Sunrise was 6:42 AM in southern Oregon, and the solar orb will ‘set’ at 6:04 PM. (But it doesn’t really go anywhere, does it?) The temperature is already 53 degrees F (or so science claims, if you can believe it) on its way to a prediction of 64. (But then, what do they know?)

The Wayback Machine was fully engaged this morning. I’m embarrassed to admit the song I was singing was being sung to a cat. I was barely awake. The cat, Tucker, was on the pillow beside me, peering at me as his Mack truck purr rumbled through my bones. He was doing a little kneading. So I sang *ahem* “Boogie on reggae kitty. What is wrong with you? Boogie on reggae kitty. What you tryin’ to do?”

The cat liked it.

The song, of course, is “Boogie On Reggae Woman” by Stevie Wonder (1973), a fusion of funk and jazz that was part of the music happening of the popular music/classic rock era. I love the sound that Stevie brings. It’s sad that we don’t hear boogie mentioned often these days. Used to be, “You want to go boogie?” Or someone would say something and you’d reply, “Boogie on.” Feel me?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask and get the vax.

0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends. Today is Wednesday, March the third, 2021. The great ball of fire rose into our sky at 6:43 AM and will do its exit at 6:03 PM here in southern Oregon. Blue dominates the sky. Although the mercury is at 37 degrees F at this moment, yesterday it went to 63. We expect more of the same as we move through Fool’s Spring and creep back toward Late Winter, projected to hustle in next week.

An old David Bowie song needled its way out of the Wayback Machine into my mental stream this morning. “Fame” was a 1975 hit for Bowie. Bowie, Carlos Alomar, and John Lennon wrote it together. It was Bowie’s first number one hit in the U.S. I think “Fame” is an apt song for the current GOP in the U.S. as Trump sucks the life out of it. He doesn’t have a platform, just a crush of hate. If he weren’t wealthy and famous, he’d probably be locked up for his protection.

Fame (fame) makes a man take things over
Fame (fame) lets him lose hard to swallow
Fame (fame) puts you there where things are hollow
Fame (fame)
Fame not your brain it’s just the flame
That puts your change to keep you sane (sane)
Fame (fame)
Fame (fame) what you like is in the limo
Fame (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame (fame) what you need you have to borrow
Fame (fame)
Fame nein it’s mine is just his line
To bind our time it drives you to crime (crime)
Fame (fame)

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

Yeah, with Trump, what you get is no tomorrow. The gods know he’s had to borrow…

Okay, beat that to death. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask and get the vax.

Cheers

0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Greetings, earthlings. Take me to your coffee.

Today is Tuesday, March 2, 2021. Sunrise/sunset (which comes with its own song, if you think of it the right way) was/is at 6:45 AM and 6:02 PM here in southern Oregon. The current temperature is 35 degrees F. It’s already gone up five degrees in the hour and a half that I’ve been up. Surprised that it was that cold, TBH. Was forty-seven when I went to bed one-ish AM. But the big blinding eye in the sky is expected to take us to 65 today. Won’t knock that.

Weather and walking brings today’s song. While out yesterday, I contemplated the clouds and wondered if they were colluding to become something more than sun blockers. After that, my mind drifted to other things. I realized that I was humming a song. Dragging the melody out of the memory well put words to it.

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all *

Yeah, “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell. I wasn’t channeling the Joni Mitchell version, though, but the Judy Collins cover from 1968. Some mellow, folksy music, which goes well with my morning caffeine brew.

Stay pos., test neg., wear a mask, and get the vax. See you on the other side, whatever that is.

*h/t to JoniMitchell.com

0

Friday’s Theme Music

Friday, February 26, 2021, doesn’t look like a happy day. A flat pale gray blanket stretching to every corner covers the sky this morning. Temperature is 42 degrees F, so that’s not bad. Sunrise stole in with little ceremony at 6:51 AM. Sunset is due at 5:57 PM.

The Wayback Machine was fully activated, triggered by a Zoom call. I wasn’t on it, but lurking in the other room. The call was my wife’s dance class. One member said that the people on the call looked like the start of “The Brady Bunch”. Another suggested “Hollywood Squares”. A third mentioned “Laugh-In”.

The “Laugh-In” comment popped “sock it to me” into my head. Remember that phrase? Good possibility that you answered a resounding, “No.” Well, “sock it to me” was a popular humorous catchphrase in the late sixties. Seriously. It was like, “can’t touch this”, “where’s the beef”, and “whassup” in another decade, or “who let the dogs out?” The phrase was everywhere, in every context, and this was pre-net, pre-text, pre-video existence. At least three songs with the phrase climbed out of the Wayback Machine for my mental streaming pleasure. One had to the legs to keep my brain engaged.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Now, please enjoy Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels with their 1967 hit, “Sock It To Me-Baby”.

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Today is Thursday, February 25, 2021. Sunrise was at 6:53 AM and sunset comes at 5:56 PM. Sunset will soon be after 6 PM here in Ashland, 2021, which makes me happy. Of course, we’re barreling toward daylight savings time, that terrific day when we spring ahead one hour, losing one hour of sleep and one hour of late afternoon/evening sun. Yes, eventually, it catches up again, but I’d rather not endure it each year.

I was a child, emerging into my teenage years during the 1960s. That meant that the Beatles were the group I heard most. Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones…you know the list. The press was always atwitter over what any musical band was doing. That’s what pop culture is all about, innit? Movie stars had been dominating until then but the landscape was shifting.

Anyway, a song by the Beatles, “Hey Jude”, has captured the mental musical stream this morning, beginning to end. It’s one of those things — yeah, an earworm — where I believe that I must share it in order to save myself. Sorry.

This is a repeat. The song was selected as the day’s theme music back in 2016. At that time, I heard it on the store’s PA system. You know, stores like piping music in to create the right environment, set the shopping pace, distract shoppers, etc. On that day, “Hey Jude” was playing as I shopped. Most shoppers encountered were lipping the words or singing it to themselves. Imagination ran with it, creating a Broadway musical where we all come together in the aisles, singing and dancing. It would be an episode of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist these days.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Also, listen to this 1968 song. Cheers

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Good morning. Today is Sunday, Febraruary 14, 2021. Sunrise was at 7:09 AM. Gray paint has been spilled across the sky. Rain pummels our area. It’s 35 degrees F outside. Snow showers are expected, still we’re better off than in many places, where the snow is mounting like debt. Sunrise will be at 5:42 PM.

Today’s music is provided by Curtis Mayfield. “Move On Up” came out in 1971 but didn’t crack the charts in the US. That history surprised me. The song always moved and encouraged me. Seems to be true for others, as Joe Biden uses it, and it’s been employed in movies. I don’t hear it often on the radio, though.

Just move on up
Toward your destination
Though you may find, from time to time, complication

Bite your lip
And take a trip
Though there may be wet road ahead
And you cannot slip
Just move on up
For peace you’ll find
Into the steeple of beautiful people
Where there’s only one kind

So hush now, child
And don’t you cry
Your folks might understand you
By and by
Move on up
And keep on wishin’
Remember your dream is your only scheme
So keep on pushin’

So hush now, child
And don’t you cry
Your folks might understand you
By and by
Move on up
And keep on wishin’
Remember your dream is your only scheme
So keep on pushin’

h/t to Genius.com

A hopeful song is welcomed today, making it my choice for Sunday’s theme music.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers

0

Monday’s Theme Music

Good morning. Today is Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. Sunrise came at 7:16 AM. Sunset is expected at 5:34 PM. Outside, it’s 31 degrees F and foggy, but we’re expecting sunshine and a high of 50 degrees.

Today’s music came from a walk the other day. The song hung around me, intermittently spurting into the musical mental stream throughout the last few days. Released in 1967, “The Rain, the Park & Other Things” by the Cowsills reached number two on the charts in America. If you’re unfamiliar with the song, it begins with seeing a girl in a park.

I saw her sitting in the rain
Raindrops falling on her
She didn’t seem to care
She sat there and smiled at me

h/t to Genius.com

This is what happened to me that day: I saw a girl sitting in the park off Peachy Street in Ashland. Unlike the song’s subject, this girl had a leash with a dog, and she didn’t disappear. Nor did the sun come out. Maybe, if the sun had emerged, she would’ve disappeared. The rain was falling and I didn’t hang to learn. I have no idea if she could make me happy. Didn’t really think about it. I was preoccupied with a song going in my head and avoiding her to stay six feet away. There’s a virus out there, you know. Must be careful.

BTW, they called it psychedelic last century when a girl disappeared like that; now it would be called magical realism.

Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Enjoy the music. You have your orders. Now go.

0

Friday’s Theme Music

Today is Friday. It’s freezing (29 degrees F) and foggy (well, a little) but not frosty. So another 3-F day, utilizing different Fs.

Sunrise was at 7:20 AM while sunset is expected at 5:31 PM. Per annual worry, we’re monitoring the snowpack. Our snow pack provides us water throughout the year. As he snowpack melts, the runoff refills our reservoirs and cisterns. As in other recent years, we’re falling short again. Right now we’re peering into the future of another dry summer, re-kindling concerns about wildfires. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t happen.

Went through a lengthy song list this morning. Seeing that fog and cloud cover, I streamed “Let the Sunshine” and “Sunshine of Your Love”, “Daytripper” (because I was thinking of daylight) and “Walking On Sunshine”; “Friday’s Child” (the Wendy Matthews song — too mellow) and “Black Friday”; and “Friday” by Phish (oh, that’s too depressing).

As none of that brought me joy, I shifted directions and recalled yesterday’s walk. Up there in the hills, I could see for miles, which brought home the 1967 song by The Who, “I Can See for Miles”. Its energy was more satisfying for the moment. Plus the fog was lifting and thinning, giving me hope for a sunnier day. It’s possible; yesterday began as a much foggier day and ended up clear and sunny. It was that deceptive cold, the kind where you look through the house glass protection out at the world and think, “It looks like a pretty nice day out there.” Then you get out there and body parts began abandoning you, running back to get into the house’s warmth.

Watching this video of “I Can See for Miles”, I was struck by my cousin’s sliding resemblance to Pete Townsend. Never noticed it before. Cousin is in hospice, thrust in there by cancer. He’s fought it for several years, but it looks like cancer is taking him, just as it took his mother a decade ago and his sister last year. Cancer is a cold asshole.

Well, stay positive, right? Sure. Test negative, wear a mask, and get the vaccine. Here’s the music. Enjoy.

2

Monday’s Theme Music

Welcome. Today is the first day of the second month of 2021, a.k.a. Feb. 1. And it’s a Monday. Sunrise was 7:24 AM and sunset will be 7:25 PM, for ten hours and one minute of sunshine, in theory, here in Ashland, Oregon. Currently sitting at 50 degrees F, our weather is comfortable mix of clear sky, clouds, and sunshine with the potential for rain, clear sky, and sunshine.

January, 2021 went by like whipped cream from a can, with a lot of hissing and noise but quick. After an attempted coup and a whole lot of lies from the outgoing POTUS and the GOP, a new POTUS was sworn in. With it comes a new era. Yeah, fingers crossed on that. I know, in many ways, it’s frustrating BAU, but some sense of our values and processes are restored. Having Trump gone and Biden in isn’t an elixir; work is required.

With all these changes, today’s song came as I turned over my wall calendar. Yes, I keep a wall calendar. It’s sentimental of me. Produced by a photography, it’s of the Group 7 Can-Am racing series, the racing I most fervently followed as a young teen.

Today’s song is “Turn the Page”. Originally written and recorded by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in 1972, it was released in 1973, but the 1976 live version is the cover I always turn to. Be positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Move forward. Turn the page.

Here’s the music.

1

Saturday’s Theme Music

An old song is stuck in my head this Saturday morning, the last Saturday in January, 2021. In other news, the sun rose at 7:26 AM and will set at 5:23 PM here in Ashland. All those things happen every day, but at different times.

They call songs stuck in your head ear worms. I call them a diversion. I typically get trapped in one specific section. I call it a groove loop, a reference back to the time when we listened to records on vinyl, which had grooves.

The stuck song is “Spanish Harlem”. The stuck version is by Aretha Franklin and came out in 1971. I was about fifteen. The eternal question of why this song is stuck in my head can’t be answered today. It arrived as I decided to eat a banana as my breakfast’s second course. First course was oatmeal with cranberries and peanut butter, sprinkled with gluten-free maple granola.

The COVID-19 situation continues to alarm many, including me. We experienced a solid week of double-digit new cases, and the rolling three day average was dropping. Across the country, cases were dropping. Only two states were reporting increases on Thursday. Yet, dire warnings about the variations were increasing. Recommendations to wear two masks, or wear only N95 masks were issued. Then, last night, boom, our county reported triple digits again. It’s wave after wave. Like the ocean, some waves are larger than others, and you need to be mindful of sneaker waves.

Time for coffee. Stay positive, test negative, WAM (wear a mask), and get vaccinated, when it comes your way. Here’s the music.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑