Category: childhood

Monday’s Theme Music

I’m a Weezer fan. Their music has a seventies rock sound to me.

Today’s Weezer song, “Hash Pipe”, popped into the stream, as it often does, because of that opening verse. I’m wearing a catheter in my pecker that drains the urine from my bladder. There are two bags. Smaller and lighter, the leg bag attaches to my leg and allows some mobility. The night bag is a bruiser that can collect over eighteen hundred milliliters. It sits in a lined trash can beside the bed while I sleep.

While I was changing bags last night, my wife called out to ask me what I was doing. My mind automatically channeled Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”, but the lyrics I sang were, “Changing to my night bag. Trying to clean the catheter tubes.” That was all to the “Night Moves” melody. I thought, geez, what a weird mind I have. From that streamed “Hash Pipe”.

I can’t help my feelings, I’ll go out of my mind
These players come to get me cause they’d like my behind
I can’t love my business if I can’t get a trick
Down on Santa Monica where tricks are for kids

h/t GeniusLyrics.com

Yes, it is a sadly weird mind at work. From 2001, join me in a little sumo wrestling with Weezer.

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Friday’s Theme Music

This one popped into my stream and then I sang it to one of my cats. The song, “Cool Jerk” by The Capitols, came out in 1966. I was ten and I thought this was a cool song. I still enjoy its beats, that bass, that piano, those lyrics and deliveries. I’ve never heard one of the cover songs (and there are many out there) that rose up to this version.

The cat’s version, of course, subs cat for jerk in the song. “Cool cat,” bum bum bum ba bum bum bum, “cool cat.” It was Papi on the receiving end and came about as the big dark ones, Boo and Tucker, were in one of their stand-offs. Papi, the svelte, young ginger, gave each a glance and sauntered between them.

Definitely a cool cat.

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Monday’s Theme Music

My stream hauled this one out of 1973’s memory bins.

My friends weren’t familiar with Montrose’s work. Their music struck me as raw and elemental. I often sang them aloud to entertain myself as I went about being a student. Most people reacted, “What are you singing?” This was the question no matter what Montrose song was being sung. Could be that it was my singing.

One day, while singing “Rock Candy”, a grinning Scott said, “Is that Montrose?”

“Yes, it is Montrose, “Rock Candy”,” I confirmed.

“You like Montrose?” he asked.

“No, I’m singing it to be perverse,” I said, adding, “stupid fucking question.”

Scott was a new student. Part of a wealthy family, he’d been kicked out of several private schools and had convinced his parents to let him go to a public high school. We shared several AP classes and were on the sports teams together. He was friendly but a little distant, with an interesting sense of humor. He and I were suddenly great friends because of Montrose. Scott sought me out about other groups, and then expanded our relationships to books we were reading.

His big ambition was to crew a ship and see the world. I joined the military and did the same. I haven’t seen him since we graduated in 1974.

I still sing “Rock Candy” when I’m out walking. I mean, come on:

But you’re rock candy, baby
You’re hard, sweet, and sticky, yes
You’re rock candy, baby
Hard, sweet, and sticky, oh, yes

h/t to Songlyrics.com

Oh, yes.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I was streaming several songs this morning, including “Timothy Leary” by the Moody Blues, but looking out the window at the emerging spring day and the hopes for more pleasant weather, I selected another oldie for today’s theme.

Here’s Friends of Distinction with “Grazing In The Grass” (1969). As Harry Elston sings, “What a trip just watching as the world goes past.” Perfect for a mellow-ish Sunday.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music popped into the stream out of my dreams. An old favorite from 1969 by the Who, the song came out when I was thirteen. I was singing it to myself when I went into science class. Melissa, the girl behind me, said, “Do you like the Who?” Sure, yes, etc. Melissa invited me over to her house to listen to music.

Here’s “Pinball Wizard”. The song and memory all seem innocuous now, but it was a big deal when I was thirteen.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I have stones on my mind today. Probably will for for several more days to weeks. Hard to say with kidney stones.

With those as my guide and inspiration from another blogger, Kenneth, I started streaming some Bob Dylan this morning. Of course, it’s the 1965 classic, “Like A Rolling Stone”. It felt like it took years to understand the lyrics, but as a kid, I always liked the intonation of, “Like a rolling stone.”

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Imprint 2

After moving out of Mom’s house when I was fourteen and moving in with Dad, I missed my old home and Mom’s cooking.

Dad, a bachelor, was in the military. He’d just returned from an assignment in Germany. Besides his military day job, he had a second job running the small base’s all-ranks club, so I rarely saw him. That lasted three months. Then he retired and we moved to southern WV.

I’d mentioned missing Mom’s cooking to her on one of our phone conversations. Mom bought me Betty Crocker Cook Book as a present so I could make the stuff she had.

It was a humbling lesson. Mom usually used a recipe in her head. I had to plod their detailed instructions. Whereas her measuring skills were fast and effortlessly, I labored through cups, tsp, tbs, and their incremental differences.

But I weathered it, making myself stuffed green peppers, meat loaf, pot roast, spaghetti and meatballs, along with side dishes, and eventually baked cakes, cookies, pies, and other desserts. I never made fried chicken, odd in retrospect. I preferred roasting or grilling my chicken. In fact, my favorite meal became over-roasted thighs with buttered red potatoes and broccoli.

Don’t know why I never made the fried chicken. Maybe I was lazy, or maybe, subconsciously, I knew that some things couldn’t be duplicated.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

You get a twofer today.

This photo on Facebook reminded a friend and I of a conversation we once had about the songs, “Our House”. One version is by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Madness did the other. We just chatted about how different these songs were as we went about something else.

I haven’t seen him since around 2003 but I remember him fondly. FB connects us, so sometimes FB works as designed.

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Friday’s Theme Music

I was in bed, in the overlap between being awake and asleep. Still hazy with fever, I felt a cat land on the bed. Quick, light steps followed.

If it’d been Tucker coming, the steps would have been slower and plodding. Boo’s bed approach is light but slow. No, this had to be Papi.

Feeling the steps stop by my head, I opened my eyes and looked left. The sweet ginger boy was studying my face. I put a hand out toward him. He began purring and rubbing his head against my fingertips.

In response, I sang in a soft whisper, “Consider yourself at home. Consider yourself one of the family.”

Yes, it was “Consider Yourself” from Oliver!, the film, because I’ve never seen the live stage production, from 1968.

I don’t know why my stream pulled it up yesterday. Like a few other people — the movie took best picture and other awards — several scenes and songs remain memorable to me, like “Pick A Pocket or Two” and “Food, Glorious Food”,which sometimes is sung as, “Floof, glorious floof. Long tails and whiskers.”

So, consider yourself to have a theme music suggestion.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sunshine lit the valley from the west, splashing through lazy swatches of stretched grey clouds outside our windows. Could’ve been early summer by its deceptive appearance, but it was March 3.

Ill with a sore throat and dribbling nose, I alternated between reading (Fear: Trump in the White House, Woodward) and napping whereupon a song found the stream and played in my brain.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
And I took off to find the sky

I couldn’t fathom why Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” (1972) was streaming in these circumstances. I often don’t understand how my mind words but I decided that “Taxi”, about the dreams that age into nostalgic memories, would be today’s theme music.

Cheers

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