I went to a local department store for a few DIY projects. Passing the seasonal aisle, I saw a display of toilet seats.
I never thought of toilet seats as seasonal.
Flooftidean Space
Flooftidean Space (floofinition) – Fundamental area used by a floof. Origins: Flooftidean Elements, a thirteen-volume treatise on floof culture originally published in 300 BC.
In Use: “Apex hunters like cougars tend to have a large flooftidean space, and when humans encounter one, they need to remember not to panic and not to run.”
In Use: “Keri’s housecats had flexible flooftidean space but didn’t let it overlap with one another, although they were apt to steal the other’s favorite sleeping space.”
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
Warning: short rant ahead.
I don’t know if laws, customs, or behaviors are changing when it comes to driving in Ashland, Oregon. I don’t think it’s a change law. Although I sometimes zone out of what’s going on locally, I believe I would have heard about a law changing how turn signals are used.
Note: turn signals are also called blinkers. More formerly, they’re called direction indicator lights.
See, I’ve noticed a new development here. Drivers stop. As you stop behind them and wonder why they’re stopped, they start to turn and then put on their turn signal.
WTF? I thought the idea behind turn signals was to communicate with other drivers and notify them of their intention to turn. Doing so reduces the chances of accidents and injuries. Already enough of that potential when people are driving around in these powerful metal machines.
I see it in all situations, including changing lanes and at traffic lights. Red light. Stopped. Green light. They move up, begin the turn, and then put on the signal. Meanwhile, the driver they faced was starting to go. Now they hesitate because what the other drive is doing is different from what they’re communicated. The communication confusion spills down the line.
Was the driver who didn’t use their turn signal really just changing their mind? Could happen. Sure. But it’s happening so often now, I’m dubious. And they consistently begin moving into the turn first, and then put on the signal. That strikes me as premeditated.
It happened to me this morning. A large late model Ford pickup truck was stopped in the lane ahead of me. As I closed on him, I could see that no one was in front of them.
Were they broken down? Lost or confused?
Maybe. Because after the traffic coming toward them thinned, the began turning left and then put on their signal.
Yes, they put on their signal after they started turning, after they’d been stopped for about twenty seconds.
It didn’t make sense. For the record, the driver looked white, and a male — I say that because of the beard — in their late twenties to early thirties.
I’m not the only person complaining about the lack of signals. A 2019 NYTimes article explored the same sort of problem.
The NYT article asks, “So what’s the problem here? Why don’t many drivers take this simple safety precaution? When asked about their bad habits in a national study, their explanations seemed confounding.
“The study by Response Insurance of Meriden, Conn., found that 42 percent of drivers claimed they didn’t have enough time to signal before turning. Nearly a quarter of drivers blamed laziness, while 17 percent said they skipped signaling because they were apt to forget to cancel the blinkers. Worth noting: Men admitted that they were more likely, by 62 percent to 53 percent, to change lanes without signaling.”
Laziness. Really? Turning on that signal is that challenging to their strength, attention, and energy?
My situation is a little different. Drivers here ARE turning their signal on, but not until they actually start turning.
I don’t understand what’s going on in their head. It’s such a simple thing. As the NYT article notes, “Is it that some drivers just don’t care about the other guy? If that’s the case, consider this: There is evidence that the act of signaling provides a cognitive benefit to the driver.
“When you turn on the turn signal, you’re turning on your brain,” said Chris Kaufmann, a driving school instructor who specializes in teaching people who drive V.I.P.s.”
My impression is that drivers not using signals until they’re in the turn unaware of the law or they’re not mentally involved in their driving. Maybe they’re on the phone, listening to the radio, or chatting to another in the car.
Driving a car is part of a system. When some drivers don’t follow the system’s rules, it starts breaking down. Maybe it’s anal of me, but that’s how I see it.
Probably just me.
Monday’s Theme Music
Mood: Montastic
Spring has set up here in the Rogue Valley, home to Ashlandia, where professionals from California come to rest. Mountain snow remains on the mountains in places but blossoms, blue skies, and sunshine seem to have settled in. 69 F and sunny now, we’re climbing fast toward today’s 76-degree F high.
Now this warm weather does bring worry, worry that winter didn’t gift us enough, worry that March is too warm too fast, worry that summer will be stratospheric hot. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it’ll be a moderate summer and give us a respite for recovery from the last several years.
The cats are happy as cats in sunshine, although Papi has become ridiculously restless. Out to in, in to out he goes, what he’s searching for, nobody knows. Methinks he’s hunting for some fun.
I realized from a photo that he’s been with us at least eight years now. Scheckter, one of my original Orange Boyz, passed away in 2013 (cancer) at too young an age after being with us only twelve years. Papi remarkably resembles Scheckter. Seeing Papi on the fence before he joined our household always surprised me because he was such a mini-me Scheckter.
That’s only in markings. Papi is about eight pounds less than Scheckter. Scheckter and his mate, Pogo, were large, muscular cats. Scheckter came in at 19-21 pounds while Pogo bested him with two more pounds.
News reports in the US are cycling around DJ Trump and his latest inflammatory rhetoric. Does he mean it when he declares ‘some people aren’t human. What does he mean people ask when he talks about bloodbaths if he loses.
The headline for David Smith’s article in The Guardian posits that Trump’s 2024 political campaign is about vengeance. ‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term.
Smith writes, ‘Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.’
For some reason, this is what former POTUS Trump thinks is what will fix the United States. He believes this is what Americans want and what the world needs. I believe he’s wrong. The majority of economists believe his various tariffs had negative effects on the US economy or did nothing. Few believe the tariffs did any good.
As for detention camps, mass deportations, and capital punishment for drug smugglers, such draconian measures belong to a less civilized era, one in which violence and brute force were employed to achieve national objectives. Although we’re waaayyy too armed as a nation, mostly because of the Military-Industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned us about in 1961.
It’s depressing that some will follow Trump and pursue these warn out ancient ideas as modern solutions. I don’t believe the majority do. I just hope the majority votes and ensures these ideas don’t become our new national policies.
Shifting from politics to music, The Neurons have “In Bloom” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). “In Bloom” came out in 1992. It’s come to mind for me today because of that chorus, “He’s the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, but he knows not what it means.”
I think it applies today because of DJ Trump. He says many things. But he really doesn’t understand what they mean or how incongruous they seem. He tries to spin other meanings, making shit up. And that becomes the new truth for the followers in his cult. They, and Trump’s compliant Republican supporters and right-wing press, spin and insist, “That’s not what he means.”
Outside of the cult, outside of the right-wing media bubble, and outside of the empty GOP, the rest of us understand what he means. We understand the implicit violence of his promises and declarations. We see through his garbage and recognize that he doesn’t give a shit about the United States or the U.S. Constitution and its ideals. This is all about him and his vengeance quest.
Okay, back off my box. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. I’m indulging in another serving of coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers
First Thing
The first thing he learned after his mother’s death was that he’d been born a cat.
Patrick had no one to complain about this to. It was just him and her cooling body. None of the others had come. Children, grands, exes like spouses, employees, girlfriends, boyfriends, other friends; all ignored her warning. Wasn’t even a cat. He knew the old boy, a big, luxuriously long-haired ginger with cougar eyes, had passed in December. Chester. Twenty-two years old. Not bad for a cat. Mom called Patrick and told him that Chester had been her best lover.
Patrick — he accepted Pat, but he preferred Patrick, but he wasn’t going to be an asshole about it — couldn’t tell you why he’d come. Just a feeling, he professed. A feeling like he needed to. That he should. So he told his beer group. He, like the no-shows at his mothers, knew how adeptly his mother could toss the bullshit, as her father often said to his grandson. “Watch your mother. Marcia loves drama and doesn’t mind expending lots of bull to get it. She loves being the center of the spotlight and pulls it to her by any means needed to gain it again.”
While the old boy spoke, spittle flicking off his lips and tongue, smoke crowding the sky from his pipe, Patrick was wondering, who is Marcia? Never asked the old man, though. Not before the old man died. Asked him often later, after he was dead, Patrick decrying to himself, why didn’t you ask him then and there? Was something that kept him awake at night whenever he pondered his victories and failures. But in his defense, young Patrick was enjoying the contact high being achieved from the staunch quantity of personally-grown marijuana the old man tamped into his pipe.*
And then there the flicks of spittle, flying past him like Patrick was in a spaceship navigating through an asteroid belt in a movie. A crunch seemed eminent. Patrick feared the crunch. He always waited for crunchtime.
But returning to Mom’s death. Vivid memory of that day. March. Blue skies after a mean winter, one with cloud-crushing sunlight and record snow levels.* Was going to be seventy degrees that day. Patrick had wondered, do I dare wear shorts? A study of his naked legs in the mirror didn’t lean him either way. On the one hand, his legs were so pale. Whiter than ghosts. Whiter than a snowman. Pale as a cloud-obscured moon.
The once muscular limbs were also now terribly skinny. Once upon a life, his shapely, muscular legs garnered compliments. But those powerful calves and thighs had shriveled. Reminded him of old sticks found in the yard after a windstorm. ‘Cept they were white.
Also. Were shorts appropriate to wear if his mother was dying? He had to remind himself, that’s what he was dressing for. Each day always had its own main event, even if the main event was as small and routine as going to the coffee shop for a frap to drink while completing word games.
On the other hand, why the fuck should he care what people thought about his legs? Screw them.
Then came the drive, forty minutes into the country south of Medford. Almost to California.
Then, the arrival. He’d put that off by stopping off in Jacksonville for coffee. Maybe a pastry. Doughnut. Or pie. Instead, he had a cheeseburger, fries, and a beer — IPA, actually, if you need specifics. Patrick felt addicted to specifics. The IPA was 451. Named for the area code. Locally brewed. Delicious. Went well with a burger and fries, illicit food which he should not be eating, if he listened to his doctor.
The 451 IPA tasted so good, he had two, watching people as they came and went, checking his phone, waiting for someone he knew to come in.
When he finally arrived at the immaculate old home set back from the road, he knew no one else was present. No cars were in the driveway under the huge pines. Patrick thought about turning around and leaving. That’s what a sane person would do. Well, no one had ever accused him of being sane. Besides, he had to pee. And he was already here. He didn’t need to stay long. Just go in, verify Mom wasn’t dying, and take his leave.
The porch creaked under Patrick’s steps. The broad oak door with its chiseled stain-glass windows was wide open.
He went in. Stopped in the tiled entry. Looked. Listened. He felt like an owl. A watching owl.
Everything gave signs of being freshly dusted, vacuumed, swept, polished. Nothing was out of place. That was Mom. No matter what house it was, this one or the — well, that didn’t matter. Mom’s houses were always immaculate. Cleaning was her hobby. Only thing ever out of place in Mom’s house were people. Especially her children and family. And reality.
Edging forward, Patrick muttered, “I have a bad feeling about this.” His voice felt out of place.
A shudder shook his shoulders. He stopped after two steps. “Mom?”
He said it soft and listened for responses, peering into the living room, down the halls toward the kitchen and sunroom. No sounds of life.
That struck him as fucking ominous. In hesitant explanation to his beer group later, he explained, “I felt like the house was resisting me. I really wanted to run, except that I was a grown adult, a seventy-year-old man. Psychologically, I shouldn’t be running out of a house like a frightened child.”
“Also, your knees probaby couldn’t take running,” a smart ass in the beer group put in with a grin.
Patrick nodded. “That, too.”
“Shit,” he muttered, softly, so Mom wouldn’t hear. God forbid he upset her by swearing. That might kill her. He chuckled but stopped. Chuckling didn’t feel right.
He looked up the dark carpeted stairs. If she was dying, she was probably in bed. That made sense. Then again, he was talking about his Mom. Marcia, Carrie, Joyce, Brenda, Priscilla, Judy, Catherine, Deborah. The woman loved changing her name. Changed it like others might by a new car.* Never explained why. She’d been Carrie was Patrick was born and Brenda when he graduated high school and started college. No telling what name she’d die with.
The wind soughed through the trees like they were impatient with his dithering. He’d need to go up the steps.
“Patrick?” he heard. “Come up. I’m in my bedroom.”
Permission given by her, the house relented and let him in. Still, the going up the steps felt like a walk to an electric chair.
She was in her huge four poster bed. The thing was big as a cruise ship. Her room was perfect. Spotless China blue carpet. Looked new.
Mom was propped up on fresh white pillow cases. Flower-covered duvet and white sheets were arranged around her.
“I knew you would come, Patrick.” Mom looked beautiful. Blond beehive, soft make-up, red lips. Not a wrinkle, crease, or sag anywhere. One hundred one years old, she didn’t seem like a day over fifty. She looked like a 1960s movie star. Didn’t appear to be courting death. She looked a lot better than him. He looked closer to death than her.
“You look good, Mom,” he said. She puckered up and raised her arms. He dutifully delivered a mosquito kiss and speculative hug.
“There, Patrick,” she said, pointing as he stepped away.
“What?”
She pointed more insistently. “The book. On the dresser.”
“The brown one?”
“Tan. Yes. That’s my document.”
“Okay. Want me to bring it to you?”
“I do not. It’s your’s.”
“Okay. And what is your document?” Patrick picked it up.
The fucker was thick. He’d brought it to the beer group. It sat in the table’s middle, surrouded by pitchers of IPA and amber beer. They all stared at it. Four inches thick. Tan. Didn’t even look touched. “Pick it up. Feel for yourself.”
Back at Mom’s, she answered, “This is my life. This is the truth.”
Patrick opened it. “The truth of what?”
She didn’t answer. He looked up. She was still. Open green eyes regarded the ceiling. “Mom?”
“No,” she answered, and sighed.
He knew the death sound. Had heard it from a brother and sister, grandmother, grandfather, ex-wife and son, and a couple dogs.
“She was dead,” he told the beer group. “I didn’t know what to do. Well, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to do it. I was surprised, shocked, really. She’d really done it, she’d really died. I really felt like she’d live forever. I needed some time to deal with that. So I went over and sat down in her recliner by the window. I looked at her a while, and then out the window, listening to the wind. After some time, it struck me that I heard nothing else. No birds, no other cars, nothing but the wind in the trees. It was a little eerie, a little disturbing.
“And then, the beer caught up with me. I had to pee. I went to her bathroom but I wasn’t going to use it. Mom never wanted us to use her bathroom.”
“Why?” someone asked.
“I don’t know.” Patrick shrugged. “Because she was a strange person, I guess. There was another on the same floor, so I went to it. I took her document with me. Getting into the bathroom, I realized that I needed to do more than pee. So I sat on the commode and opened Mom’s book.”
He paused, lips parted, looking in toward memory of the moment. “It was weird. Crazy. I didn’t open it to the first page. I opened it a few pages in. That’s where I read, ‘Mother gave birth to five today. I named one Patrick.’ And then, a few lines down, was a second entry. ‘Patrick turned today. Martha died.'”
Patrick swallowed. “It was dated the same date as my birthday.”
Everyone moved, releasing tension, picking up beers, drinking. Some hissed, “Wow,” and “Holy shit.” Patrick let the moment passed.
“That’s not the thing I really wanted to tell you.” Leaning his arms on the table, he looked around at his friends. “That was a week again. Last night, I had an itch. When I scratched it, it felt like a lump. Then it felt like something more. I checked it out in the mirror today and then used a camera to take a photo. It’s furry. About an inch long, right above my asshole.”
“A tail,” the group’s smart ass exclaimed.
Patrick solemnly nodded and set his phone down on the table. “I have photos.”
***
*An admirer of his mother’s father, Patrick tried emulating him by taking up the pipe like the old man smoked. He found that he disliked putting things in his mouth. Ended up not smoking anything. No pipe, cigarette, cigar, joint. Nothing. Also learned that not putting things in his mouth disappointed several lovers. Oh, well. That was their problem.
*Patrick later learned that the record snow that he remembered from the year his mother died actually happened two years before his death. Memory. What’re you gonna do?
*Although, funny, she still had the same car, a pink Cadillac Eldorado convertible that she had when he left for Vietnam.
Sunday’s Theme Music
Mood: writcitement
TL/DR: It’s spring. Today’s song is “Why Worry” by Dire Straits. President Biden’s predecessor and current GOP candidate is enamored with dictators, promises a bloodbath if he doesn’t win, and thinks some humans “aren’t human”.
Hello, my traveling peers. It’s Sunday again, March 17 again, but adding the year, 2024, makes it a whole new date.
The average daily high for Ashland in March is 58 F degrees. We expect to hit 71 F. I think I’ll be higher.
I checked a local weather station’s temperature, along with the SOU (Southern Oregon University) weather station, and a web weather source. Here are our temp variations:
My house: (Clay Street, southern end, in early morning mountain shadows, 1836 feet elevation): 45.5 F
Wimer Street: (2 miles west of Clay Street, above downtown, 2050 feet elevation, in mountains): 46.2
SOU: (1.1 miles southwest of Clay Street, 1890 feet elevation, in sunshine by East Main Street): 42.1
MSN.com: 50 F.
Honestly, SOU’s elevation — 1890 feet — seems suspect to me. We descend to that location via a series of hills. For the record, Ashland’s official elevation is 1949 feet. We consider ourselves ‘the valley’, but the valley floor is a little bit lower than us. It’s a pinched and rolling place on this end of the Rogue Valley.
Whatever the temp, it’s a spring day out there, with colors along the spectrum breaking out all over the region.
Reading political news, it’s another head-rubbing, grrrr morning. We have the headline, “Trump warns of ‘bloodbath’ for auto industry and country if he loses the election”. He sounds desperate, resorting to such base threats, trying to induce fear in others.
Then there’s the story circulating about Trump’s other comments during a campaign speech. This is from an article on TheHill.com, but it’s in WaPo and others, too.
“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at the rally. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
See, I am ‘the radical left’ because I think others are people. I base this on biology. Genetics. Not politics, religion, or circumstance. It doesn’t matter where they come from. Or how they reached our land. But in Donald J. Trump’s opinion, some people are not people. That’s just laying the foundation to treat other humans as less than human as justification for inhumane treatment.
Okay, class, can anyone name a fomer world leader and dictator who said things like that about other humans?
Up top of that, I read a USA Today opinion post. “Trump keeps praising dictators like Hitler and Kim Jong Un. Will Republicans ever care?” Sara Pequeño wrote it. After writing about Hitler’s record as a dictator who ordered millions to be killed, Ms Pequeño write, “There is no redemption arc for Hitler. We all agree on that, right?”
Well, no. I agree. However, a surprising chunk of Americans seem to disagree. People — and I was one — overlooked how many Americans backed Hitler before WWII and even during WWII. There are Americans among us who still back Hitler because they’re antisemites. They want someone to blame, and remain willing to claim Jews are causing them problems.
That’s one reason they like and support Trump. Trump isn’t bothered by Hitler’s record. His former chief of staff related that “Trump said Hitler did some good things.” That’s worrying for someone threatening bloodbaths if he doesn’t win, and chatting and joking about being a dictator on day one if he does win.
But what about the greater Republican party? I share Ms Pequeño concern, “Will Republicans ever care?” I’m concerned that many don’t know and don’t care because they’ve convinced themselves that Trump is something else, someone special to them. They write off the rest of us and our dire threats about Trump as the lies of outsiders who don’t see Trump as they do.
I agree, too, with Ms Pequeño’s final assertion: “So, everybody who is bothered by this, Republicans and Democrats alike, should keep pointing to his comments for the rest of this election. Then voters can ultimately decide if they support this or not.”
Today, The Neurons posted “Why Worry” by Dire Straits to the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). I know exactly what’s going on with me this soft 1985 song by Mark Knopfler.
I’m a worrier and regularly talk myself down. I recognize that the view I get of the world is skewed and imperfect, no matter how many sources I use. Many of those sources are political or commercial. Each uses buzzwords and headlines to gather attention. Some of them are just trying to rile me up or say things to help their revenue streams. So, while I will continue to worry and voice my thoughts about my worries, I’ll also try to talk myself down.
The cats are outside in the fenced backyard, loving the warm air and sunshine. I’m about to do the same. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. Hope your weather is to your approval at your place. Here’s the music. There’s the coffee. Let’s bring it all together. Cheers
The Writing Moment
Finished. Done. Over. Completed.
Yes, I’ve completed rev five of the novel in progress. Its current working title is Memories of Why. Speculative historic fiction. Couple cups of science fiction tempered with a pint of fantasy and a few tablespoons of revisionism. 523 pages in Word. 160,000 words. Probably over three hundred large cups of coffee. Began writing it in March of last year. Started with a character — a cherub — and their imprisonment and sugar addiction. Grew from there. Humans are about as involved as Martians. Or the reverse. Azure Iarnum — AI — had a bigger role than Humans or Martians. Dragons played a small role, as did ‘spaceships’.
Next: revise again. I think I’m getting somewhere.
Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
I came across a plague in Ashlandia’s railroad district. The plaque identified the tree beside it as a slippery elm and announced that it had been the tree of the year.
The tree of the year is an annual tradition in our city. Stepping back, I admired its height and thick, expanding branches. Sunlight backlit them against blue sky.
I didn’t have a camera with me — yep, not even a phone — so I don’t have a photo of the plaque nor tree. I ran a search for a photo of it but nada emerged. I need to return to the scene with my phone, I guess.
Forty-seven years had passed since the tree had been honored. It still looked like it could be the tree of the year.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: sunergized
This. Is. March. 16. 20. 24.
Sunshine began painting Saturday’s morning sky a bright blue. Clouds fled the scene; not for them, they decided, dragging cooler temperatures away with them. The bedroom walls and then the living room were painted gold with sunlight as Earth rotated and its orbit crossed Sol’s path, shifting the sun south across the eastern sky. Spring edges closer with kitty steps. We struck a high of 72 F yesterday when they called for less; meteorology speculation indicates we’ll strike a high of 70 F today. I think my house will see 74 F.
TL/DR: We use RLT and just purchased a pod.
My wife and I began using red light therapy about two years ago. This involves leaping out of the car and releasing a primal scream whenever we’re driving and stop at a red light. It’s a great relief although other drivers and their passengers seem to freak out.
Ha! Just kidding. Red light therapy (RLT) is photo biomodulation. That explains it all, doesn’t it? The gear we buy uses diodes that transmit red light and near infrared at 660 nm and 850 nm. Supposed to help with skin issues, inflammation, muscle damage, and speed healing. That’s what began drawing my wife to it. I became intrigued after I learned that celebrities and athletes swear by it. Both wife and I have swelling and inflammation matters. Some of her problems were side effects of meds she took to combat her RA and generally deteriorating health.
So, first we bought a RLT mask. It worked pretty well so we upped our involvement to a RLT belt. Made by Life Pro, it ran us about $150 with discounts. FedEx delivered it November 8 last year, so we’ve been using it for about four months.
The belt is about 50 inches long and seven inches wide. My wife uses it for various RA flares in her hips, back, shoulders, arms, hands, along with Renaud’s syndrome. Renaud’s causes her fingers and hands to become cold and numb. They turn white and bend out of shape. This RLT kicked its ass.
I use it for blood circulation. I began experiencing edema a few years ago after a BHP closed my urethra and blocked my ability to pee. They’re not certain what’s behind my edema. Venous insufficiency in my ankles and lower legs is usually cited but it could be a problem with my lymphatic system.
I find that thirty minutes with that thing each day provides major relief to my edema. It is used in conjunction with other changes. I elevate my legs and massage them each evening. The skin is treated with EB40. EB40 is made by Ebenal and has 40% urea cream 40% plus 2% Salicylic Acid. I exercise but I’ve always exercised. At this stage, I do light free weights with stretching, wall sitting and planking, jump-roping (which I suck at), and walking. I walk about 7 to 8 miles a day.
After we experienced success with the RLT belt, my wife began telling friends about it. Bottom line, they’ve bought it for arthritis in their hands and wrists, back problems, old injuries, feet problems. All are amazed by the results after just over a month of use.
So, we’re escalating. We bought a TLR pod. Looks like a sleeping bag with red lights lining its innards. Over 2400 in all. Cost us a grand and will be delivered this week. We’ll see what happens.
Today’s music is by Fitz and the Tantrums. Their 2013 song, “Out of My League”, occupies the morning mental music stream. Nothing that I know triggered it. I inquired of The Neurons but they stayed mute. Fitz and the Tantrums are categorized by most as pop and neo soul. I think that’s an apt description. Amazing how pop, rock, soul, jazz, blues, and progressive morph to reflect new ideas, tastes, and needs. Keeping up is a challenge. I fail at it pretty miserable. I last played this song five years ago.
Stay pos, be strong, and lean forward. Register and vote, too, please, if you’re part of a democracy somewhere. Coffee has been gliding into my gullet. It’s 64 F outside. Look at that sunshine.
Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 