Category: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music

Fanfare: today is Thursday, September 23, 2021. Why the fanfare? Why not? This day and date is rarely afforded fanfare. Might be birthdays for some, wedding anniversary, etc. But for most, it’s just another day sneaking by, bold as daylight, little counted. Not the end of a quarter. Nor the start of a season. Just a part of the year going on. I think it deserves a little fanfare, a little recognition for being another average, ordinary day in existence.

Sunrise on this ordinary day of ordinary grace came at 6:59 AM. Sunset will be at 7:07 PM. Almost to that moment of balance between night and day. Temperatures were unexpectedly cooler yesterday. High of just 80 F. Felt weirdly warm in the house. Today’s weather is delivered more of the same.

Went and had beers with friends last night. Outside at a local brewery. Well situated away from others. Six of us. We’ve done this off and on through the last three months, smoke allowing. All of us are vaccinated. One’s wife has already received a booster. Works with the homeless. The servers are all masked.

We were there to enjoy the fresh air and some local brews. Three days in a row without smoke, everyone told one another, friend to friend, server to patrons, patrons to server. Isn’t it great? God, how it must suck to live in a devastated area. To have lost your home. Maybe animals. Possessions. We count ourselves fortunate but already begin looking toward next year. For the record, I drank Caldera Brewing Amber Ale. I don’t hesitate to recommend that tasty beverage.

I mentioned to the others that it’s been a long time since I rock and rolled. Was joshing, you know? No one recognized the line. Or said anything about it, at least. Not even a blink. But of course, it’s out of Led Zeppelin’s 1972 song, “Rock and Roll”. A fast-paced ditty that I thoroughly enjoy. Natch, overhearing me think of it, the mental switches turned it on in the morning mental music stream. Good song to have there. I will share it with you and thank the Gods of Rock for delivering it to us.

Although I enjoy the original studio song, I went with this recording of a live performance. I wanted to pause, consider the group and stage setting. Such simplicity. So small. Intimate. No monster screen televisions giving close ups to people five hundred feet away. No smoke. Lasers. Just the performers, stage, and crowd. Simpler time, then, yet, so much more complicated and different than the ten years before it. So it goes in the mirrors of life.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the tune. Rock on, brothers and sisters. Rock on.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Greetings from Terra.

Today is Wednesday, September 22, 2021. Fall is fully on us in my planetary niche. The sun poured liquid gold into the valley this morning at 6:58 AM. Sunset won’t come until 7:10 PM so we’re not really at equinox, yet. Not at that point when the daylight and night stand as equal. The pincers are closing, though. It’ll come soon.

Our air quality is still Good, but on the scale’s upper end of that part of the spectrum, ranging from the low twenties to the mid forties, with two places edging over fifty and into the yellow zone – Moderate. The region’s rains definitely helped the wildfire battles in Oregon and Nor Cal. It’s a relief that the rain came.

Temperature yesterday topped 90 F. Expect the same today. It’s easily endured with fresh air and temperatures cooling into the fifties at night. Yesterday also saw a windy morning. Drove the three house beasts inside. These cats are not fans of wind.

Which brought to mind a Gerry Rafferty song from the last century, circa 1978. As I surveyed the cats in their sleeping positions on living room chairs, I thought, look at them, sleeping right down the line. Naturally, my brain, acting like Alexa, said, “Playing Gerry Rafferty, ‘Right Down the Line'”. So it was the song entered the music stream and remains in the morning mental music stream. I don’t mind; the song refreshes memory from that year in my life — getting out of the military, going to college, owning a restaurant, working a second job, returning to the military — quite a year.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax, drink plenty of fluids and get some rest. Here’s the music. I’m off for coffee. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Wonderful fall day here today. Harvest moon last night. Clear sky to view it. Enjoying it all.

The weather systems have delivered gusting winds, clear skies, and a sweet balminess to Tuesday’s air. Today is September 21, 2021. We have reached autumn. Survived the year, mostly thanks to many others. Service people, yes, but I also owe some thanks to politicians, newspaper writers, novelists, librarians, farmers, police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, family, friends, beer brewers, bakers, chefs, truck drivers, pilots, transportation specialists, television engineers, producers, and personalities. It’s a long list of those keeping us safe and fed, managing our water, delivering things, and distracting, entertaining, and educating.

Today’s sunrise was at 6:57 AM in the valley. Sunset will come at 7:10 PM. Air quality is a delightful 4. Our high temperature today will be in the mid to upper eighties. Think 87 F. Current temperature is 73.

After another bevy of bodacious dreams, I find a 1978 Al Stewart song called “Time Passages” populating the morning mental music stream. These lyrics (with accompanying instruments) were on loop:

I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

h/t to Songfacts.com

Can you go home again? I’ve gone ‘home’ to why Mom and Dad each separately live with their new partners, so I’m thinking, no. Not physically. In many ways, going home is a brief spiritual journey of nostalgia about what was when. In that sense, yes, going home is often a mind trip away. Going home to either of those places — where Dad/Mom live — highlights the changes between now and back then. Mom and Dad left each other and then I left them and roamed the world. Didn’t see enough, to be sure, but I came to grasp that home is a state of mind.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music, a mellow folk rock offering for a mellow day. Enjoy. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

We’re sitting under a robin’s egg this morning. That’s how blue and clear the sky is today. The smoke has cleared for now. Warnings that it’s returning. But now, air quality is hovering around 11. Good air. You can see it. You can breathe it.

Today is September 20, 2021, a Monday. Ten more September days remain. Then we slide into the final quarter of 2021. Cool this morning. 42 F. The furnace kicked on as the sun crested the mountains at 6:56 AM. With this lovely air, we expect highs in the mid to upper seventies. A good day to get outside.

As it’s Monday morning, a Monday song called “Monday Morning” from 1975 has permeated the Monday morning mental music stream. At least it’s not a manic Monday. That would then be a manic Monday morning mental music stream. Anyway, the song came about just because it is Monday. Lindsey Buckingham wrote the short and straightforward Fleetwood Mac song. My awareness of it came about through a female friend. She was a big Lindsey Buckingham fan, always talking about how willing she was to bear his children. She and I served together at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Wonder if she ever met him?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Coffee is ready. Breakfast is served. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Here we are, another September Sunday. Sunshine struggles across a spatter pattern of rainy dark clouds. It’s September 19, 2021, another month darting through, pushing us toward the holiday season and a new year. The sun’s shy appearance came about 6:55 AM. The warmth was appreciated as the temp was down to the upper forties with humidity knocking a chill into the air. We’ll see sunset about 7:14 PM. Highs won’t be much to write about, the mid sixties.

I have the song “Pop Muzik” by M (1979) overflowing from the mental music stream this morning. Put it on the season. Football season. Had many NFL fans. Not infrequently, we’d come together to watch games, cheer heroes and mock rivals.

This is an interesting song from several points of view. Classic techno-pop of that musical era, one of the things about this song was how I had different friends at different times and locations exclaim that they could not stand this song. This was not rock and would not be tolerated. Randy, always of strong opinions, would demand something else be put on. “Gawd, change the station.” All hilarious to me.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Technically, Saturday, 9/18/2021, began at midnight. But we don’t usually acknowledge those morning hours between midnight and rising as part of that day, do we? Well, we do, in a way. It’s a confused state. Because most don’t think of the day starting until they get up. Even though it’s often started hours before.

Smoke played with the sunshine yesterday, lifting the color of a champagne mango’s skin into the space over our heads. Not today. This is Gray Day.

Sunrise struggled to bring anything this morning. Clouds and smoke skewered the sun’s efforts into graylight. Happened about 6:54 AM. But. Rain began at 6:59 AM around my house. I know. This weather change had infused the cats with a youthful, exuberant energy. They were dashing around, going in and out through the pet door, meyelling at one another. Then they wanted food. So I was up to feed them when the first portent of rain came, tink, tink, tink, on the exhaust fan metal protection up on the room.

The initial rain session was a mildly hard one. First I went out to gage it and smell the air. Still smoky. If rain begins as a mist and we assign that a one, and a monsoon drenching is a ten, this was a fall shower, about 3.5. A fall shower is a lot like a spring shower except it smells different.

I returned to bed after that, listening to the rain while warm and cozy. The rain stopped at 7:31. Then started again at 7:35. Wasn’t as hard though. Been going at it until tapering off to stumbling sporadic drops after ninety minutes. Nice having rain in this parched, drought-plagued and fire plagued area, but we really wanted something about a five or a six on my imaginary scale.

Highs today are projected to be in the upper sixties. Might fire up the fireplace, you know? Sunset is planned for 7:15 PM.

But of course a rain song has mindjacked the mental music stream. A 1986 venture by The Pogues, “Rainy Night in Soho”, came up. It’s odd, though, how the brain works. I was hearing the rain. Then remembered conversations. Which prompted me to think of phantom conversations. Things I wished had been said. That kicked in the line, “I hear you talking in my head.” Stopped me in my mental tracks. That was a song. Some rummaging through the cranial zones finally dragged it fully in.

I like this song because it’s different. More like an essay with music. Shane McGowan’s voice and delivery are introspective and blasé. It’s actually a great song when we’re with others having a drink after a long day when rain is pelting down. But it does serve as foundation for thinking about the day, what was, and what will be.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Now, where’s the coffee? Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

If this is Friday, then this must be September 17, 2021. At least I hope so. Otherwise I have one of them wrong. Then I’d need to ponder the whys of screwing up the date and/or missing time. Hate when that happens. Was it a worm hole? Alien abduction? Overfamiliarity with beer or wine?

Sunrise was a pleasant gentle rise of an orange glow. Orange because of the smoke effect. Came at 6:53 AM. We expect sunrise at 7:17 PM. Today’s high will be eighty-ish F. Air quality is Moderate to Unhealthy, fluxing around 97 to 110 so far this AM. A wind can change it all. Rains are forecast for later today — probably won’t come in until night — with more rain and much cooler temperatures — like upper sixties/low seventies — at our house. Can you say Fall?

A mellow song has fluttered into the morning’s mental music stream. Came about while feeding the cats. First I was singing them an actual cartoon theme song. Don’t know if you’re familiar with Underdog. I was singing that song but with lyrics contorted as “Thundercat”, an homage to the black and white streak that Tucker Cat, aka Thundercat, made as he thundered around. You know, “Speedy claws, meows of thunder, fighting all who sleep and slumber. Thundercat, Thundecat.” Once that song was purged, I went on with Steely Dan and “FM (No Static at All)” from 1978. Instead of singing the original lyrics, I sang, “Worry the kibble Mamma, form a breakfast line. Kick off your velvet claws, it’s eating time.” Yeah, makes as much sense as the original lyrics.

Worry the bottle Mamma, it’s grapefruit wine
Kick off your high heel sneakers, it’s party time
The girls don’t seem to care what’s on
As long as they play till dawn
Nothin’ but blues and Elvis
And somebody else’s favorite song

Give her some funked up music, she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae, she’ll love you twice
The girls don’t seem to care tonight
As long as the mood is right

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Time to drink coffee. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Let’s be careful out there. (From Hill Street Blues). Here’s the muzak. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

“Just another manic Monday.” Yes, welcome to Monday, September 13, 2021. I generally wasn’t fond of Mondays in my school days. Monday. Yech. Up early. Off to await the school bus. Then in the building. Didn’t mind school and did well but disliked that routine. Never was routine oriented in those days. Writing changed that for me. A routine was essential. Of course, I centered it around coffee.

We didn’t drink coffee as children when I went to school. Rarely drank sodas, pop, sugary carbonated beverages, whatever you wanted to call them. Our drink was chocolate, as in hot chocolate or chocolate milk. I’ve noticed that every coffee shop close to a school has a regular glut of children in there getting a morning beverage. Chai tea seemed like the fave was the longest. Of course, in my day, we didn’t know about chai tea, or cafe mochas or lattes. There weren’t usually coffee shops. They were rare and small. A place to get a blue plate special. Change, right?

Sunrise today was a proper one. Boosted by a clear sky and just the right angle, full sunshine beamed into the valley at 6:49 AM. We had a clearish day yesterday with good- to moderate- rated air. Green and yellow. Nothing over 90 on the AQI. Today’s AQI is 39. Sweet. Sunset will come to our valley at 7:24 PM tonight.

As for songs, a 1966 cover of an older song is in the mental musical stream. “See You in September” was covered by the Happenings and became a pop hit. Hearing it provides an interesting look back at how pop music sounded then, and how it was evolving. You had the surf sound going on, the Brit invasion, but also songs like this along with others by the Four Seasons, and Motown soul. Rock and roll was growing, and so was folk music. Rock and pop has always been eclectic. One of the reasons I love it. A song for any mood, a sound for any time. I admit that I lean toward blues-based guitar and piano sounds with subtle soul nuances. Sounds like I’m describing a wine, doesn’t it?

Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. If we do these things, then maybe we will see one another in September, out in public, without a mask, enjoying fresh autumn air. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Woo-hoo. Welcome to Sunday, September 12, 2021, National Video Games Day! Yes, today is set aside as a day of observance and remembrance to the video games we loved and played. Yeah. A popular social media device is to ask you what your favorite video game was a child. I think mine was Etch-A-Sketch. Does that qualify? I do remember when Pong came out and we all played it for about twenty minutes. Ah, the seventies. What a period for video games.

Sunrise was 6:44 AM today. Sunrise cometh at 7:27 PM as daylight hours accordion down. AQI is moderate, mid seventies, and the high today will be in the low 80s F here in Ashland, southern Oregon.

I’ve already dated myself with my video game recollections. So, nothing to lose. I awoke with “25 or 6 to4” by the Chicago Transit Authority playing in the mental music stream. Its emergence for here and now isn’t clear. What is clear is that it’s stuck and must be shared to be removed. Chicago later dropped the last two words of its name. Its style changed, too. But, that’s how it goes with music.

So here it is, from pre-Internet, pre-worldwide web, pre-video games. Why I listened to this song on vinyl. Then tape. Now I listen to it on digits. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Now go play a video game while I get coffee. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Good morning. Welcome to Saturday, September 11, 2021. Sunrise came at 6:46 AM. Sunset will be at 7:29 PM.

Gorgeous outside right now. Very excited for that. AQI is 34. Code green! Was also that low last night, prompting me to do a long walk, for which my body thanked me. Been so long that we’ve had such clean air to breath. Ah, to be able to open a window and let in fresh, cool air. To look out and be able to see the green mountains and blue sky again. It’s the little details that sustain us.

Temperatures are also cooperating. We expect highs in the low 80s. Couple with the overnight lows in the sixties and the rain remnants from two nights ago, and the ingredients of a delightful fall day come together. It’s a good day to think about who you are and look forward to who you can be and what you can do. Move the needle.

The mental music stream has “Follow Me” by Uncle Kracker (2001) running. I know, odd choice. Compelled by cats, I tell you. They were awaiting the royal feeding. I called out, “Hungry?” “Yes,” they answered. “Follow me for food,” I answered. “Come on, follow me.”

I started walking. They followed. By then, my neurons had linked with the words, “Follow me.” The association was made and the song began.

Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed. Get a vax. Drink coffee. That’s what I’m going to do. Here’s the music. Cheers

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