Thursday. I think. July 22, 2021. Remember the old days when these things had to be remembered or looked up on paper? Now some machine is doing that for you. Or me.
Today the sun will rise when it’s dark and set when it’s light. Somewhere in the morning and evening hours, respectively. Temperatures will climb and fall. Somewhere into the 90s and fifties. Respectively.
Doing a little Janis in my head. Thought it’s a good theme song. Here is Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin, from 1968, with “Piece of My Heart”. Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed. Get the vax. Please.
The sun also ‘rises’ and then it ‘sets’. That’s our perspective. From this perspective on Tuesday, July 20, 2021, that happens at 5:52 AM and 8:41 PM.
Wildfires continue. Heat continues. Drought. COVID-19. Politics. Climate change. Battles for social justice. Equality. Equal opportunity. Efforts to deny those continue unabated, too, usually under the flimsiest of logic.
I was up after midnight last night — not unusual. With the wife in bed and the cats usually hanging on the front porch or back patio, after midnight is when I get my alone time. Midnight is featured in many songs. Bunch traveled through my head. One took it by storm, though: “Living After Midnight” by Judas Priest, from waaayyy back in 1980. FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO. An OMG moment that made me laugh.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Flooding in Europe. Wildfires all over the U.S. west. Record heat waves. Drought. COVID-19 cases spiking. It’s too much for a Friday. I’m going back to bed.
Today is July 16, 2021. Bad news sometimes seems overwhelming. Dark stories past those headline blares paint scenes of death, destruction, and despair. Unless you’re wealthy. Then it’s woo-hoo, life is grand.
Daylight hours seems to be drawing down fast. Maybe it feels like that because of dark news. Sunrise was at 5:49 AM. Less than fifteen hours later will come sunset, 8:45 PM. Temperatures are at least down. Feels chilly with temperatures in the mid sixties this morning. The sky is clear, though, and we’ll probably see 90 F again this afternoon. Although forecast to have a high of 84 yesterday, we saw 93.
I’m always disappointed when Alexa is wrong about the weather. She’s never apologetic about it. Never mentions getting it wrong.
Today’s song is by 311. “Amber” (2001) is about the color of someone’s energy. My energy had been high. Then came irrigation drip problems disrupting my plans, requiring digging to learn what has gone wrong. While doing that, the song came unbidden to mind. So, here we are.
Stay positive — you know, as I do (hah!) — test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Here’s the music. I’m going to go get my coffee. It won’t necessarily lift my spirits but will inure me against feeling so damn down. Cheers
Remembering and reflecting upon dreams whilst I shaved, my brain sang, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma” by Melanie Safka (1970). Interesting way to start the morning.
Thursday, July 15, 1970, has arrived. Day rise began at 5:48 AM. Night fall will begin with sunset at 8:46 PM. Cooler temperatures are carrying the weather today. Just gonna be 86 degrees F tonight. Feels more like an early autumn day than summer. Air smells fresh although wildfire smoke rims the valley along the peaks and ridges. The Bootleg Fire still rages a hundred miles away, adding to its total of 330 square miles of destruction. Authorities report it’s 7% contained. Full containment isn’t expected until October.
COVID-19 numbers are rising everywhere in the U.S.. Independence Day gatherings coupled with vaccination hesitancy, complacency, people not wearing masks, and the D variant’s growing presence is bringing the virus back in a significant way. Mitigating the virus’s impact remains a stout hurdle for the world.
Musically, I shifted from Melanie to 10cc and “I’m Not In Love” (1975). This wasn’t about love for me, but the thinking, as I washed and thought about plans, “This is a phase I’m going through.” That kicked up the song’s line, “It’s just a silly phase I’m going through. And just because, I call you up, don’t get me wrong, don’t think you got it made.” That led to a chuckle and a worry about my own complacency, although this was about writing complacency. When it’s going well, I can be complacent, which then turns into a setback. Gotta keep pressing.
Stay pos, test neg, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
The rotations continue, no matter what is done, sunrise, sunfall. 5:46 AM, 8:47 PM in slice of world in southern Oregon. The revolution continues, despite what is done, carrying us through summer, speeding us toward autumn.
Today is Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Wildfires continue catching and growing. Two are contained, five more start. Smoke doesn’t fill the sky but bleaches the blue into a yellow-tinged gray haze. Fine grey granules, almost white, sprinkle cars and the land. Think of how they coat skin. Get into airways. Spread into lungs, interfering with body functions like breathing.
The smoke is a cooling shade, keeping temperatures from rising over one hundred F but unable to keep us from experiencing high nineties heat. Green has been dried out of the grasses. They turn into a sandy shade of brown.
But, you know, good news. COVID-19 vaccinations appear to be helping, where people are allowing themselves to be vaccinated. As disease variants rise, the unvaccinated and vaccinated become positive, but it’s the unvaccinated who are typically hospitalized and dying.
The other good news is that people are shedding their masks, unless they need it to deal with smoke (at least out here in the American west). Stores are opening. Restaurants. Movie theaters. One can again attend movies. Isn’t that good news? And the All-star break is underway. Good news, right? Good news.
While drought spreads in the west, places are flooding in the south and east as hurricanes and tropical storms strike. Did you see the photos of the flooded New York subway and roads? Places are also experiencing power outages. Sometimes from storms, sometimes because power is cut off due to wildfires, sometimes because the wildfires burn power lines. Melbourne, Australia is locked down again but the NFL is looking forward to full stadiums. There’s a water shortage growing in America but a housing boom is underway. The stock market has never been better, and look how that economy seems to be recovering. Also, the Emmy list has been released. That’s good news, isn’t it?
An ad on an Internet page seems it all up for me. Showing a pristine red and white Chevy Corvette from the early sixties, the ad informs me, “Jag EType” (that’s how they put it) “in any condition, nationwide.” While showing a Vette. Makes sense to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an optimist. Hopeful. Hell, I keep grinding away on my writing routine. Must believe some future exists for it. Which brings me to the music.
Here’s the Pretenders from 1986. They do an homage to an old television show, “The Avengers”. My wife and I quite enjoyed that series as children. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax. Cheers
Today is Sunday, July 11 (7/11), 2021. I remember the first time I ever visited a 7/11 convenience store. I was twelve. One was built along the edges of our housing development. We could walk to it for gum, candy, ice cream bars, whatever. Mom would send me on missions to procure bread, milk, and cigarettes. Salems or Kools. She shifted brands. Walking to the store was our era’s equivalent of surfing the net. Just killing the day.
Today’s daylight began at 5:45 AM and will end at 8:48 PM. Minutes are starting to be shaved off each day. Soon we’ll be heading toward the time change. Then the earth’s trip will move my hemisphere away from the sun’s pleasures. Autumn will drop on us. Winter. We’ll be racing toward the shortest day of sunlight and I’ll be longing for sunshine.
We expect cooler temps today, lows in the lower sixties F, highs around 97 degrees F. No rain in sight. Wildfire smoke soils the blue sky. Two fires east of us by a hundred miles feeds the smoke. Watch your time outside as the air quality slides down the scale into the unhealthy zone.
My brain has opened the day with Don Henley singing “Dirty Laundry” from 1982. The morning music began first with “Those Shoes” by The Eagles. Thinking about that album (The Long Run) took me onto a memory path where I visited with my wife’s family and her sister’s husband. We both enjoy rock, although he, a Vietnam vet and Purple Heart recipient, doesn’t deviate from a narrow definition of what should be heard. He despised disco with a deep passion. Did appreciate soul, R&B, and blues, but had no use for country or rap. He really enjoyed “Dirty Laundry”. And here we are.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Welcome to a new, improved Saturday. Leaner, lighter, lower, stronger, faster, cleaner, more advanced, stays fresher longer, this Saturday is unlike any Saturday you’ve ever experienced. You must try it to believe it. It’s already changed tens of thousands of lives.
“Although I’ve only been awake for about three hours and I have a hangover badgering my brain like a berserk chipmunk, this Saturday has been unbelievable,” says Beverly Beaumont of Texas.
“I don’t think I’d make it to Sunday without this Saturday,” said William Pitt of Pennsylvania.
Duncan Heinz said, “Has to be one of my top seven days of the week.”
Continuing the warm spell again today. Forecasted high of 96 degrees F with a sunrise of 5:41 AM and a sunset coming on at 8:49 PM.
For the first time in recorded history, it is also July 10, 2021. Sip on your coffee and think of that.
Four songs are looping through my mental musical stream this day in history. On top of the list is “Brass in Pocket” by the Pretenders, 1979. Second is “Signs”. Then there’s “Resurrection Shuffle”.
Dreams called out Brass. “Signs” arrived because someone posted “Signs, signs, everywhere signs,” on Twitter yesterday. My pink gray matter summoned the Five Man Electrical Band rendition (1971), followed by the live Tesla version from 1990.
Last, though, came the “Resurrection Shuffle”. Although the lyrics and melody are fresh in the stream, looking up the performer and year was required, delivering the information, Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, 1971. As I never hear that anywhere, I decided this would be today’s tune. Hope you’re familiar with it.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as warranted, and get that vax. Don’t find yourself being mourned because you put off getting the vax for whatever reason. Don’t find yourself mourning others because you got sick and passed it on, and they didn’t survive. Stories of both those flavors are circulating with greater frequency. Get the vax. Here’s the tune. Cheers
Think about nothing now
You're nice and high
You're advocating love
But you don't know why
Now you getting vibrations
All down to your feet
That's the brow beatin'
Heavy leather resurrection beat
h/t Lyrics.com
Thursday began at 12:01 AM but the sun didn’t show up until 5:40 AM. Many don’t think the day begins until the sun arrives. Midnight is part of last night, not very early morning. Which side do you fall upon? Depends upon what you mean by ‘day’ for many.
Ah, well. Sunset will strike 8:49ish PM. Cooler weather prevails in the daylight hours, high of only 90 being called out. Morning was delightful, with a chilly 58 degrees when the sun brought its golden presence to the stage.
By the way, today is July 8, 2021. On this date in history, what will you do?
For music, I’m playing “Creep” by Stone Temple Pilots, aka STP, in my head. From 1993, Scott Weiland, STP vocalist once said in an interview that it’s about a young man caught between being a kid and becoming an adult. Yet, as we age, we often lament the same thing: I’m half the person I used to be. Half the energy. Half the memory. Half the ambition, etc. So, this song could be flipped to being about a young person becoming an older person. Funny, when we’re young, we’re searching for who we want to be, striving to become someone…something. Older, we remember who we were and strive to remain relevant and be someone…something. Many as they age complain of ‘becoming invisible’. Especially women.
Yeah, thinking too much, aren’t I? And not expressing it well. Should shelve it until I get some coffee in me. But no, press on, yeah? Stay positive, right? Test negative. Wear a mask, when needed, depending upon the situation and the variants. Get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers
Currently 75 degrees F. Said to be cooler today. 90 to 94. Today and tomorrow. Hope so. Officially hit 99 yesterday. My home system said it was 101.
Sunrise kicked off at 5:42 AM, a slow growth of light, rosy as pink rose petals at first, then clearing, sharpening, drawing shadows around everything’s backside. Sunset is anticipated at 8:49 PM, if all goes well.
Musically, I’m channeling the Beatles today. Tune is called “Get Back”. Was a 1969 hit for the lads. Billy Preston’s contribution on the keys always delights me. Fun to watch this video of that time, way back when. The hair! The clothes! The antics! The sound! Remember when you were young? Ah, yes, youth — wasted on the young.
Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask if needed, get the vax. And get back to where you once belonged. Cheers
“Today is Tuesday! You know what that means? We’re gonna have a special guest.”
The opening was something that just streamed through me head. Haven’t had my coffee yet.
Today is Tuesday, I think, July 6, 2021. July — and summer — and just streamrolling through. Sol’s first long fingers of rosy light caressed our valley at 5:41 AM. Expecting another 100 degree day, we’ll expect heat to linger for hours after sundown’s official 8:50 time. And there, in those sun up/down numbers is the compressing of the daylight. Two minutes shorter. The countdown to the shortest day of light has begun.
I watched Summer of Soul on Hulu last night. Mind music has been stirred up by it. The documentary is about the 1969 Harlem Culture Festival and a feel for the times, racially, culturally. Great music was brought up. Performers, attendees, and the people behind the production were interviewed. The difficulties encountered. Maxwell House coffee as the sponsor. Mayor Lindsay’s presence.
But the performances. The Fifth Dimension coping with not being black enough, singing “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”. Billy Davis Jr and Marilyn McCoo’s reactions as they see themselves as they were. Nina Simone’s powerful presence. The amazing talent that is Stevie Wonder. Gospel Music. The Staple Singers. “Grazing in the Grass”. People in the audience dancing. Singing. Those are just off-the-head snippets. The whole thing must be seen. Heard. Those who experienced the times will remember. Those who don’t know them will wonder.
For me, though, Sly and the Family Stone was it. Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” and “Sing A Simple Song” flushed memories through. Always admired and listened to that group. It’s hardwired into my existence. Their music has been featured here as theme music before. But I’d overlooked “Sing A Simple Song”. Well, not today. It’s my theme music.
[Cynthia:] Sing a simple song [Rose:] Yeah, yeah, yeah, [etc.] [Freddie:] I’m talkin’ talkin’ talkin’ talkin’ talkin’ in my sleep [Larry:] I’m walkin’ walkin’ walkin’ walkin’ walkin’ in the street [Sly:] Time is passin’ I grow older Things are happening fast All I have to hold onto is a simple song at last Let me hear you say [All:] Yeah, yeah, yeah, [etc.]
[Cynthia:] Sing a simple song Try a little do re me fa so la ti do
[Rose:] Yeah, yeah, yeah, etc. [Freddie:] I’m livin’ livin’ livin’ life with all its ups and downs [Larry:] I’m givin’ givin’ givin’ love and smilin’ at the frowns
[Sly:] You’re in trouble when you find it’s hard for you to smile A simple song might make it better for a little while Let me hear you say [All:] Yeah, yeah. yeah, [etc.]
Michael Seidel, writer 