Category: memories

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.

I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.

Nope.

Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.

Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.

All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Up early. (Well, early-ish.) (With le chats.) Opened the back door and ventured into the cool air (well, coolish, low seventies, but it’s a relative thing, innit?) and clear blue sky (well, clear-ish and blue-ish, save for the marring brung in by wildfire smoke to the south and east, gentle nudges to check the wildfire updates). Birds were speaking but it was quiet (well, quiet-ish, as cars’ motoring punctured the mo’ — again, again, again). Thought of the world sit, rolling into longing for where I was and where I preferred to be.

Here’s a song from another time which I think evokes those senses, “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley and Mike Campbell, with Campbell on guitar, from 1984. By coincidence, it captures the sense of summer, 2020: “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summers out of reach. Empty lake, empty streets, the sun goes down alone.”

Hmm, seems like an -ish kind of day…

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

A conversational tic, “Do you know what I mean,” triggered recollection of the Lee Michaels 1968 song. Know what I mean?

It fits for today as topic lines are starkly drawn. Voting by mail can’t work, they say, but I did it throughout my military career and since moving to Oregon in 2005, so I think it works, know what I mean?

Trump couldn’t come up with shit for the pandemic, but he eagerly sends geared paramilitary Feds to cities led by Dems, know what I mean?

Pro baseball started playing in bubbles in the U.S. and now they’re canceling games because players have tested positive, know what I mean?

COVID-19 deaths are taking place, and positive cases are rising, they canceled the in person Republican convention but still want to open businesses and send children to school, you know what I mean?

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Cleaned up, shaved, cats fed, I sought the next things: what’d I need now? Coffee, water, a trip to the beach, my arm mended, the rona virus ended, a cold bevvie with my friends, a publishing contract…

“Dial it back, laddie,” I decreed. “Talkin’ ’bout here and now.” My mind reiterated my needs, building on them…

Such contemplation about what I need often collapses into what I want. Got air. I needed food and water. We can expand it into the hierarchy of needs., of course, but I’m addressing basics.

Yeah, it was too much for too early. Retreating from myself, I made coffee and breakfast, and invited the Stones in to perform “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“.

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A Wistful Dream

Light and airy was how to describe this dream. It was all about a friend, Kev. I’ve not seen him in over twenty years. A military friend, we were assigned together in California (Onizuka). Though he was about ten years younger and assigned to a different unit, we spent a lot of time together during off hours. Our relationship continued after I retired from the military. Then we each moved. I went north and he went east. We are FB friends.

I recognized after thinking about the dream that he’s emblematic of better times, fun times…younger times. There’s nothing in any of this. I’m twenty years older and more aware of my life changes. Fold in the pandemic situation, isolation, and the travel and activity restrictions incurred with the situation. Add a cup of writing frustration. Stir in a tablespoon of malaise because of my broken arm and self-pity. Bake.

In the dream, I found a piece of paper. Reading its contents, I realized that it could only come from Kev and went to find him, which was immediately achieved. We struck it off again as we always had. He was back from a temporary assignment somewhere and filled me in Then, growing sad, he told me childhood stories and began a tragic tale about a female friend. He never finished that story.

It reminded me of so much that’s incomplete.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is another feline inspired choice from last night.

I’d opened a tin of food for them. “Here it is. Come and get it.”

The three floofs sat there with ‘the look’ on their expressions. The look claims, “Who are you? Why should I trust you?” Do you know this look?

“Seriouslyre you kidding? This is food. I’ve been feeding you for years.”

The three cat expressions soured. “Food? What is that?”

I had to walk away. “It’s there when you want it,” I threw over my shoulder. Meanwhile, I’d begun humming the Badfinger song, “Come and Get It“, (1969). It always seemed like an odd song to me, this McCartney ditty, but it stays with me.

After a few minutes, I checked on the food, verifying, et. The three boys were off grooming themselves like nothing had happened.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Weather – hot. Summer: hot. City: hot.

Three entertaining songs about the heat, city, and summer. It’s like a tradition for me to ply ’em in my head as the city heat addresses my body.

Billy Idol, “Hot in the City“, 1982.

“Hot Child in the City“, Nick Gilder, 1978.

And “Summer in the City” ,1966, The Lovin’ Spoonful.

Enjoy the heat. That is all.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

As the coronavirus, economy, and politics dominate the days in negative ways, I thought of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush performing Peter Gabriel’s quiet and hopeful “Don’t Give Up” (1986).

The song is about struggle, trying, getting beaten, and trying again.

Though I saw it all around
Never thought that I could be affected
Thought that we’d be last to go
It is so strange the way things turn
Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Don’t give up, you still have us
Don’t give up, we don’t need much of anything
Don’t give up, ’cause somewhere there’s a place where we belong

Rest your head, you worry too much
It’s going to be alright
When times get rough, you can fall back on us
Don’t give up, please don’t give up
Got to walk out of here, I can’t take any more
Gonna stand on that bridge, keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come and whatever may go
That river’s flowing, that river’s flowing

h/t to Genius.com

Thought it fit today’s mood well.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday. Just come as you are.

Yes, it’s a Nirvana day.

Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don’t be late
Take a rest as a friend
As an old memoria

h/t to Genius.com

“Come as You Are” always spoke to a oneness for me. Friend, enemy, memory? These matters become fused, and speaks to trust and messy agendas. “Why are you urging me to come there? What are you up to?”

No, I don’t have a gun.

Enjoy the 1992 offering.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music, “Every Breath You Take” by the Police (1983), was an obvious and unoriginal choice. Coaxed out of the cerebral cortex by images on the TV and net of law enforcement officers watching and attacking protesters, it works on multiple levels about watchers, watching, and being watched. Besides those confrontations, we’re watching COVID-related numbers, election events, and government actions as we gyrate about the best course to kickstart the money machines and normalize life as the case numbers rise.

The Police’s stalking song feels about right on this day in 2020.

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