Category: memories

Friday’s Theme Music

Cyndi Lauper’s 1986 song (wow, so long ago, in retrospect), “True Colors” gave to mind today as I perused the news.

Everything seems like political news in the U.S. in this era. Trump wants to stop Bolton’s book from being released, using the conflicting reasons, it’s all lies, and it’s all classified, making the book classified lies, which I think would be a good name for a music group. “Classified Lies”. Think they might be a one-hit wonder.

Karens — white women who call the police for calling on Blacks for living while being Black — have been caught showing their true colors, smugly declaring how right they are in hateful tones, demanding that Blacks go back to where they came from or stop what they’re doing, or police! The tactic seems to have been solidly ingrained into their psychic, as they have little fear of using it. Oh, how often when the video exposes their true colors do they sob about how sorry they are, how they didn’t realize. Sure, too late; we see your true colors.

More on the right insist that wearing masks and social distancing doesn’t matter, they want to invoke herd immunity. “The economy,” they scream. Many are ‘pro-lifers’ who also screamed against abortion choice and spread rumors of death panels when the ACA was being debated. Now, the possibility of spreading death doesn’t bother them. Life isn’t so precious as the economy. They’ve shown their true colors.

As protests supporting Black Lives Matter and against police brutality rose and spread, some people spoke up for the police even as video evidence of their abuse and disregard spread. True colors were shown.

Yes, the pressure to stand somewhere and declare yourself often exposes true colors. It’s a good song for Juneteenth, 2020, as we see too many people’s true, ugly colors.

Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote “True Colors”. I didn’t know that until I read it on wikipedia.org. Cyndi Lauper puts a beautiful spin on it. While I mock the true colors of racists and the right wing in the light of current news, the song is an antidote to such trumpshit.

No, “True Colors” is more supportive of the protesters standing for change, because more of us, a majority, are awakening to the wrongs manifested in our names, and are trying to put it right. 

You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
Its hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small

But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

Show me a smile then
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there

h/t to Lyrics.com.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed these lines:

Here’s your ticket, pack your bag, it’s time for jumping overboard
The transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fighting fire with fire, ah!

h/t to Genius.com

After a night of chaotic dreaming (sometimes I was dictating a novel to others, sometimes they were dictating it to me, which sometimes involved an empty white room but then featured a red jukebox where I made selections but they didn’t come up), I awoke with those lines from “Burning Down the House” dominating my mental stream (along with “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Croft and “This Magic Moment”, as covered by Jay and the Americans). Not really hooked on it (for example, fragments of Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” just skittered through), but why shouldn’t it be today’s theme music? I like the song’s nonsensical connections that hint at something deeper.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music arrives because of interactions with the cats.

Another cat, one I’d never seen, arrived on the backyard fence yesterday. Alarms went off in my cats. Tucker, who rules the house, lifted himself up, slowly sat down, curled his tail around his body, and watched this newcomer, a tabby with a white chest and white front paws. They gave Tucker a long look.

Then Boo, the resident house bagheera, took note of the newby and sat up so he could watch. And Papi, the ginger blade, emerged from the shadows to sit and watch.

Newby had been thinking about jumping down into the yard. These three’s laser gazes gave them pause. But how should they redirect? Nothing appeared trustworthy.

Which is when I said, “Everyone relax.” They immediately ignored me. No one relaxed but Frankie Goes to Hollywood began thumping in my head.

So here we go, “Relax”, from 1983.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Been listening to some blues streaming in my head and decided to share it with you. Here’s Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble with “Pride and Joy” from 1983. Turn it up!

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Monday’s Theme Music

We had a Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police protest and march in Ashland this weekend. My wife and I didn’t attend; her underlying health issues increase her vulnerability.

But we drove down to check it out. Hundreds attended. It was peaceful. Most — probably ninety-plus percent — were masked but social distancing wasn’t observed, so mixed bag. Holding our breath on that as the case count continues rising in Oregon.

Young and old, Black, White, Asian, and Latino marched. Later, as we talked about it during “Sixty Minutes”, my wife asked, “Why do we need to keep doing this? When will it permanently change?”

Good question, one that stayed with me this morning. The question prompted a recall of a 2007 Foo Fighters song and video, “The Pretender”. Dave Grohl said in interviews that 2007’s political unrest influenced him when he wrote it. Watching the video, well, you see the same themes as in 2020: protests, taking a knee, confronting police, violence escalating.

Big difference exist between now and 2007. Videos emerge almost weekly of police killing people, almost always Blacks, for little provocation. Too many times, it was brushed aside, hidden again and again. But as it’s happened, it’s just become, too much. The expression, “Black Lives Matter”, arose to express the gulf we see as Blacks were killed or had the police called by Whites for being black. The expression, “Being Karen”, became the code for privileged White people who called the police for such a list of shocking reasoning about why Black people weren’t supposed to be there, or why they were a threat.

“The Pretender” speaks to these things. All those things done by the police hat were hidden or protected are being exposed, again, again, and again. That’s the momentum that keeps this wheel spinning, and will until, finally, Black Lives Matter.

Send in your skeletons
Sing as their bones go marching in again
They need you buried deep
The secrets that you keep are at the ready
Are you ready?
I’m finished making sense
Done pleading ignorance, that whole defense
Spinning infinity, boy
The wheel is spinning me
It’s never ending, never ending
Same old story

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Saturday’s Theme Music

“Thunder only happens when it’s raining.”

It wasn’t raining (at least around our house) but the thunder was relentless. Half the cats did a frenzied thunder-run to hide. The other two yawned.

I listened to the thunder, waited for the lightning, and remembered songs about thunder, lightning, and rain. The mental stream finally selected the Fleetwood Mac song, “Dreams” (1977). Ostensibly a reflective song about ending relationships, the line about the thunder always resonates with me.

It’s a very mellow song.

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Friday’s Theme Music

I remembered the Killers’ song, “Human” (2008) this morning. The song has never been a favorite, and its success surprised me. Different tastes, right?

Many were enamored by the line, “Are we human, or are we dancers?” The line evolved from a Hunter Thompson throwaway line about the United States raising a generation of dancers, afraid to step out of line.

The whole thing came back to me as I noted, with some pleasure and approval, that young people were heavily involved in the Black Lives Matters protests. One of the most disheartening parts of protesting in my fifties and sixties was the absence of young people. Didn’t they care? Or were my values so out of step with their values?

Older generations often malign younger generations. My generation, the boomers, were no different. It takes time to filter the world and yourself. Bursts of rebellion against expectations and norms are required and expected, but the way each generation finds to act out and express itself remains different. Social media is the thing now, not taking it to the streets, so the protests are a throwback, old school.

Yeah, rambling. Not sufficient coffee yet to form coherent sentences. Here’s the music. See if you can spot the line (hah!).

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I’m on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?

[Bridge]
Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we’re receiving
Let me know, is your heart still beating?

h/t Genius.com

That is all.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Yes, today I do have an earworm.

Cutting the grass and trimming trees last night. As I started, “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (1972) by Loggins & Messina began playing in my head. It continued throughout the evening as I sipped a beer afterwards and coped with a Hulu outage.

The song was playing like a radio alarm clock this morning. Earworm, I sighed.

So, I’m sharing it to dislodge it. It’s a trick that works. Please bear with me. I thought about going with a live version but it lacked the piano playing. I like the piano playing. I considered a Poison version, too, but, sorry, the L&M studio version remains my preference.

That is all.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This is one of those days when I awoke and for some unknown reason have some song snatch in the stream. Does this happen to others? Am I the only one with a playlist in my head that goes click when I get up and start thinking?

Sure, I’m not. These aren’t the same as earworms, mind you. Sometimes they are earworms, which is a song that’s stuck in your head. There’s a different feel to earworms than just a the mental jukebox flipping something on. These songs aren’t necessarily stuck, just present. I’ll heavily bet that they are related to some auditory cortex wiring, though.

Aside: remembered this WebMD post from a few years ago and dragged it into the light: “Songs Stick in Everyone’s Head”. It mentions reasons related to neurosis and obsessions, and the cognitive itch. As a writer, I become obsessed; that’s a large part of being a writer for me, getting obsessed with ideas, concepts, stories, and characters, and trying to wring them out of my head and into the world in a way that the rest of the world might understand.

Today’s song, “What’s My Age Again?” is from 1999 and a group named Blink-182. I really liked the album name: Enema of the State. Good play on words? With many people and orgs battling ‘the state’ for a variety of reasons, maybe that’s the cognitive itch that supplied my stream with this song.

Or maybe the cognitive itch is the song’s year, 1999. Seems like things really began spinning weird with Bush v Gore and the Florida hanging chads (which could be the name of some kind of group) in the next year. 1999 was a good year for me in my world. Maybe my mind lauds it as the last good year.

Well, here it is. The song, I mean, not my world. It’s a video. I’d not seen it before today, but it’s amusing to watch three naked men (except shoes and socks) running around.

That is all.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

A bit of contra programming for myself today. Reading the news and watching videos of protesters losing eyes from police firing rubber bullets into crowds sickens me. Some respond, well, the protesters shouldn’t have been there. I disagree. They have the right to assemble right included in the bill of rights. Why huge police forces must escalate with violence is the disturbing part. Fighting fascism, the fascists say in classic double-speak.

It’s all hard to handle, which kicked the Black Crowes’ cover of the song by the same title into my music stream. Otis Redding wrote and recorded the song, and it’s been covered by many since the song’s first release in 1968. I enjoyed Otis Redding’s version and found the BC’s cover was a fatter, slightly up-tempo version that works for me. So here it is, from 1990.

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