Category: memories

Sunday’s Theme Music

Today brought me “Vasoline” by STP – Stone Temple Pilots – from 1994.

First, the song’s unusual, jarring beginning. Then, against that jarring beat, let’s consider the lyrics.

One time a thing occurred to me
What’s real and what’s for sale
Blew a kiss and tried to take it home

It isn’t you, isn’t me
Search for things that you can’t see
Going blind out of reach
Somewhere in the vasoline

Two times and it has rendered me
Punch drunk and without bail
Think I’d be safer all alone

Flies in the vasoline we are
Sometimes it blows my mind
Keep getting stuck here all the time

It isn’t you, isn’t me
Search for things that you can’t see
Going blind out of reach
Somewhere in the vasoline

You’ll see the look
And you’ll see the lies
You’ll eat the lies
And you will

h/t to SongMeanings.com

Scott Weiland, the vocalist and lyricist died in 2015, forty-eight years old, another interesting and creative person who was gone too young. He said that it was about being stuck in the same thing again and again, such as the drug addiction that plagued him. Yeah, it’s too easy to get stuck.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is due to a Andy Greene article in Rolling Stone about Peter Green. Peter Green was the founder of a little group called Fleetwood Mac, named after Mick Fleetwood (on drums) and John McVie (on bass). After reading the article and listening to the video, I went in search of Peter Green and re-discovered his rendition of The Supernatural. A comment said it was recorded in 1966.

I don’t know. I remember hearing it somewhere as a teenager and wondering, who is that? It was brilliant guitar work. I eventually learned that it was Peter Green. After buying the album used at a head shop, I started playing it at home.

Friends and family weren’t impressed. “There’s no one singing,” was the comment lament. “What’s it about?” “It’s just a guy playing guitar.” These questions and comments left me speechless. Didn’t they hear what he was doing with that guitar?

Peter Green’s skills fell out of my mind as he disappeared from public life after some bad drug experiences. Good of Mick Fleetwood to pay tribute to him and remind us who Peter Green is.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Out of the dream miasma comes Nirvana with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991) – well, hello, hello, hello, how low?

I’m worse at what I do best
And for this gift, I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

h/t to Genius.com

 

A denial.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Feeling like a bit o’ rut had overtaken me, I sought changes after leaving my writing time. Writing time had been productive and left me with that sense of magic, that anything was possible. Now, walking again, I faced the boring and mundane, the same old shit – trees, house, and streets. My mind is screaming road trip. Get thee somewhere with a fresh view. Been a while, I thought with first world sniveling, months since I’ve gotten away to somewhere else, which is the primary problem with being in a rut.

Out of this, or into this, streamed Green Day’s 1994 offering, “Longview”. Why not? It’s a song all about being bored and doing the same thing hour and hour twenty-four seven.

Sit around and watch the tube but, nothing’s on
Change the channels for an hour or two
Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit
I’m sick of all the same old shit
In a house with unlocked doors
And I’m fucking lazy

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I’m so damn bored I’m going BLIND!!!
And I smell like shit

Peel me off this velcro seat and get me moving
I sure as hell can’t do it by myself
I’m feeling like a DOG IN HEAT
Barred indoors from the summer street
I locked the door to MY OWN CELL
And I lost the key

h/t Lyrics.rockmagic.net

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Dream residue leaves me with “Touch Me” this morning, a song by The Doors from 1968. I was twelve when it came out.

Don’t know why it came up after the dream. Mind works in bizarro manners. Could be the name of my mind: Welcome to Bizarro Manor. Fits. I’m always being accused of having an unusual sense of humor and thinking differently than others. Alas, guilty, but it does bring a sense of isolation.

Hmm, maybe that’s where this song comes in. “Come on, touch me, babe. Can’t you see that I am not afraid? What was that promise that you made?”

This was an interesting video from that era.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Heading downtown after dressing, started singing a bastardized version of ZZ Top’s “Tush” (1975) from my childhood’s end: “Lord, take me downtown, I’m just looking for some coffee.”

Yeah, not as lyrical. Tried other things, and thought caffeine worked best. The things your mind ends up doing to kill walking time. It’s a good upbeat walking song, simple but steady with some guitar riffs that talk to me.

So, here’s the real deal (the song, that is).

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Time for a little Neil Young. Call out to him for being naturalized as a U.S. We used to live in the same neighborhood, broadly speaking, on the California coast. A friend was his primary supplier, so the story goes. A little club wasn’t far where he liked to play for small crowds with no announcement, so the story goes.

1989 saw him bring out “Rockin’ in the Free World”. The song provides so many mocking lines drawing attention to our cultural hypocrisy:

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Yeah, that’s rocking in the free world. That Trump used the song during his POTUS campaign without irony nauseates, but then the Trumplicans bastardize the meaning and intention of everything that they touch, subverting without sparing, heavy of hand and cruel of ideas.

I’m part of the hypocrisy in my comfy white land, something the feeds my perpetual self-damnation. Too weak to walk away from the cushiness, I’ll just do some marchin’, protesting, donating, and votin’, hoping to change things, even though that’s not been working for lo’, these many years since Bush I.

Guess I’ll just keep rockin’. Pour a little CBD into my coffee, please. My joints are hurtin’. “I try to forget it, any way I can.”

 

 

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“Sunday morning, rain is falling.” 

Well, it had been falling. It’s stopped but clouds shroud the mountains and teases the sun with promises of more light rain.

That’s part of what brought Maroon 5’s song, “Sunday Morning”, to me. I never think of this as a Maroon 5 song. The mellow, mildly jazz tune reminds me not of all of them, but more like something out of Stevie Wonder’s catalog. But, here we are.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

So, you know, grocery shopping, and hungry. Lunch had been a few hours before, and light and healthy, and maybe a little sparse. Browsing the aisles, doing our standard shopping circuit, sampling foods, eyeing others’ carts to see what they’re buying, and judging them and ourselves for what we’re buying and not buying.

I’m hungry but skinny me is in charge of shopping today, along with healthy wife, two idealized versions of ourselves who examine everything with eyes and mind toward weight and good health. It’s a good thing, innit?

Meanwhile, unhealthy me is noticing, look, they have cake! Look at that cake! Oh, and that cake. And suddenly it seemed like everybody in Costco had a cake in their cart. I escaped Costco without a cake, though. On to Trader Joe’s. Back to get some healthy non-fat yogurt! See, it’s right there, by the CAKE and DONUTS. And breads.

We ogle the cake and donuts and talk about Trader Joe’s need to sell single donuts back there, that you can buy and eat, right there. They’re not, so we pass, moving on to the breads, which we fondle for freshness, sniffing them through the package while talking about good how they are.

I don’t speak of my cake desire to my wife the entire time. The cake desire has acquired the specific shape of carrot cake. Yeah, it’s my favorite, especially if it’s spicy with raisins. That’s like, yeah, orgasm. But I don’t pursue cake, don’t speak of it, etc.

Of course I dream of it. There’s cake everywhere in my freaking dream. I’m in a hallway with cake. I’m being offered cake, being told by a woman wandering, “Take whatever you want.” Every time that I go to get a piece, some event diverts me. I awake wanting cake for breakfast.

Which, while thinking of yesterday, talking to my rumbling stomach today, and reviewing my dream as I pursue my healthy oatmeal breakfast, brings the musical group, Cake, to mind, so here’s “Long Skirt/Short Jacket” (2000) just cuz I like it.

And, you know, cake. It’s a humorous video, listening to people’s comments about the song as they listen. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

After I’d finished writing, I headed into the wilds of Ashland’s streets and sidewalks. Using the East Main crosswalk by Sherman, I saw a young woman driving an SUV toward me. She seemed to be steering with her elbows, as her left hand was holding a phone to her head as her right hand worked on applying lip gloss. Like, holy crap, just what you want to see coming toward you as you’re crossing the street.

The day had warmed to an almost balmy 56 F. Sunshine was blooming but rain was lurking on the mountains. The clouds seemed shifty, like they were planning a move. I decided I wouldn’t mind a little rain, so pressed on, heading down Fourth Street.

Down on the corner of Fourth and B was a pile of popped corn. Look, hey, what the heck is this doing here?

Must it be said that the sight stirred a 1972 song into my stream? ‘Course not. The song is a synth-pop ditty name “Popcorn” by Hot Butter. Seriously. And it was an international hit. Seriously.

I don’t know what’s up with that, but here it is in all its glory. Listen to it, please. Let me know if you’re familiar with it. Just curious, ya know?

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