Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Going through some papers yesterday evening, I decided, I’m throwing this all away.
My mind is like Siri or Alexa. “Playing Genesis, “Throwing It All Away”.
Me: “What? No! I never — ”
“Throwing It All Away” begins.
Me: “Stop it! Stop it!”
But the mind no longer hears. It’s singing along. “Throwing It All Away” continues on an endless loop until I go to sleep. Then it starts up again this morning.
So, here’s a little soft pop-rock for you day. From 1986.
With all this Apollo 11 hoopla going on, naturally I thought of moon songs, and ended up streaming The Police and “Walking on the Moon” (1979).
I’ve read many account of Americans who decline to categorically embrace that humans walked on the Moon, despite NASA’s evidence. Ryan Newman, a NASCAR driver, isn’t ready to embrace it; he’s only seen photographs. Photographs, videos, rocks, etc., can all be faked.
I know how he feels. I’ve never met him. I’ve only seen photographs and videos of Ryan Newman. He might not exist outside of CGI. For all I know, he may not have said the words attributed to him. So really, if a fake person who only exists on photographs, videos, magazines, and newspapers claims that another event is faked, does the first cancel the second?
It’ll take some giant steps. If humans ever get to Mars, I wonder how many of them will believe it?
Summertime. Good book, good Gershwin song, interesting cover by Sublime, “Doin’ Time”, a most excellent song to stream while walking around, enjoying summertime.
Know some places are having some summertime heat struggles. Hope y’all survive to have a better day.
Surprising to find that today is Thursday in this part of existence. I strongly recall Monday and Wednesday, but I think Tuesday took a header.
Prepared myself for writing this morning via a pep talk and then a walk. As I finished the latter, I told myself that I’m good, I’m cool, and then some neurons fired and I added, I’m easy.
Perhaps that was my sub’s plan to relax and fortify me. Next, the subconsciousness began playing “Easy” by the Commodores (1977) in my stream. Music always affects me, soothing, calming, exciting, sometimes even forcing me to cry. But this was a perfect, mellow counterpoint to the focus and intensity building. I need both of those, but they need to be tempered just enough to take the edge off.
“Easy” did it.
“Stay with Me” by the Faces (1971) popped into this morning’s stream. This type of bluesy rock, with so many musical elements heard complementing one another, remains my favorite style. Ronnie Woods plays a wicked guitar. Love that opening. It’s good air-guitar stuff. Ian McLagen is awesome on the piano, and then that singer, with the gravelly voice, what’s-his-name? Yeah, Rod Stewart, did a damn fine job with the vocals.
Good walking song. Don’t trust me on there. Get out there and walk and do your Rod Stewart imitation. You know you got one.
I love the beach, and I miss the beach, so I’m trying to make plans to go to the beach. Challenge number one is timing; number two is finding trustworthies to feed the cats.
Hunting for beachy accommodations on the net, I began streaming a popular beach song. I like “Rockaway Beach” by the Ramones (1977) for its raucous fast pace and lyrics. I especially enjoy those opening lines, which are later repeated:
Chewin’ at a rhythm on my bubble gum
The sun is out, I want some
It’s not hard, not far to reach
We can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach
I laugh at the first because I used to chew rhythms on my gum, which infuriated Mom, my sisters, and later, my wife. They all consider it noisy. Mom also thought I was like a cow chewing my cud.
I tried chewing my gum to “Rockaway Beach” — you have to, right? — and failed. Guess I need to keep working on it.
I was reflecting on my Air Force command and control past today.
We’d begun moving into the small computer age back in the early 1980s. The Air Force — and the Defense Department — were being cautious. Locally, we realized that much of the repetitive, manual entries we did on logs, messages, and grease boards, along with the phone calls used to relay information, could be done via computers. We began visualizing and flow-charting the entire process. Military Airlift Command (MAC), which had operational control over us, said, no. Don’t. Stop.
At my next assignment, with Tactical Air Command (TAC), a young major had begun computerizing the mission flows. He was manually doing it himself. Watching him, I began asking questions about why he wasn’t doing this and that, which led to me taking over what he was doing. He and I had a lot of fun working on that. Five years and two assignments later, I was in Europe with a small flying unit. They had begun using computers to do some of the stuff I’d wanted to do. As soon as I saw it, I maneuvered to get involved.
They were happy as hell to let me. Controlled by the J-4 and J-5 Directorates of JCS, with input and oversight from the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO) and NSA, USAFE didn’t care what I did. Locally, several officers were being advised that small computers were the future and were starting to take computer programming classes, but most weren’t familiar with them, so the commander and DO told me, “Go for it.”
So I did. By the time that I left four years later, other offices in my unit had enlisted my help, as did other units on base, asking me to share all the stuff I’d done with my small computers to automate and correlate information. My trend to incorporate computers continued with my next assignments with Space Command.
This all came to mind via “60 Minutes” and Crucible last night. “60 Minutes” featured a segment on Artificial Intelligent (AI). Crucible, a James Rollins thriller that I’m reading, features Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as part of the plot. I ended up thinking back to the MAC days and how and what robots could do. With scenes from WarGames flashing through my head, I visualized all those messages, reports, and phone calls associated with mission profiles, aircraft configurations and repairs, and mission execution, and how computers and robots could augment or replace humans.
It’s intriguing to think about. After a twenty years-plus career, I’ve been out of the military for over twenty years. They may have come to grips with many of the ideas I considered and the inherent obstacles.
Somehow, I doubt it. The military has always lagged behind for much of that, preferring to spend their annual funds to modernize weapon systems, if possible. You never know, though; those in charge have now grown up with computers as part of the digital age. My thinking would probably amuse them because they’ve gone so far past that. Oh, to be a bit in the system and overhear what’s going on.
Well, actually, I guess that’s what I was: a bit in the system.
I know multiple versions of today’s song, but a little background to coming to it.
I dreamed of ear wax and getting rid of this morning. That apparently opened a direct channel to the mid-sixties in my head (that’s the 1960s, boys and girls, in case, you know, you were wondering…) because I was channeling sixties music this morning. Some early Beatles, Beach Boys, Lovin’ Spoonful, Richie Valens, Little Rascals, Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Supremes, Dave Clark 5, Stevie Wonder… Whole songs didn’t playing. A snippet would begin, I’d identify it, and the stream moved onto another song. You can see from the list that it was mostly American pop, with a little Motown thrown in.
After a bit of this, “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone” settled into the stream. Although I enjoy the Sex Pistols’ version, in keeping with the stream, I chose the Monkee’s 1966 version. You should watch the video just for a taste of 1960s TV pop America.
The song’s sentiment, though, resonates, which is probably why the stream settled on it: “You’re tryin’ to make your mark in society, you’re using all the tricks that you used on me.” I like that declaration: I know what you did, and we’re done.
Ah, 5150, the album that ignited the Van Halen wars: who is better, David Lee Roth, or Sammy Hagar?
I didn’t care. 5150 (1986) was a rockin’ album. I listened to it enough that when I hear song from it even in me head, the rest of the album continues in sequence.
Of course, I always mess around with lyrics, and that’s how “Why Can’t This Be Love” entered my mental stream. I was looking for something to eat. While plucking at some melon pieces and thinking about what to have for lunch, I asked myself, “Why can’t this be lunch?”
After staggering out of bed and then using the bathroom, I started feeding the cats. “I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles from waaayyy back in 1968 when I was twelve, began streaming in my head. “I am the eggman — woo — they are the eggman — woo — I am the walrus. Goo goo g’ joob.”
WTH? Why? It’s another mind mystery, innit, a nonsense song in a nonsense world after some nonsense dreams. Guess it’ll work for a quiet summer day that seems like a warm autumn day, as though the seasons have been turned into a jigsaw puzzle that need to be assembled.
Listen to it. Let me know what you think. Goo goo g’ joob.
Michael Seidel, writer 