Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I don’t think I’ve heard this song for yonks. It entered my stream because I was running. Someone in my head started shouting, “Run, fool, run,” whenever I flagged. Thinking, distraction is needed, I began thinking, “Run, run, run.” Quick as that, Jo Jo Gunne’s 1972 song, “Run Run Run” cranked into the stream, although I also flashed on the 1998 German movie, “Run Lola Run”.
Here we go. Have a Sunday run. I was running on Saturday, but whatev.
Watching the travelers and tourists around Ashland, I often wonder about back stories. I want to know what’s going on in their minds.
For example, a group of three girls and a boy were encountered as I was walking. They appeared to be sixteen, seventeen years old. All were white and brunette. The guy was dressed in white pants, white activity shoes, and a tee shirt with an unbuttoned green, blue, and yellow plaid shirt. One hand in his pocket, sunglasses on, the other hand held a Starbucks Grande cup with a straw sticking up. He sucked on that straw the entire time that I saw him.
One of the girls wore denim shorts with a white and green athletic shirt tucked into the waist with white knee-high socks and running shoes. The second was in jeans with a red shirt tucked into the waist and brown shoes. The third wore a sleeveless black chiffon dress with black spike heeled shoes, the kind of dress you’d expect to see at a cocktail party, or on Fox News. All the females wore heavy make-up.
This was eleven in the morning. I wanted to know what was going on with this group. The girl in the shorts, who was shortest, had a map that she was following, and talking about where they were and what street they were supposed to take, but the others – except the guy – chattered like birds.
I encountered them at a street corner. After assessing them and having my curiosity rise, Everlast’s song, “What It’s Like” (1998) began streaming.
Had beers with friends the other night. I hadn’t seen one of them for a few weeks as he’d been traveling to visit family. I asked him how they were, and he said, “Well, they’ve seen better days.” His sister’s caregiver said the doctors thought his sister would go into hospice soon.
Then, as we spoke, “She hadn’t really seen better days. She spent most of her life taking care of her parents.” She’d lived in their house, serving as their caretaker. When they died, about ten years ago, she thought she could finally start living. By then she was sixty and had a chronic disease. Now, five years later, she was going into hospice, even though she was ten years younger than him. All of it terribly upset her.
I thought about it a lot the last few days. She’d never married, never seen better days. She’d a boyfriend for a long time but she was taking care of her parents and didn’t think it would be fair to him so they stayed as semi-serious companions. Then he was killed in a motorcycle accident.
As I walked around, thinking about her situation, I kept humming “Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)” by Citizen King (1999). I’ve done this song before, but it’s been over a year, and I think it fits the days. Most of us have seen better days.
Then the bottom dropped out.
After watching some televised testimony in Congress yesterday, I walked away thinking, yeah, but who will save your soul for these lies that you told?
Cue Jewel with “Who Will Save Your Soul”. Although it was released in 1996, the lyrics’ sentiments are timeless and easily apply to our current era.
People livin’ their lives for you on TV
They say they’re better than you and you agree
He says “Hold my calls from behind those cold brick walls”
Says “Come here boys, there ain’t nothing for free”
Another doctor’s bill, a lawyer’s bill, another cute cheap thrill
You know you love him if you put in your will, but
Who will save your souls when it comes to the flowers now?
Who, who will save your souls after those lies that you told, boy?
And who will save your souls if you won’t save your own?
La da de da de da la da da da da
We try to hustle them, try to bustle them, try to cuss them
The cops want someone to bust down on Orleans Avenue
Another day, another dollar, another war
Another tower went up where the homeless had their homes
So we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers
But we call religion our friend
We’re so worried about saving our souls
Afraid that God will take His toll that we forget to begin, but
Another day, another dollar, another war, sometimes it’s civil, sometimes it’s civic, but religions and hate guide our killing.
This one came from yesterday’s walk. The song, “Iris”, by the Goo Goo Dolls came out in 1998. I was walking past a bed of gorgeous bearded irises. My brain said, irises, and the stream, like some weird Siri/Alexa, said, “Playing “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.” I finished the walk with that last bit thrashing through my head.
And I don’t want the world to see me.
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.
When everything’s made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.
Sometimes a song comes to you. I wonder if they’re like food cravings, coming to you to fill a need you feel. Maybe they’re just reflections of states of mind, a mirror on the present, and a glance back at the past.
Today’s song was written and released by one of my all-time preferences, Bob Seger. Most of us have used that expression in retrospect about something or someone, saying, “Even now, I’d go to them, if I could.” “Even now, after all we went through, I still miss them.” Bob was always good about writing about relationships, looking back at them, and wondering.
That’s what this one is all about. I don’t have any suspicions ’bout why I’m streaming it in my head. Sometimes a song just comes to you.
“Even Now”, 1983.
I was checking the weather – it’s thirty-eight F right now, suny and clear – when I noticed the neighbors. Monday has begun. The weekend is over. Elementary and high school students walk down to catch buses or walk to school. The college students leave next. Neighbors drive off to work. Each departs at the same times Monday through Friday, except for Holidays.
The slow but regular daily exodus reminds me of the 1982 Loverboy song, “Working for the Weekend”. Loverboy was a hot flash in the early 1980s, coming out of Canada to storm the world with a number of hits. I was living on Okinawa, and I can tell you, they were very popular in the music clubs there. It has that eighties techno-rock sound to me.
Anyway, from the looks on the faces most people had today, most looked like they were sighing and trudging. They seemed more energetic last weekend.
I inadvertently type this post’s title as ‘Sunday’s Dream Music’. Last night was a dreams-on-parade night, with at least three vividly remembered dream. One most remembered moment had my wife and I leave the military service. We were following a friend. He took off and we got lost. Making a wrong turn, we entered a hot area of sandstone caves.
First, I had written about sandstone caves in my novel earlier in the week, so its dream presence intrigued me. Meanwhile, as my wife and I walked among the sandstone caves, I was saying, “I don’t think this is the right place. We took a wrong turn somewhere.”
Others were with us. They stopped to talk while I scouted ahead. As I did, I saw a huge cougar entering a sandstone cave. Hastening back, I got my wife’s attention and gestured her forward. Whispering, I said, “There’s a cougar up ahead. It went into that cave.” Pointing, I went on, “We’re definitely on the wrong track.” As I did, the cougar walked out of the cave, prowled around for a second, and then turned and continued.
We backtracked to a highway. As soon as we reached the highway, I saw a large shopping center. “I think that’s where we need to go,” I said, and led on. Yes, I found the store where my friend had gone, a Giant Eagle Supermarket. From a cougar to a giant eagle. That cracked me up today as I reflected on the dreams.
Once I’d thought about the dreams for a time and started doing other things, my stream delivered Madonna’s 1987 hit about love, dreaming, and sleeping, “La Isla Bonita”.
So here it is, for your listening pleasure.
Today’s little ditty was released by a small, unknown band came out in 1981. It had some small chart success in America and maybe a few other places in the world. You may have heard it because presidential candidates like using it, as do professional sports teams and television networks. I think it might have been in an obscure television show called The Sopranos. For reasons that defy easy tracking and explaining, my mind used it as my wake-up music.
Here’s Journey with “Don’t Stop Believin'”. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
I’m streaming the original Beatles’ version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” (1967). Don’t know. My streaming began with Ringo singing the third verse.
“Would you believe in love at first sight?”
“Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.”
Why this, today? Don’t know. Some inhibitor breakdown in the stream, a word caught in the wind, a flash in the brain, or maybe a neuotransmitter collision. I usually imagine my neurotransmitters as little sports cars racing through my head on beautifully constructed highways and country roads. Lately, though, ala Sim City, my neuro landscape is more like a hot and humid city under constant expansion, construction, and repair. There’s a lot of jackhammer and bulldozer noise. Big rigs transport loads of information as commuters struggling to get to work in their part of the brain creep along in traffic.
Sorry, side bar. On with the music.
Michael Seidel, writer 