Category: memories

That Nightmare

I was in conversation with the barista today when I flashed back to an early nightmare.

I lived on McNary Blvd in Wilkinsburg, PA. I think I was around eight or nine years old. I’d stayed up watching “Chiller Theater” with Bill Cardille on which I was able to see the original version of the movie, The Fly, which came out in 1958 (yeah, I looked it up). A horror film, I thought it was pretty damn entertaining.

Naturally, though, it played with my mind, resulting in a nightmare. In the nightmare, I stuck my toe into an outlet by my bed, shocking myself. Upon walking, I discovered it was storming outside. The lightning flashes did an excellent job of twisting the bedroom furniture into other beings. I was positive that the chest of drawers was a robot walking toward me.

I remember, too, Mom telling me to keep it down, or I’ll wake the baby. Ah, good times!

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I always thought this song, “Long Cool Woman in A Black Dress” by the Hollies, is memorable for the era because it was a simple rock and roll song. It reminds me of CCR’s music for that reason. They, too, used a simple, distinctive approach. All of this song’s elements, from its guitar, drum, and bass use, to the vocals employed to tell the story, to the story itself, are basic. “With just one look, I was a bad mess. Cause that long cool woman had it all.”

How many of us didn’t meet someone who made us a bad mess with just one look?

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

A day like this requires a voice like this, singing a song like this.

“Momma’s gonna worry, I been a bad, bad boy. No use saying sorry, it’s something that I enjoy.

“Cause you can’t see what my eyes see. And you can’t be inside of me. Flying high again.”

I feel compelled to note that I thought Ozzy was singing, “Crying time again,” for the first few months after hearing this song.

I’d been reassigned from Brooks AFB, in Universal City, just outside of San Antonio, Texas, to the 603rd MASS, Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, when this song came out. We’d arrived in May, lived in the base hotel for a month while finding arrangements, which was normal, and had moved to an apartment just outside of Gate 1. Living on the economy, the government provided our furniture. We didn’t need much for the tiny place. It would fit into our current living room.

The furniture was hideous stuff. Cheap, with orange polyester covered cushions, the sofa and chair had all the design elan of 1950s lower-class America. So did the dining room table and chest of drawers.

We had fun at that location, living there for a few years until we were authorized base housing. Thirteen apartments were in the building. American service personnel and their families lived in all of them. We experienced some memorable parties there.

From 1981, Ozzy Osbourne with “Flying High Again”.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I don’t know why this song streamed into my mind this morning. I guess my neurons were bored with the chicken and avocado kibble dream.

“Road Rage” by Catatonia came out in 1998. I don’t recall hearing it, though. I encountered it in Paris a few years later when I was doing a trade show. It was always interesting to discover what other countries were listening to, and how different some of the music sounded in comparison to America’s radio blarings.

I liked the lyrics of “Road Rage” but didn’t understand them all. I was singing some of it to myself at our booth. Eventually, one of the people from the U.K. who was attached to the exposition organizers told me the song’s name.

The Internet was getting strong and healthy by then, so I hunted down the song, eventually learning about the murder it was based upon, and finally reading an interview with the singer, Cerys Matthews, about the song and her telephone conversation with the victim’s mother. It’s not a new premise, how technology drives us crazy sometimes, and sporadically ends with murder.

Anything can drive us over the edge.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I stumbled across an article about the rise of arena rock. The article mentioned that Cream, on its farewell tour, headlined the first rock concert at Madison Square Gardens. That’s all it took for me to start streaming some Cream. As a big Cream fan, I enjoy a number of Cream songs. I started with “Strange Brew”, shifted to “Brave Ulysses”, followed with “Sunshine of your Love”, but then went to an old blues standby, “Crossroads”.

There I stayed, caught on the rock rhythm, but thinking about the lyrics, fixated on the final line. “And I’m standing at the crossroads, believe I’m sinking down.”

Every day brings a crossroads. You make choices. Some blindly follow the same road, and some willfully follow that road. Both refuse to consider the crossroads that they’ve reached, pressing on.

As writers, we’re often at crossroads about what a character will say or do, and how the story will change to advance the plot. Every day brings the opportunity to feel like you’re sinking down, or the belief that’s what’s happening. It’s easy to get caught there, especially when you thought you’d be making more progress, or that things would become easier. Each novel and chapter, though — each crossroad — is unique. You can learn some hints about how to navigate these places, but they often require a fresh approach.

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Friday’s Theme Music

This isn’t the usual rock stuff that I listen to, but “Rubberband Man” by the Spinners is a secret favorite song. I enjoy the lyrics, beat, bass, vocals, and lyrics. Upbeat, but mellow, it’s a song that makes me move as I re-stream it in my mind while walking.

“You’re bound to lose control when the rubberband man starts to jam.”

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Lyrics once again drive this song.

I began streaming it in my mind yesterday when I was walking and saw a yellow cab. Song fragments took turns with the connection for a bit before I settled into Harry Chapin’s “Taxi”. A bit maudlin, the reflective song addresses our aspirations and shortcomings, and what we become instead of the people we want — or expected — to be in the rush of youth.

It also encompasses a bit of Sylvia Plath poetry in the middle. What the hell is he saying there, I used to ask myself, listening. Eventually, the intertubes revealed the Sylvia Plath connection, once again providing proof of the web’s usefulness.

I don’t think “Taxi” was ever as popular or well-known as “Cat’s in the Cradle”. From way, way back in 1972, here’s the late Harry Chapin and “Taxi”.

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Notorious RBG is playing locally. My thoughts go to Notorious B.I.G. when I hear or read comments about the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie. That’s how my mind and its connectome plays. Likewise, I connect specific groups or performers with certain genres and categories of music. Right or wrong, Biggie Smalls was a handful of performers who I link to classic rap.

Here’s to the music and the art, and the past and the future. Notorious B.I.G. with “One More Chance” from 1995. It’s a mellow sound.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Ah, a little Tuesday Weezer. “Say It Ain’t So.” It’s a relationship song.

Somebody’s Heine’
Is crowdin’ my icebox
Somebody’s cold one
Is givin’ me chills
Guess I’ll just close my eyes

Oh yeah
Alright
Feels good
Inside

Flip on the tele
Wrestle with Jimmy
Something is bubbling
Behind my back
The bottle is ready to blow

h/t azlyrics.com

1995. Fun video. Terrific album.

(The formatting issue is a WordPress matter. Looks fine on the draft, doesn’t work on the published version.)

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