Always enjoy B.B. Is the last name required? We saw him in concert in Santa Cruz during a festival, and loved it. He was such a rascal on stage.
Here he is with U2 performing the King classic, “When Love Comes to Town.”
Thursday’s Theme Music
Saw a photo that reminded me of this song.
I’d returned to America in February, nineteen ninety-one, taking up residence in the SF Bay area with an assignment as the Superintendent of the 750th Space Group Command Post at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale. Most of the airmen assigned to the command post were young, and in their first assignment. Naturally, they listened to current music that ranged across the spectrum.
This song had been a major hit in America the previous year, so it was still heard often. It was also natural as comedic fodder because of its style. Something would happen, and someone would remark, “You can’t touch this.” Yes, it’s “U Can’t Touch This,” with MC Hammer.
Ah, it was fun times back in the days of yore, with a good group of people. The base is gone, and the people have spread out across the planet. I stay in contact with some via Facebook an other social media. I wish them all well.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
My wife and I were picking up fur last night. The cats leave it like Hansel and Gretel left crumbs to find their way back. I guess the cats, worried about losing their way from the litter box to their food bowl to their sleeping locations, leave the fur clumps to help them find their way. “I’ll just leave this fur and follow it back.”
Doing this task last night, I streamed, “I’m a fur picker. I’m a fur picker. Picking up fur. Fur, fur, fur.” The song was to the head music, “I’m A Girl Watcher,” a song from nineteen sixty-seven. I thought, that’ll be my Tuesday theme music.
Then, I began thinking about the song and the times. The song objectifies women. The attitude incubated at that point can lead to some of the rapes, molesting, and harassing now revealed across America.
Or I am overthinking it? I’m prone to such things. I can hear other argue, the song is about a boy who is growing up and developing an interest in sex, in this case, in girls. It’s completely innocent. To which I hear others say, it’s not completely innocent. It’s mostly innocent, but it’s part of larger cultural and social trends about women’s roles and men’s attitude toward women in America.
It was a lot to think about before my morning coffee. I decided not to do that song. Instead, I give you song from a year later, The Moody Blues with “Tuesday Afternoon.” I believe the song’s line, “The gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh,” perfectly exemplifies my thinking conundrum about being a girl-watcher.
It’s a complicated world. My thinking probably makes it appear more complicated than it is.
Monday’s Theme Music
Since it’s Monday, and so many songs feature Monday in their titles or lyrics, I thought I’d go with “Wooly Bully.” “Wooly Bully” does not mention Monday, as far as I know. I’ve never looked up the lyrics, but I must admit that I don’t understand most of them. As far as I know, they go, “Mattie told Hattie about a thing she saw. Something (with big horns?) and a wooly jaw. Wooly bully, wooly bully.” Mattie also tells Hattie to take a chance. The singer shouts, “I like it, I like it.”
I don’t know. I like singing that woolly bully chorus. Very liberating.
I learned the song from a forty-five RPM record on a little phonograph. I want to say it was a Capitol record, from what I remember, but I was young, and didn’t pay attention.
Here is Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs from, geez, I’m guessing mid-nineteen sixties, with “Woolly Bully.”
Sunday’s Theme Music
Recalling another anniversary (my life is full of ’em!), this one being my retirement from the U.S. Air Force in November, 1995. I was stationed at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, California. This song, “Cumbersome,” by Seven Mary Three, was a popular tune of the time. To paraphrase the lyrics, I’d enjoyed my military career and had some success, but it had become cumbersome.
Saturday’s Theme Music
From late in that magical decade referred to as the nineteen seventies comes this song.
But wait, was the nineteen seventies magical? I suppose it depends on how old you were, and where, right? If you’re a fortunate person, you experience one decade as magical in your life. The seventies are it for me. Moved to Ohio, met my wife, moved to West Virginia, graduated high school, joined the military, relocated to Ohio, bought a Camaro, married, served in the Philippines, sold the Camaro, bought a Porsche and drove across most of America, lived in Texas, quit the military, went back to West Virginia, bought a restaurant, quit the restaurant, lost the Porsche to fire, re-enlisted in the military, went back to Texas and bought a Firebird. It was action backed, and fun.
This song, “Don’t Bring Me Down,” by E.L.O. was part of the musical atmosphere. I find it fun to sing as I walk around, especially all those no, no, no, no passages, and “Grooss,” which I sing as Bruce, as most people do.
Here it is, from nineteen seventy-nine. Things weren’t simpler, just different.
Friday’s Theme Music
Care for a little cream for your Friday coffee?
Robert Johnson’s masterpiece, “Crossroads” (or “Cross Roads Blues”) has been covered by many. I like the Cream version because it was the first one I heard when I was young. It’s hard to overcome that first love. More metaphysically, it’s a song that captures so much of life’s essence, IMO. We think, after making a journey, that we’ve gone somewhere. And we have, but then, we found ourselves at another crossroad. Decisions are made, moods are felt, directions are chosen, prayers are offered, and help is sought.
So here you are, on Friday, with a “Crossroads” about what to do, where to go, and maybe, who to be.
Wrote That Scene
Wrote one of those scenes. You know what they’re like. You’re casting for something inside yourself and discover something hidden, so you drag it out and use it.
In this instance, I used a memory from when I was young. I’d seen a creepy movie that burned anxiety into me just in time for bed. Despite that, sleep managed to find me.
Awakening, though, I kept completely still in an all-embracing darkness. Even now, remembering, my blood pressure rises and my pulse thumps faster. In that darkness, I’d heard a noise while I was asleep —
Or did I?
Was it real or imagined? I listened and listened without daring to move, barely breathing to help me hear and minimize my presence. Just when I’d begun to accept the hypothesis I’d imagined it, I heard another sound. It sounded like slithering….
Snake, I thought.
A snake is in the room.
I couldn’t move. If I left the bed, I might step on the snake. It might be coiled on the floor, waiting to strike.
But I couldn’t remain in bed, because the snake might crawl up into the bed. Which was worse, waiting in bed, or stepping down and getting bitten?
It was a rush of words to write, but it fit the novel like a found puzzle piece. As for the young boy who feared what might be in the dark, he carefully stood up in bed. Balancing himself and profusely sweating, he leaped across the yawning gulf where the snake might be waiting, and threw on the lights.
Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.
Monday’s Theme Song
Having a beer last Wednesday night with friends, we toasted Fats Domino. With his death as our hinge, we talked about old rock, old pop, and old beer (PBR, Hamm’s, Rolling Rock, and Iron City, among them). Conversation veered to Buddy Holly and Richie Valens’ deaths, along with the other two band members that night. We couldn’t remember who’d given up their seat. The net was consulted; Waylon Jennings was the answer.
That surprised us. As Chris put it, “I wouldn’t have guessed Waylon Jennings in two thousand guesses.” No, we didn’t know that Waylon had played with the Crickets.
Anyway, I ended up inflicted with nostalgia. I awoke today with “Luckenbach, Texas,” streaming through my mind, “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love),” to acknowledge its full title. It’s a song about being remembering a simpler life, and the dissatisfaction that success can sometimes bring.
Stream along with me, if you know it. Fake it, if you don’t.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Fall has claimed us. Leaves have turned. Many have rained down, filling gutters and carpeting lawns and sidewalks. So I turn to “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin. I have firm reasoning, oh, yes, I do. Although the vegetation is going along with the timeline, we have glorious sunshine. A cold front has taken command. Nights are cold, but the sky is clear, and that sunshine pushes our temperatures up into the mid seventies. We might even touch eighty.
So dancing days are here again. It may be fall, but it feels like summer afternoons. Maybe it’s just a state of mind.
Michael Seidel, writer 