Category: memories

Robert

Who played Pappy Boyington in the television show. He needed to remember. He wanted to say it was Robert somebody. Because he was looking for a dark-haired Robert, the first Robert to answer was Robert Blake, which he knew was incorrect. Blake played Baretta. Was he still alive? Wasn’t he also in the “Our Gang” movies, and wasn’t there he charged with murdering his wife, but acquitted? Then there was something else, with his children, or something, wasn’t there?

That didn’t answer his original question. He thought it was a Conrad, and the guy was also in television commercials for batteries. But wasn’t Robert Conrad in “Jake and the Fat Man?” No, no, that was WILLIAM Conrad, right? Sure, and wasn’t he also in “Cannon?”

Was William Conrad still alive?

By then, he was, he would guess, ninety-five percent certain that the actor in “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “Wild, Wild West” television shows was Robert Conrad, but he remained uncertain about whether these three actors remained alive. It was an odd subject for his morning walk, and left him with so many questions requiring answers.

Well, not that many.

Now; who is William Katt? Didn’t he have a television show? Was he still alive?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s a blustery but pretty Saturday, which somehow inspired me to start streaming an old Albert King number. Maybe it’s the frequency of news about California, due to the fiery destruction of NorCal wine country, that brought the song to mind. Here’s “Travelin’ to California.” It’s from nineteen sixty-one, but I encountered it looonng after that.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I heard today’s song yesterday and started laughing in memory.

The song is “Animal,” by Def Leopard. One line is, “I got this feeling in my blood.” A friend told me years ago, “For the longest time, I thought they were singing, “I got this feeling in my butt.” I couldn’t figure out why they had a feeling in their butt, or why they were singing about it.”

Ah, a classic mondegreen, but if you casually listen, you might hear it, too.

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Awoke with these words nibbling my ears. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow.”

Ah, yes, that’s a song from my youth. “L.A. Woman,” nineteen seventy-one, The Doors. I was unfettered by fears and worries in those days, except rioting, the Vietnam War, air and water pollution, nuclear or chemical attack, equal rights, and civil rights.

Ah, the good old days. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s been twenty years since this was recorded in concert, spit in the cosmic wind as far as time goes, but a chunk of living for humans on Eath. These humans are renown for their musical performances. These humans are David Bowie, with the Foo Fighters. These humans were performing this song, “Hallo, Spaceboy,” at Madison Square Garden in New York to celebrate Bowie’s fiftieth birthday.

Fun to watch. There will be drumming’.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Rising out of nineteen eighty-three came a mocking, damning tirade on behalf of the common person just coping with their chains of fucking moments. Called “Synchronicity II,” created, performed, and released by The Police, the song has a hard-edge beat to buttress bitter lyrics. Take these lines:

and every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.

Few are the people of whatever gender, race, country, and vocation that haven’t sat in a meeting and thought, “These people are my superiors? My superior what? All they are is a superior pain in the ass.”

Can’t identify? How about,

Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance,
He knows that something somewhere has to break.

That’s how it feels: something somewhere has to break. If you listen, you can hear the deep groans of the wrenching cracks in the world. They’re just not yet visible. Or maybe I hear them in my head.

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Fall Slipstream

It’s a gorgeous fall day, smoke-free, with a cloudless blue sky. Our sun is bright, but the wind presents a chilly edge as it toys with leaves, tearing them from trees and sprinkling them over the streets, sidewalks, and yards. News, worry, and politics are aside. Memories of days like these are pulled from my youth in Pittsburgh.

It’s the weekend. At last! Freed for a day from the teachers’ drones, studying, quizzes, and tests, we’re out in the streets, chatting about girls, music, sports and television, bullshitting each other, John mocking Rick, complaining about school, wandering around, hanging around, playing football in the street. 

Halloween is coming up. What are you going to wear?

Thanksgiving is next month. Thanksgiving, that amazing feast – stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy – and pies! Pumpkin! Apple! Or maybe cherry. With whipped cream. Family will be over. It will be warm, noisy, and crowded. But, wow, the food.

And then there’s Christmas. What do you want for Christmas?

The simplicity makes me sigh. That was our future. But we would tell each other –

I can’t wait until I’m older. 

I can’t wait until I have my license.

I can’t wait until I have my own money.

I can’t wait until I’m done with school.

I can’t wait until I’m out of here.

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Saturday’s Theme Song

Heard this on the radio this morning, and just thought I’d go with it, mostly because it stays in my head. It’s a song that my wife and I often crank up on the radio when it comes on in the car. Writing “crank up” creates visions of me turning this crank several times until the volume increases.

Anyway, here’s Pharrell Williams with “Happy,” from twenty-thirteen.

Happy.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Warning This album contains extreme sounds which could damage musical equipment when played at high volume

That’s from Jesus Jones’ “Doubt” album, from nineteen ninety-one. It gave me pause when I read that. And yeah, there is some stuff on the album that prompts the eternal musing we each encounter, “What the hell?”

They are several songs on the album that I enjoy. I was streaming “International Bright Young” thing, for some reason, but the far more mellow song, “Right Here, Right Now,” came into play. I think it’s more known, at least in the U.S.A., so I’m going with it. I always like these lyrics from the song:

I saw the decade in, when it seemed
the world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
then there’s your sign of the times

A sidebar, probably only amusing to me, is that my friend, Randy, loves the Van Halen song, “Right Now.” Whenever I’d mention “Right Here, Right Now,” he’d be confused, and tell me, “I don’t know that song. Do you mean “Right Now,” by Van Halen?”

That always cracked me up.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Wow, Thursday already. October, already. The fifth already. Come on, let’s back off the time accelerator. It’s all moving too fast.

Today’s music is “Spooky.” It was originally an instrumental. I once heard the instrumental and thought someone was playing it that way. I later learned that the words had been added after the instrumental was written and performed.

I heard the original version with words, by the Classics IV, in the late nineteen sixties, on my trusty AM/FM clock radio. But I awoke with the A.R.S. “Spooky” version looping in my head today, so that’s what I’m posting.

As a sidebar, I wonder what happens in my brain that I awake with songs streaming in my head? I’ve researched this earworm (ohrwurm) or brain itch, as different sources label it, and found that researchers believe ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of people endure earworms. A two thousand three news article cited a study found which songs afflict most people:

He found that some 98 percent of listeners were at one time or another bothered by a tune that wouldn’t leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle (“Gimme a break”), “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” the theme to “Mission: Impossible,” “YMCA,” “Whoomp, There It Is,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “It’s a Small World After All.”

The study also showed that musicians and those with compulsive tendencies are the most afflicted. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though the act of repetition — in popular songs on the radio and on the rehearsal floor for musicians — plays a role.

The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili’s jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out. ” But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes.

Compulsive tendencies? Moi? Perish the suggestion. I guess I’m fortunate that my ohrwurms rotate and offer a variety.

 

 

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