Category: memories

Friday’s Theme Music

I’m sitting at my desk at home, sipping hot black coffee. A cool breeze washing over my back through the window. Machine noises are carried in. Sounds like excavating equipment is hard at it in Ashlandia, where wine is made on one side of the valley, and beer is brewed on the other.

It’s a summer morning, Friday, July 7, 2023.

A weary state of mind has overtaken me. Just read about dark waters and the pollution causing cancer to humans and animals. Companies like DuPont do this to communities and fight against taking responsibility, while manipulating laws and lawmakers to make more money, more profits. They epitomize the worse of corporate greed. Unfortunately, they’re one of many. And our hugely right wing Supreme Court goes and guts laws to protect water and people and animals, and the right wing shouts, “Hurray. Freedom.”

That article was atop reading about the proliferation of shootings across the nation on this holiday week. How these murders are enabled by the NRA, with right-wingers heartily going along with it, shouting, “Hurray. Freedom.” Death doesn’t mean much to the pretend ‘pro-life’ party called the GOP.

The GOP party has become the party of minority rule — meaning a rule of one. One person in many GOP led states can complain about a book and have it taken off shelves. One person can take up an automatic weapon and go shoot up a school, a synagogue, church, workplace, neighborhood, resulting in deaths and the ruination of many lives and that party will continue to shout, “Freedom.” They write into laws against others, and shout, “Freedom.”

Naturally, thinking of all of this, my neurons sink back to Janis Joplin’s magnificent cover of the Kris Kristofferson song, “Me & Bobby McKee” from 1970. The lines so many of us remember from the song, the one I was reminded of as we celebrated a nation’s beginning that is supposed to be founded on principles of freedom, democracy, and equality, are, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.”

Stay as positive as you can as we endure this era. Try to look forward to what we can build, and don’t be dissuaded or disheartened by those trying to create something other than a land of freedom and equality for all. Or as it’s written in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The coffee is half gone. The breeze is fading and the heat is rising. 71 F now, it’ll be in the low 90s before the sun slips out of view. Time to take this show on the road. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thermsday’s Theme Music

‘Tis a quiet Thursday, July 6, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the children are out of school, and the parents are on vacation. It’s 74 F now, ten AM, under a hazy blue sky. We’re supposed to creep up to 90 F today, a change from the last several days, when we saw 97 F. Normal summer for us.

Today’s lower temp pleases me. We’re taking some friends to the OSF Green Show, where a local popular band, The Rogue Suspects, are performing. Featuring ‘The Girls’, three wonderful female singers they’ve added on over the years, 6:45 PM is when it starts. Probably have ice cream at one of the local establishments when it’s over. Should be a very comfortable temperature at that time.

My birthday was yesterday, and was a grand time. No party, per se, but I try to party every day, even if it’s only in my mind. Lots of messages from family, friends, and old co-workers via email, text direct messages, birthday cards delivered by the postman, FB posts, and phone calls. Sorry I didn’t get a telegram, too. I was told that I don’t look a week over 70, which pleased me, as I’m a sensational 67. Now the countdown begins until the next birthday.

Day like that deserves a song like “For A Rocker” by Jackson Browne out of 1983. As mentioned here before, I was at NCO Academy in Florida when the song was released. I immediately took to it and drove others crazy by frequently singing it. I apologized with the post script, “Don’t blame me, it’s The Neurons. They’re totally out of control.”

Stay positive and comfortable. Keep your head above the water and your mind fixed on your destination. A fresh brew of the life energy called coffee has arrived. I will be partaking.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Winceday’s Theme Music

We got you Wednesday here. *wince*. July 5, 2023. Back to work, ye scurvy dogs. 2023 is more than half gone. On the bright side, you have less than half left. *wince* Time is running up on you. You, me, and the rest.

Gonna be 97 F today. *wince*. Good thing it’s Wednesday. Meeting with friends to indulge in some cold beer. We’ve divided between the light and the dark sides. The light side will be partaking of an IPA while the dark side is going for ale, because it’s summer, and some of them don’t like their beer too dark in the summer.

Ah, such strange dreams this morning in the dark hours. *wince*. Don’t know what they meant, if anything. We had root beer floats with friends on their deck last night, another of our traditions. We usually watch fireworks with them. I’d rather not have the fireworks. Animals and environment don’t need that kind.

Fireworks were illegal this year in Ashlandia, where the bus doesn’t go all the way uptown and the children are chauffeured. Too dry and hot. Still beset by drought. Yet, there will be some who will set off their fireworks cause, ‘Merica. Freedom. Tucker didn’t mind them. Papi, though, hid out for hours. He’s okay this morning but he wasn’t a happy floofy last night.

Today’s music is “Stranger Blues” with Steve Miller and Peter Frampton. Just cause I like the sound, and not because of something said last night, causing The Neurons to start playing it, where it still plays in the morning mental music stream.

Stay pos, be chill, and don’t let the boogerheads get you down. Coffee is served, sir. Here’s the music. Enjoy, please.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Well, happy Fourth of July, Tuesday, 2023, to US citizens everywhere. We headed down to the Marsh-McGuire house down on Siskiyou, ’bout just under two miles from our place in Ashlandia, where the streets are clean and the sidewalks are crack. You’ll know the Marsh-McGuire house if you see it, it being the only brick house on Siskiyou south of the Plaza. It sits on the parade route and we’ve been going to this venue for about fourteen years, off and on, mostly being on. It’s a pot-luck open house. K made her almond tarts, several quiches were in residence, along with croissants, cinnamon cake, various fruit salads and fresh fruit, multiple muffins, deviled eggs and so on. Delicious fare, all that I tasted, per expectation from all the great food of the past. Showed up at 9:20 after walking half a mile with our chairs, because the roads are blocked off for the parade.

The parade began promptly at 10 with the city marching band. 10:02 saw the flyover, two F-15s from the state national guard. Favorite thing of the parade: guy in prison garb riding a bike, wearing a Donald J. mask.

Least appealing aspect of the parade: RFK Jr’s float and very vocal and surprisingly large contingent.

Short parade, though. We remember some years when it went over two hours and we were crying for mercy by the end. Today’s endeavor was completed in less than fifty minutes.

Several dance troupes were in there, which got Les Neurons going. After we left the parade, The Neurons introduced Bowie/Jagger and “Dancing In the Streets”. The song was originally a 1964 hit fo Martha and the Vandellas. The song was later covered by The Kinks and Van Halen. I enjoyed all three of those. But another cover, by Bowier/Jagger in 1985 to raise money for Live Aid came out of nowhere and took advantage of television to have fun. Check out the guitarists supporting this song in the recording of a live performance for the Prince’s Trust.

Stay chill and be pos. I’ve had coffee, thanks. Maybe go sip something a little colder and wetter, right? It’s a holiday, after all.

Sorry, technical issues held up the posting. WordPress Autosaving took it into an alternative dimension, as WP periodically does to my posts.

Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

If you haven’t heard, the price of a US postage stamp is going up five cents. If you haven’t heard, this is the fourth increase in two years. Pause to speculate about all the factors behind why the price of a stamp might rise. If you haven’t heard about the stamp price increase, speak to my wife. She’s furious about it. If you’re like us, you have gone out and bought a new book of forever stamps, another misnomer if ever heard, 100 of them for $62 plus at Costco.

It’s July 2, 2023. Many folks are preparing for our Independence Day celebration. There are many in the US who might question why they’re celebrating this day, focusing on the politics of now, where rights which were accepted and expected two are being striped away. This is ‘progress’. Sure. We’re only as free as the most limited person in the nation. By that measure, we’re becoming less and less free by the year. It’s not what the founding fathers. They created a baseline to begin. They probably expected growth. They had a vision of freedom and independence for the people, by the people. Now rights are being removed based on ‘original intentions’. George Orwell would be appalled.

It’s National Disco Day in ‘Merica. So I’ve read in some places, where other references call it a holiday in New Zealand and don’t mention the US. I was a rocker, not a dancer. Disco is all about dance. Rock was all ’bout listening. My wife enjoyed disco music and it spread all over electronic media. I never protested it nor complained; it wasn’t for me, but so what? Others like it. I do enjoy it on occasion, especially when I use my lookback lenses to consider my life. Disco was there as part of some fun times. Not my style but I still engaged.

We’re still in a drought here in Ashlandia, where classic rock is often heard and people dance to it like it’s disco. 68 F now, we’re expecting today’s top temp to reach 92 F. Not bad. But, as with yesterday, I think it’ll be a few degrees higher. Yesterday we had 95 here, according to the weather station.

A wildfire started yesterday about fifty miles south of is in NorCal. Lightning strike. So the season begins.

When I typed up the post, it said Sunday’s Them Music. The Neurons took off with music by Them, an Irish rock band begun in the mid 1960s. “Gloria” is playing in the morning mental music stream, so you know that’s what I’m putting up. It was a fun song for young boys to sing as Gloria’s name is spelled out and the band sings the name. Makes you feel alright.

Remain positive, and keep your head above the water. Coffee is here to save me again. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Summer’s bustin’ loose in Ashlandia, where the wine is fresh and the chocolate is made locally. 70 degrees F when I catapulted myself out of bed at Tucker’s insistence about 7 AM. Sunshine was climbing the blue dome, exiling clouds to other lands. My Oregon Scientific weather station said we cleared 99 locally yesterday. Weather geniuses tell us it’ll be 94 F as the high; I’m thinking we’ll see 96 at my house. Almost getting to air conditioning weather.

Well, A/C is used in the car, and all businesses. At the homestead, we avoid it. Wife prefers it a little warm, and I prefer fresh air whenever possible.

The Neurons have sown the morning mental music stream with a Bob Dylan song, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” from 1965. My mind was primed to remember and hear the song by another’s post regarding scenes that ruined movies for them. One was Easy Rider.

I didn’t hear the song when it first came out, as I was nine. Mom controlled the music in that era. That was soon to end because sis was eleven and discovering pop. I don’t think I heard the song until much later, when the Easy Rider movie came out. Didn’t see the movie at that time due to its rating, but the songs found their way into my head via radio. Had my own transistor by then. I do sharply remember being mesmerized by the lyrics. I later learned they were written by Bob Dylan. I also later learned that the version I listened to and enjoyed was performed by Roger McGuinn.

While the lyrics rhymed, they were about things not usually heard in songs at that time, on those stations. Learning them had me singing them. I remember singing this song to myself while getting something in the kitchen where Mom was cleaning and my elder sister was on the phone.. Mom interrupted me: “Michael, what is that you’re singing?”

I thought she was referring to the title and provenance but she interrupted that answer. “What are those words?”

Since I didn’t know where I’d been stopped, I started from the beginning. Sis started laughing as she heard; Mom rolled her eyes, shook her head, and set her lips into the tightest of tight. She said nothing verbally, but those actions were loud. As I left and went around the corner into the living room, I heard her ask sis, “Do you know that song?”

The reply, “I might have heard it once on the radio.”

I stopped to hear more but nothing more was said and I went on. Made a big impression, though. It’s like it’s all before me once again.

It’s in the head today because the line, “There is no sense in trying,” in that sharply plaintive tone, came up in regard to local politics. Wife said something about why even try, and that’s how my brain responded, and along came The Neurons, and here we are.

Be pos, stay pos. At least try, right? I know some days, quoting my wife, it all becomes exhausting and overwhelming. The question, “What’s the point?”, may sneak in. That’s okay. It happens. Get on top of that and ride the wave until it’s behind you. That’s what I try to do. Generally works.

Hark. Is that coffee calling me? Here’s the music. Cheers

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

h/t AZLyrics.com

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

June of 2023 is slip sliding away. It’s already 6/27, fer gosh sakes. Temptation Tuesday, too. Temptation Tuesday is always recognized as the last Tuesday of June. It’s so-called Temptation Tuesday because people north of the equator on summer or bathing suit diets often lose their will to keep going on their diet. See, they’d been making progress, looking good, feeling better about themselves. Don’t they deserve a little reward?

Gonna be 84 F here in Ashlandia, where the cats are chubby and the dogs are barky. No significant change from yesterday. Change is a’comin’, though. Big heat heading for northern California. We’ll get some runoff from that, with highs climbing into the nineties. Not expected to break 100 F, knock on plastic.

The Neurons are playing “Tom’s Cabin” by Suzanne Vega with music by DNA. Always enjoy this song about a woman in a cafe on a rainy day thinking about someone else and observing the minutea around her. Have no idea why Der Neurons are playing in the morning mental music stream.

Stay pos and keep reaching for the heavens, or something like that. We have coffee at hand. Here’s la musica. Cheers

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The Resemblance

He thought he saw a friend entering the coffee shop, staring at him as the other passed.

Impossible, of course. His friend, Andy, died back in the early part of the century, murdered while on a business trip in Tennessee, a story misted with mystery. Andy and a woman he’d met at a bar talked to a man in the bar about buying a boat. After some drinking, the three went out to the man’s house at midnight to see the boat. A fight ensued.

Andy always carried a knife and pulled it now. The knife was taken from him. Stabbed twice in the abdomen, he staggered half a mile down the long dirt road leading to the house. A trooper found him dead on the roadside hours later.

All that came back as he watched the man with the remarkable resemblance to Andy. Other possibilities could explain why the man looked like Andy. It could be Andy. Andy could have returned from the dead. Andy’s death may have been faked, the death story constructed as part of some larger con. Maybe Andy had a twin he didn’t know about, or he’d crossed into a dimension where Andy still lived. Theories crowded his head as Andy’s doppelganger took his coffee and departed the establishment.

He couldn’t let it go. Catching up, he called, “Andy.”

The man turned back to him. A smile flickered over his expression. “No. Not me.”

Sipping his coffee, the Andy twin turned and hastened away.

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Monday’s Theme Music

63 F in the outdoors with a tincture of cool mountain air offsetting the morning sun’s greeting. “Perfect,” the cats agree. They’re looking forward to the possible high in the low to mid 80s F.

It’s Monday, June 26, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the cougars and bears roam the streets and tourists roam the restaurants. Perusing the news, there’s hope for a cancer treatment that shrinks tumors, deaths in Pakistan from lightning, North Korea keeping up its traditional war of words with the US, cocaine market is booming, tornadoes in the east, train hauling hazardous materials derailed — yes, another — and more deaths, more deaths, more deaths. Not much on Ukraine and Russia. Nothing on Trump. Probably too early in the day. Race results about a NASCAR offering named after a corporation which bought the rights provides filler,

Stone Temple Pilots, J. Cash, Bush, and the Stones have songs sharing space in my morning mental music stream, they being, “Creep”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Machinehead”, and “Start Me Up”. Why them was the leading question in my interrogation of The Neurons to learn more. They took the fifth. No comment all the way.

After all that, I went with “When the Whip Comes Down” by the Rolling Stones, a song featured in the documentary about them last night when they focused on Ronnie Wood. Written and released in 1978 (yeah, looked it up), the song is about a gay man and how he’s treated. I enjoy watching Mick playing gee-tar on the video.

May I suggest you stay positive and keep my moving forward? I’m moving toward a cup of coffee. Let’s get it cracking. Time waits for no one.

Here we go, the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Summer is continuing its lo-key approach to June, or is it the other way around? It’s 68 F now in Ashlandia, where the animals are wild and the drivers are crazy, to which the cats say nothing because they’re busy strolling, washing, napping, just enjoying what’s come. Good philosophy.

Today is Sunday, June 25, 2023. We’re expecting a lofty temp of 84 F to descend on Ashlandia before the sun calls it a day. Probably have thunderstorms. Had some more yesterday, followed by rain last night. This was after Alexa informed there would be no rain. Yesterday she warned me that it would probably rain between 6 and 7 PM today. Now she’s denying she ever said. Calls to mind some politicians. Show them a video of them saying what you claim and they sit there shaking their head, denying they said it, and try to shift the subject. Greasy monkeys.

I checked ‘On this day in history’ on Bing to see what happened. The second entry was about June 24, 2023. The next search result brought up a result May 12, ‘the aftermath’. But fourth, from Encyclopedia Britannica, was Michael Jackson’s death, and Farah Fawcett’s passing. He was 50 and she was 62. The Korean Way also started on this day in 1950, just five years after World War II ended. Sort of reminds me of Russia attacking Ukraine.

I have “Call Me The Breeze” by JJ Cale in the morning mental music stream. Believe it or not, but that came about after I opened the back door and felt the morning the breeze. “What a nice breeze,” I told the cats. “You guys feel it?” Neither cat replied, but The Neurons had awakened from their walking nap and said, “Playing ‘Call Me the Breeze’ by JJ Cale.” The song is relaxed, fine fare for a fair morning. Others have covered it and had hits with it, but I enjoy Cale’s original from 1972.

Stay pos, and be sure you test the water before you just go leaping in there. Slow down and smell the coffee. Think I might put that on a bumper sticker.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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