Category: music

Twosda’s Theme Music

Cool air regales us today, Twosda, July 15, 2025, in Ashlandia. Tiny wet old smoke offset’s the mountain air’s freshes. We’ll live. 68 F now, 97 F is forecasted. We saw 99.3 at our house yesterday but didn’t need the A/C. A clear blue sky and focused sun says, yeah, this might be a hot one.

On local news, the talk is about affordable housing. Affordable housing has been discussed since I moved here twenty years ago, along with growth. Each time ‘affordable housing’ is approved and built, investors snatch it up to flip or rent out. So it’s all been 20 years of talk and churn with no substantial changes.

Our local economy isn’t doing well. Ashland depends on tourism and Southern Oregon University (SOU) for the most part, along with some spotty light industry, mostly related to outdoor tourism, and of course, healthcare. Wineries and breweries give us two more legs. Beyond that, we have a service based economy, as most residents are older and retired. Tourism has been damaged by heat, wildfires, and smoke. Tourism’s centerpiece is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, assisted by a series of outdoor concerts called the Britt Festival. Both were heavily cratered by smoke, heat, and wildfires. The pandemic then knocked tourism back again just when recovery began. Now we hold our breath, cross our fingers, and wait to feel what Trump’s attacks on people, trade, common sense and other nations does to tourism.

Meanwhile, healthcare’s rising costs have driven costcutting, layoffs, and firings to that local industry. The Greedy Ol’ Trump Party’s monstrous bill is expected to implode rural healthcare activities, and we’re part of that scene.

Finally, SOU has announced that enrollment has declined again. Tuition has been raised but they can’t keep raising it, so they’ve cut staff and programs. Desperate for money, they’re planning to shift some unused parts of their their campus into that fast-growing industry, assisted living. But again, the greed propelled GOTP absurdly named ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is expected to body slam education at all levels. Trump has cut Pell Grants and other programs, and that will leave a mark.

Underlying all of it: Trump’s charge to deny climate change and do nothing except punish those who do try to talk about it and address its impacts and causes. But climate change will affect the beer and wine industry, tourism, and wildfires. Did I mention that insurance companies withdrew from providing coverage in the area?

BTW, talk is about more than just this. We’re also talking a lot about deer, as they’ve become aggressive and attack dogs and people walking dogs.

Today’s song is “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. The Neurons slotted the 1974 song into the morning mental music stream for reasons they closehold and don’t disclose.

In a final comment on the morning, the local Internet, and by local, I mean ‘at my house’, is very sluggish. Anything happening to it out there in the world? Probably, but when will we learn?

Have the best day you can. I hope it’s excellent. Cheers

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Munda’s Theme Music

It’s Munda again! July 14, 2025. I don’t know about you, but we’re just ripping through July in Ashlandia. The days and hours whisk by like they’re passing on a blink of light. Some clouds slashed with grays and whites have braved our blue skies. It’s cooler today, peaking at 97 F, and should drop into the sixties at night. Yesterday saw 102.8 F at our place at 5 PM. We’d been doing well without running the A/C but my wife requested it at ten last night. She said that she had to apply something to her face but her face had to be dry, and it wasn’t dry. Nope, because it’s a humid heat. So we ran the air for about thirty minutes.

Our local fire, the Neil Creek, is 20% contained. Smoke is almost non-existent in the taste of today’s air. I’m grateful for that on behalf of my sinuses.

There are six birthays in July in my extended family. Two of those people, though younger than me, have already passed away. Cancer in both cases. Don’t know the specific cancers. A cousin’s birthday is today, my sister’s birthday is tomorrow, and my wife’s birthday is Wenzda.

Some Florida lawmakers visited Trump Concentration Camp Florida. Democrats, of course, found the conditions appalling. Republicans thought them okay, on a par with other ‘detention centers’. “Nothing to see here,” Republicans said after going on the guided tours. Just like there’s nothing to see in the Epstein files, right?

I was awakened (names and causes will be omitted) at four AM. Although I felt quite ready to return to sleep after jumping back in bed, my mind began playing a 1987 song, “Night Train”, in my mental music stream. It stayed through for the morning. I’m pretty sure of the cause and effect behind this one. The cat is a night train. And someone (hi, Ark) mentioned “Night Train” in the comments the other day. I’d not heard the song in yonks so I hunted down a video and watched and listened and thought and remembered. And, as it’s night, I suppose all this made sense to The Neurons and they brought the song up. The lyrics also played into it as I tried ‘guess the time’ and looked for signs of daybreak. “Down on the night train, I feel the starlight steal away, use up a lifetime looking for the break of day.”

Coffee has been introduced into my body once again. Time to get out there and rock the day away. Hope your day rocks you in a good way. Cheers

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Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts

I baked for the Independence Day festivities. I’m not usually the house baker but my wife thought I should bake as a blow against the patriarchy. So bake I did.

My baking was the modern kind: a brownie mix, egg, oil, water. Everything except the water was purchased at a store. The water came from my faucet, part of our city’s water and sewage systems.

I made circular brownies with M&Ms in a silicon baking pan created for that job. We have a gas oven with a timer and all that. I added the ingredients into a bowl per directions, preheated the oven to the temperature they told me to use, and doled the rich concoction into the waiting little cups built into the silicon ‘pan’. Then, see the timer for the time the instructions recommended, wait, watch, and test to see if they’re done, using the honored toothpick test.

The process allowed a lot of free time thinking. And that becomes my point. Baking has been around about 10,000 years. The earliest evidence of baking comes from Egypt, and not the United States. While it may have started around the Meditarranean Sea, it grew. Many peoples, cultures, and societies contributed to its growth and the lessons learned in what works. Then they passed it on. People took it up, tweaeked and refined it, documented it, and passed it on. People from many religions and ethnicities had a hand in it. Men and women, along with people of less certain genders baked, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of nationality or religion, until we reached this point that baking is a well-refined and understood process, simplified enough that even a neophyte like me can gather stuff and bake.

Here is my real point, something the Trump Regime and its half-assed backward, racist, sexist supporters want to dismiss. We live in a world of developments built on the shoulders of others. We’ve stacked advances and helped consolidate, perpetuate, and spread the gains. Name an industry and explore it, and amazingly, you’ll probably discover that it wasn’t all done by white Christian American men. Now the Trumpettes want to pretend that no one except white Americans did anything worthwhile, especially in the United States to deliver the success we’ve achieved as a nation, trying to bestow as much credit as possible on men and Christianity, even if they need to lie to make their case, which they do.

America First! Hell, the United States wouldn’t exist without immigration — and shall we talk to the peoples who lived in North America before the waves of explorers, settlers, and armies ‘discovered’ the land mass? America First! Our form of democratic government is derived from other nations, as is our mercantile system, which also depends on other nations for success.

Trump’s willful, deliberate ignorance won’t stand, although it will do serious damage. Progress comes from unforeseen developments as much as planned advances. We don’t know who will make a critical, game-changing insight. Trump is trying to pretend otherwise. He can successfully fake it for a while, but eventually, his willful stupidity will bite us all in the ass.

As always, time will tell when and how. Meanwhile, we grit our teeth and resist his ignorance as best as we can.

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Sunda’s Theme Music

I begin my Sunda with the summer morning ritual. I step out to rebalance my circadian rhythm, feel the air temp, and give it a sniff test. How hot is it now and how much smoke is polluting the air are the dual concerns. Today it’s now 80 F, up from the 71 F holding when I first went out. We’ll be at 103 F today, a few degrees above yesterday’s 99.8 F. The smoke isn’t bad. I water things and close windows, sealing us against whatever nature is plotting against us today. I have learned that by closing the blinds and windows and keeping everything shut, we’ll be 13-15 degrees cooler than outside. We like to use fans to move the air when it warms, as the air conditioning, while cooling, makes our noses run. My wife is one who needs heat anyway.

This is Sunda, July 13, 2025. It’s a cousin’s birthday, but she passed away. Cancer. Cheery morning thought. Then I ate a lucious moderate-sized fig, savoring the experience with a slow chew, trying to be mindful. I don’t think I’m mindful enough. At 69 yo, can I become more mindful?

I jogged yesterday morning. It was a whim and I wasn’t prepared, just testing myself to see how far I could go before my body rebelled. The Fitbit says that was 2.5 miles, surprising me. It felt good. I jog walked home, thinking that I should combine those words and create a word: jolk. Yes, I jolked home, letting my sweat drip dry. No aftereffects strike this morning, knock wood. I thought I’d hurt somewhere.

ICE and wildfires dominates our news feed. Nextdoor reports an ICE vehicle was spotted in Ashlandia yesterday morning about 9:30 on Ashland Street by the cemetery. People advise others to report it on the app. A judge blocked random ICE raids in LA. We’ll see if this is appealed to the Roberts Court and swatted away. A man died from a fall during a chaotic ICE raid.

Getting news of the local fire plaguing us, the Neil Creek fire, is problematic. Something like 72 fires are burning in southern Oregon and northern California. The Neil Creek fire is closest to us but isn’t threatening anything (last heard) and is not large. Media focus is on the big burners. I understand that but my understanding doesn’t alleviate my frustration over lack of Neil Creek fire information. The last updates were days ago. Also, I haven’t seen or heard tankers since yesterday morning. Surely all this must mean good news, right? I finally find a Neil Creek fire update on Watchduty from fourteen hours ago. It’s five percent contained. Then there’s a summary:

Despite increased fire behavior, crews held fire lines with the help of helicopter water drops. Firefighters continue to strengthen lines and expand mop-up around the fire. Along the south end of the fire, crews removed hazardous standing dead trees to allow firefighters to access the southern perimeter safely.

There was an incident in the night. The neighbor’s dog erupted with furious barking. Bear or cougar, my wife thought, hurrying to the back door. She flicked on the lights and opens the door but stays in, leaning out to look around. I get a flashlight. By then the dog’s owner has talked the dog down and quiet has reclaimed the world.

“Overkill” by Men At Work is in the morning mental music stream. It’s all about the line, “I can’t get to sleep.” I awoke sometime in the night a few hours after the barking dog, mulled and dissected a dream and then the writing muses took over. I wrote for a while in my head before I managed to shut them down with a meditation process I use to induce sleep in myself. But the song remains in the morning mental music stream. While looking for a video to use, I found this accoustic version by Colin Hay, the band’s vocalist, where he’s backed by a choir. I thought it a cool difference maker and offer it to you.

Coffee has been sucked up. Time to press on. Hope your day answers your needs. Cheers

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Satyrda’s Theme Music

Welcome to Smoky Satyrda in Ashlandia. The smoke isn’t heavily visible but the smell of sodden wet wood hangs in the air and shifts my sinuses into overdrive to flush the crap back out. Yeah, poor me, right?

It’s 77 F now in Ashlandia with 99 F projected. The local troposphere looks up to it with blue skies gleaming down and a mighty sun raising up. Wouldn’t surprise to break 100 F; that’s the forecast for the valley overall.

A friend has fig trees on her land and gifted us with about five pounds of fresh, ripe figs. These things are huge and gorgeous. I’m married to a fignatic. We just spent $11 for a pint of figs the other day. They weren’t the best of figs but my house’s fignatic was happy to have them. You can imagine her joy from this gift. The figs are also a great addition to my morning diet. Yum. Pairs well with bananas. No so good with coffee.

I subscribe to multiple newsletters about books, writing, and publishing. One email subject said, “New Horror for your Summer”. I was like, no thanks, I have enough of that crap in the MAGALand daily news. For instance, when Trump’s gestapo rounds people up, their pets are often left alone in homes and apartments to die of thirst and starvation. This is Trump’s United States: cruel, mindless, thoughtless, heartless. Should I add greedy? That’s pretty fuckin’ self-evident when Trump brands and hawks new trinkets and consumer goods every month. Beyond that, there’s climate change and growing natural disasters around the world. As a couple nations war on each other and the wars threaten to engulf more geopolitical regions, TACO cuts back on the State Department and retreats.

Trump also announced he’s rolling out new tariffs. Will he or won’t he? TACO loves getting attention from making these announcements. Project 2025 goons installed in his regime loves him to do it, as they continue to operate under the distractions he generates with his blithering dithering — or is it dithering blithering? Trump makes announcements as the world burns and crashes around him, and the MAGAts clap in approval.

All that brings me to the morning mental music stream offering. After a surprisingly restless night and just one remembered dream (but a good dream), I found myself in the kitchen with a specific chorus echoing in the MMMS.

“Never free, never me, so I dub thee unforgiven. You labeled me, I’ll label you, so I dub thee unforgiven.”

Yes, that’s Metallica with their 1991 offering, “The Unforgiven”.

The Neurons were dubbing ICE agents as unforgiven. The entire damn Trump Regime is dubbed unforgiven, as are those senseless MAGAts who rolled this mess into existence. They’re unforgiven.

Have the best Satyrda you can. I plan to do the same. Cheers

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Frida’s Theme Music

Frida’s here and the smoke is here, and the heat is coming. It’s July 11, 2025, 68 F locally, 93 F pitched as the day’s high. I stepped outside to check it all out and smoke jumped into me and kickstarted my sinuses into broken water line mode. I ditched the outside work planned and vacuumed instead.

My spouse last used this vacuum. Like many Boomer Americans, we are over vacuumed. A cranky, ancient Hoover is on standby along with some Black & Decker Dustbuster copy cat, and a central vac system. I was using the central with the power head. This system features three outlets and a 30-foot long vacuum hose.

The hose was tangled into several knots. As I untangled it, I grumbled to myself about my wife’s tangling habits. I’d just untangled her hair dryer cord and her Apple laptop cord. This seems to be a world of tanglers and untanglers. Knotters and Unknotters.

Firings, tariffs, lies, and bullshit highlight the Trump news day cycle. More flooding struck several states; more wildfires have forced evacuations. The biggest news circulating at the mo seems to be Trump’s efforts to coerce Brazil not to enforce due process in their nation by slamming them with a 50% tariff. Such a law and order person, isn’t he? Yeah, that’s snark.

Today’s song is “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image. The song was popular in the U.S. in 1970. I recall being with my friend, Scott, and talking about the song, as he was supremely enamored with it. It’s a mellow rock tune and one that invoked a faraway cast to his gaze. I heard that he died of a drug overdose a few years later and have always wondered if the song about sailing to another world was his secret fantasty. Come on, we all have them, those secret fantasies. Before I move on from the song, I want to mention, this is the only Blue Image song I know.

Off to pursue my not-so-secret writing. Have the best Frida available. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

And we’re rocking, and we’re rolling, and we’re going through Thirstda, July 10, 2025. 66 F under smoke laced blue skies, 91 F is our high. Yesterday has some pleasant spots sprinkled liberally through the hours as a southerly wind carried the Neil Creek fire away. The winds have died and a listless, irritating smoke scent hangs. They are warning, “The heat is coming,” in a reversal of the Game of Thrones warning about winter. Both warnings are either met with a shrug by some or a grimace by complainers like me.

Don’t have interest in writing or thinking about bad news, which is most news these days. So I’m skipping over that. My dream machine continued functioning on high last night. I had one interesting dream where I went up to a pole to get books. About a foot thick and too high to know how tall it was, the pole was a hexagon and mostly dark green with writing on it which I never read. Others would sometimes be there, waiting to get backs. After repeat visits, I found I had four ways of getting books from the pole. One I described as magic, because the pole knew what I wanted and delivered the book to me just by thinking about, without even having a need to go to the pole. That pleased me immensely.

Today’s music is a song heard on television the other day. The Neurons took a liking to its jaunty, catchy style and brought it back to the morning mental music stream for today. It’s by Myles Smith, came out in 2024, and is called “Nice to Meet You”. Hope it catches on with you.

I went with the original and not the version with Lainey Wilson which came out a little later.

Hope you have a good day. Off to do yard work before the heat gets here. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s Wenzda, July 9, 2025. It’s a difficult day for people like me, who like to complain. I have so much to complain about. I’ll start with weather, although it’s not bad now, 77 F, soon to be 88 F. No, it’s the thunderstorms from the other day, which torched multitudes of fires. The storm was like Jesus making more out of nothing. Smoke now tints the blue sky and white clouds with ugly shades of dirty, old concrete. You smell the burning wood; it’s inescapable. The air quality isn’t bad now, 67, enough jab your eyes into itchiness, tease your nose into irritation, stuff your sinuses into running, and bully your throat into scratchiness.

Neil Creek is the closest fire, right off I5 at mile marker 10. Ashlandia’s first northbound exit is 11. One southbound lane of I5 is closed for two miles.

Neil Creek fire, southern Oregon, July 9, 2025.

We’re also trending up in our temperatures. TV weather guy gleefully told us we’re going into the low 100s this week, well over the historic average, but not as bad as last year, when we were running 108 plus. It’s the prototypical 2020s Ashlandia summer. I’ll have a lot to complain about.

Over in politics, it’s a complaint smorgasbord. A complaintasbord.

Like, Trump promised 200 trade and tariff deals by now. He has 3. He’s batting .015. If he was a major leaguer — no, if he was batting that on any time, he’d be pulled from the field and find himself fast out of the game as a never was, never will be. That abysmal performance doesn’t keep the MAGAts and GOP that fill his Greedy Ol’ Trump Party, known in its shorthand as the GOTP, from declaring his Donnie the greater player ever, even greater than Babe Ruth. They don’t mention people like Hank Aaron, because, their heroes are only white.

So easy to complain about Trump. Donnie boy makes ridiculous speeches. He sends ridiculous letters. Transmit absurd texts. Like his latest embarassment he sent out to other countries regarding tariffs. If he was a businessman, people would trash it or post socially about it, mocking it. Oh, yeah, they did.

Another complaint about Trump is the promise of how little he cares, how little he pays attention. Texas was struggling with death and destruction from flash floods. He went off to golf. Said he’ll visit there Friday, a week after it all unfolded. FEMA finally got there. It surprised me that the Trump Regime FEMA bothered to show at all. But it is gerrymandered red MAGALand.

I simply must laugh and complain about Trump being nominated for the Nobel Peace prize. International war criminal Netanyahu nominated the convicted felon and genuine idiot for the prize. If Trump is awareded that prize, the Nobel Committee might as well close up shop and slink away in disgrace. The black mark against them won’t wash off for generations.

The Neurons called up a dedication for Epstein and Trump. Trump wants us to forget about his relationship with Epstein and the parties they attended together. Says he barely knows the guy. With his weaponized DOJ loaded with MAGAts to defend him, the Epstein List suddenly vanished. What a Trumpian way to handle things. Why didn’t he just say the dog ate it. Oh, probably because dogs don’t want to have anything to do with him. They’re too smart.

Thanks to janewiedlin on Instagram.

So, this song is dedicated to Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and their shared past. Fresh out of 1997, here is Marcy’s Playground with “Sex and Candy”, from my morning mental music stream to yours.

Coffee is being consumed and the writing position is being assumed. May your day give you all you need. Cheers

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Twosda, July 8, 2025, has squatted down on us. It’s a cool morning after a quiet night. 75 F now, 95 F later, part of a ‘cooling trend’. We saw 99 at our Ashlandia house yesterday. My wife and I were at to get a few items at its hottest, about 4 PM. Checking the eastern sky, I said, “I think we’re going to get thunderstorms.”

My wife scanned the sky. “No, that doesn’t look like thunderstorms to me.”

A few hours later, the sky darkened. Thunder washed across the sky like an old man clearing his throat and coughing. A few raindrops applauded on the ground. At 7:46 PM, the power went out. An alert telling us about that came at 7:57 PM. They said the power would be back in one and a half hours. They were wrong.

Meanwhile, another emergency text arrived: fire off Pompadour Road. Bottom line of all this, fire crews worked through the night to line and contain the Pompadour Fire, and the electricity came back on a little after 2 AM. I know because things beeped and chirped back to life.

The good part of this is that we updated our power outage equipment last winter and it all proved to work. One purchase was a pair of inexpensive rechargeable light bulbs. Installed over the breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room, they work great as regular bulbs, giving soft daylight illumination. When the power went out, they were charged and ready to go, giving us needed light at the throw of a switch. Now, with power returned, they’re recharging for the next time they’re needed.

Augmenting those were two simple round little lights. Working off three AA batteries, they’re extremely lightweight but powerful, and were perfect for using to read books. As we both had library books at hand, we picked up our books and lights and read till bed.

BTW, my book was “Hollow Kingdom” by Kira Jane Buxton. Released in 2019, I found this science fiction book about an unfolding human apocalypse, as told by a crow and other birds and animals to be engaging, warm, clever, and moving. I wholly recommend it.

Meantime, we’re talking about the Trump Regime’s heavy-handed military presence at MacAuthur Park in LA.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is condemning federal agents and National Guard troops for descending on a city park on Monday, July 7.

Armored vehicles, mounted officers and armed troops briefly swarmed the city’s MacArthur Park Monday morning before leaving. Bass said 20 children were playing at the park before the troops surged through and shared footage of federal officers running through the park.

According to an X post from the Department of Defense, troops were present at the park to “ensure the safety of federal agents.”

Read more here…

Sorry, I know, writing ‘heavy-handed’ while addressing Trump Regime actions is redundant; everything done by that loathsome, hate-fueled regime is heavy handed. This is especially true when it’s Dog-killer Noem calling the shots. ICE and the military showed up at park, disrupting a children’s day care outing. Now what did that accomplish other than a show of force to intimidate others and blow another wad of Federal funding? Bet some part of the MAGA crowd let out a full-throated cheer but the rest of us simply lowered our expectations of TACO and his chips yet again, just, as they say, you didn’t think they could go lower.

During the power outage, The Neurons plugged a 1983 song by Dio, “Holy Diver”, into the morning mental music stream. “What’s that about?” I inquired of the little gray dude. Shrugging in unison, they chorus-muttered, “I don’t know.” Now tell me, how am I supposed to know why things happen in my mind when The Neurons in charge keep presenting themselves as clueless? And people wonder why I act strange. Well, it’s The Neurons, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s the theme music for Twosda, just to get it out of my friggin’ head.

Right now, I’m fasting. No coffee, water, food, etc., until after my 12:15 ultrasound on my gall bladder. Have the best day you can, okay? I’ll do the same. Cheers

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