Category: News

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Sunrise was at 7:15 AM on this mildly winter Tuesday. Sunset will come at 5:36 PM in Ashland, Oregon. The temperature has already climbed to 37 degrees F and a high of 55 is anticipated.

Today is February 9, 2021. COVID-19 cases continue to drop in our county. Yesterday, we had only eight. Deaths are scaling back, too, with no new ones reported yesterday. Jackson Country remains in the extreme category, though. People walking along the streets often don’t have masks outside of downtown. Everyone in a store is masked. I haven’t been to a restaurant or other business, so I can’t address them. Vaccinations for those eighty and over begin this week.

I was thinking of 1991 this morning, collateral product to dream reflecting. February of that year, I arrived in my new duty station at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale. I didn’t know that it would be my last duty assignment, that I would decide to retire after a few years. I’d been part of a spy unit in Germany in my previous tour; when the Berlin Wall came down, the mission went away, and the unit was decommissioned. I volunteered to go to the Gulf for that buildup but was denied. I instead rotated back to the states.

Hitting the Bay Area and the United States were new experiences, again. I don’t recall specific music when I arrived in the Bay Area. I remember that it was pouring rain, an end to a drought. Onizuka was a few acres dominated by the Blue Cube in the middle of sprawling aerospace company facilities. I’d gone from working with C-130s to working with satellites. In Onizuka, there was no flight line, a first for my military career; all the platforms I worked with were thousands of miles away in space. There would be no more daily roar of aircraft taking off.

Anyway, I looked up some songs from 1991 as I thought about it. “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak jumped out at me. No special reason; it’s just a reflective song for a reflective moment.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get vaccinated, and look forward. Other times are coming. The one constant is change.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

25 degrees F when I got up at a few minutes ‘afore seven. Up to 30 now, a positive movement. We expect a high of 52 and the blinding progressing through an unmarred blue background will probably make it happen.

Today is Sunday, February 7, 2021, called Super Sunday because it’s the first Sunday in February. I don’t know the history of that. Our charming sunrise was 7:18 AM. Sunset is expected at 5:33 PM.

Plans are afoot for today. We went shopping for fresh produce this morning. I’m thinking of going for a walk, need to write — yes, need — and I want to call Mom (yes, been too long). I’ll also watch the Superbowl championship between Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady — oh, I mean the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I got no skin in the game so I should I enjoy it.

Besides that, I’m reading. Also following Qanon theories about what’s happening with Trump. I read that after the impeachment trial, he’s gaining super powers and will vanquish all the evil from America.

My wife, hearing that, wondered, “Do they ever look at him?” I explained to her that what she and I see is a disguise to fool us into thinking he’s an overweight, out of shape, rapidly aging man. True believers have special glasses that allow them to see the real him. These special glasses also allow them to see other truths that escape the rest of us. That’s why the fake news media doesn’t fool them…

Had a song in my head as I was shopping. I always remember the words wrong, but I know this, so I indulge myself. The song is “Kids in America” by Kim Wilde. That 1981 release is the only song of hers I know. I always think the words go, “Listen to the music go ’round”. That’s why it was in my head this AM; I was being a bobble head, listening to the music in my head go round.

BTW, did you see Phoebe Bridgers on SNL this week? Didn’t think much of the first song, but the second song, “I Know the End”, slowly drew me in. I had the captions on so I was reading what she was singing. As she sang, she gained a mysterious smile. Then, as the music went higher and faster, she started screaming. She ended by beating her guitar against the monitor. My wife was unimpressed (“I want music I can sing with or dance to”) but I was fascinated. Going to watch it again.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Then listen to the music go round.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Saturday. February 6, 2021. 32 degrees F and foggy.

I was working the morning shift when the phone rang. A woman on the other end had called me with a warning. My car’s warranty had expired. I took down her details and told her I’d check it out.

Oh, sorry, began channeling Sergeant Joe Friday for some reason. Today’s sunset is at 5:32 PM. Sunrise was at 7:19 AM. In history, a month ago, Jan 6, 2021, insurrectionists stormed a session of Congress to ‘stop the steal’. Egged on the sitting POTUS, they were acting on fake information that he’d spread that his defeat was a result of massive fraud and that he had evidence. He’s never revealed his evidence. Nor has any of his mouthpieces.

Five people died that day, based on his lies. More have been arrested. Even more are being pursued be the FBI.

For some reason, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club (1983) gushed into my mental stream in an egregious ear worm incident, where it remains steady. I kept hearing, “You come and go, you come and go,” but the song doesn’t come and go. “Red, gold, and green, red gold, and green. Every day is like survival. You’re my lover, not my rival.”

Sorry. It took over. Little control over my writing thoughts seems in evidence today.

I thought then, that’s just the way you are, which invited the song, “Then the Morning Comes” by Smash Mouth (1999) into the stream. It successfully displayed Culture Club, so here we go.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask (unlike good ol’ Alfie Oakes).

Are you familiar with Alfie Oakes? Owns a grocery store in Florida where no one wears a mask. Says the pandemic is a hoax. Here’s an NBC News story snippet to introduce you to Alfie.

‘The store’s owner, Alfie Oakes, could not be reached for comment on Thursday. He told NBC’s “TODAY” show he knows masks do not work and doesn’t believe the coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.

“That’s total hogwash,” Oakes said, later adding, “Why don’t we shut the world down because of the heart attacks? Why don’t we lock down cities because of heart attacks?”‘

Yes sirrr, we have some veeerrry impressive thinking happening in that head.

Don’t be an Alfie. Wear a mask. Get the vaccine. Dance to some music. (Oh, no, I think I hear Sly and the Family Stone firing up.) “Then the Morning Comes”, stat!

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Monday’s Theme Music

Welcome. Today is the first day of the second month of 2021, a.k.a. Feb. 1. And it’s a Monday. Sunrise was 7:24 AM and sunset will be 7:25 PM, for ten hours and one minute of sunshine, in theory, here in Ashland, Oregon. Currently sitting at 50 degrees F, our weather is comfortable mix of clear sky, clouds, and sunshine with the potential for rain, clear sky, and sunshine.

January, 2021 went by like whipped cream from a can, with a lot of hissing and noise but quick. After an attempted coup and a whole lot of lies from the outgoing POTUS and the GOP, a new POTUS was sworn in. With it comes a new era. Yeah, fingers crossed on that. I know, in many ways, it’s frustrating BAU, but some sense of our values and processes are restored. Having Trump gone and Biden in isn’t an elixir; work is required.

With all these changes, today’s song came as I turned over my wall calendar. Yes, I keep a wall calendar. It’s sentimental of me. Produced by a photography, it’s of the Group 7 Can-Am racing series, the racing I most fervently followed as a young teen.

Today’s song is “Turn the Page”. Originally written and recorded by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in 1972, it was released in 1973, but the 1976 live version is the cover I always turn to. Be positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Move forward. Turn the page.

Here’s the music.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Look at this: Sunrise: 7:30 AM. Sunset: 5:18 PM.

We’re squirting toward ten hours of sunlight here in Ashland, Oregon. The delta has become just twelve minutes. Twelve minutes. At this rate, we’ll have ten hours of sunlight by the end of January. That, my friends, is progress.

Yeah, I’m a sunlight fan.

We could use more sunlight today but stormy clouds have paraded in. The clouds brought a sharp wind as their plus one. Present temp is a chilly 31 F, which feels like colder. Today’s high will be 39, so no relief. Still, we’re faring better than places where single digits or piles of snow reign.

Today’s song, “Last Nite” by The Strokes, came out while the century was still young, 2001. Sweet and young, the new century was naive and combative, as the 2000 election showed. We’ve been fighting ever since.

How does “Last Nite” fit in? It’s all about understanding, innit? Don’t know if you recall/are familiar with “Last Nite”, so let’s paste in some lyrics, courtesy of Genius.com.

And say, people, they don’t understand
No, girlfriends, they can’t understand
Your grandsons, they won’t understand
On top of this, I ain’t ever gonna understand

Which sums up a lot going on in U.S. politics to me, which is how the song got into my head this AM. I was thinking about how people don’t understand one another. We took about it a lot. How can anyone trust Trump? He’s a proven liar and failed businessman. I don’t understand. Meanwhile, over on the spectrum’s other end, they’ve been yelling, Trump tells it like it is. The left doesn’t understand. But, but, but, how he’s telling it are lies and bullshit. I don’t understand why they don’t see that.

Stay positive — I know, it’s hard — test negative, wear a mask, get vaccinated, and persevere. The list keeps growing.

Here’s the music.

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C-19 Vaccinations Update

I haven’t received a COVID-19 vaccination. I’m still pretty far down the order, so, shrug. I continue hiding at home. Although I dream of going out and getting coffee and sitting down somewhere. Oh, to have a beer with friends, or go dancing to live music, or just shopping without eyeing others as possible assassins…

Sorry, got diverted from my destination. I’ve heard good things about how the vaccinations are being conducted in Jackson County, Oregon. Jackson County set up the Expo Fairgrounds as the vaccination center. It’s all drive through. Signs inform people about expectations and wait times. Other signs tell people, “Honk if you need help”. All who’ve gone through it have come back with glowing reports about the efficiency witnessed. The numbers still aren’t large, but we’re following the tried course of employing baby steps before we break out into a run.

Cool, right? After reading about so many long lines elsewhere, vaccine shortages, and other stumbling blocks and struggles, a positive story was welcome.

On top of that, our county’s positive numbers and deaths continue dropping. Fingers crossed, right? Knock on wood. Spit three times. No, don’t spit there! Gross.

How ’bout you? How are vaccinations proceeding in your area?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

A new Saturday has arrived. (Momentarily, The Who sing, “Meet the new Saturday, same as the old Saturday… I haven’t had my coffee. Forgive me.)

Sunset came at 7:35 AM and we expect sunset at 5:14 PM here in Ashland. It’s rained through the night and morning, leaving us with gray clouds competing with blue skies and a 37 degree F temperature. The low temp is going to be 29 and the high is expected at 48 on this 23rd day of January, 2021.

Today’s music is “Torn” as covered by Natalie Imbruglia in 1997. First, a side note: some female co-workers in 1997 really disliked “Torn”. “She’s lying naked on the floor,” one would say with vehemence. “That’s disgusting.” She didn’t think about the song and that symbolism; lying naked on the floor was too much.

Reading about QAnon members reaction to President Biden being sworn in last night after Biden’s predecessor went into hiding in Florida, those conspiracists seemed torn about what was going on. Many were asking, “What’s going on? I don’t understand?” Others, with anger displayed in caps and multiple exclamation points and sharply chosen hateful words, were torn with emotions, claiming they’d been betrayed. Others tried calming them down by urging patience because there’s more to come.

Myself, I was torn about getting out of bed this morning. Caught in that wondrous place where I’m neither fully asleep nor awake, moving seemed like a gross violation of the moment, never mind leaving the warm bed. But the cats, torn about fighting one another, jumping on me, and pawing on the pet door to be let out, finally made me open my eyes and worm out of sleep.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get a vaccine, if you haven’t already. Here’s the music.

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Friday’s Fumblings

  1. The more that I’m writing, the worst that I sleep. I dream more when I’m writing more, too. Yesterday produced a great writing session, a miserable night of sleep, and a flotilla of dreams.
  2. I think that I sleep worst when I’m writing more because more of my brain is engaged in the writing process. The writing is consuming more bandwidth; shutting it down at day’s end is problematic. I keep writing while I’m doing other things, including trying to sleep.
  3. The good news with the novel in progress is that the characters escaped Arsehold at last! How surprised me, but was totally in tone with the rest of the book. This is, of course, when writing is most fun and rewarding.
  4. I always worry about saying too much about writing these days. I don’t want to jinx it when it’s going well, you know? Don’t want to scare off or anger the muses. I never elaborate to others about what I’m writing any more. It’s a novel; it’s meant to be read. I don’t want to explain it; I want people to read it. Sometimes it’s hard to stay true to this as excitement about the story, characters, and concept bubble up and make me happy. I guess I’m an eternal optimist that these stories and novels will come to be in people’s hands someday. Really, though, I write for me and have a good time doing it.
  5. I’m subscribed to HBOMax and enjoying several shows. Nevertheless, I have a complaint about the service. Every time I select it, the first thing that comes up is, “Who is watching?” My name is right there on top. It’s the only name. Below it are options to add other profiles or to add a kid. Seriously? Why must I answer this every friggin’ time? Just accept, I am the one watching, and get on with it. If I want to add someone else, I can go into options or the account, you know. It shouldn’t, I suppose, but it irks me to no end.
  6. COVID-19 vaccinations are increasing among friends and family. I know ten people who have been vaccinated. Three different states – Oregon, Texas, and Pennsylvania – are involved. All who were vaccinated except one were seventy plus years old. The one exception is in her forties and is in the healthcare industry, although she’s in research. Both vaccines have been employed among this small sampling. None have reported significant adverse reactions beyond a desire to nap and mild fevers. Let me know how your vaccination goes, please.
  7. My wife and I are a year apart in age, which adds another spin to our vaxsit. I’m sixty-four and a half. I turn sixty-five in July. I’ll be eligible. But do we want to do it if we can’t do it at the same time? Part of our formula about whether and when is that I have hypertension and she has RA. I suspect that we’ll be included as part of a group that’s fifty years and older later this year, making our one year difference moot.
  8. I mentioned oatmeal in another post, and the huntress commented on oatmeal. Her mother made it very thin. Soupy thin. I think of that as gruel. Yeah, I know it’s not the same. While that’s how my wife eats it, I’m not a fan of it. I make my oat meal so thick, it’s almost a soft cookie.
  9. I grew up putting brown sugar in my oatmeal. Well, it started as white sugar but once I had it with brown sugar, the game was done. I then learned to add raisins and nuts. Now I put all manner of things in my oatmeal. I currently add cranberries and walnuts in my oatmeal, and granola as a topping. I like the contrasting crunchiness and flavor.
  10. When I was first served oatmeal at my wife’s house while in my teens, they surprised me by adding butter and bacon on top. I’d never heard of such a thing! That surprised them, because that’s how they always ate it. Adding bacon and butter to my oatmeal wasn’t something that I adopted. My wife doesn’t add it to her oatmeal, either.
  11. The world seems weirdly calmer with Joe Biden in office as President. Is this my imagination? Am I just reading less news? That doesn’t seem to be the case. Have news outlets shifted how they’ve reported? Perhaps. Or is it that there’s less bad news, or it’s being less reported, or not catching my eye… Maybe we’re just in an intermission in the bad news cycle.
  12. Or maybe it’s some sense of numbing of normalization to bad news. Locally — specifically, in Jackson County, Oregon — COVID-19 positive cases have been declining. We haven’t had triple digits in several days. We’re trending down, but we trended down in November. Then we had a Christmas spike. Meanwhile, people aged 20-29 are the most positive cases here, but those aged fifty and older dominate the hospital beds, inline with what’s been seen elsewhere, and what’s generally expected.
  13. Okay, got my coffee, actually my second cup. No mid-morning treat to go with it. No cookies, pastries, or doughnuts. Nevertheless, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
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Friday’s Theme Music

Today is January 22, 2021. Sunrise is 7:33 AM and sunset is 5:13 PM in Ashland, Oregon, moving us closer to ten hours of sunlit. Our temperature is 37 F. Choppy layers of clouds, like pieces of clothing being sorted and stretched, are moving as the weather finds itself. A storm is shyly crowding in. We might have snow next week. We’ll definitely have colder weather.

Hammerin’ Hank Aaron passed away. Hammerin’ Hank broke Babe Ruth’s MLB home run record in 1974. I graduated high school and joined the military that year, so that’s childhood’s end for me.

When I think of my childhood, Hank Aaron and baseball were a large part of it, almost as big as music and politics. Music was defined by its growing presence on television and the increasing number of festivals and stadium shows. Other things from that era include the Doomsday Clock and the chance of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. using nukes, the Vietnam War and the peace talks, Watergate, student protests and riots in the 1960s, the oil embargo and gas shortages, and the explosive spread of cable television. Reasoner, Smith, Rather, Brinkley, and Hunt gave us the news at night. We were sending rockets with men in them to the moon and talking about the future of computers where everyone would have one in their home. The EPA had been created and the ERA was still a possibility, acronyms which were regularly discussed in school and on talk show panels.

It’s nice having President Biden in the White House. Nice not waking up to see what madness Biden’s predecessor was saying. Been a while since I read about a Karen employing privilege to insult and attack others. Coincidence? No.

Today’s song comes after another busy dream night. In one dream, I and others sometimes say, “There she goes,” in response to someone we’re looking for. In the course of thinking about that dream and phrase, the LA’s 1991 song, “There She Goes”, jumped into the thoughts. I guess my mind thought that would be helpful. It wasn’t.

Anyway, “There She Goes” is a strange song to me. It feels and sounds like something that should have been a hit in the early seventies or late sixties due its simple structure and sound. It’s also a brief song, under three minutes. Growing up with pop/rock, songs on the radio were typically three to four minutes long, so this song is ending just when you expect it to explode with something more. It doesn’t, leaving me asking, “Was that it?”

Here we go. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Sunrise came at 7:34 in Ashland on this twenty-first day of 2021, 01/21/21, and sunset, if the machinery works right will come at 5:11 PM. While it’s 37 F now, a high of 53 is expected. It’s a cloudy sky, which usually accompanies warmer temperatures at this time of year. It’s when the sky is clearest that it becomes coldest.

I enjoyed the musical entertainment provided the nation during President Biden’s inauguration celebrations. Several stood out for me, but I especially soaked in John Legend singing “Feeling Good”. Pow. Knocked me into the next year.

Demi Lovato covering Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” was another performance that touched me. Bill Withers was from my area. I lived outside of Beckley, WV, for three years, graduating there, and Bill was raised there, so he’s our native son. Covers of his songs always stirs memories of him and that area and time.

What of you? Any particular song or performance touch you in a way?

The inauguration day’s celebration theme was pretty much new day, new times, right? That’s what I took. Maybe I missed the mark. I’m thinking, how do you top any of those songs as theme music.

Well, today, I don’t. I’m just listening to John Legend “Feeling Good”. I’m familiar with the Nina Simone 1965 cover, but I’m staying with John Legend’s powerful rendition.

It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, yeah
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, ooh
And I’m feeling good

h/t to Genius lyrics.com

Hey, stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask and get the vaccine. A new day is coming. A new day has arrived. Feel it?

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