Category: News

Sunday’s Theme Music

Raucous dreams consumed the night. Oh, yes, there was too a floof fight.

4:30 AM. In this corner, wearing long black and white fur and weighing in at sixteen pounds…Tucker.

In the other corner, by the kibble bowl, that eleven pound ginger blade who used to be called Meep!…Papi.

I know Tucker started it because it’s always Tucker. Little combat was involved because Papi is a shrieker. His first one bought us awake and out of bed in one leap, and it was done. I swear that we moved like ninjas…little aging, graying ninjas…

But it’s email that gives me today’s theme music. Money…financing…sales ending today…the calls for assistance and donations and contributions dominated the box in a depressing blitz. Pelosi claimed her email wasn’t about money but Biden openly asked. Amazon and Costco crowed, look at what everyone is buying. Animal shelters and rescue groups wanted cash. The USPS needs help…

Such an AM gut punch even before my brekkie and coffee. Making them was when the theme song came: “Money (That’s What I Want)“.

The Beatles had a big hit with it, but I was channeling The Flying Lizards’ 1979 cover with Deborah Evans-Stickland. The Beatles were nakedly raw and emotional in their money demands. The Flying Lizards brought a mocking, flat monotone to their appeal.

My email solicitations were across the gamut: fear — they’re winning, they’re winning, give me money to fight back — to logic — no, it was all fear, fear of what will happen if you don’t give or buy, because you will be losing.

Anyway, that’s my music choice for today. Please listen and send me money. And stay healthy. Wear a damn mask.

The end?

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

My political ire is rising with the latest trumpshit. First is the jump out the gate questioning whether Kamela Harris is eligible to be POTUS. If you haven’t read the ‘opinion piece’ in Newsweek…don’t. Such garbage. Be a while before my respect for Newsweek returns.

That was just starter fluid for my anger. What’s going on with Trump and the GOP the destruction of voting rights is first class authoritarian play. Further infuriating me is the GOP obstacles arising by sabotaging the USPS. We as a nation have worked to find improvements in the USPS and how the mail is handled and delivered. Here comes the GOP, breaking the fucking system so they can undermine democracy to remain in power. It’s a scorched earth plan for victory. Sickening, sickening, sickening.

As it’s happened in the past whenever a political party dirties a nation, enablers turn their heads so they don’t see. In this instance, they’re burying themselves in misinformation.

Eventually, Trump, the GOP, and their users will follow the natural course to crash and burn. By then, judging from their current activities, the destruction they’ve wrought will be huge. Then people will stand and cry with shock, “Who knew?” 

That’s happened every damn time. Then they’ll shed croc tears and protest their innocence, “I didn’t know.”

All that at last takes me to a 2006 Pink song, “Who Knew”. Frothy and poppy in melody, it carries dark lyrics about things happening that’s not noticed until you awaken to events after it’s all over, when nothing can be done. Pink sang,

I took your words and I believed
In everything you said to me
Yeah-huh, that’s right

When someone said count your blessings now
‘Fore they’re long gone
I guess I just didn’t know how
I was all wrong
They knew better, still you said forever
And ever, who knew?

h/t to Genius.com

That’s where Trump supporters and enablers stand. They believe his lies, and that of his administration, rationalizing his morality as good, twisting logic and facts to fit their spin , and will profess to believe until it all comes crashing down. Then, when the air is filthy again, climate change is crushing our society, and the number of people starving and dying swells, they’ll whine, “Who knew?”

Yeah, that’s right.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

As commercials rev up — “Come see us. We’re all wearing masks and are following the guidelines and taking precautions!” — and election day grows nearer, everybody is trying to seduce us as consumers and voters in America.

Buy, buy, buy! Vote for me, vote for me!

It’s right in my head that today’s theme music is Billy Squier singing “Everybody Wants You” back in 1982.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s spin back Saturday!

Woke up with The Who’s rock opera, Tommy, in my mind’s center hall. Then the two song medley, “See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You” (1969) goes on loop.

It’s an appropriate song when thinking about the cults of politics percolating around the world, especially of the great wing type, especially of the Trump cult. It’s in sharper focus for me because that’s my country. I hear and read the staggering knots and twists employed to justify supporting him to the detriment of everything that matters, unless you’re white, wealthy, and male. The Evangelicals, Blacks, and women who support me startle me, but this medley seems to illuminate their position.

On the one hand, you have Trump – Tommy – isolated and self-centered, emotionally distant. Where the analogy collapses is Tommy knows his state and wants healed; Trump is blissfully unaware of himself and doesn’t want healed. He doesn’t know he’s sick. Feeding his base, he doesn’t see himself as sick.

Then you have the base. The comparison with Tommy shines here.

Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you I see the millions
On you I see the glory
From you I get opinions
From you I get the story

Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

h/t to Genius.com

Decided to post the Woodstock video as it captures the essence of that time in rock. Have a listen, please, and as they say in America, “Have a nice day.”

 

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Every once in a while during my life, I encountered a person (or group) that so infuriate me, that I think, “You know…if I had the means…”

Know what I’m talking about? Right, getting a gun and putting them down because the world would be better without them. Maybe planting a little C4. It seems so easy on TV.

But I’m not that kind, except sometimes in my writing. Still, the wistfulness of sometimes solving a problem ala “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” as AC/DC proposed back in ’76 seizes me, ya know?

Yeah.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today brought a 1995 song from Collective Soul.

“December” is about endings and breaks from what’s going on. For Ed Roland, the songwriter, it’s about parting with the band’s manager. Pour moi, I pull the sarcastic and bitter sense of weariness from the sound: it’s done. Let’s end this, and this is just the polarized, argumentative state of the United States. I went to see Trump and the disastrous GOP reign end. The sooner that comes, the happier I’ll be.

On to the music.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Woke up hot at three-ish. As I reviewed dreams, got up and drank water, and then opened the back door to entertain cool night air, my mind began streaming Blue Oyster Cult and “Burnin’ for You” (1981).

My mind seems to have a song ready for any moment. I imagine a team of people up there. Males and females are armed with servers loaded with music. Sitting on swivel chairs, they stay poised to begin songs for each sight, sound, thought, emotion, and memory.

“Burnin’ for You” works on multiple levels. Fer instance, It addresses homes in a major way. That’s fittin’ for ‘merica, where Homeland Security and police battle protesters as jobs and savings dwindle and eviction notices fly, leaving folks without homes. BOC catches that:

Home in the valley
Home in the city
Home isn’t pretty
Ain’t no home for me

Yet, priorities: save the businesses! Protect the billionaires! Grow the military!

Sorry. Jumped onto my anti-GOP train as led by 45 hisself. I’ll’ stop now. Here’s the music.

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Friday Fry-up

  1. Don’t recall any dreams from last night. Odd. Frees up about an hour of time spent thinking about my dreams. Has my dream reservoir gone dry?
  2. Went out on a shopping expedition yesterday, Albertsons and Bi-Mart. Our prey was cat food and fresh fruits and veggies. All saved one was masked up, although several wore their masks with their noses exposed. Do you not get it, man? Yes, I know, there’s psychology, perceptions, fears, and lies at work there. Just ask Herman Caine. Sorry, cheap shot. Ask Rep. Gohmert (Crazy-TX) instead. He’s the latest flag-bearer for the nonsense brigade.
  3. Florida friends tell us that people there don’t act like there’s a pandemic going on except to put on masks to enter stores, because the stores require them. Then I read an article about a study that said, yes, as expected, young adults and teens are working and clubbing, then going home and infecting more vulnerable people. It’s trending up everywhere.
  4. Going to have social-distancing brunch outside at friends’ house this AM. Just the two couples will be present. I’m ambivalent about it. Like them, but do we need the risk? I am resentful, too, as my wife (with perceived mocking tone) said to friend on phone, “Oh, he’s not doing anything.” Hello? Writing? WTF. She then said, “Oh, don’t tell me I’m interfering with your schedule.” I’m sounding bitter, so I’ll stop.
  5. Okay, I am bitter.
  6. Our fire warnings were raised to extreme today. Humidity has dropped to 15% and we’ve had several days of triple digit highs. We’re in a mild trough today, with an overnight low of 58 and a forecast high of 94 for today. Worrisome as dozens of wildfires are already burning.
  7. Stay safe, everyone. Wear masks and distance.
  8. Gonna get some coffee now and try to write like crazy, at least one more time.
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Thursday’s Theme Music

I dreamed a black man in black clothes came by and fixed my arm. He was upbeat about it all.

Thinking that over, I opened my eyes and checked the time: 6:01. Not needing to get up and wanting more sleep, I told myself, I’ll just close my eyes for a moment.

My mind answered, “I close my eyes, only for a moment, then the moment’s gone.” Then the rest of the classic rock tune, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (1978), swelled in my head.

It’s a good choice as theme music goes. We’re battling over rights, equality, facts and science, trying to preserve our lives, planets, and society while coping with COVID, all to a cacophony of bullshit from the WH. Sometimes I feel like we’re warring nests of ants. Then, looking at the stars, I remember that we’re stardust, born on a cosmic wind.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.

I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.

Nope.

Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.

Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.

All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.

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