Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Flooftweet (floofinition) – 1. Tweets about animals. 2. Tweets made by animals.
In use: “Many flooftweets (about a pet) could be flooftweets (made by a pet), as animals love secretly gaining control of people’s phones and computers and sending messages. As people never suspect animals are behind it, they often accuse others of hacking their accounts.”
Floofbreak (floofinition) – 1. Taking a holiday or vacation away from animals, especially household pets. 2. A pet or animal’s escape from a place or situation.
In use: “Carole King made national news after her Border Collie’s floofbreak because Carole searched for fifty-seven days to find her friend.”
Today’s song is one of those turn-it-up loud touchback beats from waayyy back in 1990.
Fun facts from November 1990:
The U.S.S.R. was the United States’ great enemy and an evil empire, according to our former POTUS, Ronald Reagan. Our new guy, in his first year, was George H.W. Bush. The Berlin Wall had fallen the previous year. The U.S.S.R. would soon end.
A coalition led by the U.S. was building up for the Gulf War, amassing troops to attack Iraq and free Kuwait.
The Internet and web were just catching on as a force. AOL and Yahoo were big players in the U.S. Google hadn’t been started yet. Cell phones were just rolling out as the 2G network took shape. Taking selfies with your phone weren’t due for twenty more years. Facebook was still over a decade away, and Twitter was further out that than.
New England Patriots QB Tom Brady was thirteen years old.
Donald Trump was still with his first wife, Ivana.
Cool beans, right?
Here’s Jane’s Addiction with “Been Caught Stealing”. Crank it, baby.
“That’s why you can’t hold me down. You can’t tie me down. I gotta gotta gotta get away.”
I awoke with Jimi Hendix 1967 song, “Stone Free” in my stream. (I think I was missing up choruses, though.) I think it came about from judgement calls on people like Greta Thunberg about everything except what’s she say. People were throwing superficial criticisms at her; some even suggested that she was mentally ill. Most also mocked her as a child because she’s still a teenager.
Never mind that she’s making intelligent points about the environment. Never mind that elsewhere people are quite willing to use teenagers as soldiers or proclaim them able to carry and give birth to a child, or to be married.
Thankfully, Greta is above being shamed for who she is and is proud of what she does. I only wish I had her balls.
I read it on the net
you know you better bet
that it’s the greatest most outrageous and incredible thing
ever
I saw it on the net
you know I won’t regret
believing everything that I’m seeing
and hearing
It was spread across the net
so you better be set
to know this is the truth and won’t go away
it’s out there for-
ever
So just put it on the net
with a link for them to select
and you know you’ll have them reading writing raging and de-
bating
I’m sorta maudlin in my reflections today, and the stream reflects that. As friends and stars pass with greater frequency, I found “Shooting Star” by Bad Company (1975) streaming in me. So many folks and fur friends seem like shooting stars, blazing a fast trail through the night, gone before you can fully appreciate what you see. But sometimes that trail lights up the sky and leaves an impression that keeps you looking and longing for more.
Johnny told his mama, hey, ‘Mama, I’m goin’ away. I’m gonna hit the big
time, gonna be a big star someday’, Yeah.
Mama came to the door with a teardrop in her eye.
Johnny said, ‘Don’t cry, mama, smile and wave good-bye’.
Don’t you know, yeah yeah, Don’t you know that you are a shooting star,
Don’t you know, don’t you know. Don’t you know that you are
a shooting star, And all the world will love you just as long,
As long as you are.
Johnny made a record, Went straight up to number one,
Suddenly everyone loved to hear him sing the song.
Watching the world go by, surprising it goes so fast.
Johnny looked around him and said, ‘Well, I made the big time at last’.
Don’t you know, don’t you know, Don’t you know that you are
a shooting star,
Don’t you know, oh, yeah, Don’t you know that you are
a shooting star, yeah,
And all the world will love you just as long,
As long as you are, a shooting star.
Don’t you know that you are a shooting star, Don’t you know, yeah,
Don’t you know that you are a shooting star, now,
And all the world will love you just as long, As long you are you.
Johnny died one night, died in his bed, Bottle of whiskey,
sleeping tablets by his head. Johnny’s life passed him by like a
warm summer day, If you listen to the wind you can still hear him play.
It was inevitable, I guess, that the deaths of Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek that their music would jump into my mental stream of sound. Today found Eddie Money’s “Shakin'” (1982) in the stream.
My wife’s movement invited “Shakin'” in. She loves music and dancing, and happened to start dancing, moving around and snapping her fingers last night, with an expression lit with happiness.
I read that The Beatles’ album, Abbey Road, was released fifty years ago. It’s not a surprise; it came out when I was thirteen, and I’m sixty-three. The math was straightforward. It’s more astonishing not for time’s passing — hey, that happens every day — but for the shifts that it signaled in pop music, the world’s ever-changing politics and alliances, and the monstrous technological surge recorded during that fifty years.
I won’t say it was all peace and love in 1969 because it sure as hell wasn’t. Older people were lamenting the youth, and the youth was out to change the establishment. Major civil rights advances had been achieved. Bottled water existed but wasn’t the ubiquitous commodity that it is today. Corporations were gaining power but we hadn’t yet witnessed the emergence of the super-CEOs of now, compensated and treated like they’re dictators of small countries. The U.S.S.R. and Warsaw Pact countries, and Communist China – the P.R.C. – dominated movies and novels as the U.S.A.’s greatest threat. Computers were still big machines and novelties. VCRs, DVD players, cell phones were all creeping over the future’s horizon.
History update completed, when I contemplated the release of Abbey Road, the song that popped into my stream was “Oh! Darling”. I like its bluesy sensibilities and active bass so I thought I’d push it on you.
We went to a spotlight performance the other night. As an elderly community of retired professionals in their sixties to nineties thrive around here, performances are often geared toward their preferences and memories. The spotlight performances are among those, featuring music from 1960s era “girl-bands”, the Motown sound, the Eagles, and the current offering focusing on the Mamas and Papas. They’re a lot of fun but they fire up neurons from that era, as more of that period’s music flooded my stream this morning.
“Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire was playing as irritation with our current government sent me into new spasms of frustration. Then along came a song by a group called Thunderclap Newman has been on loop. I always liked the name, Thunderclap Newman. Goes right up there with Moby Grape, Psychedelic Furs and Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Thunderclap Newman’s song, “Something in the Air” is streaming in my head. Word association started it. First, “Eve of Destruction” lyrics bobbed along the stream:
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’
I’m sittin’ here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
Read more: Barry Mcguire – Eve Of Destruction Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Ah, the rhyming. But the song’s sentiment plays as true for 2019 as it did for 1965 regarding governments’ ineptitude, human respect, frustration at the pace of change, and constant war. We stay on the eve of destruction, don’t we?
Lock up the streets and houses
Because there’s something in the air
We’ve got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here,
I always enjoyed Newman’s piano solo in this song. I have a vivid memory of smoking hash and listening to this song again and again when I was sixteen and my Dad was away.
So, that’s my Sunday theme music, Thunderclap’s 1969 song, “Something in the Air”.
Thinking of symbiotic relationships and current politics lured the 1986 AC/DC song into my stream this morning, “Who Made Who”. That’s always the question, innit, as relationships and people morph under the pressures and stresses of who they are and who they want to be versus how they respond and re-balance. Add to it the ever-shifting windows of what we see in ourselves and others, and what others see in us, and it becomes a real pickle, to use some fancy phrasing.
Sit back, crank it up, bang your head, and relax. You’ve survived another week…so far…
Michael Seidel, writer 