Category: pop culture

A Series of Weird, Short Dreams

I dreamed that dandelions were growing out of my cat’s head. I decided to pull them, because I thought, the roots must be growing into his brain.

I pulled the weeds. As they came out, his head broke apart like the top of a chicken potpie. Brains spilled out. Panicking, I tried pushing them all back in.

Before that —

I was marrying a robot. The robot resembled a cross between an Oscar and Marvel’s Iron Man. He’d been sent to kill me. I’d captured and converted him, easy to do because he was a foot tall and never moved, standing like the Oscar all the time. I don’t know how he was expected to kill me, but I was marrying him.

Before that —

It was cake again. A large white sheet cake was on a table. It looked gorgeous, and delicious. Writing was on the top. Leaning forward to read it, I misjudged space and distance and began falling into the cake. Wildly flailing, I managed not to hit the cake, but tilted the table. The cake began sliding away. I tried grabbing it, seizing a handful of a corner and tearing it away.

In a slow-motion sequence, I raised the cake that I’d torn away up to my face. Yellow inside, it smelled like lemon. I put some into my mouth to taste it. It didn’t taste lemon. I couldn’t decide what the taste was.

The cake was still sliding off the table. Lunging forward, I caught the cake, stabilized the table, and ‘saved’ the cake, except it was a mess.

Others came in. I wanted to run but I had cake all over me. Obviously, I’d done whatever had happened to the cake. As the rest came up (all strangers, dressed casually, but with what looked like flutes of champagne in their hands), I said, “There was an accident.”

Ignoring that, smiling and talking, they looked at the cake as though nothing was wrong. One woman said something to me. I held up the handful of cake and asked, “Is this lemon?”

Before that —

I was in the military, dressed in a crisp light blue shirt with dark blue pants, supervising a group of young NCOs. I was assigning them positions, roles, and titles. “You’re NCOIC of Back Office Reporting, BOC.” I laughed. “And you are Console Operations, COPs.” That brought more wild laughter from me. To the third, I said, “And you’re NCOIC of Training, which is, well, that’s just training.” I found that hilarious.

Before that —

My cat was sick. I was looking for his medicine. After I went through the house, I finally found it (it’s the last place that you look, innit?). Then I couldn’t find the cat. Putting the medicine down, I went through the house looking for him. Finding him at last, I couldn’t find the medicine. I said, “I just had it.”

That’s all there was.

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Friday’s Theme Music

This song choice began from events that happened yesterday. A song came on the radio and got caught in a whirlpool in my stream. Hitting the coffee shop, I was singing it in my head. The young barista (eighteen-twenty?) (they all look so young) looked at me and asked (with a smile), “What song’s in your head?”

I sang back, “Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh.”

She laughed. “No way. “Dance Monkey”. Tones and I.”

Yes.

“Easy song to get stuck in your head,” she said.

I agreed. Hard to get it out, though, making it today’s theme music.

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“Bennie and the Floofs””

“Bennie and the Floofs” (floofinition) – An odd American pop song about a fictional band led by a dog named Bennie (who wears an electric collar, tiara, and oversized sunglasses), the lead vocalist, and a band of three felines and a wolf who perform the music.

In use:  “The song “Bennie and the Floofs” hit the Floofboard Top 100 and held the number one spot for five consecutive weeks, inspiring many Floofoween costumes that year.”

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Looked out the window and saw a sun-drenched landscape showing evidence of spring  under a powerful blue sky. “I Gotta Feeling” (Black Eyed Peas, 2009) roared into the stream.

Yeah, I gotta feeling that today’s gonna be a good day. Sure, more folks are worrying about the coronavirus and the U.S. response to it. Of course the DOW doesn’t like what the virus is doing to supply chains and profits. That’s sinking stocks and pension plans.

Naturally, many are worrying about the upcoming elections in the U.S. Or they’re fuming about Trump attacking a juror or his attacks on Supreme Court justices.

Others are worried about climate change, rising sea waters, stripped environmental protections, and safe drinking water. Ongoing hostilities in other countries will sober you up with a sigh, too, as you peruse the news of death, destruction, and displacement.

More locally, racism and sexism flare up in numbers as disturbing as the coronavirus spread.

Yes, I worry about these things. But strip it all down to the bare metal of my existence, and the tiny piece of me that I can do much about, and my life, and I gotta feeling, today’s gonna be a good day, despite news to the contrary.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

“Creep” by Radiohead (1992) has flooded my stream this morning. Its presence was prompted by the query, “What the hell am I doing here?” when I paused in the kitchen, lost in what I was about to do. I then went through the mental checklist (fed the cats, let them out, let them in, fed them again, peed — oh, yeah, coffee.)

Many people dislike “Creep”, thinking it depressing. It is depressing. But I think its chorus captures what too many people sometimes experience:

But I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here

h/t to Genius.com

I have felt like these words from time to time (yes, alcohol was involved) but it’s been a long while for me. Hope it’s been a long while for you, too, or better, that you’ve never endured that stream of thought.

Cheers

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I was singing today’s song because it’s Tuesday, and I was ruminating over my dreams. Had to look up the date of when the song was released. It’s one of those songs that’ve been around for almost all of my life.

Turns out that “Ruby Tuesday” was released in 1967. I turned eleven years in ’67. Good years for cars. I enjoyed the ’67 Ford Mustang’s looks, along with the ’67 Chevy Camaro and the ’67 Mercury Cougar. I also like the ’67 E Jag, but it was little changed in its looks from previous years.

The lyrics (besides the main chorus) that came up with the sun today were toward the song’s end:

There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind.
Ain’t life unkind?

h/t to AZlyrics.com

Somehow, Mick and the Stones make this work. One of the things that go through my head while watching this video is the thinking, okay, what am I going to wear today, that must have progressed. Yet, being a boy from the sixties, I often dressed like this.

Fun times.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Preparing to depart the coffee shop yesterday, I bused my table. Looking into the roasting room, I saw one of the Noble employees back there. My jaw dropped.

He’s a spitting image of Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night back in the late 1960s.

640px-Three_Dog_Night_1969

Negron, Wells and Hutton of Three Dog Night in 1969

Thinking about that as I walked the town, I went through a few TDN songs – “Eli’s Coming”, “One”, “Joy to the World”, “Mama Told Me Not To come”, and “Liar”. The song that arrived to stay in the stream was one where Negron was the featured lead vocalist. That would be TDG’s cover of “Easy to Be Hard” from Hair.

Not only was it fittin’ to have Negron, the secret coffee roaster (maybe he cloned himself) singin’ a song, but the song whose lyrics fit these times of rollbacks in how we treat one another to the point of open hostility and cruelty.

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needy friend
I need a friend

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Cheers

Love the bumper stickers in the video.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“This Diamond Ring” (cover by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, 1965) began playing in my head as I reconstructed and evaluated my dream, which was about theater, wine, food, and clothes. Why that song, I wondered, going over the lyrics. It’s all about broken promises and lost dreams, and gathered, that must be what the dreams were about, a depressing thought at its face.

Anyway, now the song is lodged in the stream. Sharing it will release it, so here you are. Watch the video, as their performance is interesting. (So is the setting.) (Such a simpler time.) Several of those musicians look like, “Where am I, where am I,” is caught in their thinking streams.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s music came into the stream via word association.

I was looking for my ‘other’ blue jeans. (Like any good American male, I own several pairs of blue jeans, but have favorites.) (Because I like their fit, see?) From that, the stream picked up Neil Diamond’s “Forever In Blue Jeans” (which seemed appropriate, as I seemed forever in blue jeans) (at least until the weather warms and I become forever in shorts). That stopped after a few seconds as “Blue Jeans Blues” (ZZ Top) supplanted it.

As I chuckled over those songs, “Tangled Up In Blue” (Bob Dylan) popped in. But, as I found the jeans (in the closet, on a hanger, where they’re supposed to be) (how’d I miss them the first time?) (do you hang your jeans or fold them and store them in a drawer?), David Bowie’s light song, “Blue Jean” (1984), about a woman named Blue Jean, swarmed the stream.

So, there we have it, the genesis of today’s choice, “Blue Jean” by the late D.B.

 

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