Category: pop culture

Tuesday’s Theme Music

As I piddled about this morning, I compiled a mental list of stuff that I wanted slash comma needed or should do. “It’s been a while,” I kept thinking, responding to these things, and then, was like, oh, yeah. “It’s Been Awhile”. Staind. What year?

That required a neuron convention to decide. I was certain that it was 2001, based on how and where I remembered hearing the song, but it seemed like last week, pushing me to question my results, forcing me onto the innertubes to confirm, yep, 2001.

Although I was pleased to recall the correct year, I was then left baffled with, what was I about to do? Too bad I couldn’t hit the innertubes to remember that.

 

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Confession #47,236

I confess, I don’t often watch television commercials. I find them insipid. It’s a longtime stance. With that stance, I’ve trained my mind to mute the television, just tune the commercial out, turn the channel, or leave.

Do you hear a but coming? Good hearing. Do you use hearing aids? No? Just wondering.

But, a recent Apple iPhone commercial engaged me. One, it was different. Two, it had lots of moving colors (pretty, so pretty). Three, it had an interesting but unfamiliar song.

If you haven’t seen or hear it, here is Cosmos Sheldrake with part of his song, “Come Along”. Sing along.

Come along catch a Heffalump,
Sit with me on a muddy clump,
We’ll sing a song of days gone by.
Run along now don’t be glum,
Get you gone now have some fun,
Don’t be long for the end is nigh.
Don’t let moments pass along and waste before your eyes,
March with me and the borogoves,
Come with me and the slithy toves,
And never ask us why.
Come come come come come along now,
Run away from the hum-drum,
We’ll go to a place that is safe from
greed, anger and boredom.
We’ll dance and sing till sundown,
and feast with abandon,
We’ll sleep when the morning comes,
and we’ll rise by the sound of the birdsongs.
We’ll be here when the world slows down,
and the sunbeams fade away,
Keeping time by a pendulum as the fabric starts to fray.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music comes via my cat, Boo. Boo is a large black cat with a minute white triangle on his chest and two long, white whiskers. Tailless, he came to us as a stray few years ago. We tried to find his people but failed, so he became part of the household. Although big and smart, Boo has issues, and it’s clear that someone mistreated him.

So, I was singing to him last night as I stroked his head and back, “Say it loud. I’m black and I’m proud.” That brought to mind the James Brown song from 1968, of course. Hell, it’s the title.

James Brown’s song is a powerful and affirmative statement of identity and clarity. I used to get goosebumps when I heard a large group of blacks singing it and clapping to the beat. It was amazing to witness.

Look a’here, some people say we got a lot of malice
Some say it’s a lotta nerve
I say we won’t quit moving
Til we get what we deserve
We’ve been buked and we’ve been scourned
We’ve been treated bad, talked about
As just as sure as you’re born
But just as sure as it take
Two eyes to make a pair, huh
Brother, we can’t quit until we get our share

h/t to A-ZLyrics.com

Here’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)”.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to be Right”. Humming along with it as it flowed through my stream this morning during the routines, I thought about the song’s complex, grown-up nature.

I was sixteen when the song was released in 1972 and going through the standard processes involving discovering love and sex. Little did I know how complicated it could all be. The big lie still held about finding someone and falling in love, marrying for laugh, and growing old together. Big cracks were appearing in the big lie. Love and sex, as well as gender identity and sexual orientation are all more complicated than the big lie’s straightforward depiction. Then religion society gets involved – a black man and a white woman? Social norms add new pressures and dimensions.

That’s behind the song. He’s in love with another woman, having an affair and cheating on his wife. And the woman is having an affair with a married man. Both of those are taboo. The man understands that he has commitments. Needs change.

I’m not trying to defend him so much as think about how complicated love, sex, society, marriage and life can be. It’s not as clean and simple as the big lie leads us to believe.

Am I wrong to fall so deeply in love with you
Knowing I got a wife and two little children
Depending on me too
And am I wrong to hunger
for the gentleness of your touch
knowing I got somebody else at home
who needs me just as much

And are you wrong to fall in love
With a married man
And am I wrong trying to hold on
To the best thing I ever had

h/t to songfacts.com

Of course, the other part of this is what it would do to his wife if she discovered his betrayal, and what could result from that, nor what the guilt can do to him and his thinking and psyche.

Many performers and groups have covered this R&B classic, but that original voice and music is seared into my brain. Luther Ingram didn’t write it, but he delivered the sound.

 

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song blasted out of my dreams and into my thinking stream. The dreams were wild, all good things that made me laugh or stand tall as a conquering hero. Nothing undermining, and no anxiety. Great stuff.

So why did this 1985 ballad emerge from that dreamland? I think “Broken Wings” fits it well. Like the dream ended and this was the song that played for me as the credits rolled. It was cool.

BTW, I’d never seen the video until I checked it out today. I was in Egypt, living in a tent when the song was released, part of whirlwind year that had me in stationed in South Carolina, but visiting Jordan, Guam, Korea, New Jersey, Spain, and Egypt. Interesting year.

Here’s Mr. Mister.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Freddies dead
That’s what I said
Let the man rap a plan said he’d see him home
But his hope was a rope and he should’ve known
It’s hard to understand
There was love in this man
I’m sure all would agree
That his misery was his woman and things
Now Freddie’s dead
That’s what I said

Read more: Curtis Mayfield – Freddie’s Dead Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I was reading about another unarmed black man killed by another white man with a gun. In this case, the black man was killed by a Walgreen’s security officer as he was walking away, shot in the back, after the two exchanged words several times.

Reading about the man’s death as the holidays are fading and the decorations are taken down and put away inspired weariness about change’s creeping nature and questions of why so many others seem eager to kill someone because they’re a different color, or the things they said. Growing up in 1960s America, race riots and violence were a nightly news staple. I keep hoping for peace, equality, and justice.

From all that, I began streaming Curtis Mayfield, “Freddie’s Dead” (1972).

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Thursday’s Theme Music

As I’ve thought about what was happening and where I’ve decided to go, Peter Gabriel’s song, “Solsbury Hill” (1977) came to me. The song is about making decisions, taking risks, and changing, coming about when he left Genesis, the group he’d helped begin almost a decade before, to begin a solo career.

Many of the versus reflected his uncertainty about the decision.

To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Though my life was in a rut
‘Til I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut

Enjoy.

 

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The Latest

In the 1960s, as far as I know, we came in America to have T.V. dinners. I remember the first time Mom brought a few home. She looked at the shiny, foil trays and asked, “Can this be any good?”

Thirty years ago, it was Tofu. Tofu was in everything or they were making it out of tofu. “What is it?” “It’s the miracle food, tofu!”

Tofu didn’t always lend itself to everything in the early days. I experienced some nasty, funky tofurkey on one ghastly Thanksgiving. But progress was made. Textures, appearance, and flavoring improved. Tofu came a looong way.

We shifted from white rice to brown rice. Fat-free and non-fat became the cry, but then people asked for a little fat. “Please, sir, may I have a little fat for flavor?” A little fat was added and pronounced low-fat. Sprouts and sprouted breads arose in favor. My wife, a vegan, then a vegetarian, and now a pescatarian, despises the sprouts, grumbling about them whenever they’re served to her on a salad or sandwich. Look out if it’s sprouted bread.

We’ve processed through other phases in the quest to be healthier. Plant-based and dairy-free cheeses arrived. Organic arose in favor. GMO free. Gluten-free. Kale jumped in there, making a brief splash on salads and as chips, and then, non-diary milks arose. They’d been around for a while, but suddenly things were being made of coconut milk, almond milk, soy milk, rice milk. Soon the ice cream aisle exploded with non-diary frozen desserts. Then —

Greek yogurt!

Now we’ve come to the latest. Gentle people, I give you the cauliflower.

Yes, it’s the miracle food, cauliflower. Eat it raw. Roast it in the oven and eat it instead of french fries (or roasted brussies, or roasted kale chips.) It’s great as a pizza crust or a creamy soup. Why should potatoes have all the glory? Have mashed cauliflowers instead of mashed potatoes.

I’m sure someone somewhere is working on cauliflower wine and cauliflower ice cream. What comes next? will it be the beets?

No, too obvious. Plant-based meats are making a run, but I think something else is on the way.

Solyent green, anyone?

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This song played four times, different venues, during the last two days, so I thought, WTH, I think the Fates are demanding that it be the theme music.

Here’s Gnarls Barkley (CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse) with “Crazy” (2006).

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Monday’s Theme Music

A simple song today, streaming an old favorite. This came out in ’72, when I was just getting my driver’s license, still in high school, and living with dad. Don’t know what kicked it into the stream this morning, but I’ve always liked its sound and energy.

Let’s enjoy some Led Zeppelin with “Rock and Roll”. Rock out 2018, rock in 2019.

Cheers

 

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