Category: pop culture

Monday’s Theme Music

Blame today’s theme music on a cat.

I was administering a dose of hairball malt. Being of a loving, but perverse and distrustful nature, the cat fought, and the malt ended up on his paw. He tried shaking it off. I told him, “Lick it off, lick it off.”

From that moment, Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” mindjacked me. The beauty of the song is its malleability. All manner of phrases can be inserted and employed for the song’s lyrics. For instance, when you’re driving and encounter a rude driver, you can sing, “That driver is a dick, dick, dick, dick, flip him off, flip him off.”

Or you can just play with the words. “Bakers gonna bake, bake, bake, and the bandage is gonna stay, stay, stay, rip it off, rip it off.”

From my head to yours, from 2014.

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My Dirty List

Time for a small vanity project (as if every post made on this blog isn’t a vanity project, right?).

I think everyone has certain movies that they love to watch regardless of others’ ratings and reviews. It’s our dirty secret.

Here is my dirty list. I’ve seen each of these movies at least a dozen times, and have a few of them on DVDs, but I still watch them when they come on. Some of them don’t come on much any more, because they’re old, and in black and white, and a few of them depressed people.

The list isn’t in any order. Each movie has several particularly favorite scenes. Thinking about those, I realize they usually come at the movie’s end. IMDB helped me with the quotes because my memory isn’t that good.

Unforgiven (1992) – “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”

Fail Safe (1964) – “You learned too well, Professor. You learned so well that now there’s no difference between you and what you want to kill.”

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn’t believe anything.”

A Christmas Story (1983) – “Oh, fudge. Except I didn’t say fudge.”

The Great Escape (1963) – “Cooler.”

Tropic Thunder (2008) – “I know who I am. I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!”

Being There (1979) – “It’s for sure a white man’s world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I’ll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th’ ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!”

No Country for Old Men (1997) – “What you got ain’t nothin’ new. This country’s hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”

On The Beach (1959) – “The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn’t any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained – – by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn’t possibly use – – without committing suicide. Everybody had an atomic bomb, and counter-bombs, and counter-counter bombs. The devices outgrew us; we couldn’t control them.”

Fifty First Dates (2004) – “Sharks are like dogs, they only bite when you touch their private parts.”

Bladerunner (1982) – “Time…to die.”

Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) – “Are they both mad? Or am I going mad? Or is it the sun?”

Love Actually (2003) – “A tiny, insignificant detail.”

Men In Black (1997) – “No, ma’am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we’re aware of. May we come in?”

The Dirty Dozen (1967) – “I reckon the folks’d be a sight happier if I died like a soldier. Can’t say I would.”

Doctor Strangelove (1964) – “Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader’s mule, the radio is gone and we’re leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we’d need sleigh bells on this thing… but we got one little budge on them Rooskies. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain’t gonna spot us on no radar screen!”

What of you? Andy dirty secrets about the movies you watch again and again?

 

 

 

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Wasn’t streaming anything in my head this morning, save the theme music from “Magnum, P.I.” by Mike Post. I think Mike Post wrote half of the theme music for television shows in the seventies and eighties. Sure seemed like it.

I decided today needed something crunchier. As I walked, my mind recovered a little gem from 1999 by a man named Lenny Kravitz, “Fly Away”. I like those opening chords, and the general message, “I’d like to fly away.” 1999 was a damn fine year for me, maybe my favorite year.

Crank it up and sing it with Lenny. You can even play the air guitar.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ summary noted that the Doomsday Clock was set to two minutes to midnight last January, 2018. I was thinking about that today as I streamed Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge”. The song, about the world’s sorry state, was written and released in 1993, after the 1992 Rodney King Riots, sometimes also called the LA Riots.

A quarter of century later, and I think we’re closer to the edge now then we were in 1993. Unfortunately, nobody has a tracking mechanism like the Doomsday Clock to declare how close we are to the edge. Is it a foot? A mile? A million miles? I suppose the edge is different for each of us, and varies by attitude and world events. On some days, I feel like I can stand on my toes, lean forward and look at over the edge. On other days, it’s a distant horizon.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today finds me streaming and humming “Tom Sawyer” by Rush. This is another, “WTF are they singing?” song. Here are the lyrics with purchase in my brain matter this morning:

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
-Catch the mist – Catch the myth
-Catch the mystery – Catch the drift

The world is the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide

Today’s Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the space he invades
He gets by on you

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government.
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren’t permanent –
But change is

h/t to rush.com

It’s all part of a classic Rush presentation, along with the drumming and guitar work.

Although this song is from 1981, I became aware of Rush in 1974. They were opening for Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann at Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena that year. I knew Heep and Mann (I wore out “The Magician’s Birthday” and “Easy Livin'” by the first) but I had no idea who Rush was. I wanted to attend that concert, but I was living in West Virginia then. Having graduated from high school and feeling pessimistic about the future, I’d already enlisted in the Air Force and was awaiting the day to go onto active duty.

As it was, I was in the military, stationed in San Antonio, Texas, with orders for Okinawa when this song was released. Rush has had many hits and terrific albums, but I think “Tom Sawyer” remains my favorite.

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I Catch Myself

I catch myself

berating others for being cruel, short-sighted, stupid, insensitive, or inattentive

and

 

I catch myself

doing the same damn stupid things that I berated them for doing

and

 

I catch myself

remembering other times that I did these stupid damn things

and

I catch myself

reminding myself that we’re all human, with foibles and inconsistencies

and

 

I catch myself

realizing that I’m just as fucking flawed

and

 

I catch myself.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Knowing the root of a morning stream would be welcomed, because, sometimes those choices stream in from nowhere in my cerebralsphere. Today’s surprise visitor hails from my graduation year, 1974. A television and A.M. radio mellow staple, I can sing every word to “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone. I remember it being used to sweet effect at the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy, but I haven’t seen that movie in a few years. The streaming began as I was popping through my trends, feeding the cats, making my coffee, and worrying over my writing, an average morning at home on the Michael Scale.

It’s just one of those things.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’ve posted about this one before, but it’s one of my short-listed favorites. I can’t claim to have an absolute favorite song. Like movies, food, and books, the choice is about where I am and where I was. There are certain songs, like the other things, invested with rich memories.

This Four Tops song was one of those early songs that prompted us to find a faux microphone, like a hair brush, so we can pretend we’re the performer singing the song. It became part of our basement playlist on forty-fives. Later, it was part of our make-out parties. “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” has lyrics that speak to young love, passion, and hope, and we had some of that. Love that bass line, too, provided by the memorable Funk Brothers.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

A classic of my youth by Marvin Gaye, I often feel this is the perfect song for the times. But as I’ve aged, read, and learned, I’ve recognized it could be the perfect song for many times and situations.

From 1971, here is “What’s Going On.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Rattle and Hum is an album I favor listening to, although it’s second to The Joshua Tree among my U2 album’s of choice. I found myself streaming and humming “Desire” today, so I thought I’d spilled it out to others. The song’s lyrics touches on how greed and love can become entangled, and reminds me of how often the desire to be wanted confuses the need to be love and be loved. It’s a fever, an addiction, a promise, and a reward.

Sometimes, it’s just a damn hope.

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