Category: pop culture

Tuesday’s Theme Music

It feels like an eighties kind of day. I should clarify that it feels like a day from the nineteen eighties, vice another eighties, like twenty-one eighties, or seventeen eighties. The clarification is needed to reduce confusion that older people or time-travelers might have.

If you didn’t live in the nineteen eighties, you probably don’t know what I mean. Having lived in that period, I’m not certain what I mean. I’m assuming that I lived during the nineteen eighties. I have memories of the period and events. But, for all I know, I could be an unknowing time-traveler. I also could be suffering from a disease whereas I think I’m someone who lived in the nineteen eighties, or a robot, or alien, unaware that I’m a robot or alien. I could be a fiction character, writing about that time to make a point to others, or entertain them. Or, I could be living in a virtual reality where the matters of nineteen eighty that I remember are all fake, to make me think that I’m alive. Who knows, right? We assume we do, and cling to that, because it’s safer and more comfortable than alternatives, and as far as we know, it’s true.

So, here’s “It’s Like That,” by Run-D.M.C. It’s a song that I think I heard when I thought I was living in the nineteen eighties.

On Earth, BTW. Just to clarify.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sometimes, when firmly entrenched in the writing zone, I look up and ask myself, “Holy crap, what happened to the day?” Morning has passed into lunch, and lunch is long gone. I’m hungry and need a restroom. My coffee cup is almost empty; what remains is icicle cold. Looks like I’ve come to the end. Regret drenches me as I think of the other things that must be done, instead of writing, like eating and peeing. Yeah, weird, right?

But sometimes, when I’m in the zone, theme music like The Cars, “Good Times Roll,” comes over me. “Let the good times roll. Let them knock you around.” Yeah.

Writing so often is a series of logic problems that I create that I must then solve. Why did this happen? How was it resolved? Writing is solving one big question, the story’s arc, through multiple arcs, stories, and anecdotes that twist perceptions, throws up confusion, advances the premise, reveals more of the story, and helps the characters develop.

Ah, well. Let the good times roll, when they happen. “If the illusion is real, let them give you a ride.” It’s days like these, when I’m writing, and trying to exercise intelligence, imagination, and creativity, that I’m at my happiest, because I’m enjoying what I’m writing, but I’m enjoying it as much as a reader, because I’m just so deeply into it.

Let the good times roll.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Thinking about how things change and stay the same, even while changing. Details change, but the broad sweeps of progress often take so long, we fail to see them. Perhaps, for some, it’s because we’re buried so deeply into the way things are that we can’t see the change from our vantage. Foremost among all of this, I was thinking about how the Democratic and Republican parties have changed. Once upon a time, the Republicans fought against the expansion of slavery. Now, they embrace white supremacists. It’s the same as it ever was, because political parties hunt the winds of change to develop a political advantage.

“Same as it ever was,” right? Here are the Talking Heads with “Once In A Lifetime,” from nineteen eighty.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Warm with dreams and cozy under blankets, I cracked my mind open to a cat’s demands. “No,” my body said. “I want to stay in bed.”

The sentiment tempted me. Rain was falling and daylight had slipped down the spectrum into a ghostly gray. The cat persisted, as cats will do. My brain transitioned to song lyrics.

“I spent the day in bed. You can please yourself. But, I spent the day in bed.”

I’d only heard the Morrissey song a few times since its release. Not much of the words stuck to me, but I remembered, “Stop watching the news, because the news contrives to frighten you, to make you feel small and alone, to make you feel that your mind isn’t your own.”

That’s how I felt as I rose and hastened to serve my feline masters. If I couldn’t stay in bed, I wanted to go to a pub and sip a pint, but no, I must write.

Here’s the rest of “Spent the Day in Bed” for your enjoyment. How’s your day? Want to stay in bed?

 

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Someone posted these children playing Ozzie’s “Crazy Train” on xylophones on Facebook the other. The children are from the Louisville Leopard Percussionists. I’ve seen them do Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath, and enjoyed those performances, so I’m plugging their cover of “Crazy Train” as today’s theme music. I hope you enjoy them.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’m back-upped with music, dreams, and writing today. I took my monthly swim in the dark waters for a few days. Now, breaking surface, a survivor one more time, my creative and artistic energies are lit up.

For the musical theme portion, so many songs streamed through me last night and today. I finally went with an odd choice. My love of music comes from Mom. I’m sure. I once asked Dad what music he liked to listen to; he shrugged. Mom, though, put albums on whenever she cleaned, and Mom was, and is, passionate about keeping her house clean. Music was always playing. One guy she really enjoyed was Frank Sinatra.

I can understand why. Sinatra had a big voice and style. This song, “That’s Life,” has been covered by some great talents. I especially enjoy Shirley Bassey’s cover, because I like Shirley Bassey. But I stayed with Frank’s cover, because that’s the one streaming through my head today. I thought about doing David Lee Roth’s version, just for the hell of it, but that was rejected.

Got to love these words, right?

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

When I heard this song in twenty-eleven, I wanted to know more about it. Each time I heard it played, I listened to hear the performer’s name and the song title. That’s not something easily learned in the modern listening era. Many stations like to end one song and start one or two more before giving a song’s details, if they do at all. But thanks to the computer age, I looked up lonely boy. Knowing there were many songs featuring those words, I settled in for a detailed search.

But, ta-da. I found it immediately and checked out the video. I enjoy this video. So here we go, Tuesday’s theme music, “Lonely Boy” by The Black Keys.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, they’re always pestering me, calling from phone numbers that I don’t recognize, and sending me emails with sensational deals, deals that will make me wealthy, or is such an amazing travel bargain, that I’d be a fool to take it up. Never mind that the travel bargains are going to places that I don’t want to visit. It’s such a good deal.

Although this song, “Who Can It Be Now?”, by Men At Work, came out while I was stationed on Okinawa, I always think of Mom and my family. In the days before caller identification, Mom established the number of rings as a primitive IFF – Identification, Friend or Foe – for when friends and relatives call. “Ring twice, hang up, and call again. I’ll know it’s you, and answer.” Or maybe she won’t. But when the phone rang more than twice, “Who can that be? Should I answer it?”

The same was true with someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell, or  stopping in the driveway or in front of the house. “Who is that? What do they want? Who can it be now?” Mom passed it on to the rest of us. “Who can it be now?”

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sometimes it just sledgehammers into me: I don’t care anymore.

The hammer swings into me out of weariness, bitterness, and lethargy. I think it’s always swinging into me, but most days, or some part of the day, I can raise my shields and ward off the blows. But then I reach that point where the drums begin from Phil Collins’ song, and I’m singing with it, “I don’t care anymore.” Singing that song releases my negative energy and girds me to begin again.

 

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Robert

Who played Pappy Boyington in the television show. He needed to remember. He wanted to say it was Robert somebody. Because he was looking for a dark-haired Robert, the first Robert to answer was Robert Blake, which he knew was incorrect. Blake played Baretta. Was he still alive? Wasn’t he also in the “Our Gang” movies, and wasn’t there he charged with murdering his wife, but acquitted? Then there was something else, with his children, or something, wasn’t there?

That didn’t answer his original question. He thought it was a Conrad, and the guy was also in television commercials for batteries. But wasn’t Robert Conrad in “Jake and the Fat Man?” No, no, that was WILLIAM Conrad, right? Sure, and wasn’t he also in “Cannon?”

Was William Conrad still alive?

By then, he was, he would guess, ninety-five percent certain that the actor in “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “Wild, Wild West” television shows was Robert Conrad, but he remained uncertain about whether these three actors remained alive. It was an odd subject for his morning walk, and left him with so many questions requiring answers.

Well, not that many.

Now; who is William Katt? Didn’t he have a television show? Was he still alive?

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