It’s a blustery but pretty Saturday, which somehow inspired me to start streaming an old Albert King number. Maybe it’s the frequency of news about California, due to the fiery destruction of NorCal wine country, that brought the song to mind. Here’s “Travelin’ to California.” It’s from nineteen sixty-one, but I encountered it looonng after that.
Friday’s Theme Music
Volcanos erupting in Japan and Indonesia, threats of missiles being exchanged between the U.S. and North Korea, Black Lives Matter, voter right suppression, Russia-gate, white supremacists, gun control arguments, protests, the Weinstein scandal, war refugees, Pacific Northwest and California wildfires and destruction, the Hurricane Maria disaster in Puerto Rico, hurricane and earthquake disasters in Mexico, hurricane destruction in several other American states, plans to build a wall on the southern U.S. border, the President threatening freedom of the press, the Vegas mass killer….
Contemplating it all over coffee brought to mind Billy Joel’s nineteen eighty-nine song from “Storm Front,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He covered the headlines from nineteen forty-nine, when he was born, until the year the album was released, but the fire goes on.
At least, it feels like it on this cool, autumn morning in twenty seventeen.
Friday the Thirteenth
Tomorrow was supposed to be Friday the Thirteenth. I’m pleased to hear it won’t be.
I’m not superstitious at all (except for seeing a rainbow; you know good things are going to happen when you see a rainbow). Yet, I felt relief when the current POTUS announced he’d signed an executive order abolishing Friday the Thirteenth.
“Americans have enough to worry about in this great country without dealing with an unlucky day. I mean, did you see that movie? Was that scary or what? Am I right?” he tweeted early this morning.
His second tweet continued, “That movie isn’t good enough to have a day named after it. Just another example of Hollywood liberals dictating to the rest of the country. SHAME!”
His final tweet said, “Hollywood is a horror movie we don’t need! Enough horror! Wasn’t the Obama administration enough? LOSERS!”
According to the White House press corpse, “People should not refer to it as Friday the thirteenth. Not every day needs a date, you know. What good do dates do? If they need a date, they can call it October twelve and a half. That’s what we’re doing on all official correspondence.”
The President later said, “This change will be like plutonium for the economy. Sales have always been down on Friday the thirteenth because people have been afraid to go to work or shop. A lot of them don’t even eat. Don’t even drink. Don’t drink nothing. Not even water. Just stay in bed all day. So this change will mean a lot to businesses. It’ll supercharge sales. It’s gonna be huge. It’ll be a beautiful day, beautiful.”
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Awoke with these words nibbling my ears. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow.”
Ah, yes, that’s a song from my youth. “L.A. Woman,” nineteen seventy-one, The Doors. I was unfettered by fears and worries in those days, except rioting, the Vietnam War, air and water pollution, nuclear or chemical attack, equal rights, and civil rights.
Ah, the good old days. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
It’s been twenty years since this was recorded in concert, spit in the cosmic wind as far as time goes, but a chunk of living for humans on Eath. These humans are renown for their musical performances. These humans are David Bowie, with the Foo Fighters. These humans were performing this song, “Hallo, Spaceboy,” at Madison Square Garden in New York to celebrate Bowie’s fiftieth birthday.
Fun to watch. There will be drumming’.
What I’m Not Watching
I’m not watching “19-2.” Season four is over. It remains a beautifully written, produced, directed, and acted television series. I look forward to it, and then must ration myself to make it last. It’s always worth the time. Episode one, season two, about the school shooting, remains one of the most gripping pieces of electronic fiction I’ve enjoyed, vividly drawn and executed.
I’m not watching “Rake,” either. I’m not referencing the American version, but the Australian original. Sorry, but Richard Roxburgh is Cleaver Green, that rake. After the shocks of last season – hell, every episode on every season offers a shock – I’m looking forward to the next one.
Naturally, I’m not watching “Game of Thrones.” I’m not watching “Code.” Code is over. I didn’t find year two as interesting as year one, but then, year one was hellagood. No, I’m not watching “Red Rocks” out of Ireland, restlessly awaiting its continuation, or another Australian show, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.” I’m not watching “The IT Crowd” – the original U.K. series, with Chris O’Dowd, Matt Berry, Catherine Parkinson, and Richard Ayoade, or “Misfits,” nor the mischievous, cheeky “Raised By Wolves.” And of course, I’m not watching “Gavin and Stacy,” “The Killing,” “Happy Valley,” “The Vikings,” or that crazy, silly show, “Red Dwarf,” either, or “Prime Suspect,” “Cracker,” or any Wallender or Case History shows.
No, they’re all done, or on hiatus, leaving me to wait to see what the world comes up with next. The world is pretty good at surprising me.
Saturday’s Theme Song
Heard this on the radio this morning, and just thought I’d go with it, mostly because it stays in my head. It’s a song that my wife and I often crank up on the radio when it comes on in the car. Writing “crank up” creates visions of me turning this crank several times until the volume increases.
Anyway, here’s Pharrell Williams with “Happy,” from twenty-thirteen.
Friday’s Theme Music
Warning This album contains extreme sounds which could damage musical equipment when played at high volume
That’s from Jesus Jones’ “Doubt” album, from nineteen ninety-one. It gave me pause when I read that. And yeah, there is some stuff on the album that prompts the eternal musing we each encounter, “What the hell?”
They are several songs on the album that I enjoy. I was streaming “International Bright Young” thing, for some reason, but the far more mellow song, “Right Here, Right Now,” came into play. I think it’s more known, at least in the U.S.A., so I’m going with it. I always like these lyrics from the song:
I saw the decade in, when it seemed
the world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
then there’s your sign of the times
A sidebar, probably only amusing to me, is that my friend, Randy, loves the Van Halen song, “Right Now.” Whenever I’d mention “Right Here, Right Now,” he’d be confused, and tell me, “I don’t know that song. Do you mean “Right Now,” by Van Halen?”
That always cracked me up.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Wow, Thursday already. October, already. The fifth already. Come on, let’s back off the time accelerator. It’s all moving too fast.
Today’s music is “Spooky.” It was originally an instrumental. I once heard the instrumental and thought someone was playing it that way. I later learned that the words had been added after the instrumental was written and performed.
I heard the original version with words, by the Classics IV, in the late nineteen sixties, on my trusty AM/FM clock radio. But I awoke with the A.R.S. “Spooky” version looping in my head today, so that’s what I’m posting.
As a sidebar, I wonder what happens in my brain that I awake with songs streaming in my head? I’ve researched this earworm (ohrwurm) or brain itch, as different sources label it, and found that researchers believe ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of people endure earworms. A two thousand three news article cited a study found which songs afflict most people:
He found that some 98 percent of listeners were at one time or another bothered by a tune that wouldn’t leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle (“Gimme a break”), “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” the theme to “Mission: Impossible,” “YMCA,” “Whoomp, There It Is,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “It’s a Small World After All.”
The study also showed that musicians and those with compulsive tendencies are the most afflicted. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though the act of repetition — in popular songs on the radio and on the rehearsal floor for musicians — plays a role.
The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili’s jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out. ” But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes.
Compulsive tendencies? Moi? Perish the suggestion. I guess I’m fortunate that my ohrwurms rotate and offer a variety.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
I was in stationed in Germany when this came out. The album, “Full Moon Fever,” quickly became a favorite for home listening.
It’s ironic to think of that time. The U.S.S.R. was the United States’ towering enemy. Germany was divided, a creation established at the end of World War II. The Berlin Wall stood firm. A few years later, it, and the Soviet Union, were gone. We’ve just celebrated the anniversary of Germany re-unification.
The people I was stationed with in Germany were hard-working, patriotic, dependable, and loyal. Yet, two decades later, I’m on a the other side of a political divide from them. They’re angry with pro athletes who take a knee. They want a wall built. They fear refugees and distrust Muslims. A lot of them love Con Don Trump. Many despise Hillary Clinton for reasons they can’t explain, except it’s Hillary, and they don’t trust her.
It’s interesting to contemplate what’s come between us. Maybe it was just music, a common mission, and enjoying a good time that brought us together.
One more time, from the heart, Tom Petty, with “I Won’t Back Down,” co-written with Jeff Lynne.
