Category: pop culture

Today’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed Radiohead. Their first hit, ‘Creep’ remains my favorite song made by them.

The song came out during the days of my final U.S.A.F. assignment, at Onizuka Air Station. Several of us were in base housing over on Moffett N.A.S.  We partied a lot in those days, but it was a clean party, with some beer but nothing harder, and centered around playing music and volleyball, and grilling.

I had a decent music collection and provided many compilation tapes for our enjoyment. They asked to leave ‘Creep’ off. Most of my friends disliked the song. One had the opinion, “It’s too depressing.” A second said, “It’s not bad but it’s boring,” while the third friend’s opinion was, “It just sucks.”

I still like it. Here it is, from nineteen ninety-three, ‘Creep’. 

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Today’s Theme Music

I’ve been thinking about the Beatles’ song, “Hello, Goodbye”. A simple song, I’ve thought often of this song in the context of people taking different views of something. To me, the words were about trying to reconcile differences between people – “You say, goodbye, and I say, hello.” The lyrics were saying, “We can’t agree on anything.” Yet, the song is optimistic; they’re talking about this.

Beyond that, like most Beatles songs, I like their use of their instruments and timing to add inflections and nuances. Yet, watching the video, and the almost bored attitude as they play, and listening to the words, it’s really a tedious little song. What about those costumes, too?

But, it’s in my head, and I have to get it out, so I’m putting it out to you. Sue me if you’re upset.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Returning to my roots of being, I’m streaming stuff from the nineteen sixties today.

I was a big motor-racing, science-fiction and baseball fan then. Mario Andretti, Jackie Stewart, Mark Donahue, Dan Gurney, Peter Revson were among the racers I idolized. The Can-Am, Formula One, Indy (called USAC racing back then), sports car racing, with the Ford versus Ferrari battles at LeMans…I watched them all.

My baseball team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I followed them faithfully. But my emerging loves were reading and music. Although my reading tastes were — and are — eclectic, I tore through the works of Asimov, Bradbury, Zelazny, Clarke, and Heinlein. Besides my racing magazines, I bought science fiction magazines every month, and devoured the short stories.

The rock explosion was in full strength and the Brit Invasion was underway. Protests, demonstrations, riots, the Altamont Free Concert and Woodstock were part of our news cycles, along with Vietnam, political assassinations, civil rights and the cold war. The threat of nukes was a constant. Bombers and fighters remained on alert.

Consumerism, television and advertising were gaining strength. What a time, what a time, for a teenage boy in America. Into this maelstrom of my existence came Jimi Hendrix. Wow, his playing amazed me. He died young, just twenty-eight years old, but, man, what a legacy he left. What an impact he had.

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New Trump Sayings

Donald Trump came up with a new expression the other day: “prime the pump.” He was discussing the U.S. economy with a magazine at the time. It’s another example of his tremendous ability to see and grasp complex situations and reduce them to something that can be tweeted and remembered.

Here’s a few other expressions he’s originated since becoming president.

  • A snowball’s chance in hell.
  • Between a rock and a hard place.
  • Once in a blue moon.

In each of those four instances above, the Tangelos mascot said, “Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.”

He also claimed that he came up with the famous statement, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” while discussing the Berlin Wall with President Kennedy. Although only seventeen at the time, Trump said, “Walls always fascinated me, always. I had a gut feeling, you know, just a hunch, just a hunch, but I trust my hunches, I trust my instinct, that walls, like the one in Berlin that we built to protect us from communisms, were going to be important in my life, someday, and I was right. I was right.”

#fakenews

Well, almost fake news.

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Today’s Theme Music

I’m surprised that it’s been twenty-five years since ‘Baby Got Back’ came out, but time and its accumulated movements often surprise me. I’m still surprised that when we’re talking about the century, it’s the twenty-first.

Sir Mix-a-Lot wasn’t part of my normal streaming music. ‘Baby Got Back’, was one that crossed the standard radio airplay lines back then. Its lyrics and beat make it the butt of many light night and sitcom jokes. I used to sing it around the office. What can I say? I had fun at work.

His song that really fascinated me, though, was ‘Iron Man’. Black Sabbath’s original ‘Iron Man’ was a listening staple in my teen years, a song that usually elicited Mom’s irritation. She always wanted to know what I was listening to, and told me to turn it down. With backing by Metal Church, Sir Mix-a-Lot included elements of the Black Sabbath song in his hiphop take.

That was nineteen eighty-eight. I lived in Waldorf, just outside Frankfurt. I remember listening to this song while awaiting my friends; we were headed to the Paul McCartney concert in Frankfurt. I enjoyed that juxtaposition of time and music.

It was a good night, walking to the train station and taking the U-Bahn and S-Bahn to reach Frankfurt’s Festhalle. Sir McCartney put on a good show for us aging boomers. I was thirty-two. I though I knew what aging meant, but I was wrong.

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Today’s Theme Music

Now, for something a little different.

I walked eight miles yesterday. Not all in one go, but through three different ventures. While doing that, multiple songs were streamed. One of them is called ‘Mongoose’, by Elephant’s Memory. A hit in nineteen seventy, I don’t believe anyone I’ve ever met recalled the song when I mentioned it. I had to confirm with Internet sources what year that it was a hit and could only recall about a third of the lyrics. I’m not certain why I started streaming it into my head yesterday. Just one of those curiosities.

What about you? Do you remember this song, or have you ever heard it?

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Amazing News

You read the news today? Sure, what news, which news, right? Sorry.

History was made when a woman breastfed in Parliament. This happened in Australia. The woman who made this news is Senator Larissa Waters. She didn’t breastfeed another senator, but a baby, her daughter, Alia.

I’m amazed that this is news. I think breastfeeding has been around for over fifty years. I know breasts on women have been around at least that long. I’m sixty years old, and I distinctly remember seeing them on women when I was a teenager.

I guess this is news because breast-feeding is finally coming out of the closet in Australia. Actually, reading the article, it seems like it’s news because children were not previously authorized to be in Parliament. That makes sense; if Aussie politicians are like American politicians, that was probably because they’re afraid that children will outshine them in just about every aspect from speaking and making sense to manners, courtesy and intelligence.

Whatever the reason for the celebration, it’s good to see we’re finally making progress. It’s been finally acknowledged with books that ‘Everyone Poops’. That had also apparently been a secret. Soon, we’ll find out that people masturbate and fart, too.

About damn time. Let me know when someone breaks wind in Parliament in Australia.

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Today’s Theme Music

This isn’t a song that I normally stream in my head. The cloud in my head is filled with ‘classic’ rock, with some R&B, Motown, Brit Invasion and Top 40 childhood memories. –

‘Push It’, by Salt N’ Pepa, was a hit in nineteen eighty-eight. It certainly left an imprint in my cloud, but then, the song received a lot of air time. My wife, a Jazzercise zealot in that era, found its beat and energy worthy of some of her work-outs. It’s also a song that became used in commercials, and on television shows and in movies. It doesn’t really stream to me when I’m walking around, though, because its energy isn’t a good fit for me.

See if you know it.

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The News, Oh, Boy

Did you see the news today? Oh, boy. Nabisco announced an exciting new Oreo flavor. They’re putting Pop-rocks candy in their cookie and calling it the “Firework” Oreo. I think the only that could make that better is if the center was an ice cream filling with Pop-rocks candy, and they rolled it in funnel cake batter, deep-fried it, sprayed it with chocolate sauce and splashed confectionery sugar all over it.

Bet that’s coming to a county or state fair soon.

Not satisfied with resting on their flavors, Nabisco is challenging us, the public, to come up with the next new flavor of Oreo cookies. For that, they’ll pay five hundred thousand big ones, which is to say, American dollars. That’s a lot of cookies.

Naturally, I struggled to come up with an idea. The only thing that entered my feeble mind was a classic Neapolitan Oreo. The bottom would be a strawberry cookie. Vanilla cream would be in the middle, topped with the traditional chocolate Oreo. Sadly, I don’t think that’s special enough. Instead, I think they need something like red hot Oreos, all red and fiery with cinnamon flavors.

No, that’ not crazy enough. Well, someone will come up with something sufficiently crazy. It just won’t be me. Bummer.

I could use an extra half a rock.

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Oh, The Times

If it’s the year of twenty-seventeen, then you know an airline is in trouble. I don’t accept the year unchallenged. Like Billy Pilgrim, sometimes I feel like I’ve become unstuck in time. It comes mostly from hearing male Republicans say things like, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare.”

Well, not if you’re rich! Ha, ha. Oh, that Raul Labrador. He was kidding, of course. Ha, ha, what a joker. Thank the gods someone in the nation’s capitol has a sense of humor that matches Trump’s White House. You know those guys have a sense of humor when they decide they’re firing scientists from the EPA’s advisory board and replacing them with members of industry. That’s got to be a joke, right?

This year, depending on what Trump does — and his potential for disaster is infinite — might go down as a pivotal year of change for the U.S. airline industry. Each week finds another one in trouble or the news in recent months. First, there was United Airlines, politely trying to re-accommodate a passenger by taking him out of his seat and off the flight, to put him on another. Then American Airlines became the focus of social media ire when an employee bonked a woman on a flight with a stroller. American Airlines tried to fix it all by announcing that they were going to reduce leg room! That’s terrific news! Next they’ll be telling us that they’re going to start charging us to recline our seats or to use the restroom. After all, they’re making money and experiencing record profits, but, you know how it is with money and corporations: there’s never enough.

Delta Airlines, jealous over the the other airlines gaining so much attention, decided to boot a family off a flight from Hawaii.  They made up with them, afterwards, of course, because it was just another spat between an airline and those ungrateful people buying tickets.

Today, in the spirit of U.S. airline news, Spirit Airlines canceled nine flights. People were upset. The airline blamed the pilots. The pilots blamed the airline. We all know that Spirit Airlines really just wanted their time in the news. All the other U.S. airlines were in the news. Even Southwest Airlines made the news after reports that their CEO is resisting changes to the baggage policy and still letting people have two free bags. What a madman! Doesn’t he know he’s leaving money on the table? Gads, the scoundrel.

Of course, the wealthy have had enough of the commoners and their problems with those pesky airlines. They’re either buying their own aircraft or using the terminals constructed for their exclusive use.

It’s exhausting to contemplate. As Alvin Lee of Ten Years After said at Woodstock once, “I think next time, I’m going home by helicopter.”

Maybe he didn’t say it. I am getting old. Or maybe I’m just unstuck in time again, and he’s going to say it in the future.

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