Today’s Theme Music

Maybe it’s just me, but this song is just cool.

Put this song in your head on autoplay, and you walk around feeling and acting cool. You are cool because this song has made you cool. You’re bopping your head just a little as you walk or sit, tapping your foot whenever you’re standing still.

That the group who came out with it, War, had so many hits, is amazing. I could have gone with ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends’, ‘Cisco Kid’, ‘The World Is A Ghetto’, or ‘Spill the Wine’. But I went with the cool.

Fresh out of the Peadbody Wayback Machine and 1975, (when I was celebrating finishing basic and technical training with the military, and was driving around the my first car buy, a 1968 Camaro RS*, around my first duty assignment at Wright-Pat in Ohio), here is ‘Low Rider’.

*That’s not my Camaro RS in the set photo. My car was copper, with a black RS stripe.

January 17, 2017 0

Today’s Theme Music

The Daily Commute.

The DC changed from season to season and employment to employment. Music helped pass the commute time.

Things weren’t going great in Feb, 2001. I thought I’d made a mistake in my post-military career choices. I was the sales operations manager for NetworkICE, a computer security start-up, and I just didn’t seem to fit. I’d been there about seven months, and I didn’t like it. I spoke with the guy that brought me on and told him my concerns. We addressed ways to alleviate my issues but nothing was resolved. Our meeting ended with him urging me to stay on. He couldn’t say anything more but he thought I should stay on.

So I did because I trusted him. Within a month, it was announced we were being acquired. Everything changed after that.

This song came out during that period. Driving the commute from Half Moon Bay to San Mateo, a quick jaunt up Highway 92 in the morning but a Conestoga wagon movement to return home in the late afternoon. That return trip offered a lot of listening time as we crept down the hill toward the ocean. Train was one of the big pop groups at that time, so I heard a lot of this song, ‘Drops of Jupiter’.

I enjoy the song’s verb and noun mix and the visuals they conjure.

Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s time to change, hey, hey
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey

The lead singer, Patrick Monahan, wrote the song, saying in an interview that it was about his mother, who died from cancer, and that the lyrics came to him in a dream. I always associate it with my own work-related strife, which was far less dramatic, because it was a musical release from a bad work situation.

Somehow, the song seems fitting.

January 16, 2017 2

Friday the Thirteenth: The Sequel

You read it here first: it’s Friday the thirteenth.

There will be two this year, a trend that will continue until 2020.

You probably read it somewhere else first. It’s ‘always’ news.

I’m not superstitious. Friday the 13th doesn’t bother me. I believe a zillion people are affected to some degree. They were probably preparing to cope with the date. I only knew today was Friday the thirteenth because I read it somewhere.

I reacted when I read it. It’s Friday? Already? The thirteenth? Is is still January and 2017? Man, this year is just flying past me.

I used to fly with some pilots who were terribly superstitious. Their nervousness over their superstitions shredded my patience. One of them always avoided flights on Friday the thirteenth if it could be done, and no joking about Friday the thirteenth or their superstitions could be tolerated. No, no, no, don’t joke about that. Then there was the order of processes for preparing for flight, lucky pens…maddening. None of it could be joked about, either.

Dealing with a nervous pilot isn’t fun.

You have some folks who are full-on, one hundred percent superstitious. I’m more like two percent. I have some idiosyncrasies, like not having my back to the door, but that came from the military drumming it into me through recurring anti-terrorism training.

“DON’T SIT WITH YOUR BACK TO THE DOOR. POSITION YOURSELF WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE ROOM. ALWAYS SCAN YOUR ENVIRONMENT. AVOID SITTING IN CORNERS. ALWAYS KNOW THE LOCATIONS OF YOUR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EXITS. TRY TO HAVE A THIRD ONE AVAILABLE. DO NOT FOLLOW PATTERNS. DON’T TAKE THE SAME ROUTE TO WORK. DO NOT FOLLOW A RECURRING, PREDICTABLE TIME-TABLE. ALWAYS EAT ALL OF YOUR VEGETABLES. BE SURE TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE. ALWAYS WEAR CLEAN UNDERWEAR. IS IT COLD OUT? MAYBE YOU SHOULD WEAR A JACKET.”

Sorry, I transitioned from hearing the military voice to hearing Mom’s voice. They often sound alike in tone and nature.

I wasn’t aware of how much I’d embraced the whole back to the door thing. It was my wife that noticed. She always acquiesced to my seating preference and I never gave it deliberate thought. Then, years after returning to America and leaving the military, we went to a restaurant. She casually mentioned, “I know you can’t see the door from there. I’ll watch it for you.”

I was affronted, indignant, outraged, I tell you. She laughed at my response. “You always have to see the door.”

“I do?”

I’ve been working on it since then. Here at the coffee shop, I make a huge effort to sit with my back to the door. Writing about it right now awakens my awareness. I feel extremely uncomfortable and a little vulnerable.

Fortunately, I can see the door reflected in my laptop’s screen.

January 13, 2017 8

Today’s Theme Music

Ah, it’s Friday. Are you comfortably numb? Will a couple Davids help?

Here is Davids Bowie and Gilmore, addressing the question of our numbness in 2006, doing the Pink Floyd classic in concert.

January 13, 2017 0

Remember…?

Tulipmania struck the civilized world in the sixteen hundreds. Do you remember that?

Do you remember when sock hops were really big in America?

Remember, “Longer, lower, wider?” That was often a new American car’s greatest advertising claim. One of the cars that bucked against that trend was the American Motors Rambler. Surely you recall it. You must remember the Corvair, right?

Do you remember drive-in theaters, or movies that cost fifty cents to see? Do you know what it means to drop a dime and why we say that?

How ’bout Pacman and Ms. Pacman? Do those games set off any memory chimes?

Do you remember ‘big hair’ and Members Only jackets? What about eight-track cassette decks?

I know you must remember 45s and LPs. What of Child’s Place and Children’s Palace do you remember?

Did you have a Walkman? Do you now, or did you ever, own a Beta Max, or a VHS player? Do you now, or did you ever, own a Polaroid Land Camera, an eight millimeter projector, or an Instamatic Camera?

Do you remember erector sets and Lincoln logs? Are you familiar with Silly Putty, Super Balls and pet rocks? Perhaps, instead, you knew Hula Hoops.

Do you remember the Teapot Dome scandal, or the Keating Five, and Enron?

Perhaps you’re familiar with ESSO.

Do you remember G.C. Murphy? Man, we loved going to the mall and shopping at that five and dime, where we could buy sub sandwiches for a dollar.

What about S.S. Kreske’s? Remember when they became K-Mart, and remember when Sears bought K-Mart?

Remember when Craftsman Tools was part of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and their mail order catalogs? Sears, Roebuck and Company became Sears, and Sears is selling Craftsman Tools to Black and Decker.

And remember the U.S.S.R., and the Berlin Wall?

I’m just curious about what you remember, and what will be remembered in this age of selfies, Walmart, iPhones, Costco, Sam’s Club, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Remember Netscape Navigator, or Mosaic?

Do you remember Yahoo? Because Yahoo will be Altaba once Verizon completes its purchase of Yahoo. Speaking of which, do you remember MCI?

I wonder, how long will we remember Altaba?

January 12, 2017 8

The Beer Group

The beer group met last night, and I attended. Naturally, conversations rotated around weather, movies, literature, science, Trump and murder.

The murder is the worse topic of the moment. A twelve-year-old boy, Zeke, stabbed his fifty-two-year-old Mother to death and injured his older sister. We were asking why this happened. Three of the beerites personally know the family. Zeke was a loner, without many friends. The family seemed well off, living in a 4,000 square foot home in a good location. They’d just moved in in 2015.

The father was away. He flew home to this situation yesterday afternoon, his wife in the morgue, killed by his son, his son in a juvenile lock-up, and his daughter in the hospital, injured by his son.

Returning to more comfortable topics, several members told of bad weather experiences, sliding off roads, breaking axles, encountering abandoned vehicles, having chains snap. Then it was to the movies, where nobody save me has seen anything recently except ‘Rogue One’.

That was astonishing; ‘Fences’ was a play here last year and several went to see it. It was mildly surprising to learn they didn’t see the movie. I’d seen the movie and was eager to discuss and the rest. A few were talking about going to see ‘La La Land’ because of the Golden Globe Awards won. None had seen ‘Manchester by the Sea’, ‘Loving’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’. Two others had seen ‘Arrival’. Most surprising was that none had seen ‘Hidden Figures’. Several of them were engineers in the space program in 1962 and were working on the problems highlighted in the movie. I’d think they’d want to see how the era was portrayed, if nothing else.

But no; they waxed on about different problems and the creative solutions found for them, and the challenges of new math, or of coping with the complexities of shifting variables very quickly and things never experienced before.

TRump, of course, was villified. Not all were Hillary supporters, but none present can stand TRump. With head-shaking and angry voices, we talked about his press conference, the urine leaks, the Conway interview with Seth Meyers, the recall of the ambassadors, and his plan to turn his finances over to family members.

Ed, celebrating his eighty-fourth year, bought the beer and pizza. The rest of us donated twenty dollars to the cause of supporting STEM in school and after-school activities in local poor and under-privileged areas.

The establishment was still offering that porter that we all detest, and will continue offering it until the keg is gone. Fortunately, we endured with some local Ashland Amber and Ninkasi’s Total Domination IPA. It was a good evening in the warmth of friendship, and a pleasant way to whittle off a few hours of life.

January 12, 2017 3

Today’s Theme Music

A string of dreams, like winter storms, have been affecting me. They’ve featured my late father-in-law and my Dad. I had an excellent relationship with the former, so-so with the latter. The dreams aren’t dark so much as they’re long, involved, thick and impenetrable. I need something to distract me, something a little lighter, for today’s music.

The radio delivered the answer in the car yesterday. I’ve seen late, great (words we’ll need to use more and more often for others, after 2016) B.B. King once in concert. I don’t recall if he sang this song then but I have a vivid memory of him singing him. I assume I must have seen him singing it during a television broadcast.

Here is B.B. King with ‘Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens’.

January 11, 2017 0

Today’s Theme Music

I had a Flock of Seagulls song lined up for today but we have a last minute substitution. After last night’s series of dreams, I’m going with the Rolling Stones.

Here is ‘Get Off of My Cloud’, from 1965.

January 10, 2017 0

Today’s Theme Music

Theme music is often about setting the stage for what’s about to happen. It’s a familiar, establishing your expectations.

On some days, I like defiant theme music to play in my head. They’re not necessarily days when I battling conditions; these can also be days when I’m determined to complete a task or pursue a dream.

Other days find me seeking melancholy theme music for accompaniment, fun music, or dance music. Theme music that’s nostalgic to me is frequent. That’s not surprising. Nostalgia is all about trying to achieve a particular state of mind. For me, that balance was often about hopes and dreams, youth and maturity, satisfaction and eagerness to pursue life.

The weather also affects my theme music choices. Today’s song, though, hits in many areas for me. It’s pouring rain through balmy air and upset winds. So I’m reaching for a song that accompanies my mind’s drift toward nostalgia and weather but remains something that

January 8, 2017 0

Today’s Theme Music

Saturday morning. Blizzard outside. Kids out of school. Not that I have any, but I’m thinking of the greater society. Under these circumstances, let’s pull out an old song, a controversial one that made the “Filthy Fifteen” list of songs receiving parents’ disapproval.

This one was about masturbation. Any adult knew it as soon as they understood the lyrics. But its upbeat tempo made it a terrific dance tune. Commercial radio loved it; the young folks loved it.

The video has that goofy early MTV vibe going – perfect for a Saturday. You may not know all the words but you can recognize enough to sing along and mumble the rest. Direct from 1984 via the Intertubes and You Tube, Cyndi Lauper with ‘She Bop’.