Category: pop culture

Sunda’s Theme Music

It’s warmer but cloudier in Ashlandia. Like several other things that could be mentioned, I’m not certain what’s going to happen. For Ashlandia’s weather, it’s 57 F. Clouds have pressed blue sky into the background. Sunshine is a hopeful possibility but rain is in the forecast.

For the United States, markets are dropping. Our government systems are being deliberatedly sabotaged in an effort to ‘make them better’. At national parks, the Trusk Regime is telling park employees to do more with less. Measles are spreading. Vaccinations are down. Tariffs are up.

It’s just uncertainty in the air today, Sunda, April 6, 2025.

Despite yesterday’s outswelling of public protest about what the Trusk Regime is doing, nothing has changed. We remain at the same stuck place: one outraged side vehmently opposed to what Trump is doing. Another side supporting him with cultish fervor. A third side seemingly detached and uninvolved, showing questionable awarenss.

I’m read interviews again and again, and that’s where it lands. Given, I can’t vouch for their veracity. Written words on the net are suspect. Perhaps they’re AI creations to spin and confuse. But Trump voters still declare that DOGE is doing great things. That the tariffs are wonderful weapons in the fight to remake America. That Trump is looking out for the average person in the street. That’s what they claim they still believe.

I don’t know. I’m trying for a pragmatic tone but I’m jaded in a dozen ways. It’s still early. The tariff war’s ink is still drying. Results of many things still float through the air like shredded paper.

Without much surprise, The Neurons are playing “Land of Confusion” by Genesis from 1986 in the morning mental music stream.

Coffee has found its way into me again. Hope you find the energy and frame of mind to make this day what you need. Cheers

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Saturda’s Theme Music

Sunshine was trying to coax me out of bed. The cat’s complaints were urging me to move faster. “Let me do some things and then I’ll feed you,” I told the cat. He went with me into the bathroom to supervise proceedings. It’s Saturda, April 5, 2025, a day of progressive action in the United States. My wife is jaded about it. “It won’t do much in this area. They’ll give it twenty seconds on the news and then talk for a couple minutes about a new restaurant opening.”

Warm weather for it. 49 F now, thin wedding-veil clouds coyly secret most of the sun’s issue away. But promises have been put forward. Today will be mostly sunny, high in the upper 60s. May even kiss seventy.

“We need to take advantage of this weather,” I say. For those who need a translator, that means I will wash the cars, cut grass, weed, etc. After the warming weather and copious rain, it’s needed. “Supposed to be warm but start raining again tomorrow. Temperatures are going to drop on Monday.” I sound like an expert but I’m just repeating what I read.

My wife replies, “I ordered a new rug for the foyer yesterday.”

I nod. “I know.” We’d measured the space together. The old foyer rug has populated our existence since 1985. It’s served us well. Like us, it’s aged. Its vibrant green and pristine design has faded. Its edges have frayed. Once it was in perfect condition. Chic. Then it was shabby chic. Now it’s just getting shabby.

I relate. I’m grateful that it’s a weekend. Less news comes out on the weekend. But the bridal-veil clouds have thickened. Sunshine has waned.

The cat wants out. I tell him to be safe as I let him into the backyard. Like a child, the orange boy snaps back, “Meow.”

“I know,” I reply, “but I’ve seen you out there. Be careful. Don’t let anything get you.”

He, of course, is very happy with the warm, windless weather. Struting out flying his orange striped cream tail high, he inspires The Neurons with music.

“Stray Cat Strug” by the Stray Cats begins playing in the morning mental music stream. The song stays alive as coffee and breakfast are procured and consumed, etc. I’ve no choice but to post it and chase it from my head.

The cat’s sunshine has faded. He looks forlorn. I know that feeling.

Hope your day works out for you. I’ll do my best and might half succeed. Depends upon how much coffee I drink, I think. And the weather. Cheers

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Frieda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’ve been using a secret weapon to amuse me the last few weeks. Two, actually. Both are throwbacks for me.

Tim Dowling is an American living in the UK. He writes a column for the Guardian. I find them hilarious. I used to regularly read him. Then The Neurons dropped him out of the rotation. I never noticed.

I regularly read news in the Guardian. I like their coverage of U.S. news. So, while reading an article a few weeks ago, I saw a reference to the latest Tim Dowling column. Clicking on that, I resumed reading him, catching up on his past columns by reading one everyday.

He’s sixty years old. Married, with three sons. They have just moved out. He also has a dog, cat, and tortoise. He plays in a band and deprecates his playing. Being an animal lover and very fond of cats, I enjoy the tales relating to his household animals the most. Today, I read his column from September of 2023.

Tim Dowling: we’re moving bedrooms – before the cat kills me

My other secret vice — Well, it’s not my only vice. I have a large list of secret vices. It depends on whose morality is used to judge me.

But this vice is watching an old British science fiction show called Red Dwarf. I recently re-discovered it playing on a live TV channel on Prime.

I began watching that show in the early 1990s. I was assigned to Onizuka Air Station then in the San Jose-San Francisco Bay Area. KQED introduced me to Red Dwarf during their science fiction fund-raising marathons.

Red Dwarf is an interstellar mining ship. It’s principally manned by Lister, Rimmer, the Cat, and Kryden. Dave Lister is the last human alive. He was in stasis as punishment for having a cat onboard the Red Dwarf. He stayed in stasis for 3,000,000 years while the radiation levels declined to safe levels.

That was needed because Arnold Rimmer had an accident. The accident resulted in a radiation link that killed all the crew members except Dave Lister. Because Lister was in stasis.

Rimmer and Lister were roomates and worked together. They do not get along. But the computer, Holly, brought Rimmer back as a holograph as a companion for Lister so Lister doesn’t go insane.

Lister isn’t happy about Holly’s decision.

The Cat is a direct descendent of the cat behind Lister’s punishment. Cats have evolved into a sort of human cat variation. He’s a vain, vapid, and selfish character who intensely dislikes Rimmer and is often Lister’s ally.

All manner of science fiction action happens to the Red Dwarf crew. Others species are encountered. Time travel happens. The mail catches up with them. Rimmer believes in order and is ambitious but inept. Lister likes to party but is intelligent and lazy. They plot against one another. Nanobots stage a revolt. All males, they are hungry for female interactions.

Yes, it’s silly. Full of all gaps, contradictions, and plot holes. But it’s fun. Watching it returns me for a bit to when I was thirty years younger and the future looked brighter.

You gotta do something to get through these days, right?

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Frieda’s Theme Music

Sunshine broke on through, just as the doors urged. Frieda, April 4, 2025 is a windy, sunny, warm spring day. High and thin clouds scrub some blue sheen of the sky. It’s 52 F and heading to the high sixties.

Papi the ginger blade was so happy. At first. Prancing into a sunshine pool, he washed and lounged. Then, wind ruffled his fur and pushed his ears around. The little Butter Butt pressed to come in, pronto.

A shopping day is planned. Our household subjects have veered between Trump’s impact on our personal finances and situation to buying a bidet attachment or something. “Should we get an attachment or a seat?” my wife asks. She’s rethinking herself.

“I’ll research and report back,” I reply.

“I’m not even going to look at my 401K,” she says. She means that. I will discreetly check it for her. Keep the results to myself. Mine has lost about twelve percent of its value. My other stock holdings have dropped ten percent. It’s early, though. I consider divesting all.

Today’s strong jobs report surprised me. But, then again, no. I’ve read of substantial business closings. Layoffs and terminations. Food traffic down in stores. Sales down. I’ve not read of any companies gushing, “Look, we’re hiring! Woo hoo!” Trump’s administration puts out those jobs numbers. He’s a known liar. So are the lackeys populating his regime. I’m sure they looked at the first set of numbers and told one another, “Oh, no, we can’t publish those. He’ll fire us all.” So they doctored the jobs number to look good.

PINO Trump tweeted about it this morning. Sorry, he X’d about it. “GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT’S ALREADY WORKING.”

What does he think is already working? Farmers are being hit, Federal workers have been shelved, tourism has dropped and is expected to drop more. The stock market keeps dropping…well, if you’re not in the Trumphosphere, you know. Projections are not rosy. First quarter reports are going to be interesting.

A friend added comments yesterday to one of my posts. They linked to a Jimi Hendrix song, “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”. Hearing that provoked The Neurons to begin different Jimi Hendrix Experience songs in my head. I ended up with “Stone Free” in the morning mental music stream. The song coincides with my urge to take a trip, see the coast. I’ve been working on my wife for such a trip. Her stars aren’t yet aligned enough. That doesn’t stop me from joining Hendrix to sing, “I got to, got to, got to get away right now.” But I’ll hold on for my other to be ready.

Difficult to find a good video of “Stone Free”. I went with this one, despite its sound glitches. I enjoy the members playing and seeing Hendrix’s fast, meticulous playing.

Coffee has made its morning visit to my body. I’m rockin’ and arollin’. Hope you have an awesome experience today, wherever you are. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

Thirstda, April 3, 2025, is here. The day arrived in a morose mood, dangling thick gray cloud strands over the mountains, covering the sun’s influence, and acting like it planned to dump us in moisture. Then some mystical order was given. Cosmic stagehands raced out. Clouds were shoved to the scene’s edges. Blue sky lit up. Sunshine burns down with a new hope. It was 36 F. Now we’re touching 45 F. But, hey: it feels warmer.

I stepped into the bathroom. Doing bathroomy stuff, my foot landed on something hard and mildly sharp. This was an attachment to an electric razor. One I had to trim my beard and mustache. I always have a mustache. My first mustache was noticed on me when I was fourteen. Mom told me that my face was dirty and to go wash it. “There’s something above your lip.”

My older sister laughed. “That’s his mustache.”

The beard comes and goes. A goatee is almost permanent. I’ve had it since I left the military in 1995. But the electric razor that piece attached to has been gone for over a decade. Turning it over, I pushed to understand how it came to be on the bathroom floor today. Unable to come up with anything except The Borrowers and aliens, I tossed the piece into the trash. It’s another page in my Book of Life Mysteries. I think we all keep one of those record books, don’t we?

Three songs were competing in the morning mental music stream. I introduced the first one. This was “Valley Girl” by Frank and Moon Zappa. This song capture the California valley girl subculture, and their unique verbiage. ‘Valleyspeak’ swept the nation. Too many people walked around, smirking, telling me, “Gag me with a spoon.” Variations of that phrase quickly emerged.

I was singing my variant of the song to Papi. Papi is my housefloof, feline by looks and attitude. The boy loves treats such as Churri squeeze tube pastes. My wife rechristened it chumley. Chumley is how we refer to any of those treats.

Today I sang to Papi, “Chumley cat, he’s a chumley cat. Oh my my, fer sure fer sure, he’s a chumley cat and there is no cure.”

Second up was Elvis Presley with “Blue Suede Shoes.” Carl Perkins did it first, after writing in in 1955 and releasing it in 1956, the year of my birth. The Neurons delivered this one to the mental music stream. They didn’t explain why. I was in the bathroom doing bathroom stuff when it arrived. I used to perform this song for my family when I was four or five. Hip swiveling and singing the chorus. No, video and photographic evidence doesn’t exist. I remember doing it and Mom verified it.

Third up is “Don’t Bring Me Down” by the Animals. I’m feeling absurdly young kitten energetic and happy. I don’t know why. You’d think that with Trumpzilla burning down the world economy with his outlandish tariffs, I’d be more depressed. My stocks are down. 401 K and IRA worth down. Prices are up and will go higher. But here I am, happy as the mythical lark. Sensing that mood, The Neurons introduced the 1966 song into the morning mental music stream. This is today’s theme music.

Hope you’re experiencing some of what I’m getting and your day doesn’t bring you down. Do the best you can, right? Cheers

6

Wenzda’s Theme Music

Ah, sunshine. Yesterday had the sunshine working around us in a revolving door. The changes were stark. One minute, sunshine is blazing in the windows and we’re raising the blinds to cut it. Literally the next minute found my wife asking, “What happened to the sun? It’s dark in here. Turn on the light.”

She looked out. “It’s pouring outside.”

Sitting with her book with the light on, we’re suddenly engulfed by bright light again. We both rise to look out the window. I shield my eyes. “It’s sunny again.” I lower a blind. “How long will this last?”

About three minutes, as it turned out.

That’s spring in Ashland. Probably similar in many other locales.

Today is Wenzda, April 2, 2025. It’s 38 F and sunshine is splashing off the solidly wet world. The cat feels things have regressed. Instead of trying to leave again, he’s positioned himself for a groom and nap. “Can’t trust that weather out there, can you?” I ask him.

He pauses in a mid-leg lick to swivel his ears and give me a gaze. His expression is like he’s trying to conjure the right words. “Cat got your tongue?” I ask.

That drives him back to washing.

My wife and I applauded the Wisconsin Supreme Court results last night. We also applauded Senator Booker’s record-setting filibuster. We want stronger action and are dubious about the senator’s effort and its impact. It probably flew past most people’s attention, we feel. But it may buoy a few people. Every little bit might help trigger a bigger movement and greater awareness.

Stevie Wonder is playing in the morning mental music stream. Wonder’s cover of “Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday” came out in 1969. It’s catalogued in the childhood section of my mind. I don’t think I’ve heard it in a while. Even with a few swallows of coffee to encourage them, The Neurons aren’t elaborating about their choice. From the one dream remembered from last night, I don’t think it’s from that. Other Neurons suggest that it could just be association from thinking about the weather yesterday. Could be, I agree. Could also be a function of news and politics. The song does address what happened to all we had yesterday and how it’s change.

What happened to the world we knew?
When we would dream and scheme
And while the time away?
Yester-me, yester-you, yesterday
Mm, yeah

[Verse 2]
Where did it go (Where did it go?), that yester-glow?
When we could feel
The wheel of life turn our way
Yester-me. yester-you, yesterday

[Bridge]
I had a dream. so did you
Life was warm and love was true
Two kids who followed all the rules
Yester-fools, and now

h/t to Genius.com

The coffee seems to be working. Heading off to get things done. Hope your day gives you a chance to feel happy, satisfied, and eager to do more. Cheers

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Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Yes, here we go again.

Anyone remember President George Dubya Bush’s war on Iraq?

He wanted to attack it and was looking for a reason. Polls show the public divided about it. Administration officials like Colin Powell said that Iraq wasn’t a threat.

Then we had 9/11.

The Bush Administration was quick to try to connect 9/11 and Iraq, and then began painting pictures of fictional ‘weapons of mass destruction’. They worked hard to sell the need to invade Iraq because of the imminent threat Saddam Hussein posed. Intelligence was cherry picked. The press got involved. Stories were planted by journalists favorable to the administration. Then the administration would quote those newspapers and stories to convince people that even the ‘liberal mainstream press agreed’ that war was needed.

Any of this sound in any way familiar? It should. It was a marketing campaign. The Trusk Regime is doing something similar. Floating the idea. See what sticks. Repeating it, repeating it, repeating it so people become familiar to it. As using military force gains traction as an idea to ‘keep America safe’, the logic behind it becomes twisted. Intel will get cherry picked or made up completely. People not really paying attention to WTF is going on will begin agreeing, “Yes, we need to do this. We need to use military force against this growing threat.”

Use your search engines and the net’s ability to store and recall information to check the polls and reporting of the period before the invasion of Iraq. The pattern was clear then; it’s clear now. Part of the sell back then was how easy such a military adventure would be for a power like the United States. Remember them telling us how short the war would be? How they mocked people who pointed out there wasn’t an exit strategy? Recall, they told us the war would pay for itself.

Trump wants to attack places. Maybe Greenland. Maybe Canada. Perhaps somewhere else. Putting the nation on a war footing will improve his popularity and strengthen his hold. Because if we’re ‘at war’, then criticizing or challenging him can be called out as detrimental to the war effort. Look back at how popular Dubya became for a while. And that was done without AI and bots. Ponder how effectively bots and AI can be used to sell a war on social media these days. Think of DOGE and Elon Reeve Musk’s potential role.

Yemen was a trial balloon to let his military advisors and senior officials a taste of it. More will come.

Tick, tick, tick.

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Munda’s Theme Music

Winter is still taking a knife to spring. You feel it in the air.

“It’s cold,” my wife says.

“I know. Thirty-nine degrees.”

“Isn’t April tomorrow?”

I confirm that my Fitbit tells me that it’s March 31, 2025. “This is Ashlandia. What’s that have to do with it?”

My wife stares at the window. “I don’t see any blue sky.”

I look out with her. “It’s raining. Happy Monday.”

She’s off to her exercise class. I am alone in the house. I’ve not been alone in the house for almost three weeks. Not like that will cause me to run around naked. I do that even if she’s here. “You’re a frustrated nudist,” she tells me.

“Maybe.”

It’s supposed to be 50 degrees as a high today. Probably will make that but will feel like 48. Even with the house to my self, I putter through the standard processes. Coffee, exercise, and food is still needed. The cat’s routine is focused on me so that didn’t change.

Papi isn’t pleased with the weather, either. The wind has died. That’s a plus in the cat’s mind. When the wind is blowin’ hard, he vacillates about where to go and what to do. Without the wind, he’s willing to risk the rain for a chance of sunshine. When that doesn’t appear, he sounds the alarm to get back into the house. Then we start again.

I found him sitting on the entry way bench yesterday. That was once Tucker’s domain. The bench is located at the intersection between the main hall, foyer, and kitchen. The big black and white cat loved being up front where he could observe everything going on and greet visitors.

“I guess you are the number one cat,” I told Papi. Apparently my tone annoyed him. He jumped down and marched into the living room to groom.

I have the Young Rascals’ jumping cover of “Good Lovin'” in my morning mental music stream. The Neurons who put it there are mum why. Coming out in 1966, it played on the ten-year-old me’s radios all the time, it felt. I love the organ work. The group later shortened their name to the Rascals. The ‘young’ addition to the band’s name was to avoid conflict with the Harmonica Rascals. There was probably a group called the Guitar Rascals that didn’t make it. Funny, but ‘rascals’ is another of those words with an old-fashioned feel and has faded from use.

Interesting outfits on the band in the video. They appear to be wearing compression stockings like the ones I wear. Disappointing sound quality, though.

I have supped with coffee again and now I’m on my way. Hope your day is worthy of your attention. Cheers

2

Sunda’s Theme Music

The pinks and white blossoms in my view offset the clouds’ wind and wuthering suggestions. Nothing can unburdened the wind’s effect. Lowing through the sky, it randomly shakes bushes and trees, giving an impression that one big creature is chasing a herd of other creatures through the foliage. I’m thinking, a T-Rex is after a swarm of smaller things and the smaller things are frantically ripping away.

This is Sunda, March 30, 2025. Just one more day of March after this, then April arrives to try to lift our spirits in ‘Merica.

I’ve again done the tango with my cat to give him his medicine. Knowing when it’s time to be administered, he alertly avoids me and asks for permission to leave the house. Usually takes five minutes of steps and talking back and forth before the med is delivered. I try to sound cajoling and calming; he responds with disappointment and distrust. Finally done, it’s feeding time, followed by his second med. I have the system down for the second one, amlodipine. It’s a powder. I mix it in with chumley and hot water. Then out the door he goes.

And back in, because wind. Papi the ginger blade has no patience for wind. I’ve been out there, though, and agree with his assessment, as that wind carries some winter on it. Now Papi is visiting me, paws on my leg as I sit here, requesting that I pet him. I take time out of typing and reading to do that, sipping coffee as he closes his eyes and purrs. Then, enough! He trots away.

Had a chuckle this morning. I was alone, which gave it a little crazy spin: The Observer view on JD Vance: spurned in Greenland and humiliated at home, the vice-president should resign. Right. Not holding my breath on that.

Rain tats awoke me from a swell dream today. A woman visited me to return my manuscript to me. After foisting a warm hug on me, she told me that she’d read it, and it thrilled her. Thrilled me to hear her say that. As we talk, the woman is gently stroking my arm or patting my shoulder. Her two teenage daughters were with her. She turned to leave and told her daughters to go ahead, she’d catch up. The girls went out the front door. Then the woman hugged me again and kissed me. She suggested she was interested in getting more intimate right then and there. I rejected her; she insisted and kissed me again. I was kind of, why not? But her daughters, I added. She smiled; “They won’t care.” Well…okay…

The little monkeys I call The Neurons kicked consciousness off with Laura Brannigan singing her cover of “Self Control” in my morning mental music stream.

You take my self, you take my self control
You got me livin’ only for the night
Before the morning comes, the story’s told
You take my self, you take my self control

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Oh, they’re funny. The song came out in 1984 and was a hit for Brannigan. She passed away just twenty years later, only 52. I realize in retrospect that the woman in my dream looked much like Brannigan.

Papi is asleep in his malabar chair. Coffee is selling its magic in my system. The wind is singing like a lonely cat. Hope you have a good one, wherever you are. Here we go. Cheers

0

Saturda’s Theme Music

The world is full of colors. Pinks, yellow, and greens win the eye. Must be spring in Ashlandia. Temp is 45 F, however, it feels like 60, if you stand just the right way. ‘They’ say it’ll be 55 F today as our high but left out how it will feel. Will it rain? Yes! Maybe! It’s Saturda, March 29, 2025, so who knows? I will dress for dry and rainy weather. Yeah, it’ll be a dorkish sight.

Papi the ginger blade, known locally as Butter Butt, doensn’t seem upset with us any longer. Could be because we bribed him with chumley and other treats. I don’t think he forgot. He seems to have a long memory about things. It could be that he’s trying to mislead me into thinking he’s forgotten and forgiven, and then raise floofhem some night when we really need sleep. That sort of cunning planning feels like his style.

I surfed through a wild dream last night. Whole thing was just a series of flash epiphanies in dark night. I was telling myself that star energy runs through us, firing the little nuclear responses in our cells that generate our life energy. We die when the star energy can no longer feed our cells. Star energy comes through our chakras into our corporeal beings, and so on. Time is something we made up, and we have it all wrong. Everything is happening at once. No past, no future. Time was created so we could think in a more orderly manner but we’ve taken it too fair. Now it’s our straitjacket.

There was much, much more. Such as there is only one universe, and the idea that we treat our bodies wrong by trying to heal it when we should be reversing things. Dream me didn’t explain how that was supposed to be accomplished.

I awoke really hot. There are different kinds of hot for us as humans. Drinking a hot beverage feels one way. Sex hot, sun hot, fever hot, sports hot which incudes dripping sweat, furnace hot, which dries us out, desert hot, are all different. If you think about these hots, you notice how each feels unique, and our bodies respond differently to each. Well, the hot felt when I awoke from this dream was wholly different from any of those hot experience. Perhaps that’s all only me. I’ve never discussed the different sort of hots I feel with others

Anyway, I awoke feeling a different manner of hot. Then I headed for the bathroom to pee.

Der Neurons have sprung “Star Man” by Davide Bowie on the morning mental music stream. This was from Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era. Released in 1972, I don’t hear it often on the radio in ‘Merica. But I personally enjoy its message of hope being delivered by a Starman to Earth’s youth. I went with the Top of the Pops video performance. Even though the song is being mimed, it awakened and impressed many more people to the talent named Bowie.

Coffee is reassuring me once again. Time to play through. Hope your day is remarkable for you in many good ways. Peace out.

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