Tag: 1965

Saturday’s Theme Music

Earth’s shift and clear skies has sunshine booming into the main bedroom. The room is on the northeastern corner, which is to say, the rear. Stunning to wake up to such golden light again. But the shift means that other house bits are darker again. Always adjusting…

It’s Saturday, 3.18.2023. We’re mourning for our friends, who’s beloved Purdue Boilermakers, #1 seed, fell in March Madness’s first round and is eliminated.

It’s 36 degrees F outside but the weather wicca tell us that Ashlandia highs will crest 65 F today. Was mighty fine yesterday, let me tell you. Spring fully ascended in all senses. Today’s sunrise was witnessed at 7:18 AM and the last of the sun in Ashlandia will be seen at 7:21 PM.

The weather pleases the housefloofs. Both are outside harvesting rays and grooming. Tucker’s thick white ruff, like a wondrous garment, shines in the light against his black markings, but Papi’s ginger and cream, marked with orange swirls, are pretty, too.

I have “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”, by Bob Dylan, in the morning mental music stream. A dream thing, an editing and writing thing, an admonishment to self, don’t think twice, stop overthinking matters, yo. One of my worst habits. Have a whole catalogue of them. I started with the Peter, Paul, and Mary version. Then, thinking about it, I recalled Willie Nelson singing it, so I went hunting for it. Then I found a live version with Bob D. and Eric C. I decided I’d go with it, so here you are.

Stay positive. The day is full of great possibilities. Got my coffee. Time to go do some things. Stay with it. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Light and shadows tangoed on the bedroom walls. The wind had come up and at 7:24 AM, the sun showed it. Working together, they had the trees dancing.

It’s Thursday, March 16, 2023. A Sunday pizza party is on for a few friends. One of them likes organizing this about every five to six months. Just a get-together to eat, chat, and see faces. Three couples, six faces.

It’s 42 degrees F at my Ashlandia place. Blue skies. Sunset will be at 7:16 this evening. Till then, the temperature will go up the numbers until finding 44 F.

Just finished reading a couple books — We Are Legion (We Are Bob), The Chalk Circle Man — and am starting The Thursday Murder Club and Full. Contacting contractors is in the to-do list for various house improvements and repairs, since it’s March and the weather should become acceptable for these things to be done, like painting the house and repairing a window. And isn’t it interesting that ‘contractor’ is one of those words that end in ‘-or’ instead of ‘er’?

The cats are out. They like the sunshine and warmer temps but dislike the wind. Neither are wind fans. I expect one to start beating on the door at any moment.

“Nowhere Man” by the Beatles (1965) is stuck in the morning mental music stream. I don’t know if The Neurons desposited them or some other agency. No clue as to the why it’s playing. I’ve used it as theme music before and wrote about it then so I’ll not re-state all that. Just seems to fit some mode today. Maybe I feel like I’m nine again on some level. I chose this video they took about doing the song and then perform it in a ‘live’ setting, comparing it to the notes ingrained in my head. I’ve always been intrigued by the differences between studio recordings and how the band play it live.

Some of the catalyst for “Nowhere Man” might be the text exchanges with Mom. I’m asking her about the inspiration for her children’s names and the story behind my own. Michael wasn’t first choice. Anyway, I’d known a few of those stories and was surprised that the story was different this time. Did I mis-remember or is she telling it differently? I go with the latter. Either way, it’s a little bummer that what I recall isn’t what I hear now, because one of us is changing their tale.

Here’s the music. Hope you enjoy it. I’m off to let the cats in and get coffee. Stay pos, and carpes Thursday. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Time to start the day and get underway. We’re at the port of Friday, January 20, 2023. Next destination: Friday evening. We’ll get there after the sun sets on Ashlandia, 5:10 PM.

“Ashlandia, where time is never the same.”

Sunrise at 7:36 AM found Ashlandia frost bound beneath full blue skies. Snow and ice still cap higher mountains and ridges, a winter photo delight against that blue. 25 degrees F says the local weather station while prognosticators tell us that a 48 degree F high is expected. That’s a little cold for Ashlandia’s winters. We usually see the thermo squeaking down to 30 before braking to a full stop, but we’ll live. We’ll complain, but we’ll live. Well, some, such as me, complain, but others just march along with it. The shelters are open for whoever needs them, and hot meals are being provided gratis in several locations. Crews have remained busy removing fallen trees from the month’s earlier windstorms. A drive around yesterday showed all were gone. No houses or buildings experienced major damage, so we’re thankful for that.

My wife remains in bed, affected by her RA and Raynaud’s. One of her fingers looks ghastly, white and waxen. She says it’s painful and stiff but doesn’t complain. She was planning to make me a cherry pie yesterday but I nixed that. We just had sugar pie instead. She skipped her exercise class this morning, which is never a good omen.

Mom’s list of issues continuous a daunting trend of increasing. Little seems to improve for her and pain shadows every decision and conversation. She soldiers on, a tough old broad, as she likes to self-reference, but she seems so tired from the constant fight to live.

With all the dreams I had last night, The Neurons packed the morning mental music stream with songs on dreaming. I ignored them. We lost David Crosby this week, another talented musician who brightened my life. The Byrds were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, which was my childhood, playing “Mr Tambourine Man”. I was nine then. Though a little too mellow for my budding rock and roll tendencies, I admired their style and harmony and their songs stayed comfortably lodged in my mind. Formation of CSN and then CSN&Y was a positive addition to the folk-rock scene, where their harmonies and smart lyrics adjusted my budding teenage attitudes.

Got my coffee. French roast, which is my usual. Unsweetened and untouched by milk or cream, it offers a sharply bitter living on my tastebuds, with a friendly chocolatey overlay.

Stay positive. Sail on to new horizons. Here’s the music, in living color. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Time for electric Elevens. Yes, we’re on the 11th of Jan, 2023. Coming up on the month’s halfway point of the new year’s first month.

Little has changed for me and it feels depressing. I’m sipping coffee in hopes of elevating my mood. Don’t know why I’m down but I can speculate on reasons. Could be the fog, rain, and wind swirling around outside. Wind sounds like it’s planted someone right outside the window to make ghostly woooooo noises. Writing the first draft and working on it to improve the story could be depressing me because it feels like there’s so much more still to do. Maybe it’s just the news and its unchanging flavors of death and politics, and the ugly, jaundiced textures that infuse it. Or, it could be that I’m in a rut and it wearies me, looking up the rut’s same walls. Probably just my time of month, when hormonal changes bring out my dark side. I could also chalk up to SAD, one supposes. Reminder to self to not make any impulsively stupid decisions today, because this will pass, brother.

Wednesday has landed on us. The fog has moved back and up, so I can see more world. Chainsaws and chippers drone and sing, informing me of another tree’s demise. Outside, it’s 42 degrees F again though it feels like 33. Flat white clouds with a tincture of gray have overwhelmed the sun. Sunrise was same as yesterday, 7:39 AM, but sunset has inched a few minutes back and will now be at 5 PM sharp.

Two songs compete in the morning mental music scream stream. The Neurons have me hearing “Just My Style” by Gary Lewis & the Playboys from 1965. Okay. The other is “Self Esteem” by the Offspring from the middle of the 1990s. I can guess why The Neurons are doing this to me. The same lines keep repeating, from one and then the other. First we have the bass delivery, “Don’t you know that she’s,” followed by the rest of the band singing “Just my style,” from the first song. Then the Offspring sing, “The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right? Yeah.” Both have been featured in this space before. I’ll flip a mental coin for which one is today’s theme music.

Time to drink up this coffee and pretend it’s a day. Stay positive! Test negative. Rise above yourself, I tell myself. I’ll suggest the same to you. Let me end this whiney scree. Hey, look sunshine! Too slow — it’s gone. Keep an eye out; it’ll be back.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Something crashed into me. Once mental equilibrium was restored, I raged, “What happened.” Looking around, I discovered that I’d been hit by Wednesday. Right in the middle of the week, too. Examining it in the mirror, I admired a developed welt and darkening contusion. Wednesday was leaving a mark. That’s how life goes for Day Hunters. Sometimes they strike back.

This is August 31, 2022, which happens to be September Eve. Naturally, I’m gonna dress up and party, as my tribe has done since they first illuminated recorded history.

Sunrise broke night’s grip on the valley at 6:35 AM. Night fled but vowed to return at 7:47 tonight. I admired his willingness to express such a specific time in this day of vague promises. It’s a lovely 21 C right now, but Purple Air says wildfire smoke from Rum Creek to the northwest and another blaze in California pours a blend into the air that makes it red, 148, and unhealthy for sensitive folks. That must include me. I’m zinging sneezes and coughs to beat the band (an expression that seems very confusing and leaves me wondering about its origins). Eyes are teary and the nostrils are smarting. So, I’ll take precautions, y’all, if I were me, which I think I am.

The Neurons have plucked a Stevie Wonder song out of the 1965 memory cells and loaded it into the morning mental music stream. I always loved the energy of “Uptight (Everything Is Alright)”. Knowing this, following a successful writing expedition which naturally also rendered me anxious (does this work or am I fooling myself?), The Neurons kicked the song on in a game effort to reassure me.

Over to you, Jim. Here’s the music. I’m setting off into the kitchen’s darkest corners in a quest to find a cup of hot, black coffee. Come at your own peril if you wish. Stay positive, test negy, and so on. Don’t look know, my fellow Americans, but Labor Day weekend is rising out of the calendar’s murky depths. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Happy National Moon Day. Yes, it’s the day in America so many children relish, the one where you are allowed and even encouraged to moon people. By that, I mean that you arrange your clothes to expose your rear and – hold on, someone is trying to tell me something.

Oh. I’m told that I’m wrong about Moon Day. It’s about something else entirely.

In honor of this day, The Neurons are singing the Beach Boys 1965 cover of “Barbara Ann”. I refuse to ask them why. They’re sitting there, smirking at me, sniggering and giggling like children, and I won’t give them the pleasure of asking what on Earth prompted this song on Moon Day. I do enjoy the song. Singing it entertains me. Good way to have fun by myself, although I have other ways, too.

It is July 20, 2022, the anniversary of the first man on the moon. I do remember watching it unfold on my color TV alone in the game room and thought it pretty cool. I’d already built models of the LEM and the rest, so you know I was into it.

Today is also Wednesday. It’s currently 22 C after an overnight low of 62 F. Today’s high will reach almost 38 C today after achieving 97 F yesterday. No clouds are out there. I was outside about twenty minutes before sunrise this morning, looking for Papi as I’d not seen nor heard him all night. He didn’t show up until after 5:52, when the sun was breaching the sky in a place that I couldn’t see. Sunset will be at 8:42 PM.

You know about COVID-19 and precautions, testing, etc? I hope so by now. So, you know, do them. Okay, coffee awaits. We have liftoff.

Peace out.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

A Steve McQueen sort of quiet cool reigns today, Thursday, March 24, 2022. The sun spit some rays into the sky at 7:08 AM. Light came up but warmth is still to follow. We’re sitting at 47 F but are expecting a high of 74. Hazy blue rules over us, with a few larger clouds peeking around the ridges but it looks like we’re set for a day of sunshine. Sunset comes at 7:28 PM.

The cats are quiet today. Sick cat lingers on. He gave me a scare last night. I’d let him out the front to enjoy some fresh air. I was with him, then turned my back for a minute, and he was gone. I thought, I’ll probably never see him again. Broke my heart thinking of him out there in the cold, waiting to die. I cursed myself for my stupidity. My spouse and I donned flashlights and walked around, searching and calling for forty-five minutes. He neither showed nor answer. Then, lo’, two hours later, he was back at the front door.

I’ve been meditating on of my friend’s death, and my short history with him. I’ve only known him ten years. He was an intelligent, earnest, amiable guy. I met him through Brains on Beer, an informal group of retired scientists and engineers who like to drink beer and talk science, the arts, and politics. I was member number seven. Only one of the original six remain, but we’ve managed to expand to twelve. I advocated setting up a gofundme to take donations in his name for some of his charities, and the others agreed, so I’ll be doing that today.

These losses — the friend and sick cat’s waning battle — set me on a mental memory roadshow. Before living on Oregon, I lived in California for fourteen years. After moving to Oregon, business kept taking me to California for a few more years, so I have California on my mind. My neurons noticed and now “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and the Papas (1965) in on the morning mental music stream’s PA system. It’s been featured as theme music before, but it’s a solid song and will work again. I like this video of it from the Ed Sullivan Show. Hope you enjoy it, too.

And now the neurons are whispering, “Pardon, sir, might we have a bit o’coffee for the blood?” Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the shots as needed. Have a better one. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Sunrise came at 7:34 in Ashland on this twenty-first day of 2021, 01/21/21, and sunset, if the machinery works right will come at 5:11 PM. While it’s 37 F now, a high of 53 is expected. It’s a cloudy sky, which usually accompanies warmer temperatures at this time of year. It’s when the sky is clearest that it becomes coldest.

I enjoyed the musical entertainment provided the nation during President Biden’s inauguration celebrations. Several stood out for me, but I especially soaked in John Legend singing “Feeling Good”. Pow. Knocked me into the next year.

Demi Lovato covering Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” was another performance that touched me. Bill Withers was from my area. I lived outside of Beckley, WV, for three years, graduating there, and Bill was raised there, so he’s our native son. Covers of his songs always stirs memories of him and that area and time.

What of you? Any particular song or performance touch you in a way?

The inauguration day’s celebration theme was pretty much new day, new times, right? That’s what I took. Maybe I missed the mark. I’m thinking, how do you top any of those songs as theme music.

Well, today, I don’t. I’m just listening to John Legend “Feeling Good”. I’m familiar with the Nina Simone 1965 cover, but I’m staying with John Legend’s powerful rendition.

It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, yeah
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, ooh
And I’m feeling good

h/t to Genius lyrics.com

Hey, stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask and get the vaccine. A new day is coming. A new day has arrived. Feel it?

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I was vacuuming yesterday and writing in my head when a song, “You Got Your Troubles”, plugged into the ol’ mental stream. Although I knew the lyrics and melody, looking up the year and artist was required. I guess it was the 1960s but that’s a broad range. Wikipedia informed me that the performing artists were The Fortunes, and it was a hit in 1965, when I was nine. The Fortunes had two other hits that I recognized, so I’m pretty embarrassed that I didn’t know who they are.

“You Got Your Troubles” is a song despairing a romantic breakup. Those words, though, you got your troubles, I’ve got mine, slip nicely into the 2020/2021 maelstrom. ‘Bout the only folks who don’t seem to have troubles are the super wealthy, who are becoming superwealthier as others cope with their troubles. My troubles, of course, aren’t deep. I’m more like a cat who’s dissatisfied with the treat offered to them, or a writer disappointed in how a story is going. Nothing deep or serious, other than irritation that we have an outgoing POTUS living in an alternate reality attempting to drag more in with him. There are trombies who eagerly swim along with him, exclaiming, “Yes, let’s go to the alternate reality and everything will be happy! Give me more Kool Aid.”

Stay positive (as I do, ha, ha), test negative, wear a mask, and vaccinate. Here’s the music.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Time for slide back Sunday.

With time slipping away (fewer markers out there to force me to pay attention), I often find that another day has fled. Muddering about it, I thought about how day flows into night and night flows into day, distinguished by weather and light changes, sleep cycles, eating, and clothing changes.

Out of that came a 1965 song by the Kinks, “All Day and All of the Night”, which amused me. (Easily amused? That’s me. Check.) Trawling the Youtube uncovered a 1965 television appearance where they played it. Seeing that black and white footage, hearing that sound quality, admiring their haircuts definitely slides me back to a more relaxed time (primarily because I was just a wee shithead at that point).

Here we go.

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