Tag: 1971

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Dawn broke, and now we could see why it was so dark. Last night’s sky was clear. Enriched by unblemished moonshine, spectacular starry mountain vistas were on offer.

Today, clouds have gone come down and fog hugs the ground. Grey is the color of the sky, and sunlight evades our searching eyes.

It’s Tuesday, December 6, 2022. Hear the tick tick of the digital clocks emulating the grandfather clock’s countdown? That’s the sound of the year leaving. Or maybe it’s the sound of the next year hurrying to us. The sun showed up on our spinning planet’s piece called southern Oregon at 7:25 this morning and will toss goodbye over its sunny shoulders at 4:39 PM. It’s 0 C but we’re hopeful of reaching 44 F today. Rain? No, they say. They’re telling us that despite the overcast sky and fog I’m seeing, it’s actually mostly sunny in Ashland. Most be another part of town.

What I notice of my morning rituals is that the summer sun comes in through the large east-facing living room window. By this time of the year, the sun shyly looks in through the southern window around the corner from the living room window and twenty-three feet further up the side of the house. They have come to be known as the summer window and winter window for me.

I awoke with a Led Zeppelin favorite in mind. Coming out in 1971, when I became fifteen years old, Led Zepp’s fourth album had a song on it called “When the Levee Breaks”. Now, I enjoyed that entire album but that song was the one which usually haunted me later. Later reading revealed that it was an old country song, which added a layer of thinking that stimulated greater introspection. Its worrying lyrics and downcast beat seemed firmly rooted in someone’s existence.

Later, I found its beat and tone conducive to walking and thinking. I was then and have always been a person who enjoys walking distances. I’m one to take the long way home when I’m on my feet, climbing up hills to gain a broader perspective. So it was that I was out yesterday, climbing the hills and thinking about my writing in progress when The Neurons rummaged through my youthful memories and began playing it. It stayed in my morning mental music stream today.

When I went off looking for a version to play today, I stumbled upon this version by the Playing for Change project. Incorporating a huge variety of sounds and talented individuals, it’s even more powerful and haunting than the version Zepp gave us. John Paul Jones of Zepp is included among the musicians. Derek Trucks is one of the folks on slide guitar. I hope you listen to the song and that it stirs you as it does me.

Off for coffee. Stay pos and test negative. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

I was surprised to discover today is Friday. It’s also September 16, 2022. The month is storming through. It’ll soon be another memory, haphazardly stacked alongside my other memories. “Do you remember…?” The question begins the conversation. I hear it reverberating from the future. “Do you remember?” A little mental scratching follows. Pieces are put together and then answer comes, “Yes, I remember.” Then each contributes details. Whether it’s all accurate or real, well, that’s for another philosopher to address.

Sunrise’s stealthy crawl began at 7:01 AM. Temperatures continue along a short spectrum of low sixties to mid-seventies. Pittsburgh’s sunset will be at 7:31. The daily slice of sunshine gets shaved a little more every day.

I spent thirty minutes outside today, on the porch in sunshine, drinking coffee. Wonderful to have a full and warm sun as a companion. My body drank in that vitamin D. While out there, I reflected that my mental image of myself remains as a man thirty years younger, or more. I wondered, do our self-images get created and captured when we first visit a place? Is that how we’ll always see ourselves in conjunction with a specific place?

I remember once when I was sixteen, with Dad, shoe shopping. Dad was flirting with a young female sales assistant. It seemed clear to me the woman was embarrassed. I found it all cringeworthy. But Dad didn’t see and hear himself as we saw him that day. Reality is such a tasty and beautiful variable, isn’t it?

For music, “A Horse With No Name” by Americ in the morning mental music stream. I started singing it to myself, shifting lyrics to, “It felt good to be out in the sun.” I took it past there but you don’t need those deets. Make up your own.

Stay positive and test negative, and do what you can with the day. As the floofs say, carpe diem. Lunch is calling, I think. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

It’s up to 59 F outside. But the buttery morning sunshine delivered at 6:44 is now smoked over. Our lovely sky has rocketed relatively healthy lime green 48 on the air quality scale to 197. The high temperature today will be 103 F. Sunset, 7:31 PM.

Today is Friday, September 9, 2022. I’m waiting to begin my travel home. Tucker volunteered to inspect the bag and floofervise the process. On the other end of phones and texts, my youngest sister is reporting on Mom. Hospitalized for COVID complications and an appendix first thought ruptured but then found perforated, Mom has a lot of issues. A pacemaker was installed a few years ago. A diet of Kools and Salem cigarettes has left her with COPD and emphysema. The physicians discovered that she punctured one of her lung’s lobes. She’s also retaining fluid. Her O2 levels keep dropping to 70 or lower. Without much surprise to me, this 87-year-old woman has declared, “Enough. I’m tired. I’m done.”

My older sister has just arrived there from Atlanta. Another sister can’t attend because she’s COVID positive. The fourth sister is on her way back to the hospital. So is Mom’s partner. I won’t get there until tomorrow. The time, drama, and decisions give me a lot to think about.

The Neurons have a song by The Who circulating in the morning mental music stream. Released in 1971, “Gettin’ in Tune” has often been a standby song for me when I’m reflecting on choices and getting ready to travel. I understand why The Neurons have posted it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. I’ve had coffee. Might have more. Here is the music. Hope your Friday is a good one.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s 70 F at the moment. A high of 100 is expected. Little warm, yeah, with the usual declarations about furnaces, staying protected, and cooking things on cement.

Today is Saturday, Jun 25, 2022. Sunrise was at 5:36 AM and sunset is at 8:51 PM.

The cats called me away while I was posting this. I return 30 minutes later. It’s eight degrees warmer outside. The temperature leap has an entourage of strong, gusty winds. The cats aren’t pleased and are pestering me to turn the damn winds off. They give me credit for way more power than I possess.

I was washing the car yesterday when The Neurons began playing Cat Stevens, “If You Want to Sing Out Sing Out” which was in the movie, Harold and Maude, 1971. I found that movie so entertaining as a youth, and of course the song stayed with me. I had to think about what movie it was from and the year, and finally looked it all up for confirmation. BTW, I think there’s a specific group of neurons responsible for calling up the music and placing it in the mental music stream. I’ve decided they will be known as The Neurons to differentiate them from the normal, regular neurons.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask if or as needed, etc. Enjoy your Saturday. The cats are telling me that it’s coffee time. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Gothic clouds black and white hover perilously over the southern ranges of sloping trees. Sunshine offers a brave front but the clouds, abetted by a chilly northern wind, own today’s weather.

It’s Thursday, June 16, 2022. The temperature since sunrise at 5:34 AM has slowly crept into the mid-fifties. Won’t get much higher, they tell us, before the 8:49 PM sunset, maybe hitting the low sixties, say 63 F.

“Never Ending Song of Love” by Delaney & Bonnie & Friends from 1971 is in the morning mental music stream. I enjoy this song’s vocalizations and beat, and the song is a regular that I sing to myself while walking or doing chores. Surprise registered when I discovered that I’ve never shared it as a choice for theme music.

Stay positive and test negative. COVID-19 in wastewater in our area is the highest recorded levels to date. All agree, this is due to tourism returning, mask use receding, and complacency rising. In parallel, testing kits in the area are sudden in short supply because demand has spiked. The COVID-19 pandemic remains a treacherous situation.

Here’s the music. Sing along, please. I’m gonna go get my coffee. Be right back. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

The records are in and it’s official: April was our rainiest on record. So, that’s good news.

But we’re still in a drought because so many previous years were dry.

Weather and climate change are as fascinating and challenging to contemplate as politics and quantum entanglement.

Today is Monday, May 9, 2022. An impressive sunrise, blasting around clouds, giving those dark boys silver linings, was struck at 5:56 this morning. The sundown show will start at 8:19 PM. Today’s high is expected to be 47 F, just five degrees from where we’re at. Storms are expected throughout the week, including today. Snow and rain showers are possible tomorrow.

All this weather had me singing “Stormy Monday” as recorded live by the Allman Brothers Band waaayyy back when. The neurons were taken by surprise; they were singing other things, filling the morning mental music stream with amazing melodies, but I called an audible. They’re still resisting it, so I’m about to blast it to impress upon them how serious I am.

Stay positive and test negative. Endure, succeed, thrive. Have some coffee. I know I will. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

My body and mind are not happy with ‘springing ahead’. “Why’d you do that?” they asked about setting the clocks ahead. “We was perfectly fine, wasn’t we?” Grammar is a little weak between them.

Today is Sunday, March 13, 2022. That’s right, Sunday the Thirteenth. Bad luck for some. Not a good day to spring ahead with our clocks, as we did. Not much fun with these digital critters, either, you know, the kind where you must hold a button in to advance it, and if you miss, you have to keep going until you come around on it. Like, “Here it comes, get ready to let go. Too soon, too soon. A little more, a little more.” That’s on the house thermostat and the cars’ clocks. I punch in the numbers on the range and microwave’s digital clock, then stand there, watching my Fitbit, waiting for its digit to change, then punching the ‘Set Clock’ buttons on both devices while shouting, “Now!” in my head. So much work for a worn-out idea.

Sunrise came after seven today, because, you know, clocks, at 7:25 AM. It’s a dreary sort of rainy spring day, 45 F know, going up to 52 F. Had a lovely one yesterday, although it got a little variable. One minute, it’d be so warm in the sun, people be busting out of their jackets, sweaters, and sweaties, while the next minute finds them pulling them all back on. Up, down, go zippers, searching for the sweet spot. Wasn’t to be found.

Sunset arrives after seven, 7:16 PM.

I was out walking in the pleasant weather yesterday. The neurons did a songdance that summoned a 1971 Rolling Stones song called “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”. It’s a very rock and roll song of the kind hitting the vinyl in the late sixties and early seventies. I remember that I went about doing those lyrics from it for a bit. People thought me odd. I’ve always been real fond of the jam that came with it for the final four or five minutes. Those familiar notes stayed with me as I crested ridges yesterday and checked out the valley.

Stay positive, right? Keep testing negative. Wear a mask if needed, when needed, as needed. Don’t let complacency take you down. Get the vax and boosters when needed, as needed, when you’re able, right? Here’s some rock for your ears. I’m springing ahead for coffee. The neurons need it.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today is February 21, 2022. Happy ___. Yes, today is a holiday in the U.S. There are fifteen different official names for this holiday in use in the United States. It started as Washington’s Birthday but grew to encompass all POTUS. But is that Presidents’, President’s, or Presidents? That’s one of the rubs. For Federal gov. use, it’s Washington’s Birthday. Advertising is the prompt behind the move to the variations of President.

Of course, it’s a Monday, part of the holidays observed on Monday in the U.S. instead of the day on which it should actually be, February 22 on the Gregorian calendar, which also is not Washington’s birthday, because the British Empire used the Julian calendar when Washington was born and the United States wasn’t yet a country.

We had a sprinkle of snow on the land this morning when the sun’s light sluiced into the textured gray sky at 6:59 AM. It’s 34 degrees F. feels and smells like winter outside (and feels like 28 degrees, they claim). The high will be 42 F before sunfall begins taking the temperature back down at 5:51 PM. Be prepared for rain and snow showers. If you hit the road and plan to go more than twenty miles up the Interstate in either direction, be ready for serious winter.

Today’s song was going on in my morning mental music stream when I officially awoke. It may be related to a forgotten dream. “Sweet Hitch-hiker” by CCR is certainly a remnant of my unforgotten youth. The song was released in 1971. I was fifteen. My three primary modes of transpo was walking, biking, and hitch-hiking. I wasn’t the sweet hitchhiker of people’s the singer’s dreams, though, just another hairy lad popping into puberty. Thumbing a ride was already on the wan because crazies were emerging, either drivers eager to do shit unto you, or hitchhikers out for blood. Yes, times were changing.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m to the kit for a cup. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rotating and orbiting as the planet has done for billions of years, we now come to February 2, 2022. A Wednesday, it may be memorable to many people for many reasons, but how does it compare to the past trillions of days? Our human lifespans are so short compared to the universe’s life scale that little of what we do is memorable in the cosmic sense. It’s why we narrow our focus down to our personal spaces and calendars. Contemplating the greater scale may well lead to nihilistic conclusions or heavy consumption of coffee, alcohol, or other drugs. Or eating disorders. So let’s just keep focus on our smaller but amazingly impactful days. They are impactful on us and that’s what builds our memories and experiences and skew our emotions.

Anyway, the sun ‘rose’ at 7:23 AM and will ‘set’ at 5:27 PM. I’ll drink some coffee and eat some food. I’ve already done some of the latter. You’re probably doing something similar, eating, or thinking about what you’ll eat, even considering, perhaps, who you’ll eat it with. Here in Ashland, it dropped to 28 F last night. Now it’s 36 with a high of 44 expected for the day. Dollops of congealed gray and white cloud float on the blue sky. We do not expect rain.

I haven’t done any of my daily games. They’ll come soon. I guessed my first word in Wordle in two guesses yesterday. On the other hand, it required all six in two games. Four other games took three or four. Yeah, I like Wordle. Getting it in two is luck. For instance, in the first game when I guessed it in two, the last two letters of my first guess were green. On a whim, I entered poppy as my second guess. That was the word. Yea for me.

Weirdly, I have a song called “If Not for You” living in the morning mental music stream. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song. Then George Harrison recorded it, followed by Olivia Newton John. I had the albums for the first two performers. I heard the ONJ version on the radio one day and then turned around and pulled out the vinyl 33-RPM album to listen to Dylan and an eight-track tape to listen to George’s version. Doing that back then in my bedroom in Pittsburgh somewhere around 1973 (all of the versions were out by 1971), I never imagined the technology that would allow me to sit at my computer and pull up the same songs. Trippy, innit? Just think of how it all might be in another fifty years or so, right?

Part of me thinks about memories like this and wonder why it stays so sharply in my memory today that I can look around that room from my vantage here and see and hear the details of my life then. A sliver of me muses that maybe there’s some cosmic entanglement taking place. Another facet of me shrugs and mumbles, who knows?

For today’s theme music, I’ve selected a recording of Dylan and Harrison playing it together. Makes me smile. Stay postive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for coffee now. Looking forward to it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday’s greetings, fellow voyagers. Today is November 26, 2021. The sun kicked in around our environs at 7:14 AM, guiding us out of the dark night into the bright day and lifting our temperatures from 35 degrees F to 37. We do expect to climb into the fifties with the temperatures as clouds and sunshine continue the battle of evermore. The sun will steel away with its light and warmth at 4:46 PM. We’ll do our best to enjoy the hours between.

Speaking of evermore, I have “The Battle of Evermore” by Led Zeppelin (1971) in my morning mental music stream. Came upon when I was out last night. We’d finished Friendsgiving on some friends’ farm. It was about 8:30 PM. I was preparing to leave. I stepped outside, out in the country a bit where their property sits, and admired the stars and breathed the air. Memories from doing this as a child, teenager, and adult throughout my life came up and stood beside me. Hence the song’s presence. We’re here for a short while, but those stars are evermore.

Stay positive, test negative, listen to the music (like how I slipped that in there?), wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Just read of another variant emerging in Africa which has kicked the stock market down the stairs. COVID-19 and its variants seem like they’ll be another facet of evermore. Don’t get complacent now.

And now, coffee time. Here’s the music. Cheers

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