Tag: 1976

Friday’s Theme Music

Some call it the end of the business week. The last working day. Others call it the start of the weekend. In this 24/7 world, it’s none and all of these. We can agree that it’s Friday, January 28, 2022.

The sun’s golden light silently came up and over the valley’s horizon at 7:28 AM and will take its light and leave at 5:21 PM. Our mild temperatures, a result of stalled systems, continue. Last night’s low was about 36. It’s now 56 and pleasant, and we expect a high of 62. Meanwhile, I’m reading about the bomb cyclone hitting back east, also known as winter storm Kenan, about to do a massive white dump on the U.S. Two feet of snow in places, flooding, possibly hurricane level winds. That, friends, is winter.

I have a David Bowie song fluttering through the morning mental music stream. “John, I’m Only Dancing” was limited in release. Just too risqué for the U.S. in 1972, the very important people in charge (VIPIP) pronounced. I heard it through some small Pittsburgh station who liked rebelling against such restrictions and then I later owned it on Changesonebowie, which came out in 1976, a terrific album for Bowie fans. I could listen to it forever and a day, as Mom would express it.

Here’s the music, and my coffee, right on schedule. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Happy Saturday and Merry Christmas. If this is Christmas, then it is also December 25, 2021. If you had white Christmas on your wish list and live in my region, congratulations: you have won! Yes, we have 30 degrees F outside and about three inches of snow. Beautiful to take in, and shoots childhood memories through the neurons. Out last night, breathing in the snowy cold air as snowflakes flirted, I stood as a child and young man again, as I’d stood on many such nights in a string of diverse locations. I’m fortunate to have such memories and to still enjoy them.

Sunrise popped in with Christmas light at (drumroll) 7:38 AM and the sunshine will head at 4:44 PM. Our high temperature today is 34 F. During the and into the night, we’ll be celebrating on a low key this year, just the wife and I, although phone calls have been made, and Christmas baked goods are here to help put caloric joy into our bodies.

Thinking of Christmas memories, I was in the Philippines in the military in 1976. I’d been married less than two years and my wife was living with her parents in the United States while I lived in a dorm room. She and her family sent me a huge Christmas care package and I celebrated the holiday with other unaccompanied and single peers. We had a good time despite being away from family.

One song from that year is “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen. I would say that my wife is my best friend — certainly my longest friendship. We met and hit it off in June of 1971. Married four years later. Still together decades later. I’d never tell her she’s my best friend because she bristles at such sentimentality. But, here we are. I’m using it as my theme music on Christmas, 2021, half a century after meeting her.

Stay positive, test negative, enjoy some holiday cheer, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. Make yourself some memories so you can pause on a dark night, look up at the sky, feel the weather, and recall who you were. Excuse me, a coffee has my name on it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Change the page. December has arrived. Today is Wednesday, the first. Commence the countdown to the new year.

May be a new month but we began it the same way as the end of last month, with sunshine wearily attempting to poke sunlight through clouds and fog. Gray and silver drape the trees. All the deciduous have dumped their leaves. Naked branches are the new norm, except for the pines and firs.

Temperature is 40 degrees F with expectations that we’ll see 62. Sure. Sunset will come at 4:40 PM while sunrise’s feeble start was at 7:20 AM. A day without sunshine is a dreary spectacle.

Today’s music popped into the morning mental music stream after a political conversation with friends yesterday. Someone made the comment, “That’ll be the day,” which prompted the ol’ mental Alexa to say, “Playing That’ll Be the Day by Linda Ronstadt from 1976.” Why Alexa went with that cover instead of the Buddy Holly edition is outside of my gray matter’s ken. Anyway, it’s on a loop in my head so I’m putting it out there to loop into others’ heads.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. You know what I mean. Got my coffee, French Roast, untouched by sugar, cream, or milk, but with a splash of cinnamon. Here we go, December. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Saturday’s sunrise came at 7:50 AM, flashing sunlight at us for a second like a busy executive stopping by to say hello to the team before sprinting on to other matters. After that flicker of sunlight, clouds shrouded in charcoal moved in, sniffing with disdain, loosing a little drizzle, keeping the air cold. It’s 47 degrees F now but we’re optimistic that it’ll break 50 before the sun’s face turns away at 5:59 PM.

Today is November 6, 2021. That means we’re turning our clocks back tonight in most of the U.S. (Okay, technically, we do this at 2 AM on the seventh. But I’ll do it before going to bed, right?) So tomorrow’s sunrise will be an hour earlier. Sunset will also be an hour earlier: before 5 PM in my niche of season. But we do get that one extra hour to do things. I’ll use it for sleep, cats permitting. The cats don’t recognize daylight savings time and clock changes. They stay faithful to their inner workings. When they start clamoring for their first breakfast at 5:50 AM, it’ll now be 4:50 AM. Some adjustments will be required by them, and some coping by me.

Let’s not let all that stop us from rocking. The plan is to stay inside, warm and dry, except for a late-afternoon constitutional. Eat a little food. Drink a cuppa coffee. Maybe bake a pie. (Yes, that’s my new definition of ‘rocking’.) Meanwhile, “Somebody to Love” by Queen (1976) is circling the morning mental music stream. These words conjured this song:

I just gotta get out of this prison cell
One day (someday) I’m gonna be free, Lord!

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Those lyrics are firmly rooted in the ongoing limitations provoked by the COVID pandemic. I look forward to visiting coffee shops on a casual, recurring basis. On running down to the store without donning a mask. Visiting friends without querying them about vaccines, boosters, and pods. One day I’m gonna be free! Until then, I’ll remain cautious, wary, wearing a mask as needed, distancing, seeking the booster, and trying to remain positive.

Here’s the music, and right on schedule, here is my coffee. Let’s be safe out there. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

With sunrise blinking in at 5:53 AM, today’s weather is a relaxed, mellow blend, clouds and sky, high against the upper eighties. Sunset is coming on at 8:41 PM in the valley, when darkness crawls in, dragging stars, moon, and cooler temps with it.

A cat inspired today’s music. I was still abed, struggling between alive and dead, lingering in that limbo state between being asleep and being awake. WHEN —

A sudden gallop on a hardwood floor, with a sliding sound that ended with a bang against the door, a cat did appear in the room, pausing for a moment to give himself a groom. THEN —

With a new battle cry (“Freedom!”) he was off again, racing around bed and then, galloping back down the hall, plowing again into a wall.

The time was 5:40 AM.

As I tried to sink back to sleep, I thought about the beast’s antics. And thought, maybe it was a jailbreak. Which, then, sometime later, kicked in Thin Lizzy with “Jailbreak” from 1976. Lovely song. Perfect for a big cat with an overactive imagination.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and, you know, get the vax. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends and the nation north of the U.S. I send them wishes for a joyous celebration and greater success and prosperity.

Today is July 1, 2021. A Thursday. Pale gold burnished the upper reaches of hills, trees, and mountains at 5:38 AM. It’ll fade away into night at 8:51 PM. Sunshine will deliver us to some mild heat — the low nineties — today. Smoke comes and goes to the valley from the Lava Fire by Weed, California. If you want to see the fire, head to Mount Ashland, just outside town, which offers a panoramic view of the smoke. Flames are visible at night.

The deepening drought delivered another depressing blow. Water limitations and drought meant the blueberries didn’t come in at our favorite u-pick-em site. We’d been doing this for over a decade. It’s one of our Ashland traditions. The blueberry owners are trying to keep the place alive and hope to see us all next year.

Also canceled for the second year is the July 4th Parade. COVID concerns, yes. Planning needed to start months ago and where we’d be now was too uncertain to plan. The fireworks are canceled. I’ve become ambivalent about fireworks. Loved ’em as a child. Now I understand what they do to the land and animals. Sadly, this year, the drought is too intense to risk fireworks. Locals are still reeling from Ashland’s near miss last September. Yeah, near miss, not quite. Two thousand homes were destroyed on the north edge of town. Talent and Phoenix were reduced to smoky piles of rock and wood in many areas, gutting the towns physically and emotionally. With those emotional scars still vivid, many are relieved that the fireworks won’t take place.

Without too much surprise, I bet, I introduce a song about summer, called “Summer”. By War, it was released in 1976. Some may claim that 1976 was a simpler time. It may’ve been for many. For others, it was a time like the rest, working to feed yourself, working to beat the heat, playing to relieve the stress, doing what you can as you face an uncertain future. Who sang, “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near”? That’s right, Jim and the lads, back in another century. I used to sing, “The future’s uncertain and the end is always clear.” Made me sense to me

Anyway, here’s “Summer”, a mellow reflection on the hot season. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s a chilly Tuesday morning, April 20, 2021. I wanted to put the year as 2015. I don’t know what’s causing that faux temporal shift.

We had our first sun peek at 6:22 AM and expect to bade farewell for the day at 7:58 PM. It’s chilly because clouds are shading the edge from the sun’s influence. Still, 55 degrees F is better than, say, ten, twenty, or thirty degrees colder. The cats are eating it up, diving outside as the sun breaks, staying out in the yard, floofzing away, awakening when yard work or birds disturb them. 76 degrees was seen yesterday, which was great for walking, sitting outside in a chair reading, etc. I expect today to be about six degrees cooler.

For music, I’ve trapped an old Ramones song in my brain. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is a short but rousing ditty that came out in 1976. I’d always interrupted the lyrics ‘tight wind’ as ‘time wind’. I thought the idea of a time wind was really cool. “Hey, it feels like the 1960s blowing through here.” A little disappointed when I learned the true lyrics.

They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go

They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

We’ve landed on Earth, Tuesday, Coffee 13, 2021. Coffeerise was at 6:34 AM and coffeeset is expected at 7:50 PM.

Sorry, have coffee on my brain. Was walking around the kitchen singing the old round to myself, “C-o-f-f-e-e is what I need. It’s a drink some people wake up with. That it makes you nervous is a myth. Slaves to a coffee cup, they can’t give coffee up.” I learned that thing in grade school. Sing it often as I make my coffee.

Speaking of singing, between the coffee song, I was singing “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, 1976. Except, I subbed coffee for dancing. “You are the coffee queen, fresh and strong, that’s why you’re in this song. Coffee queen, felt the heat from the coffee machine, oh, yeah.”

Tres popular, topping the charts in multiple nations, that song was relentlessly played everywhere in 1976. Disco club DJs loved it — or the dancing crowds did. This morning, it’s in me like a strong cuppa. So I share it with you, a magnanimous gesture on my part, to get it out of my head. You’re welcome.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get the vax, and have a cuppa. Doesn’t need to be coffee, but it’s what I need.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Welcome. Today is the first day of the second month of 2021, a.k.a. Feb. 1. And it’s a Monday. Sunrise was 7:24 AM and sunset will be 7:25 PM, for ten hours and one minute of sunshine, in theory, here in Ashland, Oregon. Currently sitting at 50 degrees F, our weather is comfortable mix of clear sky, clouds, and sunshine with the potential for rain, clear sky, and sunshine.

January, 2021 went by like whipped cream from a can, with a lot of hissing and noise but quick. After an attempted coup and a whole lot of lies from the outgoing POTUS and the GOP, a new POTUS was sworn in. With it comes a new era. Yeah, fingers crossed on that. I know, in many ways, it’s frustrating BAU, but some sense of our values and processes are restored. Having Trump gone and Biden in isn’t an elixir; work is required.

With all these changes, today’s song came as I turned over my wall calendar. Yes, I keep a wall calendar. It’s sentimental of me. Produced by a photography, it’s of the Group 7 Can-Am racing series, the racing I most fervently followed as a young teen.

Today’s song is “Turn the Page”. Originally written and recorded by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in 1972, it was released in 1973, but the 1976 live version is the cover I always turn to. Be positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Move forward. Turn the page.

Here’s the music.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today is January 29, 2021, the first ‘last Friday of the month’ in 2021. Sunset was at 7:29 AM. Sunset will be at 5:21 PM. Outside, it’s 37 degrees F and slowly drying under a gray smeared blue sky. Looks like one of those days when it could get sunnier but it also could get cloudier and rainier. Ah, typical southwestern Oregon.

The last Friday of the month used to be significant in the organizations I worked for in the military and civilian worlds. Reports were requested on the last Friday of the month. Summaries were given. Expectations set for the next month. Funny how much revolved around the last Friday of the month.

Thinking of Friday, I thought a Friday song would be appropriate. First into mind on that note is always the 1975 Steeley Dan song, “Black Friday”. It’s reigned as a theme song a coupla times. So has “Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure (1992). Thinking a little harder on it, I came up with a few others, like Katy Perry’s song, “Last Friday Night” and “Livin’ It Up Friday Night” by Bell & James, which was a friend’s favorite back in the late 1970s. He’d sing that song every day of the week.

A cat interrupted proceedings, though. Talking to him, I mentioned that he was a wayward floof. Wayward kicked an old Kansas song, “Carry on Wayward Son” (1976) into the musical stream, where it’s gone into loopy mode. So, for your listening pleasure and my sanity of mind, here it is.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Happy Friday.

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