As the Earth turned, the majestic local star, Sol, rose over the Cascades, striking Ashland in the valley at about 5:40 AM on Thursday, May 27. 2021. As part of the celestial dance, the Earth’s rotation will make it appear that the sun is moving across Earth, disappearing from Ashland’s view around 8:36 PM, give or take some seconds. Night will then rule again. Meanwhile, daunting clouds have collected, plotting against blue sky and sunshine, muttering, “Rain, rain…”
Speaking of night, the 1978 Cars song, “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”, arrived into my interior sound system last night. I was out checking on the moon, ensuring it’d shown up and looked okay. I’m a moon child, see? It being my ruler, I had a little amygdala hijacking that caused a spasm of worry, OMG, what if the moon isn’t there? But it was there, in my sky, a formidable silvery disc ruling the stars.
Anyway, here’s the music. Stay pos, test neg, wear a mask as required, and get the vax, you know, like they’re doing in Vermont. Seventy percent have gotten at least one of the shots there, leading the United States. WTG, Vermont! Keep on truckin’…
As inexorable as the sun arriving in the east each AM, we’ve cycled into another Tuesday, labeled May 11, 2021, for official record keeping. The star known as Sol punched in at 5:54 AM and will punch out as regular as Fred Flintstone at 8:21 PM. Spring sunshine is as plentiful as green leaves and temperatures are expected to tiptoe into the upper seventies today. Lovely.
Feeling well today. During my Saturday evening hospital visit for a damn kidney stone, I was given batteries of tests to verify all is well. They keep saying things like, ‘you’re remarkably healthy.’ I always think, you should see the other guy. CT scan showed liver, gall bladder, appendix, intestines, colon, stomach, lungs, kidneys all in great shape. Blood work support those claims. So, yea, me, or more rightly, yea Mom and Dad for giving me genes that set me on the road of having good health.
Mom and Dad are still about. Dad and his siblings are all alive. Now residing in San Antonio, Texas, Dad is the oldest of that lot of five. Mom is less fortunate. Living in Pittsburgh, PA, second to youngest, she’s the sole survivor of her gang of five. Mom is 85 this year and Dad is 89. Mom had health problems over the last five years, dealing with various heart, lung, foot, and cancer issues. Now she consumes twenty meds a day but still moving. Dad had been doing well but suddenly has issues the last three years. Now he’s losing blood, uses a walker or a cane, oxygen at home for his COPD, and several care-givers coming in a few times a week. Despite several hospital stays, cameras inserted into various orifices, and lots of blood and urine work, they don’t know where the blood is going. His spirits are up, though. Dad is pretty indefatigable.
Mom and Dad divorced almost sixty years ago. They’ve arrived at this point in their lives with good partners. Dad is on his third marriage (although he lived with another three women for years) while Mom is on her sixth fellow. Mom and her fellow are not married but they live together. I’m happy they have someone growing old with them, taking care of them. I’ve seen how hard it is when you’re elderly and living alone.
I’m listening to The Clash in my head this morning. They’re singing the 1978 song, “Guns On the Roof”. Reading about the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan brought me to this song. We’re still leaving one thousand troops in there, along with contractors. We’ll also continue pursue our latest military fad, drone warfare. That brought up The Clash line, “I like to be in U.S.A. Pretending that the wars are done.” The United States is never done with war. Peace would wreck too many stock portfolios.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Friday! Today is February 19, 2021. Just nine days remain before we put 2021’s second month into the books. Today’s sunrise was at 7:02 AM while sunset will be at 5:48 PM here in southern Oregon. Temperature is 41, which isn’t bad, if you have some sunshine, which we don’t. We do have more rain.
I used to love Fridays, right? Back in the days when you could go places and do things, PC (Pre Coronavirus). Now it’s reduced to another mark on the calendar.
Today’s music came from yesterday’s post-writing walk, trying to put the moments into a box. The song is “I Need to Know” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from 1978. I was walking along, wrestling with the next chapter, wondering WTF the muses were. Probably snowed in elsewhere, I told myself, and then imagined them quarantining somewhere. I was basically thinking, “I need to know,” which is, um, what Petty sings.
I was also thinking about a story read yesterday regarding scientists communicating with lucid dreamers. I dream a lot so this fascinated me. While the findings’ basics impressed me, I really wanted to communicate with my muses. They come and go like college students at a party some days, sneaking off in search of other adventures, drinking too much and passing out. Like, hey dudes, where are you?
They returned after a while. I asked, “Where have you been?”
Shrugs. “Places.”
“Doing what?”
“Things.”
“I’ve been expecting you. I’ve been waiting for you?”
“So?” Shrug. “Your prob.”
It all ground to a halt as the muses smirked at me. I think they were stoned, high, or drunk. I’ll give them some coffee. Chocolate works great for luring muses out, too, but I don’t have any. Best that I can offer them is a Lara Bar.
Got the coffee. Time to go try writing like crazy. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers
Sunshine and wind is ruling this Ashland, Oregon, Tuesday morning. The sun rose at 7:39 AM, pushing the air temp up from last night’s low of 29 F to the current 43 F. We’re hoping to hit the mid-fifties before the sun shuts down the day’s operations at 5:10 PM.
“Psychobabble”, a 1982 Alan Parsons Project song, rules the mental musical stream this morning. “Because of dreams?” you ask. Why, yes.
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night Tell you ’bout a Dream that I have every night It ain’t kodachrome and it isn’t black and white Take me for a fool if you feel that’s right Well I’m Never on my own but there’s nobody in sight
I don’t know if I’m scared of the Lightning Trying to reach me I can’t turn to the left or the right I’m too scared to run and I’m too weak to fight But I don’t Care it’s all psychobabble rap to me
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night It’s in dolby stereo but I never hear it right Take me for a fool well that’s alright Well I see the way to go But there isn’t any light
With COVID-19 pushing out variants with higher transmission rates, hospitals staggering under their loads, and the global death count over two million and still going (400,000 in the U.S. as of this morning), I’d be remiss to not remind you to stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Get a vaccine when it comes your way, too.
Monday in Ashland arrived with thin but all-encompassing fog and a thermostat hovering around 37 F. Sunrise was at 7:39 AM, evidenced by growing light but no visible sun. We’ll see if it shows before sunset, expected at 5:04 PM.
Looking out at the fog, I thought about what a gray day it was. No immediate gray songs leaped into the mental stream, but the 1978 Foreigner song, “Blue Morning, Blue Day”, filled the space. This song about lovers growing apart doesn’t fit anything about today, unless I stretch it as a metaphor for the United States and its political positions growing apart. Or, taking it further, I can apply it to a growing gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Or — stay with me here — the song can be about people losing touch with reality, getting swept out of their heads by conspiracy theories.
Naw, doesn’t really work. It’s just about lovers.
Still, the song is in me head, so I’m putting it out to you. Be positive, even when the weather is gray and cold, test negative, and wear a mask, now more than ever as these COVID-19 variants rise and spread. Hey, that’s an intriguing book title: Rise of the Variants. Someone should go write it.
After masking up, we went grocery shopping this morning. I sort of felt like a ninja, what with being masked and out in the dark. Ninja shopper! (Critics are calling it a most-see comedy!) Sunrise was at 7:43 AM; we were back in the house at eight. After returning, “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones (1978) crawled into my mental stream. I suspect that as I put groceries away and contemplated the day’s activities, some underlying sentiments about routines and the way things were before the pandemic landed were circulating in my head. Thoughts like, be a nice morning to go to a coffee shop, have a cuppa, do some writing, you know?
(Ah, let’s indulge for a moment, remembering how it was or imaging how it’ll be, walking down the hill (for the coffee shop is on a hill, 4th Street) through morning air that chills my skin with wintry graces, keeping me huddling in my clothes. Silence is keeping us hostage, although a truck’s far away exhaust tries to break the scene. Tissue-thin sunshine keeps it from being night but this light has faint presence and lacks many therms. I open the door.
(A bell jingles in response to the door’s movement. Faces come my way for a moment, assessing my presence. Warmth smooths over my face. Classic rock bounces off hard surfaces. Espresso machines hiss and gurgle, as patrons laugh, chuckle, and speak. Workers call to each other about croissants (yes, they’re done, maybe burnt on the edges and caramelizing from the clues snaking up my nostrils). Sniffing against a delicate dribble of escaping snot, I eye the place for a free work space, darting away to stake my claim. After parking my laptop bag on my territory, I join the line, watching, waiting, smelling, listening, calculating time and costs, gazing at the glass counters and the pastry temptations within, considering options about what to eat and drink.)
But we are where we are, enduring, surviving, hoping to see a light at the tunnel’s end, fingers crossed that it’s not some new disaster coming toward us. Stay pos, test neg, wear a mask, and enjoy the music. Cheers
Nice to wakey to some sunshine. Yesterday stayed a dark day, as if the day mechanism was stuck, unable to bring day to fullness.
Don’t know the roots of today’s song in my thinking. Just came to me as I was making the bed. “It’s A Heartache” was recorded and released by Bonnie Tyler in 1978, becoming a major hit for her in several countries.
Hope you enjoy the choice. The song starts slow and flat, almost a country and western dirge to my ears, and then builds. Remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden has been declared the winner over Trump. Mr. Biden will become the next POTUS.
Many have cried, “At last, the four-year-nightmare is over!”
Yeah, no.
I’ve seen this movie before. Just when you think the Terminator was dead and Linda Hamilton was safe, here he comes again. When you finally believed John McClain had vanquished the terrorists, one more shows up with a final effort to shoot and kill him.
That’s where we’re at in this election scenario. It’s not time for the credits yet.
Trump embraced America’s worst ideals and created a nasty legacy. Raising conspiracy theories and outlandish challenges to science and common decency to new levels he’s enabled the same in people who would otherwise be mostly decent, friendly, capable members of society.
He wasn’t alone, no. Fox News remains out there amplifying the trumpshit. Trump’s GOP enablers, like Mitch McConnell, were re-elected. The slug who screwed the United States citizens countless times during Mr. Obama’s terms, who has stonewalled legislation, remains in office.
Trump and his minions will be out there on Twitter and Facebook, continuing their shameless litany of absurdities and outright garbage. And Trump is still in office for a few more months. As petulant, petty, hateful, cruel, and shallow as he is, I don’t expect these next few months to go without incident. He’s also not likely to accept the results, but continue going to court, demanding recounts, and posting lies about the situation. And his supporters will lap it up and amplify it. So, no, it’s not over.
Chris Rea had the perfect song for it, though. Here’s his 1978 hit, “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)”.
Fool if you think it’s over ‘Cause you said goodbye Fool if you think it’s over I’ll tell you why
This song seemed everywhere for a while, but it’s one of those that’s been put on the bottom of the pile. It doesn’t seem to get much air play these days. Did its mix of acoustic and electric guitars not age well?
“Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)” by Styx rose through my mind’s layers as I read political news from the right about how great Trump is. Absolutely everything, from this young man’s point of view, was brilliant. Trump, to him, is powerful and intelligent, returning the United States to a position of international prestige and influence.
COVID-19? Why, that’s overhyped, as Trump just proved, in the young (his claim – I don’t know how old he is, just his claims) right-winger’s mind. No worse than the flu and already going away. No, the greatest threat to America comes from “libtards” and their willingness to give everything away (he believes “Obama destroyed America and the economy”). Further, Trump’s recent sickness was really just a cover for him to rise up and finally vanquish the Dems and “libtards”.
Okay.
So, yes, reading him, I thought, “You are really fooling yourself.” I can’t say that he’s under a rock; no, he’s fooling himself with his conviction that everything on the “lamestream media” is fake news. I don’t understand how they — these right-wingers who insist everything is fake news — receives the real news. That’s an opaque process. So, I reiterate, he’s fooling himself.
Which brings me back to Styx’s 1978 song, “Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)” from theiralbum, The Grand Illusion. For my part, I think Trump’s claims about what he’s done is just grand illusion. Maybe it’s just me fooling myself.
Three songs have been jumping in and out of my attention stream during the preceding twelve hours. You may have heard of them: “Purple Rain” by Prince, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart, and “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summers. All were pop hits in their respective years, 1984, 1978, and 1979.
Each had a different reason for being in my head. “Purple Rain” was kicked into mind by a photo of Jacaranda trees in South Africa on Facebook. Purple dominated in beautiful fashion, stirring thoughts of Prince’s song. It’s a glorious, hopeful song from my perspective.
“Hot Stuff” came about from my spicy dinner burrito. I bit into something and my taste buds squeaked, “Hot stuff.” The song then gained traction from its use in the 1997 movie, The Fully Monty”. Four of the main characters are in line in the unemployment office during a low point in the movie. The song comes as background music, and they grudgingly start moving and dancing to it.
“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” just popped into my head, though. A spoof on the disco scene, the song was ubiquitous that year, heard on television and radio, a staple in humor from people on the streets to late night comedians.
While three strong choices are there as amusement for my head and theme song for the day, “Purple Rain” wins.
Honey, I know, I know, I know times are changin’ It’s time we all reach out for something new That means you too You say you want a leader but you can’t seem to make up your mind And I think you better close it and let me guide you to the purple rain
Michael Seidel, writer 