Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Ah, a little Tuesday Weezer. “Say It Ain’t So.” It’s a relationship song.
Somebody’s Heine’
Is crowdin’ my icebox
Somebody’s cold one
Is givin’ me chills
Guess I’ll just close my eyes
Oh yeah
Alright
Feels good
Inside
Flip on the tele
Wrestle with Jimmy
Something is bubbling
Behind my back
The bottle is ready to blow
1995. Fun video. Terrific album.
(The formatting issue is a WordPress matter. Looks fine on the draft, doesn’t work on the published version.)
I know exactly when I started streaming this song. After completing some yard-work, I went for a walk. As I did, I wondered about the number of Priuses in Ashland. It seems like the number one car. Subaru is well represented, too, followed by BMW models. More Teslas are showing up, but they have a long way to go before they catch the Prius.
As I thought this, I thought about counting cards and remembered, “We count only blue cars, skip the cracks in the street and asked many questions, like children often do.”
Yes, it was Dishwalla and “Counting Blue Cars” from 1995.
Care for a little Smashing Pumpkins music today? “Despite all my rage, I am still a rat in a cage.” Here’s “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” a song fit for the times because of its reek of cynical rage.
I have an affinity for songs about rain. While some are happy songs (“Singing in the Rain”), many of them are about depression or mental illness, like “No Rain.” I like this particular song, “Only Happy When It Rains” by Garbage, because of the delivery, but also the statement it makes. This is a sad and bitter person who likes being sad and bitter. Hey, that’s so honest, and is such a mockery of so many other songs about being happy or morose, those, “Oh, what am I going to do?” songs.
It just happens that today is sunny, with hype that it’s going to be warmish and springish. There’s not a sign of rain.
I like Oasis, and found myself singing “Wonderwall” to myself this morning.
And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
But I don’t know how
Because maybe
You’re gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You’re my wonderwall.
Of course, I was singing it to a cat. Technically, that means I wasn’t singing it to myself. The cat seemed to like it. Of course, they were waiting to be fed.
I dreamed last night that I was driving a convertible with the top down on an oceanside road. I was alone, and the weather was gorgeous. The road could been the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Big Sur and Carmel. I saw myself and the scene from different angles, like I was in a movie montage, but I don’t know what kind of car it was. No one else was seen in the dream, just me, happily driving. (Almost seems like a pretty metaphor for my writing process.) This song, “One of Us,” performed by Joan Osborn was playing on the car radio during this dream montage.
Cheers
Recalling another anniversary (my life is full of ’em!), this one being my retirement from the U.S. Air Force in November, 1995. I was stationed at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, California. This song, “Cumbersome,” by Seven Mary Three, was a popular tune of the time. To paraphrase the lyrics, I’d enjoyed my military career and had some success, but it had become cumbersome.
A crazy dream finished my night. I’d been driving in a borrowed vehicle. It was in good shape, nothing special. Rain was falling. Traffic was dense. I was going a long distance.
We entered a wide tunnel lit with diffused dull yellow lights. More lanes were available. Veering into one, I accelerated, and caught a glimpse of a Chevy pick-up behind me. He’d apparently wanted into the space I’d taken. Now, filled with rage, he was coming up on my bumper.
Still in the tunnel, the road curved. We were going up a hill. I floored the accelerator pedal, keeping it down as engine, road noise, and speed built. Terrified by the speed, and barely in control, I was pulling away from him, and everyone else, when I rounded a corner and almost hit a van crashed on its side. There wasn’t time to stop but I managed to swerve around it. As I thought about stopping for the van and warning the other traffic, I discovered that boulders and rocks were strewn across the tunnel road past teh van. I drove around them, trying to grasp what was happening, and left the tunnel.
Rain was pouring. The day was fading. I reached my destination and pulled in, weary to the bone. It was Monday. I knew I needed to be somewhere else by Tuesday. More travel was ahead. I was with my father’s wife, and her family. Talking to others, she was planning a get-together, and I was there for it. But in flashbacks, I remembered that I’d left some things at my previous location that I needed. I grew conflicted over going back to get them – it had been such a long distance, and an exhausting drive – staying for the event being planned, or foregoing continuing on to my next location. Regarding the last point, I was attempting to understand, where was I going, and was there a need for me to go?
I awoke with this part of the song, “The World I Know,” by Collective Soul, playing in my mind:
So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down.
‘Cause it’s the world I know.
It’s the world I know.
Sometimes, I heard some of the lyrics of this song and think, those are the perfect words for an organic writer.
I’m riffing off the E.L. Doctorow quotes:
Yes, that’s my sentiment. Sometimes wrong turns are taken. So when I hear these words from the Oasis song, “Wonderwall,” I think of the Doctorow quote:
The song continues, “There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how.” That seems to me what writing is often about; we see the scenes and the characters, and seek to explain, but we don’t know how. That’s writing.
Here it is, from nineteen ninety-five, “Wonderwall.”
So many questions are circulating now about last year’s presidential election in the U.S., and Russia’s role in Trump’s surprising election. Information keeps leaking out about Trump insiders lying about when they met with Russians, or if. Donald keeps insisting that it’s all fake news being leaked and then contradicts himself and vows to find and prosecute the leakers.
What’s going on? We need to find out. We might need to follow Ozzy Osbourne’s advice:
“Who can we get on this case?
“We need Perry Mason.
“Someone to put you in place.
“Calling Perry Mason.”
I remember listening to this song after retiring from the U.S. Air Force in nineteen ninety-five. We’d just moved from military housing on Moffett to a little duplex in Mountain View. The web and Internet were penetrating homes and businesses as the online potential became exposed. We were in the middle of the dot com bubble. Start-ups were abounding, and the Bay Area housing market was heating up. “Seinfeld” was the hot television show.
I was unemployed but retired while my wife worked for an advertising agency on Castro Street in Mountain View. Every open house for rentals had dozens of applicants. We managed to find one that was going to be listed. The elderly couple who owned it were cleaning it. We talked to them. They told us to come back for the showing at the scheduled time. We drove away but returned, and offered them a higher rent and deposit. They were still cleaning; we told them we’d take it as is, and finish the cleaning. They agreed. We moved ourselves with assistance from Starving Students. A month later, I began working for a medical device start-up. We lived there for four years, until we bought a house in Half Moon Bay.
Here it is, from nineteen ninety-five, Ozzy with “Perry Mason.”
