Tag: 1999

Saturday’s Theme Music

Saturday. February 6, 2021. 32 degrees F and foggy.

I was working the morning shift when the phone rang. A woman on the other end had called me with a warning. My car’s warranty had expired. I took down her details and told her I’d check it out.

Oh, sorry, began channeling Sergeant Joe Friday for some reason. Today’s sunset is at 5:32 PM. Sunrise was at 7:19 AM. In history, a month ago, Jan 6, 2021, insurrectionists stormed a session of Congress to ‘stop the steal’. Egged on the sitting POTUS, they were acting on fake information that he’d spread that his defeat was a result of massive fraud and that he had evidence. He’s never revealed his evidence. Nor has any of his mouthpieces.

Five people died that day, based on his lies. More have been arrested. Even more are being pursued be the FBI.

For some reason, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club (1983) gushed into my mental stream in an egregious ear worm incident, where it remains steady. I kept hearing, “You come and go, you come and go,” but the song doesn’t come and go. “Red, gold, and green, red gold, and green. Every day is like survival. You’re my lover, not my rival.”

Sorry. It took over. Little control over my writing thoughts seems in evidence today.

I thought then, that’s just the way you are, which invited the song, “Then the Morning Comes” by Smash Mouth (1999) into the stream. It successfully displayed Culture Club, so here we go.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask (unlike good ol’ Alfie Oakes).

Are you familiar with Alfie Oakes? Owns a grocery store in Florida where no one wears a mask. Says the pandemic is a hoax. Here’s an NBC News story snippet to introduce you to Alfie.

‘The store’s owner, Alfie Oakes, could not be reached for comment on Thursday. He told NBC’s “TODAY” show he knows masks do not work and doesn’t believe the coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.

“That’s total hogwash,” Oakes said, later adding, “Why don’t we shut the world down because of the heart attacks? Why don’t we lock down cities because of heart attacks?”‘

Yes sirrr, we have some veeerrry impressive thinking happening in that head.

Don’t be an Alfie. Wear a mask. Get the vaccine. Dance to some music. (Oh, no, I think I hear Sly and the Family Stone firing up.) “Then the Morning Comes”, stat!

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Our winter snow has passed, leaving us with one inch on my yard, walk, drive, etc. Mostly blue, a gray haze veils the blue. Sunshine washes the snow, drawing up a picturesque scene, and flurries still fall. The snowplow is scrapping the road, dropping red cinders in its path.

Sunrise was at 7:29 AM on this Wednesday morning and sunset will be at 5:19 PM. It’s 34 degrees F outside, and we’re not expecting to advance much higher on the thermometer. It’s January 27, 2021.

Our state and county continue heralding a trend of lower coronavirus positive case numbers. The first wave of county vaccinations are completed; more are being planned. Mine is somewhere in the future.

Although “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd kept playing during one dream, after thinking about the dreams, “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit (1999) entered the scene during the morning’s reflections. After the plethora of bizarre dreams featuring deceased family members, cigars, pies, and jigsaw puzzles, I started remarking to myself and the world (strictly rhetorically, right?), please tell me why I’m having these strange dreams.

“Please tell me why,” is featured as a refrain in “My Own Worst Enemy”, so my mind, acting like some mis-programmed Alexa, began playing the Lit song.

So here we are. Enjoy the video; I’d never seen it before. The bowling alley setting intrigued me. Be safe, test positive, stay negative, wear a mask, and vaccinate. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

After thinking about the dreams and feeding the cats, I was making breakfast and started singing “Black Balloon” by the Goo Goo Dolls (1999). I thought, why not have a song about falling into addiction as a theme song? Seems appropriate for this social media age.

Yeah, my thoughts are slightly spun by the impact of a dramamentary, or docudrama, The Social Dilemma, and all about the efforts to push us to like more and more to make these platforms money. Many people find themselves caught up in chasing information. I go in and out of it, but it mostly bores me. The same stuff is displayed again and again.

Anyway, here’s the music. Hope you find something in it. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vaccine. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This is one of those days when I awoke and for some unknown reason have some song snatch in the stream. Does this happen to others? Am I the only one with a playlist in my head that goes click when I get up and start thinking?

Sure, I’m not. These aren’t the same as earworms, mind you. Sometimes they are earworms, which is a song that’s stuck in your head. There’s a different feel to earworms than just a the mental jukebox flipping something on. These songs aren’t necessarily stuck, just present. I’ll heavily bet that they are related to some auditory cortex wiring, though.

Aside: remembered this WebMD post from a few years ago and dragged it into the light: “Songs Stick in Everyone’s Head”. It mentions reasons related to neurosis and obsessions, and the cognitive itch. As a writer, I become obsessed; that’s a large part of being a writer for me, getting obsessed with ideas, concepts, stories, and characters, and trying to wring them out of my head and into the world in a way that the rest of the world might understand.

Today’s song, “What’s My Age Again?” is from 1999 and a group named Blink-182. I really liked the album name: Enema of the State. Good play on words? With many people and orgs battling ‘the state’ for a variety of reasons, maybe that’s the cognitive itch that supplied my stream with this song.

Or maybe the cognitive itch is the song’s year, 1999. Seems like things really began spinning weird with Bush v Gore and the Florida hanging chads (which could be the name of some kind of group) in the next year. 1999 was a good year for me in my world. Maybe my mind lauds it as the last good year.

Well, here it is. The song, I mean, not my world. It’s a video. I’d not seen it before today, but it’s amusing to watch three naked men (except shoes and socks) running around.

That is all.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Hey, the twenties are almost upon us. This hasn’t gone unnoticed. Almost all of the NYE parties in our town have been inspired to throw a roaring twenties party.

My wife and I are not impressed that they’re paying homage to a decade that ended in the Great Depression. My parents weren’t yet born; her parents, who are deceased, were born in that decade. Nothing about it inspires me to want to party.

No, I’m a child of the rock era. For my theme music for 2019, I’m going with a Prince classic, “1999”, from, um, 1982.

Join my party, or pop up a song that you would like to carry you into a new year and decade. Happy New Year!

I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
So sue me if I go 2 fast
But life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant 2 last
War is all around us, my mind says prepare 2 fight
So if I gotta die I’m gonna listen 2 my body tonight

h/t to Metrolyrics.com, cuz cutting and pasting is easier.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song entered my stream for unknown reasons and has remained on an endless. (I suspect the word ‘high’ may be the key that let the song in.) Anyway, I need to share it with you to dislodge it. Nothing personal.

Not my particular type of music, in general, there’s nothing wrong with this song. By Tal Bachman, “She’s So High (Above Me)” (and why do I think the record company wanted the ‘Above Me’ added to shift thinking away from drugs?) came out in 1999. I don’t have any Tal Bachman music in the house and known nothing about him except that he’s Randy Bachman’s son.

Anyway, enjoy.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Had beers with friends the other night. I hadn’t seen one of them for a few weeks as he’d been traveling to visit family. I asked him how they were, and he said, “Well, they’ve seen better days.” His sister’s caregiver said the doctors thought his sister would go into hospice soon.

Then, as we spoke, “She hadn’t really seen better days. She spent most of her life taking care of her parents.” She’d lived in their house, serving as their caretaker. When they died, about ten years ago, she thought she could finally start living. By then she was sixty and had a chronic disease. Now, five years later, she was going into hospice, even though she was ten years younger than him. All of it terribly upset her.

I thought about it a lot the last few days. She’d never married, never seen better days. She’d a boyfriend for a long time but she was taking care of her parents and didn’t think it would be fair to him so they stayed as semi-serious companions. Then he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

As I walked around, thinking about her situation, I kept humming “Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)” by Citizen King (1999). I’ve done this song before, but it’s been over a year, and I think it fits the days. Most of us have seen better days.

Then the bottom dropped out.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Reading an old Jack Reacher last night (new to me – from 2008) and for some reason, I began streaming the Red Hot Chili Peppers “Around the World” (1999). The Reacher novel, Nothing to Lose, reminded me of some places where I’d been stationed and things that were discussed, done, heard about, witnessed, that sort of thing, you know, the whole been around the world thing.

I’ve not been all around the world, or even all around America. Besides, in the military, and then in marketing, you really don’t see much of the world. For me, I was often flown in, put into a place, typically there for a few days, doing my thing. If it’s a longer time period, chances to explore were found, but many times, it was in and out, and then on to the next place. Funny, looking back, how often I traveled alone, often in a unique role, briefly joining some group of strangers, and then gone again.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Wasn’t streaming anything in my head this morning, save the theme music from “Magnum, P.I.” by Mike Post. I think Mike Post wrote half of the theme music for television shows in the seventies and eighties. Sure seemed like it.

I decided today needed something crunchier. As I walked, my mind recovered a little gem from 1999 by a man named Lenny Kravitz, “Fly Away”. I like those opening chords, and the general message, “I’d like to fly away.” 1999 was a damn fine year for me, maybe my favorite year.

Crank it up and sing it with Lenny. You can even play the air guitar.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Had to hunt this song down.

I was reading the news today (oh, boy), and parts of this song came back to me. After trying and failing to remember more of it as I walked, I finally sat down and googled some remembered lyrics.

Success!

In honor of the POTUS and his administration, here is TMBG with “Doctor Evil,” from “Austin Powers.”

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