Tag: 2002

Frida’s Theme Music

Ashlandia remains in a stable weather pattern for today, June 27, 2025, Frida in our reality. Like yesterday, our highs will encroach on the mid 80s while we enjoy 62 F at the mo.

Ashlandia’s current problem are aggressive deer. This has been an off and on thing and doesn’t usually get as much press as other animals, like cougars and bears. The cougars haven’t been in the news much. The bears have just bee Yogi-ing trash cans. The deer, with new fawns being born, have declared war on dogs and people coming too close. Some of them are bold and forthright, imitating Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, insisting, “You shall not pass.” The dog-walking people, dog leashed, respond to the deer, “But I live there.” It’s a challenge. A city committee studied the issue in 2008 but no effective solutions were found. With four aggressive does finding the NextDoor spotlight in different city areas, it’s recycled into our awareness. That cycle itself is a product of drought; the deer were out of the area when we were parched and conserving water for more than a decade. Now that we’re water rich with thick greenery, the deer are enticed back into the area. Humans (with leashed dogs) and deer are getting acquainted anew.

A pause for silent reflection for Bill Moyer, journalist, press secretary, writer, 1934-2025. Watching him and reading his commentary and essays informed me and shaped my thinking.

Thinking that I wanted to break my current dark cycle, I asked The Neurons to please come up with some chill music for the morning mental music stream. They delivered Carlos Santana with Michelle Branch from 2002 and the “Game of Love”. Wikipedia provided some background to the song that I didn’t know.

The song had originally been recorded with New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, but album producer Clive Davis felt a female voice would maximize the song’s appeal and a recording of Santana performing “The Game of Love” with Tina Turner as vocalist was completed. When Turner declined to participate in making a video for the track, Davis recruited Macy Gray to record a replacement vocal. When Davis was not satisfied with that version, Michelle Branch was asked to record the song,[2][better source needed] with Branch’s rhythm guitar playing also added to the track. Branch said, “It was the first time for me to sing somebody else’s song. Usually I’m like: ‘Oh I want it this way’ and I’m in charge…I didn’t meet [Carlos Santana at the recording session], I didn’t know what was going on…It felt to me like wow it seems like there’s so much at stake, I’m going to go in there and just sing my heart out and just cross my fingers.”[3]

Coffee is arriving at my major internal waypoints. Time to rock up again. Hope you have a great one. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: buzzy

Rain and wuthering rule Monday, Feb. 19, 2024 in Ashlandia, where the roads are average and the people can be nice. 52 F now, circumstances have aligned to deliver 56 F. Rain falls in short showers, and sunshine sometimes clear through the layered cloud cake to brighten the scene. Mainly, though, it’s wind and rain.

You probably know the weather situation annoys the home floofs. How can you expect us to go out in this weather and be wild animals, they complain. Do something about it.

“Would if I could,” I tell them, “but the door game must cease. Here, have a treat.”

“Thanks,” they grumble, devouring treats. “More. Come on, don’t hold back, it’s rainy and windy. More treats! We deserve them.”

With his improved health, Tucker shows more interest in Papi, displeasing to Papi. Papi starts past; Tucker heads for him. Papi breaks into a short gambol. Tucker attempts to give chase. His mind is game but his elderly joints and muscles call, “Hey, take a chill pill.”

Today’s theme song comes from things happening to others. The phrase, “What would you do in my place?” comes up. Out of that comes The Neurons with Coldplay performer “In My Place” in the morning mental music stream. This 2002 melding of vocals and instruments is heavy with regretful wonder, just like the people I communicated with. Not a bad song, but it wore out its welcome with me for a while. Commuting along highway 101 and Interstate 280, and various expressways, the song found frequent radio time for a while after its release and became one that often prompted me to change the channel. It just happens sometimes.

Be strong, stay positive, keep leaning forward, and for the love of democracy, please vote. Coffee — second cup — pulled up. Time to sip and write. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Whensday’s Theme Music

Mood: bubbly

Hello, fellow travelers. Today is Whensday, January 24, 2024. For some reason, when I started typing the date, the autotype tried changing the date to December 19. WTAF?

Moody gray clouds tease rain threats and wrestle with the blue sky. Sunshine shoots between them as the clouds jostle to takeover. There may be factions up in the troposphere, arguing over what the weather should be like in Ashlandia, where the deer are numerous and an annual subject for disagreement in our burg. It’s 52 F and mostly cloudy, and the high should have the thermometer pausing at 56 F. It’s rained and it’s windy and more might be on the way.

Reading some emails this morning, an update from Scottie’s Playground came up: Jesus 2.0/Christopher Titus/Armegeddon Update. Seeing that headline, The Neurons instantly shuffled “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). As Titus mentions, evangelicals have appointed DJT as their own personal Jesus. They tolerantly overlook his lying, cheating on his wives and affairs by declaring, “Everyone has a past,” and threat of violence, and snarl at the rest of us to stop being so mean to TFG and them. They’re just promoting this guy to make the world better, and they know this because god sent him!

While I cite the original Depeche Mode version of “Personal Jesus”, I also recommend and include the 2002 Johnny Cash cover. As his health was falling, JC — that’s Johnny Cash and not Jesus Christ — thoughtfully covered a number of rock songs, bringing a deeply personal delivery to them that makes ’em worth listening and thinking about.

In the means’ while, this is Whensday again because I’m weary of holding my breath and waiting for things to resolve, asking myself (drum roll), when will this be resolved? ‘This’, of course, is the Trump led, MAGA fueled, GOP supported, 3% funded effort to end Democracy in the United States. Whether that’s hyperbola is part of the whole Whensday question. We already know from experience that DJT was a sadsack of a POTUS, but weirdly, the MAGAs believe he was brilliant. I attribute a chunk of that to asymmetrical expectations.

Asymmetrical expectations were pointed out on Pondering Politics on Youtube when they dissected Gavin Newsome’s recent appearance on Bill Maher. Jessiah points out how differently the world, including the media, responds to the political parties in the US and their leaders when the MAGA segment unleashes a cruelly flavored shit storm versus reactions to when the Democratic side points something out, and Jessiah, our political nerd host, brings receipts. It’s worth a listen, IMO.

Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward. Coffee has been sampled and approved, and is now being guzzled. Here’s the Cash and DM videos. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: up

Despite a cloudy presence, it’s a sunny Tuesday, November 7, 2023. An election day in many precincts, we’re not voting on anything this year in Ashlandia, where the voters are blue with purple tints and mostly retired professionals. It’s 49 F now with plans to burst into the low fifties, perhaps even hitting up to 53 F. Woo – break out the shorts and tank tops.

Do people still wear tank tops?

My clothes amused me today after I dressed. They were so funny, cracking jokes among themselves. Yeah, I need to say that information differently: The Neurons pointed out how old my wardrobe is, amusing me. Like, the jacket was purchased in San Francisco at Macy’s in December, 2005, during a trip to the city from our new home in Oregon to visit with friends and hear some blues at a club. Pants, underwear, and socks are fairly new at four ~ five years, but my brown Nunn Bush shoes are over twenty-five years old, which strikes me as impossible. And they still fit and are amazingly comfortable. Just a little older than the shoes is the Arrows shirt, purchased at the Naval Air Station Moffett Field Exchange back in 1996.

Weird what memories stay sharp in the mind. Adding it all up, I’m an old clothes man who will never be accused of being a fashion plate. Oh, well.

I keep finding pieces of kibble at odd places in the house, such as the bedroom hallway, in the living room by the television, and in the office. I normally pick them up and toss them away. Yesterday, though, I saw Papi, the ginger blade, come up, sniff the kibble, look around, and then head for the feeding station. That put it all into context: these kibble pieces are not lost or misplaced, but precisely located elements of the KPS, the shorthand for the Kibble Positioning System. Consulting the KPS provides the floof about food locations. The floofs have such amazing technology, yeah?

The Neurons knocked me back with the music they slotted into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fishy). I was in the kitchen, minding my own business, getting on with needs. Having fed the house floofs, I’m preparing my own brekkie when I hear, “Words can’t bring me down.” Within a heartbeat or two, I’m hearing more of Christina Aguilera singing “Beautiful” from 2002.

Why this song today? I asked Der Neurons.

No, they didn’t respond, but I knew that it was about words. First, words in the news about polls, politics, and elections; then words about wars, killings, and death; and finally, words in my novel-in-process and where it stands and what I’m gonna do with it next.

It’s such a strong and lovely song, though, well sung and produced, I’m happy with it in the MMMS.

Every day is so wonderful
Then suddenly it’s hard to breathe
Now and then I get insecure
From all the pain, I’m so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring me down… Oh no
So don’t you bring me down today

To all your friends you’re delirious
So consumed in all your doom
Trying hard to fill the emptiness
The pieces gone, left the puzzle undone
Is that the way it is?

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring you down…oh no
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring you down, oh, no
So don’t you bring me down today

No matter what we do
(No matter what we do)
No matter what we say
(No matter what we say)
We’re the song inside the tune
Full of beautiful mistakes

And everywhere we go
(And everywhere we go)
The sun will always shine
(The sun will always, always shine)
And tomorrow we might wake on the other side

We are beautiful no matter what they say
Yes, words won’t bring us down, no, no
We are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring us down, oh, no
So don’t you bring me down today

Oh, yeah, don’t you bring me down today, yeah, ooh
Don’t you bring me down ooh… today

h/t AZLyrics.com

It’s a song worth listening to and thinking about. I hope you’ll listen and agree.

On to the day. Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and remember that you’re beautiful. Coffee is at hand once again to bolster my will. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday. I’m ready for the weekend. Wednesday felt like Friday. So did Thursday. Now Friday is here, and Friday feels like Friday.

I ruminated about what that means, when a day feels like Friday. It feels like you’re ready to rest and have a change from your routines. Mind you, I don’t work. I set my own routines. So all this is a mind game for me. The mind is winning so far.

Yeah boy, it’s Friday, January 13, 2023. Last night’s winds were the worse of this season’s offerings. They reached sound levels where I looked out expecting to see huge animals stampeding past. I’ve been in hurricanes, typhoons, and tornados. These wind sounds didn’t achieve those levels, but they did inspire The Neurons to say that if this keeps up…

It didn’t keep up, though. After a few power short power outages, not even enough to restart the clocks, but enough that the clocks opened and closed their eyes, the winds finally tailed off in the night’s middle. Rain kept going and still is. Today’s high is 54 degrees F. We’re at 52. After peaking, we’ll going to go downhill into the lower forties. Still not bad temperatures, right? Snow was sitting on some of our surrounding mountain ridges and peaks yesterday. We can’t judge that and whether our drought is over until it’s all done in the spring, but at least rivers and cisterns are full for now.

Sunrise brought enough light through the clouds after 7:39 this morning to look around for damages and see none in my area. Hope the other areas fared as well. I’ll check it out before the sun checks out at 5:02 this evening.

Wind thoughts brought “The Zephyr Song” into the morning mental music stream today. The Red Hot Chili Peppers released it back in the new century’s early years. Lot of rhyming going on in it. It’s a mellow tune with a few harder splashes about being on a wind and connecting with others. Those are thoughts I entertained when I was a teenager, the “wouldn’t it be neat to ride a wind whenever you wanted to, go wherever you wanted, meet others and take them with you” variety of mind playing. Naturally I thought of riding last night’s wind, hurtling the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, thundering over the rivers and plains until energy is spent and a calmer place is found.

Coffee has arrived to soothe The Neurons and uplift the rest of the body. Stay positive and test negative. Worry about tomorrow the day after tomorrow and move it forward. Here is the song. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday, January 6, 2023 barged in like a lion, gusting like March. Sunshine flickered in at – guess what, 7:40 in the morning, again – ameliorating the gloom, licking off the rain’s remains. Sunset comes at 4:54, just like a Chevy big block (yeah, that’s a 454). It’s 46 F now, gonna be 50 F before the sun’s remains drift away.

A lovely sky, striated and marbled blues, lords over the area. Winds keep coming and will keep coming till this evening, they inform us. Down California way, southwesterly of our location, it’s flooding, with trees crashing down, and rocks and mud slip-sliding away, as the atmospheric river wrecks havoc. I think we should name that river the Shitstorm. Then we can just say, “The Shitstorm is running fast again,” and the rest of us will nod and understand. “It’s coming our way.” Then we’ll all know to batten down the patio and get some books and puzzles and candles, and food that can eaten without being heated, and figure out how to keep warm. Been there in other life segments.

I wasted some of my morning singing to my cat. (What, you don’t sing to your pets? Animal.) I was singing to the tune of “Fell in Love with a Girl” by the White Stripes (2002). It was one of those songs I regularly heard while blitzing errands in that era, living in Half Moon Bay, dashing over the hill to go to work Monday to Friday and shopping on the weekends. The floof in question was Tucker, who was shadowing for attention, so I cheered him up with the song. That was the plan but the boy looked more like he was thinking, “That’s not what I wanted at all.”

Anyway, The Neurons of course delivered the real song by the White Stripes to the morning mental music stream, where Jack White still delivers chords and manic vocals to my head.

Time for coffee, isn’t it? Are you sure?

I’m sure, so here I go again, for the day’s first cup. Have a merry one. Stay pos and test neg. Here’s the Stripes. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

If this is Friday, it must be October 21, 2022. Maybe it’s the other way around.

Sunshine broke the night’s hold a little before the official 7:30 AM time, kicking some heat into the 45 degrees F morning. Mists rose, giving a slow reveal of leaves reveling in their new brilliant finery.

We’re to see 72 F today, they say, before sunset ends the show at 6:20 PM.

I spent the morning helping my wife and her friends setting up a 75th birthday celebration for their exercise instruction, who coincidentally is celebrating forty-five years as an instruction with the same organization. My music comes from standing in a line today, waiting to do some things. Without prompting, I began humming the start to “By The Way” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Neurons quickly joined in, and the next thing I knew, the song was settled into the morning mental music stream. I was in Atlanta shortly after the song came out, visiting the corporate headquarters. I’d heard the song on FM and then caught the video while working in my hotel room. After seeing the video, the song’s tempo change made more sense to me.

Coffee has arrived. Exercise a positive attitude. Try to remain negative with your test results for COVID and the flu. I wish you well this Friday. Here is the video. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

The results are in: it’s Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022. Got to recondition myself to put in the new year. Used to be quite a challenge when check writing was the norm.

Windy today. Warming up but inches of snow still bury all but the streets. 39 F right now, up from 25, on the way to 45 F. The 7:40 AM sunrise was a low watt affair, a lazy crawl of light over the valley’s shadows. Sunset is anticipated at 4:51 PM.

We’d planned a walk yesterday, as unoriginal as a ton of people also thought would be a great idea for the new year. Encountering friends, though, we were given warnings. People were falling; the footing was treacherous. An abort was called. Weather brought to mind a Phish song, “Seven Below” that I used to hear on the radio on the alt adult radio stations around 2002, 2003. For the record, Phish Food is my favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor. Here’s the official description: “Chocolate Ice Cream with Gooey Marshmallow Swirls, Caramel Swirls & Fudge Fish”

Blue, splinter and grow
New crystals of snow
Seen several kinds
Through seven below

Simple lyrics, right? h/t to AZLyrics.com.

Test negative, stay positive, get the jabs when you can, and wear a mask as needed. Speaking of needs, I’m off to the kitchen for coffee. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Song

I was thinking about change. Part of this came as I watched NFL quarterback Tom Brady and wondered whether his skill sets and strengths are in decline. Part also came as I watched various politicians make statements.

Change comes. Some of the changes forced onto your body by nature and circumstance can’t be resisted. But damn we try. Some of us remember staying up late partying and studying, rushing to work, and then doing it all again. We remember thinking, “I’ll go for a run,” and taking off for three miles, letting the sweat pour out. The blaze of intensity of what we were fades until what we are flickers and sputters.

Gave me a chuckle, pondering those things. I know some who also shrug at being seventy and eighty. You’d never know their true age. Seems like it’s another spin of fates wheel, which way you’ll come out.

From all those morning mental maundering came a song about change and what was, Coldplay’s 2002 wistful tune, “The Scientist”.

Wear a mask, stay positive, and test negative. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music, “All My Life” by the Foo Fighters (2002), is directly related to my dream.

All my life I’ve been searching for something
Something never comes, never leads to nothing
Nothing satisfies, but I’m getting close
Closer to the prize at the end of the rope
All night long I dream of the day
When it comes around, then it’s taken away
Leaves me with the feeling that I feel the most
Feel it come to life when I see your ghost

h/t to Genius.com

The extended opening riffs, followed by Grohl’s breathy, terse delivery of those first lines, convey the dream’s edgy restlessness.

Done, done, I’m on to the next one. Love that declaration.

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