Tag: 2015

Sunda’s Theme Music

Well, it’s toasty out there. Step into the sunshine and toasty shifts to broil.

Yes, Sunda in Ashlandia is a hot space. 92 F now, a 98 F high will crisp us before the thermometer drops back to 65 tonight. Last night had us hanging at 80 F at 10:30 PM, which makes it a push to cool the house before the next heat cycle — I mean, day — begins. We will see some cooling on Wednesday, when the temperature sinks to 86 F.

The heat is expected. This is Jun 8, 2025. This is Ashlandia. Summer is coming.

Thinking about the heat pushed a faraway recollection of my father-in-law once saying to me, “It’s hettin’ up outside,” into my mind’s foreground. I laughed, and he responded, “What?” He passed away the year my wife and I returned from our tour of duty in 1991. And the memory of him saying “hettin’ up” was old by then.

Papi was a rambunctious floof this morning. He slept and chilled all day yesterday so his energy cup was brimming over. He was also apparently bored. Starting a little before 5 AM, he came in, jumped on the bed, and purred loudly at me, often tapping me awake or rubbing his little chin against my head or arm. I kept rising and feeding him. By by count, I fed him six times between 5:30 and 8 AM. And he chowed it all down.

Political heat is rising. Americans are reacting to Trump’s ICE raids. Resistance is rising. Americans don’t care for masked gunmen disappearing other Americans off the streets in snatch and grab ops. Getting particularly het up in Los Angeles. Resistant is rising and protests are planned. Numbers are stacking. So is irritation, as are TACO Regime counter measures. TACO has never been on for restraint and is always eager to rush to violence. It would’ve been more of a surprise if TACO called for restraint, but he rushed in 2,000 National Guard troops in a move that’s sure to escalate tensions and further divide the nation. That’s TACO, the Great Divider, bitchboi for billionaires everywhere.

Today’s song is a 2015 tune. Rachel Platten and David Bassett wrote the song and Rachel Platten performs it. “Fight Song” was written when Rachel Platten was at a low point, and sees the song as a vehicle for empowerment. Some sample lyrics for you:

This time this is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now I’ll be strong
I’ll play my fight song
And I don’t really care
If nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got
A lot of fight left in me

Losing friends and I’m chasing sleep
Everybody’s worried about me
In too deep they say I’m in too deep
And it’s been two years
I miss my home
But there’s a fire burning in my bones
I still believe, yeah I still believe

I wasn’t too surprised that The Neurons offered it to the morning mental music stream as I read news and analysis of the LA protests.

Feel free to raise a fist and sing along.

Coffee is at hand. It’s hot, cuz some, like me, like it hot. Coffee, I mean. Hope your day caps off a good weekend for you. Cheers

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Not a good night of sleep to end March of 2025 for me. Twosda, April 1, 2025, has begun with overnight lows in the bottom of the 30s F. 38 F now. Highs will hit the 40s. Squirmy grey clouds shoulder down onto the mountains and separate into misty tendrils. Rain falls. Blue sky is off limits. A skittish sun reassures us it’s daytime.

Papi disliked the rain. He was in and out a billion and seven times between 6 and 8 AM. Fed up by the stale routine, I lectured him. “You’re the cat who cried in and out too many times. If you go out this time, you’re staying out there.” He was mute in response but went out. Thereafte, he beat to come in every ten minutes. I finally let him in after an hour. He reproached me with a look. Nothing has been learned here.

Dreams then contributed to my sluggish state. I had a dream in three parts. The cat kept disrupting it but I kept returning to it. Now I’m on my cup of coffee, looking to it to prompt more blood flow through me.

“We could get a tushy,” my wife says. “It’s very popular.”

She’s referring to a bidet seat. She’s been off and on about this for six months. First on. She wanted one with warm water. Than off because we don’t have an electric outlet by the toilet. I suggested having one installed. She thought about that for a few weeks and then turned that down.

“Do you want a cold water one then?” I asked. That was the natural follow up.

“Let me think about it.”

So she’s back on it today. “We need to measure the toilet,” I tell her. “To ensure it fits.”

“It fits ninety percent of all toilets,” she says.

I’ve heard that before. “We need to measure and confirm it fits our toilet seat’s shape and size. What’s a skirted toilet?” I will do these things later, I tell myself. I don’t want to disturb my morning routine. It already feels wrecked.

Part of my wrecked sensation came from a foot episode. The one which has recovered from surgery. When I arose to partake of Papi’s ingress/egress routine, the foot was painful and stiff. I’d not had any issues with it. So I responded to self, “WTF?” Thoughts of what I did with the foot the previous day were pursued. Nothing meaningful was found. It feels fine now. I register it in my permanent record as another life mystery.

Tame Impala is performing “Let It Happen” in the morning mental music stream. Maybe it’s associated with the dreams. Could also be from thinking about ordering and installing the bidet seat or from pondering the crumbling United States and the GOTP and MAGA response is to it. Although The Neurons have been with me for a few years, I’m still trying to understand how they work.

“Let It Happen” came out in 2015. I didn’t remember that. Looked it up on the net. Wiki thingy’s summary says, “Let It Happen” is about “finding yourself always in this world of chaos and all this stuff going on around you and always shutting it out because you don’t want to be part of it. But at some point, you realize it takes more energy to shut it out than it does to let it happen and be a part of ‘it’.” That’s according to Kevin Parker. Parker is the Australian who wrote the song and performs it.

I think I’m seeing some glimmering of why The Neurons have it racing around my morning mental music stream.

Coffee is not helping much this morning. My bed is singing me a lullaby. But it’s April 1. No foolin’. We’re washing the bed linens. And I want to get on to things. Writing, um, showering and dressing. I also have a bidet to order.

Hope your day is going better. Cheers

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Saturda’s Theme Music

Yesterday, sunshine was uncorked on us. Washing through blue skies, our air temp crested 70 F and lived there for a while. Gorgeous day, right?

Today, it’s 51 F and sunny. But we’re only expecting 63 F. And…rain. Still, pretty springish winter day. ‘Bout average for Ashlandia on Saturda, March 1, 2025.

Yep, a new month has begun. Sixteen percent of 2025 has been experienced. Those expecting a calm after the 2024 elections are probably disappointed. Those working for the Federal government in any capacity are likely stunned. Those hoping for lower inflation are probably too overwhelmed for emotions.

One thing unchanged are the lies that come out of Trump’s mouth. ‘Another lie’: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace smacks down Trump and Vance’s latest claims. No matter the subject, he will reliably lie, twist history, and bloviate, a fool who thinks himself a genius. He’s demonstrated these ‘qualities’ throughout his lifetime. Since he first announced his run for POTUS, it has been recorded and documented. And it sill goes on because his cult followers and the GOTP gleefully slurp it up by the spoonful.

Let me turn away from that. Take a coffee break for a while.

The Neurons dragged today’s song out of 2015. It came from a morning compound of wondering and cogitating as I slept-walked through the morning observances related to cleaning, feeding, eating, drinking. Prepping goes with all that. The routines induced a reflective miasma about being younger. Only, I was not the direct object of these thoughts; I was focused on Mom and Dad. Dad is with his third wife. In his nineties, he has issues but she’s younger than him by a decade and tends him well. His situation is solid.

Mom, though, is 89. She lives with her 95 year-old-fiance. It’s an old, three-story house. She falls a lot. Injuries and worries ripple out of each fall. She blames her back for her falls. I blame pride. I blame her refusal to accept her limitations and adjust her activities to their new scope. I understand; I don’t give up my routines. They’re routines because they comfort or reassure, or we enjoy them. These routines address something in our psychological makeup which isn’t easily altered.

The song is by Lukas Graham. As I went through the thought exercise of looking back, gazing forward, and reflecting on now, “7 Years Old” played in my morning mental music stream. The song is about reflections of being different ages and the attitudes and memories of that age prevail. So it was quite apt for my morning mental meandering.

Coffee and a doughnut are trespassing on my taste buds. Don’t know how they got past my defenses. Hope your day rocks in needed good ways. Here we go, in three…two…one…

Cheers

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Hard to think of this as Twosda. The news cycle overflows the norms like flood waters rushing across the plains.

It’s another hazy shade of winter in Ashlandia. Our temperature is hovering at a more springish 48 F, bestowing us with a feel of winring. Will the sun heed the Doors and break on through? Is rain on its way? The betting windows are still open.

This is Twosda, Feb. 18 2025. I own a lot start after some night hours were investing in comforting and helping a sick floof. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) has been under the weather. He’s resting well now but with uncertainty about his condition, who knows? Fingers and toes crossed and everything.

The Great 2025 American Shitstorm rages on as the Trusk Regime continues wreaking havoc, doing everything to make it all over in PINO Trump’s shallow, broken image. They’re cunning bastards and morally corrupt, basically confirming the worse of what we’ve come to see in the right wing and oligarchs. They want it all and fuck the people. The GOTP’s compass is all about getting re-elected and staying in office, so they’ll only cowardly resist with micey squeaks if their constituents complain. I’d say it’s gonna be a long four years but this has the taste of something more ugly and sinister, a poison pill to remake the United States for the rich and white, with a token nod to Christianity.

Today’s music is a product of serendipity. I’ve been encountering the Scottish synthpop trio CHVRCHΞS in multiple settings over the last week. They were on my car radio last week. Paul Krugman used them a few times as his Coda, I spotted them on SNL, heard them online through another’s post, and encountered them again on the car radio coming home yesterday. On a surprise scale that goes to seven as the strongest indicator for surprise, it was a one when Der Neurons began a CHVRCHΞS song in the morning mental music stream today. I always liked the song “Leave A Trace” from 2015.

Lauren Mayberry sings,

And you had best believe
That you cannot build what I don’t need
And I know I need to feel relief
And I know you’ll never fold
But I believe nothing that I’m told
And I know I need to feel relief

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I enjoy her voice. In some songs, she reminds me of Deborah Harry. Other times, it seems like she’s echoing Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. Sinead O’Connor’s similarities also sneak through.

And yes, there are shadows of 2025 politics spilling through those lyrics for me. The GOTP is tryhing to build what I don’t need, what the world doesn’t need. And yep, some relief from their shitshow would be welcomed in my psyche. But they ain’t gonna fold and go away. Their efforts to create a nation mocking the founders’ ideas keeps on with no relief.

Quick reminder. Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, is a planned day of boycott. Hope you’ll participate. We are. The more the merrier. While it’s targeted on corporations which rolled back DEI policies under PINO Trusk’s encouragement, like Amazon, Target, Best Buy, PBS, NPR, Coca Cola, Pepsico, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and more. Costco is one of the few major corporations which stood firm against DEI changes. Share the news. Make it real. It begins at 00:01 AM on Feb 28th and ends at 11:59 PM.

Coffee has breached my defenses despite my efforts. I admit, I was complicit in coffee’s invasion. Put the water in the machine, added coffe, turned it on, poured it into a mug, put the mug to my lips, tipped up the mug, let the dark goodness cover my tongue and swirled down my gullet. Hope you have a strong, positive day. Here we go. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Funkawetday

It’s Wed-nesday, which originally meant wedding day. People of another age and era ‘wedded’ when the signs were most auspicious for success. That included planting crops, starting a new endeavor or business, starting a new journey, etc. But so many people waited for this day to be declared so they could wed that it became known as Wed-day. The ‘nes’ aspect was added in as adjustments between different dialects, cultures, and eras. True story which I just made up.

It’s October 23, 2024. You know what that means. That’s right, it’s almost time to set our clocks back in ‘Merica. No, I’m not making a clever reference about the election; we are not going back.

It’s cloudy, rainy, chilly. Autumn has thrown its full effects at us. Some of the foliage is wonderfully bright with sizzling scarlets and other red shades to brilliant lime greens and golds. Also spotted pumpkin-hued leaves on a tree. That tree was thinking outside of the bark. But alas, some trees have already dropped their splendor. Brown, curling leaves hang limply, drifting off when the right wing pulls them with a whisper.

45 F right now, we’re almost at our high of 49 F.

I’ll take that rain, though. Fill the reservoirs and cisterns. Replenish water tables. Ease us out of the drought. It’s needed.

Busy day. The centerpiece is a pre-op appointment for my foot issue. The office didn’t co-ordinate with me, which irritates me, but that’s more first world blues, innit? So I’m to be there at 12:25 for a 12:40. Right in the middle of my writing schedule. Add in the commute, etc, and the timing screws up the day.

But it had me propositioning myself about what to wear on a chilly day when I’ll be outside often but also inside, meeting with med staff, blah, blah, blah. The Neurons responded by firing up “Outside” by the Foo Fighters in my morning mental music stream (Trademark wet).

The song came out in 2014. Ima Joe Walsh and Foo Fighters fan. Been a Walsh fan since he and the James gang were rocking. This Foo song had a Joe Walsh guitar solo in it when it was released. Thrilled me to hear ol’ Joe rocking. Couldn’t find a copy of it online so I’m forcing this recording of a live version on you.

Be strong, stay positive, vote blue. Coffee and I have begun our latest collaboration. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Hard frost whitens bare ground. It’s 31 F (yeah, you know what that is in C) and sunny. Gorgeous, really, with a preternaturally blue sky. Our backyard’s flowering pear still houses branches full of leaves, but they’ve gone lemony yellow. The sunshine striking its upper reaches really brings the color to life.

It’s Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of November in the common era year 2022. Sunrise came at 7:18 AM. Sunset is planned by the forces of nature to finish daylight at 4:40 PM. In between, the temperature will rise into the forties and it might run. There aren’t any clouds so I have a jaundiced view to that but then again, weather.

I have “Heavy Is the Head” by the Zac Brown Band with the late Chris Cornell filling the morning mental music stream. The 2015 song reminds me of something in the late sixties/early seventies era of classic rock that might have originated with Black Sabbath, without the finer lead guitar Sabbath’s Iommi brought. I didn’t hear HItH much on the radio back in ’15 but heard it on television while I was traveling and stopping at places, which seemed weird. But it stuck. The Neurons brought it up today because I was teasing my number one cat after number two cat took a swipe at him, talking about how hard it is to be number one and rule the house. Heavy is the crown on that furry black and white head, which led to the song.

Stay pos, test neg, etc. Have a most excellent Tuesday, as they say. Time to say hello to a cuppa joe and shift the morning into a higher gear. Here’s the music.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

The end is nigh! We’re discussing October of 2022, of course. The next flotilla of days, led by November 1st, are cresting the horizon and coming our way as October’s last days pack up the gear, tidy up, and prepare to send October off.

Yes, it’s Saturday, October 29, 2022. Beautiful fall morning here, sunshine, trees sparkling with wet leaves in hues of merlots and reds, golds and lemons, salads and oranges. Sunset cut down the night at 7:40 this morning. Clouds send a fog squad in, but the sunshine quickly dispatched it. Some clouds now roam the higher reaches, calculating approaches. The temperature has perked up to 51 F and will hit 20 C later today. Sunshine will be cut off at 6:08 PM.

BTW, happy birthday to Mom! As she proudly proclaims, she’s a tough old toboggan. That’s our joke, found when her phone corrected her voice text from ‘tough old broad’ to toboggan. I also refer her to a tough old bird, which she enjoys. She’s roving her upper eighties now, and if she likes being called a tough old bird or a tough old broad, I give it to her, especially in the shadow of her September health crises.

The Neurons uploaded The Offspring and “Coming for You” from 2015 into the morning mental music stream. I haven’t heard the song in a few years but the cats were relentless this morning. They kept coming for me through the night, snuggling up for some head scratches, interrupting dreams, breaking REM, knocking on the cat door to go out and come in. I told them, “Guys, I need some sleep. You keep coming for me.” The Neurons tortured that sentiment into The Offspring lyrics, “Well no, hell no, they keep coming for you.” It’s a solid punk anthem heavy on distorted guitar sounds and in-your-visage with their lyrics and delivery.

Time to move on to coffee island, where the brew is hot, pure, and strong. Stay positive, test negative, and do what’s needed to see the pandemic’s end. Here’s the music. Never seen the video before today, but that was fascinating. I can see the song done with cats, though, eyeing you, walking and stalking the night, you know, coming for you…

Cheers

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The Dream Whisperer

It was late November in 2015, just a few days after Thanksgiving. Prompted by a dream, he sat and write. It seemed so outlandish and shocking, he shared it with nobody.

His dream said that Donald Trump would be the President of the United States. At that point, many were laughing at him and his crude, ridiculous bombastic declarations as he demanded President Obama’s birth certificate, and lied. It seemed impossible that he would be POTUS, but the dream whisperer said, “It’s gonna happen.”

In 2020, an epidemic would sweep the world, the dream whisperer said, forcing people to wear masks and stay inside their homes; businesses would shut down. “It’s gonna happen,” the dream whisperer insisted, continuing, that some, driven by the President Trump’s false promises, scoffing remarks, and refusal to heed the advice himself, would disbelieve and refuse to follow the science and medical advisors. The nation’s divisiveness would increase, shocking the citizens and the world.

The final nails would come from escalating violence, the dream whisperer said. As President Trump bullied, so his followers bullied. As he called for violence and to be tough and cruel, so his followers did as he said, acting under the umbrella of being Christians, while demonstrating nothing of traditional Christian principles.

So he saw in 2015, scenes in dreams that shock and dismayed him. Still, he’d written them down, mostly in amusement back then. Surely, it would never be that bad.

But one early June night in 2020, he had another dream. Driven awake, he pulled out the vision from 2015 and reviewed its contents. He’d not be able to believe it; it seemed so stunning and impossible, like a throwback to an earlier era of troubled times in the United States. Hadn’t they evolved past all of those things? Yes, he’d believed they had; that’s why the dream was so difficult to believe. Yet, here they were as a nation…

And now he had a new dream to write, one where he saw where they’d be in 2024. It seemed so different, so impossible because of where they were now —

But that’s exactly how he’d reacted in 2015.

And so, he began to write. History does repeat itself. Sometimes, some of it is good.

At least, that’s what the dream whisperer said.

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is based on a song that came out in 2015. A deeply provocative and thoughtful song, it received a lot of air play and was said to profoundly affect millions of people around the world.

‘Uma Thurman’, by Fall Out Boys, states the secret dreams and desires many of us had when we watched John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing in Q. Tarentino’s 1994 hit film, ‘Pulp Fiction’. 

 

It also features a riff out of ‘The Munsters’, altogether creating an unusually memorable turn in the song. When it came out on the radio, you’d be driving along, listening, and then suddenly hear that and think, “WTF?” The song ends up then addressing not only life in 2015 America, but part of our culture from 1994 and 1964.

‘The Munsters’, starring Fred Gwynn and Yvonne De Carlo as the father and mother of a family of monsters living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, is classic 1960s American television. Here’s the theme music, in case you can’t place it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFCnvH2E-6A

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Today’s Theme Music

I’m a big fan of The Weeknd. I’ve already done one or two of his songs as my daily theme music, with ‘In the Night’ coming to mind. What can I say? His lyrics and melody stay in my stream as I walk about.

I’m not alone. This song, ‘Can’t Feel My Face’, came out in 2015. It was nominated for a few awards and Rolling Stone Magazine named it their top song for that year. As others have noted, his style mixes unusual lyrics with a soft, smooth delivery that is somewhat Michael Jackson-esque. Here it is, ‘Can’t Feel My Face’.

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