Tag: 2020

Thursday’s Theme Music

I’m in the midst of a rebellion this morning. It began when my mind shouted, “No more news! Just back away for a little bit. Please do it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Carefully, I backed away from my mind, eyeing it as I did, trying to gauge its temperament. “Is everything okay?” An innocuous question, I thought.

Too innocuous. “Is everything okay?” My mind launched into a rant that went in every direction at once. I let it rant, biding my time, until the rant petered out for lack of oxygen.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. No Facebook for a bit.”

“For the day!”

“Fine, fine, and no news? Really? You want to — “

“Stop.” My mind’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to guilt me, dude. I won’t have it.”

“I’m not trying to guilt you.”

My mind scoffed. “Sure. Who do you think you’re talking to? Your asshole? I’m your mind, baby. I know you better than you know me.”

I’ve been in these situations before. Time and space were demanded, needed. I would accommodate my mind. “Okay, then. What sort of theme song should I use today?”

My mind glowered for moments. Dark emotions flit over its face. Suddenly, like sunshine had burst through, he brightened. “Spin Doctors. “Little Miss Miss”, 1992.”

“Really?” I remembered when it came out. I was stationed at Onizuka AFB, then called an Air Station, in Sunnyv —

“Stop.”

“What?”

“No trips down memory lane. I don’t want to do any of that bullshit today. Just play the song and write the post.”

I nodded. “Okay, chum, you got it.”

My mind faked a gag. “Don’t call me chum.”

And that’s how today’s theme music selection was made.

0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Back to life for today’s music.

Reading, hearing, and thinking about many black people’s comments yesterday and this morning, I realize (again, sadly) how often they live in tension and fear.

Yet, so many whites do as well – as witnessed by them recorded on videos calling police on blacks just because they’re black.

Blacks have a foundation for their fears; we’ve seen too many videos of police applying unnecessary force and violence on black people, or white people getting away with violence against black people, because, white…black.

As we watch and protest, counter-protest, or hold our breaths and wait, I thought about people and praying, and stumbled into Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer” (1986). The song is about a couple who have nothing but each other, who are hoping to make it together. As noted many times, the song was written during the Reagan era as trickle-down economics were touted. As we know, trickle-down is a bullshit theory that enables the wealthy to get wealthier and provides a cop-out to others, permitting them to issue tax cuts to the wealthy without remorse. (Yeah, and it certainly worked during the coronaivirus in America, as the wealthier managed to increase their wealth while a huge swath of Americans struggle between buying food or paying rent/house payments.)

Anyway…

Seems like, with high-unemployment, a corrupt Republican administration, continuing police brutality and militarization, protests, looting, riots, and then natural disasters AND the novel coronavirus, many in the United States are living on a prayer.

And that’s why it’s today’s theme music.

0

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.

0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music has nuttin’ to do with politics, dreams, cats, or memories. It’s not prompted by introspection and self-questioning. It’s not in memory of a friend that passed away, and it’s not related to the news. It’s just a song by The Weeknd that I enjoy. “Blinding Lights” (2020) just keeps running in my mental stream. I suppose, if I think about the words — about being touched and empty cities — I can establish some rational reason why it’s jumped up out of slumbering brain masses, but it’s a good song, and I’m just going to enjoy it for a few minutes as just a good song.

Never saw the video before this. Takes half a minute to get into the song.

0

Monday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is an Queen song from 1970, “Keep Yourself Alive”.

Keep yourself alive was my reflection to watching protests grow into riots as police and others escalate the situation. It’s been an ongoing mutter in my head as we deal with the novel coronavirus situation. Why practice social distancing, masking, isolation, and good hygiene? Well, to mitigate spreading the virus, to gain time to understand it, to gain time to allow our healthcare systems the chance to cope with it, and well, to keep ourselves alive until a vaccine can be found.

Thought it works well on this first day of June in the year of the riots and COVID-19.

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Woke up this morning and after traipsing through the dreams, urged myself, come on, get up. Seize the day.

Not uncommon words. But my brain then latched on to other words, “One more time around might do it.”

I chased the threads while I did morning business, finally realizing that Soundgarden’s song, “The Day I Tried to Live” (1994), was trying to break through.

Singing, one more time around might do it
One more time around might make it
One more time around might do it
One more time around I might make it
The day I tried to live, yeah

h/t to Genius.com

How many times have I told myself, one more time might do it over different projects and efforts over my lifetime.

I don’t usually have such trouble getting out of bed. Cats generally don’t permit such self-absorbed dawdling.

I think it’s just a sign of the times.

0

Friday’s Theme Music

Yeah, Trump retweeted the sentiment, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

No matter what political party you are, learning that the nation’s President promotes such unreasoning violence and ideals contrary to the nation’s principles is, well, sickening. Is this how the country is united? Is that really the best course to promote as riots break out in cities over another black man’s death as he begged the police officer holding him down, as our nation passes one hundred six thousand deaths from the coronavirus, a time when we should be pulling together, where everyone insists, “We’re in this together?”

While I often hear screams from those on the right about how Democrats are not civil and should respect the President and treat him with courtesy, how can I — why would I? — when he’s encouraging murder against the political opposition?

So, the song by Badfinger, “No Matter What” (1970), arrives in my brain. No matter what is fused directly to getting Trump out of office; no matter what Biden does, I will vote for him, a position that I hate to take. Biden isn’t my first, second, or third choice. I grimace thinking about it, having my thought processes and principles reduced to that single point: vote Trump out. Sickening and infuriating. Biden, if elected, will probably do a decent job, but I really want to advance the nation and world past the status quo where we muddle from crises to crises, issue to issue, putting bandages on problems while rot spreads.

No matter what also comes up as I write my way through this pandemic. No matter what, I’ll write. No matter what, I’ll pursue my dreams.

No matter what, I’ll go on.

4

Thursday’s Theme Music

Yeah, reading the news, following the latest Trumpstorm (“Unfair! I’m shutting down twitter!”), and articles about states under reporting COVID-19 case numbers and deaths (in other words, let’s pretend it’s not so bad, and it’ll all be okay), and another senseless killing (George Floyd – so how was forging a check a threat to those four officers, and why did that fucker keep his knee on his neck when Floyd said, “I can’t breathe”?), with subsequent protests and rioting, while bots push the re-open buttons and people scream about rights (and mock about privilege), and we wait to see what the fuck is going to happen next, Ratt’s classic hit song, “Round and Round” (1984), plays on an endless loop:

“Round and round; what goes around, comes around, I’ll tell you why. Dig.”

Yes, definitely the theme music for today.

 

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑