Tag: Billy Joel

Mundaz Theme Music

Sunshine is making its way. Yesterday’s prevailing gray has been subdued. Temperatures from 46 to 57 degrees F, now and later. It’ll be cloudy. Rain could slip in. So could fog. We’ll see what we see for today, Munda, December 8, 2025. At least it has a less wintry feel to it. Yeah, I know how much I whine. Other places are digging out of snow, dealing with slush and ice. Here I sit, the prince on his cushion, upset about a pea.

Haven’t done this song in a while. “You May Be Right” is a fave for me. Like the words, their sentiments, the beat, and Billy Joel’s delivery. It’s a ripped from life sort of song. That’s what brought it here today. Mom and sisters are now in open war. One sister said she won’t have naught to do with Mom. Sis, the primary caretaker, said she will no longer speak to Mom or help her. Third sister said she is also not speaking to Mom because Mom is not listening and is shouting at everyone. Exhausting a thousand miles away plus.

Mom wants to return to ‘her house’. Her house has been cleaned out of food. Slowly stripped of stuff to make it saleable, an effort begun back in October. Sis and the others are saying, “Let her go if that’s what she wants.” I tried to make peace. Tried to explain how it didn’t work for Mom in October when Frank was hospitalized and it won’t work now. Sis and the others have moved past caring, they say. Mom has alienated everyone in the house. Sigh.

Tried to explain to Mom why it won’t work for her to return to her place. Mom’s response was, well, startling in its unmoored style. She told me that my sister had gotten to me. Went into something about how that was because she’d been in and out of a wheelchair back in October but now they’re keeping her in a wheelchair so her back and legs are week. Like, what? Mom finished, “I’m going to get out of here, one way or another.”

Frequently in the conversations and texts about the situation, I end up saying, “You may be right.” After observing me thinking it so often, The Neurons decided that I needed the song and cranked it up in the morning mental music stream. Although I often look for recordings of live performances, I enjoy the original video for this song, so here it is.

In reflection about Mom and sis, etc., I had doubts about that arrangement working. Mom is hardheaded; sis inherited that from her. Mom also have several other skills, like being overdramatic and the ability to push others’ buttons. Sis and Mom have history. Nonetheless, I was hopeful. This option was also the only one Mom agreed to. I think all concerned dreamed of a different outcome. Of course, we can’t say how much drug, pain, aging, stress, emotions, etc., is dictating this course. I’ve seen other families endure it with grit teeth and heavy sighs. Now it’s our family’s turn. I don’t have hopes for any sort of quick, easy, or happy outcomes. One of them is texting me right now so I must go see what the latest is.

Need I say, we all miss Frank for his patience, support, and endurance?

Hope peace and grace finds and holds you. I’ve had a couple slugs of coffee. Think I’ll have a few more. Here we go. Cheers

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Satyrdaz Theme Music

It’s the darkest of times, it’s the dumbest of times, it’s Trumpiest of times. Borrowed from Mock Paper Scissors.

Bold sunshine shoots the windows today, Satyrda, November 15, 2025. 52 F now, the other numbers are 65 and 42 F for the day’s highs and low. Sunshine and blue are dominating like an NFL team playing a high school JV team. Lovely to rest my eyes on the panorama and what remains of the colorful leaves after the wind tore through over the last several days.

I was walking yesterday evening. Sidewalks and paths are wealthy with discarded leaves. I kicked ’em up as I passed through them like I was six years old. I always enjoy making that ruckus among the leaves. Meanwhile, I deliberately summoned the music to “New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel. My lyrics were adjusted to “Ashlandia State of Mind” and our local streets, activities, and centers of interest. After singing it last night and gazing out on this morning’s view, The Neurons resurrected the song for my morning mental music stream.

The Trump Regime has made statements about demanding all SNAP recipients re-enroll. They believe the debunked myths that SNAP is corruption riddled. 42,000,000 are receiving SNAP. The huge effort to re-enroll them all will fall on the states and the recipients. Recipients who are often children, working poor, struggling lower middle class, elderly and disabled. If this doesn’t scream, THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT, what does?

With the Trump Epstein Shutdown ended after a record run, attention is swinging hard to the Epstein files and Trump’s place among their annals. Dizzy Donny is displaying deeply demented demeanor. Many like me speculate that he knows the terrible things the files will reveal. Here’s hoping for the best.

BTW, that idea about 50-year mortgages is crackers. Won’t do much for helping affordability. Folks still need down payments, need the income for paying property taxes and insurance, and insurance is going higher and higher in many regions due to more extreme weather — but please, let us not say anything about climate change. Heaven forfend the TACO Regime even thinks about doing anything about that. See, with mega AI centers being planned and built, pollution will go yet higher. Demands on water will go yet higher. As will demands on electricity, causing the price of everything to increase, crushing affordability, but never mind all that. Realizing those things and planning to address those things takes something other than greed, lying, and cruelty, and that’s all the Trump Regime has.

The day is calling and the coffee is singing. My hope remains that peace and grace lift themselves up with a mighty shake and come around to yours and mine. Here we go again. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

My fellow Terrans. Today is Thirstda, June 5, 2025 in Ashlandia. Some refer to the day as Thursday.

Summer is rising in Ashlandia. Ridiculously blue skies have us covered like a fine duvet. Sunshine is showing up early and staying late, putting on a bright display. Today’s high will be 82 F, about 8 degrees north of our present temperature. Humidity is not bad, and light winds lazily stir the leaves and brush past.

Papi is happy as a floof can be, chirping around the house in the early morning before floofsconcing into a nap nest. My wife isn’t as happy. Although her various ailments are easing, mosquitos are finding her irresistible. Their bites swell on her which is an annoyance. As for me, I’m embroiled in an agent hunt put my personal happiness and satisfaction both at 7.5 on the scale, where ten means it’s all awesome. That might just be coffee influencing my spirits.

The world continues its status as fascinating but complex. For example, forecasters and personnel at NOAA. We’d heard that DOGE took its usual cleaver to NOAA. Meteorologists vacated the business, taking early retirement, etc. But there was U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at a Senate hearing telling us that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is “fully staffed” with weather forecasters. Meanwhile, a search for news updates about NOAA tell multiple other stories.

Scientific American: New Hires Will Still Leave the NWS Dangerously Understaffed, Meteorologists Say

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: NOAA is scrambling to fill positions after Trump’s cuts. How are Wisconsin offices faring?

The Mirror US: Florida weatherman warns viewers he won’t be able to predict hurricanes because of Trump’s federal budget cuts

Those stories were all posted a day ago. Lutnick testified last week.

There’s always been news churn where politics encumber how facts are related. But vetting those facts with the TACO Regime is increasingly challenging. We do understand that. Trump is a dedicated liar and butchers facts. He’s willing to make up anything to make himself look good. The people he hired are right off the same cookie sheet.

Today’s music is by Billy Joel. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is Joel’s musical recitation about facts and history culled from his lifetime. The song came out in 1989. From Wikipedia:

Joel conceived the idea for the song when he had just turned 40. He was in a recording studio and met a 21-year-old friend of Sean Lennon who said “It’s a terrible time to be 21!”. Joel replied: “Yeah, I remember when I was 21 – I thought it was an awful time and we had Vietnam, and y’know, drug problems, and civil rights problems and everything seemed to be awful”. The friend replied: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it’s different for you. You were a kid in the fifties and everybody knows that nothing happened in the fifties”. Joel retorted: “Wait a minute, didn’t you hear of the Korean War or the Suez Canal Crisis?” Joel later said those headlines formed the basic framework for the song.

Looking further back in U.S. history, there’s been multiple awful times to be 21 years old, a truth known around the world. Some irony creeps in for someone from a privileged background, Sean Lennon, son of John Lennon, making that observation back in 1989.

The Neurons brought the song into the morning mental music stream after I read about actual wildfires in the United States and Canada. I feel for the people and animals in those places, as we’ve worried about California and Oregon wildfires for much of the last twenty years.

But the song is a good song for today, mostly because it strikes me that the TACO Regime is trying to fan the flames rather than fight the fires. As others note, it’s increasingly evident that TACO is tearing down the world order to make it easier for the wealthy to take over, rule, and make more money. Anyway, here is the song.

Got my coffee. Hope you have your beverage of choice. Let’s do the best that we can today. Here we go. Cheers

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Frieda’s Theme Music

And on the last day of January of 2025, rain fell on Ashlandia.

Yes, it’s Frieda, January 31, 2025, and rain is peppering Ashlandia. 41 F outside, ‘they’ inform us that it’ll edge close to 50 F before day surrenders to night. Visibility is limited by low, white clouds. Can’t look across the valley to see what’s happening there, or further up the southern range, to see if this precipitation has cast its lot with snow anywhere.

I’m happy with the rain, but not all in the household share the pleasure. Papi has traveled in and out in search of better weather. My wife said that at one point, she opened the door for him to come back in, but he acted like he wanted her to come outside. “I think he was saying, it’s raining, come out here and change the weather,” she related.

Alas, we don’t have the weather change app yet so we couldn’t help him. That forces him to go out and in and forces us to open and close doors for his travels. It’s become stale after ten rounds. We might be starkers by mid-afternoon.

Spending of starkers — no, I’m not going into politics yet. Too damn early to burst my spirit with tales from the dark side. I will say that I read that one Trump supporter, a Muslim, approves of Trump’s first days of activity. I’m waiting for the other shoe on that FAFO situation to drop. Like that man who wholly supported Trump’s actions until they came and took his wife away. Then, suddenly, he is crying, woe is me, and personally begging Trump himself to not take his wife away. They just don’t get it, do they? Trump and his minions care for no one but themselves. For that matter, Trump only cares about Trump. And he’ll lie in a breath without a thought. He’ll also speak without a thought, too, as he keeps proving. On further evidence, Trump supporters are like Trump in many ways, unaffected by these policies until it hits them, thinking only of themselves until it hits them, blissfully oblivious to what they say and do until it comes back and bites them in the ass.

The Neurons have brought up a 1993 Billy Joel tune. “The River of Dreams” is playing in the morning mental music stream. It has a sort of Gospel/spiritual flavor infusing it. The Neurons offered it to the stream after I’d gotten up in the middle of the night. Yes, a cat was involved. After taking care of the cat need, I had several needs, involving trips to the kitchen and the bathroom. I hadn’t turned on any lights, but we have several recessed night lights installed. Anyway, I also wandered to the window to check on the rain. That’s when the song came in. Joel sings, “In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep.” Seemed kinda apt at the time, in The Neurons’ opinion. Yes, although there are millions of them, the usually speak with one collective opinion.

Coffee is making its way through my systems, delivering whatever help it can. Time to fly. Hope your day is up to your hopes and aspirations wherever you might travel or whatever you do.* Here we go. Cheers

*Certain restrictions may apply.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: springflective

Thursday arrives with a whisper so soft, most miss it. It’s April 11, 2024.

Spring outside pulls me in. 51 F degrees. Still wind and expansive sunshine. The air is expected to bring temperatures in the low 70s.

Sounds of the city travel through the yard. Cars on the roads. A train warning of its advance. Hammering and sawing. No voices except crows, robins, and sparrows passing on observations. The cats listen. They don’t reveal what they’re thinking.

OJ Simpson passed from cancer, Alexa tells me when I ask her about why she’s lit green. My wife says, I don’t know what to think about that.

Truly. Simpson was once an American hero on the gridiron. First in college, then in the NFL, if those things matter to you. Otherwise, he was just another citizen. Then came the murders, the trial, the riots, the questions. It all hangs over us like a pause in existence.

In personal news, Mom is still coping at the hospital. The place was packed. After spending most of the day in a bed in a hallway, she was moved into an ER space for the night.

She’s being transferred today. They’re going to put her into rehab and work on her balance and mobility. She’s grumbling about it. A creature of habits, she gets uncomfortable being wrenched from her ruts. I know because I’m much like her.

As far as the fever and pain over the last several days, the med staff is postulating that this is just the after effects of her abdominal surgery. The surgery was five days ago, so my little sister on the spot has flagged it as dubious. But, that’s how it’ll be treated, going forward.

Thinking about our small town’s sounds later in the morning has The Neurons summoning songs about cities. Stevie Wonder’s music about living in the city whispers through the morning mental music stream (Trademark under construction). Then comes Billy Joel. 1982 “Allentown”.

Yes, more it’s more fitting. Billy Joel’s song was about hopes and changes. Substitute America for Allentown. Change some other words and you have a new anthem for the U.S.

“Well, we’re living here in the USA.

“And the way it’s changing is hard to say.

“Standing in lines, watching our phones.”

But the song’s real heart for me comes later when he addresses the promises made or implied by teachers that we would succeed and advance, “if we worked hard, if we behaved.” The promise was hijacked. I put it on corporate greed, but that’s fueled by individual greed, selfishness, and now, by a GOP that is trying hard to go back in time as a way forward.

Sorry, boys, but there’s not a DeLorean big enough to fit all of us to take us back in time and change now. The vast majority of us know that. We’re moved on. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to keep moving forward.

I don’t think of everything in terms of politics, BTW. May seem like it’s so but it’s more that this seems like a politically charged period for me and many others. I also look back through the lens of history to see what changed, how it changed, and what did not.

Stay positive, despite what has happened so far. The promises were made or implied that we’re part of a grand experiment in the US, creating a government by the people, for the people. It’s a work in progress. Other nations are doing it as well, and many have become better at it than we are now.

I’ve already boarded the coffee train. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

The house floofs are displeased. That makes them a bit aggro. ‘Tis windy out there, they complain to me. Turn the wind off. I would if I could, kitties, although let me note that winds help the ecosystem. “So you’re not stopping the wind,” they confirmed, and stalked off to sing the blues.

It’s Thursday, April 6, 2023, 48 degrees F., dry with rain coming our way, not too long for now, judging from the uniform gray cloud mass blotting out sun and blue sky from horizon to horizon. 56 F will be our high. Sun shuffles out of the Ashlandia neighborhood at 7:42 Ashlandia Evening Time, while it rose at 6:45.

Could all be worse, yep. Caught by a headline, “478 tornado reports across 25 states: How a mild winter led to destruction”, I read about tornadoes and their destruction in several states. It’s interesting in talking with friends and fam in the northeastern USA that they had a mild winter, not much snow except for a few storms. We in the Pacific Northwest were coping with them it seems. Ah, that’s weather.

I was checking news on Yahoo to mix it up. I like picking random news sites to see what’s being reported around the world. I’m not impressed with Yahoo – haven’t been in a long time – which is why they’re not a regular. After reading Yahoo headlines and clicking to some stories, I read a Dallas newspaper (online) before their paywall blocked me, and FOX59 from Indianapolis.

With tornado stories and the wind whistling past the house here, I suppose it’s natural that The Neurons channeled wind-influenced songs to the morning mental music stream. Last up was “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” by Billy Joel from 1985. It narrowly beat out “Dust in the Wind”, “They Call the Wind Maria”, and “Candle in the Wind”. Have any preferred winds song on your end, other than Spinal Tap’s “Break Like the Wind”?

Stay pos and be cool. Hope Thursday lives up to your hopes and dreams. The cats have settled. Coffee and lemon cake have arrived. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

We lined it up and took our shot, which landed on Thursday, August 25, 2022. It’s a good day to celebrate and rejoice, endure and persist, recover and comeback. Aren’t they all, to one person or another? Yes, depends on where everything aligns on the spectrum of the moment that day for that individual.

Our alignments bring us sunrise and sunset at 6:29 AM and 7:56 PM, respectively. Our air temp is 20 C but it feels warmer. Asking why, I realize that my cool mountain air seems to be AWOL because everything was too heated yesterday to properly cool down over night, and much of the snow that helped generate that cooling effect has melted away into the streams, rivers, and cisterns. Today’s alignments of pressure systems, rotation, revolution, and sunny influence will take us to 97 F in our valley.

The nearest fire is Rum Creek, northwest of us by some distance. Favorable winds are keeping us happy as kittens as our air quality is lushly green, but those in other areas must bear the smoke and particles. Fingers crossed for the people of Galice and that region’s plant and animal life that the fire’s destruction is limited.

The Neurons are playing “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel. The song came out in 1983 and was quickly a ubiquitous song, heard on AM, FM, and TV so frequently, one was soon reaching to change the channel when it came on as the overexposure began grating nerves. Inspired by his girlfriend, Elle McPherson, Whitney Houston, and the woman who became his GF and then his wife, Christie Brinkley – a story told frequently back then — who were hanging out that day, the song has a definite throwback sound to an earlier rock and roll era. The Neurons selected it today because I glanced at a headline, Billy Joel Welcomes Olivia Rodrigo for ‘Deja Vu,’ ‘Uptown Girl’ at Madison Square Garden.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He read about the droughts in England, Italy, and France. Fires in France rage. Italy’s Po River is drying up. Meanwhile, toxic chemical waste in the Oder River in Poland and France is causing a huge fish die off. Drought has caused the River Thames source to move East.

Parts of Australia are suffering drought and low precipitation. A record heatwave in July baked the US. Wildfires burn in the US, including Hawaii, as fifty percent of the country experiences drought. America’s west is suffering from a record megadrought. Record floods caused massive damage in Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. The Colorado River is drying up. Lake Mead is at its lowest level since 1937. Lake Powell is dropping to deadpool status, where the water level will be too low for water to flow from the dam. Flooding in Kentucky and West Virginia caused death and substantial damage. Investors are scrambling to exploit the exposed earth as glaciers melt and recede.

World food prices are going up as crops dry up and wither, weather disasters strike, and harvests shrink.

Reading all this news, he thought of Billy Joel’s 1989 song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. In Billy Joel’s song, they were at least trying to fight it. Too many now seem to be fighting against fighting it.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

And so, all of us came to Saturday, June 11, almost the month’s middle, almost 2022’s middle. We’re bracing for the year’s longest day in the northern hemisphere while south of the equator, they’re prepping for the shortest day.

Spring weather continues its reign with temperatures at 72 F today, showers sometimes sprinkling us for a few seconds, and a high of 76 possible. 5:34 AM is when the show’s daylight portion began. The turning away comes at 8:47 PM.

Yesterday was a COVID-19 booster shot rollercoaster. Walking was often a Frankenstein’s monster imitation. Joints felt like they’d been carved from the finest granite and thoughts were doing a slow doggy paddle through confusion. Then, all is good! Hurray! It’s passed. No, wait, here it comes again. We surfed the net, returned to bed, read books, slept, repeat. Today, I feel pretty damn fine. She says she’s feeling better, too.

Today’s song, a 1993 offering from Billy Joel, arrived in the middle of the night. I’d gotten up to attend a cat’s need to leave the house. (“It’s urgent! I have important business,” he claimed. After he left, I heard him snicker. “Sucker.”) Returning to bed, I was thinking, it’s the middle of the night. I’ve almost been walking in my sleep. The neurons shouted, “A-one, and a-two.” Then they began “The River of Dreams”. Lovely song, so I wasn’t overly bothered.

So, you know, stay positive, etc. We shall overcome. Or endure. Here’s the music, and, yes, there’s my coffee. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Full sunshine, full leaves. Leafy trees square up shadows across the back lawn, ripe with weeds. Bees visit the slumping dandelions. Sunshine jumps into the open spaces.

It’s a lazy morning for me and the cats. Done eating, they wash up and chat up birds, twisting heads to regard a squirrel’s noisy trespassing, resuming their grooming after the squirrel takes his business away. I tend a cup of coffee, sneaking hot sips past my lips, waiting for the caffeine’s magic to jump into the blood and brain.

It’s Saturday, May 21, 2022. Had blood tests done yesterday, routine matters to see what’s what, mentioned because I was asked to sign my name and date a document. The neurons were instantly amused; how long has it been since I was asked to do these things that were once daily routines?

Sunrise was sprung on us at 5:44 AM, I’m told. I didn’t witness it, staying in bed at that point to wrestle dreams. Sunset will come around at 8:31 PM. We had a cool morning, 50 F when the cats and I went out back, but sunshine was rapidly warming it. The weather masters say that the high will be 73 F. I will do yardwork, I decide, regarding the bushes and trees.

Later, inside, awaiting the caffeine’s arrival, I surfed the net and hummed a song. For some reason, the neurons had dumped “New York State of Mind” (1976) by Billy Joel into the morning mental music stream. “Surprise,” they shouted, when I recognize the song. “But why?” I asked them. “Why that song?”

One volunteered, “It’s a slow, bluesy, sleepy song about routine moments and found-again places.”

“So?”

The neurons shrugged. “It just feels like the morning.”

Impeccable logic.

Stay positive, test negative. The caffeine is pulling into the station. Brain cells are climbing aboard. Here we go. Cheers

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