Tag: live aid

Sunday’s Theme Music — the Craziest Thing

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, July 5, 206.

It’s another hot summer day. Clouds are in the air and the temperature will be about 90 degrees, not nearly as life-threatening as so many others are enduring around the world.

We attended the Independence Day parade in Ashland yesterday. Very tepid. Low turnout to watch, low enthusiasm for the people marching by, dull interest in the music. The ‘flyby’ came about ten minutes after the parade ended.

It could all be me and my friends, of course, but I walked around to hear what others were saying. One young man pushing a stroller, a woman and another child with him, were all dressed in the national colors. “That wasn’t much,” he was saying, walking away. “Where should we go?

Trump broke more promises yesterday, of course. He said he was going to speak no matter what the weather, but then waited until it was cool, much later. That’s TACO for you. He also said he was going to speak for a very long time but spoke only 40 minutes. More TACO.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Trump was said to be talking about the crowd at the July 4th celebration. He thinks that crowd is “the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen.”

No, Trump, the craziest thing ever seen remains how much you lie and steal, and yet people keep saying how wonderful and great you are. That’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen in the last fifty years.

Trump promised a ‘golden age’ during his speech. I’ll tuck that promise in with these previous Trump promises:

We’ve seen the outcomes of these Trump promises. Trump has attacked several countries. He went to war with Iran. Inflation is still up and affordability is a hot issue for many people. Trump was frequently golfing during the war with Iran. Medicare has been cut. A new healthcare plan never emerged. Trump is still building the border wall; Mexico isn’t paying for it.

With MAGA’s unquenched love for Trump going strong, The Neurons unspooled “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen in the morning mental music stream.

I’ve read essays during the last few weeks about how Republicans have weaponized words like patriotism, woke, freedom, God, and religion. They essentially coopted and twisted these words and their meanings in the finest “1984” fashion. So while I use ‘love’ as a descriptor for what MAGAts hold for Trump, I’m not certain that it’s love in the sense that the rest of us employ it. If it is, it’s love in the sense of too many tortured relationships, where one is the abuser and the other is abused, yet the abused cannot quit the relationship. I know that I’m thinking of it from my side of the perspective, and not the abused MAGA position.

But how else can I think of it? Trump continually lies to them. He makes and breaks promises, just as it’s seen in many abusive relationships. Yet, they can’t quit him; they love him. They love him even though he made two billion dollars and did little to improve their lives, even as they struggle more and more with worsening conditions and deteriorating affordability.

So here we go: theme music for the MAGAts and Trump.

Hope your day brings you the best life you can live. May peace and grace smooth your way and take you on to better things.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Well, happy Fourth of July, Tuesday, 2023, to US citizens everywhere. We headed down to the Marsh-McGuire house down on Siskiyou, ’bout just under two miles from our place in Ashlandia, where the streets are clean and the sidewalks are crack. You’ll know the Marsh-McGuire house if you see it, it being the only brick house on Siskiyou south of the Plaza. It sits on the parade route and we’ve been going to this venue for about fourteen years, off and on, mostly being on. It’s a pot-luck open house. K made her almond tarts, several quiches were in residence, along with croissants, cinnamon cake, various fruit salads and fresh fruit, multiple muffins, deviled eggs and so on. Delicious fare, all that I tasted, per expectation from all the great food of the past. Showed up at 9:20 after walking half a mile with our chairs, because the roads are blocked off for the parade.

The parade began promptly at 10 with the city marching band. 10:02 saw the flyover, two F-15s from the state national guard. Favorite thing of the parade: guy in prison garb riding a bike, wearing a Donald J. mask.

Least appealing aspect of the parade: RFK Jr’s float and very vocal and surprisingly large contingent.

Short parade, though. We remember some years when it went over two hours and we were crying for mercy by the end. Today’s endeavor was completed in less than fifty minutes.

Several dance troupes were in there, which got Les Neurons going. After we left the parade, The Neurons introduced Bowie/Jagger and “Dancing In the Streets”. The song was originally a 1964 hit fo Martha and the Vandellas. The song was later covered by The Kinks and Van Halen. I enjoyed all three of those. But another cover, by Bowier/Jagger in 1985 to raise money for Live Aid came out of nowhere and took advantage of television to have fun. Check out the guitarists supporting this song in the recording of a live performance for the Prince’s Trust.

Stay chill and be pos. I’ve had coffee, thanks. Maybe go sip something a little colder and wetter, right? It’s a holiday, after all.

Sorry, technical issues held up the posting. WordPress Autosaving took it into an alternative dimension, as WP periodically does to my posts.

Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

6:30 A.M., Friday morning, September 4, 2020.

I did not want to get up. Still sifting dreams, I thought I was due to stay in bed for at least another hour. I’d been up late into the morning, sucking up my latest TV addition, “Mr Inbetween”. An Aussie show, I’m watching it on Hulu. I love his daughter, Britt. Played by Chika Yasumura, she steals whatever scene she’s in.

So it kept me up and awake, and I didn’t want to get up. But the cats, particularly Tucker (my long-hair black and white big bruiser) (he’s a blokey-bloke) and Papi, the young ginger blade, thought the day required my attention. After a bit of failed negotiations and stalling tactics, I yielded, telling them and myself, “Here we go.”

Well, here we go led to the chorus, “Here we go, rocking all over the world,” out of the 1975 John Fogerty song, “Rockin’ All Over the World”. When I thought about it, though, I began remembering Status Quo playing at Live Aid 85.

For Fogerty’s release in ’75, I was a few months out of military tech school, newly married, and stationed at Wright-Pat AFB in Ohio. Ten years later, when Status Quo played the song at Live Aid 85, I was living in a tent city outside Cairo, Egypt, playing war games. Still married, though, but my wife was staying with her family. I believe I dimly recall seeing Status Quo’s Live Aid version while I was heading home, during a fuel stop at Torrejon Air Base in Spain. We had time to kill, so we walked around the exchange to see what was new and get an AAFES burger.

So this simple song is today’s theme music, brought to you by stubborn cats and nostalgia. I decided to go with Status Quo’s Live Aid version because I like the crowd’s energy.

Hope you enjoy it. I know I used it before, if memory serves (but it doesn’t always serve, does it?), but I’m using it again. Remember to wear your mask. Cheers

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Today’s Theme Music

In this age….

And what is this age, this technological age of rising alt news, polarization, nationalism, fascism and repression, what is this age? Sure don’t feel like the Age of Aquarius.

Back in nineteen eighty-five, the world was facing many issues, like the famine in Africa. In the U.K., Bob Geldof responded by organizing Band-Aid. In America, a ‘super-group’ was put together to release an album to help. A group, U.S.A. (United Support of Artists), was put together to help the cause. Produced by Quincy Jones, a song, ‘We Are The World,’ was co-written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, and arranged by Michael Omartian. Released as part of Live Aid, it helped awaken awareness of the famine in Africa. Other ‘live-aid’ type of events followed as musicians stepped up to help farmers and earthquake victims.

I didn’t particularly like the song, but I appreciate the sentiment and effort. Harry Belafonte was the first spark plug in this effort because he thought something needed to be done, but watch the video and listen to the voices, and see how many artists participated in trying to make a difference. It was a hit; it won awards; it raised money and attracted attention to the problem.

Well, here we are again, with war and terrorism shredding the world. Displaced peoples are seeking the very basics of food, water and shelter, and nations, like America under Trump, want to turn their backs. Insisting, “America First,” he builds walls and bombs other places, because walls and bombs have always been so effective. That’s why the war to end all wars was fought one hundred years ago.

It seems like that was just the opening of a War-apalooza.

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Today’s Theme Music

A character is pushing for this music. She screwed up. They accused her of trying to be a hero, which is wrong, which is not what it was about at all. They don’t care. They set the course of their perceptions long before her actions.

Now she needs a hero. So many offerings out there, musically, but went with David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. Many renditions are available and Bowie always delivered an excellent show. I chose the recording of his Live Aid performance from 1985.

 

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