While sitting on the commode, doing their business, has anyone heard their body making noises like the predator from the original Predator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger is hunting them?
Asking for a friend. Should he be worried?
Thursday’s Theme Music
As thoughts of impeachment, revolution, rebellion, and strife clashed against another potential Middle-East war, an old song popped into the ol’ music memory stream as I walked around Ashland.
Take the children and yourself
And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don’t believe the church and state
And everything they tell you
Believe in me, I’m with the high command
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
There’s a gun and ammunition
Just inside the doorway
Use it only in emergency
Better you should pray to God
The Father and the Spirit
Will guide you and protect from up here
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still
“Silent Running” by Mike + the Mechanics was released in 1985. Whenever I hear silent running as a phrase, I think of the 1972 science-fiction movie that starred Bruce Dern. The gist of the movie is that plants can no longer grow on Earth. Dern’s character is onboard a ship with large greenhouses in a solar orbit. They’re out there growing plants. When they’re ordered to destroy the greenhouses and return their ship to do other things, Dern’s character rebels. That’s when the fun begins.
Floofsical
Floofsical (floofinition) – a housepet’s unusual behavior or appearance, especially in an appealing and amusing way; a play or movie strongly featuring housepets in central roles.
In use: “Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey is a well-known 1993 floofsical that featured a cat and two dogs in a remake of the 1963 movie.”
The Medical Device Dream
I dreamed I was a young medical device inventor. I was at a trade show, displaying and explaining the device. It was a small show, standard place of booths, tables, and displays in a hotel ballroom, but sparsely attended. It was the last day and I was very upbeat.
Looking for backers and investors, I was demonstrating my device. In retrospect, it reminds me of devices like Star Trek‘s tricorder. There were differences. Running my device over a person created a three-dimensional full-color model of their body. Nerves, muscles, bones, blood vessels…everything was faithfully displayed. Everyone seeing it responded with enthusiasm and amazement.
But the neat part was that my device could be used for cardiovascular procedures. I demonstrated that after creating the model, it became an active, functioning replication of the scanned body. Using entrance through a femoral artery with a standard introducer, a small drone could be deployed into the bloodstream.
Yes, it was a tiny ship, just like the one they miniaturized in Fantastic Voyage (1966). (BTW, can someone please consider remaking Fantastic Voyage? Everything else is being remade. I think we can reboot that puppy with modern CGI, and then create a television series and a franchise. You’re welcome.)
Except, my ship wasn’t manned by Stephen Boyd, Donald Pleasence, Raquel Welch, and the rest. Instead, the cardiovascular team use the ship’s devices via wireless virtual reality goggles to open occlusions, scale down plaque and fat, and fix valves and dead spots. While I mention cardiovascular, my ship is small enough that it can also navigate, clean, and repair the peripheral vasculature, including the cerebral vasculature and the renal and carotid arteries, without blocking the blood flow.
Pretty damn fine invention, isn’t it?
No wonder I was so pleased in the dream.
The medical trade show ended. I was going to return with some friends to my room and then have dinner. But, to get into my room required me to use a combination lock. I’d set it earlier. Now I struggled to remember it. Taking some time, I recalled that I’d used twenty-three as the starting point, and then remembered that I’d gone two up and two back.
Success. I entered my room, pleased with my device and the show, which was now ended.
Dream ended.
Saturday’s Theme Music
In honor of the gopher dream that I had last night, I thought I’d use Kenny Loggins’ song, “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack (1980).
As an outside, I was stationed in Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, the following year. VCRs were becoming big. We bought one. Caddyshack was one of the first movies we rented and played on it. A popular movie, it was played in the MAC Terminal to entertain people while they awaited flights. The command post where I worked was located in that terminal. It seemed like it was on whenever I left the command post. It came to drive me nuts.
I haven’t seen it in years, and I don’t want to see it, thank you. Meanwhile, Kenny did pretty good with movie songs for a while, didn’t he?
Thursday’s Theme Music
I awoke with Outkast’s “Hey Ya” streaming in my mind, but another song replaced it. The lyrics, sung by a woman went, “He’s the last of the secret agents, and he’s my man.”
I thought, was that Nancy Sinatra? Sure sounded like it to my brain. Thinking about Nancy granted permissions to stream “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'”, followed by a duet with Frank Sinatra, “Something Stupid”. Hearing Frank made the stream believe it was okay for him to join in, so I heard “Winchester Cathedral” and “Fly Me to the Moon”.
I’d decided I was becoming a basket case, which opened the ports for “Basketcase” by Green Day, followed by “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. Thinking, enough, I went through a little of “Enough is Enough” by April Wine, followed by “No More Tears” (Streisand/Summers).
By then, I knew that it had been Nancy Sinatra streaming “Last of the Secret Agents” (1966). I never saw the movie, btw. Anyone know if it was any good?
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Perhaps I am mired in the past. I ended up thinking of my time at Clark AB in the Philippines as I walked yesterday in 1976, and recalled my buddy, Bopie. He and I worked at the same place. I arrived about two weeks after him. We lived in the same barracks (dorm, in Air Force terminology), on the same floor. He was about seven doors down from me.
The first time I really met him, though, was when we were off-duty at a unit function. He was wearing a red tee-shirt. On the back, in yellow letters, was Bopie. Walking up behind him, I said it. Starting, he turned and looked at me with a short laugh. “You are the first person that ever said my name right the first time.” His name was Ray, but Bopie was the name he liked to use (that was never explained to me).
We were shift workers, and often shared time off, so we would run around together sometimes. He introduced me to a lot of music and comedy that I didn’t know, including the movie, Car Wash, featuring the song, “Car Wash” by Rose Royce.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Blame this one on my wife.
Which had me thinking of how couples and families related and socialized through different eras. Thinking back, imagine them gathered around a fire in a cave or a camp. Imagine them in chairs on a porch, or around a radio, and later, gathered in the living room, watching television. Now we’re gathered in the office, on separate computers.
I was playing Sudoku when she played “Seasons of Love” from Rent. Naturally, the song’s lyrics entered my stream and started looping. All through yesterday’s walking and yard-working, I’m singing, “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?”
I also added/slashed modified the verses. After coffee, I added, “In words? In pages? In kibble? In phases?”
It became a little goofy after that. But, I must pass this on to you to rid myself of it.
Sorry about that.
Not A Movie Review
We watched a movie last night called, “What Happened to Monday?”
It’s a violent, dystopian science-fiction movie that we watched on Netflix. Netflix brought it to their streaming offerings in August of this year. The premise, about septuplets secretly coping and living in world where only one child is authorized per family. This draconian policy was instituted to stretch scarce resources. Resources are scarce due to climate change. The problems are complicated by war and unforeseen consequences of genetically modified organizations.
The seven girls are named for the days of the week. They assume one identity, using their deceased mother’s name. Only one is permitted out each day; they go out on the day of their name. The rest of the time, they live secret lives in their apartment.
Naturally, things go wrong.
Glenn Close, William Dafoe, and Noomi Rapace star, along with Marwan Kenzari and Christian Rubeck. Dafoe plays the father, and Close is the villain. Rapace plays the seven sisters. You get a lot more of her than the other two. There are plots holes, some cringing moments and predictability, but it was sufficiently intense and unique to draw our attention and focus. Several of the sisters are shadows of a full character. Rapace works with that, but she does a powerful job with the more fully developed sisters.
Give it a watch, just to say that you did.
Michael Seidel, writer 