Tag: pat benatar

Fridaz Theme Music

Frida in Monroeville, PA, a Pittsburgh suburb arrives as a near duplicate of our Ashlandia weather. 49 F now, we expect a mid 50s high.

We had successful and straightforward travel. All went as if designed with us in mind. Cool. But, the hotel, Courtyard by Marriott, is another matter. That’s for another post, I think.

Inflation picked up. Not as much as expected. An Economist article included the idea put forward by many economists that companies are sucking up tariffs for the short term. Their reasoning was that Trump was inconsistent, rolling out tariffs, then pulling them back. Also, companies and countries had found some temporary workarounds. The workarounds are ending as the tariff picture sharpens in focus. They expect it to get worse.

Alongside that, Trump announced he’s no longer negotiating with Canada over tariffs. As befits a person of little understanding of negotiating, tariffs, and history, Trump is whining about ads which Canada had in which Saint Ronnie badmouthed tariffs. Trump, of course, cried, “Fake new!” Naturally, he offers no evidence, instead just screaming in infantile all caps in his trage.

Trump says he’s ending trade talks with Canada over TV ads

“The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Of course, for some reason, the US national deficit shot up a record rate to a record number. Doesn’t have anything to do with PINO Taco, of course. yes, snark.

US hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic

After a solid day of traveling, a good night of sleep, and some weirdly interesting dreams, The Neurons rewarded me with Pat Benatar singing “Heartbreaker” in the morning mental music stream.

Off to see Mom shortly. First, food somewhere, I think. I’m waiting for my wife to finish dressing before we go about it. Hope peace and grace finishes its break and finds you, me, the nation, and the world in general. Till then, cheers.

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Munda’s Theme Music

A silky blue sky weaves hope and optimism in Ashlandia. A gorgeous spring day is being promised. 63 F now, ‘they’ tell us it feels like 71 F. I agree with them. Plentiful sunshine, as ‘they’ say. 73 F is the predicted high.

This is Munda, March 24, 2025. I dig this kind of sunshine. Especially after months of rain and clouds and the kind of chilly weather that makes me feel older than I am.

The cat is also quite pleased, I think. He zooms around furniture and through rooms. “Sun recharge your batteries?” I ask. He stops, sits, stares. Classic 3s floofhavior. After three seconds of this, he sticks a rear leg out and washes its underside. I begin for the kitchen. He pauses the washing to gift me with a scrutinizing stare. “You’ll get yours,” I say, because I know that whereismyfood look.

In the kitchen, I’m doing my morning things. Gotta move faster today. Leaving to do Food & Friends deliveries at 10 AM. Everything must be slightly accelerated. Nanoseconds must be shaved away from routines. I don’t feel like shaving time off today. I’m not a Formula 1 driver doing qualifying laps.

I give Papi his first feeding. That’s misleading. He’s already eaten from kibble bowls several times. This is a wet food offering. Eyes bright, he chirps at me as I lower the food bowl toward him. “Yes, you love me now,” I say. His purr vibrates the floor.

Time is flying. I eat. Make coffee. Drink same. Clean and dress. Examine my lower limbs for swelling and find none, knock on wood. My compression socks are easily drawn over my feet and up my legs. I’m becoming very proficient getting them on. It’s the other end, taking them off, that’s the challenge. I might have made a mistake by turning down the doffing stick. I reassure myself that not using the doffing stick gives my wrists, fingers, and hands a needed workout. My self is as suspicious about that as a cat might be.

We hit the Senior Center for the food pickup and schedule. Cars surround the center. Parking is limited. “That’s a bad sign,” my wife declares. “The food must not be ready.”

I’m resigned to wait. “Go check.”

She returns with the first load of food within a minute, surprising us. We’re off and running with a minimum wait.

“Only ten stops today,” she says.

“Ten stops. I remember when we had twice that.” Yes, people have disappeared from the list. We usually don’t know what happens to them. They’re Schrödinger’s elderly people. That’s a miserably depressing thought for such a sunny, bright day.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is the Pat Benatar offering, “Invincible”. Released in 1985, it was quite a hit at that time and stays on classic rock stations as an offering for the elderly still feasting on the past. The Neurons called it up today to support the April 5 Hands Off actions rising. Annie commented on a post, “I just read that the April 5 coalition includes at least 83 organizations, among them the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union. It’s gonna be big!!”

We need big energy to combat the Trusk Regime and GOTP. We need the energy of “Invincible”. Written by Simon Climie and Holly Knight, the song was made for the movie The Legend of Billie Jean.

[Chorus]
We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible

[Verse 2]
This shattered dream you cannot justify
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied

[Pre-Chorus]
What are we running for?
We’ve got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there’s nowhere we can run to anymore

h/t to Genius.com

It could be that I’m overwrought by the Trusk situation in the United States.

Hope your day satisfies you in some meaningful ways. I’m writing and then planning long-delayed chores. I’ve always blamed the weather. Now that the weather has improved, my excuses are gone.

Here’s the music video. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sumstalgia

Another lovely summer morning has slide into place. We shall call it, “Rumplestiltskin”. Naw, we’ll stick to the usual boring but useful process and call it Wednesday, June 26, 2024. Like many a newborn, it’ll be marked but what happens during its short life.

It’s 65 F now and the cats are cooling it in favorite cooling-it spots after eating brekkie. 81 F may tempt the temp measuring devices but the weather cards tell us it ain’t s’posed to be too hot today. My breakfast of kumquats, blueberries, passion fruit, almonds, brazil nuts, and a bagel has been consumed, and I’m loading coffee into my system as cool breezes gambol in through the windows.

Two songs are occupying the morning mental music stream (Trademark refreshed). Snippets of one entertain the neurons, and then the other pops in. One song is “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin'”, an Elton John song of some repute. It was featured in a dream where I was playin’ the six-stringed instrument and singing it, performing for a packed place. I had strikingly huge arms in this dream, and kept looking at them in mirrors from different angles, thinkin’, “Boy, that looks strange.” With those aspects all that’s remembered of the dream, it deserves a prefix like ‘mini’ or adejctive like ‘brief’ before it.

The other song has some Sting softly songing “I want my MTV,” and then those drums and other things start up and we go full-fledged into the Dire Straits hit, “I Want My MTV”. MTV offered memoriable shows and ideas but now it’s a fading phenom as MTV.com now says ‘that page does not exist.’

Started in 1981, I was on Okinawa during its early years. I was familiar with it because a friend and co-worker had friends recording MTV for him and sending the videos to him so he could watch them on VHS while he rode an exercise bike in his living room. I watched a little but became bored sitting there as they tried to entertain us with music news and music videos. Many videos were interesting but it didn’t induce me into wanting to waste the day watching them.

Of course, MTV gave us Comedy Central, which begat “The Daily Show”, which often saved us when faced with political insanity.

The first music video played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. But the second was Pat Benatar with “You Better Run” so that’s our theme music today.

Stay strong and be positive. Let’s freshen the coffee and start rolling this day up the hill. Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Another rainy day with chilly temperatures, another night of dreams, another morning of feeding the cats and then sitting down at the ‘puter. Feels a bit boring today. Tedious. I’m ready to dive back into the novels in progress but I’m also reading an excellent book. It all balances.

Hello, and welcome to Wednesday. This is April 13, 2021, a day when the sun rose over the Cascades at 6:34 this morning, showing us a spring that looked and felt more like late February than mid-April. Sleet fell for a while this morning, becoming snow, and then rain. Not a sharp surprise to the mind as we’re sitting at 37 F with hopes for a high of 42 F before sunset at 7:50 PM. More of the same is forecast until Easter Sunday, as a slow-moving Low comes aboard the Pacific Northwest.

The neurons have Pat Benatar singing “Shadows of the Night” from 1982 in the morning mental music stream, an occurrence directly attributed to Papi cat. The ginger blade wanted out, of course, so I did my duty at 3:30 AM. I had the porch light on, turning it on first to ensure no other beasts were waiting to ambush him, and watch his reaction to his environment. When he turned and dashed for the shadows, a WTF passed did a neuron wave. I went out to see what the what with a torch at which point the orange boy galloped back to me and into the house. I asked him what he saw in the shadows, but he stayed smugly silent.

The neurons picked up on ‘shadows’, though, of course, and kicked Benatar’s song in right off. It’s a good representation of early 1980s style rock, though, and a pleasant way to entertain the ears and mind. It’s a pretty silly video, though.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as or when needed, and get the jabs as it’s figured out. Coffee is serenading me in the other room, so off I go. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is a ‘Feline’s Choice’. Each night, my fur boys crowd the door and meow a request to go out. I not infrequently imagine a musical circling around their activities. Often, when they go out and sit down, listening to the darkness and listening, they sing this Pat Benatar song, “We Belong”, from 1984. Only, my boys aren’t singing, “We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder” they’re singing, “We belong to the night, but we run from the thunder.”

They’ve changed other words, too. I only know some of them, as my flooflish is limited. I’m not personally a big fan of this song; too eighties. If you were there, you probably understand.

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Friday’s Theme Song

Walking in the cold, cloudy day yesterday, I thought of sunshine. I believed that I’d been promised some sunshine. Had I missed it?

The drizzle had stepped and the fog slipped off its coat, but low clouds still obscured our landscape. It offered its own beauty but it fell short when you’ve been promised sunshine. Tomorrow, I thought.

Meanwhile, my mind walked through sunshine songs. Katrinn and the Waves, Bill Withers, Cream, the Beatles, the Doors, Weezer, Soundgarden, and the Kinks all offered something, along with the Violent Femmes, Fifth Dimension, and Lovin’ Spoonful. Nothing caught the day’s mood.

Today, I came out and opened the blinds to sunshine. Yes, my heart sang. Before the first chorus ended, a mean, snickering cloud slipped over the sun and blotted out its efforts. No fair, my heart cried.

Songs about heart (and by Heart) poured into the stream, but Pat Benatar ruled with “Heartbreaker” (1979) took over.

Two sets of lines dominated from “Heartbreaker”. The first is that angry and defiant, “No, no, no!” Yes, there was today, no accepting. Second is the classic set, “You’re a heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, don’t you mess around with me.” Plus, there’s all that thundering, driving guitar, crisp drums, and Benatar’s voice.

Yes, it’s the theme for today. As a bonus, Pat and her band have some nascent 1980s big hair on display. Gotta love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIosHNpGjTE

 

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, today I find myself streaming Pat Benatar’s “Invincible” from 1985.

It’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible.
This shattered dream you cannot justify.
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied.
What are we running for? We’ve got the right to be angry.
What are we running for when there’s nowhere we can run to anymore?
We can’t afford to be innocent
stand up and face the enemy.
It’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible.
And with the power of conviction there is no sacrifice.
It’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible.

h/t to azlyrics.com

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes from a confrontation with a spider.

We captured and identified the master bath spider, verifying that it wasn’t a black widow. We relocated it anyway, because it was large, and it bothered me to stick my toes into its web in the mornings.

This morning, I addressed the big black widow web out back. Just off the patio, she used a bush and the hose cart as her anchors. I took it down with a broom with a promise to return with some peppermint spray. Spiders, it seems, don’t like peppermint spray. As we don’t kill spiders, we periodically spray peppermint to drive the numbers down and clear some areas.

As I went back in thinking about it, I imagined the black widow already planning to rebuild. I believe when she heard about the peppermint spray, she said, “Hit me with your best shot.”

Cue Pat Benatar. It’s stunning to think of this song as almost forty years old. Just imagine when our rock classics reach the century mark.

Fire away.

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s music is dedicated to my muse, or muses. I’m not sure if I have one, or a madhouse, within me. And on that subject, shouldn’t a muse be external to me? Perhaps my problem is that the inner voices that j’accuse of being the muse(s) are not muses. Let’s not speculate on what they might be, if the voices don’t belong to the muse(s).

(I know that if I’m writing voice as plural – voices – I’m implying there are multiple voices. There are. But I can’t rule out that the voices aren’t from one source, pretending to be many voices. See the problem? I could have a muse like Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters doing multiple voices in my head.

Returning to the song, here is Pat Benatar with “Heartbreaker,” from nineteen seventy-nine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIosHNpGjTE

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Today’s Theme Music

Look at that light. Smell that air: inhale; exhale.

Smells like the eighties doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Does it ever happen to you, that you wake up refreshed from a delicious night of sleep and you feel so young, that you feel like a different person, that you feel like a younger person?

Yeah, me, neither.

But I awoke thinking about the 1980s. I had a good time in that era. So how ’bout a little Pat Benatar. Let’s go back with her to those days before the Internet captured us.

I choose this song because its beat and pop-culture music craft. Once again, I’d never seen this video before, as with many others I share here, and honestly, watching it, I cringe. But it’s a good song to sing to yourself, walking around or sitting around, gathering strength to do things. Sing to yourself, “We are strong.”

Here is ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ from 1983.

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