Tag: Phil Collins

Satyrdaz Theme Music

Sunshine is blessing Satyrda, November 8, 2025. Today’s pertinent temperature numbers for Ashlandia read 56, 68, 49 for the present, high, and low, but my local system claims it’s just 46 F out there. The cat and I agree, it’s still chilly here in the shadows.

My pain is a downhill racer, going away fast. Did just one pain pill yesterday, end of day, and none today. Still just need to watch bending and stretching, coughing, sneezing, laughing. Feel that. And keep anything I pick up below 20 pounds. Having my gallbladder removed has brought out others’ stories. I appreciate them all. One local friend claims she had hers removed and didn’t change her diet at all. Sis wrote that one of her clients yesterday said he had his gallbladder removed, was hospitalized five days for it, and then had to go back to the hospital. So, it feels like it’s one of those, “individual results will vary” things. I’m on a low-diet for the next six months, according to my doc.

Today’s music comes from being silly with Papi. I sometimes sing to my cats (yes, they’re magnificently unimpressed by it). I launched into “Pappidio”, a song based on Phil Collins’s song, “Sussudio”. My song is about an orange cat on my mind. Phil’s was about a girl. Anyway, of course, The Neurons inserted the original Collins song into the morning mental music stream.

Trumpgames continue. Falling asleep at meetings. Showing no interest or concern when another human falls ill at a meeting. Making deepfake videos of himself, pretending to be something and someone he is not. Rational? No, delusional! TACO has announced the U.S. will not send anyone to the G20 summit. His decision is based on fake news. What else is new? Deep in his own altered reality, he only believes fake news these days. In his world, he’s a shiny example of health, intelligence, and leadership. In the real world, we see him and think that he’s on the verge of a total breakdown in his body, mind, and control.

Trump continues on his pardons spree. Republican and convicted? Wealthy and convicted? He’s got a deal for you if you’re a MAGA. Yet, when questioned about some of the people he’s pardoned, Trump indignantly replies, he doesn’t know who they are. We should all be doing all-cap blasts about this.

“DOZY DONNY FOUND NAPPING IN MEETINGS!!! AGAIN!!! Claims he can’t even remember people he pardoned!!! SHAMEFUL!!! DISGRACEFUL!!! Trump is the WORSE POTUS IN HISTORY!!! NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!”

Trump did get his wish for stopping SNAP benefits to starving Americans. Roberts Court stepped in his his behalf and overruled all the lower courts. Causing sickness and starvation among your own people is surely worth a peace prize, right? Right, that’s pure snark. Trump is worthy of the Nobel Cruelty Prize, if one was handed out. After threatening more war and attacking more Venezuelans, peace prizes to Trump will only be offered by other craven billionaires. Or he can make one up and give it to himself. That’s his standard speed. Fake it.

BTW, do you see how he labeled the Oval Office with a paper sign? That’s likely to remind him where and what it is. He’s failing fast.

Meanwhile, the record Trump-Epstein Shutdown (TES) of 2025 continues. The GOP is eager to shaft people on healthcare and will not budge from that position. The Democrats continue to insist that the tax break that let people pay lower healthcare premiums be reinstalled. As the economy spirals downward heading toward Thanksgiving and the end of the year, when retail takes its largest share of revenues and profits, the GOP are looking like Trump Chumps.

Speaking of which, remember these smirking Trump Chumps?

Leaks are claiming that the Epstein files info on Trump is much, much worse than originally imagined. To put this into Trumpspeak: “TERRIBLE SCANDAL!!! WORSE UNITED STATES SCANDAL EVER!!! REPUBLICANS ARE HIDING AND PROTECTING CHILD MOLESTERS!!! IF TRUMP IS INNOCENT, WHICH WE ALL KNOW HE ISN’T, RELEASE THE FILES!!! PROVE IT!!!”

Or something like that.

Off we go, into another day with hopes that peace and grace come around to lift us up. Meanwhile, I’ll make do with black coffee. Have the best. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Spring has reclaimed Ashlandia. Clouds and blue sky out there mixing it up. 50 F now, 70 is possible, weather guides say with crossed fingers and a wink. Yesterday began damn chilly. Made me rethink my attire. So I dressed for an indoor concert, headed down the road ten miles, and voila, it’s 76, sunny, warm, and I’m overdressed.

Today I’m thinking I’ll dress for the blend. Shorts, polo shirt, light fleece. That’ll work. I can always change if it doesn’t. Talking with others about the projected temperature of 70 F, many proclaimed it as perfect weather. I like 72 F, myself.

Put my underwear on backwards yesterday. Didn’t realize it until a few hours into the day when a bathroom urge rose. Then, huh, WT…who dressed me this morning?

The concert yesterday was entertaining. Rogue Valley Symphony. We were special guests and given special access, etc., and munches, meeting with the band members and talking to them about their musical life and instruments. Makes you want to play, you know? Can’t say that too loud around them because they immediately offer to teach you how to play. Someone asked me what I did. Write, I answered, and ended up talking about that for fifteen minutes as musicians gathered to ask questions and listen. I had to gracefully extricate myself and turn the focus back onto music.

Papi has a new nickname. I often call him my little buddy, which is what the skipper of the SS Minnow used to call his mate, Gilligan. So I now sometimes refer to the ginger wonder as Gilligan. He’s picked up on it. Gave me a little tail swish in response. Might have been laughing, swearing, or shrugging.

Today’s music arrives via coffee thoughts. I was thinking about it and applied coffee to an old favorite song, “Cocaine”.

If you wanna hang out you’ve got to take her out
Coffee
If you wanna get down, down on the ground
Coffee

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie
Coffee

If you got bad news, you wanna kick the blues
Coffee
When your day is done and you wanna ride on
Coffee

Been singing that for decades, amusing myself, annoying others. Found a video of Eric Clapton playing it in 1988, backed by Mark Knopfler, Phil Collins, and Elton John. Hope you find it as satisfying as me.

We watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves last night at home on Paramount +. We enjoyed it and would recommend it. Fun, light fair, engaging, a little campy sometimes but nothing felt overplayed or overdone. Some small twists although most were visible a bit ahead of the scene, and several laugh out loud moments.

Here’s my coffee and the music. Stay pos and rule your Monday as best as you can. Never easy being in charge, especially when you’re trying to be in charge of yourself.

Here we go. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Well, the sky is blue and ripe with sunshine. It’s fine weather, even though Uncle Bill passed away at midnight last night. Heart failure. He was a good person and being related to him is an honor. Not much else I can but celebrate his life and go on.

It’s 62 F right now. 75 F is expected later today, 80 Friday, 90 — some say 97 — an Saturday, kicking off a week of temperatures dancing between highs in the upper 80s to mid 90s. Appears summer is crowding into May. This is May 11, 2023.

It’s also my older sister’s birthday. Happy b’day, sister! She’s two years older than me and about eight inches shorter, and I’m only 5’8″. She’s a grandma several times over and living the life in a suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

Learning of Uncle Bill’s end of life encouraged The Neurons with a 1986 Phil Collins song, “Take Me Home”. I may not be alone in this, but I’d loved to be back in that time when I regularly saw Uncle Bill, and he was young, and I was younger, and both of had forever ahead of us. Death is natural and regular, but always stirs memories up from the well’s bottom and yearning for the times and places I most enjoyed.

On a lighter note, got my new military ID today. Yes, I’m retired, but the card ‘expired’ when I turned 65, something put in place to force retirees to sign up for Medicare, which becomes the primary healthcare for vets of a certain era. Getting the card is hard. Limited places to get it in Oregon. Local Medford guard unit provides walk-in service. Well, that’s easy, isn’t it? No. The onerous system complicates matters. People line up, waiting to get in, as he goes through the process of connecting, entering data, verifying info, registering fingerprints, taking the photo, and then finally printing out the new card and verifying that its chip works. Today was my ninth visit to get ‘er done. Tried too, when I was in PA last year, where they are by appointment only. No appointments were available at any of the three nearby sites. Morgan, the infantry man who mans the office, shared several horror stories about people’s efforts to get a new card. Congratulations to him, too, who is retiring after twenty, but staying on to do the same job as a civilian. He seems pretty pleased.

Have some coffee and stay pos. Enjoy your life and forge ahead as you can. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

When I was growing up in the sixties, music was usually heard on the AM bands on my transistor radio, bedroom radio/alarm clock, or in the car. This was augmented by Mom’s music on her console stereo, and my sisters’ music on the older sister’s portable phonograph. It was red and gray suitcase with a record player inside.

By the end of the sixties, we were listening to more sources, including cassette tapes and 8-tracks. FM was coming on a purveyor of pop culture, though.

Overseas in the military, I depended on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services. We had a heavy dose of popular songs. I listened to some local radio but not understanding the language was often a turnoff.

By the time I returned to the United States from overseas for the last time, it’d all changed. CDs were on the scene. Digital and the net were rapidly emerging. Radio stations became more segmented. I had three primary music stations in the SF Bay Area. One each for alt rock, classic rock, and top forty rock, which included pop. I had buttons for country and western, young country, R&B, soul, rap, gospel, along with the news, sports, and talk stuff. It was an amazing plethora.

Yeah, just thinking and remembering, that’s all. Today is sooo different.

All of was triggered by Genesis as my theme choice yesterday. Early Genesis with Peter Gabriel was much different than Phil Collins’ Genesis but I enjoy both. Fascinating how Peter and Phil also found solo success, along with Mike Rutherford of Genesis.

As they were all on my mind, I’m going with another Phil choice. This one combines Phil Collins with Phil Bailey of Earth, Wind, and Fire. Here’s “Easy Lover” from 1984.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

After reading about South Dakota’s disparaging remarks about herd mentality and the subsequent spike in COVID-19 cases in that states, I thought of the phrase, against all odds.

Against all odds, Alabama held back until it was conclusively demonstrated that despite not being like California, Alabama was going to experience the coronavirus. Checking the news today, I see two thought-provoking headlines to use to compare and contrast:

Alabama Tourism Among States Least Affected By Coronavirus

Mobile sees surge, added the most coronavirus cases in Alabama last week

The first article tells that Alabama’s tourism industry has been one of the least hard-hit in the nation. In the second article, ADPH reports that Mobile surged from 158 cases last week to 468 this week.

Anyway, I can hammer the point that social distancing works, but against all odds, churches, some Republican governors, and Liberty University disbelieve the facts and refuse to take the recommended actions.

And anyway, now that I’ve made this a stupidly long post for a theme music entry, today’s theme music is Phil Collins with “Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now)”, a 1984 song written for the movies, “Against All Odds”. Kind of a slow song, bit of sappy movie montage behind it, and it doesn’t even mention odds (what are the odds of that?). Not much of a theme song. Don’t Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges look pretty, though?

Oh, well.

Cheers

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Floofography

Floofography (catfinition) – An account of a pet’s life, often a cat, written or produced by another (usually a human).

In use: “A floofography about the famous floof star, Mew Collins, was released last week. Mew Collins, a domestic shorthair rocker , had several songs that charted well during his career, including “You’re In the Bathroom (And I Need to Get In)”, “Ashley”, “Catnip”, and that cat anthem, “Touch My Tummy (If You Dare)”.”

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

In 1985, I was reassigned from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan, to Shaw AFB in South Carolina. Part of a mobility unit, my primary mission was to deploy to southwest Asia and exercise command and control of deployed Air Force units. Since we didn’t do that often (other than field exercises), my secondary mission of training Air Force reservists in southwest Asia command and control took center stage. I was on the road a lot. My commander let us drive our cars to many locations. That meant I listened to a lot of music in my car.

One of my favorite albums of that time was No Jacket Required by another Genesis member, Phil Collins. That was a terrific album. While I favored several songs on it, “Sussudio” edges out “Take Me Home” and is the song I’m streaming through my head today.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sometimes it just sledgehammers into me: I don’t care anymore.

The hammer swings into me out of weariness, bitterness, and lethargy. I think it’s always swinging into me, but most days, or some part of the day, I can raise my shields and ward off the blows. But then I reach that point where the drums begin from Phil Collins’ song, and I’m singing with it, “I don’t care anymore.” Singing that song releases my negative energy and girds me to begin again.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

I often sing the blues. My version is the first world blues. I’m blue about the state of the world, environmental concerns, human rights. I’m also blue ’bout computer issues and awful television shows while simultaneously, hypocritically decrying our consumer society. I’m blue because I love auto racing and hate its economic and environmental impact. I’m blue because while I have plenty to eat, my metabolism has slowed and I can’t eat all the foods I want all the time. I’m blue because my hair is thinning and graying even while I know I’m in a pretty damn good place. I’m blue because I’m a basket of contradictions and because my cats don’t get along better. And the blues strike, too, because I’m pretty healthy while so many friends and loved ones suffer from health issues. I sing the blues because there are too many people who seem evil for the sake of being evil and care about no one but themselves.

That’s why I sing the blues. That’s why I’m thankful for an era where we had folks like B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Etta James, Albert King, Doctor John, Phil Collins, Robert Cray, Paul Butterfield and more to lift me out of the blues via that terrible technology that I love and hate.

Here they are, strong of voice, at the top of their skills, performing ‘Why I Sing the Blues’. 

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