Tag: pink floyd

Friday’s Theme Music

“Time,” by Pink Floyd, was one of those songs that I liked to listen to while laying flat on my back in the dark with headphones on. I did that with of the entire album, Dark Side of the Moon.

The discordant beginning of alarm clocks and bells ringing that starts “Time” is a satisfying, *ahem* wake up call. Then the heartbeats begin….

Later in life, I often streamed it in my mind as I awaited events, made plans, or traveled.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Of course, I always continue listening (or streaming) on through the next two songs.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Another from the past, and perhaps a repeat. This one springs from my days in San Antonio, Texas. I was stationed there for various needs three times. This song comes from my third iteration of military life there.

Assigned to Randolph-Brooks AFB and Air Training Command, working in the command post in the building called the Taj Mahal, we lived in base housing. We said it was San Antonio but in actuality, it was Universal City. San Antonio seemed like a much smaller, more relaxed town back then. When you drove the loops around the city, you rarely encountered a business and few other vehicles. Not like now, where all the land is filled in.

It was a pleasant assignment, not taxing at all, and quite boring. We were in base housing in a two bedroom/one bath place on the first floor. My cousins were regular visitors, a cool deal. It was Glen who brought the new Pink Floyd album, ‘The Wall’, to my attention. Besides Pink Floyd, Glen was a large fan of Steve Martin and ‘Star Wars’. He now lives just outside of Philly in PA.

So here it be, as heard in 1980, the year after the album was released, as we drove my brown Pontiac Firebird up to Stinky Falls to ride the cold river on inner tubes on a hot summer day, Pink Floyd and ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.

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Today’s Theme Music

Ah, it’s Friday. Are you comfortably numb? Will a couple Davids help?

Here is Davids Bowie and Gilmore, addressing the question of our numbness in 2006, doing the Pink Floyd classic in concert.

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Sentimentality and Nostalgia Win in a Landslide

Purging tee shirts today, and shorts. I have many of both, old and frayed and worn, that never escape the drawer. They often no longer fit, because I am no longer that size.

But there is a Pink Floyd tee shirt from the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. What a party that was. What was it, 1988? While stationed in Germany. We partied with Germans and Czechs. Man, hard to believe it was so long ago. I was a different person then. Well, I’ll keep it, even though its collar has partially separated from the shirt’s body, the colors have lost their luster, and the underarms are holed. I’ll keep it.

Also, the tee shirt celebrating Mark Donohue and the 30th anniversary of the Porsche 917-30, which itself was over a decade ago. That’s in good shape but small, a keeper. Also a keeper is the Australian Grand Prix shirt from 2000. My boss, a good friend, bought it for me. I was supposed to accompany her to Australia. We were doing clinic trials for a new medical device for treating chronic total occlusions, but plans were changed at the last minute and I didn’t go. But she remembered how I’d been going on about racing in general, and the Formula 1 race was going on that weekend, turning the place into a carnival, so she bought the tee shirt for me. It’s never been worn. I haven’t seen Laura in ten years but I remember her brightly as one of the best people I ever worked for and a sensational friend.

Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari in the rain is kept. That was his first year with Ferrari after he won two WDC with Bennetton. A red tee shirt from an Iowa writing conference is kept, and another, from a writing conference in Portland, is kept. My LeMans tee shirt is kept. This tee, although drained of life, celebrates Mario Andretti’s final year of Indy car racing. To the keep pile. The Steeler AFC championship shirt from my brother-in-law must be kept.

The tee shirt from the race course formerly called Laguna Seca is also kept. It has the old configuration on it. We ‘won’ passes from the Marlboro people when they were doing a promotion on Moffett NAS. I phrase it as ‘won’ because they gave us the passes after enjoying our company. That was when? Well, Marlboro sponsored Penske, and Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy were the driving line-up. 1994, a year before I retired from the USAF, that was the weekend the late, unique Randy stole a golf cart from a track official and drove it around because he was tired of walking. Blue, the tee doesn’t fit, but it’s the thought that counts.

In the end, the thought counts for a lot. The Goodwill pile is much smaller than the pile to return to the drawers. But these shirts, with their smells and rips, shrunken and frayed, are better than photos. I’ll die someday. An estate sale will be held or my wife or relatives will come through and look at these shirts. Those who know me will know what they’re about, and why I kept them.

The rest will just have to wonder.

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