Tag: punk

Fridaz Theme Music

And the sky is a hazy shade of summer. Good morning from Yachats on the Oregon coast, where it’s 56 F with a marine layer blending blues and grays with the sky and the Pacific. Sunshine has roared over the eastern mountains. We don’t know where today’s battle between weather elements will take us. Yesterday was sharply clear all day long with a sunset unfettered by a marine layer. Forecasts yesterday were teasing us with suggestions that today’s high would find 70 F. Now they’re saying that it isn’t going past 65 F…again.

Ocean splash booms are a familiar these days, but a coverlet of fresh silence stays on us. I’ve not heard a train, siren, helicopter, or aircraft in many sleeps. All are usual sidekicks to every mundane venture outside the house door where we live in semi-rural, semi-urban southern Oregon. Serenity now.

News was shut out like a bad smell yesterday. Too much sunshine and good vibes distracting us, at least for one fortunate day. I did see that a judge ruled that Abina Habba is not lawfully serving as a judge. His ruling is not being enforced to allow the usual appeals. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear later that the judge’s observations about procedures being flouted and requirements ignored is waved away like a gnat annoying a MAGA ear.

Today’s song is “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. It’s our friends’ 34th anniversary. He and she recounted courtship tales and followed up with wedding day memories. She related that they kicked off their fancy wedding duds and played volleyball in the sand. That was an appropriate homage to how they hooked up, by noticing one another on the volleyball court. Anyway, The Neurons, being the jerks they are, heard all this and summoned “White Wedding”. This is a fascinating acoustic version.

May grace and peace hold and keep you. I’m depending on coffee once again. Onward and upward, here we go. Cheers

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Twosda’s Theme Music

For Twosda, March 4, 2025, in Ashlandia, the numbers are 44/50/37 F. Current, high, low. Showers spray us like a gardener going by with a squirt bottle. Some artist used spray paint of the sky. Layers of white with gray highlights. Some spray spills over the hills and mountains, obscuring the tops. Snow still streaks the northern ridges when they’re seen.

The household ant report is unchanged. I did several patrols and counted no more than twelve. They still wander without clear intentions or origins.

Well, as many of us predicted, the future of the PINO Trusk US economy has alarms sounding about bad things coming. Atlanta Fed model forecasts nearly -3% GDP growth in first quarter of this year

But the Feb. 28 update of GDPNow saw a plummeting forecast from roughly that same 2%+ mark to -1.5%. The model updated Monday with an even more pessimistic outlook: -2.8%.

The Atlanta Fed web page stresses that the GDPNow estimate is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed, and there are no subjective inputs to the model. 

“The estimate is based solely on the mathematical results of the model,” it states.

True to form of being an idiot, PINO Trusk’s response is said to be to try to conceal the truth, i.e., lie to people. Sure, that’ll work with the true believers, a.k.a. the MAGAts. And yea, verily, a subsection of low-informed ‘Mericans will be confused and taken in. But the tangibles will tell the truth. Economists not swallowing the Trusk pill will understand what’s going on. So will ‘Mericans filling up their cars, paying for ‘lectricity, buying food and goods, and looking for a job. PINO Trusk will try to paste it all up with shoddy gold leaf, you know, like his horrendous golden shows, but most of us will know that he’s taking the piss. Certainly, outside of the U.S., they’ll know and point out the descrepancies.

Whole thing has my spouse diligently doomscrolling and urgently prepping for rising prices and reduced supplies. The song being played in many parts of the progressive world is buy now, while you can.

That scripture has encourage The Neurons to resurrect a 2001 Gorillaz song. Part of this was due to my SO not being familiar with the Gorillaz. Said, “Never heard of them” when the Gorillaz were shown on a television talk show. True to my pedantic self, I had to educate and remind her of Gorillaz tune. I then found “Clint Eastwood” staying in my morning mental music stream cos of its lyrics.

I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I’m useless but not for long
The future is coming on

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Yep the future is now with Trusk’s shitty touch. Gonna be a looonnnggg, ugly, messy future, with a problematic, uncertain end. Many have hopes of guillotines being resurrected as part of Trusk’s finish, with Trusk Regime members making the regretful climb.

Oh, sorry. That’s not my music video. Sorry. Didn’t mean to share this video of MAGA Republicans getting booed. Also featured is the Rogan podcast featuring evil criminal Elon Reeve Musk calling social security a ponzi scheme.

Here is the music video.

Coffee has given me a hand up, and I’m ready to go. Hope your day is strong, wherever you are, whatever you do. Let’s rock on. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Decemberspect

It’s December 5, 2024. Thursday. Someone has taken a roller brush and painted the sky with thin smoky gray and white. It’s poor mixing, with tendrils of the gray sometimes thickened into a rich vein. Patching blue shows through. I take an eastern blister of white as the sun.

Morose is the word for that scene. It’s 38 F locally, 40 to 42 in other town zones. We’ll see high temperatures in the low to mid fifties.

First, happy birthday to my little sister. Point of order, she is a grandmother. Mom’s life disrupted sis’s life but sis survived and reformed herself as an intelligent, caring, forthright individual. She’s a strong person and I admire her for so many facets of who she is.

I read Jan Ressenger’s post, “Trump’s Threatened Immigration Deportations Would Traumatize Students and Disrupt Public Schools”, this morning. She writes about the impact on children and school systems, and how school systems step up to help their studencts embroiled in the mess. As one superintendent summarized it, ‘We went into kind of a Mom and Dad mode and just cared for kids.’

Our fear-based right wing so disappoints me. Many of our right-wingers profess to be good Christians. Naturally, I ponder what our nation’s founders would think of the right wing’s myopic attacks on immigrants. Yes, what would Jesus do? Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas. The right wing is slowly emerging as a darkly evil and inhumane force.

Away from that. WhenI looked out and spied the mostly white sky, the morning mental music stream (Trademark seceded) churned with “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. The Neurons thought, white, and went with it.

Get positive, be strong, have coffee. Coffee and I just renewed our vows once again. Keeps our relationship fresh. Here’s the music.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Raindamental

A light grey bolt of cloth stretches over our valley. Winds whip trees into wild gesturing. Accumulated moisture glistens on everything. This is Thursday, November 21, 2024.

A bomclone continues its hold on us, closing roads outside of the valley with snow and fallen tres, but we’re okay in our neck. 44 F, light rain, but hey, it feels like 47 F and it’s gonna strike 48 before daylight fades.

Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) is okay staying in with that weather raging outside but Papi the ginger blade is trying to set a new record. He’s been in and out six times today. I think he’s been inspired by Robert Heinlein’s cat and is looking for the door into summer. As my wife lets Papi in, she asks him, “Are you hungry?” Like asking him, “Are you an orange boi?” Hell yeah, he’s hungry, Papi hollers back. He hasn’t eaten in like fourteen minutes, the last time he left the house.

A moment for mock applause. Gotta hand it to Trump, he’s being proactive. No sense waiting for folks to become part of his administration to get corrupt. He’s gonna start with corrupt individuals and see how corrupt he can be. Like he’s angry at the nation and the concept of freedom and democracy and the public welfare and is out to destroy it via a rich man tantrum. I mean, have you seen the names and records he’s trusting to do his bidding? Hope his voters shrivel with shame and sink into the ruin they’re making of this nation. Yeah, I’m not bitter, angry, or disgusted. History will judge them harshly.

Thinking of summer, The Neurons begin working up summer songs. They finally emerge in the morning mental music stream (Trademark watery) with Superchunk and “This Summer” from 2012. It’s a song I rarely hear except when I’m tuned to satellite FM in the car and on an indie-oriented station. And while it’s about summer as we travel a trough of stoutly autumn weather, the lyrics kind of play into it. To get a little political (moi?), one of the lines go, “We can’t forget what we never knew.” Perfect epitaph for Trump voters IMO.

Get positive and remember your values and dreams. Coffee has entered my systems and is doing its thang. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Weathicipation (when you’re awaiting a weather event)

Got my “Death Before Decaf” filled with hot black java, ready to fight off the forces of sloth, lethargy, and fascism.

It’s Tuesday, November 19, 2024. Cloudy and 39 F. Light rain and a high of 43 F is expected. Also expected is a bomb cyclone. (I’d just call it a bomclone. But that’s me.) It’s expected to bring high winds and heavy rain to our area. Thing is, our location in the pinched end of a valley sometimes protects us from these things. Fingers crossed.

Have to pause to just say that Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Bullshit, is maintaining the MAGAt tradition of lies and hypocrisy. This devout Christian is earnestly protecting ex-rep Matt Gaetz, R-Gag. MiJo claims that MaGag is a private citizen. Therefore, the ethics report on him should not be released. Apparently, to MiJo, it’s not important what an ethics investigation paid for by WTP discovered about MaGag’s behavior and ethics. No matter your politics, WTP should be outraged. We have a right to know. We paid for it and MaGag was supposed to be working on our behalf, representing our nation and our values. But that’s classic MAGAt BAU. Lie, cheat, obsfucate. Point of order brought out by others, plenty o’precedence exists for releasing the MiGag ethics report. As a final f’instance, Hunter Biden‘s status as a private citizen meant nothing to MiJo. It’s the ol’ GOP double standard, and it’s putting off an unholy reek on Capitol Hill these days.

With thoughts of a bomclone bearing down, The Neurons threw songs with ‘bomb’ in the title into the morning mental music stream (Trademark flooding) mix. While the Gap Band was representing, the Runaways overpowered it with “Cherry Bomb”. The all-female rock group released the song in 1976. It did okay, nothing great, but its driving beat and inherent attitude has gotten it a place in movies and television shows. So you might not have heard it when it was riding the airwaves but you may have caught it in other media.

Get up, let’s go, time for another day. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Thursdarific

Here we go again, another Thursday. Seems like there’s fifty of these a year.

Today’s Thursday is 04/04/2024, which offers a nice set of four symmetry.

It’s up to 41 F now in Ashlandia. Sunshine graces the east. Snow is scattered on some heights of green trees to the south. A plate whipped potato clouds brood over the western and northern skies. Rain and snow are forecast as possible. Sounds like one of those weather days, right? A high of 50 is being dangled in front of us.

I was a bit frustrated this morning. Connections was so easy. Wordle went well. Suduko was accomplished. But I couldn’t see the Spelling Bee pangram. I put it aside to try again later.

I watched some Jimmy Kimmel talking about politics this morning. Gave me a chortle so I thought I’d paste it up here so you can have a Thursday chortle, too.

Jimmy K summers the same fate as me. I can’t believe polls show DJ Trump leading President Biden in several swing states. Jimmy asks, “How is that possible?” Then he proceeds to present comic reasons about why it shouldn’t be possible.

WARNING: Kimmel shares some footage of Trump speaking. If you’re like me, you’ll need a barf bag on standby.

As for me, I don’t think those polls matter. I put my faith in Simon “Hopium” Rosenberg. He’s the Democratic strategist and analyst who refuted a red wave coming in 2022.

The NYTimes shared an interview with Hopium R. yesterday. Here’s a slice.

The idea of this interview is that, at a time when there is so much fretting in the Democratic world, you are not — and have never been — a bed-wetter. Can you explain why? This goes back to the midterm congressional elections in 2022, as I recall?

Yes. The argument I made then was threefold. One was that the Republicans did something unusual in 2022. Usually when a party loses elections, they run away from the politics that caused them to lose. And Republicans were running toward it. They were becoming ever more MAGA, even though MAGA had lost in 2018 and 2020.

Second, that Biden was actually a good president, and we’d have a strong case to make. And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.

Simon R.’s position sums up my own tack. How can the things which didn’t work thrice before work this time? Don’t make no sense. I’ve also read several articles and posts about why the polls are off, and they give me strength.

Today’s music is a Green Day tune. I read about their SF Bay Area concert on SFGate and sought out the video. After enjoying it, The Neurons put it on a play loop in the morning mental music stream (Trademark eclipsed).

This song, “Living in the 20s”, came out this year. As might be anticipated from Green Day, it’s a sardonic take on living in the 2020’s twisted reality of shootings, media, and general craziness. I’ve selected a video so you can sing along. Also, not surprising for Green Day, it’s a fast-paced rocker.

Stay positive, lean forward, sip some coffee. Sorry, that was my reminder to myself. Your reminder goes, stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue.

Okay, here’s the song. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: rebellious

This is Saturday, March 23, 2024 — 032324.

Winter’s turn continues to erode our confidence that spring has actually arrived. Rain. Heavy clouds signaling more rain may be falling. 51 F with milky, intermittent sunshine. Could be bleaker but something about this pulls me down.

I’m not alone in feeling a downward tug. Before I mentioned it, another friend announced that he felt blah and blamed it on the weather change from sunshine and warm air to cold rain. Others quickly agreed with him. Several wondered if we’d get snow. Then came memories of March and April snowstorms fro previous years. I volunteered the time I remembered walking down the street in early July and looked across the valley at the snow on Grizzly. Wow, the others exclaimed.

The cats are back in the house. Papi tried the front door, side door, and back door, in and out times three, before acknowledging with plaintive meows, there’s no sunshine. The sunshine is gone! Where is the sunshine? Stop the rain. Make it stop.

“Can’t, little buddy,” I answered the ginger blade. “You’ll need to endure, just like us.”

Tail up but a sulky look over his shoulder to me, he headed for the bed.

The Neurons loaded the Clash into the morning mental music stream (Trademark floundering). The song is “The Magnificent Seven”. Now, the original 1960 movie which went by that name was a favorite of mine but was a remake of a 1954 Japanese movie Seven Samari, released in the US as a film called, The Magnificent Seven. The 2016 remake was called The Magnificent Seven. It wasn’t bad. I suspect the next edition of The Magnificent Seven movie will be set in space, or maybe another planet.

Anyway, the Clash’s song, “The Magnificent Seven”, is a punk statement on society’s states, especially as people’s buttons are pushed to conform, go to work, and enjoy the entertainment provided. Keep up with what’s going on by buying the latest consumer goods and you’ll be happy, because you’ve been told, that’s how it is. Seems fit to me as we plug in, turn on, and tune out, feasting on whatever powers our pleasure centers: shopping, cooking, games, sports, hunting, television, movies, books, fashion, TikTok, the net.

Well, now I’m depressed. Thanks, neurons. Think I’ll go escape into a novel. Shut up, neurons. They’re so eager to laugh and mock me when I act hypocritically by conforming to the mores and norms. Bloody hell.

Stay positive (ahem), lean forward, be strong, and vote. Think I’ll nurse more coffee and escape into my writing. It’s a safe place. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: sufficient

T’was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and all through the town, people were hurrying, rushing around, making their plans to have a good meal, or shopping online to get a good deal.

Yes, it’s Monday, the 20th of November of 2023. This is the last time that we’ll experience this day and date combo until three different things happen. One, time travel is finally achieved, enabling us to return to this date to see what really happened; two, the Recreation Society decides that this will be the day/date that is recreated as a do-over. But I know for a fact that time travel is still a few decades off and the Recreation Society won’t be here for over fifty years. In fact, its inventors aren’t even born yet.

Windy is the word for the weather in Ashlandia, where the wind is charged and sharp, and the cats are unhappy. After dipping to 30 F last night, we’re now up to 45 F under a flash blue sky and sterling sunshine.

Looking out and seeing no rain, The Neurons cranked up “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”, 1995, by Garbage, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark drenched). While it was a bit’o mischief by Les Neurons, who love pranking me before I’ve had coffee and I’m defenseless, I’ve always found IOHWIR to be a terrific sing along rocker. Shirley Manson delivers on vocals with audio sneers dripping with contempt. Terrific fun, and hard to resist as she teases, “Pour your misery down on me.”

Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward into that dark wind until we break through the other side. Pour some coffee down for me. Never mind, I’ll do it myself. Here’s the video. Cheers

PS: The third way we can experience Monday, November 20, 2023, again, is if we come unstuck in time. It’s been known to happen, although they didn’t know it at the time.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: blurp

Fog dismays me outside the window, blocking the sun and keeping us chill between its icy fingers, shutting me out from even seeing beyond the houses across the street. I know the sun is out there, first from learned science from my early childhood years, but also from a glimmer of light warring with the gray at the spot where the sun should be. Could be aliens coming to get my coffee, I suppose, but I’m keeping my money on the sun.

It’s November 12, 2023, and Sunday. About to go out and start the writing day but enthusiasm cringes in the face of the fog and 37 F temperature. Supposed to warm up to 58 F but first that sun needs to hammer its heat beat over that fog until the latter fades.

Le chats sure don’t like it, with the number one boy, Tucker, immediately returning from outside with a ‘screw-this-noise’ expression. He’s folded his black and white fur back in bed. Papi, always more stubborn and independent — he is an orange boi — tried to prove what a floof of the wild he is but his path always came back to the door, and quickly. In and out four times, he finally admitted, enough, and is not resting on the sofa after those exhausting forays.

If such creatures as these mighty housepets couldn’t withstand the weather, what hope do I, a mere mortal, hold? Well, for one, I have a coat and gloves, garments which they resist. Two, I won’t be out there long, not in the actual outdoors. I’ll hustle the car from the garage to the coffee shop parking lot and then shift my derriere’s load from the car to the building. There will be walks later, but it does have some measure on dependence about what the sun, fog, and temp do.

With fog stealing the sunshine, The Neurons thought it would be fun to play Len and “Steal My Sunshine” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark indestructible). Coming out in 1999, the song was the group’s big hit. I haven’t heard it in a car’s age at least, so The Neurons’ ability to shift it from my mind’s stasis to the active region surprised me.

Len — who are a brother and sister combo — have a lot of fun with words. Take this example.

I was lying on the grass of Sunday morning of last week
Indulging in my self-defeat
My mind was thugged, all laced and bugged, all twisted, wrong and beat
A comfortable three feet deep
Now the fuzzy stare from not being there on a confusing morning week
Impaired my tribal lunar speak
And of course you can’t become if you only say what you would have done
So I missed a million miles of fun

h/t Genius.com

Anyway, that’s the music. Be strong, stay cool, remain brave, and leeean forward. Fresh coffee is available. Mind if I steal a sip?

Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: perky

Sunshine clashes with multi-layered grey clouds over Ashlandia, where the weather is variable and the people are resigned.

It’s Sunday, November 5, 2023, and 57 F degrees, close to the projected high of 62 F. Was raining a short while ago, not a ‘oh-no-the-flood-is-coming rain’, but a light shower that had the cats curled up outside with their heads up asking, “What’s making that sound?”

We did the deed of turning the clocks back. I prefer that expression, ‘turning the clocks back’, over ‘setting back’ or ‘falling back’. Setting back sounds like something has gone wrong. Some wags will declare, “Well, that’s exactly what all this Daylight Savings Time clock changing is about. It’s government control and regulation gone wrong. We don’t need it.” Falling back feels like we’re retreating, as in, “Everyone fall back. Retreat.” So I will go with turning the clocks back, if and when I remember.

By Dog, I did enjoy the extra hour of sleep. When I first rose and saw the time, I thought, oh, please, just give me a little more sleep. Then I realized, hey, time change, and dove back to bed, pleasing one cat (Tucker) and dismaying the other (Papi). Papi doesn’t give a damn about any time but his own, and no schedule but his own. (Neither does Tucker, but Tucker likes cozying up to people in bed.) Seeing me go back to bed made Papi’s little face fall as he realized that he wasn’t getting his wet food breakfast yet.

Given that time was on my mind this morning, it’s not surprise that The Neurons began playing time-oriented music. I can list multiple songs that entered the morning mental music stream (Trademark derisive) as I stumbled in and out of light dozing with Tucker purring in my ear, but the song that finally found a firm grip in the MMMS is “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day. Some people will know this gentle, reflective song from Seinfeld‘s penultimate episode, but I know it from driving around the SF Bay area when the song was released in 1997 back and forth to work or out shopping. Although the song has such a sentimental and nostalgic air, it’s about a breakup with a girlfriend who moved to another country. In that light, with the “Good Riddance” aspect of the title, you realize that the singer is being sarcastic. That actually makes more sense for its inclusion in the Seinfeld‘s episode; Jerry never wanted any sentimentality on the show, although it seems to me that the montage shown as the song played was completely sentimental.

Stay pos, be friendly, strong, and optimistic, and lean forward. With coffee safely in hand yet again, I’ll try doing the same and maybe we’ll meet on some future date and place where we say to each other, “Isn’t this great?” Here’s the video. Cheers

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