Tag: rock

Monday’s Theme Music

Monday has popped in. Only plans to stay for a day.

Sunrise on this Feb. 7, 2022, came at 7:18 this morning. It was another fine exercise in bright sunshine and mountain blue sky. The impressive color values and clarity could have been featured in a beer commercial. Was 35 degrees F at sunrise but it’s 43 now and we’re under the impression that it will reach 65 before sunset at 5:33 PM. Of course, we were promised 70 yesterday. Only 64 was achieved, so don’t get yer hopes too high.

Today’s music comes from my wife’s exercise class. Conducted by Zoom by her friend operating from the local Family Y, she sets up her laptop on the dining room table and exercises in that room. The dining room is part of the ‘great room’ and that portion affords her the space to move freely about. This morning’s exercise music was a medley of Beatles covers. Well, I was in the adjacent kitchen, making breakfast when “Eleanor Rigby” came on. The morning mental music stream sucked the 1966 song right into its environments. Soon I was singing it as I fed the cats (with some mods to the lyrics for the activity at hand).

I fondly remember the song. It came out when I was ten and my elementary school music teacher had my class singing it as well as discussing its aspects of weddings and loneliness. Some schoolmates’ parents were appalled because *gasp* death and a funeral are mentioned in the song. *What kind of song is that for children?*

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax and jabs when you can, and have a cuppa coffee with me. Mine is black and fresh. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s a gorgeous Sunday out there, pure blue sky and sunshine, the sort of day, in my working past, when we would leap up and say, “It’s a gorgeous day. Where should we go? What shall we do?” But today, we’re on our computers, in our books, in our chairs, in our office, reading, eating, communicating, writing.

The sun burst over the mountains at 7:19 AM and we’ll lose the sunshine at 5:32 late this afternoon. It only dropped to 38 degrees F last night and quickly reach fifty today, promising to, um, 70 degrees F. What? Can the weather service be right? Is this really mid-winter in Ashland, Oregon? Well, the record high, in 1992, was 72.

Today’s song trickled in as I thought about the landslide dream this morning. “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac was written by Stevie Nicks and released in 1975. Although covered well by The Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks, I have connections to that original song. In ’75, I was nineteen, married, serving in the military without my wife in the Philippines. So when you’re sitting in your room after work at night, getting your uniform ready for work the next day, sipping some alcohol, listening to music, connections are created.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax and booster when you can. Time for a coffee break. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Night drew back its filmy, star-studded sheet, slowly revealing day. The time was 7:20 AM and the day was Saturday, February 5, 2022. Night had waited eons for this encounter, surmounting fears and doubts to finally look at day. He’d been chasing her for centuries. She didn’t know why. Their movement had evolved into obsession. She wanted to know who it was chasing her. Ironic, but she had originally been the chaser, pursuing another on the other end. He’d been fleeting and fast, always just ahead, beyond the horizon. This one, though, was coming toward. If she could just wait and see…

But the forces that kept her moving, moved her on again.

Our low was 30 degrees F when night attempted to find who chased her. No clouds mar the sky blue crowning the valley. It’ll be 60 here in the dead of winter, twelve degrees above our average high, before night comes around after the sunsets at 5:31 PM.

I have a song from 1966 by The Outsiders, “Time Won’t Let Me”, blasting in the morning mental music stream. Yeah, it’s an oldie but so am I. Listen to that driving rhythm, though, that brass, that rising tension and soft counter-tension. Ah, classic rock.

Why this song today? Don’t know. Maybe it’s something I ate or drank. Perhaps a dream inspired it. Could be modern frustration or nostalgia that called it up. The neurons that could shed light have gone AWOL. Maybe they’re pranking me. I can imagine those neurons giggling and snickering, calling up a song and then scattering, laughing at the mischief they’ve done. Oh, those cheeky neurons!

But, as with any song that’s stuck, it must be shared to get it out of my head, so here it is. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get yer vaxxes and boosts when you can. Coffee is in hand. I know what I’m gonna do. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

A single small, thin white cloud is splattered on the blue sky like an errant drop left by someone painting a room. Today is Friday. The end.

Today is Feb. 2, 2022. The sun glided into the valley on gold white wings at 7:21 AM and will slip out of the valley at 5:29 PM. A new weather routine is in effect. Cold at night, bottoming about 30 to 32 F — so, freezing — then a slow rise as the sun follows its low-bake instructions. Our temperature will peak at 59 F. That’s how the week ahead looks, too, with a few shallow dips of the highs into the lower fifties, and a couple of spikes into the sixties. But no snow. No rain.

Today’s theme song comes from feeding the cats this morning, yeah? As I was about the business, some were shadowing me, chatting up their need for food right now, despite the bowls of kibble throughout the residence. I answered them, “I told you to be patient, I told you I’ll feed you in a minute.” Flash. Bon Iver “Skinny Love” (2008), hopped into the morning mental music stream: “I told you to be patient, and I told you to be fine. And I told you to be balanced, and I told you to be kind.” Off the neurons went.

But it’s an interesting song, so I looked it up on the net and found this acoustic version from Colbert. So, stay positive, test negative, enjoy the music, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. Now, somebody mentioned coffee. It might’ve been me. Just catching up here.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Welcome to Threesday! Yes, Threesday. Many people aren’t aware of the origins of Thursday, but it comes from the invading hordes that were taking down the Roman Empire. The Romans thought, ‘thurs’ was a reference to ‘three’ in the pagan language because the invaders would sometimes hold up three fingers. The invaders were telling the Romans that they’d be back in three days, on Thor’s Day. Oh, the things that mixed-up communications have given us. Of course, I made most of that up just now. As far as I know, the Thor’s Day part might be true.

The cats were waiting for the sun to arrive this morning. When it did at 7:22 AM, they all yawned, stretched, and asked, “What’s for breakfast? Come on, get up! Time to eat.” The temperature then was 28 F locally. It’s expected to climb to 55 before the sun takes its show over the horizon at 5:28 this evening. Islands of white clouds linger along the northern horizons above the mountains like the promise of a new land, but the sky is otherwise a hazy, lazy blue.

I have Lenny Kravitz singing “Are You Gonna Go My Way” stuck in the morning mental music stream. I know I’ve used his 1993 release as my theme music before, but the song is worming through my head this AM. I must share it to release it. Hence, it’s the day’s theme music.

Be safe, be smart, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vaxes and boosters when ye can, and take time to sit and smell the coffee. I’m now going to smell and drink my coffee. Happy Threesday to you. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rotating and orbiting as the planet has done for billions of years, we now come to February 2, 2022. A Wednesday, it may be memorable to many people for many reasons, but how does it compare to the past trillions of days? Our human lifespans are so short compared to the universe’s life scale that little of what we do is memorable in the cosmic sense. It’s why we narrow our focus down to our personal spaces and calendars. Contemplating the greater scale may well lead to nihilistic conclusions or heavy consumption of coffee, alcohol, or other drugs. Or eating disorders. So let’s just keep focus on our smaller but amazingly impactful days. They are impactful on us and that’s what builds our memories and experiences and skew our emotions.

Anyway, the sun ‘rose’ at 7:23 AM and will ‘set’ at 5:27 PM. I’ll drink some coffee and eat some food. I’ve already done some of the latter. You’re probably doing something similar, eating, or thinking about what you’ll eat, even considering, perhaps, who you’ll eat it with. Here in Ashland, it dropped to 28 F last night. Now it’s 36 with a high of 44 expected for the day. Dollops of congealed gray and white cloud float on the blue sky. We do not expect rain.

I haven’t done any of my daily games. They’ll come soon. I guessed my first word in Wordle in two guesses yesterday. On the other hand, it required all six in two games. Four other games took three or four. Yeah, I like Wordle. Getting it in two is luck. For instance, in the first game when I guessed it in two, the last two letters of my first guess were green. On a whim, I entered poppy as my second guess. That was the word. Yea for me.

Weirdly, I have a song called “If Not for You” living in the morning mental music stream. Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song. Then George Harrison recorded it, followed by Olivia Newton John. I had the albums for the first two performers. I heard the ONJ version on the radio one day and then turned around and pulled out the vinyl 33-RPM album to listen to Dylan and an eight-track tape to listen to George’s version. Doing that back then in my bedroom in Pittsburgh somewhere around 1973 (all of the versions were out by 1971), I never imagined the technology that would allow me to sit at my computer and pull up the same songs. Trippy, innit? Just think of how it all might be in another fifty years or so, right?

Part of me thinks about memories like this and wonder why it stays so sharply in my memory today that I can look around that room from my vantage here and see and hear the details of my life then. A sliver of me muses that maybe there’s some cosmic entanglement taking place. Another facet of me shrugs and mumbles, who knows?

For today’s theme music, I’ve selected a recording of Dylan and Harrison playing it together. Makes me smile. Stay postive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters when you can. I’m off for coffee now. Looking forward to it. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Did the conveyor belt of calendar days speed up? It’s already Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. I feel like George Jetson sometimes. The cat and dog sped up the walkway and now it’s a runaway, leaving George shouting, “Jane, stop this crazy thing,” as he goes round and round. Yes, time can feel like a crazy thing.

This morning’s sunrise at 7:24 AM seemed sudden. I was watching out the window on the southeast side where the sun first makes it way over my house in the winter. The slow rise was expected, but then it was like the sun leaped up over the mountain, blinding me as it shouted, “Gotcha!”

It was up to 33 F by that point. The water in the outside pet dish was frozen. I told my cat last night, when we went out at midnight and gazed at the clear, star-filled sky, “It’s gonna be a cold one, dude.” Not as cold as other places; these things are relative. I guessed 29, 30, which was on the mark.

Our high will be like yesterday, about 45 F, which is our winter average in Feb. Sunset will come at 5:25 PM. That means ten full hours of sunlight today! Woo hoo! But — still looking for that rain and snow. Worries about drought, wildfires, the snowpack, and reservoir levels hover over the pleasant winter hours.

When I was out walking yesterday, my mind drifted through writing projects and DIY issues before the mental jukebox turned on. It was on random, but Whitesnake with “Is This Love” was left playing in the morning mental music stream. The song was released in 1987 and the song and video have such a glam rock 80s vibe — the hair, the women in tight dresses, the beat, the guitar styling. What a scene.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vax when you can, and let’s get off this crazy thing. Here’s the music. Ah, coffee. Such a wonderful aroma. Now, to taste.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today feels like winter outside. Not as much like winter where snow thickens in growing piles on the ground and obliterates visibility as is happening in many parts of the northern hemisphere. No, not that wintry. But chilly, with a polar snap in the air and a muted sun obscured by an endless cloud layer.

Today is Monday, January 31, 2022. The last day of January. One month of 2022 in the books. About 8.5% of the year’s days are gone.

The sun’s live streaming shine began at 7:25 AM and will cease at 5:24 PM. Temperatures are kissing the upper thirties now and are predicted to stop at 45 F. But no rain. No snow.

I have a Michael Jackson song from 1979 called “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” circulating in the morning mental music stream. It was a large hit back in the late seventies and early eighties, kicking off a new MJ era. The song is cat related for me today. My cancer-afflicted feline was eating this morning. I encouraged him not to stop until he got enough. Good to see him trying to eat robustly. You can see the music connection, right? He’s in sad shape, with a tumor maligning his handsome face. His personality remains the same, though.

Watching the MJ video is a trip back. He looked and acted so much different just four years later, when he came out with the Thriller album. He reminds me of David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, or Madonna, re-inventing themselves. The Beatles, Stones, Who, etc., were less about reinventing themselves and more about shifting and refining themselves. Either way, it’s been fascinating to observe all these these changes throughout the decades, and the music shifts that brought us to now.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when you can. I’m getting coffee now because I can. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sunday. A hazy day, with strips of white clouds torn off and hanging on the blue sky. The sun seems diminished, and the air feels chillier. The dueling high and low pressure systems that’s been delivering our pleasant weather streak seem to be moving. Although it’s 44 F, it feels different. Today’s high will ‘only’ be 53, instead of the sixties that we’ve been hitting. Rain is forecast for tonight. Tomorrow should be ten degrees cooler. For historic purposes, our January average high is 48, and we’ve been consistently exceeding sixty. The sun popped in at 7:26 AM and will pop out at 5:23 in the evening.

Today’s music comes from yesterday. It hit as I checked out the day. “A Beautiful Morning” by the Rascals was released in 1968. Mellow, relaxed, it’s good accompaniment to walking on a nice day, which yesterday was, all sunshine, birds, and mild breeze. But although the sun sets at five twenty something, the mountains block its presence about seventy-five minutes before that. It gets cold in that shadow. While it’s entertaining to look across at the lucky people in sunshine on the valley’s other side, brown but sun-blessed at this time of year, I’d rather be walking in it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters. I’m getting my coffee. Black, straight up. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Gold filled the cloudless sky as the sunblast kicked off at 7:27 AM in our valley on this Saturday, January 29, 2022. With the sun rising, the gold dipped. Blue flooded in as the sun’s beams surmounted the mountains at last. The temperature was 32 F. Now at 36, we expect to see 63 before the sun takes its show over the western horizon at 5:21 PM. Look at that, almost ten hours of sunshine and February hasn’t started it session yet.

In bummer COVID-19, all the county libraries are completely shutting down for a week. All materials due during that period will be automatically extended as the drop boxes will be locked shut. Hold pick-up periods will be extended, too. All this is because of personnel shortages driven by employees or their families sick with COVID-19.

While that’s happening, some genius suggested in an editorial that the best way to deal with the skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers is to open all the businesses and not restrict any of them. Save the economy and give everyone’s morale a boost. But…as the numbers are skyrocketing, people sicken, and the hospitals fill, who is going to be there to work?

Sadly, many see this bizarro logic as an ideal solution. Yet, hospitals across the nation are pressing nursing students into working for free to help with the caseload as personnel fall sick. Other nurses are being ordered to work longer hours, sometimes while foregoing pay, because of shortages. These are the same people who think that bare shelves are a political issue which can be resolved by just making more people work. They completely miss the dynamics engaged.

Enough of that. Sorry for the rant. Haven’t had coffee yet.

Today’s song is a repeat. “Maneater” by Hall & Oates came out in 1982. I was stationed in Japan, on Okinawa, at Kadena AB in the military at the time. That has nothing to do with the song’s occupatoin of my morning mental music stream. The song is there because of the cats. Why, yes, of course.

Sometimes when I’m feeding the cats, maybe just five out of five times, Boo and Tucker will suddenly become oblivious to me. After begging me for their morning meal with patient meows as they follow me around, I’ll put the bowls down and say, “Here you go, Tucker. Here, Boo. Come and get it.”

Hearing that, they’ll sit. Look around. I can hear their minds saying, “Boo? Tucker? Never heard of ’em.”

Papi, the young ginger, will dart pass them to the bowls, give me a meow, and begin eating. I then say, “There you go, Papi, eat up.”

Hearing “Papi”, Boo and Tucker will rise and come. “Papi,” they say. “Why, that’s me.” They say this even though I tell them, “No. You’re not Papi. You’re Tucker and you’re Boo. You two are black and white. He’s a ginger.”

They act like they can’t understand a word of what I’m telling them.

Of course, when they finally came is when I said in my head, “Here they come.” Which started Hall & Oates and the bassline for “Maneater”. Thus is how my mind works. At least before coffee.

Here’s the tune. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, as get the jabs when you can. I gotta get that coffee in me, you know? Cheers

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