Tag: rock

Sunday’s Theme Music

Quiet day has come. Although it’s quiet right here right now (cue Jesus Jones and van Halen for the neurons – although the Jesus Jones song is “Right Here Right Now”, the van Halen song is always conflated because my late buddy Randy always knew “Right Now” but didn’t know “Right Here Right Now”, see?), news stories echo through the head. Several were about shootings or outrageous driving (and their results). This weekend also brought several tales about boats capsizing and people drowning. Was it always so crazy? some of the neurons ask.

It’s Sunday, April 24, 2022. Getting the calendar right requires a look down at the computer screen’s corner. Writing does that to me. Get deep into it, and then suddenly, I become confused about dates, time, food. I end up walking with Homer Simpson and Randy Newman singing “Left Foot, Right Foot” in my mind.

It’s forty now but the weather folks say that we’re heading to 71 F today. It’s a believable claim, when I peer at the cloudless blue sky. Sunshine is flashing off everything. Weather, though, can be deceptive, promising you, “Yeah, it’s warm and sunny out here,” then cutting off body parts with an icy knife when you step out to enjoy the invitation. Weather thinks humans are as dumb as the cats. The cats aren’t dumb about the weather, but they have short memories. Plus, whenever the weather isn’t to their liking, they blame me with stony gazes and tails curled up against their bodies.

I’ve always wondered how well that tail-curling really works to keep them warm. I bet some scientist has studied it. I’ll also bet that someday we’ll have genetic modifications that allow us to have tails, and there will be people walking around with tails hanging out. I’ll probably be dead by then, though, so I’ll need to haunt the planet until it happens.

Sunrise was at 6:16 AM. Sunset will be at 8:02 PM. Rain is expected later this week and the temperatures are gonna crash again. Get out and suck up some vitamin D while you can, if you’re in this area.

Turning to sports, the neurons have a firm hold on “Right Now” by van Halen from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, 1992, and are relentlessly playing it around snatches of “Right Here Right Now” in the morning mental music stream. I gotta get off this crazy thing.

Stay positive, etc. Just read of a COVID-19 outbreak from a prom, but everyone’s symptoms were mild or they were asymptomatic. You never know when a new variant will unleash though, do you?

I need coffee. Here’s the music. RIP Eddie. He and Valerie had such great hair. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Blinding sunshine crashed through today’s window early on, piercing the hazy cloud layer with mocking ease. That happened at 6:18 AM. Temperature was in the forties then, now they’re at 52, and we’re expecting a day of sunshine with a few clouds, and a high of 66, 67, F, before sunset at 8:01 PM.

Welcome to April the 23rd, Saturday, 2022.

I have “Love Me Two Times” by the Doors in the morning mental music stream. It’s coexisting alongside a second song.

My neurons started playing their version of “Name That Tune” with me the other day. They said, “Remember this song?” Then two notes or part of a word would flash among them. “No, I don’t remember that,” I answered. “I need more.” Begrudgingly, they gave another word here, a sound there. I would try to focus and recall, but the song wouldn’t come to me. DKAY, but when something like that happens, i.e., I’m trying to remember a place, event, name, person, song, and it doesn’t come, it’s like small piece of hell. “Why can’t I remember that?” I ask myself. It was almost there, then, whisked away by malicious forces once more.

This went on about three days before I caught enough of the words to go, “Wait,” and hit the net in search of. The song is “Sleep the Clock Around” by Belle & Sebastian. I’d heard it several years ago on the American version of “The Killing” and looked it up. It’s a fascinating duet to me.

Whew. Glad that’s out of my system. Stay positive, test negative, and you know, right? You’ve lived through 2020, 2021, and 2022’s first quarter.

Got my coffee. Here’s the song. Enjoy.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Sunshine blazed into the valley at 6:19 AM, kicking out some of the chillier air and chasing the clouds and night away. It’s now 40 F, and the clouds have scurried back into view after recovering from Sol’s surprise. We’ll be ranging up to the upper fifties this AM before sunset at *drumroll* 8 PM this evening.

Mom is in surgery today, back in PA. She’ll be 86 this year, has emphysema and a pacemaker, and suffers a swollen foot because sixteen lymph nodes were removed a few years ago, along peripheral neuropathy. This surgery is to remove a large fatty deposit. She says it’s been bothering her for years and it’s gotten worse, so my thoughts circle toward her as the sun moves through the day and she goes through the process.

Today is Friday, April 22, 2022.

The neurons have “Manic Depression” by Jimi Hendrix (1967) swirling through the morning mental music stream. It’s a writing thing. A friend was celebrating his 90th birthday. His son is my friend and was an editor with one of the big publishing houses back at the century’s rollover. He suffered health issues and had to quit, and since has written one novel (that he hates) and is now trying to write again. He helps take care of his parents and their home, though, so that’s where his energy goes. He was speaking of his frustration while he was writing, trying to put it all together in something coherent, compelling, and worthy.

Out of that conversation, my neurons brought up the opening lines to “Manic Depression”:

Manic depression is searching my soul
I know what I want
But I just don’t know
How to go about getting it

Feeling, sweet feeling
Drops from my Fender’s fingers
Manic depression has a-captured my soul

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, test neg., etc. I feel the need for caffeine. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Rain drops tune up on windows and vents for a melody I don’t recognize. Wind chases the cats back into the house’s security. The sun crested the southeast ridges at 6:22 AM but sunshine remains a wan, flighty element. Our temperatures will range from 46 F to 54 and back down again before the sunset show at 7:58 PM.

Today is Wednesday, April 20, 2022 — yes, 420. A lot of people have fun with this aspect of calendaring, you know, the code for marijuana or cannabis consumption, but it doesn’t move me much. I’ll probably joke with friends about it later.

I watched a fun drama, Metal Lords (Netflix), about high school boys pursuing a quest to be a heavy metal band. Lot of entertaining references to metal throughout helped, but there was strong acting and directing, and solid production values. While the usual high school tropes permeate, they’re lightly employed, because, come on, the usual tropes of bullying, social awkwardness, hormones, and cliques, do exist in RL HS, DB Weiss, who brought Game of Thrones to HBO, also deftly delivers some intelligent nuances to the tropes. I enjoy it and recommend it.

Anyway, the movie left me with a taste for a favorite of mine when I was on puberty’s cusp. “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath (1970) is in the morning mental metal music stream. Hope you enjoy it. Speaking of taste, my tastebuds are yearning for a little black magic brew. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

At first, I was contemplating a bland sky. One gray, undecorated sheet cake dominated, and had since sunrise at 6:24 this morning. Then, at ten, clouds tore apart and sunshine made a blazing, grand entrance. Twenty minutes later, clouds discreetly covered the sunshine once again. I think the day’s script can be summarized as ‘variable’.

Today is April 19, 2022, a Tuesday, as it happens. It’s 46 F now and the ground is wet with drying rain. Snow caps the higher ridges and mountains. Our valley’s high is expected to go no further than the low fifties, with most saying that it’ll be 52, but we might see 53 or 54, depending on small local shifts. Sunset will be at 7:57 PM.

I have the Traveling Wilburys in the morning mental music stream, a result of my wife relating a conversation about her coffee peers being ignorant about who the Traveling Wilburys were. The Wilburys were an ad hoc supergroup made up of Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Bob Dylan. The guys were friends, lived near one another, and come together as friends to make music, using guitarist and sound engineer Dave Stewart’s home (his kitchen, for a large part of it), as their base.

I shrugged off the others’ ignorance about the band. The coffee mob members are a few years older than my SO, music tastes vary, and much of pop culture depended upon what radio station your car was on and your commuting habits in the late 1980s. So, you know, not knowing about them isn’t a big shocker.

Anyway, a Wilbury favorite for me is “Dirty World” from 1988, where they play with words and consumer ideas. Lot of fun.

Here’s the music. I’m going to forage for coffee in the kitchen. Later, gator.

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Monday’s Theme Music

We’ve reached the beginning again, following another calendar cycle, another week, as the world turns, giving us day and night, and we revolve around the sun, flashing through seasons, while the solar system revolves around the galaxy and the galaxy heads somewhere in the universe. And the universe itself might be going somewhere. It’s a lot to take in on a Monday in April, 2022. Thank cat I’ve had some coffee.

Today is the 18th. More than half of April has been lived, and almost a third of 2022. Sol crested the hills and mountains at 6:26 this morning, illuminating the area, showing us some idea of our weather. It’s hazy, cloudy, misty, wet, and sunny. It was 34 at dawn but now, just a few hours later, we’re arrived at 49, and have the low sixties in our sights before sunset at 7:55 PM.

I have 38 Special singing “Caught Up in You” from 1982 caught up in the morning mental music stream’s flow. It’s just the neurons playing with memories and word association and so on, saying, hey, remember 1982? Hey, remember this song? While so many memories are dependent on smells or deeply linked to them, I have similar linkages with music and television shows. I don’t think I’m anything special in that regard, more of part of the new shift in senses and memory associated with evolving technology. I think smell got a head start on memories because smell was ubiquitous and music wasn’t around much, and television wasn’t invented in humanity’s early years.

Ah, that gave me a laugh. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, etc. I have my coffee but I think a leftover cinnamon muffin is trying to get my attention in the kitchen. Here’s the music. Enjoy your day. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today is Sunday, 4/17, 2022, Easter in America. Sunrise at 6:27 AM was a bright but not sharply warm affair as a cottony line of clouds pilfered the sun’s impact. The valley will spin away from the sun at 7:54 PM. Right now, it’s reached 40 F locally, up from 36 at dawn. We anticipate hitting 60 today, but it’ll be a slow cook.

We have Easter plans. Besides calling Mom later, my wife and I are joining some pagans, atheists, Christians, and Jews for an outdoor brunch. We’re taking roasted potatoes and cinnamon swirl cupcakes. The cupcakes were made yesterday, all the wife’s doing but from a mix, while we prepared the taters this AM. They’re roasting now.

“Renegade” by Styx from 1978 is playing in the morning mental music stream. This came about from a conversation last night. We were in the snug. I was watching an episode of the Swedish show, “Beck”, focusing on the subtitles. My wife said, “It looks like somebody wants you.” I knew she meant the orange boy, Papi. He enjoys sitting in the doorway and firing green-eye lasers at me, barking out an occasional truculent mew to announce he needs something. Looking over at the feline, I said, “Looks like I’m a wanted man.”

Boom! The neurons slotted “Renegade” into my mind music, where it has played sporadically ever since, sometimes alternating with “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”. Of course, “Renegade” is a song the Pittsburgh Steelers play at Heinz Field, and I’m a Steelers fan since 1969, so there’s sentimental attachments with the song.

Here’s the music. Enjoy the sound while I enjoy my coffee and dress for my brunch. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Patchy snow is scattered over the ground like confectioner’s sugar on pastry. Weak sunlight bleeds through a porous gray quilt of clouds. Welcome to April 16, 2022.

Yes, we’re having unseasonable weather on this Saturday, as we’ve had unseasonable weather last season and the season before. When it’s unseasonable like this, it’s unseasoned to my taste.

Snow is in the forecast. The high will be 46 F, up ten degrees from the thermometer’s current stop. Sunrise came — look, there’s some shy sun looking our way now! — came at 6:29 AM. Sundown will steal in around 7:53 PM.

Another night of dreams, but it was a car drive with my wife yesterday, running local errands. As we passed a local landmark, we were, like, hey, something is different, and then remembered, oh, that’s where that drunk driver took out the tree used for the holiday lighting. We wanted to see it again, so I turned the car around. Well, just thinking, ‘turn the car around’ inspired the neurons to begin playing “Shattered (Turn the Car Around)” by O.A.R. from 2008. The song remained in the morning mental music stream today.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Here’s the music. Now, I’m off on a vision quest. My vision is a cuppa hot coffee. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Friday has arrived. Around the nation, in work stations and meetings, cars and on Zoom, I hear people smiling and telling one another, “Thank God it’s Friday.” TGIF. For shift workers, it might not be Friday. And wait staff, hospitals, and others associated with jobs whose tasks and activities don’t recognize a standard work week, they’re probably muttering, “Is it Friday?” Then they think how the weekend might spin. It’s a four-day weekend in the U.S. For, this is Good Friday and the First Day of Passover. Sunday is Easter. Many schools are closed for today and Monday. The change will do some folks some good. Your life might vary. Let’s hope some shooter somewhere doesn’t decided to make this a more memorable weekend.

Today is April 15, 2022. Hey, your taxes done? Sunrise was another glorious show, a sharp dawning of light piercing the sky as the mountains were cleared at 6:30 AM. Temperatures are at 37 F outside of my house on the valley wall. Sundown will take over at 7:52 PM. Our high should be in the fifties again. Another winter weather advisory is in effect, for snow over 2500, 2-6 inches. A lot of snow for April, but appreciated, given our dry winter and drought conditions.

My dreams featured waterfalls. Naturally, the neurons are playing “Waterfalls” by TLC (1995) in the morning mental music stream. (In fairness to the neurons, they first started with the theme song to the Mouseketeers.) 1995 was the year I retired from the USAF, and I remember the song playing during my commute in my final months, wondering if I was chasing waterfalls. It worked out well, though, for me. The AIDS epidemic of the era was behind the song’s lyrics, something I later learned. While I took it as a song about doubt, it’s more of a song of worry, pain, and desperation, and a parent trying to protect their child. It’s much different from my dreams, where I remember realizing I was standing in a waterfall, looking over its edge and thinking, “Neat. What power and beauty.” In the manner of dreams, the waterfall infused me with a sense of strength, and I walked away feeling invigorated.

Stay positive, etc. Hope your weekend goes well, whether it begins today or another day. I’m off for coffee. Here’s the song. Cheers

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