Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
My dreams returned last night. I awoke feeling fantastic. The air was clear and cool, and my energy was flowing like a river during the spring melt off. The perfect song for this moment, I decided, was a kick back in feeling, style, and spirit. For that, I summoned “Old Time Rock and Roll” and Bob Seger from 1978.
This ’83 live version brings it all home. Give it a listen.
Got up from bed at the crack of cat (hmmm, that sounded better in my head) and began channeling Jimi Hendrix, “Stone Free” (1966).
The lyrics attracted me as sort of counter to my day, as I’m being ‘forced’ to socialize. (Yeah, I’m such a whiner. Poor, poor, pity poor me.)
Stone free, to do what I please
Stone free, to ride the breeze
Stone free, I can’t stay
I got to, got to, got to get away right now
Yeah, alright
h/t to Genius.com
I dreamed a black man in black clothes came by and fixed my arm. He was upbeat about it all.
Thinking that over, I opened my eyes and checked the time: 6:01. Not needing to get up and wanting more sleep, I told myself, I’ll just close my eyes for a moment.
My mind answered, “I close my eyes, only for a moment, then the moment’s gone.” Then the rest of the classic rock tune, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (1978), swelled in my head.
It’s a good choice as theme music goes. We’re battling over rights, equality, facts and science, trying to preserve our lives, planets, and society while coping with COVID, all to a cacophony of bullshit from the WH. Sometimes I feel like we’re warring nests of ants. Then, looking at the stars, I remember that we’re stardust, born on a cosmic wind.
Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.
I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.
Nope.
Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.
Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.
All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.
Up early. (Well, early-ish.) (With le chats.) Opened the back door and ventured into the cool air (well, coolish, low seventies, but it’s a relative thing, innit?) and clear blue sky (well, clear-ish and blue-ish, save for the marring brung in by wildfire smoke to the south and east, gentle nudges to check the wildfire updates). Birds were speaking but it was quiet (well, quiet-ish, as cars’ motoring punctured the mo’ — again, again, again). Thought of the world sit, rolling into longing for where I was and where I preferred to be.
Here’s a song from another time which I think evokes those senses, “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley and Mike Campbell, with Campbell on guitar, from 1984. By coincidence, it captures the sense of summer, 2020: “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summers out of reach. Empty lake, empty streets, the sun goes down alone.”
Hmm, seems like an -ish kind of day…
Cleaned up, shaved, cats fed, I sought the next things: what’d I need now? Coffee, water, a trip to the beach, my arm mended, the rona virus ended, a cold bevvie with my friends, a publishing contract…
“Dial it back, laddie,” I decreed. “Talkin’ ’bout here and now.” My mind reiterated my needs, building on them…
Such contemplation about what I need often collapses into what I want. Got air. I needed food and water. We can expand it into the hierarchy of needs., of course, but I’m addressing basics.
Yeah, it was too much for too early. Retreating from myself, I made coffee and breakfast, and invited the Stones in to perform “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“.
Today’s theme music is another feline inspired choice from last night.
I’d opened a tin of food for them. “Here it is. Come and get it.”
The three floofs sat there with ‘the look’ on their expressions. The look claims, “Who are you? Why should I trust you?” Do you know this look?
“Seriouslyre you kidding? This is food. I’ve been feeding you for years.”
The three cat expressions soured. “Food? What is that?”
I had to walk away. “It’s there when you want it,” I threw over my shoulder. Meanwhile, I’d begun humming the Badfinger song, “Come and Get It“, (1969). It always seemed like an odd song to me, this McCartney ditty, but it stays with me.
After a few minutes, I checked on the food, verifying, et. The three boys were off grooming themselves like nothing had happened.
Today’s song was selected with some floof input. While in the kitchen during operation brekkie, the resident panther shoved against me calves and yelled at me. “stand back, please,” I replied. “Let me finish this and I’ll give you a treat.” As the cat tottered away, Peter Gabriel sang, “Stand back,” from “Steam” (1993) filled my mental stream.
So, here we go.
Edit: repeat after me: today is Thursday.
Read a QAnon post yesterday about how JFK Jr’s secret son could be Donald Trump, Jr. JFK Jr isn’t dead; secretly still alive, he escaped the assassination attempt that was the plane crash which purportedly killed him.
In response, I thought of “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da“, a 1980 song by The Police about simple words and logic that ties you up.
Poets, priests, and politicians
Have words to thank for their positions
Words that scream for your submission
And no one’s jamming their transmission
Because when their eloquence escapes you
Their logic ties you up and rapes you
h/t to Genius.com
The Floof Miller Band (floofinition) – Floof rock (flock) band from the U.S.A. Formed in 1966 in San Floofsisco, CA, the band sold millions of records while releasing multiple top ten hits.
In use: “In 1976, The Floof Miller Band came out with the album, Bark Like A Puppy, and the song by the same name reached number two in Canada and the UFA.”
Michael Seidel, writer 