Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Today’s music choice is another of those, “Out, damn spot,” selections; a song is stuck in my head and must be dislodged by being shared with others.
The song emerged during last night’s dream quagmire. Can’t call it a dream true stream last night. From my memories, the dream streams all torrented down pipes that burst, releasing the dreams into a big sloshy mess. So, boom, here’s a twentieth century Guns n’ Roses Sunday offering, “You Could Be Mine”.
Sitting in the chasm between writing projects, dealing with submissions, hunting for acceptance, stamping on depression, and resisting regression. I walk along on slippery wet leaves, gold and red, fallen from trees, I hunt the moment and a song, something to sing to take me along.
I depend on music like I depend on coffee, computers, and the net, soft addictions to deal with what’s left, and what I hope to do and be, striving to leave a little self to the world’s history.
Into the mind stream jumps the Kinks, squeezing alongside Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and snippets of other song links, taking me back to decades gone, sometimes to people and selves where I felt like I more belonged. I offer you a fantasy, a song to help you escape, “A Rock and Roll Fantasy” from nineteen seventy-eight, a time when we had more hope and direction, and people weren’t warning us about civil war, strife, and sedition.
More coffee, stat.
Today’s theme music arrives directly from the chicken bone dream stream. First up, which began streaming as my dream ended, is one written by Paul Anka. Frank Sinatra had great success with it in the late 1960s, but my dream ended with the Sid Vicious punk version (1978). As that ended, my brain did a one hundred and streamed the 2013 pop-rock song, “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors.
Yes, it was an interesting dream. Since it was last on the slate, I went with Best Day.
But I threw in Sid’s song, because.
Cheers
There I was, walking along, dealing with the cesspools of worry and anxiety collecting in my head, happy as a friggin’ lark, when in comes Ben Howard’s song, “The Fear” (2011).
Oh I’ve been worrying,
that my time is a little unclear,
I’ve been worrying,
that I’m losing the ones I hold dear,
I’ve been worrying,
that we all,
live our lives,
in the confines of fear.
Good walking tune for its beat, and it fits today’s partly cloudy, sometimes sunny, chilly, warm, blustery weather that taunts us with fall and worries us about winter.
Whatever.
Today’s music choice is dream fallout. This song was in the dream stream and got kicked into the conscious stream after I got up. Now it’s stuck in there on a loop, which is driving me nuts, so it’s being shared to spit it out of the stream.
From 1987, here’s U2 with “Sweetest Thing”.
A cat and I were admiring the night sky. Well, I was admiring the sky. He was alternatively washing and darting sudden glances at sounds that he claimed to hear. I think he was messing with me, myself.
A full, bright moon obliterated views of the stars but turning, I found some to admire, and toyed with identifying constellations while listening for whatever it was the cat claimed to hear. Besides raccoons, cats, dogs, rats, deer, and opossum, critters like bears and cougars stalk the area.
Still beauty descended from the night. With it came memories of other times when I looked up at a night sky. Most prominently came a time when Bobby and I were on Sicily. Stationed in Germany together, we’d flown down on a training mission. Now trashed, we shared a rallying cry, “The beach at dawn,” and were trying to stay up until that point. It was oh dark thirty, and the Med’s nearby lapping waves was lulling us. Above was a fantastic array of stars, planets, and galaxies, the kind of sight that whispers, “Oh, wow.”
It made me think of “Wheel in the Sky”, a 1978 song by Journey. I sang a little of it. After I stopped, Bobby said, “Oh, man, I really dislike that song.”
Man, did we laugh.
As for reasons why he disliked it, I vaguely remember him mentioning that he thought it too sentimental, sloppy, and shallow. Maybe I’m remembering wrong.
I still don’t know what the cat was pretending to hear. I went back in, leaving him to prowl the night. Maybe the sound he heard was just a promise of something enticing.
Spouse: “I’m hungry. I know it’s early, but I want to make dinner. I need to eat something. Are you ready to eat?”
“Are you kidding? I was just about to get a snack. I’m hungry like a wife.” I laughed. “I mean, wolf.”
“Okay, then I’ll make dinner. What should we have?”
Hungry like a wolf natch invited the 1982 Duran Duran song, “Hungry Like the Wolf”, into the stream. It stayed on a loop as we made dinner and ate, continuing to eat through dessert (pumpkin pie) and watching Saturday Night Live on Hulu, and on through Letterkenny and DCI Banks.
So, here it is, your Monday theme music. Blame my wolf. I mean, wife.
Had to give my cat his L-Lysine last night. Like many receiving treatments for something, he dislikes it. The better he feels, the more he dislikes it, and the more aggressively he resists.
Not alone in this, of course. Mary Poppins taught us that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Likewise, many of us treat the situation with a carrot and stick approach – take this medicine, and I’ll reward you.
Talking helps, too. So, I was speaking with T.C., telling him that I know that it tastes bad, but this is medicine that he needs, and I’m only doing it because it makes him feel better, and I want him to feel better because I love him. That all got shortened to, yes, it’s bad medicine, but it’s given with love.
From there, it was an easy switch to Bon Jovi’s 1988 offering, “Bad Medicine”, with T.C. imagined as singing to me.
A friend said she’s giving up coffee. Moving on to green tea and herbal teas.
Says coffee is disrupting her sleep and jarring her focus.
On hearing these words, another friend said that he’d tried to remove coffee from his life, but he ended up with a constant craving.
With that, k.d. lang’s 1992 song, “Constant Craving”, leaped into the stream. I’m hoping that posting this will dissolve it so I can enjoy my coffee.
This one was another cat song, to my little ginger Papi boy.
First lines were the hook:
Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?
What goes on in that place in the dark?
The dark, for the cat, is the dark night where he disappears for a few hours in this land of cars, bears, cougars, and raccoons. I want him to stay home and safe, but he insists that he must be allowed to wander.
The Elvis Costello song, though, “Veronica” (1989), is about an older woman suffering severe memory loss, and was inspired by his grandmother. It’s a fortunate few who’ve not witnessed dementia or Alzheimer’s assaulting someone as they’ve aged, stripping away their awareness, coherency, and personality, stealing them away from you before your eyes.
Michael Seidel, writer 