Something a little lighter today, huh? A little Hall & Oates, a little song about New York City, a little 1982 sound and look, a little “Maneater”. Love that bass groove.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Just thinking about recent news and politics and remembered the song, “This Is Not America”. The song was a collaboration between David Bowie and the Pat Metheny Group, with Bowie providing the vocals. The song was used in the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman.
The movie is based on the true story of two young American men who become Soviet spies, selling classified information. One is motivated by disillusionment while the other needs money for drugs and partying. Released in 1985, the movie starred Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton.
I was in the military when the movie and song came out, working in a mob unit in South Carolina. Then I headed to Germany and a highly classified unit. While on that assignment, our unit was involved in a couple trials of former members who sold classified information, and several other spies exposed in the U.S. It was all very spy-vs.-spy, but it ended up with more heat on us. Although I was only a functionary, I was glad to put all that behind me after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
This one comes completely via the memory stream, inserted their by a friend’s Facebook post.
When I was fifteen, I’d listen to this McDonald and Giles tune, “Tomorrow’s People – the Children of Today” (1971) on my old phonograph player. A quarter weighed the arm down against the needle skipping. I’d acquired some huge speakers and wired this hybrid stereo. I’d put this on, lay down, and listen to it at a soft volume. I found it relaxing and reassuring.
Bittersweet to hear this song, then and now. It’s about children playing in sunshine. One set of lines that always strikes me:
And who will open their eyes
To see what they can see
And then while looking around
Feel the warmth of reality
At the time I listened to this, I’d left Mom’s home and was living with my Dad. He was in the Air Force and freshly back from overseas assignments. I read and drew a lot, a loner, listening to music. I’d known families back then where the children lived in hard misery, parents who tortured their children with cigarettes or made them stay in a closet for hours in the dark. It was monstrous to think of adults treating children like that. Then, of course, I matured and discovered that there are adults who brutalize children and delight in it.
I admit, I never thought my government, the government that I joined and supported during my military years, would ever be part of the monstrosities we’re learning about in the Trump Camps. I’m ashamed and mortified.
Sorry that it’s such a downer of a post. Probably shouldn’t write this things until I’ve had at least a sniff of freshly brewed coffee to mitigate my dark side.
Monday’s Theme Music
I began as a ZZ Top fan in high school art class in 1973. I introduced them to my friend, who became my girlfriend and then my wife when Tres Hombres came out that year. “La Grange” become a song that had her reaching for the volume knob and twisting it hard right whenever it came on.
I’ve seen them in concert three times. Today’s song came about from a dream last night. Multi-tasking in the dream, one sequence had me trying to feed the cats. They were going nuts for the food that I was offering them. I was trying to keep them out of it while putting the food in bowls for them. Meanwhile, a dozen interruptions were transpiring.
Anyway, from that feeding sequence, I started singing to them, “Gimme all your kibble, all your hugs and kisses, too,” because that’s how it seemed in the dream. My music stream picked it up and started cranking out “Gimme All Your Lovin'” from Eliminator (1983).
Never seen the video before, though. I was overseas during those years in places that usually didn’t have television available. Kind of a cheesy video. But it was the 1980s.
Sunday’s Theme Music
I have another confession to make: I sing to my cats. They all enjoy it. That’s what I take from their purring. Maybe they don’t like it, but believe that I’ll stop singing if they start purring.
Level 42’s “Something About You” (1985) is part of my offerings. Some lyrics fit tight.
It’s human to care about animals, to love them, to discover their personalities and flaws, and rescue them. Sometimes taking them on goes against the wisdom given to you, and sometimes force inconveniences on your life, but in the end, they frequently give so much, they’re a mistake worth making.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Sometimes I feel like I’m Goldilocks, judging and assessing things for which one is just right. Yesterday was the first day of summer in Ashlandia. We had beautiful weather, if it’d been the first day of autumn. As summer weather goes, it was windy with a chilly breeze. Walking through it, I thought, seventy-one degrees is too cold for summer. It’s also a drop-off from our legit eighty-three degree average for this time of year. That would have been just right.
But, thinking about, talking to meself about summer, I thought, this is too cold. “She’s So Cold” by the Rolling Stones (1980) rushed into the stream. Good bopping walkin’ song. I did shuffle lyrics a little to, “She’s too cold.”
I like this video. They seem to be having fun.
Friday’s Theme Music
How ’bout an Elton John favorite today. Let’s consider two. “Funeral for A Friend” and “Love Lies Bleeding” are often played together. They nicely complement one another. The first is an instrumental that starts with blowing winds. I can see the funereal procession of somber faces, and then the aftermath, thinking about what’s brought you to this moment. The music picks up as you think about what you’ll do next. It’s a bit chaotic, but then starts clarifying and rising, lifting your energy as you march forward, your decisions made.
“Love Lies Bleeding” begins like brisk fresh start. “Okay, this happened, but life goes on, and I’m going on.” But the words tell an unfolding story of betrayal, reflection, and exasperation.
Together, you end up thinking, “Yep, that’s life.”
Of course, the two songs came off of the fascinating 1973, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an album about growth, change, and rock and roll’s influence on a young person’s life. Yeah, we played it a few times.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
I’m stuck in a sour war mood, which prompts recall of my military days.
This song, “Civil War” by Guns n’ Roses, came out two years before I retired from the U.S. Air Force. I retired because the military personnel powers-that-be wanted to move me to a new duty station. I was first offered a position with Air Force Space Command’s Inspector General team. A prestigious position, it would mean a lot of traveling, but it would take me to places that I’ve always wanted to see. Although I was keen, my wife was weary of me being away all the time.* So they instead wanted to send me to manage a missile site command post in the northern boonies. No, thanks.
It’s curious. We stood ready for war, but we didn’t want war, right? That’s what we told ourselves. But we spend all of our time and money preparing for war. That leaves us little prepared for anything else. This trend has gotten way out of hand since I retired in 1995. More and more resources are turned toward preparing for war and fighting war; less goes to social nets, education, infrastructure, etc. And we’re constantly being told that preparing to fight and going to war is what must be done to keep us safe, but as we do so, we’re fighting to save a collapsing nation.
Guns n’ Roses’ lyrics sums it up better than I do.
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before
Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before
* Ironic side note: I retired from the Air Force, and became a customer service/sales operations manager for a medical device startup. Two years later, the company offered me an associate marketing product manager position, and I ended up on the road visiting hospitals, doctors, and trade shows…
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Reading news about the Middle-East puts me in a martial mood. Military.com wondered if war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable, and have thoughts on how that war would play out.
*snark alert* I know that most believe that war with Iran can be avoided because John Bolton is on Trump’s team. One of the architects of PNAC, Bolton was a prominent voice in demands for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He thinks that went well. He also wants preemptive war with North Korea. With Bolton in place, surely the lessons of other wars will be learned and war will be averted. *end snark*
All that reflecting introduced a 1970 Black Sabbath tune called “War Pigs”. A taste of the lyrics that Ozzie sings:
Monday’s Theme Music
You ever play with those idle daydreams about your life and where you’re at? Maybe think, if I wasn’t married, or didn’t have kids, or this business, or this job, I’d be gone? Think about getting on that long train running and disappearing?
It’s not that your life is so terrible, but you’ve wearied. The sameness of your routines bury you. You eat the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner, perhaps varying it by the day of the week, perhaps spicing it up by a change of season. The sameness is unrelenting, with breaks for holidays. Once that holiday ends, though, it’s back on the bus, back on the line, back in the cubicle or the office, back with the laundry and dishes, back in the car in a car, racing to work so you can make up the hours and race back home. Then you sit down and watch variations of the same television shows, movies, and sports.
Maybe, instead of disappearing, your fantasy is that you make it big because money, while it won’t buy you happiness, can give you enough room to breathe and try to do go to some of the places of your dreams, something that will break the damn sameness of your existence. Your fantasies veer toward winning the lottery or publishing a book that becomes a best seller, or finally getting recognized and promoted at work.
Doobie Brothers noticed that most people stay where they are because of love. Maybe it’s the love for another person, or maybe it’s the love of the place where you were born, or where you live. Without that love, where would you be now?
Sorry. Pre-coffee rant. Monday morning blahs. The same old song and dance.
Michael Seidel, writer 