Tag: Steppenwolf

Sa’day’s Theme Music

Mood: Grrrrumpy

It’s raining again. Alexa notified me at 8 PM (or 2000 hours if you prefer) that it was going to start raining near me, starting around 12 AM and going intermittently until 8 PM. About 1.3 inches of rain was expected.

I was listening to the rain hitting the roof, pinging off the vents, splattering the windows, and asked, “Is it raining now?”

“Rain is expected to start at 9:30 PM.”

“Alexa, feedback. It’s 8 PM and it’s raining now.”

Rainy, gray, it’s warmish again, 50 F with a high of 52 F suggested and a low of 46 F. The gray light slanting in through the windows does nada to brighten my mood. Fog swirls around mountain pines and peaks. Dark and pretty in a tragic “Wuthering Heights” sort of fashion.

A perusal of news headlines has me opimistic for 2025. (Yes, that was snark.) Things like the costs of owning and driving a car are jumping. This was a California story. The average price paid for a new car was over $47K. Now it’s jumped to over $52K. And insurance is climbing as well. Again, it’s California, but what happens in California usually ripples out. And, this is before any PINO Trump tariffs are issued.

Then a jolly story covered how the Alum Rock school district is closing or consolidating schools. Oh, boy, let me quit reading that.

Another story told me eggs, already pricy, are going up because of the bird flu. And a related news article informed me that animals were dying from being infected with the bird flu from eating tainted meat.

Next came a recounting that those anti-vaxxing efforts in Louisana are having an effect. Louisana is seeing cases of the flu climb. Surprised? No. They’re one of two states in a ‘Very High ILI’ category. The other state is…Oregon.

What? My state. WTF? Chasing that down, I learn, gosh, vaccinations for COVID-19, RSV, and the flu are trailing data from last year, which was already trailing data from the year before. So the flu, etc., are up.

Grrrrrreat. Yes, that is sarcasm.

I got out of the news before I turned to the national and international scenes. Mood was cratered enough, thanks.

The Neurons already had music picked out and going in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sagging). “Forty Days and Forty Nights” is a 1956 blues number by Muddy Waters. The Neurons had it in my head solely on the line, “Sun shinin’ all day long, but the rain keep falling down.” Yes, it hasn’t been forty solid days if I judge on empirical evidence; it just feels like it to the wife, me, and others who engage in conversations about the weather. The ground is saturated. Rivers and creeks are up. Flooding is possible. On the possy side, our drought seems over for our part of Oregon. Other parts of the state remain abnormally dry.

Could be worse, I remind myself. We are not snowbound, etc.

The Forty Days version I selected was a Steppenwolf cover. Mom bought me the album, Steppnwolf 7, for Christmas in 1970, when the song and I were both fourteen. It has sentimenal attachments to me, see.

Okay, coffee and I have worked out an arrangement for this morning whereby I’ll brew it and pour it into my mouth and swallow. Seems like I’m doing all the work here, but I benefit from it. I don’t think coffee gets anything except perhaps some emotional satisfaction from helping me through the day. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Launch the Mark V!

Today is Friday, May 26, 2023. Friday before Memorial Day in the US. This year’s Ashlandia weather has been set up for a fun weekend. 68 F now, no clouds to scuff the blue sky. We’re looking at some low 80 F highs for the period.

Many folks around the nation will employ the Friday Mark V. Features of the Mark V includes a four-day weekend, cook-outs, and general games and partying. Memorial Day is a Monday holiday, as established by law in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. Gives many people at least a three-day weekend. Employees often invoke a three and a half day weekend, taking off from work early.

People are still working though. Restaurants, hospitals, emergency services, military, hospitality and travel industries. And sales. Memorial Day always invokes some kind of sales extravaganza. The opportunities used to be blasted over the radio and television airways. Cars, furniture, mattresses, lawn equipment.

Let me note, though, my wife’s family always treated as a solemn period. No cook-out or grilling, nor drinking and partying. They drove to the cemetery to pay respects to the passed and put flowers on their graves.

Not us. Mom always pushed for a big holiday for this one. Lotta food. Fried chicken, burgers, hotdogs, complemented by potato salad and chips, finished up homemade pies. We usually attempted to go to some park for the day, and my favorite memories involve Keystone Lake in Pennsylvania. We’d leave at dawn so we could get good parking and the best spot. Then we’d haul our food and gear across the land like some great pioneering family. Chairs, blankets, umbrellas, food, beer, sodas, Kool-aide, gloves and balls, frisbees and other games, radio, utensils and plates. Directed by Mom, I would run ahead to find the best spot and claim it, as if the park wasn’t almost empty at that point. Oh, we had such good times.

But sometimes, we stayed home, cooking out in the back yard, playing games there. Fun, too, you know? That was mostly done on Laurie Drive in Penn Hills, before things began unravelling.

Those were the years I was finding rock and roll. One of my early favorites were Steppenwolf with “Born to be Wild” from 1968.

Stay pos. Whether it’s a holiday for you or not, I wish upon you a great day. Not all days can be great but we can still try.

Here’s the tune. Dial up the volume and wake up the wayback machine and sing along.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

You ever leaped out of bed and remember that you’re not at home and this isn’t your bed, so there’s a piece of furniture blocking your landing, remembering all of this midway through what was planned to be a burst of energy to start the day?

Yeah, me, neither.

But did you ever get out of bed full of spirit and rushed outside to check the weather and took a deep breath and asked, “Hello, world, what is that smell?”

The smell reminds me of a giant being cremated. To my knowledge of the area, there aren’t any crematoriums around but there could be, because I haven’t been here in a while. Maybe someone saw an available vacant lot and realized their dream of building their own crematorium. I don’t believe there are any giants in the area. Could be that there are and I missed the news. We’re living in strange times, as many people have said before me. I’ll conduct a net search for giants of Pittsburgh later, if I remember.

Birds are lustily giving voice in Mom’s yard on this Sunday morning. One keeps singing, jewka, jewka, jewka, chew. (Kind of reminds me of a Steppenwolf song, “Sookie, Sookie” from 1969.) I don’t know what kind of bird it is. I’ll google it later, if I remember. There are sparrows urgently flying around. All of this could have to do with the giant being cremated, I guess.

It is September 18, 2022, and the sun rose over three hours ago. That means about another nine hours of daylight are available. Leaves are falling like they do in some places that mutter, “Oh, time for autumn. Let the leafing begin.” Then a button is pressed and the trees start with a little surprise at being goosed because they’ve just been sunning themselves and enjoying life. Once they understand the goosing, they get with the situation, drop leaves and start changing their colors.

Mom was in great spirits last night. I visited her telephonically in the evening, because my COVID. (Much better, thanks.) They’re moving her to another place this week so she can rehab for a return to the outside world. She and I talked about her wishes should she go on. You know, pass. Die. She wants cremated. We talked about what music to play at her celebration and she said we should start with “Amazing Grace”, which she believes is a beautiful song. I agree with her. Neither of us think she’s going anywhere soon. We could be wrong. She scared me two weeks ago, and we often don’t have death tell us, “Heads up” before the final breath is taken.

Because it’s September and leaves are falling through the sixtyish weather under a charcoal-sketched sky, The Neurons have brought up, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day wrote the song. The band released it in 2005.

Stay posi and test negy. Have coffee or whatever works for you, within reasonable parameters. Don’t want to get into the mess of defining that. What’s reasonable to one —

Well, anyway. I’m pouring coffee now. Enjoy your Sunday. Here’s the video. Go Steelers.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Well you don’t know what uh we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl?
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me?
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

Yeah, it’s Steppenwolf with “Magic Carpet Ride” (1968). I was a big Steppenwolf fan in those days; “Born to be Wild”, “The Pusher”, “Sookie, Sookie”, and today’s theme music were heard at least once a day in the summer of my twelfth year. Mom was aware enough of them that when an article about the group and John Kay’s escape from the Soviet side of Germany was in the Pittsburgh Press, she brought it to my attention.

It’s come up today because, hey, locked into the house, a magic carpet ride would be mighty fine to do a flyover. Even more, fantasy will set you free. Fiction writing is the fantasy that sets me free. Although my quasi-official writing time is about three hours a day, fiction writers (including me) will tell you that the story and its twists and characters invade every mental recess, influencing (and influenced by) every interaction and activity. It’s an interesting trip.

Enjoy the music. Happy Friday, and happy May 1st. Another month in the books. Persevere and overcome the current adversity, endure, and then prosper.

That is all.

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes right out of my dream.

To begin in the dream, my older sister and I were in a walk-in closet. No reason ever became clear as to why we were there. She was chattering, as she’ll sometimes do, which irritated me. A song was playing. The song was muffled, as though it was being heard through walls. I knew the song but I couldn’t place it because of her chattering.

Then I was in a car, driving. My car was fourth in line. We were on a street with a double-yellow line. The three cars ahead of me were on the left side — the wrong side — of the road. I didn’t know why. They were going very slowly. The road was in excellent shape but the fact that we were on road’s wrong side annoyed me. No signs were visible to account for that. I wanted to change over to the right side but not knowing why they were on the left side – what did they know? – kept me behind them, following. I was hugely irked.

Music played then, something about going straight. Then the song, “Amber” by 311 played. I thought amber is all about warning, as in amber flashing lights. “Amber” didn’t end, but “Forty Days and Forty Nights” began. That song, covered by Steppenwolf, was what I’d heard in the closet with my sister.

It was still streaming in my head when I awoke, so here it is, today’s theme music, the Muddy Waters classic as Steppenwolf did it in 1970. Enjoy a little bluesy rock.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Get your motor runnin’.
Head out on the highway.
Lookin’ for adventure.
And whatever comes our way.

Some songs and performers are permanently linked in memory for me. The performers have other hits, but one song first comes to mind when I hear their name. Say Pink Floyd, and I think, “Money”. AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”. The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Black Sabbath: “Paranoid”.

For Steppenwolf, it’s a ditty called “Born to be Wild”. I was enamored of Steppenwolf when I was thirteen. That would have been 1969. My friends weren’t as impressed. Mom knew I liked them, though. She showed me a newspaper article about John Kay’s escape from Russia. Then Easy Rider came out, featuring the song. Yes, I had a poster of Hopper and Fonda on their choppers on my wall.

“Born to be Wild”, from 1968.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

“I like to dream….”

Yeah, I like to dream. Sometimes I’m bothered that I experience so many nocturnal dreams, often three to five per night that I remember. But many of the dreams are positive and uplifting.

Likewise, I like to dream and write in my head, spinning stories to myself that are written too fast and fluidly to ever find its place in reality for others to enjoy. I work at writing and publishing fiction but it is work. Besides wanting stories that keep their attention, people want correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. They want consistency and explanation. Many are also interested in ‘facts’.

Facts, bah. I’m a fiction writer.

No matter, they retort.

Bah. They’re such sticklers.

This spin of thoughts spun me back into one of my favorite early albums, Steppenwolf Live’. I wore the vinyl off that mutha. I have several favorite songs from it but went with one that resonates best with me as a dream: Magic Carpet Ride.

Ride with me as the ‘wolf performs it in Santa Monica back in 1970.

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