Good morning, good day, good evening, and goo night.
Today’s free association link arrives from doubt. Writing doubt plagues me. I injoy what I write but is the shite fit for human consumption, or will someone lock it all away in order to save humanity?
There is also doubts about civilization, the onrushing ‘merican elections, the POTUS’ state of mind, and life, generally.
Many songs, groups, and albums featuring doubt flit n and out of the conscious stream. Only Death Cab for Cutie’s 2011 song, “You Are A Tourist”, glommed on.
The song is like progressive alt to me, which I suppose is akin to autobiographical fiction, magical realism, and new adult fiction. It’s a sunnyish, upbeat song, though, and satisfied my psyche’s craving.
Raucous dreams consumed the night. Oh, yes, there was too a floof fight.
4:30 AM. In this corner, wearing long black and white fur and weighing in at sixteen pounds…Tucker.
In the other corner, by the kibble bowl, that eleven pound ginger blade who used to be called Meep!…Papi.
I know Tucker started it because it’s always Tucker. Little combat was involved because Papi is a shrieker. His first one bought us awake and out of bed in one leap, and it was done. I swear that we moved like ninjas…little aging, graying ninjas…
But it’s email that gives me today’s theme music. Money…financing…sales ending today…the calls for assistance and donations and contributions dominated the box in a depressing blitz. Pelosi claimed her email wasn’t about money but Biden openly asked. Amazon and Costco crowed, look at what everyone is buying. Animal shelters and rescue groups wanted cash. The USPS needs help…
Such an AM gut punch even before my brekkie and coffee. Making them was when the theme song came: “Money (That’s What I Want)“.
The Beatles had a big hit with it, but I was channeling The Flying Lizards’ 1979 cover with Deborah Evans-Stickland. The Beatles were nakedly raw and emotional in their money demands. The Flying Lizards brought a mocking, flat monotone to their appeal.
My email solicitations were across the gamut: fear — they’re winning, they’re winning, give me money to fight back — to logic — no, it was all fear, fear of what will happen if you don’t give or buy, because you will be losing.
Anyway, that’s my music choice for today. Please listen and send me money. And stay healthy. Wear a damn mask.
Drifted outside last night, called by needs for a break, a change, a morsel of hope that tomorrow might be a little different.
Same as it ever was outside, in the style in which nature seems the same but isn’t. This summer is less relentless about the weather, but we’re looking at 105 degrees F today and 108 on Sunday. Night relief won’t come with lows plunging only into the mid seventies.
I was testing the air for signs of these forecasts. Was comfortable at eleven PM, 76, with a mild breeze. The cats hung with me, peering at sounds I didn’t hear, watching action that I didn’t see. No cars or people disturbed the moment, so I started thinking of the Patti Smith song, “Because the Night” (1978).
Everyone thinks the night belongs to them. My cats thought the night was theirs. I’m sure our town’s cougars and bears believe the night belongs to them, and the raccoons and skunks have made their claims. Look at the stars, though; does the night belong to them?
Everyone’s grasp on the night is as strong and lasting as a quantum wind.
My political ire is rising with the latest trumpshit. First is the jump out the gate questioning whether Kamela Harris is eligible to be POTUS. If you haven’t read the ‘opinion piece’ in Newsweek…don’t. Such garbage. Be a while before my respect for Newsweek returns.
That was just starter fluid for my anger. What’s going on with Trump and the GOP the destruction of voting rights is first class authoritarian play. Further infuriating me is the GOP obstacles arising by sabotaging the USPS. We as a nation have worked to find improvements in the USPS and how the mail is handled and delivered. Here comes the GOP, breaking the fucking system so they can undermine democracy to remain in power. It’s a scorched earth plan for victory. Sickening, sickening, sickening.
As it’s happened in the past whenever a political party dirties a nation, enablers turn their heads so they don’t see. In this instance, they’re burying themselves in misinformation.
Eventually, Trump, the GOP, and their users will follow the natural course to crash and burn. By then, judging from their current activities, the destruction they’ve wrought will be huge. Then people will stand and cry with shock, “Who knew?”
That’s happened every damn time. Then they’ll shed croc tears and protest their innocence, “I didn’t know.”
All that at last takes me to a 2006 Pink song, “Who Knew”. Frothy and poppy in melody, it carries dark lyrics about things happening that’s not noticed until you awaken to events after it’s all over, when nothing can be done. Pink sang,
When someone said count your blessings now ‘Fore they’re long gone I guess I just didn’t know how I was all wrong They knew better, still you said forever And ever, who knew?
That’s where Trump supporters and enablers stand. They believe his lies, and that of his administration, rationalizing his morality as good, twisting logic and facts to fit their spin , and will profess to believe until it all comes crashing down. Then, when the air is filthy again, climate change is crushing our society, and the number of people starving and dying swells, they’ll whine, “Who knew?”
Eleven PM last night. Just washed and was brushing my teeth, regarding my mirrored reflection, when, “No, I can’t sleep until I feel your touch,” arrived in my head.
I’d been ruminating about what I’d written that day and thinking about the characters, so I don’t know the trigger for “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd. Released last year (2019), I enjoy the song, finding a retro feel in it.
I’d heard it earlier in the day. We’d gone out to a friend’s farm to pick blackberries. The song was playing when I shut off the car, but continued playing in my head as I picked. I guess it etched a groove in my mind. Songs will do that, you know, looping and becoming ingrained in a process called songitis. Songitis is rarely fatal although it can drive you crazy if the wrong song is caught on loop, like “Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindoor”.
Odd video. Takes several seconds of WTF watching until the song kicks in.
From sleep’s murky surroundings with its dream flavors, I found myself mumbling, “We’re going down down in an earlier,” over and over. Glimmers of recognition, “Hey, that’s a song,” fizzled and popped. Focusing on it more — “Damn, I know that voice” — I dragged out, Fallout Boy and finally a song title, “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down”. Yeah, ’05, because we were moving up here, so the song is anchored to moving moments.
Does it work as today’s theme music? Well, it’s catchy and vacuous in a punk rock style, with inklings of voyeurism, lust, and confusion.
Most people eventually come to a yield sign on their personal roads that causes them to say to themselves, “Hey, I’ve grown old.”
For me, it’s always funny and sad, a dark humor time where you laugh at the inevitably and sadness. Part of the epiphany sometimes comes with or from chatting with young people or watching media aimed at them; you each vaguely know something of the other’s slice of culture but it’s otherwise a little bizarre. You each can’t believe what they don’t know.
I always thought that Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen” captures some of that bewilderment and amusement. A song from 1980, it came to me today as a response to a look from my wife. I made a throwaway comment as we passed in the dining room. She, busy with her thoughts, graced me with a befuddled grace that made me laugh. Though the wife is but one year younger, my brain brought out the Steely Dan line, “She thinks I’m crazy but I’m just growing old.”
It’s really neither, craziness or growing old. I had my writing head on. The world spins a little differently from a writer’s perspective. Events are oddly wired (well, wired in ways writers and other artists see that remains opaque to the rest) and the world’s tilt is canted in a different way.
Anyway. To the music. It’s a little mellow, soft rock with a jazz infusion. Give it a listen.
As commercials rev up — “Come see us. We’re all wearing masks and are following the guidelines and taking precautions!” — and election day grows nearer, everybody is trying to seduce us as consumers and voters in America.
Buy, buy, buy! Vote for me, vote for me!
It’s right in my head that today’s theme music is Billy Squier singing “Everybody Wants You” back in 1982.
Every once in a while during my life, I encountered a person (or group) that so infuriate me, that I think, “You know…if I had the means…”
Know what I’m talking about? Right, getting a gun and putting them down because the world would be better without them. Maybe planting a little C4. It seems so easy on TV.
But I’m not that kind, except sometimes in my writing. Still, the wistfulness of sometimes solving a problem ala “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” as AC/DC proposed back in ’76 seizes me, ya know?
Today’s offering has no roots in cats, dreams, politics, or news. This 1974 hit just started playing in my head. Specifically, the chorus jumped to mind:
Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie
Michael Seidel, writer 