Today’s music arrives because of interactions with the cats.
Another cat, one I’d never seen, arrived on the backyard fence yesterday. Alarms went off in my cats. Tucker, who rules the house, lifted himself up, slowly sat down, curled his tail around his body, and watched this newcomer, a tabby with a white chest and white front paws. They gave Tucker a long look.
Then Boo, the resident house bagheera, took note of the newby and sat up so he could watch. And Papi, the ginger blade, emerged from the shadows to sit and watch.
Newby had been thinking about jumping down into the yard. These three’s laser gazes gave them pause. But how should they redirect? Nothing appeared trustworthy.
Which is when I said, “Everyone relax.” They immediately ignored me. No one relaxed but Frankie Goes to Hollywood began thumping in my head.
Been listening to some blues streaming in my head and decided to share it with you. Here’s Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble with “Pride and Joy” from 1983. Turn it up!
We had a Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police protest and march in Ashland this weekend. My wife and I didn’t attend; her underlying health issues increase her vulnerability.
But we drove down to check it out. Hundreds attended. It was peaceful. Most — probably ninety-plus percent — were masked but social distancing wasn’t observed, so mixed bag. Holding our breath on that as the case count continues rising in Oregon.
Young and old, Black, White, Asian, and Latino marched. Later, as we talked about it during “Sixty Minutes”, my wife asked, “Why do we need to keep doing this? When will it permanently change?”
Good question, one that stayed with me this morning. The question prompted a recall of a 2007 Foo Fighters song and video, “The Pretender”. Dave Grohl said in interviews that 2007’s political unrest influenced him when he wrote it. Watching the video, well, you see the same themes as in 2020: protests, taking a knee, confronting police, violence escalating.
Big difference exist between now and 2007. Videos emerge almost weekly of police killing people, almost always Blacks, for little provocation. Too many times, it was brushed aside, hidden again and again. But as it’s happened, it’s just become, too much. The expression, “Black Lives Matter”, arose to express the gulf we see as Blacks were killed or had the police called by Whites for being black. The expression, “Being Karen”, became the code for privileged White people who called the police for such a list of shocking reasoning about why Black people weren’t supposed to be there, or why they were a threat.
“The Pretender” speaks to these things. All those things done by the police hat were hidden or protected are being exposed, again, again, and again. That’s the momentum that keeps this wheel spinning, and will until, finally, Black Lives Matter.
Today’s stream music arrived in my head because, what if?
The what if game is always a small diversion. The rules are to ask yourself to imagine how your existence would be different if you made a different decision, followed another path, or handled something in some other way than what you did.
What if you had gone to college?
What if you’d taken that job?
What if you’d married that person?
From that, in trickled Rob Thomas singing Matchbox Twenty’s song, “Real World”. It asks those questions about being in charge, or a superhero, among other things.
And it all has a direct link to writing yesterday. A big portion of my writing process is playing what if? It’s intriguing as part of the process because I’ll think that through, applying different ideas, possibilities, and outcomes, but when I sit down and write, it’s something completely different.
It wasn’t raining (at least around our house) but the thunder was relentless. Half the cats did a frenzied thunder-run to hide. The other two yawned.
I listened to the thunder, waited for the lightning, and remembered songs about thunder, lightning, and rain. The mental stream finally selected the Fleetwood Mac song, “Dreams” (1977). Ostensibly a reflective song about ending relationships, the line about the thunder always resonates with me.
I remembered the Killers’ song, “Human” (2008) this morning. The song has never been a favorite, and its success surprised me. Different tastes, right?
Many were enamored by the line, “Are we human, or are we dancers?” The line evolved from a Hunter Thompson throwaway line about the United States raising a generation of dancers, afraid to step out of line.
The whole thing came back to me as I noted, with some pleasure and approval, that young people were heavily involved in the Black Lives Matters protests. One of the most disheartening parts of protesting in my fifties and sixties was the absence of young people. Didn’t they care? Or were my values so out of step with their values?
Older generations often malign younger generations. My generation, the boomers, were no different. It takes time to filter the world and yourself. Bursts of rebellion against expectations and norms are required and expected, but the way each generation finds to act out and express itself remains different. Social media is the thing now, not taking it to the streets, so the protests are a throwback, old school.
Yeah, rambling. Not sufficient coffee yet to form coherent sentences. Here’s the music. See if you can spot the line (hah!).
Cutting the grass and trimming trees last night. As I started, “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (1972) by Loggins & Messina began playing in my head. It continued throughout the evening as I sipped a beer afterwards and coped with a Hulu outage.
The song was playing like a radio alarm clock this morning. Earworm, I sighed.
So, I’m sharing it to dislodge it. It’s a trick that works. Please bear with me. I thought about going with a live version but it lacked the piano playing. I like the piano playing. I considered a Poison version, too, but, sorry, the L&M studio version remains my preference.
This is one of those days when I awoke and for some unknown reason have some song snatch in the stream. Does this happen to others? Am I the only one with a playlist in my head that goes click when I get up and start thinking?
Sure, I’m not. These aren’t the same as earworms, mind you. Sometimes they are earworms, which is a song that’s stuck in your head. There’s a different feel to earworms than just a the mental jukebox flipping something on. These songs aren’t necessarily stuck, just present. I’ll heavily bet that they are related to some auditory cortex wiring, though.
Aside: remembered this WebMD post from a few years ago and dragged it into the light: “Songs Stick in Everyone’s Head”. It mentions reasons related to neurosis and obsessions, and the cognitive itch. As a writer, I become obsessed; that’s a large part of being a writer for me, getting obsessed with ideas, concepts, stories, and characters, and trying to wring them out of my head and into the world in a way that the rest of the world might understand.
Today’s song, “What’s My Age Again?” is from 1999 and a group named Blink-182. I really liked the album name: Enema of the State. Good play on words? With many people and orgs battling ‘the state’ for a variety of reasons, maybe that’s the cognitive itch that supplied my stream with this song.
Or maybe the cognitive itch is the song’s year, 1999. Seems like things really began spinning weird with Bush v Gore and the Florida hanging chads (which could be the name of some kind of group) in the next year. 1999 was a good year for me in my world. Maybe my mind lauds it as the last good year.
Well, here it is. The song, I mean, not my world. It’s a video. I’d not seen it before today, but it’s amusing to watch three naked men (except shoes and socks) running around.
Murder hornets. Asteroid heading for Earth. Forty thousand year old worms dug up, thawed out, and living again.
2020 is seen by many to be a year of worsening situations. Many read something new happening, fill with dread and ask, “Oh, no, is another disaster about to strike the planet?”
Chuckling to myself over this today, Europe’s song, “The Final Countdown” (1986) entered my musical memory stream.
The song is about leaving Earth, but you know, just pause a mo’ and shift words around, and it’ll work for this year.
If we need a theme song for this year, maybe this is it. Maybe it is the final countdown, not to leaving, but to another crisis.
A quiet day for me, providing an interlude for reflection. After watching the news, contemplating history and contrasting them with current events, Neil Young’s song, “Old Man” (1972).
Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were. Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life, Twenty four and there’s so much more Live alone in a paradise That makes me think of two.
Love lost, such a cost, Give me things that don’t get lost. Like a coin that won’t get tossed Rolling home to you.
Old man take a look at my life I’m a lot like you I need someone to love me the whole day through Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that’s true.
Lullabies, look in your eyes, Run around the same old town. Doesn’t mean that much to me To mean that much to you.
I’ve been first and last Look at how the time goes past. But I’m all alone at last. Rolling home to you.
Michael Seidel, writer 