Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Heading downtown after dressing, started singing a bastardized version of ZZ Top’s “Tush” (1975) from my childhood’s end: “Lord, take me downtown, I’m just looking for some coffee.”
Yeah, not as lyrical. Tried other things, and thought caffeine worked best. The things your mind ends up doing to kill walking time. It’s a good upbeat walking song, simple but steady with some guitar riffs that talk to me.
So, here’s the real deal (the song, that is).
Time for a little Neil Young. Call out to him for being naturalized as a U.S. We used to live in the same neighborhood, broadly speaking, on the California coast. A friend was his primary supplier, so the story goes. A little club wasn’t far where he liked to play for small crowds with no announcement, so the story goes.
1989 saw him bring out “Rockin’ in the Free World”. The song provides so many mocking lines drawing attention to our cultural hypocrisy:
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.
Yeah, that’s rocking in the free world. That Trump used the song during his POTUS campaign without irony nauseates, but then the Trumplicans bastardize the meaning and intention of everything that they touch, subverting without sparing, heavy of hand and cruel of ideas.
I’m part of the hypocrisy in my comfy white land, something the feeds my perpetual self-damnation. Too weak to walk away from the cushiness, I’ll just do some marchin’, protesting, donating, and votin’, hoping to change things, even though that’s not been working for lo’, these many years since Bush I.
Guess I’ll just keep rockin’. Pour a little CBD into my coffee, please. My joints are hurtin’. “I try to forget it, any way I can.”
“Sunday morning, rain is falling.”
Well, it had been falling. It’s stopped but clouds shroud the mountains and teases the sun with promises of more light rain.
That’s part of what brought Maroon 5’s song, “Sunday Morning”, to me. I never think of this as a Maroon 5 song. The mellow, mildly jazz tune reminds me not of all of them, but more like something out of Stevie Wonder’s catalog. But, here we are.
So, you know, grocery shopping, and hungry. Lunch had been a few hours before, and light and healthy, and maybe a little sparse. Browsing the aisles, doing our standard shopping circuit, sampling foods, eyeing others’ carts to see what they’re buying, and judging them and ourselves for what we’re buying and not buying.
I’m hungry but skinny me is in charge of shopping today, along with healthy wife, two idealized versions of ourselves who examine everything with eyes and mind toward weight and good health. It’s a good thing, innit?
Meanwhile, unhealthy me is noticing, look, they have cake! Look at that cake! Oh, and that cake. And suddenly it seemed like everybody in Costco had a cake in their cart. I escaped Costco without a cake, though. On to Trader Joe’s. Back to get some healthy non-fat yogurt! See, it’s right there, by the CAKE and DONUTS. And breads.
We ogle the cake and donuts and talk about Trader Joe’s need to sell single donuts back there, that you can buy and eat, right there. They’re not, so we pass, moving on to the breads, which we fondle for freshness, sniffing them through the package while talking about good how they are.
I don’t speak of my cake desire to my wife the entire time. The cake desire has acquired the specific shape of carrot cake. Yeah, it’s my favorite, especially if it’s spicy with raisins. That’s like, yeah, orgasm. But I don’t pursue cake, don’t speak of it, etc.
Of course I dream of it. There’s cake everywhere in my freaking dream. I’m in a hallway with cake. I’m being offered cake, being told by a woman wandering, “Take whatever you want.” Every time that I go to get a piece, some event diverts me. I awake wanting cake for breakfast.
Which, while thinking of yesterday, talking to my rumbling stomach today, and reviewing my dream as I pursue my healthy oatmeal breakfast, brings the musical group, Cake, to mind, so here’s “Long Skirt/Short Jacket” (2000) just cuz I like it.
And, you know, cake. It’s a humorous video, listening to people’s comments about the song as they listen. Cheers
After I’d finished writing, I headed into the wilds of Ashland’s streets and sidewalks. Using the East Main crosswalk by Sherman, I saw a young woman driving an SUV toward me. She seemed to be steering with her elbows, as her left hand was holding a phone to her head as her right hand worked on applying lip gloss. Like, holy crap, just what you want to see coming toward you as you’re crossing the street.
The day had warmed to an almost balmy 56 F. Sunshine was blooming but rain was lurking on the mountains. The clouds seemed shifty, like they were planning a move. I decided I wouldn’t mind a little rain, so pressed on, heading down Fourth Street.
Down on the corner of Fourth and B was a pile of popped corn. Look, hey, what the heck is this doing here?
Must it be said that the sight stirred a 1972 song into my stream? ‘Course not. The song is a synth-pop ditty name “Popcorn” by Hot Butter. Seriously. And it was an international hit. Seriously.
I don’t know what’s up with that, but here it is in all its glory. Listen to it, please. Let me know if you’re familiar with it. Just curious, ya know?
Don’t know why “Love Bites” (Def Leppard, 1988), is circulating through the stream this morning but I’d like it released, so I’m sharing it.
That is all.
Don’t know why – perhaps because I’ve been battling with a cold and flu the last few days, and have finally seemed to be winning – but an old Stones’ standard has flooded the stream. Maybe a sense derived of snuggling in bed under heavy blankets during the day, when I’m supposed to be out adulting, contributes to a mood of being a little kid again, eating buttered toast and drinking warm fluids to soothe my throat and head.
Here’s “19th Nervous Breakdown” from 1966.
This was used in a dream’s as background music. These were the specific lyrics that kept looping:
I dare you to do something
I’m waiting on you again, so I don’t take the blame
Run away, but we’re running in circles
Run away, run away, run away
It’s Post Malone, “Circles” (2019). The song has received a lot of airplay in the car and as music in stores and coffee shops, so I guess it found a niche in my mind and then just fed into the stream.
Quite a different video, and interesting.
I encountered a friend on the street. He was coming out of a store and I was walking by. Eighty years old, his wife is two years younger. She’s having medical issues.
Married for fifty years, his only spouse, he seemed like he was going through the process of thinking about life without her. They’ve downsized their home twice in the last eight years, but her mobility is going, as is her vision and her mental acuity. In his words, “It all seems to be falling apart for her.”
Sad, and an often heard story. I commiserated with him, but what struck me was his comments about being nothing without her. He said, in his thinking, everything that he’d done after getting his college degree was about her, and then their family that they created, and their life together. It was his constant motivation.
After we parted and I thought more about what he’d said, “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence (1995) slipped into the stream, a song about being nothing without another.
Thinking about disasters as I was walking yesterday. Australia is struggling to catch a break this year, going from bushfires to rain to flooding. Indonesia continues having a tough time, quakes in Puerto Rico, and flooding in Chicago.
Then there’s the snow. A winter storm passed through here, giving us a couple inches. Trudging through the aftermath, we’re grateful because it helps the snowbanks, an important source of summer water, even while many mildly rue and curse the snow. Come on, it’s snow, and disrupts our easy ways and pleasantries with its cold intrusion.
It’s impressive how tiny flakes can add up. Our flakes went from normal or average sized to supersized flakes, back to normal before dropping into tiny. All still added up.
These thoughts took me to a Kate Bush 2011 song, “50 Words for Snow”. I enjoy her but I’m mostly aware of this song because Stephen Fry is the one giving the words. Fry delivers them like he’s tasting the expressions. Then Kate goes on with a chorus, “Come on, man,” telling him how many more words he has to go. I don’t hear this song often, originally hearing it by chance on NPR (“Is that Stephen Fry?”) but have since listened to it on the ‘puter, trying to understand all the words for snow. I find it satisfying and contemplative.
Like snow.
Michael Seidel, writer 