Tuesday’s Theme Music — Clocks

Ashland, southern Oregon. Tuesday, September 8, 2026.

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

It’s warming here again. 54 F at my house this morning. Sunshine and the fronts, which could be the name of a rock band but isn’t, are expected to warm us into the high 80s today. While the sky is blue over our green and brown landscape, clouds varnish it with gray.

One of the things about holidays in the US are SALES! We used to be inundated with mailers and radio and television commercials about how the sales.

Well, I stream and don’t watch over the air or cable channels so I had none of those. Heard nothing on the radio about the sales this year. Nor were there flyers in the snail mail.

Never fear, they sales were shown in the mail inbox. I always have a huge collection of offers. Not the old Viagra stuff, no. This is the standard LOOK AT WHAT WE’RE SELLING AT GREAT PRICES STUFF. Lot of subscription offers. Last chances to REALLY SAVE was going to end LAST NIGHT.

The sales ended. I bought nothing. Some things don’t change. I’m sure I’ll have more chances in the future, despite their declaration that this was my LAST CHANCE. I just need to click through my mail, trashing all these GREAT OFFERS.

Meanwhile, I’m worrying about our fellow humans in Hawaii as another storm bears down on them.

Do we have a Salute Gate brewing? Trump failed to return the Marines’ salute when he left Marine One. Remember how conservatives raised a storm about President Obama saluting with a coffee cup? I’m sure this will be worse…not. Trump Double Standards are strictly enforced.

I love trackers and appreciate and respect the people that put them together for us.

I already regularly check the National Debt Clock, watching as the numbers spin and climb, showing exactly how much more debt we as a nation are in by the second.

Then there’s the IranWarClock. This displays how long the Trump Iran War — TIW for short — has been going, and how long it’s been since Trump said it would be over. Thanks to this site, I know that Trump has shifted the TIW’s timeline eight times, and that it has now been going on 192 days.

Now, Daily Kos has pointed me toward one developed by Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University: the Iran War Energy Cost Tracker. This tells us how much the TIW is costing our nation to the second. It then helpfully shows how much more each American household is paying for energy thanks to the TIW.

Then there’s the Measles Outbreaks tracker to see what’s going on with measles in the US and around the world.

GasPricesLive is good to compare how much we’re paying for gasoline per gallon.

For more fun, you can go to the Trump Timer, which shows how many days until his second term ends.

It’s all just information. Facts and figures. History.

All this thinking about clocks, trackers, and time has The Neurons busy with rock songs about time in my morning mental music stream. Among these are “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders, “Clocks” by Coldplay, and “Time” by The Alan Parsons Project.

There are other songs — Cher, The Doors, Jim Croce, BB King, Chicago, the Rolling Stones, the Guess Who…it’s a long list.

But here we go, with “Clocks” by Coldplay and “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders.

May you have the time and will to do all you need and want to do.

Cheers

Frida’s Theme Music

Clouds have moved into Ashlandia. As neighbors go, they tend to being quiet but flighty. They’re also large but I don’t want to body shame anyone.

With the clouds, we get warmer nights but colder days. Last night only slipped down to 51 F. Today’s high will be 61 F. Will it rain? Let me consult with my digitized Magic 8 Ball. Magic 8 says “It is decidely so.”

Today, BTW, is marked as Friday, April 25, 2025. One third of 2025 is about to end. Despite all of PINO Trump’s promises, preening, and bullying, the Russia-Ukraine goes on. The government is in miserable shape and not saving any money. People are losing 401K money because the stock market and bond market are waaayyy worse than under the previous POTUS. Tourism is down. Talk and worries about empty shelves, increasing unemployment, recession and even economic depression is increasing. Pundits already call it the Trumpcession.

PINO Trump responds to it all with glee. “Look how much money my billionaire friends made.” He alternates that with, “What, me — worry?”

I have The Outsiders performing in the morning mental music stream. The song is “Time Won’t Let Me”. Released in 1965, it grew into a hit and radio staple. That led to its purchase as a 45 RPM offering. The record became part of the basement playlist in our neighborhood. We usually did that over at Tracy and Carolyn’s house, as they had a finished basement.

The Smithereens did a cover for the 1994 movie Timecop, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. I admit, I prefer the original song.

Coffee has come to my aid again, fortifying my psyche for reading the news. Hope you’re all well out there in streaming land, cuz here we go. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: homenormalized

Today is Saturday, August 24, 2024. It’s a chilly 54 F this morning. I turn on the fireplace and open the blinds. Light rain peppers the greenery with some needed moisture. Sunshine emerges and steam begins rising. Today’s high will be an un-summery 70 F.

We’re back in Ashlandia, where the worries are palpable and the angst is regular. A second well-established restaurant is shutting down after years of business. This is a trend we don’t like.

Ashlandia is dependent on tourism. Drought, pandemic, fires, smoke, and economics have all tested our tourism. Each have contributed to a point where the ‘you are here’ dot is tiny and prickly. We’re home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It’s our major industry, abetting revenue brought in by being an outdoor adventure location for fishing, rafting, and skiing (Mt. Ashland) and what Southern Oregon University contributes. Under the impact of those big five factors of pandemic, etc., we’ve been in a slow downward spiral.

We’d already lost the seasonal business called the Water Street Cafe. It’d been a longtime draw but the owner passed and the survivors couldn’t make it work. It’s now a crepe place, and we have high hopes for that.

Last week, the Black Sheep Restaurant announced they’re shutting down. Now Cucina Biazzi is closing. We’re already lost many book stores like the Book Wagon, and coffee shops like The Beanery and Cafe Boulevard. In their place, we’re gaining used clothing stores, marijuana dispenseries, and tattoo parlors. This are not major draws when every other town is offering more of the same.

Being back home, I miss stepping out of the Waldport vacation house and into the seaside environment. I enjoyed going out there each morning and tasting the breeze, studying the tides’ levels, and gathering in sunshine and clouds. I do the same thing here, but it’s not the same with the ocean missing.

I begin another theme for the coming week today. The theme now is songs with time in their titles. Lots come to mind. The time theme came out of being stuck in traffic yesterday as an accident was cleared away. The first song offering from The Neurons is “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders from 1965. The fast-paced rocking roller is filling my morning mental music stream (Trademark delayed) like I was back in a neighbor’s Wilkinsburg basement listening to it on a 45 record. Actually, I think my memories have better fidelity than that little record player in use. I would’ve been about ten at that time.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue. Coffee has made itself comfortable in me. Time for the music. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s music came out in 1965, when I was nine. I lived in Wilkinsburg, PA, around that time. A group of us liked going into one girl’s basement and pretending we were musicians, singers, and daughters. The Outsiders, Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, the Turtles, and Paul Revere and the Raiders provided us with our music via forty-five RPM records. We’d take turns performing. It was a way to spend time. I don’t know who provided us with that record collection.

Anyway, “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders, was one of those songs. Later, after reading the book, and then much later, when I saw the movie, I wondered if the Outsiders had taken their name from the novel. Then I found that the band existed before the novel. Oh, well.

As an aside, the movie was interesting. Francis Ford Coppola directed it. The cast was an amazing ensemble of young stars. Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane, and Matt Dillon all come readily to mind.

One final aside, I read the novel around 1970, when a teacher recommended it to me. The novel is controversial and remains one of the most frequently challenged books in America.

Today’s Theme Music

“Time Won’t Let Me” is a song by a group called The Outsiders.

In nineteen sixty-six, I was ten years old, part of a small group of neighborhood children on McNary Boulevard in Wilkinsburg that included Tracy and Carolann, and Mike and Richard. The group fluctuated as people moved, went on vacation, or attended Bible School. Technically, I’d moved away to Penn Hills, but I came back to visit friends.

I don’t know who, exactly, bought this record, or the rest. We listened to them on a little portable turntable. The record was part of a stack of forty-five R.P.M. singles. Setting up in someone’s basement during the summer months, we listened and danced to these records while pretending to sing the songs and play the instruments. The Monkees began dominating the stack, although Johnny Rivers had a strong presence. Others included Herman and the Hermits, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and Nancy Sinatra. As the summer passed, our interests and musical tastes shifted. But for a while, we had our forty-fives.

Now, watching this video, I laugh.

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