Tag: Tina Turner

Saturday’s Theme Music

Pop quiz, students. It’s Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Ashlandia. Which of these things are not true:

a. Cloudy

b. Spring

c. High will be 78 F

d. Currently 61 F

e. All are true.

That’s right, it’s e in Ashlandia, although there is no e in Ashlandia.

My wife was worried about the cougar getting Papi last night. See, two nights ago, I called Papi in about elevenish. Dude was in his patio condo, but the cat was acting peculiar. Moving slow. Careful. Tail down. Like it was the anti-Papi, doing the opposite of the guy’s usual demeanor. I worried about his health. He usually comes in, gallops across the floor, talks to me, gets some lovin’, and eats. None of that happened, so I prepared him some cat food warm with hot water. Although interested, he showed no great enthusiasm. I coaxed him to his eating site, and he ate it all up. That’s good, right?

But he stayed silent and in. Talking with the other half, she suggested the cougar was seen or maybe Papi escaped something and had a close call. She really thought it was related to the cougar. Papi stayed in that night until dawn. Well, by midday, Papi was his ush, galloping about, tail up, chatting and eatin’.

Back to last night. “I want to keep him in,” she said. “I don’t want the cougar getting him.” So Papi was forced to remain inside. Verily, he was unpleased, talking to me about it in various tones throughout the night. Finally let him out at 6:45 AM, after sunrise. Not a good night sleep for me. Coffee is needed.

Interesting dreams, though. Still reviewing them. Many small dreams, tiny as webisodes.

Tina Turner’s death has The Neurons stuck back in time. Today we’re revisiting “We Are The World” from 1985 in the morning mental music stream. Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, it was a charity single to raise money for famine relief in Africa. Had a who’s who of the United States pop culture stars at that time performing on it, and it was all captured on video. Forty-five pop stars were on hand; fifty were turned away. A few who were invited didn’t show.

Tina Turner was back in the spotlight in a big way, then, so she’s an early featured soloist. Anyway, that’s today’s song. Point after: I’d wondered how many of the performers have now passed away. Someone had already done the research for me. Tina was number ten. Not surprising. Song was done in 1985, after all. Thirty-eight years ago. Many of the performers were already middle-aged.

Side note: I was in Africa that year, participating in an exercise in Egypt’s desert for a month.

Stay pos, enjoy this day and make it memorable by having fun and getting it done, number one. Here’s the retro tune. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Hello! Is anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at all?

Today is the 25th and the last Thursday of May, 2023. Next Thursday will be the first day of June, 2023. Schools are preparing to wrap up the year and shut down for the summer in the northern latitudes. Solstice is creeping up.

But spring continues to rule in Ashlandia. It’s 54 F now and sunny under a cloudless blue sky. The day is heating up in a lazy, spring-like way. High will be about 77 F, weatherists claim. I believe ’em. Sunrise was at 5:39 AM and sunset is predicted to be 8:36 PM, providing us with a lot of daylight hours.

I have a Dire Straits song in mind today. See, it’s because Tina Turner died on Wednesday, which was yesterday. My generation, or at least my tribe, were fond of her. Her energy, skills, and talents impressed us. We enjoyed her singing, performing, and acting. After breaking up with her hubby, who was her musical partner, she struck out as a solo act. It took some years but she made it. One of her big comeback hits was “Private Dancer”.

Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits wrote “Private Dancer”. He even sang and produced it for the band’s next album but then he pulled it. He though a woman should be singing it. Eventually, through Tina and Mark’s managers, she recorded the song.

That’s a recap of an often told tale. After reading it again and remembering Tina and her career, The Neurons guided me back to Dire Straits. I find myself with “So Far Away” from 1985 stuck in the morning mental stream. It’s one of those songs I heard in my head after it came out and I was traveling around on my own, first in the military, then in marketing as a civilian. More than physical distance, the song is about emotional distant, and the situation, how the two people seem so different that the gap between them never closes.

Stay pos. Have some fresh coffee, if that’s your bent. It is mine. Here we go. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Excitement is building. They’re forecasting some snow for our state and area next week. Maybe a few inches. Oh, heaven! Snow on the banks. We need it. We’re all worried about the heat, drought, fire, and smoke endured for the last several years. We’d like to avoid more of the same. Some say that last year was the worst because the COVID-19, wildfire, and smoke sucked enjoyment out of going anywhere or doing anything. But the year before, fire struck our town and heavily gutted two neighboring towns. Toss up, to me.

This is Saturday, 2/29/2022. Sunrise kicked in at 7:02 AM. And what a sun. Let’s give the sun a hand. Heat, light, very impressive display. The sky is blue forever and on. Whatever storms and clouds are lurking out there are doing so beyond the mountains that hem our valley. It’s presently 46 degrees F and we will see something in the upper fifties for a high today before the sun downs itself beyond the world’s curvature at 5:48 PM.

Today’s theme song comes from the film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I’ve used “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” (1985) by Tina Turner before. It came to me today because I looked at my poor sick black cat and said, “Aren’t you a sight, raggedy cat.” Which reminded me of a line that Aunt Entity said to Mad Max. That lined up the neurons to begin playing the song. So here it is, friends and neighbors. Give it all or nothing.

Stay positive, test negative, wear masks as the situation warrants, and get vaxes and boosts when you can. I’m off to meet my maker and pour a cuppa, right? Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

This is an old and familiar song. It just joined my stream today, coming from many things and nothing, as often happens with the breccia that I call my thinking.

I first heard this song, “River Deep, Mountain High” by Ike & Tina Turner, when I was young. I don’t recall the circumstances, but wikipedia tells me it was released in 1966, so it’s reasonable to think I heard it on AM radio while driving about with Mom in her car. Later covers were more commercially successful.

Ike and Tina broke up. There’s a big story behind those four words. Ike has passed away. Tina lives on.

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Friday’s Theme Music

So, confession, again. I enjoy the original Mad Max trilogy. The first is the least of them, but I will watch The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome again and again without too much thought.

Which is what I did this week. Thunderdome ends with Tina Turner singing “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” Which makes sense in that context; they’ve already lost it all. Civilization has been wiped out, and they’re trying to rebuild something out of the wreckage, something more humane than Bartertown and the Thunderdome.

But I wake up and read the news, and think, we need a hero. Seems like any fucking day, someone is going to decide, “Today is a nice day to nuke! Let’s find someone and make a radioactive statement.” Then a shit storm of retaliation will fire up. Anarchy and chaos get stirred in as civilization’s plastic veneer melts, and norms, morals, and ethics get tossed.

(As an ironic aside, I first saw The Road Warrior on VHS while I was on temporary duty with the Air Force in South Korea.)

Yeah, gloomy fucking Friday, right? Not really. A hero can stop all that. I don’t see anyone riding in at the moment, but I’m always an optimistic person that eventually sanity prevails.

So listen to Tina singing in 1985, and think about it. Focus on the song’s words, “Looking for something we can rely on, there’s got to be something better out there.”

Yes, there’s got to be.

 

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