Words, Not Necessarily in Search of Melodies

Yesterday

Words of love words of heartache
Searching for the best way to say
The words I’ve been trying to say
Words that make my knees shake

In the middle of the night when the rains come
And the winds blow strong
When the sum of all my fears make me question
If what I’ve said and done was right or wrong

When the night comes and the winds blow strong
I never wonder if our love is wrong I know it ain’t

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I miss being close, the touch of you skin against mine
The touch of your fingers the brush of your arm
You reach across the wide expanse of our bed
I reach too to find your hand
The pleasure of your touch
The soft words of comfort in the night
Tomorrow is another day in the fight
The world awaits our battle
Our words our song

Today

The train is running empty no one is onboard
I ain’t hopping on, ain’t ready to meet the Lord
Too many things to go, places I must go
I’ll just drink a lot of walk and keep walking real slow.

Those are words of living i was heard so many years ago
When Roland Gatlin was a worker I was glad to know
“When things are tough, you might be feeling low,
Just drink a lot of water and just keep walking slow.”

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Late Saturday afternoon, cooking shows are
My wife’s favorite to snooze to is Martha Stewart
I doze too and dream of fish and shrimp smothered
A delectable delight of spices and mushrooms
I can almost imagine tasting
Basting the sauce over cod of bass or filets of perch
Then i awake and remember that I never really like seafood
I’ll eat it, even cook it for guests
I make a mean fish boil it is said
Probably because it is easy
Recipe:
Cut potatoes, Peel onion cut into quarters, Thaw the frozen fish
Boil potatoes, when almost done throw in onions
When onions done throw in fish.
Fish done when white.

Take it out, mash it all together, smother in melted butter.
Eat.

There’s a reason I don’t care for fish.
Frozen fish sticks my mother made almost every Friday
Because that was what Catholics did
Sometimes she made other things
But most those damn fish sticks.

Amazon, Dylan, Ochs, and Interpreting

March 27, Friday

Woke up this morning to a text from The Kid.. He works at Amazon. They had one confirmed case of COVID-19. They are not closing the distribution center. The Dad in me is worried. The Daughter, his sister, is probably worried too. The Wife, who is no longer with us, is probably up there making sure they don’t have any room up there for him.

The Wife 2 won’t let me out of the house except to go for a walk daily. She’s worried, too.

So goes life in America these days of quarantines and stay the fuck home orders.

I kinda wish more governors and mayors would be more forceful in their daily talks. When they had a nice warm day in Chicago, a lot of people flocked to the Lake walkways. The city closed the parks and walkways. The Mayor said something like, “When we said you could take a walk, we meant a short one in your neighborhood.” She should have said, “What the fuck is wrong with you people? It’s simple, one syllable words:STAY HOME!”

+++

I woke this morning to a Facebook message from my nephew in California. Bob Dylan released a new 17 minute song “Murder Most Foul.” That was a pleasant surprise.

I am not going to attempt to analyze Dylan, as if anybody really could. To summarize, the piece recaps the Kennedy assassination and runs through the historical events of November, 1963 up to mentioning Kennedy’s brothers. Interspersed are other events of the 60s like the Beatles and the mania of their arrival. He also mentions a lot of other singers and songs. It’s interesting.

I must admit that while I was listening I kept thinking of another song about the Kennedy assassination, “Crucifixion” originally written by Phil Ochs. I like this version better than the one Ochs did.

As for analyzing Dylan, I remember something I learned and tried to emulate when I taught English Literature. This is particularly true of Dylan, but applies to almost all literature and music.

One Week of a Shutdown

Just some ramblings since we've been in lock down in Illinois

March 21

Trains carrying no passengers
Running still and all alone
No one but the engineer
Maybe the conductor too
Past the station with no cars on the lot
Stopping for no one to board or get off.

Water in the creek running deep
Mind running up the mountain steep
Radio dj talking in the night
Playing songs about the fight
Against the unseen foe
The battle already lost

March 22

The Zogratians liked to fuck. Smith learned that early in his life on this planet. In fact, he learned it almost immediately after his ship crashed, what was it, three years ago?
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I took pictures of two geese with my phone. They landed gently on the grass bank of the pond ner my house.  I don’t like geese. They honk. They leave crap everywhere. They are like big pigeons, large rats, but with wings. Sea gulls are, too. I decided I might post them on Facebook. Then again, might not.
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It’s fucking snowing. Glad I went for a walk earlier today. My wife is much better at walking. She goes for an hour and gets about 3-4 miles in. I get a little over two.

We’re maintaining the degrees of separation the government suggests. But in the morning, waking up together is well, kinda close.

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The Wankmaggot is on. He sounds sick. The guy cannot talk coherently unless he’s reading off a script or teleprompter. The minute he goes off script, it’s a shit show.

March 23

Stock market is still dropping. Still pretty much staying home. Walked to the train station. Diminishing cars in lot. Last Friday there were 22 cars. Today 11, and too of those were there overnight. They had last night’s snow still on them. One of them belongs to a conductor on the trains. Heading outside. Dangerous proposal I suppose, but want to try to get the music to some radio stations.
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Susan got a topical song. She got a tongue twister in it.

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It’s strange to see CNN upping the number of US deaths on the screen.

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My older brother is a fucking idiot who backs Trump and his policies.

March 24.

I tried applying online for unemployment benefits because subs can’t work when there’s no school open. They said they couldn’t find my name in the system. Weird.
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Sitting in the waiting room of a hospital brings back too many memories of too many surgeries. Susan’s gallstone was the size of a walnut. Her plumbing was messed up. Apparently the gallbladder is supposed to be on the right side of the liver. Hers was on the left. I guess her progressive tendencies have made it that way.

Sitting here all alone in the waiting room. Hospitals have pretty much just done away with elective surgeries. Glad Susan had a doctor who fought for her to get this done rather than wait, cuz I guess gallstones don’t really go away and can become infected.

Someone suggested I try coming up with rhymes for purple. As Eminem said, it’s a matter of breaking down the parts:

See the silly girl dressed all in purple
She has a special talent - she can burp well

The cop changed his uniform, no longer wearing purple,
saw the sickly convict and asked "Is the perp well?"

When I see Donald Trump, my face turns to purple
I can’t help but think that twerp'll
kill us all. He came down that gold escalator,
And now we'll all need a ventilator.

March 25

Days seem to blend together. Dates, too. Amtrak is down 98% in ridership according to a conductor I talked to briefly today. 12 cars in the lot when I walked to the train station today.

The people I see during the walk through the park move to the other side of the path, sometimes dragging their dogs way over on to the grace. I stay on my side right on the edge of the concrete.

Each person I see, I nod or say good morning. A cursory acknowledgement of the other person’s existence. If they are with a pet, I say “Hello dog” Again it’s a cursory acknowledgement. Six feet of separation is maintained, at least by me. Those six feet are reduced when the people I meet are with kids. Parents keep close to their children.

I don’t like the idea of two geese perhaps nesting near the pond across the street. Nesting leads to more geese, baby geese will grown up and bring more geese and to what geese do, which is crap all over the place. They are just rats with wings.
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Christopher Paul Stelling is an amazing singer songwriter. Grateful that he is doing stuff on the Interenet during these times. On Sunday he did his entire new album. Today he played a lot of songs with his wife Julie. He is simply amazing.

One of the nice things about this stay at home stuff are the live stay at home shows that some of my favorite performers have been doing. So thanks Christopher Paul Stelling and Susan Werner and others I have watched. If you are watching some of these things from your favorites, remember these folks have had shows and gigs cancelled, and are helping you cope through these times through one of the things that still binds us as humans, music. Throw a five or ten spot or a sawbuck in their virtual tip jars. I have done it.

March 26

The original meaning of the word “nice” comes to us from Latin via the French:

Middle English nice "foolish, stupid," from early French nice (same meaning), from Latin nescius "ignorant," from nescire "not to know," from ne- "not" and scire "to know"

It is a great example of how language changes that the word “nice” now means something completely different.

Over time the words has four distinct definitions:

1 : finicky in tastes or habits
2 a : not obvious : SUBTLE b : having the ability to notice small differences 
3 : PLEASING, AGREEABLE
4 : well behaved : RESPECTABLE  

So today I went for a walk with my pointy stick and loaded up a bag of stuff that people have tossed and discarded willy nilly along my usual path. I think those people are nice in the original meaning of the word.

Although it is not nice of me, I think that people who continue to support Trump are nice people.