Month: September 2024

Since moving up the Albany way I work now a few days a week from the office of our stations in Latham, and on my way in earlier last week I noticed this in a field I pass right by the airport.

Now yes, things are a bit different up here, as any place new will prove to be, but no one warned me of the REALLY big freakin’ ants!

(a sort of call/response to a recent piece from a friend of mine … parallax)

Totally Fact

Let's look at the facts
they say,
years later I'm still waiting
not like I'm Vladimir or 
Estragon, lost in some
existential crisis cafe where
even the coffee hasn't arrived
at table five or any other
and probably won't;
if facts were goal posts
they'd never stop moving
in any direction or reason
placation, manipulation
which is closer to the truth
raising yet another question
like, the fact of the matter,
what matter (I ask)
quantum or social,
but whatever
I'm now totally fact.

Don’t be bringin’ no facts in this house

dirty things

then we might feed them

semblance of a moment’s soul’s

weakness

suredly our call

is enough

your mother and I and Bill next door

with front lawn flags who swore

in white no black

at our door

yesterday

you know him

pointed finger gun at what is at

we don’t know where they’ve been

Bill says

these “facts”

Bill says they might even be sin

where the devil’s been

the real ones

are

told hard cut divided ones

with fealty direction

ones invented

out of whole cloth

Thought to take a “So Then Sunday” post to a new extreme, as if repeating old posts on a Sunday with a made up name attempt to be similar to a Throwback Thursday wasn’t extreme enough but to then take one and have it happen on a Saturday instead?

Jesus man!

Worlds out of balance!

“You know you could just say “revisit” or something?”

“Shut up”

Anyway, this one, a second Melanie take from back in April

////////////////////////////////////////

April 20, 2024

Back in January I visited Melanie’s “What Have They Done To My Song” for another of my parodies, though I am loathe to call them such as that implies “silly” and these certainly are NOT silly (for the most part). I’ve been working this angle for going on 7 years now with quite a lot of tunes, a boatload, and blah blah blah Steve, yes, your editorials in song as blah blah blah, no one is going to read any straight up editorial blah blah blah but if you put them to tune blah blah blah … you’ve told us.

But that is what it is and what I do though, I gotta say, in my own defense, they are all pretty toe tap worthy, biting and spot on and just darned good in that biting and spot on and toe tappingness.

Anyway, visited Melanie again and her “Brand New Key” now, a tune reminded the other day out of the corner of my ear at work from the ‘Magic’ station playing at my boss’s desk.

So, “Brand New Trump Key” then.

////////////////////////////////////////

Brand New Trump Key

I rode my motorcade to your city last night

To spin some lies and give you all such a fright

To harp on victim-like and rail conspiracies

I know you trust me know I’m just what you need

.

Well, I’ve got brand new world in mind here now

Take heart my unhinged screed

I’ll be proven right my ranting now

You just need to wait and see

I know what you need it’s a Donnie me

A fascist change of scene

.

Well, I’ve got a brand new world in mind here now

It just ain’t democracy

.

I ride my plan of year twenty of twenty five

I got my dee-scipes proving be worthy scribes

Of new world order in these United States

If you don’t subscribe you’ll surely be less than great

.

 
Oh yeah

Hah hah hah hah

Oh you will face my wrath

Hah hah hah hah

Oh yeah yeah yeah you’ll wish you hadn’t said that

.

I ask my people to stand up and be strong

Kiss my ring say they knew it all all along

That I was chosen by the man sittin’ way up high

To lead a fascist state while democracy dies

.

Well, I’ve got a brand new way to look at things

Won’t believe what I’ll bring

A brand new U.S.A. prosperity

‘long as you call me King

La la la la la la la la la la la

Well, I’ve got a brand new world in mind here now

It just ain’t democracy …

(an overly dramatic Frankenberry broken lost toenail story)

Had a broken toenail (stubbed right foot, on a heavy box, not that that matters or maybe it does, I’m not sure) that was slowly growing out when I noticed underneath my PC desk, blood, pooling. A good bit actually and a now wet red sock that was staining the plastic runner for wheels underneath my feet and even the rug around it. Apparently, that toenail or trophy, don’t ask me, I couldn’t tell ya, was done waaay before I thought it might be with socked blood footprints leaving a trail that I’m usually much better at I think.

After a few pointed, spirited exclamations I wondered, should I just buy a new rug? But that would require sooooo much work, and a few bucks at that discount “everything” store for a new one, move the desk and all the stuff off the top of it, the recent heavier steamer trunk next to it as well, that had a small cat tower for weight (even more with a chunky cat, cat #1, just calling her cat #1 is the best I can do, on it, napping, no one would think to look under a napping cat right?) into temporary boxes for the moving stuff (do I even have any empty boxes, any more of them, the ones I had gotten at the grocery store were all full and loaded and iced), shush cat #2 off my lap and try to stop her from nosing, grab the PC and lamps and knick-knacks and post-its that are important reminders of something I wrote on them, stuck to the PC screen in some cases, when a need post-its arose and turned its head, or should just I try to clean it?

But blood is so difficult and I forget the last time I had to do this. They were a nice couple I think, but too self-enamored and obsessed with temporary things, and she took a lot of pictures with pursy lips, and I don’t really know who might have missed them, really, well I do, but news eventually fades (I’ll have to look for the clippings I’m sure I kept and pinned) but then I thought to do the google of cleaning possibilities instead, again, I can never remember, but then I realized, again, searching how to clean blood stains out of a rug might raise a red flag or two.

They’re always watching ya know … the “they?” You know them right, help me out if so. I’m at a loss if alone.

But I’m a bit stuck now and my socks are unmatched with one former sticky red one tossed aside leaving one breezy naked foot. It’s kind of uncomfortable.

But the unexpected postcard was nice, and is somewhere around here I think. I’m sure I pinned it. It was from from Stockholm, if I remember correctly, a pretty picture, and all it said was “Thank you, don’t wish you were here though wish you were here”.

Now, where are those band-aids and those super absorbent ropes, wait … flash … I remember! I think they are next to the power tools and med equipment.

I had the most random of asks the other day, “when did you start getting gray?” from the coolest of strange kid I work with, the one I would have befriended in high school to protect him or maybe he would have befriended me the same in my own strangeness as having a wingman is always welcome no matter the matter’s.

But well, I don’t know Tim. It just is, as when I wasn’t gray I just wasn’t. He’s too young to ask of such things though, those fears, and if they are such, they are a ways away for him so he has time. But it got’s me to thinkin’s, when exactly was that?

My dad had a small gray spot on the side of his head when he was young, a little Jupiter storm circle that just eventually stormed over his whole planet and threw his cosmos in a gray whirl as he managed an oversized family at too young an age while still trying to start his life but always just looking “old”. Now I don’t have a spot that has threatened to take over my whole noggin eventually …

… but wow, how long have I grayed?

That is a question.

Maybe it was the relationships I no longer wish to pursue and those times I was wrong, dead wrong, and tried to backpedal on things said that I regret. Gray hair “pop!”

Or maybe it was the times, in said no longer pursued relationships, where I was right, dead right, but remembered I wasn’t wearing a cup and backed off to let them work out just the same in the end … another gray hair “pop!”

That’s why I have my little set of clippers that I bought from Walgreens a number of years ago for just 15 bucks I said to him, for when you stand in a dry shower, naked, with a broom and a dust pan at hand and you shave it all off, down to the hair nub, stubble, so you no longer think of such things. Hopefully there is no mirror in the bathroom distance to refer to by the way, no one needs to see that, not even yourself, plus you can’t see the back of your head anyway.

But I am gray now, not quite totally so, but surely getting there, no swept hair almost bald shower stalls with a broom and dustpan on a lean, waiting, will hide that, and maybe the reason he asked, looking at this old dude who still says “dude” and work wingman, was that he really was curious about his future hair, and his future old in general that we were all were curious about when we were young (for just seconds – he’s thinking about this way too much if that is the case) or it was just him making weird casual conversation, as he is wont to do

Truthfully, the graying doesn’t really bother me all that much, I am more concerned with small hedges that can sprout out of my ears, the wild bushy that the eyebrows can be sometimes and the occasional errant nose hair.

It just comes to pass Tim, this gray hair thing. But I will offer what I can if you have questions. I am no sage, nobody would want me to be one believe me, but I have some life lesson tales that end like Brothers Grimm stories to learn from (and some not so much … “let’s dance on the bar!!”) and now a gray hair “pop!” unless of course it was actually just weird casual conversation.

Then, well, we can go with that, for fun, otherwise you’re on your own kid.