Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
A Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets earlier this week from Mish, another 44 word poem with a prompted single word to include. The word this time around?
Broke out XTC’s “Oranges and Lemons” from back in ’89 earlier this week as the weather called for something that wasn’t my latest in the car, the slog of old school Deep Purple, in all their iterations.
Now for reference, I don’t listen to music any longer except in the car, 25 minutes at a time, Lilly, my six speed old man CD playing (ask grandma or grandpa about CD’s) girl. Love ya ol’ bluesy heavy metal but you can only go so far and you can be a bit dull. Are you loud, yes, loud is good, has always been good (sorry Ma, I’ll turn it down) especially with open windows, but are you bright and bouncy and lyrically damning and compelling and biting enough for sunny days? No, that you are not.
I’ve been a music only in the car for the longest time now where I used to be an always in the foreground or at least in the background as a subtle soundtrack of days. Should I worry that things are falling off, that once loves have been so easily discarded like baseball (not my doing) or relationships for instance? (reasons) or more, just altered?
I don’t know and I probably should be a little concerned that I don’t really care I guess. I mean I like to hear new things, usually at work where we sometimes build spots with new music, but at this point in my oldness I have my comforts and going back to Deep Purple or The Rainmakers or The Silencers or Alan Parsons or Bob Mould or XTC works just fine for me. I just don’t really feel the need to invest myself in anything new, I’m pretty full in that old regard, though I do look forward to something new from MonaLisa Twins at some point, the only “new” that has caught my fancy in the longest of time.
No, I’m good, I have words and cats and my sister has cats, they sing well enough at my feet at the crack of stinky can or on a set of stairs, one of them just needs to learn how to play guitar or even bass … not drums though, I don’t wanna have to hit a broomstick on a wall like a cranky old landlady.
Including an Arthur … apologies, I kinda talk pretty loud …
“Really Steve, you don’t say”
“What?”
… something I am always reminded of in videos but then forget when taking a video. But ya gotta love his eventual southern belle-esque turn of disdain here, a “Why my Lord, I neva …” the only thing missing being him holding a dramatic paw up to his face.
Now back to XTC and “Oranges and Lemons” their “Sgt Pepper” or from the artwork their “Yellow Submarine” (every band wants to have their own). I had the hardest time trying to decide which tune from it to present in this post as this album is just perfect, and I have only come across a handful or so that would meet that “perfect” mark for me, filled with so many great choices of tune and so many that even sing to our current times from 36 years ago and with Arthur’s disdain.
(writer’s note to self: This isn’t Facebook numbnuts, you can put more than one video here… Oh, right …)
Ok, so three then.
And close with pictures of cats … there’s always pictures of cats.
Saphira The Diva …
Rikki The Raspy … dude, can ya run down the street and get me a pack of smokes …
This week Kim brings us a prosery idea at dVerse Poets, a 144 word piece of prose to include one line from a poem or song. In this case, a line from Dereck Walcott’s “Dark August” …“I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones”
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Star Speckled Black Brighter Days
Great grandfather’s generation were the last to know their sun, before it became blackened by dust, frozen air and profound hatred is what my father told me. But they had sent the following generation and a budding next away, a relatively young handful, in secret, from a remote volcanic island in this wondrous living world of a craft before things became too dire.
My grandfather argued for staying, hoping to educate the world away from its end, but for great grandfather?
“I would have learnt to love black days, the ones of space, like bright ones here once but that’s for you son” he told grandfather from inside the volcano’s launch.
“There is no longer any educating, that time is well past. You just go … save us.”
That’s what I was told as I look out at star speckled black brighter days.
Spent the weekend doing nothing (holy crap! really?! that’s new … shut up m’fr!) one new post and then just eyes and headphones down to some old stuff, a bit of a re-set if you will as it seemed necessary.
Re-read a lot of old things just to remind myself that I wasn’t totally crazy when I wrote them and re-listened to a lot of old things just to remind myself that I wasn’t totally crazy and could hold a new lyric’d tune when I sang them.
Very therapeutic.
Now, was this enough of a re-set? Couldn’t tell ya, but it was relaxing and I am fan of “me” things, as I should be. Would be a little awkward if not.
Anyway, along my nothing weekend way … this version of “Yellow Submarine” from back in 2019 and of my favorite Beatle.
These are scary days as we watch in real time the attempted destruction of all we hold, have held, dear and this one still works then.
Cheers Ringo
In the land that we call home
Lives a man who was born to be
A simple con, liar and cheat
Living in an orange quarantine
.
But in this land he would conceive
A man-boy King of him he would be crowned
And to the law he’d not be bound
In his new found Orange Quarantine
.
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Trading truth for beans, an Orange Quarantine
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
The lies come with a sheen in an Orange Quarantine
.
Blind loyal friends all love the ride
Cheer-fully they chide Democ-racy
A prop-a-gandist band does play
.
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Where truth is rarely seen in this Orange Quarantine
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Trump’s pockets full of green, in an Orange Quarantine
.
(Full speed backward, full speed back stupid USA
Blindly so it is general
Look the other way for me… drop the law if you please
Will do general. General?)
.
As we live a life unease
All the rich of us (all the rich of us)
Has what they need (has what they need)
To the rest (to the rest)
Shoulder your part (shoulder your part)
In this Trickle Down (in this trickle down)
Quarantine (quarantine…HA HA!)
.
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Where ignorance is King in this Orange Quarantine
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Of woe we’ll surely sing in an Orange Quarantine
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Bizarro is the norm in this Orange Quarantine
We all live in an Orange Quarantine
Where scary does take form in an Orange Quarantine
Got a call from a friend of mine (Friday) while I was still toiling away in the radio salt mines (yes I know, I can be so dramatic). It had been a been a day of pounding that salt into fine powder, one that had lingered longer than the usual, giving me a right on angry headache, even more headache than the usual Friday where shit always lingers and aches said head, salted, longer than any other day of the week. “production Fridays”.
Yeah, they are a “thing” in my small salt production world, with so much stuff, last minute, that just “HAS” to start on Monday.
But when I got that phone call I realized I wasn’t on my way home, and that was my cue to be done. damn the torpedoes Tom and the Mondays, as when these phone calls happen we are usually on our ways. Just some talk while we have our quiet time through some short time drives. There is something to be said of our time in cars.
But I adjusted, just paced instead into a studio where I could talk loudly outside the morgue quiet of my digs on a Friday night (I talk loudly, like wake the dead loudly, so I try to be respectful if I can even if no one may be around)
These calls are check-ins, have always been check-ins, sometimes more for one side than the other, depending, make sures of still breathing (with the hopeful picked up phone for confirmation) make sures of things that friends check in on for a bit of normalcy like how are the cats, what about that game and the latest gimmick that pisses you off or how is the better half or the newbie and his ever growing feet and newfound baseball fascination and new working, ever evolving mind and new singular habits doing?
I have been lax lately on new stuff in the Attic, other than my latest “poem” (poem in quotes as I am not quite sure of it), but I just haven’t “felt it”, haven’t felt need to anything new, I just haven’t for reasons, reasons I couldn’t tell ya of as I don’t know them.
But this friend was checking in with me, this time, really, for just that.
You see, he’d actually listened to me when I have said, to him and to others in the past, you don’t need worry or to call, you don’t need to concern. If you are for some reason curious as to a me, just check the Attic in the dust and musk and piled things in newly uncovered cardboard boxes, piled things of still breathing thoughts in an upstairs this is where I’ll be.
He listened, he’d noticed. Shit, I didn’t think anyone would actually listen to my entreats.
What a wonderful discovery … that someone would actually check in with me via the Attic, that they would notice my recent ebb.
It was a good phone call, there are still cats, there are always cats and stories of dogs now in his case, and there are better wives and growing feet and Happy Meals and growing minds and new baseball fascinations (no, I won’t be a dick as to my current opinion of the game in the new rules era) and there are lives to catch up on even in small talk windows.
In studios instead of cars? No matter.
Just a blip JJ. Just an ebb. Still breathing my friend.
Well the fourth … hold on … no, fuck you ad (freakin’ calendar phone apps) keep holding … you know what, let me just turn this over old school instead on a wall with a tack, oh hello July, you look like a younger Grayson (he was a cat, a very special cat) …
… the fourth is supposed to be this Friday if these annoying ad inundated apps and cat calendars have anything to say about it and that is the deadline Trump has imposed on his Big, Ugly Ass Evil Bill reconciliation package so he can take a victory lap right before the holiday while grilling immigrants and hot dogs and passing out brown shirts and small flags on small sticks made in China while laying claim to yet another amazingly destructive measure that he seems to gain so much pleasure from, he’s probably even considering subtly implying necessary kickbacks from his oligarchs and thinking of hugging another poor unsuspecting flag again for emphasis … I know, who would do that right?
But, well, I’m going to try my best to not lose any more sleep over it for the moment (though that’s probably an empty desire) and instead just enjoy a short week for my birthday as I have taken it, the 1st and then the 2nd off, back in on Thursday and then off on Friday and into the weekend.
Now I have no plans for this, don’t wish to have any plans for it other than doing what I’m doing right now, keyboard scribbling and hanging out with the girls (Bella & Cricket) for a little extra time. And, well “no plans” is still a plan, at least in my book and I am REALLY good at such.
Hey? You need someone to assist you in planning no plans? I’m your guy. And it’s pretty simple really, I just tell people NOT to ask for my help and then just do nothing. I don’t know if they take this advice that I don’t give on helping to plan no plans but it works for me and I’m happily left in the dark as to their successes or failures.
But with my birthday rolling around for yet another year, timely precise bastard that it is (you know, you could miss a year or two, I’d be alright with that) but with it returning with reminders of more gray hair and shorter breath and larger waistlines and creakier, cracking backs I am reminded, as with a conversation with Beck earlier, that well, I, we still got ones, these birthdays and not ones that someone else is remembering for us with flowers and maybe a knelt tear or two.
No, we’re still kicking it, Beck and I reminded ourselves, while she practiced some guitar and I caught up with her on her recent past weekend away to the Burgh (Pittsburgh) with her guy, Buck.
She went out that way with him this past Thursday, something she and he do every summer, maybe a couple of times, to take the Burgh back in and catch a Bucco game on a Saturday.
And in their yinzing they visited the Iron City Beer Brewery for a tour and eventually the gift shop and picked me up a couple of things … much appreciated.
Now while she was gone I was the cattaker, as always, as I mentioned in my 5:39am post from last week, and others as well making sure to take care of her three along with my two of course, keep everyone in good furry sorts of stinky food and company, including Arthur, who I think broke a little earlier this morning at 5am in his missing of Mom (Monday the 30th) as I heard him at the top of the stairs, meowing his pained, lonely cries down into my basement room (a nice one by the way, this basement room, not some dark and dank place with only food and water provided by someone throwing it down the stairs just within reach of the chains, but a really comfortable spot with a bed and pillows and litter boxes and stuff collected and a TV and an air fryer and a fridge and a microwave and bookcases with clothes to read on the shelves.
But he was just looking for company and, as I have done in other recent posts, a couple of quick videos then, simply because they are always Arthur cute and endearing.
Timeline:
5am: Arthur plaintively meowing at the top of the basement stairs
8am: Groggily make my way upstairs for a shower
830am: In the final moments of getting dressed for the day
845am: Make my way back upstairs with Arthur following to feed he and Saphira and Rikki, who, raspily reminds me that I’m fucking late for her breakfast, that she has been simply wasting away waiting for me at this late time and where she just glares at me in her chunkiness when I say that she should really start an exercise routine and eat a bit of lettuce or something.
Well, another birthday, one that has me turning 61 and officially being in my 60’s now (yes, can’t fudge this shit any longer when I could still say that I was in my 50’s last year) and my first one at Beck’s place, in a nice basement like its own apartment, with she and Matt and extra cats.
Still kickin’ it we are Beck, and happily and thankfully so.
Holding off on flowers and tears from others just yet …
Oh, and a favorite birthday post from a few years ago where it was all about Victor stories and gifts of fancy hot dogs and ice cream cakes (he is a number of years older now and would surely hate me for this re-post)
(originally posted to my Attic Blogspot June, 2019)
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Yes, I know I have re-posted this one a few times since the initial posting but listening to it again, earlier this week, I realized it could be new right now (just minus the “two plus years ago today” opening line) as it’s like we’re living in some god forsaken loop just minus a four year reprieve of hope and light where the everyday Jane and Joe could have a say again.
So much for that building from the “middle out” thing huh?
I mean he recently tried to play baby General for review for his … the Army’s birthday, of HIS troops (minus all his past disparagements) though I don’t think it quite went the way he envisioned and he probably sent a love letter to Kim Jon Un just to say that his spectacle wasn’t quite up to par just yet and that he would do better next time and it’s certainly not like Trump has stopped bein’ the devil incarnate from his first go round, he’s just more adamant and heartless and evil about it now.
Just ask a gleeful Stephen Miller who, every morning, picks his teeth for morsels of the flesh of immigrants from his dreams and models himself in SS uniforms in the bathroom mirror.
So back to June of 2019 then and one of my many versions of a Beatles tune.
Baby General’s Golden Black Heart’s Band / Sky’s Orange When You’ve Got Blind Friends
It was two plus years ago today
That baby general came to have his say
In a propagandist fascist style
With his lies he’d go the extra mile
He’d hammer them unto the red
IQ’s regressing in his stead
Baby general’s golden black heart’s band
.
We’re baby general’s golden black heart’s band
We play you all ya need to know
Baby general’s golden black heart’s klan
The torches are only for show
.
Baby general’s cor-rupt
Baby general’s morally
Baby general’s bankrupt black heart’s band
.
There’s nothing to be seen here
Just back room in the know
There’s such important work be done
Now won’t you all just pray with us
We love it when you’re dumb
.
We don’t want you to be in the know
But we make you feel you’re in the show
Keep you happy swimming in the glow
Helps suck you in the undertow
Now let us to present to you
The sad and lonely Orange years
.
Baby general’s golden black heart’s band
.
Trump D’s victim’s tears…
.
What would you say if I sang you a lie
So obvious you can’t deny?
But you take it and then get to singin’ along
Cause re-ality it don’t apply
.
Oh, the sky’s purple when you’ve got blind friends
Mmm it’s any color when the truth gets bent
Mmm the sky’s orange is the new message sent
.
What would you say if I filled you with hate
Gave you an enemy you could detest
Locked them away less than human they’re caged
As you lend deaf ear to mankind’s rage
.
Oh, the sky’s black to go along with blue
Mmm your hu-manity now shares that hue
Mmm your sold souls invent a diff-er-ent view
.
Could you think you need saving?
That will surely come bust
Do you need to get praying?
But only to an orange need’s lust
.
Where will we be when sad histr’y holds true
(do you re-alize that there’s a cost?)
It’s measured in lives deemed be less than they be
A year or so ago an old WVU friend, Rob, posted on Facebook a little minute of him just pluckin’ away on guitar, a quick instrumental, and, on hearing it, I thought “Heck, I could, should, write a few words to this” So I did. Came out kinda nice. It was short, just that minute or so and he approved of my take. It was pretty cool.
Then recently he posted, again, another instrumental, pluck pluck pluck, very bluesy just as with the first one. This one though was 3 minutes and change and I thought well, I could do this again, just with a little more time to work with.
And with it being the bluesy thing that it was I thought “Well, the devil just might be involved as the devil, he’s all about the blues”
So another take then on another Rob thing.
Standin’ At The Edge Of The World (the devil & me)
Found myself standin’ at the edge of the world
The devil at my side asking what I had heard
I said about what are you just asking in jest?
He said no mortal son just checkin’ if you’d kept a-breast
Of what it was that I had goin’ on
Singing off key songs of a world at unrest
.
I said I did but that I didn’t despair
That there was still some hope yet … be found in the air
He said but seeing devil’s work just why would you care
And why do you assume it’s me who leads to despair
I said cause you’re the devil and the devil may care
And seems you do with me at the edge of the world
.
Well, it looks like I’ve more work to be done
To convince you all to just cut and run
Away from hope’s promise and flowery songs
Don’t stack up with reality and what I’ve made wrong
But I said you still ask your questions now
About your own song and the stories you’ve wrung
.
I still find a world where people stand up
To those casting dark days and forcing in darker ways till you empty your half cup
To not give in to singing of a dire world’s long
Gone hoping pay no mind to your evil tongue
You are the devil after all your words may be strong
But there’s still some time … for us … to all get along
.
And fight you real world devils and sing different tomes
And maybe make you realize you’ll be left all alone
And any who’ve abandoned promise of pretty songs
That say we’ll right whatever you’ve done so so wrong
He tripped on a stone before impassable waters, a small one, kicked it in frustration, anger
The stone then grew twice, three, four, no, almost five times its size … but was still a small stone
He picked it up, impressed, apologized, gave it a name and tossed it across the waters ahead and it bounced and bounded and giggled and skipped before settling among many other stones beneath heavy waves where it soon washed up from the bottom to become a shore
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
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A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
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