Love songs

It's date night.
A wise man once said "Some people want to fill the world with silly loves songs. What's wrong with that?"  Good question says I - so here are 10 of them. Of course of the 10 half may not make the same list next month but who cares. Sit back, relax and enjoy.  They are in no particular order.
This one includes some of my favorite lyrics - Terry Kirkman knows his way around a love song

This one was a fave even before I became good friends with the man that wrote it - Ron Ryan



From Gord's Gold - one of the first 3 albums I bought  when I got my first decent stereo system - more a classic breakup than love song



I wrestled in high school - this song is from a great HS wrestling/coming of age movie called Vision Quest -

Great song, great performance - Joe Cocker



Temptations -

I saw Jackie Wilson in a Tahoe lounge show - there was no better act headlining anywhere that weekend

 George Harrison in a classic

Hard to believe this one was in a Clint Eastwood movie

 Can't be my age and not love this one

 A classic from Etta James

I Always Wondered Why LBC post

I Always Wondered Why - this weeks LBC topic leapt from the fertile mind of Lin over in Deutschland. 

I Always Wondered Why:

is there air? 
intelligent conversation is so rare?
civil discourse is rapidly disappearing
scotch is an acquired taste  - if it sucks don't keep drinking it - oops too late
things that taste really good are usually bad for you
so many pictures of Jesus are so  clearly inaccurate
not simply let Texas secede
it took my beloved los Tiburones 25 years to make the finals
does a curveball curve
don't people say what they mean and mean what they say
is there still a charade about amateur athletes and the Olympics
every other culture in the world has better bread than the USA
Do Fools Fall in Love 
Can't We Be Friends 


I suppose the list could go on but what the heck - I still need to check on my LBC mates. 
 
 


                                           


I Always Wondered Why

You Know You're a Foreigner When....LBC

If it's Friday it must be LBC day. This week's topic was suggested by Lin. You Know You're a Foreigner When...... 

1. the football being talked about uses a round ball
2. the holidays celebrated are different than yours
3. you constantly get asked for your passport
4. its hard to find a hamburger- even a bad one
5. eating with your fingers is the norm -regardless what is on the plate
6. the movies in the theaters come from Bollywood
7. cricket is more popular than baseball 
8. you are an immigrant
9. you are a yank and find all of the toilet paper sucks 
10. the bartender stares blankly when you order a Coors
11. gas isn't sold by the gallon
12. you spell color and favorite without the "u" everyone else uses 
13. you are one of these guys ----> 
14. David Hasselhoff is a popular entertainer
15. The Hoover is in a cupboard on the first-floor landing.
16. you can only order beer or ask  where the bathroom is wherever you are
17.  you automatically want to drive on the wrong side of the road
18. your accent is different from  everyone else
19. street  signs look like this   

Now if you live in the USA these  things can apply from state to state. After 20 plus years in Texas I can unequivocally state that Texas seems like a foreign country.  Texans believe in God, Texas, family above all else. I'm not even  sure USA makes the top 10. 

Occasionally there is a song that is in a foreign language that becomes a huge hit in another country or countries - just such a song makes my all time topp 10 lost whenever I make it up. The other 9 may  change but this song is always on the list -

 

and then there is this - 

Even being a foreigner does not stop one from embracing music - I  am certain Lin feels the same way.

Calamities - LBC weekly post

Its that time again. If its Friday it must be LBC day and this weeks topic - Calamities -was suggested by Ramana - himself in the middle of a home  remodel calamity. One must wonder about the timing of the topic - LOL. 

Everyone deals with calamities from time to time. The first calamity I can recall was Calamity Jane - no surprise since - like most  men my age - I was a huge cowboy fan as a kid and Calamity Jane was a legend.

I must assume my pal Ramana had something else in mind when he suggested this weeks topic though. The traditional type of calamity might include earthquakes, hurricanes, even wars and other disasters that cause great harm and destruction.

I have lived in California on the edge of a major fault - the Hayward fault - and have been through a 7.1 earthquake referred to as the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I traveled this collapsed freeway almost daily from the time I got my first driver's license at 16. The next image shows a building in San Francisco that collapsed. I included the image because my good friend Mark Stout was riding his bike and was there when that building collapsed. He was unharmed.

I was driving near our home in Hayward with my son, rolling to a stop sign. Sean and I both assumed we'd gotten a flat tire. Sean jumped out and right back into the van and said it is an earthquake dad. I looked to the right and saw people flying out of the medical offices. Upon returning to our condo, Lynn was spitting nails and cussing as a large bottle of cooking oil and a jar full of rice fell to the floor from atop the fridge. I went into the living room, turned on the TV and this is the image that greeted me -

That is when we knew it was serious.

In 1991 there was the Oakland firestorm.  No single image does justice to the destruction and terror of that event.



 If interested, read about it here - Oakland Firestorm 1991

Move the clock ahead to 2000. We were safely settled in earthquake free Ft Worth Texas. Welcome to tornado alley. On March 28, we went through a major tornado.

That was a barrel of laughs.I got out of the office about 8 minutes before downtown was hit. Sirens went off for another 30 minutes or so after I got home. Our apartment lost  power and there was an impromptu wine party on the patio between units at our complex. 

Those are the three largest calamities I have been through - unless Lynn's disease could be considered one.

The music industry is littered with songs about calamities of many types. Here are a few if you are interested in listening-

Timothy  the Buoys

New York Mining Disaster of 1941  the Bee Gees

Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald   Gordon Lightfoot

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season   Jimmy Buffett

That's it for this weeks topic. I could regale you with tales of burnt dinners, dating disasters and such but the Sharks game is about to start and it is the 7th game of a 7-game series to reach the conference championship. Gotta root for my guys - LOL.

Happy trails til next week.





 

Growing Old vs Growing Up

Thia weeks topic is pretty well covered  by recent topics in April - The Old Days and Aging. I pretty well established the notion that everyone grows old chronologically speaking but not everyone necessarily grows up - maturity has proven elusive for some of us.

Growing old begins at the moment of birth and continues until the moment the lights switch off- death.  While on that path of life we hope we grow up - develop the skills and a level of maturity that enables us to deal with the  trials and tribulations of life. Everybody has a degree of tsuris in life. How we deal with it determines how successful our lives are. Our culture provides the standards by which we determine the degree of success or failure. 

Life is a balancing act of sorts. We need to find the balance between what  want and what we need.  And thenprocess put it all together, mix it up and make a life. A child is someone who passes through your life, and then disappears into an adult if you get it right.

Growing old is simply a biological  process but growing up requires changes of a different nature. Ideas change, friends change, life changes.

And when you reach the end of the line if you have resisted properly, you have grown old but still are still crazy,,,

Then of  course there is my personal anthem  on the matter - one you've heard from me many times

 

Hope you enjoyed the short concert - it surely beat the heck outta the written part.