Take This Tune

A few weeks ago, my pal Jamie from Duward Discussion reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics. 

Regrettably, this week Jamie announced that this is the final regular TTT prompt.  She'll bring it back occasionally at Duward Discussion, but its presence as a weekly feature has ended.  I've enjoyed participating because the prompts combine music and writing, two of my favorite things.

This final prompt is the song Red Dirt Girl, a song written by Emmylou Harris.  Jamie says, "This is a beautiful but terribly sad song about two girls with dreams.  One made hers come true.  The other completely lost her way.  Your challenge is to Take This Tune and tell us about choices and outcomes."

I decided some time ago that I would not let popular convention dictate my decisions.  I don't follow fashionable trends or fads, no matter what they are.  I don't take the popular position, or the position of the majority, just to get a win.

I think.  I research.  I discuss.  I match my morality against the options.  I try to apply tests of fairness and reasonableness.  I ask myself what I want, and how does the data support or deny that desire.

Then I decide.

The degree of importance of any choice doesn't really change my process.  You might not think that there is a morality question involved when deciding where to grab a quick bite to eat.  

You'd be wrong to think that.


The WinShape Foundation is the charitable arm of the Chick-fil-A restaurant franchise.  The foundation is on record actively supporting the denial of equal rights to the LGBT community.

We don't always know the morality inherent in an organization.  It may not be something that occurs to us on a daily basis.  But it's there.  When you know the nature of that morality, does it matter to you?  Does the knowledge of that morality, and its measurement against your own, impact your decision whether to spend your dollars?


What's the impact of a decision not to purchase from a company whose morality doesn't align with your own?  These companies employ people.  Can we separate the corporate morality from the jobs it creates?

If you eat at Chick-fil-A, does that mean your morality can absorb discrimination against gays?  If you don't eat there, does that mean your morality is indifferent to people losing their jobs?  


Should those questions even come up?


Sheesh.  What really is the price of a chicken sandwich? 

Take This Tune

My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

This week's prompt is the song Ain't Talking by Bob Dylan, from the album Modern Times.

Now I don't consider myself a Dylan fan, although I have tremendous respect for him as a poet and songwriter.  I thought that this was a great opportunity to sit down and work out a poem.


Funny thing though...I hadn't intended a sonnet, nor did I intend something quite so dark.  But such is the way of the words.

Kitties, puppies, bunnies is my mantra

When the big bad scaries infuse my dreams

With lavender and orange dahlias,

Twisting sweetness to malign travesty.

Morose is the hand that guides freakish tour,

Pointing the way toward spectral vastness,

And beings heard but unseen behind doors...

The ghoulish threat of mayhem and madness.

Engulf'd now in this panick'd mind's prison,

To become this corner'd lonely buffoon.

How came I to bend thought to these visions?

Just that one glance did I take at gray moon.

How came I to this persistent prowling?

Can no one cure me of this mad howling?

Yes Lana, I'm off to Google images of puppies...or perhaps Youtube for giggling babies.

Take This Tune

My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

This week's prompt is actually your choice of two songs from the movie The Big Chill.  Jamie says...

One of my favorite movies and soundtracks is "The Big Chill" with its window on a generation. It featured 14 great songs that acted both as music for the film and commentary on the interaction of the characters. This week you get your choice of two songs to use for your Take This Tune prompt.

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies too.  The song choices are Ain't Too Proud to Beg from The Temptations and You Can't Always Get What You Want from The Rolling Stones.

I chose The Stones.

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes

You just might find

You get what you need

My blog pal Lois wrote yesterday that she and her husband found a full service car wash.  They stopped in and got the works.  She wrote, "Those four sets of hands represent four families that have jobs.  So we'll be patronizing this place often."


Now, Lois and her husband have recently relocated to Ohio.  Ohio is getting snow these days, so you wouldn't think getting the car washed would qualify as a need.  Oh you could make the case, as Lois did, that the winter salt on the roads makes it necessary to periodically get a vehicle washed.  That stuff can cause corrosion which can lead to rust, which can lead to an early trade in for a new car.

Need versus Want.

One needs to be aware of what winter salt can do to a vehicle's undercarriage and exterior paint.  Then one can pay the relatively low cost of a full service car wash periodically to avoid needing to pay thousands later for repairs, or a replacement.  It's like getting the oil changed or having your transmission checked.  It's basic preventive care to secure your investment. 


The side benefit is that one's patronage helps another family by providing a job, so that family can meet its own needs.


I can extend that analogy to just about anything.  But my main point is this...what do you do if you have money left after you pay the mortgage/rent, buy groceries, and pay your subsistence bills?  You save some, if you're smart, and you give some to charities.  And you spend the rest on entertainment.


That's what keeps the economy chugging along.  Sometimes it rolls downhill like an out of control rock.  Other times it slows to a trickle like a dried up stream bed.

"Money, pardon the expression, is like manure.  It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."  Dolly Levi, from the movie Hello Dolly

In December 2010, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the national unemployment rate was 9.1%.  That's so high, and I feel for all those who are still having trouble finding jobs.  They face so many challenges.  I've been there and it sucks.


But I always try to find the positive.  So 90.9% of the working age population is employed.  Most of us are working in this country.  For some it's still a struggle just to make the monthly nut, but they are finding ways to get it done.


And some of us are making the monthly nut and then some.  So we're saving as much as we can against the possibility that the economy might hiccup again.  We want to be prepared and we want to be cautious.  But we can also help the economy by giving in to what we want once in awhile.


I guess my point is, don't let fear stop you from doing what you want.  If you're struggling, of course you'll fall back as far as you can to meet your basic needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter.  


But if you are reasonably secure, then spend responsibly.  The responsible spending of those who can do so saves jobs, and can sometimes create jobs.


Maybe you can't always get what you want.  But when you can, you might find someone else gets what they need.

Take This Tune

My pal Jamie from Duward Discussion has reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.

It's a shame that this feature isn't more popular.  I think it's a great way to combine music and writing.  It's not restrictive at all...you can write something or you can post another song inspired by the prompt.  You don't have to post on a special day...just pick up the prompt, usually posted by Friday afternoons but sometimes posted later in the weekend, and then put your post up sometime during the following week.

Then sign Mr Linky at the TTT blog and cruise around to read some great work.

This week's prompt is the song The House that Built Me, written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin, and performed by Miranda Lambert.  The task is to share a story about what makes me, me.

Grab your Mr Peabody glasses children because we're taking a trip in the Wayback Machine.  I first posted this story in July 2007.  Some of you may remember it, but it's also new to some others.

San Mateo Bridge

When I was about 10, my parents divorced and my younger sister and I were raised by our single mom.  We lived about an hour and a half from my grandmother, and so we made lots of weekend trips over to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit.  They were like mini vacations for us.  We would laugh and sing in the car during the entire drive.

I remember the time we tried to take a short cut through Hayward to get to the San Mateo Bridge.  We ended up lost!  If there was a way to lose a large body of water like a bay and a huge bridge...we found it!  But such were our little adventures.

Editor's note:  I have inherited that trait.  Just after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, while driving late at night in downtown San Francisco, I managed to lose the Bay Bridge.  But that's a story for another trip in the Wayback Machine.

Anyway, that shortcut turned out to be the best thing because we passed right by a 7-Eleven convenience store on a side street.  Once we figured out the short cut, we almost always used it and Mom would give in to our begging and stop for Slurpees.  Not always, but more often than not.  If she didn't, we'd have to wait until we got to Gram's.


My sister and I were Slurpee-holics in those days.


Gram was the best.  She was a fireplug of a redhead and she was so much fun when I was a kid.  She'd take us down to Tanforan Mall in San Bruno.  We'd have adventures in parking.  She'd drive and drive around the side lot next to the Sears entrance to the mall, waiting for "her" spot to open up right near the front.  My sister and I would play scout from the backseat, keeping an eye on the entrance and watching for people heading to their cars.  And then, just like that, Gram's spot would open up and she'd swing the big Caddy in like a pro.

Honestly!  Can you imagine a woman all of 4'9" wrangling a huge 1970's model Cadillac around a parking lot?


After our triumph in parking, we'd walk into the mall through Sears.  This was my first experience with any large shopping mall.  Gram would always take us to the toy store and the pet store.  Sometimes she'd need to stop at a shoe store, and she always picked the one next to the book store so we could browse while she got her shoes.

Then we'd head over to the Walgreen's.  Now back in those days at Tanforan, the Walgreen's was more than just a place where Gram could get her necessaries, as she called them.  Once in awhile we'd get new coloring books and the small boxes of new Crayola crayons.  Of course we'd lust after the big box of 64 with the built-in sharpener, but that was always reserved for a holiday or birthday gift.


But the Walgreen's...it was a drug store like it is today, but it also had a cafe/restaurant!  My sister and I were always on our best behavior with limited fidgeting and whining during the shopping phase of our outing, because we knew that after all that good behavior we'd get grilled cheese and hot fudge sundaes at the Walgreen's cafe/restaurant.

The best thing though...the ultimate...the grandest thing about going to Gram's was that she lived around the corner from a 7-Eleven.  Can you imagine anything better for a couple of Slurpee-holics?  After a day of racing Big Wheels down the big hill, or building Legos and Tinker Toys in the backyard, or drawing and coloring on the big dining room table, Gram would hand us a dollar and send us around the corner for Slurpees.


My grandmother has been gone for more than 20 years.  But my grandfather still lives in that same house.  And right around the corner is that same 7-Eleven.  In fact, in 2006 when I went down for my cousin's wedding, my sister and I introduced my niece to the joy of walking around the corner for a Slurpee.


So what makes me, me?  


Memories.


Memories of my redheaded spitfire Gram, and Caddy wrangling in a parking lot, and Walgreen's grilled cheese and hot fudge sundaes, and Crayola crayons, and getting lost as an adventure, and Slurpees.


So many memories.