My Music Monday

Congrats. You've made it to the last of my current running playlist deeper cuts. You're to be commended, should you have listened at all. 

This one is a throwback to about 20+ years ago with an electronic artist / DJ who goes (went?) by BT. 

That's it. BT. 

Electronic(a) and dance music have their place and time in my listening, but less so since I stopped going to gay bars and doing drugs at said bars, like 25 years ago. 710 is, and always has been, a lover of dance music. He still will play the Studio 54 channel on XM. He is the one who introduced me to BT. 

Until looking up the video for today's song - "Simply Being Loved (Somnambulist)" - I had no idea JC Chasez  - from *NSync "fame" sang on the song. Which part, I am not sure I could tell you. 

Oddly, this isn't even BT's best song. Somewhere in the YouTube comments said there are 6,178 vocal edits in this song alone, and at one point (still?) put BT in the Guinness World Book of Records. Apparently there is a documented record that someone is keeping tabs of such things.  I thought it was just the two overweight twins on their minicycles. 

Still, the beat is good for keeping pace, and that's what I'm going for with my playlists. 

8 (circle)

In lieu of anything substantial to post (arguments can be made that I have yet to do so), I will go the route of the frivolous post. 

Self serving and self aggrandizing/

At some point yesterday, I hit (and surpassed) 8,000,000 hits to this blog thingy. 

Just to remind folks: it took me 14.5 years to hit one million. And another 5+ to hit two million. 

Since then, it's been up and down. 2024 saw another (!) four million come in. Since then it's slowed down a bit and I am seemingly getting one million hits every 6-8 months. 

I'm not complaining. 

I've said before, it is most likely bots or AI. 

I get a fair number of comments from "Mari" that never make it to my posts. They are all the exact same language and I just go through and delete them and mark them as spam. 

I know threatened to monetize this blog thingy if the numbers kept increasing, but I have not pulled that trigger. I have not even researched that trigger. 

When it comes down to it, I'm a lazy fuck. 

It looks like I'll end this month with about 180,000 hits, which is great. There were months when I was in the low hundreds. Not of thousands, but triple digits. I don't take these numbers as validation, though some stupid AI program is searching me out for a reason. 

I do not use you-know-whose-name, so they can't be searching for that. Oh, I guess it could be the administration putting me on yet another one of their lists. That seems to more reasonable. My FBI file must be about 7" thick at this point. .....because you just know they print them off, hole punch them, bind them and put them in a drawer. 

There was a time I said if I didn't blog for three days in a row, assume I'm dead. Now, just assume I got no due process. 

That seems more likely. 

Song by: Bon Iver

Watching TV

It's mostly about kittens today - and why not???

Yes, there are dogs present, but a lot about my nephew's kitties. 

It's been so hot and even with air conditioning Shep is smart enough to lay on the marble hearth just to stay cool. 

Bailey got a new toy for her bday. She can be long when she wants. 

OMG they're adorable. 

Shep helping 710 with the power washing of our patio. 

Man does it get disgusting over the winter. 

Apparently Dr. Henry Kissnpurr (yes, you read that correctly) likes watching Andor. 

From other people's accounts, he might be one of the few. 

The prerequisite shot of Shep in a creek. 

We've had to go to heavily wooded trails to hike. He can't be on asphalt when it's this hot, so we head to the woods, and there is usually water in which to frolic. 

I do love the bonding. 

I'm not 100% sure which kitten this is. 

Song by: Roger Waters

Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!    

I had high high hopes for the new Counting Crows disk, Butter Miracle, the Complete Sweets. It's their first full length disk in a decade, which just seems unreal to me. 

About three years ago, the Crows released Butter Miracle - Suite One. The disk contained four songs. The idea was to release the rest at a later date on Suite Two - which never quite materialized. 

The band reworked (or scrapped) the Suite Two and started over, or tweaked (or both). Suite Two was scrapped for the Complete Sweets - which was the new material along with what would or could have been Two.  And yes, they made it a homophone. 

I was totally wow'd by the first single from the full disk, "Spaceman in Tulsa", which still resides as my #1 song from 2025. 

Perhaps there was no way for them to top this song, because, they really don't on this disk. 

I like the Crows. I think I own everything they have, most of it good. Some of it great. Some fair. 

That sentence alone kind of reviews the latest disk. 

I gotta say, it starts off badly. "With Love, From A-Z" is not the way to kick off a disk. Maybe it would have been fine further down in the tracklist, but as the start? Nah. It seems a lot longer than it's 4:42 track time.  Don't get me wrong, breaking it down by pieces it is all good, but not the tenor for the album. 

Or maybe it is. 

The Counting Crows have always been able to make the slower material work, and it kind of does here, but not effectively. "Under the Aurora" made my mind other places. It just goes on for a long time and while not completely free verse, it doesn't really stick to any pattern either, so it's kind of all over the place. I'm hoping it changes for me over time.

"Boxcars" is a breezy rocker that benefits from an addictive chorus. There are stabs of pedal steel guitar the toe-tapping beat that drives the second half of the song, and the stinging riffs that appear from nowhere to set the blood pumping. 

The final four songs made up Suite One back in 2021 and are what I would call traditional Counting Crows songs. They're good, but nothing off the charts great. And that is absolutely fine. They are well written and performed. Some of the songs border on sentimentality and uncertainty - which is kind of lead singer and main songwriter, Adam Duritz' thing. 

It is tough to be fair sometimes with this band. They created an almost perfect debut disk 30 years ago, and have been trying to live up to that since. That's a tall order. They've had some near perfect songs since, and some stellar disks. 

This is in the upper part of those. Say what you will about album sequencing, but it make all the difference in the world, even with good material. 

Heat Waves

Like many places in the U.S. this week, it has been a tad warm in the 216.

.....and I'm underselling it. Some of our lows have been the lower 80s. Our highs are the high 90s with a "feels like" heat index of over 100. Fun. 

Like the frigid temps, dog walks have been very shortened. The heat is too much on the dog's paws and we have to carry water everywhere. I've been doing the one long walk before the sun rises. 

Runs have been slightly miserable. Some are taking place inside on treadmills, but I'm still doing about half outdoors mostly for the social aspect....like last evening's pub run. Last one of these I fell down and go boom. Not so much this time. 

If you go back in this blog - and I don't really suggest it - I'd bitch about winters. Not as much anymore. I find as I age it is the heat that more difficult with which to deal. At one point we considered retirement someplace warm like the shores of North Carolina, but that is off the table. A week a year in that heat is fine - more than that, not so much. 

I've said this before too:  running in winter, I can warm up in 0.25 of a mile. There is no cooling down in this kind of heat. 

I have never been the guy who lays out at the beach or pool. I'm too antsy for that, and I don't know I was ever into getting a tan. 710 was when I met him. The idea of just sitting there seems crazy to me - even with people watching. 

The above image I took when it was almost 100 - at noon. A young woman on a towel, on a black rubber track at the school. Not a beach. No water. No one around.....except the creepy guy taking her pic through the fence. 

It's unfathomable to me to do such a thing - even if I was promised to be melanoma free. Good thing no one was running an 800 relay. 

She probably had her squeeze bottle of baby oil. 

Looks like we have a few more days of this at least. I mean, whatta gonna do? 

Song by: Glass Animals

App of the Month

I'm guessing - or deducing, more likely - that my insurance carrier was noticing my amount of claims for my visits to Ortho, PT and Chiro services last year and the beginning of this one. 

I got a little mailer for a "suggestion" to join Hinge Health.  

What got me to join was they're supposed to provide you some kind of device for pain. At the time, I was still experiencing a bit of knee pain, so I thought - fuck it, why not? 

It's an app. It has you run through some history - where your pain is, the severity, your mobility, etc. Then it builds a rotating number of exercises for you to do each day. No session is longer than 12 minutes, so how bad can it be? 

You DO have to read the fine print. Should you complete 3 classes, they'll send you a full set of resistance bands, that do come in a very nice holder. Should you do 6 classes, they send you a stand / prop for your phone so you can use it upright to do your exercises. And you must do 14 classes to get this so-called pain helping device. 

I'm nothing if not compulsive, so of course I do it all. 

It doesn't take long to figure out you're three steps away from having you do chair yoga - like an old fogey. I was kind of like. "fuck!".   And by "kind of",  I mean, I said it out lout at the gym. 

Let's run through a day.  Mind you, I don't get the same 6-7 exercises each day. The shuffle through many. 

It starts of with a daily reminder to start your session, based on a time you ask it to such a task. And it tells you how long the session will be when you log on.  10 minutes here. 

At this page it starts to list each exercise. You can opt to 'skip some of them. And each come with a modification if you cannot do it the preferred way. It also tells you what equipment you'll needing for this session. This time, no resistance bands. 

Each exercise has a verbal guided plan. Below the 'start', there are also instructional videos to watch should you need more guidance. The modifications are also there. 

Most of these have left and right sided exercises. 

This is where I feel they do these in senior living centers. 

There is an incorporation of full yoga on some of these. And it was nice to kind of touch on them, as I haven't done a ton of yoga for a while. 

In yoga I LOVED balancing poses. But it's been a while and they are proving difficult for me. Mind you, I'm at the gym and I keep my shoes on. I've always had better form in bare feet. 

Yay.  I'm done.   .....except for some administrative work. 

They show you the areas they targeted in the previous sessions - and then you rate each one. 

This is where I take issue. Should you do this for a while - and I'm on like week 15 - there should be gradations between "too easy" and "too hard". 

I get it when you're just starting out, but there should be something in between to let them know there IS progress. Also, there is a difference for how one does on the left side vs the right. Everything is not symmetrical.  

Once per week, they do ask you to rate your pain in the areas you've identified.  And then they ask if work or play has been affected by your pain. And they recalibrate your workout based on all of the above

For the record, I did NOT get any device for my pain. I should check that out. Either my pain is not great enough for it to be effective, or it is in the wrong place or there is a clerical error. 

None of these are horribly taxing, but the pain in my knee is reduced, though that could be from the PT exercises I'm still doing too. I don't know I need to keep this up, but you know.........OCD.

If interested, go to the website hyperlinked near the top. Check your insurance or employer. I should say, this is (was) of no cost to me, as it did come from my insurance company - who I'm sure if thinking if I were in better condition, they wouldn't be paying so many claims.  It's hard to argue with that. 

Bomb

UGH. 

I don't wanna talk about Iran, Israel and the U.S. 

Avoiding the news has been tough in general. It's really difficult when news bulletins pop up on your phone that we are bombing Iran. I suppose there are ways for me to turn off alerts. 

In group chat, one of my friends said they were assuring their kids it wouldn't happen. It never occurred to me BLOTUS wouldn't. 

There are many many many tweets from him about Obama and bombings that are appearing. Naturally, not one single news organization has said 'boo' to him about them, let alone questioned him. 

To be fair, if anyone knows from unskilled, it is BLOTUS. 

The thing is, there was no negotiating with Iran. It was never the plan. It was Israel - and BLOTUS' love for Netanyahu.  

I don't quite recall hearing that BLOTUS got Congressional approval.   Ooops.  

Again, not a beep from any news org, at least US led. 

I believe once can be pro-Israel and anti-Netanyahu. 

Israel is not Netanyahu and Palestine is not Hamas. You're looking at extremes and honestly, Israel could not handle two conflicts without bringing us into the fray. And we are, and footing the bills. 

Iran abandoned their nuclear weapons plan in 2003. Israel, "officially" does not have one, but it is readily known they are currently the only mid-east country with nuclear weapons. No doubt, with help from the U.S.. 

Will this all spark a WWIII?  

Anyone's guess, but it goes back to the movie War Games?   To what end? 

You kill half of all people.............I mean, then what?  You can't really rule something that is going to have fall-out the rest of the time humanity exists. 

Part of me says "bring it".  

But maybe our 22 year old head of Homeland Security's Terrorism Prevention program - including Iranian sleeper cells - will save us. 

His stellar CV acccording to the youngster’s LinkedIn page has almost no experience in this field (being in the model UN doesn't really count) —and in 2020 was working as a self-employed ‘Landscape Business Owner.’ According to his LinkedIn, he would “perform various activities around every department of the store, fulfilling key duties contributing to store operations.

I feel safer already.......................if I wanted to buy and plant an mugo pine.

Again, just bring it - and end it all. Make it quick. 

Song by: Bush

My Music Monday

It is stuff off my running playlist - mostly for races. Sometimes for the treadmill, which I'll be using this week as we are in the mid to upper 90s for the foreseeable future. 

My current playlist goes from 1978 up through 2025. Granted, the 90s (the year. not the temp) are a little sparse, but that's what happens when you have some iffy generated music. 

Today's selection, Depeche Mode's "a Question of Time" dates back to 1986 from possibly their best album, Black Celebration. 

Just going by the beat of the song, you can see why and how someone (me) might run to it. One has to strategically place the tune in a certain order to achieve that kind of pace to go with the song. For me, it's about two-thirds of the way in, when my energy might start to wane. It's a good pick-me-up. 

I do kind of cringe at the lyric "Well you're only 15 / but you look good" .....as sung by an adult male. It's just.......wrong.  But other than that, it has been a staple in my music catalog for almost 40 years. 

Somethin' Stupid

I'm just going on record that I LOATHE to write this post. 

I've wrestled with the idea for days, finding ways to put it off......or not at all. However, I think it just needs to be done. 

Let's start with how much I hate Fucker Carlson. I just want to rub his constant smirk in hot asphalt over and over again till it is raw and bloody.  What I hate even more than him is giving him credit......well..... for anything. Period. 

What I hate even more - yes, the list is quite long - is Rafael Edward Cruz.  HATE. With a fucking passion. 

But here is what I love:

How fucking stupid and unprepared Ted is as a man and a politician. How uniformed and nonsensical he is. And LEVELED a the hands of Carlson. 

That last part surprises me the most. Not that he could do it, but that he would. 

Maybe I don't understand the workings of the GOP (thank g-d!), nor do I know the relationship between these two. This seems to be a breaking in the ranks for MAGA and one of their biggest PR (not Puerto Rican!) queens. 

If you cannot keep one of your own propaganda machines in line - what is coming down the road. 

Still - Carlson makes Cruz look like the idiot he is...........and that's not nothing. 

Song by: Frank & Nancy Sinatra

Animals

I think we have enough variety to please most folks today. Cats. Dogs. Kittens.  What more do you people want??

Hot hikes deserve cool-downs in nearby creeks. 

Bailey - the backseat driver in her throne.  Man - those ears!

Virginia and Henry are settling in. 

Honestly, I don't know which is which yet. 

SIMON!!!!

The prodigal returns. I thought he learned a new skill. But my SIL opened a cabinet to do something and he just decided to jump in. 

Shep: Background Dog.  ....but he is 'adorbs'. 

Spa day for HRH. 

Together but separate. They seem comfortable with my nephew. 

....and clearly they're bonded. Which i just love. 

Song by: BT

Blown Away

KA

wait for it......

wait for it.....

wait for it.....

BOOM!

I feel for the folks at SpaceX. Not so much for their owner. 

Deep down I know these guys are engineers just trying to do their jobs. And I know it's not brain surgery.  But it is hard to feel bad for failure when your boss is a nazi douchebag. 

I'm just saying, Wernher von Braun was a nazi too, but hell, he got things off the ground. 

The difference is von Braun, when not being ok with killing Jews, was about the science, not the showmanship. 

Honesty though, I'm still stumped. 

There is more technology in any of our pockets than was on any of the Space Shuttles. That is just a fact. How is it possible that four decades later we are farther behind at how to make rockets that work?

It's like the prequels to Star Wars. They're earlier and there was more technology then when you get to epiode IV. It is just backwards. 

Oh, for context, SpaceX's Starship spacecraft blew to smithereens on its tenth test flight. 

"Flight" might be a bit grandiose here. It never left the launchpad. One last May and March when Ka-Blooey too, but at least got off the ground for a little while. 

I'd say Mars looks out of reach. The moon too - though we've "been there". {wink wink}. These guys can't even get out of Brownsville, TX. 

Elon wants to go to Mars. No one wants him there more than I. I say, put him on a test flight and let's see what happens. 

Song by: Matthew Sweet

the First Cut is the Deepest

I'm trying to rush through this post before we lose electricity again. Some very powerful storms have hit us. And still are. 

I'm loving whomever has put up these billboards throughout Cleveburgh. 

It's looks welcoming to our National Park - and yes, the NE Ohio area has a National Park.  .....thank you. 

Last checked, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP here out) is / was the 7th most visited National Park in the country.  Go figure. 

710 and I might be counted multiple times, but even Peleton has a bike tour through the park, so.....that's something. 

But often we take Shep there for our walks and picnics. And one of my running groups makes some of our longer runs through there. 

Or did. 

With the BLOTUS / Musk folks cutting funding, trail repair is off the table and many of the restrooms are just shuttered. 

It's a big-assed park so you'd literally have to "run" five miles to get to a bathroom. Sometimes longer. And most of the people down there aren't runners. So, the woods are gonna have to do. 

Our leaders are planning our runs elsewhere. Our metro parks are wonderful here - usually voted best in the nation - and there are no shortage of running options, though most require a LOT of hills. But they have facilities. 

Still, the billboards (and there are many) are calling out why there are fewer repairs and services, and laying at the feet of DOGE. BLOTUS who has never exercised (or even walked) in a park, and Musk who probably has never done Ketamine in our park. 

Everyone should have a bathroom to shoot up in, no? 

Song by: Cat Stevens

Love & Mercy

I'm late to this, but with murders, protests, pets and music, who has time for current current events.

I was sorry to see the death of Brian Wilson.  

There was a time in my life that I thought the Beach Boys were the shit. 

Harmonies, chord progressions, the entire thing. I was younger then, so I didn't appreciate the genius behind a lot of their music, and I certainly didn't understand the brilliance of Wilson - in his writing, arranging and production. 

As a pre-teen, one wasn't listening with that kind of ear, and I had little else with which to compare. The Beatles would be the closest thing - and even they said they'd listen to the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds and try to build upon that musical departure. 

Genius - which what many considered Wilson - has its prices. He became mentally ill. His father sold out everything he had worked for. Where others are selling their music catalogs at a half a billion dollars, his father sold it decades ago for pennies on the dollar. At a point, he was forced out of the band. 

Wilson did some great solo things - though very rarely. He finished the Beach Boys Smile record on his own. It was considered a masterpiece that was never released - and was said to be great. I have never listened to it, to be honest. 

It was when I saw the Wrecking Crew, which kind of really opened my eyes. While Wilson wrote, arranged and produced most of the Beach Boys work, the band rarely played on their own records. The voices, sure, but their biggest hits are by studio musicians who also did work for thousands of other artists. 

So when some of the band kind of trounced on Wilson to get control of the band, they weren't even responsible for their own instruments. What you got with a non-Wilson led band was "Kokomo".  UGGGH. 

Living legend gets thrown around a lot, but Brian Wilson was one - and for a long time. 

There are multiple billboards (I'm assuming electronic) that have been popping up around Los Angeles commemorating Wilson. I think he's worthy of such a tribute. 

Song by: Brian Wilson

Mask

WHAT. 

THE.

ACTUAL. 

FUCK!

So, harming Teslas, per Pam I'm a Cunt Bondi, is terrorism. 

Putting on a latex mask, having a list of victims and getting away with shooting and killing some of them is not. 

I mean, it totally is, but not a fucking peep from that twat. Or anyone in the administration. 

Of course not. Everyone on said list was a democrat. Taking those people out would swing the Minnesota legislature from Democratic to Republican led. There is no way this administration is going to say a word. 

At this point, this guy hasn't even been charged with 1st degree murder. Just manslaughter. 

Because disguising yourself, having a list, weapons and maps isn't premeditated??  

As you'd expect - and suspect - he voted for BLOUS and friends are now saying he has had 'mental health challenges lately'. 

....and since they captured him alive, you KNOW he's white. Didn't need a mugshot to tell me that. 

But, with federal congresspeople being tackled, handcuffed and detained - and these being shot to death, this is what its like to be on this side of retribution from a candy-assed president and administration. 

THIS is where we are now. It is NOT going to get better. 

Song by: Bauhaus

My Music Monday

I'm doing songs from my race / running playlist. 

It turns out it is harder than expected, that over the years - well before taking up running - I have featured a number of these songs already. So I'm combing through to make sure I don't repeat. 

"Jerk it Out" by - well.....either Caesars or Caesars Palace (depending on how they're listed in the internet) has been out for over two decades. It looks like it might have been part of some FIFA campaign (that's "soccer" to many here) and I'm pretty sure it was used in an Apple Music / iTunes / iPod ad way back when. 

But more importantly, it's got a fast steady beat, which makes it good to keep pace. ....and I've always liked it. 

King Nothing

As foretold, I went to the No Kings protest yesterday. 

I was going to go even if it rained - and all night and morning before, it POURED. For my run group, I was one of four people to actually show it was raining so hard. Again, it's just water - and I had a very decent run, so I was ok. 

As you saw in my 12 of 12, I did indeed get supplies for a poster, and while I thought the print out wouldn't work out - it was great actually.  It was larger than most posters people brought and I got stopped dozens of times by people asking if they could take a picture of it. I was happy to oblige. 

One I know was taken by UPI and ended up in their reel, but I'll be interested to see (if I ever find out) where others will pop up. 

I was extremely pleased with the turnout. I'm bad at guesstimates, but I'd go with 5,000-ish. Hell, in my conservative hometown 20 miles away they had 700. That even seemed outrageous. I'm not sure that place has 700 democrats, let alone all of them showing up in one place at one time. 

Maybe people are pissed. Maybe even some republicunts.

As for the CLE protest, it was peaceful (allegedly only one person arrested for disorderly conduct), somewhat well organized, though any speeches given would have been like Aragorn addressing the troops at the Black Gate.  Unless you were in a certain part of the first row, no one heard a thing. They didn't have adequate PAs.    ......nor did they have port-a-potties. Like.....any.

I mean, I didn't need one, but when you have 5k show up.......and you organized this thing.....I have to believe some DID need one. Hard to believe Cleveland gave them a permit (should they have applied for one?) without that kind of thing tossed in there.

Oddly, I think, there were zero counter protesters. If there were any, I saw none of them, heard none of them. That said, I did bring my ID in case there were outbursts and arrests. The George Floyd protests are still vivid:  burning cars, fights, fights with the police

I won't even say people just got along. They were all there for the same reason. No one was overjoyed to have to be here, they / we were there as a necessity. There was frustration and anger. No Kings was not - nor meant to be - a smiley happy affair. Of course, smiles were had. 

Below are some of the good signs. I'm sure I've missed many.  These are almost in no particular order. 

.....almost. 

See?  It came out ok, no?

One lady came up to me and goes, "......but are you, really?"   It took a minute, but my shirt was a purposeful choice for the rally. 

I joked that Fred Armisen was at the rally. My sister laughed and said, "it DOES look like him". So I followed and took a few shots. 

I later found out - from a friend of a friend - the Rock Hall was having an SNL 50th Anniversary exhibit that opened later last evening. So, he probably didn't look like Fred, because it probably was Fred. 

Song by: Metallica