Bloggers often call it "Monday Music" (on Twitter, it's reversed: Music Monday), but I never have time to post Monday Music... so can't we change it to Tuesday Music?
Ahh, no alliteration.
In any event, I hope the following are arcane and interesting enough for all of you. I had originally believed they were in chronological order, but now that I am carefully checking the dates? I discover, hm, no they aren't. Sorry about that!
Excellent early-70s funk stylings, featuring terrific trumpet work by Cynthia Robinson. Also, a great song about drug addiction! (I realized this even in junior high school, which probably wasn't a good sign.)
About time for another Black Swan event, isn't it? I used this song in my "Black Swan" post titled It should be obvious, but it's not (from the lyrics).
**Note: Repeated usage of F-word if you are at work or school or otherwise being monitored!**
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring-summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.
I've already posted several of these songs and decided to post the rest, so you can listen to em here if you want to.
Always makes me think of summer, for some reason... probably because I first remember hearing it in a horrendous summer traffic jam, where I had the AC in the car way up. And it properly reminded me: you aren't in an accident, you aren't poverty-stricken or unemployed, people care about you, so just calm the fuck down. Zen message, which I listen to whenever I need to be reminded: Ain't Life Grand?
I love the wistful, ironic way the song is delivered. I think it was Wendell Barry (?) who said the Southern Way is "sitting on the fence post, commenting wryly on the ways of God"... and this song is the musical equivalent of that sentiment.
~*~
This next one goes out to the AA folks. I've listened to it most of my life, at some point. I love the hard-nosed sensibility; like the last song, it "wakes me up"--as the Buddhists would say. It brings me back to myself and reminds me of first principles. It's also one of the greatest country songs ever written.
I was once at an AA picnic and virtually EVERY SINGLE PERSON KNEW THE WORDS...even the children! That says plenty, huh? (Unlike a lot of people these days, he takes FULL RESPONSIBILITY!)
Abrupt change in sensibility. I've been patiently waiting for Netflix to ship me the movie about Ian Curtis, titled CONTROL. I MUST SEE IT. Meanwhile, listening to WARSAW, which is the most claustrophobic punk song ever written.
Every now and then, I get a sort of clairvoyance concerning who isn't long for this world. Or is it (as the skeptics would undoubtedly say) that I'm just very attuned to the particular reality of addiction? (see AA reference above) At various times in my life I have heard certain songs and then pronounced "That person isn't long for this world!"--spooking my daughter, Delusional Precious, with my prescience and accurate fortune-telling. Most historic of these documented instances: WOULD?, ALL APOLOGIES and NO RAIN. In each instance, I thought, wow, that guy is gonna die, and SOON. I don't know if it's the actual song-lyrics, or the fact that I have heard literally thousands of addicts talk in thousands of 12-step meetings, and the overall sentiments expressed in the songs ring some kind of existential bell? Or is it something else I am hearing on some other sensory level? Whatever it is, I can hear it, and it always alarms me in a distinctive way. DEATH IMMINENT is what I hear. (And the song might even be relatively sprightly, as NO RAIN is, but I heard it anyway.)
And I thought the same thing when I heard WARSAW. I thought, DAMN, that guy, whoever he is, is NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD. (When I finally get the movie about Ian, promise to post a review!)
Nostalgic pining away for the days in San Francisco before AIDS took my friends away. It was fun, you guys. I have no words to properly express it, but I do have the song.
(Why does it start out with a HARP? Because we were in heaven, of course.)
My mother's beloved Siamese kitty lived to be 18, and I was kinda hoping for that long lifespan, even though I knew Grand Old Man's digestive system wasn't in very good shape.
And it happened so fast; just like with old humans. Simple illnesses are no longer simple.
It's hard to write without my muse. I've been doing it so long; Grand Old Man nestled in my lap as I typed. And when I got going really good, he would emit a sweet, quiet, musical purr, as if he could somehow sense that my brain was creatively humming along. His contented purr let me know I was writing well. We were connected that way, and I feel like a tentacle, a sensory antenna, was severed.
I just loved him so much. It will take a long time to recover.
Left: This lovely photo of Elizabeth Kucinich accounts for the highest number of image searches I have had on one single photo; I had over 500 in one day, and the total number now reaches into the thousands. Ohhh, to be a tall, stunning, winsome, British redhead!!! (Oh, and there's Dennis, too.)
~*~
Happy Birthday to DEAD AIR!!! It's my BLOGGIVERSARY!
Amazingly, this blog is now a whole year old. It's a terrifying thought.
Yes, it starts out small at first. (The first one's always free!) I can't say when I crossed the line into addiction, but it happened. Of course it did. It always has.
OFFICIAL BLOG STATISTICS--as of this minute:
VISITS
Total 75,558
Average Per Day 321
Average Visit Length 2:17
Last Hour 8
Today 124
This Week 2,247
PAGE VIEWS
Total 109,224
Average Per Day 436
Average Per Visit 1.4
Last Hour 11
Today 172
This Week 3,051
Plus 413 visitors before joining Site Meter on July 28, 2007
~*~
Keep in mind that I didn't count stats until July 28th, because I didn't know how. (The "413" figure was the number of profile-views I had accumulated up to that date.) The true numbers are undoubtedly higher, since I only started counting stats during my first majorflame war. I knew people were reading, because they were posting. Otherwise, might not have occurred to me to count--but I was curious.
And curse those nasty stats! It's worse than the bathroom scale--AVOID, AVOID! (Victoria Marinelli has sworn it off!!) For awhile, I was filled with raging jealousy for the Big Bloggers, until I had my first astronomically-popular post (by my standards, anyway) on April 22nd of this year. My post titled "On having a black name"--went through the stratosphere (approx 25,000 hits, total, and still coming in) and was linked on Big Blogs like MetaFilter and Jezebel. And in the process, I was spooked bigtime. I received numerous strange, semi-romantic emails ("You are a very well-preserved 50-year-old, or is that an old photo?") and heard from various bizarre sub-categories of rightwingnuts. My spam filter was overloaded with winning lottery tickets from Sierra Leone and offers to buy furniture. I even heard from an ex-coworker I never liked, assuring me that my name isn't THAT black! (accompanied by at least a dozen disconcerting correspondents demanding to know just what my name really is--and not in a good way!) ...they all came out of the woodwork. Yow!
Is THIS what internet-fame is really like? Ick.
And so, I have backed off the numbers obsession. The first step is admitting you have a problem!
~*~
I first named this blog after a four-hour Grateful Dead-oriented radio show titled UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR (and yes, sister and brother Deadheads, I have heard from the mysterious Uncle Dave!)--a necessary spiritually-centering exercise and crucial repetition of my week. (Note: DEAD AIR SPACE is also the name of Radiohead's official blog, which I didn't realize at the time.)
DEAD AIR technically refers to a radio broadcast that has gone "dead"--or, one could say, DEAD AIR means one is "broadcasting nothing"--which I think describes a whole lot of Blogdonia. Thus, the name reflects my low expectations for the blog. I was afraid I wouldn't have anything to say, and I would therefore ALSO be "broadcasting nothing."
In addition, at the time I was reading Robert (Uma's dad) Thurman's translation of the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, so that cinched the deal.
I like the alliteration of Daisy's Dead Air (just like Uncle Dave), and I think an identifiable motif makes a blog more memorable. I love stealies, so that made it an easy decision. And besides that, once I got the name into my head, I simply couldn't think of any others. I don't think I could change my blog name at this stage of the game.
Thanks for visiting and reading. If you lurk (and I can SEE that some of yall DO! Don't fib to me!)--how about saying hello, just this once? (On the other hand, if you lurk primarily because you hate me, please forget I asked.)
We'll see what the next year brings. I never expected it to last this long.
Bloggers often call it "Monday Music" (on Twitter, it's reversed: Music Monday), but I never have time to post Monday Music... so can't we change it to Tuesday Music? 
