Do you sleep in Stockholm?

 What is in the hearts of those we love? 

Is there a reflection of how we feel? 

Is there faith and confidence, or is it tolerance and frustration? 

Did your heart beat faster when I was there?

Did you look forward to when we were apart?

Did you let me believe that I was helping you?

Did you say words to make the moments pass?

Did you ever feel that we were meant for each other?

If you did, when did it change?

Why didn't you tell me?

Photo by Romeo Varga on Unsplash

What was the darkness like that surrounded you?

Were you not able to say the words?

Could you sleep?

Were dreams poisoned now that you were lost?

Did you know there were possibilities?

Do you understand that everything is broken?

In the words I heard you say one night, were they meant for me or really for you?

Under fire, I watched you evade the worst and was thankful and impressed.

Much further down the road, I found that you were bleeding.

I was not ready to accept that. 

I made up reasons for your behavior.

But as time passed, I found that you lost every battle.

You were tainted and compromised in heart and mind.

Your survival has required this cloak that you wear.

It is a prison without the desire to leave.

Do you sleep?

If so, how is that possible?

I called you invincible, seeing all of the light within.

But when treachery and danger permeate every sunrise,

the game is laid before you to play an artful hand.

Those who have hurt you are no better than the pusher 

because they have not only stolen your most precious gifts, 

but they have trained you to pillage them from yourself.

Is it better now?

Does one less lie make it easier to not feel pain?

More than ever, I hate those who have hurt you.

I like to think I could see who you could be without the pain.

I thought it was terrific.

In my heart, I know they are to blame.

You, too, are the victim. But I know better than so many

this is a road that will take you apart piece by piece.

I am sad.

I saw you, and you were amazing. 

I long for you to realize that you have choices other than those you were taught.

Deep down inside I worry that you will exist in what you know.

I used to live there. I had love, and it saved me.

Do you sleep?

The very nature of your condition makes me stumble.

I have to remember it is my flaws that make me do that.

You will be who you will be, and I can do nothing.

I like to think you have seen the possibilities.

You were there.

There is always hope that you will remember, dig your feet hard, and say no more.

For that I have to hope in the light I saw in you.

It is what I hope for you.

Amid my incredibly mixed emotions for being as blind as I once was, 

you, too, have love.

I may be totally wrong but I'm a Dancing Fool

 I cannot sometimes. No matter what age you are or within the decades you grew up in, some things just fall through the cracks in popular culture's floorboards, and we never see them again unless you have to pull up the planking for some reason.

I have done this physically, especially in 1988 and 89, while working on houses built in the 1890s in Claremont, New Hampshire. I have also done this in the figurative sense. It happened most recently this week. I was searching Spotify for a playlist of the 1970s. I did not want to be fed the same old, overplayed thing. No Steve Miller's Joker, Cat's in the Cradle, Hot Chocolate, or Bee Gees. In the 70s rock genre, PLEASE, nothing that braindead FM or satellite radio regurgitates, making the newer generations believe that we did nothing but listen to the same 50 songs repeatedly. We were so much better than that!

Or are we?

One playlist contained many songs that I am sure I have not heard since they were on the billboard charts back in the day. More so, the very existence of these songs was long forgotten, even as far back as 1982.

One song that I have picked on for decades was "Fly Robin Fly" by Silver Connection. According to Wikipedia, in the United States, it rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1975, staying there for three weeks. To show you the psyche of American pop culture of the day, it was preceded and succeeded by "That's the Way (I Like It)" by KC and the Sunshine Band for the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

I may have said some pretty negative things about these cryptically complex lyrics many times:

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Up, up to the sky

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Up, up to the sky

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

Fly, robin fly

 Sylvester Levay and Stephan Prager wrote the song. Stephan, a.k.a. Michael Rolf Kunze. Prager's lyrics are painstakingly fleshed out here (Okay, I'll stop). 

I could pick all day, but these guys were brilliant. Respected music composers in the 1970s and for decades after wrote songs for artists we consider legends and many movie scores tattooed on our collective consciousness; they knew how to do the job. In its first 90 days of release, "Fly Robin Fly" sold 1.5 million copies in the United States alone. I don't have figures for other countries, but the song was a hit on multiple continents.

We have seen other brands of this kind of thing before. Remember the (person) "has his own jet airplane" in Dire Straits, Money for Nothing. Or what about the 16-year-old kid who now drives a Ferrari because he gained millions of followers on YouTube because he simply played Minecraft. And I think I'm so smart! Really, what have I done compared to these folks? Well, I have maintained "artistic principle." That and $5 will buy 3 cans of generic tuna fish at Market Basket.

But this is not why I am writing this...  I am here to talk about something that makes "Fly Robin Fly" look like it has the depth of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."  That can only mean that I am talking about the 1975 hit:

"Lady Bump"

First, let me say that I wish I was joking. According to the ever-wise Wikipedia, "Lady Bump" is a pop disco song by Austrian singer Penny McLean, released in 1975. It was a hit for McLean, who was at the time still with, guess who:  Silver Convention, of course! Two years later, she would leave to pursue a solo career.  Even better, this song was also written by Levay and Prager (Kunze).

Lady Bump was released in June, and Fly Robin Fly (I have also learned the original title was "Run Rabbit Run")* was released in December of the same year. I could make fun of this song and say that Mr. Kunze toned back the lyrics when he wrote “Fly Robin Fly” after writing “Lady Bump” to bring the court back to order. Whatever the case, it, too, became an international hit.

They call me lady bump

lady bump it's no lie - ah

Lady bump

lady bump - just the music takes me high.

They call me lady bump

lady bump uh uh uh ah

Lady bump

lady bump look at me and you'll know why.

That old phrase, "I guess you had to be there" applies. I want to know what we appeared to be like in the mid-70s to those who were not there. As I try putting myself in the shoes of the millennial or the Gen Z'er, I am so thankful that I grew up during that time. I say this even though watching these old performances go down just as smoothly as a 1977 JCPenney catalog.

I love looking up song meanings on the internet. Some contributors are excellent at extracting what has to be the depth of some songs. Others are so far off you want to comment and ask why, but then realize this is not the person to waste time in a debate on something that has no return on investment. In the case of “Lady Bump,” one guess was bump was a reference to a drug, but they were wrong as this song was written ten years before that label; queue up the Family Feud buzzer and big X on the screen, you are wrong.

The other was a reference to the contemporary dance known as the Bump. It was very popular and consisted of the person(s) rotating hips sideways to bump the other person’s hips. I must admit, I suddenly wonder how many folks who did this dance now have titanium hips.

Where there is dancing and hip replacement, no doubt there are injury lawyers:

Have you had a hip replacement after doing the "Bump" as seen on TV's  Soul Train? 

At Smith Johnson and Jones, 

we can get you the compensation you deserve.

The song absolutely references the popular dance. The original video depiction is not quite as much, but in the years since, the dance has been choreographed into the performance, so those who see drugs in every song need to get over it.

Lady Bump is a lyrical depiction of a Saturday night in 1975 at the disco tech, and in this case, the singer is turning her silk, eye shadow, and hush puppies into dollars. It sort of reminds me of "The School for Singing Truckdrivers" commercial in the 80s where "you can turn your truck driving miles into millions" singing songs like:

Drivin' a big truck

Drivin' a Big Truck.

Drivin' a BIG BIG TRUCK.

Lady Bump was intentionally sugar-coated candy professionally crafted for the Pez dispenser du jour. Although I might pick on music like this... a lot. Songwriters Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay really knew what they were doing. They actually initiated the group Silver Connection in Munich and then West Germany. From there, it spread around the world, raining cash.

These men are still out there today and have prestigious careers in Broadway music, movie scores, pop music, and national music concerts to benefit others. Yeah, they knew what they were doing. Some things never change. It was another exercise in giving the people what they wanted. 

When you look at what Kunze and Levay did here, you realize it was business. It was a strategic move to fund their fantastic careers. Thanks to them, a large part of 1970s pop culture is represented forever. Thanks to Spotify, I have another song that can get so stuck in my head for days that I think it will never stop!

*If "Fly Robin Fly" was originally called "Run Rabbit Run," what lyric would go in place of "Up up to the sky?"

Kimchi is Life

 As I look to the year ahead, I think of the weather. The snowy days ahead, the mud season tease, the awakening of the impossible spring, summer heat, mosquitos, cicadas, autumn that seemed to take 90 years or 90 minutes to arrive, and finally, the terror threat of November into December.

I ask myself: Culinarily, what do I wish to achieve during this year? The only thing I could say to sum up the entire composite is that the underlying theme of flavors in my rock opera of cooking would be "maximum impact with minimum effort."

In case, throughout my rambling ranting, I have not made this absolutely clear: this is what Fight4Taste is all about. I look back at the tattered calendar of the last year; some plans are memories, and some memories never materialize. You win some, you lose some. Three dear friends went down with the ship, and there was nothing I could do. 

As I contemplated being practical, I found myself in the sand, digging for treasure that I already knew was not there. I persisted, and in a couple of short circuits, my senses returned, and I seriously asked myself what I was doing. I would never need the things I was collecting. 

Sunrise and the scene is different. I see roads and trails that were not visible before last evening. Is it a dream? Will it slip away? I know what this is. The rest of the random particles have been traveling through the void. Refracted light has bounced off a particulate or two, allowing me a gracious thought or reference, but if I were to be challenged at the border by the guards demanding my credentials, I dare say it ends there.

My new rank dictates decisions, actions, and plans. I know in my heart I have earned every last bit of it. If I fail to take action, all the adventures ahead are unknown to those in the lands that these roads and trails lead to. Will I be the killer of that era? Doubt is doubt is doubt, by which I mean;

Doubt is that which causes me to pause.

Doubt is the potential destroyer of the future.

Doubt is the tool that shows others they can do anything they can dream.

You asked me where the door was. I did not even see one. That is when you told me there were three. This is just what I needed. Patiently, you repeated those words over and over until my eyes were open, and the doors began to become visible. This is where the days of weakness and tired soul must dwell. 

In the darkness, the violins struck hard like rapid-fire thunder in the rose garden. How can this exist without me? But as I stared down my own mortality, I knew I only own my version of this. The empathic marketplace has been around longer than any of us imagined. Seriously?

I consolidate, I reorganize. I get high, then I get low. I cash my chips in and count them slowly, realizing I must make every minute count. On the one hand, I need to slam things around and get it done; on the other, I also need to carefully dust the sand off broken pieces as if with a fossil brush to discover that which is sublime and leave behind the substance I will pay storage on and yet never touch again. 

I am not done yet and maybe have not even started. I told my oppressors they were in trouble, and they were not so quick to believe it. But they will know they have failed when the glass shatters and the burning steel contacts my hand with such velocity. Pain, a drain on energy, the very air around us that tells us, we cannot. But I can, and I am, and I will. There is no "no." Deal with it.

In my writing, I realize I have returned to my abstract roots. It is often designed to not name names when an actual story is being told. Today, in these words, it is more to depict the struggle I face daily dealing with wanting to do something with food and time. I have so many great ideas, and I feel they can be inspiring. I have been fighting pain for the last two decades whatever. For a year and a half, I am accompanied by the sound a ciccaidas screaming in my head 24 hours a day, so be it. 

For so much of my life, I have collected endless information. The problem is that it was all in fragments, as if partial novels were disbursed from the clouds and dropped into the land where I lived. Many are fascinating, practical, and useful; others are interesting but have little value, and others I do not understand. For the first time, pieces of this puzzle fit together. Undoubtedly, a gift from the girl who landed in the spaceship over 3 years ago guided me through my whole life and walked with me for 2 years. I never did get to thank her before she disappeared.

The clarity of my ideas is being challenged by my pain and affliction. But when the fragments start making sense, I know I can create so much and show others that they too can do anything, explore their strengths, cook for their loved ones, and not give in to the machine that seems to dictate to us as if we were drones.

Kimchi is like this. It is alive. Anyone can follow a recipe, but a successful batch is a perfect storm of life. Everything falls into place when you really understand what it is to make it and how natural forces must be achieved. Those forces allow the process to make something out of things that previously seemed unrelated. They become one, they make sense and Kimchi becomes life.

Be Here Now

 We had just crossed the barrier from 1975 into 1976, the US Bicentennial. We had just entered the final quarter of the twentieth century, the second half of the 1970s. I remember that house on Carol Drive; it had warmth and love.

My sisters and I would have conversations with my grandmother; it was so much fun. Looking back on them, I can see her appreciation for her time with us. We did not understand it then, but to her, she was right there, taking it all in, really appreciating where she was at the time.

This is fantastic when you consider that she had nothing. She had a $400 66 Chevrolet Bel Aire. A small World War 2 saltbox house. A $39 a month pension from the factory that she had worked much too hard under terrible conditions. But Violet Mable Allaire Jackson was born in 1908 and was from what is known as the Greatest Generation. That generation did not complain about things. They had unparalleled endurance.

I had no idea how fortunate I was to have spent the years with her, my father's mother, and my grandfather, my mother's father. I feel a great privilege to be a bridge that can connect those wonderful people of the Greatest Generation to my children of Generation Z. When I contemplate this, I understand that I need to pause and reflect on the influence and teaching they provided. It is the anchor needed in a world where gravity almost does not exist or when there is too much of it. 

I recall that on one of those weekends at Grandma's house, we talked about the very far-away Year 2000. It seemed as far away, just as possible, as any of us going to the moon. It would be another 24 full years to cross. We did the math. I would be an “old 34-years old” at that time. That seemed so old!

Well, guess what? I blinked, and it is now January 1st, 2025. I am at the balance point we were on January 1st, 1976. We are now in the last year of the 1st quarter of the 2000s. So much happened in that last quarter of the 20th century, and of course, even more occurred in the first quarter of the 21st.

I was 10 on January 1st, 1976, and am 59 today. Those years taught me many lessons, leading me to the inevitable question: What is the most important advice I can give from the road traveled this far? The late Warren Zevon summed it up. 

On October 30, 2002, David Letterman asked Warren how his recent terminal diagnosis had affected his life lately:  "You put more value in every minute," he noted. "It's more valuable now. You're reminded to enjoy every sandwich."

Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash

It is the finest thing you can do when striving to find the good you have right now. Just like my Grandmother sitting at her table in that little kitchen on Carol Drive, listening to my sisters and I telling her about the last 2 weeks since we last visited her. She hung on to every word and appreciated where she was at that moment. Any sadness she experienced over the years and hardships she endured paid no rent in this space.

It should be this way. Hardship highlights priorities, but we can also check ourselves daily to ensure we are focussing on what is really important. The first day of a year is just another number. It is just a visible flaw in the surface that provokes my associative memory. It is just another reminder to be here now.