It’s 1:00 am on Easter Sunday night. I celebrated Passover last night, so today is a free day for me. I wake up late because I was up most of the night editing a story for Copper’s Corner, my children’s book series about life with my shy yet warming up cat Copper.
I spend most of Sunday afternoon lounging around, listening to music, napping, and chilling out with Copper. Around 7pm I order Korean food from a local Korean/Japanese restaurant.
I lived in Japan for two years, and I’ve visited Korea, so I’m pretty picky about those two countries’ food. But the place I order from is decent.
I get one spicy tuna onigiri and one kani, or crab salad, onigiri. Onigiri are triangles of warmed sushi rice stuffed with fillings and wrapped in seaweed paper. I also get an order of Korean marinated fried chicken. And I get an order of Takoyaki, which is grilled Japanese octopus stuffed inside pastry rounds with ginger and sometimes mayonnaise or other ingredients.
The Takoyaki I get has mayo, and it’s de-freakin-licious. The chicken is pretty good but not spectacular. But the onigiri are the star of the show. The ones from this place are extra thick and they have sesame seeds and bonito flakes on the outside. They’re great, and they really hit the spot.
After dinner, I chill out again for a while. I watch some baseball on TV, the Dodgers versus the Giants. But I’m not that into it, and it’s a blowout for the Dodgers anyway.
I’m a Mets fan actually. The Mets have started out the beginning of this season at 2-1, so all is happy, positive and optimistic in Mets Land. When they won their home opener, I predicted they’d go 162-0.
So I was wrong on that, but every team in baseball will sign up for a 2-1 start to the season any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Because the alternatives are to be 1-2, which puts you in panic mode, and 0-3, where you’re on the edge of Armageddon.
Of course you’d like to be 3-0, but you’ll always take 2-1.
After the baseball ends, I head into my kitchen to write for genxchronicle.com. But I’m not sure what to write about.
I mean there’s a ton of Trump stuff going on, like always. He’s raping the planet, he’s cheating on his wife, he’s promoting white supremacy, he’s starting trade wars, and on and on it goes.
But I just did a major story on Saturday about how Russia’s power is vastly overstated, and how their election meddling is overblown. It’s here. So I just did a hard, heavy, political news story.
I feel like doing something light now, just to wind down. I say “Hey Google, play Angel of the Morning, by Juice Newton, and on it comes. I love this song. It’s a totally 70’s, chill love song.
I picture Juice coming down a mountainside, her golden brown locks flowing in the breeze as she wears a full-length white dress with a floral pattern and aqua beads around her neck. The sun is high in the sky, and it’s all just so goddamn, 70’s, and romantic, and beautiful.
The song ends, and on comes “Danny’s Song,” by Anne Murray, from 1972. I immediately realize I know and love this song. I was born in 1974, but it was still in heavy radio rotation in the late 70’s when I was a young boy.
I decide to switch over from listening on my Google Home to watching the video on my Chromebook.
The video comes on, and Anne is absolutely stunning in a totally 70’s full-length black dress with a red dress shirt underneath. Her golden blonde hair forms a kind of cocoon around her perfectly shaped face. She’s just beauty incarnate, 70’s style.
The video itself is nothing special. It’s not really a video, in fact, it’s just live performance footage of Anne in a small theater standing on a stage.
But man, the words of the song are powerful.
Here’s the chorus:
And even though we ain’t got money
I’m so in love with you, honey
And everything will bring a chain of love
And in the morning, when I rise
You bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything is gonna be alright
Damn. That is powerful stuff. It really cuts to the core of what life is all about, and where our priorities lay. She’s saying that if you have love, you have enough to sustain yourself. Her words are a testament to just how much true love can lift you from the struggles of the material world.
It’s a beautiful song, and it really relaxes me and puts me in a good mood.
When the song ends, I’m suddenly inspired to watch the video for Listen To Your Heart by Roxette. It’s like, boom, the thought shoots into my mind. I have no idea where it came from, but I know I have to listen to Roxette right now.
When I think about a few seconds later, I realize that both Roxette and Anne Murray are totally sexy blond music goddesses, separated by a decade, but cut of the same cloth. Their musical styles may be different, but they’re both representatives of angelic beauty and passionate love.
I play the video on YouTube, and it’s pretty spectacular. The song was released in 1986, when I was 12, and I remember thinking and feeling deep down in my soul that Marie Fredriksson, the lead singer of Roxette, was the most beautiful and sexy woman I had ever seen.
The band was a Swedish duo, with Per Gessle as the other member. But he was all background. Roxette was about Marie, and her spiky blonde hair, her stunning face, and her sleek sexy thin fit body. She was hot, like mega hot, and she set the loins of many a twelve year old like me on fire back in 1986.
In the video she sings before an adoring audience holding up lighters and swaying to her every word. She’s wearing a short tight black dress that ends high up on her thigh.
She’s also wearing bracelets on both of her wrists, and her hair is almost platinum. Her face is absolutely sculpted from the gods, with stunningly smooth cheekbones and striking blue eyes.
She extends her arms out as she sings, and it’s like she’s calling out to heaven above to make it rain, snow, or sunshine. She’s commanding nature to feel her power.
The song itself is pretty powerful too. This is the chorus:
Listen to your heart, when he’s calling for you
Listen to your heart, there’s nothing else you can do
I don’t know where you’re going, and I don’t know why
But listen to your heart, before you tell him goodbye
It’s like she’s giving advice to a friend, or a fellow female love traveler, and letting her know she should follow her heart when it comes to love. Which is pretty good advice, in my opinion.
The song ends and I turn off YouTube. I sit back and reflect on Anne Murray and Roxette. They were both stunningly beautiful pop stars, separated by a decade, with Anne lighting up the 70’s and Roxette rocking the 80’s.
What was it about them that made them so great, and left such an impression on millions of people’s minds?
Well, they were both beautiful, sexy, blonde, tall thin rock goddesses. They both sold millions of albums.
Their music is also incredibly positive, and inspiring, and full of love. It’s like they represent love itself, like they’re Aphrodite incarnate.
Whatever it is, I love both of them, heart, mind, body, soul, and music.
So I’ll keep listening to Anne and Roxette, and dreaming of how we could have had great lives together in wedded bliss, if only I had been born a couple decades earlier, and was a famous pop star, instead of just a writer.
Thanks ladies.
You really move me.
