When I was born, my parents always told me that I broke the mold, because I was a one of a kind and that there would never be another person just like me. I always thought of this as a good thing and I never wanted to be like anyone else. I enjoyed being authentic, a genuine bona fide person, and this allowed me to do my own thing. I have always been able to stand out in the crowd because of the confidence I gained while I transpired to handle many different circumstances. I can proceed, act, or do things in the manner that I choose or desire and I enjoy being distinct, separate and different from others. Most people have never encountered anyone like me before, because I am special in my own way and if anyone calls me unique, I take that as a compliment. I try to stay true to myself at all times, resisting the temptation to become fake, as I keep it real. My unique personality has allowed me to let the let the Sun shine in and shutter out the darkness and despair, keeping negative things from getting into my life.
Written for FOWC with Fandango – Unique, and for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt – Shutter.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to erectile dysfunction. Anything that someone does not want to talk about, can end up being a difficult conversation, but avoiding or delaying something that you are reluctant to talk about, can hurt your relationship. It’s important to get past your awkward feelings and talk things over with your partner, so you can both move beyond the stress and start working together. If this happens, it’s most likely not because of something that either of you did or didn’t do and nobody should be blamed, so there is no need for either of you to apologize, as things normally change with age.
A guy could lose his erection if he drinks too much alcohol, or if he loses his interest in doing it, if he is overweight or has diabetes, or if he has been laying pipe somewhere else. It is possible that as time passes this could work it self out, or this could be a medical condition that needs treatment. The shaft is the longest part of the penis and the head or glans is located at the end of the shaft. Every erection (penis swelling and stiffening) starts in the brain and this can occur because of something you saw, felt, smelled, heard, or thought and that makes your nerves send chemical messages to the blood vessels in your penis. Random erections can occur out of nowhere, without any sexual stimulation. If a man’s penis doesn’t get hard enough to have sexual intercourse, or he has difficulty maintaining this, he might want to take the blue pill.
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of limp.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins had his biggest hit involving record sales with this 1956 song, ‘I Put A Spell On You’ and it was listed as #313 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time and it also was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, however it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts. Hawkins started out intending to record a refined love song, lamenting the loss of a girlfriend that he wanted back, but the producer (Arnold Maxin) brought in ribs and chicken and everybody got drunk, and they came out with this weird version where Jay was grunting and howling throughout the recording. The producers wanted a “weird” sounding record, so they gave the musicians lots of food and liquor and created a party atmosphere at the session. Hawkins was unable to remember the session because he had blacked out. The notorious screaming version was banned from most radio programming for its outrageous ‘cannibalistic’ style. Hawkins died in February 2000 and was rumored to have at least 50 children.
The song caught the attention of syndicated disc jockey Alan Freed, who established it as a mainstay in his rotation. Up to this time, Hawkins had been a blues performer; emotional, but not wild. Freed was impressed with this new “demented” style, Freed arranged a meeting with Hawkins and suggested a gimmick to capitalize on the primitive sound of ‘I Put A Spell On You’. After that meeting, Hawkins became Screamin’ Jay creating a bizarre stage show around this appearing on stage wearing a long cape. He would come out in a flaming coffin in the midst of smoke and fog, and glare at the audience with his wide-open eyes while wielding a skull on a stick that he named “Henry” that smoked a cigarette. He began to use voodoo props wearing bone tusks through his nose. The act was a sensation, later bolstered by on-stage snakes and fireworks, and, ultimately, Hawkins transformed himself into “the black Vincent Price”. This theatrical act was one of the first shock rock performances making him a world sensation.
I put a spell on you
Because you’re mine
Stop the things you do
Watch out
I ain’t lyin’
Yeah, I can’t stand
No runnin’ around
I can’t stand
No put me down
I put a spell on you
Because you’re mine, ohh yeah
Stop the things you do
Watch out
I ain’t lyin’
Ohh, oh
I love you
I love you
I love you, anyhow
I don’t care if you don’t want me
I’m yours right now
I put a spell on you
Because you’re mine
Ohh, oh, whoa, ooh, ah
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of spell.
I am a city person, I have always have been one and I will always be one. I am healthier because I have been exposed to a lot more people being a city slicker. I am able to avoid getting sick, because I have built up a genetic advantage through exposure because I have been subjected to more variants of things that are contagious and this made my body more resistant to just about any disease. I always told myself, “You ain’t gonna get me sick.” This has become a mind over matter thing for me, as I know my body has the ability to heal itself, but it only cooperates when I am happy. If I pig out on cookies and ice cream or start guzzling down a lot of beer, my body is more willing to cooperate, because it sees me as being happy with who I am.
If my body sensed that I was missing something in my life, or my romantic relationship had taken a wrong turn and that I was not feeling sexually satisfied, or if things were not going so well at work, or if my life lost purpose or couldn’t get in touch with my creatively, or I was not fulfilled and happy, or my financial stability was taking a dive, because I am stressed about money, my recuperation would take much longer. From this I have learned that if I want to be healthy that I must make myself happy first. Thus, if I had to change jobs, or divorce my spouse, I was going to do what ever was necessary to make myself feel better. It didn’t have to always be that drastic, as many times my situations improved just by talking things out. I could tell my boss why I was unhappy or go to marriage counseling with my wife. When I started making better lifestyle choices, I found out that this counteracted with any stress that I was going through, because my body is a mirror of how I live my life, wow I bet that would make a great meme.
Written for FOWC with Fandango – Meme, for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt – City.
I missed getting the Covid vaccine the other day, and that was the fourth time that I tried, all with no luck. Now my township is moving the immunization site 10 miles further away, because of all the traffic jams that it was causing. This has become a lot more difficult for me, as the other location was just down the street and if the line was closed off, I could just drive home. More than 14 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been shipped out, but it is not all that easy to receive these new lifesaving injections. The Biden administration said that they are scrapping Operation Warp Speed, because that dealt more with vaccine production, but these vaccines are not helping anything if people can’t get them.
Florida decided that people 65 and older should get the coronavirus vaccine first, but the rollout has turned into a free-for-all, because demand has overwhelmed supply, and people are becoming more and more frustrated. Government officials knew that a vaccine was coming, but whatever plans that they made for distribution are not working, and I guess that this is what happens when officials attempt to distribute a vaccine that is still in very limited supply to a population of 22 million. Our Republican Governor Ron DeSantis did acknowledge that the initial rollout has been bumpy, but they should have been preparing for the vaccine rollout since last July. I read that the Nursing Home residents did get their vaccines, which is a really good thing, but since Florida is a State where a lot of retired people live, the rest of us are left scrambling and having to deal with these long vaccination lines which is just crazy.
I need the vaccine because I am in the group of elderly citizens that has been determined to have an underlying medical problem with my diabetes, and with me being part of this unfortunate group, it is felt that I am more likely to develop a serious illness, if I were to catch it. There is a lot of useful information on the Florida Health Covid19 website, but it is a dammed shame that they don’t let you know where you can go to get the vaccines. It seems like this has become a game of how many hoops you can jump through to get this vaccine. I read that the location has been moved, but I don’t know exactly where this new place will be, or when they will be vaccinating people. I am tired of the lines, as I have waited in long lines several times, where the line closed down just before I was able to get in. I want to be able to lift up my sleeve to show people my band aide and say, “Check it out, I finally got my Covid shot.”
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of check.
I had done magic mushrooms before, capped my own chocolate mescaline and dropped acid a few times, so when my friend offered me some peyote buttons, I said, “Hell yes”. I didn’t know all that much about peyote and I had heard that it grew out of cow shit and that it came from Mexico. I was aware that the Aztecs dried the buttons and gave them to their warriors so they could become better fighters. I wasn’t all that wild about eating something that grew out of cow dung and I also heard that most people get sick and end up puking after eating them. My friend told me that the buttons grow on top of the peyote cactus, so I would not be eating something that sprung up from cow dung and this was more like eating the fruit of a plant.
Ed was sort of an expert on drugs and he said that it was more likely that these cactus plants sprung up after a heard of buffalo was grazing in the area. Indian tribes followed the buffalo and they started using these plants in their spiritual ceremonies to obtain pleasant feelings. They would eat the buttons inside of a tipi during a sweating ceremony where they would commune with the creator and try to live in harmony with the earth. Different tribes developed their own music using gourd rattles, drums and chanting and all of this purified their bodies. Peyote was also used to treat snakebites, burns, wounds, toothaches, fever, scorpion stings, and arrow wounds. Ed told me that if we each ate a little bit at a time, that would reduce the chance of either of us getting sick.
Ed said that the chocolate mescaline that he sold me was actually dried and ground up peyote buttons that were covered with chocolate powder to make them taste better by covering the bitter flavor, which I did not know. I always liked mescaline better than dropping acid, because I was never was able to talk when I was tripping on that stuff. We ate some buttons in Ed’s car as we drove up to the Poconos to go camping and after we consumed them Ed said that this was going to be fun and he popped the Doors album L.A. Woman into his cassette player. Ed repeated a famous line from Aldous Huxley where he once said, “The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never quite be the same as the man who went out.” I responded with, “Nothing is certain in life except man’s ability to fail” and I knew that we were well on our way to a deep philosophical discussion.
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of button.
A breakdown in domestic water supply caused the town leaders to consider new alternatives and they made an appointment to talk with the well water sales engineer today. When Mr. Jones arrived, they asked him what type of guarantee they would get for their money, if they decided to invest in this well water system technology. Mr. Jones said that he would need a retainer to do a study and depending on what information came from that, then he could give them an estimate. Mr. Jones told them, “Since you can’t see ground water, we have hydrologists on staff that utilize scientific methods to find water, but this can be a crap shoot and sometimes your neighbor may have water and you won’t. We will have some test holes drilled and check our records that we have acquired for all the holes that were drilled in this area and that should give us something to go on.”
The mayor spoke up and said, “How much of a retainer do you require to get started and instead of equivocating the issue, tell us the chances on a scale of 1 to 10 that you will be able to hit pay dirt or us hitting rock bottom and this project becomes a money pit that runs us completely dry. Ten would match up with us having to pay a minimal amount of money and would yield a vast water supply that would last us for years to come and one on this scale will have you run out of here on a rail.” Mr. Jones replied. “Do you want me to calculate the cost of water treatment, just in case there may have containments present?” The mayor said, “Yes of course”! Mr. Jones said, “Well in that case, I am going to need a retainer and you can make the check out to the We Dig Wells company.
Written for FOWC with Fandango – Instead, for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt – Neighbor, and for Reena’s Exploration Challenge #168 – A breakdown in domestic water supply.
The Grateful Dead recorded 13 studio albums, well 15 if you count the solo albums Garcia and Ace and most critics consider their 1980 Go To Heaven asthe worst, followed by the 1978 Shakedown Street. Coming in at third-to-last is Built To Last from 1989, although I have seen this ranked as their worst studio album on some lists, with critics saying that they were they were clearly out of steam as a studio band by the time this record was cut. Brent Mydland was the keyboardist on the last three studio albums, the 1987 In The Dark, Go To Heaven and Built To Lastand many people felt his style was not a good match for the group, anyway Built To Lastwould prove to be the band’s final studio record. A lot of people jumped on the Grateful Dead bandwagon after the success of ‘Touch of Grey’ which cracked the Top Ten and brought the group int Mainstream America, but when they started work on their last album, the band stepped into the studio unprepared on the new songs. Built to Last became a disappointing end to the band’s admittedly inconsistent studio career, as the Grateful Dead were definitely a much better live band. Following Built to Last and Mydland’s death, the band would enter their final lineup adding Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby on keys. The Grateful Dead would spend the next five years touring and never released another studio work.
On the Built to Last album the title track song is ‘Built To Last’, which was written by Hunter and Garcia and sung by Jerry. It is kind of rare as the Dead only played it 18 times in concert and there is not much written about this song, but I like Jerry’s voice and Robert Hunter came up with some good lyrics as always. The song is about healing, hope, reconciliation, and reflecting on your life knowing that the past can’t be changed. The first chorus contains the line, “Three blue stars rise on the hill”, which is most likely a reference to Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka the bright bluish stars which are known as Orion’s Belt, and these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. I am not sure about the rest of this chorus, “Sing no more now just be still, All these trials soon be past, Look for something built to last”, but I am certain that it is not about Donald Trump, as he was only built to be a one term president, that is if he makes it that far.
Hunter gets back to nature for the next verse with, “A wind held by the collar, Yes, a cloud held by the breeze, You can walk on coals of fire, But sometimes you must freeze”. Many of the lyrics seem relevant to what is going on in politics today, “There are times when you offend me, And I do the same to you, If we can’t or won’t forget it, I guess we could be through”, as Republicans are asking Democrats to ignore Trump’s crimes and they want him held accountable. This song calls out for things that are built to last, like time itself, sunshine and darkness while years roll by, or something built to try, like the concept of democracy.
Another verse, “There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you can’t give, Other times you’d gladly part, With what you need to live”, is also very poignant although I have never been hit upon, but I am sure that happens a lot to hot girls. People with stubbornness will try hard but never give and I am extremely inflexible on some issues. When Fandango was running out of toilet paper last March, as I was all stocked up from shopping at BJ’s before the pandemic and I was willing to send him some, gladly parting with a necessity to help out my good friend. There is a lot of wisdom contained in these lyrics, “Don’t waste your breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Fate will decide the rest”, as nobody knows exactly what the future holds and therefor you shouldn’t worry about tomorrow. In Chorus 3 we have, “All the stars are gone but one, Morning breaks here comes the sun, Cross the sky now sinking fast, Show me something built to last”, which I think means that time is a series of events which marches on and everyone should get with the program.
There are times when you can beckon,
There are times when you must call.
You can take a lot of reckoning,
But you can’t take it all.
There are times when I can help you out,
And times when you must fall.
There are times when you must live in doubt
And I can’t help at all.
Chorus 1
Three blue stars rise on the hill
Sing no more now just be still
All these trials soon be past
Look for something built to last
A wind held by the collar,
Yes, a cloud held by the breeze
You can walk on coals of fire
But sometimes you must freeze
There are times when you offend me
And I do the same to you
If we can’t or won’t forget it
I guess we could be through
Chorus 2
One blue star sets on the hill
Call it back you never will
One more star sinks in the past
Show me something built to last
Built to last till time itself falls tumbling from the wall
Built to last till sunshine fails and darkness moves on all
Built to last while years roll past like cloudscapes in the sky
Show me something built to last or something built to try
There are times when you get hit upon
Try hard but you can’t give
Other times you’d gladly part
With what you need to live
Don’t waste your breath to save your face
When you have done your best
And even more is asked of you
Fate will decide the rest
Chorus 3
All the stars are gone but one
Morning breaks here comes the sun
Cross the sky now sinking fast
Show me something built to last
[etc through choruses again]
Written for FOWC with Fandango – Series and for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt – Sing.
‘Death Letter’ or ‘Death Letter Blues’ is the signature song of the Delta blues musician Son House. In the days before telephones, the internet and email, a written letter would alert you to a tragedy that might turn your world upside down, and this song deals with the sudden upheaval, mental and spiritual shock involved in an unexpected tragic loss. This song ‘Death Letter Blues’ was recorded in 1965 after House was rediscovered in New York, having abandoned the music business decades earlier and many people feel that it is structured upon House’s earlier recording ‘My Black Mama, Part 2’ where he sings about a troubled romantic relationship that ends when his lover, or his “Black Mama” is dead. This was recorded 35 years earlier in 1930 and it is a 12-bar blues, that features his slow, pumping, throbbing, ascending bottleneck guitar riffs, and his dark, brooding, intense and raw vocal, making this a country blues masterpiece.
House sang this song with different combinations of more than a dozen verses, so you may hear it being vastly differently depending on the recording that you are listening to. Eddie James “Son” House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988) near Clarksdale, Mississippi was an American blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing. This song was featured on the 2003 box set Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey, which was the soundtrack for the Martin Scorsese PBS documentary series TheBlues.
In this song, a man gets a letter telling him that the woman who he loved is dead and that he should hurry to the mortuary to identify the body, or maybe they want him to pay for the burial. He packs up his suitcase and heads down the road and he sees her laying on the cooling board (a wooden plank that has ice packed under it that is used for laying out a corpse so it could be prepared for burial) and this is when the reality of death fully sinks in on him. He looks her right in the face and he is willing to accept that she passed on, but I think that this girl must have cheated on him, because he feels that she needs to be judged for her sins. The girl must have been very popular, as when he gets to the cemetery, there are 10,000 people there. He is a spiritual man, so he talks to the Lord and says that he would never hurt anybody. He says his last goodbye to his honey and tells her that he will see her on Judgement Day.
He goes to his room and plays his guitar to feel better, but when the sun goes down, he starts to miss her. The big reveal comes in this next line that shows he is a jealous man when he says, “I said now if you don’t have me, I didn’t want you to have nobody else”, and your guess is as good as mine about whether or not he had anything to do with her death. He goes on about it being hard to love somebody and not getting any satisfaction when you are not loved in return. The next morning, he wakes up hugging the pillow where she used to lay, making an unsuccessful attempt to regain a lost connection that he had with his lover. He is restless, so he puts on his shoes and goes for a walk. He is very distraught, still crying and he wants to change his life. He thinks that he hears her calling his name and maybe that is because he is feeling guilty about her being gone. The song ends with him appearing to be have a conversation with her and maybe he is talking to her ghost.
Jerry Garcia played this song ‘Death Letter Blues’ once with much shorter lyrics, on 30 October 1968, in a show billed as Mickey and the Hartbeats. By the summer of 1968, Bob Weir and Pigpen didn’t seem to be on the same page with the rest of the members of the Grateful Dead and they became frustrated, because their inabilities to improvise coherently made the others feel that they were holding back the rest of the group. They weren’t actually fired, as the other members just wanted them to step it up a little bit.
I got a letter this mornin’, how do you reckon it read?
It said, hurry, hurry, yeah, your love is dead
I got a letter this mornin, I say how do you reckon it read?
You know, it said, hurry, hurry, how come the gal you love is dead?
So, I grabbed up my suitcase, and took off down the road
When I got there she was layin’ on a coolin’ board
I grabbed up my suitcase, and I said and I took off down the road
I said, but when I got there she was already layin on a coolin’ board
Well, I walked up right close, looked down in her face
Said, the good ol’ gal got to lay here ‘til the Judgment Day
I walked up right close, and I said I looked down in her face
I said the good ol’ gal, she got to lay here ‘til the Judgment Day
Looked like there was 10,000 people standin’ round the buryin’ ground
I didn’t know I loved her ‘til they laid her down
Looked like ten thousand were standin’ round the buryin’ ground
You know I didn’t know I loved her ‘til they damn laid her down
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn’t mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold
I said, Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
You know I wouldn’t mistreat nobody, baby, not for my weight in gold
Well, I folded up my arms and I slowly walked away
I said, farewell honey, I’ll see you on Judgment Day
Ah, yeah, oh, yes, I slowly walked away
I said, farewell, farewell, I’ll see you on the Judgment Day
You know I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
The blues came along and drove my spirit away
I went in my room, I said I bowed down to pray
I said the blues came along and drove my spirit away
You know I didn’t feel so bad, ‘til the good ol’ sun went down
I didn’t have a soul to throw my arms around
I didn’t feel so bad, ‘til the good ol’ sun went down
You know, I didn’t have nobody to throw my arms around
I loved you baby, like I love myself
You don’t have me, you won’t have nobody else
I loved you baby, better than I did myself
I said now if you don’t have me, I didn’t want you to have nobody else
You know, it’s hard to love someone that don’t love you
Ain’t no satisfaction, don’t care what in the world you do
Yeah, it’s hard to love someone that don’t love you
You know it don’t look like satisfaction, don’t care what in the world you do
Got up this mornin’, just about the break of day
A-huggin’ the pillow where she used to lay
Got up this mornin’, just about the break of day
A-huggin’ the pillow where my good gal used to lay
Got up this mornin’, feelin’ round for my shoes
You know, I must-a had them old walkin’ blues
Got up this mornin’, feelin’ round for my shoes
Yeah, you know bout that, I must-a had them old walkin’ blues
You know, I cried last night and all the night before
Gotta change my way a livin’, so I don’t have to cry no more
You know, I cried last night and all the night before
Gotta change my way a livin’, you see, so I don’t have to cry no more
Ah, hush, thought I heard her call my name
If it wasn’t so loud and so nice and plain
Ah, yeah
Mmmmmm
Well, listen, whatever you do
This is one thing, honey, I tried to get along with you
Yes, no tellin’ what you do
I done everything I could, just to try and get along with you
Well, the minutes seemed like hours, hours they seemed like days
It seemed like my good, old gal outta done stopped her low-down ways
Minutes seemed like hours, hours they seemed like days
Seems like my good, old gal outta done stopped her low-down ways
You know, love’s a hard ol’ fall, make you do things you don’t wanna do
Love sometimes leaves you feeling sad and blue
You know, love’s a hard ol’ fall, make you do things you don’t wanna do
Love sometimes make you feel sad and blue
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of letter.
Have you ever wondered why the cheese stands alone? In the song titled The Farmer in the Dell, which is also a dance, people form a circle holding hands while gathering around the farmer who starts out in the middle and he begins this tragic pattern of selecting his wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and finally the pitiful solitary neglected cheese is the only thing remaining at the end. The people who are gathered around in the circle are cut out of this circle to join the farmer, but when the cheese is cut, nobody wants to be around anymore. The phrase about the cheese standing alone has gone on to become an uncommon way to describe someone who is all alone. Incidentally a dell is a small wooded valley and the word “derry” is an Old Irish Gaelic term which represents an oak grove or an area that is densely wooded with oak trees.
The rhyme was first recorded in Germany in 1826, as a courtship game, with a farmer choosing a wife, then selecting a child, maid, and serving man who leaves the maid after kissing her.
The farmer in the dell (2x)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The farmer in the dell
The farmer takes the wife (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The farmer takes the wife
The wife takes the child (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The wife takes the child
The child takes the nurse (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The child takes the nurse
The nurse takes the cow (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The nurse takes the cow
The cow takes the dog (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The cow takes the dog
The dog takes the cat (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The dog takes the cat
The cat takes the mouse (or rat) (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The cat takes the mouse (or rat)
The mouse (or rat) takes the cheese (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The mouse (or rat) takes the cheese
The cheese stands alone (2×)
Hi-ho, the derry-o…
The cheese stands alone
Written for Linda G. Hill’s ‘Life in progress’ JusJoJan January prompt of cheese.
A Unique Title For Me 