Mark Stratton's Blog: AGGASPLETCH, page 27

30 Day Music Challenge Day 5 – Songs That Remind Me of Someone(s)

Since there are more than one significant people in my life, I am going to share more than one song that reminds me of somebody. 

I Love Your Smile – Shanice

This is one of my wife's favorite songs and has been since before we met and married.  She has a smile that still takes my breath away.  She also has that smile she only shares with me.  Of course, she scoffs at that notion, but I've learned that scoffing at a husband's ideas like that are part and parcel of the Wife's Handbook, so I...

30 Day Song Challenge Day 4 – A Song That Makes me Sad

Music can flip all manner of internal switches.  It can make you wanna dance, shag, cry, drink beer, or just close your eyes and follow the bouncing ball.   It's also a time machine.

In November of 1975, I was a month from my 12th Birthday when the news of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald broke across the country.  It wasn't quite the national new story it would be now, but it was a dominant story in the Great Lakes region of the States and I would imagine in Canada as well.  It captured m...

30 Day Song Challenge Day 3 – Songs that Make Me Happy

Music is emotional soundscapes that you carry with you, either in your memory or through the miracle of modern technology in your pocket.  Music, for me, has been a balm, friend, healer, and many other roles in life. 

Today, we look at songs that make me happy.  There is no real rhyme or reason to them, but I shall try to explain they why.

Jessica – Allman Brothers Band

For some reason this song brings to mind the open road.  Freedom from what ails you, the feel of the wind blowing through...

30 Day Song Challenge Day 2 – Your Least Favorite Song

So, my least favorite song.  This one is easy.  And there is only one contender for this so the post will be short and sweet.

There aren't words to describe just how much I despise the 'song' "Feelings" by Morris Albert.  I hate it.  Pure and simply, I loathe this song.  I would rather listen to Vanilla Ice's "rap" song (which is a crime against music in its own right) than ever hear ANYTHING by Morris Albert again.

With that said, here's the video.  Somebody please shoot me now….

It's banal...

30 Day Song Challenge Day 1 – Your Favorite Song

I'm writing this with the news of the death of bin Laden still ringing freshly in my ears. This seems sort of unimportant in the big picture, but I'm going to go ahead with it anyhow.

The 30 Day Song Challenge has been roaming around on Facebook for who knows how long, and I like the idea. It is a fun endeavor, particularly for me since I love music so very much (check out my Last.fm profile if you'd like to dig deep into my CD rack). I further believe that for me, this requires more than a...

Cynical Mirror – A Poem

Cynical Mirrors

I once worked for a Cynical Man
who said, "If you're an asshole
when you're drunk, you're an asshole
when you're sober."

This the Cynical Man said about the
patrons of a Denny's who came during
the dwindling hours of the party.

I sometimes wonder what the Cynical
Man's view of himself was when he peered
into a mirror

After getting caught soberly embezzling
from that Denny's for many years.

Funny Book Review or I Fly My Comic Book Geek Flag

Spider-Man: Clone Genesis (Amazing Spider-Man) by Gerry Conway

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a trip down memory lane for me. I owned all of these comics when I was a kid, bought them all new at the ever-lovin' Eye of Agamotto in Ann Arbor when I was a boy. About a year into my comic book collecting, I'd say.

The book is a collection of Amazing Spider-Man comics from 1974-1975, and they are edited down, bits and pieces that may have distracted from the story that was being told in this...

Where the Butterflies Go by Heather Grace Stewart – A Review

Where the Butterflies Go by Heather Grace Stewart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is s sense of earnestness that pervades this collection. Couple that with honesty, add a touch of humor blended with whimsy and a heart on the sleeve, and you get a good picture of the earlier poetry of Canadian Poet, Heather Grace Stewart.

Topics range from the personal, to the world around all of us, world events to doings in her back yard, Stewart's simple, yet elegant poetry breathes humanity into the everyday. ...

Nine Years

Dear Mother,

I just realized today that it's been nine years since you left us. It's a haze of memories, woulda's, shoulda's and coulda's…and didn't do's. Such is life, isn't it? I know it was Dad who told me, 'The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions' and that you didn't like him very much, but somehow, I think it applies to me and you.

At first, when you passed, I felt relief. Your suffering was over. I wouldn't wish MS on anyone. Nobody I know 'deserves' to disintegrate before...

Fading – Poem

I remember well the nights

of forgotten blackness

Steak and Löwenbräu for

breakfast because the

Hairy Dog needed killing

and there were no eggs

or orange juice. Gone, or

never purchased…

And somewhere at the party

the no problem falling down

became a problem and part

of the same old dull routine.

Except the souvenir t-shirt

was tattered and faded.

Like cracked sidewalk dreams

blistering in the sun of harsh

Reality, grass dying in the cracks.

——-

This Saturday past, I had the distinction of sharing a g...