Day: April 26, 2020

A Sunday Smile

Fandango10 Comments

Back in 1961 a group called The Tokens had a number 1 mega hit song with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Flash forward almost 60 years to 2020, where, in these troubled times of a global pandemic and a lying, incompetent imbecile occupying the American presidency, people are being ingeniously creative in their efforts to keep us entertained and smiling during the lockdown.

Here is one example, put together by Roy Zimmerman, called “The Liar Tweets Tonight,” a 2020 update of the aforementioned classic song. As of this writing it has received close to six million views on YouTube. All well deserved.

Enjoy.

Who Won The Week? 04/26/2020

Fandango12 Comments

10CC3057-4EEA-4C80-B8C1-700C0FC6C906It’s time for another Who Won the Week prompt. The idea behind Who Won the Week is for you to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

This week I am selecting Instacart shoppers as my Who Won the Week recipients.C82A1370-A424-4802-A506-B60D6BCAE0ECThe stay-at-home mandate has been in place in my area since mid-March and we have been relying on grocery delivery services to keep our pantry and refrigerator fully stocked. Most of the time we use Instacart to pick up and deliver our online orders from our local Safeway. Apparently a lot of others do as well.8764A371-51EC-4D85-BAFF-2523C6133076For the most part, the shoppers at Instacart do a good job. But when the store is out-of-stock of something I ordered, I’ve pre-authorized the Instacart shopper to find the closest substitute product that is available. For example, if I ordered organic bananas, and none were available, the shopper could substitute conventional bananas.

But there have been times when the substitutions The shoppers have selected stretched the definition of the word “closest.” For example, instead of two boxes of Wheaties breakfast cereal, two boxes of Cocoa Puffs were delivered. Let me tell you, I am not cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I asked for organic raisins figuring that I would at least get non-organic raisins. Instead, they gave me Craisins, which are not raisins at all. They’re dried, shriveled up cranberries.82BB804E-3769-40B2-B248-5388D463A05DAnd instead of getting the organic zucchini I asked for, they gave me organic cucumbers. Well, at least they were organic.

So even though the Instacart shoppers are not perfect, they have enabled me to keep my cupboards stocked without having to trek to the grocery store and risk infection. Thank you Instacart shoppers.

And now it’s your turn, folks. Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Song Lyric Sunday — Solitary Man

Fandango13 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has offered us up a lonesome theme during these dark days of social distancing. He gave us the words Alone, Confined, Depressed, Isolated, Restless, and Solo for our consideration. The song I chose is one where the singer makes a choice to go solo, at least until he finds the right woman: Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man.”

“Solitary Man” was written and composed by American musician Neil Diamond. It was released in February 1966 from the album The Feel of Neil Diamond. It was Diamond’s first charting single as a recording artist.

Diamond said that “Solitary Man” was his first song where he tried to really raise the level of his songwriting. It was inspired, he said, by the Beatles’ song “Michelle,” which was also written in a minor key. “I don’t think I’d ever written a song in a minor key before, it was the first and it kind of broke the dam for me,” Diamond said.

The song is about a lonely man, looking for true love, but until he can find someone faithful, he will remain a solitary man, a man resigned to loneliness until he finds “a girl who’ll stay and won’t play games behind him. In a 2005 interview, Diamond said, “After four years of Freudian analysis I realized I had written ‘Solitary Man’ about myself.”

Here are the lyrics to “Solitary Man.”

Melinda was mine ’til the time
That I found her
Holding Jim
And loving him
Then Sue came along, loved me strong
That’s what I thought
Ya, me and Sue
But that died too

Don’t know that I will
But until I can find me
The girl who’ll stay
And won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
Solitary man

I’ve had it to here
Bein’ where love’s a small word
Part-time thing
Paper ring

I know it’s been done
Havin’ one girl who’ll loves you
Right or wrong
Weak or strong

Don’t know that I will
But until I can find me
The girl who’ll stay
And won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
Solitary man

Don’t know that I will
But until I can find me
The girl who’ll stay
And won’t play games behind me
I’ll be what I am
A solitary man
Solitary man
Solitary man
Solitary man

FOWC with Fandango — Squeegee

Fandango12 Comments

FOWCWelcome to April 26, 2020 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “squeegee.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.