John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. I thought this might be fun so I decided to join in.
Up until February 2020, before we moved to a suburb on the East Bay about 35 miles from the city, my wife and I used to live in San Francisco approximately three blocks north of Golden Gate Park. And one of the unique structures very near the entrance to the park is the Conservatory of Flowers.
The Conservatory of Flowers is a greenhouse and botanical garden that houses a collection of rare and exotic plants in Golden Gate Park. With construction having been completed in 1879, it is the oldest building in the park. It was one of the first municipal conservatories constructed in the United States and is the oldest remaining municipal wooden conservatory in the country.
Living so close to Golden Gate Park and the Conservatory of Flowers and other GGP attractions like the California Academy of Sciences Museum and the de Young Art Museum, are several of the things I miss about no longer living in San Francisco.
Oh yes, and the weather. Today’s high temperature in San Francisco was 70°, versus 100° where we live now.
The way this question today is posed makes it seem that security and adventure are mutually exclusive. You can have one or the other, but not both. I call bullshit. I don’t care who you are or even what stage of life you’re at, but you can can have adventures and security at the same time…if you want to.
I’m an old fart, but to the extent my somewhat broken down old fart body will allow me, I enjoy a good adventure. I like going places I’ve never been to before and doing things I’ve never done. Well, to an extent, anyway. I’m not about to try skydiving or bungee jumping. So let’s just say my definition of an “adventure” may be pretty tame these days compared to what it was in my more youthful days.
What about security? I am feeling relatively secure at this point I’m my life. I’ve got a roof over my head, food to sustain us, and, hopefully, enough of a retirement nest egg to last us for the remainder of our lives and maybe even to leave a little something left over for our kids and grandkids.
So I’m going to choose to spend my life seeking both some mini-adventures while maintaining feeling a sense of security.
I get some interesting spam comments on my blog, most of which are captured by Akismet, WordPress’ spam blocker. I generally do a mass delete of all of my spam comments after checking to see if any legitimate comments got caught up in Akismet’s spam-catching net.
I thought it might be fun to select a particularly interesting or unique or outrageous spam comment and highlight it each week.
There are two spam comments I want to share with you today. This first one was from ThờI Gian Và Anh and it was in response to my What Do You See — Clean Slate post. ThờI wrote:
This movie is a must-watch. It has a profound story, meaningful messages, and genuine performances. Don’t miss out on this incredible film and make sure to share it with others!
I’m sorry, ThờI, but what movie are you talking about? I don’t want to miss out, but you need to tell me which movie it is!
This second comment seems to be another example of spammer or spambot using artificial intelligence to create a comment that almost sounds legit. It was from Liza and it was in response to my SoCS — The Soundtrack of My Life post. Liza wrote:
It is a good hobby to collect old & beautiful sound records. These collections are amazing without extra dumping music. I also collected this old collection in my teenage years but not now.
What about you? Have you read some catchy spam comments that you’d like to share with us? If so, put them ir #FSCW.
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song by an artist or a group that never made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but we think belongs there. I went back to Dave’s Music Database, which lists all of the artists and songs that have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, to search for a group that I thought should been there but isn’t. That group is Sugarloaf and the song is “Green-Eyed Lady.”
I absolutely loved this song when it came out in August of 1970, and not just because I was dating a girl with big, beautiful green eyes at the time. I just really loved the song. I suppose I can understand why Sugarloaf isn’t in the RRHOF. Aside from “Green-Eyed Lady,” they only had one other song that made the charts and Sugarloaf was not very influential in rock and roll. Still, it’s such a great song that it’s my pick this week.
“Green-Eyed Lady” was a very popular song when it was released. It was written by Sugarloaf’s lead singer Jerry Corbetta, with producer J.C. Phillips, and songwriter David Riordan. It was featured on the band’s debut album, Sugarloaf, and was their first single. It peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 and was RPM magazine’s number one single for two weeks. The song has been featured on dozens of classic rock compilation albums.
So who is the green-eyed lady? According to lead singer Jerry Corbetta, it was his girlfriend at the time, Kathy, who his bandmates referred to as the green-eyed lady.
“Green-Eyed Lady” gets almost daily play on U.S. radio stations to this day. I just heard it yesterday in the car on SiriusXM’s Classic Vinyl channel. Jerry Corbetta played the organ solo on this track in addition to singing lead. He played it in the style of jazz musician Jimmy Smith, his idol. In the single version, which is mostly what you’ll hear on the radio and also in most compilation albums, the song length is about three and a half minutes. The album version, which is featured in the video, is extended to seven minutes for Corbetta’s lengthy and impressive organ solo.
Here are the lyrics to “Green-Eyed Lady.”
Green-eyed lady, lovely lady Strolling slowly towards the sun Green-eyed lady, ocean lady Soothing every raging wave that comes
Green-eyed lady, passion's lady Dressed in love, she lives for life to be Green-eyed lady feels life I never see Setting suns and lonely lovers free
Green-eyed lady, wind-swept lady Rules the night, the waves, the sand Green-eyed lady, ocean lady Child of nature, friend of man
Green-eyed lady, passion's lady Dressed in love, she lives for life to be Green-eyed lady feels life I never see Setting suns and lonely lovers free
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “virtue.”
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. Please 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. Show them some love.
This, That, and the Other 