Where can I turn?

Well, this week we lost a musical giant from my youth. Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson died Wednesday at age 82.

I confess that when I heard the news my brain was awash with “Little Deuce Coup”, and “Fun, Fun, Fun”, and “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls”—me being one. And I saw long board surfboards stuck in the sand at Huntington Beach, and Redondo, and Malibu, with the sun sinking into the Pacific behind them.

Well, that world is long gone. That was when you could drive your Woodie from the Valley to Santa Monica in half an hour, fil it up with gas for a fiver and leave it all day without having to take out a second mortgage to pay for the parking. Things seemed simpler—although, in retrospect, that was probably only if you were White and middle class and could get student deferments to keep you out of Vietnam.

The Beach Boys’ heyday also included the Watts and Newark Riots, growing anti-war protests, Civil Rights marches, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the beginning of the United Farm Workers union, the surge of the feminist movement, the Weathermen and other domestic terrorists—in short, a whole lot of violent upheaval, right here in the White paradise of America.

Huh.

And here we are, in 2025, with a demented degenerate in the White House enabled by a Sonderkommando of White nationalist tools, both appointed and elected, turning back progress to the 60s (although it’s not clear whether their goal is the 1960s, the 1860s or the 1360s). Tomorrow there will be a parade of tanks down Constitution Avenue to amuse the five-time draft dodger, while he sics the National Guard and Marines on peaceful demonstrators protesting his Neronian immigration policy.

(Here’s the thing about dealing with armor columns: if you take out the lead tank, the rest of them can’t move. One Panzerfaust shot into the treads of that first one and there’s rain on the parade. Just sayin’.)

Well, in honor of Brian, the Beach Boys and the dream of this country, our earworm today is from their iconic 1968 album, Pet Sounds: “I Just Wasn’t Made for these Times”.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Camouflage

I occasionally see this guy along the W&OD Trail; always in the same area, so he may have a lair or a den or whatever rabbits have.

Of course, when I say “see”, I don’t really, because obvs he’s blending in with the grass very effectively.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Park it

There’s a Reddit sub titled Bad Parking. It has for me (as—I suppose—for many others) a horrid fascination, watching how people just park their vehicles wherever they like, without regard to law or civil society.

So far, I have not contributed, but last week I got two entries.

The first was in the Trader Joe’s parking lot:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any TJ parking lot in any state in the Union has a crappy, insufficient parking lot, and spaces are at a premium. Back in the last century, I lived within walking distance of the first Trader Joe’s, on Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena. At any time between early November and the week after New Year, fistfights were likely to break out when some Beamer pinched the space some Lexus was waiting to be vacated. I was glad I was on foot.

So this guy, effectively taking up two spaces, no doubt because “I’m in a hurry, okay?” was quite the prince.

(The "Baby on Board" sign is a tell. It always means "Baby Behind Wheel".)

Then there was this one, at the 10-space parking lot for the W&OD Trail by the old Reston Distillery:

I mean—no wonder his car is held together with duct tape.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Landshell

I met this guy on my walk last week. About a mile from my previous testudinal encounter last month.

He was actually in a mini-park down the street, and since he was not in danger of being run over by bicyclists, I did not move him.

Although he obviously found me sus, as he pulled in his head and tail when I fiddled around for my mobile.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: 25 years

Saturday was my friend MLD’s birthday. It was one of those auspicious birthdays—you know, the ones with a 0 or a 5 as the final digit.

As I was contemplating that, it occurred to me that we’ve been friends for…25 years. And I’ve been grateful for that every single day.

We were colleagues at a telecoms manufacturer’s European headquarters in Maidenhead, UK. She was personal assistant to the CEO and I did this and that. It was the that part that got me moved up to the third floor, where she worked, and we somehow just hit it off.

When the company terminated my contract in September 2001, I spent my last night in the country at MLD’s house. Since then we’ve exchanged daily weekday emails about life, love, cookery, work, bell ringing, travel, kids, health, pets, relocation and retirement. All the major food groups necessary for friendship. She knows all about my most whackjob and shady activities; I know one or two things that might possibly raise an eyebrow in the Holy Trinity Church parish council. But we will take this knowledge to our graves.

I’ve learned so much through our friendship—like the mechanics of church bells (MLD has been tower captain of her church’s ringers for quite a long time), ziplining, fiscal responsibility, recipes for mincemeat. (Also the politics of church organizations—man, that’s a thing!) It’s as though I can walk through a door and be across the ocean, living a life so different from mine; like an immersive TV program on PBS.

I love hearing about her “ringing weeks” in Scotland or Alderney, and Messy Church, and loft clearouts, and getting a new car (six speeds; I have such gear envy). MLD lives a whirlwind life compared to mine; I get all the benefit without any of the exhaustion.

The downside is that we haven’t been in the same time zone, much less the same room, for about 15 years. Google Meet is the best we can manage. But she has been over a couple of times, and I was able to introduce her to a genuine hamburger (which she ate with a knife and fork), and Costco (I may have broken her brain), and Mount Vernon.

We’ve encouraged, and comforted; laughed and wept; sent virtual hugs and very gentle nudges on the butt for all this time. As one does. She—having more juice in this arena than I—also puts in a word or two for me in her devotions, and I know I benefit from this.

I am deeply grateful for every grace of our friendship.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Kiss goodnight

I’ve been to all three military cemeteries in the vicinity of the D-Day landings (81 years ago today): German, British, American. What struck me about them was the commonality of death—the death of youth.

As I walked among the headstones at Colleville-sur-Mer (American), Bayeux (German) and La Cambe (German), it seemed like the preponderance of the men lying there didn’t make it past age 25, both the attackers and the defenders. The way of the world is that old men start wars and young men fight them.

But here’s something that all these guys, blokes and Jungs might have been listening to, a song that pierced all their hearts wherever they were and whatever uniform they wore: “Lili Marlene”.

The song we know as “Lili Marlene” originated as a poem in the First World War (the one that was supposed to end all wars), written by a Hamburg schoolteacher conscripted into the German army, Hans Leip. It was set to music by Norbert Schultze in 1938 and recorded by a German singer, Lale Andersen, in 1939.

The gist of the piece is a lonely soldier on watch, missing his girlfriend. Pretty universal—I expect there was some Greek song around 520 BCE that expresses the same thoughts.

The song pretty much went nowhere until in 1941 German troops occupied Belgrade, in Yugoslavia, and needed recordings to broadcast over Radio Belgrade. Andersen’s “Lili Marlene” was one of the few discs the station had, so it got played a lot. And soldiers loved it.

But Reich propaganda minister Josef Goebbels loathed it. It wasn’t sufficiently martial—no proper German soldiers had time to miss their girlfriends or be anything but aggressively victorious. Besides, Andersen hung around with Jewish artists, which was not the done thing.

Still—soldiers within range of Radio Belgrade demanded more “Lili Marlene”. It expanded coverage to North Africa, where the British Eighth Army took it up. By the time Allied forces landed on the Normandy beaches in 1944, it was on everyone’s playlist, and a standard for Marlene Dietrich’s USO performances. Vera Lynn also covered it.

(It's kind of interesting that a song with a male soldier's narrative seems only to have been covered by female singers.)

We’ll go today with Lale Andersen’s version, the one that etched itself into the hearts of millions of men in all kinds of uniforms 81 years ago.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Globalism

I confess that I’m posting this just because I found it interesting:

Fairfax County sewer manhole cover…made in India.

I expect the price is going to go up on those puppies, on account of TACO Man’s current tariff on metal from everywhere, including India, being 50%.

(Also—why India? We can’t make them here?)

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Art appreciation

More sidewalk art:

(The attention to detail on the Tic-Tac box is really quite good.)

This time, I met the artists, possibly brother and sister; maybe six and eight. (They were climbing on the jungle gym and wearing full-on face-covering mosquito masks.)

I told them I appreciate their work, and they thanked me.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

TACO Tuesday

Here’s an indicator on the effects of the TACO tariffs:

This is the section of The Container Store where they display all the little tchotchkes that are mostly manufactured in China. Look at the empty bins.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: corpse[s]

For my lesson on Friday my yoga instructor scouted some new flows for me to try. I confess that I found them confusing and that the pre-flow poses didn’t adequately prepare my muscles for their demands. (Glutes and quads are still bitching at me about this.)

But I have never been so grateful for savasana in my yoga life.

As a side note—I can no longer get through final relaxation without thinking about the yoga studio in Lincolnshire, England, that got swatted a couple of years ago because “members of the public” reported that a ritual mass murder was in process—based on them seeing seven bodies under blankets lying motionless on the floor in a dark, candlelit room, with one person moving slowly about, tapping a drum.

Not for nothing is that known as “corpse pose”.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu