Disability Pride Month: July songs

Going way back in time, to the second Family Blood book, the band's rhythm guitarist (sometimes bass player) has a badly injured arm and struggles with not being able to play. 

(The drummer has a pretty bad injury too, but there's not as immediate a need for him to be able to pound on the drums, plus the new bass player is dead. Vampires, man; they'll mess you up.)

Trying to be able to work out some way he can play something, his mind goes to guitarists with injuries. First he thinks of James Hetfield's burns when Metallica played in Montreal:

https://www.loudersound.com/music/albums/when-did-james-hetfield-catch-on-fire-metallica-guns-n-roses 

(We watched that VH1: Behind the Music a lot, as well as the Def Leppard one, which will also be pertinent.)

Back to our injured guitar player, Hetfield is his first thought, but Hetfield got better; what if he doesn't?

Then he thinks about Django Reinhardt, working through his permanent burn injuries, and Tommy Iommi losing the tips of two fingers on his fretting hand, and having to change how he played for that.

I felt that scene a lot. Maybe that's weird for someone who is a terrible guitar player, but I still felt the emotions and struggle.  

Cory White (Coalesce, The Esoteric) liked my book. He can play.

My point is that it felt pretty personal.

I remember years ago reading about a band who often ran into accessibility issues at venues. I couldn't find that article. There were some others, including this one that gave me three of the musicians: 

https://batec-mobility.com/en/disabled-musicians-icons-from-beethoven-to-today/

You will see that Metallica is not in there. As Papa Het was only temporarily unable to play and still sang during that time, I did not use him. 

Similarly, Elton John had seizures for a time, but it may have been due to his drug use. That's okay, he's got a song in August. Musicians who can no longer hear because of not protecting their ears are also not included. (The cause of Beethoven's deafness is not certain, but may be from lead poisoning.)

Also, I did not include mental illness as a disability; Joy Division is in there because of Ian Curtis' epilepsy. Also, putting "Love Will Tear Us Apart" right after "Love Will Keep Us Alive" seemed kind of cheeky; love is versatile! 

Joe Walsh has autism, apparently combined with some ADHD and OCD.

That drug abuse thing... sometimes it's self-medication. Hank Williams' spina bifida and the back pain it caused may have been a big part of his alcohol abuse. 

I could have used several more autism cases, mostly self-diagnosed. I don't judge for that, as it is often hard to get diagnosed. Sometimes the balance between including or excluding was how much I like the song.

Having Ray Charles' version of "America the Beautiful" on July 4th was a bit of a protest, because of some flack that people gave to his version. Jose Feliciano's "No Dogs Allowed" is specifically about his service dog not being allowed in England without a 6-month quarantine. (Their dog policies are ridiculous.)

The other thing that struck me was how much effort there was toward concealment. Paul Stanley's hair always covered his microtia. It was very hard to know that Prince had seizures.   

So, if there are people and bands listed here where you don't know how they ended up in this list..., I thought about putting notes on everyone, but maybe it's better to make that something that people have to pursue on their own. None of it is impossible to find.

Though, I do feel like knowing Iggy Pop has scoliosis explains a lot about the way he dances.

Daily songs: 

7/1 “Ode to Joy” from the 4^th Movement of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, performed by the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Philharmonic Choir
7/2 “Minor Swing” composed by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, performed by The Quintet of the Hot Club of France
7/3 “Hey Good Lookin’” by Hank Williams
7/4 “America the Beautiful” performed by Ray Charles
7/5 “No Dogs Allowed” by Jose Feliciano
7/6 “Heart of Gold” by Neil Young
7/7 “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers
7/8 “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder
7/9 “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
7/10 “Love Will Keep Us Alive” by Eagles
7/11 “Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division
7/12 “Smoky Mountain Rain” by Ronnie Milsap
7/13 “Rock And Roll All Nite” by KISS
7/14 “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath
7/15 “Lust For Life” by Iggy Pop
7/16 “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince
7/17 “Same Ol’ Situation” by Mötley Crüe
7/18 “Money’s Too Tight (To Mention)” by Simply Red
7/19 “Brass Monkey” by Beastie Boys
7/20 “Angel Eyes” by Jeff Healey
7/21 “When Love and Hate Collide” by Def Leppard
7/22 “Everything to Everyone” by Everclear
7/23 “Vivo por Ella” by Andrea Bocelli feat. KAROL G
7/24 “Factory” by The Vines
7/25 “So Young” by Portugal. The Man
7/26 “Litost” by X Ambassadors
7/27 “Colors” by Halsey
7/28 “Heaven” by The AutistiX
7/29 “TACHI” by Langui, A93, Young Gipsy
7/30 “Moziki” by Staff Benda Bilili
7/31 “Girls Can Fly” by Katcross

Notes on the clowder

In February we lost Mavis.

I generally say that we should not go looking for cats, because they find us, but Mavis was an exception.

We'd had just one cat, who came to us shortly after the last of our starter group of five cats died. Over the course of Max's life, we had also gotten a dog who needed to be separated from the cat, but she was older and giving her two rooms that Jack couldn't go in worked. 

Max's death in 2013 left a hole. No cats found us for a few months so Maria gave up and we located a cat with a magnificent tail and a certain aloofness, where if she only had two rooms and was not getting constant attention, she would be okay with that. THEN the other cats started finding us. 

ETA: Maria took exception to this description because Julie was the one who first spotted Mavis. This is true, but my memory is of her telling us every day that it was too sad without a cat and we needed a cat and let's get a cat -- despite all of my promises and reminders that cats are good at finding us -- so I think she is being unnecessarily modest about her role in the process. 

Her death left us with only five. There were people who were so judgmental when we had "only" four that we did not tell when two more came to us is 2022. This announcement may be controversial, but now we have seven.

It's only 2 1/3 cats per person. 

Maybe it's because it was Mavis specifically whom we lost, but Maria couldn't handle it again.

She found a beautiful cat, Princess, at a sanctuary in Sherwood.

We went for a visit. Princess was lovely and sweet, as many cats there were, but there was also one really shy Siamese and one kind of hostile Siamese. Plus, another household was interested in Princess.

Well, maybe we should let them adopt Princess and take these other two.

We were going to come back in a month so I could get finished with school. (Another area where there were some twists.)

First of all, the one family never came back for Princess. We were praying for her to find a home every night, because we didn't want her to not have a home just because there seemed to be other cats that needed us more. 

Princess has stunning eyes and is very friendly... she seemed very adoptable, especially compared to the one you had to pull out from under a couch to pet or the one that would hit you when you tried to pet.

Then, the shy one made a friend. Could we take three and go to eight? But the friend had a special diet, and if the shy one was opening up, maybe a little more time would give him more options.

The next thought was that we could take the standoffish one, give her a month to adjust, and if that worked out we would return for Princess.

Who were we fooling?

We brought them both home together, but it's been a journey. 

This turned out to be good. Princess had someone to hide with for her first couple of days. Then her greater desire to socialize and eat helped give a bridge to Toyota.

Funny thing about that; Toyota is not actually standoffish. She is possibly shy, but she has really wanted attention. Unfortunately, she needs to rub against everything else just out of reach until you can maybe get close enough to pet her.  

One of the easiest times to pet her now is when she is eating, which is when we were first able to pet Max, Mavis's predecessor.

Princess may be a little less helpful here, because she is in the mode where she is so ecstatic to be the center of attention that she will rush in when we are trying to pet other cats, including the one who needs a long flirting period before you can touch her.

Mavis would sometimes hit other cats to keep them in line (like the queen she was). We thought maybe we needed that kind of energy and Toyota would bring it.

Princess has hit Toyota a couple of times now, and Francis yesterday, just to make sure all the petting goes to her.

Cats. 

It is still an adjustment period.

However, it is relatively harmonious. Francis and Figaro were both hesitating to take snacks for the first few days, but are recovering. 

Lilly Belle is staying up top a little more, but not to an extreme.

Gigi might be a little extra clingy, but there are worse things than a needy cat.

Unsurprisingly, Ashley is taking it best and has even shared bed space with both of the newcomers at the same time. She is a very good girl.

So, yeah, we have seven cats now.

Fight me. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/10/on-this-national-cat-day.html 

Celebrating 50 years of Washington County Libraries!

I have written about my love for libraries many times. Sometimes that has gone into other cities, but mainly that happens right around here.

Washington County Cooperative Library Services is now 50 years old and they are celebrating. There are some parties and a video, but also there was a passport to get stamps from all of the libraries. 

Collect all of the stamps, and they will give you a puzzle.  

We got all of the stamps, and we got the puzzle, featuring Wallace, the Bookworm. 

It was really cute.  

Okay, maybe there were a few snags putting it together, but we did it.

(We also did not get the bonus stamp at Hagg Lake, but we will get there at some point.) 

As far as I am concerned, a free puzzle (and completing a challenge) is reason enough, but it was interesting seeing some of the other locations.

Now I wish I had taken some library pictures.

Before the Aloha branch opened up, we had primarily used Cedar Mill, and I had been to Shute Park once.

We had attended presentations at Tigard and Brookwood and gone to see the mastodon bones at Tualatin. 

That's just six out of the sixteen. 

Maria has been to a few more because of field trips and summer camp. She has driven small buses full of children to them! 

Here's what I have gotten out of seeing the others...

I have talked to some really nice people. Sure, that was mainly librarians, but also there were people doing scavenger hunts at some of the libraries (Garden Home and Forest Grove, if I recall) and other people getting their stamps. That included one family that I talked to in Banks after we had both just come from North Plains and had to detour around the car show.

Libraries are great for community.

I think I could enjoy sitting and reading at the Cornelius library.  

In addition, some have different things. 

Yes, they all have books, and you can pick up and drop off books at any location. That is now true for Inter-Library Loans as well, though it did not used to be so.

However, not all locations have seed libraries and not all locations have makerspaces. Getting a feel for who has what can be helpful.

Also, not all libraries have collections in the Library of Things and those do not get shipped between locations.

We are thinking about checking out a dryer vent cleaning kit.

You know what I did see at multiple locations? Places to donate food and hygiene items.

Libraries are great for community.

Actually, libraries are just great. 

Passports and puzzles are still available, as well as library cards.

There are also lots of books, but not only books.

https://www.wccls.org/ 

 

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2026/03/using-library.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/07/libraries-and-democracy.html 

Spoiled for content

This current round of writing has largely been looking at dominator culture on the left and how we need to break free of that.  

There are many available examples to demonstrate how it works. That can be a lengthy process, but if it makes an effective case, I don't mind that.

It was feeling like there were a few bad actors, disingenuously using flawed logic to be loudly wrong, over and over again. I believed it would be beneficial to name and shame them; do not listen to these people anymore! I jotted down a few names so I could take some time to write up summaries, and the list kept growing.

Initially I thought it would be about seven people, because I could think of one group of three and another group of four, with enough connections within the two groups that it would be pretty simple.

There are now over thirty names; that post would be too long to be useful.

Some could be broken down into sub-categories, but still, that's just a lot of people. Maybe after researching some of them will be promoted to "take with a grain of salt" rather than "never listen" but it all becomes very unwieldy.

Besides that, my life is not all politics. I should probably write about school some. 

I was thinking of how I have the media posts on Fridays, maybe I could go on for a few weeks with the Thursday posts being different subgroups. That way, one Thursday would be "This is the story of the podbros..." and then the next week it would be about Fight Agency...

I haven't quite decided how to make all of that work. 

Part of it is seriously questioning whether it does any good, but some of it is also being interested in lots of different things.

Speaking of the Friday posts, it will soon be time to post about the songs and quotes for Disability Pride Month. A lot of that directly relates to my capstone, so I am thinking about it with school. How long should I spend on the terrible people? 

Plus, it is so discouraging that there are so many people who may be actively lying, but of whom at least some have probably convinced themselves (maybe just temporarily) and they are able to do so because of access to money enforcing their egos and privilege making them really not get structural racism and so many other problems... it's discouraging, you know?

It would be a better world if there were only seven people. 

But it's not.

For the next two days I am going to write about something two completely different things, with pictures, that relate to household projects and changes. They are not directly political, but political points can be made.

Then I will work out what kind of patchwork blogging makes sense for me.

At least I am not out of ideas. 

Music reading

Last January (2025) I wrote about my evergreen plan to record a week's worth of Christmas songs. For one week in December, the songs of the day would be me!

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/01/whatever-happened-to-those-christmas.html 

It keeps not happening, but I keep believing it will.  

At that point I had discovered some books that I thought could be helpful.

Music Composition for Dummies by Scott Jarrett

Singing for Dummies by Pamelia S. Phillips

Home Recording for Dummies by Jeff Strong

Goodreads tells me that I have read a total of six For Dummies books; I have generally found them helpful.

I read Music Theory for Dummies some time ago, but it made less of an impression on me because I was already pretty familiar with music theory. I read that when I started discovering new music and things and listening to the Rolling Stone "Greatest Guitar Songs" and all that. 

Otherwise, I read Bartending for Dummies before going on Jeopardy! in case there was a potent potables category (not one of my strong suits) and I recently read Color Theory for Dummies as part of studying design.

Generally I find that they give a good grounding, with lots of good references. In the case of Color Theory, a lot of the works referenced could be hard to locate, being older and rarer, so having that as a source was great.

The most recent three were all interesting. 

I don't remember much now from Singing, though I have been doing other things that have lead to me singing more. Have I picked up tips that made me sing better? Because there were a lot of exercises given and I tended to ignore them. 

Home Recording was a lot more information than I needed, but I don't mind that. Sometimes situations will arise when an old piece of information pops up, ready for use. I am good with that.

If this ends up being the year that I do the recordings, I will probably decide to just do it with my phone or the mics built into my PC. That is probably a high enough level of quality. The technology has gotten pretty good, and my project would be simple enough that it wouldn't need advanced mixing or anything.

I did recently have to record a video (just speaking) for school. I didn't love noticing all of the flaws with my complexion and lighting and color choices and why-am-I-so-ugly, but I survived.

The most significant book for me was easily Music Composition for Dummies.

First of all, there was really fascinating information that I wasn't even expecting, like the keys we use today versus the ancient Greek modes and how they used them. Very interesting.

There was also gaining additional understanding of an old problem, even if it was kind of disappointing.

When I was younger (probably peaking between the ages of 14 and 17) I used to write a lot of songs. A great source of frustration with that was that I could never make it sound right on instruments. I would try and work things out on the piano, hearing that they were wrong but not how to fix it.

This was around the same time I took Beginning Guitar. At least, that's what the class was called, but I was the only true beginner in it. 

I could never tune the guitar it on my own. It was the same issue; I could hear it wasn't right, but I couldn't make it right.  

I have had musical friends a lot. I remember one telling me that it was very common, at least for famous people, to not be able to transcribe music so work with people who did, or that there were books that would help with this, though they could not actually name any of those books.

I saved Composition for last because there was this hope. I didn't think one book would fix it, but it might tell me how to fix it.

The answer is that you just have to stick with it and find "close enough."

Well, maybe not if you do have perfect pitch, but that was not an option for me.

I suppose instead of letting Max and Jennifer tune my guitars, I just should have kept trying, and kept being off-tune. I could have kept plucking away and pounding away, and somehow made it work, possibly offending others' ears along the way.

It's okay that I didn't. One of the things I have had to accept is that as much as I love music, being good at it is not the same driving force for me that reading and writing is.

No on can do it all. I know so many people where it's like they have no choice but to play music. They are all far more skilled than me, but that is their drive. 

I am good at appreciating them.  

But -- even though music is not my primary domain or talent -- I still like singing. I sometimes still think about getting back to piano and bass.

And I still think about recording some songs.