Little to say this morning.  The Starbucks room vibe parallels my subdued mood. 

With difficulty I listened to the morning news report on NPR.  A business reporter described the decline in business activity among small businesses, restaurants, particularly in the states impacted with Delta virus.  Large numbers of un-vaccinated fellow citizens have wide spread effect.  To remain un-vaccinated is not a matter of exercising one’s personal freedom.

Another segment of the news cast was about the National Rifle Association.  Nothing can be said about the NRA that affirms reason, that fosters a civil life together.  It is a dismal organization, that deals in death.  There, I have said it out loud.

Then there is New York city.  It is one thing for New Orleans to be struck again by a hurricane.  The New Orleans after all is on the Gulf in hurricane alley.  It is quite another for New York to be blind sided by massive flooding by the leftover of hurricane Ida.  A point is reached where money is irrelevant to the damage done; there is a limit to the restoration that is possible.   This from the New York Times:

The storm’s remnants killed at least 43 people in the Northeast. Some people died as waters flooded their basement homes.

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I recommend this tune as our lifeline for a Friday.  There is no shame to find an anchor, a tie-down for existential survival.  The wild, no holds barrd reach for life, conveyed by the chorus attracted me to this song.  Then I paid attention to the verse lyrics, the message of indomitable survival.  Certainly that is the story of many of us. 

The sharp edged guitar chords make me feel like crying.  As a people we are no longer in our youth, our heyday.  That is just a memory.  Our capacity for new beginnings, for metaphysical belief has withered. 

Paradise City

By Guns N’ Roses

Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
(Take me home) Oh, won’t you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
(Take me home) Oh, won’t you please take me home?

Just an urchin living under the street, I’m a
Hard case that’s tough to beat
I’m your charity case, so buy me something to eat
I’ll pay you at another time, take it to the end of the line
Rags and riches, or so they say, you gotta
Keep pushing for the fortune and fame
You know it’s, it’s all a gamble when it’s just a game
You treat it like a capital crime, everybody’s doing the time

Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home? Yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home

Strapped in the chair of the city’s gas chamber
Why I’m here, I can’t quite remember
The Surgeon General says it’s hazardous to breathe
I’d have another cigarette
But I can’t see, tell me who you’re gonna believe

Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home, oh yeah

So far–away
So far–away
So far–away
So far–away

Captain America’s been torn apart, now
He’s a court jester with a broken heart
He said, “Turn me around and take me back to the start”
I must be losing my mind, are you blind? I’ve seen it all a million times

Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Take me home, yeah-yeah
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home, home

I wanna go, I wanna know
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
(Take me home) Oh, won’t you please take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
Take me down (oh yeah), spin me ’round
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
I wanna see, how good it can be
Oh, take me home?
Take me down to the Paradise City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
I wanna go, I wanna know
Oh, won’t you please take me home?
Baby

Songwriters: Hudson Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan, Steven Adler, Axl Rose

Slash had written this song on a tour bus and later said many times that it is his favorite Guns N’ Roses song. Los Angeles was the primary inspiration for the song. Axl Rose told in an interview with “Hit Parader” magazine in 1988, that “the verses are more about being in the jungle; the chorus is like being back in the Midwest or somewhere.”