Stranger on the Shore

For once, last evening I was to bed ahead of 11 p.m., so rising at the summoning of my 6 a.m. alarm was easier (but still not a breeze).

Around 3:07 a.m. I had taken a bathroom break for some urinary relief, and I could see that my wife still had a light on in her bedroom. Was she sitting up watching a video or some such on her smartphone or tablet, or had she simply succumbed to weariness without the wherewithal to rise and extinguish the light? Her bedroom door was pulled shut, so I could not tell.

Once I was up for the morning, I eventually had the puny performance out in the backyard tool shed of a single repetition in each of the six sets of pull-ups and chin-ups before I turned to the squat work to thus far futilely rehabilitate my damaged right knee and quadriceps muscles.

Then back in the house, I got together my day's first meal before I came back upstairs to spend some time here at my bedside computer.

My younger brother never emerged from his bedroom until possibly around 8:30 a.m.; and it was 9:10 a.m. before I hobbled downstairs to join him for some morning T.V.

He was quite prompt in inviting me to put our T95Q Android 9 TV Box to work, so I led us off with a 12-minute (12:53) video uploaded earlier today to YouTube's AnitaK channel: TFW's at Tim Hortons While Canadians Can't Find Jobs.

The next video I tuned in topped an hour (1:04:24) and had been uploaded yesterday to YouTube's Redacted channel: He Predicted The War in Iran Now Prof. Jiang Predicts This Will Become Trump’s Vietnam | Redacted.

Professor Jiang joins the program to share a provocative warning about how the current global conflict is mirroring the strategic failures and long-term entanglement of the Vietnam War. This deep dive explores the geopolitical shifts and military escalations that suggest a prolonged struggle is on the horizon. Watch for an expert analysis of the historical parallels that mainstream outlets are failing to address.

To my surprise, about halfway through, my brother announced that he had to start readying himself for an 11 a.m. barber appointment. He did the readying, and then got to watch maybe close to the final 10 minutes of the video before he left on his drive.

This allowed me to get back to bed for my nap soon after 11 a.m., but I was up again by 12:49 p.m.

Mid-morning we had some rain, but by afternoon I think there were sunny breaks, with a chilly breeze.

My wife evidently had the day off work, but she never emerged from her bedroom until after 3 p.m. By that time I had decided to skip any afternoon exercising. Even if she did vacate her bedroom, I don't like getting too late an afternoon start; nor did I feel up to reproducing the morning tool shed routine.

Besides, I am feeling down. I had come across a video uploaded July 10, 2019, to YouTube's CozyHollow channel that featured fitting footage of various 1960s hippie-era nostalgia that hit me deep: Scott McKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair).

I was 17 when this song was released in 1967 ─ I turned 18 later in October. So the 'flower children' culture was something I strongly identified with ─ I just wasn't into drugs. But I longed to have the courage and mindset to have been able to socialize and be a part of that unique community of people, and not be as pathetically isolated as I was.

The music of that time is powerfully evocative for me. I began feeling emotional looking at all of those beautiful young people in the video, realizing that most of them are probably dead now, and certainly elderly if they are still alive, for I am 76 years old.

Then I noticed another video I wanted to watch ─ it had been uploaded September 19, 2025, to YouTube's Smurfstools Oldies Music Time Machine channel: MARIANNE FAITHFULL 📀 As Tears Go By {DES Stereo} 1965.

That one brought out my tears. My life could have been so different, if only I had met a woman strong enough to only want to be with me, and who was totally determined and committed that we would make a life together ─ maybe I would have found the missing courage to have done something with my life as a young adult and not when I was deep into my declining middle age.

When I saw and played a third video ─ one uploaded March 5, 2017, to YouTube's MrHaagsesjonny1 channel: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐬 - 𝐁𝐄 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 - 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 @ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛 ─ I had to force myself away from these music videos or I was going to get nothing more done.

I used to want to have a suicide soundtrack of all the songs from back when I was a teen and maybe some from my early 20s ─ something I could play off in the wilderness somewhere while I got steadily drunk and worked up the nerve to kill myself. The heartache and regret and loss that old beautiful music causes me would push me over so I could do the deed however I had intended.

But with today's technology, I could probably have a video soundtrack with a backup power source ─ if need be ─ that might run for a couple of days. That would really do it ─ actually watching those young performers I loved back then who are mostly gone now.

I seem to have done nothing but make ruinous, wasteful mistakes all through my teen and adult life.

My wife seems to have left now at 4:30 p.m. without having said a word to me as I have sat here at my bedside computer with my back to my open bedroom door ─ she had to pass by it quite a number of times as she bustled about.

It is very possible that she is gone now until sometime Friday ─ maybe after work that evening. This is the partnership I have ─ not some idealized 'flower girl' of the 1960s who I could have grown old with, and who loved so many of the things I loved, as I would have loved those that she loved.

Heck, my wife wasn't even born until 1973 ─ the 1960s were nothing she lived through and keenly misses. 

I must break from blogging. I want to do some drinking, so I am going to tune in a couple of the T.V. shows I follow here on my bedside computer and shut myself up in my darkened bedroom and lose myself for a while. It is 4:43 p.m.

But I sure feel like watching old music videos and crying.

🞇🞇🞇🞇

My first show was the rather musical Smash ─ episode five ("Let's Be Bad") of season one. My source was this TVSeries.video link.

The singing and dancing ─ and the absolutely awesomely muscled legs of both actresses Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty ─ were unquestionably diverting of my gloom.

And I finally saw the actress who is the reason I started watching the series ─ Tala Ashe of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. However, she did not come across as memorable nor striking as she was to me in that particular series. But she does have another five appearances to put in on Smash, so who knows?

The show and almost all of my first can of Cariboo Malt (7.9% alcohol) were done by 5:48 p.m.

My second beer and show got me as far as 7 p.m. The show was Profiler ─ episode four ("I'll Be Watching You") of the first season. My source was this 1Moviesz.to link.

It was enjoyable throughout, and it was grand occasionally hearing the famous saxophone hit "Stranger on the Shore" ─ it took me awhile to nail down the instrumental's title. I finally believed that it might be "Moonight on the Shore", so nothing was resulting in my search. Oh, well.

But it was a clarinet ─ not a saxophone: hear it by Acker Bilk at this YouTube link. I had the impression correct that it was an Acker Bilk hit, at least.

Incidentally, Google AI had no idea that the song was played a few times throughout that episode, so AI doesn't know everything.

I had gotten damned hungry because I had only eaten the one early meal today, but I just didn't have it in me to have to hobble down the stairs in full view of Bev squatting in the living room on the chesterfield where she sits all the day long watching (my!) T.V. from the time she rises sometime midday until she finally goes to bed at night.

I hate this marginalization in my supposedly own home.

My brother returned home from his daily social drinking before I commenced my next show.

That show was FBI ─ episode 20 ("Startup") of season seven. My source was this TVSeries.video link.

They actually had me wondering if they were killing off Missy Peregrym's character. It was a good episode!

And it was done by 8:44 p.m., along with a 10- or 11-ounce blend of Chilean Diablo Dark Red (13.5% alcohol) and Canadian Sommet Rouge (12% alcohol) wine in approximately equal portions in the glass.

So at 8:54 p.m. as I type these words, I am unsure what I shall now do. Certainly I will take the time to brush my teeth ─ generally 15 or so minutes; but will I just call it an evening and go to bed? I crave close and intimate human physical connection, which I have not had since sometime in March 2013.

I am decaying for want of it. Morally, at least ─ shut up here in my cell of imprisonment that has become my physically crippled and debt-ridden home situation here in South Asian-dominant Surrey.

I will say nothing more in this post. Tomorrow's will tell the tale, if sordid it is to be.

How can such a hopeful, relatively romantically pure teenager from the 1960s become this wretch?