Valentine’s Day 2020 – Bob ‘s Valentine to You – Music, Words, and Much Love

Those of you who know me well (or have known me for a long time) are familiar with my Love/Hate relationship with the short, ugly, miserable, Month of February.

Hmmm …come to think of it, most people who get to know me well usually don’t have the grapes to know me for a long time. Half Milers.

Anyway …about February ….

It is a Flat Tire on the Way to Spring …As Cold and as Dark as the Hole where Senate Republican’s Hearts and Souls Should Be (Nice try Mitt …keep it up) …Windy enough to blow the sheets off of Trump’s Birmingham Alabama Based Bird Brained Brigade …and as Clammy as an Evangelist’s Hand Shake.

If I had my way, I would have February removed from the Calendar, and its days divided up equally between May, June, July, August, and September.

…But February does have a couple of redeeming moments to justify its continued existence …for now.

There are a few birthdays of people I love, and the anniversary of my being adopted and becoming a Segarini, and, of course, today.

Valentine’s Day.

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The holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival, which celebrated the coming of spring, included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery. At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I replaced Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day.

A pagan fertility ritual was held in February each year and the Pope abolished this festival and proclaimed 14 February Saint Valentine’s Day, thus establishing this feast day on the Catholic Calendar of Saints. The poet Chaucer in the Middle Ages was the first to link St Valentine with romantic love.

It celebrates romantic love, making it a popular day for couples to spend together. Valentine’s Day is traditionally associated with red hearts, romance, flowers, candy or other sweet things, and the exchange of cards, called valentines, that express love. – Wikipedia (In case there’s a quiz when you get pulled over by the Police tonight on your way home from dinner.

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These days, a lot of people just dismiss the holiday, calling it a Hallmark Cash Grab, and there is some truth to that, but I am Old School, and the sentiment expressed, the flowers and the chocolates, the candlelight dinners and the renewal of those first feelings toward one another, especially in a long-term relationship, Valentine’s Day is a pause in the day to day problems and routine, to remember how …and WHY you are together.

…and sometimes …you REALLY need to do that.

Because Love, and Relationships …are fucking hard work.

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Women – From Loving to Landmine in 60 Seconds or Less

They can go from this morning’s Delicate Flower to this afternoon’s Cage Match Psycho.

Even the tiny ones can frisbee a 5 lb. ashtray across the room with deadly accuracy.

Lady-like and poised in public, they can threaten a man with the kind of torture and slow, painful, death normally found only in accounts of the Spanish Inquisition and the Saw movies.

They can trash talk, emasculate, brow-beat, ridicule, demean, and neuter a man so skillfully, that he will end up holding her purse while she buys towels at Bed Bath and Beyond, then watch This is Us with her on TV instead of the Super Bowl.

Bitches be Powerful, Yo.

Men – From Thoughtful, Loving Courtship to Bring Me a Beer before you go Pick Up the Pizza …Game’s on.

No matter how strong a man is, his back will go out if he has to vacuum or pick up a sock.

Men know everything except where their sunglasses/favourite shirt/keys/ anything they’re looking for are. Without a woman, most men would just wander around the house naked looking for pants all day.

There are plates and bowls in the fridge containing unrecognizable lumpy things covered in mold.

There is a half-eaten slice of pizza under the couch.

Men will drive around for months with a growing pile of un-mailed bill payments, insurance renewals, Christmas cards and forgotten bags of corn dogs and tacos because “I forgot”.

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PLEASE DON’T ASK THESE QUESTIONS

Women

“Do you think I’m pretty”

“Does this dress/skirt/picture of Taylor Swift make me look fat?”

“Do you still love me?”

“What do you think Donna should do about Mark working with that bitch he went out with in high school?”

“Why do you wear that shirt?”

Men

“Are you gaining weight?”

“Do you mind if Gary and Kevin have dinner with us and watch the game here tonight?”

“Hey, come here and do that thing I like you to do to me. C’mon don’t you love me?”

“Did you hear ANYTHING I just said?”

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Somehow, we manage to keep relationships together if we’re smart and work at them, and remember  how great they can be.

Truth be told, all the whining here sounds stereotypical, but the do’s and don’ts are interchangeable for men and women nowadays. I think many of us are more comfortable with ourselves, more understanding of the other person’s position, and more willing to learn, or adjust, or tolerate the behavior of those we love.

At least, I’d like to THINK we’ve come a long way in our understanding of love and its constant need for our attention to it.

Love is uncompromising in its arbitrary (and sometimes frustrating) pairing between two people who may find themselves madly in love with someone they don’t even LIKE half the time.

That’s the Power of Love.

It doesn’t give a fuck about us.

Happy Valentine’s Day all you Miserable Love Birds

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This is an old Valentine’s Day column which is just seething with nice, sweet, songs about love. You can check it out if this one hasn’t been enough.

Valentine’s Day Playlist

https://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/segarini-30-great-well-crafted-love-songs-for-valentines-day/

This is my latest earworm worthy artist, one of the members is the granddaughter of John Wayne, and they tick all my musical boxes.

Wonderful melody, beautiful harmony, killer musicians, and a real, honest to God SONG that tells a story and is brimming with joy of performance and unencumbered by artifice, weirdness, meat dresses, or anything but talent.

And please …if you are one of those people who have deprived yourself of great music because you are genre-specific, you really should open your eyes and ears and listen.

These young women are now on my radar. And I’m a couple of years late in finding them. LOVE this song.

Runaway Jane

Alright, what the hell. Open the first video and let them play. Some familiar faces and some not, but damn! these are ALL damn good songs with the same criteria as the Runaway Jane track.

Great videos of fine music. Turn it up and full screen …it’s all easy on the eyes too …and EVERY SONG tells a story!

This is proof that songs are still being written.

Sorry …but the current Pop flavours of the month pale compared to this stuff …at least for me.

All about love lust family friends and pickups.

Ain’t nothin’ more romantic than that.

67 Tracks From Country’s Newest, Best, and Brightest

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Segarini’s regular columns appear to be scented with the fragrance of Roses, Pinot Grigio, and Garlic

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, continues to write music, make music, and record.