So I was streaming some IndiePop songs on YouTube and found this one by OneRepublic – it caught my ear so I had to give it a Screamie Birds spin for Rocktober.
Mixed in headphones (recommended for listening).
“Cooler Than Me” – Rocktober 2025 is Happening! #rocktober #coversongs
“The Voice” season has started and that means I may be inspired to do cover songs this month just in time for Rocktober. So when I heard Max Cooper’s version of “Cooler Than Me” by Mike Posner, I knew I had to try it. Totally different “Screamie Birds-style” and I changed some of the lyrics to add a rhyme to some of the verses (marked by parens) and one for language.
Mixed in headphones (recommended for listening).
Rave Reviews for “Pom Pom Cigarettes”
Song #11 on the “Once Upon a Time” album is “Pom Pom Cigarettes” and is my favorite (although the title song may make it a tie). Here are some of the comments from the music community:
Btw, are you wondering what a”Pom Pom Cigarette” is and where did the inspiration for this song come from?
“Pom Pom” is not only the name of the newest Logic sample pack, but a “Pom Pom” cigarette is a cigarillo or cigar. Last year, we cruised to the Dominican Public, where many of the original Cuban cigar makers have relocated to. We toured one of the factories. So these two things inspired this song, one of my favorites.
- Love those southwestern sounding horns. This has a swanky feel to it. Like a life of luxury and intrigue. The swing on the drums in the verses is so fun.
- Thats a great intro muted instrument. very compelling beat, the piano.melody is really good. love this one!
- You paint a compellingly steamy scenario that is very vibrant and vivid with your words, vocals and musical arrangement…smokin’!
- Love the cadence, the way the words flow: cigarette/back step, long and lean. It all flows so nicely. The whole thing as great atmosphere and bounce, and those horns really are a treat
- I can understand why this is your favorite new song. It’s got a lot of saucy attitude and swagger. Good call about listening through headphones. Sounds gorgeous. Your layered vocals are wonderful. Mixed nicely with just the right amount of reverb. Love the horns and again, you’re acing it as far as where and when they come in. Kathy – you seriously know how to produce a track! Bravo!
- This is just so…cool. That’s the only word for it. Love that “pink/drink” internal line–it has some magic. I found it really interesting how the intervals in the two vocals weave in and out. And those horns! Well done, Kathy.
- BRASS…love it. You have a real touch with those brass fills and runs. This is way too cool and then that bass comes in and takes it to another level ..great job!!!
#NaPoWriMo #Poem #1 Shiny House
A new shiny house spoke to me one more time
Open plan they called it to sit and stir without reason or rhyme
But thinkers and feelers like to cook in silence
Sipping and soaking and lapping up the quiet
Not surrounded by crowds and minions
with opinions
I began to miss the old house I’d left behind
The one with walls and counters and storage for wine
Alone with thoughts and plans with pen in hand
To roam about without signaling my intentions, small or grand
Dancing and dreaming with my own rock band
The dream at the beginning started so simply
But with each new house builders became so greedy
Removing walls as if we all were one
Racing to the end with nothing more than a staple gun
Where did the carpet go
Did anybody even know
The place where the kids and dogs and kittens would play
Sure it got scruffy with love and wear day after day
But the mysteries of tile so hard to clean
and worse under the soft pads of feet
Demanded my time sacrificing writing and playing and even my sleep
Adventures in Moving: Revisiting the First Leg of the Journey
After our first trip to Disney World together in 1999, we longed to move to Florida. Little did we know that our first interstate move, from San Francisco to Oregon, would be the first leg of the journey that would take us to Florida twice, Las Vegas twice, Oregon 3 times, and back to the SF Bay Area.
You leave a little piece of your heart in each place, so we can’t help but reminisce about some of the stops along the way, especially when we’ve owned a home.
Recently, we were remembering our first home in the NW Portland area on that first move. This is where we got our first 3 kittens (Skipper, Buddy, and Lovey) and, most recently, Shadow.
Looking up that home online, we discovered it had been sold about a year ago and the photos were still online. We saved the photos, of course, and wanted to post them here.
It was fun to see what they’d done with the townhouse since we owned it – some improvements we’d hoped to make: wood floors and grass in the backyard. They also put in bookshelves flanking the fireplace, but, unfortunately, that took away some of the living space, making for an odd layout (certainly with their furniture), combining 2 rooms into 1.
It was a great starter home for us, fresh up from the Bay Area where, like so many, we lived in a rental apartment. It was a thrill to move to a place where we could build and customize a new home, even if it was a townhouse. It was perfect for us back then.
Elvis, Tom Jones, and my BFFs
Happy birthday, Elvis! In honor of the day, I posted this short on YouTube from “Vegas Nights” on the Carnival Mardi Gras. I’m also going to highlight an excerpt from “Elvis, Tom Jones, and my BFFs.”
Carol’s parents drove their Buick Riviera through the desert from southern California to Las Vegas every August and would stay at the Tropicana. And when Carol reached a certain age – 13 or 14 – she was allowed to invite a friend along. The first friend to go was our friend, Beverly. And I still remember my excitement over the postcard they sent me with a picture of the Folies Bergere.
Carol invited me to go to Vegas with her the next year to see Elvis at the International, but I had to turn her down because my family moved to Oregon. But Beverly got to take my place and I eventually saw Elvis in Portland. And, later, as an adult, I stayed at the Tropicana several times and saw the Folies Bergere several times as well.
I also saw Tom Jones a couple of times, too. Anyway, here’s the Tom Jones story Beverly shared with me.
I think it was at the Desert Inn and we saw it two years in a row. It was Pizazz. It was like a Broadway review. Lots of dancing and singing. I don’t remember it being a story, more like different acts somehow put together. Probably a typical Las Vegas show at that time, very flashy. We always sat in a booth (Carol’s Dad tipped big) and of course those were in the back. Tom Jones was in the booth next to us. Carol says she doesn’t remember much but she does remember putting a hole in her dress with her thumb trying to rearrange herself to get a better look at Tom. She remembers her dress was the one she wore to the Willard graduation.
Oh, Carol, I can just see you doing that right now. I so remember us squealing over Tom Jones when he first came out. And how my mother, more of an Elvis fan, said, “He walks like a horse.” lol!
Her comment didn’t stop us from thinking he was pretty exciting.
Kathy Holmes Music 