the hippo's ears

Before this corona thing really hit for me - I think it was when I learned that the Ten Cat would be closed, and then I realized that all the restaurants would be closed too.  My regular Friday lunch with my sister was gone and my every other week lunch with a pal of mine, and the possibility of meeting up with the friends I wouldn't be seeing in my classes was gone - I was thinking of taking up the subject of music and language.

Old Dog had written of Elton John and how he wrote the music then sent it off to somebody else, who wasn't even that close a friend, who wrote the words.  I am not a big fan of Elton John, but from what I recall the songs are toe tappers.  The words are, well now that I think back on it, I hardly recall the words, just a phrase here and there, kind of lyrical but not any sense of a strong story that hangs together,  Elton sings the songs that the other guy writes, and I think he has a distinctive phrasing, odd that he doesn't write the words.  Maybe the music is everything, and the words are just fillers, like scat.  Maybe that is always the case, the music has to come first.  You never hear of people taking a poem already written and putting it to music.

But I think it is different with people who write both the music and the words.  Oh often the words are crap, I love you Baby, you're so beautiful, blah, blah, blah.  But other times, when the words are complex the two seem intricately woven into each other.  Or so I think, but I don't really understand music and I don't know anybody who writes the words and the music.

Ok, that was to break up the monotony of corona and give Old Dog's posting some mention.  I think we don't hear near enough from Old Dog and I like to encourage his participation.

I still listen to CNN most of the afternoon.  Politics was not only something I was passionate about on my side, but it was also like a sport to me.  I have never been a true sports fan, if it wasn't about the Cubs then I wasn't much interested.  But a true sports fan, even if it's not his team playing, even if it is a sport in which he has no team, he can watch a game with interest (Speaking of which, have you looked at the sports pages lately?  Nothing going on.  The sportswriters are writing stories with white knuckles),

But now there is almost no politics on CNN, it is all corona.  I just heard somebody on the radio speaking of it as the hippo's ears, as in you can see the hippo's ears, but you don't know how big a hippo is under that muddy water.

Some guy in Otsego county.  What does that mean?  Did he pick it up from somewhere far away, if not from who locally?  And where has he been since then and where are the people he's been around in those places now?  You can go to a raucous party with food and drink and dancing and high fives and fisticuffs, and come home perfectly fine.  Or you can just amble down to the Seven Eleven and pick up a candy bar, that somebody happened to sneeze on five minutes before you came in and, well you know the rest.