Deep Thoughts

No, my "Deep Thoughts" probably won't be as funny as Jack Handey's always were, but they will cover a few things that I've been thinking about recently. (And some of them MIGHT be funny.)

I prefer the SOUND of the music to the CONTENT of the music. Heidi and I have been having this debate obliquely for quite a while...almost, I'd say, since we first met. Heidi is very much a lyrics person. She's totally fine with the girl-on-piano-with-microphone or the guy-at-mic-strumming-guitar sound we've had for about 3000 years. In fact, I can envision a caveman standing up in front of a bunch of other cavemen, all of whom are inhaling some sort of smoke from weeds of various sorts and drinking some kind of early brewed beverage, with the standing caveman grunting and plucking some early stringed instrument, and all of the inhaling/drinking cavemen (and cavewomen) are furrowing their gigantic brows on their huge cranial ridges meaningfully, because that caveman's grunts really speak to them. Ugh.

I'm not into that. I want music that sounds good. This is probably primarily why I am not a concert person. It's all too common to go to a concert and have the sound totally suck. Maybe the performer is sick and not 100% with their voice. Maybe the sound crew screwed up the mixing and you can't even hardly hear the music because the bass is so loud. Maybe the acoustics are horrible in the venue and the sound crew has the music up too loud overall. I've experienced all of those in the few concerts of various genres I've attended. I prefer the clean sound you get out of the studio, because I want to hear the music in its most perfect form. Don't get me wrong, I've been to a few good concerts (Jon Bon Jovi on his Bounce tour at Pepsi Center a few years back, and the Chris Isaak show that Heidi and I went to both spring to mind). However, there are just too many variables, and you only get one shot. (Besides, I've discovered that most folks go to concerts to self-medicate, anyway; Heidi and I were offered pipes and other "paraphernalia" no fewer than 3 times on the way in to see Dave Matthews Band a couple of years ago.)

I also have always preferred instrumental work to vocal work. I think this is why I tend to prefer electronica; not a lot of lyrics in that genre, and what you do get is humorous or cool samples of movie lines or other talk that is spoken, not sung. There are some songs that I really like, where the lyrics are meaningful to me and really do enhance the song. Paul Simon's work, or Sting, or Chris Isaak, and a few others, can all hit that mark for me, but it's difficult to find that with consistency, even for those lyrical titans. It's a very delicate balance, and too many "musicians" focus too much on lyrics, when what they really should do is just write poetry. They spend more time trying hard to make their lyrics ironic or provocative, and not enough time making the music sound good. Any joker can write a poem, then set it to three chords played over and over again in 4/4 time. I know this because I've done that very thing, and I don't consider myself much of a musician. Using interesting chord structures or time signatures (like 5/4 or 7/4 or 6/8, for example), changing chords at musically interesting or meaningful points (or actually changing keys at all, for that matter), incorporating unique rhythms and beats, or displaying amazing virtuosity with a specific instrument...those are the parts of music that REALLY spark my musical appetite.

This all might come from growing up with the mic-and-guitar or mic-and-piano sound, as my dad did that very thing for a long time, singing folk gospel at various churches throughout the state of Oklahoma. I guess it never moved me like it seems to do for so many others, precisely because I have heard it for so long, and it was so close to me all the time. It also probably comes from performing vocal music myself from the time I was about 7 or 8 until I went to college, and even then I still do impromptu performances when asked. I love to sing, and I love to use my voice, but the same old sounds all the time bore me. I bet this also explains why I prefer all-male choirs to mixed or all-female choirs; the all-male sound just appeals to me more, because it isn't quite as common as the others. And of course, these don't hold true for me all the time; there are many times when a full mixed choir, or a singer-and-piano song, or even a check-your-brain-at-the-door driving rock (like Andrew WK's work, for example), really appeals to me.

WOW, how did that last one get so long? I wasn't planning on making this an all-day affair.

I love working on cars, and I seem to be thinking about it a lot lately, but there's definitely a difference between working on a car because you want to, and working on a car because you have two days to get it in good running order before you have to drive it to work on Monday. I much prefer the former.

We watched Better Off Dead last night, and if you haven't seen it before, or you haven't seen it in a long time, go watch it. It's a classic 80s film, but it transcends some of its time and it is SO funny! I always enjoyed how well the teen POV is portrayed. The scene where Lane's mom (Lane is the main character) makes dinner after "improvising" is a wonderful example. The pages of the magazine containing the recipe she used ran together in the rain, and she couldn't read some of it. So she used her own creative ideas and ended up with this snot-like concoction "with raisins in it...you like raisins." She spoons some out and it oozes off the spoon onto Lane's plate. As he listens to his dad lecture him about a car he purchased months before, Lane pokes and prods the mound of green goo, only to watch in horror as it crawls off his plate! Priceless! Not only could you imagine that very thing happening yourself before it happens, but how many times were you in that situation as a teen? Not necessarily something your mom made, but we've all been somewhere that provided food that really looked like the most disgusting thing you've ever seen.

Owen has been sick lately and we haven't been sleeping very well. Heidi has it worse than me; I tend to sleep pretty heavily and usually end up sleeping through some of his crying. Heidi ends up getting up with him quite a bit, though. He had been doing well with sleeping through the night but the last few nights have been very difficult for us all. There's nothing worse than your baby being sick; they just get so clingy and it's so pathetic. You really feel for them and you just want to hold them and do whatever you can to make them feel better.

I'm tired of letting life get me down so much. I'm going to work much harder to be positive and constructive again. Long-time readers remember that I used to use that as my mantra, but with everything that's been going on the past several months, I've really lost my way. It has truly tested my faith and has battered me about terribly. But it's time to turn the page now, and I plan to do that.

That's enough for now, I think. Thanks for reading along.