Being on a military base in Baghdad can be an interesting place to spend a year. Take TV for instance. The free stuff is provided by the Armed Forces Network (AFN) and typically consists of 8 channels of various programming. At any given moment you may find sports, news (24 hrs delayed), older sitcoms, first run shows like CSI and Lost, and children’s programming. The other day I found myself totally captivated by the Disney movie, The Emperor’s New Groove. At one point in the movie, Kronk is sneaking around the castle walls and he starts to hum his own theme music. Classic! This got me thinking, What if everyone had their own theme music? What if you could just stop time after some significant moment in your life and bust out in your own music video. Not only would that be awesome, but then everyone around you could go, “Yeah, I see where he is coming from now. Those choreographed moves speak volumes. This guy is really hurting and we should be more considerate.”
OK, so this leads me to what happened the other day. A guy I know over here had the unfortunate experience of walking in on his girlfriend with another girl. I know what the guys are thinking, but no, it was not that cool and he was basically destroyed. He left the next morning and we were just sort of sitting around the office in the aftermath. We spoke about how he was a good guy and deserved better. We did the obligatory trashing of the girlfriend. And then something different happened. We started thinking about what his theme song would be for this particular moment. There were some early favorites, but ultimately we settled on “I’d do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf. A morning that started glum was suddenly filled with howling laughter as we planned out every detail of his music video. From the dramatic run in the rain to the scene where he just collapses to his knees looking up in the sky, fists clenched. I have to tell you, it may not have helped my buddy, but the rest of us felt great afterwards.
See you next month for another 96
96 seconds. I read somewhere this is the average time folks are willing to spend reading a blog. This got me thinking about “the need-it-now and please abbreviate” culture we choose to immerse ourselves in. Hell, we couldn’t even take calling it a web log. The collective voice was shouting, “UGH! This six letter concoction is way too long. I’ll just say ‘blog’ instead and save the two extra letters for when I have more time.”
that Top 40 music has also felt the time pinch. Back in the 50’s, Elvis covered everything he wanted to say in an average 2 min 30 sec. Kick it off with a verse, hit ‘em with a catchy chorus, one more verse, two more choruses, outro and Elvis had left the building. Then sometime between Pink Floyd and DMB, the song length grew and grew to an absurd 4 minutes. That was fine for a while, but then folks started getting antsy. Radio stations started to feel the pinch as folks began employing the “station-preset – no whammies – give me something new and make it quick” approach to listening. Even MTV got in on the fun by doing a top-twenty video countdown in half the time by simply mentioning some of the videos. I guess they already knew which ones I was waiting to see. So today I was listening to Train’s new song, “Hey, Soul Sister.” It is a very likable Jason Mraz-esque type song that keeps you humming all day.
