The Big Song

Certainly you know the concept of "seeing the big picture." Or at least I hope you do. It's when you don't get bogged down in the details, and try to see a situation broadly; seeing the car as a car, not a collection of auto parts.

Recently it dawned on me how much value there is in looking for the big picture. This was something that happened when I heard a song on the radio from the Beatles. It was "A Day In The Life." It has been a long time since I have heard this one, and it was quite the marvel of new technology back in 1967 when the Beatles unleashed the revolutionary Sgt. Pepper's upon an unsuspecting pop-musical world. In fact, it was so full of ear candy back then, people would spend hours just listening to it over and over, trying to listen to ever nuance. It was an exercise in musical deconstruction' "did you hear that piano part just go on forever?"

As a musician, I've performed this same exercise thousands of times. In fact, it's usually impossible for me to hear a song without isolating the drums in my head to see what the drummer is up to, or wondering what effects pedals the guitarist is using, or trying to guess if that's really a fretless bass being played or not. I am a full-time deconstructionist, when it comes to listening to music.

But recently, when I heard "Day" again for the first time in ages, something amazing happened to me. I heard this song as if for the first time, like when I was a kid back in the 70's and got ahold of my first copy of Sgt. Peppers (which was 10 years old at the time). I was not yet a musician. I did not really know how to deconstruct a song to listen for all of it's musical ingredients. I only knew how to listen to the whole song. Well, mostly. I mean, I knew there was a symphony, and I knew what the piano sounded like, etc. But I did not intentionally break anything down. I listened to the song as one unit. I could see the big picture, or, in this case, I could hear the big song.

So recently, when I rediscovered this one song, and totally dismissed my normal musical ear and reveled in the overall beauty of this amazing composition, it almost moved me to tears. I had forgotten what a song could sound like if I would not destroy it, blast it into a million pieces, and judge each piece for it's contribution. I merely heard the song, I did not analyze it. And it was amazing. For the rest of the car drive home from work, I did the same thing for each and every song that followed on the classic rock station. Even Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" sounded fresh, powerful, and emotive.

After this experience, I noticed that there was room for this big song effect to play out in other areas of my life. Like parenting. Maybe I need to enjoy my kids sometimes instead of analyzing the heck out of everything they do. Just look at them, see the whole person, and enjoy them. And religion. I am quite the apologetic guy with my faith; I love to read all the books about what evidence there is for the validity of the Bible, for believing in the resurrection of Christ, etc. It has now dawned on me that, while these things are still good, I need to put them away every now and again and merely revel in how cool life really is. To appreciate what God has given me, without analyzing His every move. Art too. I am trying to stop seeing each brush stroke that Monet used, and look at the whole picture.

I've been doing this now for a month, and it's like spring time. I'm seeing quite a few things in a very different light. I hope that if you are like me and break it all down, maybe you can focus on hearing the big song for a change.

Old Sayings That Are Full Of Cr@P

How many times have you heard someone say "You can't judge a book by it's cover?" Sayings like this have a purpose. They are supposed to take a literal statement that everyone is familiar with, and allow you to apply it metaphorically to other more difficult to understand situations. Usually, this particular statement is used to clarify that you cannot judge other people simply by appearances. Judging other people is complicated business, so apparently by applying a simple thing like the process of judging a book by it's cover, it helps us make better sense out of the complicated process of judging other people.

Have you ever bought a book? Let's say you wanted to get something that's kind of Sci-Fi, futuristic, dealing with robots. You walk up to a shelf, see a book sitting there, and it has a nice photograph of a little girl sitting in a field of daisies. Is this your book? Absolutely not. Why? The cover. I guarantee you that publishers adhere to very strict principles about how best to reflect a book's content and to make that book appeal to a specific kind of reader. Why, then, are they spending a massive amount of time and money on doing this if it does not matter?

If you really can't judge a book by it's cover, why on earth did anyone think this would make a convincing metaphor for judging other people? I think it kind of sends the wrong message, ya know?

Here's another one. "Money can't buy you happiness." What are we to learn from this? That rich people are miserable from the weight of all that cash. I think what it should say is "money won't necessarily buy you happiness, but it's probably going to help avoid a lot of misery." If money didn't help to improve the human condition, why do charities want us to give it to them? Really. Think about that. OBVIOUSLY money is a good thing. Just as "guns don't kill people, people kill people," I think that "money doesn't corrupt people, greed for money corrupts people." Here's where that other old saying of "Everything in moderation" earns it's stripes...it's not an old saying that's full of cr@p. I hear a lot of lottery winners say they wish they had never won the big powerball...but I think they are just lacking money management skills. I think I would manage just nicely, thank you very much. Am I being greedy? No, just wishing to have the resources to live my life comfortably and to help others in need any time I want to. That would be ideal.

One more. "Never put off until tomorrow that which you can accomplish today." Well, I could go into a lot of detail here, but I'll come back tomorrow to finish this blog post then.

Death by Twitter

In a recent blog post, I was whining about how high profile Twitter accounts, such as USSoccer, were not tweeting to my heart's content. Specifically, I was complaining that they were not tweeting enough during the US / Spain soccer match; I was looking for a text on my phone for every goal, but they only supplied the score at the half and after the game.
Ok, so big deal, right? Well, it is now, because things have changed. For the worse. This is a classic case of "be careful what you wish for." Tonight, the US Men's National Team took on Haite in an important game. That game started somewhere around dinner time, yet I began getting texts on my phone from very early in the day. And they didn't stop. They kept coming, in some cases every 30 seconds or so. At one point, my family went to dinner. I was getting really annoyed with cell vibrating every 30 seconds, so I turned off my phone. After dinner, when I turned it back on, I had 42 text messages. All from USSoccer.
So what do you think? What images come to mind? For me, I just pictured some VP at the US Soccer Federation saying at a board meeting "I've decided to turn control of our Twitter account over to my neice, Stephanie. And we're giving her a blackberry." Here's a stream of some of the posts, and maybe you'll see why I am saying this.

• Before we get the #USMNT lineup...what do you want to see? Same lineup as before? New changes to get guys experience? What's ur starting 11?
• The U.S. Soccer Twitter tried to sneak away for a meal and was outed by one of our followers for not tweeting. OK! Now we're back...
• Speaking of press box food fare (and we've had a lot in our day), who can guess the stadium of the best pre-game spread we've encountered?
• Oh, snap. Here comes the FIFA Anthem. You can play along at home by loading it up here - http://bit.ly/HHJBx
• Out come the flags of the countries...

So all of that was before the game even started. Once it did, I counted over 70 more tweets,,,,in a 90 minute game. HOLY COW.
See what I mean? I really think the lazy tweeter from the Spain game must have gotten the sake, and Stephanie with the blackberrie was instructed to tweet until she was blue in the face...to match the blueberry. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got home was to turn off the mobile alers from USSOCCER!
So this demonstrates my previous point quite gloriously...these high profile corporate accounts are going to need to do a little marketing research to find out what their Twitter followers are expecting out of the service. Maybe there were a few psycho soccer fans out there who enjoyed this diareal running of texts all day long, but I'd be willing to bet this did more to annoy more followers than not. So if you get that lucrative job of being a corporate Twitter Tweeter, please do a little research to figure out how much tweeting is a good balance. Hundreds of tweets in a 5 hour period seems like overkill to me.

Thoughts on Warm Worms and Twitter Squatters

Part of my job is to keep current with technology trends. The big site that everyone is buzzing about is Twitter, of course. Last year I set up an account for myself under the name of Herrdue and I use it occasionally. I actually think it's a bit over-hyped right now, but I see some value for certain types of users. The reason I mention this is couple of things have happened there that have left me scratching my head. In fact, I thought I'd share them here.

Global Warming...strike that...Global Worming

After using my own account on Twitter for a few weeks, it dawned on me that Twitter names might just follow the same fate as domain names. People are going to register all the best ones and hope they can sell them at a profit. So I thought to myself, hmmm...if I wanted to register another one just to sit on it, what would that be. Here's where I get to the worms part of this blog entry (see the title of this post).

You see, I had a funny little idea about Global Warming. Funny in that I wondered how many people in this big world of ours might just get that totally wrong and think that it's really Global Worming. Thus an idea was born to register that name on Twitter and see what happens.

Oddly, I have people coming out of the wood-work to follow me at this Global Worming address. They come and they go in droves. They don't even know who I am, nor do I think they have read my profile, because they just keep coming, simply because of the name...Global Worming. I'm still trying to piece this together in my head to figure out what is going on with this little social phenomenon. My current theory is that there must be a number of people out there who really do think that it's Global Worming, not Global Warming. If that's the case, perhaps I should start a business (worm farming), and sell my products around the world. Global Worming Inc. I'm looking into it. Maybe I need a Trademark lawyer.

Who's Tweeting Who?

The other thing that I have found hugely disappointing about Twitter is the use of Twitter as a means of getting alerts about events. When the US Men's National Soccer Team faced Spain in the semi-finals of the recent international tournament, I started following USSoccer on Twitter. I thought for sure that every time someone scored I'd get an update on my mobile device. Didn't happen. In fact, I have also begun following a few other corporate twitter accounts and would also expect to get timely info from these tweeters, but I don't.

For example, if you followed NASCAR on Twitter, wouldn't you expect to get timely notifications of someone involved in a crash on the course? Yes, but these corporate accounts are sometimes controlled by individuals who don't really get how to Tweet that well just yet, or are not manned by people affiliated with the organization. It could be some fan or enthusiast who's registered that name before the organization got around to it. A Twitter Squatter, so to speak.

This reminds me when I was very new to the web in the early 90's. I thought I could just type in www.johnmellencamp.com and it would take me to John Mellencamp's web site. Maybe it does today, but back then, there was some hack out there who had registered that name first and had some pretty skunky content on the site...perhaps he was just waiting for ol' John to come along and offer him a cool million to buy that domain name. Certainly that happened to Madonna, who had to take someone to court to get Madonna.com without being extorted for millions. I'm not sure if this still happens to this extent with web sites, but it appears to be alive and well in the Twitter world.

Maybe that's what I'm doing too...squatting on Global Worming, hoping some industrious worm farmer will want the name and pay me handsomely to surrender the name. I doubt I'd get anything soon, because http://www.globalworming.com/ is not currently for sale by another squatter. For the record, I'm willing to sell this Twitter name to anyone with a check that won't bounce. Just send me direct message on Twitter and I'll have my people tweet your people.

POSTSCRIPT: Since I authored this article a couple of weeks ago, I've noticed that USSOCCER on Twitter did present quite a bit of real-time commentary on their game with Honduras. So maybe I was a bit pre-mature on my critique. Maybe it's just hit or miss as to whether or not organizations will meet their followers tweetspectations.

Unspoken Truths

Have you ever discovered an unspoken truth? One of those things that everyone knows but nobody wants to admit? I don't have a wealth of examples here, but I can tell you about one that I discovered this weekend.

I was sitting on our deck with my wife and kids, just hanging out. My wife brought up that she had had a strange dream, which she proceeded to relay to us. Then my daughter also said she had had a weird dream. But, as I listened to her re-telling of the dream, my mind began to wander. I was looking at the clouds. Then the gutters on the house, thinking about the wasp nest that was under the ending of the gutter. By that time, I was totally out of her story. I'm a very bad Father, yes, I know this.

But this brings me to the hidden truth. I said to all of them, "I have to say something here. I believe there's a hidden, universal truth that applies to everyone, although nobody wants to admit it, and it is this: Every person alive is far more interested in telling other people about their dreams than they are to hear about other people's dreams." This got quite a good reaction from my wife, who then admitted she had also let her mind wander when our daughter was telling us about her dream, despite my wife having just shared her own. We laughed a bit about this, and I really think this is true.

Granted, you could say this is true about other things, not just sharing dreams. I suspect most people would rather tell a story from their childhood than to listen to someone else's. But, I'd bet that with dreams it is a matter of greater degree. Let's face it,,,dreams can be totally whacked out and plain old stupid when you hear someone else telling them. "Then, my friend, who had been standing there, was suddenly my uncle Jim, and he was wearing my old track suit..." That kind of strange. And...disinteresting.

When we dream, there is some magical context that makes it all seem plausible. But others never get that context when we re-tell the dream. They may try to reconstruct the events of the dream in their own mind, but they are missing that magical dreaminess that made it all seem to make sense...almost.

So, let me go on record here in this blog space as saying I really don't want to hear about your dreams. Please. But if you want to hear all about the one where I was riding my bike along the top of a castle wall, I'll be happy to share ;0)

PS - Thanks for reading my blog...although chances are you'd rather have me reading your own.

Sucking-it-up

You hear a lot of parents talk about how they sacrifice for their kids. Early on I knew what that meant. You know...letting your kids spend a little extra to get the sundae bar at the restaurant, going to the movies to see THEIR movie instead of yours, things like that. And it was easy...those sacrifices brought me pleasure.
I graduated from that level of sacrifice many years ago. That was T-ball-esque. I'm now in the minor leagues of sacrifice, by my own estimation. I've been teaching night classes for a dozen years now so that my wife could be the one to pick the kids up from school, and be there with them in the afternoons. For the first two years of doing this, I felt sorry for myself. Especially when I had two night classes in one week. That meant getting up at 6 a.m., coming home at 10:30 p.m. At some point, though, I learned that I could do it without dying, and the complaining in my own head was doing me no good at all. In other words, I learned to suck-it-up.
Sucking-it-up is a healthy thing. It takes you to a new level. It allows you to view hardship more as status-quo, not as a burden, and once that happens it ain't so bad.
Recently I reached an even higher level of sucking-it-up. I won't go into details, but I've been given an escalated challenge regarding my kids. At some point, after stressing out about it for a long time, I've hit that sucking-it-up point again. In fact, once I chose to suck-it-up, a peaceful feeling came over me and a special thought entered my mind to help me through it.
Basically, I realized that there will be very few opportunities in my life to be a hero. Maybe if I had been a EMT, soldier, fireman, police officer, nurse, doctor...whatever...maybe then I would have been a hero, maybe even every day. But I'm not. I'm an office worker. Don't get me wrong, being a dad is important enough, but I know plenty of dads who perform this role without heroism. Heroism comes through sacrifice. I've now associated this new level of sacrifice with my only shot to be a hero. Now suddenly everything is in a different light. In a twisted way, this is selfish; I'm more willing to do this now that there's something in it for me, the good vibe about being a hero. But in another way, it merely validates the importance of what I'm doing, and there's nothing selfish about that. Yes, I can truly be a hero. I am changing two lives, positively, even though it means major inconveniences and stresses in my own life.
I still don't think I've hit the major leagues of sacrifice just yet. Here are a few examples of people who I have witnessed who really know about sacrifice:

• My wife spent nearly 5 months flat on her back while on bed rest during our first pregnancy. If you think this would be luxury, just try it some time when you have 5 months to spare. She also had a strict diet due to gestational diabetes and had a number of other pregnancy-related challenges that proved to be a very difficult 5 months.
• I know a guy who's wife willingly gave up a kidney for her sister. Then, years later, worked a second job after her sister-in-law who came down with cancer and could not work. She gave all the money from that second job to her sister-in-law while she got cancer treatments.
• I have a brother-in-law who's job regularly demands him to work 50 hours in the span of a weekend to meet a deadline. And at the end of that shift, he'll chose NOT to go to bed, but watch a movie with the kids instead.
• Another brother-in-law drives for FedEx and gets some pretty crappy hours and deals with stressful driving conditions all the time...then he comes home to his farm and drives fence posts into the ground (by hand) for hours on end because of his legal need to fence out trespassers. He's one of the hardest working guys I know.
• My parents remind me of when I was a baby, they'd pray for storms. My dad worked at Cincinnati Bell, climbing telephone poles, and if there was a storm, he'd get overtime, and that meant they could pay the heat bill.
• My sister raised her son as a single mom because her husband died when my nephew was only 1 year old. She won't admit this was heroic, but I think it is.
• Speaking of single moms...I have met hundreds of them while teaching at Cincinnati State. They are raising their kids and getting an education at the same time, to make a better future for the family. I see them coming from the bus stop on rainy days, with their kids, on the way to the childcare on campus. I don't care what got them into their single-mother-hood, they are still working hard to get out, and that's commendable.

So, basically, I'm surrounded by people who suck-it-up. This makes my own sucking-up go a little smoother, to take their lead.
I believe it's God who's behind all this sucking-up. Once you've been a Christian long enough, you begin to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit at work. Non-believers would just say this is delusional thinking, but I know I'm not deluded since delusions don't impact other areas of my life. I know I'm right about this (unless I'm deluded about being delusional!). My latest challenges are just another chapter in that spiritual saga.
Where I work we have these performance goals called "stretch goals" where they hold you accountable to achieve something that's almost impossible. The boss knows you probably won't make it, but it will stretch you in the right direction and make you stronger as a result. I think God is big on stretch goals. If you feel you are being stretched, perhaps you should pray to God for the ability to suck-it-up. I think the sucking helps you achieve the goal, but if you don't suck-it-up, your self pity makes the goal even less attainable. I've found it to do wonders for my ability to handle life's tough stuff.

Is Soccer Boring?

I've been asked a few times recently why the heck I'm a soccer fan. And usually, within a few minutes of the conversation, the inevitable comment surfaces; soccer is boring.
I'm sure a lot of people think so. After all, who wants to watch a game that ends 0-0 after 90 minutes of kicking a ball around? The secret is, however, that sometimes those can make tremendous games.

For example, take the Chivas USA v.s. L.A. Galaxy game from 4/11/09. There were penalties out the wazoo, with a couple of ejections and some very close shots on goal. All of these things alone can be exciting, but the reason it was a good game despite no scores, was because of the passion for possession. Here's another video to show you what I'm talking about.

This is what makes just about any game worth watching, IMHO. You can miss this if you are not paying attention. In fact, I missed this for years before it clicked. It took a few games of World Cup 2006 to open my eyes. In particular, it took watching those games along with a group of international soccer fans. They made me realize this was not just a case of a bunch of guys on the field passing the ball back and forth. There's a great deal of drama and physical exertion involved, once you catch on to this continual battle that's taking place for 90 minutes.

Americans, in general, have a taste for a lot of scoring. And I understand that. Although, I just don't get the NBA...there's SO much scoring that each basket seems less important in the grand scheme of things. And there's plenty of football games that end with just a handful of scores; a game of 10-7 amounts to just three scores during the game, which is also not uncommon in a Soccer match.

And with respect to boredom, please don't get me started on Baseball. Yawn.

So the next time you see a soccer match on TV, take a few minutes and try to look for the battle for possession. See if maybe this will help you find a little more value in the game.

Signs of Life Found in Oakley

April 10, 2009The marquee of the 20th Century Theater in the heart of Oakley (suburb of Cincinnati, OH) shimmered in reflection against the puddles that snaked across the sidewalk below. Even in the watery reflection, you could make out the message that Signs of Life, a Pink Floyd tribute band, would be performing at 8 p.m. And perform they did, quite remarkably, to keep a throng of aging Pink Floyd fans happy for a few hours.

Let's not kid any one; the realm of Tribute Bands has a great capacity for comic relief. I've endured a number of such shows that left me in stitches, including a Rush tribute featuring a Geddy Lee wanna-be who lost his pony-tailed wig while working out on "Working Man." I knew there was potential for this kind of thing going into the Signs of Life (SoL) show and was prepared for what could have been something of a farce. But I also had prior knowledge of some of the players in this band and I knew there would be respect given to the music of Rock-n-Roll hall-of-famer, Pink Floyd.

Jonathan Stankorb, the leader of SoL, has quite a well established reputation for honoring monolithic musicians and doing so with taste. Previously Jon had pulled off a Joe Satriani tribute band and played in a Beatles review as well, both appealing to musically astute fans throughout the mid-west where Jon’s tours traversed. Rick Fields on keys and guitar, who exuded a "Musical Director" air about him during the SoL show, is the kind of guy who could probably pick up any instrument and play it well within a half-an-hour. And lastly I was also familiar with two of the three background singers. Despite my familiarity with these people, there was still considerable room for error in their handling of one of classic rock’s favorite outfits.

As for the show itself, the band played two sets with a 30 minute break in the middle. The volume level was perfect; loud enough to enjoy without sending cock-roaches scurrying for the exits. I'll give SoL a B- for the first set, and a solid A for the second set. I think the B- was attributed to nervousness more than anything else, as this was the first public performance for SoL. There were some missed cues, syncing problems between musicians, and some equipment struggles as well (neglected settings changes on foot pedals, missed readjustments of volume knobs, that kind of thing). Despite the jitters, this generally did not negatively impact the quality of the music or the overall performance; non-musicians probably did not notice any of this.

Sometimes with these tribute shows there is a danger of fan disdain if their favorite group's catalog is not well represented. This was not a problem here, the band was wise in their selections. Prior to the start of the SoL show, I asked someone sitting next to me just how much of the 1960's pop fare might be covered (such as "See Emily Play" or “Apples & Oranges”), which I asked in jest. I'm glad they avoided that era; I think that would have come off as very campy. But while early pop hits were ousted, early Floyd psychedelic was not forgotten. The band sprinkled the audience with archeological artifacts such as "Fearless," "Fat Old Sun," and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." The later piece truly captured the psychedelic period quite well, reminding me of The Door's "The End" in its build towards a chaotic middle-section followed by a soothing finale.

It should be no surprise that "Dark Side of the Moon" received heavy treatment, being Floyd's greatest commercial success. Despite this, I was disappointed that SoL didn't attempt "The Great Gig in the Sky" given the powerhouse female vocal talent they had on stage. Easier said than done, perhaps, but this would have certainly been the pinnacle of the show if they had let the ladies stretch out a bit on that one. Perhaps patrons in other cities later in the tour will get such a treat.

Second up in terms of representation was the "Wish You Were Here" album. "Wish You Were Here," "Shine On You Crazy Diamonds," and "Have A Cigar" were all included, with spectacular keyboard and saxophone treatments. The rest of the Floyd catalog was only slightly represented; two songs from "The Wall", one from the Division Bell, etc. There was nothing to be found from "Animals" or "The Final Cut," but the sheer quantity of what was covered in 3 hours simply left no room for anything more.

Visually speaking, the group did a nice job of capturing the signature Hipgnosis imagery of days gone by, somehow acquiring original Floyd video for display on a large movie screen behind them. This wasn't done for all of the songs, but maybe half were accompanied by the visuals. Realistically, for a production of this size, nothing more could have been expected, although it would have been a real treat to see an inflatable pig or two. And while it was all tremendously nostalgic, the film quality of some of the visuals, as well as the fashion sense of some of the people in those videos, left me with a startling realization that I'm getting older (like I didn't already know that.) In fact, age was a common denominator for most of the crowd; there was more gray hair in that theater than you could find on a chinchilla ranch.

The musicianship was top notch, all the way around the stage. With three guitarists on many of the tunes, it was possible to emulate the overdubed brilliance of David Gilmour quite effectively. The Keyboard player managed to trot out a few classic analog synth pads to conjure up the magical richness of the late Richard Wright. The bass duties included a convincing "Hey You" run (that had been accomplished by Gilmour, not Waters, on the original recording), despite this bass player not having a fretless bass. The drummer had quite a loud, solid presence, which felt good having him up in the mix. And, as mentioned before, the sax player was incredible; while holding to many of the familiar melodic lines on original recordings, he mostly supplied improvisational solos that added freshness to these classic tunes without violating them.

Of all of the musicians to take solos, it was Jon himself who took center stage, both literally and figuratively. Not only did he capture Gilmour's style, nearly note for note on many songs, he also had the tone. And for Floyd fans, anything but that true Gilmour tone would have been unacceptable. And like the drummer, Jon was well up in the mix, leaving nothing to the imagination...if his guitar playing were a human voice, you'd have been able to hear him breathing.

Lastly, die-hard tie-died Floyd followers will appreciate the sprinkling of audio effects that was also used throughout the show: the cartoon music teaser prior to "Wish You Were Here," the rowing effect from the opening strains of “Signs of Life", the classic alarm clocks on "Time"… they were all used to great effect. All told, when you take stock of the sheer volume of authentic Floyd devices employed during this show, both audible and visual, you would be hard pressed walk away without thinking SoL was a fitting tribute to the original band, if not with a big smile upon your face for having gotten to enjoy some great music from some very talented musicians. If I had any words to share with Jon, it would have to be "the band is just fantastic, that is really what I think, and by the way, that’s good Pink!"