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Meanwhile, on FOX News…
Four years ago today — Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 — I was newly-separated, feeling chills, and having difficulty breathing. By that evening, I wound up in the ER of St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto, and in “droplet isolation” in the the ICU by the next day.
My throat had swollen so tightly shut that they hung this sign over my bed:
If you’re stuck trying to think of a name for your band, you might want to consider this.
While I was lying in that ICU bed, I made myself a few promises. I promised myself that I’d not just survive, but go on to meet someone new, and hey, if the situation allowed for it, maybe even relocate.
Four years later, I’m living in Tampa and a little under two months away from getting married. I’m pretty pleased with how things turned out.
Go read My Hospital Week, my story about my time in the ICU. You’ll laugh and you’ll cringe as I talk about bedpan negotiations, foot-long Q-tips and where they end up, accidentally disconnecting my emergency call button, and the reality of being sponge-bathed by a cute nurse.
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“Kitty, no!”
You can’t tell Kitty what to do:
Musician Gregory Todd noticed the similarities among these six country hits…
- Sure Be Cool If You Did by Blake Shelton (released January 2013)
- Close Your Eyes by Parmalee (released February 2014)
- This is How We Roll by Florida Georgia Line featuring Luke Bryan (released February 2014)
- Ready Set Roll by Chase Rice (released November 2013)
- Chillin’ It by Cole Swindell (released August 2013)
- Drunk on You by Luke Bryan (released February 2012)
…so he imported them into Pro Tools and mashed them up into a single, pretty cohesive song. If you’re wondering just how cohesive it was, play the video below and hear for yourself:
Yes, he had to speed up or slow down individual songs so they’d all be at the same tempo and pitch-shift them so that they’d be in the same key, but once that was done, he could create a whole new song by simply cutting and pasting. The songs were so similar — all with the same IV – I – V chord pattern — that they might as well have shared guitar solos:
He saves the best for the end of the new mega-song by layering all of their closing choruses over each other, and wow, it works!
In the notes for the video, Todd writes:
I just want to be clear that this Mashup is all in good fun. I am not bashing these songs. I understand and even appreciate why the “formula” continues to dominate the airwaves- not only in country music, but in pop and other genres as well. I simply enjoy mixing and producing on Pro Tools, and when I heard the striking similarities of these particular hits, I thought it would be fun to throw them all in a mix and see what I could come up with. And it looks like people are having fun with it too, so I couldn’t be happier!
He’s right. One of the problems with the music business is that if you’re a songwriter trying to make a living, you’re faced with this paradox:
- People want to hear something new, and
- At the same time, people want to hear something familiar.
And given these incentives, what do songwriters do? As musically-inclined comedian Bo Burnham says: Repeat stuff!
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m getting married in a couple of months. I’ve been chatting with the guy who’s handling the music for our beach ceremony and I’ve already told him that Johann Pachelbel’s Cliche in D is on the “banned” list. Here’s why:
Ever since taking it up, I’ve been letting a lot of people believe that I can play anything on accordion. That’s actually not true. It’s just that there are really only about 7 or 8 pop songs, and once you learn those chord progressions, you’ve got about 80% of all popular music covered.
To borrow a line from Edna St. Vincent Millay: Music, like life, isn’t one thing after another; it’s the same damn thing over and over.
Asterix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement at the age of eighty-seven to show his support for the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo (which translates as “Charlie Weekly”; “Charlie” is a reference to comic strip character Charlie Brown) in the best way he knew how: with his classic creation, Asterix the Gaul, pictured above saying “I’m Charlie too!”
Another good way to show your support for Charlie Hebdo is to enjoy this classic ditty by the great Serge Gainsbourg — his single, Comic Strip, featuring Brigitte Bardot:
Serge Gainsbourg – Comic Strip from Platform on Vimeo.
Here’s how the lyrics translate:
Come with me let’s get together in my comic strip
Let’s talk in bubbles let’s go BANG and ZIP
Forget your troubles and go
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!I’m the hero and when I’m fighting
I go BOMP and BOFF
And have a ball so
WHIN! VLAM! ZONK! and ZOMP!
And also
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!Come with me let’s get together in my comic strip
Let’s talk in bubbles let’s go BANG and ZIP
Forget your troubles and go
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!If you want to fly above the city
Follow me and PSSCHT just like a feather
WHOOSH and WIP we’ll fly along together
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!Come with me let’s get together in my comic strip
Let’s talk in bubbles let’s go BANG and ZIP
Forget your troubles and go
SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZ!So my dear come here
Hang on to me SPLASH
I am near SMASH
I just remember this CRASH
Have nno fear
And CRACK give me a kiss
SMACK! SHEBAM! POW! BLOP! WIZZZZZ!
This series of photos reminds me of Whittier’s line:
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.”
Found via Catsmob. Click here to see the source.
The moral of the story: Life’s too short. Pet the dog.
If you like this sort of poignancy with a more pop culture flavor, here’s Jimmy Fallon talking with Nicole Kidman about the first time they met, and the terrible, terrible, terrible mistake he made:
The videogame site Gamespot ran the Jimmy Fallon story with the headline How Video Games Ruined Chances Of Nicole Kidman and Jimmy Fallon Dating, and you can imagine the indignation that followed in the comments section.