I love this poem. I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to it (atleast 10), but each time I do, I contemplate what I would change if I controlled the Internet.
I would start with Jessica.com not being a porn site and instead a direct link to this blog.
I would somehow make the thoughts I have for a blog post in the bread ailse of the grocery store magically appear in my draft box so I do not forget them before I get home to my Moleskin notebook and favorite ball point pen.
I’d turn it off. For just one day a year, I’d shut the whole thing down, forcing Facebook addicts, workaholics and those obsessed with their email inbox to go outside and enjoy an ice cold beer on a patio with friends. Laugh in the presence of others, none of this “LOL” stuff. Just one day. That’s what I would do if I controlled the internet.
I was nervous when filling out my application to attend my first TEDx event. As I looked at the the extensive questionnaire I tried to think of some clever answers to give, something that would surely “wow” the application board into letting me attend. You see, I wanted in badly! I love TED and everything it stands for and the fact that a TEDx event was happening in my very backyard was thrilling to say the least. So instead of being witty and clever with my application, I went a different direction. I went with my heart.
I wanted to write the answers to those short essays and have them be truthful, real, honest, transparent and most importantly a reflection of me. I didn’t make a rough draft, I gave myself no more than an hour, and I quickly typed as fast as my brain could process what my heart was feeling. I read it over once for spelling and quickly hit “send” before I could go back and “ruin” it with flowery language, overdone punctuation or even a rewrite.
I got in. As myself.
This Saturday I attended TEDxHouston and was overwhelmed, for it was unlike any conference I have ever attended. The details of the day, from the different programs jackets that made an image if put together with 5 others, down to the tdescriptive words pulled from our applications and placed on our name tags, it was all just perfect. My words: “education, believe, kindness”
Our emcee for the day, KUHF’s Chirs Johnson, opened the conference with some rather profound advice that really set the tone for the day. He said, “listen like the plane is going down” and that is what we did. Each of the 500 attendees sat on the edge of their seats hanging on the words of each of the speakers as they spoke for their 18 mins. My favorite part, as I looked over the audience there was not a laptop or a phone in sight. No one was worried about checking e-mails or sending out a tweet. Everyone was just listening…
I couldn’t even try to go over all the speakers and tell you what they all had to say. I know this because I tried to do that with my parents today and failed miserably. Instead I just sounded like a 10 year old kid hopped up on pixie sticks as I tried to tell them every detail and the excitement that I felt while sitting in that theatre.
I walked out of TEDxHouston yesterday excited, filled with ideas, and ready to tackle something, anything.
Solve world hunger? Yup!
Bring peace in the Middle East? Bring it on!
Save the rain forest? Let’s do this!
Sadly though, you wake up the next morning with a strong reality check. ” Hey! You have a day job, you have bills to pay….you can’t go save the whales today…”
As much as I would like to ignore that voice, I have to be as honest with myself, as I was on my application, I can’t solve world hunger today, but I can do something after work. I can go read to children at the library, I can mentor, I can go help give dogs bathes at the animals shelter so they look nice to go out for adoption day, I can buy local produce and even eat in locally owned restaurants. I can make a difference in someone elses life right here in Houston.
As we left yesterday we were given this thought from another TEDster and fabulous conductor, Benjamin Zander, whom I’ve featured on C&B before. He asks “Who am I being? Who am I being that I am causing this reaction in someone else? Who am I being?”….my goal at the end of the day is to proudly say none other than… myself.
Often times when I am looking for inspiration or creativity I begin my search in my ITunes library. Something about the music always gets be pumped up to tackle a new project or keep going to see the completion of one more thing on my “To Do List”. If the inspiration does not lye in my 3000+ song library, I then turn to YouTube and start by clicking on the most ridiculous looking thumbnail on the homepage. Today this method led me to the gem that is DJ Earworm.
I had heard one of DJ Earworms mixes before, but had not realized who the creator was until I came across this video.
DJ Earworm’s annual release of the The United States of Pop takes the top 25 songs of the year, according to Billboard Magazine, and cuts, splices, mixes and layers them together to create something fun and new. I am one of those people whose memories are triggered by hearing a sounds or a piece of music, so stumbling across this creation was not only great to get my creative juices flowing but made me quite nostalgic as I reflected on the year 2009.
After listening to the United States of Pop 2009 I then went back and listened to 2008 and 2007, which not only made me reminisces even more, but really showed the talent of DJ Earthworm and how it’s progressed tremendously over the past three years.
So I guess my point is, Dj Earworm is awesome and I didn’t get much work done today because I was too busy reflecting on the past three years of pop radio. Maybe next time I will stick to good ol’ “self reflection” when looking for some creativity.
What do you do to get your creative juices flowing?
What a day! Not only did Kanye and I celebrate our birthday’s but the release of Lady Gaga’s full length music video, Alejandro hit YouTube in all its “splendor”. To be honest I had forgotten that this video had not been released yet because I have heard it so many time on the radio that it seemed like old news, thank you Houston radio for that.
I watched the video several times (3 to be exact) but there was something that was just not sitting right with me each time I watched. Gaga, as she likes to be called, has built her empire, on the fact that she is unique, quirky, odd and non-conventional in ever way shape and form. She is a showman on and off stage, and for that I commend her. I think she has done a great job creating her image, but this video is not her own. This video is a page ripped right out of the book of the Queen of Pop, Madonna.
As I watched the video I could not help but think that Gaga and her director had sat down one night and pulled out every Madonna music video ever created, pulling everything that stirred up controversy at the time of its release and then tried to splice all the elements together. I started to make a list of the obvious things that stuck out to me:
1. To start the video is shot in dark, black, grey and industrial tones, it’s snowing while the all male dance group dance in a military type form. I immediately thought of Madonna’s Express Yourself video, where the same dark backgrounds, males dancers and military industrial look can be seen, except where Gaga has snow Madonna chose rain (a much sexier choice made by Madonna if you ask me).
2. Gaga’s appearance of a short blond bob and dancing around in her underwear can be seen in numerous Madonna videos( let’s be honest, the woman could not keep her clothes on for awhile there) but the one that came to mind was Open Your Heart To Me. A video based on Madonna as a peepshow model, so naturally she would be dancing in her underwear. I think Gaga could have picked something a little more flattering.
Even Britney can’t keep her clothes on while singing this song.
3. Men in fishnets and the S&M bedroom scenes….Erotic, Justify my Love- need I say more? ( if you don’t know the story of the banning of these Madonna videos be sure to read up on it, I am sure it’s a trivial pursuit question)
4. The symbol of the cross was used throughout the Alejandro video and can be seen behind Gaga in a lot of the shots. This is sure to cause a stir with Christian activists as did the Like a Prayer video Madonna aired in 1989 for a Pepsi Campaign. This video showed Madonna singing and dancing in front of burning crosses along with her making love to a Saint and having an orgasm on the alter of a church. The Catholic Church was infuriated by the video and rallied to have it banned, as well as encouraged a boycott on Pepsi products. Pepsi reacted in fear and pulled the add after just 48 hours.While Gaga does not light her crosses on fire she does have one on her crotch for a good part of the video-wonder what the Church will say about that one…
5. Madonna’s signature look? The cone bra of course! Gaga again puts her own spin on this pop culture fashion trend by putting the end of M16 rifles on the end of her bustier, which really does not help her dancing.
I know there are more than this. After thinking about it even more you can actually tie Gaga to copying Michael Jackson also. The whole concept of the music video being a short movie is an MJ creation that Gaga not only recreated with Alejandro but her previously released video, Telephone. I do have to say if she is going to try to copy anyone the King and Queen of pop are the way to go, they didn’t get those titles for nothing.
Last weekend we were blessed with a new addition to the Hampson family. A 12 week old Basset Hound puppy was lovingly chosen by my sister to be her new roommate and “best friend”. Her name is Gigsy(Gigs for short), after the Manchester United soccer team captain. She is just precious, the dog, although I am quite fond of my sister also.
Last night I got to babysit Gigsy for a couple of hours and she was a little terror, in a good way. I felt like I had run 10 laps by the time my sister came to pick her up. The poor thing has such a small bladder that she has to be taken out every 20 mins. if I want to avoid getting out the paper towel and bottle of Resolve. But, no matter how much you have to take her out, or how many times you have to tell her to stop pulling on the curtains or stealing toys from Hidee(my 11yr old dachshund) she just has to turn and give you the “Basset look” and your heart melts and somehow your memory is voided of anything she did wrong. I think it’s a secret power they have, in fact I KNOW it’s a secret power they have. Actually come to think of it all daughters have a similar power when asking their Dads for something, “Daddy pleassssse” works like a charm every time ;o)
I am so excited to have Gigsy join the Ham Fam and even more so that my sister is going to have the joy of her companionship. Below are some pictures of Gigsy’s visit last night, enjoy!
I remember in college I hated my AP Style book, I loathed the thing. It was a constant reminder I carried around of what a bad speller I was and how AOL Instant Messenger had ruined me as far as any type of punctuation was concerned. I do give AOL IM mad props though for my typing speed. I’m not gonna brag and all, but I’m pretty speedy with the keys. That actually means nothing to my age group though, it’s kinda expected that you know what you are doing with a keyboard and for me, with my job, I just consider it an extension of my hands.
But back to me and my lack of spelling ability. I was thrilled this morning when I got the Mashable alert that the new AP Style book for social media was released with accronyms!! That’s right folks, I can now type “IMHO u r crazy 4 Googling that app, BRB, u r my BFF, ROFL” and it’s considered totally correct according to AP Style. YESSSS!! I knew if I just persevered with my lazy spelling it would finally catch on.
I am concerned about one accronym I found in the AP update. ”POS”, now in my day that stood for what kind of car you drove, but apparently the youth of the world are using it to warm others that they have a “Parent Over Shoulder“. Oh man you kids are in trouble now. My poor kids won’t be able to get away with anything except bad spelling, cause frankly I won’t know the difference.
Here is the rest of the AP Style changes for social media and the link to Mashable’s article on the matter. Enjoy!!
Here is the trailer to a movie coming out this September called, Easy A. There is not a lot of information about the movie in the trailer or what the plot of the movie is. I actually thought it was a commercial for Hallmark greeting cards until the last screenshot announcing the movie’s release date. So today I took the opportunity to do some some digging around the interwebs to find out what this movie is actually about.
The title, Easy A, is a play on the novel The Scarlet Letter. The story goes that a woman was forced to wear a red letter “A” if found guilty of committing adultery, hence the “A” in the movie title, bringing her public humiliation and shame.
The girl in the video, played by Emma Stone(Superbad), also known as Olive Penderghast in the movie, is your typical high schooler until she offers to pretend she had sex with her gay friend so he will stop getting bullied for his sexuality. As you can imagine, word gets out in the school and the story takes off from there. This also gives the title of the film a whole new meaning…”Easy A”. If you still don’t get it e-mail me, we’ll chat. :0)~
I am really looking forward to the movie, which has been compared closely to Tina Fey’s hit Mean Girls, but unlike your typical high school comedy this move is definitely going to be rated “R” for profanity and “sex talk”.
As for the title of this post, if you watched the trailer, that is exactly what I use to do (kinda still do…shhh!) when I was growing up. I don’t know how many times my parents or sister caught me dancing in the mirror or singing at the top of my lungs with my hairbrush microphone, but I thank them for putting up with those improv concerts. This invaluable practice made me the karaoke star I am today.
Benjamin Zander is one of my favorite speakers, musicians and leaders in the field of music education. In this TED talk he sets out to on the impossible feat to make all 1600 people in the audience, as well as all of you, to fall in love with classical music, in just 20 minutes. Does he succeed? Did you already love classical music? I want to hear from you!
Since I moved to Houston I have been trying to find a choir to join. I have been in one since 6th grade (12+ years) and I had to stop when I moved to Houston for job reasons and simply because I didn’t have the time!
It’s sad that our jobs keep us so busy that we have to give up the things that we really love, and in this case for me that was singing.
Something you should know: Without music I am lost, totally and utterly lost. It is my heart, my soul and my passion. In a choir, I feel safe, surrounded by people who love and understand the power of each note on the page as much as I do, as well as respect the composer and the piece for the beauty it brings to the world. After all that is what music is, beauty in the form of sound.
I was listening to my daily TED talk today and I found this video. It was by a composer by the name of Eric Whitacre who composed a piece, “Lux Aurumque” and offered the track on Itunes, as well as the download to the sheet music. He offered that each person that downloaded the track to sing their part( Soprano, Alto, Bass, Tenor) and send him their solo tracks. He also recorded himself conducting the track in total silence so that the singers were left to interpret his directing as they recorded. 185 voices were brought together from over 12 different countries. Each track was blended together and the outcome, while astonishing, also illustrated what I think to be the most beautiful thing in the world, music.
I would somehow make the thoughts I have for a blog post in the bread ailse of the grocery store magically appear in my draft box so I do not forget them before I get home to my Moleskin notebook and favorite ball point pen.
I am really looking forward to the movie, which has been compared closely to Tina Fey’s hit Mean Girls, but unlike your typical high school comedy this move is definitely going to be rated “R” for profanity and “sex talk”.
Bird of the Summer by A Fine Frenzy
