JUMP TEACHER, MERRY CHRISTMAS

My magical musical Saturday keeps falling on Sunday. What is up with that? Oh yeah, migraines. Hmmmm.

Turns out that I am still looking for a web designer for my website. I think that I am probably looking for someone in academia. Someone just getting their stuff together. A learner. Up for a challenge. And maybe would be willing to make my site their project. Wouldn't it be totally cool to have someone so juiced to work on your site that they wanted it to be top-notch, so that they could get they their A+ grade on it? Yeah, that is what I am thinking, too. It would also be the first "jump" in their career. I know that free advertising doesn't sound like anything right now, but when this thing takes off, the returns will be excellent. Karma is like that.

What does that have to do with magical music Sunday? Nothing. I was just throwing it in there.

I spent some time on youtube yesterday and found some amazing stuff. I already knew what 80s band I was going with, so that that took like 10 minutes. It was the inspirational to me business that had me cruising in circles. I found this cache of Zooey Deschanel songs that blew my mind. I already knew that she had an excellent voice, because she sang in the Christmas movie ELF. That was how I landed there. BUT, she is freaking awesome. And the Elf song wouldn't embed and I really don't like that on this day. So, I took a pass. But... I had to keep listening to her other stuff. I got stuck. Seriously stuck. She acts, she sings, she dances. A triple threat. And she writes songs, too. Make that a quadruple threat. I am just awed. If I were a lesbian, I would be all over that. I kinda have this girl crush and I don't swing like that. Scary. I think it is more like I want to BE Zooey Deschanel. Now we are getting somewhere. We can add her to the list behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Maybe in front of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That is a freaking dangerous job. Moving on...

That brings us to today. I was clearly looking for Christmas music. You need to understand something. I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday. Every year but this one. The joy ~ for me ~ is in giving. I have no job and nothing to give. Plus my migraines, and other aches and pains, have stepped up their pace and are kicking my a$$. I don't want to shop with money I don't have. I really want the holiday to skip over me and go unnoticed. Sort of like my next birthday. However, the OLD me loved Christmas. Loved thinking about what someone would really want. That thing they wouldn't buy for themselves, but really enjoy. Loved buying for the kids. The getting was nice, but the real joy was in the giving. I loved the songs. The serious carols and the fun songs, too. The carols are about the spirit of the holiday, and the fun songs celebrate the magic. Both are awesome. Mostly, I love music. Plus, our house was filled it with growing up, so it is like time travel. I love the traditions. Candles. Stockings. Decorations. One present on Christmas Eve. Donuts on Christmas morning. There is pretty much nothing about Christmas I don't like. Except this year. Alas, that why there have been no posts from me. Nothing about my notorious snowman collection (which is huge). Nothing about how my mother puts out three manger scenes. One from her childhood, and two others that she has collected over the years. None of it. I avoid the living room where the decorations live. The tree is. I haven't wrapped a single gift. If I find something in my gift box, I bring it out and leave it for my mom to wrap. Bah humbug. No Christmas music playing in my room.

I know that all of you have tons of thoughts whirling through your heads right now. The thing is that I just want to move forward... past it. On the morning of Christmas will some of that Christmas spirit find me? Yeah, probably. Maybe sooner. This wholes process has been a learning experience for me. People think that people get angry because they don't get. Maybe that it isn't it at all. Maybe they get angry because they can't give. It lends a whole new insight to... everything. Children get angry about not getting. Adults get angry about not being able to give. Whether it is material or not... the next time you are angry, what are you not able to give? Think about that for a while.

And so, the perfect Christmas song to make anyone laugh. Not saying it will cure the blues forever. But for 4 minutes, it is pretty darn good.



Makes me smile every time.

Well, we are back to the 80s, MTV, and the crazy world of the teenage mind. I spent about 30 minutes thinking about what band or singer to go with before I settled on this one. I almost did some research, and then decided that my ignorance is part of what makes this so much fun. It is about what I remember, right or wrong, and that is all part of it. We talked last week about boys looking like girls (sort of). Long hair was in. Big hair was in. Boys were wearing eye liner. Looking too pretty, or maybe just pretty enough, and lines were being crossed. In other words, the pretty boy was the rage.

Once again, I will reiterate my knowledge about legitimate band gossip is limited. My main source of information was Tiger Beat magazine. I chose each issue based on how many pictures of John Taylor were in there, and if they were good ones. Did I even read the copy? I don't think so. As I said, other cuties occasionally made my corkboard wall, but John Taylor pretty much decided which issues were bought, and which weren't. Was I reading ROLLING STONE? No. Did I even watch the interviews with Kurt Loder? Not unless it was with Duran Duran. Do you sense a theme? Did I spend hours watching mind numbing videos waiting for a Duran Duran video? Ding ding ding. Yes.

One quick note. Did I ever like other videos than Duran Duran videos? Of course. I wasn't a total moron. The following two videos got LOTS of rotation. Trust me on this, and it is why I picked them. Now, before you ask me, "Robin, why are you not picking up the David Lee Roth vs. Sammy Hagar battle over who was the best singer for Van Halen?" Let me answer the question. "David Lee Roth was the singer during the time period we are talking about AND we can all learn a lesson here."

The first video is JUMP. I can't tell you how many times I have seen this video. Seriously. One of the things that is unusual about Van Halen, I think, is that the band is named after someone other than the lead singer. I can't think (off the top of my head) of another case of this happening. In those situations, the band has a name, but it isn't the name of someone else in the band. Well, let's watch this video and talk about this some more.



Eddie Van Halen is an amazing guitar player. And I do believe that was him tickling the keyboards. He is also a cutie patootie in his own right. Apparently he just isn't a singer. Enter David Lee Roth. The thing about singers is that they feel irreplaceable. In most cases, the singer is the star of the show. Pretty much anyone in the band IS irreplaceable, but the singer is the VOICE of the band. However, Eddie Van Halen was an extraordinary musician, and it was HIS band. I think that was clear in the beginning. As they became more successful, it must have become less clear. David Lee Roth is not just a singer, but a performer. That doesn't hurt. If you can sing AND be an entertainer, well you are THE PACKAGE. Of course, David Lee Roth was always just this side of nasty. Let's continue our case study so that you can see what I mean:



Now, David Lee Roth never "did it for me." You know how that there are some slightly nasty boys that you think you might like to try you some of that. Well, he wasn't one of them for me. He was just enough of the side of nasty that I thought about antiseptic. Now, that was before I actually knew ANYTHING about him. Later I found out that he spent a lot of his free time in strip clubs and the like and I thought, "Sounds right to me." Now, that rumor may or may not have been true.

What is true that David Lee Roth did something that got himself released from Van Halen, and Sammy Hagar stepped in as lead singer. People: this never happens. I imagine that David Lee Roth walked around saying the same thing for years. This never happens. Or how did this happen? The lead singer just doesn't get fired when the band is on top. Well, as someone who knows nothing about what happened, I am going to speculate. The band was called Van Halen because Eddie Van Halen was in charge. David Lee Roth got a bit too full of himself, and decided that he could start calling the shots because he was the VOICE. In other words, he thought he had power that he didn't have. If Eddie hadn't had belief in his own ability, that might have worked. But, he got tired of the power plays, and the crap, and threw him out on his ear. He found another singer with a totally different style, and let this guy know whose band it was. Sammy Hagar knew that Eddie was willing to fire the singer when they were on top, and that it was a team effort. Eddie didn't put up with crap. And they got along fine for a long time. Pride is one of things that cuts both ways. You don't have enough and you're a doormat. You have too much and you're a jerk. Full of yourself. There is no "I" in TEAM. Or in BAND. And I think that Eddie knew that and David didn't. So, he sacked him. Pretty ballsy.

It reminds me of an episode from the TV show M*A*S*H when Hawkeye says to Frank, "You don't work and play well with others."

No one is irreplaceable. No one should be. In fact, if we are doing our jobs right as human beings, we are passing on what we know to others, so that they can pick up where we leave off, and do what we do as well, or better, than we are doing it.