The Death of Enthusiasm

Labels: drawings

The following statement may or may not be true:

The kind of music a person is raised listening to may very well determine what kind music they will like in the future, or if they even like listening to music at all.

I would propose that those people exposed to a wide range of music at a young age by parents who clearly enjoy playing it will also develop a love of music. Meanwhile, those who do not hear much music growing up may come to see it merely as something to distract their attention or as background noise rather than an art form. I don't have any evidence to support this claim, but it seems like it might be true based on my experiences.

Even if there is no link between the music you were weened on and what you like now, it probably retains a special home in your consciousness. For example, I can summon pretty much any song from The Moody Blues' greatest hits record and play it in the virtual jukebox inside my head. Why is this? During countless car trips and Saturday morning house-cleaning sessions my dad would blast the Moodies until we begged for mercy(maybe no one besides me begged for mercy?). I clearly hated this music as a child, yet I soon realized that whether I liked or not, "Knights in White Satin" was burned onto my being and I had to accept it. (I can still recite the spoken word portion of the song if you ask me to).

Other music seared into my very soul: the entire "Tommy" album by The Who, various songs by The Carpenters and Simon & Garfunkel, The Grease soundtrack, the whole Disney box set, Bette Midler, Michael Bolton, The Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums, Linda Ronstadt, and quite of bit of classical/choral music plus the entire discography of Michael McLean.

What about y'all? What music was ingrained into every fiber of your being? Be honest, there are no judgments here.

Labels: music, The Poptometrist

As many of you know I just turned 25. Boom.

Now that I am old and supposedly grown up and a nuisance to society and whatnot, I feel that I should probably have a quarter-life crisis. Seriously, it's a real thing people (haven't you ever seen a Zach Braff movie?).

I think the key to the quarter-life crisis is to do a bunch of very uncharacteristic things. This is what I'm thinking:

1. I will grow my hair long (really long!) and wear it in a pony tail.

2. I will buy a motorcycle and ride it all year round.

3. I will get into a fight with a random person.

4. I will stop playing the banjo and join a death metal band.

5. Tap dancing!

6. I will invest in a pyramid scheme.

7. I will eat vegetables.

8. I will change my name to "Braden."

9. I will start lifting weights.

10. I will save my money and thoughtfully make prudent purchases that are well within my means.

Labels: birthday, lists

When I was at Disney world a few weeks ago I went on the Star Tours ride just for old time's sake (it's kind of lame). The exits to all the major rides at Disney world are usually themed stores filled with related merchandise and thus the exit to the Star Tours ride is a giant Star Wars store with all kinds of nerd-friendly products. The thing that caught my eye was a large display that was labeled "Build your own lightsaber." Not only could you assemble a custom made lightsaber with a bevy of different parts, you could make it double-sided a la Darth Maul, or even emulate the lightsabers of the characters in the movies. After some deliberation I decided to go ahead and build my own lightsaber, because it's not everyday that you have the chance to fulfill one of your childhood fantasies.

I opted to go for the "Obi Wan Kenobi" style lightsaber and my little brother went for some kind of double sideded monstrosity. We had fun putting them together and choosing the different little goo-gahs that you could add on to them. As we were building the lightsabers I looked around and saw that the only other people around us were little boys and one lonely looking 45-year-old.

Here's where this story really gets interesting. We went to go pay for the lightsabers and our cashier was an African guy who was in hindsight kind of acting a little strange (slurring his words and swaying back and forth) but I just figured he was tired. As I reached down to get the money out of my wallet I heard a sharp cracking noise and then a muffled gasp. I looked up to see our cashier on the ground convulsing like mad having passed out and hit his head on the wall behind him as he fell. Several coworkers rushed to his aid and they had sent for paramedics before I even realized what was going on. Meanwhile I dumbly stood there with crinkled dollar bills in one hand and my freshly built monument to nerdery in the other. After a few seconds one of the employees helpfully told me to find another register and we were able to make our purchase without further incident. I'm not sure what happened to that guy, for all I know he could be dead.