Tag Archives: music

Blurred Lines

11 Thursday Jul 2013

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I once dated a musician.  From that experience I learned never to date musicians.  This isn’t an uncommon reaction.  Unless you are 22ish this will likely be the conclusion you come up with if you ever date a musician.  From my experience with the breed, there is a narcissistic quality that is really necessary for success.  I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule … but not many.  Now let’s face it.  I’m not fooling anyone into thinking I’d be a good “band girlfriend” no matter what kind of personality disorder the dude may or may not have.  If asked to be in charge of the email sign up list my answer would be an immediate, “no” before sipping my gin and tonic at the bar.  After parties make me physically ill so I rarely attend.  I don’t care how good a gig was a person can only take so much inflated ego stroking before she wants to jump off a balcony.  My least favorite quality of this breed is the inability to take non-positive feedback and advice.  Much like other creative folks and non-creative folks that run companies, there is a sea of “yes men” ready to kiss some serious ass.  Yes men are dangerous.  Yes men don’t help, and they often hurt. I am in no way a “yes man.”   All this points to the fact that I’d be a HORRIBLE manager.  Well I’d be a great manager but I wouldn’t have any clients.

Now … on to my point of this blog.  I’m OBSESSED with Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines song (featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams). Now before we go any further I think you need to listen to the song (click below or just turn your radio to a pop station.  It’s probably playing.):

Catchy right?  I love a good pop song.  It reminds me of a Shaggy song and I heart Shaggy.  His tunes are still regulars to my iTune mixes.  With any good pop song you really can’t dig into the lyrics too much or you will lose respect for the song.  I’m good with, “… you wanna hug me? … what rhymes with hug me? …” because that just makes me giggle every time.  I’m just not hip to the lack of female respect lines like, “… I’ll give you something to tear your ass in two …”  WHAT?  OUCH?  THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE FUN AT ALL!!!!  STAY AWAY FROM MY ASS T.I.!!!!

Now my favorite part and most confusing part of this entire obsession is my inability to get over the video.  Have you seen the video?  Oooohhhh you are in for a treat.  There are two versions but here is the one that is a zinger (NSFW):

http://www.vevo.com/watch/robin-thicke/blurred-lines-unrated-version/USUV71300526 (gotta click … I couldn’t embed …. sorry)

WTH JUST HAPPENED?  SERIOUSLY …. WHAT WAS THAT???

Here is how this video pitch would have gone if I was in charge:

Me:  Where’s Robin.

Yes Man:  Mr. Thicke is in the other room.  You will be talking through me.

Me:  Great!  Can’t wait!  It seems we have pitched a dozen or so ideas for the video to Robin and he has shot down all of them.  I wanted to meet face-to-face (sigh) to get his feedback so we can move on with a successful collaboration.

Yes Man:  Mr. Thicke wants to be sexy.  He wants to trend.  He wants to be hot.

Me:  Of course he does.  I tell you what.  Why don’t we just have him prance around the room with naked chicks.

Yes Man:  Let me bring that idea to Mr. Thicke (leaves the room).

Me: (To the others in the room)  He knew I was kidding right?

Yes Man:  (returns) Mr. Thicke loves that idea.  He feels like you are finally getting him.  His only problem is he wants to “trend.”

Me:  Does he know what that means?

Yes Man:  He knows he wants it.

Me:  So no.  He has no idea what that means.  Fuck it …. we will just put #THICKE in big fat ass red letters over the entire fucking video.

Yes Man:  Let me take that to Mr. Thicke (leaves the room.)

Me:  Is it too early for a cocktail?

Yes Man:  (returning) Mr. Thicke says, “right on.”

Me:  Great!  Let’s get this masterpiece of art made! (sigh)

I read an article where Robin Thicke said his wife made him do the video with naked chicks.  This is how I feel that conversation went:

Mr. Thicke: I’m doing a video with naked models hanging all over me.

Ms. Thicke:  Great.  Now you can’t question why the pool boy comes by everyday instead of once a week.

There is a non naked version of the video for those uncultured folks at MTV and YouTube, but it isn’t nearly as fascinating.  Don’t get me wrong … that guy can prance.  He is king prancer!  Puts Adam Levine in his Moves Like Jagger video to shame.

Here is the part I have a hard time admitting to myself … he’s hot … I like him … despite everything I just typed … I need help.  Admitting it is the first step.

Mommy and Me

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

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photo (9)My mom’s birthday was last week and my sister sent her two tickets for a concert at the Disney Concert Hall (plus wine reception).  Luckily for me my dad doesn’t drink wine and doesn’t listen to concert music.  During the time I took piano, when I was young, he was known to duck out after my performance and walk home vs. having to sit through the rest of the recital.  That left a ticket for me!

Now to be honest I’m not big on fancy concert music either but was sold on the idea of a wine reception.  Plus I’d never been in the Disney Concert Hall theatre before and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to check it out.  (I am intimately familiar with the buliding’s parking lot and cafeteria as that is the lot you park in for jury duty in downtown LA and the cafeteria serves wine — I was part of a jury for a case that lasted a month.  Parking and drinking were both necessary.)

My poor mom hit heavy traffic coming into the city so we had a little less than 1/2 an hour of drinking time.  No worries, I was able to toss back a couple of glasses with the speed of a thirsty camel.  We also did some great people watching and took notice of who was and wasn’t holding their wine glass correctly (https://wendyandriggins.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/mind-your-manners/ — Now I realize in the picture below I am not holding that darn glass correctly.  In my defense seconds earlier I was balancing our tickets in that hand, along with the wine plus trying to coordinate taking a picture with my iPhone so my goal was to stabilize everything as much as possible.  Do you buy that?)

The theatre itself is super fancy.  My mom and I immediately felt like we were becoming more cultured just by sitting there.  I managed to pay attention through the first half of the first half and then my mind started to drift.  I needed some dancers or something to keep me engaged.  Instead I became obsessed with the giant organ at the back of the theatre.  At least I assume it was an organ.  My mom and I agree it was so that’s good enough for me.  The theatre is sort of “in the round.”  Meaning audience can sit on all four sides of the stage.  For this performance the seats on the back side of the theatre were blocked off along with those on the extreme sides.  The beautiful organ was sitting at the back of this wasteland staring at me.  I needed someone to play it.  It took all my will not to find a way down there to press on those keys.  That didn’t stop me from figuring out a plan. 

I could go down to the second floor (were the stage is -we were sitting in the mezzanine on the fourth floor) then scurry down the aisle, jump up on the stage (I figured it was about the same height as pushing yourself out of a swimming pool and I can manage that.) then army crawling up stage left (that meant the musicians would have to struggle around their instruments to get to me if they were so inclined), then scurry up the steps by the invisible back wall audience, run to the organ, leap over the leapable railing holding the organ back from the public, and start playing!

Or

I could make my way down to the third floor and enter the theatre from the side where only 1/2 the seats were full, make my way casually up stage to the empty seats, jump over the railing onto the stairs for the back wall invisible audience, scurry up just a few steps, run to the organ, jump over the railing and start playing!

Both options seemed totally doable if I chose to throw away all the culture I’d soaked up and become a crinimal organ player!photo (8)

In between my scheming I did enjoy more music and had lots of time to try to figure out how it was that only the pianist had to turn music pages while those string instrument fellas and gals managed to play a 2 hour concert with no page turning.  Magic.  Obviously.

Happy birthday Mom!