Archive for the ‘memories’ Category
The home of the weasels
I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to post about this for a long time, and I finally found it tonight.
I’ve found the home of the weasels.
It all started with the Garden Weasel, which is actually a real product. I had seen it in so many direct response ads, that the name was pretty much stuck in my head. You know the kind of ad I’m talking about: the ones that show you the really cool (but actually nearly useless) thing you can buy for just $19.95 (But WAIT! There’s more!!)
So at some point I was watching TV with Amy (and I think some of the other locals at the time), when one those ads came on. It was for this gadget that had wheels on the bottom and little tricycle-like handles sticking out on each side. The idea was that you get on the floor, grab the handles, and scoot this thing back and forth to build your ab muscles. I have no idea what it was actually called, because I immediately named it the “Ab Weasel.”
Ever since then, whenever I see a commercial for some phone-order gadget like this, my first priority is to figure out what kind of weasel it is. There was the Egg Weasel, the Pancake Weasel, the Knife Weasel, and of course Suzanne Somers advertising the classic Thigh Weasel. Basically, if it sells for $19.95 on TV, it’s a weasel of some kind. One of the latest ones I’ve seen has actually given me a bit of trouble. I can’t decide whether it’s the Bra Weasel or the Boob Weasel. I could argue for both. 
Tonight Amy and I were watching live TV and saw what was obviously the Shoe Weasel. At the end of the commercial, we noticed that the seller had an interesting mailing address, which I tried to map. I never could map it, but in trying to do so, that’s how I found the home of the weasels. I mean, it’s not the one and only home of the weasels, but it has some really great ones: the Closet Weasel, the Claw Weasel, the Push-Up Weasel (which sadly isn’t quite what one might hope it is), the Earlobe Weasel, the Purse Weasel… the list just goes on. Once I saw the home of the weasels, I realized I finally had my punchline.
So, if you hear me randomly calling something a “weasel”, you’ll know why.
Song Leader Revolution
I realize many of you won’t understand why I in particular find this so funny, but oh the details for those who do understand… I give you Song Leader Revolution.
Wow.
Just a mailbox
I drove down to Tuscaloosa tonight for my once-a-year-or-so IEEE meeting presentation on behalf of my employer. I’m not sure why, but I decided to wander into the student center tonight and have a look around at what has changed. The official USPS post office for the campus is located on the bottom floor.
In the summer of 1993 when I was at my orientation session (probably June or July), one of the people presenting to us told us that although we would have a campus mail box for any dorm room we lived in, it would change each time we moved. This person pointed out that we could rent a PO box in the post office and keep that same address for as long as we were in school. Being the practical type, I liked that idea, and I think I went down and rented a box that day. I remember talking to the counter employee and relating what we had been told. He agreed that it was a smart idea.
I don’t know their names, but his was one of two faces that became very familiar to me over the following five years. The Internet was still not widespread at that point, and I continued to keep in touch with several people through mail. I kept a close check on that box, and I can still feel the sense of kind of warm anticipation I used to get when I walked down to open it. I received some very special letters from some very special people over those years.
Sometime in May of 1998, I submitted my change of address form and turned in my key. I don’t remember the specific details, but I remember feeling very strongly that the act of turning in that key was a tangible step into a new time in my life. I remember feeling a bit sad about it. That simple little box had been mine for so long, it was almost like a friend in some ways. It didn’t seem right to me that someone else would get to use it.
Several times since then I have considered sending a short letter to whoever rents that box now, with the hope that it’s actually another college student. Just a random note wishing the new owner well, and telling him/her a little bit about me and my time at UA. I know it’s silly. That’s why I’ve never actually done it.
Anyway, as I was wandering through the boxes tonight, I remembered that the new phone provided a convenient way to get a picture of the box. Of all the pictures of campus I’ve taken since I graduated, this one is perhaps the silliest, and yet perhaps the most meaningful to me. Isn’t it weird how just a mailbox can mean so much?
Dipping into the well again
Let’s say your band was one of the biggest hitmakers of the late 70s and 80s. You went through your requisite Lead Singer Is a Megalomaniac Crisis(tm) and went on hiatus for eight years or so. You managed to scrape everyone back together, record an album of totally new material, get nominated for a Grammy, and gear up to promote the album on tour. Then, just when everything looked like it was about to crank up again, your lead singer has a medical crisis, and it all hits the ground with a resounding THUD. What do you do?
Well, you fire your lead singer (who happens to have one of the most recognizable voices in power ballad history) and look for a new one. Lo and behold, out of the woodwork comes someone who sounds mostly like your old lead singer, and he even has the same first name. What luck! You get to tour again! So, back out on the road for another 8 years or so. Flog the old hits, record yet another new album of new material, etc. Things are going great… until your lead singer has a medical crisis and has to leave the band. What do you do?
Well, if you’re Journey, you look on YouTube and find this video of a bar band in the Philippines. After picking your jaw up off the floor and recovering from the brain explosion, you call the guy (named Arnel Pineda) and offer him a job. Next thing you know, you’re on stage in Chile performing to another screaming horde.
I have to think that Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain are SO TIRED of still playing those same songs 25 years later. I hope I’m wrong. I hope they’re still having a blast. Here’s to tenacity and the luck of the Irish!
Com-Pak Music Theater: The Wonder Twins
Tonight’s edition of Com-Pak Music Theater brings you more cheese and lots more hair.
Family legacies in pop music performance have always been fascinating to me (I’m going to post about Wilson Phillips one of these days), and I just recently learned that the duo behind (in front of?) tonight’s band are “double-legacy.” This family apparently made the Guinness Book for being the first one to produce #1 hits in three successive generations. When your grandparents are former radio, TV, and music stars, and your father is a former teen rock idol… Well, I won’t say “what else can you do?” (plenty), but it was certainly in their blood.
Welcome tonight’s guests: Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, best known for fronting the band that bears their family name. I’m not gonna go into a big thing about why I still like the music. *shrug* I just do. Anyway, as is typical for me, I’m just now catching up on 17 year-old music videos, and I’m more here to talk about the video. What just tickles me about this one is just how much attention someone paid to detail and little bits of humor in what is, essentially, a throwaway pop video. They dubbed the fully-reverbed-and-chorused vocals from the album over the first vocal line in the video (”Here she comes.”), and the funny part is to watch Matthew in the video look up and around to see where all the reverb came from. I laugh at that every time I see it. There’s little touches like the “VAGUE” cover (watch for the model to pop back up later).
What amazes me, though, is how much work they put into things. They’re pulling the trick where the video speeds up and slows down, but watch Gunnar and Matthew closely: their lip-syncing and strumming [mostly] stay with the 1x-speed music. That had to be tough to do (probably involved some really silly-sounding fast and slow music on the set). There are sections where they do the video backwards (especially at the end) and still lip-sync forwards. None of this is rocket science, but it’s just a lot more work than I would have expected for a video like this.
Nelson: (Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection (1990)
Also, the guitar melody (with that little trill) is one of my favorite musical elements in the song, and it was neat to hear them play it with the acoustics (especially with that 12-string Matthew is using).
On that subject, I gotta throw one more at you. The video itself is not all that exciting for me (especially the over-done heavy-handed “Don’t listen. You can do anything you want.” message). However, once you get past that, they take the video as a chance to splice on a musical intro that sounds like something they might use at a concert. It’s a little thing and easily done, but it added another facet to music that I already really enjoyed. By the way… I would so hang that poster up here in the computer room if I could get my hands on one.
Oh, and I think all the hair-tossing is just absolutely hilarious specifically because of how cliché it looks now.