April 2005

There’s a song by Linda Eder called “I Want More”. An incredible vocalist, Ms. Eder is lyrically complaining about the man that she’s saddled up with. I first discovered “I Want More” a couple of years ago when my friend Laurie performed it at a State Fair competition. Laurie is the Executive Director of the Miss Mohawk Valley Scholarship Program that Earl and I support. When Laurie is performing a song, she doesn’t sing it. Rather, she performs it with sign language. As far as I can tell, Laurie is an incredible linguist in American Sign Language.

While the song is rather demanding on the part of the singer, there are some lyrics that include:

I want Shakespeare sonnets,
I want oohs and aahs
I want long stemmed roses,
In a Gucci vase.

I know, a guy like me applying these lyrics to my life is trés gay. I say “who cares”. It’s still a recipe for a dynamite romance and everyone should have a little romance in life. Who cares what others think? Each and every person in this world should have the honor of falling in love.

I’m very happy, or perhaps fortunate is a better word, to say that our life together is full of oohs and aahs. Earl and I are blessed in the relationship department in that we still “get it” after all these years. We know our mutual likes and dislikes. We communicate. (No one can rattle dishes like I can during some of our ‘communication’). I know it sounds like I have my head in the clouds, but perhaps its because I really do. I wake up in the morning and see the bear that’s been sleeping in my bed and say “damn, you may not be Goldilocks (with this haircut?) but you’re one lucky guy.”

Now what to do with this Gucci vase.

I’ve been wasting more time online here tonight and came across some information on recently booted American Idol contestant Mikalah Gordon. First of all, I will admit that I found her singing voice to be three flat steps shy of ‘horrid’ but she had a certain pep and sparkle that one couldn’t deny.

In a recent interview with MTV, she was quite honest in saying that the AI audition process isn’t fair, because there are some contestants that have no television exposure prior to the audience voting segments, and then there are some that have been plastered all over ever promo and episode. Those without the exposure obviously don’t have a fan base so there’s that issue going on. I give her props for stating her feelings on this.

The other thing that I find quite cool about Mikalah is that she isn’t giving up on her dream and wants to pursue a career in television, more specifically, she’s looking to get on a sitcom with hopes to play Fran Drescher’s daughter in a show currently under development. As an aside, I realize that the grammar in that previous sentence is hideous.

Yes, I slammed her a bit on the idolonfox.com community boards, but I must give credit where credit is due. Mikalah, you have a personality that shines. Reach for the stars baby and best of luck in pursuit of your dreams!

I have my iPod cranked while I type this entry, so please bear with me if I’m not coherent as I type along.

“Chains (S&M Mix)”, Tina Arena.

There’s a rule at work for when you’re on call. On call karma works like this – busy week, quiet weekend. Quiet week, busy weekend. The on call Gods rarely bless you with a completely quiet on call or conversely, damn you to a busy week and weekend.

I’ve been damned by the on call Gods.

As they say, “April showers bring May flowers”. Apparently April is in fast forward or something this year, because we are getting soaked and soaked with lots of rain. To keep it interesting, it’s very windy as well with up to 30 MPH gusts. This does not bode well for the telephone network. Rain and wind + telephone wires = no dial tone for Grandma. It’s simple math.

I tried to take a nap in between calls today but that was not meant to happen as I’ve been beeped on and off throughout the day.

“Smalltown Boy”, Bronski Beat.

Instead of trying to do anything constructive around the house, I’ve decided to do work on the recording studio and search the internet, hoping to find my long lost knowledge of dance music for the past 30 years or so. I’m coming across songs that I haven’t thought about, much less heard, in the past five years since leaving the Top 40/Dance radio gig.

Sirius 66 “The Beat” has added a new afternoon dj. His name escapes me at the moment, but one of the things I really like him is that he is openly gay. A part of me is extremely jealous. I wasn’t really hidden when I was on the air, though I didn’t mention it that much. Working in a smaller city and such it probably wouldn’t have been the best strategy for the station. Who knows, maybe I was just paranoid and it would have added to the ratings. I don’t think the company that owned the radio station really wanted us to be known as “the gay radio station”, though several of our CDs in the library were gay related and I must say the sound of the station was simply fabulous.

“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now (The Moran Anthem Mix”), Céline Dion.

One good thing about this on call week fiasco is that I get next Friday off. Earl and I are trying to decide what to do after his meetings. Do we want to go to Foxwoods Casino? Do we want to drive down to Bristol, Pa.? Do we want to go to Boston? Decisions decisions!

“Chains of Love”, Erasure.

Back to the radio thing. Maybe I should start up an internet radio station. One of the DJ’s that worked on my old station, who shall remain nameless because she turned out to be a complete nut job, started an internet radio station that was quite good. Unfortunately it didn’t last very long as she busted with the dot com bust. But at least she gets an “E” for effort. Too bad she was such a whacko. The only jock I know that enjoyed the letters from the prisoners. (My friend Dana probably knows who I’m talking about – maybe she’ll give you the name).

“What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy)”, Information Society.

One of the things that Earl and I have chatted about today is our office arrangements. Since moving into the house, we’ve shared one of the spare bedrooms as our office. The problem with that arrangement is that I am a chatty type that likes to play music clips and sing out loud and thrash around the room dancing, while he is content to do his little thing on the internet. He concentrates, I distract. When we started on the recording studio, I moved my office stuff into the other bedroom. Honestly, I didn’t like that arrangement. I felt too separated from him. You’d think having laptops we wouldn’t be holed up in the office, but old habits die hard. So I rolled my desk back into the original office today (feeling like a teacher pushing the movie projector around the elementary school for some strange reason), leaving the other room just for the recording studio. I’ve only distracted him once. Let’s see if I can behave myself.

I doubt it.

“Déjà Vu (Johnny Budz Radio Edit), The Roc Project & Tina Novak.

As I mentioned in last night’s entry, I’ve discovered a new dance song called “Come Rain, Come Shine” by Jenn Cuneta. Sirius 66 “The Beat” lists her as Jennifer Cuneta. After doing a little Googling, I’ve discovered that she used to be known as “J. Cee”, who performed for the radio station I was programming, Wow FM, at Summer Bash II. The song is available on iTunes, so I promptly downloaded it and burned it to a CD for the car. I’ve played it five or six times today already. I find it to be a truly great song and the type of tune that prompted to get into the whole dance music business in the first place.

Anyways, one of the great things about this tune is that it is a spring/summer type song. Upbeat, full of life. It perfectly compliments my commute today in that it is currently 60 degrees and sunny here in Upstate New York. I’m ready to uncover the pool and patio furniture and start celebrating the outdoors after a long winter’s nap. Trees are taking their first steps towards budding, more and more birds are headed north for a change and there’s few traces of snow left in persistent shady areas around our property. There’s a wonderous spring and summer that lies ahead this year. Good things are going to happen… for me, for us and for those around us.

I have a weekend of on-call ahead, but I’m not too upset about it because the weather is suppose to turn rainy until Monday. Rainy weather usually means more overtime or comp time when I’m on call, so perhaps I can make it a short week next week. I’m already taking Friday off, courtesy of comp time I’ve earned this week, to accompany Earl on a business trip to New Haven, Conn. This is a first for us. He’ll be in high powered meetings and I’ll be off shopping. I’m wondering if I’ll be invited to that fabled wives’ luncheon I’ve mentioned in the past, where these dainty, well kept wives straight out of Stepford are enjoying tea and crumpets, white gloves and all, while I’m eating a rueben on rye and a big gulp with my elbows on the table. I guess “huzbear” doesn’t translate to “wife” very well.

I’ve been haunting the American Idol message boards again on idolonfox.com. I take a perverse pleasure in getting all the teenyboppers wired up with my flippant comments.

For example, one of the remaining contestants is named “Anwar”. I just refer to him as “Anwart”. You’d think I had just set their hair on fire the way they go on about it. He’s not even that good of a performer, the way he sings through his nose and bats his eyes like a really bad Disney character. News for Anwart, batting eyes does not work well on the radio. I’ve tried.

Then there’s Constantine which I refer to as Constantscream. Someone posted that he reminds them of “Lnt. Dan” on Forrest Gump, I thought she typed “Lint” and commented that he does look like belly button lint. The teenage cell phone set really didn’t like that one.

It’s the one liners, little zingers, that work the best. I especially like responding with “Who the hell is Fantasia?” in her fan club. Like the American public remembers that mess of a winner from last year. Thank God I’m not in radio anymore.

One thing we all seem to agree on is that Paula Abdul is looking either very drunk or very stoned these days. Hell, Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly seemed much more sober on the old “Match Game”, and they were drinking three meals a day at the time, with a beer chaser no less.

I was really excited about American Idol at the beginning of this season but I’ve kind of lost interest. The remaining contestants are mediocre at best, each deserving a “Meh” as far as I’m concerned. No one will remember who they were next year.

Speaking of radio – I heard a really, really good dance song on Sirius 66 “The Beat” today that has Wings’ “Silly Love Songs” in the background. I need to find the name and artist of that track.

I found the title: “Come Rain Come Shine” by Jenn Cuneta. Fabulous! Update: Now I know why I like the vocalist. She was “J Cee” back in 1998 and performed at Wow FM’s Summer Bash II! I’ve met her. I’ve talked with her! It’s a fabulous track and she’s fabulous!

Now back to my juvenile behavior over on idolonfox.com.