Live with no regrets

As the HyWy and I near this next phase in our lives I can't help but think about, "how things will never be the same."  Sometimes we think about these things ourselves while musing on days gone by and other times we have that fact reiterated to us by those who have walked this road before us.  However, the more I think about it the more I realize that I'm ready to leave behind those move forward.  However, as we move forward I look back fondly on things we won't necessarily be able to do with the same ease and reckless abandon:

• Getting off work after a long day and going bar hopping for happy hour.
• Going clubbing and dancing followed by late night food and coming home at 5 or 6am.
• Coming home exhausted and laying on the couch watching movies.
• Skipping out on lesser things like laundry and grocery shopping to spend the day with friends.

I'm sure there are more things, but nothing is coming to mind immediately.  On the flip side there is a list of stuff that I'm excitedly looking forward to:

• Getting off work after a long day and just sitting with KB (whether he/she is eating, sleeping, crying).
• Sleeping next to KB.
• Taking photos in the Heisman pose with KB.
• Going to a park on a nice day with the HyWy and KB.
• Waking up exhausted and grumpy, but seeing KB's face first thing.

So as one door closes another opens.

When to introduce...

As our little legume grows within the HyWy I have been thinking more about parenting.  One of the big questions on the minds of parents these days is when do you "introduce" the kid to television.  While I think about that I'm not particularly concerned with the answer.  The question that sticks in my head is when to introduce the kid to Google/Wikipedia.  As with the former question the obvious scenario that looms is that the kid would discover the forbidden fruit when at a friend's house, but there is no point in worrying about that.  Growing up both the HyWy and I would ask our parents questions about how things work, how things were made, what is this, what is that, etc.  I remember in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes how the Calvin's dad would make up an elaborate explanation when he didn't have an answer and I always thought that was funny.  I want to have these opportunities to learn things and experience discovering them with KB, but the window of opportunity has shrunk considerably since our childhood.  Now any question we don't have an answer is literally a few clicks away.  Do I want KB to have such instant gratification?  Do I want to miss the opportunity to make up answers?  Most definitely not.  I'm not saying that I want to teach KB the wrong things, but I want to be an active part of KB's learning.

Musical cartography

What is the first thing you do when you hear a new song or group?  Today you might hit Shazam on your smartphone, then link to YouTube to watch some videos by the group/singer, and maybe then look up Wikipedia to read about the group/singer.  My whole life I have enjoyed what I would call musical cartography or musical mapping.  When I was discovering rock and heavy metal my cartography led me from U2 or Metallica back eventually to the Delta Blues.  Today my musical cartography focuses more on sampling and one of the most intriguing examples in recent memory is the Rihanna and Drake song "I'll Take Care of You".  When I first heard this I fell in love with the background music.  I love the melody and I set about figuring out what this song was about.  This led me to a remix version with vocals by Gil Scott Heron.  The remix was done by someone named Jamie xx and I would assume he was the one that placed the melodies that loved.  However, the Gil Scott Heron version made me realize I also really liked the lyrics and I was curious what the "original" version sounded like if Jamie xx added in the beautiful melodies.  That led me to the original Gil Scott Heron version.  From here I learned that this was no more Gil Scott Heron's song than it was Jamie xx, Drake, or Rihanna's.  The true original version was written by Brook Benton and recorded by Bobby "Blue" Bland.  Bobby Blue is a very famous blues and R&B artist whose most recognizable work is "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City", which went on to be sampled by Jay-Z.  There are two lessons I took from this exercise: first it always comes back to the blues or R&B and second that Gil Scott Heron is very amazing.  He reminds me of Bob Dylan in that he was an incredibly gifted writer with an incredibly unique voice.  When I compare all the versions of "I'll Take Care of You" I can't help but feel that as much as I least like the approach for the Drake/Rihanna version I think it might be the best.  From here the debate rages on about what it means to be a fan who learns about Gil Scott Heron in this manner vs. an original fan.  My thinking is if one arrives at the same destination their journey there, in these situations, doesn't matter as much.  

Movies, rides, and video games

After seeing The Lorax recently I left the theatre wondering whether I had just walked out of a video game or ride promo.  Where in the past movies were made and then their story, characters, setting, etc. were adapted to create video games and rides today another approach is taken.  A movie is created with the vision of a video game and ride tie-in.  The movie then obviously has content, which would fit well with a ride or a video game.  This makes me question what is the purpose of creating a film?  I would think that it would be a form of artistic expression or something to that effect.  Now it seems as though the purpose would be cross platform development.  The problem this creates is artistic expression is sacrificed in favor of what would be cool on a ride or what would work well in a video game.  Imagine a producer arguing against a scene, but that gets overruled as it would only spend an extra 100K to create and would add to a ride.  It doesn't matter though.  The movie is losing it's foothold as the primary revenue stream.  A theme park with souvenirs, admission, food, etc. is the largest revenue stream.  Almost all of that revenue stays "at home" or with the parent company (most likely the ones who made the movie).  The video game with it's longer term entertainment factor, 'educational' aspect, and medium price point is the secondary revenue stream.  Movies in the theatre are the smallest revenue stream as they lose market share to downloading, Netflix, and shrinking audience sizes on rising ticket prices.  I guess this is a shift in the entertainment market.  

The Lorax

Last weekend the HyWy and I saw The Lorax, which is based upon a Dr. Seuss book.  The story has an underlying theme of environmentalism and the general message is, "plant a tree."  Oddly enough a story that along with environmentalism speaks out against consumerism has more than 70 different product tie ins.  These are not product placement deals in the movie, which you often see in James Bond or Mission: Impossible for cars.  These are commercials and branded campaigns, which use the Lorax and various other characters in their promotional material.  The most egregious of which is Mazda's commercial promoting it's new "SkyActive" technology.  Another product tie in is with the "green" brand Seventh Generation for their diapers.  I feel like this branding approach completely misses the mark of the original story and if anything is an affront to the true meaning.