charley's blog

It’s Sunday night, and in mere hours I have to get up and be intelligent, interesting and fun for K-8th music classes all week. Let me just go over the list of what I’ll need for the week:

My iPod Classic, and the means through my keyboard amp to play the iPod Classic very loud.Oh sure, when it comes to planning lessons, content certainly counts for something, but really, volume is almost everything.

Boomwhackers. ‘Nuff said.

Recorders. Not the tape kind; the kind you blow into to produce shrieking sounds similar to Janet Leigh being murdered in Psycho.

A good list of songs. This week’s offerings include such hauntingly lovely melodies as “There’s a Smell In My Bedroom,” “Get Up Get Up Get Up,” and “There’s a Ladybug in My Soda.”

Drums, shakers and triangles. To go with the Boomwhackers. ‘Nuff said again.

Video clips from PBS. They’re educational enough to be important, and short enough to be able to take the students right to the brink of suicide, and then bring them back.

Kazoos, just in this week from the fine people at Kazoos.com.

A powerpoint presentation on musicians of the 80′s. It’s part of a 4th grade project covering musicians of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s. Don’t you wish you were in my 4th grade class?

Lots of miscellaneous loud and crazy percussion instruments, not included in the “drums shakers and triangles” mentioned above. These are different loud crazy percussion instruments, to be used only in case of an emergency.

A real train whistle, which I just bought at McCabe’s Music in Santa Monica. I’m not sure how it’ll be used yet, but I can’t imagine going to school without this whistle in my bag.

OK, looks like I have everything. This week’s butt is about to get kicked to the curb.

I apologize in advance for this rant. OK, here we go…

A few minutes ago, I sat down in my chair, picked up my laptop and opened the web browser. It opened to my home page, where I saw a few news headlines, including “Romney Takes It To Gingrich in GOP Debate,” and “Romney Attacks Gingrich In GOP Debate.” Attacking seems much stronger than just “taking it to” someone, so I guess good for Romney.

And as I saw those headlines, several thoughts came to mind…

What – another debate?

What could they possible still have left to cover in a debate, after the last 2000 debates they’ve had?

Does anyone still care about the debates? (probably not, but I guess you never know);

Do I still care about the debates? (what do you mean, “still”);

And I noticed another headline, inviting me to watch a live video feed of the debate, and I thought, “I’d rather stick a pencil in my head and then fall down four flights of stairs. Onto ice. Barefoot. While listening to country music all the way down.”

So here’s a note to the Republican candidates, coming from a guy (me) who’s sort of on your side, but is officially registered as an independent.  You guys are making it really hard for me, and others like me. And there are others like me – guys who lean toward the right on some issues, toward the left on others, and think both major parties are full of morons who are completely out of touch with what actual people want or need. (I hope that was clear enough). You’re not giving me any reason to think differently.

There isn’t possibly anything else to say in a debate, that you haven’t already said. Many, many times.  At this point, the first guy who’s willing to shut up for a while would probably get my attention. The first guy to say, “No, I’m not going to participate in anymore debates. You’ve all heard what I’ve got, and I’ve heard what you’ve all got. Everyone’s heard what we’ve all got. So you guys can keep getting together and talking about stuff no one’s listening to if you want to, but I’m taking that night off.”

And I’d think, “Oh my gosh – what a cool guy. I want to listen to that guy say more.” That would get my attention. Which by the way, I haven’t given to any of the other guys yet.

Oh, a quick side note to Santorum (is he still in?)… Anytime the Evangelical Leadership (not sure who all that is) decides to give a candidate their “endorsement,” that candidate loses. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you. It’s just that those guys, who have some good beliefs, are under the delusion that they’re more relevant than they actually are. I would have advised not going to that meeting, but I guess it’s done now. Anyway, it was fun seeing you around for a while.

Sorry for my angry tone, readers who are used to more lighthearted blog stuff. I guess I just want a few things:

For the incessant, inane, debates to stop;

For the candidates to all take a vow of silence for a week or two (maybe if you stop talking for a while, some people may actually want to hear from you again. There’s a lot to be said for giving someone a chance to miss you).

Assuming neither of the above will happen anytime soon, I guess I’ll continue to try to ignore you until you give me a compelling reason to pay attention.

In an effort to become more connected with you, my vast reading audience, I think it’s time for some self-disclosure. I’m choosing “self” disclosure, because it really isn’t my place to disclose anybody else.

There are a few things about me, maybe more than a few, that are weird. I’m admitting that. That’s why this blog is called “Admittedly Weird.” So I’m going to list a few of those things right here. See, I feel closer to all of you already, and the list hasn’t even officially started yet. OK, here we go:

Although the Moons Over My Hammy at Denny’s is officially a sandwich, I eat it with a knife and fork;

I actually order the Moons Over My Hammy, just because I enjoy saying Moons Over My Hammy;

I have a stuffed penguin, wearing a red winter cap, on my piano. He accidentally didn’t get  put away with the Christmas stuff in 2010, and he now permanently lives in that spot. This year, we purposely left him out because he just seems to be happy there;

I have a hard time spelling the word “weird.” Which made writing the title of this blog post a little difficult. I always forget whether it’s “weird” or “wierd,” because really, both spellings look a little weerd;

When I’m walking on the strand in Hermosa Beach CA, listening to my iPod, and people are walking their dogs near me, I’m convinced the dogs are actually hearing the same music I’m hearing (even though none of them are wearing headphones), and are actually walking with the beat;

I have certain socks I like more than other socks, and I totally don’t care if the other socks’ feelings are hurt.

Well, that’s enough self-disclosure. I feel a renewed sense of freedom getting all that out in the open. So, tell me some of your weird stuff!

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may have noticed that occasionally I write a “thankful” blog post. There are at least two reasons for this…

1.  It’s important to not only be thankful, but to express it;

2.  Sometimes when you can’t think of anything else to write about, you can always throw a thankful blog out there. In fact, that alone is something to be thankful for.

So now two weeks into 2012, I’m thankful for…

The fact that it’s suddenly colder tonight, after two unseasonably warm weeks. Cold in January is kind of a good thing;

My heater and electric blanket;

Pop-tarts;

A cardiologist who was old enough to call me “kiddo,” who told me, “You’re all good, kiddo;”

A nearly completed book. I’m talking about writing, not reading;

Trader Joe’s;

My new cool canvas and leather messenger bag from the Lovely Miss Courtney;

A daughter who works at the Gap;

A maxed-out piano teaching schedule;

Fun kids at two schools;

A fun, although slightly older, kid at home.

May you have a thankful 2012!

2011 will end in two days, and this is the last post I’ll write for this year. Even if I think of something amazing/cool/funny to write about later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll save it. So this is my final two cents.

I wanted to focus my two cents on asking you one last time to contribute your two cents (more if you can) to Loving One by One’s construction project. I wrote about recently in my post titled An Unusual Opportunity to Give. LOBO was able to purchase nine acres of land early in 2011, and now because of a generous opportunity provided by one of their donors, every donation given toward construction on the land will be matched to a total of $50,000.00.

This opportunity will expire December 31st. So if you’re planning to take advantage of this chance to double the effectiveness of your contribution, you need to do it by Saturday of this week.

If you’re not able to do anything at this time but would like to later on, that’s fine – your help will still be needed and gratefully received. No worries. But if you are able to do something now, like right away, you should click on LOBO’s link on the right side of this blog and get it done.

Thanks to my readers and friends for your support of my Uganda Project this year. Many of you helped with financing my trip over there, many of you have contributed to LOBO’s work, and a few of you are considering taking a trip to Uganda yourselves. My involvement with and writing about Loving One by One is not over by any means – there’s something pretty exciting coming up in that regard in the next several weeks.

But for now, thanks for your patient reading and support. And that’s my final two cents for 2011.

If you don’t have an iPod, you can still relate to this post. All you have to do, whenever you read the word “iPod,” is substitute the phrase “collection of recorded music in some other format, such as CD’s, vinyl, or heaven forbid, cassettes.” That’s a pretty long phrase to have to keep saying to yourself however, so you may want to go ahead and get an iPod or similar device. It’s totally your call.

Anyway, you and I have skeletons in our iPod closet.

I have over 2000 songs on my iPod, and I can actually hold up to about 10,000. That’s what the Apple people tell me, anyway. And my song collection is pretty eclectic – I have stuff from pretty much every decade since the 1920′s. Maybe even the 19-teens.

A lot of my music is there because I need it for my work as a school teacher. That’s another way of saying “I have a lot of dumb kids songs on my iPod.” In the previous sentence, “dumb” refers to the songs, not the kids.

So if you were to look through my iPod and see some of the weird stuff in there, you might be tempted to think I’m not very cool. But I am, though. I have a lot of pretty new cool stuff on there. Some of the pretty new cool stuff comes from being kind of cool myself, and some of it comes from having a cool daughter who helps me find music, and some of it comes from having cool friends who know a lot about music. If you’re going to have good music on your iPod (here’s one of those places where you’ll need to substitute that phrase we talked about earlier), you really need to make sure your circle of friends includes people who know about music you don’t know about, to keep your collection fresh.

However – there are skeletons in my iPod closet. I’m talking about songs that 1) aren’t that cool, and 2) aren’t on the iPod because I need them for school, and 3) are on the iPod because there’s a small dorky part of my brain that likes those lame songs.

I’m not going to tell you what those songs are, because I don’t need you judging me. But you have them, too. Come on, admit it. You like songs that are just plain bad, horrible songs. Songs that make you want to minimize your window if someone walks by when you have iTunes open on your computer. Songs that make you want to rename your iPod with someone else’s name, so in case you accidentally leave it someplace people won’t find it and figure out it’s yours.

So all I’m trying say is – embrace your iPod skeletons. Embrace the dorky-song-lover within you. Just don’t tell anyone about those songs, especially me, because I’ll laugh at you. Happy listening.

A few of my private piano students have autism, and one of them had his lesson today. This guy has come far in the past few years, from struggling to make any sense of the music at all (much less be able to sit still), to actually reading the notes on the page, and memorizing a heck of a lot of music. Meeting with him is one of the high points of my week. Today he wanted to show me he had figured out how to play “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” So of course, I wanted him to go for it.

It’s impossible to make too many sweeping generalizations of kids who struggle with autism. It can manifest itself in various ways, and while the two autistic kids I teach have some similarities in their behavior, they have many more differences. But having been around many autistic kids the past several years, one thing I have noticed as a common thread – once an idea has been put into motion, they’re not going to change their minds easily. They’ll see it through to the end. Even if that means playing twelve verses of a song, all exactly the same way, very slowly. You see where this is going, right?

So a few verses into the song, which took a while, I said, “Hey that’s great – why don’t we jump ahead to the 12th verse?” And he said, without looking up, “No.”

A few more verses in (long enough to get to the Five Golden Rings part): “This is so awesome. Wanna jump ahead to the 12th verse?” “No.”

A little farther (which at this speed, seemed about a half hour later):  ”I think I lost count – we’re on the 12th verse now, right? (see what I tried to do there?)”  ”No.”

We eventually got to the end. We struggled a long time to get to the end of that song. And I don’t just mean today. Those twelve verses today represented a few years of struggle, growth and achievement. I guess you probably shouldn’t skip any of that stuff.