Random thoughts from a random person SHOULD MEAN random thoughts from a random person, right? So it’s time for another installment. Get ready…this stuff is REALLY random.
-As I write this, my daughter, Carly, is taking her voice lesson. She has a dynamite voice and a dynamite teacher. Plus Carly is one of the wittiest people I know. One day, on the way home from church, we saw a homeless person with a cardboard sign asking for donations of money or food. She looked over at him and said, “I can understand where homeless people get the cardboard, but where do they get the sharpies?” Great stuff.
-Speaking of church, lately our pastor has been talking about poverty and how it’s hard to understand, in our wealthy society, why there are still starving people on the planet. In fact, the subject of the sermon the other day was “What’s wrong with this picture?” He would show pictures of starving children and say “what’s wrong with this picture?” While listening to the sermon, I was in a multi-million dollar church building complete with huge screen monitors, flat screens all over the place, a huge room just for teens to “hang out”, and we’re currently trying to raise $4 million for a new addition to add a sports facility. What’s wrong with THIS picture?
-Did a thought ever come into your mind, and you couldn’t decide if it was something that really happened, or just a dream you had at some point in time? It happened to me yesterday, and I still can’t decide if it was real or something I dreamed. Who knows…maybe so much has happened to me in my life that I really can’t distinguish truth from reality any more.
-You know how there are certain things that you hated when you were a kid, but you really like them now? Lima beans fall into that category for me, and so does Bruce Springsteen. I always thought he was just OK, and then “Born in the USA” came out and I hated him for quite awhile, just because I thought he really sold out. Now I not only love his music, I have a huge amount of respect for him as an artist and performer. I can listen to “Born to Run” and exclaim “What a great f*ckiin’ song!” And when I saw him perform on the Grammys a few weeks ago, I was so grateful that we “have seen the future of rock and roll, and it is Bruce Springsteen.”
-And lima beans have become my favorite vegetable.
-I was talking the other day with some friends about a person who had committed suicide by stabbing themselves repeatedly. What a horrible way to go about it. Haven’t we all, at some time or another, whether we were serious or not, thought about how we would commit suicide if we ever got to that point? For me, it would be running the car in the garage…no contest.
-I love to talk to college and high school students about what they want to do with their futures. I always try to impart to them the importance of finding a career that you LIKE. Don’t even think about what it pays, because once you start working for the pay that you get, it sucks you in and you can never leave…because you get used to having that income, and it’s so hard to go back to apartment living. If you talk to someone who really loves their job and someone who makes a lot of money at their job, guess who’s going to be in a better mood.
-Why on earth do I think that other people really want to read my random thoughts? What an ego trip.
-I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating…I have the most caring, most awesome friends in the world.
-Finally, a question for everyone reading this, but mostly for my music-head friends: who is your favorite producer? Producers can make a good song sound great, and can make a great song a religious experience. SO many names come to mind: Chips Momens, Phil Spector, George Martin. For awhile now, if anyone asks me about my favorite producer, I would probably say David Axelrod. David is probably best known for producing the great body of 1960’s output by Lou Rawls, but he did some solo sides as well. Here’s just a taste of a simple melody that he made into a symphony. I don’t think anyone has ever implemented drums into music as well as Axelrod. Genius is a word we throw around a lot, but I’m not so sure it doesn’t apply here.
Groovyrick's Blog 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your random thoughts. I was smiling at my desk while reading them.