Thursday, November 19, 2009

The United States of Insomnia...

Look around you…do you see them? Coworkers, neighbors and family members who are having serious problems keeping their eye lids closed at night. No assumption required!

While colleges prepare for make it or break it semesters to end, businesses are booger deep in fourth quarter survival strategies which could lead to the left hand reaching for slips dipped in pink. No wonder people act like they’ve added fifty two point six pounds to their hearts—where is the joy in the holiday’s when everything in and about your world can suddenly change?



Music…



Not drugs, I didn’t say alcohol, calm down the drive to shop and stop surfing the web til you drop…the peace you seek is found in music.



I want Dr. Gail Mornhinweg’s job! She was hired by the University of Kentucky to locate a single strand that connects the average Joe Blow human mind, body and soul to a good night sleep. Once there, how did such rest affect the arrival of the next twenty four hour period? Carefully wading in the waters of time you can’t recapture, her sliver of gold was located in music.



Music is the reason I got into radio. I was the insane preteen who slid his hand held battery operated transistor rhythm maker under the pillow to catch CW McCall pouring out his storylines on Convoy, Elton John Crocodiled the world of Rock and for the love of God I could never figure out why Paul McCartney featured a ball and chain at the beginning of Silly Love Songs.



According to Dr. Gail, music is the best medicine prescribed when trying to sleep.



Hit the breaks! Screech! Music…like everything else captured within the realms of modern day American Culture, has been completely diversified to the point of no identification. Disco isn’t Disco its music that picks you up. Classic Rock doesn’t belong to middle aged men, high school orchestra’s and marching bands have made it part of their ongoing presentations. Country isn’t just Western but there’s also Americana just as much as Alternative can be anything from Shakira's Electro-Pop to Metal to Emo. Never ending music research has completely destroyed the foundation of music.



The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is proof of that—during the 1980’s bands, solo performers and songwriters were added to the pages of a continued history by what they brought to the industry as a whole. The latest edition of Rollingstone completely blows the cover off the selection process revealing to normal people how each person added today compared to the beginning doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with impact on the masses but rather their selected sliver of music’s cut up pie.



Artists endorse other artists, John Fogerty of CCR fame stood in front of the panel with one of the most unforgettable presentations in music history—not to induct his band but the man who inspired him to become a musician. KISS will probably never get in, the worlds most successfully marketed band isn’t looked upon as being a success story but rather a sideshow act.



How then does music guarantee you a full nights sleep?



The journey begins with the absence of VH-1 and MTV. As brilliant as they’ve been to giving artists another step to climb on the ladder of fame and fortune, those who still view what few videos are left can’t get a good nights rest because of our addiction to watching moving pictures. Just as you’re slipping into a deeper keeper…Beyonce pops on with Single Girls and boom your eyes are wide open and you’re legs are jamming with the junk in your trunk.



Dr. Gail says, “Go old school…really old school.”



Excedrin PM has the power the make you go nighty night quickly but in the morning its moan, groan and whoa too many foggy corners to reach through. Baroque music is the secret to a winning an incredible nights sleep. When you modernize the description Baroque it falls under the category of New Age.



“Oh no way! Not me! If my friends or family find out I’m listening to this stuff they’ll think I’ve become my Grandmother!”



That’s why I couldn’t get into Jazz and Charlie Pride—I was mentally terrified of people thinking I was becoming an old man. It’s kind of like eating squash and asparagus…if you’re digging the famous weeds, there must be something wrong.



Research shows New Age Baroque when listened to at bedtime puts the average person into some serious rapid eye movement much quicker than over the counter meds. The best part is, you sleep longer and feel more refreshed. During the nights when patients were allowed to listen to "their" favorite music, sleeplessness returned spelling out bad moods and no desire to work the following day.



Hootie and the Blowfish is an incredible band! But no Hootie before you sleep. Your Nirvana will turn into a Cold Play creating a lack of U2, which in the medical world means your Tina has turned not giving you a Foo Fighting chance to catch some Jay Z’s. Your workday will be more AC than DC mind melting the Van Halen nerve in your backbone. You won’t go broke adding Baroque to your sleeping diet.



Steal my art…



arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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