There’s a different language in every crowd.
Radio people are a special breed; with it comes unprotected verbiage the average consumer of sound would find more fascinating than 98% of the songs played over and over again. Ten minutes with a long term on-air talent and you’ll learn more about connecting with departed imaginations than John C Maxwell during a motivational address.
Bowlers, fans of Charlie Sheen, Face Booker’s, nurses and burger builders at Sonic are no different. If your soul is being poured into a beaker that boils over the description of being just a hobby; the inside scoop isn’t what you know but how you’ve turned it into a language of your own.
Being part of the Barnes and Nobel Poets circle in the 90’s introduced me to a clan of imaginations the outside world still hasn’t come up with a name for. Freaks that dig computers are Geeks. Big black framed glasses while sporting a pocket protector makes you a Nerd. A life completely addicted to running, lifting and chasing trophies makes you a jock.
Writers are…
It’s ok to say it…weird.
Although we’d like to be recognized as visionary’s constantly in touch with a future that won’t arrive for another thirty seconds; the beauty of setting free what the mind speaks isn’t art but rather a different language.
Every so often writers meet on streets not always paved with gold or hot blacktop. The cobblestoned paths that pushed the pen closer to its crescendo held nothing more than the freedom to emote.
What?
Exactly!
To a Poet such playfulness in expressing could become the missing lyric to a piece held not for a day but I’ve met writers who’ve hidden works of words for decades. Then poof! A passing black crow with lungs the size of Christmas calls out in the middle of spring and all things blocked are released acting as if nothing was ever wrong.
I wouldn’t enjoy being a Microsoft or Apple employee whose future is based on the next great invention. Then again I write and produce radio commercials that are designed by thirty two years of listening to the masters in my life Joe Van Riper, Fred Story, Brian James, John Causby, Charles Holloman and yes even actor John Cryer whose Wells Fargo/Wachovia commercials are the best delivered one on one conversations on the radio today.
How are we expected to make it through each day? Through constant demand with little to no communication! Go ahead and fight, your boss will develop more reasons for you to complain, celebrate or walk away from.
The disconnection in this country has nothing to do with high prices and an out of control Stock Market. If your second grade teacher was here today she or he would send you home with a note that strongly suggests that you learn how to get along with other players.
Inside a current state of being politically correct or else…the end result are separated cells floating around a living breathing energy source called America. Because of who we are and what we’ve become the language has changed and continues to evolve faster than a monkey becoming man.
A recent interview with a Japanese woman who was asked about the enormous amount of fresh fish her nation eats daily and how its been interrupted by nuclear waste in the open sea, “I’ll teach myself to eat fish from a can.” In reality the 9.0 earthquake has forced residents of Japan to learn a new eating language. What they're doing today will affect the next seven generations.
How can this be possible?
While recording in a “real” studio with “real” musicians I’ve spent the past year being honest to the producers by exposing my dark haired roots. All this fricken music in my head isn’t so original after all…if you listen to what’s falling out you’ll hear nibbles and bites that resemble Lennon, Bowie, Tom Petty, The Electric Light Orchestra and because of Adam Lamberts rendition of Mad World that song has completely reignited the storyteller that Freddie Mercury planted in the skull years before the world discovered Bohemian Rhapsody.
The language our circles speak is being carried to the new people we meet. We’ve gone from a Metro-sexual male society to a get down and get dirty Mike Rowe approach. The hot new Dodge Charger might rock your middle aged world back to teenaged fantasies but the end result remains the same; no car is ever going to be fun until they bring back the outdoor movie theater; fogging up the windows required precision and perfect timing and every great mechanic knew of the magic but never sold their souls to secrets of what it really took to make an engine hum sweeter than Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.
What?
Exactly!
Now you know what it’s like to place ten fingers on a computer screen and speak like today is your last day. Shakespeare had his own language. Mariah Carey has a five octave range. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. You might recognize the language but to understand it means becoming part of their winning circle.
Try that trick at work day…rather than boggle up the system with I can’t. It’s not part of my job! I don’t do that! Or the infamous I don’t have time. Pick up a new language and grow forward.
I will always believe in you first.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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