Soundtrack of My Life

Billy’s Got his Beer Goggles On, Neal McCoy

Billy’s is sitting there at the bar drinking away his pain and he is seeing all kinds of different things: ugly women are starting to look amazing, he is imagining he’s a great dancer and then all the sudden he thinks Marty Stouffer is sitting next to him. At first I did not know what his name was all I could remember was watching his television show, Wild America hosted by himself Marty Stouffer. I think nearly every Saturday morning my brother, sister, dad and I would sit and watch this show with my mom soon coming in to join us after doing some usual Saturday morning cleaning that she always thought was necessary. We would all then sit there with our breakfasts and be mesmerized by the elusiveness of a rabbit escaping fierce predator or the intelligence of a monkey as he made himself a tool to crack open a certain fruit. The narrator had such a plain boring monotone voice that in any other situation it would put you to sleep, but because it was combined with some of the fiercest animals ever created, it was very pleasant to listen to. I remember my favorite episode to watch was the one with the rams. They would show these massive animals barreling at each other and then smashing their heads together with unbelievable forces. I always found this amazingly cool and stupid. It was such a thrill for me to see these animals’ pound on each other like this, but never fully understood why one wouldn’t just dodge the other.

Basketball, Lil Bow Wow

Lil Bow Wow and me had so much in common at this age. He enjoyed hanging out with his friends, he lived at home with his parents, he loved sports and his favorite of which being basketball. The only difference really was that he was make rap albums, I was making pictures for my moms’ refrigerator, his house was worth billions, mine was tucked back behind a corn field, ok so maybe we were not alike at all, but we both do love basketball. At the beginning of the video he is shown playing a specific childhood game that I remember called HORSE. Horse is when one player shoots the ball and if he makes the shot the following player must shoot and make it as well or else earn a letter. If you gain enough letters to spell out the word horse you are eliminated. The last player to be left in the game is crowned the winner. I remember playing this game for hours with anyone that would play. HORSE became so much more than just shooting and seeing if the other guy could make the same shot. It became very strategic; you wanted to find the perfect balance. The shot had to be hard enough that you knew the following person couldn’t make it, but not to hard that you couldn’t make it either. I would spend hours coming up with such “trick shots” that I knew I had practiced, but nobody else would have ever thought of shooting. The simple game of HORSE had so much more strategy and depth to it than an outsider may have noticed at a simple glance.

“The Way I Are” by Timbaland

In this video, between verses of the song, they show clips of people juggling a soccer ball it seems a little out of place I do not really understand why it is in there, but there are many times that I do not understand what is going on in music videos. As soon as I saw these guys playing soccer I thought back to how my summers were spent many years ago. Back when I was in middle school I played on a competitive soccer team called The KICKS. We were a team of kids just from my town that would travel to soccer tournaments all over Nebraska. I remember one game we were playing one of our growing rivals the Millard Eagles in the championship game of the premier tournament of the summer, The Lincoln Cup. The game was a battle the whole way through we traded goals back and fourth fitting for every possession and regulation was not enough time for us to decide a champion. There must be overtime. The way overtime works at that age is you have two overtime periods that are played golden goal; meaning first team to score wins. Even with the changed rules and increases intensity we still could not crown a victor. We had to go to a shoot out. A shootout is when a player puts the ball right in front of the goal and it’s just him, the goalie, and one shot per player to try and win the game. I stepped up to shoot and crushed it a perfect shot into the lower right corner of the goal. I was so relieved. There rest of our team shot and the rest of theirs did as well and after their last shooter had missed we exploded with joy screaming as loud as possible. It was a suspenseful moment that exploded like a cork.

Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili peppers

In this video there is a scene where one of the group members is seen playing an accordion, I thought this was very interesting. It is not very often that you see a million dollar band playing an instrument such as this, or see anyone playing an accordion for that matter. But one person that used to play the accordion was my dad. I do not really know for how long he played it, why he picked it up or even if he was any good, but what I do know is that he was never ashamed to admit that he played it. That is one thing that I love about my dad he is a big dork. He does not care about what others think about him he just takes everyday one day at a time and enjoys every minute of each day. He is not the most stylish guy or anything like that, but that quite all right with him and me too. This way of life is something that my dad has instilled in me. He has made me realize that it is ok do be yourself and not worry about what others think. I am a big dork and I am fine with that. I know that I do not fit the latest fashion trends and honestly I try my best not to. I love my dad and the fact that he made me the way I am.

The Fray, How to Save a Life:

Throughout this video by The Fray there are faint flashes of text that appear that are listed with numbers beside them as if they are put in a list. They include things such as, have faith, remember, don’t be scared of death, and the number one love. Watching this video and reading these listed words reminded me of my grandfather, Bill Kottmeyer, who passed away a few years ago now. This was the first time that I had encountered a death that was close to me. Reading these words brought back many memories and emotions of the way I felt and the way that I knew my grandfather felt. My grandpa had lived a very successful life and had over come many things. He beat cancer twice, fought through years of sickness, made a better life for his children and always had a loving spot on his lap for his grandchildren. He has been an inspiration to me and I know that many of the characteristics that I have come from him. He was never able to make it to one of my high school basketball games, but when I was younger I always would shoot hoops and the neighbors house and he would always come out with his lawn chair and watch me play. He always seemed so happy watching me play I wanted so badly for him to be able to watch an actual game of mine. I now feel that every time I step onto the court to play a game he is still sitting in his lawn chair looking down watching me play.

Hill Billy Deluxe, Brooks and Dunn

This song is an energetic song about people just having a good time. In the background you can see a huge bon fire with tons of people gathered around enjoying themselves. As soon as I saw this I escaped from this frigid cold and was back in a perfect summer night not to cold not to hot. My Friends and I always used to go out to one of our favorite sand pits back in my hometown and have bon fires that everyone was invited to. There never was anything to complicated or real creative about what we would do it was just a big group of friends, an old battery powered radio, some roasted wieners and marshmallows and an unlimited amount of good times. My friends and I were always like that it did not matter where we were, what we were doing or who we were with we always had a good time. It is funny that in a day and age where everything is so technologically centered and our lives are moving so fast that when I look back some of my greatest memories are from when all we had for entertainment were a couple of matches, some old logs and each other. It was like an escape for us. We could drive out to the sand pit in the middle of nowhere and be completely separated from the entire world. It no longer mattered what kind of car you drove, how big your house was, or what kind of grades you got. The only concern on any one’s mind was letting lose and having a blast.

Friends forever (graduation song), Vitamin C

Vitamin C takes you through a journey of what appears to be the last few days of her high school years and then into her graduation. My high school graduation was not what you typically see in movies or normally think of when you hear of graduations. Our commencement as they called was as boring and as formal as the word sounds. Do not get me wrong we were all very excited, but there was never the traditional hat throwing, whooping and hollering, or any such excitement. But as soon as we were out of the robes and out of the gymnasium the exhilaration could not be held back any longer. There was a mad rush of hugging, screaming, laughter and joy. After thirteen years of hard work it finally had all reached its’ end goal (thirteen years because I am counting kindergarten not because I took a grade twice). I did not feel any different; I did not feel as if I had just achieved an amazing goal. It more felt like I had just reached something that had been expected ever since I started the whole process. I think that since of it being expected took away some of the excitement and exhilaration, for me it was something I knew I had to do, for others it was a long hard fought battle that they had finally conquered. It is very interesting that the same achievement can take such a different path to achieve. That is the way life is some people struggle through the whole thing and others everything just seems to keep falling in place. Or is it the person that determines the outcome?

Weird Al Yankovic, White and Nerdy:

After multiple explanations of why Weird Al is being stereotyped as, “White and nerdy,” toward the end of the song there is a line, “Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire.” As soon as I heard this and saw the images that were placed with the lyrics I was sadly reminded that I once was at a Renaissance Festival and for this I too may be white and nerdy. I am probably even more so because not only did I attend the festival, but also I wrote an entire essay on it. There were so many different things going on while I was there. Immediately when we walked in there was a large group of people learning a festival dance. They were dressed in all different sorts of dress. There was one man dressed in an outfit with pastel colors of, yellow, blue, pink, orange, almost any color imaginable. He also had on shoes that were curled on the ends that resembled the types of shoes that you imagine an elf wearing. The most abnormal thing that was that he was wearing a great deal of makeup. His whole face was covered with a base of white with rosy red cheeks and bright blue eyes. As we continued on at the festival we entered a feast that seemed to go on for days. There were some many different courses. The food just kept on coming it was nearly unbelievable. They served us crackers and cheese, three types of meats, rolls with five types of butter, wines of all sort and best of all a dessert that took you to heaven. The Renaissance festival was very awkward and maybe it was a little nerdy, but it was an experience that I had never encountered and never will forget.