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.

Worst Music Video

The reason that I do not like this music video is because of the song, her style and the topic of the song. I am not the kind of person that enjoys listening to punk or pop and Avril Lavene has in a complete disaster combined these two things to bring pain and torture to my ears every time I hear the song. I don’t mean to be stereotypical, but I just don’t like skater boys or girls for that matter. I don’t like the way they dress I just don’t understand the whole sweat band, spikes, and all the rest. I think that a lot of them are cool people after you get to know them, but they just put a type of ora that draws attention to themselves and that almost every time gets them labeled. The video goes on and in the end has a massive party in the street with the “hero” Avril Lavene throwing some kind of concert in the middle of the street on top of cars. Kids start running to this awful music like she is some modern day pied piper. The lyrics to these songs really have to application to me. That is part of the reason that I feel I do not like this song at all. I tend to listen to songs that I feel I can identify with the lyrics. It helps to draw you into the song and make it feel like it is a situation you have gone through or that could realistically happen to you sometime in your life. Me falling in love with some one and then them going into the professional music business do not seem to be in my near future plans. I also just do not like Avril’s style of music in general so it made it easy for me to already assume that I was not going to enjoy this music video one bit.

Ol Red

I really like this music video more for the song that it is put to more than the actual video itself. The song titled Ol Red by Blake Shelton is a song that I find very creative and ironic. The song starts of by the man saying how he walked in on his wife cheating on him and it is implied that he ended up killing the man she was with. He then goes on to explain that he was sentenced ninety-nine years in prison. I can’t image what it would be like to be in prison. It would be terrible to be isolated from the entire world for the rest of your life. It would completely change you as a person; all of the things that were your normal daily routine or things that used to be important to you would no longer matter. Your Sunday priorities would go from relaxing reading the newspaper, watching some football, and maybe mowing the yard to physical labor, boring jobs, and terrible food. The artist explains that after two years he finally made friends with the warden at his prison. He made friends with him and was rewarded by only having to take care of the bloodhound that the prison would release if someone were trying to escape. He goes on to explain this is how he got out of prison he took the dog out to see a female dog every night. Ol Red got used to seeing her and so he kept him away for awhile made his escape and knowing as soon as they let the dog out he was free because he would run straight to the girl instead chase him. The closing line of this song is the best, “love got me in here and love got me out.”

Obey The Traffic Lights

Traffic lights are everywhere you go, they are an acquired knowledge with major importance, you obey them from the day you start learning to drive, and everyone one is different, but they all have the same purpose; to maintain order and provide a logical system. Traffic lights aren’t something you think about everyday, they have become second nature, you know what each color stands for and you know that you must obey each rule. These simple boxes with three simple colors are far more than what they appear they are an orchestrated series of logical, visual and ethical appeals and a remarkable demonstration of a subtle argument with enormous importance.

All streetlights appear to be the same, they all have the same general goals, but they tell such a deeper story that is always overlooked. A streetlight can tell you a lot about a town, a certain intersection or even the time of night. For example take the streetlight at the corner of 48^th and O here in Lincoln. It is at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in the city and it reflects that. It is about twice the size of a regular street light and has about twice the information. It has lights telling you when to go, when to stop, when to use caution, when to turn right, when to turn left, when to go forward and turn right, when to just turn. All of this information is needed to keep the intersection safe. On the other side of things imagine a streetlight in a small run down town that maybe sees a car three times a day. It only has the required information of when to go, stop, and use caution, or maybe it doesn’t even have that. Maybe it is a just a simple flashing yellow light, telling you to use caution at all times, it is not a busy enough intersection or town to need much more instruction.

The streetlights are making an argument for order, a sense of safety and control that must be put in place to keep our streets safe and orderly. The main point that has been put in place with a streetlight is the element of logos. Logos is the appeal to ones logic. A streetlight is filled with nothing but logic. Think about it, you’re coming up to one of the busiest intersections in the world, right at the corner of time square and suddenly the traffic light switches from green to red, do you ignore the light and cruise straight on through, of course not. You must stop there isn’t a doubt in your mind, you use common sense and apply the breaks. It wasn’t a hard decision for you, you knew that if you would have decided to disobey this critical analogy between color and safety, that has been developed through repetition of cause and effect, you would have sent yourself plummeting into a pile of cars and only rolling the dice to see if you would have survived. Moments later at the same intersection the light turns green you now know that it is safe for you to proceed, the logical tie to the color green that has been made allows you to feel safe for you to move forward.

This analogy is something that is not inherited or a piece of born knowledge it is something you must develop. Think about the exposure one gets to the analogy of red equals stop, green means go and yellow represents caution. Even when you are a young child years away from ever placing yourself behind the steering wheel of a car, when you don’t really need to know the slightest thing about driving rules you are exposed to this analogy. You develop it through playground games. The game red light green light is a way to embed in you this analogy so when it does come time for you to start driving the analogy and cause and effect that you must execute is second nature.

Cause and effect allows for this order, because the light is green you can go, because the light is yellow you will use caution and because the light is red you will stop. It is a simple matter of cause and effect. If the argument is not taken seriously, if it is seen as worthless the results are horridness. In the year of 2006 alone there were nearly 33,000 accidents reported in the state of Nebraska (Nebraska Dept of Road Accident Record Bureau). It is easy to see that the effect of not following traffic laws result in terrible effects. One can easily compare the two sides of this argument. They really aren’t hard to see, one side is obey them and the other is to not obey. Even the traffic light in itself is complete opposites. Take the colors green and red, they are opposite of each other on the color wheel having completely different make up’s, but yet they are called complementary. They work together; they make the other better, just as in the traffic light. Stop is the exact opposite of go, but they too both complement each other, working side by side to give our lives a sense of safety and order.

These simple colors of green, red, and yellow have never ending power tied to them. They are powerful enough to save your life and keep America a civilized country to travel in, but they must be in the context of a streetlight. Outside of this context there is no longer an appeal of kairos, the appeal of time and place. Time and place is the key element of this argument. If you are walking down the street and you see a man in a red shirt you don’t automatically stop walking and wait for someone in a green shirt to walk by. You know that outside of the context of a streetlight these colors have no more meaning than the colors pink and orange flashing in the sky.

Traffic lights are commonly seen as just another part of our daily lives, but when dissected into its minute parts it is easy to see the careful planning that had been put into each light. Each light gives different commands, some are telling you that you are free to proceed, this is not a place of concern for you, others let you know that you must be very alert and aware of other drivers. They all no matter how complex or how simple are a perfectly developed argument directed toward our society. They are screaming that we must have order; we cannot be left to trust one another with our lives. To make sure the argument is heard they have been carefully planned out with almost all elements of a good argument, logic, ethical appeal, time and place, compare and contrast, and visual appeal. These elements are all leading us to the desired goal of creating a system of order and logical movement.

Works Cited

Nebraska Department of Roads Accident Bureau. "Types of Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents." Nebraska Department of Roads. 26 Oct. 2007.

Huskers Fire Steve Peterson

The state of Nebraska had one of its' wishes granted this week; Steve Peterson was fired as the Athletic Director of Nebraska University. He was let go because of "management issues," but the real reason that he was fired was because of the lack of success of the football team this year. This would be a very difficult position for anyone to fill. Nebraska has an extreme obsession over our cornhusker football. If we aren't winning we don't want you as a coach, if you are getting us wins we don't want you as an athletic director. With the struggles that the huskers have been having this season Steve Peterson was fired. He will be filled by one of the most loved men by the general public of Nebraska, Tom Osborne. Tom was a coach here at Nebraska and brought a great deal of success and tradition to our program. He is now looked at as a savior. He is put in a very difficult situation though. There are five games left in the football season and people are under the conception that since Tom is back on campus we will some how magically be immediately back to championship caliber. This is really just an unreasonable goal. Tom Osborne addressed this issue of bringing the team back to where our program should be saying that he couldn’t just wave a magic wand and bring everything back to the way it used to be. He also explained that he isn't in the same position that he used to be. He no longer deals directly with the players, he will deal more with the coaches and their staffs. Even saying this everyone still has a sense of optimism, hoping and praying that things can be as again as they used to be.