Datebook: Thursday, February 8th ~ 2007

So we are in the process of “looking at music.”

I am always a little envious of all of those teams who go to the rink and their coach hands them a CD and says, “This is your program for this season.”

This is not the case in our camp.

Between me and the mom of my daughter’s partner, we spend at least fifteen hundred dollars on music buying OD and FD “possibilities”. In reality, we know it is a doomed proposition, much like buying a prom dress for a seventeen year-old without her being present. Much like picking a hair style for your son out of a catalogue without his input.

Last year we vacillated between Billy Joel, Joe Cocker, the Beatles, and Queen. Once you find selections, of course, you have to find pieces that “mix together” to form a slow piece and one with “build.” If you download music it can’t always be cut and “pieced together” with Garageband or some other SirMixaLot service because there is often some type of copyright covering it although you have just paid one dollar to download it.

It reminds me of being lost on the turnpike and going through the toll to turn around to go back through the toll, which in reality translates to paying double to get back to where you were.

I think I have related this before, but none of our selections are ever used.

No Prince, no Tina, no Tom Jones.

So now we are supposed to go out again and look for music and this year we have even less direction than we usually have.

We have to find folk music.

And a new free dance.

Oh, and it must be exotic and dramatic.

That might be doable if we didn’t need to add in the other components:

Three coaches must like it.

The skaters must “feel it”.

The judges must think it is both mature in content yet youthful in spirit.

It must be fresh.

There must be this shift in tempo (the slow –look into each other’s eyes and the build—skate really fast and use all the corners of the rink).

It must have crowd appeal.

It must have longevity (no one will get sick of it before next January).

These seven caveats make it Mission Impossible 4.

First of all, our coaches span several generations. One of them told us last year that he loved Tina Turner and in fact had secret fantasies about her and that he “loved her music”.

Great. I bought several CDs-- Tina with Ike, Tina in her Thunderdome era, and Tina with the legs. Seventy dollars.

Coach number two was unimpressed.

“I’m not sure. Some of the judges may not like that whole Ike beating Tina thing. It might be “too much.”

Oh, okay. I call my co-partner in the venture with our new scavenger hunt for directions.

“We can’t have anything that is “too much.”

“Did they listen to anything besides the “Proud Mary” cut?

“I don’t know. I think they are afraid of the whole Mel Gibson/Mad Max connotation with the judges.”

Coach three liked our Billy Joel selections. But Coach one did the whole twisty mouth, squinty eye maneuver (Level 4 with pluses).

“I don’t know. I don’t think he plays well to international judges.”

Oh. The Piano Man isn’t hot in France or Frankfurt?

Joe Cocker.

“He has that whole Palsy thing going on”.

But, we’re only listening to him, not sitting in the third row.

“I don’t know, he is so graveling, it might grate on people’s nerves”.

Tom Jones.

“There is that whole panty thing. Women used to throw them all over the stage…”

“So, you think the audience would be tempted to throw thongs instead of bears?”

“Noooo…, but I’m thinking a lot of those women are now probably judges and we may not get the reaction we hoped for.”

So, we have some obstacles to overcome. Never fear, however. I have Google, and I’m waiting for the day when I “feel lucky” so I can put in the question.

Oh, the question--“What music can be felt in the heart and soul of two, approved by a trio of disagreeing experts, and be embraced by a panel of judges?”

I know, think of all the money saved on discarded CDs.

Mombo