Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Basketball, and Surf Music, a Cure for the Blues

I am extremely susceptible to outside influences. Things have a profound effect on my existence. News, current events, the world at large all weigh me down. It is probably something I should have examined. Sometimes I really need to disconnect from things.

My cousin's daughter plays basketball. Technically, my cousin plays basketball. More technically, my cousin's son's daughter, which would make her my cousin. Because I don't like to get lost in the degrees, it just seems silly.

Anyway, my cousin (the father of my cousin who plays basketball, not my cousin the basketball player... to make things easier we will just call my cousin the father of the basketball player daddio, and my cousin the basketball player Hoopstar, that will be easier.).

Anyway, Daddio put a video of Hoopstar taking some foul shots of Facebook. Since I love to make little videos, I asked him (Daddio) if I could make a video of his video. Being a decent human being he said yes.

Making a video is an all consuming thing for me. It has to go through two or three, or in this case 4 different apps. One of which was brand new, cost two dollars and was bought specifically for this video production. It is called Crop and Zoom, and it is a fantastic little program that allows you to zoom in on parts of the video, and back out. It is amazing.

Anyway, the real hard part is finding the right song. This can take days. Sometimes you know going in what song will be right, sometimes you just make a video because the song seems to need a video. This time it took a while.

Here is the process. While driving to and from work I keep hitting next on my phone until the right song comes on. It has to have a long enough jam to cover the video, singing detracts from the action in the video, normally.

This morning on the way to work Wipe Out by the Surfaris came, and it instantly said Use Me in your new video. So, I did,

It is one of the happiest songs. Hammering drum beats, long, beautiful guitar, all gliding to form a perfect harmony. It made me feel so good I had to listen to it twice. And I will listen to it tonight on the way to the gym. So, thank you, Daddio, thank you Hoopstar, and thank you Surfaris, Life seems a lot nicer all of the sudden.