A strange series of events gained momentum and struck me upside the head with the force of dozens of domino bricks this past week. I am not sure where to start, so I will flush it out in a nice rambling nonsense as the beauty of it is that there is no place for Order, there is no start or finish, and it continues to evolve as I write, post and reread these words.
A few months ago I conceived a podcast idea that matured into Human Trampolines. Well shux, I suppose I first thought of it about a year ago now, but it stewed about in my head and in email conversations before any true action ever took place. Like many ideas, I feared this one would never gain enough momentum to get lift. I suffer from laziness, procrastination, and a slew of other slothy sludgy smudges. They are shackles that when viewed with hindsight bring me a good deal of shame. However, this idea had wings. My glorious friends came forth with glorious stories of glorious songs and the podcast became something real. It existed on the internet and in people's ears and as people listened it may even cause them to react to any certain incident differently than if it had not lifted off and flown. While it is simply a minor 15 minute podcast with only 4 episodes to date, it was a grand accomplishment in my mind to have HT and it's website and the idea of people enjoying the episodes the same way I enjoy the podcasts that I enjoy.
Then the world turned a few times. The sun came up and went down... It happened quickly and while the enjoyment was still there, many other things came and went through my head that caused the enjoyment to be a little less noticeable. Faces and delicious meals and scores of sports games on the television all joined the HT enjoyment in my mind similarly to how the Whos joined hands in Whoville. More and more it built up and more and more the sun set.
Finally last week rolled around. Another beautiful moment took place. As the Social Network was being celebrated at the Golden Globes, I utilized Facebook to its most glorious potential: contacting friends you may not normally contact to try and get the word out. With little fear of my privacy, I asked friends if anyone would be interested to contribute to HT, then posted a link to the site. The next day I had an email in my inbox with an attachment.
Now this podcast was just a small tiny thing. About 50,000 of them (total guess) are posted to iTunes daily and about 6 billion people swim the Earth and about 3 trillion dollars are made up. Size is an important factor to be constantly thinking about. You can think you are big or you can think you are small, but really you are just you and everything is moving so fast, it is hard to judge and be certain. Seriously.
Ok- back to the email. It was from a young student at NYU who I had met in Los Angeles and is a big fan of the spinto band. There was an attachment alongside the email. He sent me a story (channeling his inner Woody Allen) for the podcast. Now, if you don't know about the podcast, read this quickly. I haven't posted his story online, but like most of the episodes, it is based around a song that affected him. That song is Oh Mandy by the spinto band.
Now I have heard many people sing many praises (and criticisms) to the spinto band in all shapes and sizes and that is not what is great about this.
This young man proved that everything in the universe has a place and is connected and moves in and out of form and lack of form constantly. Here we are, billions of us, sitting around, blogging, sleeping, making cocoa, and it will all eventually collide. I love it. It is why I like to read the credits in movies- I probably won't know any names, but I might and that gives me evidence that there is a connection flowing from all atoms to all atoms. Events all happen. Some have reasons and some don't, but we can't question that they will happen. What we have to do is make more events happen. We have to work hard at it. The most minor of things all take shape and connect and each is necessary to the next. It is best to not view events as chores, but rather as opportunities. We have a lot at play here and I'm not sure I explained it very well. Let me try a new paragraph:
A young boy fell in love with a song and then, years later, told the story about falling in love with the song on a podcast about songs you love created by a guy who is in the band of the song he fell in love with and was, quite honestly, growing tired of the song the boy fell in love with, but then the boy and his story inspired the guy to realize that songs and love and everything are not to grow tired of, they are all puzzle pieces or intertwined hands or (damn- I'm going to say it) grains of sand.
Get it? I honestly can't even grasp how blown away I am by it all. I'm not sure why... This blog post didn't even really get it across. Just trust me.
