Literally. It was one of those weird, “I remember it well” dream moments. It was the song You’ll Think of Me by Keith Urban. The song starts “I woke up early this morning around four am, with the moon shining bright as headlights on the…” and that’s when I woke up singing the end of the phrase, the word

“…interstate”.

Okay, no more sleep for me. The first thing I do is check the clock, yep, it’s 4AM. And at that time of day, everything is full of subtext. Here’s my subtext from all of that:

• You’ll think of Me is a song that Jim & Tim does. I don’t sing lead on it, but its in both of our ranges, so either one of us can do  it (and have).
• Okay, not only does the song talk about waking up at 4 AM and I did exactly that, but I’m also a part of the group called 4-AM, which is short for 4 A cappella Musicians.
• 4-AM does a Keith Urban song But For the Grace Of God and I do sing lead on that one. I arranged it for the group.
• I woke up singing the end of the phrase I was dreaming about! How wild is that?

Now, here’s my takeaway. I’m going crazy…wait, I already knew that, so scratch that explanation.

It seems natural that I would dream about a song that I sing with one of the groups, so I guess that isn’t so surprising. It’s more that the song has ties to both of the groups I’m in and that it ties them together so well. Maybe the subconscious mind is paying attention, eh?  At any rate, more than anything else, it says to me I want to, maybe even need to sing more. I’m just not singing enough so that I end up waking up singing. And while that makes sense, it comes down to a question. How do I make that happen? Saying I want to sing more with Jim & Tim and 4-AM is the easy part, making it happen is something completely different.  And something I’m working on right now and trying things new and old.

I also think it’s something that’s going to happen as well. I think that’s what my subconscious is trying to tell me too. Stay tuned to see if my subconscious is right, I know I will.

One last thing. I’m half glad, half sorry that I don’t have a video of that. I know I’ll be hearing about for awhile as other people hear the story. Hey, if you’re going to hear voices in your head, they might as well be singing, right?

Photo Credit: cliff1066

I woke up singing originally appeared on With A Voice Like This on 20 July 2011. Tweet This

Recorded 22 March 2011

This show is a flight of fancy, based on a few things. First the article Obama Officially Backs Performance Radio Royalties… on Digital Music News, The White House White Paper on which the article is based, two podcast episodes 096 – Performance Rights Act part 1 and 097 – Performance Rights Act part 2 and my Op-Ed piece Performance Rights Act – my two cents on HR 848. I tell you, it was fun to talk about what I’d like to see happen, whether it does or not didn’t matter. It was fun to talk about.

At least most of it was. This show is a whimsical prelude to a more nuts and bolts look at the White House IP White Paper. I hope to bring that to you soon. Enjoy this show while you can and tell me what you’d like to see happen if/when these suggestions/directions are followed.

Show time [00:25:23]

Listen above or download by right clicking and saving.

159 – Dream a little IP with me originally appeared on With A Voice Like This on 25 March 2011. Tweet This

This is one of those ‘I wish someone was with me’ stories, but since no one was there with me, I’m going to share it with you.

My Birthday is this month and the other day, I received an e-mail coupon from “Name withheld” ‘s Pizza, a local pizza place for a free Birthday Entree (see below). I mean, they’re known as a pizza place and pizza is a part of their name (see the mostly grayed out logo in the upper right of the coupon, I put a red circle around the word pizza in the logo). I’m looking forward to some free pizza for my birthday. That is, until I read the disclaimer and get to the last line “Not valid on pizza.” (Once again, I circled it in red near the center of the coupon).

So already I think this is a bad deal…But does this stop me from getting a free meal? Uh-uh, No, no, no, no, no. So I go in last night, a little later than the dinner rush because I’m by myself and don’t want to deal with the wait.

I get there and the host greets me and asks how many, I say one, he says go ahead and sit anywhere you want. I choose an area with not too many people and they all look like they’re near the end of their time in the restaurant. The host brings my menu and says my server will be right with me. Standard later in the evening restaurant stuff.

My server comes to the table and gets my drink order (a Mountain Dew, I know you were dying to know that), then gives me a minute to look over the menu. My server comes back and I order my entree.

“Would you like Soup or Salad?”

“Ah”, I think to myself, “This is better than I first thought it would be.”

“What’s the soup?”

“There’s Minestrone, French Onion or Chicken Tortilla.”

Not being one to rush into a decision, I pause for a few seconds.

“I think I’ll have the chicken tortilla.”

And off my server goes to put in my order and get my soup. My server returns pretty quickly with my cup of soup and a packet of crackers on the saucer, which strikes me as odd, but I don’t give it much thought.

Then I taste the soup and it’s pretty good and that’s when I notice there are no tortilla strips in the soup. Maybe they were put in the bottom of the cup before the soup, so I dig in the cup to the point that I’m practically shaving off ceramic I’m scraping the cup so hard and still, no tortillas. They must have run out of tortilla strips, that’s why they gave me the crackers. So I wait for my server to come back.

“How was the soup?”

“It was good…” And my server was gone with the cup before I could start the next sentence only to return almost immediately with a new table setting for my entrée. “But I have a question about the soup. Shouldn’t it have had some tortilla with it?”

“Oh, that’s just the name. I told them we should probably change it to chicken enchilada soup or something like that.”

“O, o-okay”

Now I start to see a pattern. Just because it’s in the name, that doesn’t mean I’m going to get it. And that’s when it hits me. This could be the perfect night. The night when everything was so wrong it was right. By this time everyone on my side of the dining room was gone, so the only way I could see, or hear anyone was if they were walking toward me and I see their reflection in the windows across from me or I get up and walk to the other part of the restaurant. I’m all by myself, literally and figuratively. But I’m also excited.  I mean the anticipation is building. You see, I’m hoping that there’s something essential missing from my entrée. In fact, I know there’s something missing and with no one around me, the anticipation is just magnified. It’s to the point that I’m so excited that time seems to stop because there’s no way it took as long as it seemed for that entrée to get to me. And just when it was to the point that I was exactly like every Wolf you’ve ever seen in a cartoon with a knife in one hand, a fork in the other, the napkin tucked into his collar, mouth wide open with his tongue lolling out one side and drooling up a storm that out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.  The reflection of the dish in the hand of my server. There was no one else that it could be for. I saw my server turn the corner and I knew that dish was for me and I knew that it was missing something, I KNEW it!

My server put that dish down in front of me and you know what? You know WHAT?!

There was both chicken AND parmesan in my Chicken Parmesan.

My heart sank. This had the promise to be one of my top five story of stories. I had the terrible trifecta in my grasp and it slipped through my fingers. I was beyond disappointed.

And the food? Well, the food was okay, it was good. Not as good as their…pizza.

Which is what they’re known for. And I couldn’t have.

For my Free Birthday entrée…

…Because I’m a valued customer.

Alex, I’d like clues for 1000.

One last thing. My server got a little more than 25% tip on what the bill would have been if the entrée hadn’t been free. Hey, good personal service is still good service. And another part of the reason was for being able to say “Oh, that’s just the name.” with a straight face.

*customer not included originally appeared on With A Voice Like This on 7 May 2010. Tweet This