Guest Blogger #3*

*Be warned, you could be #4. And soon!

So, yeah, I basically stalked this week's Guest Blogger...

OK not exactly. On blogger.com (where my orange version of this blog lives) there's this nifty button that reads "next blog". When you click it, sometimes you get an ad, sometimes you get porn, sometimes you get a whiny teenage diary with really cool graphics and emo music. Sometimes you get the blog of one of your my favorite Latin American authors! And sometimes you get one that invites you to read more than a just a few sentences, like this week's Guest Blogger's blog. When I find one I like, I try to leave a comment...



Val: So, first things first. Thanks again for being my guest blogger today! Would you like to tell our reader about yourself and how you’re associated with String of Lights and/or this topic you’re writing about or should I?

You: Sure, I write a blog on my divorce. One day, I received a post on my blog saying… “Found your blog yesterday…” The email was filled with kind words about my writing, so I decided to see what where the perceptive poster came from. That led me to Val, and her “String of Lights.” I read a post a about vacuums, and like the fickle fish of fate, I was lured in.

Val: Do you have a blog? Would you like to put a link to it here?

You: Yeah, I’ll take the free ad space. Is this thing on? Do you do blinking marquees too? I have 2 blogs: grphter.blogspot.com, and descarteslemming.blogspot.com. They’re both about my life and how the divorce saga intertwines. The lemming site has pictures, videos and unrelated stuff to confuse the reader. It’s for the person who likes to put on a blindfold when they drive.

Val: What takes up most of your day?

You: I blog, and I do radio research for Mediabase 24/7. They chart radio station airplay and report the data back to whoever will pay for it—primarily record labels and other radio stations. Think of my job as Name that Tune for a weekly paycheck.

Val: What kind of music don’t you listen to?

You: Country. It's funny. When I was a kid, my Mom listened to country (cuz it was going through it's popular early 70s phase). I thought I hated music, until a friend, who was a local "hit radio" DJ brought me some records. It was all radio rock stuff like Grand Funk Railroad and Dobie Gray and Thin Lizzy. Stuff like that. I fell in love! Suddenly music was cool, and I've been listening ever since.

Val: What question would you have liked me to ask you? And what would your answer be?

You: Question: Can I pay you for this?
Answer: Absolutely.

Perfecto. On to your post!

Well Val, we’ve talked about Pandora.com a little. You’ve even asked about one of my stations. Ok, I pointed it out, and you’d said “why are you waving this stinky thing under my nose.” Same thing.

The station is called “An experiment in mellow.” It started as a project for a friend a few years back. The friend has since moved on, but I still prune and water the station. I wanted to see if I could use the parameters of Pandora to create a mellow station that wasn’t whiny. With Pandora, if you add bouncing bands, you risk bumping the beat too fast. You allow too much sentimentality to seep in, and you risk sounding like a doctor’s office. I wanted life and mood. It was my little musical bio-dome.

Artists like Kate Bush, Sarah McLaughlin and the Smiths were among the original seeds. I nurtured branches of Jack Johnson, and Death Cab, while cutting out the Mariah Careys before they even sprouted.

It’s part of how I listen to music, I love how it’s the landscaping for our environment. It creates your setting, sets your mood and invites others who want to know more. In my divorce, I kind of let the music amble, but now I’m coming back. I’ve filled my rooms with extravagant bouquets and arrangements, and the music hasn’t sounded better.