K already had a song in mind, but it's 2:35 minutes long. The rules state that the kiddos only get one minute total to show their stuff. So, I had to find a way to remove one minute and thirty five seconds from his choice. As usual, I went to the Internets.
I found a free music editor, Audacity. After some playing around with it, I was successful in clipping, cutting and adding some neat-o sound effects, which included a nice fade-out at the end. I got a nice piece of music that sounds good, and like it all belongs together. It took me about twenty minutes and with a minimum of hair pulling and tooth gnashing. The only issue with Audacity is that it cannot save your file as an MP3. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? Fortunately I already had a file converter from my old Blackberry days, so it was easy enough to turn that puppy from a WAV to an MP3 and burn it to a CD.
All this got me to thinking. I have an unhealthy fascination with Tonya Harding. I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that at some point in my distant past I would have shot someone for hair like hers, or I saw a kindred spirit in the Big Thighs club. Maybe some part of me likes the Bad Girl, or wonders just how much she really knew about the whole "whack whack nod nod" thing. At any rate, it takes a woman with a hella lotta guts to post her wedding video on her own website.
Tonya liked the movie soundtracks. She skated to "Robin Hood" and "Batman," and saved all her big jumps for the rushing high points in the music. It was pretty formulaic, but the crowds seemed to eat it up. There was one program, though, which always leaves me scratching my head, and is everything I hate about music in figure skating routines.
She starts out with "Batman," by Danny Elfman. It's dark. It's big. It's got heavy climactic moments, dramatic and deep. Then she stops, and switches to a tinny piano clinking out "Send in the Clowns." What the fuck. We were all jumping and swooshing and heroic, and now we're sad clowns. Not only are we Sad Clowns, we're then left whirling to the off-key tones of the Big Top Theme as in some discordant Circus from Hell. But wait. We're not done! The Sad Clowns make way for Sexy Time! The crowds fucking cheer her along in the mess, now in the third act which is Wild Thing! Whoever this Barbara Flowers person is, she is probably cutting music with her toes because her hands and arms are in a fucking straightjacket. Tonya is now waggling her ass in a costume which now makes perfect sense. The blue lame necktie skirt on the bottom says "whore," but the princess cut top says "nice girl." Then, the music just STOPS. It ends. There is no fade out, nothing to indicate, "this is winding down." It just fucking stops, even though my mind is saying, "Wait, but there's more to this song. Shouldn't it keep going?"
This routine has three completely different pieces of music, and they simply don't work together. They begin in odd places, they don't segue into each other, there is nothing at all that they have in common. Who chose this? Who listened to this and thought, "Oh wow. This is great!" This is akin to taking all the music on my walkman from 1993 and cramming it together. All those songs are great on their own, but together they're like Waldorf Salad.
I hate Waldorf Salad.
No comments:
Post a Comment