Author: Frank

Music…

Fly Me Courageous

Fly Me Courageous

Drivin N Cryin

and Words

I’ve got you on the loose
I left you groovin’
I’ve got you on the beat
I left you broken
But won’t you take my place
Since long ago I wandered
Way out on a cliff
With the brilliance of an angel

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

On the summer of 1991, I walk into the men’s room at work.  Much like you’d expect, I simply walk in for a nature call.  As I stand there at the urinal, I do my business.  My mind wanders, and for a brief moment it turns to absolutely nothing.  Next, I absentmindedly zip up and walk to the sink to wash my hands.  As I lather up, my mind fixates on precisely where I am.  I panic.

I stand in the men’s room at Microsoft’s Building 13; I started my professional career a few days ago.  A whirlwind of activity led up to this week.  First, I had a short vacation days before I left Florida, where we drove up the East Coast to visit friends in Philadelphia and Connecticut.  Next, I arrived in Washington a week early to take care of administrative tasks.  I used this week to accomplish tasks like getting a new license, transferring my registration, finding an apartment.  Subsequently, I tackled all these.

Continue reading “One crazy summer” →

Music…

You’re Still The One

Come On Over

Shania Twain

and Words

When I first saw you, I saw love
And the first time you touched me, I felt love
And after all this time, You’re still the one I love

Mmm, yeah
Looks like we made it
Look how far we’ve come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we’d get there someday

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

In an otherwise ordinary summer weekend in the late 1990’s, I fly into St. Louis.  Today, I’ll be meeting my sister and her then fiancé, in this unfamiliar city.  My flight runs late, and I’ll be keeping them waiting.  Well, the two of them and a mess of strangers.  You see, they all need to wait for me to arrive before we can all take the long car ride to Rolla, Missouri.

A year before, my sister and now brother-in-law attended a family event with his extended family.  He and his extended family, a collection of cousins from his father’s side, collectively decided to meet for a cousin reunion each year.  Each year they’d pick a different location, and everyone would flock to that city.  What they did was really of little consequence, it was simply an opportunity for family to gather.

Continue reading “Family of another kind” →

Music…

Don’t Look Back In Anger

(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?

Oasis

and Words

Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don’t you know you might find
A better place to play
You said that you’d never been
But all the things that you’ve seen
Will slowly fade away

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

As I watched the Academy Awards a few weeks ago, the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won most of the awards for which it was nominated.  I celebrated in stoic Asian pride as I watched people who looked like me shuffle onto the stage.  I watched the film only a few days preceding the Academy Awards, and to be perfectly honest it took more brain power for my state of inebriation at that moment.

Naturally, many of the faces on the stage were familiar.  However, there was one face, both on the stage and in the film that I was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place.  I scrolled through the cast listed in IMDB.  It was there that I got my answer, the actor was Harry Shum Jr.  Though now that I have a name to go with the face, the question was…  “Where have I seen him before?”

Continue reading “Now or Never” →

Music…

We Go Together

Grease Soundtrack

Grease, Cast of

and Words

We go together like
Ra ma la ma la ma ka dinga kading a dong
Remember forever, as
Shoo wop shoo waddy waddy yippity boom de boom
Chang chang changity chang shoo bop
That’s the way it should be
Wahoo yeah

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I wore a toga in high school once.  Our high school ran a series of skits during my senior year.  Different groups would plan and perform small skits.  Our small modest club for Latin decided to put together a skit.  Honestly, it was scripted together hastily, almost as one may scribble something in the back of a napkin.  Our school, the South Plantation Paladins, faced the Dragons (possibly from Stranahan high school) in a football game.

The story in the skit was simple.  A number of us donned togas, as we represented the Latin Club.  The soldiers and paladin all wore traditional white togas, and the dragon wore a green toga with the sign ‘dragon’ on it.  The soldiers and the dragon battled across the stage with either plastic or cardboard swords.  Eventually the paladin joins the battle and slays the dragon in a single stroke.  There was really not much else to the skit.  I played the part of the dragon in a green toga.  I got cheers as I entered the stage.  Upon meeting my end in the skit, I drop to the wooden floor with a loud resounding thump.  The audience was in stitches.

Continue reading “Apparently, we don’t go together” →

Music…

Always with Me, Always with You

Surfing With The Alien

Joe Satriani

and Words

[Instrumental]

More than once I’ve been accused of remembering details with stunning, even creepy accuracy.  My ability to recall details from conversations years before causes friends and family some distress.  Save for that time in high school where I memorized pi to over 130 digits, I don’t try to remember details; I just do.  I won’t tell you that I remember details with malicious intent, at least not most of the time.

On an otherwise ordinary visit to Costco, I come upon the condiment aisle.  I walk by the cartoonishly large portions of whatever they’ve packaged; I observe them in morbid fascination.  Upon finding a gallon-sized container of plain yellow mustard, I stop.  At that moment, a particular memory surfaces.  My good friend detests yellow mustard.  He won’t consume it as a condiment and only occasionally tolerates it in recipes.

Continue reading “A guitar virtuoso, with a side of yellow mustard” →

Music…

The Boys Of Summer

Building The Perfect Beast

Don Henley

and Words

Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer’s out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone
I’m driving by your house
Though I know you’re not home

Lyric excerpts from AZ Lyrics.

I attended the University of Miami as an engineer.  Though, it is a private school, we were not wealthy, far from it.  Upon paying for my first semester’s tuition, we did not know how we would fund my college education.  I worked nearly every day when I didn’t attend classes.  I even worked through Spring Break, often filling my weekdays by picking up shifts waiting on tables.

On my sophomore year in college, I took an atypical day off during the week of Spring Break.  My friends and I took the hours long drive from Miami to Key West.  We baked in the sun in the drive down the long bridges that connected they Florida Keys to the very last one.  As we skimmed the surface of the water, it shimmered simultaneously impossibly blue and clear.

Continue reading “A nostalgic look at simple Florida day” →

Music…

Hopelessly Devoted To You

Grease Soundtrack

Olivia Newton-John

and Words

Guess mine is not the first heart broken
My eyes are not the first to cry
I’m not the first to know
There’s just no getting over you 
I know I’m just a fool who’s willing
To sit around and wait for you
But baby, can’t you see there’s nothing else for me to do?
I’m hopelessly devoted to you

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

Guess mine is not the first fond memory of this movie.  Like many people my age, the movie ‘Grease’ became an iconic film which held many fond memories.  It spoke to many in different ways.  For many, the nostalgia and Americana drew them in, the cartoonish stereotypes of high school with fashion and cars.  For others, it was the music that transitioned from one situation to another, though that’s not necessarily new for musicals.  Though I suspect that for most, the storyline held the most appeal.

The interaction between Sandy, the foreign girl of high virtue, and Danny, the prototypical bad boy was delicious.  The entire movie was a dance, both figurative and literal, between the two of them.  As in any good story, we identify with all characters in the film as we follow them for a school year.  Naturally, we follow the story of both Sandy and Danny, but we also watched characters like Kenickie, Rizzo, and even Frenchie grow and develop.

Continue reading “Hopelessly losing a muse” →

Music…

Destiny

Save Yourself

McAuley Schenker Group

and Words

Better run
Run away
No time, to be a hero
You want to live to fight, another day
Don’t look back, look straight ahead
One wrong move you’ll be better off dead

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

There are foods that fit particular moods.  The perfectly baked fish that flakes at the mere touch of the fork fulfills one of those moments.  The softly fired filet mignon that separates at the gentle cut of the knife satisfies a different itch.  However, occasionally we’ll encounter a moment that calls for bluntness instead of finesse.  These times call for a greasy cheeseburger or a slice of pepperoni pizza with reddish-orange grease dripping from it.

In addition to food, there are a wealth of other guilty pleasures.  There are movies and tv shows that lack the finesse of others but nevertheless feed your soul.  Furthermore, we ride rollercoasters and skydive to elicit excitement.  We drive at absurdly fast speeds, simply to feel of the warm wind in our hair and the thrill of that ride.  Sex and the City‘s Carrie Bradshaw once mentioned that sometimes she’d buy Cosmopolitan instead of a meal because she felt that it nourished her more.  Is there an equivalent for music?

Continue reading “Control your destiny” →

Music…

The Way It Is

The Way It Is

Bruce Hornsby and The Range

and Words

Standing in line, marking time
Waiting for the welfare dime
‘Cause they can’t buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old lady’s eyes
Just for fun, he says, “Get a job”

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

Having arrived at the University of Miami, I started the ‘when-you-grow-up’ portion of my life.  Everything that led up to this moment was automatic and somewhat scripted.  I’ve now landed firmly on the “Uhm, now what?” portion of the movie.  The first order of business was getting through orientation and registration.

Having gotten through those tasks, I met other incoming freshmen as I traversed my floor.  George lived a few doors down from my room, and through him I met a number of other friends, among them was Ted.

Continue reading “The way friendship is” →

Music…

Don’t You (Forget About Me)

The Breakfast Club Soundtrack

Simple Minds

and Words

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

Won’t you come see about me?
I’ll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby
Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything inside and out

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

On a crisp Tuesday morning, I walk the short distance from my building to the nearby building with the cafeteria.  I settle on a familiar table in a section of the large room.  The dining room is sparsely populated; the collections of people resemble islands in an archipelago in a sea of tables.  I walk the short distance to the grill station where I order breakfast on the kiosk, typically an omelet and a side of hashbrowns.  I proceed to the espresso stand, where I order my tall latte and a pastry, often a bacon maple bar.  Now, I play a tranquil waiting game; it’s a race between getting the coffee, the food, or my friends arriving.

Slowly people drift in and sit down.  Some walk directly from their cars to the cafeteria; they place their coats and bags next to the table as they sit down.  Having arrived at work earlier, others wander from their office to the cafeteria.  We may talk about anything and often do.  Topics typically center around technology and news.  Occasionally, we bring up current projects; oftentimes, having a diverse set of geeks as a sounding board for designs or approaches.  Sometimes we chat about deeply personal topics which dominate our attention.

Continue reading “The Breakfast Club” →