Sometimes, when writing this blog, the topic is obvious. The trouble is figuring out what I want to say about it. What’s my angle? When this video showed up on my facebook page, I knew right away I wanted to write my blog about it.
But do I want to write about a cool old guy, the relationship of drums to actual music, Korean Pop Culture, the amazing power of YouTube (this is the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol was talking about), or the timeless appeal of Frank Sinatra?
The beat goes on
First, there was nothing amazing about the drumming -he’s pretty good, but it’s his fun, entertaining style that makes it worth watching.
Second, to those people who are saying he stole the show from the singer: Not really. She is a pretty girl with a nice voice who gave a reasonable rendition of the song, but it wouldn’t have been a viral YouTube video without the drummer. If anything, he raised her profile.
Third, I have hated that song since I was a child. Wherever adults gathered, it seemed, they would request it. It was their generation’s Free Bird! (which also kind of sucks). It is the goyishe Hava Nagila. As I looked around those rooms, I would wonder what it was that made old people like that song so much. It’s like life is over “as I face the final curtain,” so gloomy, and it’s so disgustingly self-congratulatory and I couldn’t help thinking “90% of you self-satisfied conformists did NOT do it your way.”
So, I became a Hippie, which is a form of conformity in its own right, as is everything. Whatever you do, that’s what you’ll be.
Now, though, when I go to Karaoke nights, I do Sinatra. Mack the Knife, a truly horrible song about how the chicks go crazy for a guy who stabs people to death and dumps their bodies in the river, for money, is like my theme piece. I’m a crap singer but, like this drummer, I try to give it all I’ve got) I’ve also sung New York, New York and That’s Life. Eventually, I may have to get over my childhood prejudices and sing My Way.
One other thing I wanted to write about was another time I saw some Korean drummers. I was running in the Los Angeles marathon about 15 or 16 years ago. (My time actually was pretty horrible, 6 hours, and I thought, well, not too bad for a 40 year old man, but then I looked in the paper and they had it broken down by age group, too, and even among men 40-50, my name was still as near the bottom of the list as if it had been alphabetical. But that’s not my point.
Just a few miles from the finish, my legs had cramped multiple times, I was walking like a man whose been lost in the Sahara for a week, and the end was still depressingly far away. Then there was a stage with some Korean drummers. Huge drums with big, strong Korean men pounding them with mallets.
It was just what I needed. The beat reverberated in the air, it entered into me, it moved my feet, and I ran the rest of the way. Music can be powerful stuff.
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