Funny Songs Funny Stories …by Greg Tamblyn

Recently I was driving through Florida, after a harrowing day of dodging semis all the way through Tennessee and Georgia.* **

* I once got sideswiped by a crazed, Type-A semi driver. He bounced me off the freeway and into a ditch at 70 mph. Fortunately my own personal human body was not injured, although my car was reshaped into something resembling a bobsled. Since the evil semi didn’t stop — or even slow down — a good semi followed him and called the county sheriff. Fortunately, they caught him and brought him to justice. But ever since then I’ve had a love-hate relationship with semis — I’m always wary. Especially at speed.

** People rightly think LA, Washington DC, and Miami have brutal traffic, but Atlanta at rush hour is like entering the gates of hell. Don’t get me wrong, I like Atlanta. It’s a fun city full of great people. But at rush hour you could swear you’ve entered the Daytona 500.

At 11PM I was ready to pull off and find a bed. I exited the freeway in Ocala, and saw two motels. Across the median was a Quality Inn with a flashing red sign advertising $39.95 rooms with free wifi. Right next to me was the Days Inn, with no room price in view.

Since the Days Inn was easier to get to, I pulled in to check their rate. The lobby was large and quiet, and a very nice young woman told me they had a manager’s special for $49.95. Me being the bargain hunting, value-loving, cheapskate that I am, I mentioned that right across the street it was ten bucks cheaper, thinking she’d probably match it. But she gave me a sad little frown and replied, “I know,” with a facial expression that said, I can’t compete with that. Sorry, I give up.

And the interaction was clearly over.

So I drove across the street to the Quality Inn. The hip hop party in the lounge was so deafening the lobby walls were quaking. The clerk at the counter had to SPEAK LOUDLY. But sure enough, their rooms were $39.95 with free wifi, and they even offered a $4 hot breakfast. Not bad, IF I could get a room far away from the musical cacophony careening through my cranium.

The room was fine, clean, decent bed, soft pillows. But it was a noisy motel, catering to younger customers on a Friday night. I cranked up the white noise on my laptop to drown out all the conversation. All was well enough.

But here’s the thing. The lobby at the Days Inn across the street had been spacious, quiet and peaceful. The girl at the counter was friendly and welcoming. It felt like a nice, serene place. I’m sure I would have enjoyed staying there. I was tired. All she had to do when I mentioned the lower price across the street was NOT match it, but give me one bit of encouragement.

She could have tried a witty tack and said, “Yes, they really need to charge less over there!”

Or even better, she could have said something like, “Yes, but I’ll give you a lovely, clean, quiet room. And I’ll be here all night if you need anything. And you’re here already. You look tired. Why not just check in now and let us take good care of you.”

Anything along those lines, and she had a new customer, delighted to pay the extra ten bucks for a bit of personal charm.

Value can beat price, almost always.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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oh beautiful creature, all feathers and wings
you fill up my morning with the songs you sing

that was me on the deck there just catching some rays
on a glorious sunshiny Monday in May

from somewhere above, high up in the air
you left me a gift, i did not know you cared

when you flew overhead, i was still half asleep
till you dropped your load with such accuracy

though i love your songs and how they go on so
my left ear is not the best place for your guano

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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Southwest Airlines is always wacky and fun, but last night they ramped it up a few notches.

As we sat in the departure lounge waiting for our half-hour delayed flight from KC to Orlando, the gate agent announced on the intercom that we’d be boarding shortly. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we’re going to have to make an unscheduled stop in Raleigh to pick up some stranded passengers, and this will put us into Orlando several hours late, about 2:30 AM.”

As a large group groan began to erupt, he came back on with, “April Fools!”

We all laughed, mainly out of relief, because he definitely got us. And it sure made that half-hour delay seem like nothing.

After we boarded and took off, the pilot apologized for the delay and said we could still arrive on time. “But to do that,” he said, “we’ll have to lighten the load a little. So if everybody could please pass their wallets forward…”

The flight attendants were singing and joking their instructions for most of the flight. As we pulled into the gate, one of them announced, “Be sure and check around your seat. Don’t leave behind any personal problems.”

And you know what?

I didn’t.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

1 Comment

It’s a well-kept secret that I have a small songbook (6 songs), but I’m getting ready to sheetify even more tunes. To do ‘em all would take forever and cost a fortune, so I’d like to know which ones you [music directors, piano players, guitar pickers, singers] might like to have.

Below is a list of what’s already available, plus a list of other possible tunes I could get into notated form. It would be a HUGE help if you’d let me know which songs you’d like music for. You can do it in the comment box below. ALSO: what form(s) you need them in:

• FORMAT 1 (Simpler): vocal lead sheet, lyrics and chord symbols
• FORMAT 2 (More complex): the above plus piano arrangement
• FORMAT 1+ or FORMAT 2+ (Guitar players): do you need guitar chord fingering diagrams?

The current songbook contains these 6 songs as piano arrangements plus vocal lead sheets with the chords written above:

• The Grand Design
• Unconditional Love, The Story Of Evy
• Love Will Come Around
• Ready To Use The Gifts I’ve Been Given (incl. guitar chord diagrams)
• Love Is Real
• (Can’t You Just) Feel My Love

These songbooks are $15 plus $2 shipping in the US. (You can mail a check or call the office.)

Here are the potential songs for sheetification. (If you don’t see one of my titles here, then it’s not a song I have the rights to.) Thanks for taking a minute and letting me know any titles you’re interested in, and in what form, by commenting in the box below.

From The Grand Design CD:

• All These Atoms
• Writer’s Block (The Long Term Positive and Negative Effects of Worry)
• Dolphin Therapy
• I Know Who I Am
• My Family
• Still Finding My Way
• When Carl Sagan Died
• I Thought I Would Miss Her
• Little Mouth Blues
• Proctor And Johnson’s Pills
• Type A-Ness
• My Ride Home From Neptune

From the Art From The Heart CD:

• So Much Love
• I Think Of God As A Poet
• What We Want From Other People
• Stand Like Mountain, Move Like Water
• Leftovers
• Underachievers Anonymous
• The Night I Left My Body

From the How Could Life Be Better Than This CD:

• Amazon
• Roberto’s Song (How Could Life Be Better Than This)
• Walking The Same Road
• One Day On The Fields Of France
• Chasin’ A Dream (The Golf Song)
• Just Enough To Get Me By
• Touch Like A Lover, Talk Like A Friend
• The Hallways Of My Mind

From the No Credentials Whatsoever CD:

• The Whole World’s Gone To The Bahamas
• No Credentials Whatsoever
• My Life Is A Beer Commercial
• Clyde, My Inner Guide
• I Don’t Know (Exactly Where I’m Going)

From The Shootout At The I’m Ok, You’re OK Corral CD:

• Just A Little Soul Hanging Out In Space
• The Shootout At The I’m OK, You’re OK Corral
• They Know

From the Analog Brain In A Digital World CD:

• Analog Brain In A Digital World
• More Now later
• Self-Employment Made harder By Difficult Boss
• The Shootout At The I’m OK, You’re OK Corral
• Creativity
• Why They Broke Up
• Common Side Effects Include
• A Brief History Of God (G-String Theory)

In the comment box below, please list (A) the songs you’d like and (B) the form you need them in. NOTE: If you’ve never commented here before, or if your email has changed since your last comment, it’ll take a few minutes for me to approve your comment before it posts. But it will!  Thanks!

- Greg

21 Comments

Jack LaLanne died Sunday, at 96 years old. He was one of my heroes. He followed his own voice. He created his own niche, and in the process helped untold numbers of people get healthier. As a byproduct, he became famous and successful, in the best sense of that word.

He gave up sugar when he was 15. Fifteen! Why? Because he was a violent kid, with suicidal thoughts. He was so incorrigible as a teenager, that in desperation his mother took him to a lecture by a health food speaker (yes, they were around even then), hoping for some kind of miracle, and it worked. It changed his life. He realized sugar was making him crazy and violent. It was a mood-altering substance. (If you don’t think sugar is a mood-altering substance, just hang around two groups of toddlers, one with sugar, one without…*) Getting off sugar also cured his chronic indigestion, pimples, boils, and nearsightedness.

*Sugar is also highly addictive. If you don’t believe that, try going cold turkey for a month. (No artificial sweeteners, either. Just fresh fruit.) This post is not about me, but I’ve been trying to get off sugar for about 30 years, with only intermittent success. My family jokes about my eating habits. One time at a baseball game, when there was a lull in the action, a beer vendor came by, and my brother yelled, “Hey beer man, got any broccoli for my brother?” Everybody in our section thought that was hilarious.

My other brother has successfully given up sugar and alcohol for several years now. Not because he’s an alcoholic, he just doesn’t like what they do to him. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with that, because it’s HARD.

Jack LaLanne got up every morning at 5 AM for a two-hour workout. He challenged anybody to do it with him and keep up. He used to say it was the hardest thing he ever did — working out two hours every morning without a day off. And after that, everything he did the rest of the day was easy.

He started the modern health club as we know it. He became a body builder. Every ten years on his birthday he would pull off some epic feat of strength and endurance just to show it was possible, like swimming from Alcatraz across the San Francisco bay to Fisherman’s Wharf with his hands and feet tied, and towing a 1,000 pound boat. At age 60!

He realized early on the power of television. Maybe you remember him from the ’50s, in his black jumpsuit, smiling, demonstrating slimming and strengthening exercises on daytime TV. He was always encouraging, saying it was wonderful to get in shape, and reminding us how much better we’d feel.

He used to say, “You wouldn’t get up in the morning and give your dog a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a cigarette! Why would you do that to yourself?”

Obviously, Jack LaLanne had an inner drive, a mission, a purpose. Maybe it seems more powerful than what most of us mere mortals have. But the secret was he loved it. It was who he WAS. He was becoming the best of himself by taking his love of fitness and health and combining it with commitment. He didn’t let the “urgent” get in the way of the “important.” He got up early every morning for that brutal two-hour workout.

I always got the sense that even if he had never become famous or as “successful” as he did, he would have lived his life the same way, just reaching people on a smaller scale.

It reminds us to ask ourselves:

• Are we spending enough time doing what we love?
• Are we putting the urgent before the important?
• Can we make a stronger commitment to spend more of our time where we’re gifted, getting better at it, and thereby adding more joy to our lives and value to the world? (Even if it’s just playing with our kids…)

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

6 Comments

In a shocking upset and thrilling finish, my tune “All These Atoms” came first in the featured “Most Uniting Song” contest Sunday at Orlando’s Marriott Airport Hotel.

“All These Atoms” was a longshot underdog, going off at steep odds behind strong entries from respected platinum songwriter Tom Kimmel and international sensation Liquid Blue. It was a tough race, and “Atoms” almost lost it in the first chorus, but made a surprise move in the third verse and passed ‘em in the home stretch to win by a nose at the closing chord.

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), I’m astounded and delighted. After the show, all of us contestants and fans spent the night partying, while speculating on the possible uses of our peculiarly-shaped trophies.

All the winners, along with links to the songs, can be seen and heard in this article:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/We-All-Win-When-We-Evolve-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-110116-547.html

In addition, you can buy a CD of the nominated songs (19 tracks) on the emPower Music and Arts website:

http://www.empowerma.com

Thanks for your support of independent music in general, and me in particular over the years. Believe me, I never take it for granted, and I always appreciate your willingness to stay connected and put up with my musings.

Be well, be silly,

Greg

2 Comments

[Greg's note: This boy is the grandson of a friend. I haven't met his mother, but she writes well....and I love the story]

How my 5 year plans to change the world

On the way to school Tuesday morning, my son asked, “Mom, how do you change the world?” We talked about volunteering time or making donations and the different things we could do for various organizations. I also told him that one person doesn’t change the world; you lead and people will join you in your efforts or choose to do something themselves. Helping is contagious and if people see you helping, then they will want to help as well. When I picked him up from school that evening, he was still talking about it, driving his friends crazy, and warming the hearts of the teachers. “I’m going to change the world.” Then I knew he was serious and we needed a plan.

Food has always been something he has been passionate about. He wants to know that everyone has enough to eat and if asked what he is thankful for, his first response is always “Food.” While you have to be 10 years old to volunteer at the North Texas Food Bank, we could start a food drive. He decided to tell all of his friends who were 10 or older that they could go work there and was very mad when some of his friends would not confess their age. We decided to hold a virtual food drive and a canned food drive. That way friends and family all over could participate and we could have people locally participate by donating goods. Please visit http://vad.aidmatrix.org/vadxml.cfm?driveid=4956 to make your online donation today!

My son wants to know a “number” how much it takes to change the world. He decided that his goal would be to raise $12 and 20 cans for the food bank. I think we can do much better than that and show him how much everyone cares.

He also really wanted me to make this point: if a 5 year old can change the world, then why cant you? Please help show him what he can do, that he makes a difference. He has seen some local news stories about donating coats or hair, etc. and says, “Mom, they are joining us to change the world!” He is so proud.

The online food drive accepts all major credit cards and $1.00 buys 4 meals! It is just like online shopping and you will receive a receipt confirming your donation. If you would rather donate item, I would love to accept that as well. We can also collect toiletries and paper goods. Every donation counts. All donations will be given to the North Texas Food Bank or one of their local member agencies.

Thank you so much for helping make a difference!

4 Comments

10. You’ll be so inspired your brain cells will explode like happy confetti.
9. You’ll make great new friends the old-fashioned way: in person, not on Facebook.
8. You’ll hear amazing songs, maybe in genres you didn’t know existed.
7. You’ll have happy feet.
6. You’ll get a boatload of great ideas for your life, your creativity, and your spirituality.
5. You’ll hear awesome speakers who form wild neural connections in your cranium.
4. You’ll give your shriveled winter skin some love: Sun! Warmth!
3. You’ll get ridiculously high on butt-kicking live performances.
2. You’ll discover artists so fabulous you’ll wonder how you could have never heard of them before.
1. Your face will hurt from smiling so much.

My song, All These Atoms, is nominated in the “Most Uniting” category.

The Posi Awards are January 14-16 in Orlando. For more info, click here, and scroll down.

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You brilliant, creative readers are weirdly wired. Thanks for making this contest such a blast. Your cleverness provoked sustained chuckling and occasional outright guffaws by yours truly.

Determining the “winner” was no easy task, as some of you predicted. In the end, I opted for brevity over length (easy to remember), and the broadest potential usability. Some of the funniest actually didn’t make the top ten because I felt they would have more limited usage, or were too long to be convenient. The winner was the one I felt would have the widest potential and consistently provoke a smile. Or at least a goofy reaction.

That said, remember that your sense of humor may be wildly different than mine, and you might come up with a totally different top ten. Which is great!

(In fact, I suggest you do just that. Take a few minutes, read through the entries and pick out the ones you want to try. Then test ‘em out and see which ones you have the most fun with. Believe me, the first time you give a wacky comeback to “How you doin’?”, and somebody smiles or giggles, you’ll feel like a winner. And once you get in the habit of doing it, you’ll feel like a winner all day.)

As promised, the winner gets a free Analog Brain In A Digital World t-shirt, plus any two of my CDs.

And because you all were so generous with your creativity, I decided this morning to offer my newsletter subscribers a 40% discount on any quantity (of two or more) and any combination of my CDs and books. You can check out the selection here.

Okay, ready! Here, in no particular order, are the nine finalists, followed by the winner. (I took editorial license and slightly reworded a couple of them for brevity and humor.)

“How ya doin’?”

1. My wife tells me I’m wonderful.  (Charles Garney)
2. Excellent. Do you have the money you owe me?  (Doug Cristafir)
3. I’m feeling more like I do now than I did awhile ago.  (Kate Rowland)
4. Vertically challenged, horizontally gifted.  (Paul F Duvall)
5. I’m good.. and so am I!  (Melanie)
6. Just another dopeless hope fiend!  (K’lyn Matthews)
7. It depends. Can I borrow some money?  (Stan)
8. Here in the now, brown cow  (Lydia Pettijohn)
9. Starbuckinated!  (Amy Logan)

And the winner of 2 free CDs and a t-shirt is:

“You first. I need a baseline.” (Jackie Boor)

Congratulations to Jackie!!  Thanks to everybody for playing, and Happiest of Holidays! (Now get out there and keep it up!)

© 2010 Greg Tamblyn

5 Comments

This starts out as a funny relationship song then takes a couple of left turns — it doesn’t go where you think it’s gonna go.  The video is a Quicktime (.mov) file, and will open on another page. To come back here and leave a comment afterward, just hit your browser’s back button.

Jesus Was A Bachelor

[* Note:  You can hear a different (audio) performance of this song with an even better audience recording, and also download an mp3 of the song here.]

Injoy!

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