March 2, 2011

I First Learn Of Barry Manilow

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If you've ever wondered where I get my peculiar sense of humor. I think it all began on this fateful day when I was very young. To teach me the difference between right and wrong, my parents brought home some Barry Manilow lyrics to tear up in front of me.

At six months, I wasn't yet verbal, so I needed to have basic aesthetic values instilled in other ways. I wouldn't have understood a simple 'bad' or 'good' at that age, much less 'insipid' or 'nauseating.'

But I think this ingenious plan my parents worked out was quite effective.

I'm not sure, but I think these pages contained the words to Mandy.




O Docker, age six months, watching parent rip up Barry Manilow lyrics.
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14 comments:

  1. Was this before or after you took the picture of the winning goal when the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup?

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  2. Before.

    I didn't start shooting professionally until eight months. Before that, I did mainly baby photography.

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  3. I,too,occasionally wear pink and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

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  4. That was an experiment my open-minded parents put me through. For a week at a time, they would force me to see things from someone else's perspective.

    In later years, this would profoundly affect my blogging.

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  5. That's the kid's recording contract being torn up.

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  6. Did your parents have a different name for you every week too? Sounds like your father is calling you Meka this week. How did this affect your blogging in later years?

    PS. I tried the paper tearing trick today on my grandson Owen who is about the same age as you appear to be in this video. He was not at all amused. I fear the kids has no sense of humor. On the other hand I didn't make him wear pink.

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  7. Tillerman - Owen may have thought you were tearing up his entry in the competitive group writing contest about navigation.

    It's deadly serious, you know.

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  8. I think you have to play a chorus or two of Mandy for Owen (any more, and you're risking charges of child abuse).

    Then, tear up an actual copy of the lyrics (kids are smart - they can tell when you're faking it).

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  9. But Owen is a child of the 21st century. Barry Manilow will mean as much to him as Billy Williams of "John, John, Go and Put Your Trousers On" fame did to our generation. (Look it up.)

    Who is the Barry Manilow of the 20-teens? Justin? Miley?

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  10. That sounds like the topic for a post.

    Although, not one I could do. The truth is I'm pretty much unaware of most of today's pop music. I'd like to think that's because of the decline of pop-40 radio (I don't think people listen to the radio for their music anything like they once did).

    But it's probably just part of becoming an old fart. And not having kids doesn't help any.

    I swore this would never happen to me, but I'm afraid it has. I find myself starting to whine about a lot of the things my parents did about the music of our generation. Of course, I stop myself and hope nobody heard me just say that.

    A better question might be who are the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel of this generation? Is anything of that quality being done today? Will any of today's songs still be sung 40 years from now? I do think there are some real poets doing rap, but it's not the kind of stuff you can sing in the shower.

    I hope today's kids are still taking showers.

    Wah, I'm going to bed now.

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  11. Great question. I too am pretty much unaware of today's pop music.

    I actually plan to skip right over all pop music from the 1980's to the 2010's and become hip again in the 2020's. So I'm tuning in to what kind of music my grandchildren like. The eldest one will become a teenager in 2018 so by then I will be ready to enjoy whatever is cool in that era.

    Post coming up this weekend probably into my latest piece of research on this project.

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  12. http://dl3mashael.blogspot.com/2011/03/6-year-old-muslim-kid-on-deen-show-6.html

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  13. Don't follow the above link.
    أنثَـےٍ 』مِن منبَعِ [ الطُهرٍ ] روٍيآنـہ
    is Arabic for "I write the songs....

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  14. Actually, Doc, I think his lyrics sound better in Arabic.

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