I ran into FG in the elevator the other day. (Oh, the serendipity!) She seemed calmer and less likely to attack me with a pick-axe, so we made a tentative plan to head out for coffee over the weekend. It might be an uneventful discussion, but I'm steeling myself for the worst. Especially since I've begun my new career in video directing.
It all started when we found the video for "Life Is A Highway" on YouTube (which is here, if you're keen). It's a basic performance piece intercut with scenes from "Cars," with the added artistic innovation of the band members standing in their cars. A startling achievement, to be sure, although if I'd been in charge I'd have found a way to get Ric Ocasek a cameo.
Robert has decided that he and three of his classmates are destined to form a band that will perform this song. And only this song. So he's studied all the guitar work in the video and is already forming his own, unique air-guitar stylings. Basically, he gnarls his left (fretting) hand into a claw and flails his right (strumming) hand like an epileptic penguin.
Robert soon decided he wanted to shoot his own video (which would also feature TwoBert as a background dancer who kind of bobs up and down and ambles in circles). So I hauled out the Handicam and we began shooting a version of the song each night before bedtime. I crank the song up on the computer, the pajama boys gnarl and flail and bob and amble -- and thump like gangbusters -- for five minutes, and then I show the video on the TV screen so they can critique their performances. With each new version, the music gets louder, the boys goofier, and I try all sorts of obnoxious camera tricks that make viewers think their semicircular canals have burst.
These new musical gymnastics are bound to be a sore point with the folks down below, but I think it'll be OK as long as I promise to stop before TwoBert's bedtime. Besides, if Robert aspires to form a seminal new wave band that cranks out five hugely successful albums in six years, breaks up very publicly and violently, and sells out 23 years later just to make that last huge pile of cash before their hips give out, he has to start somewhere.
