Hi There!

Ahhh, I like me some Peter Gabriel. A lot of my fellow PnP'ers may not know who he is, and that's okay; I think I can fix that ;-). He's a singer/ songwriter, once the frontman for a band called Genesis, before Phil Collins (he of the Disney "Tarzan" soundtrack fame) took over who, oddly, followed in Phil's footsteps and became Peter Gabriel, he of the Disney "Wall-e" soundtrack fame.

Either Genesis and Disney have a 'very special arrangement' or it truly is a Small World After All, isn't it... (heheheh -- you just knew I was gonna go there, didn't you?!?)

Anyway... I bring up Peter Gabriel, not just because one of my favorite of his songs ("Big Time") starts with a very British, very cheery, very fake, "Hi There!" like my title, but also because something that happened to him has made me think about us...

It seems that the song he composed for Disney's Wall-e, called "Down to Earth" (oi! such a sweet song -- as a matter of fact I'm putting a link..... here ;-) was nominated for an Oscar along with a few others (don't know how many, sorry)

Great, right? Wow -- what an honor, right? This great little tune, with really sweet, earth-friendly (without being anti-human, a rarity, I think) lyrics from a song written for a Disney movie -- an animated one, at that -- in the cesspool of unoriginality that is Hollywood (oops -- I think my true opinion is peeking out, sorry) What could be more of an honor for a singer/ songwriter? To be able to perform your composition at an award show for movies, in front of what is, arguably, the US's royalty? That's just WONDERF-

What? What- what's wrong? We can't...uhm -- we can't perform the whole song? We have to edit a portion of it into a special truncated medley of all the nominated songs?!?

So, let me get this straight. You have time for your self-indulgent presenters to rail against half of the country for being too conservative for your tastes for 10 minute stretches at least three times during the 4 hour broadcast...but you can't spare five minutes a piece for the nominated songs to have their "moment in the sun"? Emmmkay.

You have a plethora of laboriously over-produced song and dance numbers and inane "comedy" sketches scheduled during the broadcast to bolster the insatiable egos of your denizens...but won't allow a song you yourselves say is the absolute cream of the crop for the entire year to be played for this audience of self-absorbed dwellers of the shallow end of the pool? Hmmmm.

Guess what Peter Gabriel said? "Em, thanks...but no thanks. An incredible amount of work goes into producing that five minute song, by a load of very talented people...and I think, as the songwriter, they deserve their due. Their full due, thank you." (my interpretation -- not his exact words, but you get the drift.) I don't know how it ended up, but I don't think Peter Gabriel was in attendance at the Oscars...

Now, if you're like me, and you have a little bit of the cynical "stick it to the Man" in you, you might be agreeing with Peter Gabriel in a show of fist-pumping support. I know I did, at first.

But then I thought. Hmmm. How many peeps didn't go see Wall-e, 'cause they dismissed it as a "kids' movie"? How many have never been exposed to that gem of a song, which really celebrates not just the earth...but our fitness as people to take good care of it? And I think that's a shame. Many would love that song, who would watch the Oscars but never think to go to a ...kids' movie, who could have been exposed, at least a tiny bit to the song -- even truncated, in a medley.

So... I guess what I'm saying is -- and Nana's story getting published in the e-magazine (an e-magazine was something I just ...kind of discounted, I'm sorry to say -- I know better now) really kind of spurred me to this conclusion, so thanks for sharing your success, Nana! -- don't automatically dismiss an avenue that opens up -- even if it doesn't look "perfect" to you. You never know who could be exposed to your gift, if you relax your ideas a little and take those little avenues.

Anyways... Peter Gabriel is huge so he doesn't need the stinkin' Oscars -- Yay! Peter for stickin' it to the (hollywood) Man! hee -- but the rest of us, well, maybe lets get huge first, eh? ;-)