David Wilcox – Burgundy Heart Shaped Medallion & Four Lane Dance

Over 15 years ago I first heard of David Wilcox and bought 2 of his CDs. Many of his songs ‘spoke’ to me at that time and have since, something about his lyrics and way of thinking meshes with mine. As it turns out he even attended Antioch College in 1976, but I’ve talked about this in an earlier post.

The purpose of this entry is to highlight the lyrics to one short song he wrote and another poem (Which I believe is unreleased) that I have found useful to quote & send these to friends over the years. We all battle with self-image and over-self-analysis and criticism, but it drives me nuts when friends start insulting themselves or undersell their amazing abilities. It also drives me nuts to see people ‘tread water’, where they aren’t moving forward they are just staying in one place in life, not challenging themselves, just ‘floating’… waiting for a sign or something. Well.. to quote the comedy routine of the 90’s, “HERE’S YOUR SIGN!” 🙂

I’ve already sent these to many friends who I felt ‘needed’ them, but this is a pre-emptive strike for the rest of you; “You rock! I and many others are in sheer awe of your amazing self, so drop the self pity, shake the dust off your shoulders, stand tall and go make a difference. You CAN do it! What are you waiting for? GO GO GO!”

Burgundy Heart Shaped Medallion

    If I had a spell of magic
    I would make this enchantment for you
    A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
    With a window that you could look through
    So that when all the mirrors are angry
    With your faults and all you must do
    You could peek through that heart-shaped medallion
    And see you from my point of view

– © David Wilcox on his ‘How Did You Find Me Here?’ album

Four Lane Dance

    The driver right in front of me is making a mistake
    He’s stopping on the entrace ramp, waiting for his break
    The more he hits his break, the bigger break he’s going to need
    When a little break is plenty if he’d just been up to speed

    So I say move and you’ll have your place
    Don’t sit waiting on the human race
    Just go, you got your chance
    You can’t be timid in the four-lane dance

    Oh and now he’s got it parked there and he’s looking back behind
    Pleading out the window, hoping someone might be kind enough
    To stop and wait and hold the traffic flow
    And still he’s not quite confident there’s room for him to go

    So I say move and you’ll have your place
    Don’t sit waiting on the human race
    Just go, you got your chance
    You can’t be timid in the four-lane dance

    The freeway’s just a lesson in the way you drive your dream
    If you think you’ll never make it, well than that’s the way it seems
    But if you thought that it’d be easy, well then easy it wouldbe
    Why just a foot between the bumpers has been room enough for me

    So I say move and you’ll have your place
    Don’t sit waiting on the human race
    Just go, you got your chance
    You can’t be timid in the four-lane dance

– © David Wilcox, unreleased.

My review of ‘Real Wheels – Mega Truck Adventures’

Yes that’s right, I just spent time writing a review of a dumb kids video we bought recently. Not exactly Ralph Nader but hey, I felt so moved, so I’m now published on Amazon (or will be if they ‘accept’ it) 🙂 …

Real Wheels – Mega Truck Adventures
My 2 year likes this but …
October 30, 2005
Reviewer: M. Baya (Ellsworth, ME United States) –

He’d probably watch it if it were just the monster trucks without any narration. Having seen this DVD about a dozen times in the past 48 hours since it arrived I have come to some conclusions. Before I write my opinions as a 36 year old father, let me repeat again that my 2.5 year old enjoys this video (though just the monster truck one really, the other ones seem to lose his interest). I’m sure he’d give it 4 or 5 stars, but then again he’d do the same for a camcorder recording of some nearby construction jobs. Anyways…

I find these videos strangely inspiring, in that anyone with a nice camera and a person with no acting ability willing to ham it up as a host could make a children’s video. Dave does a good job being a ‘real life’ Homer Simpson type character, making stupid very predictable mistakes and saying ‘I shouldn’t have done that!’ which I’m guessing is a tag line for these videos. He acts as narrator and over-enthusiastic big kid host. Other comments have hinted this isn’t Dave & Becky’s first video, which is unfortunate cause I thought maybe this was a pilot and they had better repetoire and ‘characters’ in future episodes.

Here’s the thing, over the years I have made some really dumb and silly unscripted camcorder videos with friends and I recognize ad lib dialogue and ‘lets make a story from the footage we have’ type productions and these reek of that. I can’t imagine the production costs for these videos was more than a few thousand, possibly just a few hundred, dollars. It’s also is clear they spent at most a day or two shooting each segment, if not just a few hours.

This is certainly better than some free videos I’ve found on the net when looking for construction, motorcyle and monster truck videos (for my 2 year old), and while others have complained about Dave & Becky fighting there’s no real violence (just basically falling in the mud). It’s also a good combo having construction equipment, monster trucks and tanks on one DVD, and I was glad the Tank section didn’t get into too much war talk. However, while this video isn’t horrible, it could have been alot better. After recently viewing some of the well produced PBS series ‘Modern Marvels’ and other documentaries about construction equipment and trucks, this falls far short of what it could have been. Even with a target audience of kids there is no reason to do something this ‘cheap’ in look and feel, and it’s also just ‘dumb’ entertainment, no real effort in trying to educate in any manner (except for occasional 20 second bits where Dave rattles off data way too fast with no context). Occasionally an off camera narrator comes in and gives an overly enthusiastic and overly brief bit of information that puts things in more context. I just think they could have made a much better ‘story’ that would work better in the context of the show and if they spent a few more dollars and/or hours in producing this they could have made something that would catch adults interest and challenge kids to learn more about the subjects they are covering.

I’m sure Dave & Becky are rich by now considering the number of these DVD’s they’ve probably sold compared to the low production costs, so who am I to judge on what makes a good video? I just thought I’d write my honest opinion while these videos were fresh in my mind.

So basically, it’s dumb but fun for kids. It could/should have been better but since it’s target audience doesn’t have a clue of the difference between something that took effort and something half-baked, it’s good enough I guess. I just was hoping for more.