Waiting for What?

Originally uploaded by Meredith_Farmer

On Tuesday, the Oscar nominations were announced. In our house, the announcement was followed quickly on its heels by another: my son's wish to see at least half of the movies nominated. Which ones, I asked, my interest piqued? Well, I've already seen Toy Story 3, he said matter-of-factly, so I would like to "screen" (his pretentious word, not mine) 127 Hours, True Grit, The Fighter and The King's Speech. The rest of the nominees on the list , I was informed, simply "didn't really interest him". Okay, Pauline Kael. After I explained to him why he wasn't going to watch a film in which a hiker cuts his arm off, I agreed to take him to the others on his list. Cue the elated fist pump and the subsequent pushing of sister who stood innocently eavesdropping nearby. End scene with my son sitting in a darkened theatre telling me to "Pull it together, Mom!" as I sit in a pool of my own tears as I watched Christian Bale valiantly pull himself out of a crack addiction towards redemption.

(N.B. To avid further embarrassment, his father will be taking him to the other three films on his list. Just thought you should all know.)

The film has some phenomenal performances in it but what stuck with me the most was a pivotal scene in which Marky Mark's character - Mickey Ward - has to tell his evil succubus mother and leachy dream-killing brother to basically suck it and let him fulfill his dream of getting one last shot at a coveted boxing title. Now, I know that the It's-Never-Too-Late-To-Realize-Your-Dreams is a somewhat cliched trope that is oft over used in films today but so inspired was I that when I returned home, I was still sort of strangely floating from the whole experience. I opened an e-mail to find a message from a friend from high school who shared a similar story. He had a song that he had recently recorded and released into the world and, in the vein of The Fighter, wanted to get the word out in any way he could. He wrote:

I was standing outside my Garage/Recording/Editing studio and it dawned on me that I don’t have as much time to do shit as I thought I did. A bit of Panic set in, and I just kind of decided that I need to be a bit more fucking pro-active with the things I wanted to get done. One of these things is to record and release music. I’ve been really good at recording music (Been doing that for f-ing 25 years now, but not soo god at releasing anything.). It’d be like you doing your blog, and shelving it, always waiting for a better time to put it out there.

Brent Wohlberg, I'm guessing that you may not have the abs of Mark Walhlberg but you do have the resolve and spirit of a fighter. Keep it up!

Here's Brent's song, Big Red Rooster

http://www.jango.com/music/The+Blazing+Elwoods?l=0

Enjoy it!

Oh yeah, and follow your dreams.