Listen, I have no business posting a blog entry right now. I’ve got far too much work to do for me to be sitting here hammering out a few words for you blog lurkers.
But tonight, I can’t help it, because I want to point you to the main page of my Web site, where I just posted “The Most Entertaining Political Commercial in Will County History.” It’s probably the most entertaining political commerical in ALL of history, but since I’m self-ordaining it with the title, I’m going to limit its reach to the local environs.
So how did the commercial get its birth? Well, I was sitting in my chair at work after a long day of teaching, thinking about what I could do to create another radio ad for my WJOL package. For any of you who’ve read my stuff, you know I have an affinity for a good rhyme, so I thought I’d try to come up with something clever using “timforjudge.com.” Very quickly, I decided I needed the Web address to be uttered MANY times. In fact, originally, I was going to take the recorder to Thirty Buck and simply record many people saying “timforjudge.com,” then have the studio engineer put it together. But after coming up with the initial rhyme of the song (You tired of voting for those you don’t know? The gift of knowlege we’re here to bestow!) I was off to the races. The whole thing took me about 30 minutes to finish. I didn’t come up with the music until several days later, when I was experimenting with rhythms on my keyboard for the backup track. I was just messing around with some bass lines and piano and kind of fell into it. So then, I built the “rap” into more of a song.
I recorded it last Thursday in the attic of my house on a portable 4-track digital recorder (something I bought on eBay a few years ago) in just under an hour. I counted out all the beats in the song, determined it would take 98 beats to fill one minute, and proceeded to lay it down with a music track, main vocal track, and two backup vocal tracks. The finished product may be the best song I’ve ever written for catchiness. I’ve never been very good at writing songs, although I’ve written a few I really like. But it’s the story of my life that when I finally write one that’s really, really catchy, it’s kind of a throwaway radio ad.
But who knows, maybe my radio work on behalf of myself will get me some opportunities as a jingle writer in the future. You always gotta keep building that portfolio!
Go to www.timforjudge.com and scroll down the center column to find the link to the song, then get ready to bust a move!
to contact Tim, write timplacher@yahoo.com
Make it stop! Arg! It’s a Small World After All!
Please! My ears are bleeding!
You ears might be bleeding, but your toe is a-tappin’!!