Running down a Dream

After months of enough darkness and snow and ice to make any person turn into a couch potato, I needed something to inspire me to put my running shoes back on and lose the winter blubber that is building around my waist. If running down Lake Shore Dr on the beach towards that beautiful skyline isn’t enough to get me back on the exercising wagon, than this story inspired me to, not only start running again, but to never stop so I can be this amazing and strong at 61 years old. Rosie Swale-Pope just finished her run around the world, which lasted almost 4 years. Induced by the death and grief of her husband’s death, she ran across Europe into Russia, spent two mind freezing winters in Siberia, made it across the Northern Pacific to Alaska, through Canada eh? Across the US, Greenland, Iceland, and back to the Motherland of England.

If that isn’t enough to get you into your running shoes, then maybe some rockin new music will. When I was in middle school we used to warm up for our volleyball and basketball games to the Jock Jams megamix. What better way to get ready to rumble! And ride that train into a victory than with 80s and 90s one hit wonders?! Safe to say the beats and songs that get me into a good workout mindset has improved since 7th grade. My running playlist has grown over the years, but keeps to the same path. Danger Mouse, Jay Z, Gnarls Barkley, Girl Talk, and an assortment of other mixes and mash ups by the Hood Internet thanks to DJ Boutit JL. Well this list has become so overworked and unpaid that it was losing it’s magically ability to make me run 5 miles. But without fail, Girl Talk stepped in to brighten my day and fill my head with new beats and samples. His new album, Feed the Animals, was just what I needed to put some new blood into my ol’ faithful playlist.

Always the innovator, Girl Talk used the same name-your-price pricing as Radiohead for their In Rainbows album. And since Bono says its “courageous and innovative” then it MUST be! But in all seriousness I have mixed feelings about this. The business side of my brain wonders about the economics of the pricing but then again perhaps it shows how little $$ the artist makes off album sales in the first place, if they can let their fans buy the album for free without forcing RIAA intervention. And the music-is-food-for-the-soul-and-the-fans-are-the-meat side of my brain thinks it is awesome to allow the fans to be involved in the process of the success of the band. It seems like a way to show the band allegiance or view of them, through how much money one is will to part with for the sake of the bands music. I paid the $10 partly out of guilt and partly out of the hope that my $10 will go towards Girl Talk’s tour to Chicago again. Where I will still inevitably pay up to $50 for a ticket. Circle of life baby.