Sunday, September 25, 2011

Crooked roads

We were in Versailles at Cliff's Aunt Gertrude's yesterday when Cliff's cousin, Darryl, gave him a tip.  Now, he's had motorcycles before, and he knows what kind of road is perfect for riding on the Gold Wing.  
Over five years ago, he told us about a road near Eldon that goes past Burger's Smokehouse; he said it had lots of sharp curves and nice hills.  Aunt Gertrude heard him telling us how to find the road and said, "Oh, who would want to take that old, crooked road?"  
Cliff's younger sister and her husband were with us that Saturday on their Harley; we indeed found the road and enjoyed it to the fullest.    
The next day was Easter Sunday, and we rode our Gold Wing to church in Oak Grove.  
Two days later, Cliff was in the hospital for open heart surgery.  When Aunt Gertrude heard about it, she said, "No wonder!  He probably had a heart attack from riding on that old crooked road!"  
Anyway, we've learned to pay attention when Darryl tells us about a motorcycle road, so yesterday when he said State Road "D" was a good ride and was newly paved, that's the way we chose to go.  
I was sitting there enjoying the pretty sky and the hills and curves when I realized this would be a great video opportunity.  My little Canon Powershot takes decent videos, and that way we'd have a reminder of our fun day.  Plus I could share the ride with the Internet.  
Cliff and I aren't spring chickens (surprise surprise), and are pretty tired when we get home from a ride.  I was very anxious to get my video made, however, so I came in and loaded it to my computer and then used imovie to edit it.  I don't mess with editing enough to remember what to do, and I'm not at my best in the evening anyhow.  But I was anxious.  I wanted to remove the wind noise from the over-four-minute clip and add music.  
I have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of songs on my computer.  I opened itunes and started looking for a song that was between 4 minutes and four-and-a-half minutes long.  I saw one by Merle Haggard, "Are The Good Times Really Over For Good", that was the right length.  I added it, hoping against hope that the copyright police on Youtube wouldn't strip it off as soon as it loaded.  It's a pretty old song... that was in my favor... but Merle Haggard still has quite a bit of popularity.  
Sure enough, after all that work, Merle's song was removed.  I did not want a silent video; a song breaks the monotony.  I didn't want to spend my whole night finding a song the right length that would make it through the gate intact, so I just started looking at John Prine's list of songs.  I have more songs by him on the computer than probably any other artist, and he's not famous enough for Youtube to worry about.  The heck with four minutes, I decided.  I'd pick a song and trim the end off the video to fit the song.  Good grief, it was almost bedtime!  
And that's how I came up with the video in the previous entry.  First of all, I know that only about a third of the readers will bother to watch a video.  I realized some people would probably find the lyrics offensive, and I knew that 90%  of the folks who listened would wonder how anybody with so little singing talent ever made it to a recording studio:  That song was recorded at John Prine's first appearance after having surgery for throat cancer several years back.  His voice has gotten steadily worse since that time.  Why do I listen to him?  Because I love the lyrics he writes.  He makes me laugh, and sometimes he almost makes me cry.  
Anyhow, I got up this morning resolved to find the proper song and redo the video, one that was the right length and that might seem appropriate for my video.  Once again I went down the list and made a note of every song that was the right length.  
When I came to Moe Bandy's "Americana", I stopped my search.  I wasn't sure about the copyright thing, though.  But I hoped Moe might be enough of a has-been that he wasn't in Youtube's catalog of copyrighted artists.  
This time, my wish came true.  And here you have the amended video with a new sound track and a couple of things added at beginning and end.  


9 comments:

  1. I love making videos too--I even do slide shows. I hate that I can't use the music I want in them though. I was going to say that I've been to Versailles, but then I realized that it wasn't the same one. (I've been to the one in France) :)

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  2. Lindie6:35 PM

    You did good, perfect song, perfect day.

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  3. I enjoyed the ride again. Music hit home. Great job.

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  4. Again, thanks for the virtual ride and the music! I loved the Prine/Dement one though. I like their voices, and I got a laugh out of the lyrics.

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  5. Anonymous11:28 PM

    It's so green in your neck of the woods...I'm used to CA dry landscape...such a nice change of scenery!
    Vikki

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  6. Anonymous6:04 AM

    LOVED IT GOOD SONG. JO

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  7. I would love for y'all to ride some of our NGA roads.

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  8. I have to say that I am a bigger fan of John Prine than I am Moe Bandy, but the second song fit the video better than the first. You are getting pretty good at this, even if it is the middle of the night! (grin)

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  9. Anonymous3:52 AM

    Yes, indeed... that was fun!! Thank you for sharing!!

    Peace~ Andrea

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