got milk?

now playing: hard to hold with rick springfield

i know, i know…i’m a total friggin’ relic, man. it’s amazing how much you’ll swallow in the name of nostalgia. i don’t remember this movie being this awful, but it sure as hell sucks.

no real news…but i’m waiting for laundry to dry, and i’m tired of superbowl chatter at this point.

i will say this, though…with all the technological advances that have been made, it seems as though we should be completely past the point of having to worry about officiating. yet it still seems to be coming into play. in fact, this year’s season might be the worst i’ve ever been witness to. and that just shouldn’t be the case at this point in time. that shitty offensive pass interference call in the end zone, the bullshit holding call on the pass play that would’ve put seattle at first and goal….but, hey – it’s over. and that should mean that i won’t have to hear about jerome bettis and goin’ home to play in the big game and all that bullshit hype anymore this year. it’s over now, and besides – it’s not as though i don’t have plenty to put my time and energy into.

perhaps some of you noticed that i posted the same entry twice within the past few weeks…guess that’s a pretty good indication of how busy i’ve been.

crazy. that’s not like me.

anyway –

so, about two weeks ago, i decided on a lark to take a shot at giving up dairy. altogether.

i had read an article in tape op by a vocal coach who outlined all the things that are bad for your voice and how long it takes you to overcome certain things…she made one particular point that stuck with me from the time i read it. she said that humans are the only animal that drinks the milk of another animal, and she made an interesting analogy – she said that dairy consumption is like playing a guitar with melted cheese all over the fretboard. that musical people would still find a way to make music with the cheesy guitar, but that if you gave them a guitar without cheese, they’d never look back.

well, it’s been a couple of weeks, and while i can’t say that the difference is night and day, i’m starting to sense a return of my higher register…and i’m finding that the transition from normal to falsetto isn’t as weird as it has been for some time.

and that’s what it took, really, to force me down this road.

it’s funny how you can warn people about the dangers of something – whether it be a substance or a behavior or just about anything – and they never really seem to fully take it in until they’ve actually been affected by the negative aspect of whatever it is they’ve been indulging in. you can’t tell a smoker how bad it is for them and have that be enough…they have to jump in with both feet and do it until they’ve got the discolored fingers, the blotchy skin, the morning cough ritual, and eventually the tubes around their face and the perpetual oxygen tank…then, of course, they get it…but it’s too late and they’re so roped in that they can’t quit, whether they want to or not.

although it’s an extreme example, the same thing has been true here…i’ve been hearing about what this can do to your voice for a long time now, but i never felt or heard any real detriment, so i just passed it off as alarmist because i was doing just fine, thank you very much.

however, as i’ve gotten older, i’ve noticed that my voice has changed somewhat. i’ve written it off to the fact that i’m not as active as i once was, and that i’m not singing as much as i used to and it’s been a natural by-product of that.

now i’m not laying the full blame for that on dairy consumption, because my voice has been changing – i don’t doubt that. but i’m finding that in the couple of weeks that i’ve been off it, there’s some sort of change afoot…i can’t say yet whether or not this is making a huge difference, but something is shifting in there.

if you want to get on the alarmist bandwagon, stop by notmilk.com, a neat little drudgelike page with links to every anti-milk article ever written, in all likelihood. i don’t doubt that an uncomfortably large portion of what they’ve printed there is true…but then again, i’m not unconvinced that most of the processed food that you buy at the supermarket contains stuff that you’re probably not completely interested in knowing about. in fact, reading this stuff could potentially contribute to significant weight loss, because hungry is the last thing you’ll be.

anyway…sleep beckons.