Dani Rojas, a soccer-playing character on the TV show Ted Lasso, is known for his motto, “Football is life!” Dani is a Mexican national playing in England, hence the word “football” rather than soccer. He’s the team optimist, the good guy, the one who reminds everyone else to bring their love of the sport to...
As a lifelong watcher of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I caught Paula Abdul’s song and dance performance on the Jennie-O float. She performed her song “Straight Up,” which was released in 1988. There’s lots of praise for Abdul. Other people are noting the flaws in her lip-synching, the doctored sound on her tap routine,...
I’ve been thinking lately about all the messages I received as a child, all the things society wanted us to believe that never felt totally right to me, yet I accepted them. Why? For example, when I was a kid, my mom loved the Doris Day song, “Que Sera Sera.” In the lyrics, the young...
The other day I learned that I’ve been singing the lyrics to a song incorrectly for, like, most of my life. The song is from the musical South Pacific, and I always thought the words were, “You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come...
One of the things I love about being married is exchanging those “knowing glances” with my husband. They occur when, say, one of our kids has just declared with great conviction that he/she is going to do something we doubt they will actually follow through on. All we have to do is look at each...
When I was growing up in Boise, Idaho, there was a local singer named Steve Harmon. He sang at our church, and he also recorded a record called Stand By Him back in 1974. I grew up listening to that album. My mom played it often. You’ve never heard of it? I’m not surprised. I’m...
There are two lines in the book The Artist’s Way that read, “A productive artist is quite often a happy person. This can be very threatening as a self-concept to those who are used to getting their needs met by being unhappy.” Yet we, as a society, continue to hold on to the concept that...