Heck Of A Guy

Orchestrating Life, One Dubbed Tune At A Time¹

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.²
- Henry David Thoreau

You gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind music
Even if nobody else sings along
Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil
- Performed (most famously) by Mama Cass Elliot³

A Soundtrack of Ones Own

While the notion of a specific musical piece bearing special significance for a given individual probably dates back to the origins of music itself, it was most famously articulated and popularized in its contemporary format as a personal theme song by an Ally McBeal episode in which her therapist⁴ recommended she choose a favorite tune⁵ to sustain her in times of trouble and to put a bounce in her step when she crosses the street.

Since that time, selecting a personal theme song has been a regular feature in blogs, a subject of quizzes, and the topic of many an idle conversation, whether held in person or on an internet forum.

This concept has been more recently been rejuvenated and annoyingly extended by the ascendancy of the custom ringtone to the status of obligatory accoutrement to the already ubiquitous mobile phone, thus inflicting those personalized tunes on everyone in the vicinity.⁶

The official Heck Of A Guy Blog position is that the personal theme song concept is not so much faulty as inadequate.⁷ One theme song can hardly fit all occasions.

Ones innermost metaphysical core may resonate precisely with Walking On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves but that selection still isn’t going to work at mom’s funeral. And the guy whose inner DJ is playing Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man as his theme is likely to suffer cognitive dissonance whiplash if that is his background music for breaking up with his girl friend of eight years.

And who buys a 40 Gig iPod to load it with only one song?

Were even the most monotonous and routine life made into a movie (and DrHGuy believes he may have seen that flick), it would require a repertoire of event-specific songs to construct a suitable soundtrack.

Compiling An Inventory of Music For Your Soundtrack

A movie soundtrack offers many advantages over a TV theme song as a model for the music of ones life, but it does require extra effort as well. While few will opt to replace the rec room with a state of the art dubbing studio, such as the one pictured in the graphic atop this post, accumulating a database of music in anticipation of future needs is a manageable and rewarding task.

Preparing music for predictable situations is hardly a novel idea. DrHGuy has been informed, for example, that some individuals who enter the wild and wacky world of adult dating find it useful to prepare a Mix CD of romantic, seductive music – just in case.

And, DrHGuy is not the sort of guy to present readers with an ambiguously defined idea such as compiling and cataloging an inventory of music for your soundtrack without also providing an example – the pleas and begging notwithstanding.

The composition proffered as a starter for your collection comes from

The Best Movie Soundtrack You’ve (Probably) Can't Identify

Film Caravan is from the soundtrack of The Stunt Man.⁸

Listen To Film Caravan

Film Caravan from The Stunt Man Soundtrack

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Film Caravan: Musical Features

Film Caravan is an exuberant, sly, grandly joyous instrumental with an ominous, almost menacing introduction and a simple fade-out ending.

Film Caravan: Categories Of Use

I. Primary Uses Film Caravan is well-suited for

• Launching of quests
• Beginning journeys
• Initiating projects
• Refocusing on goal(s)

II. Secondary Uses Film Caravan may also be useful, in selected situations, for

• Nonspecific encouraging and energizing

Special Characteristics and Considerations

• While Film Caravan can certainly be used in solitary by an individual, it can be especially effective for groups working together on a given task. It does work best when the assemblage consists of folks who can function as a unit while maintaining their personal identity rather than performing in lockstep. For the latter situation, one might consider the Colonel Bogey March, a Gregorian Chant, or any of the traditional cadences that include “Sound off, one, two” and various misogynistic phrases.
• The impact of Film Caravan reaches its epitome when used at the beginning of the final chapter of a saga, the final push to victory. In The Stunt Man, the titular film caravan is the transport of the actors, support staff, film machinery, and props to shoot the final, climatic scene of the movie-within-a-movie and The Stunt Man itself. When played at the initiation of a prolonged trudge, its inspirational force dissipates.
• Film Caravan is jocular, risible, mordant, and witty. Funereal events, such as – well, funerals, are rarely a good fit with Film Caravan.⁹ Film Caravan is not in the spirit of grim enterprises such as laying off employees to save a company from bankruptcy, the start of a D-Day sort of military expedition, and efforts to rescue workers in a mine collapse. A good rule of thumb is that Film Caravan is for grins, not for grim.
• Film Caravan wears well and, with good judgment, can be repeatedly played for the same audience.

Film Caravan: Real Life Example of Proper Usage

Film Caravan has become part of DrHGuy’s family vacation tradition. The final leg of the annual journey, the one hour trip, via rental car, from the Savannah airport to the beach house on Hilton Head begins with sliding that year’s Hilton Headed mix CD into the player and turning the volume up for the invariable first track, Film Caravan. It is, in a word, awesome.

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1. Thanks to Mesomorph and his prom companion for serving as models in the graphic below. The background scene is a path through the woods behind Heck of a House [↩]
2. One suspects Thoreau might have chosen a different metaphor had he endured the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida [↩]
3. Cass’s version first appeared on her 1969 album Bubblegum, Lemonade and Something for Mama. Bobby Sherman and Paul Westerberg had versions on CD. Wikipedia [↩]
4. Played by Tracy Ullman [↩]
5. Ally chose “Tell Him” by the Exciters [↩]
6. While most folks seem to have only one ringtone for all occasions, many phones allow the owners to associate specific ringtones with a specific caller or category of callers. Callers with push ringers (AKA reverse ring tones) can even coerce the phone being called to play the caller’s preferred ringtone, making it possible all manner of hilarity. Enthusiastic Duke fans, such as The Princess of Peds and the Duke of Derm, for example, could call Tar Heels rooters with the message, “Go to Hell, Carolina, Go to Hell,” which would be tres amusing, no? [↩]
7. The official Heck Of A Guy Blog position is that customized ringtones, like those tattoos with Chinese characters (that invariably mean something on the lines of “I wish to make it clear to anyone who reads Chines that I am, indeed, an idiot”), invite ridicule and ever, ever enhance the standing of the owner – and that includes yours. Lady Lawanda’s preference is a strategically placed customized vibration mode which makes her look forward to each and every call. [↩]
8. For more about The Stunt Man, both the movie and the soundtrack, see The Stunt Man – Mulitple Realities & Illusions [↩]
9. It is true, however, that DrHGuy would stipulate the use of Film Caravan for the procession bearing his casket to the cemetery were he to be buried in a graveyard [↩]