Guilty Pleasures Recycled – Kansas
Last Saturday, after a couple hours of yard work, I found myself glued to the couch. It wasn’t so much that I was exhausted. Rather, I was mesmerized by YouTube videos of Bob Ross.
While writing my entry about Nashville Chicken, I was looking through pictures that I’ve previously posted on this site. Lo and behold, there was Bob looking up at me. That was the PBS gods telling me that I had to recycle this post.
Or it could’ve been the couple of beers talking. Whatevs.
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I recently read Yoonanimous’ fantastic post about how she really hopes her kids are nerds –
I have friends who don’t want their kids to be nerds, or to hang out with nerds. But these friends are going about it all wrong. In my experience, it’s hard to turn out interesting as an adult unless you were a nerd while young, or at least, had friendly, sustained contact with nerds. Don’t believe me? Think of the most outwardly-attractive-yet-inwardly-boring adult you know. I guarantee that person has never been a nerd.
And I totally agree. You also don’t want your kids to to peak too early as there’s a whole lifetime ahead of them to be cool. The last thing I want for my kids is to grow up to be those pathetic has-been losers that always talk about their high school years.
So I’ve definitely encouraged their geeky ways, or at least I haven’t discouraged them. Living, eating, and breathing Minecraft? OK. Watching the last five years of Dr Who? Sure. Memorizing every line of all the My Little Pony episodes? Absolutely, but there’s no way I’m letting them near Bronies – adult male fans of the show:
fusion.net
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I knew I’d have to eventually set some limits, and recently I was afraid I finally found one. One of them has started to get into the show “Supernatural” and I caught her singing the Kansas song “Carry on my Wayward Son” –
Carry on my Wayward Son
Apparently, there’s some ongoing connection between that song and the show. It’s not the official theme song, but has been used in many episodes. But all that doesn’t matter because… well, it’s Kansas. NO KID SHOULD EVER BE INTO KANSAS. (Or adult, for that matter.)
Then last week I was driving her to theater rehearsal and we were flipping through radio stations. We got to the NPR station and in that brief three seconds she heard “space particles.” She immediately told me to put that back on, which had me doubly hopeful on the nerd front – a 12 yr old girl wanting to hear a science story… ON NPR!!
We stopped and listened to what turned out to be a very fascinating piece where a guy was talking about how there are thousands of tons of space particles settling on earth every year. And, in fact, atomic particles here are all billions of years old from outer space either making its way here because of gravity or as a matter of colliding with the constantly-in-motion earth.
Or as Kansas put it –
Kansas
All we are is dust in the wind.
I have two burning questions about this video. First, why the hell were they wearing tuxedos with ruffled shirts? Second, was that Bob Ross playing guitar?
bobross.com
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I told her about this song and we had a hilarious back-and-forth cracking jokes about universes and sub-atomic particles. I even busted out the idea that our universe is just an electron in the fingernail of an even larger being. (Thank you, Animal House).
I happened to have “Dust in the Wind” on my iPhone so I played it for her. Her reaction?
“Ummmm, no. I don’t think so.”
Maybe there’s hope for them yet.
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5 comments on “Guilty Pleasures Recycled – Kansas”
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Any time I can think of placing a “happy cloud” or a “happy tree” is a great time. My Favorite Daughter and I spent many a morning watching that show.
Yeah, I was actually watching both him and his predecessor/teacher Bill Alexander. The old German guy who always talked about his “almighty brush”….
My daughter loves to watch Bob Ross on YouTube! I watched it all the time on PBS when it aired way back when.
I think I like Bill Alexander better – the old German guy that was his predecessor.
I did not ever see that guy, now I’ll have to google him!