"That's What Dreams Are Made Of…"

You know the song. It starts out with this great uplifting synth keyboard riff.  If you were lucky enough to see the music video when MTV actually still played music videos, you may remember that the Blue Angels were featured fairly prominently.  That's right, we're talking Van Halen's (or Van Hagar depending on how you felt about the group…) "Dreams" off of 5150.

Back in the early 90s--when MTV was still playing music videos--I had this wild dream of being a DJ. Now please understand that when I wanted to be a DJ it wasn't the person in dance clubs spinning mixes of thumping bumping twerkable music.  I'm talking about wanting to be the person in the booth, behind the glass, with headphones and stack of records at my disposal to blast out over the airwaves.

Maybe I have to blame Christian Slater and Pump Up the Volume for planting this seed of a dream in my heart or maybe I can trace it all the way back to WKRP in Cincinnati.  I certainly have to give props to all the great DJs (and VJs) I've heard over the years on so many radio stations: KGB_FM and 91x in San Diego, KXGO on the North Coast of California (Hey, Burly Man!)  Regardless of where the seed came from the seed was planted.

Maybe you also remember, before our music files were digitized, the phenomenon of the Mix Tape.  Mix Tapes came from a variety of sources, our own music selections, tape to tape dubbing or vinyl to tape dubbing, or there were the excruciating hours spent sitting in front of the stereo listening to the local radio station, waiting for THE SONG to play so you could capture it on tape.  If you made mix tapes, you also know that there were the tapes you made for yourself and then there were the tapes you made for other people; as in, "significant other" other people.  There was no greater sign of devotion than spending hours and hours creating the perfect mix of music for the one you love.

("This one goes out to the one I love…")

All of this brings me to the "point" of this whole little bit of writing. 

When I was still nurturing my dream of being a DJ, when mix tapes were still a thing, there was the series of mix tapes called "KDnT Presents: The Dan & Thom Show." This series of tapes were created by my brother and I across the miles of my first tour in the Navy.  This series of tapes helped me keep the dream alive and it introduced me to new music via my brother's collection before the days of Pandora and now iTunes Radio.

It was fun blending songs and editing intros and outros.  I also learned something very important.  Our lives have a soundtrack.  If you think I'm crazy, listen to a song from 20 or 30 years ago, if you are old enough to do that, and wait for the memories to start bubbling up.  I won't say they are good memories, because they won't all be good.  But there are memories connected to music, and all the music we have heard makes up the soundtrack to our lives.

I don't make mix tapes any more--I'm not even sure if you can get cassettes anymore--but the dream lives on.  Maybe now it will get expressed through podcasting--depending on music rights and all that interesting copyright stuff.  But for now there is the dream, and there is all the music on YouTube, and there is my Google+ profile (and "This Is My Jam") where I get to let my life's soundtrack get blasted into the 'verse.

Party on Wayne!