Throwing Things At Walls

You heard the term "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks"?

I think it refers originally to boiling spaghetti. I could look it up on Google or Wikipedia or something like that but I'm gonna go with my notion. When you boil spaghetti, you know it's ready, when you throw it at the wall and it sticks. Yes, that sounds like the beginning of a verse of a song but it's not.

It's a saying that relates to ideas.

Now, I don't write a song, ball it up and throw it. I "throw it" by playing it repeatedly until it is committed to memory and then unleashing it on the public. If the public reacts favorably then it is safe to say that it has "stuck to the wall". If the public does not react well then it hasn't cooked long enough or it just wasn't good. It happens.

I've heard that for every 100 songs you write, 2 will be good. That's a daunting statistic to an aspiring songwriter. But sometimes it's easy to write 10 songs because ideas will come at you in a rapid fire manner. Sometimes all of these end up being songs you'll never end up using in your repertoire. But the exercise of writing is very healthy as is any kind of exercise.

Once the song is something you know is favorable, it comes time to play it over and over until you absolutely hate it and hear it in your sleep and the hook repeats like a broken record in your skull. Now that you can't stand the song, it's time to perform it for the public and act like it's your favorite. Isn't that sweet? But with the proper mental frame-realizing how blessed I am to even be able to play songs for people- I've learned to not hate the songs but love them more and more.

Because each song is a relationship. There is a birth, there is a discovery/learning process and an evolution and a love that grows, for me, with each song. A very personal place dwells in each. I can see the place and time in my mind where the song was born. Where I first threw it against the wall to see if it would stick. The parental like pride I feel when a song is well received is the same a parent feels when their child does well at anything.

You listening to my songs and sharing your time with my song is a very meaningful thing to me. When I get comments from people about having one of my songs in their head or singing it in the shower or that their kids actually dance around while listening to it is a gift. I thank you for that. For taking my song into your heart and your home and making it part of your family so to speak.

And now: the Chad Lasagna

1 lb lasagna noodles
1 lb of ground beef
1 lb of Jimmy Dean Regular Sausage
1 can Hunts tomato sauce
Shredded mozzarella

Boil the noodles for 10-12 minutes and drain. Get a 9x13 baking dish and lightly grease.
Brown the meats and drain. Put them both in a bowl and mix them together, make sure they're not too chunky.
Pre heat oven to 350 degrees
Lay three strips of lasagna in the baking dish, top with tomato sauce spread across the top of the noodles. Top with the ground beef/sausage combination. Top with mozzarella. Repeat this process 2 0r 3 more times depending on the depth of your baking dish. The last layer will be lasagna noodles, sauce and mozzarella.
Cover w/ foil. Bake for 25 minutes, uncover and bake for 10 more minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes.

Guaranteed to make you a member of the clean plate club.