I'm Soaring
"How High School Musical Changed My Life!"

Every once in awhile something comes along that touches the hearts and minds of all people everywhere. It brings the stars into alignment, calms the crying babes, and makes fortune cookies come true. A cultural event that brings such peace and clarity that even Carrot Top seems to stand in stunned silence, struck by the undeniable FACT that greatness is unfolding before our very eyes.

At first I was not a true believer. I simply thought that "High School Musical" was just another prefabricated, sugarcoated tween-pop-drama the likes of which have been churned out on a regular basis by the House that Walt built, but I was wrong! Oh, so wrong! HSM is a work of heart on par with West Side Story or Phantom. The Phantom Menace not Phantom of the Opera. I mean it's good, real good, but let's not loose touch with reality. Please!

Before the greatness that is "High School Musical" I was simply just another schmuck trudging through life with a song in my heart, but that song was hidden deep. I, like so many others among the down trodden, heard the small cry from deep with in that yearned to shout out like some medieval serf, "HELP, HELP I'M BEING OPPRESSED!"
Then, High School Musical, as if in response to this inner cry, unleashed from within me a flood of memorizes that at first threatened to paralyze me under the onslaught of what we'll call "Youthful Indiscretions", but most would just call the stupid mistakes teens make. After being pierced to the heart of my very being I came to this realization. I needed to get in touch with the long lost souls of my youth. Unfortunately most of those friends were not in my calling circle, but it’s the thought that counts. Sadly many of my closest friends and I have parted ways over the years. Some by distance, some by change of life style, and others by prison, the witness protection program, restraining orders and such. Sadly many of my former friends could not get over the little "Mac or PC" debate and we just can't talk civilly, and though I may not have those friends I still have my memories. Well I do have some of them, friends and memories except for most of my sophomore year and we're glad that is hazing aren't we. Oh yes we are!

Anyway where was I? It was this fresh zest for life that I contribute to High School Musical. How could I have lived so many years under the false memorize of High School being a horrible prison of peer pressure and angst. It was the contact with old friends that sent me into the singing, dancing fool that I now dwell in. You may ask "Why did it take High School Musical to release the passion from within?” and that is a good question and one that I have pondered long and hard. The answer: Cheese!

It was the cheesy out of my stupor. You see after high school most of us loose the cheese. We get older, more settled down, or stale if you will. The hardest part is that the cheese, when it does spring to the surface, is often harshlygoodness that so slapped me mocked by our cruel task master a.k.a. social conformity. You see the true rebel is not the tattooed, pierced outsider. They are the misunderstood hero of movies or the crooner of sultry song. The true rebel is the odd ball that dares to just be happy, joyful and content is their difference. The person who says, "I don't need to brood just because people don't understand me. I understand me and I like me, different and all." This is the person that I lost and the person that HSM brought back to me. So let's cut with the cheese and get back to the story.

Their I was swimming with the ghosts of High School Christmases past, when I was lifted in the swelling spirit of 90's nostalgia and forced to pull out my "old school" oh what were they called? Oh, yes that's it! "Cd's" So after minutes of painstaking efforts on my part they where imported into my itunes library. I finely I could express my "heart song" through the perfect mix. A mix I have so rightly dubbed "The New Cali-Wis Mix". Why "the New Cali-Wis Mix"? Well I grew up in California and now live in Wisconsin, and as a side note the cows seem pretty happy here too. Any more explanation then that about my transplant it will need to be saved for another day.

Back to the cheese and mix. This is the mix I turn on when the memory of my agonizing loss on American Idol sweeps in threatening to derail my day. The mix I turn to when the radio just doesn't play my stuff. The mix I drink coffee to. The mix that drowns out Fred on the phone. It is the sound track of my life and that means that you may not like it because it’s my sound track not yours and maybe you like cheese or maybe your lactose intolerant. After all one man's delectable snack is another man's gas. There was a point in there somewhere so whatever you feel about cheese you've got to find the song that fills you. I just happened to rediscover that song through High School Musical. So go ahead sing if you feel like it. You can dance if you want to you can leave the world behind. This is me happy so get used to it!