My Six Seconds of Fame

This requires some backstory. In 1994 I recorded Promise, my first CD of original songs. The title track is the first track, and it begins, "I will dance to the rhythm of the old trees...." When the CDs were pressed, there was an error and I ended up with 500 more than I ordered. They didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

Fast forward: 2005, I moved from my apartment, where I'd been for many years, into this house with Laurie. I had no place to store all those extra CDs I still had, so I took them to our local volunteer technology recycling center, Free Geek.

Fast forward: 2012. Last night a Facebook exchange on my friend April's post took a surprising twist:

April Wiza: I want snow!

Terri Grayum: Me too!!

Matthew Harris: ?...wait...are you THE Terri Grayum?

Terri Grayum: Er, I'm the only one I know.

Matthew Harris: ?"I will dance...to the rhythm of the..." Terri Grayum?

Terri Grayum: Yup... I don't recognize your name....

Matthew Harris: Ah, but you were a legend at Free Geek for a while.

Terri Grayum: OMG. Don't tell me someone actually listened to those??!! Boxes and boxes of CDs....

Matthew Harris: Well, we had to test all the CD drives in computers for the ability to play an audio CD. And so for about a year, because we had so many of them, we would use your CDs. Or the first six seconds of them. So there are hundreds of people who would recognize "I will dance to the rhythm of the..."

Terri Grayum: That is hysterical. Every time I think that recording is dead it pops up again.

Matthew Harris: ?...I hope that doesn't sound mean or anything. And I hope I didn't get Free Geek in trouble. But we had the CDs, and it made more sense to use them for something we needed then just to recycle them as plastic.

Terri Grayum: No, not mean, I think it's funny - I'm glad I could be of some use to Free Geek!

Matthew Harris: If you know Stacy Watts, I am surprised she never mentioned it.

Terri Grayum: I do know her and she didn't -- she has my more recent CDs though.

Matthew Harris: I probably still have a copy of that CD or cassette around somewhere. It isn't bad, as far as folk music goes. Not everyone's thing, but I thought it was just fine.

Shawn Furst: Wow. That's epic. Mattchew, you found Terri Grayum on facebook!

Matthew Harris: Yes! That is my job. The internet. I am glad I got to tell her the story, and glad she thought it was funny. It kind of makes me nostalgic. ...I could go for some stale bread right now.

Shawn Furst: Or day-old pizza with Sriracha on it.

Matthew Harris: I want to unload a truck in 100 degree weather!

Terri Grayum You were livin' the good life, eh?

Matthew Harris: We really were. I want the satisfaction of working with five total strangers and accomplishing something in two hours that makes the world at least a little bit better.

Shawn Furst: Yeah, that place had some magic back in the day.

Matthew Harris: Well, also, I am not 26 anymore.

Matthew Harris: This thread totally went into a tangent.

Terri Grayum: Yah, sorry April. What a trip, though.

D.j. Wiza: This thread got derailed so hard, its not even in the same zip code as the original track.

Matthew Harris: It got derailed into the 97214.

April Wiza: OMG!! BEST THREAD EVER