In a world of pure imagination...
Take a look and you'll see...
Into your imagination...
If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it...
Anything you want to, do it...
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it...
Anyone who remembers the old movie "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" starring Gene Wilder, needs only read or hear those first two lines and the song gets stuck inside their mind indefinitely. What a beautiful way to punctuate that scene where the big door opens up and a magical world of wonder gets opened up to the eyes of a child.
"Hold your breath...make a wish...count to three...", Gene's character whispers gently before the song begins.
I will be paying a visit to the Zildjian Cymbal Factory and Headquarters in a couple of days. I'm sure that song will be quietly resonating through my head during my visit. It's a place that I've dreamed of visiting for many years...actually since I first started playing drums. Even though it's a business related trip, I feel as if I've been given a golden ticket with which to gain entry into Mr. Wonka's amazing and magical chocolate factory...only it is cymbals instead of chocolate and the owners' last name isn't Wonka...it happens to be Zildjian.(The family business has been around since 1623. It started in Turkey and then relocated to America in 1929. That makes it the oldest family-owned business in the USA!)
Just like Wonka's chocolates and sweet treats, the Zildjian family recipe for the cymbal alloy is a closely guarded secret...though I doubt I will be approached by anyone named Slugworth asking me to bring to him a percussion equivalent of the Everlasting Gobstopper. If any Slugworth does attempt to employ me for such things, I would definitely be like young Charlie and leave the Gobstopper on Wonka's desk. However, I can tell you now without doubt, that there will be no glass elevator for me, and no zany, wild-haired dude in a purple velure pimp suit is going to give me the factory. In spite of having no glass elevator(believe me, I've asked), the Zildjian factory has always been my "Wonka-land", where one needs a golden ticket to get in, and where dreams and creativity are the building blocks upon which the whole place is founded. I'll be sure to blog about it afterwards and maybe post a photo or two.
I have been thinking today about how charmed my life seems to be these days and through recent years...and how so many of my dreams have come true. I've got a great gig. I've won Grammys. I'm married to the only girl who has ever successfully taken my breath away every single time I have seen her...and still does(She's my best friend by the way, and has been since we were kids). Yep...my life is definitely charmed. It's not without struggle or strife...my life does have ups and downs. Just like everyone else in the world, I have to stretch the paycheck to make sure the bills get paid, mow the lawn when the grass gets too tall, and I bitch quietly to myself whenever I find that there's only one square of toilet paper left on the roll. However, more often than not, I find myself feeling like Charlie Bucket as he opens his eyes and peers into a real world that only pure imagination can create, and feeling as if Gene Wilder himself is looking at me saying, "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted...He lived happily ever after."
"We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of dreams"- Willie Wonka
Take a look and you'll see...
Into your imagination...
If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it...
Anything you want to, do it...
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it...
Anyone who remembers the old movie "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" starring Gene Wilder, needs only read or hear those first two lines and the song gets stuck inside their mind indefinitely. What a beautiful way to punctuate that scene where the big door opens up and a magical world of wonder gets opened up to the eyes of a child.
"Hold your breath...make a wish...count to three...", Gene's character whispers gently before the song begins.
I will be paying a visit to the Zildjian Cymbal Factory and Headquarters in a couple of days. I'm sure that song will be quietly resonating through my head during my visit. It's a place that I've dreamed of visiting for many years...actually since I first started playing drums. Even though it's a business related trip, I feel as if I've been given a golden ticket with which to gain entry into Mr. Wonka's amazing and magical chocolate factory...only it is cymbals instead of chocolate and the owners' last name isn't Wonka...it happens to be Zildjian.(The family business has been around since 1623. It started in Turkey and then relocated to America in 1929. That makes it the oldest family-owned business in the USA!)
Just like Wonka's chocolates and sweet treats, the Zildjian family recipe for the cymbal alloy is a closely guarded secret...though I doubt I will be approached by anyone named Slugworth asking me to bring to him a percussion equivalent of the Everlasting Gobstopper. If any Slugworth does attempt to employ me for such things, I would definitely be like young Charlie and leave the Gobstopper on Wonka's desk. However, I can tell you now without doubt, that there will be no glass elevator for me, and no zany, wild-haired dude in a purple velure pimp suit is going to give me the factory. In spite of having no glass elevator(believe me, I've asked), the Zildjian factory has always been my "Wonka-land", where one needs a golden ticket to get in, and where dreams and creativity are the building blocks upon which the whole place is founded. I'll be sure to blog about it afterwards and maybe post a photo or two.
I have been thinking today about how charmed my life seems to be these days and through recent years...and how so many of my dreams have come true. I've got a great gig. I've won Grammys. I'm married to the only girl who has ever successfully taken my breath away every single time I have seen her...and still does(She's my best friend by the way, and has been since we were kids). Yep...my life is definitely charmed. It's not without struggle or strife...my life does have ups and downs. Just like everyone else in the world, I have to stretch the paycheck to make sure the bills get paid, mow the lawn when the grass gets too tall, and I bitch quietly to myself whenever I find that there's only one square of toilet paper left on the roll. However, more often than not, I find myself feeling like Charlie Bucket as he opens his eyes and peers into a real world that only pure imagination can create, and feeling as if Gene Wilder himself is looking at me saying, "Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted...He lived happily ever after."
"We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of dreams"- Willie Wonka
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