The Jennifer Blogs

I spend a lot of time on the treadmill, about two hours three times a week. I've got a great mix of music on my iPod, though, so it really makes the time fly. Sometimes I enjoy listening to podcasts. Other times I want the music to push me along. The podcasts are great because you get so involved in what you're listening to that you don't even realize you're walking. Next thing you know, 30 minutes or more has passed and you've logged quite a bit of distance on the treadmill.

Last night I was listening to the Kidd Kraddick Warm-Up Show while I was walking on the treadmill. The gym was filled with people. In fact, it was so full that I had to wait 20 minutes on the couch for a treadmill to open up. I finally got my treadmill, turned on the KKITM Warm-Up Show and got into my groove.

I am still listening to shows from back in February, Black History Month. Big Al hosted a contest between two listeners called, "Know Your Blacks." (If you're not familiar with the show, Big Al is black.) Al would give clues to a famous black person and the first listener to guess who was talking about would win that round. The first person he described was Halle Barry. The second was 50-cent. Then he started giving clues to the third black person: this woman was an L-A Lakers cheerleader, was once married to Emilio Estevez and is currently a judge. While he was finishing giving clues, Kidd interrupted, "Al!?! Paula Abdul is NOT BLACK!" Al, a black man, was stunned that Paula Abdul is not black. I was laughing so hard I nearly peed myself. Keep in mind the gym is full and I'm walking on the treadmill, earphones in, laughing hysterically to myself. Then Kidd said, "And coming up a bonus clue about Simon Cowell in Know Your Chinese." I think I snorted when I laughed that time.

The time flew by on the treadmill last night. I love to laugh and when I get great stuff like this to listen to while I'm walking it really makes the time fly by!

But not everyone wants to laugh while they're walking. I get that. A few podcasts I enjoy for walking:

Kidd Kraddick in the Morning Warm-Up Show
The Shareen and Joe Show
Thinking With Someone Else's Head
TBA Church Lakeland

The music I listen to on the treadmill isn't necessarily the stuff I would listen to if I were in the car or if I were cleaning our flat with the stereo playing. But it's great for the treadmill because it forces you to keep tempo. Here's what I've got in my Treadmill Mix on my iPod:
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (Clean Version)
BarlowGirl - No One Like You
Beyonce - Irreplaceable
Beyonce - Halo
Beyonce - Get Me Bodied (remix featuring Fabolous)
Black Eyed Peas - My Humps
Bow Wow featuring Chris Brown & Johnta Austin - Shortie Like Me
Britney Spears - Gimme More
Britney Spears - 3
Brooke Hogan featuring E-40 - About Us
Chris Brown - With You
Club Nouveau - Rumors
DJ EZ Rock & Rob Base - It Takes Two (This says "Explicit" next to it, but either I don't understand the words correctly or it's mismarked)
Fergie - Clumsy
Fergie - Labels or Love
Fergie - Fergalicious
Fergie featuring Ludacris - Glamorous
Fergie, Salt N Pepa, JJ Fad - Push It Fergasonic (DJ Axel Mashup)
Flo Rida - In the Ayer
Flo Rida - Right Round
Francesca Battistelli - Free to Be Me
Fun Factory - Love of My Life
Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & the Furious Five - White Lines (Long Version)
Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
Gwen Stefani - Rich Girl
Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape
Hilary Duff - Reach Out
Hilary Duff - With Love
Hootie & the Blowfish - Only Wanna Be With You
INXS - New Sensation (12" Mix)
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Jesse McCartney - Leavin'
Jesse McCartney - How Do You Sleep
Joan Jett - I Love Rock N Roll
Jordin Sparks - One Step At A Time
Katy Perry - Waking Up in Vegas
Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl
Katy Perry - Hot N Cold
Kimberley Locke - Coulda Been
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
KSM - Read Between the Lines
KT Tunstall - Hold On
L'Trimm - Cars That Go Boom (Again, this says "Explicit," but I hear nothing explicit in it)
L'Trimm - Grab It (Remix)
La Bouche - Be My Lover
La Bouche - Sweet Dreams
La Bouche - I Love to Love
La Bouche - Tonight is the Night
Lady Gaga - Love Game
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
McFly - That Girl
Mickey Avalon - Jane Fonda (this is NOT marked Explicit and probably should be)
Miley Cyrus - 7 Things
Miley Cyrus - Fly On the Wall
Miley Cyrus - The Climb
Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA
Nelly Furtado - Turn Off the Light
Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland - Promiscuous
New Kids on the Block - Summertime
Newcleus - Jam On It
Nickelback - Rockstar
Omar Chandler featuring Rob Base - Joy & Pain
Peaches - Downtown
The Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha
Real McCoy - Come And Get Your Love
Real McCoy - Ooh Boy
Reality - Yolanda (Club Mix)
Rednex - Cotton Eye Joe (Madcow Mix)
Relient K - College Kids
Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive
Rihanna - Umbrella vs Cupid's Chokehold Mash-Up
Rihanna - Shut Up Got Back Mash-Up
Robert Plant - Tall Cool One
Roula - Lick It (20 Fingers Club Mix)
SMC - Don't Cry for Me Argentina
Salt N Pepa - Push It (Shuv'd UK Remix)
Sandi Thom - I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)
Santana featuring Jennifer Lopez - This Boy's Fire
Sara Bareilles - Love Song
Saving Jane - Supergirl
Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
Sean Paul - So Fine
Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean - Hips Don't Lie
SheDAISY - I Will...But
Shwayze - Get U Home
Sister Hazel - We'll Find It
Spice Girls - Wannabe
Sugarland - All I Want To Do
Superchick - So Bright
Tata Golosa - Micromania
Ten Shekel Shirt - Sweet Embrace
TobyMac - Irene
Tone Loc - Wild Thing
UTFO - Roxanne, Roxanne
Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (Edit)
Various Artists - Grease Megamix - 12" version
Various Artists - The Song of the Heart (from Happy Feet)
Various Artists - Hit Me Up (from Happy Feet)
Various Artists - Max Mix USA 2 (9 minute version)
The Veronicas - Goodbye To You
We the Kings - Check Yes Juliet
Whigfield - Saturday Night
Zac Brown Band - Chicken Fried
2 In A Room - Carnival
20 Fingers - Sex Machine
50 Cent - Just a Lil Bit (Explicit)

I'd love to know what songs get you motivated to hit the treadmill or what podcasts keep you interested. Audio Books might be another good option if you enjoy reading but don't have the time.

I just finished reading the book, "The Alchemist," by Paulo Coelho. This will definitely go down as one of my favorite books ever. First I want to share some of my favorite quotes with you:

When you know that language, it's easy to believe that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city… without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don't want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I'm going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don't want to do so.

Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives.

Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man... Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now.

I think of this book as a love story, among other things. But the way Coelho talks about the love the boy has for Fatima is simply beautiful. I actually cried when I read the unfolding of their love story.

The story is all about the boy going after his dreams. There is definitely a theme in there of chasing your dreams, and being the romantic that I am, I also equate that with love. All that most people in this world want is to find their one true soul mate and to spend the rest of their lives with him/her. Sometimes we meet that person when we are children. Other times it’s not until later in life. No matter when it is, it’s scary. It’s a huge step not to be taken lightly. Sometimes fear stops us from being with the person we love, though. That’s what I like about the second quote above.

I really love how the story ends. To me, it could mean a few things, but going back to my theme of love, I think the author could be saying that the person you are looking for has been there all along. You dream of bigger things. You leave home. You experience the world. But the treasure you have been seeking was always right there where you started.

I really felt like blogging last week. I really felt like I had something to say. Only I didn’t know where to put it. It’s kind of ridiculous, but I’ve got blogs all over the place.

Recently I cancelled my MySpace page. Before I shut it down, though, I snagged some of my old blogs and posted them here on Blogger. I also grabbed a few from my other blogs and put them here. I’m still sort of in the process of consolidating so I can keep them all in one place. It’s a lot more work than it sounded like at first. I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end though, right?

Meanwhile, there’s a list of topics I really want to blog about piling up in my e-mail inbox. As soon as I think of something new I want to talk about, I shoot myself an email. I really hope to get to that list and give you something worthwhile to read.

We've been trying to get together for ages, and finally Joe Augustin and I got together to talk radio!

We hooked up at Starbucks near my chiropractor's office. It was nice that he brought his wife Adele with him, too. I had never met either one before, but follow them both on Twitter and have been their friend on Facebook for a while as well. I felt like I was having coffee with two people I had known for ages!

It's been a long time since I've actually been in radio. I've been doing voice-overs for a long time, now, and radio from home, but actually working in a radio station doing what radio station people do? Yeah, that's been a long time. So it was awesome to share war stories with someone else who is out of radio, but misses it.

Joe is sort of a legend in Singapore radio. He's worked for every radio station on the island and is currently hosting a podcast with a former morning show partner, Shareen. It's actually quite funny, but definitely not kid-friendly and some of the stuff will go over your head if you don't understand Singapore culture. Look for it on iTunes if you're curious, though. It's called The Shareen & Joe Show.

One of the things we talked about was training locals in voice-over. Keep in mind, Singapore is a tiny island nation. It's possibly as big as Rhode Island in the US. Possibly. You can go around the entire island/country in about three hours if you felt so inclined. So, when Joe told me that I probably have more experience in voice coaching than anyone in Singapore, I only felt proud for a moment. Then I realized that this is a pretty small country, and that's like saying I have the most experience of anyone in this room.

Think about it, the entire island of Singapore doesn't have radio/voice over experience. Just like the entire U-S doesn't have experience. So if you take all the people in Singapore who have ever worked in radio and then put them in one room, you could fill a high school cafeteria, possibly. That's probably being VERY generous. Then you say that I have the most experience. Yeah. Not so hard to do. Not as big a compliment anymore. But it's still easy to capitalize off of and we are talking about doing just that.

We talked about a few other things, too, but nothing I'm really comfortable sharing at this moment. Just know that bigger things could soon be coming and I'm very excited about my cup of joe with Joe! Hopefully Round 2 is coming soon.

Marso and I went to see Elvis Costello last night. What a great show! We had really good seats in the second row behind the sound guy.

When I bought the tickets, I paid a lot of money for the best seats we could get. I remember picking them up. D'Ette went with me to the ticket outlet and she said, "Mom, you do know Elvis is dead, right?" That girl is so thick sometimes.

The concert was part of the Singapore Sun Festival. They have all kinds of entertainment all month long to celebrate the arts and culture in Singapore. It was a great turn-out for the show and he did an amazing set list with two encores.

I don't think Marso enjoyed the show nearly as much as I did, but I was so happy to be there and really loved the whole thing! There were a lot of songs I didn't know. I haven't kept up with his music much in the past few years, but Elvis Costello doesn't put out crap. On top of that, his live show is amazing. It was just him and his guitars. And the bantering he did with the audience between songs was really great too. The man's an entertainer, for sure, with a lively sense of humor! I was kind of amazed at how none of what he said was lost on the locals in the crowd. A lot of times Americans use phrases that other cultures just don't get, but the Singaporeans either understood or played along very well.

I had one of the best sessions ever with a voice coach today. His name is Kevin Delaney and he lives in LA. It was the first time I've ever worked with a dude, and the first time I've ever worked with someone not working for The Great Voice Company. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was so glad I didn't listen to his demo prior to our session.

I'm not really sure why I didn't listen to the demo. Looking back, it was kinda stupid really. But I liked the testimonials on his website and I liked his marketing approach, so I went for it. If I had listened to his friggin' awesome demo first, I probably would have been far too intimidated to actually book a session with him. And boy am I glad I booked that session!

Kevin is an incredible director. He gave me some tricks that I could use right away to instantly make my reads sound so much better. He is also very inspiring. I loved his feedback (and not only because it was so positive), and loved his sincerity. I didn't feel like he was just blowing smoke when he gave me good comments. And the fact that he told me he'd happily introduce me to his agent if I were living in LA??? Okay, that was a bit of an ego boost, for sure!! (Maybe I should consider moving to LA?)

So yeah. Don't get me wrong. I really like the voice coach I've been working with, but Kevin will definitely be my go-to guy!