Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Don't miss these deals!

Westword has published a list of early bird pass deals, but the best ski deal in the Centennial State is the $10 Colorado Gems card. Don't miss out.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

"From Famous to Infamous...just like that."

Note to readers: Ski season is still a few months away, so rather than write a boring review of the 2011 Ski Magazine Buyers Guide, The Obsessive Skier is reminiscing on his youth today.

The truth is that The Obsessive Skier is almost 42. If you do the math, that means I was a teenager during the 1980's. Yes, I wore a pair of Vans (even though I lived in the suburbs of St. Louis and rarely ever stepped on my skateboard). Yes, I owned a pair of Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses in a vain attempt to look like Maverick in Top Gun. And yes, on one hot summer night, I was dancing with some friends during a Milli Vanilli concert in the Old Glory Ampitheater at Six-Flags Over Mid-America. "Girl, you know it's true" and "Blame it on the Rain" and "Baby, Don't Lose My Number" and all that. If you were alive at the time, or pay much attention at all to pop culture in the US, you know the scandalous story of Milli Vanilli's lip-synching.

This morning, while sipping an iced green tea at a Starbucks in Boulder, a new episode from The Moth popped up in my iTunes podcast list. (My cool-ness has come a long way, hasn't it?)

Fab Morvan has skillfully crafted his side of the Milli Vanilli story and shared it with the world via The Moth. Fab's version of the story a kind-of morality tale with themes of self-absorption, manipulation, and deception (things that we're all pretty good at, if we're honest with ourselves). If you carve out 15 minutes and listen to it, you will hear a man who has learned some lessons the hard way, changed and grown as both a man and an artist. I think his most poignant line he used in his story-telling was this: "From famous to infamous...just like that."

Like most of us, Fab seems to still have a few lessons to learn about life. But one thing I especially admire about Fab Morvan is that he has kept moving forward as a musician in the face of incredibly intense public scorn and humiliation. Unlike his partner-in-crime, Rob Pilatus, Fab Morvan is still alive and still making music. And for that reason alone, I'm still a fan.