Flirting With Disaster - The Song, The Film and the Concept

And how song reaction videos on YouTube give me the strength to persevere

It’s been a tough week for me in terms of having time to pay attention to earworms, let alone write about them.

If you’ve read the piece I wrote a couple months ago on “Who Let The Dogs Out?” you would know that at the beginning of 2022 I decided to end a 30 year career as a video editor to become a full-time dog walker. It had become abundantly clear that I needed to stop spending all day in front of a computer if I intended to live a healthy physical, psychological and spiritual life. Carpal tunnel, back pain and relentless anxiety had merged to form an unmistakably loud signal: Change your life now or else.

After being laid off from my job in early 2021 (a blessing not in disguise), I spent the next few months meditating, doing yoga, writing and taking my dog on hikes. All activities naturally designed to keep me living in the present moment. I wouldn’t have labeled it “recovery-discovery” at the time, but looking back it describes exactly what those remaining months of 2021 were all about.

Below is a link to the piece I wrote back in July if you want to read more about this career change, and the intriguing history of a song that became a world-wide sensation and a true one-hit wonder.

Who let the dogs out?

I’ve spent most of 2022 building a client base and taking both dog walking and my writing more seriously. I started this Substack newsletter and I joined Medium — another platform for writers to share their writing and perhaps make a little money too (click here to read my Medium stories).

The reality of dog walking though — especially for folks like me who don’t take them in packs — is that it pays a whole lot less than video editing. I would need to supplement the dog walking with freelance video work until dog walking became more sustainable.

So, a couple weeks ago, I agreed to edit a series of videos for my ex-employer for what was estimated to be about 20-25 hours over a two-week period. It sounded perfect. I could earn enough during these two weeks and still have time for my dog walking clients. And to keep up with my weekly Earworm and Song Loops newsletter goal.

Only the 20-25 hour video job has become a 40-50 hour job. And I’ve added two new dog walking clients this week, making this possibly the busiest week since I became a canine companion.

Photo by Rebekah Howell on Unsplash

Usually I try and start a rough draft of the week’s Earworm essay on Monday or Tuesday, and then rewrite and tighten up on Wednesday for an early Thursday delivery. Often I end up writing the majority of it plus editing the day before publication. More commonly it’s 2 or 3am when I finally finish it, exhausted but creatively satiated.

The video editing job is in the 4th round of edits as I type. I spent the majority of the day and early evening getting the six videos updated for client review. Although my wrist is sore, my back throbs, and my eyes are fighting for closure, it isn’t as bad as when I was a staff employee. I know the deadline for the videos is this Sunday and then I’ll be done.

But I can feel the old obsessive habits taking over again, unhealthy choices I’d spent more than a year weaning myself off of.

Working several hours in a row without a break. Mindlessly snacking on dry cereal (Honey’d Corn Flakes). Not drinking enough water. Not exercising. Not doing yoga or stretching. Sleeping less than 6 hours for several nights in a row.

That goal of limiting the number of hours in front of a computer? Out the window. And it’s affecting my writing. After 6-10 hours a day video editing, the last thing I want to do is spend more time in front of a screen writing.

But I’m doing it, cause I’ve put the time, discipline and determination these past six months, and I’ve made it 25 weeks in a row writing a new earworm essay. The thought of breaking that streak feels far more damaging than another night of minimal sleep.

Sometimes life gets hectic, if we were to quit when the going gets tough….blah blah pull yourself up by the bootstraps whine whine bitch moan….I’m tired of listening to myself complain and likely so are you. So I’ll have a gin and tonic, take a couple deep breaths and do what I usually do when the idea and energy wells have run dry.

Log in to YouTube.

A recent obsession of mine this year has been watching “REACTION” videos. There are thousands of channels dedicated to people — regular ol’ folks like me, to established professionals in the music industry — listening to popular songs from the 1960s to the 2020s, for the very first time.

There’s something wonderfully joyous in witnessing newbies discover music that I have loved for years if not decades. Watching their heads bob along to the beat, their bodies becoming one with the music, injects new life into the song. I am able to tap into the younger, more innocent me back when I first heard the song, through watching these tune virgins pop their aural cherries.

One channel in particular, Andy and Alex (who call this portion of their page “College Students’ First Time”), has been a regular go to for me recently.

Their GenZ takes on Boomer and GenX bands are smart and usually well considered, and they keep open-minds to all sorts of music.

Even after guzzling a G&T, I still wasn’t prepared to write anything tonight.

It was 9:30pm, my body and mind were wiped; I simply didn’t have it in me for a new Earworm this week. 25 weeks in a row was a huge accomplishment — I could start a new 25 in a row next week.

So I climbed into bed, opened my iPad, clicked YouTube and the above video appeared.

Twelve minutes and 39 seconds later, my creative juices were zooming like a hummingbird after a cup of coffee. I tried to write on my iPad in bed but I was far too energized, so I got up and tiptoed into my studio where I could blast this week’s earworm: Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster.”

Just for shits and giggles (I’ll have to look up the origins of that odd idiom), I decided to type in “Molly Hatchet Flirtin’ with Disaster” in the YouTube search bar:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=flirting+with+disaster+reaction

The list of folks recording themselves hearing Molly Hatchet’s 1979 southern rock classic for the first time is literally endless. I stopped counting after 30. You’d think most of these channels would feature nerdy guys in their parent’s basement, but the range of folks discussing songs like “Flirtin’ with Disaster” is wildly diverse. There’s so many of these channels though, that finding a way to differentiate yourself is paramount.

I’m not sure this form of differentiation is what I’m talking about but you gotta hand it to Mr. Monkey and the Man for “their” unique gimmick. If you’re going to have a ventriloquist dummy, you better deliver the goods when it comes to voice and puppet skills.

I’ll do a deep dive into my love for southern rock and the joy of having three lead guitarists in a band another time. That is a topic that deserves a fully alert Steve after a good night of sleep.

But I will say that “Flirtin’ with Disaster” is one of the greatest songs of all time and if you aren’t bopping your head like Andy and Alex when you listen to it, you might want to see a doctor, cause your hearing is messed up.

Flirting with Disaster is also one of the greatest films of all time, and in my opinion the best film directed by David O. Russell. The scene above is simply a tour-de-force in comic acting and writing.

If you haven’t seen it, Flirting with Disaster is about a man, played by Ben Stiller, who, at age 30, decides he wants to seek out his birth parents. So he contacts an adoption agent (Tea Leoni) who works to help pair adoptees with their biological family and travels with her and his wife (Patricia Arquette) and newborn baby across the country in search of his kin. Hijinks ensue.

It’s got an amazing cast — Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Josh Brolin, Richard Jenkins, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal — and is laugh-out-loud hilarious.

I have a soft spot for road-trip movies (Daytrippers, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Little Miss Sunshine — just to name three) and this one is up at the top of that list.

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Okay, the burst of energy is waning.

To sum up:

“Flirting with Disaster,” the song by Molly Hatchet and the movie by David O. Russell are must listens and must sees.

Reaction/First Listen videos on YouTube are taking over the internet and some of them are for sure worth your precious time.

Here are 3 of my favorites.

1. The Charismatic Voice

   Host Elizabeth Zharoff is a professional opera singer who really breaks down the vocal performances of hundreds of songs she’s hearing for the first time. Her channel is heads above all the rest that I’ve found, and she’s incredibly insightful and hilarious. Her style is to stop and start the song a lot, so if you want to hear the song in its entirety, this is not the channel for you.

2. The Daily Doug

Doug Helvering is a Classical Composer who listens to a lot of heavy rock music, similar to Elizabeth Zharoff, but he is fairly eclectic in his song choices and he is great at breaking down, musically, what is happening in the song both technically and compositionally.

3. Andy and Alex

There are a thousands of folks creating music reaction videos on YouTube now, and the vast majority of them are terrible. The hosts have nothing interesting to say and their song choices are uninteresting. Andy and Alex are the exception, and though they are young — their channel’s subtitle is “college students first time” — both Andy and Alex are musicians themselves and they pick up on a lot of details in each new song when they discuss it after it plays.

Do you also watch Reaction videos on YouTube? Oh, do you have better things to do with your precious time?:) If so, tell me which ones I must check out in the comments.

I’m still putting a call out for anyone who wants to give me a break and fill in for a week of the Earworm and Song Loop newsletter! I promise to help out!