Out of the Wilderness

Danny Gokey “Peace” Music Video – The Locations, the Ice Cream, and More

American Idol season 22 is in full swing and has a quiver full of great singers already, like my early favorite Jennifer Jeffries. When she makes it to the voting rounds and ultimately finds her way into the top 5, she’ll be another great performer in a long line of Idol alumni that did really well on the show. Segue alert… Danny Gokey. He finished 3rd on season 8 behind Kris Allen (winner) and Adam Lambert (2nd place). Top level talent right there! The cream always rises to the top, doesn’t it? Speaking of cream, and no I’m not referring to the Prince song, it’s ice cream sharing the limelight in Danny Gokey’s new video called, “Peace.” Take a look then scroll down for more…

What’s the Flavor? Danny performs in front of Lolly’s Creamery in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I read some of the shops history and it warms my heart almost enough to melt an ice cream cone when talented people take a chance and have success. That’s the story of this place so if you’re in the VA area, swing by for a scoop!

Dog’s Day. My sole encounter with Danny Gokey was when my dog got snippy with his dog. More about that here. Nice to see he’s still a “dog guy” with the inclusion of pups in the video. And Danny, if you’re reading this, I’m STILL sorry about the dog park skurfuffle!

Colors of the Wind. Danny shoots a few clips in front of The Pink Dinghy, also part of the ViBE district in Virginia Beach. Looks like a really cozy place to get seafood, drinks, and hang with old friends and new… which is just what the folks credited with starting the diner would want.

The Music. I’m not typically a fan of radio-friendly Christian music, it’s all just a little mellow and cheesy for me. I care a lot about lyrics, melody, and the ViBE (how about that slick call back to Lolly and The Pink Dinghy 😎) –the vibe of this song is so great. Plus, I sort of forgot how good of a singer Danny is. He’s got soul. And the lyrics offer, not a way to have peace, but THE way to have peace. I totally agree even if some days I don’t feel very peace-y. That’s not Jesus’ fault. Along with peace there’s also grace, forgiveness, love, joy, happiness, among other things. But aside from spiritual stuff, this is a pleasant song to listen to because of Danny’s voice. The video was fun to watch, too. I appreciated the man on the street style of shooting, the blocky editing (for lack of a better phrase), and the scenery. I had no idea Virginia Beach was so beachy. I might need to plan a trip up there to add to my camping stories!

What did you think of the video? Let me know a few things you liked or things you’d do differently with the filming and/or editing. I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite beach photos from My Online Gallery.

-Out of the Wilderness

Daylight Savings Time Is A Hoax

Daylight savings time is a hoax and I there’s proof. I have a high-maintenance dog but not the kind that needs medical attention or requires a special diet. She’s the type that wants what she wants when she wants it. Some might call her a diva which is synonymous with beagle. Here’s Piper!

She’s 14 years old so we’ve had plenty of time to establish routines, update songs where I replace all the words with her name, and play hide and go seek and by hide and go seek I mean she runs away and I have to go seek her. Another routine is her meal schedule. Her servant (me) feeds her dinner around 4pm every day. I won’t even get into the morning mealtime because it’ll just shock you too hard. Dinner, though, yes it’s at 4pm. So naturally when the time springs ahead one hour for daylight savings, you’d think her new dinner time would be 5pm because her body still is on that schedule and thinks it’s 4pm.

But… no.

Without fail, when it gets to 4pm (which should feel like 3pm right?) she hops around like the Easter bunny. It’s a good thing her whimpers, her cute little face, her wagging tail are so darn adorable because the schedule she has me on can be exhausting. I was so looking forward to a later dinner because of the time change (and ultimately, a later breakfast, too), but unfortunately she outsmarted the world yet again. Therefore…

Daylight savings time must be a hoax.

Kinda like birds. We all know birds aren’t real. What a hoax!

-Out of the Wilderness

Dylan Mulvaney’s Music Video – Ironic Lyrics, Disabled Comments, and… James Charles?

Dylan Mulvaney is back in the limelight! This time he’s in the music video we always knew we never wanted. Because of lies like this one from Joe Biden, a lot of us have grown up thinking we can be anything we want to be. A pro baseball player. An astronaut. A woman.

This lie is part of the reason we are where we are with Dylan. A couple of years ago Dylan took on the role of a lifetime… pretending to be a woman for the rest of his life. Robin Williams must be turning in his grave! Even Euphegenia Doubtfire was more believable than Dylan’s less-than-mediocre impersonation.

Watch along and decide if Dylan sounds like any woman you’ve ever known or sounds like a dude imitating what he thinks we think a woman is. Jared Leto and all the male actors who’ve portrayed women before, watch out!

Singer/Songwriter… ish. Dylan’s parlayed his gender dysphoria into a cute little song about being a girl. And by cute I mean about as cute as Robin Williams dressed as an old woman with saggy boobs. Just from a songwriting and performance standpoint, with a line like “Girls like me gotta learn the basics,” in a cringey, exaggerated falsetto voice makes the whole thing as bad as you probably expected. Another disappointing aspect is that as a man, Dylan’s singing voice was really good.

Another line, “Boys on the dance floor it’s time to clear, the patriarchy’s over you can hold our beer,” is pretty ironic since the last time I checked Dylan still uses his father’s surname. So much for dismantling the patriarchy, huh?

And The Winner Is… I guess this is the new worst song ever. For a while, playfully, it was “Friday” by Rebecca Black. Remember that one? So bad it was good. Then came along Everleigh’s “Like Taylor Swift”… a great example of why rich people should be taxed more. But gosh, now I want to listen to either of those just to get Dylan’s none-hit-wonder song out of my head. Everything about it is so unappealing in every possible way.

But On The Other Hand. In the most simplest way, Dylan’s just a gay man using women as a costume. But there’s another gay man who actually has singing talent worth paying attention to and without all the confusing pronouns. I’ll admit that when my teenager niece wanted to show me this song, I had only planned to listen to make her happy. It’s James Charles, the makeup-wearing YouTuber who actually has a hell of a song here.

Proof Is In The Pudding. When YouTube comments are disabled you can pretty much guarantee the video isn’t going over well. So guess which one, Dylan or James, has disabled the comments. That should tell you all you need to know about how people are reacting to these two songs. One is pleasant to listen to and the other is Dylan’s.

-Out of the Wilderness

Joe Biden Lies to Stuttering Kid

Joe Biden recently sat down with a young man who struggles with stuttering. As far as a show of compassion goes, this was a step in the right direction… although anyone with half a brain can decipher what’s going on here. It’s a voting year, after all.

Hmm, what can I do to make myself look good so people vote for me?
– every politician

It’s a little ironic that they felt the need to include subtitles when so many Joe Biden gaffes (not stutters, 100% gaffes) require someone to interpret what he’s trying to say. Here’s the video the Biden campaign is sharing to ~~trick you~~ sway you into voting for Joe in November…

Lie To Me. Whether or not we believe Joe’s stutter is the reason he has blunders on a national stage every other day is beside the point. The misinformation in this video is when Biden goes on to tell the child that he can be anything he wants to be. Um, no. Sorry that’s not true. In middle school I was sure I’d grow up to be a baseball player. I had the experience, the desire, the equipment. I was missing one thing, though.

TALENT.

Please don’t patronize kids like this. The truth is we can’t be whatever we want to be. We can excel in what we do, work hard and become great at something, sure. But if young Ben (me) were told he could be anything he wanted to be and he believed it, he was set up for a lifetime of entitlement and ultimately, disappointment.

-Out of the Wilderness

Lainey Wilson “Wildflowers and Wild Horses” Music Video and More!

Why does every music video shot in the mid-western desert remind me of Texas? It happened with Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” video, too. I guess the video clips remind me of my camping trip deep in the heart of Texas. For the record, I saw just as many buffalo as I did horses but “buffalo” is pretty hard to work into a song title. Plus the idea of wild horses conjures up different sorts of inspiration than wild buffalo. I’ll say this though, every time I saw buffalo along my journey to the midwest, it was down right wild.

Enough about me and my buffalo experiences, Lainey Wilson has a three-minute story about wildflowers and wild horses. Beautiful imagery by talented filmmakers and videographers, the way the shots were put together and edited, it’s a great work of art for Lainey’s latest music video…

The Location. It’s not Texas, after all. The location for this, as shown in the scrolling credits, was White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, Arizona. Now those cactuses make sense. The ranch is open to the public so if you want to walk, ride, or e-bike in the footsteps of Lainey Wilson herself, check out their website for more booking info.

The Horses. I love horses so I’ll wrap this post up with a few of my favorite horse photos and maybe a wildflower or two.