Fate Brought Me A Hero

On a beautiful Seattle summer day in 2002, I and my partner in cri…uh, advertising, Fishcakes, were buried deep in the archives of a recording studio looking for the perfect music for the first television commercial I’ve ever written (Fishcakes already had done a few).

At that exact moment but many, many years earlier and a little later in the summer on a September Fifth in Los Angeles, California, a hero was born.

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Fishcakes and I were in the middle of editing this commercial we had produced for a major athletic apparel company. It was a spoofy training-montage commercial, where Marshall Faulk, running back for the St. Louis Rams runs a JV kid into the ground. We had just the right music in mind. Aspiring Butt Rock.

But finding Aspiring Butt Rock without having to pay royalties out the ass to RATT or The Scorpions or Dokken is harder said than done.


money grubbing dream killers

We went through nearly every non-royalty-fee CD that the studio had, but we couldn’t find anything. The editor and our boss decided to edit in some music that sounded less like Aspiring Butt Rock and more like Aspiring To Eat Beef, Which Is What’s For Dinner Music. You know that Beef song? That grand symphony music? Yeah, it sounded like that, with a little Rocky theme peppered in.


gonna rib eye now!

Looking at the edit, I wasn’t satisfied. Something beckoned me back to the archives for one more look-see through the stacks of music. I went back and…eureka! There it was. “Sweet Victory” was the title of the track, and it was perfect. It was as if God shined his God Flashlight right down into that studio and led me to the nugget of Aspiring Royalty-Free Butt Rock Goodness.

I poured over the liner notes, looking for who may have written this enchanting piece of art, and there his name gleamed, inked in the glossy insert: DAVID GLEN EISLEY. And at that magic moment, I realized David Glen Eisley was my hero, baby. He would kiss away my pain. He would stand by me forever. He would take my breath away.

I hurried back to the editing suite with my saving grace. We edited it in and it was magnificent. The subtle ironies of bold lyrics like sweet victory / it's ours for the taking / it's ours for the fight and driving power chords against a kid face-planting into the sand with a log on his shoulders was glorious.

But oh, fate, you had the last laugh didn’t you? For the clients at the major athletic company thought the music was too SILLY and went with the Beef Music instead.

So the commercial was ruined, but not all was lost. I had found a hero.

David Glen Eisley is a rocker. Okay, was a rocker. But he rocked hard. But not too hard. Just hard enough. Not many rockers know how much rock is just the right amount. But those who do ROCK. And friends, David Glen Eisley ROCKS.


you dare doubt DGE’s rockability?

The great thing about DGE is that he’s not just a rocker. He’s a multi-faceted talent machine. He’s been on TV. Not just any TV. Beverly Freaking Hills 90210. He’s been in movies. He starred with Brian Bosworth in a little something that graced silver screens for 3 or 4 days in 1991 you may have heard of called Stone Cold.

He’s married to Olivia Hussey, the hottie Juliet from the 1968 film Romeo & Juliet.


“Wherefore art thou, rock balladeer?”

How did DGE win this sultry Shakespearian? “It was a chance meeting of eyes across a crowded restaurant,” he says on his website. That’s how much of a hero DGE is. His EYES rock famous hot chicks into his lap.


DGE eyes + hot chick = DGE lap. You do the math.

But we haven’t even got to the softer side of DGE. He rocks out in the name of kids learning their multiplication tables. Heck yes he does!


rocking math like a poison-spitting hurricane

Oh yeah! Can someone tell me how to petition Webster’s Dictionary to add a D, G and extra E to the word “hero?” Because I will right now. Just listen to some of those audio clips on “Dr. Dave’s Rockin’ Math” CD please. now we’re doin’ the Elevens / whoa oh oh / right now / eleven times one is / ELEVEN... Say Webster’s, can we add a D, and an extra G and E to the word “genius” while we’re at it?

Here’s to you DGE. You’re a hero for us all. Every man, every woman, every child. You’re DGE!


“Thank you Cheboygan!”

***REPRISE***

A few months after our commercial had run its course, my boss told me he had heard “Sweet Victory” while watching Spongebob Square Pants with his kids.“Maybe you’re cooler than I thought,” he said to me. Well, a lot of good that does now. But I least I know DGE’s “Sweet Victory” will finally make a difference...for the world!


the winner takes all!
(click on Spongebob to hear “Sweet Victory”)