If you are a reader of this blog, you may have come to realize that I like to make bizarre connections between remote entities. This one here is perhaps the greatest stretch: the success of at least three music entertainers and the failed marriage of my aunt in the early 1970s represented here by a silver champagne cup from her wedding in 1969, inscribed with her ex-husband's name.
Somehow the pariah's silver cup from the wedding got into my hands since no one else wanted it. I had it out on my art wall for years and then I thought the boyfriend of a coworker (who I hired five years ago) might like it since he is a graphic artist in the music industry.
I brought it inside in its blackened state and made a few attempts to clean it up with household substances: shaving cream, baking soda, and white toothpaste. These things helped but they did not remarkably transform it. But then I tried Polident (for dentures), which my wife had mistakenly bought instead of toothpaste years ago. It was amazing; took the tarnish off immediately.
After cleaning up the cup I hand-drew a diagram, similar to the one here, which shows the connection: My deadbeat uncle abandons his family when my cousins are toddlers. The girl cousin grows up and marries a cop. The boy grows up and befriends Nelly before he goes platinum and helps him get established. Together they start Apple Bottom Jeans, which inspires the hit Low by Flo Rida, featuring T-Pain. This advances Flo Rida's career and thereby puts Ke$ha on the map when she sings backup for his next hit Right Round, the remake of Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round from 1985.