You know, a commercial that shows a dog urinating would never get on the air —and neither would spots that have nudists talking about your weatherman.
Tag Archives: media
On Music Critics
The role of the music critic is to explain why things you love completely suck. The internet hasn’t changed that —and if anything it’s made it worse.
It used to be that rock critics were fairly independent thinkers. They were forced to come up with their own reasons why the music you like isn’t any good —but today everything is different.
Now there are a million people on the web reviewing music so all a writer needs is to do a Google search and presto! He finds someone to tell him what to say.
Yeah, that sounds harsh but think about it. In the old days ideas were not at your fingertips. If you wanted information you’d have to trudge out to the library or newsstand. Today? Endless opinions 24/7 —and if you don’t know what to think you can easily find someone who’s already thought it.
For example, Daniel Durchholz wrote in the June 1 St. Louis Post-Dispatch about The Decemberists recent album, The Hazards of Love:
It’s instructive, though, to remember that such works were used as punching bags by punk rockers, who pointed to their pretentiousness and self-importance as embodying the very antithesis of rock.
Hmmm… good point —but original? Here’s a quote from just a few days earlier:
Prog-rock and concept records and ambitious projects like this were kind of anathema post-punk. They were destroyed with the advent of punk rock.
That was from an interview with Decemberists front man Colin Meloy in The Decider, a Milwaukee based web site published by the same people who bring you The Onion.
Yes, ideas are hard. But today maybe not so much.
Three Words Say It All
I can’t say I’ve ever watched even a minute of Good Morning America Weekend, but I’m a big fan of their Your Three Words segment.
A few years ago they invited viewers to send in videos featuring three words that express what’s on their mind. The producers take what folks contribute and set it to music —and the results are always really moving. It doesn’t hurt that whoever cuts these has great taste in tunes and they’ve featured bands like Wilco and Blitzen Trapper.
This week they used The Felice Brothers new song Penn Station. have a look:
The Truth Hurts
This requires no introduction:
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.817581&w=425&h=350&fv=]
One Flu Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
In Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later Britain is horrifically decimated by the outbreak of a virus —and it doesn’t merely kill people it transforms them into raging homicidal maniacs. Stephen King’s masterpiece, The Stand, also features the release of a superbug that brings civilization to its knees.
Swine flu may not be as scary as the viruses in fiction, but the outbreak is a potent reminder of how the invisible world around us is rife with danger —real and imagined. There was a quaint time when radiation was the most ominous specter we faced. The atomic age inspired works as diverse as On the Beach, Godzilla, and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
Of course it was frightening —but somewhere along the line microbes became our most popular boogeymen. Killer bug stories run the gamut from Michael Crichton’s science minded thriller Andromeda Strain to the over-the-top 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.
It’s still early to say if life will imitate art and the swine flu crisis will hop the fence and become a pandemic. My advice is don’t panic —but just in case you may want to read this handy article about dealing with zombies.
Posted in media, Modern Living, News
Tagged books, current events, media, personal health, zombies
News Hounds
WOOF! WOOF WOOF! WOOF! That’s the signal you hear in my house when the Times Union thumps down on the front stoop at about 4:30am. It’s nice that the dogs announce the arrival of the newspaper; I’m usually up by then so I step outside grab it —but only after the carrier has cleared the house so they don’t think I’m in there waiting.
There would be four days less barking if we lived in Michigan and subscribed to the Detroit Free Press. That’s the paper that’s cut home delivery down to three days a week: Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. To me that’s a tragedy.
Internet or no internet, it’s hard to beat a real newspaper. Sure, you can sit at the computer and get your news, but can you fold a computer and stick it under you arm? Can you really sit outside and read it while having your coffee? Pull it apart and share it with someone? No. And newsprint isn’t just handy, it’s aesthetically pleasing. Your monitor is not a newspaper in the same way Kindle is not a book. And who wants to read the comics on a computer? Or the obituaries.
Yes, I get lots of news off the web every day —but the print edition remains an important part of my life. And the dogs? It’s their job to bark when that newspaper lands. You want to put a dog out of work?
Whipped Up
They had a giant garage sale to help fund my son’s eighth grade class trip to Washington. I hate garage sales —and friends this was the mother of all garage sales, featuring an entire school gym brimming with crap. Near the end, one of the organizers handed me a bag and told me to throw away anything that looked like garbage. “It all looks like garbage,” I replied.
She took away my bag.
All garbage except for one thing: a vinyl copy of Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
As a boy I spent many hours listening to Herb Alpert and gazing at the cover of Whipped Cream. To a sixth grader who was feeling the first stirrings of manhood, there was nothing more erotic than that album cover. I remember bringing it to school in a brown paper bag and letting my friends peak at it.
Naturally, when I spotted it at the garage sale I had to have it. I tucked it away in a secret place -much as I did at twelve-years-old- and I was finally reunited with my boyhood love. Kids have all sorts of things to stimulate their imagination these days, so to them it would sound nutty to say I was obsessed with this picture.
It turns out that the model, Dolores Erickson, was three months pregnant during the photo shoot. I’m not sure how I would have felt about that at 12 —but I will say this: A CD of Whipped Cream would not have had nearly the same impact. And an MP3? None at all.
Banned In Boston
When I heard that NBC was moving Jay Leno to 10pm five days a week here’s what I said: “Maybe they’ll let us air it later so we can run our news at 10.”
Just joking, but as it turns out it was not such an unusual idea —except for the “let us” part.
Boston NBC affiliate WHDH announced yesterday that they will do exactly that in September: put on an hour of local news starting at 10 and run Leno later. NBC? They’re having a fit —and media insiders speculate that if NBC doesn’t douse the sparks of this insurrection immediately it may spread like wildfire.
And what’s so bad with having Jay Leno at 10pm? Everything. Put something awful at 10 and it could mean even greater trouble for affiliates stuck with the network’s anemic prime time programming. It’s a completely untried strategy at a time when local TV stations are struggling with audience erosion. NBC has not had a CSI, an American Idol, or a Dancing With the Stars —and sooner or later something’s going to give.
Local news is a proven ratings grabber —a ratings grabber in which you get to sell all of the commercials. Put a popular, proven newscast at 10 and it will yield a pile of money. Put Jay Leno there and who the hell knows what will happen.
Richard J. Harte of Delmar is Not Amused
My son Zack’s eighth grade social studies class at St. Thomas School recently studied about the Roaring Twenties —and capped it off by turning the classroom into a speakeasy where they danced the Charleston and swigged grape juice. Somebody thought this picture was so cute that they sent it to our local weekly, The Spotlight.
Well, not everyone thought it was cute, like this guy who fired off a letter to the paper:
As a long-time parishioner of St. Thomas in Delmar, I can’t think of a more inspiring way to begin the religious season of Lent than by having a 1920′s prohibition event for the school’s eighth graders… complete with faux “booze” (photo, 1920s roar to life, march 11).
To say I am a little surprised and shocked at both the timing and the function is an understatement. I realize that the purpose was an educational exercise examining the Roaring ’20s, but do you really educate children by having them act out a disregard for the law (Prohibition) and promote the consumption of alcohol as a fun thing to do? Then to publicize the occasion by submitting a group photo of the kids, complete with bottles and glasses in hand. And we wonder why the children of this and other communities start drinking at an early age.
Seriously, “educators,” did you think this out beforehand?
P.S. – Yes, I do enjoy a drink, and yes, thank you, I do have a life.
Richard J. Harte
Delmar
Yes, Mr. Harte, of course you have a life. Your life is writing ridiculous letters to the local newspaper.
Trickery!
Network TV is so desperate that they’ve started using deceptive and unfair tricks to make people watch their stupid shows. Take Dancing With the Stars for example.
As I’ve written before, I flee from the room when that program comes on —and so does my 13- year-old son, Zack. But the producers have discovered a devious way to get me to watch: by featuring NFL players among the stars. How could I not watch former NY Giant Lawrence Taylor trying to do the cha-cha? Granted, it’s not as exciting as watching him break Joe Theisman’s leg, but hey it’s LT.
Last week both Zack and I were drawn into this insipid show because they not only featured Lawrence Taylor, but Steve-O from Jackass. And they put Apple founder Steve Wozniak on to appeal to the geeks. Hopefully it will not take long for natural selection to weed out the manly elements and we can stop watching.
