Love Interrupted

Wow.  I can’t pretend to really understand what he was doing, but I do know Jack White's 2013 Grammy performance was:

1.  Real

2.  Refreshing in what was a typical, overly sanitized TV show

3.  The only exciting performance of the night

Keep it up Jack.  Never compromise.

Cry Me A River

Well, it’s official.  We’re bummed out.  German and Canadian researches have confirmed we prefer sad songs over happy ones.  The last 5 decades have been a slippery slope leading to Downerville.

Analysis of Billboard Hot 100 lists reveals that the number of songs in major keys is half of what it was 50 years ago.  Half.  And the tempo has slowed down.

To Hell with dancing.  We’re on a death march here.  No chirpy up-tempo songs for us!  Life sucks.  Don’t interfere with our misery.

Now, why is that?  I mean, in the 60’s we had the Vietnam War and impending nuclear holocaust.  He only had one (black and white) TV and our parents put on Lawrence Welk when we wanted to watch Get Smart.  Racial discrimination was considered acceptable!  We had reason to be worried.  We should have sung the blues from sunrise to sunset.  But we didn’t.  Life was cool.  We were optimistic.

I mean, everyone had jobs and all, and we hadn’t figured out that politicians lie to their own mothers, and we weren’t watching the planet being destroyed before our very eyes, but still …

OK, I get it.  But life can imitate art, and maybe we just need to buck up and change our tune.  Ain’t nothin’ but sorrow down this road we’re on.

Who's The Old Man?

Q:  Is this a running joke from A Hard Day's Night or a sick joke from the 2012 Grammy Awards?

Sadly, both.

Apparently the dominant Twitter chatter while Paul McCartney was on was, "who's that old guy?' and "who is Paul McCartney?"

So, it has come to this.  In a culture of 8 billion units, with individual playlists and nothing shared, people don't know one of the most influential musicians of all time.  And that, friends, is no culture, since culture is defined as customs and civilization of a particular time or people.  Not 8 billion persons.

Ironic that in a world dominated by social media and sharing, we have lost our shared culture.  I mean, I knew who Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Rudy Vally and John Phillip Sousa were.  Sousa died when my grandfather was a child, but I still knew about him.  Paul is still alive and revered by your parents and grandparents Twitter people!

The Twitter chatter didn’t seem to happen during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert or the Olympics.  Maybe by then these people had informed themselves.  Or maybe that stuff was only watched by the inmates of old folks homes. 

But it did happen during the Grammies.  A sad reflection of our times, especially for one who has given - and continues to give - so much joy.

And he's very clean.

Radio Gaga

Hey! Buzz, why don't you just stop listening to the radio instead of complaining about it? Try internet radio, use your iPod, give it up, get a life.

I know, I know. And I try - I do - but it's hard.

It's hard because radio used to be so darn good, so fresh, so exciting, so inspiring. I know I can't have it, but I want it back.

I also know two other things:
1) I'm not alone
2) The decline has been long and sad

Queen, The Kinks, and Tom Petty have all produced classics lamenting the neutering and lobotomizing of radio during its relentless slide into a commercialized corporate commodity. They also shouted, "It used to be so good! I want it back."

Internet radio is OK, and I do enjoy the power of choosing from my own iPod playlists, but ... make that four other things I know:
3) Culture is supposed to be a shared experience, not solitary
4) The decline of radio is a metaphor for bigger problems in our society

All too often, when I listen to the radio I realize that I am not being entertained. I am being managed, manipulated - ripped off. And it doesn't stop there. TV, shopping malls, cellphones, sporting events ... it's everywhere. Our souls have been stolen, and placed on spreadsheets and sales charts.

Something beautiful and priceless has been made cheap and ugly. Paradise has been covered over with asphalt. It makes me sad. It makes me angry.

Tom Petty says it best in The Last DJ:
   As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see
   How much you'll pay for what you used to get for free

It used to be so good! I want it back.

I (Don't) Wanna Be Sedated

When I was under 20, like most North Americans, I watched 3 hours of TV a day. Nowadays, I probably watch less than 3 hours a week.

But here's the thing. I don't remember being subjected to relentless, coma-inducing repetition during commercial breaks. Yes, then as now, commercials were sometimes funny but mostly lame. And yes, sometimes so lame that you started to talk back to the TV. But wasn't there more variety?

Didn't shows have more advertisers, and didn't those advertisers run more than one commercial during a show?

These days, it feels like there are maybe a dozen commercials on all of television. Every show on every channel repeats them over and over and over and over - often twice during the same freakin' break. Even if the commercial is cute upon first viewing, the endless assault moves you to a different spot where you start losing your will to live.

Just what are these people accomplishing? Are we being numbed into submission? Is corporate greed driving them to spend less on advertising, or do the economics of hundreds of channels dictate that splintered distribution means less money is available for production?

I wish I knew. I also wish I could go back to the world of 5 networks, where there was more variety in the programming and the commercials.

TV used to be called the boob tube because watching too much seemed to turn your brain off. But that was better than needing to turn it off before you switched the TV on.