An interesting essay on rock concert encores

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Steve

If you’ve been to any Pop/Rock/Country show in the last 30 years, you know the artist/act will always come back out for an encore. Most save their biggest hit for this part. I already knew these things were scripted in when I had an internship with the concert promoter Stardate; it was written into the rider and often said the band must play 80 minutes with a 10-minute encore, everything after this was gratis.

The lack of spontaneity has never bothered me nor did I have this sudden disillusionment after seeing my first rider. I felt more like I knew how to play the game. Besides, arena shows are very staged events. The whiney Washington Post critic Mental Floss linked off of is probably an aging Baby Boomer or Classic Rock stooge.

However, I am not surprised that the finger of blame has been pointed at Bruce Springsteen, the King of Arena/Dull Rock. To be fair, he is a good writer when others cover his songs (Manfred Mann, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Natalie Cole, Basia Bulat). Bruce’s sincerity and energy are impressive too. I just can’t get into his stuff after I went to college despite having a reconciliation with other Classic Rock acts. The Boss ruining the encore is another demonstration of how American Exceptionalism entails the “more is less” problem.

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PBS proves it is still worth saving with this campaign

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Steve

Two years ago, Slate‘s Mark Oppenheimer said PBS wasn’t worth saving because its audience is mostly aging Baby Boomers and cable has taken its place for programming. I wouldn’t know about the former yet the recent ad campaign with the New York affiliate has proven the cable argument to be bullshit.

We cut the cord years ago but whenever I catch TLC, History or Discovery in the break room at work, it’s always some show featuring rednecks in a pawn shop, rebuilding motorcycles/cars or killing gators. The worse stuff involves paranormal crap. None of this is educational. Then comes the excuse I’ve heard for why SyFy shows wrestling, psychics and ghost chasing (none of which is science fiction, hence the name change); the garbage pays the bills.

All the more reason to keep PBS afloat.

Personally, PBS should be allowed to regain its national feed like when we had Dish TV. This went away once we had to go with the local channels package for KLRU.

I wouldn’t sweat its current swerve to the older demographic. PBS has adapted in the past, it can again. There’s a ton of its content on Netflix streaming.

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しらせ = Good News

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Steve

I have several pieces of good things to share starting off with the translation above. The Japanese word in the title is “shirase” which I learned from a Shugo Tokumaru song. A co-worker explained its meaning and context: “good personal news,” Internet searches will just say “news.”

Friday was my annual health screening. As I have bored you all about the running, eating less, eating more fruit, cutting back on sugar and just trying harder. It panned out really well…everything but my waistline was either optimal or desirable! Even the main boogeymen Glucose (92!) and blood pressure. I was mostly stoked about losing three inches (7.5 cm) on my waistline. According to the Wellness Center’s goals, I only have an inch to go to be in the clear! Somara was saying my shirts weren’t being so snug over the last few months, now I have written proof.

Next up, our vacation was scheduled over 10 days ago. I didn’t put up a countdown until today, when it hit around 100 days to go. Obviously it’s Las Vegas. This will be my ninth trip to Sin City. It’ll be a belated 10th wedding anniversary and joint birthday celebration. The plane tickets were pre-paid through our vacation fund, the timeshare became our permanent property last Summer, now we just need to see who is coming to town for booking show tickets.

What else? Our car will be paid off in early July. Thanks to the house being refinanced, we have no payment next month. Thus we’ve redirected it to Honda. Those of you who know the ins and outs of car buying may get hit up by me this Fall. I need to bone up on the features via Consumer Reports too.

3085

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Finally, someone takes on Warner Music over “Happy Birthday”

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Steve

The song “Happy Birthday” is only the tip of the iceberg on how broken and archaic America’s copyright/trademark law is. There’s a really good piece on its history from On The Media here. How much Warner Music demands must be pretty cost prohibitive now. When I was a kid, restaurant staffs singing it was no big deal. Today I hear all these weird alternatives at Outback, TGIFridays, etc. The Time Warner empire extorts an estimated two million dollars a year for a song that couldn’t possibly be copyrighted past 1921 based upon the law.

Documentary film maker Jennifer Nelson is taking on the media barony because the other media baronies just pass the “cost of doing business” on to their customers. Despite the mountain of evidence proving Time Warner’s claim is bullshit, it will be a David v. Goliath fight thanks to the cost of litigation; the source of power behind patent trolls and Scientology.

Next up will be ending the ridiculous extensions being granted to Disney and the pharmaceutical industry. As one critic once pointed out, we have too much ownership in the West.

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A Kinky Friedman doll

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Steve

kinkydollGuaranteed to choke in a debate against GOP Barbie and Ken only to support them along with their Gilded Age policies four years later.

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Probable Wiz World Convention Shirt

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Steve

buddystanI accrued this mash-up shirt weeks ago but haven’t worn it nor posted, totally forgot with the latter. I’m not a fan of Kevin Smith’s films (after Clerks his material is worse than M Night Shama-lama-ding-dong) yet I couldn’t pass up any opportunity to have something cool for the possible chance I may have to meet the primary co-creator of the Marvel Universe.

Posted in Funny Ones, Shirts | Leave a comment

Austin humor strikes again!

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Steve

canta-elopeThis was on display at our local Austin’s Pizza, as you can see it was drawn on the back of a box lid. O. Henry would be proud.

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Playmobil diorama # 2

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Steve

pizzatruckThis was a little gift to the local branch of our favorite standard pizza place, Austin’s Pizza. We also love Pizza Bistro (the successor to Mangia), but deep dish is event pizza. I mainly bought it to give to the assistant manager who is always glad to see me, despite my verbal diarrhea. Someone on staff successfully got the Austin’s Pizza logo attached to make the truck official! Now I need to find them a driver. A Playmobile person who resembles an Austinite, not too many of their figures have visible tattoos.

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Demonstrations of Austin humor #2

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Steve

hautechild

 …and I have always hoped to avoid Nick Gilder’s only hit at any opportunity

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Happy Seventh Anniversary to Kelly & Ethan

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Steve

For the life of me, I always think their wedding was a week later. I guess I have a thing against single digit days because everybody else’s were, including ours…7/27/03, 9/12/93, 5/20/95 and 10/20/07. See the pattern?

Let’s see what the gift is since I don’t have this stuff memorized…copper or wool. Nice. Wiring or sweaters. Pennies won’t work, they tend to have more zinc since the late Seventies.

We Maggis hope they have a good celebration with the three daughters over there in California. Meanwhile, our card is late as always, see my problem regarding single-digit dates. Extra things for the girls will be included, primarily…pirates!

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