Everybody Loves a Good (2007) List

So it is that 2007 is drawing to a close. Anyone else feel like breathing a sigh of relief that we survived this year? I mean this was a messed-up year. One thing you can say about 2007: you never knew what was going to happen next.

The Democrat-run Congress did next to nothing until December, and it was then that they proved they had done a complete 180 from their “oppose, oppose, oppose” agenda with which they started the year. Higher gas mileage standards for cars? Opposed them in January, passed them in December. Funding for the troops? Opposed it in January, passed it in December. Earmarks and pork projects? Opposed them in January, passed them in December. What a difference a year makes... More notably, they failed to accomplish the two objectives the 23% Crowd put them in office to do: immediately pull the troops out of Iraq and immediately impeach the president and vice-president. Then their worst nightmare happened... the surge worked. Oprah took to the stump for Obama, Hillary’s victory lap through the Democratic presidential primaries may have been derailed, and a guy named Huckabee is on the verge of winning the Iowa Caucuses for the Republicans, without taking my advice to make his campaign slogan “I (Heart) Huckabees.”

Steel finally started rising at Carousel. Nothing was built at the convention center... again (but they SWEAR they’ll start in February). Dan Maffei did indeed announce he was running against Jim Walsh again before the ink was dry on the “Walsh Beats Maffei” headlines from last year. And we became the envy of municipalities everywhere by electing a county executive whose first and last names rhyme.

The West Genesee boys lacrosse team and marching band didn’t win a state title... but the football team did. I think that may be a sign of the apocalypse. The SU basketball team got jobbed out of an NCAA Tournament berth. The Sabres won the President’s Trophy, then got run right off the ice by Ottawa in the conference finals. The Mets... don’t get me started. It still pisses me off. Barry Bonds got indicted (but no asterisk... yet), Roger Clemens got fingered for steroids and HGH by the Mitchell report, and both may join Big Mac among the baseball “legends” who will have the door to Cooperstown slammed in their face.

It was the year of Sanjaya (the only reason anyone still remembers him is these year-in-review columns), the year Avril Lavigne managed to draw a copyright lawsuit from the most obscure punk band ever (The Rubinoos? WHO?), and the year that saw a major U.S. city go into panic mode over what looked like a Lite Brite image of an alien giving the finger. The finale of "The Sopranos" caused everyone to scratch their heads, "Don't Stop Believing" to be ruined forever (seriously, who doesn't hear that song and immediately think of a cut-to-black joke?), and led to parodies ranging from "Family Guy" to the Hillary campaign to "Pearls Before Swine", my new favorite comic strip.

Right at the end of the year, 3 of the most eligible ladies in entertainment went off the market, as Katherine Heigl, Jessica Alba, and Fergie all got engaged. Not that I ever had a chance with any of them... although I would like to apologize to Fergie for wishing she would go away this year. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” changed my mind. You can stay. Also “Sweet Escape” saved Gwen Stefani from the “go away” list. And speaking of lists, let’s just get right to my list of observations of the year’s well-known and lesser-known events:

Dumb Lawsuit of the Year: Talk about Bridezillas... a bride in NYC sued for $400,000 because the FLOWERS WERE THE WRONG COLOR.

What I’d Like to See Less of in 2008: Music videos involving water... where the band/artist is getting doused, drowned, rained on, etc. It’s getting out of hand, seriously, it’s happening in every other video now...

Wuss-out Moment of the Year: Labatt chops the bleeped-out swear word from their deer ad. I mean, seriously, who whined about that one? They can say "f(bleep)k" on prime-time TV but not in a beer commercial? At least air the bleep version after 10pm.

Bad Mom of the Year: Hands down, Lynne Spears. Famous older daughter freaks out, shaves her head, misses child custody hearings due to "illness", and then the all-timer: famous younger daughter (who is 16) gets pregnant by her boyfriend (who may be 19, making him a criminal). Honorable mention to the mom who made her daughter write a letter to win Hannah Montana tickets saying that her dad died in Iraq... a bold-faced LIE. The mom should go to prison and have her child taken away from her.

Stop Him Before He Kills Again: By the time Sean Kingston is done, there won’t be any classic pop or rock standards left that some kid won’t mistake for just being part of a current hit song...

The Return of Women To Rock: I begged for it to happen last year at this time, and it’s slowly happening. Paramore and Flyleaf, both with female lead singers, continue to grab attention and gain popularity, Shiny Toy Guns boasts a male-female combo for vocals, and we’ll even count Silversun Pickups and Sick Puppies for having female bassists. Of these bands, K-Rock played a grand total of 2... the last two, and it took until December and the 2nd Top 10 hit of the year for them to add Silversun Pickups. Apparently, still no room for women on the so-called “Alternative” station here in Syracuse.

Best New CD I Bought This Year: Tough one, but I’m gonna go with the Foo Fighters, “Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace.” Hey, it was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy for a reason... Honorable mention: Paramore, “Riot!”, Silversun Pickups, “Carnavas”, and the White Stripes, “Icky Thump”.

Who We Will Talk About In Music in 2008: Paramore, Sara Bareilles, Madonna (Hall of Fame induction = new hit album?), Green Day, Jack Johnson, The Killers, Simple Plan, and Kanye West.

Who Needs To Just Go Away in 2008: Nickelback (PLEASE!), Kid Rock (again), Britney (again)... why do I get the feeling that I just can’t get what I want here? Also, I’d like the aforementioned Mr. Kingston to go away.

“What the Hell Were They Thinking?” Moment: Vladimir Putin as Time’s Man of the Year? Well, what do you expect from the magazine that once named Hitler Man of the Year?

The “Patting Myself On the Back Award”, a.k.a. Predictions I Got Right For This Year: Well, I was one of the first to point out Paramore as a band on the verge of breaking out, and sure enough, they have a song in the Top 20 on the Pop chart, 2 in the Top 20 on the Modern Rock chart, and they’re up for Best New Artist at the Grammys. I also said we’d talk about Britney a lot this year... but nobody saw the shaved head coming. And I correctly said Duke would lose in the 1st round of the NCAAs and Florida would repeat as champs. I still didn’t win any money in the office pool.

The “Kicking Myself In the Ass Award”, a.k.a. Predictions I Got Wrong: Aside from the Fergie and Gwen Stefani mentions above, Nickelback of course didn’t go away; in fact, now I can’t flip through the radio dial without hearing Nickelback on AT LEAST 3 different stations. I picked the Mets to win the NL East easily again; I was correct with 17 games to play. Unfortunately, they played the last 17 games. Oh, and the SU football team definitely DID NOT turn the corner this year.

Even Dumber Prediction: A “well-respected” climate expert was quoted by Rolling Stone’s website as predicting that over 6 billion people will die in this century because of global warming, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Now I’ve heard of everything being blamed on global warming, but this takes the cake. I’m not denying that over 6 billion people will die in this century, because this shall indeed happen... and it’s because there are 93 years left in this century and very few people live to see 100. Therefore, most of the 6 billion people on this planet today will be dead by the end of the century, and there is indeed nothing we can do about it. But to blame it on global warming? HELLO?!?

Dumb PETA Protest of the Year: Right before the traditional Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, there was a “Running of the Nudes”. I am not making this up... here’s their website. They say this is to show Pamplona that “it doesn’t need to torture animals for tourism”. Two thoughts: 1) What about the humans who get gored by bulls each year? It seems to me that by comparison, the animals get off lightly... and 2) This is at least the 4th year in a row that they’ve done this, which begs the obvious question: How did I not find out about this sooner?

My Simple Wish for 2008: That we can somehow come together as a country and elect a president who will do the right thing for all or most of us, who can fix the problems we have without messing up what works with this country. Or at the very least, let's have an entertaining presidential race. And a 4.0 GPA wouldn't hurt either...

A City and its Team

The biggest sporting event of New Year's Day 2008 may not be a bowl game. Sure there are some pretty intriguing matchups amongst the various college football games that will be played on Tuesday, but for the most part the only one that matters is a week from Monday. Since everybody beat up on everybody this year, there are WAY too many bowl games, and there are few compelling stories in these New Year's Day games, it's pretty easy to dismiss most of the games. No, the biggest sporting event of the day will be played in a football stadium in Buffalo, only they won't be playing football.

They'll be playing hockey.

Yes, here I go again trying to get you to like hockey, only this time I'm not alone. The NHL and NBC have put a lot on the table with the Amp Winter Classic; NBC dumped its traditional bowl game broadcasts to televise this game. They're sending Bob Costas to Buffalo and hoping that couch potatoes get bored with the Michigan-Florida game and while flipping around, they land on the hockey game and are intrigued enough to keep watching. As NBC's coordinating producer for sports put it, "Part of it is the, 'What the heck are we looking at here?"'

Quite simply, what you'll be looking at is the best player in hockey (Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins) and his teammates taking on what may be the most beloved team in pro hockey in front of 73,000 screaming fans. Outdoors. And as it's Buffalo, odds are good that it will be snowing. The players are excited to be playing in this game, since most of them first learned to smack a puck around the ice outdoors. They played outdoors as kids on frozen ponds in Canada, Europe, and the Northern U.S. Basically, it's the hockey equivalent of a sandlot game of baseball or a playground game of basketball.

Apart from the obvious, the main draw to this game for NBC is Crosby, but for the people of Buffalo, the main draw is their Sabres. The 73,000 tickets for this game went faster than any non-"Hannah Montana" event in recent memory. This is because for most of these ticketholders, it's the only way to see a Sabres game this season. The team has sold every ticket for the 19,000-seat HSBC Arena this season and has a waiting list 6,000 deep for season tickets. During last season's playoffs, thousands watched the games on big screens in the plaza outside the arena, just to be there! Simply put, this city LOVES its team. I would say that only Detroit ("Hockey Town") compares for how devoted a U.S. city is to its NHL club.

To understand this love affair, you have to know some background info. For one thing, it wasn't that long ago that the future of the Sabres franchise was in doubt. The former owner, John Rigas (then-CEO of Adelphia Communications) was going to jail, Adelphia was going bankrupt, so the Sabres franchise was going bankrupt. Enter Tom Golisano. The business maven bought the team in 2003 and did something unthinkable: he CUT ticket prices and made going to a game more affordable. Then, he sunk money into the team and its farm system, and during the 2004-05 lockout, the Sabres may have been the only team to benefit from the work stoppage, as its top young stars played the whole season in the minors at Rochester while the other top teams sat.

As a result, once play resumed two years ago, Buffalo shot out of the gate and reestablished itself as one of the top teams in hockey, and the fans came back in droves. Last season, 6 of the top 7 NHL jerseys bought by fans were Buffalo Sabres jerseys, and they aren't just bought by people in Buffalo. Every road game, no matter where they play (even California), you'll see a sizable number of fans in Sabres gear. While I haven't been to Buffalo lately, people who have been tell me that the city shuts down when the Sabres play. Sabres playoff games beat "American Idol" in the TV ratings in Buffalo. For last year's playoff run, the village of Hamburg unofficially changed its name to "Pominville", after Buffalo forward Jason Pominville.

If that's not clear enough for you, I'll point out some other reasons why Buffalo is so in love with its hockey team. Buffalo's a blue collar city that has seen better days; the Sabres are a blue collar team that does whatever it takes to win. Buffalo loves a fighter... need proof? Well, the Sabres "tough guy" back in the 1980s, Lindy Ruff, is now in his 10th season as Buffalo's head coach. Rob Ray, the Sabres' enforcer in the 1990s, was one of the most popular players on the team and today serves as a TV analyst for them.

Then there's the Cubs/Red Sox pre-2004 mentality. The city of Buffalo hasn't won a major pro sports championship since 1965, and the Bills' 2 AFL championships have been overshadowed by the 4 straight Super Bowl losses in the 90s. The city blew its shot at Major League Baseball, not once but twice. The NBA Braves were so hapless that they are now the LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS. The Bills have not made the playoffs this millennium and Ralph Wilson has practically written it into his will that when he dies, the team will move to Toronto. The Sabres have made it to just 6 conference finals and 2 Stanley Cup Finals (1975 and 1999) in their 37 years. Bring up 1999 to a Sabres fan and he will likely scream something along the lines of, "IT WASN'T A GOAL! HULL'S SKATE WAS IN THE CREASE!!!" Sabres fans watching "Bruce Almighty" wonder which part of the movie is harder to believe: Jim Carrey having the power of God or the Sabres winning the Cup.

But they do know the good times. An older Sabres fan will tell you about the Fog Game in the '75 Cup finals, when a May heat wave caused the ice at the old Aud to turn to fog (Buffalo won the game when Rene Robert slapped one past a helpless Philadelphia goalie in OT). They'll tell you about the "French Connection" line of Robert, Gil Perrault, and Rick Martin, about Danny Gare and Don Edwards and Mike Ramsey. Younger fans will tell you about how a 1994 playoff duel between Dominik Hasek and New Jersey's Martin Brodeur was ended in the 4th overtime by a Sabres 4th-liner named Dave Hannan. Go on YouTube and look up "Buffalo Sabres". You'll spend hours reliving all the great moments fans have posted online.

And they'll tell you about Rick Jeanneret. His voice is identified with the Sabres as much as the booming fog horn that goes off when Buffalo scores a goal in home games. Don't call him the "Voice of the Sabres"; that honor goes to the late Ted Darling, who called the games on TV for the team's first 22 years. RJ started doing radio for the team in its second season, has done both TV and radio for the last decade or so, and his voice is on most of the great moments in teams history, each with its indelible stamp. He turned Pierre Turgeon into "Ooh-la-la-Pierre!", Pat LaFontaine into "LalalalalalaLaFontaine!", Bob Boughner into "The Boogie Man". When a Sabres player drills the puck into the top of the goal, Rick will remind you that the "top shelf" is "where Momma hides the cookies!" When Brad May beat the Boston Bruins in OT to win their 1993 playoff series, Rick proclaimed the event to be "MAY DAY! MAY DAY! MAY DAY!" And that's what Sabres fans call it today. And when the Sabres officially returned to prominence by trouncing Ottawa in the 2006 Eastern Conference semis, Rick asked delirious Buffalonians, "Now do you believe? These guys are good... SCARY GOOD!"

So on Tuesday, join 73,000 Sabres fans (and thousands more who will watch the game at HSBC Arena via big screen TV) in watching Pominville, Ryan Miller, Tim Connolly, Brian Campbell and the rest in the first NHL game to be played outdoors in the United States. Take in an afternoon of exciting hockey and you'll be changed forever.

Now do you believe?

The State of a Striking Tube

Normally I would have weighed in by mid-October on how the new fall television season is shaping up, what's hitting, what's missing, and so on. Well, I've had the luxury of time this year because of course the writers are on strike. There's no chance of me falling behind on new episodes and shows because right now, there aren't any. We're in a lull right now between the shows that launched in the fall running out of fresh episodes and the shows that the network held back until 2008 (wise move and I'll say more about that later).

First of all, for those of you who are new to reading these State of the Tube Addresses that I give each year, this will be my 5th one of these, and I do not profess to be a "qualified" television critic. In other words, I find stupid things funny, whereas most TV critics would wonder why those things were even on television. One thing I am now that I was not last year is one semester into grad school as a Media Studies student. Really, all that means is I've taken a class on television criticism and I can use big fancy terms like "audience fragmentation" to explain why things are as they are... I can but I won't. Most importantly, when I write about TV, I only write about the shows and topics that interest ME... because this is MY blog. So without further ado, State of the Tube 2007...

We start on Sunday nights because that's the first day on the calendar (duh). Actually there really isn't much to watch on this particular night of the week, because I'm not really into crime dramas like "Cold Case" and I think you can guess without much effort that I don't watch "Desperate Housewives". Ergo, there's "The Simpsons" on Fox at 8, then hope for a second "Simpsons" at 8:30, then "Family Guy" at 9; still the funniest show on television. I especially have to applaud Seth MacFarlane for his 100th episode special where he primarily interviewed people who hated the show. As far as the rest of the Fox Sunday lineup, "King of the Hill" got old YEARS ago. I was a fan the first few seasons but really there's nothing more you can do with that show. As for "American Dad", well I'm a Republican, so I'm not interested in watching 30 minutes of non-stop GOP bashing every Sunday night.

Moving on to Monday nights... "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS at 8:00 is one of the best shows out there. The writing is fantastic, the actors are top-notch, and they continue to pump out fresh takes on the way our social lives operate. The best example was the episode where everyone had their ideal visions of each other "shattered" (appropriately enough, with a glass shattering sound effect). And I actually found myself excited about "Slapsgiving". CBS has struck out once again trying to follow this show with something even approaching funny. "The Big Bang Theory" is as unfunny as "The Class", and probably will meet the same fate as its predecessor: one (season) and done.

A lot of people have trashed "Heroes" for the way the second season unfolded, and I will admit it wasn't quite as good, but it wasn't enough to drive me away either. When you start with as good a first season as this show had, it's natural to have a sophomore slump. I still don't get the point of Maya (and I was a little disappointed that they chose to kill off Niki instead of her in the finale), and it almost seemed like they wanted to write an "ending" to the season due to the impending strike but they were ambivalent about it. I know the original plan was to have a cliffhanger followed by "Heroes: Beginnings" where the audience would be introduced to new heroes and get the chance to vote on who got to join the regular show when it returned. I get the feeling that the strike messed up a lot of good ideas.

The breakout show on Tuesday nights (in my opinion) is "Reaper" on the CW. How can you go wrong with Kevin Smith consulting your show? It's a perfect show for people who miss "Buffy the Vampire Slayer": a good mix of comic-book style crime fighting and slapstick slacker humor. There are still a couple of fresh episodes left, so make sure you jump on that one. "Bones" and "House" are both on Tuesday nights on Fox... two good shows that I don't watch often enough. Maybe the strike will give me a chance to catch up (more on that forthcoming as well).

My Wednesday night recommendations fall in the 8-9 hour, both on Fox. The prime-time sitcom is not dead, despite the continuing efforts of "According to Jim" to kill it. "Back to You" is a great behind-the-scenes TV news sitcom, following the pedigree of past hits of that genre like "Mary Tyler Moore", and Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton have already proven that they can carry a show. "Til Death" follows at 8:30, and Brad Garrett is hilarious, and it was a stroke of genius casting Eddie Kaye Thomas ("Finch" from the "American Pie" movies) as the next-door newlywed husband/comic foil for Garrett.

Thursday night still means "Smallville" for me, despite what I hear from comic book devotees ("They've done everything they can do and they've totally messed up the Superman story") and non-devotees ("You watch THAT show?") After that, it's over to NBC for two more first-rate sitcoms: "My Name Is Earl" and "30 Rock". Two more shows I need to get caught up on.

Then, it's Friday and Saturday... or as I like to call it, "the black hole of programming". I'm usually watching my Sabres on Friday nights, so that makes it tough to watch anything else, but if I were to watch something, it would be "Friday Night Lights" on NBC. At first, I didn't like it when it debuted last year, but in watching some marathons on Bravo (way to go, corporate synergy), I warmed up to it. Now, of course, I'm behind again. School and pro hockey will do that to you. Meanwhile, the networks have given up on Saturdays... repeats, repeats, repeats.

Of course, most of these shows that I have recommended are out of new episodes or will be shortly due to the writers strike. Now for those of us who have fallen behind on our favorite shows, it wouldn't be a bad thing if the networks actually ran reruns other times than in the black hole on Saturday nights. Unfortunately, when a lot of the shows ran out of fresh episodes, the networks promptly replaced them with REALITY SHOWS. I'm not a fan of reality shows, to put it mildly. I have no interest in what Gordon Ramsay thinks of a restaurant kitchen, I don't care who wins "Dancing With the Stars" (I'm only glad the Spice Girl didn't win), and well... "Clash of the Choirs"? "Dance Wars"? Dueling beauty pageant contestants and their MOMS? NO... THANK... YOU!

Now I do like some of the prime-time game shows, like "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" and the soon-to-be-returning "Power of 10", but I wouldn't consider myself to be someone who HAS to tune in each week for each new episode.

Fortunately, most of the network shows are online now, so I encourage you all to visit their websites and enjoy these shows on your time, or when you're stuck with nothing but "The Singing Bee" to watch. I'm currently catching up on "Big Shots", a show that ABC has already canceled (yet "Dirty Sexy Money" stays? It's the SAME SHOW, only not as good). As I mentioned in my last entry, I have also discovered "Scrubs" through syndicated reruns. And if you can DVR it or stay up late enough, there's always "Robot Chicken" on Cartoon Network, the funniest 10 minutes on television, because it wouldn't work if it wasn't so fast-paced.

And soon enough, there will be a limited run of other popular shows making their 2007-08 debuts, like "Law and Order" on NBC and "Lost" on ABC. "American Idol" will probably get a huge bounce from the lack of scripted shows when it debuts next month. However, the strike has naturally caused a lot of damage, most notably the fact that there will be no "24" this season or maybe ever again (although it does give Kiefer Sutherland time to serve out that DUI sentence). And there are all the shows that currently sit on hiatus with their destinies unknown, such as... "Cavemen". Yes, I'll say it; I LIKE the show. While other critics congratulate themselves on their self-fulfilling prophecies that the show would tank, I think it was better than a lot of the crap that passes for shows right now.

So here we are... two months deep in the strike with no end and lots of awful reality shows in sight. Praise god and pass the online reruns...

I'm Back, Did Ya Miss Me?

Alright, the rumors of this blog's demise have been greatly exaggerated... if there have been any rumors? C'mon, I want rumors!

Anyway, it has nothing to do with the writers' strike. This writer doesn't go on strike... because I'm not part of that union. No, I am a grad student, and as such, my writing has all been academic lately. While I've written about certain themes that have come up here in this blog, things like politics and TV, that has taken up all of my energy.

So I look around me now, a few months later and I shake my head over the fact that very little has changed. People around here are still actively rooting for the failure of Destiny USA, conservatives and liberals continue to actively hate each other and make us moderates shake our heads, reality TV still sucks, Greg Robinson still has a job, and a Spears got pregnant... only it was the underage one. So there's really not much that's new under our non-existent Syracuse sun.

Well, okay, I discovered I really like "Scrubs". Yeah, I know I'm really late to the party on this one, like 7th and final season late.

There have been some great stories out there. The West Genesee football team won the state championship. No, I'm not making that up... the FOOTBALL team won the state championship. After going 3-6 last season, after the last two decades saw a grand total of 3 winning seasons, zero postseason wins, and a lot of ridicule, the Wildcats turned things around with an exciting offense and a ballhawking defense. They finished the regular season two missed tackles shy of being undefeated, then they ran the table in the playoffs and states. With no players being chased by D-1 powers (although maybe some of them should have been), they won it all and made everyone around here that much prouder to be from Camillus.

There's a lot more to talk about, but I'll give it a proper entry of its own. Namely I know there's a long-awaited State of the Tube Address I need to give, and as the year comes to a close, I have the traditional year-end list to run down. I'll just leave you with these simple words:

Merry Christmas to all! And I'm not going anywhere...