So Long, Jack Bauer (For Now)

Most TV fans this week were consumed with the series finale of "Lost". As someone who didn't make it very far past the first episode, I had only a passing interest in the ending of the show. But the fans of the show were extremely passionate in their opinions when Sunday's finale ended. Either you thought the show ended in mind-blowing fashion... or you thought it was terrible. But everyone I run into lately seems to say they feel a little empty inside now that "Lost" is over. Now I've obsessed about TV shows in the past, but I don't think I've ever been that upset to see a show go off the air... although I am still pissed at Fox for canceling "Reunion" after 8 episodes...

Anyway, speaking of Fox, "24" ended on Monday night, and that is a show I do care about. Although I came late to the party on "24" as I do with so many shows, I quickly became a big fan. Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that much of what happened on the show is far-fetched at best. For one thing, how many freakin' presidents have they gone through on that show? Presidents getting assassinated, resigning, all kinds of shenanigans in a show that ran for eight years (but is believed to have spanned a longer period of time in terms of narrative, say, 12-15 years). It pretty much reduced the United States to banana republic status with the revolving door of Oval Office occupants and the violent ways they tended to go down. And then, of course, there's Jack Bauer... who never eats anything, never goes to the bathroom, and can somehow find a way to get from one side of LA or NYC to the other in 15 minutes. And he gets shot, stabbed, beaten, and tortured every season and comes back for more.

And speaking of torture... yeah, "24" was the show that was held up by some on the Left as emblematic of the Bush administration's posture toward terror suspects. And I'm really surprised they didn't draw howls of condemnation for the way Bauer went about his business in the final episodes, leaving a path of dead bodies in his wake, using every instrument imaginable to torture a Russian operative (finally killing the guy by cutting the guy's guts out so he could retrieve a swallowed memory card... that still worked, amazingly), and showing how incredibly simple it is for one man in heavy body armor to take on an entire Secret Service detail. But I think by this point, the show had reached such cartoonish heights that nobody thinks one terrorist in full armor with a M-16 could realistically do something like that. Also, the NYPD was portrayed as laughably inept in the way they managed to bungle arrests.

But despite all of this, I was riveted, and quite honestly the extremes to which the one-man attack squad known as Bauer takes on the world (seemingly) and comes back for more has been the cathartic escape that always left me coming back for more. I didn't even like to see the previews or commercials for upcoming episodes because I wanted to be surprised by every twist and turn of the plot. When Jack used an axe to take a guy out early this season, I'm not gonna lie, I cheered. I actually got giddy down the home stretch realizing that Jack had completely snapped and was going postal on the world. Yes, I am a sick, sick man.

"24" was all about the fast-paced, non-stop action, with something always happening that was relevant to the main story in some way, shape, or form. Even when there was some sort of B storyline (usually involving Jack's daughter Kim), it was going to eventually have a major impact on the main plot. In Kim's case, it usually distracted Jack from getting the bad guys. As Bob Kevoian once said, "If it wasn't for Kim Bauer, they could call the show '16'." It was "real-time", it was chaotic, it was the world in danger and saved in 24 hours. Of course, real global events don't resolve themselves in 24 hours (just look at the present North Korea mess), but on this show, the bad guy was always found (usually in a severe plot twist) and taken out just in time. The ever-present clock letting us know exactly where we were, loudly counting the seconds in and out of every commercial break and at the end of each episode, unless a major character died in which case we got the "silent countdown" to end the episode.

Admittedly, "24" went out at the right time. The show probably peaked around Season 5 with the Russians and President Charles Logan serving as perfect adversaries and Bauer having to come out of hiding from faking his own death, which got him put on a slow boat to China at the end of the season. The following season gave us the "jump the shark" moment when a just-off-the-boat Jack can't get himself back together mentally in time to stop a nuclear bomb from taking out a Los Angeles suburb. After that, it became the gimmick seasons, the White House last year (including a terrorist commando raid on the seat of government), and this year New York City. With most of the original or most well-known cast members dead, you can't really go much farther. Also, speaking of Logan, they never resolved how he survived being attacked by his mentally unstable wife in Season 6. The last time we saw him, he was flatlining in the ambulance... then all of a sudden, he's back this season no worse for wear. Which gives me the feeling that even putting a gun to his chin and pulling the trigger won't stop him from coming back in the future.

Ah yes, the future. They left it open for the much-talked-about movie by having Jack escape U.S. and Russian law enforcement, presumably to Europe, where we're told the feature film will take place. As they had advance knowledge of the show ending, they were able to craft a stirring ending to the last episode, where (SPOILER ALERT) we see a wounded Jack saved at the last second from being killed by Logan's commandos, looking up at the drone camera floating above and saying goodbye to a teary-eyed Chloe O'Brian... and incidentally, who doesn't love Chloe? Forever snippy, always there for Jack, not above grabbing a gun and forcing the issue (or tasing a creeper in a hotel bar, like in Season 5). She is immortalized in 21st-century slang for not having "owned" a bad guy, but "Chlowned" him. Anyway, Chloe orders the drone feed cut off, so the last image we get is the video screen image of Jack fading to static, followed by a real countdown of 3, 2, 1, to the end of the series.

So there will be a movie and we're not really saying a final goodbye to Jack Bauer, but it was a satisfying ending to the show. No, I'm not feeling empty inside without Jack Bauer, but it is kinda annoying to have to keep finding new favorite shows to watch... this year alone we also lost "Heroes" and "Flash Forward", both excellent shows that couldn't hold an audience and met their maker too soon (the latter ending tonight). Ah well, TV is like that.

Baseball 2010 (Already in Progress)

Since I was out-of-commission blog-wise, I was unable to post a baseball season preview in April like I do every year. It seems a little cheesy to pick everything now that we're a quarter of the way into the season and some teams have clearly separated themselves from the pack (both good and bad). However, I should say SOMETHING about how everything's turning out, so with an eye toward September and what may be then, I give you my in-progress review of the 2010 baseball season.

My New York Mets do not look good right now, plain and simple. This of course has the New York media and Joe from Long Island calling WFAN out for their yearly pound of flesh, saying that things will turn around if the Mets just fire manager Jerry Manuel. I'm pretty sure that our pitchers who have gotten injured would have been injured regardless of who the manager was, and Jason Bay would not suddenly remember to start hitting home runs under a new manager. David Wright has some issues with striking out, and many say that these are lingering effects of the beaning he took from Matt Cain of the Giants last season. Unless the next manager has a Ph.D in psychology, a new manager isn't going to fix this either. Had I written this before the season, I would have told you that the Mets' best hope is to finish at .500 or slightly above this year. Nothing has changed. Citi Field has ruined another power hitter as Bay can't find his power stroke, Wright's only Citi Field homer was in his first home at-bat of the season, and Jose Reyes is still trying to get his legs under him after thyroid issues derailed his spring training. Johan Santana has suddenly become quite mediocre.

But there are some things to be happy about, like Mike Pelfrey's improvement and the surprising Takahashi out of the bullpen (soon to become a starter). Jenrry Mejia has been rocky at times out of the bullpen, but his future is in the rotation, and it's not exactly fair to come to Flushing as a 20-year old being compared to Dwight Gooden. Most of all, Ike Davis has been a great lift to the team offensively, and will likely be the first baseman for years to come. All of which proves that this franchise has a future, it's just not this year, so try to be patient. I know that's impossible for the media and fans in NYC, but try.

So the NL East belongs to the Philadelphia Phillies. The fact that they are playing .600 ball right now is pretty impressive considering that they A) don't have a closer, and B) usually struggle in the first half of seasons before turning it on after the All-Star Break. If they keep up their current pre-break pace, they should win over 100 games and take the division by a good 15 games. Nobody challenges. The surprising team in the East by far is the Washington Nationals. When they beat the Mets early in the season, I was embarrassed, because the Nats lost over 100 last year and for a while were threatening the '62 Mets standard of 120 losses. Now they continue to pummel by team and it's simply because they're the better team. The Nationals have been just over .500 and contending for 2nd place all season... and their best pitcher is currently in Syracuse and blowing Triple-A hitters away. When Stephen Strasburg arrives in DC on June 1, Washington becomes a legit Wild Card contender.

Florida has to deal with the many moods of Hanley Ramirez. The recent spat over his failure to hustle is not the first confrontation between the Marlins superstar and management. Eventually, Ramirez gets traded... the question is will it be this year? The Braves have some good young talent like Jason Heyward, but not enough to contend right now. Like the Mets, their future looks good, but Bobby Cox's last season will be a long one.

The NL Central also has a big surprise, the Cincinnati Reds. A solid young team with good pitching (Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake) and up-and-coming slugger Joey Votto joining veterans Brandon Phillips and Scott Rolen to form an offense tailored for homer-happy Great American Ballpark. St. Louis is strong as always with Pujols, Matt Holliday, and company terrorizing pitchers. Will this stay a two-team race down to the wire? The Cards need to avoid the injuries that have hampered their pitching staff in recent years, and the Reds have to hope their young stars don't wilt in the spotlight. Elsewhere in the division, the Astros are pathetic and penciled in for a last-place finish. My biggest question in the Central is what happened to the Brewers? They were the exciting team of the future just a couple years ago. Now J.J. Hardy is in Minnesota, their best pitchers have all left, and Prince Fielder alone is not going to carry Milwaukee anywhere. The Cubs show signs of righting the ship but there are so many problems with that team that they won't contend. And the Pirates... are in 3rd place right now. Good for them.

The NL West has taught us why you need to be patient with good teams. The Los Angeles Dodgers were probably being written off by a lot of people a couple weeks ago. Now they're right back near the top of the division, although Manny Ramirez is drawing boos and has already spent time on the DL, and Andre Ethier just went on the shelf. The division standings favor the Golden State right now, with the surprising Padres on top, led by Adrian Gonzalez who was once trade bait but now could make a run at MVP, and reborn Jon Garland and rookie Mat Latos leading the pitching staff. San Francisco is in position to make a run as well, but their young ace pitchers can't do it themselves. The Giants have not had a reliable offense since Barry Bonds was smashing steroid-fueled homers (allegedly) by the Bay, and their top hitter, Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval is mired in the first prolonged slump of his career. With some more consistent hitting to back Lincecum and Cain, the Giants have a shot at the playoffs. Colorado and Arizona continue to disappoint, but their division is pretty tough and someone has to finish on the bottom.

Speaking of tough divisions, the AL East continues to be the best in baseball. They have 4 really good teams... and the Baltimore Orioles, who may finally pull off that 100-loss season I've been predicting for them every year since the millennium. They almost got there last year with 98 losses. But why start at the bottom? I should be talking about the contenders. The Tampa Bay Rays needed to win this season, with Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena facing free agency, and indeed they are winning, more than any other team in the majors at this point. They have postseason experience, solid pitching, and a sense of urgency. It's going to be tough to stop them. Just ask the Yankees, who were pummeled 10-2 by the Rays last night and now stand 4 games back and dropping fast. The Yanks continue to age, and it's becoming more clear that their starting rotation of Phil Hughes, Javier Vazquez, C.C. Sabathia, and Andy Pettitte will have to make up for their banged-up hitters if they want a shot at the playoffs. Toronto got off to a fast start last year and faded, so their impressive 2010 to date has to be considered in this context. That being said, they seem to finally be getting both halves of their team going at the same time. Their young starters like Ricky Romero and Shawn Marcum have electric stuff, and Vernon Wells has finally turned it around to lead the hitting attack. Boston is a mess right now but Jacoby Ellsbury is coming back from injury and as long as the Red Sox can find someone else to close against New York and save Papelbon for everyone else, they could creep back into contention.

The AL Central has already claimed one manager this season, with Kansas City's Trey Hillman getting a pink slip. Expect Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox to follow. Cleveland's Manny Acta is only in his first season as manager there, so he's safe for now, although his team is currently bringing up the rear in the division. Detroit was written off by many after trading Curtis Granderson to the Yankees, but Granderson is on the DL in the Bronx and Austin Jackson is a Rookie of the Year candidate in the Motor City. Jackson, Miguel Cabrera, and Magglio Ordonez pace a high-scoring offense and Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello give the Tigers a good top of the rotation. Just like last year, it will be Detroit and Minnesota duking it out down the stretch, and both teams have their strengths and weaknesses. For the Twins, it's their rotation: Francisco Liriano can be great one day and pathetic the next. Their other young starters are similar. Jon Rauch has been a pleasant surprise stepping in for injured closer Joe Nathan, and of course they have Mauer and Morneau in the middle of their lineup. Also, Target Field is a gem of a new ballpark.

Lastly, the AL West has given us Dallas Braden. I mean he's the biggest story of the division. One day he's yelling at A-Rod for... being A-Rod. The next he's proving he has more than "15 minutes of fame" and tossing a perfect game... and his grandmother then told the press, "Stick it, A-Rod!" So we have front-runners for AL Rookie of the Year and Grandmother of the Year in Oakland. And the Athletics are in contention, continuing to add to the Gospel of Moneyball. The Angels and Mariners are both budget-busting disappointments; Mike Scioscia is experiencing losing for the first time as Anaheim manager, and the biggest story in Seattle is Ken Griffey falling asleep in the clubhouse during a game. Texas may win the division by default, because they have all kinds of problems, not just the manager occasionally snorting during games.

Is it easier to pick teams when they have 40 games in the books? Sure, but if I was doing this in March, there was no way I could have seen the Nats and Reds coming, so I'll take all the help I can get.

So This is What 10 Dollars Gets You These Days

Welcome to another summer, filled with lots of blockbusters and lots of reasons not to go to the movies at all. For one thing, it costs you more now to go to the movies, as theatres everywhere hiked ticket prices recently. So in these tough economic times, you really have to wonder, would I pay $10 or more to see this? So let me give you some guidance the same way I do at this time every year... by making it up on the spot without having seen the movies.

The summer season opened with "Iron Man 2" last weekend. A sequel I don't want to see to a movie I didn't want to see. Sure it pulled in $130-plus million in its opening weekend and that's fine, but I'm over the comic book movies. If I wasn't in from the start (Batman and Spiderman), I could care less. I don't read comic books, so I don't want to see comic book movies.

However, "Iron Man 2", as is the case with most summer blockbusters, will have a short stay atop the box office, as the latest "Robin Hood" incarnation comes out today. The movie is getting mixed reviews, but people don't go to summer movies based on reviews. If they did, they'd put all the Oscar-nominated movies out in the summer instead of in limited release in late fall when nobody knows or cares what they are. But Russell Crowe is playing "Robin Hood", and people tout that he's better than Kevin Costner for that role... and yet, the Costner version of that movie is easily identifiable to people and everyone of a certain age or older remembers it. Maybe it was just because of the Bryan Adams song, I dunno. As for me, the only "Robin Hood" I've ever liked was "Men In Tights" so count me out.

The following weekend we get two heavily-hyped movies in a face-off that will become one of the biggest box office blowouts ever, right up there with the earth vs. humanity in "2012". In one corner, you have the Shrek movie... incidentally, what IS the name of the movie? "Shrek: Forever After?" Or "Shrek: The Final Chapter?" Whatever, I've seen all 3 Shreks and they've all been fantastic, so I expect the franchise to go out with a bang. And in the other corner, you have... "MacGruber." Ahem. A full-length movie made out of a painfully unfunny "Saturday Night Live" sketch that rips off a TV show from 20 years ago. Oh yeah, no way this movie fails. They even put Betty White in a series of "MacGruber" sketches during her exceptional performance on SNL last weekend so they could really promote the movie. There weren't many bad moments in that episode of SNL (and it's been a long time since we could say that), but most of them involved the "MacGruber" sketches. In millions of dollars, I'm gonna say... Shrek 125, MacGruber 5. And I'm being generous.

This brings us to Memorial Day weekend, which this year gives us something for the ladies ("Sex and the City 2") and something for the guys (zombie film master George Romero's "Survival of the Dead"). Brilliant strategy, and one I think will pay off nicely for both movies. Not that I'll go see either of them, but I wish them well.

The following week we get an interesting spin-off movie: "Get Him to the Greek". They took Russell Brand's rock star character from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (very good movie, btw), and gave him his own film, in which a music industry handler has to get him to his gig. Kinda short on premise, but it may be worth it. June 11 gives us a pair of 80s rehashes, in other words 2 more reasons why we can honestly say Hollywood is out of original ideas. They are rebooting the "Karate Kid" series, and since Ralph Macchio is too old to play the role now (hell, he was too old back in the 80s), they've cast Will Smith's kid in the title role with Jackie Chan in the Pat Morita "wax on, wax off" role. If you think that wasn't stupid enough, you could always choose the "A-Team" movie, featuring MMA star "Rampage" Jackson in the Mr. T role and respected actors Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson completely losing all box office credibility to play Face and Hannibal.

By mid-June, nobody will care about either of those turkeys anyway, because everyone will be getting ready to go see "Toy Story 3". It was over a decade in the making, and the brand is still solid enough to get families to the theatres in droves. On the other hand, "Knight and Day" will send families running from the theatre in droves because of who's on the marquee: Tom Cruise.

This brings us to the 4th of July weekend, which always starts early and in this case the big lid-lifter for America's birthday is the latest installment of the "Twilight" series. Much like "Iron Man 2", "Eclipse" is a sequel I don't want to see to a movie I didn't want to see. However, the one difference here is I tend to like the songs that make the soundtracks of these movies. That's all I'm looking forward to with this movie, which band will join Paramore and Death Cab for Cutie in having big hit songs attached to this series? Although I have not heard the song yet, I heard Metric is on the "Eclipse" soundtrack, so my money's on the Canadians. That being said, this movie will make quite a lot of loonies and twoies... err, I mean dollars. Elsewhere on the 4th, you'll get to see the latest M. Night Shyamalan thriller, "The Last Airbender". I saw the trailer for this movie, and much like the rest of the M. Night canon, I had no freakin' idea what was going on.

The next movie that I really want to see comes out on July 16: "Inception". Christopher Nolan, director of "The Dark Knight", one of my all-time favorite movies, teams with Leonardo DiCaprio (who was in 2 of my all-time faves: "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Departed") and Ellen Page (speaking of Canadians). The concept: DiCaprio and Page steal your dreams... when you come up with a brilliant idea as you drift off to sleep (when many of us have our best ideas, I know I do), they steal it before it can effectively become your intellectual property. I'm all in.

Wish I could say the same for the rest of the summer fare, but we all know by late July and August, you're usually stuck with dreck. And this time around, it's stuff like "Salt", in which Angelina Jolie may or may not be a spy (in other words, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" without Brad Pitt), "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" (really? a pseudo-sexual pun in a forgettable kiddie movie?), "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (another Michael Cera tries to win the girl story), and the movie whose appeal I understand absolutely the least: Step-Up 3D. That is all anyone online wants to talk about right now. It was a Disney Channel movie now getting the theatre treatment (a la "High School Musical 3"), and *gasp* in 3D! Uh yeah, this is not "Avatar" by any long shot, either in terms of cinematic brilliance, Oscar nominations, or box-office take. The one exception may be "Eat Pray Love", because it has been a huge hit novel, Julia Roberts is in it, and those tearjerker-novels-turned-tearjerker-films tend to do really well... unless Miley Cyrus is in it.

So that's what you can expect at the box office this summer. Have fun spending those extra dollars!

Welcome to the Doldrums

Congratulations, we've completed a cycle and we're back in the "doldrums". No, I'm not talking about the economic highs and lows of the last week, I'm talking about the world of popular music.

A while back, radio consultant Guy Zapoleon came up with a theory to explain cycles of popular music since the birth of rock 'n roll back in the 1950s. It goes like this: a new cycle begins with a "rebirth" of sorts, pop music embraces rock and R&B music, and Top 40 radio stations gain listenership. I would refer to this as the "good" part of any decade. Then, music hits a phase of "extremes", pop-rock bands become cliches, cheese-pop and dance music takes over and you have an onslaught of teen idols. I would refer to this as the "sucky" part of the decade. Eventually, as with anything extreme, it blows up and we are left with a "doldrums" period, characterized by "lite" and country artists being really popular and things that shouldn't be paired together on Pop radio getting massive airplay. I would refer to this as the "REALLY sucky" part of the decade.

The first cycle was 1956-63, taking us from the birth of rock through the Twist and the original teen idols to the doldrums right before the Beatles arrived. The second cycle goes from the "rebirth" of 1964 (British Invasion/Motown) through extremes of acid rock and the Partridge Family to the singer-songwriter trend that gave us James Taylor and Carole King but also gave us crap like Anne Murray and Gilbert O'Sullivan. Cycle 3 kicks in around 1974 with the rise of classic rock bands like the Eagles, Aerosmith, and Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Wonder's artistic peak (rebirth)... then we get disco and Shaun Cassidy (extremes)... and wind up with Air Supply and Kenny Rogers (doldrums). Cycle 4 gets launched by the rise of MTV around 1983-84: we get a rebirth around "Thriller", Madonna's debut, and the peak of new wave rock... followed by the original rap stars and New Kids on the Block (extremes)... followed by Bette Midler and Garth Brooks (doldrums). The grunge revolution launches Cycle 5 in 1992-93, helped by R&B megastars like Boyz II Men and TLC... this is followed by Eminem, rap metal, Britney, and the boy bands (extremes)... which leads to a doldrums of Michelle Branch, Creed, and Tim McGraw. Yeah, I follow this kind of thing, I'm a media scholar.

So Zapoleon has looked over the landscape of the last decade and figured out how Cycle 6 has played out. However, I take issue with Zapoleon's determination of what made up what part of the cycle this time around. Remember we left off around 2002-03 when everyone at karaoke night wanted to sing either Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" or Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, "Picture" (did you just feel the urge to throw up a little upon my mention of that last song? Trust me, you're not alone...) Well, Zapoleon puts the rebirth at 2006 and has a TON of different artists to thank. So let's go a piece at a time...

He says the rock bands that led the way were Green Day, Nickelback (regrettably), and emo bands like Fall Out Boy. Okay, yes, correct for the most part. However, he's off by a couple years. "American Idiot" hit in 2004, emo was in full gear by then with Good Charlotte and Blink 182, and FOB rode the wave launched by the others to stardom. Back up one Nickelback album and we can include them too. Therefore, the rebirth hits in 2004. Now that we've established that, let's look at the "pop" acts Zapoleon throws in: "American Idol" winners like Kelly Clarkson. Well, just stop there... "American Idol" was pretty much created to give us the next Britney or Justin Timberlake ('N Sync Justin, not post-'N Sync, and we'll get to him shortly), so I consider that a relic of Cycle 5, and let's face it, how many trendsetters came out of AI? Carrie Underwood... and we'll get to her later on as well. Tell you what, I'm willing to compromise: I will give Kelly Clarkson credit for the rebirth if we use her 2nd album where she goes rock as the reason. Speaking of Britney and Justin, they're mentioned here too, along with Beyonce and Rihanna. As I just mentioned, Britney's a relic of Cycle 5, so she's out... Justin Timberlake's first solo album DEFINITELY belongs as a R&B rebirth, and ditto Beyonce's solo debut. Since we've moved the rebirth back to 2004, it's too early for Rihanna.

Well, emo eventually got played out, Justin kinda stopped making albums, and by 2009, we've hit the extremes. We've got new hot rappers like Drake all over the radio, as well as Lady GaGa (an extreme in her own right), and the teen idols: Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. And crap. To me, nothing says "extremes" and just plain crap like Ke$ha. I've tried to listen to her music (I can't help it, the gym I go to plays the local pop station sometimes), and much as I find the beats and grooves inviting, SHE CAN'T SING!!! She's the type of singer that when you go to the local karaoke bar and someone picks one of her songs, there's a good chance that girl will do a better job with the song than the artist who recorded it.

So the decade has now flipped, and the doldrums are nigh. Count Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood if you'd like as country stars who have already had pop hits, but they're only the beginning. Lady Antebellum has hit it big, and there are more to come. And as far as the lite stuff goes, we've already had Colbie Caillat hit it big, and I'm sure there are more of those artists coming soon.

That is, if you actually believe this cycles of pop music business. I buy into it to some extent (obviously, or else I wouldn't have spent a whole blog entry on it), but I feel like it's not as clear anymore. The audience has become so fragmented in the last decade. It was pretty predictable in past decades: early in a decade, the Next Big Thing comes along, bursts forth by mid-decade, implodes amongst a backlash of cheese pop and teen idols at the end of the decade, and then boom, we're in a "doldrums" period. But in the past, the teen idols and cheese pop went away. Now, things tend to stick around. Britney continues to put out hit albums as regularly as she goes off her rocker. Also, music fans listen to so many different things, and a lot of them nobody's ever heard of. Will they ever make pop radio? Well, if they do, they'll immediately be called sell-outs and it will be another excuse to trash radio (but that's another entry).

So here we are. We're in a new decade, emo has run its course, now what do we listen to? Well, I guess we need to start planning the next rebirth. What will start Cycle 7 a couple years down the road? The key now is to be different, stand out from all the sound-alike Godsmack-Breaking Benjamin-Shinedown crap on rock radio (much like emo did when it first came out), but at this point anything goes. A lot of what I like these days are the things that are different. The bands I cheer for (mostly local bands from my days in Syracuse) are ska bands like The Action, different-sounding groups like The Scarlet Ending, or familiar artists taking new directions like Julian Casablancas. If these sounds don't break through on sound-alike rock radio, that's why you have all these alternative media options now. You can get big on iTunes, Pandora, or YouTube, or do it by word of mouth.

That's why I feel like the whole cycle theory is falling apart, because pop radio is losing young listeners quickly to other media options. It's sad to say that radio is doing itself in by (for the most part) failing to embrace anything outside the comfort zone, but if you want to make it as a band, you gotta do what you gotta do, and if it's not through radio, then you have to do it some other way. In the meantime, enjoy the doldrums.

I'm Not a Gadget Guy

Blogger's Note: OK yeah, I kinda dropped off on here for a good 2 months. What can I say, the first year of doctoral study is HELL. When I did have the free time to write, I just had no motivation to write more than 2 lines, which you know is far too little to do this blog justice. So I've got a backlog of stuff to write about... and I'm momentarily unemployed... so expect to see a lot from me in the coming days. Thanks for your patience, and enjoy!

I'm the last person in the world who would buy a Blackberry. I don't get the must-have electronic devices when they first come out. I didn't get a cell phone until I entered the wonderful world of radio station management (note: HEAVY sarcasm). It was 2003... by this time, everyone and their kid (literally) had a cell phone. I saw other people with cell phones and thought, I have no need for one. If you need me, you can call my home in the World's Smallest Apartment, if I'm not there, leave a message. Or you can e-mail me. Or IM me. See, I'm pretty reachable. But I needed to be reachable at ALL times... even though the only times I wasn't at home or the radio station I was at my 2nd job. Where my cell phone would be OFF.

But I broke down and got one, and the pattern has since repeated itself. People are buying laptops... I don't need a laptop. I can do my work at home, or at my mom's. In 2007, I bought a laptop. The latest purchase came about because I finally realized, well after much of the rest of the world, that I needed a MP3 player.

I'm philosophically against MP3 players. People start using MP3 players and they stop listening to radio. I know these things, I read articles on them, because I'm a media scholar (in case you were wondering what I've been doing for the last 2 months). But I wound up in a situation where I have a commute to work, and it doesn't involve driving. When you can drive to work, you have the car radio and you have your CDs in case a bad song comes on (which ALWAYS happens in Syracuse). In Philly, I take the train to campus. Well, most of the time I take a bus to a train... except I miss the bus half the time because it's ALWAYS EARLY, so I wind up walking to the train. Whatever, the weather's nicer these days. So I decided to rely on "old-fashioned technology" for these daily trips to campus, a portable CD player. Apparently they don't make those things like they used to, because the CDs would skip like crazy and I would bang on the thing, which is the appropriate response to any mechanical problem. However, after 4 months of skipping and banging... the CD player died. Clearly defective.

I have a pocket radio, which is nice for the bus or the walk to the train... but once on the train, it does me no good. Hence my need for a MP3 player. So I priced iPods. Those things are PRICEY! Well it just so happened that my cell phone hadn't been replaced for 2 years, which of course meant it was completely outdated. No, it wasn't actually. It did everything I wanted a cell phone to do. I want to call people and text, that's it. I had to get a camera in my last cell phone because EVERY cell phone had a camera so I had no choice. And then I thought, "Hey, I have a camera in the phone, let me take pictures." Except they were crap because I bought the cell phone with the crappiest camera because I didn't care about taking pictures. So now my requirements were simple... I need a phone that makes calls, texts, and has a MP3 player. The cell phone companies run a great racket because every 2 years (ya know, right when your contract is running out), they tell you that you need a new phone and put ridiculously huge discounts on phones to get you to "upgrade". Which really just means get locked in for another 2 years of contract.

Anyway, my Temple colleagues have smart phones. They own iPhones or Blackberries. It wasn't that long ago that you said "Blackberry" and immediately thought of high-powered business types e-mailing from their "Crackberry" or Paris Hilton leaving hers in a club bathroom somewhere. In other words, the rich and famous had them. But as with all things, eventually they become affordable to the masses. Oh, did I say "affordable"? What I meant to say was FREE. Yeah, as in my carrier told me "you need a new phone, so we'll GIVE you a Blackberry for free so we can lock you into another 2 year contract." Oh, and I had to upgrade my cell phone package so I pay $25 more a month for "data". Because this thing gets Internet. So I got a Blackberry.

Which started the process of me trying to learn this contraption. A fun process for other people to watch, I'm sure. Anyway, I set up my e-mail and everything and the thing starts making all kinds of noises because I'm getting e-mails and texts and such. My roommate (much more of a gadget guy than I and also a Blackberry owner) warns me about having to check sound levels for all possible notifications. Eventually, I got to the point where I just starting pressing buttons to see what they did. I found the camera... in so doing, I think I inadvertently took a picture of my crotch. By this point, my roommate is laughing his ass off.

Now the big thing about these smart phones is the "apps". They can make your phone do whatever you need it to do, provided you can get a signal (which of course makes it useless on the train, but I'll have my MP3s so I'm good). Well me being the radio guy I am, I wanted radio apps to pull in radio stations, including the local ones because they have yet to make a FM tuner for the Blackberry. So imagine my surprise when I was told "you need a memory card for that". I needed one for the MP3s anyway but I was hoping I could forestall the purchase and listen to radio stations. No such luck. So now I have paid for something for my "free" phone. But the apps now work so I can listen to stations from Syracuse, Cincinnati, Toronto... even Philadelphia. In Philadelphia. Isn't that amazing? And I could listen to Buffalo Sabres playoff games on my Blackberry, which was also a fun process for other people to watch and I would be walking along with friends and suddenly either pumping my fist and cheering or flipping out, depending on what was going on. Based on how the Sabres did in the playoffs this year, there was more flipping out.

I also have to deal with the occasional battery-sucking vortex. I'll explain... I've been on the road a few times recently at conventions, and wouldn't you know it, when you're in a place like a convention center or airport where they have WiFi that you have to pay for, if you choose to use your Blackberry instead, all of a sudden your battery goes from full to empty in 15 minutes. I thought there must be some sort of Blackberry battery-devouring vortex at work, but apparently it is because the thing is looking for a signal and the facility must be blocking my network so I will be forced to pay for theirs. Luckily, although I am in more airports and hotels lately, I'm not in them that much.

So it's now been about 2 months and I have to say I have become what I feared from having a Blackberry. Lazy. Let's say I'm in the living room in the old barcalounger and I want to know a sports score or check my e-mail. Now instead of walking the 20 feet to the laptop in my room, I grab the Blackberry and go to an app. Hell, sometimes when I'm in the office with my laptop SITTING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I still go to the Blackberry because apparently I can't be bothered to make the 2 or 3 clicks required to get to e-mail. So yeah, I've become one of those people who can't go more than 5 minutes without checking his "Crackberry", and that's a problem... but this thing does so much stuff! It even syncs up with my MacBook so I can put my contacts on the Mac and upload music from the Mac to the Blackberry... yeah, music, for the MP3 player, the reason why I got the Blackberry. Except the music playlists glitch sometimes. The only thing glitch I've found so far, and it's the one thing that was key to my purchase. Figures.