Tag Entertainment

And . . .

Michael 3 Comments

There’s a new darling of the entertainment world out there.  +  That’s it, just   +  .

+  can mean different things to different people. To a chemist it means that’s a cation, the positively charged ion, the opposite of an anion, that one that travels to the cathode, which an electrician will recognize as the opposite of the anode, the anode being the positively charged electrode possibly symbolized on a schematic as  +  .  A mathematician, not to be confused with an arithmetist, recognizes  +  as an means of identifying any real number greater than zero. An accountant hopes not to find  +  preceding the number on the bottom line of IRS Form 1040 which would indicate outstanding tax due. A doctor ordering blood knows it is important to include  +  after a patient’s blood type if the patient’s blood has the Rh Factor antigen present. A musician sees  +  and knows to raise the fifth note of a major chord by a half tone. (It sounds weird on paper but not so bad in the ear.) Back when you were an itty bitty youngster, even in the age of “new math,” you learned that  +  symbolizes addition, the one of the four basic food groups of math. Just kidding. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. Addition is one of the four basic arithmetical operations of mathematics, the combination of multiple numbers to determine a total or sum value. You know, 2 + 2 = 4.

The “experts” who upsell premium video content have latched on to an old hook that marketers have used for a while. Skip the words, symbols sell. If a picture is worth a thousand words then  +   is worth at least $4.99. That’s how much extra you’ll shell out for discovery+. That’s a bargain in the plus world now crowded with Apple TV+, BET+, Disney+, ESPN+, and Paramount+ .  It’s such a hot commodity even free channels are “adding” it to their names like Documentaries +, Halloween +, and the succinctly named Free TV+ and Free Movies+ channels.

I’m being a bit unfair calling  +  the “new” darling. The French pay TV service Canal+ began broadcasting in 1984. Not television but still screen based (although often much smaller), Google+ was available on line and on phones from 2011-2019. In the non electronic world  +  has occupied a spot in brand names for everything from clothes (Missen+Main) to soap (Etta + Billie) to window treatments (allen + roth). It wasn’t until FX+ was released in 2018 that  +  began a surge in the television industry. (FX+ was shut down when Disney purchased the network the following year.) Oh there were a handful of PLUS appendices but that little  +  kept itself tucked away. Until now. Expect to see more [Fillintheblank]+ not unlike how many cable/streaming services released [Pickyourfavoritechannel]Go in the 2010s. Expect to see  +  more frequently on the smaller screens again also. Apple News+ coming up on its two year launch anniversary. After a slow start subscriptions hit an all time high in the 2020 second quarter.

You might say  +  is multiplying. (A mathematician wouldn’t but there probably aren’t many of them reading this anyway so go ahead and say it!)

PLUS

Hi Mom

Michael 5 Comments

Are you going to watch the reboot of Roseanne? That was the seemingly innocent question asked on Facebook last week. Among the “if nothing else is on,” “can’t wait,” and “yes, yes, yes,” was an “ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!” If the all caps weren’t dramatic enough, the multiple exclamation marks made me pause and consider that the writer’s negativity was not aimed toward the creative aspect of the production or the wisdom of rebooting a 30 year old story line.

A closer review of the comments confirmed my suspicions. The particular commenter expanded on her cyber outburst declaring that when once Ms. Barr has been a bastion of progressive thought, no woman should have to be subjected to her new conservative rantings. Word has it that in the new series, Roseanne supports some of the current administration’s efforts and this will be a point of disagreement between her and Jackie, her sister. This apparently displeased the young commenter.

In 1988 when Roseanne debuted, the show was hailed as groundbreaking. A family centric comedy with strong female characters took on the topics of the period. Typical for working class 30-somethings, Dan and Roseanne had to fight the system for any edge they could muster. It was entertaining but was it groundbreaking?

JeanHagen

Jean Hagen, America’s first TV mom

American TV has always featured strong females and story lines that reflected contemporary family values and struggles. Jean Hagen, Donna Reed, Marjorie Lord, Lucille Ball, Barbara Billingsley, and Mary Tyler Moore played strong characters dealing with the issues of their time and were some of our favorite mothers.

As strong women portraying strong women they had strong opinions. What was paramount in the 1950s wasn’t in the 1980s and isn’t now. Things change. Once upon a time in polite society we kept political and religious convictions in our hearts. Perhaps that too is changing. Today, if there isn’t a political overtone to something, some people make certain to inject one. Occasionally without spending much time in the thinking portion of the thought process.

If you ask me will I be watching the Roseanne reboot I’d have to say I don’t know yet. I liked the show when it first aired but over 7 years I became disenchanted with it. Not because I disagreed with the premise that anybody could win a lottery but because to me it wasn’t funny anymore. If I watch it on Tuesday I’ll be looking to see how entertaining it is and does it amuse me. It won’t be because either Roseanne or Jackie agrees or disagrees with my political view.

I personally don’t turn to an entertainment medium for input into my political opinion. I’d rather use news sources for that but what do I know. I’m old. Maybe that’s the latest thing so we can watch TV, play with our phones, and decide who we’re going to vote for in the next election all at the same time. Still, I require my entertainment to be just entertaining.

Although, now that I think about it, a show where real people get their political convictions from fictional characters might be pretty hilarious. I wonder who I send that pitch to.

 

Man At Work

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Labor Day America. That wonderful holiday when we celebrate the people who work by making people work so others who aren’t working can take advantage of another day, weekend, or month of sales. A day when the people who aren’t working complain that they might as well be at work because it will be twice as busy on Tuesday when they get back and a day when the people who are working complain that they are working while collecting twice their normal pay. You gotta love those holidays.

There are a handful of people who are working today who aren’t complaining about it. They will get tomorrow off. Actually they’ll get every tomorrow off from their current position. Those are the people at the Bangor, Maine Howard Johnson Restaurant. So why are they special? When they close there will be only one Howard Johnson Restaurant left in the country where once it was the largest hospitality chain with over 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges.

I remember eating in several Howard Johnson’s but one in particular still pops into my head now and then. In 1925, Howard Johnson (yes, there really was a Howard Johnson) borrowed $2,000 and bought a pharmacy in Quincy, Mass. There he installed a soda fountain and brought enough business in to open a sit down restaurant by 1929. In 1940 the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened using the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railway tunnels and rights of way connecting Irwin in the west with Carlisle in central Pennsylvania. Eventually the turnpike mainline was completed from the Ohio to the New Jersey borders through the southern part of the state. Why are these two things related?

Although only 360 miles from east to west (or west to east, even), a distance that can be travelled comfortably in a less than a single workday today (if you felt like working on Labor Day), in the 1960s the trip just halfway across the state was far from a comfortable day’s drive. In the western part of the state the mountains made for slow climbs, challenging twisty downhill runs, and constant stoppages while new tunnels were being blasted through the Allegheny Mountains. I know because I was then a back seat passenger with two sisters while the parents rode up front each summer on our trek from Western PA to Eastern MD. A high point of the turnpike portion of the journey was the Howard Johnson Restaurants at the turnpike service plazas.  After lunch we would be allowed to splurge on dessert and have one of the famous 28 flavors of ice cream. For some reason I always picked chocolate.

Howard Johnson’s were fixtures on the Pennsylvania Turnpike from its opening in 1940 until the 1980s when the full service restaurants began to be replaced by fast food chains and their familiar counter service. The PA turnpike restaurant was the first restaurant the Howard Johnson Company would open on its way to becoming the largest restaurant chain along American toll roads.  In 1979 the Howard Johnson Company was sold and eventually many of the familiar orange roofed restaurants on and off the turnpikes were converted into other brands. By 1986 all of the former company owned Howard Johnson Restaurants were closed or rebranded and only the franchised restaurants remained open. The motor lodge business was divested entirely in 1990.

Today, where I once was served my hamburger on a plate at a Howard Johnson Restaurant along the Pennsylvania Turnpike I have a choice of picking up a pizza or a Whopper and carrying it back to a plastic table in a reconstructed service plaza holding two fast-food restaurants, an ice cream stand, a coffee counter, a gift shop, and a dirty bathroom. Elsewhere there are only two Howard Johnson Restaurants serving comfort food and comfortable memories. Tomorrow there will be only one.

Labor Day had already been celebrated for 3 years before Howard Deering Johnson was born in 1897. When Howard opened that first store in 1925 the Mount Rushmore site was dedicated before construction began on the mountain which would be completed in 1941. That was just in time for Howard Johnson to start opening restaurants along highways that would be packed with hungry families on holiday weekends.

That must be why I always manage to have a quart of chocolate ice cream in the freezer on Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(If you want to see the last remaining Howard Johnson Restaurant you have to get to Lake George, New York. You should hurry. It already closed once in 2012 and reopened just last year. Rumor has it that Rachel Ray worked there as a teenager. No word on if she still stops in.)

 

The Thrill of Victory, Modified

Michael Leave a comment

The Olympics are here! The Olympics are here! Sports junkies around the globe can take a breath, sweat a brow, pop a cold one, and enjoy the games. I just wish there were more of them. Well, maybe not so much more of them as different ones of them.

Four years ago I pitched the idea of Olympic Bocce right here on these pages, err screens, umm electrons. (See “The Sport the Olympics Didn’t Think of,” August 30, 2012.) I thought it was a terrific new sport that would complement the old world-ism the Olympics have been missing ever since Beach Volleyball was introduced.  (But then, beach volleyball is about as close as you can get to the ancient Olympic tradition of competing in the nude, wrestling notwithstanding.) Bottom line, another Olympics and still no bocce. We got Golf instead.

To many, golf is a wonderful game. Yet I don’t see many gods on Olympus arguing who’s “away” and I know for sure they wouldn’t abide someone else carrying the equipment around for the athletes. Still, somebody decided golf is more of a sport than bocce. Fine. I would think that any game that includes a pit stop for snacks and a pint of lager halfway through is more recreation than sport but then the same could be said for the aforementioned beach volleyball.

Actually, if you look at the modern Olympic schedule you see events more often associated with country clubs than sports arena. Sure we have swimming, track and field, and weightlifting.  Archery, shooting, and the equestrian events harken to days of having to compete with nature for survival. Fencing, boxing, and gymnastics are examples of strength and grace in single presentations. But consider some of the others. Tennis? Handball? Badminton?

That got me thinking; it was no wonder the IOC didn’t care to include bocce. They obviously are interested in more genteel undertakings. So with that in mind I present this year’s proposal for inclusion in upcoming Olympiads – Shuffleboard!

It epitomizes civility. It doesn’t take much space. It is a boon for the older athlete. And like bocce, it has a natural winter game counterpoint in curling.

If I start practicing now I can be the first Olympic Shuffleboard Gold Medalist! I can see myself on that chair-lift assisted podium waving to the politely appreciative crowd. All I have to do is find a sponsor to book me on seniors’ cruises for training from now until August 2020. Tokyo here I come!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Another One Bites the Dust

Michael Leave a comment

Another era has come to an end. Surely you’ve heard the news by now that the last VHS tape player has been manufactured. The consumer video cassette recorder market is no more.

It seems amazing that the VHS player/recorder was still being produced. The last studio release in VHS format was in 2006 and the last blank cassettes were sold two years later. But its longevity shouldn’t surprise you. JVC’s VHS format’s biggest competition in video tape, Sony’s Betamax, saw its machines cease production in 2002 but still manufactured blank Betamax format tapes until March of this year!

If you thought VHS and Beta were the only two choices in home video tape you are wrong. At one point there were 13 different tape formats. In the late seventies while the early tape formats bid war against each other, the LaserDisc format was also vying for space in home theaters claiming, and providing, superior video and audio than the available tape formats but not able to record. The maker of the last VHS player, Funai Electric (you might know as Sanyo) entered the video market making players in its own format, the Compact Video Cassette (CVC) in 1983.

Today everybody can take movies with their phones. Fifty years ago, handheld 8mm film cameras captured cherished family moving memories. In between them, young fathers exercised their arm and back muscles as they hoisted bulky VHS format cameras, basically video recorder/players with lenses, onto their shoulders. The advantage was that you could go home from the football game, dance recital, high school musical, or family reunion volley ball tournament and watch the proceedings on your television right then. A true modern miracle.

Various compact formats (Video8, MiniDV, MicroMV) made for smaller handheld cameras and the miniDVD format brought disc recording to the amateur videographer. Phones and digital cameras take DVD or better quality movies. But the proliferation of video streaming services may make any in home “movie player” obsolete before too long.

Until then, I better start looking for DVD or BluRay versions of my personal favorites that I still have in VHS. Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s are all available on disk. But where will I ever find a digital copy of the 1935 version of Scrooge starring Sir Seymour Hicks? (Great version, really. Look it up.) Well, that’s what flea markets and garage sales are for.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Bombs Bursting ‘n’at

Michael Leave a comment

I couldn’t wait for the Fourth of July this year. It is a Monday and that coincides with RRSB day and I knew exactly what to say. I was going to let all those people who think they know they’re way around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and elections and the “noboby’s taking my rights away from me” crowd a thing or two. And then this 0730102118 (2)weekend I read a letter to the editor and darned if it didn’t make all that seem as trivial as it really is.

Many Americans will be out tonight enjoying a fireworks display. Some of us will be in boats on rivers or lakes looking up at them, some will be on mountains and overlooks looking down at them, some will be in recliners watching them in living color on big screen TVs, and some in bleachers or on park lawns watching them across the way. And we’ll truly enjoy them.

At some point, we’ll make our ways home and many of the many will want to continue the celebration and will pull out our home stashes of fireworks, the kind made by the company the letter writer works for. And that’s where his letter comes in. If I may quote from it:

As the Independence Day holiday approaches, Phantom Fireworks would like to remind its customers, friends and all those who use consumer fireworks to be mindful of the fact that some veterans can be startled and upset by the noise of fireworks.

Chelsey Zoldan, a licensed clinical mental health counselor and special consultant to Phantom Fireworks, advises that there is the potential for some veterans to be reminded of combat situations when they hear the loud sounds of gunfire and fireworks. Combat veteran Henry Jiminez, on a broadcast news piece aired on KABB-TV in San Antonio, Texas, indicated he found the unexpected blasts to be the worst. … Zoldan indicated that unexpected fireworks booms can cause some veterans increased anxiety that could be difficult and challenging for them. …

The bottom line is that giving veterans a heads up that you will be lighting fireworks seems to be the most helpful. Vets aren’t necessarily scared of or by the noises but the unexpected can trigger unwanted symptoms and distress. Please show courtesy to those military veterans who served so your freedoms could be protected.

William Weimer Youngstown, Ohio
The writer is vice president of Phantom Fireworks.

From: The Tribune Review, Pittsburgh Edition, Trib Total Media, Inc., July 1, 2016 (A7).

(Read the whole letter here.)

So let the air be filled with the colors and sounds of these rockets of joy as reminders of the rights that we have to celebrate as we wish. But remember also how we got and keep those rights.

Happy Independence Day!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Sing Sing Sing Along

Michael Leave a comment

I was sorting through some old CDs and ran across an interesting one. A collection of TV Theme songs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I figured it stopped there because there just weren’t that many later shows that had their own themes. That’s changing. And I think that’s for the better.

There are many shows from the early days of TV that had theme songs recognizable still today – and by many who never saw the show associated with the music. Put ten people in a room and play them the theme from I Love Lucy or The Andy Griffith Show and at least 9 will be humming along. Make it The Beverly Hillbillies or Gilligan’s Island and those same nine will be singing along and probably joined by the tenth. Don’t forget the cop shows and other dramas. You might not be able to name the show but you know when you are hearing the themes from The Rockford Files, Hill Street Blues, or Rawhide (yes, the song that kept the Blues Brothers from death by flying bottles in the cowboy bar started as a TV show theme song).

Then it became fashionable to exclude the theme. Maybe composers wanted too much for a custom song that possibly may be forever be associated with a flop as well as it could be hit. Perhaps it wasn’t worth the time and money to pay for a song “off the shelf.”  More likely, it was 30 seconds that could be sold for advertising rather than use as a background to run opening credits against.

Still shows looked for some identity and found it in one or two chords. Check out the “themes” for Lost, Two Broke Girls, or the entire Law and Order franchise. Fortunately somebody saw the folly in this. Television is supposed to be entertaining and that pleasure is enhanced by a catchy tune. (I’m sure somebody somewhere sometime did research on that. If not, feel free to attribute it to me if you’re ever in a spot that needs justification for pleasure enhancement.) We’re now getting to hear some real music with our TV again. Shows like Orange is the New Black, Mike and Molly, and Modern Family have real songs again even if some are borrowed from other genre.

And once again when we’re trying to come up with contemporary trivia to occupy non-drinking time at the bar we have TV themes returning to the mix. We may have to update our references though. The most popular theme song nobody knows by its real name will soon, if not already, no longer be “Suicide is Painless” but “History is Everything.” Extra points if you can sing all three verses and the bridge.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Power to the Person

Michael Leave a comment

A few posts ago I mentioned that my aging television set was aging erratically and rapidly. (See Saying What You Mean (May 16, 2016).) Actually the point of the post was the silly stuff people say when presented with being asked to review a good or service lending credence to the maxim, “It takes a professional reviewer to write a professional review.” Or at least it should. Little did I know that the gods who protect amateur reviewers would direct their wrath upon me.

What was a mere annoyance two weeks ago is now becoming a quest to make it to the annual Back to School Sale season that will undoubtedly feature that most necessary of college necessities, to wit a large screen high definition television. Those gods are probably doubly directive given that I’ve not too long ago also poked fun that those very Back to School Sales selections for whose premature appearance I now anxiously await (as evidenced in What I Did on My Summer Vacation (July 21, 2014) and Have I Got a Deal for You (August 13, 2015) respectively).

Back to the TV. As I then explained (apparently much too briefly) in mid-May how my set was taking remote control to new heights by turning itself on and off at will (or any average joe who happens to be around (sorry, I couldn’t resist)) I must append that by saying that it has wrestled control completely now not letting me even interject my will (or joe) by use of the remote control to turn it on and off at my will (or… no, not again). That’s right. I actually have to use the power button to apply or remove power. It’s downright archaic I tell you!

All this walking across the room to work that button by hand is downright exhausting! Fortunately I should only have to wait another month for this year’s sale of the century for electronics. I just hope that somewhere in the milieu of smart watches, tablets, and streaming media devices somebody actually has enough over stocked TVs to put on sale. Stay tuned. Details coming soon.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Stops Along Holiday Road

Michael Leave a comment

It’s not quite here but if you haven’t already, you’re probably at least in the planning stages for your summer vacation. Have you noticed how we change our vacations through the span of our life? You may be still on your great journey so let me use my life as an example of one who has already journeyed the various stages of vacationing.

I was a kid during the time that station wagons ruled the roads and roads ruled vacation travel. Our vacations typically were to places where branches from our own family tree reached. Which worked out since we became their destination on their vacations. Most summers we loaded up the family sedan and set out on a day’s drive east or west. (There were no relatives south and a day’s drive north would have taken us out of the country.) Major attractions were riding lawn mowers and shopping at department stores different from the ones at home.

The teen year vacations were pretty campy. You know- boy scout camp, baseball camp, band camp, football camp. The camp years. The locations changed but the group didn’t. Later in life these were the memories that would make you appreciate the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt.”

During the college years there were no vacations. With kids in college for a dozen years running, my parents claimed the school year to be their vacation while we would work through the summer so we could all do it again the next fall.

Adulthood finally brought the real vacations. We travelled to exotic places like Los Angeles and Boston. For us that was exotic. One was actually sunny for five days in a row and the other had people who spoke in some language that wasn’t what we were used to hearing at home. Upon the arrival of my daughter vacation spots once again resembled family gatherings. Fortunately staycations were becoming the in thing (even if we didn’t have that catchy name for them) right up until her camp years began.

There was a brief period after my daughter graduated and set out on her own that vacations became exotic again. Since I was actually working and had some discretionary income, exotic actually included locations that required air or sea travel to reach.

And that brings me to the cusp of my “golden years.” Retirement, no commitments, no worries, no work, no time clock, no shirt, no shoes, no income. Every day is a vacation. And as long as I don’t travel too far out of the city I should get to spend quite a few of them on Holiday Road.

So, plan wisely, enjoy your summer vacation, and remember… oh heck, I forgot.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Are you ready for some Bockey?

Michael Leave a comment

My favorite season began yesterday. No, not spring. That was a couple weeks ago, but it has what has been called a sign of spring, baseball. Actually, my favorite season is the ultimate overlap of seasons of baseball and hockey – it’s Bockey Season.

Major League Baseball 2016 opened down the road from me as the “Boys of Summer” braved temperatures in the 30s in their home opener. Then a few hours later across the river, the “Boys of Winter” burned up the ice at their last regular season home game for 2016. There’s nothing in common between the two sports other than they are my favorite sports. People around this town would call it anti-American but I don’t care much for football. People across the world would call it most typical for an American but I don’t care much for soccer. Basketball is best played by college kids and only for a couple of weeks around now. Golf confuses me, tennis exhausts me, curling is ok but even with rumors of a local club (with a waiting list to play even) try to find it to somewhere sometime, anywhere anytime.

For my money baseball and hockey are the way to go. To those who say baseball goes too slow or hockey goes too fast I say they aren’t paying close enough attention to either. Strategy and purpose abound in the movement of both games. A swing of the bat or stroke of the stick doesn’t just send the puck or the ball on its way but the choreographed movement of everybody on the playing surface. If you think hockey games are only where fights break out and baseball games are only good for catching up on your afternoon napping you clearly need to spend some time actually watching the games to see what really goes on in them.

If you don’t share my enthusiasm for these two sports that’s fine. I’ll still enjoy them – and I’ll get to enjoy them for a couple months. And they have more in common than just having me for a mutual fan. They might be the Boys of Winter but when the playoffs get tight and the wins go back and forth, the Stanley Cup might not be raised until mid June less than a week before the solstice. And before the Boys of Summer threw out the first pitch yesterday, the grounds crew had to scrape the snow off the outfield. That’s blending the seasons.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?