WEEI Boston - WORST- MOST CODESCENDING & OFF-TOPIC morning radio ever. I plead with people to write to complain about the format and about DENNIS & CALAHAN... It's so offensive - not because I do or don't agree with their specific political stanbce - but because they INSIST on bringing it into EVERYTHING throughout the show. And because of their belittlement of anything or anyone that doesn't agree with their "superior" attitudes.
It is a sports talk station. NOT a right-wing political vehicle.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Listen Up - Write Your OWN Damn Song.
As I write this they are playing the modern version of "You Spin Me" on the local pop radio channel.
My thought is this.
To do a cover of a previously released song is an homage. It recognizes the original artist and honors the belief that the song is noteworthy. Over time, many new listeners are exposed to music that is new to them through the creation and performance of another writer/artist's song.
It's how people are educated about types of music and are taught music history.
It's how I learned (and STILL learn about) about early Rock & Roll, R & B, Jazz and many other areas of music I would otherwise never have listened to or appreciated.
However, I strongly, vehemently disagree with the recent developments in this area.
To take another person's music, re-play a significant portion of it, in order that it be recognizable and attractive to listeners AS THAT SONG OR BEAT, and then simply insert new rap in between these riffs is NOT acknowledging the artistry and significance of the original artist. It is USING them & their work for the pure purposes of making money from it.
It is, in my opinion, disingenuous, dishonorable and basically stealing.
If the original artists are involved in the process, then that is absolutely fine. But if a song is either gone from copyright, or, even WORSE, still under it, but not enough of the song is ripped for legal prosecution to succeed, then it is an insult to the originator and a low-life act.
I hold no joy for the record industry's attempts at preventing copyright infringement, as I firmly believe that their arrogance prevented them form properly seeing the new areas of growth in music recording, distributing, and transferal. Shame on them, and they should be made to lose out.
However - the integrity of people who go beyond "sampling" just to get their own bastardization of a previously successful song out for their own profits, it completely wrong.
You teach nothing but disreputable behavior to young listeners, and it is ignorant and arrogant behavior.
There...had my say.
My thought is this.
To do a cover of a previously released song is an homage. It recognizes the original artist and honors the belief that the song is noteworthy. Over time, many new listeners are exposed to music that is new to them through the creation and performance of another writer/artist's song.
It's how people are educated about types of music and are taught music history.
It's how I learned (and STILL learn about) about early Rock & Roll, R & B, Jazz and many other areas of music I would otherwise never have listened to or appreciated.
However, I strongly, vehemently disagree with the recent developments in this area.
To take another person's music, re-play a significant portion of it, in order that it be recognizable and attractive to listeners AS THAT SONG OR BEAT, and then simply insert new rap in between these riffs is NOT acknowledging the artistry and significance of the original artist. It is USING them & their work for the pure purposes of making money from it.
It is, in my opinion, disingenuous, dishonorable and basically stealing.
If the original artists are involved in the process, then that is absolutely fine. But if a song is either gone from copyright, or, even WORSE, still under it, but not enough of the song is ripped for legal prosecution to succeed, then it is an insult to the originator and a low-life act.
I hold no joy for the record industry's attempts at preventing copyright infringement, as I firmly believe that their arrogance prevented them form properly seeing the new areas of growth in music recording, distributing, and transferal. Shame on them, and they should be made to lose out.
However - the integrity of people who go beyond "sampling" just to get their own bastardization of a previously successful song out for their own profits, it completely wrong.
You teach nothing but disreputable behavior to young listeners, and it is ignorant and arrogant behavior.
There...had my say.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Radio Ga-Ga? NO... Radio BULLSH**!!!
I demand to know who the f%^& decided that ALL that people want to hear in the AM on the radio is ridiculous babble between insipid morons. No one cares about your bad humor, your bright and chipper co-host, or Hollywood gossip, or what went on the night before on every show on TV.
Oooo! And here's a wonderful idea! Let's PRANK some listener's boyfriend, spouse, or coworker! That's incredible entertainment!
The humor is non-existent. These people all are self-aggrandizing, thinking they are the most talented, funny and quick-witted radio personalities on the planet.
All people want to hear is some traffic, some news headlines (THE IMPORTANT ONES, not every stupid piece of crap thing that is dumped out on the internet), and then music.
I have spoken to numerous young people - high school and college age, and THEY don't want anything but music. I've listened around the office and in Dunkin' Donuts, and in the gym ....if there is a mention by people AT ALL of radio, it's about how annoying it is. To a person, they fall into two groups... "Why can't I hear a friggin' SONG." and "Why can't I get headlines or sports scores and then some music?"
The advertisers CAN'T POSSIBLY believe that this adds value to the playing of their commercials.
I find it once again a case of "self-fulfillment".
In the 1950' & 1960's, the morning DJ was the spark for listening. This begat power-DJ's, like Petey Greene, who begat shock jocks like Imus and Stern. Marketing weenies in small markets of course copied that to death will lame impostors, and the advertising monkeys went along for the ride.
Today there is pablum. Garbage.... and even WORSE than bland, there is annoying and useless.
Some say it's age creeping in to me that causes the crankiness....
But the fact is, it just gets tiring to see zero effort put in to anything by people now.
Try something new. Find out what people WANT and they will listen to your disreputable ads by shysters selling fake sexual enhancement products in order to scam kids' credit cards.
Or how about this...get a fucking clue and put out a viable product.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
ANOTHER Brick in the Wall
THIS is the legacy that we have to live with, and it's infuriating that a stupid dope such as I was able to discern that we were burning bridges - or at least doing significant political and diplomatic damage with our administration's arrogant policies and attitude. To me, it showed short-sightedness and a blatant disregard for the world as a unit. It assumed such superiority and a misguided belief that the US was the only one right and that we could do it ourselves.
And to all my friends who are heavily critical of this personal belief, I say, yes, the world DID change after 9/11 ~ but the path this country's administration lead us and the manner in which they attempted to achieve their goals was myopic and incorrectly insular.
And now, in the world of today, we see the problems manifested in many ways that will be difficult to repair. And it is EXTREMELY frustrating.
Obama's Challenge
Forget the protesters. The real anger at America this week is coming from European governments.
By John Barry Newsweek
Apr 2, 2009
At the G20 summit this week, President Obama confronts a problem no American president before George W. Bush had to face: suspicion and even hostility toward the U.S. government from European allies. Bluntly, the Bush administration all but destroyed traditional transatlantic ties, including the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain.
Even though Obama is popular among the European public, he didn't do the U.S.-U.K. bond any favors last month. When Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to Washington, he brought with him a present for Obama chosen with the care accorded a gift to some valued ally: a penholder carved from timbers of the sister ship to the Resolute, from whose wood the president's Oval Office desk was made. Obama's gift to Brown was DVDs of American movies—a Christmas gift to a not particularly close business acquaintance. As they say, it's the thought that counts. The thought was duly noted in London.
That
was stupid of the White House, which needs all the friends it can get. On the
most crucial issue facing this summit (how to organize a coordinated Western
response to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression), Brown has
one view, close to the administration's. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany
and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France have very different views; the Central Europeans have others.
But Obama's real problem runs deeper. What passes at the
G20's plenary sessions will likely be of slight importance. Just going around
the table for introductory statements will take hours; and the final communiqué
was precooked. Obama's side sessions with individual leaders will be where any
real business is done. (See Wednesday's announcement that the U.S. and Russia
will restart nuclear-arms negotiations, which came out of Obama's presummit meeting
with President Dimitry Medvedev.) In these meetings, Obama will find himself
face-to-face with shrewd European leaders—all longer veterans in government
than he—who, deep down, have learned from painful experience to distrust
America.
It is hard to overestimate the damage that the Bush
administration did to America's historic Western alliance. Former defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld's offhand dismissal of "Old Europe," as
against the new states of Central Europe, set the tone. Rumsfeld later said
he'd mangled his text; and in another circumstance the European allies might
have accepted that. But Rumsfeld's misspeaking, if that is what it was, points
to the real damage. At its root, the Europeans believe they were systematically
brushed aside—even lied to. At the depth of the Iraq debacle, one senior
adviser at No. 10 Downing Street exclaimed: "We've been betrayed by a
bunch of incompetents in Washington." Tony Blair, Brown's predecessor and
that official's admired boss, was effectively destroyed by his support of W.
The same adviser is now in Britain's Washington embassy. Does anyone believe he
has forgotten what prompted his outburst?
The perception of betrayal goes far wider than rigged
intelligence estimates and unfounded optimism about Iraq. On issue after issue
(Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantánamo, Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations), the current cadre of European leaders and officials believe the
Bush White House failed to consult them; worse, it did not level with them
about its real goals. And, more alarming still, it simply had no idea what it
was getting into. The economic meltdown—which all Europeans see as originating
in a massive failure by a corrupted U.S. system of government to sensibly
regulate Wall Street—is merely, for Europe's leaders, final proof that the
Washington they respected and, ultimately, trusted through the Cold War years
is no more.
Summits are gatherings of leaders, and the media tend to
focus on personal relationships among them. Expect, in coming days, much White
House spin about just how well Obama has bonded with his counterparts. That's a
delusion. National leaders are not swayed by charm. Especially not European
leaders briefed by their officials. "Sherpas" is what the unseen
officials are called who prepare the ground for big international gatherings
like the G20 summit. Obama faces European leaders briefed by their own sherpas.
All those unseen officials bear the scars of their dealings with Bush. Most had
a tour in Washington in the '00s, suffering firsthand the administration's
contempt and, they came to believe, double-dealing.
That outburst by the No. 10 official finds echoes in
every European capital. One of Sarkozy's closest advisers bears the scars
of the Bush administration's dismissal of French concerns about an Iraq
invasion. When France's most-senior military officer came to Washington to
argue France's concerns, he was treated to an angry outburst by a top Pentagon
official, who said France's real concern was a corrupt relationship between
Saddam Hussein and France's then-president, Jacques Chirac—a relationship that,
the Pentagon official said, it would be America's pleasure to expose from
documents Washington was confident it would find in Baghdad. No such documents
were ever found. One of Merkel's top advisers recalls voicing his concerns in
2006 about the worsening situation in Afghanistan—to be met with the comment
that the Germans had always been unreliable allies, so why should the U.S.
listen to their fears now?
Leaders in democracies come and go. Their advisers, at
least in Europe, remain. For two generations of the Cold War and its aftermath,
those officials were confident that they had relationships with their
Washington counterparts of frankness, truth and trust. Differences were
explored. Advice was given and weighed. Problems were sorted out before they
became crises. Policies were quietly thrashed out before any public
announcement. Political sensitivities were mediated by phone calls between
leaders. Those unseen day-to-day relationships were the real bedrock of
America's influence in its dealings with the United States' most enduring
partners. Now President Obama will find himself confronting Bush's legacy, and
trying very hard to get Europe back on his side.
© 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192116
And to all my friends who are heavily critical of this personal belief, I say, yes, the world DID change after 9/11 ~ but the path this country's administration lead us and the manner in which they attempted to achieve their goals was myopic and incorrectly insular.
And now, in the world of today, we see the problems manifested in many ways that will be difficult to repair. And it is EXTREMELY frustrating.
---------
Obama's Challenge
Forget the protesters. The real anger at America this week is coming from European governments.
By John Barry Newsweek
Apr 2, 2009
At the G20 summit this week, President Obama confronts a problem no American president before George W. Bush had to face: suspicion and even hostility toward the U.S. government from European allies. Bluntly, the Bush administration all but destroyed traditional transatlantic ties, including the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain.
Even though Obama is popular among the European public, he didn't do the U.S.-U.K. bond any favors last month. When Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to Washington, he brought with him a present for Obama chosen with the care accorded a gift to some valued ally: a penholder carved from timbers of the sister ship to the Resolute, from whose wood the president's Oval Office desk was made. Obama's gift to Brown was DVDs of American movies—a Christmas gift to a not particularly close business acquaintance. As they say, it's the thought that counts. The thought was duly noted in London.
That
was stupid of the White House, which needs all the friends it can get. On the
most crucial issue facing this summit (how to organize a coordinated Western
response to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression), Brown has
one view, close to the administration's. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany
and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France have very different views; the Central Europeans have others.
But Obama's real problem runs deeper. What passes at the
G20's plenary sessions will likely be of slight importance. Just going around
the table for introductory statements will take hours; and the final communiqué
was precooked. Obama's side sessions with individual leaders will be where any
real business is done. (See Wednesday's announcement that the U.S. and Russia
will restart nuclear-arms negotiations, which came out of Obama's presummit meeting
with President Dimitry Medvedev.) In these meetings, Obama will find himself
face-to-face with shrewd European leaders—all longer veterans in government
than he—who, deep down, have learned from painful experience to distrust
America.
It is hard to overestimate the damage that the Bush
administration did to America's historic Western alliance. Former defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld's offhand dismissal of "Old Europe," as
against the new states of Central Europe, set the tone. Rumsfeld later said
he'd mangled his text; and in another circumstance the European allies might
have accepted that. But Rumsfeld's misspeaking, if that is what it was, points
to the real damage. At its root, the Europeans believe they were systematically
brushed aside—even lied to. At the depth of the Iraq debacle, one senior
adviser at No. 10 Downing Street exclaimed: "We've been betrayed by a
bunch of incompetents in Washington." Tony Blair, Brown's predecessor and
that official's admired boss, was effectively destroyed by his support of W.
The same adviser is now in Britain's Washington embassy. Does anyone believe he
has forgotten what prompted his outburst?
The perception of betrayal goes far wider than rigged
intelligence estimates and unfounded optimism about Iraq. On issue after issue
(Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantánamo, Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations), the current cadre of European leaders and officials believe the
Bush White House failed to consult them; worse, it did not level with them
about its real goals. And, more alarming still, it simply had no idea what it
was getting into. The economic meltdown—which all Europeans see as originating
in a massive failure by a corrupted U.S. system of government to sensibly
regulate Wall Street—is merely, for Europe's leaders, final proof that the
Washington they respected and, ultimately, trusted through the Cold War years
is no more.
Summits are gatherings of leaders, and the media tend to
focus on personal relationships among them. Expect, in coming days, much White
House spin about just how well Obama has bonded with his counterparts. That's a
delusion. National leaders are not swayed by charm. Especially not European
leaders briefed by their officials. "Sherpas" is what the unseen
officials are called who prepare the ground for big international gatherings
like the G20 summit. Obama faces European leaders briefed by their own sherpas.
All those unseen officials bear the scars of their dealings with Bush. Most had
a tour in Washington in the '00s, suffering firsthand the administration's
contempt and, they came to believe, double-dealing.
That outburst by the No. 10 official finds echoes in
every European capital. One of Sarkozy's closest advisers bears the scars
of the Bush administration's dismissal of French concerns about an Iraq
invasion. When France's most-senior military officer came to Washington to
argue France's concerns, he was treated to an angry outburst by a top Pentagon
official, who said France's real concern was a corrupt relationship between
Saddam Hussein and France's then-president, Jacques Chirac—a relationship that,
the Pentagon official said, it would be America's pleasure to expose from
documents Washington was confident it would find in Baghdad. No such documents
were ever found. One of Merkel's top advisers recalls voicing his concerns in
2006 about the worsening situation in Afghanistan—to be met with the comment
that the Germans had always been unreliable allies, so why should the U.S.
listen to their fears now?
Leaders in democracies come and go. Their advisers, at
least in Europe, remain. For two generations of the Cold War and its aftermath,
those officials were confident that they had relationships with their
Washington counterparts of frankness, truth and trust. Differences were
explored. Advice was given and weighed. Problems were sorted out before they
became crises. Policies were quietly thrashed out before any public
announcement. Political sensitivities were mediated by phone calls between
leaders. Those unseen day-to-day relationships were the real bedrock of
America's influence in its dealings with the United States' most enduring
partners. Now President Obama will find himself confronting Bush's legacy, and
trying very hard to get Europe back on his side.
© 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192116
Life on Mars
Another show I thought was well written, well acted and artistically presented bites the dust. And yes, they gave us an ending - a quick wrap-up, admittedly, after being told only a month ago that the show was cancelled. and no, it wasn't nearly as dark as the ending to the British version - I don't know if American audiences would be comfortable with the UK versions end. Maybe. At least this was written with embedded clues throughout the 17 episodes, so again - it was thought out. But it's strength was in the performances, and the characterizations and the music and views of New York and our culture in '73. You wanted to know about the characters.
And it was funny - the makers of this show were the same people who did "October Road". So there were a couple of quiet tributes along the way... such as last night's sign that said "Catoldo Housing", after the Ray 'Big Cat Catoldo character. Fairly subtle.
And now we can of course look forward to more vapid, useless programming by the networks to fill the slot. Nothing like a fake, idiotic, "un-scripted", demeaning, insulting and above all CHEAP 'reality' show to lure in more fools of the target demographic.
"May you find a home wherever you land."
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