March 14, 2021
As I sit down to bang out this week's power rankings, CBS is currently airing the Grammy awards (as Sunday Morning pointed out just a few times.) It being a music-centric episode, I present:
The Ballad of Weaves #53: Part 1
I don't listen to music as much as I once did. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons... growing older chief among them. I can pinpoint going to graduate school as a major turning point away from my avocation of pop and indie music discovery. First and foremost, I attended Purdue which was not, and did not have, "a scene". Cincinnati did. Louisville did more so. I spent a summer in Austin, TX, which blows pretty much everyone else away in terms of scenedom. At Purdue, we got the occasional act touring college campuses that would play in our main auditorium. Which was also the place I had to proctor exams for a freshmen physics course that enrolled over 3000 students a semester. (I think I just got a twinge of PTSD writing that sentence.)
Of the bands that came, Wilco played a great show. It didn't make me cry then, but I get a little dusty thinking back on it. "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" is an amazing song live. Ben Folds is not really my jam, but I remember having a good time at the show. With out question, the cultural event of my time at Purdue was when Lady Gaga's "The Monster Ball Tour" played campus. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have interest in seeing it just to experience the spectacle, but getting a ticket was near impossible. I never got into Lady Gaga per se, but I have absorbed enough of her oeuvre to be of the opinion that I think I'd probably dig her work, given where my musical tastes have drifted over the years. To tie in, Lee Cowan has interviewed Stefani Germanotta for Sunday Morning a few times, but I mention nearly every week.
That's it. That's the list of what came to campus over my 8 long years (I guess some other less interesting bands probably came - but I only remember those 3 and I used to really be into music.)
Aside 1: I'm not against a show in a big theater or auditorium or stadium or festival, all the best live music experiences have been shows in small clubs - a few hundred sweaty people. It's a little bit more visceral and immediate than a theater, but I probably should have invested in good ear plugs. At the other end of the spectrum, you might think a festival gives you more bang for your buck. But really a festival is like a tennis tournament. (You knew I'd bring it around to tennis.) You pay a lot of money and you're probably stuck outside for a long time, getting dehydrated. Maybe you can see a lot of great music/tennis, but with multiple acts/matches playing different stages/courts simultaneously, how do you choose? How do you choose? Even if there is only one stage/court, you may schedule a break to recuperate when something amazing happens and you miss out. The #FOMO is real. You've got to commit to focusing on one or two that you are really into.
The club though, it's just you and friends you may or may not know attending for a single purpose - to watch a band you a like (or love). (Or maybe sometimes to smoke crack. It happened once. I mean dude, weed was expected, but there were like 50 people at that show - we noticed despite your attempts to keep it on the DL.) I remember showing up to venues I frequented and seeing the same people. I didn't know them, but in a way, I knew them. I wonder if they recognized me.
The small club also holds the potential for the Opening Act Effect. Bands that play small venues haven't hit it big yet. Well, maybe medium big, which means big enough to headline a tour of small venues. Or they get big in the middle of a tour and now the venues booked are selling out. But the opening acts, no one's heard of them. If you don't like them - it's not a big deal. If they blow you away though, it's like you've joined a secret society. When you see an opening act and just know they will be big because of the live show, you've experienced lightning in a bottle before it gets out of the bottle. I knew The Killers were going to be big when they opened for stellastarr*, just like I knew stellstarr* was going to be big when they when they opened for Interpol. (Was stellastarr* big? They were moderate I suppose, but certain people have opinions on them being underrated. I'd agree with said certain people.)
I've gone pretty far afield at this point, so the story will continue in future entries. Raise your hand if you are surprised. Oh, so no one then. Come back next week for the exciting conclusion of The Ballad of Weaves #53. Or not. 3 parts max, I swear. Maybe 4.
The CBS Sunday Morning Power Rankings:
The insight that the main competition for streaming services is sleep pretty interesting. It's kind of depressing to think of sleep as a drag on the economy. Stick it to the man, comrade, by shutting off some screens and taking a nap!
In the past few years, I've developed a routine of exercising 1-2 hours a day. To carve out that time, something else that I would usually do needed to get sacrificed sacrificed. I still want to watch some TV and read and write this recap blog, so sleep is what go axed. I went from 8 to 7 hours a night, so it's not like I've turned into an insomniac. I actually sometimes feel left when people talk about only having time for 5-6 hours a night, but then I think they are crazy. As most American's are when it comes to work/life balance.
If anything, my problem in life has been too much sleep and not too little. I'm an extremely heavy sleeper. I've slept through many a thunderstorm (I love to go to sleep listening to the rain.) and also a fire once. A minor Earthquake did manage to wake me up, but only enough to wonder why my bed was bouncing and without the oddity truly even registering in my brain until I saw the earthquake in the news the next day.
Why does Susan get the top spot? I enjoyed the story of course, but there was no true standout and I often feel bad because Susan often gets ranked low through now fault of her own. Her beat is usually medical and my delicate constitution is often not up for such stories on a Sunday morning. Sometimes, I have to turn away lest I have a vasovagal reaction. But this one was fine. I enjoy sleep. I enjoy being a little chilly and then getting under covers for warmth.
Australian
reporter Holly Williams gives the low down on the relationship between
the Monarchy and British tabloid media. I'm shallow enough to enjoy
any Holly Williams appearance just for the accent.
I didn't watch the Oprah special, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't rubberneck the ensuing fallout. Everyone in America is Team Meghan, right? If not, I wonder why? Not really, no one wonders why... If you find yourself agreeing with Piers Morgan on anything, maybe reexamine some life choices. Maybe he just really, really disliked Suits.
Maybe
I have more Anglophile in me than I thought, but I don't actually
dislike the royals or hold this against them too much. I mean the idea of a monarchy is kind of ridiculous,
but there are scads of European monarchs out there still. I guess the
British monarchs are just the most figureheady of all figureheads. The point I'm trying to get to is that the royals did not
really create this situation. Well, maybe they did create part of the Harry/Meghan. But do we hold them responsible for the tabloids which have done most of the damage here? Without them, most of this is handled in a civil manner and everyone can maintain dignity and privacy. While I will straight out murder the next person that uses the phrase
"gilded cage", it's not like the royals can just walk away. That's what Harry and Meghan did and we saw what happened. Was it worth it? I guess, but there did not seem to be another option. As
pointlessly wealthy as they are, they are but protocol and etiquette
signifying nothing. They are neither bad nor good simply because they
are monarchs. They are not responsible for the tabloid press (mostly). They are a
little more that a toy that Rupert Murdoch plays with to make money.
On the other hand, wouldn't everyone be better off if the tabloids lost their plaything. So:
The next time I read an article from The Guardian and they beg me for money, I might just give them some to stick it to the tabloids. Don't click on links to The Sun (oh the irony of that name) or The Daily Mail.Rita Braver drops in to discuss the documentary Crip Camp, nominated for an Oscar just this morning, and disability rights more broadly. I don't have Netflix, but if I pick it up again, Crip Camp might be something I watch. I did listen to a podcast about the subject once, so I get the gist, I think. The big takeaway is that what we label disabilities as a limitation, while those that are part of the disabled community view it as a culture. It was interesting to watch this segment this right after seeing Riz Ahmed discuss this point while promoting Sound of Metal. People with disabilities don't want your pity because it's part of who they are. If they have to figure out a way to do something, they usually will dammit. They do want a fair shake though.
The obvious mistake many people, myself included, is to jump to an unwarranted impression that a disability involves mental impairment especially if it affects speech. You'd think somebody who briefly took a course from someone who had Steven Hawking as an advisor would not make that mistake (another story for another time perhaps), but alas, it can just be a reflex sometimes. I guess, the important part is overcome the first impression. Books and covers and all that. There are disabilities that affect cognition. I'm being careful with my language because I don't think mentally disabled is the correct terminology anymore, but rather cognitively diverse. Am I supposed to talking about this?
I haven't seen the doc. But it seems like the camp was a place for the disabled community to be themselves. At the same time, if they aren't an integral part of society at large, they become like any other marginalized group - held at arms length and at best treated awkwardly if not discriminated against.
4) Mo Rocca
This may bethe lowest I've ever ranked Mo. I could run down the story, but how often do I need to point out Mo is obsessed with presidential history the way I am obsessed with geography. The story is about Ladybird Johnson. Mo brings a strong tie game:
Other than that, the two strong points of the story are Ladybird enunciating the 'h' in "white" when talking about the "ha-white snow" and shoehorning the perma-tanned George Hamilton into the piece because Mo loves TV history almost as much as presidents.
Also "Lady-Hawk" Johnson was one of the more inspired bits from the dearly departed Venture Bros.
5) Twins!
One of the Sunday Morning Pulse interstitials stated that thanks to increasing fertility treatments, 1 in 42 babies being born now is a twin. That is insane! Is it a good thing or science run amok. The nature segment featured footage from Iceland, which was kind of amazing, but it loses points for not being from America (the power rankings are xenophobic aparently...) and of course for being too short.
I cannot get that stat out of my head. 1 in 42. That's crazy.
Twin Story! In the 8th grade, I would sometimes hang out Media Play to check out video games or music or movies. One time, a girl I went to school saw me at the demo PC and came over to say hi. (I think I was playing Terminal Velocity.) Maybe she came over because she was friendly or maybe because she had a crush on me and wanted to flirt - I was pretty oblivious. But I wouldn't have gone out of my way unless the person obviously saw me. As I looked up from the monitor, she introduced her clone who was standing next to her. It turns out I did not know her identical twin sister existed because she went to another school. Is there anything more jarring than finding out a person you've known for months has a twin that you didn't know about? I don't know, but it's up there. I wasn't so social in the 8th grade (some things don't change) so I probably just said, "Oh, hi." and went back to the game - a jerky think to do. I can't remember if the twin even said hi back. But here I am, over 30 years later and I still remember it because it was so weird. Also because I can't let go of times where I messed up normal social interactions and replay them over and over in my head.
The music world is awash with white guys who want to bring you a black man's blues and champion roots music of all sorts. If they play it, it can be cultural appropriate. But if they produce, it's fine. I'm thinking Jack White, Beck,
Harmony Korine movies. They probably aren't for me. I did get sucked into the Harmony Korine/David Letterman rabbit hole a long time ago. The end of that story is that he got caught stealing something from Meryl Streep purse when they were both appearing on The Late Show.
8) Seth Doane
Seth Doane hops from Italy over the channel to English Channel to interview "genre-busting" artist Michael Kiwanuka (Grammy nominated, naturally). At the risk of being reductive, most of his music featured here has a 70's soul vibe of the mellow groove variety. I haven't listened Kiwanuka, nor was I alive in the 70's, but this is the internet, so I'm fully qualified to make that claim and I'll die for my right to stay ill-informed. It's not really genre-busting the way say Beck or Prince were. Or even the Beastie Boys who fused hip-hop to punk for awhile. Although, I guess you could say they (especially) Beck were more genre-hopping than genre-busting. Beck especially would always give an explicit nod to whatever genre he was inhabiting as he blended it with something else. At any point in a Beck song, you can pinpoint the genre. It just might change quickly or meld with something else. Thought of this way, Beck was much more of a "genre artist" than Kiwanuka. He just covered a lot of genres.
The other main takeaways for me are:
- I watched Big Little Lies and never once wondered who did the opening credits. (It was Michael Kiwanuka). I did however wonder why they needed to be 2 minutes long. Good show though.
- His name sounds familiar. Probably he was featured on NPR All Songs Considered or something, but that covers a wide swath of artists.
- Seth, why are you in England? You've already had COVID and about the only place you could go that has more COVID than Italy is England. Also, you are treading on Mark Phillip's turf. Does Mark not like music?
- Interviewing someone with their parents is a surefire way to generate "Awww, ain't that sweet?" moments.
Outdoor classrooms in the rain and mud? Time to bring back Portlandia. (second shout out to Carrie Brownstein!). It seems they've missed something about the pacific northwest to skewer.
CBS's lead "outdoors" correspondent Connor Knighton presents this story about outdoor schools and classrooms. I have quite like Connor Knighton segments, especially the travelogues, but this one is less travelogue and more school in nature. It also has a COVID tie in because outdoor classes are a way of educating while socially distanced in COVID times. The story at least acknowledges the outdoor school in Portland primarily caters to rich kids that can afford the tuition, which is problematic. The school in Maine, I think it was public, that used outdoor classes in the snow to educate during COVID was a bit more promising in that it kind of showed that anyone could do it. I would have loved school in the snow. But I'm probably a traditionalist deep down, so my knee jerk reaction was that certain subjects like biology and phys ed and art obviously lend themselves to being outside. Math and writing outside in the elements sounded less than ideal at least at a higher level. Maybe it's just because I've gotten used to a certain way. I'm sure it's fine.
10) David Pogue
Pogue is on a DiMaggio like streak of appearances. I'm starting to feel like Pogue is the new Lee Cowan of the power rankings - absence makes the heart grow fonder David.
About the story, I've listened to enough episodes of Beautiful/Anonymous to be a little shocked that a story that frankly discusses suicide did not come with a trigger warning or a message about "where to find help if you or someone you love" has suicidal thoughts. Although, I guess the whole point of the story is to promote the online mental health resource aggregator created by Melissa and Doug (of the toy company). Melissa and Doug are rich, but I've learned we all have ups and downs. Some people's downs are dangerously down. I can be down sometimes, but I don't think that down.
Not really a segment I feel comfortable joking about given the content - it would get dark fast and that's not what CBS Sunday Morning is all about. Criminy, the logo is the sun! Suicide jokes could not be more antithetical to the show unless the subject of a segment goes there first - which they very much did not.
Anyway, this might be sharing too much personal info, because it introduces names, but the first time my mom became aware of Melissa and Doug, she freaked out, because my brother and his wife have the same names and they were just starting to have kids. "IT'S THE SAME NAMES!" So toys were bought. Perhaps it was quaint at the time, but less so now that Melissa and Doug are a "billion with a b" dollar company and can be found everywhere.
Comments
Post a Comment