Time(')s (Up) Square

I'm usually disappointed that New Years TV shows are dominated by such lightweight pop.  But it occurs to me that it's appropriate for them to have one-hit-wonders on them. If you think of the show as a celebration of the past year, it makes sense to celebrate it with artists who will be forever associated with this year. And the artists themselves will want to appear on the shows. Aside from needing the exposure, they need to convince themselves that their careers will in fact survive into the new year. I have to admit that a part of me expected Psy to disappear in a puff of smoke as soon as the Times Square ball hit bottom.

Perhaps these broadcasts should be entirely celebrations of the ending year. Not just the musicians we won't be seeing next year, but the products, trends, etc.  Bring in late night talk show hosts to do one last round of jokes about the easiest targets of the past year, then let them go forever. 

Now, Winfield Probably Just Wants a Nice Quiet Retirement

Recently, Sportsnet celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Blue Jays' 1992 World Series win by replaying all six games of that series.  Desperate for something to balance all the College football on TV, and with no hockey and most channels dominated by repeats or marathons, I found myself actually watching a lot of it.  Partly it was nostalgia, partly fascination at how much the sport and television has changed.

So here are the some of the interesting things that I noticed during the 1992 World Series rerun:

• There isn't much advertising in the stadium, just a few Labatts ads in the Skydome.  Even stranger, some of the ads in Atlanta are for Marlboro, one of them complete with the Marlboro Man.  Another is for Fuji Film.  Remember film?
• Where are all the tattoos?
• Even after all these years, it sounds wrong to hear American announcers call Manny Lee, "Manuel" Lee
• For that matter, I can't believe they only have two announcers.  Where's the gratuitous roving audience reporter?
• The SkyDome looks totally different when it's full.
• Brett Lawrie is the spiritual successor to Kelly Gruber. To answer one comment I saw on Twitter, I think he's the one that will follow Gruber and Todd Stottlemyre in the Jays' tradition of cutting his chin in an ungraceful slide in the World Series.
• What's with the giant graphics?  Were our TVs really that small then?  And so plain looking; My phone could do better.
• Speaking of which: nobody in the stands is on a phone.  How are they telling their friends they're on TV?
• And I have to wait for them to put up the score?  What's wrong with leaving it in the corner of the screen?  Oh, it would be too tiny on their itsy-bitsy TVs.
• All the stats are just the simple ones I learned as a child.  Where's the WHIP and OPS?
• I still can't believe how easy Devon White makes centre field look.  Or how small a bat looks in Dave Winfield's hands.
• That pale green Astroturf really looks bad.
• Since a lot of the people in sports audiences aren't up to the latest style to begin with, everyone in the stands looks even more out of date than twenty years.  There wasn't nearly as much flannel as you would expect for the early nineties.
• It's been a while since I heard anyone marvel at how modern the SkyDome is the way the commentators did.
• On the other hand, calling it the SkyDome doesn't really seem that odd, which I take as a measure of how the Rogers Centre moniker hasn't fit.
• I still can't believe how into the game Jane Fonda gets.  You'd think she and Ted Turner would have lasted.
• Atlanta's old stadium looks, um, "short".  I've become used to baseball stadiums having three decks of seats and a wall of luxury boxes.
• The transitions between replays and live shots (with a sort of zoom-in diamond shape) looks like something out of the seventies.  I expect computer-generated baseballs rolling across the screen and exploding or something.
• I'd forgotten what great moustaches baseball used to have.  Sid Bream and Jack Morris, we miss you.
• It's a little depressing to watch it already knowing which players wouldn't be back the next year.
• A part of me can't believe they won it again.

Fiscal Bluffs

I haven't really kept up on the Fiscal Cliff issue.  So I guess I'm not really that different from most journalists.  There seems to be a lot of dumbing down and summing up going on.  And by that, I mean jumping to the worst possible outcome.  Many aren't even bothering to say it could dip the U.S. into recession, and just saying that the cliff will cause a new recession.  Most frustratingly, by saying it that way, it means they'll likely be right.

Here's what I think is happening here:  The (Republicans/Democrats) have spent years saying that it's very important to have (low taxes/government programs).  God forbid those other guys will get in power and (raise taxes through the roof/slash spending to the bone) - that would cripple the economy.  Of course, it's true that in order to give the public (low taxes/government programs) it'll require (less spending/high taxes).  But don't worry, that's not a problem; in fact, it may even be a good thing, since (rich people have money to burn/poor people have become dependent).

If either party had total control, they'd do something that a lot of people wouldn't like, but they'd be assuring us that it's not that bad.  But now we have a situation where the terrible thing that each party dreads is going to happen, but without the reassurance of the other.  For instance, Republicans have long said that the welfare state should be reduced.  Well now it is being reduced, but rather than tell us what a good thing that is, they're distracted by the prospect of higher taxes.  Likewise, many Democrats have suggested letting the Bush tax cuts expire.  Well, they're about to, but they can't celebrate, because many unemployed people are about to lose their benefits.  If only both parties would see the glass as half full.

Whatever your political affiliation, you have to realize that some big changes to the American budget are needed, at least assuming your mathematical affiliation is with reality.  Great news!  Those changes are about to happen.  Once the public's expectations have been readjusted, we can refine things to popular tastes later.  But for now, forcing a big shift in perspective could do us a lot of good.

Smartphoning It In

I was going to write a post here, but there seems to be an embargo against producing any new content in a communication medium this time of year.  One is only allowed to produce retrospectives and best-of lists.  What am I supposed to do, my ten most obscure post titles?

Well, they do have some stats here at blogger let's see what we can do.  Here are my most popular posts of the year (and thus all time):

1. Keep Calm and Something Ironic
2. Prodigious Firestarters
3. I Think You Can Read 'Bout Dyson
4. Katy Perry doesn't get Demographics
5. Beeb Fever
6. Olympic Butthole Surfers
7. How Not to Look Foolish on the Internet
8. Jason Lets Slip His Quaint Media Experience
9. Cracking the Maclean's Code
10. Hockey Night in the Eastern Bloc

Pa-Rum-Pum-Pum-Pu-u-u-u-um

I used to feel sorry for Justin Bieber.  Sure, I hate commercialized pop driven by tween girls' hormones as much as anyone, but he doesn't deserve the level of vitriol he's received. 

At least that's what I thought until I heard his version of "Little Drummer Boy" during today's basketball games.  Look, Bieb, inserting extra notes to show off your vocal abilities Mariah-Carey-style is merely annoying, but that's if you can actually hit all those extra notes.  Pointlessly meandering notes in a really artificial auto-tuned voice is neither entertaining nor impressive.

I have new respect for David Bowie and Bing Crosby.

DJ X-Mass

Supposedly the Saturday before Christmas is the busiest shopping day of the year, even busier than Black Friday in the U.S.  Fortunately - and uncharacteristically - I finished early and was able to avoid it all together.  But there's one thing you can't avoid unless you complete your shopping a month-and-a-half early: Christmas music.  Of course it's not just in stores, it's also on much of the radio dial and many TV commercials too.  For the Christmas overloaded like me, the non-stop music is the hardest thing to take.  I realize I can't stop it, so here are some tips on how we can make the Christmas tunes a little less annoying:

Go Easy on the PC Winter Carols

A lot of songs we associate with Christmas actually never mention it:

• Winter Wonderland 
• Marshmallow world
• Jingle Bells
• Sleigh Ride

So these songs are a safe solution at PC civic events and in stores holding hopes of sucking religious minorities into the buying frenzy.  But like most attempts to genericize Christmas, it annoys many while fooling no one.

Look Deeper into Back-Catalogues

Just about any well-known artist has recorded a Christmas song at some point in their career, even if they haven't gone the full Christmas cash cow- I mean, "album".  For instance, last year a number of radio stations seemed to remember U2's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"  So it's worth a look.

Try Tangentially Christmassy Songs

The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" is not technically about Christmas, but it does mention it.  All the music from the Peanuts Christmas special is just instrumental, but it's become associated with the holiday.  And if you're filling a month of songs, you're going to have to consider that close enough.

Never Play "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time"

It's modern, light, and by one of the most beloved musicians in the world, so it seems like a marketing dream.  Too bad it's such an annoying song.  I don't like to exaggerate, but this song may just cancel-out Paul McCartney's positive contributions to music.

Never Play "Santa Baby"

That's such a creepy song.  For one thing, it's sexualizing Santa, a concept I felt dirty just typing.  If you think about it, that song is exactly the thing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is making fun of.  We don't need to hear about how much mommy wants to kiss Santa Claus.  The fact that the song has such a dated feel only accentuates the feel of listening to your mother's love song.

Might I Have Some Time Alone

Today, many a media personality has been pointing out - with varying levels of deadpan irony - that we are still here.  That small subset of Mayans who believed the world would end today were wrong.  What a surprise. 

This non-story about a story that we knew would not be a story might have you lamenting all the time wasted on this issue.  But think of this: we're about to start 2013.  Yes, a year with a famously unlucky number in it and I haven't heard a thing about it.  The whole world's superstitious population has been successfully distracted by the end-of-the-world fear.

But what caught my attention today was the stories about the descendants of the ancient Mayans celebrating.  Even though most Mayans didn't really expect an apocalypse, it was still the end of one of the cycles of their calendar; I suppose that's the equivalent of the turn of the millennium.  To them it was a great moment of reflection and rebirth.  It might have been nice if the rest of us could have participated in that celebration, but no, we advanced nations were too focused a prophecy of disaster that hardly anyone ever believed.