Postcards from home

- Every weekday I spend here in my ancestral home, I can probably be found watching Little House on the Prairie from 1-2 p.m. I forgot how delightful that show is. Perhaps I have a newfound understanding of it all because my travels back to the homeland take me not so far from Walnut Grove, MN, where the show was ostensibly located.

- I caved and bought a GPS unit. My shiny new Garmin nüvi 200W will be arriving in the mail on Wednesday. Now, I will have a pretty box that tells me to drive straight for seven hours when I head back to Sioux Falls next week. This marks the first full-fledged gadget acquisition since the Nintendo Wii in October and prior to that, the Nintendo DS last March. For the record, replacement gadgets like the Treo 755p and the 42" LCD do not count, as prior ownership of their predecessors diminishes the fun factor. Acquisition is always more entertaining than reacquistion and deserves a separate category.

- I also caved and finally bought prescription sunglasses. Now I won't be forced to wear my contacts when I ride my bike or drive on sunny days. This is not exciting for you, but it is exciting for me. Perhaps I will post a photo with them on and subject myself to your opinions. After all, Lens Crafters lets you return stuff for 30 days, no questions asked.

- In high school and college, I went through six boxes of contacts in a year. Now, I go through six boxes in about six years.

- Santa was good to me, and as requested, did most of her shopping at home furnishings stores. I look forward to wielding my salad spinner and crock pot often.

- I forgot how much I dislike winter, but not enough to undo any of the decisions that put me back in the middle of it.

- A few days ago, I listened to Young M.C.'s magnum opus, Stone Cold Rhymin', in its entirety. Definitely dated, but still some brilliant stuff in there. Then again, he's got an econ degree from USC. Most rappers today can't even get into community college. Also, he is not to be confused with this guy, who showed up for years as "Young, M.C." on the office directory in North Hall:



Not that this Young, M.C. wasn't also cool. Some rockin' good times were had in the honors section of Poli Sci 230, Politics in Multicultural Societies. Not so much rhymin' - more like stone cold intellectual discoursin'. But together we slayed the beast that is UW-Madison's ethnic studies requirement. And he never sent me to the principal's office.

- For your feel-good holiday blurb, this article about my cousin ran just before Christmas in the closest thing Green Bay has to a paper of record. I've never held the Lombardi trophy and Brett Favre doesn't know me by name, so as Green Bay goes, my cousin's got way more street cred than I do.

- Watching Chris Hansen bust sex predators on Dateline will never stop being hilarious. Also, the college girl they hire to play the part of the victim is hot.

Christmas Commercialism

A few weeks ago I had an exchange with SKR regarding how much we both cannot stand the holiday Lexus commercials. You know the ones - it usually involves some jerkoff buying a Lexus for the wife and parking it in the driveway with bow, or some bullshit like that. Like that happens.

But there is one commercial that has managed to make me chuckle every time I've seen it this holiday season, and it's all based on one simple and timeless childhood premise:

What if your parents really did get you that pony?

I bring you Verizon's ad, Pony. Praise can be directed to the folks at McCann Erickson in New York.



Oh, and while I'm here and talking about commercials, like I'll miss a chance to repost this goodie.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas with friends and family.

Putting my money where my mouth is...

Okay, you've all got me. This Huckabee nonsense is fun, and I certainly do wish him well in Iowa. But he'll get eaten alive in a general election, and given my Democratic options, I'm not sure that's the best thing for America.

I did, however, make my first political contribution ever this afternoon, to a guy who was the best choice for President eight years ago, and who today is still the best choice for President...

Much thanks to TR for his encouragement/prodding and also for offering that matching grant for my contribution. Together we've almost purchased a radio spot in some small New Hampshire town.

Here is my quiet prayer:

- A Huckabee win in Iowa, preferably around 8-10 points. McCain seems to be getting some movement, and it would be hilarious to see him finish ahead of Romney, but I'm not holding my breath.

- McCain's continued upward movement in New Hampshire leads him to a victory there, just like eight years ago. At this point, Romney is completely on the ropes.

- McCain becomes the logical alternative for all those people supporting Rudy who want someone who will be tough in the international arena but are uncomfortable with the fact that Rudy is kind of a slimeball in his personal and professional dealings.

- Race becomes McCain versus Huckabee, a race in which Huckabee will get thrown under the bus for lacking the requisite foreign relations experience to appropriately deal with two of the three issues most important to GOP voters: terrorism/Iraq and federal spending. Immigration will be a wash between the two.

For the record, I would consider voting for Huckabee but not for Giuliani or Romney. If it comes to one of those two, I'm probably writing someone in.

And until I am proven wrong, my prediction on the other side remains "never bet against Bill Clinton."

Oops, they're doing it again

The Spears clan reminds me, in many ways, of the British royal family. What the royals are to the British aristocracy, the Spears clan is to the millions of redneck trash here in America.

I never thought the day would come when one of Britney's relatives would out white-trash her. At least, so soon. But that day has arrived, as Britney's 16-year-old sister and star of one of Nickelodeon's top-rated shows has decided to get knocked up.

While the fourth season of Zoey 101 is in the can already, one has to think that airing it could become an awkward prospect for the nation's number-one kiddie network. How do you air it without being accused of casually endorsing teenage pregnancy?

Apparently Jamie-Lynn and the baby daddy aren't sticking it out. At least, that's what his myspace profile tells us:



Whoa, whoa, wait... people still USE myspace?

Also, I think there's an outside chance that mom's scheduled book on Christian parenting might be put on hold as a result of this latest crisis. So sad. When will something go right for the Spears girls?

Oh, yeah... maybe when they learn to close their legs.

For a good summary of the year in Spears, head over to ABC News.

Just when you think you've hit the bottom of the barrel...

... you lift up the barrel and find the music critics sticking to the bottom of it.

Need proof? Take this fine example from the music critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. There are many out there like it, so I am not picking on this reviewer in particular. Her review of a November SLSO performance featuring the works of Janacek, Mozart and Mahler, however, is an excellent example of how little many music critics regularly contribute to the field of classical music today.

Here's a snippet:

Those who say they want only "the classics" from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra should have been well-pleased with this weekend’s concerts at Powell Symphony Hall. The programming was all solidly Mitteleuropean, all tuneful and all thoroughly gemütlich...

The opener was – appropriately enough – the Suite from "The Cunning Little Vixen," by Czech composer Leos Janacek. Janacek’s charming opera is filled with colorfully orchestrated sounds of nature and Moravian folk music. Belohlavek and the orchestra gave this ultimately life-affirming score a solid, idiomatic reading...

Leonard has a beautiful, caramel-hued sound, absolutely even from top to bottom, with superb facility in the coloratura passages. Her singing in the Mozart carried conviction; her Mahler radiated childlike joy. It’s not an enormous voice, but it carried well. It was an undiluted pleasure to hear her in both works...

I always joked about musicology being the domain of so many failed performers. And reading reviews like this, I've got a good idea where those who failed at both performance and musicology ended up.

"Solidly Mitteleuropean?" "Thoroughly gemütlich?" "Life-affirming score?" "Undiluted pleasure?" "Caramel-hued sound?"

With all due respect to the writer, what the hell is any of this worth? What does caramel sound like? It's like when wine reviewers talk about a beverage having hints of cat's pee. Um, most of us aren't drinking or sniffing kitty urine much these days. Perhaps you could find a more relevant descriptor?

Can someone please tell me what there is to being a music critic now other than sitting at a desk, reading some program notes, scoring comp tickets from your employer to sweet concerts that other people pay good money to see, then going back to your laptop and stringing a bunch of five-dollar adjectives together into something that's supposed to pass for journalism?

I suppose the reason I object to reading reviews like this is that, fundamentally, I don't see the point in them. A symphony concert isn't the same thing as tonight's Bears/Vikings game. Absolutely nobody is itching to open tomorrow morning's paper to read what the armchair quarterbacks have to say about last night's show. Did the oboist nail the A? Did the soloist's dress match the mood of her concerto? Was the conductor in tails or some Nehru jacket that bears an uncanny resemblance to Joseph's coat of many colors?

Nobody cares. There's no need for an orchestral box score. Nobody's scouring the paper to see how the Oregon Symphony's oboe section did last night, wondering if that English Horn player is worth picking up off of waivers for their fantasy orchestra team.

The horn player had a bad night, you say? Yeah, that happens to all of us. It's one of the hazards of the job. Unlike music critics, we don't get a delete button and we don't have editors around to keep us from putting our foot in our mouth.

To my eyes, the problem with many contemporary music critics is that instead of writing music criticism, they're writing performance criticism. The review in question contributes nothing scholarly and barely anything educational in regard to the pieces performed. In doing so, it fails to seize an opportunity to contribute something of actual worth. Instead of educating people about the music, it educates people about a performance that nobody who wasn't there will ever get to see.

Most professionals I know, myself included, try not to read the reviews the same way we try not to stare at car accidents. But hey, we're human too. Sometimes it's hard to resist.

So I come bearing my simple request for all the world to read. I respectfully ask that no music critic ever say anything nice about me. My career will manage just fine without a biography that mentions how you think I have a "glowing and radiant tone that cascades through the hall" or "mellifluous slurs that run slowly and smoothly over the listener not unlike the creamy goodness that emerges from a chocolate fondue fountain."

In return, please try to look the other way when I paste a note on occasion. I'm not out to make a hash of things or to ruin your evening, I promise. But I'm a horn player and bad things will come out of my bell occasionally. Such is one's fate when they choose a career path that's slightly easier than tossing baseballs through LifeSavers.

But you would know of no such difficulties, since your job is about as hard as throwing a baseball in the ocean.