Brewers/Cable Essay broadcasted on 89.7 WUWM Milwaukee
Press play to listen to my essay broadcasted on 89.7 WUWM's Lake Effect program on Sept 19, 2011.
To Cable or Not to Cable - OR - Holy Crap! The Brewers are REALLY GOING to WIN their Division!
A little perspective:
In 1982, my friend John and I sat in the last row of the leftfield bleachers at Milwaukee County Stadium during Game 5 of the World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals. We won. I was 14.
Guess what? Now I have two fourteen year-olds. If someone had told me back in ’82 that the Brewers wouldn’t win another division until I had children as old as I was back then, I probably would have become a Yankees fan. I mean, come on!
But here we are. It’s 2011. I have two Freshman in high school, and this is the first time my kids will actually have something to brag about pertaining to the Brewers.
Let’s face it: 2008 was a mess. The Brewers lost 15 of their first 19 games in September that year, leading to the firing of Ned Yost. Yes, they won 6 or their last 7, but their final victory of the season, a necessary one, came against a Cubs team that was resting several of its starters. That and a Mets loss allowed us to get into the playoffs. True, it gave us a chance, but no one was thinking we could go all the way, even with CC Sabathia.
This year is different. As I write this, the Crew is 10½ games ahead of the Cardinals, and though stranger things have happened in baseball, I am confident (and this is big for a guy who’s usually skeptical) that the Brewers will in fact win their first division title since I was a pimple-faced, cocky little punk in 9th grade at Brookfield East High School.
It’s all so glorious.
But the question remains: do I now purchase a cable TV package? After all, both the Division and the League series are to be aired on WTBS, NOT one of the 6 or 7 channels we get on our rabbit ears antennae.
You see, in 2000, my family moved back to the Midwest after a 6-year stint on the East Coast. After the move, other priorities took hold, and my wife and I spent the first month in our new house not worrying about cable TV, and instead we rented a lot of movies and watched what little we could on our antennae.
Turns out we didn’t miss cable even a little.
Here we are, over a decade later, and probably about $6000 richer than had we gotten cable. True, my children are considered weird, and their friends discuss shows my kids have never seen before, but they’ve gotten used to it, and we try to rent what few cable shows are worth watching through Netflix. My "cableless" children seem no worse for the wear.
But alas, this year is DIFFERENT. We’re talking MLB playoffs, baby. If my kids are as unlucky as I, we’ll still be talking about this baseball season TWENTY-NINE YEARS FROM NOW!! I'll be 72! Holy crap.
So really, can I honestly NOT get cable? I think not.
But then I have visions of a three game sweep by Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs, and me stuck with 256 channels of crap for the next twelve months.
But a victory. A National League Championship Series appearance, or even...gasp!...a World Series. I would pay a monthly cable fee ten times for that experience.
I’ll be calling Comcast in the morning.
An O'Hare Pick-up Nightmare
It’s an evening in June. My wife Alice is arriving at O’Hare from the East Coast, but it’s not going as planned; there are bad storms in the area. The following is a transcription of a text conversation between my wife and me (and my daughters when I’m driving). You be the judge as to whether texting helped or hindered this process.
7:18 PM, Alice
I am going to be delayed. Willing to pick me up? I am American Flt 4193.
7:19 PM, Paul
No problem.
Things get delayed more, and Alice still hasn’t landed by the time I pick up my daughters from a late summer school class. I take off straight from there around 10:30PM, assuming by that point that it’ll be a quick in and out at O’Hare. We arrive at the cell-phone lot and wait for further instructions.
10:50 PM, Paul
We’ll be parked in cell phone lot until you let us know
We wait and we wait. People are getting tired and edgy, but the girls don’t have summer school the next morning. No big deal.
11:11 PM, Paul
Getting close?
11:12PM , Alice
Oh goodness. There is no one here to move the jetway. I will let you know when I am off and on my way. 3 minutes, hopefully.
11:13 PM, Paul
Ok.
11:19PM, Alice
They are holding us hostage. Want to head home and I will grab a #*@# cab?
11:22 PM, Paul
Probably good idea. 294 was bumper to bumper going south. Could b clear but maybe better take Manheim. If things change for u soon let us know right away
We begin to exit the cell-phone lot and make our way toward Manheim Road.
11:23 PM, Alice
We are getting off! Can you still come?!
My daughters’ take control of the cell-phone.
11:23 PM, one of my daughters
Yes!!!
11:24 PM, Alice
Yippee!
We begin to make our way toward the terminal pickup.
11:24 PM, one of my daughters
Bottom level
We approach the roadway to get to the bottom level, but it’s bumper to bumper. Time to call an audible.
11:29 PM, one of my daughters
New instructions…Go upstairs…
Then again, the top level doesn’t look any better. In fact, it’s horrendous! Now there’s a certain degree of frustration setting in. I circle around and make my way back to the parking lot.
11:33PM, one of my daughters
Just kidding…just to get out it would be an hour…We’re parking…We’ll meet you on lower level by baggage claim.
Unfortunately, by this point Alice has already made her way outside and it waiting at the lower level. The rising frustration level isn’t confined to the car.
11:34 PM, Alice
No. I am standing here!
11:34 PM, one of my daughters
Yeah…but to get to u it’d be a long time
11:34 PM, Alice
Up or down?
11:35 PM, one of my daughters
Baggage claim!
11:35 PM, Alice
K. By Starbucks. Claim 9
11:35 PM, one of my daughters
Ok!
We park the car, Cubs level, get into the elevator, press down, and exit into the tunnels beneath the pickup area where we’d hoped to be ten minutes ago. I now have control of the cell-phone, which makes me feel a little better. Cuz I’m a guy.
11:37 PM, Paul
U can start walking down toward the lot
11:38 PM, Alice
There are 2 tunnels.
(I’m thinking, “Yes, I know there are 2 tunnels, but for gosh sakes, just get downstairs already!”) but I show great TEXTING RESTRAINT and edit myself, a skill I haven’t yet mastered while talking.
11:39 PM, Paul
Here now claim 9
Eureka! We have visual confirmation! Hugs are exchanged. Bags are rolled. We make it home by midnight (I decide to take Manheim) and tell my wife, “Next time, take a cab.”
The Clouds Part for Rufus
Foreboding clouds and cool winds yielded to a brilliant sky and mild temperatures last night for Rufus Wainwright’s fourth appearance at Ravinia in Highland Park, IL – this time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra – to perform five Shakespearean Sonnets, followed by a solo set of pop music.
Three of the sonnets originally appeared on 2010's All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, which Wainwright performed last year in Chicago with only piano accompaniment. This time the sonnets were backed by a full orchestra while the singer, wearing a tan blazer and vest, a flashy scarf and white pants, stood at center stage, his hands clasped at his front for much of the show. Rufus's vocal talents flourished in such a setting, and although some season-ticket holders might have not been sold on Wainwright as a classical artist (many of them left after intermission, or shortly thereafter), it’s undeniable that in pop music his vocal range and control have few equals. As for the orchestral arrangements, at times they were too busy, with embellishments that cluttered up the melody, but at their best – like in Sonnet 43 – they anchored Rufus’s singing superbly.
For the second half of the show, Rufus appeared onstage – surprisingly without a costume change – for a solo show accompanied by piano, save for four songs backed by acoustic guitar. His set list was less ambitious from his last Chicago appearance, sticking closely with fan favorites for the most part and ignoring his debut album, though he did unveil a new song devoted to publicist Barbara Charone, and he dusted off two lesser-played songs from his album Poses, “Grey Gardens” and “California.”
As always, Rufus was humorously self-deprecating on stage, admitting before playing “The Dream” that he might not be able to get through it. Last year, he struggled throughout the most difficult parts of the piece (if you can find me a more complicated piano part for a pop-song, I’d like to hear it) but managed to plow his way through. This time, Rufus had to stop, utter “Let’s try that again,” and then finally acquiesce after a few more attempts to find an on-ramp. “I can’t play it anymore,” he laughed, before playing a chord that allowed him to finish the piece. Perfection or not, the audience seemed genuinely appreciative at his efforts.
A few songs later, Rufus offered a new piece slated for his next pop album (to be produced by Mark Ronson), and said it wasn’t entirely set yet, but that he’d approach it as an “open rehearsal, which is what the show has sort of become.”
The show’s high points were from Rufus’s more intimate songs – “Dinner at Eight,” “Martha,” and “Zebulon” – all devoted to various trials and hardships with his family. During these pieces, the audience – at least those seated in the pavilion – fell completely silent, a feat which might not have been possible in a setting other than Ravinia.
The concert ended with the upbeat “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk,” along with two encores, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and “Going to a Town,” the last introduced with Rufus’s admission that “although it’s sometimes been hard, I still believe in Obama.”
If there were any Tea Party supporters in attendance, they opted to stay silent. When it comes to art, sometimes you gotta swallow a few political quips.
From Album to Tape to CD to .mp3 File to...the Cloud
Jon Pareles published an excellent article in the New York Times about the ever-evolving makeup of the music we listen to, and it all seems to be headed to the same inevitable conclusion: the cloud, which you may have already had exposure to on Amazon, Apple and Google. Cloud computing isn't new and it isn't limited to music - people have been creating Microsoft Office documents on-line for years - but with regard to music, the cloud simply refers to on-line storage that allows listeners to access music from multiple devices via an Internet connection, rather than having to copy mass quantities of storage from device to device.
For my own website, I've been using a DivShare to store my own compositions, though with the Big Boys now in the cloud business, I suspect it's only a matter of time before DivShare gets purchased.
Of course, having each music listener in the world own their own cloud requires storage - massive storage - and insane redundancy, not to mention user time. Remember how long it took you to convert your CDs to .mp3 files all those years ago? If you and I both own The White Album, does it make sense for each of us to have to upload the same album (again) and store it on-line? Why not just have the album stored in one place that both of us have access to?
Apple is all over this concept with iMatch, that - for a fee - will recognize music you own (legally or illegally) and provide access to their own copies. For those of us with hundreds or even thousands of CDs, this concept is an attractive one.
Cloud computing continues the trend of diminishing the value of music, and poses a tricky problem for artists who are already feeling the squeeze since physical ownership of a song became unnecessary. When listeners have access to any song at any time from any place, the song becomes something less in the hearts and minds of the listener. As Mr. Pareles wrote:
"Songs have become, for lack of a better word, trivial." Now anyone with Internet access has "an infinitude of choices immediately at hand. But each of those choices is a diminished thing; attainable without effort, disposable without a second thought, just another icon in a folder on a pocket-size screen with pocket-sized sound."