My Thin Rhinoceros Skin

Distrust anyone who wants to teach you something.
~Robert Fripp

I get lots of emails. Most of them are very nice. Some of them are not so nice.

Rhinoceros skin. I suppose that's a common metaphor to say that a person is not overly sensitive or thin- skinned. I am not particularly thick-skinned by any means, but after I calm down from my homicidal state, I can see that most of these disturbingly critical emails and phone calls are pathetic cries for attention. That still does not quell my homicidal rage. Sometimes it rolls off my back and sometimes the audacity is simply jaw-dropping.

Engineers get special communications from know-it-all blowhards who insist that it's our fault when reception is poor. One idiot actually said, "I am an Audiophile (his caps) with a gifted ear." I'm not kidding.

It's all our fault and we deeply apologize for whatever is wrong
with your lousy reception out there in TV land.

One idiot repeatedly told an engineer he had issues and our guys actually drove out to his bleamin' house. Lo and behold, an aerial on his roof was supposed to suffice in this digital age! He wasted state resources, so that he could garner attention from us.

The delightful people I sometimes hear from are not just rude, but condescending.


Classical music listeners are the worst. To believe them, you might think I just stepped off a turnip truck and my best shot at writing my name is an X.

They wish to educate me.

Seriously? I bow to my friends in their respective fields and in no way, shape or form am I the baddest dude in music (or academia), but most of the time, I feel comfortable among my peers. That's what matters most to me.


One college prof blowhard said he didn't want his students listening to me because I mispronounced (in his opinion) a title of a work. I have news for him: college kids are more concerned with hooking up and rolling doobies than listening to public radio or to his terminally dull lectures.

Then there comes the offer "to help."

No thanks, Mr. Bowtie. I'll pass on the tutelage.

It is the utter presumption of superiority that drives my blood pressure into dangerous zones.

The worst of them may be the ex-announcers who sit around and latch on to every mistake. This one guy kept calling me and while he had a friendly tone, I kept catching his little put downs. These conversations continued because I try to respect all callers, but soon the devil came through the mask.  I was a gentleman and never said anything until one day he stated, "I would listen to (xxx station in a bigger city), but I can only get it in my car."

I held my tongue which wanted to unleash, "Then get in your car, motherfucker and quit calling me."

From that day forward, I never allowed his calls to be forwarded to me, only voice mail.

Not to further drink of poisonous thought, but there was one ass from the northern part of the state who made it his mission to piss me off or bring a downer to an otherwise happy week. I found out that this guy applied for my job and was turned down. He even gave money to ensure his position.

Well, he failed to get the gig and punished me for it. Most of all, he wanted attention. A really poisonous person by my reckoning.

Of what then did ye learne?

This is one of many reasons I enjoy my weekends, vacations and a genuinely look forward to retirement. I imagine myself staring vacantly at the ocean on some forgotten part of the Outer Banks. More than slightly blotto from an aged rum and a real guarantee that my inbox will be filled with happy, friendly emails from friends who want to come visit my island bungalow.

When the ghosts ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

American Horror Story on FX. Watch if you like to be scared. Dark, sexy, freaky and convincing.

Excellent cast, great pacing and ghostly thrills.
Jessica Lange should get the Emmy.

This is NPR: Negative Public Relations

Lisa Simeone has been canned from Soundprint because she attended an "Occupy" rally.

Geez guys, after Juan Williams, you might want to keep from making such PR blunders, but I guess you didn't learn your lesson.

Home is Where the Hero Lies

Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers) plays a
marine who has been rescued from terrorist
captivity, but has he turned?

SHO's Homeland is daring and compelling. Damian Lewis is a chameleon who can go from looking like the nicest guy in the world to a man who looks insane.

Claire Dane plays the CIA agent who own zealotry borders on mania. She's convinced that this is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Mandy Patinkin (btw, who is notorious for leaving in the middle of productions) is the doubting Thomas reining in Dane and her unfounded suspicions.

Who is playing for who? Nothing is as it seems. Trust is hard to come by.

There's already been one character goneski.

Canceled

NBC has canceled freshman drama The Playboy Club.
I'm a little. but not a lot surprised.


"Playboy Club's cancellation comes after the drama premiered Sept. 20 to underwhelming ratings, attracting 5 million viewers and a 1.6 rating in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic."

Ratings, not sexplotation, killed the bunnies.

"The series faced a backlash almost from the start, as the Parents Television Council called for a boycott and urged sponsors to pull out of the show that starred Amber Heard and Eddie Cibrian in a 1960s-set story about the Chicago Playboy Club and the bunnies and men who loved them.



Seven advertisers exited the series in the series’ second week after PTC president deemed the show a “commercial disaster” and called for the network to cancel the “degrading and sexualizing program immediately.”

Really?

To Badly Go Where None Dare Go

Sonny Bono's 1967 Inner Views is now a real contender
for worst album ever made. Scientists are studying this
as we speak.

I consider myself to be very amateur student of bad film. Two boxsets of Drive-In Classics and Horror Classics on the home DVD shelf are not there just for looks or an outward sign of ironic hipness. My wife and I have watched a majority of these bad, bad cinematic examples for the sheer pleasure of bad cinema. This interest extends to bad music. To clarify, not the bad music I hear at the local super market (formulaic Nashville, Emo, etc.), but music that was produced with serious intention.

Today, my colleague played me a track from this album.

Dear Lord! When they were punishing William Shatner, they were aiming low. Sonny Bono (God rest your soul) may have made the worst celebrity lp ever.

"Pammies on a Bummer" easily tops anything on that sacred document of Shatneralia.

Did Bono not hear the awfulness or was he just cashing in on the moment of popularity?

Whatever the reason, once you make vinyl, it's forever.

The Rhetoric of Arrogance

This hateful son-of-a-bitch asks the most outrageous of things from
record companies: fair payment of royalties. How ridiculous and
presumptuous of this menace. Let him eat cake!

So, you kids dreamed of being a professional rock musician? Be glad the gods never punished you.


From the RF diary Thursday, 29th September 2011 :

Now, onto OMG! – it’s UMG. The latest development in this sad example of a large company, making a series of mistakes which it initially denied, then grudgingly fiddled with and acknowledged some culpability, followed by more denials, obfuscations, threats, bullying and an Outside Lawyer Man sent in to settle with us for a fraction of what is properly due. An Outside Lawyer man because the issue is not worthy of UMG staff’s time, let alone the time of Power Possessor Numero Uno.



Nevertheless, the three principals of two small companies, Panegyric and DGM, are themselves dealing with the repercussions of deliberate slipperynesses at considerable cost to our creative and business endeavours. Guestbook posters who ask – why don’t you do XYZ and undertake these wonderful wheezes to delight your loyal and engaged customers? – now have one clear answer as to how several worthwhile projects are not projecting, with or without a K: we are being diddled and dissed by the largest music group in the world.


When we act badly, we hurt other people. When we know we have acted badly, and persist with the course of action generated by our bad behavior, other people get more than hurt: their sense of decency is offended, their confidence in social and professional norms undermined. Where the larger business culture accepts bad practice as standard practice, such as in the music industry (within my direct experience), and financial services (some within and mostly without my personal experience), the larger society becomes unsustainable, in the longer term. In the medium term, there is increasing breakdown. In the short term, there are resorts to conventional forms of redress, both formal and informal.

More Tube Stuff

OK, I watch commercial television. Call me low-brow. I don't own a jacket with patches on the sleeves either. I think it's got the best writing right now, particularly cable. Don't know why, but it does.



"Hey, let's see what Dexter is up to tonight!"

 PBS is only a fraction of what we watch. Guess what PBS? The British programs are the best programming on your airwaves. Shouldn't that say something? You better get more compelling (Laurence Welk is a joke that even SNL mocks.) and follow the example set by cable or you will go the way of the eight-track tape.

1. Revenge. That little slam against PBS being said, there is something artificial about network TV. ABC's Revenge is a great example. While Emily VanCamp does a delightful turn as a woman out to destroy despicable Martha's Vineyard snoots responsible for the ruination and death of her father, there is something almost too predictable and clean about this show. Network TV has this way of making everything look so perfect that only the best actors can penetrate the sterility.
 Madeleine Stowe does a great turn as the ice-bitch-queen of the Martha hive. Imagine if HBO had done this show. Now that would be a real fun time.

My rating: not bad, but let's rev it up a bit.

Critics have been praising Dechanel
as the goofy, but lovable, Jess on
New Girl. I liked the false teeth she
insisted on wearing to a wedding.

2. New Girl. The premise is kinda loopy: hot, but goofy to the point past annoying, girl, Jess (Zoey Deschanel), is a recent victim of a romantic breakup. She needs a place to live, so there's these three guys who happen to have a room for her in their apartment. Sounds mighty thin? Yep, but Deschanel is a hoot as a dorky misfit. The writing is good so far, but I'm not sure this is going to last.

My rating: Not bad and keep the laughs coming.

3. Terra Nova. I had low, low expectations for this one. Like SyFy channel low. CGI dinosaurs better be mighty convincing or I'm wincing. Premise: earth is dying (we done kilt it. them eco-assholes were right. huh.) and conveniently a hole in the fabric of time (I'm wincing here) allows folks to go back 65 million years when the earth was new and filled with large dinos. The novo society not only must  survive the raging carnivores, but a rogue group of people who split from the tribe to form their own society. Overall, it's not bad. I could skip the ubiquitous teen-love interest storyline, but the youth demographic prevails in network world. Let's hope this show doesn't go the way of the dinosaur unto extinction.

My rating: good start, now let the carno-devouring games begin.

4. Charlie's Angels. One episode said it all: some remakes shouldn't be remade. "Goodbye, angels." It's all beauty, slick, stylish and pretty lame.

My rating: Not this time, thank you.

5.  Dexter. This is some dark shit. If you let your kids watch this, you suck as a parent. That being said, Dexter is red hot and the reason cable is kicking the ass of network TV every week.

My rating: a "killer" of a show.

6. Hung. I am the only one in my household with any affection for this odd little show. It's inappropriate and naughty, naughty, naughty, but the humor is what saves it from being Skin-o-max and the show from taking the show too seriously. Thomas Jane understates and that's why his character works.

My rating: fun, light, good stuff.

Awfulness Revealed

Want a laugh?

Album covers are a thing of the past, but back in the dark ages, they meant something to us.There were some great ones, but then some absurd ones.

I don't think this truly qualifies as awful,
but annoying will do.