stevejones
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Writing two posts like these back to back may be enough to have me certified, but so be it.
A short while ago I was on a TV news program, on a panel with a couple of other people, discussing children and sexual predation online. It wasn't a heated debate or anything (no one on the panel was for it or something) but it was kind of depressing to hear about what's happening to some kids. Afterwards I got in my car, turned on the radio, and the Who's "The Kids Are Alright" was playing. And I felt better. Let's hope that indeed the kids are alright.
I had a very strange thing happen yesterday.
Remember those classic 60s and 70s sitcom episodes in which a character could somehow 'receive' radio broadcasts in their head? I think there was a Brady Bunch episode in which one of the kids (probably ever-picked on Jan) got braces and those somehow acted as an antenna, etc., and there may have been a Gilligan's Island episode as well.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon the Kinks' "Lola" popped into my head. That's not terribly unusual, songs come and go through my brain all the time (though that one has no special place in the rotation), but a few minutes later when I got in the car a local radio station was playing - you guessed it - "Lola." I chuckled at the coincidence, switched to another station (a nearby college one) and they too were playing "Lola," though it was a sort of 80s-ish/alternative version of it (I'm not sure by whom).
Rather than believing I was getting radio signals to the brain, is it possible that there are some sort of musical 'convergences,' that there's a 'right place, right time,' for particular songs? I could write this experience off to coincidence, but I'd love to have someone accurately calculate the odds of all of it happening as it did.
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Obviously it's god reminding you that It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola. Spread the word, brother!
Last month I went to a show at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, sponsored by WXRT-FM. They've been doing this for a couple or so years now, bringing in a few bands each year to play at the zoo in their Jammin' At The Zoo thing. Anyway, the show started at 6pm according to the website for it, and nowhere did it mention opening acts. In fact, most people who went brought their kids, as often happens now at TMBG shows thanks to their children's CDs. Now, it wasn't billed as a kids show, but with a 6pm start time and no opening acts...OOPS, there were opening acts, only they didn't get posted to the website until no more than a couple or so days prior to the show.
Tally Hall weren't bad (though I could've done without the rap interludes, it seems the twenty-somethings from Lincoln Park particularly dug those moments), The Bad Examples were...well, bad. In a really mediocre way.
By the time The Bad Examples finished their set it was around 9pm, and the kids in the audience were dropping like flies.
What made matters difficult is that the stage for this series is oriented such that there's really not very much room in front of it (it kind of reminds me of Chicago's Metro that way) but nevertheless everyone wants to pack into the middle. So now it's getting toward 10pm as TMBG start, there are kids asleep all over the place, teens and twenty-sommethings who've been drinking a bit (thankfully I didn't notice any roaring drunk people) and parents who want to stay for the show but are worried about their kids possibly getting trampled.
Is there some reason someone, WXRT, the zoo, the promoters, SOMEONE, couldn't have made it really clear way, way beforehand that there'd be opening acts and put the schedule for this show online? What took so long to get it there? Everyone I spoke to at the show said they hadn't even seen it at all, not having bothered to go back to the site after buying their tickets (and why should they, it's not like they've booked a ticket with an airline and have to see if the schedule has changed).
I don't blame TMBG in the least, they're very up front about their shows not being for kids unless specifically advertised as such. But with this show being a) at a zoo, and b) at 6pm, neither can I blame ticket buyers who thought it would be a kids show anyway. One of the sponsors, some real estate company, must've thought it was a kids show too, they were giving away coloring books and crayons as people entered the gates!
TMBG were great, as usual, and it would've been nice if more of the people in the audience would have been less distracted by having to watch over their kids.
And it'd be nice if the stage and overall setup of this thing is re-thought before they do it again next summer.
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I'm jealous of all the kids that got to go to the TMBG concert. I wish my parents were cool enough to take me to a show like that, and how long has it been since I've gone to the zoo.
But yeah, sounds like someone definitely failed that show. Hopefully someone complained to the appropriate people so that they can learn from their mistakes.
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Not really related, but last night when I set my alarm, Billie Holiday was singing "I Hear Music," and I was too tired to listen to the whole thing so I was like "well maybe it'll be on when I wake up". And you know what? it was.
PS The Kids are Just Alright.