Tom UnTerrific

Monticello Media announced the arrival of a new radio format to the Charlottesville area -- Tom.

Sometimes people are so deep into a particular subject that they lose touch with how the general public looks at it. And the development of the single-syllable-male-name-radio-format is a perfect example of that.

According to their press release on VARTV.com:

"Tom is a new radio station at 107.5 FM that is unlike anything available in the Charlottesville market because Tom plays Anything. Anytime.

Traditionally music radio stations have limited themselves to playing one particular genre of music such as country, classic rock, oldies, etc. playing the same songs over, and over, and over… Tom is anything but traditional. Tom may play a U2 song followed by the Bee Gees then Matchbox 20, Lou Rawls, Def Leppard, Madonna, Nickleback then Earth, Wind and Fire."

"Anything, anytime?" How about "Some things -- a lot."

Whether it's called Tom, Bob, Sam, Dave or whatever, the intent is to present a greater variety of music, simulating an iPod on shuffle play. The promise is a wild, crazy, unpredictable listening adventure. The reality falls far short of that, primarily because of the short-sightedness of the programmers.

Imagine someone who ate every single meal at McDonald's. Of course they're excited about the addition of the McRib sandwich to the menu. Pork?!? At McDonald's?!?!! It's wild! It's crazy!

Perhaps to someone who's only been exposed to McDonald's fare. To the average person, a rib sandwich at McDonald's is nice, but not earth-shaking. And many who like barbecue (whether North Carolina style or Kansas City style) consider the McRib to be too bland and characterless to be taken seriously.

And the same is true with Tom/Jack/Sam/Bob/Dave. Radio programmers who never strayed far from their top 40 formats looked at what the kids were doing with their iPods and tried to mimic it. Instead of a list of a few hundred songs, they expanded it to a few thousand. How? By combining the tightly regulated playlists of a few closely related formats. So instead of just top 40, Tom/Jack/Sam/Bob/Dave gives you the approved top 40 songs, the approved adult contemporary songs, the approved 70's and 80's oldies, and so on.

Here's the programming philosophy of the Sam format: [italics mine]

"..the format that delivers hit after hit from different eras and different genres, without getting stale or repetitive. Meticulously researched to pinpoint exactly what Adults 25-54 want to hear and aren't sick and tired of, Sam supplies the highest familiarity with the least amount of burn."

My local station, WOLJ, uses Sam from Westwood One, with the slogan "You never know what we'll play next."

Perhaps not, but I know what they won't play next. No classical music. No jazz. No blues. No folk. No bluegrass. And most importantly, no local music.

I've got it all on my iPod, though, and more.

And what about the artists they do play? Any chance of hearing anything other than the same old tunes over and over? They may play "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, but what about their other hit, "Sun Street?" I've got that on my iPod, too. Ditto with other songs by other "one hit wonders," such as the Ides of March, Thomas Dolby, The Jam, and more.

Tom/Bob/Dave/Sam sounds fresh -- when compared to current radio fare. But placed against the incredible variety of music currently available to almost everyone, it's like putting a McRib sandwich side-by-side with the fare at Arthur Bryant's. It's just plain sad.

And saddest of all the large number of people whose musical tastes have been so stunted by a steady diet of commercial radio that they will indeed be thrilled by this "wild and crazy format."

- Ralph

Death in Comics -- the passing of Lisa Moore

I've previously discussed the concept of death in the daily comics, albeit as part of an examination of the success of "For Better or Worse." This past week Lisa Moore, a major character in "Funky Winkerbean" died of cancer in a particularly well-thought out sequence.

Some folks I know (and I suspect the majority of newpaper comics readers) just don't understand the appeal of a contining story strip. If it doesn't setup and deliver a gag in three panels, then what's the point? They preceive such strips as boring, and cannot comprehend why death is even in the comics at all.

I'll concede that to someone who's used to a comic to begin and end a story in three panels might think a story arc running over several weeks to be moving at a glacial pace. And yes, death is unpleasant, but (used properly) very necessary.

The reward of reading a continuing strip is that increasing familiarity with the characters and thier backgrounds adds depth to the story and greater impact to the conflict. And when one of those characters that you've read about and become attached to over the years shuffles off this mortal coil, it can be a very moving experience.

Lisa's life and death are a good example of those rewards.

We first met Lisa in high school. Fellow student Les Moore had a crush on her. He was one of the few to stand by her when she became pregnant (by someone else). We read on as Lisa put her baby up for adoption, and dealt with the emotional fallout of teen pregnancy.

In adulthood, we saw Lisa battle breast cancer. We read about the courtship of Les and Lisa, and her struggle to finish law school and make something of herself. We saw them purchase their home, and watched them raise their daughter.

So when Lisa's cancer returned, the emotional impact was greater for the long-time reader. It wasn't fair -- this shouldn't be happening to Lisa, who's lived through so much. Knowing how hard she had worked to set up a practice, it meant something to us when her deteriorating health forced her to take down her shingle.

When Darin Fairgood recently discovered Lisa was his natural mother and reunited with her, our knowledge of her guilt over giving up her baby made it a poignent moment indeed.

Even her final wish to see the leaves again resonated with long-time readers. For years, Batiuk ran an autumn sequence about leaves falling off the trees. For the leaves, dropping off the branch was death. For those who caught the reference, Lisa's last wish had added meaning.

We forget sometimes that "entertainment" isn't always synomemous with laff riots. Any story that elicits an emotional response -- be it joy, sadness, fright, nostalgia, or whatever -- is entertaining. By that definition, the passing of this comic strip character on Thursday, October 4, 2007, was very entertaining -- moreso for me than that day's episode of "Garfield."

- Ralph

A Political Breath of Fresh Air

Yesterday I received in the mail the most effective piece of political campaign literature ever. It was sent by Steve Satterfield, who's running for the Board of Supervisors here in Orange County, Virginia.

The postcard was the model of simplicity. It merely stated the number of county employees and their total salary for 2004 and 2007. It then listed the key personnel of the county by position (not name), their salary, benefits, car allowance and yearly vacation.

At the bottom was a citation for the source of the information, and that was basically it. (Click on the image to expand it to a legible size.)

Of course the message is perfectly clear. In a county where the median income is per family is a little over $48,000, are these salaries, and their growth justified?

I found this postcard refreshing. There's no attack on the opposing candidate (nor even a mention of the Loyal Opposition). There's no character assassination of any of the county administrators. There's no three-word excerpt from a newspaper "proving" that the opposing candidate is in league with the Devil.

There's not even any bolded or highlighted information to guide the reader to the conclusion the sender wants.

Just a simple statement of facts. And Satterfield respects my intelligence enough to let me make of them what I will.

If I think $165,841 is adequate compensation for the job our County Adminisrator is doing, then there's no issue here.

Taking the total salaries and dividing staff into it, I discover that in 2004 the median county employee salary was $19,633. Three years later it's $29,535. If, as a taxpayer who's property has just been reassessed, I'm happy with that increase, then fine. I should vote for the other guy.

Of all the county employees I know, none enjoyed a $10.000 raise over the course of the last three years. So I have to ask, where did all that money go? And, because to Satterfield, I have a list in front of me suggesting the answers.

Thank you, Mr. Satterfield, for just presenting the facts and letting me draw my own conclusions. Dare I say it? Satterfield reported, and he let me decide.

By the way -- there's also some School Board seats coming open this fall. If any of those candidates are paying attention, a similar mailing documenting salaries and growth in the Orange County School System would be equally effective.

- Ralph

Dueling Classics

As we saw in the last post, Ralph can really dig deep when it comes to finding movies (maybe he'll write about his affection for old serials some time soon). But his post got me thinking about another revisited movie I enjoyed recently.

It's funny how your memory can play tricks on you. I remembered seeing "Bad Day at Black Rock" on TV when I was a youngster, and being impressed by it. But it took a second viewing to really bring home the strength of this movie.

It starts with a great cast. Spencer Tracy leads the way with his Oscar-nominated performance as a one-armed war vet whose appearance sets the town on edge. He's tough and taciturn, but not so tough that you can't detect his character's anxiety as he realizes he's in imminent danger. Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are perfect heavies, and Robert Ryan as the local boss is smooth, yet on edge -- fearing what secrets Tracey's character may reveal. Walter Brennan is capable as always, as a conflicted undertaker who finds the courage to resist the local toughs and speak out in the town of Black Rock's dirty little secret.

The screenwriting is taut, and the cinematography captures the isolation and loneliness of the high-desert setting in glorious Cinemascope color. It's film noir set in the sun-bleached sunshine.

And my memory playing tricks on me? Well, I thought the movie was filmed in black and white, not color. But then again, in the late 1960s, when I first saw this on TV, all we had was a black-and-white set. It goes to show how good performances are the key to a good movie. But if you've got a 16:9 TV be sure to check out this classic in all it's color widescreen goodness.

Ken

All Through the Night - a forgotten classic

Hooray for Netflix! Thanks to their deep catalog I revisited a movie this weekend that I hadn't seen since I was twelve -- and it was even better than I remembered.

"All Though the Night" (1941) casts Humphrey Bogart as "Gloves" Donahue, a dapper sports promoter/gambler that would be quite at home in a Damon Runyon story. His affable gang includes a young Jackie Gleason, Frank McHugh and a dour-faced William Demarest (Uncle Charlie on "My Three Sons") as Sunshine. And there's additional comedic help from Phil Silvers, Edward Brophy, and Wallace Ford.

There's a raft of other well-know character actors as well. Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorrie play the bad guys, along with ice queen Judith Anderson. Barton MacLane barks his way through another film, along with Edward Brophy. The redoubtable Jane Darwell (from "The Grapes of Wrath") plays Donahue's mother.

On the surface, it's a breezy little thriller where gangsters cross paths with Nazi spies. A good example of the comedic flavor occurs when Gloves Donahue and Sunshine assume the identities of two spies to infiltrate a Fifth Column meeting and discover their plans. It turns out the identities they stole belonged to the two out-of-town munitions experts who now must make a report. They stall for time with some classic 1940's double talk.

But the movie has a serious side, too. The spy ring forces an expatriate, Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne), to work for them by holding her father at Dachau. Gloves, who begins the movie not caring at all what happens on the front page of the paper, eventually finds out what Dachau is, and what the Nazis are all about. The film follows an American moving from apathy about world events to an understanding that what happens abroad impacts his daily life -- and even his way of life.

An interesting turning point comes when the urbane master spy Franz Ebbing is confronted by Donahue. From Ebbing's point of view, they should be allies. And at the beginning of the film Donahue might have agreed. But not after learning about what Ebbing stands for.

The past is often filtered through the experience of the present, and I wonder how others might interpret that scene. I can see some people identifying the current administration in Ebbing's words.

"It's a great pity, Mr. Donahue, that you and I should oppose each other. We have so much in common. You are a man of action. You take what you want and so do we. You have no respect for democracy. Neither do we. It's clear we should be allies."

While others might point to this dialogue to demonstrate the danger of disunity in the face of terrorism (our latter-day Fifth Columnists).

"Do you ever see the faces of these Americans as they read the headlines? Already we have split them into angry little groups flying at each other, unconscious that they are doing our work. You'll see. In a year, perhaps less than a year, they will all be taking their orders from us."

Of course the original message was a lot simpler -- be a patriot, and do your part.

I saw this aired on WTTG 5 in Washington way back in the 1960's when they did Sunday movies. I only saw it once, but always remembered it fondly -- especially Bogart's rapid-fire banter.

I've never met anyone who's seen this film, and that's too bad. If you only know Bogart through "The Maltese Falcon," or "Casablanca," give "All Through The Night" a try. It's an evening's entertainment for sure.

- Ralph