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03/11/2005 Entry: "Musical TV"

OK, I got some music/tv related stuff I wanna throw at ya. First off, something I like to call "mic clapping." This seems to be very popular with young singers these days, especially those on American Idol. Now I'd much rather be watching the History channel or the Discovery Channel, or watching Saving Private Ryan or something like that. But Susan likes it, so I watch it. You know, the whole Jules vegetarian thing. Anyway, these people get up and sing. And of course, one hand is holding the microphone. So they can't clap their hands together. So what they do is, they take their mic hand, and clap it against the microphone. It annoys me so much, once one of them starts doing it, I can't watch. I look away. No real singer claps against their microphone. Why this group of hacks does is beyond me. This one chick was doing it all out of time, not even close to the downbeat. Then, she starts spanking the mic so hard, that the concussion actually telegraphs to the mic. She's hitting the thing so hard you can hear it. Idols, just hold onto the mic. Do all your other showmanship stuff with your other hand.

Next up, close captioning. In the Batty household, we have three baby modes: babies are being good, babies are crying, or babies are sleeping (or trying to get to sleep). In modes B and C, it's nessecary to have the close captioning on. In B, you can't hear the TV over the crying, and in C you keep it low to keep them from waking up. So I'm watching this Eric Clapton guitar-slingers concert on PBS. It's all about guitar players, up there wailing away on their axes. And, the show's got close captioning. This may be pretty politically incorrect, but how many deaf people are going to be watching a concert on TV? Anyway, PBS does an outstanding job on their close captioning. I saw stuff like:

"Guitar player returns to main theme."
"Drummer leads band in heavy riff."
"Guitar picks tender notes softly. Tempo increases. Now playing with urgency. Guitarist bends note wildly as band kicks percussively."

It was funny! Only PBS would put this kind of crafting in their close captioning. It's not just "Guitar strums." No. It's "guitarist coaxes butterfly wings from rosewood fretboard, while bassist allows wallowing murkiness of doom to emminate from utter darkness, and percussionist allows cymbals to sautee over medium flame."

I thought it was a hoot. Your mileage may vary, past performance is not indicitive of future results, people can (and do) lose money.

Posted by Maria @ 03/11/2005 11:05 PM EST