11/11/13
DISTURBING video of Venezuelan electronics looters!
http://www.youtube.com/v/3D4Zktt_dCE?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&showinfo=1&feature=share&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=EaB-1fqlOss8qdJvx2h8KA
11/9/13
A certain (former) teen celeb was back in the headlines recently…..
(12/19 response to VICE Magazine: I know these 2 recently divorced, & the guy who was foolish enough to take her last name despite never marrying her went public with his equally foolish attempt to get his otherwise unknown (at least to me) group some publicity, but that doesn't give you the right to just bash everybody involved in the proceedings! Just because her latest album was a so-called "eponymous" album, doesn't give you the right to call her irrelevant at this stage of her life! Last time I checked, your organization was irrelevant until crazy guy Dennis Rodman came calling & begged you to visit the "hermit kingdom" of North Korea with him! That's not even 1 of my biggest complaints with your critique of this woman & her music… My biggest complaints with your pointless critique of this album are, in no particular order: 1: You mentioned the Sex Pistols, who, last time I checked, haven't released anything new since 4 singles in 2007 & a bootleg concert album the following year! I don't really give any you-know-whats about the fact that most of Ms. Lavigne's newest album was on the radio last year, & for that matter, I don't really give any you-know-whats that she hasn't followed the conventional music industry track (no pun intended) record by releasing any sort of "best of" albums yet… The fact that you insulted everybody else's intelligence by claiming that she didn't know the "Sex Pistols", or that she "wasn't punk", is where you crossed the line with me! I'd also like to remind you ******* about the way Sid what's-his-face went out: 10/12/78: stabs his GF dead in an NYC hotel room - tries to commit suicide 10 days later; 2/1/79: after 55 days at Rikers Island, shoots himself full of heroin; dies at his new GF's apartment during a celebration of the ****** having received a bailout in the 1st place!
(12/20 UPDATE: Dennis Rodman is apparently back in the "hermit kingdom", North Korea, yet again… VICE "bankrolled" him last time, & apparently, they're at it again!
Rodman on his newest dictator friend, Lil'Kim (the emphasis in the quotes is mine): "I can't control what they do with their government, I can't control what they say or how they do things here," he said. "I'm just trying to come here as a sports figure and try to hope I can open the door for a lot of people in the country." "I've come over to see my friend, and people always give me a little hard time about me saying that." "I'm very proud to say he's my friend, because he hasn't done anything to put a damper, to say any negative things about my country." As if those comments weren't enough for Dennis, he then took those comments 1 step further: "North Korea has given me the opportunity to bring these players and their families over here, so people can actually see, so these players can actually see, that this country is actually not as bad as people project it to be in the media."
On VICE Magazine itself, according to http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/mar/30/pressandpublishing.tvandradioarts?gusrc=rss&feed=media: from founder Shane Smith: 'We wanted to be the first international voice for the universality of youth sub-culture. There was a time in the Nineties when it was all about cocaine & asymmetrical zippers. We did a lot of drugs & went to a lot of parties and had sex with a lot of supermodels. But you realize there's a whole world out there, & as we've expanded, the scope of the magazine has gotten broader. We became a magazine when the barriers to making a magazine effectively became nonexistent. You could do desktop publishing on a Mac & print for cheap. Now you get a digicam and a Mac, & you can have something broadcast on the net within 15 minutes.'
You might think that Smith & his VICE colleagues would stop their culture bashing right there, but in a January 2012 interview with Forbes Magazine (1 of our political right wing's favorite rags), he goes from being this countercultural icon to anti-almost everything imaginable!
On our 2 main political parties & their associated "movements": "When you get down to it, the politics of it is juvenile. There’s no real cohesive manifesto or even cohesive ask. They’re saying, well, we should tax the rich and give it to more people. And I say, well, I get it, but you understand that government tax redistribution has another name, and that’s communism. You want to take from rich people and give to each according to his need. I mean, you don’t want to say it, but that’s what you’re saying. The economic system here is ******. But if you’re going to try to fix it or change it, you have to have something a little more cohesive than “redistribution of wealth” and then not even know what communism or socialism is. Have you not read a book? I like the fact that they’re protesting. It’s just really sad when you go down there. It’s like talking to kindergarten children. What are you doing? Why are you even here? If there was a real revolution, man, I’d be there just for the fun of it."
On corporate culture & companies themselves: "I’m gonna get myself in a lot of **** here… Obviously, Facebook is great. The problem is Zuckerberg, who’s the Stalin of Facebook, is his own worst enemy. If he was a different guy, everyone would like him. There’s so much pent-up animosity against Facebook because of him and his culture. When Google+ was released, everyone wanted it to work, even though it was a piece of ****. I think it would have a much better public perception if he was a different dude or if he wasn’t, like, the face. I was at Facebook, & if you go there, the ******* campus is great, and its super good vibes, the people are great. But the perception people have in their heads is these entitled, socially awkward nerds. But as a company, you have to respect the **** out of what they’ve done. It started as this little thing, & now it’s the thing."
On potentially selling VICE: "The reason why I would do that is if we became the network of Facebook or the network of Google, we’d achieve that dream of mine overnight of being the next CNN & the next ESPN & the next MTV with the largest audience in the world; it would be hard to say no to that not because of the money, but because of the ******* cultural impact you would have. At this point, I don’t give a **** about money. Once you have a certain amount of money, it ceases to be an issue. I’d rather put my cultural imprint on the fabric of life. After money, all you want is immortality.
Just like his stooge, Dennis Rodman, Smith also manages to offend yours truly, this time with a rather nationalistic comment more typical of political talk show hosts than magazine co-founders: "I grew up being a socialist & I have problems with it because I grew up in Canada & I’ve spent a lot of time in Scandinavia, where I believe countries legislate out creativity. They cut off the tall trees. Everyone’s a C-minus. I came to America from Canada because Canada is stultifyingly boring and incredibly hypocritical. Thanks, Canada."
As usual, I'd like to defend Canada from its misguided critics, like Shane Smith, but instead of doing so with my own words this time, I'd like to quote the late CFRB Toronto radio broadcaster Gordon Sinclair, who delivered the following staunchly pro-American speech on the aforementioned radio station the afternoon of June 5, 1973:
"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971, & this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous & possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world. As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Well, who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who. They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water, & no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan &, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, & their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw that. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help… Managua, Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped. The Marshall Plan... the Truman Policy... all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans. Now, I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, & you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, & you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, & you find men on the moon, not once, but several times … & safely home again. You talk about scandals, & the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto, most of them… unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here. When the Americans get out of this bind… as they will… who could blame them if they said "the **** with the rest of the world"? Let someone else buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, & I am one Canadian who is ****ed tired of hearing them getting kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high, & when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. Finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters… with the year less than half-over... has taken it all & nobody... but nobody... has helped."
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/avril-lavignes-ex-husband-deryck-whibley-dropping-her-164000043-us-weekly.html
http://www.tmz.com/2013/11/07/avril-lavigne-deryck-whibley-files-name-change-divorce/
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/avril-lavigne-met-fiance-chad-kroeger-while-dating-deryck-whibley-2013235
(PUN-WORTHY HEADLINE ALERT!) http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/11/08/avril-lavigne-ex-husband-finally-drops-her-last-name-most-complicated-celebrity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fentertainment+%28Internal+-+Entertainment+-+Mixed%29
(EDIT: The pun that Fox News used in that headline, according to pun fusion.com, is called a "recursive" pun; in other words, you'd have to understand that Ms. Lavigne released a song with the aforementioned title (in 2001, not 2002, BTW!) to understand the headline's "hidden meaning", or whatever you call those!)
As you can probably tell by those headlines, another celebrity divorce has stirred up some controversies among the tabloids & related media outlets everywhere….. I had never heard of Sum 41 before I read these articles, but I'm sure almost all of you have heard about everybody else involved here..... I'm sure you already figured it out just by looking @ her name, but the now-29-year-old (more on that later, BTW!) Avril Lavigne is, in fact, Canadian..... In fact, I just found an article from Blender magazine from 2001 (thanks, Buzzfeed!) that mentions that she was born in "the tiny town of Napanee, Ontario (population 5,000)..... relocated to NYC..... left Manhattan for LA....." so on & so forth..... You probably also figured out by now that Nickelback is also Canadian, & that the group's 2001 single "How You Remind Me" reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100..... Now, that might have been where you 1st heard them, but that's not where they were most recently..... Most recently, their single "Burn it to the Ground" , when it wasn't being featured in NHL 10, reached 4 different positions on the Billboard charts, the highest of which was #3, & they performed the Olympics in February 2010 & the NFL Thanksgiving halftime show in 2011, after NHL 10 gave that single some much-needed exposure! (EDIT: I would be mistaken in claiming that Sum 41 was completely nonexistent a few years ago..... In fact, they appeared in NHL 2002, right around the time of Nickelback's #1 hit & Lavigne's 17-year-old debut & success in her own age group, as she won multiple awards early on in her career (Radio Disney, which I've never liked, in 2002, 3, & 4; & Nickelodeon in '03, which might seem like "gimmick" awards to you, & quite frankly, those seem like gimmicks to me.....)..... but she was also nominated for a few actual awards, such as the Grammys in '03 & '04, the Brits that same year, &, considering everybody mentioned in this post is Canadian, the Juno awards in '03,'04, & '05!
COURTESY OF TMZ: "He didn't even know who I was at that point!" she said of Kroeger, 38. (who's to say that she knew anything about him back then?) "I had just gotten on the radio." (2001) The angst, pop (star) later went on to say "Now that I'm somebody, people are taking notice. Chad couldn't have known me at all back then, when I was nobody, so I don't fault him for that. I mean, what was there about me to get to know? There were no lyrics. (.....but there was 1 quite common question!)There was no music. (not for her, that was.....) No mention of my name in the media. It was as if I didn't exist. Like I was just another nobody human out there with nothing to offer. But now, now everything is different. It was beautiful when he first noticed me, like a pedophile at a park coming through the trees just before the sun sets and there's that special glint of light on the swings. Anyway... As long as I stay relevant, we can get through anything."
(12/20 UPDATE: Dennis Rodman is apparently back in the "hermit kingdom", North Korea, yet again… VICE "bankrolled" him last time, & apparently, they're at it again!
Rodman on his newest dictator friend, Lil'Kim (the emphasis in the quotes is mine): "I can't control what they do with their government, I can't control what they say or how they do things here," he said. "I'm just trying to come here as a sports figure and try to hope I can open the door for a lot of people in the country." "I've come over to see my friend, and people always give me a little hard time about me saying that." "I'm very proud to say he's my friend, because he hasn't done anything to put a damper, to say any negative things about my country." As if those comments weren't enough for Dennis, he then took those comments 1 step further: "North Korea has given me the opportunity to bring these players and their families over here, so people can actually see, so these players can actually see, that this country is actually not as bad as people project it to be in the media."
On VICE Magazine itself, according to http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/mar/30/pressandpublishing.tvandradioarts?gusrc=rss&feed=media: from founder Shane Smith: 'We wanted to be the first international voice for the universality of youth sub-culture. There was a time in the Nineties when it was all about cocaine & asymmetrical zippers. We did a lot of drugs & went to a lot of parties and had sex with a lot of supermodels. But you realize there's a whole world out there, & as we've expanded, the scope of the magazine has gotten broader. We became a magazine when the barriers to making a magazine effectively became nonexistent. You could do desktop publishing on a Mac & print for cheap. Now you get a digicam and a Mac, & you can have something broadcast on the net within 15 minutes.'
You might think that Smith & his VICE colleagues would stop their culture bashing right there, but in a January 2012 interview with Forbes Magazine (1 of our political right wing's favorite rags), he goes from being this countercultural icon to anti-almost everything imaginable!
On our 2 main political parties & their associated "movements": "When you get down to it, the politics of it is juvenile. There’s no real cohesive manifesto or even cohesive ask. They’re saying, well, we should tax the rich and give it to more people. And I say, well, I get it, but you understand that government tax redistribution has another name, and that’s communism. You want to take from rich people and give to each according to his need. I mean, you don’t want to say it, but that’s what you’re saying. The economic system here is ******. But if you’re going to try to fix it or change it, you have to have something a little more cohesive than “redistribution of wealth” and then not even know what communism or socialism is. Have you not read a book? I like the fact that they’re protesting. It’s just really sad when you go down there. It’s like talking to kindergarten children. What are you doing? Why are you even here? If there was a real revolution, man, I’d be there just for the fun of it."
On corporate culture & companies themselves: "I’m gonna get myself in a lot of **** here… Obviously, Facebook is great. The problem is Zuckerberg, who’s the Stalin of Facebook, is his own worst enemy. If he was a different guy, everyone would like him. There’s so much pent-up animosity against Facebook because of him and his culture. When Google+ was released, everyone wanted it to work, even though it was a piece of ****. I think it would have a much better public perception if he was a different dude or if he wasn’t, like, the face. I was at Facebook, & if you go there, the ******* campus is great, and its super good vibes, the people are great. But the perception people have in their heads is these entitled, socially awkward nerds. But as a company, you have to respect the **** out of what they’ve done. It started as this little thing, & now it’s the thing."
On potentially selling VICE: "The reason why I would do that is if we became the network of Facebook or the network of Google, we’d achieve that dream of mine overnight of being the next CNN & the next ESPN & the next MTV with the largest audience in the world; it would be hard to say no to that not because of the money, but because of the ******* cultural impact you would have. At this point, I don’t give a **** about money. Once you have a certain amount of money, it ceases to be an issue. I’d rather put my cultural imprint on the fabric of life. After money, all you want is immortality.
Just like his stooge, Dennis Rodman, Smith also manages to offend yours truly, this time with a rather nationalistic comment more typical of political talk show hosts than magazine co-founders: "I grew up being a socialist & I have problems with it because I grew up in Canada & I’ve spent a lot of time in Scandinavia, where I believe countries legislate out creativity. They cut off the tall trees. Everyone’s a C-minus. I came to America from Canada because Canada is stultifyingly boring and incredibly hypocritical. Thanks, Canada."
As usual, I'd like to defend Canada from its misguided critics, like Shane Smith, but instead of doing so with my own words this time, I'd like to quote the late CFRB Toronto radio broadcaster Gordon Sinclair, who delivered the following staunchly pro-American speech on the aforementioned radio station the afternoon of June 5, 1973:
"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971, & this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous & possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world. As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Well, who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who. They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water, & no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan &, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, & their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw that. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help… Managua, Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped. The Marshall Plan... the Truman Policy... all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans. Now, I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, & you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, & you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, & you find men on the moon, not once, but several times … & safely home again. You talk about scandals, & the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto, most of them… unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here. When the Americans get out of this bind… as they will… who could blame them if they said "the **** with the rest of the world"? Let someone else buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, & I am one Canadian who is ****ed tired of hearing them getting kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high, & when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. Finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters… with the year less than half-over... has taken it all & nobody... but nobody... has helped."
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/avril-lavignes-ex-husband-deryck-whibley-dropping-her-164000043-us-weekly.html
http://www.tmz.com/2013/11/07/avril-lavigne-deryck-whibley-files-name-change-divorce/
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/avril-lavigne-met-fiance-chad-kroeger-while-dating-deryck-whibley-2013235
(PUN-WORTHY HEADLINE ALERT!) http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/11/08/avril-lavigne-ex-husband-finally-drops-her-last-name-most-complicated-celebrity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fentertainment+%28Internal+-+Entertainment+-+Mixed%29
(EDIT: The pun that Fox News used in that headline, according to pun fusion.com, is called a "recursive" pun; in other words, you'd have to understand that Ms. Lavigne released a song with the aforementioned title (in 2001, not 2002, BTW!) to understand the headline's "hidden meaning", or whatever you call those!)
As you can probably tell by those headlines, another celebrity divorce has stirred up some controversies among the tabloids & related media outlets everywhere….. I had never heard of Sum 41 before I read these articles, but I'm sure almost all of you have heard about everybody else involved here..... I'm sure you already figured it out just by looking @ her name, but the now-29-year-old (more on that later, BTW!) Avril Lavigne is, in fact, Canadian..... In fact, I just found an article from Blender magazine from 2001 (thanks, Buzzfeed!) that mentions that she was born in "the tiny town of Napanee, Ontario (population 5,000)..... relocated to NYC..... left Manhattan for LA....." so on & so forth..... You probably also figured out by now that Nickelback is also Canadian, & that the group's 2001 single "How You Remind Me" reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100..... Now, that might have been where you 1st heard them, but that's not where they were most recently..... Most recently, their single "Burn it to the Ground" , when it wasn't being featured in NHL 10, reached 4 different positions on the Billboard charts, the highest of which was #3, & they performed the Olympics in February 2010 & the NFL Thanksgiving halftime show in 2011, after NHL 10 gave that single some much-needed exposure! (EDIT: I would be mistaken in claiming that Sum 41 was completely nonexistent a few years ago..... In fact, they appeared in NHL 2002, right around the time of Nickelback's #1 hit & Lavigne's 17-year-old debut & success in her own age group, as she won multiple awards early on in her career (Radio Disney, which I've never liked, in 2002, 3, & 4; & Nickelodeon in '03, which might seem like "gimmick" awards to you, & quite frankly, those seem like gimmicks to me.....)..... but she was also nominated for a few actual awards, such as the Grammys in '03 & '04, the Brits that same year, &, considering everybody mentioned in this post is Canadian, the Juno awards in '03,'04, & '05!
COURTESY OF TMZ: "He didn't even know who I was at that point!" she said of Kroeger, 38. (who's to say that she knew anything about him back then?) "I had just gotten on the radio." (2001) The angst, pop (star) later went on to say "Now that I'm somebody, people are taking notice. Chad couldn't have known me at all back then, when I was nobody, so I don't fault him for that. I mean, what was there about me to get to know? There were no lyrics. (.....but there was 1 quite common question!)There was no music. (not for her, that was.....) No mention of my name in the media. It was as if I didn't exist. Like I was just another nobody human out there with nothing to offer. But now, now everything is different. It was beautiful when he first noticed me, like a pedophile at a park coming through the trees just before the sun sets and there's that special glint of light on the swings. Anyway... As long as I stay relevant, we can get through anything."
As for any sort of "image problems" this might cause any of the people involved, I think the only real differences between this & other divorces will be the fact that all of them are famous singers, either by themselves or in some band of some kind! The thing is, from a longevity standpoint, while Sum 41 fell off the face of the planet, @ least in this country, & Nickelback spent a few years in relative obscurity before the new decade returned them to prominence, as mentioned earlier, Lavigne debuted @ 17, received all of those aforementioned nominations for her earliest singles, & through it all, she somehow managed to keep herself out of scandals, unlike many of her fellow celebrities! In fact, according to the abovementioned Blender magazine article, she is quoted as saying "I'm not into glitz & glamo(u)r. It's sooo fake. But my 1st single (which I'm sure many of you people still remember!) is all over MTV, so I'm being recognized already. That probably means goodbye to my private life, but hey, it's cool. If anybody tries to kiss my butt, I'll just tell them, 'shut the **** up'." (Blender magazine, 2001)
That just goes to show you that no matter how many ***** you give about other peoples' opinions of you, if you don't like them, or vice versa, if they don't like you, & the reasons for doing so seem rather flawed instead of reasonable, then no matter what you try to do to change their opinions of you, or your opinions of them, then nothing will make you or the other person change your/their opinions! My overall point is, & I'm sure those of you who attended school with me prior to this year can probably attest to this, but I'd much rather have close to the utmost respect from just a few people instead of having just slight respect from bunches of random people! You might think that I'm planning on becoming 1 of those people who has people worldwide claiming to have known me "before (I) was famous", but in reality, I certainly won't mind telling a few of my future associates/acquaintances/co-workers/etc. that I knew a few of you "before (you) were famous", as I send multiple $1,000/$10,000/possibly even $100,000 checks your way via Western Union, or whichever money transfer company ends up being most common by then, from whichever Fortune 500 company/companies I end up working for..... After all, deep down, aren't we, & shouldn't we all, be like the 17-year-old Avril Lavigne, not in it for the fame, but rather, in it for the respect of past, present, & future members of society?
11/4/13
local NFL observations, just in time for SB XLVIII!
 |
| (that's 1 ugly color scheme!) |
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| (the ugly color scheme as seen from the now-rebranded Hilton Meadowlands)
Even though the project has been delayed by numerous bankruptcies & ownership transfers, not to mention being called all kinds of names (none of which are exactly PG-13 enough for this blog, unfortunately), that's not the only problem plaguing next February's SB XLVIII! The NFL, along with the states of N.J. & NY, has designated practically all of NYC the unofficial "host" of all the usual pre-SB activities, but, as they say in TV infomercials, "that's not all"; they've even designated Montclair (population 37,669) as the "official" "host" for "hospitality" for that entire week, which, having been in that municipality numerous times over the years, I understand that the NFL would much rather have a cleanish location (like Montclair or Bloomfield) representing the host region instead of a ghettoish location (like Paterson or Passaic, which I, for some strange reason, absolutely must bash every time I mention them online!)….. On top of the lack of representation on the N.J. side of this whole collaboration, there were apparently a few battles earlier this year between local mayors & the stadium, which lead to threats from the mayors to withhold their cops from the stadium for the actual game! (http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2013/02/meadowlands_mayors_threaten_to_withhold_emergency_services_during_super_bowl.html#incart_river)
(http://www.northjersey.com/news/190502801_Mayors_resisting_Super_Bowl_cost.html?page=all)
I don't see the "hospitality", however, in those 2 particular locations (Bloomfield & Montclair), just for the reason that they don't actually have any hotels! If you want hotels around here, people, you'd have to look far outside those municipalities for a hotel stay….. East Rutherford itself has a few hotel options, such as Extended Stay America & the place that was a Sheraton for over a 1/4-century before becoming a Hilton earlier this year! Secaucus, which is just to the east of East Rutherford, has an Econo Lodge, a Holiday Inn, a Hilton Garden Inn, a Rodeway Inn (1 of their few NYC-area locations), an Embassy Suites, & a Crowne Plaza, all of which offer views of either NYC or Newark, N.J., depending on which direction your hotel room faces! Obviously, there are quite a few other locations between the stadium & NYC that will keep you people traveling over here with your teams for a few days, but those are just the lodging facilities closest to the stadium itself!
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10/25/13
This was how I spent my final days of M.S. & H.S.! (updated with some upcoming events)
I never thought I would be mentioning anything about my last few days of M.S. from June 2009 & my last few days of H.S. last June on this blog, but here goes nothing (& I hope those of you whom this applies to don't mind me making this update!): I'm not sure about other school districts, but in my now-former (as hard as that still is for me to believe!) school district, people have usually made a big deal of the end of each school year, scheduling the vast majority of its awards ceremonies in May & June, & in both my 8th & 12th grade years (2009 & this year, respectively), those ceremonies took up most of my May & June days! In '09, the main ceremony I was involved in was the N.J.H.S. (which is basically the middle school version of that particular organization), & shortly after that, the entire class got a week all to itself, & throughout that week, as I went through each day, I figured that it would be somewhat odd not being there anymore, but @ least I would still be in the same district with many of the same people, plus some new people! Fast forward 4 years to Memorial Day weekend of this year, though, & I got those same feelings, increased many times..... Before I get to all the fun stuff from last June, however, I might as well mention that I was part of 3 more ceremonies that month! The 1st of those was actually in late May, & it was a school-sponsored ceremony in which various district employees past & present gave away various awards, & despite their insistence that some people would be receiving multiple awards, from what I remember, almost nobody actually received more than 1 or 2 awards! For everybody else, the awards came immediately, but I received mine a few days later @ a private luncheon (sssshhhhhhhhh..... did I mention that ceremony was private?)! A few days after that gathering, there was another award headed my way, but this particular award was overtaken by (1) some controversies that had the entire district on edge; so much so, in fact, that the award wasn't mentioned anywhere locally until mid-August & (2) the sudden death of James Gandolfini, which I 1st learned about shortly after I returned home from the BOE building! Once those ceremonies (both private & public) & the slight bit of attention (did I mention I hate any sort of public attention?) that came with them were out of the way, I was finally able to focus on the "fun stuff" that comes with being part of each year's graduating class, such as prom..... Now that I mentioned that, I might as well mention that while that started off somewhat ugly, as rain started pouring just minutes after I arrived there, & naturally, everybody who was on line waiting to enter the building when it started pouring rain was allowed to wait right inside the emtrance instead of just outside the entrance, since the line extended almost all the way down this walkway @ our venue (www.skylandsatrandolph.com/, for you weirdos outside N.J. who are actually willing to eavesdrop on my posts), & once everybody got inside, it was basically just people searching for their other people, & once 30 minutes or so passed, everybody (myself included) made their way upstairs to this huge ballroom-type location that looked like it had been converted from something else (as did most of the building, @ least in my opinion..... out of everybody who was there that evening, I must have been the only person to (publicly) complain about the building's general "outdatedness" (if that's even a word), since I called the building "something straight out of the 1990s", or something like that, on FB the following morning!)..... Considering there were over 800 people in that class with me (although only about 750 of us made it to the actual graduation ceremony, but more on that later!), the place emptied out @ a somewhat fast pace for a Friday night in mid-June, but I guess that must have been only because I actually stayed the entire 4+ hours to witness the building slowly emptying out! Once that weekend came & went, the only real thing I was looking forward to was our H.S. graduation week, which, aside from the somewhat early distribution of yearbooks, played out incredibly similarly to the same week 4 years earlier! This time around, considering I already got many of my M.S. people in that (now non-existent) yearbook, I focused mostly on the students & teachers I had met during my 4 years in H.S. (especially my last 3 years of H.S.), although I made aboslutely certain to get a few of the people I had missed 4 years earlier in this time around, since I knew that there would most likely be no more 2nd chances this time around! (FULL DISCLOSURE: For the most part, @ least for me, it was students & non-teaching staff members in the front, & teachers in the back, although there were some exceptions to that rule!) For the rest of that week, once I got quite a few people into my H.S. yearbook (which I vow to never lose after what happened to most of my M.S. stuff!), I spent the vast majority of my time wondering where those people would be starting their college years, but I managed to put all those somewhat worrisome thoughts of mine behind on the last Friday of June, when the long-awaited graduation ceremony finally happened, & for a few short hours that day, all of the uncertainty was replaced by people showing all kinds of emotions (as 1 would most likely expect from 1 of those ceremonies), as well as getting to see everybody else in their graduating class together for the final time (since, as much as I hate to tell you people this, a lot can happen in the span of 5 or 10 years!)..... Once that was done, & everybody headed back home, there were a few hours between the ceremony & a special post-graduation gathering @ another local venue (www.funplexeasthanover.com/), & just as the Skylands people had done for us 2 weeks earlier, those people closed off the entire building for us! As the "nighttime" hours became the "overnight" hours, I started getting more & more emotional on the inside about not seeing many of those people again after that weekend..... I managed to keep all those emotions inside me, however, until the bus ride back to our H.S. parking lot, which had gone from being a completely shut down party zone the previous evening to practically a funeral home/mausoleum/etc. in the span of just 9 hours! Once my bus, which was the last bus out of almost 10 of them to return, arrived back in the parking lot, I stood amongst a bunch of other people who were already all emotional about moving on from H.S. life in general, & once I got away from all of them, I proceeded to do the exact same thing, as I suddenly let all the emotions I had tried to keep inside me throughout the entire previous week loose in a locked room that I had all to myself, & I ended up doing the exact same thing I had done the final Saturday morning of June quite a few more times throughout July & August (mostly July), & even on my 1st night in college, when all the frustration with my current campus had reached its (previous) breaking point, but other than those occasions, I managed to keep people from witnessing any sort of emotional breakdowns on my part..... It wasn't just those types of occasions, however, in which I managed to keep any emotions I might have been feeling inside me until I was away from everybody else, but considering the once-in-a-lifetime nature of those occasions, I consider it even more of an accomplishment than usual on those occasions!
(P.S.: I would mention that I'm planning on returning to those aforementioned events & venues next June, but there are a few potential time constraints that might get in the way of me (sort of) re-living my senior year, such as (1) this trip to western Europe (Spain & France, to be exact) that my family has been planning for a bunch of years now, & (2) I put off my planned Temple U. Japan summer trip for another year just to be able to deal with the whole transition process from this freshman year to my sophomore year, since I'm not willing to have to have made the transition from H.S. to college only to have to transition from U.S. to Japanese culture & life temporarily about a year later! All that being said, however, if my H.S. is gracious enough (& actually willing) to invite me (or anybody else!) back next June, then I'll be 1 of the 1st people making my way back to all of those venues for the 2nd time in a year next June!)
10/18/13
Why has everything seemed so stagnant all of a sudden?
Obviously, like anybody else who's reached this point in time, I had to experience many "highs" & "lows" just to reach this point, but @ least before now, the "highs" were usually more regular, & the "lows" were usually more uncommon & less severe, @ least academically (since my social life was basically the same throughout all 12 years)! Throughout many of my K-12 years, I pretty much passed each grade with practically all A's & B's overall @ the end of each school year, & anybody who had me in any of their classes can certainly "second" those facts, even if not everything that occurred along the way was A/B material! Out of all of the few C's/D's/etc. I received throughout those years, 99.99% of the time, I recognized that those situations called for slightly more desperation/urgency/etc. than the rest of my grades that particular quarter of the year, so I usually focused more on my lower overall grades while focusing slightly less on whichever grades I noticed were the highest that particular quarter! Among those C's/D's that I got up back to a B or perhaps an A were the following: 1: Q2 of 2008/09: My last year of middle school seemed fairly pedestrian early on, considering I had fulfilled most of my "requirements" (to the extent that any classes were "required" back then) in my previous 2 years there with all A's & B's overall @ the end of both years! Around the middle of that year, however, I guess the fact that my middle school years would be done by June finally reached the back of my mind, & while I had all A's & B's elsewhere, my 2 English grades (considering the "language arts" & "writing", or whatever the heck they were called, components were split up that year, for some reason) were both 78, which meant that my average between both of them was also a 78..... It took me a few days to recognize the slight threat that those 2 78's posed to my chances of moving on to H.S., but considering I had more than just middle school graduation depending on my grades that year, I worked myself to the point that by the beginning of the last-ever quarter of my middle school years, my grades everywhere else were pretty much similar to what they were throughout the 1st 1/2 of the year, but most importantly, my 2 English grades (again, don't ask me why, but "language arts" & "writing" were separate that year, & that year alone) were both back to exactly 90, saving me the trouble of having to keep working to the extent that I did throughout the 3rd quarter of that year! 2: the following year, my freshman year of H.S.: After all the trouble I went through the previous year just to get 1 grade from 90 down to 78 & then back to 90, I figured that if anything similar were to occur the following year, that it would occur in a different class, & sure enough, they resurfaced, except in algebra instead of English! This time, however, the situation was more drastic, as I started off the year in there with an 80, meaning that I couldn't afford as big of a drop without risking failure in that class for the 2nd quarter of that year..... While that, thankfully, didn't occur (I got a 70 in that class the 2nd quarter), I recognized that the only way to go in order to pass the class would be up, not down, so I kept my quarter grades in every other class high enough that I could focus slightly more on fixing that 70, & by the end of the year, I had a 70something the 3rd quarter, & I was back up to the grade I had started the year with to end the year (another 80)! 3: Having averted that grading crisis before it started, I figured that I would never come that close to failure ever again throughout 3 years in the main H.S. building, & considering I got above an 85 in every class except for geometry (where I started the year with a 78), I considered the events of the previous year to be a "blip on the radar", & for the most part, despite that 78 & a 76 in English the following quarter, those situations weren't nearly as troubling to me or anybody else as the previous year's events! 4: The following year was mostly uneventful grade-wise, considering I kept my usual all A's & B's everywhere except for algebra II, where I kept high C's every quarter throughout that year, allowing me to look forward to senior year basically from the halfway point of the year forward to the end of the year, when I figured that I would mostly be concerned about my future beyond that year, despite the fact that there was a 75 listed for my 4th quarter French grade, which I had already taken care of during the previous 3 quarters with my usual grades, so while that stuck out more than the rest of my 4th quarter grades, that never bothered me because I had already gotten enough points to pass for the year by then..... 5: The beginning of senior year, however, turned out to be the quarter that tested everybody's patience the most..... I hadn't yet fulfilled my "fine/performing arts" requirement during my previous 2 years in the main building & my 1 year @ the annex (where, ironically enough, 1 of my middle school art teachers was suddenly teaching a few art classes!), so considering I had to pass that class, as well as my English & P.E./health classes (which are the only 2 required 4 year-classes @ my H.S., for some reason), I was mostly focused on fulfilling those requirements early enough in the year so that I could just enjoy the rest of my senior year, but after receiving a 58 in my engineering graphics class to start the year, I figured that the 1st 1/2 of the year would end up being a "roadblock" of sorts to all of the end-of-H.S. enjoyment that I was hoping I would be able to look forward to from the beginning of that year! As soon as I noticed that 58 on an otherwise all A & B-filled report card, I figured that I wasn't 100% @ fault for what happened in that class, & as it turns out, the teacher in there admitted after a few days & a bunch of meetings with a bunch of different people, from the school's head of the technology department, to my family, to a few of the administrators who (thankfully) also noticed the situation, to not checking all of the work that had been assigned that quarter, & while that created a scandal that involved too many people, once everything was said & done, my grade in that class was "flipped" from 58 to 85, meaning that my lowest grade that quarter was somewhere in the 80s! After that "scandal" passed, & I was finally allowed to focus on all of my classes without having that distraction bothering me every day, I was able to keep the rest of my grades @ their usual levels the entire year after that, meaning that all the enjoyment I thought I wouldn't be able to experience in June had finally returned to my life! It's simply something that I hope to keep around once this semester &/or year are done; if nothing else, this semester &/or year, if that ends up being as rough as this semester has been, will remind me if anything else in the future ends up being rough!
10/11/13
Part 2 of a look @ top 40/adult contemporary/contemporary hit radio!
"With today’s consumer wanting to custom tailor everything to their liking, the name MY is a perfect brand for radio. This is a station designed by the listeners to play music they tell us they want to hear. How do we know what they want to hear? Extensive market research and continual weekly music information to keep the station familiar, fun and family friendly."
The above quote comes from a 2009 interview between Radio & Records & Clear Channel Communications' L.A. programming VP Michael Martin, which KBIG (FM)-L.A. program director Dave Denes seconded later in the same interview, after mentioning a few top "adult" songwriters: ".....every song we play is or was at the top of the charts." That sentiment seems to be echoed by numerous other top 40/AC stations nationwide, as MTV's Corey Moss relayed back in November 2006 (FULL DISCLOSURE: I still remember those days better than most people I know, mostly 'cause I had just started middle school back then!): "While those songs (referring to 3 songs that were near the top of the charts back then) are cringe-inducing reminders of way back when we feared the bird flu (and the Steelers!) for the typical top 40 fan (since not every radio listener likes to hang on to "old" top 40 hits), they're current hits on the AC radio format, where "current" is a relative term." That sentiment might not be as (publicly) prevalent now, almost 7 years later, but later on in that article, Moss laments some disagreements among most "typical" listeners: "In other words, AC stations are where pop songs go to die a very long death. Or, to optimists, to get a second life." Gary Berkowitz, adult contemporary-leaning radio consultant, is quoted in the article agreeing with Moss (& yours truly, for the record): "The format [has] never been known for making its own hits. As I always say, AC listeners know what they like and they like what they know. Familiarity and comfort-ability is really important in this format, and what we've discovered is new music is not that important to our listeners." Meanwhile, Roy Trakin, senior editor at Hits, a radio trade magazine, thinks the format is more based on songs than their performers: "Let's put it this way: It's a song-based format, it isn't a personality-based format. There's no guarantee that the next top single is going to go on right away. Probably half the people don't even know who the artists are when they're listening. They just know the song, and the songs are fairly indelible." On the other hand, Steve Hunter, operations manager @ multiple Tulsa, Oklahoma stations, thinks (& I disagree with him, BTW) that most AC artists (were) "one-hit wonders": "A lot of the artists playing on adult contemporary radio right now are one-hit wonders and it's unfortunate; they're not really building that bond. I don't know if our listeners are going out and buying the album or if they're downloading the single. My guess is that they're downloading the single, but they're not making that connection." Moss goes on to mention 1 of many stations' biggest fears: "AC programmers also back their low turnover with market research, which includes testing for "burnout," the industry term for overplayed." Now, normally, I would agree with him there, but here's what I've noticed over the years: Most performers have found their way into the top 40, struggled through the top 40, displacing a few other former top 5/10/20/etc. hits along the way, all the while getting progressively more airtime. Eventually, I've noticed songs in the top 5 or 10 get overwhelmingly more plays than everything else, leading to that "burnout" mentioned above. Once those songs have fallen out of the top 5 or 10, & especially once they've dropped out of the top 40, they've gotten airplays "once in a blue moon" (as evidenced by the playlists on the 6 NYC FM stations I profiled last night!), but for some of them, whereas they originally got played perhaps 10 or 15 times a day (on average), they now get played perhaps between 5 & 10 times a day, if they even get played that often!
UPDATE #1: The following link mentions the 3 songs whose names I purposely omitted @ the beginning of this post to prevent any sudden "nostalgia" issues among you people: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1544498/adult-contemporary-radio-where-hits-go-die.jhtml
UPDATE #2: I've found all of those stations' (recent) playlists!
http://923now.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist is practically only stuff from this decade (so far), & nothing else!)
http://wplj.tunegenie.com (This playlist goes back quite further than 92.3 NOW, playing some late 90s stuff every so often.....)
http://www.z100.com/music/playlist/ (Just like 92.3 NOW, this playlist sticks mostly to this decade, but unlike 92.3 NOW, not entirely!)
http://fresh1027.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist goes back the furthest of the 1st 4 stations, playing almost everything from this millennium (so far), but little else!)
http://www.ktu.com/music/playlist/ (This playlist, interestingly enough, has lots of 2000s stuff, little, if any, 90s stuff, &, owing to the original 'KTU station's heritage as a disco station, occasionally plays some 80s tunes to satisfy those people who still remember the original 'KTU!)
http://www.1067litefm.com/music/playlist/ ("3 parts variety" has been 1 of this station's main slogans for a bunch of years now, & if it wasn't for 80s stuff, I'm not so sure this station would have the same format it has right now, if it would even be on the air @ all in such a scenario! Unlike 'KTU, however, this station doesn't neglect the 90s; in fact, out of all 6 of these stations, "Lite FM" plays the most 90s music out of all of them!)
The above quote comes from a 2009 interview between Radio & Records & Clear Channel Communications' L.A. programming VP Michael Martin, which KBIG (FM)-L.A. program director Dave Denes seconded later in the same interview, after mentioning a few top "adult" songwriters: ".....every song we play is or was at the top of the charts." That sentiment seems to be echoed by numerous other top 40/AC stations nationwide, as MTV's Corey Moss relayed back in November 2006 (FULL DISCLOSURE: I still remember those days better than most people I know, mostly 'cause I had just started middle school back then!): "While those songs (referring to 3 songs that were near the top of the charts back then) are cringe-inducing reminders of way back when we feared the bird flu (and the Steelers!) for the typical top 40 fan (since not every radio listener likes to hang on to "old" top 40 hits), they're current hits on the AC radio format, where "current" is a relative term." That sentiment might not be as (publicly) prevalent now, almost 7 years later, but later on in that article, Moss laments some disagreements among most "typical" listeners: "In other words, AC stations are where pop songs go to die a very long death. Or, to optimists, to get a second life." Gary Berkowitz, adult contemporary-leaning radio consultant, is quoted in the article agreeing with Moss (& yours truly, for the record): "The format [has] never been known for making its own hits. As I always say, AC listeners know what they like and they like what they know. Familiarity and comfort-ability is really important in this format, and what we've discovered is new music is not that important to our listeners." Meanwhile, Roy Trakin, senior editor at Hits, a radio trade magazine, thinks the format is more based on songs than their performers: "Let's put it this way: It's a song-based format, it isn't a personality-based format. There's no guarantee that the next top single is going to go on right away. Probably half the people don't even know who the artists are when they're listening. They just know the song, and the songs are fairly indelible." On the other hand, Steve Hunter, operations manager @ multiple Tulsa, Oklahoma stations, thinks (& I disagree with him, BTW) that most AC artists (were) "one-hit wonders": "A lot of the artists playing on adult contemporary radio right now are one-hit wonders and it's unfortunate; they're not really building that bond. I don't know if our listeners are going out and buying the album or if they're downloading the single. My guess is that they're downloading the single, but they're not making that connection." Moss goes on to mention 1 of many stations' biggest fears: "AC programmers also back their low turnover with market research, which includes testing for "burnout," the industry term for overplayed." Now, normally, I would agree with him there, but here's what I've noticed over the years: Most performers have found their way into the top 40, struggled through the top 40, displacing a few other former top 5/10/20/etc. hits along the way, all the while getting progressively more airtime. Eventually, I've noticed songs in the top 5 or 10 get overwhelmingly more plays than everything else, leading to that "burnout" mentioned above. Once those songs have fallen out of the top 5 or 10, & especially once they've dropped out of the top 40, they've gotten airplays "once in a blue moon" (as evidenced by the playlists on the 6 NYC FM stations I profiled last night!), but for some of them, whereas they originally got played perhaps 10 or 15 times a day (on average), they now get played perhaps between 5 & 10 times a day, if they even get played that often!
UPDATE #1: The following link mentions the 3 songs whose names I purposely omitted @ the beginning of this post to prevent any sudden "nostalgia" issues among you people: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1544498/adult-contemporary-radio-where-hits-go-die.jhtml
UPDATE #2: I've found all of those stations' (recent) playlists!
http://923now.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist is practically only stuff from this decade (so far), & nothing else!)
http://wplj.tunegenie.com (This playlist goes back quite further than 92.3 NOW, playing some late 90s stuff every so often.....)
http://www.z100.com/music/playlist/ (Just like 92.3 NOW, this playlist sticks mostly to this decade, but unlike 92.3 NOW, not entirely!)
http://fresh1027.cbslocal.com/playlist/ (This playlist goes back the furthest of the 1st 4 stations, playing almost everything from this millennium (so far), but little else!)
http://www.ktu.com/music/playlist/ (This playlist, interestingly enough, has lots of 2000s stuff, little, if any, 90s stuff, &, owing to the original 'KTU station's heritage as a disco station, occasionally plays some 80s tunes to satisfy those people who still remember the original 'KTU!)
http://www.1067litefm.com/music/playlist/ ("3 parts variety" has been 1 of this station's main slogans for a bunch of years now, & if it wasn't for 80s stuff, I'm not so sure this station would have the same format it has right now, if it would even be on the air @ all in such a scenario! Unlike 'KTU, however, this station doesn't neglect the 90s; in fact, out of all 6 of these stations, "Lite FM" plays the most 90s music out of all of them!)
Part 1 of a look @ NYC's (mostly NYC'S) top 40/adult contemporary/contemporary hit radio history!
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| Christmas Day 1948-present |
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| 5/4/48-present |
The next station covered here started in 1948 as a simulcast of WJZ (AM), & when ABC merged with UPT 5 years later, the simulcast continued, albeit as a simulcast of the re-named WABC (AM). The simulcast continued into the 1960s, including a short time in 1962 when the stations broadcast 17 hours of news coverage daily to make up for that year's NYC newspaper strike! Between 1968 & 1971, ABC's FM stations became part of the "Love Network", broadcasting progressive rock mostly aimed @ younger audiences. In 1970, however, a mixup on the part of both ABC & the FCC awarded the call letters the station wanted (WRIF) to WXYZ (FM)-Detroit, & the call letters that station wanted (WDAI) to WLS (FM)-Chicago! Needless to say, that mixup left the network looking for a new identity for its then-flagship (FM) station, & on "V-Day" 1971, ABC found the identity that's stuck with the station ever since: WPLJ-FM! Throughout the 1970s, the station mostly played classic rock; in fact, they had gained so much of a reputation for being the classic rock station that when the then-WAPP tried that format in 1982, it only lasted 9 months or so before it influenced 'PLJ to drop its longtime format in favor of top 40/adult contemporary/contemporary hit radio/etc.!
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| Before this station became "KTU", it influenced 'PLJ to switch from classic rock to CHR! |
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| 1983-present; this station attempted to capitalize on the "infighting" between WAPP & 'PLJ around the time of its 1st sign-on |
Out of all the "rags-to-riches" stories I've ever heard, this is 1 of the most forgotten of those types of stories I've heard of! It signed during the early morning hours of 8/2/83, but unlike WAPP & WPLJ, it played top 40 (which WPLJ had recently switched to) from the beginning, & its format consistency made listeners take notice immediately; in fact, the station took just 74 days (8/2/83-10/6/83) to go from last to 1st place in NYC's Arbitron ratings! Ironically, the format that the station initially tried to take advantage of back in '83 was what it ended up switching to -partially- by the early 1990s, as it responded to WPLJ's switch back to top 40 in 1992 by combining top 40 with alternative rock & hoping listeners wouldn't mind hearing the 2 formats together on the same station. That didn't work, however, & later in the decade, it switched back to its current top 40-only format, which it maintains to the present day.
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| 8/25/58-present; this station had to surrender some rather legendary call letters to obtain its current identity! |
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| 6/5/75-7/13/85 on 92.3 FM; 2/9/95-present on 103.5 FM |
After 47 years of various formats, call letters, & a long stint "down the dial" on 93.1 FM, the then-WYNY (FM) changed to its current call letters & format during the evening of 2/9/95. Listeners hoping for something to finally stick on that frequency were rewarded early on, as the station immediately reached #1 on NYC's Arbitron ratings list! Initially, the station leaned CHR, but the mostly-CHR format underwent gradual changes over the next decade, as it added more rhythmic AC & subtracted rap/hip-hop/etc.; eventually, the rhythmic AC gained enough prominence on the station that as of 9/9/06, rhythmic AC was (for all intents & purposes) the station's full-time format. Its status as a full rhythmic AC station was not officially fulfilled (@ least according to the then-renamed Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems) until 4/4/11, when BDS moved 'KTU from rhythmic CHR to rhythmic AC/top 40.
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| something/something/61-present; apparently, a long jazz history couldn't keep this station out of the top 40! |
(DISCLAIMER #2: Due to the on-&-off nature of this post, I was going to mention my thoughts about where I see the current top 40/AC/rhythmic AC/hot AC/CHR/etc. format not just around here in the NYC area, but in the U.S./elsewhere as a whole, but since I was coming & going so often between this post & other commitments, I'll just leave part 2 of this post for next time!)
(DISCLAIMER #3: After checking all of the aforementioned playlists again just a few minutes ago, I've noticed a few changes, which are as follows!)
#2: As for the rest of the stations, the only 1 I've noticed that hasn't budged much @ all since mid-October has been 92.3 NOW; all the rest of the stations seem to have "re-discovered" some slightly older stuff from most current performers featured on their stations, & as evidenced by the most recent playlists on their websites…..
#3: Some of those performers &/or groups will actually be (re)visiting this area in the near future (in fact, PLJ has an upcoming concert list (UPDATE: they removed it!)….. well, when that list was up, it ran from current stuff all the way through the end of July! If that playlist gets returned to its usual position, then I'll definitely show it to you people; if not, then I guess you'll have to take my word for it that the stations are certainly willing to keep us informed of local events!
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