852 Radio Dies Again
Here we go again. (Insert the new technology of your choice) is going to kill (insert the old technology of your choice.) But it never really happens, does it?
Movies are going to kill live theater. Television is going to kill movies. Television is going to kill radio. Cable and Satellite TV are going to kill broadcast TV. FM is going to kill AM. Satellite radio/internet radio is going to kill “regular” radio. Citizens Band is going to kill the amateur band. And the internet is going to kill every other means of communication.
The latest of radio’s death predictions or threats comes from the little portable music players. Everyone who’s anyone has one or more. They’re in your pocket, your handbag, your bedroom, your kitchen, your car.
Radio’s death? Not going to happen.
Why not? Because we still need plain ole radio free stuff, spare the cost of the hardware (which you can buy for as little as a buck at those “dollar” stores.)
“Oh, but I can choose my own music with an MP3 player and not have to listen to 1000 commercials about reducing my credit card debt, buying gold or finding the right untested food supplement for my (memory) (energy) (aging body) (eye condition) (colon condition) (prostate condition.) And I don’t need a weather forecast every five minutes.”
Your music player going to warn you when you have three minutes to duck an oncoming tornado? How about when the levees on your riverbank are about to cave in? Things like that.
Rely on your RSS feeds? Wait for a notification on your smartphone? (You and it will be separated and swept away because the cell tower will have gone down before it can tell you “run for your lives, it’s Godzilla.” Radio “towers” can be faked by stringing bell wire between trees or phone polls.)
So there you are in the midst of Katrina with your Greatest Zydeco Super Rap Hits MP3 playing in your head. Or you’re zooming along unlit State Route 11232 at 70 in the middle of the night and you don’t know the bridge up ahead has washed out or fallen into the river. Or there’s been a radiation leak at your neighborhood nuke plant.
But don’t worry, be happy, at least you’ll crash or drown or get a good dose of some poisonous element in a “positive” state of mind as the music goes round and round and it comes out ...nowhere.
Or you can just turn on the radio.
Shrapnel:
--A friend writes of our Orwell piece (#851 4/22/11) “why not call them Spi-pads instead of iPads?” Politics aside, Paul Harvey would be proud of you. So would How-wid Co-sell.
--Guitar maker Jerry Jones has called it a day, auctioned off his tools, and remaining stock and retired. Jerry’s stuff was low priced, high quality and described thus by a player: his stuff is “like a dog on a leash that knows where it wants to go and drags you there.” They were Danelectro knockoffs, built of such exotic woods as Masonite and equipped with exotic pickups made from lipstick tubes. And oh, how they sing!
--The Don Birth Society: What’s in it for Donald Trump to kick up yet another fuss about Obama’s birth certificate? Same thing that’s in pretty much everything he does, publicity.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011
Here we go again. (Insert the new technology of your choice) is going to kill (insert the old technology of your choice.) But it never really happens, does it?
Movies are going to kill live theater. Television is going to kill movies. Television is going to kill radio. Cable and Satellite TV are going to kill broadcast TV. FM is going to kill AM. Satellite radio/internet radio is going to kill “regular” radio. Citizens Band is going to kill the amateur band. And the internet is going to kill every other means of communication.
The latest of radio’s death predictions or threats comes from the little portable music players. Everyone who’s anyone has one or more. They’re in your pocket, your handbag, your bedroom, your kitchen, your car.
Radio’s death? Not going to happen.
Why not? Because we still need plain ole radio free stuff, spare the cost of the hardware (which you can buy for as little as a buck at those “dollar” stores.)
“Oh, but I can choose my own music with an MP3 player and not have to listen to 1000 commercials about reducing my credit card debt, buying gold or finding the right untested food supplement for my (memory) (energy) (aging body) (eye condition) (colon condition) (prostate condition.) And I don’t need a weather forecast every five minutes.”
Your music player going to warn you when you have three minutes to duck an oncoming tornado? How about when the levees on your riverbank are about to cave in? Things like that.
Rely on your RSS feeds? Wait for a notification on your smartphone? (You and it will be separated and swept away because the cell tower will have gone down before it can tell you “run for your lives, it’s Godzilla.” Radio “towers” can be faked by stringing bell wire between trees or phone polls.)
So there you are in the midst of Katrina with your Greatest Zydeco Super Rap Hits MP3 playing in your head. Or you’re zooming along unlit State Route 11232 at 70 in the middle of the night and you don’t know the bridge up ahead has washed out or fallen into the river. Or there’s been a radiation leak at your neighborhood nuke plant.
But don’t worry, be happy, at least you’ll crash or drown or get a good dose of some poisonous element in a “positive” state of mind as the music goes round and round and it comes out ...nowhere.
Or you can just turn on the radio.
Shrapnel:
--A friend writes of our Orwell piece (#851 4/22/11) “why not call them Spi-pads instead of iPads?” Politics aside, Paul Harvey would be proud of you. So would How-wid Co-sell.
--Guitar maker Jerry Jones has called it a day, auctioned off his tools, and remaining stock and retired. Jerry’s stuff was low priced, high quality and described thus by a player: his stuff is “like a dog on a leash that knows where it wants to go and drags you there.” They were Danelectro knockoffs, built of such exotic woods as Masonite and equipped with exotic pickups made from lipstick tubes. And oh, how they sing!
--The Don Birth Society: What’s in it for Donald Trump to kick up yet another fuss about Obama’s birth certificate? Same thing that’s in pretty much everything he does, publicity.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011
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