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Archive Archive 12 |
Diaries: hdtv kennebunkport, maine the ponies slow jams the opera I've been hearing about HDTV since college. This was before the days of DVD, so they were telling us that one day we'd have television with Laserdisc quality picture on each station. Of course, I actually owned (and still own) a Laserdisc player, so I knew what I was missing. Man, this was going to be awesome. It has turned out to be less than great. It turns out that the high definition commission, or whoever it is who regulates high definition broadcast, has yet to settle on a standard. I have my high definition TV (in fact I'm sitting typing this in front of it right now--thank god for Wi-Fi) and I have my HDTV cable box, but I only receive three high definition stations. As you'd expect, the stations are up in the 170's somewhere, and completely inconvenient to access. I have a 16:9 widescreen TV, so the HDTV pictures are supposed to work well with this aspect ratio... of course they don't. Each station uses a different format, and each show on each station seems to use a different format. In fact, you could be watching a show, and the commercials in the show will be in a different aspect ratio. So, what does this mean to the viewer? It means that one minute you could be watching a program that essentially looks like a letterboxed movie and the next minute you could be watching this thing that takes up just the middle section of the screen, with blackness all around it. The picture itself looks pretty nice, but the constantly changing aspect ratio is horribly annoying.
So, I'm not sure what we've learned here other than the fact that HDTV isn't quite ready for primetime. I just want to warn you not to expect miracles is all. Assuming your local cable provider carries HDTV and is touting it as the second coming of the VCR, be aware that it's not all it's cracked up to be. When you go to Circuit City or Best Buy or wherever and they tell you that you definitely need HDTV, consider carefully if it's something you need right now. After all, it's cool having HBO in high-def (watching The Time Machine right now) but I really don't need to see the 11:00 news anchor's hair in all its high definition glory. Maine is a weird state. Dangling precariously into Canada and the frosty white caps of the North Atlantic, Maine somehow drags millions of tourists every year to the precipice of the United States to freeze their asses off and eat lobster. My only prior experience with our great white neighbor to the North (and we mean white, as in caucasian) was during a college visit to Colby where it was so cold that the transmission fluid in our car froze solid. That was the kind of cold I have yet to experience again--and I went to school in Syracuse for God's sake. Kennebunkport itself is a little tourist/vacation village in Southern Maine that essentially doubles the price of seafood at all its restaurants in order to make itself seem exclusive. In fact, I ate so much overpriced lobster, shrimp and scallops, that I really have no desire to eat anything from the sea ever again. I could still eat some rockin' clam strips from The Clam Shack, but I'm not sure my arteries could take it. While being surrounded by silver haired folks in L.L. Bean garb is a little strange in itself, the full creepiness of this town didn't reveal itself to me until I walked into some place called The Lobster Pot, or The Lobster Shack or Hut or something, and they had these postcards on display...
Anyway, I knew the Bushes hung out in this town
(you can see their house right there in the postcard), but in
a laughable bit of irony, this is apparently the same house in
front of which Bush
Jr. got arrested for DUI back in 1976. His Alfred E. Newman
"what me worry?" smile in this postcard indicates that
he has no recollection of this event--the same way his dad had
no recollection of selling
arms to Iran to fund a revolution in Nicaragua. Maybe he's
just happy that he got a deal on socks at one of the outlet shops
in nearby Kittery. Ah, nothing like a night of watching small men ride around in carts being dragged behind trotting ponies. Add to this the lovely backdrop of the famous Meadowlands Racetrack in beautiful East Rutherford, NJ, and you have what amounts to an evening in paradise. In order to avoid hanging with the general chain-smoking riff-raff that generally inhabit lowbrow racetracks, we procured seats in the glass-enclosed dining room. Not only did this allow us to avoid having our women ogled by toothless geriatrics, but we were also divined the pleasure of paying a good deal of our hard-earned money for rubber chicken and general weddingish fare. In addition, we stayed out of the drizzle and got to make fun of the faux fancy-pants, middle-aged Jerseyites in their sequins and elastic waistbands. Outside of the hardcore crowd downstairs, the track seems more like a night out at a cheesy Italian restaurant than a night of seedy debauchery. And then we descend into the seventh level of hell that is the general betting public... This is some scary shit. Made up of almost 100% dudes (and couple flannel-clad heifers who might as well have been sporting goatees), the place reeked of desperation and alcoholism. Man yelled for horses they had never heard of before throwing down cash at the window. They jumped up and down like lunatics. They yelled like rednecks at a livestock auction. They were OTB junkies with bus passes. It was a weird sociology experiment gone horribly awry. It made me want to cry for these broken men and their addictions. Instead I made faces and rolled my eyes like the snobby asshole that I am, and made sure to use a lot of soap after washing my hands in the empty bathrooms. As far as betting went, I originally took a conservative approach, essentially reading the wonderfully produced program and making my choices based on the snarky commentary written (and not very well edited) by one David Brower.
Like most sports "experts," his suggestions amounted to nothing more than educated guesses. After the third race, I switched gears and relied on the "close my eyes and hope a name comes to me" method. And, like that, I actually won! That one win, along with another small one later in the night paid for my dinner and covered the rest of my expenditures. I must say that harness racing isn't the most exciting thing in the world, as the horses aren't allowed to zoom past a trot at any point in the race. It has that weird speed walking quality about it, as the horses seem like they could really break out if they were allowed to stretch their legs. Really quite bush league. Despite my somewhat lukewarm
response to the track, I'm certain I'll find myself back at some
point with the guys, drinking beers and blowing my cash. This
time, though, I'm going to stay out of the glass cage that is
the upper class and spend my time amongst the regulars. Hey, if
you're gonna talk the talk...
SLOW JAMS
Generally perpetrated by groups of four or five African-American young men dressed in the same outfit, slow jams (or the popular form slow jamz) almost always involve men pining after women, getting pissed about a woman cheating on them or generally getting busy. The music videos often include flowing white outfits with unbuttoned shirts on the men (aided by wind machines), and scantily clad women often in some state of undress and writhing ecstasy. Maybe it's all the cajoling, all that calling her "baby," the sexual double-entendres, and the slinky way they're always sticking in the word "love." Here are some typical lyrics brought to you by the dreadful group, Dru Hill: Gimme some of that old love (oooh) Can't you just feel the love (especially that very subtle part about "saluting")? No wonder this crap melts womens' hearts and makes them jump out of their panties faster than Andy Dick dives into a pile of coke. This crap doesn't make me want to please my woman; it makes me want to take a nap and/or order myself a nice lobotomy. Amazingly, there are entire channels dedicated to this drek, including VH1 Soul on the tube, and radio stations like WBLS in NYC. Imagine, twenty-four hours of five-man groups all making love to your radio (and all making love to the same woman in five-part harmony). The stuff is creepy when you really think about it. I defy anybody to point out a more inane source of entertainment out there. It's the music world's version of the late-night Shannon Tweed movie--but without the nudity and the sweaty gardener. When did R&B sink to such lows? What happened to the great Motown songs of yesteryear. What happened to subtlety and class? Oh yeah, R-Kelly happened to it? Yeah, shut up. So, I went to the opera. That doesn't make me a Sally. It doesn't mean I'm going to skip town with my pilates instructor or go out and buy a VW Beetle. I don't all of a sudden have posters of Julie Andrews on my wall or have an urge to drink white wine spritzers and chow down toast points. Fine, so I liked it. I liked the singing and the pirates and the women in the bright skirts. I liked all that shit. I was boogying in my seat. I was ready to chuck it all, take voice lessons, balloon up to 350 pounds, grow a scraggly beard and dedicate my life to bellowing in French to a bunch of people holding those little binoculars. Okay, let's not go overboard here. I went to see Carmen at the New York City Opera. It's kind of the equivalent of ordering pad Thai, buying a Honda Accord, or rooting for Tiger Woods. It's the easiest opera to swallow. It's the beginner's beginning. It's a sucker's bet.
How could I resist the theme from the Bad News Bears? You know, the one they play as the BNB start to win--that rousing, soaring anthem? Turns out it's actually about a toreador. Who knew? Then there's that other song that has been bastardized by every commercial on Earth. In fact, Pepsi is using it for their latest Beyonce ad. Honestly, I felt a little bit like a fraud, as the translation scrolled above the stage. It felt like opera for dummies, or the kid's religious services where they played guitar and sung about the battle of Jericho, while the adults were in a different chapel reading the real stuff. Apparently the NYCO is the ghetto opera in NYC, while the Met is the place where the true patrons take in their culture. In fact, like the low-rent opera that it is (if there is really such a thing), a fight broke out in the upper decks right in the middle of act one. This guy stood up and started screaming at someone. The whole house turned around to check it out. It was pretty weird, really. It was as if we went for a night of culture and an Eagles game broke out. So, if you see me on the street, please don't take my lunch money. |
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