Category: Music

  • Personal Reflections: The Super Bowl, Commercials, and Bad Bunny

    Personal Reflections: The Super Bowl, Commercials, and Bad Bunny

    The Super Bowl sucked. Let’s just start right there. Not that it was bad so much as it was boring. Defensive battles, or whatever people are calling it, are dull to everyone except defensive players and defensive coaches.

    In the end, I’m glad that Seattle won, as I do think they were the better team, not just in the game last night, but the best team for the whole season. And it was a rather exciting NFL season, with lots of drama and close games. Which makes this “meh” of a Super Bowl such a letdown.

    But that’s sports for ya!

    This bring us to the commercials, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a single one. Nothing stood out as particularly interesting or creative. Just felt like the same old slop. And there was lots of AI slop on display, too! The impression I was left with is that America is a sickly nation that needs more drugs and screenings, likes to bet on everything, and still thinks crypto isn’t a scam. There might be something to be said that the cost for a fifteen to thirty second commercials is so expensive now, that it has made brands, marketeers, and ad wizards hesitant in trying anything new, as so much money is on the line. This situation has made what used to be entertaining advertising into something that is homogeneous now.

    Which gets us to Bad Bunny who was the real big winner of the evening. (Other than the Seahawks.) I’m not going to go into the controversy, because there was no controversy, because Trump only said the stuff that he said to try and create a distraction from the Epstein Files/Poll Number/ICE, and Turning Point USA was just a little too thirsty to get involved and in the end created a half-assed badly lip-synced train wreck of a dumpster fire that 6 million people watched which isn’t bad if you consider that 12 million tuned in for the Puppy Bowl…

    But I’m not going to get into it.

    What I will say about Bad Bunny’s show was that it was fun, and cool, and was exciting to watch and had guests and Easter Eggs, and what I thought he did was show off how wonderful, and complex Puerto Rico’s culture and people are, AND he did that really great thing that great performers do, which is makes his audience feel connected and vital to the show being performed. It was great.

    But I did make Buffalo Wings, and they were really good.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Today Was An Odd End

    (I wanna be in the room where it happens…)

    This was just an odd day. I went to bed on Thursday feeling like I might be sick. Come to find out when I woke up that I was sort of sick; stuffed up nose and a sore throat. But it never got any worse than that. I kept expecting to have that run down feeling come over me, yet it never showed up. I just felt odd.

    As such, I got a bunch of stuff done except writing.

    Now, here I am, writing on my phone while sitting in bed, ready for sleep, but knowing that I cannot end this day without writing something.

    And this is it; purely a statement of being – I am here, I exist, and I have made a squeak in the void.

    Goodnight, Springton! There will be no encores!

  • Earworm Wednesday: Vicki’s Hook was Wormier Than Reba’s

    I’m not saying that Vicki Lawrence is a better singer than Reba McEntire – good Lord, no. What I am saying is that Vicki’s original 1972 version of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” has a catchier earworm of a hook, as compared to Reba’s version from 1991. That’s all. I mean, judge for yourself.

    And then…

  • Thoughts on the Kid’s First Broadway Show

    We had been planning this for a while, taking the kid to see HAMILTON on Broadway. It’s her favorite musical – she has the sound track memorized, and we’ve watched the Disney+ filmed musical performance like a hundred times. We had the opportunity to take her to other shows, but we knew HAMILTON was the only “first” show she could have AND we wanted to wait until she was old enough to appreciate what “seeing a Broadway show” really meant.

    Ans last week, was the right time. (If I might add, the middle of the week HAMILTON cast, with a couple of understudies that went on, was great!) The kid was excited, we made a whole evening out of it with dinner before, and souvenirs when we got to the theatre. The kid was bouncing in her seat when the lights started to dim, mouthed along to the songs that she loves, and, though she said she wouldn’t because she knows the show too well, cried like all of us at the end of the show.

    I would love to flatter myself and say that this was a life changing moment, or one of the core moments of her life, but I can’t say that; only she can – and it might still be years before she would say anything like that to me. No, I just provided a platform, and I hope that it inspires or encourages her in some way.

    For me, it was a very big deal. I don’t do a lot of Broadway. Not that I have an issue with it, but my theatrical heart lies Off-Off-Off Broadway, in the little weird and small houses that play strange and experimental shows. I have taken the kid to see those (mainly quirky puppet shows that friends of mine do) so she knows that world of theatre. Now, after having seen a big, huge, famous show on Broadway, I think the kid has been exposed to both ends of the theatre spectrum.

    And I think that’s my job as a parent – helping the kid experience things, and see as much different art as possible. I’m not expecting her to go into the arts, and if she doesn’t, that’s fine. But art and storytelling are important, and can lead to a better understanding of the world around you. Especially when it comes to understanding that we are all the same. We all love, we all hurt, we all give, and we all take.

  • Earworm Wednesday: The Theme of My Childhood

    I had no idea when I first played Super Mario Bros. at Richard Nettles house, almost forty years ago, that this little theme song would still be bouncing around my head.

    The theme song to N.A.R.C. is a close second.