Social Change Through Television

Children, I think, are more susceptible to being convinced by campaigns because they do not realize they are being manipulated. Edutainment, as it is known, works especially well, or at least it did on me when I was younger. Sesame Street is a perfect example of this. The way they seamlessly integrate social messages into the jokes and dramatic tension of the show makes it very easy for children to learn without even realizing it. Also, Sesame Street has been around for decades and is a respected program. Therefore, the producers of the show do not have to worry about people having problems with their agenda and denying their entitlement. Also, it usually airs on public television (PBS, et cetera) so they do not have to worry about making “the network” angry.

Sesame Street incorporates a lot of music into their informational messages. This makes it easier for the message to stay in a child’s head, because they are thinking about the song. For me, one particularly effective iteration of this was a song about water conservation. The song, which has a slight country influence and memorable melody, aired often on Sesame Street. One verse in the song has stuck with me all these years:

Without it think how hot and dry and thirsty you would be / you’d never see a flower and you’d never see a tree / there’d be no ducks or fish or cows, there’d be no you or me / without water.

The images of plants and animals and children all enjoying the benefits of water, combined with that dire proclamation that it might some day all be gone if we’re not careful, was enough to make me keep listening to the song, hoping for a solution. The song went on to extol the values of not leaving the water running when you were brushing your teeth, and of telling your parents when there’s a leaky faucet.

The tune was catchy enough that for awhile I could sing the entirety of the lyrics to myself whenever I was in the bathroom or doing anything else that required water. I almost immediately became more conservative in my water usage, which has continued to this day.

I think, though, that while attentive children can find a lot of value in this song, there are many kids who would not actually listen to the words. Also, Sesame Street was designed as a show that parents and kids could watch together, with elements that are interesting and entertaining to both age groups. Many adults would not be affected by the song, and as Rice and Atkin in their book Public Information Campaigns say, parents might “regard [the message] as offensive, disturbing, boring, stale, preachy, confusing, irritating, misleading, irrelevant, uninformative, useless, unbelievable, or unmotivating,” and might even say to their child not to worry about water conservation (51).

However, I believe that overall, this song has worked well on the target audience, and has probably effected many children who have now grown into sustainable individuals.

Stateline Diner Review

I'm a college student, and in the middle of the night (like 2 or 3 AM), Stateline is the best place in the world. Countless times I've taken the short drive over and stuffed myself silly. There are 20 pounds in my body that I can, without a doubt, blame directly on Stateline. The service generally isn't too good at night, but they're friendly enough to me now that I've spent tons of money here over the years.

Completely different atmosphere during the day. Different clientele, different staff. The day staff are friendlier and quicker, but being a night person myself, there's something very foreign about being in Stateline when the sun is still up.

Oh, and the food's pretty good, too. My usual meal is the Deluxe Cheeseburger, with waffle fries covered in mozzarella cheese dipped in mayonnaise. Soooooo unhealthy, but if I ever end up on death row I'd request it as my final meal. I also get the Stateline Salad sometimes, which has cheese and salami and all that good stuff in it. The pancakes are pretty good, too, but I hardly ever get those.

Cheers Review Part 2

I immediately became horribly shocked at myself for being such a horrible son, and began rambling onto my parents how I was going to make my last semester at college really count, how I'd do all my homework the day it was assigned, eat healthy, exercise, go to the library, etc.

[Note: This is where I was interrupted in my Yelp! Review. Damn character limit.]

Well anyway, my parents did not seem to share my enthusiasm. I gather they were quite disappointed that their untrustworthy son was also a "two-beer queer", so to speak.

Time always goes faster for me when I'm drunk, so the wait was nothing. We were taken to a table in the back room and I ordered a bacon bleu burger.
Usually I have a tough time ordering food in restaurants. I am extremely indecisive. It takes me 20 minutes at Burger King to know what I want. But I had been thinking about this meal for five and a half years.

In those five and a half years I had some pretty bad reviews of the place, especially the food. However, my bacon bleu burger was delicious. The pickle it came with was unique. The fries were quite tasty.

12 hours later, I can still taste the bacon bleu burger, one of the best burgers I ever ate. The independent pickle lingers in my mind. I know finally know what the inside looks like.

You know, I can understand why some people may not rate this place highly. But after five and a half years of reading bad reviews, I'd say this place is an underrated gem. Don't listen to me because I'm a Cheers ubernerd, listen to me because even after all the research I did, I was still pleasantly, pleasantly surprised at the quality of this wonderful establishment.

My stay in Massachusetts ends in about seven hours. I move back into my local New Jersey college on Monday. I'm not going back on those words I said at the bar.

And after I graduate in May, maybe again I'll return to the place where everyone will eventually know my name. I could definitely be a regular here.

Cheers Review Part 1

I used to watch TV all the time before I went to college. During my high school years, there were two episodes of Cheers every night on Nick at Nite. This was back when my addiction to the internet was fighting my television addiction. But as 10 o'clock would roll around, I'd think, "Oh, I've got to get off the computer - it's time for Cheers."

Maybe around 9:45 one day I decided to combine my two addictions and Google the show. It was then I found that Cheers was a real bar. Fiction and reality were clashing, and I was in the middle. I could walk down that staircase! I was determined to go!

Alas, I was 16 years old and I lived in New Jersey. There was no way, I thought, I would ever get to go to Cheers. But the over next few months I completely immersed myself in everything Cheers.

By day, I was on the internet, learning every thing about the real bar that I possibly could. I read the reviews. I memorized the menu. I must have taken the online virtual tour hundreds of hundreds of times.

By night, I would watch my two episodes of Cheers on Nick at Nite and as I would see Norm, Frasier, and the rest of the gang walk down those stairs and into the door and sit at the bar, I imagined myself doing the same thing, and knew that one day it would be true.

But Cheers was just a fad in my life, like many others before and after it. I grew up and I moved on. I hardly watch TV these days. Had things been continuing status quo, I would've never again thought to go to Cheers.

Until my father got a job in Massachusetts.

"Where do you think you'll live?" I asked him.

"Well, we were looking at Beacon Hill..."

BEACON HILL! Beacon HILL!

Cheers is in Beacon Hill.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed. "Did you go to Cheers?!"

"No," he responded, unsure of my sudden excitement. "I thought that was somewhere else in the city, anyway."

"You're thinking of Cheers Faneuil Hall," I said, the memories coming back to me. "That's the fake Cheers. The one in Beacon Hill is the real one. It's got the staircase and everything."

For the next few weeks it was all I could think of. Everything was as it was before. Except I couldn't watch it on TV. Thankfully we here on the internet have something called Youtube. I even saw videos of people playing the theme song on piano! I remember I used to want to play piano JUST BECAUSE OF THE CHEERS THEME SONG.

It all came down to Thursday afternoon. We were staying in temporary housing in the Boston suburb of Hingham and my parents were talking about meeting up with the realtor on Saturday to look at places to lease in Boston.

"We're going to Cheers, right?" I piped in.

"You're gonna come with us to look at places with the realtor?"

"Of course! I have to go to Cheers!"

"Okay, okay, we'll stop in for a drink."

And how did I repay them the next day? By revealing that I had been deceiving them about my school grades all month. Our family dynamic changed completely. But on Saturday morning, we were on our way to look at apartments in Boston, with my main question being "How far away is this from Beacon Hill?" Of course, I was really asking how far the place was from Cheers. All the while I could feel the scorn in my parents' eyes for what I had done.

After a good few hours of apartment-hunting and unspoken parental disappointment, we finally arrived across the street from the familiar facade of the dreams of my youth, 84 Beacon Street, Cheers. I could see everything. There was a British guy on my side of the street attempting to take a picture of his equally-British companion who was across the street leaning against the staircase. My parents were arguing about how much money to put in the meter.

It became clear to me that they were operating under the impression that we would not just be "going in for a drink", as previously stated, but going in for a full meal. Once they saw the menu located outside on the staircase, it was determined between the two of them (even though I had spoken about it multiple times) that there was indeed food there and that we would be having lunch.

It was quite crowded as we walked in. Small children were everywhere. We were given one of those blinking electronic devices one usually only encounters in soulless chain restaurants and told to wait at the bar. From a middle-aged female bartender I pretended was Rebecca, I ordered a Sam Adams Winter Lager, because what else could be more appropriate at a bar in Boston during January?

Now, at this point it was 1:30 PM and I had not eaten all day. I drank my beer fast and was asked by faux-Rebecca if I wanted another. I gladly accepted and after a few sips of that one, I was feeling pretty wonky.

I immediately became horribly shocked at myself for being such a horrible son, and began rambling onto my parents how I was going to make my last semester at college really count, how I'd do all my homework the day it was assigned, eat healthy, exercise, go to the library, etc.

Part 2 here

This is a Thirty-Dollar Experience Itself: Ruminations After Having Seen a Concert That Was “Worth It” – Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

On Friday I saw Phil Lesh and Friends in the Nokia Theatre. I’m not here to talk about that experience, just the fact that I paid $60 for the ticket. On Saturday at Terminal 5, I saw Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, with Ben Kweller and Rig One. The ticket was $30.

Always in concept, and often in execution, I hate opening acts, especially ones I never listen to, which is almost always the case. Why sit through music you don’t like for an hour or more when you’re just excited to see the headliner? They provide many benefits, though.

One (or at least the ones I know) will always make an attempt to arrive at a show around the time the gates open. But even though my friends and I arrived on time to the area in front of Terminal 5, it took awhile for us to actually get in because of the issue of an extra ticket that had to be sold and the ensuing character interactions that resulted from it.

Anyhow, by the time we got inside, the opening act, Rig One, was already on stage. We still lingered for awhile in the hallway leading up to the main room, purchasing “merch” and trying to secure a ride home. By the time we walked in, Rig One was towards the end of his set. But from what I heard I did not care. Rig One was sort of rap/rock – traditional rock and roll instruments with a rapper rapping over the music. The main thing about rap, in my opinion, is the lyrics. In the crowded concert hall half-filled with people who didn’t care, I could not hear a word the rapper said. It was kind of just annoying.

The second act was Ben Kweller. Ben Kweller is one of those names I’ve always heard people mention but I have never actually listened to any of his recordings. On a seemingly unrelated note, just a few weeks ago, I was wishing that I was around during country rock’s heyday. What I wouldn’t give to see the Flying Burrito Brothers or New Riders of the Purple Sage in their prime. Or the country rock version of the Byrds! Imagine seeing a conventional folk/pop/rock band turning country right before your eyes. Imagine seeing your former clean-cut mid-60s idol turn into a dirty country hippie, complete with a lap pedal steel guitar player to his right.

Well, that’s exactly what happened with Ben Kweller. The first song he played was so I’m-in-my-country-rock-phase my face was plastered with a permanent smile. Some of the people more familiar with his work were shouting out requests of his older songs, none of which he seemed to play. It was everything I had been hoping for with seeing Poco or something, but without the illogical time travel aspects. I liked his voice, too. It was unique yet familiar. I did find his piano ballads somewhat boring, however.

What I haven’t commented on yet was that this mostly standing-room-only venue was extremely crowded and the entire time it felt as if I were in a giant mosh pit. At one point, for about an hour there was something (perhaps a hard leather purse) digging directly into my spine. And it’s harder than one would think for a group of four people to all stand next to each other in such a tight space. When Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band finally came on stage, I lost all hope of my knees being parallel with my feet. But at least I was close. I saw chord shapes, analyzed the band members’ facial structures, and watched Conor Oberst’s spit fly all over the stage.

As I listen to the studio recordings today for the first time since the concert, I find that they do not do the songs justice. Oberst seems to have an existential relationship with the lyrics in most songs – they’re just meaningless words to him, he’s comfortable with them, used to them. One would think he’d be more comfortable with them in concert, and maybe it was just from his excessive alcohol consumption, but when he sang on Saturday, it was as if he was living through the songs for the first time. “Cape Canaveral” in particular was turned from what was on record an upbeat opening song to a melancholy and emotional encore.

The band, too, made me look at the music differently. The album the Mystic Valley Band was promoting was called “Conor Oberst”. Yet their performance really seemed like a band. I’ve never seen Bright Eyes, Oberst’s main band, live in person, but whenever I watch live performance videos of them, everyone just seems to be doing their own thing. Bright Eyes has never had a stable lineup. Conor Oberst is the only member who appears on all their albums, and Mike Mogis comes in a close second, appearing on all but one album. But the Mystic Valley Band live is the only Mystic Valley Band there is, with most of the members appearing on the “Conor Oberst” album. Also, I felt a natural connection to the bass player, as he had long dark hair and a flannel shirt and therefore I thought he looked very similar to me. All in all, I could sense a real camaraderie between the band members.

This is in direct contrast to the recorded songs, because the Mystic Valley Band was assembled for the purpose of recording the album and had therefore not played in any sort of configuration together, much like most Bright Eyes lineups. It thus seemed like any other “first album by a band” in that the instrumentalists weren’t completely used to each other. After touring together for a good portion of the year, though, they were very tight. Not even all the beer Conor drank could ruin the flawlessness of the songs.

All in all, even though I wasn’t completely satisfied with every aspect of the three bands that played that night, I left Terminal 5 extremely content, as I had seen three acts, two of them rather good (and one of them probably at least OK, if only I could hear the lyrics) for only $30.

obligatory

I go to college for writing. I have to write a lot for my class assignments. I figure I should post them online. These may be works in progress. I guess I'll also write some things just for this blog.