Okay, so this just came to my attention and I just had to write about it.
So apparently, the big inner of California has had enough and has decided to declare independence and become the 51st state. They would call themselves "New California", The split is over the state being "ungovernable" and that there has been a decline in infrastructure in the state. I guess the split may owe itself to the fact that most of the population lives on the coast and that the rural areas of the state are neglected? Or it could just simply be a political split. Anyway here is the diagram of the proposed idea.
Two things:
1. "New California" just doesn't seem right to me, especially if it's going to be made up of rural counties, which isn't exactly new. Now it seems like they are modeling this split after Virginia and West Virginia's split, so why not just call it "East California"? That seems like a better name.
2. The first thought, and funny thought, that came into my mind was that in a few years the area labeled as "California" will be separated from the state via the fault lines and earthquakes, so the people in "EAST California" won't have to worry about the people on the coast costing them money. And it is true stuff, look it up.
Honestly, this probably doesnt have a snowball's chance in hell of happening, but it's funny nonetheless.
Now, because I am an old fashioned type of person, I think this happens to me more often than other people, but have you ever been thinking about somebody, maybe out of the blue, and then they end up dying a few days or weeks later? This happened to me recently with Keith Jackson, the famous college football announcer dying yesterday. My mind, in its ADD form, fell on him a few days ago as I was driving home from work. I also was watching some old college football games a few weeks ago.
This is not the first time this has happened to me. During the infamous celebrity plague of 2016, it happened to me a bit. Have I acquired evil powers? Who knows. Heh heh heh.............*
Every once in a while, I get in a rut. I keep looking at or thinking about the same old things. The same clips on YouTube, the same fanfictions, etc. Usually what breaks me out of said rut is either a completely new topic of which I know little, yet fascinates me or a return to something that I have not looked at in a very long time. In this case this is something that I knew existed but really didn't know anything about. I have decided to write about some of these under the umbrella title "The Rutbreakers".
I have been on an 80s music kick of late, listening to certain songs from Chicago, Mike and the Mechanics (which might have become m second favorite band), Phil Collins and the Go-Go's. Why? Well I like the music. It sounds nicer to me. Sue me. Anyway, I was looking for cover versions of these songs to try and expand the possibilities when I came across a link of some cover versions that were done on a show called "Kids Incorporated"
Now, to this point, I knew very little about this program. The outside edge of knowledge that I knew about this was that one of the cast members of this show was one Stacy Ferguson, who eventually rose to fame alongside the Black Eyed Peas as Fergie. So I assumed that there was singing involved in the program because of her involvement. And I was proven correct. I began to look into these covers. But as Lewis Black would say, "Then things got strange"
I saw this cover of Belinda Carlisle's hit "Heaven is a Place on Earth"
I have no words for this. None.
The picture says it all. The girl who eventually become Fergie hugging what appears to be a green ball with a moustache. This green ball, who is probably an alien giving the context of the song, then is green screened flying off with the kids waving at what was probably a tennis ball or a light marked spot.
And yet, it fascinated me a bit. So, given my methods, I looked into this program. It aired from 84-92, first in syndication and then on the Disney Channel. In addition to Fergie, the singer Martika, whose hit "Toy Soldiers" plays in our store a lot, and Jennifer Love Hewitt also appeared on this show.
And that got me thinking again.
The Disney Channel, for years has been a pipeline for young girls and young boys to make it in the business. What learning about this show told me was that this "pipeline of doom"stretched further than I could have thought. It essentially, in the sense of the Disney Channel itself, started with these 3 girls, then went to Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake on The New Mickey Mouse Club, then Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Ashley Tisdale, Shia LaBeouf, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Debby Ryan, etc.
It's a never ending pipeline of young stars who eventually break down or use drugs in some fashion.
I was happy ( in terms of finding a pattern only) that Fergie did have drug problems in the 90s, which delayed her career.
It's almost as if the Disney Channel is like a farm team for the majors and when you reach a certain age, you graduate the farm and move onto the next level. And apparently the farm team doesn't really mention the dangers of drug use, considering so many of them do.
Anyway, that's my ramble on this topic. I still dont know why I find it fascinating though? Is it seeing the young starlets and knowing the future, is it the Barney-like effects and plots, is it the music? I don't know. All I know is that it revved my mental juices and got me out of a bit of a rut. And for that I thank it.
As most people who read this blog know, television is kind of my milieu. And it is one particular element of television that I wish to talk about today:
The Television Theme Song.
What do they represent? The really good ones stick out and represent what you are about to see for the next 30/60 minutes. Some of them may bring about memories of watching said series in a particular environment with a particular person perhaps. They are part of our cultural knowledge.
And yet the artform is basically extinct. Networks, seeking more ad time to make money, have basically eliminated the television theme song. Some still exist, but more on that later.
First I want to mention one particular person and one particular theme. The person is Mike Post, who is generally regarded as the scion of the television theme music. Indeed, his themes for Law & Order, Hill Street Blues, Magnum P.I., The A-Team and others are imprinted in our minds.
His one theme I want to talk about is L.A. Law.
Why do I choose this one? Because I read a blurb in TV Guide which gave it a most particular description, with which I think I can illustrate the importance of the artform. I read this blurb in a CD cover for TV Guide issued theme songs. They described the theme of L.A. Law as representing, and I paraphrase:
" A lady lawyer in a courtroom presenting a case. She is dressed in a stiff, lawyer like outfit. However, underneath this outfit is a sexy red negligee, maybe for surprising a guy later."
As you can probably guess, the trumpet and horns represent the lawyer side and the saxophone represents the negligee.
And anyone who had ever seen L.A. Law would probably make that an apt description for the program. So the theme, once again, represents what you, the viewer is about to see.
Now, to conclude, the television theme song is basically extinct from a lot of television. But there are exceptions. The most notable one IMO, is Game of Thrones.
An epic theme for an epic show. Helps to make it stand out. Wish television would go back to this artform more often.
So this is my first post in a while and my first post of 2018, and it is address a specific issue.
As I speak, the East Coast has been rocked by what the weathermen call a "bomb cyclone". What it means, I don't know or really care to know; if they had just said "big snowstorm" it probably wouldn't have made a difference.
That is not the issue I have.
The city of Tallahassee, Florida, due to this storm, received the first snow that it had seen since 1988, coincidentally, the year of my birth. The predicted total for the city was about 1-1.5 inches of snow.
