Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

I am the Arianna Huffington of not-a-blogs.

This is the Huffington Post of radio.

Or would be if it were radio, which it’s clearly not, but would be if it were.

I never heard one single person bitch about how the Huffington Post used other people’s content until she up and sold it to AOL.  Now it’s bitch bitch bitch.  For the record, I’m not bitching, I’m comparing.  That’s different.

What?

Right. Here I go.  A -thievin’.

Congress is cutting funding on everything so pretty soon you’ll turn on your radio and hear only static, turn on your taps and get only a rush of air, and turn on your television to tune into CSpan and oh, wait, they’ll still be there listening to themselves spout ridiculousness.

Just in case NPR is gone by next week, I’m trying to cram in all my NPR listening now.  As a service to you, free with your membership here at I Don’t Know What I’m Talking About Anyway dot com, I’ve culled the best of the best.  Just.  For.  You.

This is nothing we didn’t already know, but it’s so damn depressing to hear articulated as tidily as this.  The fact that the defeat of creativity of movies in Hollywood at the hands of studio marketing departments can be traced to a Tom Cruise movie makes me want to strap studio execs to chrome and leather chairs and make them watch Eyes Wide Shut on a continuous loop for four days straight.

I had the media player here, but it was gumming up the works, so you’ll have to make to do with the link…sorry. 

Terry Gross interviewed Twitter founder Biz Stone on Fresh Air last week and I had one of those “driveway moments,” during which I couldn’t get out of my car because I wanted to hear the entire interview.  I didn’t know a thing about Biz Stone, but I guess my assumption had been that he was a Mark Zuckerberg clone.  Wrong.  Here is the link to the transcript of the interview, but you can listen to the entire thing (almost 40 minutes) also, which I recommend, because he is a compelling guy.

Argh.  No player.  Just link.

When I was pregnant with my son, the 76ers were in the playoffs and I was obsessed with basketball.  Obsessed.  Would walk around spouting stats and arguing with people about Allen Iverson and Larry Brown like they were my besties and you wouldn’t DARE assume you knew what was going on between them.  I was ordered to go on bedrest on November 2nd.  That night the OB called my house to make sure that I was OK, not too upset, and my spirits were up.  He had to leave a message (a not-very-pleased message, by the way) on the machine because I had courtside tickets and no way was I missing that game.  Since then, I have paid attention to sports twice, both times involved Jayson Werth, who is hot.  He no longer plays for the Phillies, so it’s safe to assume that I’m not going to be spending a lot of time keeping tabs on who did what when on what field against whom.

Still and yet.

I caught this quite by accident, and knew nothing about it beforehand.  Buzz Bissinger apparently sparked some controversy last week by writing something about how basketball was losing white fans – you can listen for the details.  Kevin Blackistone disagrees.  I am always interested to hear intelligent people having reasoned and open debates about issues of race – the untouchable and scary elephant in every room, the elephant we need to talk about exactly this way yet don’t.  I don’t have a dog in this particular fight, but one thing that did catch my attention is right near the end when Bissinger – I think -  points out that younger fans can’t afford NBA tickets.  Hell, I’m 43, hardly a spring chicken, and make a good living and I can barely afford a night out at a pro sporting event with my family.  I’m completely repelled by the moneymaking machine that pro sports seems to be and feel like I’m being taken for a ride, one I can’t afford, when I do go.  My kids and I have so much more fun going to Camden River Sharks or Wilmington Blue Rocks games.

THE LINK