Last night while flipping TV channels for a few moments I discovered that the Grammys were being aired. As I watched the song being performed at that moment I realized that, given the current popular music scene, there probably wouldn't be too much that I like listening to. It's not so much the music, though reading the list of nominees and winneers artists this morning I recognized almost none of the artists from the station I listen to most -- the Triple A (Adult album alternative) WWCT -- but the, uh, social commentary that is de rigueur with such televised spectacles. So I turned the TV off...
As into my mind popped another awards show from the distant past, in this case the Emmys. From its beginnings television programming has (often deservedly) suffered much from the tongues and pens of critics. Radio's Fred Allen observed in 1950 that "television is called a medium because it is rare that it is well done." (Google tells me Ernie Kovacs, the early TV genius who was taken from us much too soon, said much the same thing.) And while the Emmys can often take television more seriously than it deserves, there's this wickedly funny presention from the 1959 Emmy Awards by the comedians Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
There will be a lot said here tonight about excellence. And the creative, the artistic, and the skillful will all be recognized and rewarded.
But what of the others in this industry? Seriously, there are men in the industry who go on, year in and year out, quietly and unassumingly producing garbage.
I'm very, very proud to have been chosen by the Academy to present tonight's Special Award to the man who has been voted the Most Total Mediocity in the industry...
Oh, go ahead and watch it all. It may fit last night's Grammys more than I imagined.
It's been a long day in which I've not accomplished everything I needed to do today. But at 7 o'clock tonight on Peoria's PBS station (WTVP, Channel 47) Martin Luther: The Idea that Changed the World is airing and I'm going to sit back and watch it. This is short notice, but if you are in the Peoria area, it's worth watching. It'll be re-broadcast at midnight tonight and again on Friday (the 15th) at 1 am. Other PBS stations are broadcasting it at other times over the next few weeks.
It was 500 years ago that the Reformation began with Luther's posting of Ninety Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences that October 31st.
Last week on my Google News feed I noticed a headline with "West Hills" and "crossbow," but didn't click the link. I should have, though, because the story happened about 100 yards from my parents' front door. Yup, not 100 yards from Zion's South Side parsonage. It made for an interesting story to hear about during my brief visit home this week.
P.S. KABC should have stayed with its initial report; that address is in West Hills, not Woodland Hills.
...because growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s, I heard this every Monday through Friday during Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade until I started first grade. And, since I had the record, a whole lot more times until I wore it out.
Scheduled to post on the 56th minute of St. Patrick's Day, Pacific Standard Time.
And as soon as I finish one post, another familiar name shows up "trending" on Facebook. Gary Owens died yesterday at the age of 80. Most famous, perhaps, as the announcer from "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and still heard as the voice of Antenna TV, Garish had the 3-6 pm shift on KMPC 710, the radio station I listened to the most growing up.
"The Nurny Song" (not only sung by the "staff" singers, but by just about every recording artist of the '60s and '70s, including The Carpenters and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir); the words "insegrevious," "fnork," and "krelb;" an autographed picture of the Harbor Freeway; Krellman; Earl C. Festoon; the "Gary Owens Rumor of the Day;" "The Story Lady" (nearly 300 episodes are currently available at that link); speaking to or of "Wayne Doo" (KMPC engineer Wayne DuBois); and the Zookmeister Broadcasting System. Good music, news and traffic reports, and plenty of promotions with Dick Enberg, announcer for the (then) California Angels -- KMPC and the Angels were both owned by Gene Autry, who also owned KTLA channel 5. Ending a finance company commercial with, "and there are 29 offices within the sound of my voice. And now," speaking much louder, "there are 57 offices within the sound of my voice."
Yet in all that non-stop zaniness, he was also a consummate professional. Here's an aircheck, unfortunately it begins a bit wobbly, from his Sept 17, 1970, KMPC broadcast. (Note that in air checks the middle of songs and commercials are frequently cut out.) Oh, the memories this brings to me!
Stan Chambers, Gary Owens... I hope I'm not back in a krenellemuffin.
On a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1949, 3½-year-old Kathy Fiscus fell into an abandoned well in San Marino, California, and a rescue attempt was begun. Newspapers and radio stations covered as an anxious city (and eventually the nation) followed the story. At some point during the rescue, someone at KTLA Channel 5, the first commerically licensed TV station in the western US, thought to send a camera crew. And for 27½ hours, Stan Chambers stood before and beside the camera telling viewers -- this was the early days of television, so perhaps 20,000 people were able to watch at home -- what they were watching on their screens, including the sad news that Kathy had died long before her rescuers reached her. This was the first on-the-scene live TV coverage of a breaking news story. It would not be the last, for television or for Stan Chambers. Sales of televisions skyrocketed.
While it would be several years before KTLA had a regular news broadcast, they'd broadcast special news events live and Stan Chambers was usually the guy on screen reporting. The testing of an atom bomb in Nevada. Brush fires all across the Southland. Floods, earthquakes, riots. He covered the assissination of Bobby Kennedy and broke the story beating of Rodney King. And Stan reported good news, too, not the least of which was the Rose Parade (which, if you cannot be there in person, is still best watched on KTLA [Thank God for the internet!]). I saw him report hundreds of stories on Channel 5's News at 10 living in LA. And he continued this until he retired in 2010 at the age of 87, after 63 years at KTLA and in the homes of Angelenos.
A little while ago, "Stan Chambers" started appearing on the "trending" portion of my Facebook page, dying today at the age of 91. A true television pioneer. RIP, Stan Chambers. Here's one of KTLA's tributes.
Bringing in the new year, 2014. It still seems best with Guy Lombardo and the Royal Candians playing "Auld Lang Syne," though here you get more than the 10 seconds the band got on NBC at the top of the hour a few moments ago.
Meanwhile, here on the South Side of Peoria, the firecrackers are going off outside, and inside I'm watching an episode of The Jack Benny Program, with guest Andy Williams, from 1964. And Madge Blake (you do know which TV show she is best known for appearing on, don't you?) as a member of the Jack Benny Fan Club! Imagine the big joke on a black-and-white program being the guests' blue eyes.
I only saw the following commercial once on TV. Nevertheless, it left a very positive impression. I never forgot it or, more importantly, the product it advertised. It made me desire that product even more. Actually, having found this commercial on YouTube, it still gets me desiring the product. Which makes it, in my book at least, one of the greats.
The thing is, I've almost always preferred the Mustang, or a Barracuda, to the Camaro. But right now, I want that car!
She has another appearance on Pastor Zip's Blog, featured with her husband, Steve Lawrence, in a classic television commercial for American Express. As we see, their performances live on.
It was only a couple of months ago that Pastor Karl Eckhoff of the neighboring Christ Lutheran Church -- Christ and Zion have been about three blocks apart for since the 1890s -- called me to ask if Zion might be interested in patcipating in a community garden. My response was along the lines of, "We're not in the position to offer much labor, but what other ways can we help?"
Turns out the garden was actually established last year at Logan Park (just a couple of blocks away) by the gitm Foundation ("gitm" is for "Gifts in the Moment") in association with the Peoria Park District, Garfield Elementary School (which is next to the park), and with support from other area businesses and agencies. The kids of the school and park would have the opportunity for hands-on learning about food and nutrition, and some produce and spices would be available in the neighborhood.
Everything was looking good until the school district rather suddenly decided to close Garfield School. But Christ Lutheran School also borders Logan Park, and this winter Denise and Kim from gitm approached the school to see if they might be interested in becoming a stakeholder in Garfield's place. Turns out this has been a win-win solution, and this winter and spring plans were devised to enlarge the garden and begin an Urban Farmers Market. Amazingly, everything has come together quite well to move the ideas into reality.
Zionites are helping provide seeds and seedlings, one of our members is with me on the board and has been very helpful in getting other area Lutherans on board, and the last couple of Saturdays I helped put up a fence and put a dirt mixture in the garden beds. Yesterday was a ribbon cutting for the garden and urban farmers market, with speakers from the gitm Foundation, the Peoria Park District, Illinois American Water, a song from the school children, and where I offered a prayer and blessing.
Here's the news report that aired yesterday on WEEK-TV, Channel 25:
For some reason, Laura Scudder's Potato Chips, the Noisiest Chip in the World, came to mind. The following TV commercial (which I'm sure I saw hundreds of times) takes us back to the glory days of the potato chip section of a market being filled with several different brands, most of which (at least in LA) were local.
Today's ubiquitous Lay's potato chips, a national brand, were actually rather exotic 40 years ago. Chips like Bell Brand, Granny Goose, and Laura Scudder's (three California brands) almost disappeared. "The noisiest chip in the world" is available (again), though I don't think I'll be buying a case of them, the only way I'd be able to get them here in Peoria.
Oh, dear. I'm not sure whether the plural of "Leaf" (as in Nissan Leaf) is "Leaves" or "Leafs." One thing I know, however, is that it is *not* "Leaf's." I'm trying to imagine Huntley, Brinkley, Chancellor, or even Brokaw (to name some of NBC's news luminaries) letting such poor English show up on the screen repeatedly on their newscasts -- as I saw early this afternoon.
Steven Tibbetts
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So Pastor Zip is flipping through the Peoria TV dial since his show is being pre-empted for a special and suddenly Channel 43.2 appears on the screen.
43.2? There is no Channel 43.2 in Peoria! (Pastor Zip is a hold out to cable TV, stubbornly insisting that the free, over-the-air TV is good enough)
Except there is. It's a subchannel for WYZZ Fox 43 (though apparently there's been no announcement of it) and shows music videos. It's called theCoolTV and, unlike MTV, it shows, well, music videos. Apparently all the time.
THECOOLTV plays music, period. Our programming is customized to YOUR market, so watch for the videos you want to see and send requests to REQUEST via email or call the COOL REQUEST LINE at 888-342-8761 x711
The program guide says "80's at Eight." Oh, this is going to be fun!
And in honor of this day, here's a preview for the next episode of SCTV's Monster Chiller Horror Theatre hosted by Count Floyd and featuring another one of Dr. Tongue's 3-D classics. Trick or treat!!!
Ah, they don't do TV like that any more. Or do they?
"Houston," radioed Apollo 11's Commander Neil Armstrong, "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
That's what we heard at the Tibbetts household 41 years ago today while, as at homes all across the nation and (indeed) the world, glued to the TV. We were watching on KNXT Channel 2, the CBS O&O station in Los Angeles, and Walter Cronkite was presiding. Here are 10 minutes of highlights of what we saw that week on CBS, courtesy South Florida's CBS4 site.
And here's 10 minutes of video footage of the landing from inside Eagle, with just NASA's audio:
Once upon a time, we could put a man on the Moon. Someday, hopefully soon, we'll be able to do it again. But until then, enjoy.
While I'll be headed to the theater soon to catch the latest installment of Twilight -- yes, I've enjoyed the films and the books -- nevertheless, this t-shirt ad at Jinx makes me smile:
Buffy Staked Edward T-Shirt
Don't you think the vampires-are-people-too thing has gone a little too far? I mean, the whole point of a vampire is that they survive by sucking your blood. I don't care if his skin glows and twinkles and he smells like kittens and fabric softener, he's still just a glorified syringe. Remember the last time you had blood drawn? Yeah, me too, and it sucked! It's time we put an end to this nonsense: Edward, may I treat you to a stake dinner?
I entered the digital TV age when, at the beginning of the year and in preparation for my convalescence from prostate surgery (good news, my PSA level is still immeasurable and, while I still tire too easily, I'm doing a lot more to get there), I bought a DVD player that has both a VCR and a digital tuner. There I discovered that a Peoria resident does not have to hook up to cable TV to get the CW affiliate (CW 4) or the PBS affiliate (WTVP 47) after midnight. They are broadcast over the air using digital transmissions, the CW being on WHOI 19's subchannel. I also discovered the 2 subchannels for WTVP and NBC's WeatherPlus (the subchannel for WEEK 25), which enabled me to discover the very-pleasing-to-the-eye Samantha Davies (whom the Urban Dictionary describes as "smokin hot chick."
The bad news with digital is that you either get the signal or you don't. No more in-between, where with a weak (analog) signal you get a somewhat (or severely) snowy picture. And that is particularly annoying in the Parsonage because TV signals here, even with an amplified antenna, have a habit of suddenly becoming shadowy, especially (but not necessarily) where there is a major weather change. A channel comes in just fine for weeks, then suddenly the signal goes kablooey and I spend weeks realigning the antenna to get as many of our over-the-air channels as possible clearly. It's pretty rare that all 6 analog signals come in decently, though usually I can get 4 very good and 1 quite acceptable with one set up. WYZZ 43 (Fox) or WAOE 59 (My TV) throw fits the most, but it can happen with any of the Peoria area channels, the afore mentioned stations or WMBD 31 (CBS).
The TV stations are also busy promoting the changeover to digital and I have gotten my converter boxes, one for the living room TV (the "big" 20-inch one connected to the DVD/VCR -- heck, it's a perfectly good 12-year-old Zenith) and one for the upstairs TV -- a 23-year-old 13-incher which is a bit fiesty on UHF (which is what all the local channels are) but with the converter works just fine on Channel 3. Except, naturally, I can't get all 6 digital signals no matter what direction I put the (regular rabbit ears) antenna. Well, I don't use that TV set much anyway.
Nevertheless, a digital converter box enables me to continue resisting the evil cable company. This video guide to the conversion is more useful that others:
Formerly a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I served Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria, Illinois, from 1992 to 2019, then Resurrection Lutheran Church, Godfrey, Illinois, into 2020.
