Backed into a corner…

A person who is painted or boxed into a corner is someone who has created difficulties for themselves by their own actions where there are no or very few favorable outcomes.

So far, it appeared like the “Teflon Don” president Trump has been able to escape anything sticking to him, from collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, multiple instances of potential obstruction of justice charges, to many, many cases in which Trump and his cronies have simply ignored the emoluments clause of the Constitution and have used the office of the President to add to their personal coffers.

And yet, it looks like El Cheeto Supremo may have really stepped in it this time. 

The situation with the Ukraine has already presented enough evidence to finally persuaded enough members of the House that Nancy Pelosi formally announced a formal impeachment inquiry on Trump.

But, why now? After everything that happened (or rather, didn’t happen) with the Mueller report, why is it this phone call the issue that’s triggering people’s response that Trump has finally crossed the line?

The biggest thing is that it’s pretty simple to explain. As opposed to the Mueller report, which was over 400 pages, the whistleblower report is only 9 pages long.

Here’s the TL;DR:

Trump (and Guiliani, and likely others) leveraged government resources ($400 million in military aid) to pressure a foreign entity (Ukraine) to do them “a favor” (in this case: find Hillary’s missing email server and investigate Hunter and Joe Biden for corruption) for Trump’s personal gain (dig up dirt on a political rival in the 2020 election).

That right there is an impeachable offense.

Then, the White House, realizing that this call could have major implications, actively worked to cover up the event by moving all documentation related to the call to a “top secret” server meant for matters of national security, which does NOT include saving Trump’s ass.

Another one.

Then, days later, Attorney General Barr received the whistleblower report, looked it over, declared that there was “nothing to see here” and tried to make it go away. 

Possibly another one, depending on whether Barr was acting “on orders” from Trump.

Trump released the transcript of the call, and now that the whistleblower report has been made public, a number of sources have verified elements of the report (including the White House, which admitted moving all documentation about the Ukraine phone call to the top secret server).

Reports have come out stating that, per the whistleblower report, phone conversations between Trump and Putin and Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia are also on this server. 

The major differences between this and everything in the Mueller report are: 

1) The Ukraine call (and visits) are linked directly to Trump and Guiliani, his personal attorney. 

2) Trump and Guiliani (and the White House) have admitted they made the call, and Trump provided a document (not a transcript) of a good portion of the conversation from that call, that shows Trump repeatedly brought up investigating the Bidens.

3) The White House has admitted moving documentation to the top secret server (although they’re trying to spin/deflect who actually ordered moving the files)

4) The whistleblower suggests in his report that the Ukraine call is just one example of a disturbing pattern of behavior from the Trump White House.

Nothing in the Mueller report is as clear-cut as this. Yes, Russia actively tried to interfere with our election, and they would have colluded with the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign was simply too inept to understand what was being offered to them. Most of the obstruction of justice incidents involve Trump wanting to do something that, if his orders had been obeyed, would have clearly been obstruction. In many of the cases, though, Trump’s subordinates simply ignored his orders and waited for him to forget about the whole thing. 

But will he be impeached? 

That’s harder to say. As of today, the House has the votes it needs to pass articles of impeachment. However, Republicans in the Senate are currently steadfast in declaring their loyalty to Trump, and a few have declared they’ll never vote for impeachment. Ironically, at least a couple of those members (I’m looking at you Graham and Moscow Mitch) have videos from the Clinton impeachment contradicting everything they’re saying now.

But, public opinion has already shifted in the last week. It’s hard to predict if the House can continue to make a case for impeachment before the public and push public opinion even further into supporting impeachment.

There was a report somewhere that said most voters were against Nixon’s impeachment when the inquiry began, but public support turned against him as the House made their case. By the time Nixon resigned, more than 2/3 of the public were in favor of impeachment.

At what point will public opinion persuade Republicans in the Senate from staying on board the sinking Trump presidency and save their own hides? It may happen sooner for those facing re-election in 2020, especially if public opinion in their home states turn in favor of impeachment. 

Trump and the GOP will likely try to stonewall the inquiry, which isn’t going to be a good look for them, considering Trump offered up the initial transcript. If they start ignoring subpoenas or trying to hide behind executive privilege now, the public may wonder what they’re hiding. 

And, as we’ve seen over the last 2 1/2 years, Trump will go to any length to keep from admitting he was wrong about anything, no matter how trivial (see: Sharpiegate). He doesn’t want to lose, but, considering all of the other investigations involving the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization, Trump likely also doesn’t want to face any legal repercussions either. 

We’ll likely get to see Trump go insane as his ego fights with the mafioso part of his brain over whether to fight or flee. Maybe Putin will set him up with a place in Moscow?

Will he quit? Does Trump have some other goodies on that top secret server that would take down Pence and other GOP members with him? Does his buddy Putin have enough kompromat on leading members of the Senate to ensure they fall in line and vote against impeachment? 

Remember, all Trump needs is 34 Senators in his back pocket, and he walks. 

Or, will Trump completely lose his shit and take us to the brink of war to cover his own ass??? I’m not talking “civil war” with far-right extremists; I mean, like, actual war, like war with Iran.

Let’s hope not.

Maybe the House will be able to make their case against Trump, public opinion will continue to rise in favor of impeachment, and enough GOP members of the Senate will discover enough of the crumbling remains of their spines to finally do something that puts Country over Party.

Justice League – Watchable, but pretty meh

A couple of weeks ago, a buddy of mine and I went to see Thor: Ragnarok (again). Afterward, we were discussing if Ragnarok was worthy of being in our personal top five Marvel movies. 

 

For both of us, it was. 

 

Last week, I watched a review of Justice League and the most positive thing they could say about the movie was that they considered to be the 2nd best DC Cinematic Universe movie behind Wonder Woman. 

 

So, now, after seeing it, where does Justice League land, in my opinion? 

 

Meh? It’s watchable, but it’s also kind of boring. 

 

Instead of the top five Marevel movies, think about which one you would consider to be the WORST of the MCCU movies (starting with Iron Man in 2008). 

 

Your pick for the worst Marvel movie is still able to tell a more coherent story and may actually have a better villain than Justice League. 

 

Despite this, you may ultimately agree that Justice League is the second best DC movie to date (and that depends on how you felt about Man of Steel). The bar, though, is so low at this point, it’s hard not to beat those expectations.

 

Justice League also has the misfortune of following Thor: Ragnarok: It’s easily the best Thor movie to date, and it’s a showcase of the MCCU hitting all the right notes. 

 

So what worked in Justice League? 

 

Certainly, adding a bit of humor to the movie certainly helped along with making Batman less murdery (although Affleck’s “phoned-it-in” performance seems pretty obvious he’s lost interest in the role – or maybe that was his intent for Batman to sulk because he’s not killing so many bad guys this time around).

 

Gal Gadot is still great as Wonder Woman.  Flash and Cyborq are pretty good, and even Aqua-brah is at least tolerable. It’s disappointing that the movie didn’t take a bit more time fleshing out the back stories of these guys, especially Aquaman.  They made him look cool, sure, but there’s just not much revealed about his own story outside of the fact that he’s Atlantean.  There are some funny moments, and there are a few moments of seeing the group start to bond that are fun to watch. 

It certainly feels like Whedon had a hand in some of the bonding scenes.

 

The opening song is a bit gut-wrenching. It’s meant to echo the feeling of the world losing hope as they mourn the death of Superman, but the song also touches a bit close to home with the political situation here in the U.S. and elsewhere. 

 

I’m still a bit disappointed in Cyborg being in the League, but that’s mostly because of my background. When I read & collected comics in the 80s, the sixth member of the Justice League was Green Lantern and Cyborg was part of the Teen Titans. 

 

What didn’t work?

 

It’s hard to get into what went wrong with the movie without delving into spoilers. Basically, Batman, for reasons, suspects that something bad is coming, and that the world is in danger. He needs to put together a team to fight this thing and hopefully stop it and help restore “hope” to the world.  Beyond that, the story is a complete mess.

 

Part of the problem with Justice League is that it wants us to forget about Batman vs Superman. Part of the entire theme of that movie was that world wasn’t sure about Superman, but now that he’s dead, everyone loves him. Batman already has files on the “recruits” so it feels odd that he’s got to find them and/or isn’t sure how to approach them. 

 

Another part of the problem is the main villain: Steppenwolf. For one, he looks too much like Mars did in Wonder Woman. He’s just not interesting. He shows up, and he’s out to destroy the world: for reasons. There are hints about a backstory, but there are almost no details. 

 

Unless you’re deeply familiar with DC comics, you’ll have no idea who or what Steppenwolf or parademons or mother boxes are. They could have swapped any of the bad guys out with vampires or zombies or giant alien robots and you’d care about the same.

 

Why does this suck? 

 

Towards the end of the credits, the movie recognizes some of the brilliant creators who have worked on Justice League over the years. The Justice League/Justice League of America/JLA have been in comics since 1960, yet Warner Bros/DC could not find a single story from almost 60 years of comic archives by some of the greatest creators in the industry that would have worked in a movie? 

 

The other sad thing is that the villain most fans were truly excited to see doesn’t show up until the post credits scene. He looks amazing, and I look forward to seeing him in action. But again, in my comics background, that bad guy isn’t one of the JLA’s normal opponents.

 

I guess Steppenwolf is meant to be a kind of an harbinger of Darkseid, but outside of Steppenwolf saying the word “Darkseid” once in the film, the movie never mentions anything about that. 

 

It’s almost like the movie creators put a list of names of villains that could be powerful enough for the League to fight on a wall and just threw a dart at the wall to pick one at random. 

 

And don’t get me started on what happens with Superman. 

 

Ultimately, the movie suffers from the same thing that all of the DCCU movies have suffered from: they’re desperately trying to catch up to Marvel. But, they don’t want to spend the time in creating individual movies and building the characters up to a point where a movie with them working as a team makes sense. 

 

From a software perspective, it’s like rushing a product that tries to catch up to a competitor and trying to convince buyers that they have the same “feature set” as the competition, even though the competition has spent years getting to where they are. Look at this list of features, marketing says, we check all the same boxes as the other guys. 

 

That’s what Justice League is: See? We’ve got all the things as those other guys! They have six super-heroes; we have six heroes. They have witty banter; we have witty banter.  They save the world; our guys save the world, too. They care about protecting innocent civilians, and, now, so do our guys. 

 

And for better or worse, DC can now say they’ve checked off all the boxes, and that Justice League is “just the same” as the Avengers. 

 

Except that Marvel can still tell a better, more coherent story on their worst day.

 

I won’t even bother comparing it to Thor: Ragnarok, because that wouldn’t even be a fair fight. 

 

Justice League may check off all of the boxes and it may be better than the clusterfuck that BvS, but DC still has a long way to go before they’re able to put together something that competes with the Avengers. 

 

I wouldn’t rush out to see this one; maybe it’s worth a rental. A cheap rental.

As much as DC likes rebooting their comic universe lately, I’d say that maybe it’s time to boot Zack Snyder and start over. (Find a way to keep Gal Gadot though)

 

Additional Notes:

 

I found the second post credits scene to be a complete cringeworthy mess despite the fact of who shows up in it. It’s amazing that a single two minute scene can make you exclaim “Wait, what?!?”, then “Yes!”, then “Oh, for fuck’s sake” by the end. Again, you’d think this scene would drop hints that would tie this movie into the sequel, but nope, not so much. 

 

Will DC try to make individual movies for Superman and Batman (and Flash and/or Cyborg)? Aquaman is basically done, so they’re committed there. Obviously, Wonder Woman is a go as well. Flash seems to be getting pretty positive vibes from other reviews I’ve read, so… maybe?

 

There are also the constant rumors that Affleck wants out. Do they do an Affleck solo Batman movie and have him pass the torch to a younger guy to be the new Batman?  Do they just let him off after the solo Batman movie and then retcon Batman as a younger actor and hope nobody notices? 

(No, really, Batman is really this guy not that old Affleck guy – fake news!)

 

Of course, if not Affleck, then who would be the next to wear the cowl?

The Martian

TLDR: Go see it! Then, go buy the book, and read it!

I’ve seen a couple of reviews compare the Martian to Cast Away, and although the premise may be similar, the comparison doesn’t really do the story justice.

Based on Andy Weir’s first novel, the movie tells the story of Mark Watney. Watney is part of a series of manned missions to Mars called Ares, but when a massive storm forces the team of astronauts to abort their mission and leave the planet, Watney is struck by debris and tossed out of sight of the others. The electronics in his suit fail, making the others assume the worst. Because of the risk to their own lives, they have no other choice but to leave Mars, assuming that Watney died on the surface.

Only, (spoilers!), he didn’t die. Watney survived, but now he’s the only man on Mars, with no communications, 50 million miles away from Earth, and the next manned mission to the planet won’t arrive for another four years.

The movie is both a story of survival as Watney tries to solve the problems he’s facing on the desolate Martian landscape as well as the drama faced by both NASA and the other members of the Ares crew learn that Watney is alive and was left behind on Mars and struggle to find a way to rescue him.

Matt Damon is perfectly cast as Watney, and he does an amazing job in portraying both the humor and the emotional roller coaster Watney experiences as he fights to endure on Mars. The film balances everything well between both Mars and Earth, so viewers aren’t simply watching one man struggle to survive. They do a great job of handling the problem-solving scenes, setting up the problem, then watching as Watney or Watney and NASA work through the task at hand.

The cinematography of the vast, wide shots of the Martian landscape are gorgeous even though they serve to remind us of just how isolated Watney is.

Despite the smooth pacing of most of the movie, the film feels a bit rushed towards the end – as if someone was trying to keep the film from stretching out for three hours (which it may have if they didn’t speed things up). A couple of tense scenes from the end of the book are lost here, but it doesn’t detract from the overall story. As it is, the film clocks in at 2:14.

My only quibbles about the film are that the film ignores the fact that in the book Watney is both a mechanical engineer and a botanist. I always felt his expertise in both disciplines helped the character to survive. The film also leaves out some of the best lines from the book (which is why you should really read the book, too)

The movie is a very tense but enjoyable experience. Be forewarned, if you’re someone who gets emotional watching films, you may want to bring some tissues.

Back to Jurassic Park

A few weeks ago, one of my buddies had mentioned that he’d read Jurassic Park for the first time recently, and he was surprised at the number of differences between the book and the movie. I haven’t read the book since 1993 (around the time the movie came out), so it was a bit fuzzy. At this point I’ve seen the movie quite a few times, so it has kind of become “canon” in my memory. 

Last week, I was going through a slow purge of my existing books and stumbled across my paperback copies of both Jurassic Park and the Lost World. Inspired by my discussion with my friend, I decided to re-read both books. 

Here are some of the differences that I thought were interesting and/or was disappointed they left out of the movie. 

(Needless to say – uh, spoilers – for both the book and the movie. C’mon people you’ve had at least 20+ years to see the movie and/or read the book) 

1. The movie flips the ages and a couple of the personality traits of the kids. Lex is the older and the computer nerd, and Tim is the younger one and the dinosaur expert. In the book, Tim is still the dinosaur expert, but he’s the computer nerd and the oldest. Lex is the youngest and really doesn’t do much in the book (outside of petting and naming the dinosaurs they encounter. I prefer the movie switch, since it gives both kids something to do (Although I still cringe every time I hear “It’s a Unix system.” from that scene in the movie). The book also mentions the kids’ parents are divorcing, but it’s left out of the movie.

2. My favorite – and I chuckled at this as I read it – was that Alan Grant “loves kids” in the book. I didn’t mind that they made him uncomfortable around kids in the movie because it gave his character a chance to grow through the film, but it was a funny thing to read that line in the book.

3. The T-Rex is a much bigger antagonist in the book. All of the content about Grant and the kids taking a raft into the lagoon / river in the book are not in the movie. I’d completely forgotten about this, so I was disappointed (again) that they weren’t in the film. A couple of them – the scene where they learn the T-Rex can swim, and the waterfall scene where the raft is about to go over the falls to where the T-Rex is waiting below – would have been amazing on film.

4. I was happily surprised that a lot of the great lines from the movie came directly from the book.

5. The aviary and the opening scenes are left out of the book, but they are used in the other films. The opening scene of Jurassic Park becomes the opening scene for the Lost World movie. The aviary shows up in Jurassic Park III (you know, the one where you root for the dinosaurs to eat Tea Leoni’s character)

6. The main subplot of the book that’s completely left out of the movie is the concern about the dinosaurs getting off (and possibly already have gotten off) the island. It’s another point about “life finds a way” that the movie picks up when they discover that the dinosaurs are breeding, but the other, much greater concern, of dinosaurs getting off the island is left out. In fact, while the book describes the island being bombed to eradicate all life, the movie leaves the island intact, In fact, the end of the movies shows pterodactyls flying along side the helicopter as the survivors leave the island, and nobody is the least bit concerned. 

7. Speaking of survivors, the book makes it pretty clear that both Hammond and Malcolm die on the island. Both survive in the movie. The Lost World book has to quickly explain how Malcolm is now alive since he’s the main character in the story (turns out he was only “mostly” dead). 

Both the movie and the book are excellent, and it’d be worth your time to go and enjoy both again. Read the book first, then re-watch the movie.

For me, I’m moving on to reading the Lost World. 

Joy of Audiobooks

Audiobooks, for me, are the one thing that help me keep my sanity through my long commute in DFW traffic. Audible.com is a perfect solution for me. It gave me enough credits to burn on audiobooks, and I would go through about 2-3 books a month. 

After I quit my job in pursuit of the dream of “going indie,” I forgot to cancel my Audible account until five months after the fact. This meant I had built up a lot of credits to burn through. So, I went on a shopping spree before canceling my account. After finding books that I knew I wanted to listen to, I started going through the best-seller lists and tried to find a number of books with good reviews that sounded interesting.

Now, I’m working full-time again, and unfortunately, I’m back to my long commute. I’m finally able to work though my stockpile of audiobooks. The only thing is that for a lot of these books – I’m more or less surprised about the contents of the books. I picked them months ago, and since they’re basically just on playlists on my iPod in the car, I have no visual cues about what methodology I had gone through to pick the books.

Regardless, I thought I would start writing reviews about the books after I listen to them. I’m a few books behind, so I’ll have to get started quickly. The reviews won’t be in order, or most likely, they’ll be in order from most recent to not so recent.

The Dark Knight (Mostly) Rises

(Note: Although I was at one of the marathon Batman screenings on Thursday evening, I didn’t learn about the tragedy in Aurora until late Friday morning.  My deepest sympathies go out to the families of those who lost their lives.)

 

I went into The Dark Knight Rises with medium hopes. I’d hoped it would be a very good movie, and it would be a brilliant ending to a great movie trilogy. I really didn’t expect the movie to complete with The Dark Knight. 

Getting a chance to see The Dark Knight just before the midnight showing did nothing to change my mind. 

Is “Rises” a good movie? Yes, it’s a very good albeit very long movie. For me, though, it could have been better. 

I’m not going into a rant here about what I didn’t like about the story because I don’t want to give away aspects of the movie. Also, this would become a novel instead of a post.

What worked in the movie? 

Christian Bale is still great as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Michael Caine has some great moments as Alfred.

I was actually surprised by Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman. I think she did a great job even though I’m not entirely sure why the character was in the movie.

Even with the voice cleanup, there were still moments where I wasn’t entirely sure what Tom Hardy’s Bane was saying. I was pretty “meh” about Bane in the movie. I understood why they picked him as the villain, but I also knew it was very unlikely anyone who played any villain in this movie would surpass Heath Ledger’s legendary Joker in the Dark Knight.

Ok. I will say this. I swear I’ve seen that mask of Bane’s from somewhere before.

Try to sit through the entire 2 hours and 45 minutes without wanting Bane to say “Luke, I am your father.” 

For me, there were more than a few holes in the story. There were a few “Wait, what?” moments as well, and I think they could have been more daring at the ending (but wasn’t surprised they didn’t go there).

There was also one name uttered near the very end that made me cringe. 

Then again, I’m a reader of the Batman comics and I’m more familiar with how things played out in the comics. There were some bad points in the comics, too, but overall, it was a very good series.

My verdict? Go see it. It’s a very good movie that wraps up the trilogy decently, just not brilliantly. 

 

RIP Steve Jobs

Well, fuck…

Steve Jobs is dead…

I can’t even begin to express how I feel about this. Numb, really. I know how much of an impact this man has had upon me, even though I have never met him or even had a chance to attend a live “Stevenote.”

If you don’t read beyond this point, please take a look at this video of Steve Jobs giving a commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. It’s one of the most compelling things I’ve seen in a long time.

Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Speech

It’s so weird to be this distraught over the loss of someone I’ve never met. Yet, unlike so many people, I have at least some inkling of just how much Steve has made an impact on my life.

I know because I own many of the very products he created. I know firsthand that the iPhone is simply one of the best smartphones out there, and it has been and continues to leap ahead of its competition. I’ve experience the “magic” of the iPad. I’m typing this on one of the Macintosh computers I own.

Don’t believe it? There are several sites that have images of smartphones “Pre iPhone” and “Post iPhone”; look at those images and try to tell me that Apple and Steve Jobs have not had an impact on the market.

Don’t believe it? When was the last time you bought a music CD? How long before you ripped said CD to MP3 or some other audio format in order drop onto an iPod, iPhone, or other device?

Don’t believe it? Look at the success that Apple has had with the iPad in 18 months. Apple used this quote in yesterday’s press conference from someone (I forgot who) ” There’s no such thing as a tablet market, only an iPad market.” Look at all of the companies trying to jump on that bandwagon.

I’ve seen how Steve’s influence on others, both meeting people who have worked at Apple and who have gone “indie” and have abandoned the “safe, secure” jobs in order to develop software for these products.

It’s hard to describe. I guess the best way to experience it would be to spend a week at Microsoft’s Tech Ed visiting with people, then go to Apple’s WWDC. Hell, just go to any one of several iOS or Mac developer conferences that have been springing up outside of WWDC.

People at TechEd are there largely because their respective employers paid to send them there. WWDC attendees are people spending their own money, their own vacation time in order to be there. Others are already indie developers, and attending is part of the business, but it’s also a chance to spend time with other like-minded developers both during the conference and after-hours.

Spend thirty minutes talking with these indie developers. Spend thirty minutes talking to developer Mike Lee about Appsterdam. All of these guys have been “touched” by Steve. They don’t want to just make software, they want to make GREAT software. They aspire to make products that live up to the high standards that Apple sets, both through its guidance to developers in documentation, but more importantly, through the amazing applications that they build in-house.

The iOS/MacOS developer community is a great community of people always willing to help others with their problems as well as help encourage others on their own trek to indiehood.

Losing Steve Jobs so suddenly and at such a young age ( or, more relevant, an age that is a lot closer to my own age than I’d care for) makes you wonder what it is that you’re doing with your own life.

I want to follow my heart, but as much as it is easy for someone (even Steve) to say it, it’s not so easy to do. Maybe part of it is simply not knowing. For me, maybe the problem is that I’m not taking the time to stop and listen to what my heart truly wants. Whose dream am I following? Mine? Or someone else’s?

To an extent, I am so deep into this rut professionally that I’ve been digging for myself for longer than I care to admit, it’s hard to see above the rim.

But… I want to get out. I need to get out.

Why? Because that’s what Steve would do.

Thank you, Steve, for everything you’ve done. You’ve found a way to capture the future and put it into our hands.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

 

Happy 30th MTV!!!

Now that’s a scary thought…

MTV is older than the last girl I dated… :  )

It’s hard to imagine the 80s without Music Television – you know, back in the days when the station played music videos.

We had heard about MTV, but growing up in West Texas meant we were at least a year or so late to the game. We had to beg our parents to add the channel to our cable subscription (and probably had to beg our parents to even get cable).

But, once we had it, especially during the summer, when we were home and anywhere in the proximity of the living room television, MTV was on. That was assuming, of course, Dad wasn’t watching anything else.

Instead fo just heairng the bands, we could see them. Before long, everyone was trying to do something different with their videos. Some would just be weird, some were artistic. Others would wisk us off to exotic locals or simply push the limits of sexuality on television. A few would push the limits of technology (remember Money For Nothing?)

I was trying to think of a list of things that were so cool about MTV:

1) The videos, obviously. How many 80s bands kicked off their careers or were propelled to superstardom through MTV? Duran Duran, Madonna, U2, Howard Jones, Def Leppard, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dire Straits, The Fixx, Billy Idol, Men at Work, etc etc. How big would Michael Jackson be without his videos on MTV?

2) The original VJs. They all had distinct personalities, and every guy had a crush on Martha Quinn.

3) The crazy contests where if you were lucky you might appear in a video or have your favorite band play at your house.

4) World premiere videos. Depending on the artist, you had to be there to catch the “premiere” of the latest and greatest video. Of course, if you missed it, chances were pretty good you could catch it again in a couple of hours. How many people remember catching the 20 minute premiere of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”?

5) The impact of adding pop/rock songs to movie soundtracks. I think “Footloose” had a major impact on this as well, but think about how many 80s movies had a pop/rock soundrack (and of course, related music videos) to go with it? Imagine “Top Gun” without the corresponding “Highway to the Dangerzone,” or “Ghostbusters” without its themesong. Hell, imagine any John Hughes movie without the soundrack. How many proms in the 80s just had to play “If You Leave” by OMD? Would Prince have made “Purple Rain”? Would Madonna be an actress?

(ok, forget about that last one)

It wasn’t all good – after all, MTV helped advocate the concept that “image is everything” where the music/talent eventually didn’t matter as much so long as the video worked (see – Brittney Spears)

Plus, MTV somewhat pioneered “reallity television” that now dominates most of the channels today.

Of course, these days, with the internet and access to video software, it’s easy for just about anyone, not just the bands, to come up with their own interpretations of videos for their favorite songs. It’s not MTV, it’s YouTube.

One of the other cool things is that XM satellite radio has brought the original MTV VJ’s back, and they can be heard on the 80s channel (and a couple of others).

So, MTV may not be what it used to be, but there are still ways to get a taste of MTV back in the “good ol’ days”

“I want my, I want my, I want my M… T… V…”

In Transition…

Please excuse the mess for the next few days or so – I’m in the process of moving my site over to another host.
With a new host also comes the task of getting around to picking a new theme that will last for the next year… or three…
Anyway, things will be back to more or less normal here in the next few days.