I remember when the Grammys officially Jumped the Shark: 1988. That was the year they gave Jethro Tull the Best Metal Performance award, and fans all around the world knew instantly that whomever was in charge had no clue. The takeover of the music industry by MTV was complete, and style had triumphed over substance.

When you think about it, the only question remaining is: Which is the bigger joke, the Grammys or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

The Christmas Season is once again upon us, and soon you will be put into situations where you will want to join with others and sing the songs of the season. This may mean that you will sing a solo piece at church, or if you are fortunate enough to make a living making music, you may be entertaining large crowds. Everyone, myself included, loves the traditional carols which have flourished for decades, and hearing them always brings a little happiness and cheer.

However, some of you out there are ruining the joy that Christmas music brings. You are literally strangling all of the joy and happiness out of the music before our very ears. How? With the warble.

First made famous by Whitney Houston when she sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl awhile back, warbling is when the singer holds a note for much longer than was intended, and then tries to sound like a jazz saxaphone player by singing free-form melody over the background music. The problem is, 99 times out of a hundred, this sounds like someone stomping on a cat’s tail. Its just that irritating.

Now, don’t get your little feelings hurt. I know you are just trying to “make the song your own.” What you need to remember is this: The audience doesn’t want you to make the song your own. They don’t want to listen to you warble on and on. They just want to hear the damn song the way it was written.

You see, the reason why the audience wants you to stick to the music is because of what the music represents. It isn’t about you, or your multi-octave voice, or your musical identity. This music is about time spent with family on Christmases past, about your family’s holiday traditions and memories. Yes, we love the music, but mostly we love the memories the music evokes in us.

Your warbling drives a stake right through the center of those memories and kills them dead. It drives us insane. Really, it does (just ask my wife).

So, this year leave the warbling to the birds and just sing the song like it was written. It will be appreciated more than you know.

Thanks.

Whoopi Goldberg is facing a fierce backlash after saying that film director Roman Polanski didn’t commit “rape-rape” when he had unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Goldberg, star of The Color Purple and Sister Act, said: “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.

“He pled guilty to having sex with a minor and he went to jail, and when they let him out he said ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me 100 years in jail. I’m not staying’. And that’s why he left.” Polanski was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland on Sunday and faces extradition to the United States. He fled the US in 1978 before being sentenced for the crime and has been pursued around the globe by prosecutors ever since.

You read that correctly — Goldberg doesn’t think raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl after giving her drugs and alcohol is “rape – rape.” To top it off, it seems like most of Hollywood thinks the same thing:

More than 100 film industry figures have now signed a petition calling for the release of Polanski, the acclaimed director of Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist.

They include leading Hollywood figures Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, Tilda Swinton and Monica Bellucci.

One celebrity supporter, the actress Debra Winger, said it was a “three-decades-old case that is dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by him and await his release and his next masterpiece.” Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein said Polanski was a “humanist” who had been the victim of a “miscarriage of justice”. He said: “We will have to speak to our leaders, particularly in California. I’m not too shy to go and talk to the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and to ask him once and for all to look at this.” However, the views of the Hollywood elite seemed out of step with those of ordinary Americans and they now face a backlash.

These people are so out-of-touch with the American public, is it any wonder why the movie industry is held in such low regard?

For the record, regardless of who you are or what movies you have created, if you give drugs to a 13 year old girl, then give her alcohol, and then rape and sodomize her, I believe you belong in jail for as long as the law allows. Not country-club celebrity jail, but Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison. I don’t care if you ran away for thirty years to France, where apparently this type of thing is considered normal, and continued to make movies. In the America I believe in, people who commit crimes like this are dealt with harshly, regardless of who long ago they committed the crime, and especially if they publicly proclaim this:

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

You know Whoopi, I wonder if you would be so cavalier about this if the victim had been someone near and dear to you. These Hollywood morons have no clue about right and wrong in the liberal paradise bubble they exist in out there in California.

But don’t take my word on this; read the transcript of the victim’s testimony and decide for yourself if it was “rape – rape” (whatever the hell that is) or not.

Just amazing, isn’t it?

Well, fast-forward to the present and many, many changes have ocurred to both me and Star Trek. Though still a fan of the original series and Star Trek:TNG, I never really latched onto the other series in the franchise (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise) and I felt that the last few movies were terrible. In short, I had about given up on the franchise. I especially didn’t like the fact that Deep Space Nine didn’t even involve a starship which was traveling through the galaxy. So, when it was announced that the next film would be a “pre-quel” to the original TV series, I was interested.

The film opened last weekend to huge box office numbers, and I went to see it with muted expectations. I was hoping for the best, while preparing for the worst. As it turns out, I didn’t have much to worry about. While the script does change some pretty basic foundations of the Star Trek myth, it does so in a way which will allow the future stories to go beyond the original TV Series stories. Spoilers appear starting now, so if you have not seen the movie yet, you may want to stop here.

WHAT I LIKED:

• I like the fact that they didn’t go crazy with the re-design of the Enterprise. They did change a couple of things, but it really looks like the TV series starship (on the outside), just done with better special effects.
• I liked the new design of the Star Fleet docking station orbiting Earth.
• The view screen on the Enterprise bridge, with its integrated HUD displays, was a welcome dose of reality. Heck, 21st century fighter jets have HUD displays; surly 23rd century starships would have them.
• I really liked the new dynamic between Spock and his father. It was easier for me to relate to Sarek in this movie than in the past.
• I really enjoyed the parts with Captain Pike. He was portrayed exactly how I would expect a senior line officer to be.
• The “space jump” scene was a blast!

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

• The entire premise of the movie is a bit shaky. The planet Romulus is destroyed by a super-nova before Spock can prevent it. However, the device Spock used to try and save Romulus creates a black hole, sending both Nero (the Romulan bad guy) and Spock back in time 25 years. Nero then plots revenge on Spock. Excuse me? Uh, if what Nero wants is to save his beloved Romulus, and he has been transported back in time, why not just try again, this time having twenty-five years to get the timing right?
• The whole romantic angle between Spock and Uhura was unsettling. Plus, it didn’t really serve any purpose for the plot. What was the point?
• Scotty’s entire purpose for being was comedy relief. I think he should have been portrayed a little more seriously.
• The Enterprise was and always will be too big to be capable of planet-fall. When constructed, it will be built in space, not in an Iowa cornfield as depicted in this movie.
• Finally, Kirk got his ass handed to him entirely too much in this movie. No, I don’t expect him to win every fight, but I don’t think he won a single one in this movie. If he is going to become the resident Starfleet BadAss Captain, he needs to start building that reputation now.

All in all, I really liked the movie and hope they do another one just as good. Have you seen it? What did you like or dislike? Tell me in the comments.

The movie stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, billionaire owner of a weapons manufacturing enterprise, child genius who graduated from MIT at the age of 14, and flippant playboy who likes his alcohol a little too much. Stark goes to Afghanistan to demonstrate his newest addition to the Stark Industries arsenal, the Jericho Missile. After a very impressive demonstration, while heading back to the airbase, his convoy gets ambushed and he is taken hostage by insurgents, who want to force him to build them one of his new missiles. Instead, he uses the time to build a primitive suit of armor which he uses to dispose of the bad guys and escape. The whole experience changes his outlook on his company’s business and he vows to change so his legacy is “more than just a body count.”

I’m not going to give away too much of the plot here, but suffice to say it is more than adequate for this type of movie. Downey, Jr. is perfectly cast as Tony Stark. Like Downey, Jr., Stark always has a sarcastic line ready fire as he goes through life, getting by mostly on charm and his intellect. I suspect a lot of people put up with him because of his intelligence. Jeff Bridges plays Obadiah Stane, a man who helped Tony’s father build Stark Enterprises into a huge business, and who now serves Tony, who later finds out that Stane is working against him. Gwyneth Paltrow is Virginia “Pepper” Potts, Stark’s long-time and loyal assistant and Terrence Howard is James Rhodes, Stark Enterprise’s military liaison and good friend of Tony.

The special effects in this movie are fantastic, especially the flying sequences and the depiction of Tony’s computer interfaces. Lots of what is seen could easily be possible in the not-too-distant future. The best scenes are probably of Tony working in his basement lab testing and building the components of his suit of armor. These scenes incorporate a lot of humor without being silly, which can be hard to do in a film like this.

I highly anticipated this movie ever since I heard it was finally being a couple of years ago, and I was completely satisfied with the result. It isn’t perfect (at one point, Potts pulls the magnet which prevents shrapnel from piercing Tony’s heart out of his chest and never puts it back, but nothing happens to Tony), but overall it’s excellent. This movie is obviously written with a sequel or two in mind (the main cast has already been signed for two more movies), so we can look for ward to more of these stories. I, for one, am glad about that.

I’ll give it four and a half out of five kidneys. – 1/2

UPDATE: Friday night on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Terence Howard made two comments that should make Iron Man fans extremely happy. First, he said that in the upcoming second film, he will be donning some armor and flying around. Second, he said that he will don the War Machine armor and eventually have a one-on-one battle with Iron Man. In fact, he said he had already seen the War Machine suit and that it looks great.

Before going any further, please read this article by Roger Friedman. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

This single article sheds more light on the problems with the Hall than anything else I’ve ever read. The first time I knew that something bad was happening was when I learned that the monkeys at Rolling Stone Magazine were heavily involved in the selection process for nominees. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t read anything from that magazine in over 20 years. Even in it’s heyday during the 60′s and 70′s, I rarely ever saw that the writers published in Rolling Stone had anything worthwhile to say. These days, the writers in Rolling Stone seem to care more about liberal politics than music, so the fact that they have a say over who gets nominated to the Hall irks me no end.

Let’s take a look at this years crop of nominees:

• Madonna: This is the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, right? When has Madonna ever put out released a Rock ‘n Roll record or CD? Answer: Never.
• Donna Summer: Are you kidding? Her biggest hit was a total massacre of Jim Webb’s MacArthur Park.
• Beastie Boys: Wannabe gang bangers who like to pretend they’re black. Crap like this shouldn’t even be allowed to visit the Hall, let alone be inducted into it.
• Afrika Bambaataa: Isn’t this a noise caused by indigestion?
• John Mellencamp: He’s had a couple of good songs, and is probably the only one in this line up for whom a case could be made.

All jokes aside, none of these acts is what you’d call serious Rock ‘n Roll. Madonna and Mellencamp should really be inducted into some type of “Pop Music” Hall of Fame, Summer into the “Disco” Hall of Fame, with the rest just going away.

Here’s a way to put this in perspective: These acts are being considered for induction, while the following acts have been snubbed for years: Rush, KISS, Chicago, Alice Cooper, Steve Miller, and Three Dog Night. Each one of these bands has more claim to Rock ‘n Roll roots than all of this years group combined. This should be all you need to know.

I agree with Roger; if you currently read Rolling Stone, stop. Cancel your subscription and tell them why you are canceling. Encourage anyone you know who reads Rolling Stone to stop reading it and to cancel their subscription, if they have one. The only way these yuppies who don’t know anything about Rock ‘n Roll will ever change is if they are hit in the pocketbook.

Does this happen to you as much as it happens to me? Does this infuriate you as much as it does me? If you answered “Yes” to both of these questions, don’t plan on getting any relief any time soon. The networks are going to continue to advertise in this fashion for a long time to come.

Kyra Sedgwick, star of “The Closer” on TNT, walks under a police tape and scans the screen with her flashlight. And every time she does, she makes Gretchen Corbin, a technical writer in Berkeley, Calif., irate.

The promotional ads for “The Closer” run in the bottom right of the screen during other TNT programs — a graphic called a snipe. But for Ms. Corbin, who sometimes watches movies that have subtitles, the tiny images block the dialogue.

“Some ad just took over the entire bottom of the screen so I missed what the characters said to each other,” said Ms. Corbin, describing a recent experience. “And it’s TV, so you can’t rewind.”

Snipes are just the latest effort by network executives to cram promotions onto television screens in the age of channel surfing, ad skipping and screen-based multitasking. At first, viewers may feel a slight jolt of pleasure at the sight of a new visual effect, they say, but over time the intrusions contribute to the sense that the screen is far more cluttered — not just with ads, but with news crawls and other streams of information.

For better or worse, viewers say, the additions are making the experience of watching television more closely mirror the feeling of using a computer.

That may be so, network executives say, but the extra content is here to stay. The snipes — not to be confused with bugs, those network logos that pop up in screen corners during shows — are important enough to the beleaguered television industry that the networks plan to tolerate the backlash.

As you have probably guessed, the almighty dollar is behind all of this:

This fall ABC is introducing the “ABC Start Here” campaign, which consists of a series of icons in the lower right of the screen that direct viewers to related content in other media, like books, DVDs and Web sites. At the end of “Ugly Betty,” for instance, a shopping icon could direct viewers to places where they could buy Betty’s shoes, or an iTunes icon could invite them to that site to buy episodes of the show. The point, said Marla Provencio, an ABC executive vice president of marketing, is “to accommodate viewers’ multimedia, multichannel habits and still lead them back to ABC.”

Apparently, the money to be made from this is such that the networks are willing to take a PR shellacking in return for the profit. You didn’t think that content was the most important ingredient in a television network’s success, did you?

All of this appears to be a clumsy answer to VCR’s and TiVo, which allow you to fast forward through the advertisements so you can just watch the program. Placing the advertisements within the program itself prevents you from escaping them. However, listen to this:

ABC tested the icons in July and will introduce them gradually this fall to get viewers familiar with the shorthand. To minimize complaints, ABC will keep the icons and all similar visuals silent.

“We do not want to invade in the viewers’ space so much that we intrude on their experience,” said Ms. Provencio.

Promotional content on what the industry calls the “lower third” of the television screen is “the way of the world these days,” Ms. Provencio said. ABC, she said, tries to make sure that the embedded ads do not interrupt, say, “a dramatic moment on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ ” but the network does want to remind people they are watching ABC.

Viewers say that snipes and bugs are degrading their experience of watching television. Even some performers seem to resent the assaults on their work’s integrity. At last week’s Emmy Awards, the comedian Lewis Black delivered a blow against screen clutter, yelling, “We don’t care about the next show. We’re watching this show.”

Network executives say that the trend toward busy screens is an attempt to cater to the tastes and habits of younger viewers, who reflexively toggle among screens, online and on cellphones.

They are already invading and degrading our viewing experience! How are you supposed to focus your attention on a dramatic moment with characters from another show gallivanting across the screen urging you to tune into something else? As far as being “the way of the world these days,” the only reason that is true is because all of the networks have decided that it is the way of the world these days. It isn’t like anyone is forcing them to deface their programming with these intrusive ads. They just want to make more money, plain and simple.

Then again, I’m 44 years of age, so the television industry doesn’t really care about me anyway. All they care about is the 14 to 35 year olds demographic. Apparently, the networks are of the opinion that since I turned 36 years of age, I no longer spend money on consumer goods or services, so they stopped paying attention to my wants and needs. You’d think that with the baby boomers all starting to hit the 45 to 50 years old mark, they’d wise up. Well, you’d be wrong.

So, what can be done about this? Not a lot, unfortunately. I stopped watching programs on networks like TBS, TNT, and USA. If I can’t enjoy the program, why waste time watching it? I don’t tune in to see what else is playing on that channel later; that’s what the on-screen cable guide is for. I tune in to suspend my disbelief and enjoy some escapist entertainment. I can’t do that when characters from other programs are constantly invading the world I’m trying to be a part of.

Looks like I’ll need to purchase some more DVDs.

I was reminded of that when I read this piece by Keith Olbermann:

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to razor-sharp points and stabbed this nation in the back with it. Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers. Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison, at the Constitutional Convention, said about impeaching any President who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that President; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at this chain of events and wonder to what degree was Mr. Libby told: “Break the law however you wish, the President will keep you out of prison”?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens, the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, sir, to have a Commander-in-Chief who puts party ahead of nation.

Oh, please! Where was this dolt when his favorite President, Bill Clinton, served up 140 pardons on his last day in office, many of which were granted to felons arrested for drug offenses? Also, what about Clinton’s earlier pardons of Puerto Rican terrorists whose actions caused the deaths of 6 people in New York? Why is this any different than when Clinton pardoned Henry Cisneros, his HUD Secretary? Cisneros was convicted of lying to a government agency, a very similar circumstance to what Libby was convicted of. Why is it okay if liberals lie to the government but not okay if conservatives lie to the government?

Spare me the hysterics, Olbermann. Each and every President issues pardons and commutes prison sentances, and each and every President grants pardons and commutations to people he knows and who have worked for him. In Clinton’s case, he even pardoned his brother for a cocaine offense. So please just spare me the “no longer my President” and “only cares about a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republicans Party” rhetoric.

“I think he forgot to accuse him of killing all the puppy dogs in New Orleans by ignoring Hurricane Katrina, but I’ll cut him a break. Being a brain-stem baby is hard.”

Lewis Libby was convicted for lying about a crime which never took place. The same special prosecutor who prosecuted Libby found that the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s work for the CIA was not a crime. In contrast, the members of the Puerto Rican FALIN group which Clinton pardoned bombed a restaurant and killed U.S. Citizens. It looks to me like your concern over the commutation of Libby’s prison sentence is a little, shall we say, misplaced.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint. The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

Next, Olbermann channels the worst of the deviants on the Democratic Underground by reciting the tired old canards of conservatives want to rape the planet, steal your Constitutional freedoms, allow lawlessness to flourish, and will start wars just to make a buck or two. Seriously, this guy is a Daily KOS diarist’s wet dream! I would take the time to dismantle all of his accusations, but it wouldn’t be worth it. Even if he could read it, he’d never understand it.

BUT WAIT! It gets even better:

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient. I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons and sisters and daughters and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but instead to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to grand juries and special counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and the particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of you becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

I think he forgot to accuse him of killing all the puppy dogs in New Orleans by ignoring Hurricane Katrina, but I’ll cut him a break. Being a brain-stem baby is hard.

In general, it has been proven that Bush did not lie to the public regarding the war; he was proceeding from the same intelligence reports that everyone else had seen and had come up with the same conclusions that everybody else came to. As for causing needless deaths, don’t be ridiculous. Sacrifice in service of one’s country is far from a needless death, but I wouldn’t expect Olbermann to understand that. He doesn’t think there is anything in this world bigger or more important than himself.

As for defaming Wilson, the Democrats’ own special prosecutor concluded that no crime was committed by outting Valerie Plame. How, exactly, was he defamed? Oh, just forget it.

Olbermann goes on and on accusing President Bush of almost every crime in the books, until the end when he demands that both he and Vice President Cheney resign from office. This is nothing new for Olbermann; he has used his television show as a platform for calling for the President’s resignation for years now. Its probably why his audience has shrunken from pitiful to non-existent.

Keith, I am going to close this by asking you to seriously seek medical help. Obviously you have lost touch with reality and have become a danger not only to yourself but to others. However, I’m sure a few years in a rehab center would bring you right back to the real world and you might even be able to resume the one job you had talent for: sports caster.

7/08/2007: Post Edited to correct spelling mistakes.