Science Has Given Us More Furniture

Years ago a stereo was a piece of furniture. It took up a good amount of floor space and was usually prominently displayed. It often wasn't called a "stereo" either. It was typically referred to as a "system." When visiting a friend for the first time, he would invariably ask,

“You want to see my system?”

A System Used for Playing Songs

Then you got a very detailed rundown of each component. All good systems had a 32 lever equalizer with more lights than an Umphrey's McGee concert. The individual components were stacked in a cabinet that was commonly several feet tall. The brains of the system was the receiver, the component that integrated all the other sound producing pieces. True audiophiles swear that the receiver is the most important component. I don't know about that. I always figured the speakers were the most significant items in regards to replicating sound. It must be one of those things in science that doesn't lend itself to common sense like using hot water to make ice cubes or bees flying.

Stereo sales people were the first nerds. They were well versed in technical jargon that they were all too willing to share at length. Not online sharing like we have today. I'm talking about in store sales pitches that went on for hours. Dudes just talking about how Dolby has come a long way, that the shape of the stylus is more important than the material it was made out of, or that quadraphonics will become the de facto standard for all hifi systems.

I once got trapped in a sales pitch in which the guy convinced me to sit at a desk and pull from a palette stickers representing stereophonic components. I was supposed to stack them up into "my dream system." I wasn't sure why I was doing this, but I did anyway. They say that one geek experience doesn't make you a nerd, but I'm not sure. When I finished, the sales guy asked,

"Will we be getting speakers with this system?"

Being the ever present consummate dick that I've been now for most of my life, I answered,

"Yes, otherwise we won't know when it’s on.”

The sales person wanted me to take my little art project home and stick it on my refrigerator to motivate me each morning on my way to work. After a few years if I was lucky, I could afford my dream system. That's the way we did things before computers back in the day because we were lame.

How could something so substantial and referred to as a system be replaced by a puny iPod? People never pull out a mobile device from their back pocket and say,

"Let me show you my system."

iPod

Dolby is dead. Needles passé. Stack stereo systems have gone the way of the waterbed, the CD tower, land lines, clackers and Rick Springfield. Steve Jobs probably had a large system. He likely had a fulltime guy hired just to manage his system. One day after belittling several employees, Steve went home to rock out to some Talking Heads on his system. After staring at his system for several minutes, mesmerized by the lights and levers, the Dolby, the sharp point of the needle, Steve declared,


"Wouldn't it be nice if this thing had a phone?"

He spent the remainder of the afternoon placing a red dial up phone on top of his system. After getting it in just the right place, Steve waxed,

"This thing would be great if it was smaller."

The real question with the first iPods was whether the sophisticated ear of the public would accept the lower quality music from the device. I'm sure it was argued in heated meetings at Apple. The audiophiles on one side of the table, the nerds on the other, debating the merits of quality versus portability. Admittedly, music from an iPod sounds the same to me. True audiophiles say vinyl is the best. I can't tell the difference between one of those Edison drums and an iPod. If I was in attendance in an Apple meetings I would have said,

"For fuck sake, getting rid of the dust biscuits alone makes it worth it."

It turns out that no one really cared about the minute degradation in sound quality experienced with the first iPods compared to the huge piece of furniture that once sat in our family rooms. Only hardcore audiophiles have stack stereo systems today. I suspect most of them can't hear the difference in sound quality either. 

Vanilla Ice

When you wanted to listen to music back then, you had to actually find the physical copy, an album or tape, and place it on or in the stereo. Every time you played a record, it degraded just a little. Your music collection was continuously edging towards oblivion with your favorite tunes leading the way. Every so often your system would eat a cassette or a vinyl record would get scratched resulting in a “skip.” Eventually compact discs took hold ensuring that your collection would last far longer than your interest in the music of your youth. This is why people my age still have a CD by a guy called "Vanilla Ice" who today openly admits that his music sucked back then. Today he hosts a home improvement show on cable flipping shithole houses. Technology has come so far that we are able to carry our entire music catalog with us on our phone. Now, at any time and in any place, I can play the music I listened to in high school even though I hate all of it as much as I hated high school. It's a good time to be alive.

Some scientific advances bring forth lifesaving vaccinations, others get you from point A to point B more quickly. Mobile devices allow you to stay connected to your friends and family while also buying shit you don't need with a currency you can't hold from an internet you can't see. It lets big tech companies track your every move and surveil your activities so they can send you targeted ads for overpriced merchandise manufactured in a country suspected of gross human rights violations.

Sure, the iPod gave you all that and more. Today without a stereo in your family room, you have yet another place to sit and listen to all the music you dislike. It doesn't get any better than that.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 17, 2017.

Let Me Tell You Something Good About Ryan Seacrest

Ryan Seacrest

Back in December of 2009, I was in New York City with my wife, Christine and our then six year old son, Aidan. We were partaking in some after holiday festivities in the city while visiting friends. That afternoon we neared Times Square as I balanced Aidan on my shoulders. We had just purchased some funky hats. Aidan wore a monkey hat complete with tassels and matching gloves. As we rounded a corner onto the square, I spotted Ryan Seacrest exiting a building being led by a woman wearing a headset and microphone. No one took notice so I made my way to him while skillfully balancing Aidan. As I threaded through the oblivious crowd, I thought I would tell Ryan that we were all dedicated fans of American Idol.

As I approached, I noticed the crowd had grown in size. What I didn't know was that there were a few thousand people behind me moving in as well. When we were right in front of Ryan, the hordes pressed in. Suddenly, I felt like I was at a Who concert. As the large gathering began vying for position, we were pushed and pulled in every direction. Being no more than ten feet from Mr. Seacrest made it impossible for us to escape. Worst yet, the crowd moved in such random directions that I felt myself step off a curb and then back up again. I was very concerned that I would stumble and with my son on my shoulders that would be catastrophic. Just when I thought I could manage the situation, I spotted a young girl, not much older than Aidan, directly in front of Ryan. Her father was fumbling with a camera.

I watched in horror as the tiny girl began to disappear into the sea of admirers. I let go my son's leg and outstretched my arm to help steady the little girl. She was out of my reach. The frenzied crowd paid little attention to this child about to be trampled. As a father, I see things differently. Some people say that babies keep you up at night, but the truth is when you have kids, you never sleep again, no matter what age they are. Just when I thought the little girl would be consumed by the crowd, Ryan exclaimed,

"She's falling!"

Then he reached out, grabbed her arm and held her upwards. Ryan's handler was not happy with him and actively tried to dissuade him from coming in contact with the crowd. Seeing this, her father having satisfactorily adjusted his camera shouted,

"Ryan! Take a picture with me and my daughter!"

He was a big dude, who pushed his way in then spun about lowering himself to his daughter's height as he held the camera aloft and snapped away. Ryan dutifully released the girl to her father's care then positioned himself at the apex of the picture. That was many years ago. I learned that day that celebrity encounters can be dangerous and as a family we swore off seeking close proximity to famous people.

Years later as Aidan entered high school, I was listening to Ryan Seacrest on 102.7 KIIS FM, a radio station out of Los Angeles which I picked up on Sirius XM radio. On the show called On Air with Ryan Seacrest, they do a bit called "Tell Me Something Good" whereby callers phone in and relay an uplifting story. People tell about being cancer free, having a child, landing a dream job or a pending graduation. It's a real feel good piece.

I've heard many people tell Ryan and his cohosts, Sisanie, Patty and Tanya about all sorts of good news. The callers always seem to be FM listeners from the Los Angeles area. Undaunted I decided to call into the station and tell them about how I once saw Ryan save a little girl's life. After a few attempts at getting through, I was briefly put on hold until the call was answered by Ryan himself. He said,

"What do you got to tell us?"

Now, I wasn't sure who I was talking to, but I launched into my story anyway. By the time I got to the part where we encountered Ryan in Times Square, I figured it was him on the phone even though I wasn't sure. When I said that he saved that girl's life, they were all silent like a Scooby Doo reveal. Ryan eventually said something like,

"Things can get out of hand in the city which happened many times."

I sensed that he didn't recall this episode so I told him,

"You might not have realized what you did, but I saw it because I was just a few feet away which was cool but scary."

They all laughed when I told them that the guy wanted a picture of Ryan with his daughter. We didn't use the term "selfie" back in 2009, but the dude got one off anyway. I told Ryan I would unearth pictures and more details about the event, and he showed genuine interest. He thanked me for "reaching out."

After digging through a gig of picture and talking with many of our friends with us that day, I finally traced the date to December 29, 2009. Unfortunately, Christine was unable to get a picture of Aidan and I with Ryan due to the size of the crowd. Later in the day, we took this picture which shows Aidan sporting his monkey hat.

Aidan with his
Monkey Hat in NYC

Even though I don't have a picture of the event, someone certainly must have taken one. I know for sure that a guy snapped a photo of Ryan with his daughter right in front of us. So if you were in Times Square on that afternoon in December and saw Ryan Seacrest and possibly took a picture, then see if in the shot there's a bearded guy with a kid on his shoulders, wearing a monkey hat. That would be us. The father who took the picture with Ryan was Hispanic and from his accent, I surmised he wasn't a tourist. He was on Ryan's left side with his daughter to his right. Ryan was wearing a brown suit. He had a makeup induced tan that looked a little unnatural. They missed a spot by his right ear. That's all the details I recall.

Before Ryan got off the phone during my call in, he said that I was "obviously a good dad." I like to think that I am a good father, but when I recall that day, I witnessed Ryan have the same response as I did, that is, concern for a child that was in peril. Ryan does another bit on his radio show called "Ryan's Roses" in which Patty or Sisanie call someone suspected of cheating on their spouse. They pretend that they own a flower shop which is offering free roses as a promotion. The dude usually gives the roses to his girlfriend and not his wife. Ryan often refers to this as a "public service." I always root for the guy to be loyal to his spouce. They usually get more mud on the dude from the note included with the flowers. I always tell Christine if they ever called me for an episode of Ryan's Roses, I would send the flowers to her with a note reading,

"If God made anything more beautiful than you, he kept it for himself."

I listen to 102.7 KIIS FM because I enjoy the banter of Ryan, Sisanie, Tanya and Patty. When it comes to relationship advice, I'm almost always at odds with the cast. For example, recently a woman called in to say that her husband who is in the military was being stationed in Missouri for four years, and she was conflicted about leaving her "dream job" to go with him. Ryan suggested that they try living apart for a year "to see how it goes." It is probably a generational thing, but I disagree. I would have answered that she should divorce the guy because anyone who chooses a job over their spouse doesn't deserve to be married.

Another time a woman called to say she was soon to be married and was unhappy that her ex-boyfriend was attending her wedding with his new girlfriend which she didn't like. Ryan and Sisanie weighed in that "it was her day," and she had the right to object to her ex-boo's new significant other. Call me ole fashioned, but I think during all weddings the only guy present who hooked up with the bride ought to be the groom. I was listening to the radio show for a year before I realized that "hooking up" meant having sex. In my day, hooking up meant meeting someone somewhere as in "we hooked up at the club." This revelation adds new meaning to the on air conversation Ryan had with a caller who exclaimed that she "hooked up with her ex at the movies."

Another time a woman called seeking relationship advice. She and her husband were separated but had recently agreed to give it another try. They each compiled a list of three things that they wanted the other to do. She sought Ryan's opinion in regards to her husband’s list which she photographed and emailed to the show. The first item on the list was that he wanted his wife to wear more makeup which all agreed was acceptable. The second petition was that he wanted her to wear nicer clothing which was also deemed agreeable. Although Ryan specifically expressed that the man's last item was okay with him, he elected not to read it on air. After perusing the apparently handwritten list, Patty asked,

"What is G9?"

Tanya said, "That's not a G. It's a 6."

Ryan exclaimed, "This is supposed to be a family show!"

I think all this relationship turmoil has caused Ryan Seacrest to suffer from premarital stress syndrome since he often avoids any on air conversation about marriage, but I once saw him being bigger than himself. He has the foundations of a terrific father. We should all encourage him to commit to a wonderful woman and start a family. I know this because only a man who would be a good father would see that in another in the crowd...

and reach out to save a little girl from certain harm.

Update: On January 9, 2018, Ryan Seacrest said on air that he was into boxing. He's such a mildly mannered, evenly tempered guy during the day. Who knew at night he was into Fight Club?

Editor's Note: Originally posted on October 17, 2017.

One Less Privileged Brat

Caillou

Earlier this month, PBS Kids announced that the animated, educational children television series, Caillou, will no longer be broadcasted. Originally airing in the fall of 1997, the show followed the everyday life of a four year old boy and his younger sister, mother, father and paternal grandparents. The first thing everyone notices about Caillou is that he's bald. Although many over the years have suggested that he has the big C, the show’s animators indicated that when they drew hair on Caillou as he aged, he became less recognizable so they opted to keep him hairless. His sister, Rosie, is the only redhead in the family which should make Boris, the father, suspicious of Doris, the mother, but this issue never surfaced in any of the five seasons of Caillou.

Created by Hélène Desputeaux, a Canadian educator and illustrator, the story chronicles the arrested development of a boy whose features some believe are blended together to make him appear as though he's not from any particular ethnic background. Additionally, the show employs "an authentic voice" driven in part by expert child psychologists and psychiatrists to capture "a rich and fully developed content." The second thing everyone notes about Caillou is that the sound of his authentic voice is like a corkscrew drilling through your head. His go-to whine and subsequent Pavlovian balling, coupled with incessantly calling out for his mother, makes Munchausen by proxy a more understandable syndrome. To say Caillou cries a lot is like wondering aloud if bees shit in the hive.

In one episode, Caillou falls from a seesaw. The narrator, who sounds like an old blue blood that probably uses terms like "you people" a lot, states that he was uninjured from his tumble. This doesn't stop Caillou from calling to his mother who swoops in to comfort her little sobbing bundle of need. Caillou is quick to rat out anyone who doesn't live up to his high expectations. In one show he complained to his mother that a deaf boy wasn't listening to him. Another time he ejected his little sister from his room only to acquiesce after becoming bored by himself. He also once whined that he didn't want his father to go to work. When his sister was a newborn, Caillou pinched her face causing her to cry out in pain.

Rosie learns how to be ass hat just like her big brother. She balls uncontrollably when things don't go her way. In one episode, she tosses a cookie onto the floor while saying, "Cookie good." Her mother dutifully picks it up. Caillou once expressed his preference for cookies over vegetables and got up from the dinner table to retrieve the cookie jar. Caillou scuffled on the playground with an equally snot filled boy, named Jimmy, who wanted Caillou to push him on the swing. This caused Caillou to throw himself into his grandfather's lap as the narrator states,

"Caillou didn't like Jim because he always had to get his own way."

Caillou wished to go to the circus after he learned that two of his friends were planning a trip. Caillou invited himself instructing his friends to swing by and pick him up. After he got himself dressed and brushed his teeth, his father tells him that he wasn't going with his friends to the circus today but would be going with his family tomorrow. Caillou wanted to go now so he breaks a toy then tosses himself onto the bathroom floor while kicking his feet and hands in a full blown meltdown. In yet another episode, Caillou fantasizes that he is a king.

All of this rich and fully developed outpouring of emotion wouldn't be so bad if Boris and Doris got on the same page and occasionally punish Caillou for being such a bone deep ass pain. Admittedly, I didn't watch all the episodes because our oldest son, Aidan, lost interest in the show after one season. Good thing that he did in lieu of embracing Caillou's modicum of coping skills otherwise Aidan would be an only child. The best I can tell Caillou's parents, being Canadians, were high which is why they were so mellow all the time. Sure, I know cannabis wasn't legalized in Canada until 2018, long after the five seasons of Caillou aired, but I'm certain that the level of tolerance depicted in the show for such crap ass behavior, even from your own genetic offspring, requires lots of powerful mood alternating drugs.

The Canadian Supreme Court once ruled that Ms. Desputeaux as well as the network jointly shared the copyrights to Caillou even though both parties claimed exclusive ownership. Shortly afterwards the Court legalized pot making Canada the second country to do so nationally, right behind Uruguay. This added weed to the list of chief exports from Canada which prior to the landmark decision included only Canadian money and Justin Bieber.

So I've read online that this month we're getting rid of the pale, petulant, privileged, hair-challenged, whining, egocentric, unruly, holy terror. They mean Caillou, right?

The Birth of a Liberal

I used to sit in a cube farm when I worked for a company that made online software for motor vehicle registration. I sat across from a guy who was a quality assurance specialist named Ted. He was retired from the military and was exceedingly conservative. I used to say that Ted was to the right of Attila the Hun.

It was hard not to hear Ted's conversations because we were stuffed into a tiny workspace, and quite frankly, motor vehicle registration was about as absorbing as the Ice Capades. Anytime someone brought up a topic, I was certain that my colleague over the partition would offer the most right-wing perspective.

If someone's stapler broke in the office, Ted would say that it was probably fabricated in China and wouldn't have broken if made in the USA. If it snowed a lot outside, Ted would quip that the unionized state workers plowing the streets were probably going to bilk the state for excessive overtime. If the internet went down in the office, Ted would suggest that it had something to do with bandwidth being consumed by the liberal media. I learned a lot sitting next to Ted.

One day Ted was on the phone with what sounded like his insurance company. Apparently, he bought a cheap curio cabinet from Ikea for his wive's Hummel collection. After they put it together, he and his wife arranged the cherished figurines on the shelves. The prized Hummel was a large statue of a boy sitting in a tree. From Ted's description it was several inches in height. If you don't know, Hummels are hand painted porcelain statues based on drawings made by Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, a Franciscan Sister. A small figurine can sell for hundreds of dollars. Limited editions can go for even more.

Evidently, Ted and his wife packed the shelves before assessing the sturdiness of the cabinet. It was a bit ironic that a QA guy would overlook something like that. Apparently the shelving let go sometime in the middle of the night, crashing one on top of the other until all that was left was a sad pile of Humbits at the bottom of the cabinet. The next morning at work Ted was on the phone with his insurance company trying to get them to pay for the damages. The volume of his contribution to the conversation was slowly rising as he was discovering that his policy did not cover cheap furniture that he purchased to house his wife's collectibles.

"What do you mean I needed a rider?" Ted blurted.

He was going to learn the hard way that if you have something special like an expensive, rare lot of figurines, you need to declare this to your insurance company and likely purchase a special provision, called a "rider.”

"I don't get it. I have a homeowner's policy. Don't I?" Ted reasoned.

You do, but it doesn't cover defective or improperly assembled furniture that should only be used in a college dormitory.

"You cover my other stuff if in a fire or a flood so why not my wife's Hummels?" Ted angrily asked.

Well, not flood. You need a special policy, called "flood insurance." Even so your curio cabinet collapsing is not the same thing as an electrical fire or a tornado. Insurance is very complicated.

"You mean to tell me that my homeowner's policy doesn't cover the things that are actually in my house?" Ted exclaimed in exasperation.

No, you're covered for loss up to a certain dollar figure for damage caused by unforeseen events, natural disasters or "Acts of God." You are not covered for "Acts of Ted."

"So if someone drove a tractor trailer through my house and ran over my wive's Hummels, you wouldn't cover them?" Ted inquired.

No, they're covered for that. If your wive's Hummel were hit by lighting or a hurricane, your homeowner policy would kick in and reimburse you. Additionally, significant liability is shared by the truck driver and his employer. However, your homeowner's policy does not cover bonehead moves by the insured.

"So I guess I'm just out $2000 worth of Hummels!" Ted exclaimed as he slammed the phone down.

Rest assured that insurance companies won't cover you in case of loss if there is any way for them to wiggle out of it. The former mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo, once said,

"A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before."

Rizzo implied that robbing a liberal will change their views. I often wondered what would it take to change the views of a conservative. Now I know.

About $2000 worth of Hummels.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on March 14, 2017.