The Office--One Last Time

This isn't the first time I've written about my favorite show, The Office, but it will probably be the last since fans are on the doorstep of the penultimate episode.  The series finale is scheduled for May 16.
It's hard to say goodbye to a long running television friend.  I remember some of the emotions when Everybody Loves Raymond (my previous favorite) signed off...and Seinfeld...and Home Improvement.  And Mary Tyler Moore and MASH.  And the Waltons.  Usually I have only one favorite at a time and they've all seemed to overlap perfectly--because Raymond ended when it did, I can honestly say I watched EVERY episode of the Office.  I'm not sure what might be next for me or if there will even be another"favorite."  Thanks to technology, my watching habit has changed so much...although I haven't missed a single episode of the Office, I haven't actually watched a single episode on TV in four years!  How?  Hulu--one of the great cyber creations (particularly since NBC comes in so poorly at our house out in the country thanks to the stupid digital conversion, but I digress....)   When I started watching the Office in 2004, I was still recording shows on a VHS, believe it or not.
As far as the show itself is concerned, I have mixed emotions.  There's no doubt it is time for it to come to an end.  I've hypothesized before about how good sitcoms have a lifespan of 8 or 9 seasons maximum.  All of the above titles, plus my all-time favorite Andy Griffith, ran out of gas by season 9.  When Steve Carell departed the Office after season 5, it was the beginning of the end and most fans knew it.  The subsequent story lines and new characters were occasionally good and occasionally cringe-worthy.  Every so often, the writers would slap a hit but just as often, they'd swing and miss.  Every show (except the age defying Simpsons, perhaps) must eventually arrive at the point where the creative juices simply stop flowing.  For the Office, the show is ending at just the right time.
Still, there's a part of me that is sad, too.  There were some really interesting and rich background characters like Creed, Meredith and Stanley that should have gotten more stage time.  Meanwhile, the show was a nice diversion and dwelt on some quirks we've all experienced in our own workplace but I can think of a few they missed.  Many in the cast have gone from "obscure" to "movie star," which is satisfying.  I hope their careers continue to bring them fulfillment.
I am looking forward to the next two episodes and then we will all say goodbye and move on.  Storylines will be tidied up and, I'm sure, tears will be shed.  I've heard maybe even Carell will make a cameo.  Television has changed so much since Mary, Ted, Lou, Murray and the gang huddled in a circle and sang "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" as they exited the WJM newsroom for the final time.  I only hope the Office exits with the same class.  Meanwhile, I must decide if there's something else out there worthy of the title "favorite show."  Or maybe I've graduated beyond that, too.

The Apple (and not the computer)

It wouldn’t be an issue if I actually liked them, but I’m not keen on apples.  Nevertheless, about a year ago, I decided to try and eat an apple every afternoon for a snack instead of candy or chips or whatever.  This has forced an overall reevaluation of the apple.  No, I’m still not thrilled with them, but it has proven to be a much smarter way to stave off the afternoon hunger pains.  My question now, though, is which variety of apple is least odious.  After a year’s analysis of some seven or eight varieties, this is what I’ve decided.

First of all, the hands-down winner in my year-long apple survey is that Honeycrisps are, by leaps and bounds, the most enjoyable variety.  For flavor, tang, crispness and size, The Honeycrisp is a great apple.  Unfortunately, they are not only more expensive than the other varieties—they are waaaay more expensive!  I ate my first Honeycrisp around October, so naturally I figured they were created for fall-like, caramel dipping, water bobbing, treat making activities.  At $2.99 a pound (and because they are so large, each apple is almost a pound), they quickly became a very expensive snack.   But maybe the price was seasonal, I reasoned?  Nope.  After a few dips to $2.49 in December, the price has stayed rather steady at nearly three bucks.   However, like some strange drug, I am addicted and no other variety satisfies anymore.  Looking over my unofficial notes, last spring I discovered Sonya’s and thought they were pretty good (and affordable) at the time but my first Sonya’s this year have an odd aftertaste, aren’t very sweet and are a bit mealy.  I haven’t seen any Jonagolds yet.  For some reason, they marked high on my list last summer but were only sold for about a month.  Also getting reasonable marks were Jazz apples, but my comments were not overwhelming praiseworthy.  Oddly enough, I think I only bought Granny Smiths one time and found them too tart…maybe I’ll try them again.

Despite their name, Red and Golden Delicious apples are anything but. Yeck.  Braeburns and Galas also ranked very low. There was one called Envy that I tried but, once again, you can’t judge an apple by its name. Of course, there are "eating" apples and "baking" apples, so some of the previously mentioned varieties may have their own fans.

For my individual preferences, I insist the apples spend a few hours in a refrigerator.  For awhile, I only ate them cut up with a sharp pairing knife, but I've since become lazy.  I think, I prefer red to yellow/green apples.  I’d like to see McIntosh apples in my grocery store, but I can’t say I’ve been able to try them in the last year. 

Unfortunately, Honeycrisps have spoiled me but I simply cannot afford them…plus it looks like their season is coming to an end.  If you have a suggestion, feel free to contact me.  Remember, my requirements are simple: Sweet, crunchy, firm, affordable and good cold.  Maybe I can track down that John Chapman fellow…or that “Eve” lady…..

 

Standing in the Beer Line

It was a Krogers on a Friday evening.  All the checkout lanes were packed except for one near the middle with a perky young girl at the register—perhaps 16-years old—and an equally strapping young lad happily bagging on the end of the conveyor.  I looked at my armful of goodies—some apples, a newspaper, a card, and a six-pack of Black and Tan Ale.  I knew what was coming next and sighed…oh well, it was the shortest line, I guess I can wait..

To my great surprise, however, the young girl didn’t call for assistance from an “older” co-worker and the young lad placed the bottled brew in a plastic bag and handed it over to me.  Hmm…Something different here?  In the past when I purchased beer at the grocery and the checkout person was underage, she/he had to call over someone older to slide it past the laser UPC code reader.  I recall being impossibly frustrated that this employee wasn’t permitted to drag the beer six inches to the left.   Indeed, they weren't allowed to even "touch" it.  It was as if the beer contained a radioactive isotopes or something…or maybe they didn’t trust an employee who was so thirsty that, as I fumbled head turned through my wallet for my loyalty card, he/she would swipe a few gulps from one of the bottles.  I remember even offering to slide it past the scanner for them; “Oh, no sir!  That would be against the rules,” they’d say. No, things had changed and maybe a healthy heaping of common sense finally won out.   In a restaurant, Ohio law says 16-year old waitresses can carry unopened alcohol on a tray to a table and 17-year old's can carry open liquors.  No radiation there.  So what was up in the grocery?  Anyway, the dumb rule is apparently gone and good riddance.

I rather lucked out in my own personal beer consuming past.  Although Ohio raised the age limit for beer to 18 when I was a junior in high school, they did continue to make an exception for 3.2 percent beer.  I didn’t drink a lot but on the rare occasion when I did, it usually manifested itself through the one-time very popular Hudy DeLight brand.  When the Feds decided to use extortion by linking their determination to unify the age at 21 in exchange for 10% of a state's highway funds, the states caved and the drinking age was raised to 21 in 1987…happily, over a year after I came of age, so again I lucked out.   Personally, I still don’t have a problem with age 18 for beer (even though I’m a dad)…My college friends and I shared in a few $2.50 pitchers at Groesbeck Tavern (ironically, its now a police station, but I digress....)  It really was no big deal to us back then.  Anyway, I’m sure there’s no political thirst for supporting a lower age for beer, so 21 it shall remain.  As for Krogers?  Maybe the next step will be to improve the “self check” lines, which come to a screeching (“an assistant has been notified to assist you”) halt whenever you try to sneak alcohol past the commonsenseless computer.

The Who in Louisville

Pardon me while a gush a bit.  When I found out last fall that the rock band The Who would be touring this winter AND would be playing my favorite album, Quadrophenia, from top to bottom, I ordered, for the first time in my life, tickets to a concert online.  Louisville was the closest venue to home and there was a date on a Saturday just a few days after my birthday.  Even the ticket price wasn't too bad and so I bought two in the middle section with no clue who I'd ask to go with me.  The concert was was screaming at me from my bucket-list and I was going to see it come youknowwhat.
Now let's go back to the spring of 1980; my freshman year in high school.  I had come of musical age during grade school and the disco era.  My favorite DJ was Mark Sebastian at Q102, who every afternoon told us listeners that he wanted to see us "totally, and I mean totally, N-A-K-E-D."  We laughed and were loyal until "the Q" abandoned us guys for bubblegum pop and Top-40, and so we all migrated to WEBN.  I pleaded with mom to let me install an FM converter in our 1971 Plymouth. I spent $75 I saved from cutting grass to by a Fisher stereo (with 8-track) for my room, carefully placing the speakers to maximize the sound.  In freshman religion class, we were all told to bring in our favorite songs.  I didn't really have one, but the other classmate narrowed it to three: Freebird, Stairway to Heaven and Baba O'Riley.  That latter song was different...rough and gentle, bold and introspective.  I was searching for a new direction and The Who fell into my lap--unfortunately, just a few months after their Cincinnati concert tragedy and a year after Keith Moon died.  Timing hasn't always been my greatest thing (I "discovered" Stevie Ray, alas, only after buying his post-mortem Sky is Crying CD).
Throughout high school I gobbled up what I could find--Who albums, bootleg discs, books--I even joined a "fan club" (my first and only one.)  Then, during my senior year, the band decided to have a "final tour."  I had neither the financial means nor the parental consent to travel to their closest stop (Lexington, KY), so I convinced a friend with cable TV to invite my then-girlfriend and I to watch the final show, December 17, 1982 in Toronto, on pay-per-view (my tab) at his house and recorded the audio on my cassette deck.  And that was it.  The band broke up and I moved on to other bands, finding out that my musical tastes were actually much wider than I would have guessed.  In 1990s, there was a rash of "reunion tours" and The Who made appearances in fits and starts with small tours in '02 and '04.   In December '06, they came as close as Columbus but I just couldn't justify the trip.   I regretted it momentarily but age provides perspective.  Fortunately I got a second chance.
Roger Daltrey will be 69-years-old next month--Pete Townshend will be 68 in May.  I took a little ribbing from friends after their Super Bowl appearance a few years ago but didn't care.   In terms of this tour, any arrow even close to the target would satisfy me...it's not about the music anymore...its about my youth and "the Q" and "making out" at my friend's house and freshman religion class and an ocean of other memories triggered instantaneously by the first few notes of a song tacked by iron spikes to the walls of the caverns of my innermost memories.  I felt a little sick to my stomach last week in the days before the upcoming show (for one, no one wanted to go with me and I thank my 17-year-old son for humoring his "old man"), not because I didn't think the show would live up to any musical expectations but instead because it would not fulfill up to some impossible personal mid-life vacuum.
However, I am happy to report, the concert was not just satisfactory--it was incredible.  The lighting, the video backdrop, the performances, the sound, the mixing of the present with wistful nostalgia.   Roger unbuttoned his shirt and swung his mic, Pete's windmill guitar swung almost exactly the way I saw it watching hours of Who concert videos and movies from the '60s and '70s.  It was better than I had hoped given our collective aging.   Zach Starkey and Simon Townshend were great added touches and the way they incorporated original Moon and John Entwistle video into the show (you just had to have seen it) gave me chills.  Even the parking, the venue (YUM Center) and my traveling companion...to me, a perfect night.  I can't describe here what it meant. 
Suffice it to gush, I had a great time.  I still have plenty of things on "the list" to do yet (helicopter anyone?), but this was one of those times where reality did exceed nervous expectations.

All Star Game

This week, the Cincinnati Reds were awarded the 2015 Major League All Star Game and I immediately remembered when Willie McGee spit a piece of sandwich in my face.  Let me explain...
There are plenty of sporting events--Bengal's Freezer Bowl, Tom Browning's perfecto, 4192--where people claim to have been there but were actually not.  However, I did get to attend the 1988 All Star Game at Riverfront as working media.  I had been at WVXU full time for less than a year when it was time to submit credentials for the '88 Summer Classic.  Neal, our sports guy, of course nabbed the main credential but after NPR decided not to send anyone, Neal was able to grab a second one, arguing that he couldn't cover both locker rooms.  I still thank him today.
The event was like nothing I had ever experienced...we got to go on the field during batting practice and watch the players warm up.  We got a bag full of "gifts" to take home.  There were fireworks and ushers dressed in tuxedos.  And although many national media-types snickered at owner Marge Schott simple boxed lunches, nothing ever tasted better to me in my life.  Since there were so many media, we couldn't all fit in the press box, so Neal and I sat in the stands, but that was okay with me.  The only disappointment was the dearth of Reds players in the game and the fact that the National League lost 2-1 (the only time the NL has lost in a Cincy All Star Game.)  After the last out, the work began as we had to fulfill our commitment and file stories for NPR and 'VXU.  Since the AL were the victors, Neal went to that clubhouse to get sound and I went to the get the loser's reactions in the NL locker room.  But I was still a "rookie" and wasn't too familiar with the tricks of getting cogent comments on tape.  So I wandered the clubhouse looking for people to interview and, because of the loss, not too many were eager to talk to this skinny "kid."  However, there was a small crowd of guys around then St. Louis Cardinal outfielder Willie McGee, so I eased my way into the pack.  I don't recall why there was such an interest in McGee, by the way, because, although he played, I don't think he had much to do with the outcome but...well, he was talking and "sound" was "sound."  So I held out the mic and turned on the cassette deck and squatted in front.  McGee was eating a baloney sandwich as he talked and something must've excited him because a big lump of Wonder bread hit me square in the forehead before I could move.  I don't think it was intentional. No one said a word or reacted and, thinking it was just one of the hazards of sports reporting, I just continued recording.  No I didn't save the sandwich lump.   Maybe I should have because, speaking of memorabilia, most of the nicer "bling"--the commemorative pin, the press pass--were stolen when our house was burglarized several years later. 
It's doubtful I'll get to go to the next All Star Game because our little station doesn't have a news or sports department.  But I think it's terrific news for the city and surrounding area--even if Willie McGee won't be there.

Avast Ye Pirate!

Pirate radio stations are certainly not new.  These are radio transmitters operating without permission by the FCC and their origins can be traced to the very earliest days of broadcasting.  In fact, before computers became the youth distraction they are today, it wasn’t uncommon for young, tech-savvy lads to buy an inexpensive transmitter kit, goose the output a bit with a decent antenna dangling out their bedroom window, and actually transmit radio broadcasts for several blocks—until the neighbors complained.   The FCC’s mandatory $10,000 fine effectively reduced the hobby, but I’m sure it’s still done and many have gotten away with it for years.

They key, of course, is scale and a recent story in the Hollywood (Florida) Sun Sentinel newspaper provides an example of how NOT to pirate.  It seems someone rigged up an FM transmitter to broadcast Caribbean music on 104.7MHz.  Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that the frequency and the way his antenna was constructed allowed for something called “harmonics”…that is, the signal showing up elsewhere on the electromagnetic spectrum.  The bottom line:  the associated frequency just happened to be the same one used by Lexus, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and other car manufacturers for keyless entry systems.  For several weeks, car owners couldn’t figure out why their cars would suddenly and inexplicable lock and unlock at random times.  Car dealers and repair shops were stumped too.  Anyway, it’s all better now that the culprit has been found and the transmitter shut down.  Oh, and the fine?  $10,000, of course!

Velva Sheen Days

On weekends, or when I return from work at night, one of my favorite forms of around-the-house attire is a set of comfortable sweats.  Sweat pants, a sweat shirt....ratty, over sized, cotton or acrylic--it really doesn't matter.  Fashion is not my concern and comfort is king with me when I am able to lounge around the house.
Over the recent holidays, I spent a lot of time in sweats.  Beer in hand, football on TV and dog at my side, comfy sweats rounded out the picture.  Unfortunately, I had to send off a 20-plus year old set of sweat pants to garbage-land when the drawstring broke.   And then it hit me...it has been so long since I actually purchased sweats, I wasn't exactly sure where to find a replacement!  Oh sure, I could go the the "brand name" stores and find what I wanted for a hefty price but, and here's the rub, I am used to finding my around-the-house wardrobe C-H-E-A-P.
The root of this habit can be traced back to my childhood where much of my clothing came from the Velva Sheen outlet store on Glenmore Avenue, below the K-of-C Hall, in Cheviot.  Velva Sheen, if you are unaware, was a Cincinnati-based purveyor of printed T-shirts, sweats and other garb.  Whenever they goofed up, the product ended up at the outlet store in Cheviot, where clothing was sold at a fraction of its normal cost.  Not to make fun of my thrifty mom, but it made great play clothing even though the regular mis-spellings messed with my school work when it came to the spelling of "Xaveir", "Stanfrod" and "Cincinatti."   Sometimes it wasn't the spelling that sent the clothing article to outlet banishment, sometimes it was a stray thread, or a silk-screen that was too light, or arms that were too long or too short.  Whatever the flaw, a good deal is a good deal and Velva Sheen was one of my first learned words (by the way, you could tell an outlet sale item because they'd clip a "V" out of the tag so you couldn't return it!)
Inspired by these fond memories, I wondered whatever happened to Velva Sheen, so I did a little investigating and found out that the company was founded in 1936 by a guy named Oscar Schroeder and really developed and expanded by brothers Bob and William Reilly.  They eventually grew into a national company and a pioneer in securing licensing agreements from major companies for popular characters, images and slogans.  The brothers sold the company in in 1994 to Brazos, who went out of business by 1999.  Curiously, the label and name were resurrected by a California company in 2009 and apparently exists today in a line of retro clothing.   Good for them.
I'm still pretty tight with a buck and found a local clothier who carries second run sweats, so I'm good for another 20-years.   But I kinda miss Velva Sheen and the days when I proudly wore T-shirts proclaiming my devoting to the "Univresity of West Verginai."