Rant #2,747: Where the Action Is

Relax.
 
That is what I need to do, and I think that in this pandemic-laced world, we all need to slow down a bit.
 
And that is why after many months of not shamelessly plugging something that I do, I am going to do just that right now.
 
So here is my shameless plug:
 
I am a Baby Boomer, and I am a Baby Boomer inside and out.
 
While the world is not my oyster anymore, it doesn’t mean that the values that I learned as a kid don’t cross over into today’s world.
 
They certainly do, and I think that we need them more than ever today.
 
And that leads me to plug my Facebook site, which is called "Where the Action is—Yesterday and Today … and Tomorrow.”
 
You can find it right here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/598790963991601
 
It is a fun site, a site where no politics are spoken about, a site that is just fun, fun, and more fun.
 
The site focuses on the TV show “Where the Action Is,” an ABC afternoon show that ran during all or part of three TV seasons, from 1965 to 1967 on the network.
 
ABC was the fledgling, third network at the time, and they were starting to build up an impressive lineup of shows that appealed to younger viewers like me, everything from sitcoms like “Bewitched” to soap operas like “Dark Shadows.”
 
One of its most popular mainstays was “American Bandstand” hosted by Dick Clark, where the hottest acts and dances were featured first daily, and then once a week on Saturday.
 
Weekday daytime was still a big hole in the network schedule, as it was populated by soap operas basically appealing to stay-at-home women, and Clark wanted to get into that part of the business, so he designed this show, “Where the Action Is,” to focus on Baby Boomers and their music.
 
The “Action” in the title took place at parks, amusement parks, beaches, really anywhere that kids could gather and watch performers who appealed to their age group sing the hit songs of the day.
 
The black and white show was first pitched to CBS, but they rejected it, and ABC grabbed it just as fast, as a half hour weekday show which kind of ran with their Baby Boomer focus at the time.
 
Running from Monday to Friday each week, the show featured the hottest recording acts of the day—less the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five—and also created new ones.
 
Hosted by Steve Alaimo and Linda Scott—two kind of bland but very talented personalities who had interesting recording careers themselves—the show not only brought the “American Bandstand” credo of Baby Boomer fun to weekday afternoons, but it also made stars out of several previously unknown acts, including Tina Mason, Keith Allison, and, of course, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Northwest rockers who were perfect runaway stars, what with their Revolutionary War getups, their boy next door looks, their antics, and, of course, their garage band music, which was a mix of everyone from the Beatles to the Kinks to the Rolling Stones all rolled into one.
 
Anyway, the show lasted into 1967, when I believe that that time period was given back to local ABC affiliates to program themselves.
 
The interesting thing about “Where the Action Is” is that in the more than 50 years since it ran its final show, it has never been officially anthologized, and only a relatively small segment of episodes last to this day, mostly in hard to watch, kinescope form.
 
The stuff that exists is really incredible, showcasing performers who had scant time on the air mixed with others who appeared on TV frequently even after the show’s demise, most prominently the Raiders, of course.
 
Right before Dick Clark passed away, he was supposedly working on something with these episodes, but with his passing, whatever he was doing with them went to grave with him.
 
You can find a lot of the episodes and performances on YouTube, but that leads me to my site …
 
The site I run talks about one thing, and one thing only, and that is “Where the Action Is.” Every day I put up a “Today In WTAI History” blurb, where I list who was on the show on a particular day, such as today, October 7.
 
I also try to match a clip of the daily “Song of the Day” with what I can find on YouTube, which isn’t always that easy to do, but I have found plenty of material there.
 
And then site members talk about the clip, bring up their memories of the song or the act, and I am happy to say we have members who were actually either on the show—a few of the Action Kids dancers are members—or were in the audience during the tapings.
 
It is a fun site, nothing more, a place to spend a few minutes a day just to look back at a different time un our lives, and that the fun that we had that was really backboned by the music that we listened to.
 
And remember, this is music that was pre-Woodstock, just touching on the rising psychedelic craze that was coming around at the time, so the music is pretty safe, much of what you would hear on your favorite Top 40 AM radio station at the time with a few extras.
 
So if you are into the original Supremes, Question Mark and the Mysterians, the original Kinks, the Standells and the antics of Paul Revere and the Raiders, this is the site for you.
 
So again, the site address is https://www.facebook.com/groups/598790963991601
 
Give it a try. I think you might like it.
 
And the word “pandemic” is never used on the site, which is a real plus in and of itself.

Rant #2,746: Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

Good morning everyone.
 
Get your COVID shot yet?
 
I put up the following comment at a few places on Facebook, and yes, I did it because I wanted to see the response that I would get, and yes, I got plenty!
 
Although I find New York State Governor Kathy "The Yokel" Hochul's coronavirus shot mandate completely reprehensible—that people in the health care field are being forced to get the shots to keep their jobs—and the same goes for New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio's edict that everyone who works in the city schools needs to get the shots to keep their jobs--those directly impacted had better make sure that their decision is the right one for themselves and their families ...
 
And since I don’t really think that those who are astutely against the shots, and would dump their professions to abstain, really and truly understand the quicksand that they are getting themselves into, I would tell them the following right to their faces:
 
“Don’t be a prick, and get the prick.”
 
Here is exactly what I put up on Facebook, and again, I personally do not agree that people should be forced to get these shots.
 
However …
 
"Sometimes you have to do things you do not want to do.
 
Teachers and hospital workers are faced with a conundrum; get the shot, not because they believe in all of this forced nonsense, but to save their jobs and livelihoods, or not get the shot, and lose everything.
 
It is not worth losing everything.
 
If they don't get the shot, it will have a domino effect on their lives.
 
Not only will they not get unemployment, but it will greatly impact their future retirement and Social Security. They also will eventually lose their health insurance.
 
And what business will hire them when they find out why they lost their jobs?
 
The whole approach by our government is reprehensible. However, getting the shot to protect yourself and your family from career destruction and all of its after effects is not agreeing with the mandate in any way.
 
For these people, get the shot, because let me tell you from personal experience, when you are kicked to the curb from your livelihood, you aren't going to be getting up anytime soon.
 
Getting the shots protects yourself and your family not necessarily from the virus, but from career destruction. Is it worth it to give up 10, 20, 30 or more years that you put in, only to end up with nothing?
 
Getting the shots does not show compliance for these people, it demonstrates foresight.
 
And when the time comes, vote out 'Hochul the Yokel' and all officials who are forcing people to choose between their livelihoods and getting these idiotic shots."
 
That is what I believe, but as you can imagine, not everyone agrees with me … nor did I think they would.
 
Many people said that it was compliance and obedience when these people decide to get the shots, and that they would never get the shots.
 
Others said that they are sure that these people knew the financial risks that they were undertaking by refusing to submit to the shots.
 
To those answering this way, I say “balderdash,” these people have no idea the fires they are setting for themselves by not giving in … and yes, it is giving in.
 
It is not political, it is practical.
 
You—and if you don’t care about yourself, then your family—will lose everything by not getting the shots.
 
The courts have proven that these edicts, as reprehensible as they are, are LEGAL, and can and will be enforced.
 
Some people in these fields are somewhat lucky. They have only been suspended and/or furloughed. Some have even retained their health insurance through their unions.
 
But others …
 
Northwell Health, the largest health provider on Long Island and one of the largest in New York State and the country, has fired--will repeat that, FIRED—thousands of workers because they have not received and refuse to receive their shots.
 
Northwell Health is an interesting situation, because they set up their own shot protocols way before Gov. Hochul made her edict, and they are a lot more stringent than what the governor laid down, so their workers knew weeks ago what they were going to face if they went shotless—
 
And Northwell simply axed them. Period.
 
Maybe these workers can manage for a few weeks on savings, but the bigger picture is that it will eventually foul up their retirement and their Social Security.
 
Take it from me: you don’t understand how important this is until you reach that period in your life that you are of retirement age.

You do not want or need any blips on your record when this time comes, and this will be the most major of blips.
 
So the bottom line is this: personally, I think what Hocul, deBlasio and others are doing to force people to get the shots is horrid. Nobody should be forced to get these shots.
 
However, if the mandates are in, if the mandates have been found to be legal by our court system, then getting the shots is not compliance, as some would say.
 
It is survival in this rough world we live in.
 
My advice to these people would be to get the first shot. You will have three weeks to see if it kills you to do so.
 
And when you come out of it squeaky clean, you get the next one, see how that goes, and you are done …
 
Hopefully, as we now have booster shots to perhaps contend with, but at least for now, only the first regimen of shots are mandatory for these people to keep their jobs.
 
Let’s not put the cart before the horse.
 
Get the shots, because as I said, while these shots might not protect you from getting the coronavirus, they WILL protect your livelihood.
 
And right now, that protection is paramount, even more important than protection against the virus is.

Rant #2,745: Let's Live For Today

Gee whiz … I take the day off from writing a Rant, and look what happens to Facebook.
 
Was Facebook offended that I wasn’t on there yesterday, and took out its frustration with me on millions of users around the world?
 
Something went kerflooey with its app yesterday during the late morning, and Facebook, along with some of its associated sites like Instagram, were unreachable yesterday.
 
Me, I was working, and still have a bit of work to do in my remote job as I transcribe a meeting and make it somewhat readable, so my time on Facebook will be limited today.
 
But early yesterday afternoon, my son ran into me, told me he could not get onto Facebook with his phone or his tablet, and in between the work I was doing, I tried every which way for him to get on, but to no avail.
 
It just wasn’t happening, and then later on, I read a story that this problem was being felt worldwide.
 
Oh, woe is us, or woe are us, or … I think you know what I mean.
 
How can we live without Facebook?
 
It’s like needing desperately to go to the bathroom, and every bathroom near you is closed for repair.
 
What do you do?
 
Well, maybe not in the case of the bathroom, but in the case of Facebook, you just wait it out.
 
By early to late evening, the problem was fixed.
 
It had to do with the apps that Facebook, Instagram and the other associated services use.
 
According to a statement made by Facebook late yesterday evening, "Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,”
 
Yup, and I thought it was just a simple hack, where all of our data was compromised.
 
Silly me, I should have never thought that about such a trustworthy service.
 
And here, I thought it was the fact that I could not write a Rant yesterday and post it on Facebook.
 
I thought it had to do with me.
 
And if I had written something, then sometime after 11:30 a.m. yesterday for at least the next several hours, no one could make a comment on it.
 
Boy, my world could have been topsy turvy.
 
Thank goodness for my work, which took me off the Internet entirely for at least five hours yesterday, and will likely take me off again for a few more hours today.
 
If my son hadn’t brought it up to me, I would have never known that there was a problem.
 
And herein lies the real problem.
 
Facebook has become such a major part of many of our lives that if it goes down, our world goes down too.
 
We have to remember that this is a site that exists on the Internet, and a million things can go wrong to gum it up for us.
 
That it doesn’t happen all of the time is something to marvel at; but when it does happen, well, nothing is right, and our day is ruined.
 
We are really so overly beholden with this site—me too—and heck, it is just one segment of the Internet.
 
When trying to help my son yesterday, I tried out other Internet sites, like Google and Yahoo, and they all worked.
 
In fact, I ordered a wrestling tee shirt for my son on one of these sites, a site that has nothing to do with Facebook, and it all went through like lightning.
 
My day wasn’t bummed out because Facebook wasn’t working.
 
I tried it on my own phone, and somehow, I was able to put up a message asking others if they were having problems.
 
I did it to pacify my son, and that is the only reason I did it.
 
Let’s live for today, and good luck to Facebook.
 
We enjoy the site, but no one will jump off the bridge if it goes down again like it did yesterday.
 
But knowing how distressed people are today about one thing or another, who knows? 

Rant #2,744: Body Language

Did you know that yesterday was “National Coffee Day,” and that instead of drinking a cup of java to honor the day, talentless but business-wise actress Sofia Vergara went fully nude with a photo on her Instagram account to celebrate the day?
 
I don’t know what showing off your birthday suit has to do with coffee—and since I don’t have an Instagram account and have never been on the site, I cannot see the photo—but that’s what she did to celebrate the day.
 
I don’t get it, but honestly, I think I do.
 
Exposure, figuratively and literally, is good for these supposedly over-the-hill, aging actresses, to demonstrate to the world that in a culture that emphatically states that we honor our older citizens but doesn’t, that we should all be amazed at how wonderful these women look, at "advanced" ages of them being in their 40s and 50s.
 
And ladies, I am going to put the blame firmly on you this time.
 
This is not some leering guy getting his rocks off by staring at the centerfolds in the old Playboy Magazine.
 
These are women who try to keep in the public eye by showing off their bodies, and these bodies—both real and enhanced and air-brushed—are being seen by young, impressionable women who then look at themselves and say, “Why can’t I look like that?”
 
As much as Hollywood is into the MeToo movement and as much as many actresses bemoan the fact that people are actually looking at them from top to bottom as sex objects, there are many in Tinseltown who want you to do just that, and it is making a lot of young ladies crazy, crazy enough to go over the deep end.
 
There have been recent hearings on how sites like Instagram and Facebook are befuddling these young minds, minds that cannot yet discern between the fantasy of surgically enhanced and artistically airbrushed figure and the real world.
 
It puts the weaker youngsters in a personal quagmire, because these young ladies really take these actresses and what they are showing off to heart, and it makes them crazy.
 
And while Hollywood on the whole bemoans this behavior, those that show themselves off like this take absolutely no responsibility for their actions.
 
They believe that any publicity—even if it shows off their obviously surgically enhanced faces and figures—is good publicity, but I don’t see the likes of Vergara and Elizabeth Hurley and the like rejuvenating their careers by posing in every which way.
 
Sorry ladies, men simply do not have this problem.
 
I don’t know a single guy who looks at the most handsome of today’s male actors and believes, “I need to look like him … why don’t I?” and then fall of a cliff because they can’t and don’t live up to the actor’s level of handsomeness.
 
This is a strictly female problem, and no matter how up to date we make the Barbie doll to look like a normal woman, and not one with a 40-20-32 figure or whatever the standard Barbie doll shows off, women have a tendency to compare themselves to other women where men have absolutely no need to do this.
 
And, of course, the Internet just makes this so much worse.
 
In the old days, if an over-the-hill actress wanted to show off her figure to the world—and it probably wasn’t that enhanced because plastic surgery wasn’t the norm way back when—they could do that in newspaper columns like Earl Wilson’s celebrity column, where the breast-obsessed Wilson would describe an actress popping out of her skin-tight outfit but would rarely include the photo in his mention.
 
Or an actress could go to the next level, taking it all off for Playboy, but those air-brushed gems usually showed off an actress who was really desperate to be discovered again, and the ploy rarely worked, because only men were looking at this stuff, not women.
 
But today, we have the Internet, and you can see what you want when you want to see it, and these actresses darn well know that, and that is why they do the things they do.
 
It is narcissism at its worst, and it is also completely irresponsible, but if Britney Spears or any other aging Hollywood celebrities want to show off their greatly enhanced figures to the world, well, people are going to look, including 13 and 14-year-old girls who don’t understand why these women are doing this, and taking it to heart.
 
I guess it all boils down to God’s greatest creation—the female form—being so much more interesting than the male form that both men and women admire those that have really used God’s physical gifts to their advantage.
 
And in this day and age, where just about everything goes, the female form follows suit, and few blink an eye when one of these actresses decides it is time to show the world how “healthy” she is.
 
And how sad that really is.
 
Sure, I look too, but isn’t a woman at her sexiest when she doesn’t show off everything she’s got to the world?
 
Even this leering eye believes that is true.
 
I have an early appointment on Monday morning, so I will not be at my usual perch on that day.
 
Thus, I will speak to you next on Tuesday of next week.
 
Have a great weekend.