Lucky day
Yesterday was the 13th, and thus unlucky. Today must be lucky then, like all the other days. So it stands to reason.
Bob & Ray addressed Friday the 13th in the second part of their visit with Johnny Carson here, after admiring the most beautiful face:
I find the two still funny. But the culture they were parodying is in the past. It was the culture of small-town news media. Or should I say “news” media? Much of the content they spoofed was mundane at the time—and even more so by today’s standards of national and international spectacle, meant to grab your attention for a few moments at a time as often as possible.
As Russ Roberts once pointed out, the media of the past was aimed at the whole family as an audience gathered around the home’s one TV set, or sharing the same radio or newspaper. The content wasn’t meant to shock—and certainly not to offend! The advertisers who sponsored it didn’t want to see their products displayed or mentioned in the context of shocking or offensive material.
But then we all got our own TVs, and then the internet came along, and media consumption became a very personal thing to do, interacting with a device on the palm of your hand.
That’s the nostalgic perspective. Contrariwise, if it was so great, why did we give it all up so easily?
RE: Bob and Ray / bygone culture
Who says we gave it all up, easily or otherwise? We didn't *all* give it up. Not completely, anyway. Per my comment from yesterday evening, Son of Paleface was playing as I pecked at the keyboard. Albeit on a 60-inch HD flat screen hooked to a top shelf Marantz Blu-ray player.
Spectacle is ok and sometimes desirable, at least as far as entertainment goes. Politics, news, etc.? I won't go there, except to say the problem with our current culture is that too much of the time you can't tell the difference between politics, spectacle and entertainment. Even on the biggest and sharpest of HD screens, and especially on those little hand-held ones.
Entertainment, like politics, is a personal choice, of course. I'm not overly nostalgic, but I'm human. And I think one's youth and formative years can't help but effect what one finds entertaining and enjoys later in life to a great extent, regardless of how 'our culture' may have changed along the way and why, and no matter how hip or cool or popular something of the present may be.
Garrison Keillor vs Howard Stern? Please...
Carson vs Colbert? Uhhh...close, but no cigar.
Tom Cruise and Top Gun Maverick in 4K / multi-speaker immersive surround-sound vs Bogey and Bergman in black and white mono?
phhhttt!!!
To each his own, and no better for us than that. So, I happily stick to my own cultural tastes from the past as well as the present while others do the same, whatever their age. Which these days often means old movies and shows on new-fangled technology. Sort of a best of both worlds scenario. Which shouldn't be too hard to understand about someone who's pretty close to having one foot in this world and one foot in the next.
BTW...Bob and Ray? A-OK.
An interesting read: https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewsullivan/p/why-the-right-is-losing-the-young-4e1?r=2k5c4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web