1976: WORST YEAR FOR MUSIC EVER

Ah, yes, 1976. America’s bicentennial year. Unremarkable president Gerald Ford was replaced by unremarkable president Jimmy Carter, Legionnaire’s Disease caused people to ask, “Are Legionnaires like Shriners or Masons or what?”, and Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase battled it out at Wimbledon, causing headband sales to soar. I turned 14 years old, and morose for the first time in my life. Other than the sinking realization that the world was not my oyster and that our family’s “temporary” move to an isolated flood-prone rural swamp was going on five years with no escape in sight, I blame my depression on music. 1976 was a horror for me as a pop fan. I had waited all this time to become a teenager so I could take full advantage of the awesomely cool teen world my ‘60s upbringing had promised me. Discotheques playing the Beatles and the Stones and garage rock singles and smokin’ hot soul music! Miniskirts and white boots! What did I get instead? Disco, with mind-numbingly moronic useless songs with the same awful beat and stupid lyrics, “rock” songs that were even more useless and moronic (and that is really saying something), and the unflattering-to-everyone and stodgy midi dress and fake Frye boots. Oh, how it hurt.

I fought back as best I could. I railed against the happy-pap sounds to anyone who would listen, but mainly everyone seemed…happy. I tried to find music I liked, but it was hard. I read about interesting bands in my rock mags, but I had almost no way to hear them in 1976. The record stores I had occasional access to stocked mainly the Top 50 at best, and I had no money at all to buy records on spec. It would take another year or two for the early punk progenitors to get to my house. Most of the FM stations were strongly moving away from the creative DJ model to the AOR robot, and my radio reception for the couple of college/independent stations was sometimes OK-but-crackly, but more often just static. And my beloved AM radio? Done for, and never to return.

Now imagine this. My life, in 1976, is school. I hate school. My school is also seven miles away. This seven-mile schoolbus ride takes almost an hour after I get on the bus, driving from farm to farm. In the morning, it is usually before the sun is up that I board, exhausted and surly with wet long hair in frigid temperatures. In the afternoon, all I want to do is escape and go home, and it takes 30 minutes after the last school bell rings for the bus to even arrive to pick me up for the interminably-long ride back to the stinking swamp. Now add in this: dipshits fighting and yabbering and throwing food, opening and lowering the bus windows in any weather, screeching little voices and spitballs and cootie catchers, puffy parkas and backpacks and slushy boots everywhere. And on top of that, the tight Top 20 bus radio sounds of WOKY-AM in 1976, the same songs played over and over and over and over and over and over and I can’t escape. I think the bus driver, surely a prototype for South Park’s Mrs. Crabtree, cranked it up and left it on just to drown us all out.

Here are all the U.S. #1 pop songs from 1976. You tell me how this wasn’t the bottom of the barrel. I will sort them for you:

FAILED TEEN MARKETING:

"Saturday Night" - Bay City Rollers

PAINFUL NOVELTY SONGS:

"Convoy" - C. W. McCall
"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" - Paul Simon
"Disco Duck" - Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots

CREEPY SEX SONGS:

"Love Rollercoaster" - Ohio Players
"December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) - The Four Seasons
"Love Hangover" - Diana Ross
"Afternoon Delight" - Starland Vocal Band
"Tonight's The Night" - Rod Stewart

HORRID FORMULAIC DISCO CRAP:

"Love Machine" - The Miracles
"Disco Lady" - Johnnie Taylor
"Boogie Fever" - The Sylvers
"You Should Be Dancing" - Bee Gees
"(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" - KC and the Sunshine Band
"Play That Funky Music" - Wild Cherry
"A Fifth of Beethoven" - Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band

DULL MOVIE/TV THEMES:

"Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" - Diana Ross
"Theme from S.W.A.T." - Rhythm Heritage
"Welcome Back" - John Sebastian

BLOATED SACKS OF PROTOPLASM:

"I Write the Songs" - Barry Manilow
"Let Your Love Flow" - The Bellamy Brothers
"Silly Love Songs" - Paul McCartney & Wings
"Don't Go Breaking My Heart" - Elton John & Kiki Dee
"If You Leave Me Now" - Chicago
"Rock'n Me" - Steve Miller Band

ONE SEMI-DECENT SOUL SONG:

"Kiss and Say Goodbye" - The Manhattans

It’s possible that some days I may have cried in my pillow about this, or punched it, I don’t remember. I just didn’t understand how anyone could like this stuff, or how everything went so downhill. I took it all very personally, as dramatic self-absorbed 14-year-old girls would. This shit sucked, and I worried that this was how it was going to stay forever. I thought I would have to bury myself in all my old records and buy earplugs for the bus. There was always dumb garbage pop in any year, I knew that, but holy hell. 1976 was BAD.

But here we are. I made it through. 1976 passed away, thankfully, music choices improved over the next few years to once again include fun stuff that wasn’t sleazy and stupid (in the bad sense of sleazy and stupid), and rock music got its balls back, at least to some degree. I got my mom and dad to drive me the seven miles back and forth to school when I announced that the bus was KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH ITS SONG. I got out of the swamp in 1983, the temporary move that lasted 12 years. Now I am not chained to crap-pop; it’s easy to find all kinds of new and cool music from the ease of the interhaps.

For all I know Mrs. Crabtree is still circling the farms in her long yellow bus, blasting Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber and Adam Lambert, stone-deaf.

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CONAN, I LOVE YOU

This is my kind of guy. Brilliant!

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AUGIE MEYERS

Reposted from Facebook, about Sir Douglas Quintet keyboardist Augie Meyers:

Dear Fans and Friends,

Our friend, legendary Texas musician Augie Meyers has been in need of a transplant kidney for some time now. He is on a regular dialysis schedule that has kept him going but time is of the essence for someone to step forward and donate a kidney for Augie.

On May 30th, 2010 Augie turns a young 70 years of age and is working on some of the greatest music of his career for all of us to enjoy. Sadly, when he turns 70 he will no longer be able to be on the kidney donor list unless someone donates one specifically for him. There will be no financial cost to the donor; all of the expense would be covered under Augie's insurance plan. We just need someone to step forward, willing to donate a kidney to help our friend. Please help.

Interested parties and all inquiries please call:

Diane Tarpey
Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital
San Antonio, Texas
210-575-4483

Download a PDF flier to help spread the word.
http://www.augiemeyers.com/augiemeyers.pdf

Pass the word on if you can. He's a good guy.

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OH, HITLER!

These corrupted YouTube clips from the movie "The Downfall" never fail to make me laugh. Bitte genießen!

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OCTOLIAR

Some people have just no problem lying like the filthy, matted, wire-worm infested rugs that they are. The cover of the current issue of rug catalog, Star magazine:



Yes, that's mental case Nadya Suleman, otherwise known as Octomom there. Actually, she is the birth mother of 14 children, let us keep this in mind. It's very important for Ms. Suleman to let us know that not only is she a miracle of reproductive (and medically and ethically unsound) science, but also was able to give birth to all of these children and seemingly erase all traces of the severe strain such expansion put on her body,NATURALLY! Why, there she is in a tiny red bikini posing for money on the cover of a gossip magazine. All those kids and her demented ego need to be fed somehow.

Let me remind you of Ms. Suleman's former size:



Now, let us restate two things we know about human skin:

1. Stretch marks are the result of the skin's rapid and/or large expansion that exceeds the tissue's ability to remain intact. These marks remain permanently on the skin although they may fade and decrease in depth over time.

2. Another effect of an expansion of skin during pregnancy or weight gain is that once you stretch the skin out to its limits, when the woman returns to a normal weight, the skin's elasticity is permanently compromised, which results in hanging excess skin.

There are certainly cases of women who have been fortunate enough to avoid stretch marks or noticeably-bagged stomach skin. This has a great deal to do with their particular genetic good luck regarding skin elasticity and slow/moderate weight gain rather than fast/huge. Octomom was not one of them. Her marks are visible in that pregnancy picture and it would be completely impossible that after such body trauma that her stomach skin would be able to be as it was prior to having kids.

In other words, there is NO WAY for Ms. Suleman to have exercised her way into that bikini, unless it is the most photoshopped picture ever taken. Don't trust my word; any doctor would be happy to confirm it. Laser, lipo, tummy tuck is what happened. Why she felt the need to lie about it, I don't know. She still would have gotten her Star cover. But she's creepy and crazy, so there we go.

Nadya Suleman, Rug.

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WHY I NEVER SEE MOVIES: UP IN THE AIR EDITION

I dunno, man. Hollywood movies and me, we just don’t get along too well. I am told that I expect too much. Do I? Here is what I want for my 7 or 8 bucks or whatever it is now:

1. I want to be entertained. I feel this is a very reasonable thing. These people are professionals, after all, and whether the movie is a comedy, drama, documentary, or a let’s-blow-stuff-up-real-good thing, I want to feel like the experience was rewarding in some way, that I was glad I went, that I learned something or emotionally connected with something or that I was dazzled by its beauty or that I laughed hard enough to be able to say, “Man, that was funny.”

2. I want to be taken in. For that 90 minutes or so, I want to be thinking of nothing else but the story of the movie. I want your movie to make me forget about my laundry waiting at home and the coughing guy in the back row of the theater. How I don’t want to be dragged back to reality by gaping plot holes, flat characters, poor continuity, total lack of detail, or construction so predictable that you can figure out what’s going to happen in the whole movie 20 minutes in.

3. I want decent popcorn and a bottle of water that isn’t 5 damn dollars.

So this brings me to the movie I saw a couple of nights ago, “Up In The Air,” starring George Clooney and directed by Jason Reitman, who also wrote the screenplay. I went because it was rated pretty highly and the subject – a man who spends most of his time traveling around the country firing people – seemed to have a lot of good stuff to mine. It turned out to be the most frustrating kind of movie for me: a good film that could have been so much better, if if if. It drives me absolutely wild. I cannot understand how the Hollywood folks can spend millions and millions of dollars on all these movies and then not do their best to make sure it is tight, believable, and that they have gotten every last bit out of it they can. Why I don’t understand this is because I don’t understand a basic function of the entertainment business in general – that “good enough” is truly good enough for most people. If I had my name on a project in 5-ft.-high letters on screens all over the world, a permanent expression of my best work, I would do everything I could – everything – to assure it really was my best work.

I’m not going to go through the whole plot here – you can find that on imdb.com or such – I’m just going to mention a couple things that just stopped me from buying into “Up In The Air,” which stopped me from fully enjoying the film in the end. (If you haven’t seen the movie and want to, don’t read this now because I will be writing stuff that will irritate you as you view the film. Come back later.)

Let’s start with the casting of George Clooney in this film. Why did it feel like, hey, let’s pop George in here, that’s guaranteed bank and he kind of fits the character, in that he is a man. But come on now. The character of Ryan Bingham, a guy who has almost completely turned his back on any kind of personal relationship or commitment in order to live his life out in the comparatively-orderly comfort of airports, rental cars, hotel rooms, and office space, would not be the irrepressibly-charming Clooney. Life doesn’t go that way. A guy who looks like Clooney and who was not a complete lunatic would have women lined up for even hourly appointments, and he’d be taking them. Guys who spend almost every moment of their lives in an airplane, car, or office seat are not incredibly fit (despite 2 seconds of film showing Clooney swimming in a hotel pool). They also do not have rich, deep Coppertone tans and shiny perfect white teeth. I felt like I was watching GEORGE CLOONEY the whole time, not “Ryan Bingham.” That’s a problem, because I am aware that Clooney is a movie star and not a corporate downsizing professional. Someone else should have been cast in the role, or Clooney should have made himself look and act a little more like this guy instead of Rico Suave On A Plane. He's an actor; that’s supposed to be his job. But then again, maybe his job is to pull people in to theaters just to gaze on his handsomeness.

The movie had some very funny lines, all of which felt natural. But there were so many more opportunities for humor, and for more heartfelt drama as well, that were never taken. It seemed to be played safe. I’m not talking about yanking the film up and down like a rollercoaster in some cartoonish way. Real life is just wider and deeper than what this movie allowed its characters to show. Instead, for emotional depth it relied on the reactions of the poor folks that were getting fired throughout the film – some of whom I think were not actors and were real people who had recently lost their jobs. But just showing a few seconds of people we don’t know getting angry or crying or threatening suicide or talking about their kids going without isn’t enough. The depth has to come from the main characters, and none of them – Clooney, Vera Farmiga as his road paramour, and Anna Kendrick as an uptight smart-young-thing – were well-written enough to be fully believable. The movie stopped short, and so did my investment in the characters and their lives in the film.

The climax of the film pivots around Bingman’s sister’s wedding, leading to this almost-50-year-old loner attempting to change his ways. It just doesn’t sit right. Bingham was estranged from his family for years, didn’t really seem to be troubled by that, and we don’t really see him getting all that much out of seeing them again other than enjoying breaking into his old high school with Farmiga and having some nostalgia moments. His supposed loneliness was never really felt earlier in the film at all, so when he starts making some clichéd gonna-go-after-that-girl moves, we wonder “where did that come from?” Half-century mark dudes don’t change their ways, other than to have brief flaming mid-life crises or switch to light beer.

Farmiga’s character falls apart at the same juncture. Playing Clooney’s female pro traveler twin, she seems content for the occasional hook-up on the road, until the movie leads you strongly to believe that she falls for the guy and would like something more permanent. When that turns out to be anything but the case, once again her reactions are just played so blandly that it doesn’t make sense, especially when she is caught in a lie and has much to lose. She’s not angry or dismissive enough to be the split-personality playa, and not sad or fearful enough to show any loss or caring. Also, in the crashing-the-corporate-party scene in the film, her pink blouse magically turns into a black sweater. Help me out a little here, Continuity People, come on. (And getting some of the airport details wrong was just plain lazy.)

It all comes back to the story for me. If you aren’t willing to go 100% with your characters, get right inside their heads, know them in and out so WE can know them, your story will break down. You don’t at all have to give me every last detail or make a 10-hour epic; you have to know the essential details, though, and make a consistent, believable character to be able to tell a great story, and then hire the right people to portray it. There’s no getting around it. Now, whether or not you want to tell a great story might be another thing, huh? “Up In The Air” was “good enough” to get good reviews, some great reviews. It will win awards and turn a nice profit.

So, let’s go back to my expectations. Was I entertained? Some of the time, yes. It wasn’t a bad movie; it was an OK movie, no more. Was I taken into the story? Not for long, no. Was the popcorn good and the water cheap? No and no. A lot of really interesting ideas were brought up in “Up In The Air” – how someone can be isolated in the midst of the swirl of humanity that is modern travel, the process and impact of job loss, if contentment and happiness are possible without a partner, how technology both unites and repels, and the culture of “prestige perks.” If this film had been a little more thoughtful and took a few more risks, it could have been memorable. Instead, it’s just another movie, soon to be replaced by another one, and another one.

I'm making my own popcorn, at home.

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CONVERSATION

Mr11: Did you know that it’s against the law for buildings in Times Square not to have lights that fascinate you?

MissSeven: Konichiwa, Sensei!

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PANTS ON THE GROUND 2

Now, I absolutely LOATHE the unbearable hen-party nightmare that is "The View," but I dig General Larry Platt. Oh god, I so hope this sweet old guy via his silly fun song just makes it clear how bloated and bagged-out American Idol really is. No Celine-Dion-bellower or boy-band-reject is gonna ever be cooler than this cat.

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HOLLYWOOD 11: MLK DAY

Half of my MLK Jr. day was spent asleep, the outcome of going to bed very late, a very loud windstorm that kept me awake, and MissSeven, who came in several times to tell me that she didn't care for windstorms or airplanes flying overhead, and especially airplanes flying overhead in windstorms. I think I drifted off around 6AM. I awoke again around lunchtime to a sunny and pleasant day and cheery but hungry kids. After a shower, we hopped over to the OOGCP.

Because it was so nice outside and a holiday, the coffeehouse was packed with the regulars and the irregulars, including Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood! I smiled as I noticed their car parked halfway over the handicapped space line. I think they deserve to park right in the cobble-bricky courtyard if they wish. Mr. Hollywood, grey hair neatly combed back as usual, was rocking a navy-and-white Fila tracksuit and his cane, but I was disappointed to see that Mrs. Hollywood, usually dressed Vegas-hot, was wearing MOM JEANS and WHITE TENNIS SHOES! AW! I have never seen her in anything but skin-tight hot mama stuff and 4" heels. She was wearing her same fluffy silver-white wig, though. As she waited for her quiche to come up, she eyed me over. She did not smile, when I glanced up to look at her. I imagine she stared down many a woman in her day. Go Mrs. Hollywood.

Mr11, MissSeven, and I took our yummy items to sit outside in an attempt to soak up a little Vitamin D.






We talk about the upcoming family trips, the pretty golden retriever with a red bandanna nearby who is so well-behaved, and what they knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. I was surprised and pleased to hear how much they did know, although I had to roll my eyes at Mr11 when he asked if there were still slaves in America when I was young. Why you little. MissSeven piped up to comment that it was "so dumb" to be mean to someone because they have a different color skin. It sure is, I agreed.

There goes the Hollywoods, off to Hollywood-land, around the corner for all I know.





My present to you on this holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., is the 2008 film, "The Night James Brown Saved Boston." From Amazon (interesting piece on NPR with director David Leaf as well, worth a listen):

On April 4, 1968, the leader of the nonviolent resistance movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis. On April 5, 1968, James Brown sang, and the city of Boston didn't burn down. The Night James Brown Saved Boston tells the story of the pivotal role that James Brown, and that particular concert, played in the political, social and cultural history of the country, focusing on 1968, a defining year for America. Using actual performance footage and the personal recollections of James Brown's band members, friends like activist Reverend Al Sharpton, personal manager Charles Bobbitt, Princeton University Professor Dr. Cornel West, Boston citizens, those who attended the concert, politicians (such as former Boston Mayor Kevin White) and Newsweek's David Gates, The Night James Brown Saved Boston tells the compelling story of an artist at the absolute peak of his powers using his artistry for the greater good.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed two days before my 6th birthday. I remember the news reports, LBJ's address to the nation, the photo of everyone pointing on the balcony where he was assassinated. I remember the feeling of chaos and hopelessness and anger, and those who didn't mourn at all.

This film is worth your time, today or any other day. Enjoy.

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WTG BRUCE

Hot damn, Bruce Springsteen is WAY in shape! Dude is SIXTY YEARS OLD! And you don't even need the qualifier -- he just looks FINE no matter the age:




I say, good for you, Mr. Rock Star. Lookin' good and feelin' good too, I bet.

Now if he could never ever ever sing in that fake Okie accent again...

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CRYSTAL RENN IS FAT

Is she? It’s something to think about. Twenty-three-year-old Crystal Renn is a lovely and intelligent young lady from Mississippi who is hothothot for a couple of reasons: she is currently the most successful “plus-size” couture model in the U.S., and she is also the author of “Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves”(with Marjorie Ingall), an autobiography which highlights her struggles with anorexia as a teen just entering the fashion industry. Here’s a short video from her publisher, Simon & Schuster:





Let’s look at Renn’s stats:

Height: 5’9”
Weight: approximately 165 lbs.
Size: 12

Would you have guessed these numbers from watching her in the video? Would you have cared about them? What I see is a beautiful girl, and one who doesn’t look odd or hefty or bad in any way at all. But your eyes can perceive things differently, depending on the parameters your brain is working with. Take a look at Crystal at age 16:



Stats:

Height: 5’9”
Weight: approximately 95 lbs.
Size: 0

Crystal is a very pretty girl no matter what, but her 95-lb. weight far more reflects what we all expect to see in a current-day fashion model. Your eyes, with that expectation, see her jutting collarbone and obvious muscle wasting as completely normal.

As Renn discusses in her book, she went to very dramatic lengths to stay under 100 pounds, eating essentially nothing and exercising hours every day. Probably to her long-term favor, her body began to rather quickly fall apart – her gorgeous long dark hair began to fall out in clumps, her heart began to misfire, and fainting dead away became a regular and frightening occurrence. She was unhappy enough and scared enough to get a handle on her eating disorder, regained her weight, and now earns in the seven-figure range as a sought-after model, a story with a happy ending.

Let’s break things down a little further. No one is going to disagree that Crystal’s early story isn’t at all unique, but unless a full-blown tragedy occurs we don’t hear about the exploitation of children by the fashion industry. Who was supposed to be protecting her at that time? Who made a profit off her sickness and misery? Crystal didn’t have to be a model, sure, but we have laws in place to protect children because kids don’t always make the best decisions. You cannot expect someone at 15 or 16 or 17 to know how to expertly cope with the incredible pressure exacted from any top-level, high performance, high-prestige, adult-run industry. It would be like high school coaches injecting their football players with steroids, or a mother encouraging her red-headed teenage actress daughter to get a boob job and a coke habit to look Hollywood-hot. The fashion world has to stop exploiting children, period, and should be held accountable for the long-term damage that eating disorders have upon young, growing bodies. Shame on you f-ing people.

But I would also like to hear a stronger message of body health from Renn herself. She speaks quite a bit about having body confidence and accepting the weight you are meant to be, to not be afraid to be normal. Unfortunately, the average size woman in America is now a size 14. Unless you are over 6’, this probably means that you are overweight, which puts you at greater risk for heart disease, bone and joint problems, Type II diabetes, certain types of cancer, etc. There’s a real health crisis going on in this country, and a great deal of it is related to obesity. Anorexia = no good; obesity = no good. I wish Renn had made more of a case for not only eating well and not obsessing over food, but that reasonable, regular exercise is crucial to obtaining and maintaining your best healthy body. I also wish, because she is certainly someone with a public voice now and a role model for young girls, that she weren't also a smoker. I could probably lose the last 10-15 lbs. that cruelly hang on to me still if I started up with the Marlboros, but I am not into emphysema or lung cancer as a fashion statement.

And, remember that both Crystal’s Auschwitz look and her larger self were both retouched by the fashion folks to look smooth, perfect, and poreless. It’s all about the image, and sallow zitty skin or cellulite doesn’t sell magazines or $3000 dresses. This is an outtake of Crystal from a recent photo session, no airbrushing, no Photoshopping, no nothing.



If Renn’s message was for women to love themselves, exactly as they are, then show people what that really is! We all would look better with Steven Meisel photographing us in beautiful clothes and beautiful lighting at the best angles. Probably.

If we think as a culture that resetting our internal eyes to a broader recognition and acceptance of what is a visually-beautiful woman is good, and that the fantasy image sold to the world since the mid-'60s has had a serious negative impact upon millions of young women, then this is what I suggest:

1. Stop using young teenagers as high-fashion models. It’s kind of pedo-creepy anyway, and it’s just too messed-up of an industry for kids to deal with.

2. Make variety the norm. Designers and fashion editors, step up like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Glamour and the Euro Vogues and just quietly start using beautiful women of many sizes and ages in your work. People will get used to seeing it instead of one narrow kind of look, and over time it will be just how things are; potentially a very powerful reshaping that could have huge and unexpected benefits.

3. Show bodies that reflect good internal health, too. Being healthy is more beautiful than anything in the world. Promote that.

So, did you answer the question? Is Crystal Renn fat? Ha ha, I tricked you into thinking about stuff!

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HA 24

My daughter's complaint about her shoes today:

MissSeven: They hurt my THIGHS! And CORNEAS!!

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HEY, HOTELS!

Oh my god, am I sick of looking at hotel websites. No, I have not booked anything yet for our family trips to California and Washington, D.C. Why? Because I am deal-oriented. I get seriously pissed off if I find out that after all my effort that I could have paid significantly-less for the exact same thing, or could have acquired a nifty perk if I only knew where to ask for it. I can’t help it; this trait comes from my mom, who is significantly more obsessive about dealing and bargains than I am. I like to have nice things, but I hate to feel RIPPED OFF. I am pretty sure that even if I had Bill Gates’ money (or more of it, I should say) I would still be compelled to not completely flush my wealth down the toilet. But as I do not really wish to end up at a seedy campsite or sleeping in a rental car, I need to commit to some of these confusing rooms. Here is my open letter to the hoteliers of the world, and how they could better earn my bweesness, because bweesness is what it’s all about.

1. Make it simple to get all the information I need about your hotel. Your website should be easy to navigate, well-written without sounding like Welcome To Snootytown or You Are Entering Sheer Transcendent Heaven , and be upfront about what it really costs to stay there. I know this sounds like common sense, but many sites simply are not constructed to best benefit the reader/consumer. I am sick of getting tossed back to the chain’s main page from the specific hotels, buggy reservations systems, or not even being able to find out if there’s a charge for kids in the room.

2. Jesus Christ, don’t charge for in-room Wi-Fi access. That’s so damn lame. These days, internet access at hotels, all hotels, is expected and needed by most travelers, just like fresh water, a bed, a TV, and clean towels. To tack on another $10-$30 per day, per computer --yes, if you are using more than one computer in the room, you get screwed like this – is shittay. Nickel-and-diming guests makes them crabby.

3. Your mini-bar sucks. Now, if you even MOVE something in the room minibar, you can get charged for it, as most systems are moving to a weight system rather than a count of items. If the weight is varied, it’s on YOUR BILL. As I have no intentions ever of paying $7.00 for a Snickers bar even if my stomach is consuming itself in hunger, I’m not even opening the door. Would it be that terrible to stock the minibar with some nice cold bottled waters, a few reasonably-healthy snacks, and not charge a friggin’ fortune for them? This would bring a smile to your travel-weary guests and make for some pleasant goodwill and such.

4. Realize that I can add. Your amazing “Breakfast-For-2 Special Rate” is not really special to me when you are just tacking on the actual cost of the breakfast to the rack room rate and calling it inclusive. DEHHH.

5. If you want families to come to your hotel, give us a break. Offer a discounted connecting room, kids stay/eat free, a year-round pool, good deal pairings with local attractions, something. If you don’t really want kids in your hotel, put a photo of a frowning concierge on your website.

6. Pay attention to TripAdvisor.com. Smart hotel managers know that this very popular travel website which features reviews from real folks can have a huge impact on whether or not people stay at their properties. Is the customer always right? Yes and no. For the most part I think Trip Advisor gives a pretty accurate picture of a hotel, but there are always a few cranks that have to weigh in as well. I like to see management respond in a non-form-letter way to both positive and negative traveler comments – it tells me someone is bothering to care about what goes on in their hotel. Believe me, all I have to see is a few common reviews that say a place is noisy, dirty, has an unresponsive or rude staff or safety issues and I’m not staying there. If I read review after review that praises a friendly staff or the clean, comfortable, quiet rooms, or something especially cool, unique, or worthy about the place, I am much more likely to give that hotel a try.

7. Most people drive to hotels. When you force them to use the hotel’s valet parking, which means you are tipping the valet every time they bring up the car for you, and then charge $25-$40 a day for it, well, you just suck.

8. My varying travel times are your problem. Having a checkout time at 10AM with check-in at 4PM can often be a real drag, especially if you have whiny wiped-out kids with you. Offering to securely store my bags until my room is ready or give me a late check-out if I need it is helpful. If you can do more than that, I will remember it too.

Here’s something I know, not a novel insight but one that has a great deal of truth: the entire character of a business, whether it’s a hotel or a school or a department store, comes from the top on down. If owners and management are clueless, snotty, greedy or otherwise nasty, this filters down to every single employee and greatly affects the consumers’ experience. A great manager is a bit of a visionary, a firefighter, a diplomat, and organizer. I have been in fancy hotels with shoddy service and budget motels with staff that bent over backwards to make sure I had a good stay. I’ve paid a pile of cash per day and felt like I got more than my money’s worth and I’ve had “bargain rates” that turned out to be a nightmare. Great management makes the difference, I think, which can be huge in these difficult economic times. You don’t need an MBA to figure that out – offer people good perceived value, make them feel truly welcomed , and make it easy for them to pick out your business over all the other competitors. Hello.

Enough rant. Back to choices, which I am grateful to be able to have.

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FERLIN HUSKY: GENIUS

HAHAHAHAH! It never gets old. "Get out of the road, you little fools!!" BAAAAHAHAHAHAH! Wow.

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UM...

I came across this while perusing the usually-cooler-than-I-can-afford store Anthropologie:



It's a candle. A dog-head candle. Now, it's a sharp-looking dog-head candle, that's true. But think about if you actually USED IT and the dog head would then be on FIRE and would begin to melt, drip, and implode. FIDO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This is either awesome or terrible, and very possibly both.

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