Have You Watched a Concert on TV?

Have You Watched a Concert on TV?

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I was going to wonder about primary elections, but while I’m sitting here on the couch typing things, I have the replay of Pitbull from the South by Southwest conference, or I guess, to be hip, I should just go with SXSW, playing on my Apple TV. As much as it occurs to me that I haven’t been to a concert in a while, do miss them, and maybe should investigate getting back in the swing of them, what occurs to me more is how much fun Pitbull is having. Maybe weird for me, a dude closing in a 50, but I do know most of the songs he’s singing, and watching his concert is kind of weird because things have come a long way in the concert world. No longer is anyone “ashamed” or tentative about using “virtual” duets during their concerts, in fact, Pitbull might just be the poster child, as it also occurred to me that just about every one of his songs is some kind of duet with another pop star, from Christina Aguilera to Kesha (notice I dropped the $, as she wishes), from Shakira to Ne-Yo. During the show he had the “Pitbull Dancers,” and a super-solid backing band, but also during the show, on the giant screen behind him, were the “video” portions of the duets he sings, with the other singers there in spirit, while Pitbull would sing along with them.

It was a great show, makes me really want to go see Pitbull live, even if half of the people who sing with him won’t be with him, at least physically, because, well, if half of the fun Pitbull seems to be having wears off on me, that concert would just be a happy-fest, but as I sit here watching my TV, and Pitbull, I wonder: Have you watched a concert on TV?

That’s it for this one! I’m Andy!! L8R!!!

Have You Watched Jimmy Fallon Since He Took Over for Jay Leno?

Have you watched Jimmy Fallon since he took over for Jay Leno?

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Now that the Olympics have been over for a while, and the hubbub of his replacing Jay Leno is dying down, the Jimmy Fallon publicity machine now really needs to work it. The latest bit – thanks to some prodding from Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago, was a dip in 32 degree Lake Michigan for the annual Polar Plunge, a fundraiser for Chicago Special Olympics. Happily for most, but probably not for some, they both survived, with Jimmy wearing a nice suit for his dip in the lake. The story made the Drudge Report, hit all of the news wires, and if Jimmy Kimmel thought picking up the Mayor of Toronto at the airport would get him tons of publicity, sadly Russia invading the Ukraine and an event that involved what was probably a lot of shrinkage pretty much assured a win for Fallon in this round.

But, will it result in people watching?

As great as all of the publicity is for Jimmy Fallon, and there’s a good change you’ll see coverage of it on your local news, especially if you are watching an NBC station, I don’t think it will make more people watch The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. In fact, and I know I haven’t, but I wonder: Have you watched Jimmy Fallon since he took over for Jay Leno?

That’s it for this one! I’m Andy!! L8R!!!

Did You Watch All of the Academy Awards?

Did you watch all of the Academy Awards?

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With another Oscar season over, and some of the complainers spouting how it was the night for Hollywood to say “Look how important we are!”, it was also a night of consistently one of the most watched television events. A lot of people watch their TV’s wondering who some of the nominees are, many have never heard of the films that are either nominated, or win for that matter, yet, for some reason, every year, we gather around our televisions, and this year we might have gathered around our handheld devices because ABC was streaming the Academy Awards to their app, as long as you actually subscribe to a specific cable provider, which I find bassakward because really, don’t you want as many eyes as possible watching so you can shove commercials down people’s eyeballs?

As it is, though, we watch. We get sucked into the red carpet, we wake up the next morning wondering who won, and then don’t really care, and the marketing blitz hits for those “non-mainstream” movies that win big, as now it’s a movie you “must” see because the people that rate Hollywood found it important.

Some years I make it all the way through the telecast, commenting like many of you, and some years I fall asleep. I can’t remember, though, any year I’ve never actually just skipped watching the Oscars altogether. As I type this the jury is still out if I will keep my eyes open this year, but I wonder: Did you watch all of the Academy Awards?

That’s it for this one! I’m Andy!! L8R!!!

Are you paying attention to the MLB baseball playoffs?

Yes, I know, the title of this plight technically reads “Are you paying attention to the Major League Baseball baseball playoffs?”, but much like going to the ATM machine is redundant, it just reads a little better. In any case, it wasn’t until yesterday when I went to turn on “The X Factor,” and I know, I’m probably one of about ten people still watching the show, but there it was, the MLB playoffs. I’m not really sure what teams were playing because, as you might be able to guess, I haven’t been paying attention to baseball much this year. Sure, there was a little interest as the Cleveland Indians were teasing Tribe fans with a potential playoff run, only to lose in the wild-card game, and Lord knows the Cubs and White Sox are on the road to, well, suckiness right now, but football is here, my Cleveland Browns were surprising people until reality set in, and the Chicago Bears keep showing glimpses of busting out, only to relapse back into Chicago sports suckiness again.

Yet, there they are, going on, the MLB playoffs, interrupting my Simon Cowell fix and my continually complaining to my wife how I can’t stand Paulina Rubio on “The X Factor,” how she comes off as a bad Shakira ripoff from “The Voice,” and how I’m betting the boy competitors are pissed she is their mentor. As it stands I totally forgot about baseball until I tried to watch something else, and so I plight: Are you paying attention to the MLB baseball playoffs?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Do You Think the Jimmy Kimmel / Kanye West Twitter Fight was Fake?

It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that Jimmy Kimmel made news by it being discovered he was the perpetrator of the “Twerking FAIL” video where a girl catches on fire in her room when she is twerking against her door. Then, the other day, Jimmy Kimmel hits the news again for a “Twitter War” with Kanye West, started seemingly when Kanye was upset with Jimmy’s spoofing of an interview Kanye had with the BBC. In his spoof Jimmy used little kids in the places of Kanye and the interview dude, complete with milkshakes. Suddenly Kanye tweets his displeasure with him and how Sarah Silverman is funnier than Jimmy, much to the pleasure of Kimmel who was now able to use this for more witty banter on his show.

Lost in the Twitter war is a tweet by Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune pointing out that there was a new, latenight boss at ABC, who just so happened to be the same guy who “shepherded the Kardashians at E!,” and in case you’ve been living under a rock, Kanye West happens to be involved with one of those Kardashian girls. In case you don’t know his writing, Phil Rosenthal is now doing business reporting for the Tribune, but those of us in Chicago remember him also as the head TV critic dude when he was over at the Sun Times (I do miss his TV analysis), and still seems to know quite a bit about the TV industry, so when Phil throws out a hint of “Hmmm? This seems oddly coincidental?” tweet, I’m pretty much on board with Phil.

The more I analyzed the Kanye tweets, and Kimmel’s response, the more I’m trusting Phil as it appears another likely Jimmy Kimmel  media manipulation seems to be at play.

I’m with Phil calling this a bogus “Twitter War,” although it’s still kind of funny, but with that I plight: Do you think the Jimmy Kimmel / Kanye West twitter fight was fake?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Have you Tweeted a Correction to an Earlier Tweet?

I would like to think my answer to today’s plight would be in the affirmative, but I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever tweeted out a correction. Thankfully, though, with yesterday’s plight about not being able to watch the MTV VMA’s I didn’t reference the Will Smith family reaction to Miley Cyrus, you know, the picture that went viral of a seemingly disgusted, lovely family moment, supposedly watching Miley Cyrus at the awards. The problem was, this tweet,originally attributed to @chi_chibaby in most stories, (I received a retweet in my Twitter feed to it) wasn’t actually the family reacting to Miley, it was their reaction to Lady Gaga. @chi_chibaby went on the defensive when word started spreading she was wrong instead of just saying something like “My bad,” MTV seemingly stated in a follow-up story it was a picture coinciding with Lady Gaga, I’m guessing Lady Gaga was upset because the viral picture that could have kept her at least a little relevant for the awards was mis-attributed, and then there is the part of me that wonders where the original picture came from because I’m thinking it was poached from another source and the original poster is like “Hey, what about my retweets and new followers?”

Oh well. As talk of Miley Cyrus’ performance will quickly go away especially as, I’m sure, we have our next Lohan/Kardashian/Bynes story to take its place, at least until next year’s VMA when we will be reminded of all of the “outrageous” moments as some sort of publicity campaign for MTV, I’m glad I didn’t fall into the trap of misinformation. Many did, I’m guessing 99% of those didn’t tweet out any type of correction, and I’m plighting: Have you tweeted a correction to an earlier tweet?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Did You Try to Watch the MTV VMA’s Online?

So it’s a Sunday night, and I find myself not being able to watch MTV on TV and remember it’s the night of the VMA’s. That’s right, the Video Music Awards. What am I to do? How am I to catch the likes of a Lady Gaga, a Katy Perry, a rumored *nsync reunion complete with Justin Timberlake? As I have a decent internet connection I do some quick online searching and every news story seems to say that MTV will have a live stream of the VMA’s, and I thought, “Sweet! I’ll just watch the show online!” I head to the MTV.com site, there is some kind of All Access feed, and I’m ready for some awards! “Hmm? This is peculiar.”, I think to myself, “Did I click the right feed? All I’m getting are these weird camera views that I could care less about. What the hell is this Stage Manager cam? I don’t care about the audience. Where’s my Gaga?!?!?” I try again. And again. And because I keep thinking I’m clicking something wrong I head back to some of the news stories that had links to the VMA feed. I click. I get the same feed of everything except the actual awards, only in the corner of the video is a view of the awards, but no sound, saying to watch on MTV.

All I can now think is that MTV either screwed up their feed online, or they did a great job of hoodwinking every news outlet, saying they were going to have a live feed of the VMA’s, but not explaining that it won’t actually be a feed of the show, but rather feeds of camera views no one really cares about, unless, of course, Will Smith was caught picking his nose on the Audience cam.

And so it was a night when I realized why I really don’t like MTV any longer. I guess, mostly, it’s because they don’t show music videos like they actually used to, and that they haven’t had a decent TV show in years, but thankfully the company Vevo is starting to take over the video market, and actually show me everything from a Gaga, to Iggy Pop.

The press people for MTV did a great job at getting people to actually go to their site to watch the VMA’s. I’m thinking they also did a great job at pissing off 99% of the people who went to their site actually trying to watch the VMA’s. Either way, I’m plighting: Did you try to Watch the MTV VMA’s Online?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Are You a Fan of “Duck Dynasty?”

So the other day I ask around, “What day is it?” Yes, it was a Wednesday, and I’m a fan of the camel on the Geico commercial, and most people responded with exactly what I was looking for, “Hump day!” I say most because one person didn’t want to play along with my “talking camel appreciation” so they posted about it not being Friday, and that it was also “Duck Dynasty” day. Other than seeing merchandising in the store, seeing the family on some country music special the other day, spotting their books on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and somehow not going by a day without hearing something about “Duck Dynasty,” I must admit I have never seen the show, nor did I know it was “Duck Dynasty” Day.

But it seems a lot of people did. 11.8 million people as a matter of fact.

Sure, 11.8 million sounds like a lot of people, and for cable it’s huge, heck, for TV it’s pretty big I suppose, the largest audience ever for a cable reality show, or I guess non-fiction series if we want to be specific, and then the article gets into a lot of demographic info saying how it’s almost bigger than the old “John and Kate” show in one age group, and it’s now bigger than “Trading Spaces” (I must admit I was a huge Spaces fan, up until they started re-tooling it, but what else is new?) in another age group. The scary part is that this group of Duck people, well, they would probably be eclipsing the latest “American Idol” ratings if the show was on normal TV as I’m sure there are people who would love to check it out, but couldn’t find A&E on their cable system if they wanted to.

I won’t be watching “Duck Dynasty” anytime soon, not that I’m not interested, but it just doesn’t fit into my viewing schedule right now. I do wonder, though, and I plight: Are you a fan of “Duck Dynasty?”

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Did you waste any time at work following March Madness?

By now, by my unscientific method, 90% of you who filled our March Madness brackets are already out of the office pool, and in fact were probably out of the running before the Thursday evening games even started. Me, as I’m typing this before the tournament starts, still have hope right now, but will probably post a comment later announcing my super picks are still in the running.

Whether or not you are still in the running, and especially if not because you have some slim hope you will be able to make a comeback, I’m also using a totally unscientific guess thinking that part of your paying attention to March Madness happened in the workplace. There might have been a quick online search to see who won that afternoon game, maybe you had score alerts sent to your smartphone, or you are hardcore and had a window on the computer with the games running, easily hidden for if the boss walked by, or had an app tracking each shot. I will not lie, I will, undoubtedly have checked on things while I should have been working, but I plight: Did you waste any time at work following March Madness?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Will you be watching “The Bachelor” finale?

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, but I’m a fan of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” series on ABC. There’s just something about the wacky concept of meeting your soul-mate over a TV show, being transported to various romantic locals and falling in love, and then coming back to your normal life and realizing “Why can’t we go to Thailand for a romantic getaway?” “Because we don’t have any money.” “Oh yea. Who are you anyway?”

This season they brought back Sean, whom I still don’t remember that well from his Bachelorette days, and if your name was a version of Ashley (there was an Ashley P., and Ashley H., and an AshLee F.) or a Leslie (or Lesley), you had a pretty good chance of being on the show. As of now there is only Catherine and Lindsay remaining, and my money is on Lindsay as Catherine seems to be the one he kept around for fun on his way to true, found on a TV show love. Of course, in true Bachelor fashion, there is something heart-wrenching going on as we see Sean get a letter from Chris Harrison on the final rose stop in the previews for the finale Monday night, but like all, except for Sean, Chris Harrison, and a bunch of other people sworn to secrecy, we’ll have to wait for the way-too-long finale show, full of thoughtful gazes by our contestants, out into the horizon, wondering if true love for them will be found on a TV show. And yes, I’ll be watching Monday, but I’m also plighting: Will you be watching “The Bachelor” finale?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!