If MTV was a sign in South Dakota, I’d shoot it

First off, I hope everyone had a happy Father’s Day, no matter what that might have involved.  Now, onto the business of South Dakota, the state I’d move to if this one kicks me out/axes my job/starts taxing Taco Johns and other fast food joints.

The economy is down, but South Dakota’s courtroom sketch artist industry is alive and well(for now).

I may need to take a few notches off my South Dakota cred, because I totally didn’t know this existed.  If I ever get my pudgy butt in shape, I think this would be a smashing good time.

I wish you all could hear how my mom pronounces “mosquito” because she’s going to be saying it a lot.

South Dakotans, set your VCR/DVR to record this, unless it isn’t your cup of tea.  I’m going to set it to record as soon as I get home.

Is your South Dakota home a South Dakota disaster?  You could complain, or send a quick email and then get back to complaining.

Dog bites woman, then starts a pitbull argument in the comments section.

South Dakota still doesn’t pay their teachers enough, but they are sending four to Turkey.  Well that takes care of that.

This headline actually tricked me into thinking it was about eagles.  WTFis wrong with me?

Winston Rothchild III would disagree about the first part of this headline.  If you don’t know who Winston Rothchild III is, get ye some Red Green DVDs.

This week’s “feel good” story is wishing a Happy 125th Birthday to Ipswitch.

This week’s “roll your eyes at the state” story is the number one hobby of bored rural kids with firearms of course.  I was a bored rural kid at one point myself, but I never had much access to firearms.  I used to joke a lot about this with my friends from far off lands like Massachusetts, but I haven’t thought about this in a long time.  Shot up signs in the middle of nowhere is just something I’m used to now.  The worst I can remember doing is throwing ice out of the car to try and hit one.  Well, maybe a pop can or bottle here and there during the high school years.

Friday night was the premiere of MTV’s new “video” show “FNMTV” hosted by Pete Wentz.  After all of Pete’s complaining about MTV not playing videos, here was a new show that was going to premiere “new videos in their entirety”.  How sad is it that Music Televisionneeds to create a show to play videos.  I liked the old way better, which was to “play videos”.  I’m sensing you’re thinking this will be one of those rants about how MTV went down the tubes thanks to reality and dating shows and other junk that the kids love so much.  I love a good rant about “millennials” as much as anyone, but I am a Gen-Xer, and I’m here to say…

It is our fault.  It might be partially our fault.

We’re the ones who made Beavis and Butthead a household name and made Mike Judge a rich, rich man.  We buzzed about Liquid Television even before that.  We watched Singled Out, The Real World, MTV Sports, Lip Service, Buzzkill, You Wrote It, You Watch It, The John Stewart Show, Lip Service and probably others I’ve forgotten.  Most of these shows didn’t last long, but enough people watched them to send the message that MTV that non-video programming might be the future.  If only we’d watched more 120 Minutes, Headbanger’s Ball, Alternative Nation, Yo! MTV Raps, Dial MTV, and other video-based programming maybe this wouldn’t have happened. 

I crossed out my initial theory because of shows like FNMTV.  Young’uns are complaining about MTV not playing videos too, but The Hills, Shot of Love and other shows keep pulling in more viewers than videos ever did.  MTV2 was supposed to be the all-video channel, but either I always check when they’re doing something else, or that channel has become totally unnecessary.  Even the digital cable channels I have seem to be drifting.  MTV Hits sometimes plays other shows, and MTVU even does it now and then.  FUSE has gone from being the “anti-MTV” in terms of shows to being a clone.  I’d say I long for the days of MuchMusic from Canada, but my brief time watching Much while in Canada last year revealed more shows (but I give them props for the one video I caught, from the band IllScarlett).  I am willing to admit the times I try to watch these channels might not be giving me the appropriate view on what they show.  Now back to ranting about FNMTV.

One of the things I was looking forward to most about the show was finally seeing James Montgomery, who writes a weekly column on MTV’s website (Bigger Than the Sound) that I usually enjoy.  I was actually rather surprised to see he looks a bit like the “hipster” that he’s made fun of in several columns.  My wife thought he looked more like a “poindexter” which amused me on so many levels.  If he was going for a “hipster poindexter” he succeeded in our household.  I was really surprised that they were taking a poll of what people thought of the videos.  They’re asking for trouble like on the old show 12 Angry Viewers where videos could be voted off MTV “forever”.  Or, at least until they voted off a song that wound up being a big smash.  There was a moment where something that James said was censored, which really threw me for a loop.  I don’t expect this show to last very long.  The garish production and stage set-up, four (yep only four) new videos per hour, overselling of the fact that videos are being played on a channel built on them, and Pete Wentz’s love affair with his own voice won’t help it in the long run.  I had not anticipated a show to make me long for the days of Matt Pinfield, Kennedy, or Rikki Ratchman sitting on a box on a sound-stage just talking to me about videos and bands.  FNMTV did that.

If internet petitionsweren’t so worthless, I’d start one to get MTV to turn in their name.  It’s time to change the name of the station to something else, like NOW TV or GEN TV.  MTV needs to have their name revoked and given to a new channel that maybe actually does what the name implies.  Wouldn’t that be a fun time in TV Land?  Requiring stations to do what their name implies?  If they fail they get stamped with a new name like “Generic everything cable network 58″.  While that might be a pipe dream, maybe TV can finally start getting comfortable in its own skin and stop worrying about growing and audience and instead stick to what made their name buzz in the first place. 

Or, thanks to DVR, YouTube, Hulu, BitTorrent and more, we already have our own networks, cobbled together from all the channels.  If that is the case, why did I just type all that?   Maybe I’m still bitter about missing their golden age because my small town cable provider didn’t carry the station.  When I finally got to college, the only video I ever caught was “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam (this went on for months, sheesh).  Maybe I hold on to the old notion that reality shows shouldn’t be on MTV, movies shouldn’t be on ESPN, wrestling shouldn’t be on SciFi, and anything but forecasts and updates shouldn’t be on the Weather Channel.

Or, I maybe probably definitely just like to complain once in a while.

Slow news day

My high school English teacher was right.  The growth of spellcheck will make everyone lazy.  WordPress still hasn’t fixed their spellcheck (and, for that matter, the word count feature) so I hate to write on a computer where I can’t make sure I didn’t mix up my i before e rule. 

Anyway, not much in my South Dakota news sources caught my eye.  One of the things that did involved a twine robber.  Who needs the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, when South Dakota might have the biggest twine snatcher from Minnesota?

Also, my old hometown of Veblen is having an election.  If you want a window into press coverage of an election in a town of about 300, it’s worth reading the questionnaires the candidates filled out.

My blog focus is getting a bit single minded.  I wanted this to be a blog I’d update more often, but it’s becoming almost like my MySpace blog.  I’m only updating it once a week.  I’m still waiting for my Farmington visitor’s guide to follow up on my Farmington blog, and I’ve been so into my cliffhanger theater project.  Also, I’ve been making decent progress on another project, and while I don’t have a shortage of words to input, I seem to be mismanaging my time. 

I will work to correct this. 

Otherwise, things in my neck of the woods are wood-like.  Kate is feeling a bit better, but the one-two punch of the flu and morning sickness is really making being Kate miserable (on top of being married to me no less).  This weekend we did sneak out to Caboodle Cafe in Lynd.  They’re closing after next week for the summer, so if you don’t make it out before then, pencil them in for the fall.  I’m not sure what it is about the place, but I really enjoy going.  It probably has to do with the great food and friendly atmosphere, but those sound so cliched, even if accurate.

I’ve been hankerin’ to watch The Empire Strikes Back for some weird reason.  I have no idea why.  I think that tonight I might make it a late night and fire up the DVD player.  First off, I need to get a week’s worth of X-Play off the DVR.  That will be quick, as I only watch the reviews and the news segments.  I can usually get a half hour episode watched in about six minutes.

I came close to actually putting a picture of myself as my default image.  How close?  You’ll never know.

I think I captured the water tower’s good side in the one I ended up using.