Lucky Town - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Lucky Town - 1992

That's better.

The songs of Lucky Town are much more stripped down, less "produced" and poignant and sharp.
"Better Days" harkens back to "Ain't Got You", the themes of which are both what it's like to be successful and yet that not being the end all be all.
"Local Hero" is apparently about the time he saw a picture of himself in a storefront and went in to buy it only to be told that it was a picture of "local hero".

For my money, the best track on the album, well, one of them, is "If I Should Fall Behind". Which is actually better on the reunion concert video, and always better live, and also became one of my wedding songs.

Lucky Town is the anti Human Touch. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes it's a "record". At a time when every single album was supposed to use as much CD time available, resulting in 65 minute epics of filler, Lucky Town seems like an EP by comparison. 15 years before and 15 years later it would be the acceptable length (again). It's brevity, in comparison to the over worked predecessor, is welcome.

As are the songs. There's nothing "bad" here. When it's good, it's really good. When they aren't, you just move on.

Grade: B-
ASide: Better Days, If I Should Fall Behind
BlindSide: Local Hero, The Big Muddy, Leap of Faith
DownSide:

Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch - 1992

Almost terrible. Not quite but juuuuuuuuust about.

The songs all sound kind of the same, imbued with that early 90's AOR sound.

Some are just dumb. "57 Channels and nothing on", for example. It should come across as some kind of indictment of pop culture and television dependence  but it doesn't. It sounds half written. Like Bruce was watching his tv and said, "Man! We've got, what? 57 channels? And NOTHING'S ON!" and then, he bolts up from the couch and pens this ditty, doesn't rewrite it, puts a production sheen on it and, bam, hit record.

Except that it wasn't.

"Loving you is a Man's Job"!?!? Are you kidding me????

And then he pulls out some ancient trope (Etta James had a song like this, I believe) and declares that when he sees the woman he lost with someone else he wishes he was blind. Extreme much? I don't buy it. Hey, Bruce, if you don't wanna see that, just close your eyes. Or man up. Turn the corner. Walk away. Something. Anything.

Human Touch was released at the same time as Lucky Town, because, hell Guns n Roses did that with Use Your Illusion 1 & 2, surely that is the new way to bilk money out of fans. It's a callous record. 50+ minutes of bad, and worse, forgettable, songs.

Grade: D
ASide:
BlindSide: Roll of the Dice
DownSide: Man's Job

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part six - a glitch.

Not a hitch. A glitch.
As a holiday present we were given a wireless Sennheiser headphone and transmitter. The connection to the back of the tv was simple. A snap. And these things work great. With my hearing, though, I can hear every little signal change from either the network transmitter or my own devices performing operations.
No matter.
These made watching The Dark Knight Blu-Ray trilogy a lot more immersive while everyone was asleep upstairs. I just crank it and enjoy.
Or music.
I can stream Spotify on the devices and walk all over the house. These babies are strong.

So, with them working and working well, we decided to get a matching one (you can connect up to 4) so Beth and I can watch together and she can have her volume (low) and I may have mine (ear crushingly loud. It's weird that I have this incredible superhearing and yet want everything to be as loud as humanly possible....)

Sunday night I grabbed a pair, completely mixing up which one was the new one and which was the original and settled in for some Sherlock.

Then the glitch happened.

About midway through the show everything froze. Figuring it was a signal issue (KOCE is in Costa Mesa and about 35 miles away) I jumped back to rewatch and figure out what I missed.

It froze again. In a different place.

I tried another show. Hollywood Game Night, which was surprisingly funny (Thanks TIVO suggestions!) and, all was great. Until the last 10 minutes. And everything froze again.

The next day I decided to put some music on while I was getting some work done. I opened Spotify and just as it was about to load, the entire TiVo crashed and rebooted.

When it came back I now had TWO Spotifys and TWO Pandoras. The latter being two different apps with different icons.

So, I called Tivo.

Historically, Tivo has the best customer service in the biz. And this was no exception.

And no one could figure out what was wrong. The only thing everyone could agree on is that it could be a faulty hard drive.

Somehow I have convinced myself that it has something to do with the new headphones. But, they plug into the TV, so how could THAT be?

Tivo has an excellent return policy and we are still under warranty. They are shipping out a new one and we will send them back this one.

Hopefully this was just a momentary set back.

I'm not sure it was even worth a blog post.

So, to include some real "cord cutting" info

I don't miss cable.

Maybe HBO a little. Since they were smart and put each of the first three new Girls episodes on YouTube I realize just how much I miss that stuff. On the other hand, YouTube kind of sucks because, if you are in the middle of a show and you have to do something else, YouTube doesn't remember where you were and you have to go through a whole fast forwarding mess.

Other than that I actually am looking forward to getting through a bunch of stuff and sitting down and buying the first season of "The Returned". Only, I am betting that, by the time we get to it, it will be available on Netflix.

Someone asked me what I would do without CNN or Cable news?

Are MSNBC or FOX or even CNN really news networks? The Big Three have news offices all over the world and their weekend counterparts are much more informative. And, truth be told, I'm just to freaking busy to catch up.

Tunnel of Love - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love - 1987

"Ain't Got You". Man. If Bruce was confessional here and there on the last record, this song is the real deal. I don't know who it is he ain't got, but he's out there telling us all he's fucking rich, he's made a fortune but he still aches for the love that has eluded him.
Wow, Bruce. Just...wow.

Tunnel of Love is Bruce's adult record. It's where he really grew up and addressed and merged the dour sadness of, say, Nebraska and parts of The River, with a bigger production sound. If his producers had an eye on another 12 million seller, it sure doesn't sound like Bruce was interested in giving it to them. This is a big, anthemic, almost country album. (I see the bolo on the cover, Boss) It's heartland extreme.

And it works some of the time. It's a cold record. A post breakup record by a man looking inside and trying to figure out how to be whole. It's Nebraska on steroids, since he only used the band here and there. This is a man pushing 40 who has become some of the characters he's written about.

It's hard for me to love Tunnel of Love, because it's not really my kind of record, it still feels like it's written by and for adults, even though I'm older than Bruce was when he made it. But, I also love it because it brings me back to my first months in Los Angeles and it's like an orphan.

Some songs, like the first and the crackling "Spare Parts", which is a reexamining of the same characters we've heard before, the single mother who was left by an immature sperm donor to fend for herself. But, like I said, it crackles. And the heroine of the song, Janey, might lament her lot in life and try to give up her kid, but she looks at him and finds her hope and plunges on. I have hope for her.
The title track, despite it's deeply ploddy 80's sound, contains not just the most emotionally requesting lyrics since, I dunno, "I Wanna Marry You", but also the best guitar solo on a Springsteen song in a while.
Also, "Two Faces", which contains the same tone of and could be a companion piece to "I'm On Fire", but is a decidedly more honest song.

Other songs, like "Cautious Man" has its roots in Nebraska and, sadly, would be the kind of maudlin storytelling that Bruce would revisit throughout the 90s. And I know you feel guilty and like you're in the wrong relationship, Bruce, but, jeez, leave it off the MOR crap like "Walk Like a Man", with it's obnoxious heavy synths that have me reaching for the ff button.....

The album is good but not great. On first glance it appears to be a sad capstone to the era of Bruce phase 1. But, since he basically jettisoned the E Street Band, using them as special guests or session men here, this is really the beginning of Bruce Phase 2.

It's gonna be a long time in the wilderness.


Grade: B-
ASide: Ain't Got You, Tunnel of Love
BlindSide: Tougher than the Rest, Spare Parts, Two Faces,
DownSide: Cautious Man, Walk Like a Man, When You're Alone You're Alone

Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA - 1984

11 years in the making. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen, megastar.

The 80s were a time for musical acts that blew up into the stratosphere. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Bruce.

It was the time when Reagan and his ilk tried to commandeer the title track on the merits of the uplifting, bombastic sound and the proto-anthem chrous, without giving one whit about what the song was about, which was in direct contrast to the sound. Did it matter that the deadbeat character, prone to violence, was sent to kill the vietnamese? Nope. He's 'merican. He's a soldier. He was BORN IN THE U.S.A., motherfucker.

As timeless as The River sounds, as immediate while definitively "classic rock" as Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town are, Born in the USA, sounds of its time. It's 80's production, a stadium in the studio, with echoing drums and giant hall sounds, Born now sounds like a relic more than a classic.

Some of the songs don't merit the overproduction. Like, "Glory Days", for instance. And "I'm on Fire". Wrapped up in the radio friendly sounds, the characters that populate these songs are not heroes.
But, those that do deserve the epic sound, like the title track, are a punch in the gut and a fist in the air.

The relationship is crumbling in "I'm Going Down",  but because of the over the top production the song doesn't have the oomph, the power of, say, "The River".  I find myself tapping my feet during a song about a guy whose lover has left him. And the same with "Glory Days". These people are looking at the past through the rosiness of what was once great. Only in the video when Bruce was playing catch with his "son" did you get the sense that there was hope or at least acceptance of his fate. The production, hoever, just makes it a good ol's singalong. It's the "Sherry Darling" of USA. And many of the other songs just sound like hollow sketches, like "Working on the Highway". After a decade of fully realized characters and mindsets, this kind of track just feels like piffle. Like a "The River" leftover.

There's some great stuff here, though. Like the wannabes in "Darlington County" and the reflective, nostalgic love note to youth in the rocking "No Surrender" (one of the most kick ass Side Two openers in Bruce's career).

 Even the ode to his friendship with Steve Van Zandt, "Bobby Jean" is great fun.
And, if you can get past the weird, Cars like arrangement of "Cover Me", it's not bad. Really, though, it sounds like "Shake it Up". With bigger drums. (And it suffers from 80s-ism. It's over at 2:39 mark but goes one for another 40 seconds. This is actually an illness that much of the record suffers from. "Glory Days" being the most egregious offender)

It's quite possible that my appreciate for USA is marred by how ubiquitous it was in 84-85. Just about every song was a single, deserved or not. I'm a big fan of the big hit, "Dancing in the Dark". The production and arrangement ruin the song and it's notorious that it was written because Landau didn't think the album had a hit single, but that's what it's about: Writer's block. Bruce had to write a song. But he ain't got nothing to say. So he said that. And then Roy Bittan and the gang muscled up into something that flew up the charts. And it's Bruce's most blatantly confessional song, maybe ever.

Go figure. The 80s were weird, man.

If it sounds like I don't like the album, that's not true. I'm making the horrible mistake of reviewing the sound and not the mood or the songs. This album has punch. It resonates. It's strong. And, where Nebraska hit the emotional nadir, USA has more in common with The River in that, even when he's talking in the voice of a loser or the downtrodden, he has filled the album with either real hope or contrapuntal "hope". Without the deep emotions of, say, "Independence Day", "Point Blank" or "The River", the album just can't have that seminal timelessness. But, heck, it's pretty damned good for the most part.

Grade: B+
ASide: Born in the USA, Darlington County, Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark
BlindSide: No Surrender, Bobby Jean
DownSide: Downbound Train, I'm on Fire

Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - 1982

If Darkness of the Edge of down was dark, Nebraska is downright suicidal.
Death is all over this record, a series of 4 track demos Bruce released years before Rivers Cuomo or anyone else would think to do the same. From the Chicken Man who was blown up in "Atlantic City" to the murderous Starkweather inspired serial killer in "Nebraska"to the unemployed robber sentenced to life in "Johnny 99", this album is stark.

The "Mansion on the Hill" is unattainable to these people. The "Highway Patrolman" who lets his criminal brother get away does it because he doesn't see another way and "nothing feels better than blood on blood". The driver who is hoping that the "State Trooper" won't stop him could be the same driver in The River's "Drive All Night".

These are the darkest, coldest songs Bruce will have committed to record yet. Stripped down to him, his guitar and his harmonica, even the cover, with it's vast expanse of nothing stretching out through the windshield of a car headed...nowhere, Nebraska is unexpected.

It's haunting.

It's harrowing.

It kind of amazes. But it doesn't invite repeat listening. The songs are great. Here's a great cover of the last song, "Reason to Believe" by the Beat Farmers, a far more exciting version, in fact.

But their presentation is meant to scare. I think Bruce is mining some deep territory here. The father son relationship isn't just a separation like the one found in "Independence Day". No. This is the aftermath. In "My Father's House" I think we've seen that boy finally come to terms with his dad, come back to look for him, only to find that he's gone. Strangers are living there now.

The windshield may be heading to the unknown and desolate future, but it's really whatever would be found in that rearview mirror that this album is about. It's about the bad shit that has happened to people. People with no future.

Bruce has never sounded so hopeless.

Grade: B+
ASide: Atlantic City, Badlands, Reason to Believe
BlindSide: Johnny 99, Highway Patrolman, Nebraska
DownSide: Nothing is bad....just very very depressing.

The River - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - The River - 1980

Let's just get this out of the way: Gary W. Tallent is the unsung hero of the E Street Band. From the opening "Ties that Bind" all the way through the rest of the record, the dude is center stage and on fire. He makes The River one of the best, if not only, albums that I want to Air Bass to.

Okay.

The River opens like a concert. Four big, brawling rockers in a row. "The Ties that Bind", "Sherry Darling" (Simply one of the most fun and rapacious songs ever, tearing apart a mother in law with glee and abandon), "Jackson Cage" and "Two Hearts". We NEED "Independence Day" just to breath. And, dammit if that song isn't the Field of Dreams of songs. A boy and his father's parting. I am years away from it, and NOT looking forward to it.

And that's side one.

The River is the phoenix from the ashes of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Elegiac and majestic, bombastic and buoyant. With such heaviness that preceded it, The River HAD to be a double album. And it HAD to come fast. I'm not sure, knowing how much Bruce tours, how he managed to get the tracks and band together to record this, but maybe that's the trick: Because this album sounds better than all of his previous. Without giving in to commercialism.

Even though his biggest hit single from it, "Hungry Heart" seems tailor made for 70s rock radio (and it was ubiquitous at the time), he wrote it for The Ramones (!!!) and sang in a way that he almost never would again. With the swinging backup singers and the boardwalk calliope organ of Danny Federici, it's impossible not to tap your feet, feel good and want to go out on a first date down the shore when you hear it.

On The River, Bruce and his team so successfully bridge the 50s doo wop and 60's Spector influences and meld them into Bruce's own epic, stadium ready workaday, blue collar sound that the album is rendered timeless.

Bar band confections like "Crush on You" and "I'm a Rocker" and "Ramrod" and "Cadillac Ranch" are dust bowl singalongs that I just can't resist. I'm moving in my seat as I type. And there's a riff buried in "You Can Look But You Better Not Touch" that Keith Richards would be jealous of.

But it's the ballads that will break your heart. The lonely man, pining for the single mother in "I Wanna Marry You", the hopeless narrator in "The River", (who could, for all intents BE the father in the previous song - has there been a song that cut to the core of dead end life?), The welfare queen in "Point Blank" (who could be the same girl)...these tracks speak to a weary life of the lower than middle class, perhaps the heroes of "Born to Run" looked at through the filter of a harsher reality. It isn't enough to just wanna get out of town and leave a trail of romantic dust. That makes a great shot in the movies. But, afterwards, there's the residue of life. The aftermath. Unwanted children. Trapped marriages. It's not enough to pine after the girl after she's left you. It's the plaintive wail of one who doesn't want to just fade from her memory, her life. (And the damned thing fades out, too! Genius)

Bruce can break your fucking heart.

Look, I can just go on and on, you know? I mean, is there anything more heartbreaking than the narrator admitting that the letters he wrote to the girl made her feel 100 years old on "Stolen Car"? Probably not. Or as harrowing as the nearly torpid "Wreck on the Highway"? Not really.

I hadn't really listened to The River in earnest in a couple decades. I was missing out. Does it all get sort of exhausted by the fourth side? Sure. "The Price You Pay" doesn't cover new ground and you almost don't make it to "Wreck on the Highway" because of the show closing dirge that is "Drive All Night". But, those are transgressions easy to forgive.

Grade: A+
ASide: The Ties that Bind, Sherry Darling, Independence Day, Hungry Heart, Out in the Street, The River,
BlindSide: You Can Look But You Better Not Touch, Crush on You, Point Blank, I'm a Rocker, Fade Away, Stolen Car, Wreck on the Highway
DownSide:

Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town - 1978

How do you market Bruce Springsteen? I guess part of the mission is "get that mug on the cover!"
It doesn't seem to matter that he looks like someone just caught him as he is getting over a cold and is surprised to discover he owns a leather jacket.
Can you guess that I hate this photo?

Darkness came 3 years after Born to Run. In 70's terms that's a lifetime. Today, Pearl Jam takes 4 years to release a record and it's part of the cycle. But music was coming a lot faster in those days. Bruce's first two records were released in the same year. Everyone was spitting out music by the ton.

After legal woes and production concerns, Darkness came out. I listen to it today and I can't quite get past the studio feel of songs that I have come to love in concert like "Badlands" and "Candy's Room" and "Adam Raised a Cain" and yes, oh, yes, "The Promised Land". That's not really fair, though. Bruce got the sound he was looking for. and his Orbisonian obsessions come true on the echo of his vocals.  Just imagine how deep and harrowing "Adam Raised a Cain" would've been if Brendan O'Brien or Bob Rock or any of those early 90s producers had gotten their hand on it.
Damn, I wanna hear Temple of the Dog cover that right now. Or Soundgarden. Right now, dammit.

The album is wetter and danker than Born to Run. It's not as buoyant. It's not supposed to be, though. These aren't "Let's blow this town" stuff. It's heavy. And, if you can just get past Bruce's awful lead soloing, it's majestic.

"Poor men wanna be rich. Rich men wanna be king. And a king ain't satisfied til he rules everything."
Just hearing that lyric makes me wanna stand in a room with 30,000 other people and sing at the top of my lungs.

Darkness is a dark record. It's a bleak record. Bruce seems to really get his juices flowing when either he's unhappy or he's singing about people whose lives could use a little pick me up. He's a shaman for the working class and it's all over DotEoT. What's not on Darkness? The calliope, street vagabond busker feel of Wild, Innocent. Even the hopeful, soulful belief of the narrator in "The Promised Land" is rife with hopelessness. And, boy oh boy, if I never wanted to work in a factory, "Factory" sealed that.

Howzabout this? If The Wild and the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle is Bruce's Unforgettable Fire and Born to Run is his Joshua Tree, then Darkness is his Achtung Baby.

Except that he was doing it more than a decade before, so flip all that shit.


Grade: A+
ASide: Badlands, Candy's Room, The Promised Land, Prove it All Night, Darkness on the Edge of Town
BlindSide: Adam Raised a Cain, Racing in the Street, Street's of Fire
DownSide: Bruce's guitar solos. ;)

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run - 1975

Oh, seriously, what can I say that hasn't been said before?

This album is the culmination of vision, artistry, toil, craft and showmanship. It's the pinnacle. It's one of the greatest albums of all time and there's little more I can say.

So, I won't.

Or should I? This is a Reflecting Pool, after all. I can't remember when I first heard BtR. Greetings was loaned to me by a friend when I was a teenager in Maine and I was astounded by what I heard coming from my shitty little turntable. He also lent me Don McLean's American Pie but I only listened to that once, Greetings was the real discovery.

And WIESS was something I came to much much later. On vinyl, but in my 30s. Cuz I missed it.

Born to Run has just....always been there. It's always been a part of the tapestry of my musical life. Woven in through classic rock and contemporary rock in the 70s and 80s. It's a friend I can visit who always seems fresh and welcoming and never boring or bored.

The life of rock and roll lives in this 40 year old record. For me, at least. I'm sure there are some Beatles fans out there, somewhere.

Grade: A+

ASide: Thunder Road, Born to Run, Jungleland
BlindSide: Everything else if you haven't heard it yet.

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle - 1973

The puzzle isn't complete on WIESS. It's alllllmost there. It'll take another album to fulfill the promise made by marketing execs and Jon Landau.

But, this is a helluva sophomore record.

From the very opening, the lazy horns into the casual, jammy skiffle of E Street Shuffle, Bruce, the song writer, singer and leader is in fantastic form.

The album really shows its teeth on "Kitty's Back". This is where Steel Mill, the roots of Bruce, rear their powerful head. A band, tight and led but loose and comfortable, making unforgettable music. Anyone who wants to hear the earliest big band sounds of a big rock band, need only listen to the end of that song.
And, this is the one with "Rosalita" on it. Need I say more? The album sort of peter's out for me towards the end with the 9 minute New York Serenade. It's not bad, just nowhere near what he was about to come up with.

Springsteen's most experimental moments on future records will be hailed as left turns and an artist growing and trying new things. Feh. He was doing that 41 years ago.

41 years ago. Yikes.

Grade A
ASide: Kitty's Back, 4th of July (Sandy), Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
BlindSide: Wild Billy's Circus Story, Incident on 57th Street
DownSide:

Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

I didn't know if I would ever get to the big dog. I've been a Bruce fan since 1982, started seeing him in concert the first of 5 times in 2003. Like Rolling Stone I've always found myself being more forgiving of The Boss then i probably should be, since we are both from New Jersey, after all.
But, with the cover/original hybrid of High Hopes arriving this week, I thought, let's jump in.



Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. - 1973

I've heard that Springsteen wrote much of the tunes on the fly. Rewriting on the bus and so forth. There's so much legend and apocrypha surrounding the Boss it's hard to know what's true and what's not. But, see, even though he's a "man of the people", Bruce has been heavily marketed and branded from the beginning. His savvy on how to sell the Bruce Brand is remarkable. One of the reasons its so incredible is that he's managed to control his image, his sound, how he is perceived and heard without ever leading on that he is doing just that. In every way that he's been able to play the media/public game arena Queen was not. They always came across as corporate. Bruce seemed real.

The jangle guitar/bunch of dudes singing on a doorstoop street poet chaos of "Blinded by the Light" sets the stage. Once you hear it, it's impossible to enjoy Manfred Mann's cover, with it's over the top prog rocky-ness.

It's been written about for decades, but Springsteen's "New Dylan" mantle affects the album in a retrospective way. Turns it into a curio of sorts. Bruce would never wordsmith like this again. And some songs, like "Lost in the Flood" and "Mary, Queen of Arkansas" (shine boy for your acid brat? Yuck) suffer from it, where "Blinded", "Spirits in the Night" and "For You" (My personal favorite Springsteen song) all benefit. Weirdly, one of the best songs on the record, "Does this bus stop at 82nd st?" just feels half done. It doesn't end. It expires. Like he was writing it ON that bus uptown, and got to his stop and just stopped writing words. And yet, it works.

One of the things to love about records was that each side was a little show. We all know how Side 2 of Born to Run ends. The deepest cuts are inside the album. Sometimes the best are the ones closest to the center of the spinner.

Side 1 ends with the first attempt at an epic, "Lost in the Flood." The elements are there. The cars. The characters. It was the time of Mean Streets and street poets and Baretta. If Lost in the Flood feels like the streets of the lower east side it's supposed to. On the other hand, following it with The Angel is interesting. As a Side 2 opener it's terrible. The only salvation is knowing that the one two punch of "For You" and "Spirit in the Night" are next. Played in sequence, the angel could be an extension of the story of "LitF". The latter a macro look and the former a closeup of the story's main character. It works, even though the song is relatively weak and pedestrian.

Greetings is a disjointed album. Because the songs show up in concert often it doesn't sound dated but it's of its time. Vini Lopez's drumming is a treat every single time. He won't last with the band but the short time he was there he made an indelible mark.

Grade: B+
ASide: Blinded by the Light, Lost in the Flood, For You, Spirit in the Night
BlindSide: Does this Bus Stop at 82nd St? It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
DownSide: Mary Queen of Arkansas, The Angel

Adventures in Cord Cutting part 5 - 2 weeks in

Cutting the cord part 5. But it's really just an update. Or supplemental. Or aside. 

It's been a couple weeks since we got the tv in the media room and added the sectional. And last night was a milestone of sorts.

As you may have read before, the addition of Tivo and the digital antenna made it possible for us to have all of network programming without being attached to the satellite. 

Yesterday I searched for a show that my wife was really interested in. It's a french zombie show called The Returned. It ran on Sundance. And its not rerunning.

It's available for purchase on Amazon and on Vudu. I think the Vudu is cheaper.

We almost bought the season. What stopped us?

We have SO much other stuff to catch up on.

Downton Abbey. Sherlock. Network shows. Movies. And, as the new season ramps up there are stand bys like Amazing Race that will fill the queue. And, dammit, I wanna catch up on Doctor Who!

Then, last night, we found ourselves needing to watch the Sag Awards. I won't argue the merits of the broadcast because I have friends who were there, were part of the show and this article isn't the forum for that. But, the Saggies are on TNT. And that's on the tv downstairs.

The thing I noticed and am reporting is that, after deleting everything off the DirecTV DVR that we either already have upstairs, have already watched or can watch on Hulu, all that was left was a couple episodes of American Horror Story.

I'm paying a monthly satellite charge for this? Seems cray cray. Especially since we are parents of kids with busy schedules. By the time we get the kids down and settle in, it's after 8 and we are generally in bed before 10.

Suffice to say that I think this transition is going to be easier for us and people like us because we don't have an entire Prime Time block to devote to entertainment.

And, by the time we get around to carving out some viewing time for The Returned, it'll probably be available on Netflix or Amazon.

This takes work, mind you. The transition isn't super simple. One reason is how to figure out where anything is.

For instance: My Roku box downstairs has a search field that scans ALL downloaded apps for a show. So, if I am looking for, say, The Returned, Roku will tell me which app it's available on and a quick scan tells me if it's part of "Prime" or free.

My Tivo does the same thing, except that it doesn't integrate with Amazon Prime or Vudu, or any other apps besides Hulu, YouTube and Netflix.
[UPDATE: Tivo included these apps in its service and now offers the opportunity to add them to your list via streaming. And you can stream directly from the wi-fi on the Tivo main screen. 1/2/1917]

So, in order to find The Returned, I kind of have to either go to each app and look for it, remember the cost and decide on the best value OR use some app on my phone like, CanIStreamIt, which is not totally comprehensive or trustworthy. (I'm on the lookout for another app to help with this)

But, once you get past the struggle to find the show you want, it's all relatively easy.

I am intrigued to see how the various channels and outlets will react to cord cutting. I'm not really missing a thing. Well, yes, I can only watch the first three episodes of Girls when HBO puts them on YouTube, but, save for the fact that the show is excellent and I'm not just saying that because friends of mine are working on it, I'm not really, truly the demo for that show. (However, since we will definitely keep cable through True Blood's season, I'll be able to watch. This year.)

In a strange twist I have found that I am more inclined to want to watch network programming ON the network than on Hulu. I can watch or fast forward through commercials, but that's not the reason. Somehow I just feel a bit more connected to the network that way. Odd.

As a footnote to this piece:
There has been discussion among other friends about which app to pay for: Netflix or Amazon. I think both have value, the latter being not just the programming but the ability to order a $6 package of picture hangers and have them delivered, for free, on a Sunday. (They are coming today)
But, as a reminder, Netflix has signed a deal with Disney and Disney has all the Star Wars stuff now. I imagine that there will be a big synergistic push from the two companies as we get closer to the nerdgasm that will be the JJ Abrams Star Wars VII.

Previous cost of just DirecTV with HBO and Showtime: $117+ per month.
Current cost of DirecTV without HBO/Showtime: Approx $80
Cost of premium apps + TiVo: $35 or so. This number will decrease over time, since the cost of the Tivo lifetime service will be prorated over 5 years and come down from about $12 p/m to $6 p/m

We are paying about $2 less per month for the experiment.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 4 - Hello, Old Friend.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 4 - Hello, Old Friend.

Where was I? 
Oh, yeah. 
Too busy was I watching 3D movies and making artists like Gordon Willis and Gregg Toland look bad via high definition that I didn't really pay attention to the over the air (OTA) status.
And then I ordered my Tivo.
Now, I'm first going to just tell you how freaking great it is to have this old friend back in my life.
I bought my first Tivo in 03. But I heard about it in 99 during a late late late night infomercial I saw in a hotel in NYC. I completely ignored my company that evening as I was mesmerized by this new technology.
"This is a game changer." I thought. And I was right.
Our first Tivo was a blessed addition to our lives. The familiar "Bloop bloop bloop!" was like a friendly call. I enjoyed how Tivo would try to guess what I wanted to watch and usually get it wrong. But when it got it right, it was oh, so right.
We got our series 2 a few years before the HD boom. And when we moved on to our HD plasma, Tivo was relegated to the bedroom. For the teeny TV. I got my money's worth, however. If you just use it for 4 years, it's comparable to any other DVR. And Tivo's service is just plain better. Better suggestions. Better and more cooperative interface. DirecTV just never really got it right.
And then I heard about Tivo's Roamio Basic. (https://www.tivo.com/shop/roamio) $199 from Tivo but knocked down to $150 at Amazon.
See, Tivo and DirecTV sort of got along, but never really. I had a couple DirecTVTivos and they were fine for the small tv in the old kitchen. But, when I had to switch to DirecTV completely, the DVR was sorely lacking.
Clunky. Difficult to maneuver. Just a pain in the ass. And then the remote went out. And that meant I had to fire up the iPad to use that as a remote and THAT would spend 30 seconds seeking out the DVR every time I switched out of the app.
Horrendous.
But the Roamio Basic was something different. Something that could make this whole endeavor work:
It was the only Tivo that worked with a digital Antenna. (And a cable card, but we aren't using that, remember?)
I could connect from a digital antenna directly to the Tivo and get HD quality broadcast channels. And that's what this is really all about, right?
The cable/satellite congloms sort of have people over a barrel. Unless you can get some after market DVR or want to manually program to watch OTA programming, you're gonna have to subscribe to them, right?
But, not with this.
I ordered it from Amazon. I love Amazon and they are fast and make returns a snap. My new Tivo came the next day.
But, that installation.
Geez! 5 whole minutes!

Tivo immediately went to work. Yep. CBS is there. And NBC. And some other weird NBC 2. And the local channel, 5. And 5.2, which was showing reruns of WKRP and The Outer Limits. And another strange 5.something, which was running Capote in SD.
ABC, check.
Fox. Fox SD. Fox again. Okay. PBS. Yep.
All good.
Go to work Tivo.
I'll just scan.
And I did. Just like the old days. Around the local dials.
The game on CBS looked amazing.
NBC had some sports thing.
And ABC was showing....wait, what are they showing?
Why can't I get a signal? Is there a storm coming?
What's with all the pixellation, ABC?
Let's try FOX.
That signal's not even coming in!

Now, this is no good. The whole show hinges on the ability to do this very thing.

My location is fine. I live in the heart of Los Angeles. What's wrong?
Oh, yeah. It's that shitty amplified rabbit eared antenna, I bet.

I returned that and ordered a flat Amazon Digital Antenna (http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Performance-Ultra-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B00DIFIO8E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1389325129&sr=8-4&keywords=digital+antenna)


So far, so good. The signal seems stronger, but It's only been a day.

In addition, as a holiday gift, mi madre shelled out for a Sennheiser wireless audio system. One base station and one headphone. (We'll have to get the other one on our own dime. Gotta check and see how that renter's account is doing...)

So, what's next?

Well, we need that sectional and the other headphone and then we need to start parking our carcasses upstairs. If Beth and I can get used to not having immediate access to 99% of stuff we don't watch so we can have access to the 1% we do, then we are good to go.

We can then cut the DirecTV cord and get a Tivo Mini.
What's that?
Oh, that's a little streaming device that turns another tv into a Tivo.

But for that I have to run a wire. Or a MoCa connection.

Or something.

For the time being, this is where we are.

The cord isn't cut. It's just on the chopping block.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 3 - Santa Tenants

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part 3 - Santa Tenants

Something happened this year that hasn't happened in a long, long time. And it coincided with a decision not to do something that we usually do and always want to:
First, we didn't have any major renovation bills or medical things this year. No In Vitro. No guest house demo. No new Kitchen. For a while it felt like if we weren't renovating something, we were buying a car or making babies in jars or having babies or something.
This year...nothing.
In addition, because of general exhaustion (mainly due to Zachary being, you know, almost 3) we decided to forego the annual LuluPalooza Holiday Spectacular. I don't think either of us had it in us this time.
What this meant was we had a little leftover in the family funds world. Our rental units are really just supposed to provide for the mortgage and repairs, etc. Without the latter, there was something extra in the kitty this year. And we decided to devote it to our own little oasis upstairs.

First off, we ordered that sectional. (It still hasn't arrived, btw). It would take time to deliver and that would give me the time I needed to figure out the gadgets that would make this endeavor work.

First off, the TV.

Let me say, 3D or no 3D, tvs are cheaper than they were when we bought our flat screen. I think we paid about $1400 for a Panasonic 1080i plasma. That's an 'i", not a "p". That was almost 7 years ago.
For about $800 we could get a 50" LG LED 3D. Same size TV, but with much of the apps we use our Roku for: Netflix, Vudu, Spotify, pandora, Amazon, Hulu, you get the idea.
But, I couldn't pull the trigger.
Life got in the way. In a great way, I mean. Holidays. Travel. Work. Volunteer stuff. Kids. Family. It just never was possible to get to the store to really make the decision. (I'm not really one for ordering anything bigger than my door online)
Then, when I was ready, guess what? No more 50" TVs. Wait, what?
Somehow, the majors decided that 47 or 55 inches were the standard. That's interesting because 47 inches would be too small for a media room that would seat 6-8 comfortably. Gravity would look like Carl Sagan's Cosmos on that. Man of Steel would look like Lois & Clark.
But 55 inches? That's 49 inches across. A full 5 inches wider than the dedicated wall space.
Would the door clear it? Would it swallow the room? Ugh.

There was really no other choice. I had decided that I wanted an LG LED. I liked the colors and the vibrancy. And I also liked the price of the LG 3D blu-ray player. And everything accesses all the app platforms we use and should play well together. And, it was really just about $100 more.

So, home I headed with the toys in tow, including the rabbit ears for the digital signal and some movies to get our media room started. And a tv table. Simple one, with glass tables.

Btw, the ONLY thing that was broken upon unpacking was the bottom shelf of tempered glass for that table. I didn't even open the box containing it until I had put together the table. So, I had to return just that shattered glass and they replaced it immediately.

The TV was a simple set up. Plugging the antenna in was a snap. Five minutes later the scan was complete and there were all my local channels.
Bright.
Clear.
Exceptional.
In fact, after years of cable and then satellite I can report that the OTA signal is the best and clearest I've ever seen. Maybe its the tv, but, holy cow does this look good.

I spent the bulk of the first few days watching Betas and Alpha House on Amazon and Skyfall on Netflix and...something on Hulu. Only occasionally dropping into the networks. I still didn't have a DVR so why watch if I can't pause, man?

I also spent a LOT of time playing with the 3D settings. Watching the crisp conversion of Man of steel or getting caught up in Wreck It Ralph (again) or taking old movies, like Manhattan or Citizen Kane, and turning them into kinescope videos with bad lighting and terrible quality.

I didn't notice any trouble.

Until I moved on to Phase 3....

Next - Hello to an old friend and, wait, is there a snowstorm coming?

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part Deux - The Room Reshuffle

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part Deux - The Room Reshuffle

For a while Beth and I were thinking about creating some sort of "playroom". The kids each have a room of their own and Beth had her office, which she could retire to. I, on the other hand, just sort of floated with macbook or iPad or book in tow. 
The kids had completely come to dominate the "tv room" downstairs. Once Zoe figured out how to operate the Roku remote, all bets were off. Until they would go to sleep, that room was basically off limits to me unless I wanted to party down with Word Girl, travel to Word World or experience the surreal adventures that are The Magic School Bus.
A friend of ours redid their attic for a pittance ($10000 or so), adding value to their house and creating just that hideaway/game room/tv room that I would've loved. So, we asked his contractor to come and give us an estimate. We weren't looking to spend 10 grand or so, but, if it would add resale to the house.......
"About $36,000." The contractor said. turns out that our attic is larger and u-shaped and, well, I dunno. It was about $26,000 bigger. And we weren't about to spend that kind of dough.
I thought about converting the garage. it's pretty barebones and downtrodden, but a couple pieces of drywall, some carpeting, we could actually make something happen out there.
Of course, that would be consigning anyone who wanted to use it to Siberia, but, hey, it's an idea.
Until I started building furniture. And hanging tools. And storing wood.
Suddenly the playroom didn't seem practical when the workshop was acting as the shop it was supposed to be.
Then, Beth and I talked about just making the tv room more comfortable. She'd always wanted a sectional, after all. I thought mayyyyybe we could squeeze one into the tv room and make it more pleasurable. It's a small space, though....
And one day, it hit me:
Beth's office! This was an entire bedroom being used for that purpose. The purpose of running the house. Now, this is a big job and I appreciate what she does, cuz, lord knows, I don't wanna do it. But, it's not like we are running a company. Maybe we could...just move....her office.....lemme check.
Wow. Her desk, filing cabinet and all the acoutrements from printer to router to storage, would all fit in the sun room. This is a little 8 x 5 room where would always put guests on a single bed. It was cute, but small.
But, her stuff fit there PERFECTLY.
Let's move the office in there and make the office the media room!
She agreed to think about it but there was always the concern that, since it's next to Zoe's room and across the hall from Zack's, noise would be a problem.
And she would be right about that. it's an old house. The walls are made of paper.
We live in the hood so it's actually made of rolling papers, but, that's even thinner.

So, we treaded off to Living Spaces. Some of you might recall my outreach for furniture store ideas on facebook.
We listed about 5 places to go to and the first one was LS. Well, that place has certainly changed!
We didn't need to go anywhere else. Because what we were looking for was right there.
And so was Paul's TV.
As Beth was picking out styles and colors I ventured into Paul's. This was on Zack's first day of day care. We felt free. We'd already had breakfast together for the first time, alone, in months.
Now, we could shop for furniture with ease and time.
Beth came in to the TV room and I showed her the 3D televisions. I'm a sucker for tech. And these guys are smart. They know how to hook ya. Beth isn't as much of an easy mark for stuff like new TVs, so they tossed on the 3D Blu-Ray of Tangled and her eyes widened. Glorious.
Still, we didn't need a new tv. That wasn't what we were doing. We were just replacing a sofa with a sectional.
A small sectional.
Somehow we got on the conversation about noise. Surround sound, etc.
"Well, you can plug in to these tvs." The salesman said. Something I'd never thought about.
"And run a wire?" I asked, cuz I'm, you know, dumb."
"Nah. Get some wireless headphones."
Wait. What?
"Well," Beth said, "If we did that, then we could really turn that room into the media room and make the downstairs room the guest room when people come to visit. That bed is a sleeper, anyway."

Boom.

No $36,000 retrofit of an attic. No exiled garage conversion.

This might work after all.

Next time - The Santa Claus Incursion (or, How I learned to stop complaining and love my tenants)

Adventures in Cord Cutting. Part 1 - Just thinking 'bout it.

I love TV. I think it should go without saying that it wasn't my love of Broadway or film that drove me to wanting to be in this business. No. I wanted to be on TV. That was the dream. It's always been the dream.
I love the boob tube.
A few months ago I did some number crunching and compared the amount of outlay to usage. What I first learned was that, just by dropping HBO and Showtime we could save $360 a year. But, would we miss all great quality programming? Yes. And No. Sure there are terrific things there for us to watch. Girls. Game of Thrones. Homeland. The Newsroom. True Blood. Nurse Jackie. But we weren't watching much of the rest. Now. A season pass to all of those shows on iTunes or Amazon or Vudu would cost about $200. So, we would be saving $160 by just cutting those nets out.
But, what about the rest of cable?
Mad Men. American Horror Story. Walking Dead. There really aren't that many other shows we can't live without. And, truth be told. If we just want to wait a year, they are all available on Netflix. But, let's say we want them now. To be current.
That's about another $110 a year. Let's just add another show and round up. So, by dropping HBO and Showtime, forgoing the shows we don't watch and buying the ones we do, we can buy 10 shows and those premiums will just pay for that.
If we cut the cord and dump DirecTV in toto, that would be an additional $80+ a month.
Well, certainly we can't just drop everything, right?
We subscribe to Amazon Prime already, $6.60 a month. $80 a year.
Netflix, despite the mediocre content, (although they get a lot of the shows we would be watching) is, what? $8 a month? $96 a year.
Hulu would give us the cache of a full Criterion Collection movie library, but, more importantly for me, NBC, ABC, FOX and Comedy Central. $8, $96.
But, damn that CBS. How can I get my Chuck Lorre comedy fix? Or A repetitive procedural? Or that Race which is Amazing???
More importantly, what about Football, Baseball, The Super Bowl, the Oscars, The Tonys, The Emmys, The Olympics?
Tivo Roamio + a $35 digital antenna. The Roamio basic can record over the air in high def for $13 a month. But, since we were lifetime subscribers with our last Tivo Box, we get a discount on the lifetime. $400. Over 5 years that comes to about $6.70 a month or $80 a year.
$30 a month or $350 a year. That's a $970 annual savings on the basic plus premium package.
If the average cost of a subscription to those above shows is $37, that's another 26 season passes on TOP of the ones I named above.
35 season passes. That's just not gonna happen. Who has the time???

And the video quality is supposed to be better than the compression on satellite or cable.

Since I wasn't sure we were going to even think about trying this, I never posted this even though this has been in the planning stages for about 4 months.

Phase 1 was consideration.
Phase 2 was early implementation without complete cutting.

I'll let you know how that goes.