Thursday, June 12, 2003

On one hand, I love

On one hand, I love NPR because this morning their musical “button” (that ties two news segments together) for a story on stem cell research was one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite musicians - Jorma Kaukonen’s iconic Embryonic Journey (oh you’d recognize it if I played it for you).  I could hear that one whizzing past over the heads of 94% of all americans this morning, but at least a few of us appreciated it. 

But then there’s their weird promo spots.  NPR is non-commercial, so it’s a minor quibble, but one of their ads is sounding more threatening to me every day.  It’s from a recycling organization, and they tell us cheerfully, “today an aluminum can, tomorrow a baseball bat.” I flinch every time they say it.  It sounds like escalation to me - I’ll throw this can at you if you don’t recycle, and if you try to ignore me, I’m coming at you with an alumiville slugger.  And you’d better bundle that cardboard.  I’ll mulch your polluting ass.

Then there’s the Star Date woman.  She’s starting to creep me out.  I seem to remember the same Majel Barret-like omniscience and cheerfulness coming from her when I was in high school.  That was almost five hundred years ago!  Well time is relative, I move around a lot, and it may not seem that long to you - but I am really getting tired of them wheeling this same announcer out of the Sandy Woods Outhouse every day or so to tell me what I’d be able to see if 1) the sky here wasn’t washed out with a billion points of wasted light and 2) the sky here weren’t usually as opaque and fuzzy as a down comforter.  And it’s really not the advice she gives, useless though it is to me - I’ve grown tired of her invariable sameness and smoothness, replicating the astral movements on which she reports.  That’s fine for the heavens, but I like people to have a bit more going on.  It comes down to this, Sandy: I’m bored with our relationship.  You bring me the stars but you don’t make me laugh.  And I’m a chuckly guy - ask anybody.  “Just look three degrees below uranus and marvel in the glory of betelgeuse.” Sure, Sandy.  I’ll catch right up.  Just let me get my baseball bat.