Television and Music

I haven't been watching much television lately. Really, I watch Lost every week and that just about does it.

In the absence of my viewing eyes, TV has gotten way weirder--faster paced, worse advertising, and so forth.

For example, I saw a commercial for, what must be a movie, Despicable Me, and it left me wide-eyed without a thought in my head for it.

This isn't the exact commercial I saw, but it is a trailer for the movie and basically does the same thing:



Is it possible to remove yourself from your own advertising demographic?

Then there are things like NASCAR sponsors and the way they are advertised.

Let's say one of the racers drives a, I-don't-know, Ford (it is possible that no NASCAR racers drive Fords and this is a bad example, but I don't watch racing and I wouldn't know) and this particular car and driver is sponsored by Snickers. Every time that racer is interviewed, he or she will make sure to mention the performance of his "Snickers Ford Car". Does a race car driver saying the word "Snickers" really make people want to go out and buy a candy bar? I would be pretty embarrassed with the American public if this were the case. But, sponsors keep handing out money for these figures to mention their product, so something has to be working, I guess.



Then, there are Geico commercials, which I don't even want to try with, because I can't decide if the advertising is brilliant or entirely absurd.

In other news, there are some pretty good shows coming up around these central Iowa parts.

March 4 - Vaudeville Mews - A Sunny Day in Glasgow
March 13 - Grinnell College - Vivian Girls
March 14 - M-Shop - Bowerbirds
March 30 - Iowa City - Mission Creek festival starts
April 2 - Minneapolis - High Places, Tobacco, Hood Internet
April 4 - Minneapolis - Beach House
April 12 - Vaudeville Mews - Dum Dum Girls

And plenty of other alright stuff coming to the Vaudeville Mews, which is a venue I always tell myself I need to attend more often.

I'm really going to try and make it to all these shows and take pictures and remember things to put into words on this here blog for each and every one of these shows. Actually, Trista and I are playing on March 4th with A Sunny Day in Glasgow, so I will for sure be making it to that one.

Keep it up.