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Friday, January 23, 2004  
Childhood's Dead

Literally.

Completing a sadness that just about every kid in my generation can feel, Bob Keeshan, known to us as the great Captain Kangaroo, passed away today. Following last year's loss of Fred "Mr." Rogers, our icons are now gone, a gaping void left in children's entertainment. There is no more safety, and precious little joy left in the what children now consume on television.

Don't get me wrong- I love SpongeBob, and a good chunk of what Nickelodeon puts on the air is entertaining for young and old. But there's no real flavor or character to the shows beyond the animation, and the most high profile kids TV that feature real humans, Out Of The Box and The Wiggles, are creepy. The humans lack the capability to speak to kids the way Keeshan and Rogers did, and they come across as condescending and trite.

Keeshan, Prince Valiant haircut and all, was a man who seemed to have a limitless patience and compassion for youth and how they felt. He had an honesty that most young kids feel like adults lack; young Bobby and Susie have a bullshit detector that sniffs out Mommy's nonsense very easily, but Captain Kangaroo never set off that detector. He inspired trust in kid and parent alike. You knew he wouldn't lead you wrong.

So, thanks Captain. You left an indelible mark on my youth and made things just a bit better every day that I tuned in. I hope that Heaven' children are sitting in a studio waiting for you. The show, as always, must go on.

Marc@MarcMason.com
3:58 PM

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Friday, January 16, 2004  
Whatever Happened To?

Whatever happened to musicians who understood what it means to be a musician?

The main goal of most bands used to be: play loud music, then fuck hot chicks. It didn't matter if the guys in the band were attractive or not, and they didn't have to try to be. They were in the band or they were the starring solo artists. Period. Music+Songs= Poon. A very simple equation.

The last thing that they were supposed to do was write songs specifically for the purpose of getting themselves laid.

John Mayer has to be the worst offender these days. You listen to his songs and you can just imagine his face in the studio as he lays down another track. "Ahhh. Another effort that will assure me all the chicks I can handle and more. Woo hoo!" It's no coincidence that the chorus lyric "Your body is a wonderland" can easily be replaced with "I'll get all the ass I can." For fuck's sake.

Even Aerosmith, a band that used to be kings of the "pick a groupie to blow me backstage" scene has slid into making wretched power ballads like "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" that make the young girls swoon. Christ. It's like they finally realized they were older than dirt and decided to whip up musical Viagra.

I miss the old days.

Marc@MarcMason.com

7:16 PM

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Friday, January 09, 2004  
No Forgiveness

Pete Rose has reared his ugly head again this week, releasing a "tell-all" book in which he finally admits he bet on baseball...after lying and denying for fourteen years. Rose seems to hope that this will help him earn reinstatement to the good graces of Major Leage Baseball.

I hope it helps him burn in Hell.

When I was four years old, my grandfather came back from a trip to Cincinnati with a copy of a book that Rose had written, a diary of the 1973 season titled "Charlie Hustle." I was captivated by it, especially as an early reader, and Rose became my favorite player, my idol. I was young, and life was good.

I was born a right handed hitter, and I was a real good one from the start of my first season of play at five years old. This was back before T-Ball, when adults actually threw the ball to kids underhanded. But at the age of seven, I decided that I wanted to be more like Pete, and I began learning how to also hit from the left side of the plate. Rose was a switch hitter, and I didn't want to let my hero down by not trying and succeeding at it. So I did.

And that was the way my youth played out. If Rose put another book out, I bought it. If there was a new Rose baseball card, I did my damnedest to get one. If Rose was going to be on TV, I either set the VCR, or I was home to see it. I cried when he broke Ty Cobb's all-time hit record. Baseball was my first love, and Rose was the representation of that love.

Then I moved off to college, that intensity behind me perhaps, but those memories and those feelings golden. I'd even wear number 14 in his honor that first year of college. But then the shit hit the fan.

Reports surfaced that Rose had been betting on baseball, and that the Commissioner was investigating him. I didn't want it to be true. At first, I believed Rose's protestations that it was nothing but a huge witchhunt with no valid purpose. But it seemed like every week that I opened my mailbox and pulled out the latest Sports Illustrated, the allegations and the proof got more and more detailed and it was harder to deny Rose's actions in my heart.

Then came his banishment, his refusal to admit his wrongdoing, and his utter absence of anything resembling an apology. Prison followed because of tax reasons, but the damage was already done...to every kid like me.

Rose has now published his horrid, and ultimately un-contrite, book admitting his wrongs, but he still doesn't get it, and he still hasn't turned his apologies or contrition in the direction they should have gone fourteen years ago.

How many of us were there? How many kids worshipped Rose's clay feet, and were destroyed inside by that ordeal in 1989? How many had so much of their childhood darkened and ruined by Rose's greed and stupidity?

But Rose doesn't care. He only cares about getting that plaque in Cooperstown and about making money. For years, I felt as though he should be re-instated if he apologized, and apologized to the right people and meant it. But he hasn't. Instead, he's cast a pall over this year's Hall Of Fame selections by drawing the attention to himself, rather than waiting his turn. So fuck Pete Rose. Fuck him, and don't ever let him in the Hall Of Fame. Not while he's drawing breath on this planet. Because he's destroyed and ruined to many things; kids' dreams, the integrity of the game of baseball; and any feeling that he could ever be rehabilitated into someone worthy of the Hall. Never. No forgiveness.

Marc@MarcMason.com

5:49 PM

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Friday, January 02, 2004  
The Future

I'm waking up to it every day. I roll over, rub the crap from my eyes, brush my teeth, and there in the mirror it stares at me. A great gaping maw of "what next?" eyes me with bemusement and waits for me to decide what to do.

As the new year dawned yesterday, I was feeling like I should have been ready and primed for deep and serious action, but instead I found myself buried in the past, watching a marathon of I LOVE THE 80S on VH1 for around ten hours. It was pathetic. On the day of renewal, I was rotting away on my sofa, shutting off my brain. What a waste I was. I avoided the future like it had an STD.

I think the events of the last couple of months have left me in a bit of a fugue, to be realistic. Blown assignments, spaced out priorities...I've been functionally useless. It's amazing that I've managed to bathe myself. Tuesday I forgot to brush my hair, and I managed to leave my house looking like that. Horrifying. If I were a horse, someone would have put a bullet in my head.

But there is no escape, you know? The future is there, awaiting me, planning for me, knowing that I have no other course but forward in the long term. So I'll do my careful best to plot a decent path...and hope that can make all the difference.

Marc@MarcMason.com

9:16 PM

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