Tag Archives: New Year’s Eve

Letter of The Week

11 Jan

January 11, 2011

From the New York Daily News, January 10th, 2011.

I fail to see the problem here. They aired The Honeymooners at one in the afternoon on a day when most people are home and sleep late. Should channel 11 have shown it at one in the morning and forced an old man to stay up to the wee hours of the night? Did he really want to be up, at age 63, watching TV at 4 am? Is this an overreaction, or can someone explain this to me? And while you’re at it, explain to me why this guy felt the need to write to the newspaper about it.

By way of comparison, these were the news stories of that day:

  • The gunman who shot a Congresswoman arraigned in court
  • Ex- House leader Tom DeLay gets three-year prison term
  • NYC begins investigation of snowstorm’s inept response
  • Wife of White House Aide found dead
  • Model charged with killing journalist
  • Honeymooners does not air until 1 pm on New Years Day (Just kidding)
  • Richard “Dick” Winters, decorated hero of World War II and the central figure in “Band of Brothers” died
  • 8 dead in Australian flooding
  • Protest over “gay only” toilets
  • 14-year old gunned down in Bronx

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Middle-Aged Men on the Block

1 Jan

January 1, 2011

Well I had planned to take the day off, but did you see this last night?

90’s pop jokes New Kids on the Block teamed up with another washed up has-been group, The Backstreet Boys, to form the alphabet-insulting “super group” NKONTBSB.

It was sad. Some of those “kids” and “boys” are over 40, and it shows. Watch the video below and marvel at how laughable some of the “dance moves” are. Obviously, a couple of those children are not as mobile as they used to be. I am sure at one point they were doing the same shuffling moves Popeye used to do in the old Kings Features Syndicate cartoons. Plenty of downtime was built into the routine too. While one group was performing, the other simply stood in the back, resting. After all, they have to be careful- a couple of those guys are in danger of breaking a hip.

Despite the crowd going nuts (and if you had been standing in Times Square for ten hours you’d be going nuts too) they really embarrassed themselves. The songs have not held up. Disposable teen pop is, by definition, disposable. Although any attempt to recycle it rides a very small wave of nostalgia, watching it performed by mature older men dressed in conservative suits was too much. It was all very sad.

They came across as their own tribute band in a 90’s revue.

Nine old men shuffling around the stage trying to recapture the glory of their youth. Sure, they are around 40, not 80, but if you can’t stand Justin Beiber now just wait and see how you feel when he makes a comeback after his hair thins and he does a prostate PSA.

Here it is, watch and see for yourself.

But not me. Seeing it once was enough.

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