Stamp Out Stupidity

Remember when those red Netflix DVD envelopes were everywhere? Digital streaming technology put an end to them, depriving the United States Postal Service of a source of revenue that was helping to make up for the rapid decline of first class postage in the Internet Age.

As John Oliver explains, in 2006 — the year I started this blog and was a 3-disc Netflix subscriber — a new law clobbered USPS finances and hobbled its ability to recover. Trump should be locked in a room with this video playing repeatedly, until he agrees to support the USPS. He doesn’t even have to admit he’s an idiot about everything, which he is, just the post office.

A point that John Oliver doesn’t make is that in many places, like where I live, Amazon deliveries are rarely made by regular mail anymore. Amazon has a large distribution center in a neighboring town with its own fleet of trucks. So in addition to the USPS not losing money on the Amazon deliveries it still makes, it isn’t making nearly as many as it was. Which gets back to one of Oliver’s points about service to rural areas, where many of Trump’s hardcore supporters live.

Doing Doo-Wop

Upon retiring three years ago I bought a new car, a 2017 Toyota Camry XLE. JBL should be ashamed for putting its name on the entertainment system, because the sound quality is mediocre, but at least it includes an XM receiver (Sirius and XM merged, but their satellite technologies are incompatible).

Even before the Covid-19 lockdown I wasn’t doing a lot of driving because, like I said, I’m retired. So most of my SiriusXM listening is at home, online. Something I realized from listening to Cousin Brucie on “60’s on 6” is that his personal preference isn’t for the 60’s songs I heard him play on WABC as a kid. He’s big into Doo-Wop.

I’m still feeling stunned by the passing of Ian Whitcomb. His Luxuriamusic co-host Jim Dawson is someone who knows his Doo-Wop history. Andrew Sandoval, everybody’s friend in 60’s Production Pop music, is a big Dion fan. So put it all together and I’m enjoying a newfound interest in listening to Doo-Wop. Here’s one that Drew Carey played recently on his SiriusXM “Friday Night Freak-Out” show.

Rock and Roll!

Little Richard, one of the founders of Rock and Roll, has died. It’s worth remembering that between Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino, the piano was just as common as the electric guitar in the early days of Rock and Roll.

Tommy Smothers tells a dubious and funny alternate origin of Rock and Roll.

Personally, I think that the feeling behind Rock and Roll has always been present in music.