Hall-of-fame honorees Michael Jordan and Metallica; different halls, of course

It must be hall-of-fame season.
On April 4, it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which honored – most notably – Metallica and Run-DMC.
Today, former Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan was elected to the 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame class along with David Robinson, John Stockton and Jerry Sloan.
The two halls of fame couldn’t be more different. One honors the arts and the other athletics. Another difference is that the basketball inductees seem logical and obvious, while the rock-and-roll inductees seem at times commercial and political.
Jordan, a five-time MVP who won six NBA titles, was, and still is, a sports superstar. He finished his 15-year playing career with 32,292 points, the third-highest total in league history behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. His career average of 30.12 points per game is the best in NBA history, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Stockton, who played his entire career with the Utah Jazz, holds NBA records for assists in a season with 1,164 in 1990-91 and the highest assist average in a season with 14.5 the previous season.
Robinson played 14 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs and won two NBA championships.
Sloan is the only NBA coach to win more than 1,000 games with a single team, the Jazz.
Also elected to the basketball hall was Rutgers women’s coach C. Vivian Stringer. She led three schools to the Final Four in her 38-year career and has an 825-280 record.
Induction is Sept. 10-12 in Springfield, Mass., home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
I can’t argue with any of those picks.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is another matter. Heavy metal rockers Metallica were an iron-clad pick. Same with guitarist Jeff Beck.
But rappers Run-DMC? I don’t think so. Hip-hop hall of fame, sure. Pop music hall of fame, sure. But not rock and roll.
The online debate over the definition of rock and roll for the purposes of the hall of fame has been pretty heated this year.
Rock and roll is like pornography, people know it when they see it, or hear it. Otherwise, it can be hard to describe.
Run-DMC was influenced by rock and roll and influenced some rockers who followed them. But they themselves were not rock and roll.
It’s clear that the voting members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame want to broaden the hall’s scope to include practically all popular music forms. At the same time, they’re ignoring some legitimate rockers. (Rush, KISS, Boston, Genesis and Yes, to name a few.)
At this point, there’s really no sense in arguing about who gets into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The hall has already established the precedent, especially when it chose Madonna last year.
It’s only a matter of time before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts ABBA and Britney Spears. Now they’re rockers.

Michael Jordan photo from the Chicago Tribune.

Metallica photo from Flickr site of James Parker Photography.

Chicago’s Circus Cats a hit with the kids

Parents of young children know that finding quality family entertainment can be a tall order. Most options are corporate productions like “Disney on Ice” or “Dora the Explorer Live.”
Today my wife and I took our kids to see the Circus Cats, which play to sold-out shows at the intimate Gorilla Tango Theater on the northwest side of Chicago. My kids – Christopher, almost 6, and Aerin, 3 – got a big kick out of it.
The show is the only U.S. act featuring trained housecats. They do tricks like raise flags, roll basketballs, ride on skateboards, walk tightropes, jump through hoops and even “play” musical instruments. The troupe includes the Acro-Cats, which do acrobatics, and the Rock Cats, a musical group with a cat that strums a guitar and others that bang drums and paw a synthesizer keyboard.
The hour-long show was very entertaining and kept my two easily-distracted kids interested. Tickets were $12 each and well worth it.
Chicago-based animal trainer Samantha Martin has been working with and training animals for more than 25 years. She operates a USDA-approved, fully licensed and insured, private zoo that houses over 30 different animal species. She has trained animals for movies, TV shows and commercials. She and her animals have appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and Animal Planet.
Check out the Web site for Samantha’s Amazing Animals.
Also watch videos of the Rock Cats here on YouTube.

'Battlestar Galactica' finale shows the value of ending a show in its prime

Good storytelling requires a good ending.
That’s something U.S. television shows are starting learn.
The updated “Battlestar Galactica” recently ended its four-season run on the Sci-Fi Channel with a very satisfying conclusion.
The final episode sewed up loose ends in the plot and answered the big questions. Plus, it had a rip-roaring space battle sequence and a twisty ending. It also had some heart-wrenching scenes as central characters said their good-byes. In other words, the show went out with a bang.
It’s the best show finale I’ve seen since “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” concluded in 2003 after seven seasons. (Of course, many other quality shows have had much-talked-about finales in recent years, such “The Sopranos” and “The Shield.” But I didn’t follow those shows.)
U.S. television series often drag on too long and die a slow death, like NBC’s “ER.” It aired its finale this month after 15 seasons and 331 episodes.
Medical comedy-drama “M*A*S*H” ran for 11 years. It was a great show for the first three. The Korean War, in which the show was set, only lasted for 3 years.
ABC’s “Lost” got its mojo back only after it set an end date and stated how many episodes were left. That gave the writers a mission.
Shows without an end date tend to meander and lose their way. Networks strive to stretch out a show to get enough episodes to make it suitable for syndication. In doing so, shows often lose their urgency and plot lines get needlessly drawn out.
I stopped watching NBC’s “The Office” this season because it had a been-there-done-that feel in its fifth season. It’s still a funny show, but I’ve gotten bored with it.
NBC needs to put an end date on that puppy.
How many years is that documentary crew supposed to be filming at paper company Dunder Mifflin before it actually produces something?
The original U.K. comedy series ran for two seasons and concluded with a two-hour special that showed characters reacting to the public response to the documentary about their office.
Thanks to the DVD business, studios and networks often work to provide finales to canceled shows. ABC’s “Life on Mars” is one example from this season. The show, a remake of a BBC time-travel drama of the same name, was cancelled in its first season.
The superior U.K. “Life on Mars” was always intended as a limited run show. It ran for two seasons and 16 episodes. Many British series are limited run, which makes their storytelling tight and fast paced.
If there was a DVD business when “Twin Peaks” was on the air, maybe that show wouldn’t have ended with the mother of all cliffhangers in 1991.

Newspaper death spiral: Could it be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Are the woes at major metropolitan newspapers partly the result of negative news coverage about them?
I’ve read some articles recently stating that newspaper ad sales have gotten a whole lot tougher with all the talk about newspapers downsizing, going out of business or switching to Web-only editions.
A similar phenomenon is happening with General Motors. GM's sales have tanked as talk of bankruptcy has swirled around the automaker.
Nobody wants to buy a car or get a newspaper subscription from a company they don’t think is going to be around much longer.
Of course, there’s no control set for both of these examples. And each has very complex problems to deal with.
Newspapers have faced declining circulation for decades. (Younger generations don’t read as much.) But things really got dire for papers last year when the economy turned south. Meanwhile, advertising dollars shifted more to the Internet, as overall ad spending started to shrink.
Some media companies brought problems on themselves by taking on too much debt (e.g. the Tribune Co.). Others were struggling No. 2s in their markets already (e.g. The Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Chicago Sun-Times) when recession kicked in. And many newspapers failed to address competition from the Web and to rein in costs.
Here’s a rundown of recent newspaper bad news:

• The New York Times Co. threatened Thursday to shut down the Boston Globe unless the newspaper’s unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions.


• The Richmond Times-Dispatch eliminated 31 open positions and laid off 59 employees companywide on April 2.


• The Sun-Times Media Group filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31. The Chicago Sun-Times parent is the fifth newspaper publisher in recent months to seek protection from creditors. It joins cross-town rival Chicago Tribune in bankruptcy reorganization.


• On March 26, Reuters reported that the Washington Post Co. and the New York Times Co. were embarking on new cost cuts in the face of dramatic declines in ad revenue.

'Layoff' the game: Now everyone can experience the fun of laying people off

The Great Recession has inspired some humorous online video games.
Tiltfactor Laboratory has created a casual game called “Layoff.” Modeled after puzzle games like Bejeweled, the object of “Layoff” is to line up three or more employees in similar jobs to lay them off. The more workers you pink slip, the more money you save the company. Only the bankers are exempt from firing.
When I played, I saved my company $3.75 billion before I had to hit the bank bailout button.
Each employee you lay off comes with a personal description like “single parent” or “has a daughter and a spouse with cancer.”
Other online games make light of the financial crisis. They include “The Bailout Game” and “Bush’s Billions.”
USA Today published an article on the timely games on March 18.

Twitter the butt of many April Fool’s Day jokes

Internet companies played a lot of April Fool’s Day jokes on users today, including quite a few at Twitter’s expense.
TechCrunch ran an article listing the dozens of Internet pranks by Amazon.com, Expedia, Yahoo, Microsoft and many others.
As usual, Google outdid them all with a range of pranks, including a 3D version of its Chrome browser, upside-down viewing on YouTube, and an artificial intelligence program that can reply to your e-mails for you (see earlier post). TechRadar.com compiled a list of the “10 best Google April Fool’s jokes” from the last decade.
But in another example of the backlash against the popularity of Twitter, other Internet firms mocked the microblogging service in their pranks.
The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper said it was ditching its print edition and Web site and going all Twitter. “Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters,” it said.
The Guardian said Twitter has “radically democratised news publishing, enabling anyone with an internet connection to tell the world when they are feeling sad, or thinking about having a cup of tea.”
Meanwhile, Montreal-based Control Yourself, creators of open-source microblogging site Identi.ca, announced that it had acquired San Francisco-based Twitter for an undisclosed sum.
A news item about the acquisition on Control Yourself’s Web site, quoted a director of Twitter expressing relief at the deal.

“WHEW!! That was a close one!”, said the unnamed exec between slurps of champagne at San Francisco’s toney Gold Club. “I was worried we were going to have to make a business out of that whole Twitter thing! I’m really glad it’s someone else’s problem now.”

AdvertiseSpace reported that Google planned to acquire Twitter for $635 million in stock.
“Following the acquisition, Twitter will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate, albeit, (borderline) neurotic community,” the press release says. “The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in tweeting, sharing daily drivel, spamming links and will offer … new opportunities for micro bloggers to distribute their boring lives to reach a vast new audience.”
Wired said Twitter planned to make money by selling a mobile microblogging device called the Wingman.
Razorfish announced the Tweet Doubler, an application allowing Twitter users to post 280-character messages.
Softonic touted a new service called Shouttr, a program that reads aloud tweets for you as they arrive.
U.K. Internet magazine Webuser reported that members of Twitter were going to be limited to one “tweet” per day to stop the Internet from reaching the saturation point.
Another news report revealed a secret Australian government plan to tax Twitter users 1 cent per tweet.
InfoWorld reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was adding Twitter to the national emergency response network.
Mr. Tweet will help you find your perfect date by analyzing your “tweetstream.”
And believe it or not, there were more Twitter-slamming pranks on April Fool’s Day. But I’ve run out of time and interest.

April Fool! Google has a sense of humor

Users of Google's Gmail service were alerted to an interesting new feature when they checked their e-mail this morning.

Google announced Gmail Autopilot, a service for busy people that responds to your personal e-mail for you. Gmail Autopilot mirrors your own communication style. You can adjust the settings to include more typos, use of emoticons and capitalization, etc.

It can even manage relationships for you, including sending break-up messages automatically.

If the sender and the recipient both have Gmail Autopilot turned on "two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each."

But Gmail users searching for a button to install the service were out of luck. There is none.

The "Google Terms" at the bottom of the page linked to a page revealing that it was all an April Fool's Day joke.