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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us April 29, 2005 Commentary When we will run out of canned ’tude? Is the rebellion over yet? Can we go back to more productive things? Rob Asghar “Jack,” which has been called “the latest radio craze” by the Buffalo News, is the new musical format that is America’s latest attempt at feigned anarchy. It has come to L.A., and I am none too pleased. Do you remember Babu from Seinfeld? He was the hapless Pakistani entrepreneur who took a chance on a seemingly cursed restaurant location, one that meted out financial ruin to anyone who moved in. 93.1 is that same cursed habitat on the L.A. FM radio dial. When a classic rock format was the most recent tenant to bite the dust recently, L.A. got its own “Jack” station as the replacement tenant, with Allman Brother songs followed by Madonna, followed in turn by Kenny Loggins or whatever else seems most ridiculously random. The musical approach is less the aggravation for me, as “cute” as it is; what grates is the studied rebellious tone. It is a low-rent, low-overhead affair, without deejays or news, only with a prerecorded male voice with a canned attitude. “This is Jack FM,” sniffs the rebellious robot in a devil-may-care monotone that evokes the cyber-host of the “You Don’t Know Jack” CD-Rom trivia game of a few years ago. “We play what we want here at Jack…. Want a playlist of our songs? Pick up a pen and start writing.” How precious: Another case of corporations trying to make money by antagonizing their customers. The canned voice further burnishes its “why should I care” persona by contending that its musical ecumenicism isn’t due to boldness but merely due to its lack of focus. The gods of marketing have apparently decided the public favors ADD over courage. This shrewd, calculated indifference is all too common lately. The salesgirl in the Nordstrom men’s clothing section insists to me that casual shirts and business-casual shirts alike are intended to be worn untucked, even if they do have long tails. In other words, you must look like a pig: If you tuck that shirt in, we will all laugh at you. This tendency toward strategic sloppiness has been a progressive matter. Some years ago, designers and clothes manufacturers realized that they could make more money by pre-ripping jeans and pre-wrinkling shirts. Green and brown dye soon came along to give shirts the illusion of grass and mud stains. The untucking of shirts was the obvious next step. And now increasingly we see cheap-looking t-shirts with sassy, borderline-obscene slogans. Decorum has no place to run, no place to hide anymore. Even the personalities on stodgy radio newscasts and sober television newscasts now need to flash a ‘tude in a feigned spontaneity. It is ironic that all this reflects our hunger for authenticity within an artificial society. We have now ended up with sterile, canned authenticity—mechanical approximations of the real deal. Typically, it confuses rudeness and slovenliness with authenticity; and it is far more needy and self-seeking than it lets on. The “Playing-what-we-want” Jack radio format reveals the lie soon enough. The L.A. Jack station’s program director, Kevin Weatherly, was recently quoted in the Orange County Register as saying, “The beauty of playing what we want gives us the flexibility and freedom to kind of ebb and flow like a contemporary radio station…. We’ve committed to stay in tune with the listener and getting their feedback and customize the format for Los Angeles.” What? You’re playing what you want but you’re adjusting it based on what the listeners want? Ah, the anarchist is really a people-pleaser. The pendulum will swing soon enough, and I intend to use this to my advantage. I intend to be a trendsetter for once in my life, so I am considering tucking my patterned Gap shirt into my pants, in hopes of being able to say that I looked kempt when looking kempt was uncool. I will make an effort to not act disinterested in my life or in yours. I will work on being civil to strangers. This has to come back into fashion someday. Doesn’t it? Rob Asghar is an editor and commentator who has been published in more than 30 newspapers around the country. His commentary will become nationally syndicated with Creator’s Syndicate starting in May. Asghar is a Pakistani-American who writes about a variety of topics including America’s role in the Middle East. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Free Musick Downloads Slippers Women's & Men's Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks heloc Calenders 2005 Calender 2005 Accelerate Weightloss Products Memory Foam Mattress tcg student loan consolidation home equity loans teleconferencing W2 Forms cortisol weight loss Tatoos website design & marketing student loans African Safari Conference Calls - $50/Month Security Systems diamonds Currancy Exchange Online Casinos Community Student Loans Tatoo Poker Games Homeschooling Click Here .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams