“Strange Days” debuts in Daytona Beach

If you live in Florida, joining a motorcycle club is as ordinary as joining a baseball team in Peoria, IL or a bowling league in Erie, PA. This is one of the things we do here for recreation, given the beautiful, mild, dry sunny weather, endless stretches of open roads, liberal biker laws, and more importantly, the seemingly out-of-place eclectic and adventuresome frontier-like culture. Florida is not just the place to retire. It is the place to let go, ride like the wind, and live your dreams, perhaps on the wheels of a Harley Davidson.

Each October and March, leather clad bikers from the far reaches of the world descend upon Florida to participate in two festivals: Octoberfest and Bike Week. Last year, actor/comedian Bob Saget joined the swarms of bikers in order to film the first episode of his new documentary series, Strange Days. The pilot will air tonight on A&E at 10 PM. (Channel 42 for those of you who subscribe to Brighthouse Cable in Central Florida.)

Rather than operate the vehicle himself, he hitches a ride in a sidecar with several members of the Iron Order Motorcycle Club, making a trip with them from Nashville, TN to Daytona Beach, FL.

I’ve read the reviews of Strange Days and a few of the writers seem to be rather confused, believing that the biker lifestyle must be outrageously humorous, perhaps composed of bug and gravel-eating backwoods rednecks. They are disappointed that Saget has instead discovered that bikers are a rather intellectual and ordinary bunch of civilized human beings, composed of both men and women, who care strongly for each other’s welfare, and are usually quite gainfully employed (it takes a lot of money to own and operate a Harley).

I watched a wonderful interview of Bob Saget on Conan last Wednesday on Nov. 24. Saget explained that the Strange Days series is actually an exploration of different lifestyles, some of which seemed strange on the surface, but turned out to be rather fun. His goal is to educate, rather than confirm stereotypes. The humor in this case is in the irony.

I hope we can all take the time to watch Strange Days premiere tonight. In the second episode, airing at 10:30 PM, Saget will go on the hunt for Sasquatch in Washington State. Now, that is strange!

Don’t blame Leno for low News ratings

The dust has finally settled at NBC and only two weeks ago, I found myself finally settling into a routine where I’d watch about five minutes of Jay Leno’s monologue at 10 o’clock before drifting off to sleep. About a year ago at this time, I’d be watching, you guessed it: News.

Local news stations blame Leno’s new time slot for their viewer ratings drop and want Leno moved – again. Ratings drops mean advertising sales drops. The local NBC affiliate stations imagine that if Leno is moved back to 11:35, viewers will once again choose to watch their local broadcast of the 10 o’clock news and all will once again be right with the world.

However, a lot has changed in only one year and I don’t think things will work out quite as these local affiliates hope.

More viewers now have cable

The first major change which occurred roughly one year ago was the switch from analog broadcast to digital broadcast. We viewers all had to suddenly go out and buy a special antenna or cable! Gasp! Many of the diehard “I’ll never get cable” viewers were suddenly out of gas. It was cable or nothing in some cases.

With cable comes all sorts of wonderful channels, including one of my favorites, 24-hour local news. At any time, day or night, if I want to know what is happening in my neck of the woods, I can turn to Channel 13 Brighthouse news (here in Orlando) and find out the weather forecast, traffic jams, crime, sports, and events. There is no longer any need for me to wait for the local 5 o’clock news, the 6 o’clock news, or even the 10 or 11 o’clock news. It’s covered when I want to see it, even at, say, 9 o’clock.

In addition, along with cable, we former cable-less viewers suddenly have any number of television schedule choices available from ESPN, Lifetime, Oxygen, the History Channel, TCM, MTV, FXM, and one of my favorites HGTV. That 10 o’clock news broadcast is looking less and less appealing. Perhaps a rerun of Three’s Company, the Jefferson’s, Friends or Seinfeld would get more viewers on these local stations.

Nothing I want to watch on the news

What else happened one year ago? The presidential election. Everyone was perched on the edges of their easy chairs to see who would win the election and how President Obama would handle his first few days in office – hence the reason I myself watched news every night at 10 o’clock.

The third reason I believe that no one is watching the news is our bad economy. With about 20 percent of the nation unemployed (including all of us who don’t receive unemployment), who wants to be further depressed by watching the news? Are you going to tell me that a big corporation is hiring down the street? I doubt it. You’re going to tell my more bad news – less jobs, higher unemployment, higher gas and food prices, more crime, car accidents, people fighting over healthcare, terrorist attacks, etc. Yep, this is just what I need to watch at 10 o’clock before I go to sleep – not!

Programming mis-match

Finally, look at the lineup on CW in the 7, 8, and 9 o’clock slots before the 10 o’clock news. One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Supernatural, 90210, Smallville and Melrose Place have strong followings among teens and young adults. These are not the type of viewers who want to follow up their evenings watching a local news broadcast.

Let’s pretend Leno is moved back to 11:35. If you think I’m watching him at 11:35, you’re mistaken. First off, on nights when I’m actually up that late, I’ll be watching Letterman, who I used to watch before Conan was moved into that slot. That’s right – I like Conan over Letterman. Leno ranks third with me and most of the kids in my generation.

At 10 o’clock, I’ll be watching South Park on the Comedy Channel, King of the Hill on Cartoon Network, Married with Children on TV Land, or an Orlando Magic game on FSN. If something is happening in the world, I’ll watch Nancy Grace on HLN or Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. What I won’t be watching is local news on CW, my local NBC affiliate here in Orlando.

However, at 7 o’clock in the morning on Saturday, I will be watching cartoons on CW. Why not air Winx and Spectacular Spiderman cartoons at 10 o’clock PM? Now, I would watch that!

Conan Completely Hilarious

For his debut as NBC’s Tonight Show’s newest host, the Conan O’Brien team pulled out all the stops to ensure that Conan’s premiere would be one of the funniest shows ever on television.

The fun began after a somber homage to NBC’s peacock logo, which marked this incredible landmark transition from host number 4, Jay Leno, to host number 5 Conan O’Brien in the 55 years since the show has aired in 1954.

Conan, nervously getting ready for his big debut, suddenly realizes that he forgot to check off one of his big To Do’s: Move to LA. Whoops! After failing to hail a cab, Conan runs west across the continent: through the streets of New York City, through Amish country, through a Chicago Cubs game on Wrigley Field, swims across the Mississippi River, and only stops for a short moment to visit a Victorian Doll Museum where a doll has real corn silk for hair (any idea where this museum is?), before finally arriving at the studio only to discover that he has left the keys on his desk back in Manhattan. Whew! No problem: I’ll just bulldoze down the door.

Most of the jokes were completely funny, and only a taco joke fell flat. (I have to imagine that this joke was an inside reference to Cosita Taco where the staffers like to order lunch). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was given an unexpected cameo, a film clip grabbed where she simply said, “hello,” which I have to imagine even her own staff was unaware would be aired.

Will Ferrell marked his first guest and serenaded the audience with a surprisingly good rendition of “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

Seattle based Pearl Jam closed the show in raucous style, typical of Conan’s edgier former time slot.

I have to admit, I really didn’t watch Leno much and instead watched Letterman on CBS. First, Leno’s opening monologue of political jokes seemed a bit too right wing. Second, the show sometimes seemed a bit… well, boring? However, I always changed the channel back to NBC to watch Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Now that I’m older and it’s harder for me to stay up late, it’s only fitting that O’Brien move into the 11:30 PM slot.

The new “Conan” website offers an extremely easy to read schedule. There are also numerous other features, blogs, photos, and recap videos (the volume could be louder) available for the high-tech generation viewer.

This is not my father’s “Tonight Show.” This Tonight Show belongs to my generation.

A TV addicts paradise – The NBC Experience Store

After appearing in the audience on The Today Show, we wandered over to the NBC Experience Store soon after it opened at 8 AM. The store is located to the north of West 49th Street on Rockefeller Plaza. Rockefeller Center is also a stop on the Subway where it exits into an underground mall. The Center also offers tours, ice skating (in winter), a restaurant, and art gallery.

All I can say is, “WOW!”

The store is huge at 20,000 square feet and is lit up with lights and neon. Greeting us were two extremely helpful sales people who knew the entire inventory by heart. Lauren and Bobby both gave us the tour of everything we can buy that’s “NBC TV," from past shows such as Friends, to current shows such as Psych, House, Law and Order, Friday Night Lights and The Biggest Loser. It even carries soon to be cancelled show collectibles from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (soon to be with Conan O'brien), Late Night with Conan O'brien (now with Jimmy Fallon), and Monk, which is sadly ending this summer.

I was on a hunt for spoons for a friend who collects them. Sadly, no spoons…

However, we were able to walk out with tons of other booty. A huge fan of The Office, my friend bought a Dunder Mifflin “World's Best Boss” mug for his boss and a Michael mug for himself. I bought a Dwight t-shirt (Drop Beats, not Bombs), Dunder Mifflin bag, and shot glass for a friend who was turning 21. I got a pretty NBC peacock pin for my mom, who collects pins. A few shirts and magnets made my shopping trip complete.

Only $130 dollars later, we were happy TV addicts! There was so much to buy, we could have easily spent much more.

The store also carries a huge assortment of candy.