When I was a wee lad, PBS meant excellent television - shows like Elizabeth R, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Black Adder. Sure, PBS still has some of the best shows anywhere - Inspector Morse reruns anyone? But lately, particularly during fundraising, channels 13 and 21 have become downright terrifying.
Joe Queenan observed that Riverdance, a show based entirely on one dance step, was breathtakingly awful - not Andrew Lloyd Webber awful, but still pretty bad. Despite this fact, PBS is now running something called Leahy. It consists of that one Michael-Flatass-style dance move but this time executed by singing fiddlers. It sucks.
You want more? How about Yanni? Two fucking hours of Yanni. Yanni, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, is what Kenny G would have become had he taken piano instead of sax lessons. Yanni is Mandy Patinkin squared, Michael Bolton cubed. He makes the hideous John Tesh sound like Alfred Brendel. He has done as much damage to our civilization as Cher. He is Barry Manilow awful. He is Billy Joel awful. He's really that bad.
What else? How about Lawrence Welk reruns every goddamned Saturday? How about cheesy Austrian violinist Andre Rieu? The Blue Man Group? Oh yes, of course they've got that too! The Doo Wop Cavalcade? Coming right up!
As I write this, Andrea Bocelli is singing September Morn on WLIW 21. You can say lots of awful things about Neil Diamond - and I have said all of them - but he never made that song sound that schmaltzy.
Some people won't complain - they'll think they have to take Antiques Roadshow to get to American Masters; suffer through Tavis Smiley to get to Ric and Ken Burns; watch Neil Sedaka to make it to Frontline - but must it be so? Can't we have This Old House without The Carpenters? Richard Bucket without Robert Kiyosaki? The News Hour without The New Irish Tenors?
Please?
Yanni is to music as Bush is to wisdom. Brrrr.
Posted by: No Blood for Hubris | August 13, 2006 at 12:48 PM
You know don't you that a lot of this is blackmail? When they are pledging they take off all the shows you joined and sent money to get--and put on all this disgusting crap. the idea is that if you don't send money this is all you will get, not your favorite Mystery or Britcom...sheer blackmail, send money or die from ick overload. They know you watch them because you can't stand the junk on the rest of the channels and they have you over a barrel.
Posted by: Betsy | August 13, 2006 at 01:24 PM
Betsy - I realize that, to an extent, it is blackmail. But some of this crap comes when they're not fundraising, when they don't have to flood the airwaves with 3 Tenors, 3 More Tenors, or 3 More Awful Tenors. And you know what? I'd triple my contribution to avoid it.
Posted by: blogenfreude | August 13, 2006 at 01:42 PM
My piano teacher used to want me to play Yanni. It was basically arpeggios and various rolled chords, over and over and over, and over and over, with lots of pedal. This, to people who don't know ass about music, sounds very fancy and impressive.
Then you play Chopin and they get bored.
People are assholes.
Posted by: Tart | August 13, 2006 at 02:57 PM
Will you still respect me if I admit I love Lawrence Welk in short doses? It's the bubble thing, not to mention the nostalgia. The first song I ever learned by heart was Me and My Teddy Bear by the Lennon Sisters.
Posted by: Libby | August 13, 2006 at 03:58 PM
Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson was really quite wonderful. Yanni was not involved.
Posted by: The Heretik | August 13, 2006 at 05:03 PM
I'm with Libby, Nothing wrong with a little wholesome polka music. Plus there is the nostaligia factor as well, I used to watch it with my parents when I was a kid and they were both still alive.
Posted by: LewScannon | August 13, 2006 at 07:15 PM
PBS came off my radar a long time ago. Just didn't have the stuff they used to
Posted by: pissed off patricia | August 14, 2006 at 03:16 AM
The only hope for PBS is that the boomer generation will die off and take its (our) narcissism with it (us). Which is worse, PBS insisting on believing that its viewers give a shit about the British royal family, or PBS being right that its viewers really do give said shit about said family? But as long as there are aging woulda-been campus radicals driving through Mill Valley or Silver Springs in their Volvo wagons anesthetizing what's left of their consciences with an annual donation to their local Antiques Roadshow outlet ("This whipping post has been in the family for, oh, I don't know, several generations and looks so nice next to this lawn jockey"), you can finish this damn sentence yourself.
Posted by: Tirebiter in Sector R | August 14, 2006 at 07:38 AM
I'm with Libby, Nothing wrong with a little wholesome polka music.
It's Lawrence Welk's stuff that's vile ... the sight of guys in white sweaters and loafers opening their mouths to sing makes me freeze in terror.
Posted by: blogenfreude | August 14, 2006 at 08:13 AM
Sorry, Freude, to one-up you, but....Barry Farber, hatemonger and incipient Alzheimer's patient extraordinaire, had a program on Aug 5 called "Learn Any Language"...
Posted by: actor212 | August 14, 2006 at 01:23 PM
How can you not be entertained by Michael Flatley? He's a one man, godamn freakshow. Just gimme my Frontline and Are You Being Served and the labotomized boomers can have the rest.
Posted by: DrPuma | August 14, 2006 at 02:07 PM
I'm somewhere far away and safe from PBS, and sooo grateful for that fact. Your description of Yanni's music was excellent. I hate everything else you mentioned, so although I have never heard his music...I intend to ensure that I remain in ignorance. Thanks for the warning :)
Posted by: Dreamwalker | August 15, 2006 at 01:53 PM
i use pbs mainly for the news hours but i also enjoy the living history stuff of frontier house and the others. i loved it on texas ranch house when the orange county republican asshole boss man took his "i don't negotiate with terrorists" to the local comanches. . .history detectives can be interesting sometimes. while i used to be a big fan (and appeared four times as a sideman) of austin city limits i now check it carefully. same with american masters sometimes i will start with the clicker still in my hand in case it sux. i don't even bother with pledge drive time. my taste just doesn't wrap around everyone else's i guess. yanni not only plays shitty music he's an asshole to work with.
Posted by: The Minstrel Boy | August 16, 2006 at 09:03 AM
YANNI should be on the TSA Banned List...torture....ouch....
Posted by: enigma4ever | August 16, 2006 at 10:49 AM
I'm with you on the essential crappiness and mediocrity of PBS pledge drive offerings, but I used to take Irish Step Dancing, as did my daughter, and there is definitely more than one step. The first time I saw Riverdance, I was blown away - I felt emotional at the dancing and the music. That doesn't mean I want to see it every three months, or any of the spin-offs, either. But Irish dance is a complex art form that takes years to master, so I must disagree with your "one step" statement.
Posted by: maurinsky | August 21, 2006 at 11:15 AM
It's true that it takes years to master, but that's only because its practitioners are caucasian.
Posted by: clarke | October 17, 2006 at 04:43 PM
Gute Arbeit hier! Gute Inhalte.
Posted by: fussball | March 02, 2009 at 03:19 AM