Morning TV (or, "Rumors of my demise have been (somewhat) exaggerated")

I too must apologize for my long respite from the blog. My side of the ledger was starting to look more neglected than my front yard.

There are plenty of things that I have been meaning to write about lately. Instant replay in baseball. The baseball playoffs. My ode to liner notes. Rod Stewart.

But for now, this will be something of a quick hitter, as I just finished preparing for one trial and am now beginning to prepare for one next week. (And by quick hitter, I do not mean to imply that this is short- rather, unplanned.)

I have had the hardest time finding good background noise for my shower and shave. A couple of years ago, I tried playing the radio, starting with Dave FM. Every morning, The Police, The Eagles, Bob Marley, U2. Usually in that order. Sometimes, to trip me up, they would play Sting solo instead of The Police. I couldn't take it anymore. So finally, I got so furious that I called to complain about their lack of variety. In my phone call, I also noted to them the irony of their limited playlist, in light of their variety-trumpeting ad campaign. The intern who fielded my phone call feigned ignorance.

99X had a mess of a morning show, that had the unfortunate double-whammy of being crass and boring. There was no way I was going to listen to the regular guys. And try as I might to seem enlightened, NPR was encouraging me to go back to sleep more than it was serving as a springboard into a productive day.

Then, I had cable installed. But, as discussed in a previous post, I have grown disgusted with SportsCenter. And Mike and Mike were slowly driving me into a homicidal rage every day. (They have the unfortunate double whammy of being unfunny and stupid.)

Now, I have settled on VH1/MTV. Not bad.

For one, they actually show videos that time of day. And not too many commercials, either.

For another, the videos are almost universally entertaining. It must be a great time to be twelve years old. The videos those kids have are way better than the faux-performance videos they showed back when I actually watched MTV.

I would have loved Nickelback's "Rock Star" back in the day- it is visually compelling and superficially clever. Even now, I enjoy the spot-the-cameo game it inspires.

12 year old Babar would have also loved the Maroon 5 video for "Wake Up Call." It has hot women, a nearly-amusing "story line", and gun violence- all you need in a good video, if you ask me. And as an aside, the song is good. I defy you not to have it stuck in your head after you hear it. When I confessed this to my girlfriend, she noted that I reluctantly said the same thing about the first single from this Maroon 5 album. She asked me if I was going to buy the album. I told her that I may not have a choice.

And 12 year old Babar would have been freaking enamored of the "AYO Technology" video with 50 cent, Justin Timberlake, and scores of scantily clad ladies. In fact, I probably would have recorded it for frequent viewing. And again, what's more, it is a good song.

Throw in an aggressive new offering from the Foo Fighters, that irrepressibly catchy song from Feist (the first ever VH1 You Oughta Know artist that I didn't want to bludgeon to death with a mic stand), and a countrified Bon Jovi, and you have some good morning TV.

The only pimple on the ass of VH1: Avrile Lavigne. Her new song sucks hard. And the video is crappy-weepy. If her voice had even a hint of twang, this video would be a staple on CMT (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Anyhow, music videos are where it's at in the morning. I encourage you all to reawaken your inner pre-teen as you reawaken yourself every morning.