Wednesday, 11/30

Wow. If you thought politics was tearing this country apart, I've got news for you. That's NOTHING compared to Christmas music!

After asking yesterday about the appropriate time to start playing holiday tunes, I have to admit that I was a little surprised over the differences in the notes readers sent me. Much like the political views of American citizens, it seems like there is no longer a middle ground, a moderate center. You're either for one side or the other, and there's no hope for compromise.

Who knew?

I received a bunch of notes from nice people who informed me that we should already be playing Christmas music. In fact, one person said she started listening to it back in September, and was kind of disappointed we didn't start playing it back then. I also received a bunch of notes from people who were thankful we haven't started playing it yet. In fact, two of the people in that group said they wouldn't mind if we didn't play ANY Christmas music at all, even on the holiday itself.

Even I think that's a little too excessive!

What surprised me the most is that I didn't get any notes from people in the middle. I didn't get one note from a person who thought this week or next week were good. And while this certainly wasn't a scientific poll, it shocked me that there wasn't one person who was more moderate in their Christmas music views, believing that a few weeks of the tunes was an acceptable alternative. According to the responses I received, you're either in favor of months of the stuff or none of it at all.

Or, put in political parlance, you're either with us or you're against us.

Now, like I said, this wasn't a scientific survey. Maybe there really is a vast “middle” group of people out there who are more “moderate” in their views on when to play Christmas music. But if so, I didn't hear from them. As a country, we've become so divided over a variety of issues that maybe, just maybe, those very strong and very rigid views have seeped over in to world of holiday tunes. I'd hope not. I'd like to think that we still have SOME common ground. But these days, I'm not taking anything like that for granted.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. I'm taking all of them and averaging them together into that mythical “common ground”. We'll start playing some Christmas music this weekend. Not a lot, but just enough to remind you that the holiday is soon on its way. Hopefully, we'll be able to squeeze into a Goldilocks zone that may or may not be there.

Ho ho ho, I guess!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 11/29

How soon is too soon?

I’ve received a couple of calls and notes from people recently, asking when we’re gonna start playing Christmas music. Usually, we start playing the songs a week or two after Thanksgiving, increasing the frequency as the holiday approaches, but that’s not set in stone.

I guess my question to you guys is--should we play it sooner rather than later, and if we do start playing them sooner, should we be playing them more often rather than less often?

I personally am kind of leery of doing it. I mean, stores are filled with holiday merchandise beginning the day after Halloween, and TV is filled with holiday commercials beginning the day after Halloween. Isn’t that a little TOO much TOO soon? Still, all those commercials and all those sales must start the day after Halloween for a reason. Does that mean people these days (or at least retailers) start getting into the holiday mood a full two months before the actual holiday? Not only that, but there are radio stations all around the country that actually go all Christmas music, all the time, beginning the day after Halloween, and you know what? They score higher ratings with holiday music than they do playing “normal” music.

To me, spending an entire two months on the holiday tends to take away from the “specialness” (if that’s a word) of the season. I mean, if you’ve listened to “Jingle Bells” or looked at a Christmas tree for two straight months, it’s not something out of the ordinary, and it’s not special when the holiday actually arrives. It’s just an everyday part of your life--for one sixth of the year.

That, however, is just me. So here’s another assignment for you as November starts winding down. Give it some thought, and then share your opinion with me—should we start playing holiday music now or should we wait for another week? If we do start playing it, should we be playing it more than once or twice a day? If so, how often is enough? After all, I don’t program this station for me. . .I program it for you. That's why we keep saying it's “Radio Put Together By You”
.

So give it a little thought, and let me know!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 11/28

Have you started to eat again yet?

It’s funny, but every year after Thanksgiving dinner I always swear that I’m never gonna eat another morsel of food again, for as long as I live. You may know someone like that, as well. And if that someone is like me, the promise lasts until, oh, the morning after Thanksgiving, when all of a sudden and for no reason you find yourself poking around your refrigerator and coming across a slab of leftover turkey, a slab that calls out to you like a Lorelei beckoning an unsuspecting sailor. And like that Lorelei, it lures you in without you even realizing it, until it dawns upon you that you just consumed two sandwiches after swearing off food forever.

Or is that just me?

Unfortunately, and through no fault of my own, I don’t know that I’m gonna be able to return to a normal eating schedule any time soon. The reason? The whole upcoming month, sadly. I have to eat open house cookies and birthday stuff and massive amounts of Greek bake sale food this upcoming week, and then probably start making Christmas cookies the week or two after that, Christmas dinner the week after THAT, and then end the holidays by exploding before everyone’s eyes while trying to hold down whatever I end up eating on New Year’s Day.

At least, that’s the plan for the next month. I’ll let you know if those plans change.

******

Speaking of open house cookies this weekend, I'm referring to the Peter White Open House & Winter Wonderland walk on Saturday. One of the reasons I'm going is that Loraine's putting her Gold Star tree up again this year.

It's the tree she stuck together honoring the 244 men & women from Marquette County who died during World War II, a tree that we've put up the past few years but, because neither of us had the time, was put up last year. This year, though, because there's actually an extra week between Thanksgiving and Christmas (thank you calendar!) we're making an effort to get it up.

So if you're at the library Saturday between 3 and 5 for the open house, make sure you check out Loraine's tree. I have to put the tree itself up tomorrow; once I do, I'll let you know exactly where it's located.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 11/25

So...you survive the holiday? Survive shopping this morning? Finally looking for a few minutes with nothing to do and no one demanding your attention?

Then you've come to the right place.

I myself had a great time with family, and now I'm looking to a day at work when I'm the only one there. I often seem to get twice as much crap done on days like today, so I'm hoping that I make a dent in the pile of stuff sitting on my floor. Wish me luck!

Now, onto another piece of business. If you're like most people, you have about 22 pounds of leftover turkey in your fridge right now. Well, I have a request from someone to reprint a (rather) sarcastic list I came up with a couple of years about everything you could make out of those 22 pounds leftover turkey. So here it is--

Turkey chili

Turkey tacos

Turkey pot pies

Turkey pasties

Turkey casserole

Turkey croquets

Turkey canapés

Turkey jerky

Turkey latte

Turkey nog

Turkey & cranberry smoothies

Turkey bread

Turkey granola

German turkey cake

Turkey & sweet potato jam

Home-made turkey Pop Tarts

And. . .frozen turkey doorstops.

Hopefully, you won’t have so much leftover turkey that you make it to the bottom of this list, but if you indeed have those 22 pounds, there are a few suggestions.

Have a great weekend. Hopefully, by the time it's over, you'll be turkey-free!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 11/23

With apologies to Matchbox Twenty, I’ve seen signs of people who aren’t unwell, but may be just a little crazy!

It started when I went running this morning. On Wednesdays, I usually run up & down the hills of downtown Marquette for 40 or 45 minutes. It’s a great workout, and I get to use the city as my own personal jungle gym, which is kinda cool, too. It was only when I started running down the first hill that I noticed the snow and ice from this past weekend on the sidewalks, and then heard Loraine’s voice in my head saying, and I quote, “Are you sure you want to do this”?

As happens quite often, she was right (or at least the voice in my head was right), so I ran back up a hill and made my way through the city to the Fit Strip, where I figured I’d do a couple of laps on the trail. Like the sidewalks, there was a little snow on the trail, but it wouldn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it would if I fell on a concrete sidewalk.

Take that as gospel from someone who’s done both.

Anyway, about halfway around the first lap I noticed something in front of me on the trail. Like I said, the trail was covered with an icy dusting of snow--no more than half an inch--but in front of me on the trail I noticed a set of cross country ski tracks. That’s right; there were just a few flakes of snow on the ground, and someone wanted to ski on them.

I can’t say I’m surprised; after all, hardcore cross-country skiers rank just below hardcore mountain bikers in their desire to be out on the trails. And I don’t blame them. As I’ve said before, cross country skiing is the one thing that keeps me sane during an Upper Michigan winter. But to go out skiing on a rocky trail covered to a depth of five or six flakes of snow?

That takes a special kind of hardcore. In fact, that might even take a special kind of crazy. I mean, I love skiing, but I always wait until there’s enough snow to groom a nice set of tracks. After all, while I love skiing, I’m probably not good enough to ski on anything less, and if I heard Loraine’s voice in my head while running down an icy hill, I can just imagine what she’s say if I tried skiing on dirt powdered with snow.

But that’s just me. There are some people out there who are good enough on their skis and who have extra sets of equipment to allow them to try gliding along the snow-covered dirt. And good for them. If I was that special kind of crazy, I’d probably try it myself. But as we all know, my special kind of crazy (sadly) doesn’t extend to feats of athleticism. So I guess I won’t be joining anyone who skis the Fit Strip the next time it’s covered by five flakes of snow.

If nothing else, I’m sure Loraine’s voice in my head would approve of that.

****

Make sure you have yourself a great Thanksgiving. There won't be one of these tomorrow, but I'll have something (kinda) new for Friday. I'll be on the air then, too, if you're bored out of your mind and/or pooped out from shopping. See you then!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 11/22

So...what is a boy to do?

Those of you who've been reading these for years know that one of my favorite TV shows of all time is “The Gilmore Girls”. Being a fan of incredible writing, I devoured the series when it was first on the air, and will still pop in a DVD now and then when the need to cleanse my creative palette arises. When the news broke earlier this year that a 4-movie revival of the series was being put together by Netflix—with the entire cast and creative team signing up—it sounded like it was heaven on Earth. And in four days, this Friday, when all four films are released at midnight, I'm sure it will be.

Only I won't know. Because I don't have a Netflix subscription.

I've been going back and forth on this for a while now. Do I pay for a subscription just to watch four films along with the rest of the world? Do I wait for them to come out on download or Blu-Ray, assuming they ever come out on download or Blu-Ray? If I wait for them to come out on a non-Netflix carrier, will I have been subjected to so many spoilers that it might ruin my viewing experience? And even if I do get a Netflix subscription just to watch the four films, I have no idea when I'd get the time to actually watch them, which means they might be spoiled by the time I got around to them, thereby rendering my new subscription kind of useless, anyway.

See what I'm dealing with here?

I know; it's one of the most amazing first-world problems in the history of first-world problems. And I'm pretty sure that I'm making a bigger deal out of it that anyone has a right to. But I liked the first six seasons of the show. Like most fans, I felt cheated by the seventh season, when the original creative team behind the series was kicked out. And now, they have the chance to finish the show the way they wanted to finish it with, among other things, an almost-mythical “final four words” that's supposed to wrap up the show in one nice tidy little bow. While I doubt the “final four words” will actually live up to the almost decade of hype (I don't think anything could live up to that much hype), it'd be nice to see how it does end around the same time as the rest of the world, kind of like you would've if the show was still on regular TV.

But it's not. It's a whole new media world out there, and at least in this instance it looks like I'm being left a little behind.

Like I said, I have no idea how or when I'm gonna be able to watch the movies. Heck, I have no idea when I'd actually have the seven or eight hours free to check 'em out, even if I had access to them. And I'm guessing I'm not gonna be able to avoid spoilers, either. So Friday, like the rest of the world, I'm guessing I'll find out everything I even needed to know about the revival of the show, even if I don't want to.

Hopefully, though, one day soon I'll be able to check it out for myself. I'll just have to decide if it's sooner (on Netflix) rather than later (any other way).

(jim@wmqt.com), well aware that if this is the only problem in my life that I am indeed living a VERY good life!

Monday, 11/21

Well. It looks as if I'll be busy next summer.

We've figured out the programming schedule for the Marquette Regional History Center for 2017, and it looks like I'm doing three programs. There's nothing unusual about that; after all, I did four this year. What's unusual is that the three I'm doing are all during the summer, and they're all outdoors.

Good thing I like fresh air, huh?

I'm not quite sure how things worked out that way, but they did. For the first time since I started doing History Center programs—and I did the first one when they started doing them back in 2005 (2005??!!??)--I don't get to be indoors. That wasn't the plan; I went into the meeting with the idea that at least one of them would be indoors. But as it turns out, I'm the outside guy this year. I guess it's not THAT out of the ordinary, when you consider the amount of walking tours I do, but it just struck me as strange.

Almost as strange as the fact that I'm doing the three of them in a two and a half month span.

The first one, in June, should be easy, as it's just a re-do of the bike path riding tour I did earlier this year. Turnout was so good for the original, and demand seems to be high for it again, so that one should be no problem at all.

The second one, the July tour, has an interesting genesis. When we went into the meeting someone had suggested a walking tour of the old docks of Marquette, and had written on their proposal “perhaps Jim Koski could do it”. Well, guess what everyone thought was a good idea? Yup; so that's the second summer tour I'm doing. That one shouldn't be too hard, either. During various waterfront and neighborhood tours I've told enough stories that I should be able to put that tour together in my sleep.

Besides, the dock area was where all the seedy people, my favorites in Marquette history, hung out. Hooker, bootlegger, and killer stories, here we come!

The final show is one I've wanted to do for a long time. It basically involves me showing some amazing pictures I've come across during my research into other programs but have never been able to use. I figured I would tell the stories behind them, or about what was going on in the area around the time they were taken. I had always envisioned it as an inside show; after all, you need to show the pictures on something, right? But since everyone seems enamored with the outdoor, late night shows I've done, it was decided in that late one August Friday we'd do the show the same way I did the “bar” show I did this year, projecting the pictures on the side of the History Center. I was even told to make it PG-13 or worse, if I wanted.

I'm thinking that, just maybe, they shouldn't have suggested THAT as part of the show.

8-)

So that's what I'm doing next summer. I'm actually gonna start working on them soon, so I don't have to waste my entire summer doing research. Because, while I don't mind doing outdoor shows during the summer, I certainly don't wanna be indoors trying to find out what I need to find out. As we all know, summers around here are fleeting enough as it is!

***

And before I go, I have to wish a “Happy Birthday” to my absolutely most favoriteist person in the whole wide world! That's right; the Costello to my Abbott, the Livingstone to my Stanley, the ying to my yang, is celebrating her big day today! So Happy Birthday, Loraine. Enjoy your day off, enjoy your treats, and above all, revel in the awesome-ness that is you on your birthday!!!!!!!!

Love,

(jim@wmqt.com)