Monthly Archives: December 2022

Posted on by

I Want My MTV (and other music based shows)

Remember that very popular track by Dire Straits? (listening to it as I type this post, as a matter of fact, it’s on repeat). I grew up watching MTV religiously, as well as BET’s Video Soul, VH1, and other similar music video shows broadcasted all day and into the late night. It was an era when such shows bridged the hit songs you heard on commercial radio with their video debuts that we were all very excited to see. This videos, many times, were everything from conceptual works of art to live performances of the singer and/or band that performed the song. There was a certain excitement brought by the host of the show segment that sometimes had you on the edge of your seat clamoring for this hot debut. As a bonus, your host would actually interview the artist or band. Here’s a favorite video of mine – Donnie Simpson on Video Soul interviewing The Time, Pt 1. Donnie Simpson on Video Soul interviewing The Time, Pt 1.

This video shows not only brought the visual aspects to the records we loved, right into your living room, so to speak, but gave the records an entirely different dimension of the song, but there were also the live music shows prior to the “MTV era”. I was a musician growing up in the 70s, picking up the guitar in 1977 and having these following shows on TV were paramount to my early development and growth as a guitarist:

  • Soul Train
  • Soul Alive (the local NYC Soul Train copycat)
  • Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert (DKRC)
  • Midnight Special

All these shows brought the live artist/band concert vibe, again, into your living room. I can remember watching both DKRC and Midnight Special well into 1am when they were finishing up. What I liked about both those programs were that they featured many rock acts that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise had either show not existed. After some time, both DKRC and Midnight Special began to feature more R&B/funk acts but it was Soul Train and Soul Alive that held the trophy for featuring R&B/SouL/Funk and disco acts regularly. It was actually Soul Train that made me want to become a guitarist.

Fast forwarding to today, it’s evident that YouTube killed the MTV/live music show era. The 24/7 format is obviously convenient but many things have changed along the way, including the charm that inhabited that same era. It was definitely a fine time of musical and cultural development across the board.

Oceans of rhythm,

Fresh

Posted on by

Where on earth…have you been?

Hello…

I hope this post finds you well. Right now, I’m finding myself wanted some hot chocolate because my daily water intake is that of 32 ounces of being ice cold, so I definitely need to warm up (even with this hoodie on).

The other day I was thinking about all the places I’ve been able to visit on this earth and there are many more I’d like to visit in my time allowed here.

I was born and raised in the US, New Jersey to be exact. I started traveling to an early ag, many times, to the island of Jamaica, for reasons you can probably guess. At that same time frame, but for not as often, I also traveled to Guyana. In my younger years, those were the two places outside of my homeland, that my feet were planted in. As I got older, there were many states in North America that I frequented, they are as follows:

  • New York
  • Connecticut (where I attended college)
  • Florida
  • Massachusetts
  • North Carolina
  • California (mainly for business travel)
  • Texas
  • Illinois
  • Virginia
  • Marlyand
  • District of Columbia
  • Rhode Island
  • New Mexico

I think that sums it up. After starting my career, I spent a fair amount of time travel back and forth to Canada, as I was in a long distance relationship with a woman who worked in Toronto. Working for Continental Airlines, at the time, made it quite convenient (and cheap to fly SA), so no complaints there. I even contemplated moving there at one point.

Later on, I spent my honeymoon in Aruba for a week and years later was afforded to travel to Guam on business and that trip also afforded me to visit Japan and Hawaii, so I’m glad I was able to add those to my list of places I got to trod. The Guam trip is quite memorable. Alas, those places round out the list of places my feet trod. There are still many places I’d like to visit on vacation but I haven’t given it much thought as to where the next stop would be. Maybe, one day I will.

Hasta…

Fresh!

Posted on by

AV (Autonomous Vehicles) – A Threat to US security??

Good day all, I hope you’re well.

Today, Wednesday, was my first day back to the office this week, as I usually work from home on Monday and Tuesday. The morning commute (and sometimes the evening commute) generally means one thing – catching up on listening to my favorite podcasts. This morning, I listened to a very interesting episode of Wired Security, which talked about the use of autonomous vehicles from China in the US and how they can pose a threat to national (cyber) security. Should you want to read the story and listen to the podcast, you can find both here.

One thing rang out to me in this article – the potential use of Chinese AVs as “cameras” that could record and send data back to China that relates to national infrastructure that can be studied to develop future cybersecurity attacks on it. I never gave that any thought until today. It seems that the US has never given any thought to this until recently, after allowing said automobiles to be used here. As a related note, the ubiquitous use of surveillance tech still freaks me out, especially putting in my home address and seeing different versions of my property taken by what ever Google camera cars roam past unbeknownst to me. The article also talks about, on the other hand, Chinese restrictions on using Telsa in its country.

The US has already banned the use of Huawei products here for security reasons. I wonder if they will follow suit in this case.

I like to mildly follow the development of AV technology, not only with Tesla but via what Waymo, Einride (for shipping), Cruise, and other manufacturers are doing. On a smaller scale, I’ve yet to see any food delivery bots roaming around, but a friend of mine tells me he’s seen them used on the campus of George Mason University.

I think this topic may turn into a future episode for my Tech Times podcast.

Be well…

Fresh