Phil? Is that you?
Why do I love rural radio ads so damn much?
Its a silly question coming from someone born in Brooklyn that's lived in the New York metro area for almost 40 years now.
Once you leave the northwestern suburbs of New York City, things get fairly desolate fairly quickly. I know, its not the same kind of empty space one might find in Nebraska or Montana, but to a lifelong dweller in the suburban sprawl we call Long Island, the dead space between Deposit and Fishs Eddy can be kinda scary. The radio is often no help in remote areas, but once in a while you do accidentally find yourself confronted with a kind of retro-musical syzygy that can never occur within the strong gravity field of an urban area. One night in the early 90s while trying to stay awake along interstate whatever in the middle of nowhere, I heard Frankie Valli's Oh What a Night and Abba's Fernando a combined 6 times in less than 45 minutes. Its true, people. It happened.
Forget the music, though. Coverage is spotty at best, and aside from the above described flashback to 1975, nothing interesting is happening. That is, until you find out that there's a fish fry on Friday night at the First Methodist Church in Walnut Creek, or that Bower's Auto in Brunson is offering half price oil changes with the purchase of any brake job. There's comfort to be found in the fact that Chris Bernardo's Carpet Shack of DuBois, Pennsylvania (they say doo-BOYZ, by the way) is having a big sale.
I don't know exactly why this is comforting, but I my best guess is that rural radio ads, bad production values and all, are somehow life affirming. In the pitch darkness of an empty highway, with nothing but trees or mountains or cornfields around you, it hits you right in the ear. Proof of life at the local level. Someone is living a life here! People are born here. They grow up, they buy groceries and go to the movies here. They attend church services and wear out brakes and tires, and they die here, leaving the next generation to do it all over again. Its not at all depressing, though, as it means that even when it seems that there's nobody else on the planet but you, you're not alone. Somewhere, not too far away, a shopkeeper is locking up for the night, a family is sitting down to dinner, an 8-year-old boy is struggling with his homework, and a dog is barking at the neighbor's cat. They're out there, and that's comforting, even as each minute at 75 MPH pushes you back out into the void until the next pocket of life pops up on your radio dial.
I wonder if there are any good deals on shoes in Punxsutawney this week?
Broadband Battlefield? Befuddling.
There's a bit of buzz right now in my industry regarding the battle brewing between Verizon and Cablevision on Long Island. Verizon is testing its FIOS service in a few communities out here, and Cablevision has just announced that it will begin offering Optimum Online at speeds up to 50 Mbps download. Quite a few industry analysts are calling Long Island the first major LEC/MSO broadband battlefield.
Are we supposed to be thrilled by the prospect of having Verizon and Cablevision competing for our business? At first glance, it seems great, but lets take a closer look.
If you are a Cablevision customer in need of assistance with any of its TV, Internet or telephone services, you can call customer service. First, use your telephone keypad to enter your telephone number so Cablevision can identify you. Not so bad, right? Think again. Once you have entered your phone number, you are immediately dropped into a swirling quagmire of interactive voice response lunacy from which there is no escape. You can't hit zero to get an operator. You can't call back and hope that a live person picks up the phone. They wont. Instead, you MUST spend 10 minutes talking to Cablevision's automated troubleshooting system.
A robotic female voice will ask you questions, and will make you do all the usual front-line troubleshooting tasks. You have no choice. You WILL talk to her, and you will like it, dammit.
Make sure your TV is tuned to channel 3
Make sure your cable box is turned on
Try rebooting your cable modem (make sure you wait 90 seconds before turning it back on)
Be sure all your cordless phones are unplugged
Hop on one foot and hum the keyboard break from "All of My Love"
You've done all that and it still doesn't work? Now wait on hold for 15 minutes due to what appears to be a perpetual state of "higher than expected call volume". While you wait, listen to the recording try to sell you more Cablevision stuff.
When a carbon-based life form actually picks up your call, you start the whole process again as they must "confirm your name, address and phone number" before proceeding. Why the hell did I enter my phone number at the begining of the call, then? Wait? Did I do that? Its been so long now. Who was President when I started this call?
OK, all my information has been confirmed, so lets get on to solving my problem. WHAT? Why is this person asking me all the same questions that the robot chick voice forced me to answer 20 minutes ago? Now why is this person telling me to do the exact same things that the robot chick told me to do 10 minutes ago? Hello? Is this thing on?
Lets just say that if you drive past my house you'll see a shiny new satellite dish on my roof. Sure, the TV might fade out in bad weather and DirecTV doesn't offer any viable Internet service, but at least I got to take some swipe at Cablevision. Its the least I could do.
Shall we talk about Verizon - the company with guaranteed profits that takes a hit on Wall Street when it earns ONLY $4.4 billion in the third quarter? I could go on for another hour about the Verizon service and support nightmare, but why bother? We all know the stories.
The bottom line is that the FCC and the state public service commisions have rolled over and allowed both the telcos and cable companies to run completely roughshod over the Telecom Act of 1996. At this point, hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying over 10 years have helped the telcos to dismantle the Act and the cable companies to escape federal and state regulation. What was supposed to benefit consumers with a wide variety of competing service providers was nothing but a bonanza for lobbyists and small bump in the road for our friendly neighborhood duopolies.
Enormous companies that long ago ceased to be customer-friendly are now our only choices when it comes to telecommunication services.
Excuse me if I don't jump up and down with glee over the prospect of having a choice of exactly two service providers - Verizon and Cablevision.
Man, we're stupid.
I wasnt old enough to feel the real pain of the energy crisis of the early 70s, but I do remember sitting in our blue Dodge Dart with my father, waiting on line to get gas. It sucked for a 6-year-old, so I assume it pretty much sucked in general for the whole country.
Evidently, it seems that as a nation we're just not smart enough to have learned anything from that experience. 30 years later, and we've driven demand to the point that even the thought of a minor disruption in the flow of oil causes petroleum-based energy costs to skyrocket. What? There might be a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico next week? Quick, lets start charging 30% more for a barrel of oil!
There is no more important issue facing us right now than the cost of energy. Period. When energy costs more - everything costs more. Its simple math. Nobody would disagree with this, yet I can't find a single contractor on Long Island that advertises the design and installation of geothermal heating/cooling systems. Want to buy an electric car? No problem if you want to wait three months to get it and pay well over sticker price. Thinking of using the sun to power the applicances in your house? Great, but even with the rebates many utilities are offering on solar systems, the payback is often longer than 10 years!
Our national energy policy is such an abysmal failure that the average American really has no options for reducing his or her personal reliance on petroleum based energy sources. 30 years after odd/even days at the pump, you still can't buy an alternative fuel vehicle without jumping through hoops. I want to help - we all want to help, but our hands are tied. Something is seriously wrong here.
Someone smarter than me coined the phrase, "think globally, act locally". The solution to this problem does not lie with the President of the United States, nor does it lie in the Middle East or under hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge in Alaska. It lies with each of us. It is OUR responsibility to start acting locally to improve things, and that means taking a serious look at who we elect to our town councils and our county legislatures and our state assemblies.
Take 10 minutes to see what the candidates in your local elections say about energy policy. Support the candidates that are looking for local solutions to the problem. Can't find anyone? How about talking to your neighbors and putting together a plan to elect someone you know that has a good grasp of our energy problems? Ever thought about running for office yourself?
Today is election day, 2005. Its too late to influce today's elections, but with every LIPA bill I pay, my desire to make a difference grows. I can't possibly be alone, can I?
Ya gotta start somewhere, right?
Why a blog?
Because sometimes you just need to stand on a something tall (what the hell is a soapbox, anyway?) and proclaim to anyone within earshot they would be much better off if they would just listen to you.
So, with much less fanfare than I might generally prefer, here I go.
LISTEN UP, PEOPLE! If only for a few seconds, please refrain from whatever trivial activity you might be involved in, and turn your attention my way. I want you all to know that you would all be much better off if you would just listen to me.
Now, try to keep that in mind, and somewhere between personal hygiene tasks and reruns of The Simpsons, check back here to see what comes next.
