Less than classic

I recently attended a concert of one of my favorite bands, a group that has been recording together for more than 30 years. It was a fine time, as usual, but the show serves here as an introduction to a relatively easy target: classic rock formats in radio.

The concert was co-sponsored by the local classic rock station. OK, nice to have it help out. The show featured the usual mix of new songs off the latest CD and the greatest hits, more or less. After the show, when we got in the car for the drive home, we turned on the radio for the traditional "concert replay." Sure enough, it was there.

But a funny thing happened during that replay. Nothing that was recorded after the mid-1980's was included. It was almost as if nothing musically had happened in the past two decades. Since the band played nine songs off the new CD, you might guess correctly that this shortened the concert replay considerably.

It's pretty typical of classic rock stations, which aren't quite conservative enough for Mitt Romney's tastes. There's never any risks taken on these stations. You almost never hear a song that you haven't heard a few thousand times before. It's the same old/same old, hour after hour. It won't make you turn the dial with an objectionable song, but it won't lure you in to hear something new either.

Now, this goes against a long tradition of rock music's roots, which challenge conventional thinking and expanded horizons. But I'm not naive enough to think that something like that will happen on stations anxious for any sort of ratings. Heck, there's money involved here.

Still, would it kill this station to play new music from bands they are playing anyway? Would it be better to play "Lonesome Days" or "Open All Night" by Bruce Springsteen once in a while, rather than "Born to Run" for the 90th time this month? Maybe "Magnification" from Yes rather than "Roundabout"? "We Got a Hit" by the Who instead of "Won't Get Fooled Again"?

Classic rock is comforting in big cities when traveling, because at least it's familiar and usually doesn't require a major search when navigating Interstates. Otherwise, I prefer to take the time to find something a little more adventurous.

Inventive excuses

I used to think that no vacation was complete without a visit to the Inventors' Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. OK, that's an overstatement. I went some years ago. It's a beautiful building, but there wasn't a great deal of material on inventions there. The honorees were listed on a series of walls with pictures and lengthy captions. Then in the basement came a few exhibits, mostly for children. The concept is/was interesting, although obviously needed some time and work.

Some months ago, I discovered that a distant relative (to be specific, my mother's cousin's grandfather, if you are scoring at home) had been inducted into the Inventors' Hall of Fame in 2006. After contacting the Hall, I was told that no living relative of Lloyd Espenschied -- who helped invent coaxial cable -- had attended the ceremony.

So when the opportunity came to visit Akron on my vacation, I figured it would be a quick and easy stop. I even got back in touch with Lloyd's granddaughter, and figured I could send her a picture of the display.

I don't know if you could label the trip a disaster, but it was pretty useless.

I asked the person at the admission desk for the Hall employee who had written me; she never heard of her but was willing to sell me tickets to get in. OK. I walked the length of the Hall, looking for a display on Lloyd but came up empty. My wife spotted a database of those honored, and Lloyd was nowhere to be found on it.

Now bad thoughts went through my head. What went wrong? Was it some other Inventors Hall of Fame? Had I messed up part of the vacation?

I spoke to a couple of staff members. They tried the database just like I did, and got nowhere. "Sorry, we can't help you." So I left, $20 the poorer when parking was thrown into the mix.

When my vacation ended, I tentatively looked for the entry on line. There Lloyd was, in the Hall's list of inductees. In other words, he's been inducted a year-plus, and there's nothing on him anywhere in the Hall.

Think the Beatles had that happen to them when they were inducted up the road at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland? Or to Joe Montana when he went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton? I think not.

I'm not the type to tell you what to do with your money. But I'm not returning until Lloyd gets his proper due. Maybe you'll keep that in mind the next time you are in Ohio.

Traveling man

One quick note about my recently completed vacation:

We recently did a little tour around Lake Erie for several days, catching up on a variety of attractions that had been overlooked in previous trips. Need to know anything about the dead Presidents of Ohio? The Pro Football Hall of Fame? The Inventors Hall of Fame (more on that in a future post)? I'm your man.

We drove to Michigan through Ontario, crossing back to America on the bridge that goes from Sarnia to Port Huron. We had never been to either place, and stopped at Port Huron to take a little walk at the waterfront.

Then it was on to the road for about a mile, followed by a stop at the Michigan Welcome Center. We always stop there; you never know what you might find for attractions. The woman behind the counter asked us where we were headed, and we said we were going to the Detroit area to see the Ford plant and Henry Ford museum. The woman reacted with surprise, saying there wasn't much to do in Detroit.

Now, who is paying this woman's salary? Probably the state of Michigan, although a local group might have had a tie-in as well. You'd think she would be happy to hear about a Detroit visitor, or at least better at hiding her surprise. Not so.

Oh well. At least the Ford plant was incredible -- a truck a minute rolls off the assembly line, which is in a building something like six football fields in size. It definitely was a well-spent day, no matter what the "welcome center" people thought.

Not cleaning up...

Notes from the small business community:

The other day, the doorbell rang at my house. I answered it, and there was a mid-20's-ish man standing there. I'll paraphrase the conversation.

"Good afternoon, sir. I'm Blank Blank, and I'm about the start my own carpet cleaning service in the coming weeks. I'm in your neighborhood today, taking appointments for our introductory offer of a free cleaning of one room in your house. Here's my flyer (hands me flyer). Now, which room in your house gets the most traffic?"

"Um, I'm not sure. I'm not really prepared to commit to anything like this right now. I would want to talk to my wife first, and she won't be home until later."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, the free offer only is issued for right now."

"Well, I'm not doing anything without her approval."

"All right, then, thank you for your time."

And with that, he took the flyer back and walked away.

Now that's the way to build up an business. Put pressure on people to make a decision on an offer from a completely untested and unknown organization. And when they can't do anything about it right away, take away the piece of paper with the business name, address and phone number on it so the potential customer has absolutely no chance of hiring the business down the road.

Nicely played. I don't know how high the percentage of small businesses that fail is, but here's one that's headed in that direction.

Joining the club

Ticket-buyers for concerts and events always have been rather inelastic in their consumer habits, as the economists would say. Put another way, they'll pay almost anything.

Welcome, then, to a discussion of Ticketmaster.

I went online to check out the price of a couple of tickets to an upcoming concert at a local amusement park. The tickets were about $80 and $60 each. Yes, that's a lot of money, but at least you know you'll get a professional show, and the band only comes around every few years.

For the $80 seat, care to guess what the "convenience charge" is? About $12.60. Each. Then after you give your credit card information, an extra few dollars is quietly tacked on to the order just before purchasing. The $60 seat reduces the convenience charge to a little more than $10.

So, I took the cheap way out. I went to Macy's, found the Ticketmaster outlet in the midst of a large collection of women's intimate apparel, and bought it. The convenience charge is still there, although the add-on charge at the end wasn't. I didn't find it all that convenient, either.

So, I had to pay an extra 17 percent for my tickets, and I had no alternative. I don't think the box office at the amusement park is even open for such purchases.

No doubt about it. I'm in the wrong business.

Map quest

Call this yet another reason to wonder about television news.

One of the local stations at 6 p.m. the other day introduced a report on an unsafe bridge. It was complete with sound bites on how you'd have to wonder why anyone drives over the bridge, and why there's a fight over fixing the darn thing. I didn't have the stop watch on it, but it must have run 90-120 seconds.

The bridge's location? Viewers would have to wait until 11 p.m. to find out. Good thing I wasn't driving anywhere in the meantime.

It's easy to expect teasing news reports during Sweeps periods. This one, though, went way over the line of good judgment.

Fan mail

I did something unusual the other night. I watched a sporting event on television -- Buffalo Sabres vs. New York Rangers -- in a bar with some friends. The game was exciting, my friends were fine, the picture and sound were crisp, the beer was cold and the popcorn was free.

Still, it was an odd experience. I had to listen to some other fans during the game. Yuck.

Keep something in mind here -- the Sabres were the league's best team during the regular season. They beat the Islanders in the first round of the playoffs, and had a 2-1 lead going into Game Four in New York. By any standards, this is a pretty good team ... no matter what was going to happen on this night.

For two periods, I had to listen to fans' comments at the next table. They were enough to make me scream.

Jochen Hecht was a horrible player. Jaroslav Spacek was acquired for no apparent reason. The passing was horrible. The coaching was worse. The referee always hated Buffalo. You'd never know it was a 2-1 game, decided by a non-call on a goal in the final seconds. And so on. Some of the remarks were punctuated by obscenities, just to add a little spice.

Now, some of these people were wearing Sabre apparel, so they obviously had some rooting interest in the team. So if these were the friends of the team, what do the enemies sound like?

I'll be happy to defend anyone's Constitutional right to be wrong about their views of sport. But that doesn't mean I'm forced to sit next to them.