The Last Ten Songs We Heard on Simon-FM Greensboro, NC: 'Play Piano Man, Man'

Greetings to our blog readers in Dubai, Greece and Panama....

And, a special hello to those of us visiting us from Portland, Oregon, where the IFC show "Portlandia" takes place; it is now 8:16 a.m. in the west coast United States, and hopefully you will get more done in the next three hours than those of us here on the east coast did this morning!

Today, also happens to be World Radio Day, so I send a special shout out to WUVT (90.7 FM-Blacksburg, Va.) where I used to play songs from the late Turkish pop star Baris Manco and Ibrahim Tatlises (who is still alive) during "The Turkish Music Hour," I co-hosted in 1994.

Manco is not in the Simon-FM (98.7-Greensboro, NC) play list, which proves they don't really play everything as their promotion touts, but they do play everything from soft core heavy metal to hip hop.

Here are ten songs we heard during the 2:00-3:00 p.m. hour on Tuesday (in reverse order):

1. M.C. Hammer (pict. bottom) "U Can't Touch This." 1990

2. Creedence Clearwater Revival. "Fortunate Son." 1969

3. Duran Duran. "Rio." 1982.

4. Aerosmith. "Rag Doll." 1986

5. Steve Winwood. "Back in the High Life Again." 1986.

6. Jet. "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." 2003

7. Michael Jackson. "The Way You Make Me Feel." 1987

8. Pat Benatar. (pict. center) "Invincible." 1985.

9. Billy Joel (pict. top) "Piano Man." 1973

10. The Offspring. "Self-Esteem." 1994


http://www.987simon.com

 http://www.wuvt.vt.edu

http://www.ifc.com/shows/portlandia

 http://www.worldradioday.org

Our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of 2014: We Must Like Sex and Violence

Greetings to our blog readers in the Netherlands, Croatia and Yemen (is our blog available there? Yeah, I don't know either), and a special Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun to our friends in Turkey, my late father's country.

Here is our top ten (amended Jan. 4, 2014):

1. Rectified. Sundance Channel. Second Season. (image #1, the show deals with an inmate coming home to his zip code in small town Georgia, hence the reason for the prison cell)

2. Maron. IFC-TV. Second Season. (Mark Maron continues to impress us, but he could probably care less)

3. The Americans. F/X. Second Season (the reason for the middle image of Ronald and Nancy Reagan)

4. Halt and Catch Fire. AMC. First Season

5. The Affair. Showtime. First Season. (image #3, a postcard of a hotel room from yesteryear)

6. Master of Sex. Showtime. Second Season.

7. Homeland. Showtime. Fourth Season

8. Mad Men. AMC. Eighth Season

9. Orphan Black. BBC America. Second Season

10. Portlandia. IFC-TV. Fourth Season. (Fifth Season starts Thurs., Jan. 8th)

UPDATE: We revised this from the dubious initial version in which we thought it would be a good idea to include three shows we've never seen! They were: 1) Game of Thrones; 2) Orange is the New Black and 3) The Waling Dead, but we shall keep The Game of Thrones tags anyway.......:)

http://www.sundance.tv/

http://www.ifc.com

http://www.sho.com

Program Reminder- Hostel 2 on IFC This Week

For those of you who may be either sick and demented people or normal people interested in sick and demented films, there is good news for you!

IFC will be airing the 2007 shock horror/torture porn film "Hostel 2," helmed by Eli Roth, the director of the original "Hostel."

The basic plot line is that three American college girls study art in Rome and they are drawn into the world of suffering and torture.

The films airs at midnight.

Have your microwave popcorn handy!

On Fridays, IFC is also airing reruns of the wonderful 1999 series "Freaks and Geeks" about high school life around 1980 which featured a very young Seth Rogen and James Franco, among many other future stars in its cast. I just watched an episode, which reairs Sunday night at 10:00 pm tonight, and it was great. The show only lasted 18 episodes. I was among those who missed out on it the first time around.

And, this is a good moment to segue-way to our upteenth High School of the Week, which is........Hamden High School from Hamden, Conn., where the school motto is 'to everyone there openth a way.' The school mascot is The Green Dragon?! And, the school's principal is Gary Highsmith.

Of course, every student there is too young to watch "Hostel 2," but alas most of them have probably seen it five or six times anyway!

Program Alert- "Saw" on IFC- Midnight/Friday

Perhaps, it was Christopher Sharrett who said it best in a recent issue of "Cineaste," a publication which unapologetic film snobs such as myself really adore (having said that, I am openly debating whether I should add "Soggy Bottom USA"- a 1981 film which isn't exactly "Rashomon" to my Netflix que), when he said the following statement regarding the 2004 horror film "Saw" and its many sequels:

"The latest in fashion in fear or politically toxic mortality tales? Make your choice."

Sharrett then added the following sentiment about Jigsaw, the engaging mass murderer in films who 'welcomes guests' into his house or horrors:

"Jigsaw, the disgruntled, middle-class white male professional, fits in a long tradition of male characters fed up with democratic institutions, determined to set their own rules."

"Saw" will air at midnight as part of IFC's midnight pulp series this Friday. I've seen the film and many of its sequels (I think there are five or six films in the series) though I've often wondered why I am lured to this exercise in torture porn- and, in fact since the film series is now a billion dollar franchise so have many other people around the world!

According to the IMDB, the original "Saw" (2004. d. James Wan) was originally rated NC-17 before cuts were made after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (of all places!). Pre-production for "Saw" was a mere five days. The shoot lasted just 18 days. "Saw II" was green-lighted after the original's opening weekend. And, the film's puppet Jigsaw (pictured here) was made from scratch by the filmmakers.

Even though the film has a subversive far-right message that those 'who do bad things' bascially deserve to be gradually be sawed or hacked to death or beheaded......(hmm, perhaps they should show this film at a radical Southern Baptist Church in a town like War, W.Va), one of the orginal film's stars Danny Glover is known for being one of Hollywood's leading liberal activists.

"Saw" also features Leigh Whannel (who co-wrote the screenplay), Monica Potter, Cary Elwes and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw. Ironically, Bell is not a fan of horror films!