Craving variety today

Where is Ed Sullivan  when we need him?

In the 1950s and 1960s, the arthritic journalist with poor stage presence hosted a variety show offering a variety of talented performers.

There were Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, Jerry Lewis, opera star Maria Callas, jugglers and Topo Gigio, the popular hand puppet.

Millions of people watched on one of only three or four channels available in the “good old days.”

Today there are so many choices that you rarely see so much variety in one place anymore.

I was raving to my friend Peter Sever about all of the opportunities we have to be entertained now. I can ask YouTube to play the Four Freshmen, Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney and their  jazzy tunes all day long if I want. And rather than look at ads that would never interest me, Facebook will find what I have looked at online and try to sell it  to me.

Peter came up with a downside. Your choices have really been narrowed. You don’t have to explore anything at all outside of your interests. You learn nothing new.

We have already heard about how the fragmenting of media has made us such a divided nation. If one person gets all his news from Fox News and another watches MSNow, they can’t have a civil conversation. Each gets facts from somewhere else.

This also extends to entertainment. I have never heard a Taylor Swift song. I’m told she is good. If we had an Ed Sullivan today, I would have seen her. And her fans would have watched today’s version of the jazz greats I adore.

I even have my own YouTube channel (“Pickett Craddock Michael Doan”) with about 30 songs. If someone became hooked on that, maybe they would never discover Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald! (Dream on, Mike!)

Peter’s solution:

Go outside of your media box and find new things yourself.