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Made the long drive across the desert in near-record time- less than the usual 5-plus hours- and the check-in was incident-free, so I'm in a reasonably okay mood considering that a) I'm unbelievably exhausted, and b) I have two days of nonstop convention tedium ahead of me. The Spring NAB drains me- a lot of running around from one end of the massive convention center to the other, too many things to cover and not enough me to do it, no time at all for fun, and that long drive to and from- but I gotta do it, because, well, it's my job.

So I'm going to rest up, then do my job. Coming up: why the word on the strip is "pasty," and more from the Bad Entertainment Capital of the World.

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Bud Walters stuck his ass in my face.

Okay, it was not deliberate, but it stood to reason that a radio station owner would decide to stand directly in front of me, a few millimeters from my face, in order to talk to someone seated next to me, someone named Steve Langford. After all, at the Spring NAB convention, I barely exist. This is the convention for two categories of attendee, the station owner and the engineer. Neither has much use for me. As far as Bud Walters was concerned, I'm vapor.

More than the Fall radio convention, this show is white-bread to the core- middle-aged guys in ill-fitting suits and pasty* pale complexions, slick but empty politicians drifting through, speeches introduced and ended by the same generic music used on awards shows. It's where the broadcasting industry gets to show that it's a business, a somewhat poorly run business but a business nonetheless.

I sat through the Congressional Breakfast listening to Our Elected Representatives railing about the evils of indecency and how we just have to stop it. They never said why, or what exactly happens when a poor defenseless kid is exposed to, say, Janet Jackson's breast or the F-word. I tried to ask, but Sam Donaldson cut the panel short before I could ask, and I couldn't grab any of the Congressmen as they bolted from the stage. Joe Barton stopped to answer questions, but a phalanx of TV trade magazine reporters got to him and peppered him with questions about the analog TV cut-off date until he slipped out. The answer to my question, of course, is nothing happens and the "why" is that it's politically expedient. But I wanted to hear some blowhard politician say it in person.

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I didn't have time to run or hit the gym today. Didn't matter.

From parking garage through Hilton to ballroom, 7 am: 3/4 mile.
Ballroom through skywalk to press room to meeting room: 1/2 mile.
Meeting room to press room to meeting room for press conference: about 50 feet.
Press conference through skywalk and Hilton to garage: 1 1/4 mile.
Garage to Hilton cheesesteak place for lunch: maybe 150 feet.
Pizza steak and Mountain Dew: deduct several miles.
Cheesesteak place to slot machine: about 100 feet, deduct several dollars, add more dollars. (!)
Slot to ballroom: maybe 1/2 mile.
Ballroom door, argument with guard who insisted I couldn't enter without a ticket despite holding a media pass, escort to "press area": 30 feet.
"Press Area" to another ballroom: maybe 1/8 mile.
Ballroom to press room to meeting room: 1/2 mile.
Meeting room to press room to garage: 1 1/4 mile.
Huge dinner with dessert: deduct all remaining miles plus several more.

Net result: like any other day.

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So, now that we're home, what have we learned from NAB2005?

Not much that we didn't already know. But what's interesting to me is that content, which was once said to be king, then said to be secondary, may now be king again, because the technological convergence that's taking place is making the delivery system ultimately irrelevant to the end user- cable is broadband is satellite is broadcast. What matters is that there's going to be your handset/phone, your big screen TV/computer, and your car radio/appliance, and through all of them will come whatever content you want, when you want it. Music? TV show? Movie? Call it up on your cell phone, your TV, your car screen, and there you go, courtesy of whatever wireless broadband there'll be, or fiber right to the point of connection. Whatever you want- that's content. Whenever you want it- TiVo, DVR, any hard-drive-based system or on-demand deal. Wherever you want it- that's already happening with things like Orb or Sling Media, which take whatever you have, TV, music, radio, anything, and send them to whatever Net-enabled device you have, wherever you have it.

Which means that content IS king again.

Hey, I create content.

OK, I'm happy.

And tired. After two work-intensive days and the long drive back, it'll take me a good week to be back to normal, if that's even an option anymore.

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They came up with a new food pyramid the other day, more like 12 of them, as if anyone ever followed the old one. I know I didn't. It was the kind of thing you'd see tacked onto the bulletin board in elementary schools. We didn't have a food pyramid when I was a kid, but we had some sort of food group recommendation thing on the bulletin board next to the Civil Defense instructions. We didn't follow that, either.

My food groups were the Cake Group, the Candy Group, and the Snack Bar Group. The Cake Group had strict guidelines: no Hostess stuff except for Sno Balls. Anything Drake's was acceptable. Anything Tastykake was acceptable. Scooter Pies were acceptable- not cake, but in the ballpark. Cookies were to be Nabisco or Burry's, Keebler's in a pinch, never A&P or Pathmark or ShopRite or Foodtown brand. The ranking went like this: the top level were Ring Dings, Yodels, Butterscotch Krimpets, and Chocolate Juniors. Next level: Scooter Pies, Oreos, cookies. Next level: Sno Balls, those fruit pies with the flaky sugar coating, and maybe, maybe, the occasional Twinkie. That's all you needed.

Ring Dings ruled- they came as either full-sized (massive disc of chocolate cake filled with cream and coated in chocolate-flavored icing) or Ring Ding Jr. (in a box, little hockey pucks of the same ingredients). I think all they sell is the Jr.s now. Yodels were exactly the same ingredients, but in the form of a roll; I was not into unit pricing back then, so I didn't realize that you could get more chocolate cake-cream-icing goodness if you compared ounces and prices. Yodels had one advantage over Ring Dings, too, that extra hard edge along the end of the roll. It had a crunch the hockey pucks didn't. Tastykake was up there, too, for the Chocolate Juniors and the Butterscotch Krimpets that came in wax paper to which the icing would stick. Eating them was a two stage affair: the cake came first, then you sucked the icing off the wax paper. Nowadays, they come in plain old cellophane, and it just isn't the same.

I wasn't big on Twinkies or Devil Dogs. Twinkies were too sickly sweet. They had the Twizzler Effect: you'd always eat three or so beyond the point where you got sick of them. The first bites were great, the second really good, the third OK, and then you got queasy but plowed ahead looking to recreate the magic. I understand crack's like that, too- maybe they got the idea from Twinkies and Twizzlers. Devil Dogs were dry other than the cream- without the icing, the cake reminded you that the individual parts of the Drake's cakes kinda sucked. You wanted the package.

If all they had was Dolly Madison stuff, you moved on to the Candy Group.

The Candy Group involved the classics: Hershey and Cadbury, Goldenberg's Peanut Chews/Chew-Ets (great for emergency removal of fillings or even whole teeth), Baby Ruth and M&Ms and Clark bars and Zagnut. Anything chocolate was A-OK, except for Passover candy they- we, actually- sold at Hebrew School. That stuff LOOKED good, but ugh. (The exception to that is the line of Joyva chocolate candies, like Ring Jells and Joys and thise marshmallow sticks that, along with Chuckles, were my mom's favorites. I had a Joyva Joys bar in Vegas this week when we stopped at Bagelmania for breakfast- Mom, this sugar bomb's for you) We had Twizzlers, not Red Vines- that's East Coast vs. West Coast for sure. We had Pixy Stix- the challenge was to get as much out as you could before your saliva clogged the end of the tube. And we had Nik-L-Nips. I was shocked to discover they're still around- the Cost Plus World Market near us carries them. They're wax bottles in which radioactively colored sugar water has been sealed. You bite the top off and suck out the crapwater. My sister, on the other hand, liked to eat candy she knew would gross me out. On top of that list were two bizarre products, C. Howard's Scented Gum and C. Howard's Violets. Both came in packaging from the turn of the century and smelled and tasted like perfume. She could not possibly have enjoyed the flavor, so she was probably getting off on my reaction

There is absolutely no nutritional value to the Candy Group.

You got your nutrition, such as it was, from the Snack Bar Group. This involved the kind of food you could get at a department store or five-and-dime snack bar- pizza, hot dogs, ice cream. I'd eat most any snack bar food, even those hot dogs rotating on those roller-bar grills since the Hoover administration at the snack bar downstairs at the Stern's store in Bergen Mall. I'd eat almost anything remotely related to pizza. There was one exception, which became a major controversy in my family: Topps pizza.

Topps was a short-lived discount store, the east coast and midwestern division of California's White Front stores ("White Front"? Sounds Klan-like), and they had a store in Totowa, New Jersey, where the snackbar had the world's worst pizza. Believe me when I tell you that Topps pizza had sauce that tasted like cherry cough syrup, sparse cheese of the rubber variety, and a crust with no taste at all. It was awful, and I hated it- I preferred the Italian ices from the cart outside- but my sister seized on the concept of grossing me out by insisting that she loved it and couldn't wait to have more. And that would have been the end of it had my father not misremembered the story- to his final days, he thought I liked the vile concoction. My sister, ever gleeful at stirring the pot, agreed with him- yes, Perry loved Topps pizza, of course he did!

He did not. I am setting the record straight right here. My sister was the Topps pizza lover. Write that down.

I don't think Topps pizza is on the new food pyramid, or on any of the food pyramids, because they don't include an Inedible Group. Here's what my personal pyramid from the government website says I should eat:

10 oz. of grains.
3.5 cups of veggies.
2.5 cups of fruit.
3 cups of milk.
7 oz. of meat and beans.
426 calories of "extras," 2800 calories total.

I must be missing something. Where are the Ring Dings and the Nik-L-Nips?

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Tomorrow evening's Passover, so I'm far too busy to post anything meaningful. Why, it's practically a full-time job to get good and revulsed over the food.

No, I don't touch the gefilte fish. Or the horseradish.

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Tonight begins the solemn yet festive holiday of Passover (from the Hebrew term for "I really don't want to eat this"), which we of the Jewish faith celebrate every April, except when it falls in March. Or May. (It actually falls in the Jewish calendar month of Nissan, formerly Datsun) The holiday, best known by Gentiles as the holiday involving the practice of not eating bread or cake, commemorates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, which culminated in a big dinner, or "Seder," which includes the youngest family member at the dinner table gamely attempting to ask the Four Questions, which are:

1) Where the hell are we going?
2) Anybody got water? It's hot out here in the desert.
3) What's "gefilte"?
4) If you're the Lakers, do you throw bundles of money at Phil Jackson until he returns or is that team a lost cause for the next five years anyway?

(The answers, chanted by the rest of the family: "Dunno," "No," "Dunno," "We're Miami Heat fans now")

The Seder itself involves the Hagganah (literally, "a booklet with lots of Hebrew prayers and stuff designed to make you wait to eat the good stuff"), which is available at any supermarket with purchase of the appropriate Maxwell House product, and the family faithfully follows for about two pages before the kids start to whine that it's boring and taking too long while everyone but Mom starts to count the pages left before it's over. Mom is always the one taking it seriously. Everyone else is there for the food.

And what a banquet it is! The centerpiece, of course, is the Seder plate, which is arranged with several special foods steeped in huge sloppy piles of symbolism:

Charoset- symbolizing the mortar the Jewish slaves used to build for the Egyptians. It is made, literally, of cement.
Baytzah- hard-boiled egg, symbolizing hard-boiled eggs.
Zeroa- shankbone. Symbolizes the inedible.
Karpas- parsley. Represents the useless.
Maror- bitter herbs. Symbolizes the old fart guys in Florida adult residential communities who complain about everything. Many of these gentlemen are named "Herb."
Chazeret- celery. Represents the stuff you have to eat on a diet.

The actual eating starts with the matzoh (unleavened bread, also known as "tasteless flaky cracker things"), and then the Maror (charoset sandwich on matzoh), followed by the matzoh ball soup and the gefilte fish (gefilte being the Yiddish for "fish-flavored Jell-O mold") and the main course, usually turkey or chicken or brisket or pork chops. Oh, and there's lots of wine, generally Manischewitz or Mogen David of the sweet, syrupy variety, often the first alcohol children try, and the reason that Jewish kids tend to avoid drinking longer than other kids. Afterwards, a dessert is served, usually a cake that looks delectable but tastes much like wood shavings bound by mucus, because it's made from wood and mucus.

And then everybody sings "Dayenu" ("It Would Have Been Enough For Us"), which includes the rousing chorus "Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu- Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu! Dayenu-Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Day-Dayenu, Dayenu, Dayenu!". sung while swaying back and forth until Grandpa, who drained several bottles of Mogen David even before the evening started, flies off his chair and lands face first on the floor, immediately bouncing to his feet insisting he's "okay, goddammit, I'm fine, get your hands off me."

And then everybody goes home and Mom opens all the windows to get the gefilte smell out of the house.

Truly, this night IS "different from all other nights." We can all take comfort in that fact.

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