Carry me back to California...been on the road too long!

Carole King's "Back to California" has been hammering in my head for the past couple of days. In spite of all its problems, the "land of fruit and nuts" seems to suit me and I miss it when I'm away.

Linda and I have spent most of this month dealing with my mother. My brother and I have now found a really great place for her and she seems to be settling in nicely with other seniors who are lost in the fog of dementia. The nuns who run the facility are angels of dedication and mercy who almost inspire me to maybe drop in for church one of these days. (It has been a few years. Okay, forty.)

Since the stay in Illinois was extended, I opted for a satellite receiver in the rental car we picked up at O'Hare. Local radio is, for most of the country, no longer local or very good. It is amazing to hear what passes for talent in some of the largest media markets these days. Though many solid pros remain, there are now people on the air in top ten metropolitan areas who would have had little or no chance of being hired in Palatka, Florida twenty years ago. The same goes for lots of television and newspaper help as well. Granted, there are many more media outlets today, but that alone doesn't explain the thin bench and lack of polish.

We live in a time of ever shortened attention spans and are consumers with the ability to be our own program directors and editors. "I get my news on the net", is a common refrain--though most of the time it isn't clear if "the net" means The Wall Street Journal site or TMZ. For audio diversion, the cell phone has become the alpha and omega of a growing crowd. How many inane conversations have you been forced to overhear at the airport? Departure gates have begun to resemble insane asylums as people ramble on to unseen friends and business acquaintances.

Newspapers in most cities are beginning to resemble the Weekly Reader of my grade school days. Little serious reporting and lots of People Magazine celebrity gossip dominates the pages of once proud publications. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I plunked down money for a local paper where I didn't feel like I'd been had.

Perhaps I should just calm down and accept the fact that radio, television and newspapers are, like burlesque shows of thirty years ago, just doing their final sweaty, out of shape, grungy bump and grind into the ash can of history.