COLUMN: No way to treat a Lady Gaga

There comes a time in every columnist’s life where he must take a stand, one way or another, on Lady Gaga. If Walter Winchell were alive today, I’m reasonably sure he would agree with me.

The only problem is, believe it or not, I’m torn on the Gaga issue. On the one hand it would be very easy to dismiss a woman who goes out in public wearing bubbles and metal breastplates and meat (not at the same time, probably) as an artist for whom “the music” isn’t a top priority. On the other, I heard her single “Born This Way” once and it attached itself full-on to my brain, possibly entering through my nasal cavity like the creature in “Alien.”

With those things in mind, I’ve decided to do what every good journalist should; namely, make a list of pros and cons and, after considering them carefully, come down on the side I consider to be most offensive to Republicans.

So here we go:

Pro: Lady Gaga is a better singer than Madonna. I’m talking about sheer vocal ability, not things like phrasing and breath control, which are hard to think about when you’re covered with meat. As you’ve probably heard, some say “Born This Way” is a rip-off of Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” and in fact, this week a PR woman offered me the chance to analyze both songs note by note with an instructor from SAE Institute of Audio Engineering. I declined, opting instead to coax a cat into clawing out my eardrums.

Con: Lady Gaga is NOT a better singer than Edith Piaf. This may be true, but I would have liked to see Edith Piaf croon “La Vie En Rose” in a clear plastic dress with black electrical tape across her bosoms. Probably more than I care to admit.

Pro: Lady Gaga has professed herself to be “a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.” She even got Springsteen saxophonist Clarence Clemons to play on her new album, which for me is a bizarre collision of worlds — sort of like when Bob Dylan did that Victoria’s Secret commercial, although thankfully not in a clear plastic dress.

Con: Lady Gaga got into a public feud with “Weird Al” Yankovic. They’ve since worked things out, and Gaga is allowing Yankovic to go forward with his parody of “Born This Way.” Which is good, because I’d have to take Al’s side in that dispute — he remains the most famous person I’ve ever interviewed, primarily because Pee-Wee Herman won’t take my calls.

Pro: Lady Gaga is not afraid to promote personal expression by wearing bubbles and metal breastplates and meat. This is in stark contrast to more conventional performers, such as Rod Stewart, who has spent the last 30 years wearing the same Rod Stewart costume.

Con: Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video inspired thousands of fans to start wearing enlarged “circle” contact lenses, creating an entire generation of teenage girls who look like Bratz dolls. This would seem to indicate that it’s only a matter of time before her “Little Monsters” are also regularly engaging in hair sculpting, eye stretching and thigh elongation.

Given that, along with the fact that I have a daughter whose teen years are bearing down on both of us like a hormonal freight train, I think in the final analysis I have to deny Lady Gaga my full support — at least until she tarts it down a bit. Call me old fashioned, but even if I had her talents, you wouldn’t see me dancing around wearing nothing but lace body suits and police tape.

On the other hand, I’m reasonably sure you wouldn’t want to.

Peter Chianca is editor-in-chief for GateHouse Media New England's North Unit. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.

AT LARGE Fake News Thursday: Obama Budget Plan Would Save 'One Life To Live'

WASHINGTON (CAP) - President Barack Obama continued to reveal details of his deficit-reduction plan this week, including a controversial provision that would raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans in order to save the recently cancelled ABC soap opera One Life To Live.

"One Life To Live is, uh, part of the cornerstone, the bedrock of American culture," said Obama in a press conference Monday. "How many of us spent lonely afternoons following the adventures of, you know, Bo and Clint Buchanan, and Viki, who suffered from dissociative identity disorder and became Niki, the sexually promiscuous party girl, and Karen and Larry Wolek, who, uh, had control chips implanted in their brains by the evil Dr. Ivan Kipling."

Obama recalled rearranging the rabbit-ears antenna on his small, black-and-white TV set as a youth in order to pick up the soap opera. "It was often very tough to get the signal there in Kenya," he said. "By which I mean, of course, Honolulu."

The budget provision, which would filter funds gleaned from the tax hike directly to ABC-TV in much the same way PBS and National Public Radio receive government funding, has not surprisingly drawn fire from the GOP.

"This type of thing is exactly the reason the country is in the fiscal trouble it's in," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), whose own budget plan would drastically slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, public education, environmental protection, social services and snow plowing, as well as eliminate road repairs on thoroughfares that go by senior centers and homeless shelters.

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl - who drew fire recently when he said that "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does" is abortions, when the number is actually 3 percent - also spoke out against Obama's plan.

"Actually, what I had meant to say is the well over 90 percent of what One Life To Live characters do is get abortions," said Kyl. A CAP News study of episodes of the soap opera since its debut in 1968 shows that in this case, Kyl's figure is actually a little low.

And potential Republican presidential contender Sarah Palin, star of Sarah Palin's Alaska, called Obama's One Life To Live plan "redonkulous," saying, "Who wants to watch a big, dysfunctional family of crazies with dumb names say stupid things and go all over the place having babies and silly stuff like that?"

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: In New England, spring’s the thing

It was Mark Twain who said, “It’s spring fever.... You don’t quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” And given the fact that he has a bestselling book out even though he’s been dead for 100 years, I guess you have to give the guy some credit for not being an idiot.

For me, it usually takes at least until mid-February before I start peering wistfully through the frost on my living room window, imagining lush green grass instead of layers of snow. Never mind that under that snow is grass a leathery shade of brown and leaves that I never got around to raking up last fall. It’s the idea of green grass that gets me nostalgic for spring, not to mention the fact that my nose has probably frozen to the windowpane.

But this year, that feeling was already prevalent by the end of January, when all the snowstorms had made the average trip down my driveway like a run through the Death Star trench. Every time I visited the mall I got nervous that one of the giant piles of snow that had been plowed into a corner of the parking lot would fall over onto my car, and they’d find me in it after the spring thaw, sucking on old Happy Meal wrappers.

But spring fever isn’t just about putting the winter behind you. It’s about convincing yourself that once spring arrives you’re actually going to go out and do spring-like things, like taking a state park flower tour in order to sniff in the nectar of the budding season. Then spring actually comes and you suddenly recall your deathly fear of bees, and the fact that baseball is on TV.

But we at least occasionally do make good on our plans to get outdoors and embrace the onset of spring, and by “we” I mean those of us who have been trapped in the house with kids for three months. That’s what motivated my wife and me, for instance, to trek the family out to the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary one March Sunday several years back: to show our kids that if they think all their old video games are boring, just wait until they’ve watched an entire bucket of sap drip out of a sugar maple.

Spring fever also has a share of romance to it — my wife and I had our first date in springtime walking around Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, which would have been much less dreamy if we’d been in snow up to our thighs. But springtime is just generally more conducive to love, if only because when you try to hug during the winter in all those layers, you tend to bounce off each other like the fake sumo wrestlers at Lowell Spinners games.

But here in New England, maybe the fact that spring arrives at all is enough to justify a hearty bout of spring fever. It could be that Twain’s elusive thing we want is just evidence that we pulled through another winter, proving our resilience in the face of adversity and spurring our annual rebirth.

And I’d run right outside and enjoy it if baseball wasn’t on.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. This column appeared originally in North Shore Life magazine; for more, visit northshore.lifemagsonline.com. Follow Peter Chianca on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.

AT LARGE Fake News Thursday: Bruno Tonioli Gaining On Trump For GOP Nom

NEW YORK (CAP) - A USA Today/Gallup poll this week found real estate mogul and Apprentice star Donald Trump to be the reality TV personality most likely to get the GOP nomination for president. But Dancing With The Stars judge Bruno Tonioli is coming up fast, according to the results.

The poll of 5,000 likely voters found 17 percent favoring Trump, with 14 percent voting for Tonioli, which is within the margin of error. Rounding out the list were:

• Lauren Conrad of The Hills (11 percent)
• Flava Flav of Flavor Of Love (8 percent)
• Snooki of Jersey Shore and Corbin Bernsen of Celebrity Mole Yucatan (tie, 6 percent each)
• Steven Seagal of Steven Seagal Lawman (5 percent)
  

More than 100 other reality stars made up the other 33 percent of those named as presidential contenders, including Tila Tequila, Danny Bonaduce, Gene Simmons, the woman who dressed like a pirate on season 3 of Wife Swap, and Sarah Palin.

Tonioli, for his part, said he was "just amazingly astounded" at finishing so closely behind Trump, particularly given he hasn't gone any farther than establishing an exploratory committee and printing some buttons with the slogan "Bruno: You Know You Want Him!"

"Being president would be hot, it would be sexy - it would be Mr. Hips Goes to Washington!" said Toniolo, shaking his midsection in what might possibly have been a Salsa or a Pasa Doble.

He also criticized President Obama, saying, "He looks like giant Slim Jim sliding down a fire pole!" and gesticulating wildly.

Trump, for his part, says he's not fazed by the results, and immediately demanded that Toniolo produce his birth certificate. "You can't tell me that this guy was born in America," Trump told Meredith Vieira on the Today show. "He's harder to understand than Ivana was."

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: 30 more signs you’re living with dogs

There’s nothing that gives a writer more of a sense of satisfaction and self-worth than drawing a reaction from his readers. So you can imagine how I usually feel after my column runs, when I’m sitting fruitlessly in front of my e-mail screen like a deluded Charlie Brown parked at his mailbox waiting for Valentines.

But not this time. Yes, I’ve written in the past about such hot-button topics as the end of the world, marital smell issues and humanity’s inevitable subjugation by killer robots, to nary a peep of feedback. But my February column on “Signs You May Be Living With Dogs” has drawn a steady (furry) flurry of e-mail responses, which can only lead me to one of the following conclusions: Even more people have dogs than I thought, or dogs have finally learned how to use the Internet.

You can see the full array of responses at The Longest Tail blog (blogs.wickedlocal.com/longesttail), and I recommend that you do, if only to reassure yourself that despite the fact there is probably a dog sleeping next to you in bed right now, perhaps one whose picture you put on your Christmas cards and whom you dress in little doggie sweaters, there is someone out there who is way, way more wacky a dog owner than you. OK, a lot of someones.

Meanwhile, here are a few of my favorite responses so far. Keep those e-mails coming! If your dogs haven’t chewed through your computer cord, that is.

You may be living with dogs if:

1) You have “baby safety” gates in doorways and across stairways, but you don’t have a baby.

2) You begin conversations with others by saying, “Sit, stay, speak.”

3) You catch yourself saying, “sit,” “stay” and “down” to your kids.

4) When the snow melts, your lawn is declared a Superfund site

5) When you move the furniture you find someone living under there.

6) Your coffee does not taste right without a few hairs.

7) The kitchen floor stays clean … for an hour.

8) There’s nose art on all the windows.

9) There’s lots of snoring in your bed and it isn’t your fiancé.

10) You often wear a fur coat and yet have never purchased one.

11) It sounds like Harpo Marx is in your living room.

12) Your household toys need to be squeakeotomized.

13) You have a huge collection of tennis balls, but there are no rackets to be found anywhere.

14) You actually bought an item called “Doggles.”

15) You add a paw to all of the cards you send to family and friends.

16) “Going to the spa” does not pertain to yourself or any two-legged member of your family.

17) Fur on your clothes doesn’t count as a reason to wash them.

18) The furniture that brings you the fondest memories are the pieces with teeth marks.

19) You always have to buy an extra ice cream cone (or hamburger, hold the pickle) for the hairy kid in the back seat.

20) The bank teller sends out biscuits instead of money.

21) You are always greeted warmly at the front door by someone who missed you terribly, is ridiculously excited that you are home and is COMPLETELY starving. (“Seriously, feed me now or I might pass out right here.”)

22) You carry towels in your trunk for impromptu river swims.

23) Stuffed animals living in your house have extremely short life expectancies.

24) The cats have to jump up on the counter to eat their dinner and you don’t apologize to company.

25) At Christmastime, there are stockings for “Santa Paws” to fill.

26) You know the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood, but not the owners’ names.

27) You step in indoor puddles, and the moisture is not from leaking pipes.

28) Leashes and collars are considered “fashion accessories.”

30) You always feel like you are the greatest, most wonderful person in the entire world.

And you’ll keep feeling that way, as long as the bank teller keeps sending out those biscuits.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. This year he’ll be taking an occasional detour from his “At Large” column to write about life with pets — you can follow his animal-related musings at twitter.com/longest_tail.

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: Obama Names George W. Bush Top Advisor On Libya

WASHINGTON (CAP) - Faced with mounting criticism over his decision to commit American troops to the international military action against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, President Barack Obama has tapped former President George W. Bush to serve as his primary advisor on the conflict.

"We are assigning U.S. forces to a dangerous mission in a Muslim nation that poses no real threat to us, but whose instability could mire us in an expensive, pointless conflict for years to come," said Obama. "I though, who knows more about that than President Bush?"

Bush, reached by CAP News at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, admitted he was surprised when he first got the call.

"But that's mainly because when Laura said Obama was on the phone, I got him mixed up with Osama again," said Bush, chuckling. "When I first retired, [Bin Laden] used to call and taunt me sometimes ... Still want me dead or alive, you dumb infidel? - that kind of thing. But it turned out to be [former White House press secretary] Scotty McClellan trying to gaslight me."

But Bush said he was more than happy to heed the current president's call, saying he's already offered Obama some advice on the situation in Libya.

"For one thing, I would have declared Mission Accomplished days ago," said Bush. "Then I would have gone on vacation for a few weeks, you know, just to keep everybody distracticated."

Bush also advised Obama to start wearing a flight suit whenever possible. "A nice green one with the belts and straps and all the doohickeys," said Bush. "America loves doohickeys."

He then added, "I still wear mine around the ranch sometimes and give the cattle little inspirational decitations. We have seen the end of major grazing operations! That kind of thing."

Bush's appointment as an Obama advisor has prompted criticism from some quarters, however, including from another former president, Bill Clinton.

"People don't seem to remember that President Bush grossly mishandled the Iraq war, and is on record as having completely forgotten about it for a period of several months during his presidency," noted Clinton. "And he's been a huge disappointment to his father, my best friend."

[See the rest at CAP News.]

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Dropkick Murphys Singer Has Live Badger Removed From Throat

BOSTON (CAP) - Following his collapse at a Dropkick Murphys concert at the House of Blues recently, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital treating singer Ken Casey removed a full-grown badger from a cavity that had formed in the rear of his throat.

"It was a ferret badger, which is the smallest of the badger species," said Dr. Hans Krasnal of Mass General. "But you still wouldn't want one in there if you could help it."

Krasnal says that badger infestations were actually quite common in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the animals were a major staple in the diets of Native Americans and colonists.

"It's much more rare today, but certainly not unheard of," Dr. Krasnal added, guessing that Casey may have picked up his badger while traveling abroad in Ireland in the mid-'90s, possibly during a particularly intense bender.

"You usually have to be pretty tanked for the little bugger to get in there without you noticing," said Dr. Krasnal.

Voice experts say the badger probably goes a long way toward explaining Casey's vocals on Dropkick Murphys songs like "I'm Shipping Up To Boston." Critic James Tate of absolutepunk.com described Casey's vocal style, in a review of 2005's The Warrior's Code, as "sounding as if he's got a live badger down there."

"I meant it as a compliment at the time," said Tate this week when contacted at Boston magazine, where he is now a home and garden columnist. "Who knew I was being so literal?"

Doctors have said that Casey is expected to make a full recovery, although his voice will likely never be the same. Casey's vocal coach, Mel Kulick of the Berklee College of Music, says some initial voice therapy sessions indicate Casey now sounds like a cross between Josh Groban and Barry Manilow.

"And a little bit of Enya ... I definitely hear Enya in there," said Kulick.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: To bee or not to (spelling) bee

I have now been through three elementary school spelling bees, two with my daughter and one with my son, and each time I’ve wondered how this age-old tradition has managed to survive the movement to eradicate all vestiges of competition from American childhood. Clearly somebody’s been paid off.

Think about it: We don’t let kids count goals or runs scored, and routinely award them with trophies simply for showing up (or, if they don’t show up, we bring the trophies to their house later to show them there are no hard feelings). And yet the spelling bee continues, wherein we march 9-year-olds in front of an auditorium full of people and attempt to make them look stupid. It’s refreshing.

Actually, I’m kind of torn over the whole spelling bee concept. I’ve never been one of these parents who think that “everybody’s a winner,” which is a concept I think can be detrimental once a child grows up and discovers that life is all about being stomped on by the actual winners, who got that way because they inherited money, or are from China. On the other hand, spelling bees seem particularly cruel, especially on the parents, who spend the entire event sweating profusely and silently reliving their own childhood humiliations. (Er, not me. Other people.)

It turns out that for most parents, there is nothing good about a spelling bee. Besides being a nervous wreck, there’s all that time spent praying that someone else’s poor schmoe of a kid will be the first one to get eliminated, so you can put off the dashing of your own son or daughter’s childhood innocence for at least one more day. Eventually this leads to an unseemly feeling of glee when one of your child’s competitors gets stuck with encyclopedia or cupboard or delicatessen.

In fact, I’m not proud of it, but I think most parents would agree that it’s hard to get through a spelling bee without thinking of that famous quote by Gandhi: “The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears.” Wait, that was actually Genghis Khan. But you get the idea.

As for the kids themselves, they run the gamut when it comes to reactions. You have the ones who have smiles on their faces the whole time, who are clearly delusional, and the ones who look like they’ve just gone through a question-and-answer session with Dick Cheney, who understand the gravity of their predicament. Then there are those who flub a word they were sure they knew, and their faces drop when they hear the bell, like poor Travis when he finds out Old Yeller has rabies.

On the plus side, pretty much all the participants who get through one of these things alive seem to feel pretty good about themselves afterwards, even if they get a word wrong eventually. True, both of my kids have been blessed with some mercifully easy words — my son got “kid” the other night, and had to ask the moderator if that’s what she actually said, in case she was trying to slip in some obscure homophone that sounds like “kid” but is actually spelled with an arcane series of unexpected h’s.

They’ve also gotten some tough ones, but my son said even though he had the jitters at the start, “It got easier every time I got up there.” By the end — he finished seventh — he was a model of poise, looking completely at home in front of a cafetorium full of people, and that alone was worth the effort no matter how far he got.

As for the parents … We’ll be home recovering if you want to stop by to deliver our trophies.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Spelling Bees To Start Allowing Misspelled Words

WASHINGTON (CAP) - The Scripps Howard Spelling Bee, in response to complaints about pressure on young participants, has announced it will start allowing students to misspell words in the competition beginning next year.

"We've had many complaints from parents and psychologists who say being ejected from a spelling bee can be a traumatic experience for a child," said Bee Chairwoman Sally Fredericks, noting that the organization received a petition with more than 50,000 signatures from the American Parents United Against Competition (APUAC).

"It does horrible things to children's self-esteem when they spell a word wrong," noted APUAC spokesperson Mitzy Bennington. "If they're allowed to spell words incorrectly without getting ejected from the competition, they get the experience of participating without all those bad feelings that come along with not winning.

"It's important that we leave these children with the impression that they're smart and important and special, even if they're not," noted Bennington.

Under the new rules, participants will each be given a word to spell. The moderator will not indicate whether they spelled it correctly or incorrectly, saying instead, for example, "Great job, Johnny! You're the best!" Then the participant will return to his or her seat.

After five rounds of play using those guidelines, the event will be declared completed and each participant will be awarded a trophy exactly the same size and weight of all the other participants' trophies.

"This way every student goes home feeling like they participated in something special, even if they're not sure exactly what," said Bennington.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

Up, up ... and away??

And this, my friends, is why science was invented: To bring the "Up" house to life.



Now, if only science could find a way to make us all fat and screen-obsessed, like in "Wall-E." Oh wait, we're already all set on that.

More details on the "Up" house at digitaltrends.com.

COLUMN: Charlie fired? This resume has a certain Sheen

A resume and cover letter we received from a recently unemployed job seeker had a strangely familiar ring to it. See the letter, and our response, for yourself:

Hello Mr. Chianca:

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m writing because I am recently unemployed and am interested in seeking a job at your fine organization. I trust you’re aware of some of my previous experience as a film actor, sitcom star and Vatican assassin warlock, not necessarily in that order.

Unfortunately I cannot provide references from my most recent employer, Chaim Levine, because I violently hate him and he’s a stupid, stupid little man and a punk. However, I can assure you that I’ve spent the last decade effortlessly and magically converting his tin cans into gold, and I’m confident I can do the same thing for your tin cans.

As far as what else I can add to your organization, I’m an F-18 and I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordnance to the ground. I mean that in a literal sense, in much the same way that I mean it when I say I partake in strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee. I can also type 70 words per minute.

My other skills and experience include the following:

• Magic and poetry at my fingertips most of the time, and this includes naps;
• Brain fires in a way that is perhaps not from this terrestrial realm;
• Fire-breathing fists;
• Tiger blood;
• Converting tin cans into gold (mentioned previously);
• Winning, duh.
  

If I do come to work for your organization, there are a few requirements I’d request you provide in order to maximize the effectiveness of my performance. Chief among these is two (2) personal assistants (female, in their early 20s) who will share my office space, paid sufficiently so that they will leave when I’m done with them. I’m not big on small talk.

The assistants should be prepared to spend time locked in the rest room should I need privacy while forcibly redecorating the office. Also, I’ll need a briefcase in which to carry my personal effects and business paraphernalia (at least five kilos worth).

You may have heard of some indiscretions attributed to me in my previous positions. I admit, like everyone else, I have had some issues in my personal and professional relationships. However, unlike everyone else, I have Adonis DNA. Everyone else can lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly kids and look at their loser lives. Boom! Winning.

In conclusion, I’d like to reiterate that I have much to add to your organization (poetry, fists, blood, gold, etc.), and if you offer me a position, I can assure you that I will wrap both arms around it, and love it violently, and defend it violently through violent hatred. Again, literally.

I look forward to hearing from you. If you need to get in touch with me, I’ll be in the Bahamas with a bikini model, an adult film star and my ex-wife.

Sincerely,
“Carlos Estevez”
(Real name available upon request)

Dear Carlos:

I regret to inform you that we do not have any openings at this time. However, if we have need in the future for someone with your particular skills, such as typing, strafing and/or redecorating, we will definitely be in touch. However, I must warn you that our company does require mandatory drug testing to see if you are on Charlie Sheen.

Sincerely,
Chaim Chianca

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

COLUMN: Glad that Bob Seger is still the same

Back in the early ’90s I met a guy whom you might refer to as an inveterate hipster. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses, had an excellent leather jacket and declared that Bob Seger represented everything — everything! — that was wrong with popular music.

As I recall, he didn’t elaborate — inveterate hipsters are big declarers but not especially prolific elaborators — but I can assume he was of the opinion that, by releasing a series of derivative piano- and saxophone-laden “rock” albums about rocking and being nostalgic about rocking, not necessarily in that order, Seger was single-handedly barring the way for other artists who might otherwise be prone to introducing something vaguely original into the musical zeitgeist. (Hipsters love saying “zeitgeist.”)

My initial response, as a Seger fan, was to be offended. Frankly, I found the guy’s music mostly irresistible; his live mash-up of Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock” and “Little Queenie” was like a duck-walk on steroids, and forever established Seger in my mind as a dedicated bearer of the rock ’n’ roll torch — one of “Chuck’s children,” as Seger himself referred to Berry’s disciples in “Rock and Roll Never Forgets.”

It probably didn’t hurt that I picked up my affection for Seger from my father, who played Seger’s “Stranger In Town” LP early and often during the late ’70s. My dad had a proclivity for keeping up with popular music; Seger, The Eagles and Rod Stewart were all favorites, despite his advanced age — 35, give or take — and it separated him from most of my friends’ parents, whose stations always seemed tuned to The Music Of Your Life, whatever (and whosever life) that was.

(An aside: I remember with some pride the time my friend Mark heard the opening chords of Journey’s “Escape” album and bounded up our stairs to find my father studiously reading the lyrics on the record sleeve; Mark was both delighted and flummoxed to find an adult who had somehow managed to avoid fogey-hood — it was like coming across a four-leaf clover, or a unicorn.)

Despite all that history, though, I’ll admit that eventually, not long after the hipster encounter —maybe because of it? — I found myself losing faith in Seger’s rock bona fides. Looking back, I had to admit that as the ’80s wound down, each of Seger’s albums had started to sound vaguely — OK, exactly — like the album before, just a little less so. (Quick, tell me the difference between “The Fire Inside” and “Like a Rock.” See?) In 1995 he released “It’s A Mystery,” which went gold despite the fact that nobody remembers it, and then he went on an 11-year sabbatical, and I can’t say I missed him that much.

At least I didn’t think I did, until 2006, when he released “Face the Promise,” and I was surprised to find myself inexplicably thrilled. I thought I had long relegated Seger to the pile of artists whom I had moved on from some time after college, right next to Billy Joel, Phil Collins and squarely on top of Huey Lewis. But I got the new album anyway, and though his rasp was a little croakier, it was as appealing as ever — and lo and behold, at age 60, his once-premature nostalgia finally made perfect sense.

It was also enough to make me revisit his old catalog, and wouldn’t you know it, it held up. Sure, “The Horizontal Bop” is just silly (if not downright juvenile), and we’re best to forget “Shakedown,” his biggest pop hit and only one without the Silver Bullet Band, whom we can only assume he dismissed because he was embarrassed about singing what should have been a Glenn Frey song. But “Sunspot Baby” still has that same bluesy drive; the live “Katmandu” retains its appealing frenzy; and the hits — “Night Moves,” “Against the Wind,” “Hollywood Nights” — evoke, well, yes, nostalgia, but also affection for an era when radio-friendly music at least tried to rock and roll.

The reason I bring all this up, of course, is that Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band recently announced another national tour, and he’ll be bringing his creaky 65-year-old self to Boston’s TD Garden in April. Wherever that hipster is today, he might say that the fact Seger still sells out arenas, where aging fans can wear their too-tight concert T-shirts and shake their fists to his bland rock retreads, represents everything that’s wrong with popular music today.

Tickets go on sale Saturday. Maybe my dad would like to go with me.

Read my musings on rock music at blogs.wickedlocal.com/springsteen.

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: CBS May Replace Charlie Sheen With Mel Gibson

LOS ANGELES (CAP) - CBS has announced that rather than cancel its hit comedy Two And A Half Men, producers have begun holding auditions to replace embattled star Charlie Sheen. But critics are questioning whether the actors they're considering, including troubled film star Mel Gibson, might actually make the situation worse.

CBS is looking to replace Sheen after he slammed show creator Chuck Lorre in several interviews last week. Although the show has survived Sheen's past benders, rants, drug arrests and alleged abuse of women including his wives, apparently calling the show's creator a "punk" was a step too far, leading Lorre and CBS to shut down production.

"I can live with a star who gets caught with a suitcase full of cocaine or smacks women or locks a porn star in a hotel toilet while he wrecks the room, but not one who hurts my feelings," said Lorre, tearing up.

Rather than put cast and crew out of work, however, Lorre and CBS have begun auditioning people to take Sheen's place. But a list of actors who've performed screen tests, leaked yesterday to TMZ.com, suggests that the producers may not have learned their lesson.

"I can't help but wonder if Mel Gibson is really going to be an improvement over Sheen," said Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales. "At least Sheen is only borderline anti-Semitic."

Gibson's screen test, posted in part by TMZ, would seem to justify Shales' concerns. At one point, Gibson, portraying Charlie and Alan's "Uncle Mel from Australia," is seen reading lines with Jon Cryer as Alan. A partial transcript appears below:

CRYER: Uncle Mel, I'm speechless.
GIBSON: Are you a Jew? The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.
CRYER: Uh ... The line is "silent admiration is all I ask."
GIBSON: I'll put you in a f--ing rose garden, you c--. Because I'm capable of it.
CRYER: Um ... Can he maybe read with Holland Taylor instead?

Other potential cast additions include Lindsay Lohan, who auditioned for the role of Charlie and Alan's slutty cousin Belinda; and shock jock Howard Stern as their new wacky neighbor, Howard Stern.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: 35 signs you're living with dogs

As I’ve mentioned before in this space, my wife, my two kids and I share our household with four dogs. How this happened is a story for another day, once I figure it out myself — it was all kind of a blur, like a roller-coaster ride, or college.

Regardless, somehow here we all are, and it’s a predicament that’s gotten me thinking about all the things we dog co-habitators find completely normal that other people — people who don’t have to vacuum three times a day, and whose doorbells don’t trigger a high alert consistent with a DEFCON 3 potential nuclear disaster — might see as at least slightly unusual.

With that in mind, I enlisted my kids — Jackie, 11, and Timmy, 9 — to help me compile a handy list of signs that may indicate you fall into that first group, the one in which at least one member of your household is fur-covered and more than casually interested in butt-sniffing. If even some of these are true, you may be beyond help.

You may be living with dogs if:

1) You’re walking around with dog food in your coat pocket.

2) You’re walking around with plastic bags in your other coat pocket.

3) Your car smells like it just rolled in something gross.

4) Your car is full of fur.

5) Your kids are full of fur.

6) Your furniture has that chewed-in sort of look.

7) There’s a heavy object on top of the lid to your kitchen trashcan.

8) You own a device designed for propelling tennis balls great distances.

9) You know what a “Snausage” is.

10) You know where the butcher shop keeps the spare bones.

11) You own at least one product that spells bones “bonz.”

12) There are bones (and/or bonz) under the couch.

13) When you go for a walk in the woods, you’re always on the lookout for a really good stick.

14) The cat food’s gone and the cat didn’t eat.

15) You can’t sleep because someone’s licking your feet.

16) You can’t sleep because someone is lying on top of the covers like a sack of sand.

17) A bark is your alarm clock.

18) You keep a towel next to your front door.

19) You’re sitting on the living room floor because there’s no more room on the couch.

20) Your living-room floor is covered with stuffed animals that are missing limbs, eyes and heads.

21) Your living-room floor is covered with pee pads.

22) Your living-room floor is covered with what living-room floors get covered with if you forget to put down the pee pads.

23) The cookies are missing.

24) After the snow melts on your front lawn, you find socks.

25) There are paw prints on your kids’ homework.

26) Kong is no longer just the name of a giant monkey.

27) Someone has to guard the turkey.

28) You’re walking when it’s raining.

29) You’re walking when it’s freezing.

30) You’re walking when it’s boiling.

31) You’re walking, period.

32) You have a bright orange jacket with matching scarves, and you’re not a hunter or Gisele Bundchen.

33) Your every shoe is a chew toy.

34) You’ve ever filled a bathtub with tomato juice.

35) Your best friends love you more than life itself, and smell like they just rolled in something gross.

Of course, there are a lot more than just these 35. For our next installment, we’ll be featuring your suggestions of signs that you may be living with dogs. E-mail them to info@chianca-at-large.com, and remember: Unwanted hair and smells is a small price to pay for all that love, right?

Now if you need me, I’ll be in the living room. I’ll be the one sitting on the floor.

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: Church Of Scientology Defends 'Internship' Program

LOS ANGELES (CAP) - Responding to a report in The New Yorker that it is under investigation for human trafficking and using forced free labor, the Church of Scientology fired back this week, saying the ordering of church members to do grueling work in exchange for little or no money is nothing more than an extremely active internship program.

"Some of the world's most successful organizations and businesses have similar internship programs," explained Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International. "Umm ... IBM, for example."

When pointed out that IBM interns get paid about $20 an hour and gain valuable business experience, while Scientology members get paid about $50 a week to perform chores such as scrubbing Scientology superstar Tom Cruise's boat, Davis responded, "Who says boat scrubbing isn't valuable? Somebody's got to make Tom's boat shine like the glowing Sol of Teegeeack, so to speak.

"Besides, as [Church of Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard used to say, a little hard work is good for the thetan, no matter what planet it came from," added Davis. "Umm ... I'm kind of paraphrasing but that's basically what he said."

A CAP News study of other religions backs up Davis' claim that the practice is not completely unusual. For instance, altar boys do not get paid by the Catholic Church, although they are sometimes asked to do menial tasks, such as come to the rectory in their bathing suits to wash the priest's car.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: Snow-where to run to, doggie

I am my household’s designated evening dog walker. That means while everyone else in the world is watching “Modern Family,” I’m leading four dogs into the wilds of our backyard so they can do out there all the things we’d prefer they didn’t do in here.

We have enough property that this is usually a pleasant adventure, such as when we get close to the woods and I’m sure I can hear the rustling of something (rabid coyote, serial killer, rogue NASA robot) coming to kill me. You’d think I’d have nothing to worry about, being surrounded by four dogs, but I’m reasonably sure that as soon as something ominous appeared, Lilly, Corona and Sally would run (not for help, just run), and Penny would just try to lick it into submission, which would probably only work on the robot.

Regardless, it hasn’t been an issue lately, since my entire yard is now like the surface of the moon: cold, foreboding and looking vaguely like three solid feet of cheese. Sure, the driveway is plowed, and there are a few carefully snow-blown paths that look like little Death Star trenches, if Death Star trenches were frequented by giant space dogs leaving little Jabba the Hutts in their wake. But it’s no substitute for a full yard, or, if nobody’s looking, a neighbor’s yard. Hypothetically.

It’s bad enough without even considering the getup I have to put on to bring them out. I give the dogs credit for their patience every night, staring sympathetically as I pull on my rubber boots, quilted flannel shirt, ski jacket, gloves, scarf and hat or, if it’s cold enough, two hats. If someone came up the driveway and saw us I’m sure they’d mistake me for the padded guy in a K-9 demonstration.

Still, I’d argue that my wife, Theresa, the household’s designated daytime dog walker, has it worse — at all her favorite dog-friendly spots, she’s lucky to find a plowed-out parking space, much less a walking area where you don’t immediately sink in up to your waist or jowls, depending on your species. I’ve been there with her, so I know it’s true: You find yourself standing there in the middle of a field panting, the dogs bounding, dolphin-like, through the drifts as you pray an illegal snowmobiler will come by and pack the snow down, or run you over.

We do have a fenced-in area in front of the house with some shoveled-out space, but this weekend Sally, our 4-month-old golden, finally figured out that with so much snow up against the gate, all she had to do was hop over and she was home free. Of course it didn’t take long for her to start sinking into the nearest snow bank up to her furry little ears — I pictured rescue workers having to burrow down there and send her back up in a Chilean miner tube.

Luckily, I was able to climb into the snow after her and get her back easily enough. Meanwhile, our wandering dog Penny stared incredulously, clearly flummoxed at how Sally had managed to get on the other side of the gate, something Penny had been attempting to do for years by sheer force of will. Of course she had just seen her jump it, but we’ve realized Penny has the attention span of Dory in “Finding Nemo.” This also explains all the times she scratches at the front door, then looks at me with utter surprise when I open it to let her in. (“Evening dog walker guy! What are you doing here?”)

So we’re left trying to find a way to give the dogs outdoor supervision despite the challenges: Just as the show must go on, the dogs must go out. Fortunately, even if it doesn’t seem like it now, spring will be here before we know it, and we’ll have the whole yard to explore again.

At which time I’m sure I will sink immediately into mud up to my waist. It should be much easier for Penny to lick me from that angle.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. This year he’ll be taking an occasional detour from his “At Large” column to write about life with pets — you can follow his animal-related musings at twitter.com/longest_tail.

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: Kim Kardashian Upset Over Naked Photos In The Economist

NEW YORK (CAP) - On the latest episode of her E! television series Kourtney & Kim Take New York, model and socialite Kim Kardashian tells her sister Kourtney that she's very upset with her nude pictures that appeared in the Feb. 4 edition of The Economist.

"Oh my God, I'm more naked than I was in W," says a teary Kardashian on the episode. "And I didn't think that was possible."

The photos show a naked Kardashian carrying a briefcase in one hand and a set of actuarial tables in the other, with absolutely nothing in between. "I'm so mad right now," she says on the show. "The guy at the Economist promised [my private areas] would be covered by art! Whatever that is."

In a release, the magazine defended the images, saying, "The photographs were meant to be a meditation on the influence that celebrity has on the contemporary economy. Also, we thought they might actually get people to buy The Economist."

"I'll admit we had originally planned to obscure Ms. Kardashian's naughty bits with a clever caricature of Ben Bernanke," said a source close to the magazine's publisher who declined to be named. "But then we decided her tremendous naked breasts might go over better with our readers.

"This is a group of people who got excited when we featured a cover with two camels humping," noted the source.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: Sick of snow? It's always summer in Hollywood

Given that as I write this, the forecast for the week is a steady snow starting on Tuesday and tapering off sometime in 2013, I have decided to spend the remainder of the winter in Aruba. Unfortunately, like James Taylor with Carolina, I can only afford to go there in my mind, where the airfares are cheap and I look much less globular and pasty while sunbathing.

But imagining I’m warm and that my lawn doesn’t resemble the surface of the moon only goes so far. I find it’s also helpful to tune into some movies that put me in a more summery mood and remind me that in just a few short months I’ll be back at the beach, where I will be chewed to death by a giant shark.

But even if “Jaws” (1975) has many of the elements that epitomize the summer movie, including sand, surf, skinny-dipping and Robert Shaw being bitten in half, it’s missing one important component of all great summer flicks: Bobcat Goldthwait in a Godzilla costume. Also Annette Funicello, but mostly that first thing.

That’s why the better movie — “better” in the sense of it being much, much worse — is “One Crazy Summer” (1986), which is director Savage Steve Holland’s less well-known companion to 1985’s “Better Off Dead.” It may not have the same off-kilter genius of “Dead,” but it does have the same star in John Cusack, and also the aforementioned Goldthwait scene, which may be his crowning achievement (apologies to “Police Academy” 2-4). Local bonus: It takes place in Nantucket and was filmed on Cape Cod, which tends to be a beautiful area once it thaws out.

Another way to beat the winter blues is to watch summer movies that take place during high school, which remind you that even though you may be freezing now … at least you’re no longer in high school.

Two of the best are George Lucas’ “American Graffiti” (1973) and Richard Linkater’s “Dazed and Confused.” (1993), which both follow summer-night adventures of teenagers, in 1962 and 1976, respectively. “Graffiti” is the more classic of the two, a shambling masterpiece that shows that there was a time when Lucas seemed to have some idea of what real people actually speak like. “Dazed” has its merits as a summer movie, though, including an early appearance by Matthew McConaughey, a summery actor if there ever was one, and lots of 1970s tube socks.

Of course, summer movies don’t have to be goofy — sometimes they just need to be sweaty. I suppose Lawrence Kasdan’s “Body Heat” (1981) would fall into that category, although I’ve never actually watched that one, mainly because I have an aversion to seeing William Hurt (1) in a pencil-thin moustache and (2) perspiring.

I have seen “The Big Easy,” though — that’s the 1987 New Orleans-set crime flick featuring sweaty Dennis Quaid, sweaty Ellen Barkin, sweaty John Goodman and even sweaty Ned Beatty. It also happens to one of the sexiest, funniest police thrillers of the 1980s, thanks to Quaid and Barkin’s easy chemistry; with all due respect to the almost equally snappy relationship between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in “Lethal Weapon.”

My favorite choice for a summer thriller, though, has got to be Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954). Like us during one of this winter’s blizzards, Jimmy Stewart is stuck at home, except he’s there because his leg is broken. Sure, he’s itchy and sweaty, and spying on his neighbors eventually prompts Raymond Burr to break into his apartment and try to throw him out the window. But on the plus side, he gets regular visits from Grace Kelly. It’s a decent trade-off.

I plan to have all of these handy during this week’s latest snow-in — I figure if I pull the shades, crank the heat and get cinematically summer-ized, it will help get me through until the real thing comes around. Which I hope is soon: Aruba in my mind is starting to resemble the beach scene at the end of “Planet of the Apes” (1968).

I just hope I don’t look too pasty in my loincloth.

COLUMN: The dog that got away, again

Picture it: It’s 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning, it’s 16 degrees, and I’m standing in a ski jacket and plaid pajama bottoms on my driveway, which at this wintry moment looks like a footpath that might be used by Bhutanese yak herders. In one hand is a long yellow leash attached, conspicuously, to nothing, and in the other a half-empty box of Milk Bone dog biscuits, which I’m shaking up and down like some kind of pathetic cardboard maraca.

Halfway down the driveway is our 3-year-old yellow Lab, Penny, staring at me like I’ve gone completely out of my mind.

The hardest thing to reconcile, while swearing under my breath and fruitlessly shaking my Milk Bones as Penny tears off in the other direction, is why this dog never passes up the opportunity to bolt. After all, the house she’s trying so desperately to escape contains heat, food and unfettered access to any number of lumpy couches. Is the lingering possibility of finding a dead animal carcass really so compelling? (Apparent answer: Yes.)

I figure this is the type of thing you have to grapple with if you live with not one, not two, not three, but (wait for it) four canine companions, which happens to be exactly the situation I find myself in. And these are not fit-in-your-purse, keep-them-inside-if-there-are-hawks-around kinds of dogs — these are Labs and goldens, the kind who will collapse on your bed like a four-legged sack of cement, fixing your comforter in place like spikes through a circus tent.

For the record, my wife, Theresa, is the true dog lover in the family — she loves dogs in a very real, spiritual way that she considers more than worth any effort she has to put in to care for them. Whereas I tend to love dogs in more of a theoretical sense, in that way where you get choked up at the end of “Homeward Bound,” but you’d rather not be cleaning up after anything that comes out of them, or chasing them through snow drifts in your pajamas.

My family did have a dog when I was a kid — a large and unfortunately aggressive boxer named Rocky, whose tenure as a pet did not end well — but our current crowded household (I’ll tell you about the three cats later) has led me to consider, as I’ve never done before, why we get so attached to our pets. After all, they’re messy, they’re expensive, they do things that make you want to strangle them, and, unlike your kids, they aren’t obligated to take care of you when you get decrepit.

I guess maybe Penny’s personality holds the answer to that question. Her distinguishing trait is to greet everything she meets, be it growling, cowering or yipping, with loving and earnest licks to the face. She’s a diplomat and a peacekeeper, like Jimmy Carter with a 6-inch tongue, but fortunately not nearly as smart — for instance, after chasing her pointlessly through the snow for half an hour on Sunday, I simply opened the door to Theresa’s car and she promptly jumped into the driver’s seat, like a teenager awaiting her first lesson.

I dove in next to her and snapped the leash on, and she lovingly and earnestly licked my face as if I’d just rescued her from the brink of death. Yes, I could have strangled her just minutes before, but all was quickly forgiven — it’s hard to stay mad at someone when you’re relieved they didn’t get themselves run over by a snowplow. And even if Penny’s prone to taking off, I admit it’s flattering when she showers me with licks of love when she comes back.

So much so that I’m almost able to forget about what may have been in her mouth while she was gone.

Note: The above is the first in a series of columns I'll be doing this year on life among pets. Follow them at my new blog, The Longest Tail.

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: MTV Shocked At Flap Over Show On Naked Fornicating Teens

NEW YORK (CAP) - MTV executives say they are surprised that their new show Skins, featuring actual teen actors engaging in steamy sexual activity and drug use, is generating controversy among viewers and advertisers.

"Skins is a show that addresses real-world issues confronting teens in a frank way," said MTV spokesman Joshua Kepnis. "In order to do that concept justice, we had to film amazingly attractive naked teenagers performing simulated sex acts on each other, and we're shocked - shocked! - that our honest treatment of the subject is causing such a ruckus.

"Well, the sex acts are probably simulated," he added. "You'll have to watch and see for yourself on Monday nights at 10 Eastern time. I'm just saying."

The show, which some say may violate federal child pornography statutes, has raised ire for scenes that depict the teen actors, aged 15-19, disrobing and climbing in to bed together, running naked down the street in an aroused state, and having loud, graphic group sex after one teenage boy arrives at a girls' slumber party to deliver a pizza.

"You know, a realistic portrayal of how teens actually live," said Kepnis.

As for the pornography charges, "We are confident that Skins will not only comply with all applicable legal requirements, but also with our responsibilities to our viewers," he said. "This is by no means child pornography, and believe me, I would know."

But MTV's disclaimer was apparently not good enough for Taco Bell, which pulled its ads from the show last week.

"The typical Taco Bell customer does not want to turn on the TV and see young, skinny, attractive naked people," explained Taco Bell spokesmen Greg Francis. "That's the only thing that makes them feel worse about themselves than sitting at home alone eating takeout Gorditas."

[Read the rest at CAP News.]