Internet – Jim Stafford's BlogOKC

Screenshot — Tommy Shaw (front left) performs with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in Cleveland.

I have a love-hate relationship with this thing we call the Internet. First off, it’s great to have virtually all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips.

However, I’m led down the Internet rabbit hole of memes, videos and questionable information several times a day. It’s the ultimate trivial pursuit.

But, sometimes the rabbit hole I’ve tumbled into delivers something surprisingly worthy.

I’ll share an absolute favorite with you. It’s a Youtube video of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra featuring former Styx lead singer Tommy Shaw.

Founded in 1995 and based in Cleveland, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra is composed of high school-age students who play contemporary music instead of the classics. Here’s how the not-for-profit orchestra is described on its Website:

“Contemporary Youth Orchestra is committed to the study and performance of exclusively contemporary and new orchestral music, with a focus on introducing students to careers in the creative arts industries.”

Anyway, the first Contemporary Youth Orchestra recording I came across features Shaw singing the Styx hit Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man). I’m mesmerized by the musical skill level of the young musicians, and by the focus and enthusiasm they put into the performance.

You can watch it below:

Shaw’s rendition of the Styx classic is also superb, helping me as listener grasp the meaning of the song that I previously only heard in passing. It’s well worth your time to watch and listen. Plus, Shaw also sings other Styx songs with the orchestra, including Blue Collar Man.

Turns out, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra has performed with dozens of well known singers and musicians, including the full Styx group, Jefferson Starship, Pat Benatar, Kenny Loggins, Jon Anderson and many others.

I had no idea that such an orchestra existed or that accomplished contemporary artists would play with them. I don’t get out much, obviously.

So I asked my friend and neighbor, Christy Fine, about the subject. Christy is a long-time orchestra teacher, now retired, in the Edmond School District.

She said it’s fairly common for high school and other orchestras to bring in and feature a well known musician in their performances. The Edmond district has hosted several such performances through the years, she said.

“It is a great way to expose kids to professional musicians,” Christy told me. “They (the featured musicians) send you the music ahead of time, then come and spend a day in rehearsal and then a big performance. We found they are great motivators for the kids.”

I’ve watched the Tommy Shaw/Contemporary Youth Orchestra performances multiple times since I found it a couple years ago. The Youtube version of Fooling Yourself has 6 million views, so it’s fairly popular.

Watch the performance of Blue Collar Man below:

Yes, Youtube can be a rabbit hole for someone browsing the Internet.

But, this time, I’m glad the trail led me to this video and to the Contemporary Youth Orchestra performances.

BONUS: Watch a promo for the Edmond Public Schools Fine Arts program here:

The 1970s vintage IBM Selectric typewriter

I was sitting in a news writing class at Abilene Christian University in 1977 when I heard something so preposterous that it has stuck with me for more than 40 years.

Our professor, Dr. Charlie Marler, speculated about the future of the newspaper industry. He said that some day we could get our news on a TV -like screen and have the choice to print out the stories that we wanted to read.

No one laughed out loud, but I had a good laugh to myself. Yeah, right, I thought. Not sure where Dr. Marler came up with this kooky idea.

At the time, the IBM Selectric typewriter was cutting edge technology for journalists. We were privileged to be able to type our stories on one in the late 1970s for The Optimist, ACU’s student newspaper.

Fast forward four decades. We can now see how dead-on Dr. Marler’s prediction was in the 1970s.

The fact that most of the world now gets its news instantaneously via a screen attached to a computer, tablet or phone made my old college professor appear to be a modern-day Nostradamus.

The rapid decline of the newspaper industry has been well documented. From my perspective, it began in the late 1990s as the public began finding news sources online and accelerated in the 2000s when WiFi became ubiquitous and smart phone use proliferated.

In fact, I accepted an early retirement offer in 2008 because my employer, The Oklahoman, reduced its workforce that year by 150 people or so. That ended a 30-year newspaper career that I launched upon graduation from ACU in 1978.

The Oklahoman was (and I think remains) the largest newspaper in the state. It has undergone multiple rounds of reductions in the years since I left.

All of which led to this week’s announcement by The Oklahoman. Beginning on March 26, it would no longer print Saturday editions.

The paper will be “digital only” on Saturdays, meaning it will be found only on your screen. A host of other daily newspapers owned by the Gannett corporation have announced the end of print Saturday editions on the same date.

You called it 40-plus years ago, Dr. Marler. I’m pretty sure that the “digital only” newspaper model eventually will eliminate print publication on most other days of the week.

Maybe the Sunday edition will be the only day we can actually get our hands on a printed newspaper. If we’re lucky.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so skeptical of Dr. Marler’s prediction at the time I heard it. Because cartoonist Chester Gould, an Oklahoma native, had introduced an even bigger fantasy for his Dick Tracy comic strip back in the 1940s.

It was a two-way communications device worn on the wrist.

I was a huge fan of the Dick Tracy comic strip as a kid and infatuated by the device that Tracy wore on his wrist through which he had instantaneous communications.

The future was right there on the funny pages for decades and we didn’t recognize it.

Gould’s fantasy device became reality when the Apple Watch debuted in 2015. Today, millions of people wear Apple’s incredible two-way communication device on their wrists.

Not sure who laughed at Chester Gould’s vision when it appeared in the Dick Tracy comic in the 1940s.

Or who was laughing aside from me at the outrageous prediction of Dr. Charlie Marler in a 1970s ACU classroom.

But no one’s laughing now.

Tag: Internet

Down the Internet Rabbit Hole to a worthy discovery

The newspaper visionary and the skeptical student