Its Less Effective This Way

One of my favorite jokes from late comedian Mitch Hedberg was that an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. "Instead of 'Out Of Order' the sign should just say "Sorry For the Convenience." This was going through my head the other night when the battery in my electric toothbrush died. You would think that I could just go on and use it like any old toothbrush but, truth be told, an electric toothbrush is kind of a crappy when it becomes a regular, non-electric toothbrush. There aren't as many bristles as you need and it doesn't feel like it does as good a job of cleaning all your teeth. To be fair, it was not meant to be used like this - the brush was designed on the theory that fewer bristles with a little power behind them could do the work of more, which is great until it's almost midnight and the person brushing his teeth (that would be me) is too lazy to go downstairs and hunt for a triple-A battery. Now, most of the time its design flaws are covered up by the battery power, but when you try and use it without any juice behind it you find out how far short it can fall.

This fact can also be true about musicians. (Yep, I'm about to try and compare pop star recording artists to an electric toothbrush - hang on for this one.) Yesterday there was a news item about how early '00s pop star, Pink, was injured while performing a stunt during a concert. She was supposed to go flying through the air but instead the stunt went wrong and she was throw into a barricade (relax, she's fine). Now, I have long held the belief that the best stage shows are the simplest ones. Give me the band, a good sound system and an otherwise empty stage. What happens in those settings is all the other "presentation" crap gets stripped away and all you are left with is the glaring reality of whether or not the performer has any talent. To complete the toothbrush analogy, you'll see if a design flaw is revealed when there is no power behind them. There is a reason that Nirvana's Unplugged CD was one of the most well-reviewed of the last decade. It was a few great musicians performing some well-written and well-chosen songs (notice that they never attempted an unplugged version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"). The music was what was important. There were no pyrotechnics, elaborate stunts or choreographed dance numbers set to a remix meant to distract the audience from the fact that the artist was most likely lip-syncing. Contrast that with an N*Sync concert that came to this area a couple years later which featured a stage that was taller than the stadium it was in, because N*Sync's music blows. Basically, what I think I'm driving at is this - I'm pretty sure Pink is an awful concert to see live.

-If you've ever wondered why boxing has been dying a slow death over the last couple of decades, you need look no further than the latest news about the Manny Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather non-fight. These two are generally recognized as the two best boxers in the world right now and they should have fought back in April, only Mayweather wanted a stricter drug testing schedule that included blood testing, even though boxing doesn't require tests to be that thorough. Pacquiao refused because he said he didn't want to disrupt his training schedule and he feels weak after he has blood drawn. Well, since that time Pacquiao has changed his mind and agreed to the stricter tests (a report saying that both fighters could make $30 million for the fight probably went a long way in changing his mind). Even with that concession, Mayweather is still hemming and hawing about agreeing to the fight. Publicly he says its because his uncle/trainer has a trial coming up and he wouldn't want to go into this big of a fight without him. Privately people are saying its because Mayweather thinks he could lose and his biggest draw is the fact he is currently undefeated. I have news for him - we're going to notice if you go undefeated while simultaneously ducking the best competition out there. This is why you need a boxing committee to just make these fights. Everyone wants to see it and it willing to pay big money to make it happen, but one person can can deprive us of what could be the biggest fight in years. While it may be fake, at least in pro wrestling you know eventually people are going to get in the ring together.