I hope someone someday will explain the financing of OETA, which provides Public Broadcasting System programming for the state. Its fund-raising consists of blatant infomercials for health. wealth and mind healers of all stripes plus regular doses of decade-based music specials that look pretty much like the overnight offerings of desperate independent broadcasters. Barely above these shows are such timely concerts as The Highway Men from 1990 and Roy Orbison in black-and-white from 1987. This summer they featured a 1981 Journey concert.
It makes me uncomfortable to be checking to see whom I can recognize while making a tally of the musicians who are still alive. While most of the festival infomercials have no relation to regular OETA programing, one staple still persists.
I grew up watching Lawrence Welk in the days of one TV in the living room, with the parents in full control. We Boomers watched under duress as the least cool collection of performers in America routinely drained every bit of pizzazz from the hits of the day. How many folks are left from The Greatest Generation to keep reruns of The Champagne Music Makers on the air?
I’d ask, “What’s Going On?” But Marvin Gaye posed that question 46 years ago.
(Gary Edmondson is Stephens County Democratic Party Chair.)