What Happened to the Good Stuff?

While we're on the subject of good reading, what about some good listening?  Now, my radio dial is set to country.  I don't have an HD radio so it's local stations.  I guess I'm getting old (52), I just don't like the new music.  Where's the melody?  The clever lyrics?  Can you sing to it?  I love my Ultra Lounge CD collection.  Things I remember from childhood (Yes, along with Sing Along with Mitch!).  

Don't get me wrong, my heart is tuned to the blues, good St Louis blues, Memphis blues, deep down south  blues, but not as everyday listening.  As a teen I listened to Top 40, my husband tuned into KSHE95- real rock radio- the more hard core rock in the 70s.  I did enjoy Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd,  Rush, etc. but really, I liked the lighter versions to sing along with.  

Today I just see strangeness.  Skulls, horns, strange dancing that looks like it ought to be in a carnival side show, little if any clothing, overtly sexual.  Fixated on evil.  Not appropriate for family television viewing, especially during a major sports event.  

What happened to nice?  You didn't have to be angelic, not apple pie perfect.  What happened to good entertainment?  Family musicals, nice television entertainment.  

I like a good scary movie too, but make it worth watching. The House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price,  The Haunting from 1963, The Wax Museum with Vincent Price, the old Lon Chaney movies.   My favorites have to be the funny ones though- Abbot and Costello:   Hold that Ghost, or when they meet Frankenstein or the Mummy.  Clever, creative or funny, not just a bunch of zombies doing the same thing all zombies do in every zombie movie.

If I eliminated every slasher movie from the local video store, I'd be down to almost no choices.  Why?

My granddaughter tricked me into letting her watch an RL Stein movie.  I've seen some of the shorts, campfire type stories where kids get themselves in a scary mess but nothing too tragic or disturbing.  This one was, it wasn't on the kid channel.  It revolved around a camp ground where a demon came into their dreams at night.  It was scary and I turned it off.  For the next three hours I made her watch "Too Cute" on the animal channel to drive the "bad" out of her.  Three hours of watching all kittens all the time.

Again, I'm really not terribly prudish.  I love movies about space, movies where things blow up.   Think Die Hard or Schwarzenegger movies.  Love them!  Total Recall is one of my favorite movies.  

How about these good old radio shows?  The audio quality needs to be be better, my hearing isn't nearly what it should be; however, again clever stories designed to spark your imagination. 

And the nice books, not cotton candy nice, but something I could leave out on the coffee table and not be embarrassed if the preacher would stop by.