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MBTA tries to get even more annoying
By adamg on Tue, 10/09/2007 - 3:17pm
Spatch reports from South Station that the MBTA is now experimenting with driving its riders completely insane by blasting something called T Radio at them while they wait for trains - complete with chirpy DJs, the music you grew up with and, of course, ads:
... Surely this is just a test and they'll recognize their folly and drop it. Surely nobody has Written To The Top complaining about the silence and lack of wallpaper media while waiting for their trains and why can't they play lively Adult Contemporary music. And surely nobody asked us whether or not we wanted to hear Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot", which eventually started playing over the speakers.
No, I'm not feeling hot hot hot. I'm still not feeling hot hot hot. I won't be feeling hot hot hot. Stop saying hot hot hot!
The proceedings weren't even interrupted by the automated voice announcing the train arrivals. They're on separate channels, apparently, so the two voices merged and we could HOT HOT HOT! barely hear the fact that HOT HOT HOT! the next train to HOT HOT Alewife HOT! was now arriving HOT HOT HOT! ...
But think of the possibilities! The next time passengers are trapped in Red Line trains for hours on end, at least now they can enjoy the hits of the 80s, 90s and today! Oh, and no more annoying subway buskers demanding tips.
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Comments
Continuous Soft Hits - ON THE HEAD!
Arrrggghhh. This sounds just like that pernicious LOGAN RADIO in the terminals at Logan Armpit.
Free WiFi while you wait all day for a 2hr flight to be repeatedly cancelled and be 2 hours late? No. Electrical outlets for your laptop? Nope. WiFi for hire that works throughout the complex as advertised? Nope. Blaring drivel TV and mood-managed strains of Logan Radio throughout? Yep.
At least Wendy's and Dunks have straws suitable for poking out your eardrums. That's more than the T provides.
From the genius behind Kiss 108
Will the new T radio play nice with buskers? (via).
But the original plans called for Livingston Taylor (yes, that Livingston Taylor) to DJ songs by local performers (among whom I'm thinking Buster Poindexter isn't) and for Lenny Clarke (yes, that ...) to replace Dan Grabauskas as the voice of the T. No offense to Lenny, but I'd think Denis Leary would be WAY better as the voice of the T, especially if they let him go off on some obscenity-laden rant about how all service between Harvard and Ashmont has just been stopped, but they probably wouldn't let him do that, which is a pity.
Check out the corporate Web site, which features an intro showing a Pyramid destroying the earth, and then see how they emphasize "repetition of targeted messages" as a way to make people so completely insane they will fork over all their money to you just to make it stop (I'm paraphrasing here, of course, since their site is built entirely in Flash, which means you can't copy and paste and I'm too typed out to re-key the good stuff).
NO NO NO NO NO
If they do this all along the Red Line, I will cut off my ears with a sharpened CharlieCard and FedEx them to Grabauskas.
God, I hate the MBTA
They must have a whole department whose sole purpose is to design new ways to get you to hate them. Not to mention, a crap-tastic busker is better than any canned muzak the old white people who dig lame music at the MBTA will force upon our ear drums (no offense to old White people who like lame music - I'm just saying that I wouldn't subject you to my musical choices).
You can't understand that BS PA system anyway, they need to stop with the incessant announcements. Thank Christ I have agood set of head phones.
Hey, Dan Grabauskas: right here buddy.
I am not sure if you learned
I am not sure if you learned back in HS or college, if you went that is, on how to give feedback or comments about something you don't like in a professional way. Why would someone listen to comments you email to the MBTA that is disrespectful, is full of swears and makes you sound horrible. Constructive criticism is a powerful good thing. Asking your friends to email the MBTA for you just because they are your friends and feel the need to complain in an arrogant way like you did is stupid. It doesn't show that you know anything.
It's like talking to anyone... for ex: getting pulled over by a police officer for no stupid reason, (you feel that way at least), you wouldn’t yell at them and complain because they could arrest you. So you take the ticket and keep your mouth shut. And the only way you won't have to pay the ticket is if you fight it at the court house, looking professional and talking polite and professional.
If you want to make yourself look good and be respected, talk respectfully. If you want your opinion heard, make your opinion sound like you have brains and that you are smart and that you do know what you are talking about.
The T-Radio, isn't a horrible thing. It was awesome hearing the Sox updates the other day. I even heard someone happy to hear the "cha-ching" because they won the lottery. I understand your reasons for not liking it but to think that you’re so upset about listening to music sounds insane. If you don't like it then don't listen to it. And if you feel that you are good enough to play your songs and music on the T platforms, why not upscale yourself and play in the bars? Get a real audience. Everywhere you go, supermarkets, drugstores, and even some outside malls have music for "the customers’ enjoyment." Music is an amazing part of people’s lives and being a public place, you aren’t the only one around. Don't make your un-educational options ruin what many feel is enjoyable music.
If you have enough time to complain then put your complains to good use. Get a job with longer hours, because you have too much time on your hands. Find a job where your boss wants your feedback. Work at MassGeneral and get paid 12 bucks per hr. surveying the healthcare professionals and following them around seeing if they really wash their hands each time they touch a patient. Now that’s a job and something to fight for. The right to having and counting on the doctors, nurses etc to wash their hands before and after touching you and other patients. The end result of being treated by a healthcare professional if they don't wash their hands before touching you could be death and yet the end result of the T-Radio if they don't listen to your kindergarten moaning is possibly a headache.
Put your brain to use and your mind, which I am sure is full of wonderful thoughts and ideas, and think twice, even ten times before you get your friends to help you protest someone else’s awesome idea. Think first. Do you know what’s amazing about music? The Lyrics... the song "only the good die young" is a song with a chorus that everyone gets tearful when they hear because it means so much to them. It seems that only the good do die young. My point is that I ask you to go online and listen to the song. It has nothing to do with death of young people; it has deal with a man trying to get this catholic girl to have coitus (big word) with him. He wants her to realize that her beliefs will do nothing for her but make her die young, and as long as she has her beliefs he won't get her. How many people actually listen to the song lyrics?
Next time you’re in the T listen to the lyrics. Enjoy the songs, the entertainment etc. Sing along with the Charlie song, it's catchy and cute. Enjoy life because life is short and spending your time complaining and not loving or writing music and using your mind to the best of its ability, you'll regret later on in life. Some things in life you can't change. And if you’re telling me that you don't go to the grocery store or any store for that matter because of the music then you have some serious issues.
Relax and provide the T with good feedback and get a better gig. Try working on a cancer unit and telling the patients with cancer about your complaints about T-Radio. One they’ll think you’re crazy for talking so disrespectfully and I think these dying patients put better use to their mind than you might.
Thank you and understand that I am just trying to let you do something better with your life. Why not listen to your astrology report, it might tell you something you don't know. Enjoy life, donate your time your spending complaining and help that elderly person down the stairs and onto the T, help that woman carrying her stroller down the stairs, go to Pine Street and see how a scoop of mash potatoes puts the hugest smile on a grown man's face. Boston needs your help in other ways. Let these people do what they know works best and open your ears and enjoy the music.
Who/what is this addressed to?
The one busker I know who posts on here isn't participating in this thread, but I doubt she'd be able to make as much of a living playing in bars, particularly given the instrument and type of music she plays.
I also didn't see anyone here ranting and swearing like you alluded to.
The people in these various threads DO enjoy and study music. This is why we want T-radio stopped, so people can be free to enjoy live interactive music. Which was sanctioned by the MBTA (and which made an agreement with the subway performers program not to have any audio in the stations other than the announcements.)
The various musicians and activists in the various threads (including the busker!) spend considerable time volunteering and pursuing social justice. We're not going to stop being irritated at T radio because we also have other things in our life. That just doesn't make sense.
Really, wtf was any of the point of this?
No really, what?
I'll have to second what eeka said, as I'm the busker to whom she's referring.
I can't think of a single bar that's going to care for classical music on a busy night and only a few that would like the fiddle stuff I do. I don't know how well I'd get paid in bars; I do know that I make enough on T platforms to contribute my share to household expenses.
I'm complaining, politely and professionally, to the T and getting my friends to do the same because the MBTA is taking my job away from me, with no notice whatsoever. It takes about five, maybe ten, minutes to write a respectful complaint or make a phone call. I'd suggest that if a person can't afford to take that much time to respond to something that's bothering them, then that person is way overbooked.
T-Radio is the death of subway music.
Thanks to the opportunity to play in the subway I have become a professional musician--and yes I still busk in the subway.
Subway pennies have paid college tuition, repaired instruments worn from practice, and put food on the plates of the little children of immigrant musicians fleeing oppression with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the song in their hearts.
The harps and fiddles of Ireland, the accordions of Russia, the blues harmonicas of New Orleans, the banjo and guitar--all are alive in the Boston subway. Subway music is part of the American dream and the human experience. Let's keep the music alive.
Squawking radio on trains and buses--a scheme from hell!
The MBTA will accept comments on T-Radio only until Thanksgiving and then install it first on all platforms, then trains and buses, and likely in enclosed bus-stops.
All the ads are not on yet so as to avert an outcry.
What is now mostly music will become mostly ads.
Unless we find those Emerson students at South and North stations and complain we are about to be held captive on train or bus with squawking ads not even an Ipod can drown.
Wha??!?!??!
This is the craziest comment I've read since Alec Rawls'!
Wow!
Med check, dude
You might want to reassess your prescription level
Ableism
Yeah, the comment made no sense, but I don't think we need to point that out using an ableist comment. This sounds like it perpetuates the stereotype that no one with mental illness can say anything coherent, or worse, has anything worth listening to.
Whereas pointing out that the comment makes no sense is accurate feedback, which I think can help anyone.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Sensism
How cruelly you discriminate against those who make no sense. I protest most nonlinearly.
Oh, no, you misunderstand!
Giving feedback on the not-making-sense-ness is entirely appropriate. And sure, I discriminate against people who don't make sense when the context is a debate the person is trying to win -- they don't really have a lot going in that aspect, yanno?
I don't like generalizing this to imply that the reason they don't make sense must be because of mental illness, or conversely implying that people with mental illness typically have trouble making sense.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
1 day boycott
The fair hikes are being wasted on BS meanwhile the system only seems to be getting worse. I've therefore started a petition for those in-charge to step down else we boycott the MBTA. If you wouldn't mind signing my petition, go here:
https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/fix-the-mbta