GMTS Newsletter: Monday Morning Musings 2/13

Monday, Feb. 13, 2012

Monday Morning Musings from the mind of Kathrine ...

-Wow. Whitney Houston. Where to start. This is gonna be stream of consciousness, so bear with me.

Whitney Houston’s debut album was the first cassette tape I ever bought. It was 1985, and I saw her on Johnny Carson and ran out to buy it the next day. My sister and I darn near wore that thing out. Regardless of how the last few of her 48 years went, she was absolutely the voice of a generation. My generation. She was an artist with unimaginable talent and without a gimmick. No crazy get-ups like Lady Gaga, no envelope-pushing lyrics like Katy Perry, no vulgarities (and what-the-heck-performances) like Nicki Minaj. And those artists are great, but Whitney Houston was greater than great in her hey day.

-Whitney was so big, when I sang with my junior high school choir (“The Troubadours”), and we were auditioning for solos, six girls prepared the same Whitney Houston song. There were hair bands and popular artists, but Whitney Houston was the one singers wanted to emulate. And no one even came close.

-You know where I found out about her death? Facebook. That may be a first for me. And it spread like wildfire. There as a time that if something happened on a weekend, most of us wouldn’t know it until we got Sunday morning’s paper. Now, many of us don’t get Sunday morning’s paper. Our new consumption is incredibly different now, and it’s still evolving.

-Believe me, people are telling me I’m nuts on Facebook, but I do believe that there should have been more at the top of the Grammys last night in tribute to Whitney, a six-time Grammy winner. (She also won two Emmys, 30 Billboard Music Awards and 22 American Music Awards.) LL Cool J’s prayer was appropriate and Jennifer Hudson did a moving “I Will Always Love You” later in the show, but I wanted to see more at the beginning. That’s just me.

-Let’s be frank. Yes, her life was – at times – a bit of train wreck. But she was working on a new movie and who knows what was going on leading up to hear death. Her autopsy is complete, but right now, we don’t know how she died. We know she was in the bathtub and that prescription drugs were found near her, but right now all we know is that she’s no longer with us. I’m personally reserving an opinion until I know more. But again, that’s just me.

OK. Now for a break from Whitney.

-I made my first-ever trip to Jungle Jim’s a while back, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a bit of sensory overload, but that’s kind of the charm, too. I loaded up on locally-brewed coffee and loved the bakery – and my kids were smitten with the candy section. It was a bit unnerving being greeted by heads at almost every turn (a pig, a lamb, and a whole bunch of fish), but it was really interesting. If you haven’t been, make a point to go. Or you can wait ‘til the new location opens in Clermont County soon .

It wasn’t much of a break. But it’ll work. Have a great Monday.

From Today’s Show:

What would you do if you passed a driver who needed your help? This guy was just going out for donuts when he jumped into action.

-Get Up and Get Fit: A local woman is put on the cover of People magazine for losing 160 lbs !

Today's Distracting Link:

The scale of the universe – you know, just to keep things in proportion. The Japanese spider crab concerns me.

http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/scale_of_the_universe_2012