FAR EAST MOVEMENT IS COMING to Binghamton University.

Super Mash Bros and Taking Back Sunday appearing as well.

Those guys that sing the song about the Pontiac G6 are coming to Binghamton University on May 7th. (OK, the song’s not about a Pontiac G6; it’s about the rich and famous jetting around in Gulfstream IVs (G4).  But it’s fun to make fun of all the idiots running around claiming that the song is about a Pontiac, so I like to perpetuate the fallacy.) So where did the "G6" come from? Drake sings about Gulfstream 4s. Not to be outdone, Far East Movement’s Kev Nish told MTV News that the only thing "flyer" than a G4 would have to be a G6–never mind that the plane doesn’t actually exist.  There’s nothing flyer than a nonexistent plane.  Apparently.  Nonexistent planes and unicorns have that in common. (See Ke$ha’s hysterically asinine video for Blow.) Though it’s worth mentioning that nonexistent planes at least "fly" in theory. Unicorns, in fact, do not.  OK, unicorns, in fantasy, do not.

Anyway, Far East Movement has proven that they are NOT just a one-hit wonder. (Jury’s still out on whether or not they’ll be a 2-hit wonder.) Although if you believe Wikipedia, G6 can’t be counted as their first “hit”. Their track "Round Round" was featured in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and "You’ve Got a Friend" got a bit of national airplay. Not sure if I buy those two as hits, but the one that’s seriously making the rounds right now is "Rocketeer"…

According to Pipe Dream, the BU concert gurus were trying to find a mega-act to follow up last semester’s mega-get of Drake. When that didn’t work out, they went for more of a music festival vibe–with 3 acts that scored big on student surveys. Wiki-world also credits FEM as being the "first Asian-American group to earn a top ten hit on the Mainstream Pop charts in America".

I’m not proud of the fact that I spent 5 of my 6 hours at the New York State Fair looking for a deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  (We spent the other hour sitting on the highway off-ramp waiting to park.)

But I will say this: The “Great” New York State Fair knows how to fry sh*t.  I put “Great” in quotes, not because it isn’t—it is pretty great—but because I think it’s funny that all you have to do to make something great is to call it that.  On a related note, I shall henceforth be known as The Excellent and Awesome Joshua B.

It’s true:  the Great NYS Fair knows how to fry sh*t and I, as it turns out, know how to eat fried sh*t.  Oreos, cheese curds, Twinkies, Snickers, Pop Tarts, dough, pizza… if they can get breading to stick to the sides, they’ll throw it into boiling hot oil and charge you 7 dollars.  They’ll even fry chicken.  Imagine that.

The holy grail of fried foods, as it turns out, is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Not sure why this is true; perhaps it’s because the PB&J is the best sandwich ever invented and frying things is the ONLY thing proven to make just about anything taste better.  But for whatever reason, it’s highly desirable.  And awfully hard to find.  As any holy grail should be.

We really did spend an awful lot of time looking for that fabulous sandwich.  But along the way, we had some other adventures too.  Adventures that involved milk, grilled chicken, and potatoes.

OK, all our adventures involved food.

Here are just a few of them:

25 CENT MILK.  AND COWS!
Having recently learned that cows make milk (see previous entry) I was especially excited to find out that the Fair has both cows and milk in the same place.  And 25 cent milk at that!  To be totally honest, I don’t really get the milk appeal, but Jason was very excited about it…

I have to take a brief interlude here to explain about my friend Jason.  Jason has what I consider to be a slightly unhealthy obsession with the Great New York State Fair.  Why unhealthy?  “It’s like my Christmas,” he explains.  I’m not sure what dreadful things Santa brought him as a child that 25 cent milk is more appealing, but whatever it was, Jason promised to be my guide to the Fair.  And he was, displaying a deft understanding of where to find just about anything in that maze of food vendors, carnival games, music stages, and livestock—including cows!

A quick visit to the NYSFair web site will tell you that milk is New York’s “official state drink”.  What they don’t tell you is that it’s also the official state drink of Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  (In Rhode Island it’s ‘coffee milk’, whatever that is.)  BTW, Nebraska has TWO state drinks.  Milk AND Kool-Aid.  No joke.

So I suppose in light of the state drink thing, it was only appropriate that I tried New York State milk at what was inexplicably called the “Rainbow Milk Bar.”  I guess because the milk comes in BOTH regular and chocolate.  But because I was a bit underenthused about the milk bar, I asked Jason to explain why it makes him so… giddy.  He responded with the following text message segments—each 160 characters or less…

“The Rainbow Milk Bar is a 60-year-old tradition celebrating a cherished New York industry…”
“…Drinking the delicious milk is a nostalgic experience that harkens back to a simpler time…”
“…in a day where the wholesomeness of milk is perverted by flavors and growth hormones…”
“…The Rainbow Milk Bar takes us back to a time where you didn’t need flashy packaging, high-fructose corn syrup, or hyper-sweetened drinks…”
“…Back to a time when all you needed was a quarter in your pocket and a smile on your face…”

We’re trying to get Jason a job writing tourism brochures for historical landmarks in small towns with old mills and civil war statues.  Seems appropriate.

Anyway, the 25 cent milk WAS delicious.  Although—are you listening Great New York State Fair?—the chocolate milk could use a bit more syrup.

What was more interesting to me was the butter sculpture.  Which rotated magically under its own power.  Or at least seemed to.  3200 sticks of butter were used to make the thing—enough to top 6400 large tubs of popcorn… God, I’m getting hungry.  And it was sculpted by husband/wife team Marie Pelton and Jim Victor, who also once created two famous football players entirely out of pepperoni, cheese and olives.  Wow.

This year’s sculpture was entitled “Dairyville 2020”, and the idea was to create a model for sustainable farms of the future.

Then, of course, there were the cows.  Jason was always yelling at me to pet things.  Baby cows.  Baby chicks.  Having grown in North Jersey, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to pet barnyard animals.  Of course, he’d also warn me in advance of petting anything… “Be careful! The cows kick.” “Baby chicks!  Careful… you could get salmonella.”

He also felt it necessary to ask every dairy farmer in the “Toyota Dairy Cattle Center”—(why exactly are cows sponsored by Toyota?)—if the brown cows give chocolate milk.  :: Hangs head in shame. ::

STUFF THAT ISN’T FRIED
Everything at the fair is fried.  EVERYTHING.  Well, almost everything.  I was starving on the drive up and begged Jason to stop.  He refused, saying there’d be plenty to eat once we arrived.  Which was an excellent theory, until he missed the off-ramp and spent an extra hour in traffic.  I was pretty much famished when we got there, and on a mission to find something legitimately healthy to eat.  Finally, after another hour of searching, we found the ONE vendor at the fair that offered a grilled chicken sandwich.  Luckily, there were plenty of terribly unhealthy options at the same spot for Jason to sample.  We grabbed something called “Potatoes O’Reilly”, which were basically thinly sliced potatoes, deliciously soaked in oil, and Jason got a bacon and cheese sandwich.  Here’s how Jason ordered…  Jason: “Hey, what’s on a bacon and cheese sandwich?” Girl: “…bacon and cheese.”  Jason: “Oh… OK… I’ll have one of those.”

EXTREME SCULPTURE
I always thought ice-sculpting was pretty kick-ass—that is, until I saw the “Master of the Chainsaw”, Brian Ruth.  His “X-Treme Power Sculptor” performance involves transforming ordinary logs into things that are, well, surprisingly dainty and cute.  Things like heron.  Aww.  According to nysfair.org, he’s there EVERY DAY, creating four pieces a day.  I truly hope that he’s available for events like weddings and children’s birthday parties—because nothing says young Bobby’s birthday like a sculpture that requires a metal cage, power tools, and safety goggles to craft.  Carve on, my friend.  Carve on.

THE NEON CHICKENS
I would honestly go to the fair just to see this in person.  I’ve seen people die food unnatural colors before just to make sure the kids will care, but I’ve never seen the principal applied to livestock.  Until now.  Green!  Blue!  Red!  These chickens are like an unwitting pop punk band in a cage.  And I’m SO all about it.

The neon chicken area is ALSO where I got to hold a live chick.  My live chick hated me.  And kept trying to jump out of my hands.   Potentially, to its death.  Baby chickens can’t fly, right?  But it seemed willing to endure the 4 foot drop to the floor below just so it would be done with me.  Jason couldn’t understand why I was so timid with the animals, but what with the salmonella warning, could you really blame me?

THE WINE SLUSHIES
I had never even HEARD of a wine slushy until I moved upstate.  Now, I’m not sure why they’re not available EVERYWHERE.  State fair veterans should pay attention here—there’s a change from last year.  Previously, the wine slushy tent was roped off from the rest of the fair, forcing slushy drinkers, who were clearly there ONLY for the booze, to make idle chit-chat with their fair-going companions… until they were finished and able to free themselves from the confines of slushy zone.  Starting this year, however, the slushies may roam free!  Free to wander over to the fried oreo tent—opening up the possibility for endless dipping combinations.  Free to head over the midway, where one might partake in my very favorite carnival game of all: lobbing dirty old baseballs at empty glass beer bottles.

However, there IS a tradeoff.  No longer can one buy a giant 20-ounch plastic souvenir wine slushy cup.  We’re now forced to buy 10-ounce flimsy plastic cup after 10-ounce flimsy plastic cup of slushy yum to get our wine buzz on.  Jason had thought we were limited to 2 cups per order, but, after I left the tent, he emerged a moment later with three cups—a practice he charmingly referred to as “triple-fisting”.  WARNING: Wine slushies can and do cause wine slushy brain freeze.  Drink with caution.  Or, at the very least, slowly.

THE CHEAP SEATS
The Great New York State Fair has a truly phenomenal line-up of concerts this year.  Aerosmith, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Kellie Pickler—whoever’s doing their booking is doing a kick-ass job.  Of course, they can only bring in the big names if we go and buy the big tickets.  So make sure you support the shows.  Try to pay for at least ONE show this year…

And do as I say, not as I do.  Because I’m way poor right now.  And couldn’t afford a ticket for Rihanna.  Who I really, really, really wanted to see live.

See, there’s a story here.  A long, long time ago (5 years) in a land far, far away (NYC), I worked at a radio station and actually met Rihanna in person.  She had just released her first single and I, frankly, wasn’t sure how far she was going to go as an artist…

God I’m a f*ing idiot.  I mean, stupid beyond reason.  I couldn’t have asked for one little autograph?

Anyway, ever since then I’ve desperately wanted to see her in concert.  So thank God, again, for my NYSFair veteran Jason.  He told me that if you REALLLLLY wanna see a show and REALLLLLLY don’t have the cash, there’s always the super-obstructed cheap-ass viewing option.  THIS was my view of the last half-hour of the Rihanna concert.  All I paid was general admission to the fair.  And as you can see, I was NOT alone…

THE FRIED PB&J
Only ONE DAMN VENDOR at the fair makes fried PB&J.  And let me just say this: the other fried food vendors aren’t always that happy to direct you to their competition.  But who else are you supposed to ask?  There’s not exactly a fried food map to the fair.  After hours of searching, we finally found the PB&J people.  And man, did we hit the jackpot.  There’s almost nothing they wouldn’t fry.  In fact, their sign says it all: “You bring it, we’ll fry it.”  Quite an offer, considering the guy that created fried beer in Texas burned himself on the deep fryer several times before figuring out you had to wrap it in a pocket of pretzel dough first.

Now here’s the thing about fried PB&J…  Um, it really isn’t that great. Certainly not worth the 5-hours quest.  And it’s not the fault of the fryer!  Certainly, they used good ingredients.  Their PB&J tasted great on its own.  And the fried coating tasted great on their cheese curds.  But some things simply aren’t meant to be fried.  I know; I’m as shocked as the next Chicken McNugget addict!  …now fried oreos on the other hand…  it’s like somebody wrapped up heaven in a nice little pouch of powdered sugar and delivered it straight to the state fair.  :: contented sign ::

ANYWAY
This is clearly not a consummate guide to the Great New York State Fair.  In fact, it’s not even a consummate guide to the FOOD of the New York State Fair.  And that’s about all I covered.  If you consider neon chickens food.  Which clearly I do.  But the bottom line is you just need to go explore on your own.  Find your own neon chicken.  Find your own fried PB&J.  And maybe even find something at the fair that isn’t food.  You never know…

So if you don’t know that hip-hop artist Drake is coming to Bing U on October 1st, you obviously haven’t been Facebook stalking me.  Which is frankly unacceptable.  Start right away.

Drake is famous for a bunch of reasons. He can sing, he can act, and he was a regular on Canadian teen drama ‘Degrassi:  The Next Generation’.  But perhaps the coolest piece of trivia I’ve discovered about Drake is that he’s become so famous as a singer/rapper that his real-world persona is actually referred to by name by CHARACTERS in the 2010 Degrassi TV movie.  Characters who knew the guy that Drake PLAYED on the show.  As in, “ ‘Hey, let’s go see Drake in concert.’  ‘Wait, you mean the hip-hop artist slash actor who pretended to be our wheelchair confined high school friend for all those years?’ ‘Yeah, him!’ “

Trippy.

Anyway, if you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years.  Or if you’re one of those people who “only listens to Morning Edition”—yeah, I know who you are—here’s a YouTube of one of Drake’s big singles…

Even though the news of his impending concert was leaked to some OTHER news outlet first—ahem, I don’t hold a grudge—I asked BU’s “Lord of the Concert” Aaron Cohn for a brief interview about how one gets a mega-gigundo-hyper-famous superstar rapper to come to lil ole Bing.

PS: If you need any proof of how fabulously famous Drake is, a recent free South Street Seaport show to promote his new album had to be canceled when it attracted 25,000 fans instead of the expected 10,000.  Of course, Drake was supposed to perform in conjunction with Hanson.  So you take your pick as to who the real draw was…  I mean, that Kevin Jonas is dreamy.

What’s that, you say?  Kevin’s not in Hanson?  Then who the hell are the Hansons?

Oh crap.  That ‘Mmmbop’ song.  25,000 people?  Just think how many more would’ve shown if they had canned Hanson in advance.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: BingPop has received assurances that Hanson will NOT be appearing with Drake at BU.)

I always wonder what the politics of choosing an act for a college show are like.  Is there a vote? Is there a smoke-filled back room?  Do you flip a coin?
Haha.  There are certainly politics involved, and the smoke-filled back room with just a few people used to be the place these types of decisions really were made. It was hit and miss.  In the last year, however, we’ve started leveraging technology and making the process more data-driven, with online surveys distributed to the entire student body.  In short, we figure out what the ticket price of various shows would be, and we ask students to rank each of our choices from 1-5.  Needless to say, Drake finished pretty darn high.

Beyond that, things like artist fee/value, tour routing (if they’re coming through NYC, the northeast, etc., we can usually get a much better deal and the artist is more likely to accept a college date), and little things like artist buzz play a factor.  I also put a lot of weight on the gut instincts of my concerts chair and entire programming board…often times they’re the deciding factor when we’ve got tough choices to make.

Of course, the other half of the coin is the greater Binghamton community.  We really haven’t figured out a great way to gauge what they would like to see.  So on that front, we kind of need to go with what the students want (since that’s what we can obtain data on), and hope the community gets excited as well. 

What are the dirty details re when tickets go on sale to public vs students; and prices?
You got your story right- tickets are on sale online 10am Thursday, September 2nd.  There will be a nice big link on sa.binghamton.edu.  They’re all general admission.  We managed to keep the prices really fair for this one- $36 each (plus a $2 facility fee and $2 convenience charge).  That said, this show is 2 days after two sold out dates at Radio City Music Hall, where the cheapest ticket to be had was $56 and the good seats were $106.  And since the Events Center isn’t that big, everywhere in the building is going to be a good view.
Since BU undergrads pay an activity fee for events like these, their tickets are slightly cheaper- $28, and also available atsa.binghamton.edu.

Backstage riders are legendary.  Any stories you can share about past acts and what kind of fun stuff you had to get for ‘em?  You don’t necessarily have to tell us the NAMES…
We haven’t had anything too legendary in recent years…of course, artists ALWAYS ask for alcohol (often fancy types), which we cannot buy with state dollars.  We’ve also been asked for raw kombucha, goji berries, "non-domestic" chocolate, baby wipes, and deodorant to name a few.  Whatever it takes to keep the artist happy…we pride ourselves on being the most professional programming boards around.

Drake is a pretty big get?  How hard is it to negotiate getting the show to Binghamton?
Again, there’s always a variety of factors, and a lot of times it comes down to routing.  We are fortunate being just three hours from New York City, and that’s how we’ve swung some of our biggest acts in recent years like Green Day and the Foo Fighters.  In terms of the negotiation, it is also tough because we fight hard to keep our ticket prices as low as possible on all of our shows, both for students and the community.  Fortunately, at the end of the day the artist has the same goal as we do; pack the house.  So in terms of negotiation, we usually hit a happy medium in terms of costs. 
 
Funny thing about Binghamton: sometimes people go to a show not because it’s their favorite artist, but just cause it’s a BIG show that’s coming to town and we don’t get that many.  How do you describe Drake too, say, um, your Mom who might want to go see a concert in town?
Drake isn’t your typical rapper in a lot of ways.  Yes, his songs are catchy, and his album "Thank Me Later" was one of the biggest of the summer.  If you haven’t heard of him, take a listen on iTunes- there’s a reason he is so popular amongst young people right now.

But to my mom…honestly I would describe him as a "nice Jewish boy" because he is in fact Jewish (and had a Bar Mitzvah)! He is also Canadian, and started out as an actor playing the character Jimmy, a boy in a wheelchair, on the popular show "Degrassi." To any mom’s who are GLEE fans, I heard someone joke the other day that they planned to show up to the concert in a wheelchair with a "Team Artie" shirt on…thought it was pretty clever.

But in short, it’s guaranteed to be a fun show.  If you’re not familiar with Drake, but just want to head to an energy-filled concert, this may be one to check out.

"Freakishly knowledgeable" may not be the most flattering way to describe Larry Kassan’s relationship with the Twilight Zone, but I think even he’d agree: if the shoe fits…

Sure, sure, I could rattle off a long list of Larry’s professional credits and involvements in things like the Lake Placid Winter Olympics and an ABC TV special—but I’m naturally drawn to the most eccentric elements of a person, the better to draw a caricature, and an obsessive interest in a Binghamton-based science fiction universe takes the cake in Larry’s case—putting aside his claim that he may have the largest theater Playbill collection West of the Hudson.

(PS, Larry, I’m in the market for an original production Sweeney Todd playbill, as I have an unholy and freakish obsession with Angela Lansbury. Don’t judge.)

Larry can tell you what motivated Binghamton native Rod Serling to write the Twilight Zone: censorship of one of his scripts.  But even more than that, he can tell you the particular elements of that Rod Serling script that had been altered, how they originally played out, and how the TV sponsors demand that they be changed.

Star Trek fans got beat up in junior high for that kind of precision.  Don’t ask how I know that; it’s a tender spot.

But Larry’s love of the Zone has done a lot for Binghamton; he’s director of the Rod Serling Video Festival—a competition which brings entries and attention from all over the state—and now he’s instrumental in planning the TZ’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Honestly, there’s all sorts of different events to attend, including a TZ expert speaking engagement, a TZ bus tour, and the unveiling of a Rod Serling sculpture, but the one I’m most interested in—the one I think is the coolest—is this:

A live, televised reenactment of two Twilight episodes using local actors on WSKG. (10/3/09 @ 8 PM)

I mean, really, who does live TV anymore?  Yes, yes, there’s (the incredibly half-assed) Saturday Night Live, but it’s not clear whether anyone bothers to watch that show when there’s not a major election going on.

And THIS ONE is right here in Binghamton.

SO. COOL.  (I’m not being sarcastic. I know it’s hard to tell.)

Both episodes were “inspired by Binghamton locales” and will feature “professional, community and student actors”.  Looking for a place to enjoy the broadcast with other, uh… “Zonies”?  Um, “Twilighties”?  “T-Zoners”?  Whatever.  A special geek haven has been set up over at the Binghamton City Stage to enjoy the screening in a pseudo-social setting.

Larry Kassan ripped himself away from dusting his Playbill collection in order to answer a few of my questions…

OK, so you’re doing two episodes.  What are they about?
WSKG will broadcast two episodes live on Saturday evening October 3. MIRROR IMAGE is about a woman who sees herself in a bus station near Binghamton. WALKING DISTANCE is a biographical piece about a man, stressed by life, who finds himself travel back in time to his hometown where he meets himself as a young boy.
 
Now these scripts were supposedly inspired by Binghamton.  How so?
MIRROR IMAGE has many local Binghamton references and WALKING DISTANCE recreates Binghamton’s Recreation Park. Rod grew up just a few blocks away on Bennett Avenue.
 
Will the episodes be in black and white?
WSKG plans to broadcast the show in Black and White.
 
How are the actors prepping for the live telecast?
They are currently in rehearsal. Many have read about TZ and watched the actual episodes
 
So there are pros, community, and student actors.  Could you give us an example of each so we know who we’re looking at in the cast?
Hedi Weeks is a professional stage actor who has performed extensively in NYC and Toronto, Ava Crump is often seen at the Cidermill Playhouse, other cast members have connections to may community theatre around Greater Binghamton and two of the young actors are students at the Rod Serling School of the Arts. Austin Tanner, who plays the young Rod Serling was in last year’s production of OLIVER at the BHS Helen Foley Theatre.
 
I know you’ve had some contact with the Serling family; are they involved in this celebration at all?
The Serling family is most supportive of the celebration and plan to be at all of the events. 
 
Being the Twilight Zone encyclopedia you are, can you fill us in on a few lesser known “Bingo/Twilight connections”?
Rod always had strong ties to his hometown of Binghamton. He often added local references to all his scripts… Helen Foley (his drama teacher) was a character in the TZ, The Carousel shows up in many episodes, In the pilot which will be seen at the First Friday event he uses the name Resnick’s which was a famous women’s clothing store in downtown.
 
Some might note that being an inspiration for “The Twilight Zone” might not be the most FLATTERING of connections; what do you say to those people?
TZ was groundbreaking television, Serling was a pioneer in early broadcast TV. His work earned him more Emmy awards (6) than anyone in history of TV. This is something to celebrate and be proud of. I could say more but space does not allow.