Pat Boone Objects to Heavy Metal Sarcasm

The Wire loves irony and taking liberties, and may have been a little overzealous last week in a somewhat backhanded salute to Pat Boone, after his receipt of the Parents Television Council’s “Integrity in Entertainment Award.” While we didn’t mention it, PTC president Tim Winter said Boone was among “a select number of individuals who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to creating, distributing and sponsoring wholesome entertainment products.”

What The Wire chose to focus on was Boone’s 1997 record, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, for which cover he was depicted in a black leather vest, and wearing an earring.

We further noted said album contained songs by Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Guns 'n’ Roses and other rockers, and that several songs on it contained lyrics that “dwelled on drugs, violence, and dystopia.” We didn’t cite any but examples include: “It’s a Long Way to The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N’ Roll)” by AC/DC: “Ridin’ down the highway/Goin’ to a show/Stop in all the by-ways/Playin’ rock 'n’ roll/Getting’ robbed/Getting’ stoned.”

Also Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy”: “My dog bit me on the leg today./My cat clawed my eyes./Ma’s been thrown out of the social circle,/And dad has to hide./I went to church incognito./When everybody rose, the Reverend Smith,/He recognized me,/And punched me in the nose./No more Mister Nice Guy,/No more Mister Clean,/No more Mister Nice Guy.”

We have some Metallica lyrics to back up the dystopia (depression) claim, too.

We did not, however, listen to the album to see if all these lyrics are, in fact, in Mr. Boone’s versions.

After we posted the item, the Wire heard from Pat Boone himself, via our Web site’s Talkback feature and affirmed by his administrative assistant, Janet St. Pierre, to whom we were referred by the PTC. She also promised to send The Wire a copy of the CD. (Thanks for that, Ms. St. Pierre.)

Dear Multichannel:

“Though I appreciated most of the nice article 'PTC Honors Pat Boone’ posted 7/19/08, I need to correct a couple of very serious misrepresentations.

First, sadly, I was never 'nominated for an Oscar,’ though some of my songs were — notably, 'Friendly Persuasion’ and 'April Love,’ as I remember. Oh, and 'Anastasia,’ another movie theme.

But most seriously, and I think this one merits a public correction — all the heavy metal songs I did, with big band jazz arrangements, were totally devoid of any reference to drugs, violence or “dystopia”, whatever that is. Obviously, the writer didn’t hear the album, or listen to the lyrics, but I made sure that there was not one whisper of any of that kind of stuff, or I wouldn’t have done the songs.

The outright inference that I had 'forgotten’ my own long held code of ethics to record some unsavory songs is totally false and injurious to my reputation. That’s especially true in an article that says nice things and offers that as a total contradiction of what I’m about.

I hope you will correct that as publicly as you erroneously reported it, please.”

Pat Boone

The Wire hopes this will, as it were, set the record straight.

Martin Keeps Dream Of A La Carte Alive

Maybe Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin hasn’t quite yet suspended his dream of imposing a la carte mandates on cable operators and programmers.

Asked about rumors that the FCC was going to vote in late August on rules designed to impose wholesale a la carte mandates on cable programmers, Martin told a roomful of reporters: “There isn’t anybody in the commission that’s working on the issue. I’ve had the Media Bureau staff working on different issues.”

Martin also said he no idea when he wanted to bring a la carte rules to a vote and no rules were being drafted.

That was Friday, July 11. That same day a top Martin aide stressed to Multichannel News that cable a la carte was inactive at the FCC.

Yet, just one business day after Martin’s denial, his acting legal adviser for media issues, Elizabeth Andrion, spoke with attorneys for HDNet about the fine points between “wholesale unbundling and retail a la carte.”

Two days after that HDNet session, the same Martin aide met and spoke with a small army from the American Cable Association, which urged FCC adoption of a rule that would require cable programmers to charge the same wholesale per channel rate to every cable operator, denying volume discounts enjoyed today by big MSOs like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

ACA president Matt Polka and his team also tossed their support behind Martin’s effort to require programmers to offer each of their channels to operators on a stand-alone basis rather than in a package.

Polka told us that he thinks a la carte is alive and well at the FCC.

“Our take is that the FCC is seriously reviewing the wholesale unbundling issue and all potential solutions that have been offered to date. There is no indication that this issue is off of the table. Quite the contrary,” Polka said.

So, stay tuned.

Team FiOS To Storm NYC

Red-shirted FiOS marketing personnel are set to swarm through Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal on Monday, July 28, at the bleary-eyed hour of 7:30 a.m.

The stunt, to mark Verizon Communications’ official introduction of TV service in the Big Apple, is supposed to evoke the telco’s wireless “It’s the Network” ad campaign.

Team FiOS will decamp for the rest of the day to the Vanderbilt Avenue taxi stand at 43rd Street, to sign up disgruntled Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems or satellite TV customers.

Verizon also will host an online news conference at 11 a.m., during which particulars are promised about where and when FiOS TV will be available.

Along with the media alert, Verizon last week sent reporters a tchotchkey (to ensure the media alert would not immediately be discarded): an alarm clock in the shape of a retro-looking television set, stenciled with the slogan “Verizon FiOS TV — Time for Better TV.”

Neat. Except, there wasn’t a battery included.

Guess we got the self-install version.