My latest rant

Tomorrow: my take on David Letterman's Monday night apology, but for today -- what good is having a blog if you can't rant about things you have no control over and will never change?
I had occasion to drive through Beverly Hills last week (where the Iranians who aren’t protesting roost). And there arching over on Rodeo Drive were Christmas decorations.

It was September!

Now granted, Christmas decorations anywhere in sun drenched Southern California are somewhat absurd (“winter” is a destination not a season here), but September? Isn’t that a bit early even for Beverly Hills? Wasn’t Labor Day and summer just a few weeks ago? To my knowledge this is the first year the Christmas garlands have gone up before half the new Fall TV shows premiered. We’re so close to Labor Day that people are still allowed to wear white pants.

The reason is clear: to get potential shoppers into the stores sooner. Segue right from “Back to School Sales” to “Holiday Sales”.

It’s time to ring in the season and wring out those few extra dollars.

And it’s not just Christmas.

If the World Series goes a full seven games this year it will end on November 5th. And with snow-outs even longer. A new tradition is to play an NHL hockey game outdoors on New Year's Day. If they do that at Fenway Park in Boston there may be a conflict with a Red Sox World Series game. For the money that Fox is paying for the Fall (early Winter) Classic, they want the games to lap into November sweeps. And since spring training is now a cash cow games start in February. It used to be such a big deal for baseball fans when pitchers and catchers reported to camp. Soon that big day will be welcomed in by Dick Clark.

The NBA is not much better. Their Finals used to be held in the spring. Now there are so many playoff rounds that the champion isn’t crowned until almost the 4th of July. What’s the point of playing an 82 game regular season when every team but the Clippers get into the playoffs?

Oscar campaigns now begin the day after the Oscars.

Sarah Palin is already running for president.

And speaking of the Fall TV premieres, remember when NBC unveiled their entire new lineup during one “NBC Week”? (Remember when there was an NBC?) Now new entries are doled out from late summer until November. Half a network’s schedule is cancelled before the other half debuts.

The end result is that the product gets diluted. Ratings for big sporting events like the World Series and NBA Finals are down. The Oscarcast is in the tank. Holiday shopping revenue is suffering and although you can make a strong case that it’s due to the economy, it doesn’t help that shoppers are already sick of Christmas by Halloween.

And then there’s the ole' seasonal music. Can you imagine if the songs were revised to reflect the current trend?

“On the one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me – one-hundred-and-thirty-four Jet Blue miles, one-hundred-and-thirty-three little individual boxes of Kellogg’s cereal, one-hundred-and-thirty-two HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/Starz/Encore movie channels…”

You get the idea. Anyway, Happy Easter.