The Death of the Berkeley Electronic Press Journals

Maybe I'm the last one to figure it out, but the Berkeley Electronic Press journals have shut down and been sold for a year! I found it pretty hard to find information about this topic, so here is what I was able to find out. I discovered that Joshua Gans also made some great comments on his blog.

Background: Back in 1999 a bunch of professors got together and founded the "Berkeley Electronic Press". they had some really great ideas to try to combat some of the problems in the publishing industry.  The three most important ones that most economists bought into were:
1) a guaranteed fast decision on submitted articles, or your money back
2) much cheaper rates for University subscriptions
3) papers were published on a rolling basis, so as soon as a paper was accepted and formatted (by the author) the paper was put online-- no delay!

This is in a time when publishers were jacking up subscription fees to libraries to astronomical rates, and many journals were taking six months to a year before giving any feedback on submitted papers.  This kind of behavior can be deadly to an academic career, when tenure-track professors only have six years to not only get articles published, but also to demonstrate that they are being read by these papers getting cited.  However, if it takes three years before your article gets published, supposing that someone reads it right then, cites it and submits their paper to be published on the same day, it might take three years for that paper to get published.  This ridiculously slow process was supposed to be sped up because when you submitted a paper you had two choices:
A) pay a submission fee
B) agree to provide two reviews of papers that will be sent to you in the future very quickly; if you are slow, you get charged the fee

I am sure that most people who were involved with editing these journals, and most people who submitted papers to these journals did so because they bought into the idea that "we can do this better".  Also, this system made the research more widely available, since more libraries could afford to subscribe to the collection, and individuals could access the content for no monetary cost ( by filling out a nagging form).  I supported the enterprise, by submitting a paper there and having it rejected.  But the point is, they rejected it quickly!

I must be way behind the times, but I just discovered that the Berkeley Electronic Press sold their 60 journals (in September 2011) to a company called De Gruyter.  From all appearances, things don't seem to be going well since the transfer.  One year later, it it seems like many journals are not really publishing any more (For example, it appears that  BEJEAP has published ONE article since January, 2012... but it is hard to tell).  Also, there are some comments on their site, from people claiming that their submitted article has disappeared into the nether, or submission fees have been lost, or other complaints.  For example:

How can I get a response from the journal? I submitted my manuscript more than 5 months ago, sent two emails to the journal. Unfortunately, have not heard back. posted by: Zaz on 2012-08-18 07:00 PM (Europe/Berlin)

On RePEc the publisher for all of these journals is still listed as "Berkeley Electronic Press", e.g. see here. Also, the website seems to be very poorly organized, and very uninformative.  For example, I was looking at the "Journal Policies" for the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, and it takes you to a generalized "Copyright Agreement".  When you go to submit an article, the submission system still refers to the "Berkeley Electronic Press" for some reason, and they still have the old language on the website: they are still pretending to give you the option between reviewing or paying a submission fee, but when it comes down to it, they demand $75 in cold, hard cash.  they also still have the language on the site guaranteeing:

" you quality peer reviews, an editorial decision, and publication of accepted manuscripts within 70 days."

Now, since I don't see articles being published for many, many months at a time, I'm not sure what this means.  Either they are not accepting any articles at all, or they are refunding a lot of submission fees, because one cannot accept and publish articles within 70 days, with gaps of 9 months.  After browsing around quite a long time on their website, it is very unclear what's going on. Note to  De Gruyter-- your websites are very hard to navigate and look like something that even I could throw together (see their home page to see what I mean, and compare it to something I DID throw together (but with loving care, I assure you!)).  If someone from the company wants to reply, I would love to hear what's really going on.

In any case, the "BEPress" guys say that now they are focusing on "Open Access Services", whatever that means, and they still have their "SelectedWorks" pages, where I have a page.  See here for some less than clear information.  After spending some time trying to understand what happened and why, I am still very lost. Until something major happens, both of the journals under their new ownership, and the old BEPress guys are dead to me. I am also seriously considering shutting down my SelectedWorks page, because I really don't understand what it is at this point if it is not associated with economics journals anymore.  RePEc seems to be a much more useful network of sites.

When it come to "Open Access Services", everyone should know about the Open Journal System (OJS), which is a free, open source journal management system that could be used for a pay journal, but seems to be used more for open access ones.  That is what I use for the regional science journal I co-edit. As a co-editor for an open access journal, one that charges NO fees to submitters, readers, libraries, or anyone else (see www.srsa.org/rrs), I am very disturbed by the demise of the BEP journals. Dozens of journals that seemed to be fairly well-run, well respected, and committed to inexpensive access and efficient operation have been thrown into chaos.  Below are the names of some of the well-known journals that have been affected:

Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy

Advances in Macroeconomics

Advances in Theoretical Economics

Asian Journal of Comparative Law

Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance

B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy

B. E. Journal of Macroeconomics

B. E. Journal of Theoretical Economics

Basic Income Studies

Business and Politics

California Journal of Politics and Policy

Capitalism and Society

Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy

Contributions to Macroeconomics

Contributions to Theoretical Economics

Economists' Voice

Forum for Health Economics & Policy

Frontiers of Economic Analysis & Policy

Frontiers of Macroeconomics

Frontiers of Theoretical Economics

Global Economy Journal

Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization

Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis

Journal of Globalization and Development

Journal of Industrial Organization Education

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports

Journal of Time Series Econometrics

Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy

Poverty & Public Policy

Review of Law & Economics

Review of Marketing Science

Review of Middle East Economics and Finance

Review of Network Economics

Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy

Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics

The B.E. Journals in Economic Analysis & Policy

The B.E. Journals in Macroeconomics

The B.E. Journals in Theoretical Economics

Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy

Topics in Macroeconomics

Topics in Theoretical Economics

Stop Calling me, CVS!

Contact your customers-- but don't annoy them to death!

There is a rule in most businesses that a small number of good customers provide a large share of the profits.  Businesses need to identify who these people are, and paper them.  CVS Pharmacy seems to be doing the opposite.  The more business you do with them, the more they hound you with repeated, annoying, deceptive calls!

I have finally had enough of CVS's telephone calls and other annoying marketing tactics.  It is time for me to switch.  A simple Google search reveals that I am not the only one who is sick and tired of what they are doing.  How can a corporation be so shortsighted that it annoys its customers to death?  I have had a lot of health problems in the last 10 years, so I am a VERY good customer of theirs.  However, they treat me like just another person to annoy.  Here are a few specifics in my case:

1) CVS added prescriptions to an "Automatic Refill" program without my consent. That means that every time they feel that I need more medicine, they refill it and call me 5 to 10 times to tell me to pick it up.  These include calls from a human being, calls to my cell phone, and robo-calls.  

2) Last week they called and left a message telling me that it was "very important that I call them right away".  The emergency was, that I had one of those auto-refilled prescriptions to pick up.  First, this is just blatant deception. Why not leave a message like the 1,000 before?  It WAS NOT very important to waste my time to call them back.  Second, I had just picked up a 3-month supply two weeks before!

3) They just called my home and my cell to tell me that I could pick up some more nose drops if I wanted.  Honestly. they left a message at home, again telling me that it was "very important for me to call right away".  They reached me on my cell, interrupting me at work… That is the only reason that I know about these extremely important nose drops.

4) The people who call you tell you that they are not allowed to stop calling you.  You have to call their corporate number in order to request that they stop calling you. Here is how to get CVS to stop calling you, at least in theory: Call 1-800-746-7287, and right after their answering system finishes telling you about language options, say "CALL".  Basically, keep saying "CALL" until it says that it is connecting you with the person.  Tell the person that you want them to stop all calls whether it is from a recorded message or a person and give them every phone number you have.  Even though the person on the other end of the line is "innocent", I don't think it would hurt to show them a little anger: CBS needs to understand how much this is angering some of us.

There are two big problems with this, aside from the obvious fact that annoying your customers with endless calls, and deceptive calls, will drive them away:

a) They are wasting their own money and time. I just picked up a 100 day supply of one medicine for example, and 25 days later they are calling me telling me that I have a refill ready.

b) This seems to be illegal. According to http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/08/tsr.shtm :

In 2008 an FTC Rule: "Expressly prohibit telemarketing sales calls that deliver prerecorded messages, whether answered in person by a consumer or by an answering machine or voicemail service, unless the seller has previously obtained the recipient's signed, written agreement to receive such calls".  

Now, there are a few exemptions and exceptions in the law that CVS might be hiding behind.  Businesses are allowed to call customers with which they have a relationship, and there is an exemption for purely informational messages ( e.g., your flight has been canceled). There is also an exemption for "healthcare-related prerecorded message calls that are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act", but I cannot believe that the FCC had this nonsense in mind for pure telemarketing from Drug Stores.

Hopefully some lawyers will get involved and file a class-action suit against CVS. Normally, I am not in favor of all of the class-action suits out there, since they are usually settled in very little of the money ever reaches the consumers who are affected.  However, in this case, I just want it to stop!  over the next few weeks, I am going to begin transferring all of my prescriptions elsewhere, even though there really is no other pharmacy that is remotely convenient for me.  But, I have had enough!

Tell me about your experiences in the comment section below!  Anything more ridiculous than what I have experienced?

Obama and the World Bank-- SHAME! .

A public health guy in charge of a bank?  Silly.  The WORLD Bank? 

Since I am not a development economist myself, I am trusting the word of The Economist Magazine's article on this a few days ago.  Appointments to the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), just like most ambassadorial, cabinet, and other top jobs such as head of the NSF and FDA, are motivated far too much by politics, and far too little by considerations about who would do the best job (i.e. meritocracy).

Now, it is ok to repay friends with meaningless jobs, say the Ambassador to a small, peaceful island somewhere.  But when it comes to the IMF and WB, you are literally killing millions of people when you appoint someone without the proper training, understanding, intelligence, and focus to improve the lives of the poverty-stricken people in the world.

Mr. Obama is apparently trying to get Jim Yong Kim, someone with an MD and experience in Public Health, to lead the World Bank.  The WB's job is to teach developing nations how to grow out of poverty through the right kinds of choices and development, and through providing loans to fund that development.

The first grounds for shame are simply the most obvious: a public health professor has as much ability to run the WB as I do to run the World Health Organization(WHO).  The only difference being, that I have spent many, many years of my life dedicated to studying health economics, health law, pharmacology, and other health related issues.  I got a research grant from the NIH.  However, being an honorable man, if the president asked me to head the WHO I would slap him very hard on the back and ask him how stupid and/or crazy one of us are.  While I have a lot that I could ADVISE the leader the WHO about, I would be a murderer if I ran it.  Lives would be in my (incapable) hands.

I am certain that Mr. Kim is smart, but part of being smart is knowing your limitations and living within them.  I have often said that I am more comfortable working with limited people who know their limitations, than brighter people who have no clue when they are attempting to do something beyond their talents.

I think that this is certainly the case here-- Mr. Kim has no idea what economic development is.  Mr. Kim wrote a foreward in a book  "called “Dying for Growth”, he wrote that “the quest for growth in GDP and corporate profits has in fact worsened the lives of millions of men and women”, quoted Noam Chomsky and praised Cuba for “prioritising social equity”."  The leader of an economic development organization had BETTER not claim that economic development is bad, nor that Cuba has done it the right way. Noam Chomsky is another prime example of a brilliant person (who I do admire on many grounds) who goes a bit batty when talking economics.  Promoting "equity" always has the consequence of reducing prosperity overall, which is the opposite of the need in developing countries.  These are the unforgivable sins of Obama, and for Mr. Kim if he plays along.

The other interesting thing in the Economist article is the discussion of the three top candidates for the job:
"The World Bank is the world’s premier development institution. Its boss needs experience in government, in economics and in finance (it is a bank, after all). He or she should have a broad record in development, too. Ms Okonjo-Iweala has all these attributes, and Colombia’s José Antonio Ocampo has a couple. By contrast Jim Yong Kim, the American public-health professor whom Barack Obama wants to impose on the bank, has at most one."

I find it very interesting that a woman from Africa, who seems to have the right qualifications, is being pushed aside for a wholly unqualified Korean.  Hey, I love Koreans as well as Africans, but what kind of twisted process has us favoring an unqualified person over a well-qualified one, regardless of the race or gender?  There has to be some strange reason, perhaps Obama's close ties to South Korea (Obama has visited South Korea more than any other foreign country as president).  I would give bonus points to a competent, qualified African simply because much of the important development work needs to be focused on sub-Saharan Africa.  Perhaps an African has some new insights, or leadership styles, that could make a difference.  To be sure, southern Asia also has a lot of economic development needs.

In any case, a public health professor should never have been on the list, much less the short list of candidates.  By the way, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala has  Ph.D. from MIT in Regional Economic Development.  Her dissertation topic: "Credit Policy, Rural Financial Markets, and Nigeria's Agricultural Development".  Mr. Kim has an MD from Harvard as well as a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology.  Dissertation Title: "Pills, production, and the symbolic code: Pharmaceuticals and the political economy of meaning in South Korea".  Though my experience with social anthropology suggests that it is largely gibberish, I skimmed Kim's thesis (353 pages!!), and it is at least readable, if far too informal for me. While neither Kim nor Okonjo-Iweala's degree is shabby, who would you pick?

One of the biggest lessons we offer to developing nations is that the right people must get the right jobs, and that this should happen by looking for the best, not our cronies.  It is sad to see the rot in Washington DC that could produce this outcome.

Just one last note-- to be an equal opportunity offender, I am not a cheerleader for any party, only for honesty, reason, and science.  Of course, that means that I thought that GW Bush did just as horribly on many occasions, with his nominations/appointees for the Supreme Court and several other national agencies, for which we all felt the pain.  Why our leaders feel that anything less than the best, most honest effort possible is honorable, I will never understand.  Let's hope we can raise our children to be better.

Ron Paul, Gingrich, and Gold Money

I was going to write a long, boring blog on the Gold Standard that Newt and Ron Paul are talking about.  Instead, I made a long, slightly less boring video on it.  Basically, some Republicans/Tea Partiers/Libertarians are supporting a return to the Gold Standard for no reason, other than their general distrust of the "Guv'mint".  Let me go on record as totally distrusting ALL politicians, left, right, center, and libertarian.  But, while I buy into the INCOMPETENCE of the US government, I don't get the active hatred or conspiracy theories.

Look, I also  admit that I am not one of the few experts on how the Gold Standards used to work 40-80 years ago before I was born.  However, what I do know tells me that these standards were abandoned for good reasons.

See my YouTube video for more.

Cheers.

Race and Majors at Duke, Why the Hubbub?

This week newspapers have been covering how (some) black students at Duke are mad about a study done by a couple of professors. one of them an economist at Duke.  This is a dangerous topic, because no matter what one says on this issue, someone is going to be offended.  So, here I go!

Basically, a survey of Duke students' majors found that black students at Duke are more likely to switch to an "easier" major after they get there than white students are.  And so, black students at Duke are mad.  At what exactly, I haven't been able to divine from the reports.  Most articles quote Nana Asante, president of the black Student Alliance: (from dukecheck.com):

“The implications and intentions of this research at the hands of our very own prestigious faculty, seemingly without a genuine concern for proactively furthering the well-being of the black community, (are) hurtful and alienating.” She asked the researchers and the university administration “what image has this … report portrayed to the rest of the country, namely our peer institutions, about Duke and its black students? Asante said the research paper does not “account for the societal, complex and institutional factors that must be considered in any attempt to delineate trends in racial differences in grade point averages and major choices, in a scholarly manner. 

The implication is that because Duke and many other schools have affirmative action policies to give more minorities the opportunity to attend, that some may compensate by choosing less difficult majors at Duke.  They found the same thing with respect to others who get more "opportunity" to get in with more leeway on scores, namely legacies (kids of alumni). It makes sense to me!  I actually saw a few cases where it appeared to me that a legacy, athlete, or minority just wasn't as prepared for the Duke Juggernaut. Look, very few people are! Why are people mad?

It is well-known and commonly discussed that on average, Hispanics and blacks attend poorer schools, and might be less well prepared for college.  Similarly, kids from rural areas (like me) went to school systems where we didn't have the greatest teachers, either, with a few exceptions, of course.  For example, the calculus teacher in my high school did not understand even the basics of calculus.  (I also had a French teacher in 9th grade who knew absolutely no French.) Yes, we had AP classes, but when discussing a poem, my AP English teacher told my good friend (who had the 3rd highest GPA in a large school):
Teacher: "In this line he is saying this." 
Friend: "I think he could be saying that." 
Teacher<enraged>: "You are not here to think.  I am the only one paid to think here." 

Additionally, I dealt with the same kind of anti-intellectualism you read about in poor, urban high schools. Having spent 6 years at Duke getting my Ph.D., let me tell you: My rural high school did not prepare me to survive at Duke, and I would not have survived had I gone there for Undergrad.  I did a lot of growing and catching up in my 5 years at Appalachian State, and was therefore well-prepared for my Ph.D. work. Again, why are the students mad?  I find this data very enlightening, and do not find it demeaning to anyone.

Years ago, I was concerned about a similar possibility:  I wondered if it was possible that, if a student is let in to a school in some preferential way, that they might be possibly less prepared, and less likely to graduate-- it just stands to reason (some suggest this about George W. Bush's record).  I am pleased to say, that most research has not found this to be the case for black students at most highly ranked universities.  The currently-criticized study actually may help to partially explain why.  I am intimately aware of how preparation, both academic and in terms of maturity and attitude, can affect chances of graduation.  Also, any professor/advisor has seen students who move up to a more difficult or down to a less difficult major, oftentimes due to that student having high or low preparation compared to his peers.

If students or advocates want to get mad, do you:
Get mad at the data?
Get mad at the researchers for collecting the data?
Get mad at the researchers for writing the report?
Get mad at Duke for their affirmative action?

Well, please don't get mad at me!  Yes, I get it... they got mad because they think it makes them "look bad"?  Sorry, I disagree.  And, it is juvenile to get mad at data.  To kill the messenger is also juvenile.  I personally know many of the Duke Economics faculty since I went there, but also because I have worked with them for years in a program for minorities who want to get their Ph.D. in economics.  These people voluntarily worked for many years on this program, and had a great impact on a lot of very smart kids.  These guys are not trying to make anyone look bad, they are uncovering facts.

What burns me up most is this:  Any time someone is determined to get offended when data doesn't show that they are made of solid gold, you put a chilling effect on such research.  It is already very difficult to report unpopular results on race, gender, sexual orientation, and the like. By yelling each and every time, you guarantee that fewer people will do research on your group, and we will understand less, and therefore be less able to uncover when there are genuine concerns.  If you are outraged, I need to ask you one final, crucial question: "Having done the research, and found out something unpopular, do you really want people to shred the report at that point?  Will that make you better off?"  If you believe so, then you are an ostrich, and yes, should not be at an institution such as Duke. Please, please Duke students: Thank these researchers.  Apologize to them.  And then let them help you to think about solutions to any problems you think exist.

December's Unemployment Rates

Link: WFMY Interview on Youtube:
Well, things are finally looking up for the US economy.  The unemployment rate (first estimate, they will revise it soon) for December was 8.5%, down from an estimated 8.7% in November, 2011.  This, along with other good news about  hiring and unemployment benefit filings all seem to confirm that we are making good progress toward recovery.

In this blog I want to briefly explain how unemployment data is collected and unemployment rates are calculated, since nearly every week someone in the media or government gets it wrong.  I'll also discus some weaknesses of how it is measured, and why we should or shouldn't care.

The Bureau of labor Statistics in Washington, DC is in charge of surveying over 100,000 people each month in order to determine the unemployment rate.  To simplify, suppose we want to estimate the unemployment rate for a small town.  We would want to get a list of all of the households, and randomly select say, 100 of them.  Suppose that a total of 200 people live in these households.  The procedure for determining the unemployment rate is as follows:

First we ask all 200 people if they are at least 16 years old.  Suppose 50 of our 200 are under 16; we throw them out of the survey.

Next, we ask the 150 remaining people "Did you work for pay last week?"  The "for pay" eliminates housework, homework, and volunteer work.  Suppose 90 of our 150 did.

Next, we ask the 60 (150-90) people remaining who said "No, I did not work for pay last week" one more question.  We ask "Did you actively look for a job last week?"  Actively means that you did something, such as call around, mail our your resume, fill out an application, or go into a business as ask if they are accepting applications.  An example of something that is not active would be browsing through the "Help Wanted" ads in the newspaper, without doing anything.  Heck, even I do that just for fun sometimes.  Suppose 10 of our 60 said that they did actively look for work.  The other 50 might be retired, full time students, house-husbands, or discouraged workers who have given up the search.

Our unemployment estimate comes from adding the 10 "active lookers" to the 90 employed people, to get 100 people in the labor market (working or actively seeking employment).  10 of the 100 are unemployed, for a 10 percent unemployment rate.  This is currently a little higher than the 8.5% US rate and the 9.5% rate in my home state of North Carolina.

Some people don't like the method we use to calculate the unemployment rate, and I have my own problems with it.  Some people don't like the fact that discouraged workers are not counted.  Some people don;t like that the question asks "Did you work for pay", but not how many hours or for how much pay.  I agree that this measure is not perfect, but as long as you know how it is calculated, then you know what it can and what it cannot tell us. [As a side note, we do collect data on underemployment (working PT when you want FT) and discouraged worker status]

The most important use is simply for us to be able to see if things are getting better or getting worse.  And, thankfully, things are getting better.  The US unemployment rate topped out at close to 10.1% two years ago.  We still have a long way to go, but the trend is still slow, somewhat steady improvement, though there have been some bumps in the road.  I am not an economic forecaster, but I am finally feeling more confident that we are on the right path.  However, problems in the Euro zone could always come to bite us!  Let's hope they can get themselves sorted out...

Additionally, the way we define the unemployment rate is pretty close to how most countries do it, so we can compare what is going on in the US to other countries.  Just for fun, here are some other recent underemployment figures from other countries (from mid-to-late 2011, from various sources...)
Canada: 7.47%
France: 9.8%
S. Korea: 3.40%
Spain: 22.9%
Portugal 12.9%
Ireland: 14.1%
Brazil: 5.2%
Puerto Rico: 15.7%
Iceland: 7.1%
Japan: 4.5%

Burkey Reviews Stuff: The Trans-Siberian Orchestra Winter Tour, 2011 Is it just a bad Nativity story, or a bad rock concert? I can’t decide… Neither Trans-Siberian, nor an Orchestra… what is it?

Note: If you already love TSO or hate TSO, this review will not help you.  However, if you are like me, and are vaguely familiar with them and considering going to a show, read on.

I had very high hopes for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra show, since I was familiar with a few songs, but not really a fan.  Indeed, my wife and I used one of their songs in our wedding.  Before the show I Googled information about it, only wanting to know the length so I could plan for daycare and my bladder.  In addition to learning that the show was around 2 ½ hours with no break, I recall reading a couple of comments by other reviewers:

1) Though it is partly a Christmas show, it does not leave you feeling “Christmasey”

2) The Christmas part of the show has some sort of narration in between the songs, which simply DOES NOT WORK

I couldn’t agree more with these sentiments.  Additionally, the show was tiresome and overall not very enjoyable.  While the musical and voice talents were adequate, and a lot of effort was obviously put into the show, it simply didn’t work.  I have thought long and hard about why this show left such a bad taste in my mouth.  My best answer is that every single thing seemed to be overly contrived—melodramatic is the word -- just not honest.  The performers were working hard—working WAY too hard, and most of the audience wasn’t quite able to buy into it.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a few enjoyable spots, but these would quickly be overshadowed by something inane.  Let me provide some specific examples.

The narrated story seemed overly dramatic, and the narrator went overboard to use a low, breathy, shaky voice and exaggerated hand gestures (think of a combination of Charlton Heston’s Moses and a bad TV preacher).  Similarly, some of the singers used fakey, gravely voices that didn’t work.  In one “song”, a guy dressed as a beggar pseudo sings an overly long story-more a spoken word piece than a song.  I couldn’t really follow what he was rambling on about, but it felt like a sermon of some type accompanied by a simple, repetitious guitar riff.  I could feel a sense of relief from the audience when it was finally over.

The general performance style of all of the band members involved a similar melodramatic, attention-whoring style that was unnatural and needy. One female singer tore at her hair as if recalling a recent genocide of her people.  She moved unnaturally-- the musicians and singers in general tried to move in an exaggerated fashion as if they were really into it.  Or, they stuck to contrived moves like well-timed head banging, throwing their TSO-required long hair back and forth, or the electric violinist swinging his arm around in circles over and over again, mimicking a juvenile electric guitar move.  Look- I love it when musicians really get into what they are doing, move and sway in weird ways, and even make funny faces,  but it has to be real.  Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder do it, and you know that they didn’t learn it from watching others—they are genuinely feeling it.  With the TSO performance, I was led to believe that this was all an over-choreographed act.

This show was what a precocious 12 year old, who is confused about his musical identity, would design as his perfect show—throwing in a lot of everything imaginable.  Or perhaps, it is what aliens who don’t understand humans would construct after carefully reading about musical performances.  Just as a casserole does not benefit from adding a tablespoon of every spice known to man, a show can actually benefit from subtlety.  The TSO has laser lights, strobes, fog machines, copious amounts of propane burning, fake snow, giant monster heads, a floating three-axis stage above the crowd, silly uniforms, pretentious quotes from Reagan, JFK, and Churchill, long blonde hair, and an overly-loud sound system.  And, they actually do have some good music (I am listening to it as I type this).  However, the show doesn’t work.  It is over thought and under felt.  If they took everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, and toned it down about 50%, I think the show could be much, much better. 

I hate to be repetitive, so I will reiterate. ☺ The critical flaw for me was that the performers made every effort to let us know that the show was about THEM, not about US.  They were jumping up and down on the stage yelling “LOOK AT ME!!!!!” and pointing at themselves.  Yes, literally POINTING at themselves.  When you can’t get applause because your show deserves it, you jump up and down pointing and telling people to yell.   Also, FOUR TIMES the band forced the audience to stand up.  By forced, I mean that they asked the people in the front row to stand, which causes a chain reaction.  How impressive is it to beg for a standing ovation… how about earning it?  By the fourth time, about 20% of the audience had had enough and just sat there shaking their heads.

This quote from the TSO website sums up the kind of hubris that created this monster.  Actually, created TWO monsters—since there are actually two versions of TSO touring simultaneously (apparently the group I saw was the “original” one- I wonder if the other group pulls it off better?).

When Paul O'Neill first conceived Trans-Siberian Orchestra, his goal was as straightforward as it was ambitious. "The whole idea," he explains, "was to create a progressive rock band that would push the boundaries further than any group before, following in the footsteps of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, the Who...but take it way, way further."

Wow.  Would a “real” band put the following on their website?

 

With more than 7 million albums sold TSO has inspired generations of fans to rediscover the multi-dimensional art form of the rock opera. On the road, meanwhile, they have become one of the world's top acts including a recent mention in Billboard magazine as one of the top touring artists of the past decade. With a $20 million-plus production that has played to over 7 million people in 80+ cities, selling more than $280 million worth of tickets.

More “look at me!”, indeed.  Stop telling us how you are great, and just BE great!  Now, when I started analyzing what was wrong with the TSO show, I couldn’t help but compare it to the Blue Man Group.  After all, the BMG has multiple groups as well, and their show is certainly contrived and overdone.  And, how can I possibly complain about the overuse of stage props like propane when the BMG uses tons of toilet-paper-like streamers?  The first time I saw the BMG in New York, I left laughing and crying, simply amazed.  I didn’t want it to end.  One of the Blue Men put a little blue paint on my face and I wore it on the subway back to the flat where I was staying.  In contrast, I was begging for the TSO pain to end about 45 minutes in.  What is the difference?

You see, the big difference is that the BMG is actually making fun of TSO—The following two YouTube  clips sum everything up beautifully.

Trans-SiberianOrchestra (1 minute)

Blue ManGroup (1 minute) (also watch the first minute or so of this one: BMGFloppy the Clown)

While TSO is religiously exploiting the stereotypes (even Rock Concert Movement #37), BMG is lampooning them— all listed in their fictitious “Rock Concert Instruction Manual”, outlined here. 

Hey, I know that performing is hard work and that it is easy to throw stones.  All in all, I would recommend buying TSO’s albums, and of course their show must be great for some people.  I wanted to be wowed.  But don’t go if you expect a Christmas show, or even real artistry.  But, if you want a whiz-bang light show and the planetarium's Pink Floyd laser show is sold out, then this is a good bet.  If you want to try a Christmas event that is a little different and more than likely Free, how about going to see the Tuba Christmas in your local area?  A brass choir with only Tubas, Euphoniums, Baritones, and the occasional Sousaphone. Oh, give it a try at least on YouTube…  Link 1   Link 2

Cheers-

-Dr. B

PS- I do understand that TSO is supposedly trying to be socially conscious and give us a message.  Great.  But the way they are doing it is boring and incoherent.  Here is a clip where you can see what I am talking about in action (including blinding the audience by pointing spotlights directly into their eyes, just as they did in the show I went to). (TSO Clip). If you want to deliver a message, there are better ways to do it (BMGClip).