Boy bands used to be lip-synching-flash-in-the-pan musical acts and August was no time to release a blockbuster film. But this past weekend the rules of modern media were kicked to the curb like a Walkman with a New Kid’s cassette tape. And an old fart like me thinks it’s all bull.

The Jonas Brothers performed three near sell-out shows at downtown L.A.'s Staples Center—then went on to host the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday—proving to the naysayer that they’re far from over and have the musical chops to prove it. Meanwhile, Paramount’s snafu of a film, G.I. Joe, blazed through the box office with $56 million on a typically sleepy movie weekend.

This all comes on the heels of some findings from the Communications Industry Forecast that in 2008 “consumers spent more time with media they paid for, like books or cable television, than with primarily ad-supported media, like newspapers and magazines.”

This ain’t the world I was raised in. No wonder John Hughes took an early exit.

Despite it all, I took my walker to Staples Center to catch JB on Friday night. Me and more than 20,000 tween girls got to see a heck of a show, OMG. Them boys are utterly ridiculous, but they gots boat loads of talents. Specially that little fella, Nick.

Truth be told, a friend of mine was reviewing the show for the L.A. Times, so I rode his coattails through the metal detector, bought him a beer, and then promptly tripped walking to my seat and spilled the drink on a girl just shy of 13 in her Sunday best Jonas T-shirt. Yup, I’m that guy.

While I can't vouch for the quality of G.I. Joe, I was blown away by the Jonas Brothers (from what I gather the Bros. needed to deliver in L.A. after a poor film release in February and lower-than-expected sales of the new album). Their set mixed delicious arena antics—raised on a 100-foot pedestal above the stage crooning at one point—with solid musical performances (I don’t know any of their songs but they have a heckuva range in sound and I found myself embarrassingly endeared to it) and even a Disneyesque message to boot: “Press on during hard times.” I’m sure G.I. Joe teaches the value of “pressing on with interminable terrorist wars during hard times.”

In addition to its weekend release, G.I. Joe was also innovative in that it snubbed all of Hollywood  and New York, not allowing any advanced screenings. According to an AP story last week, Paramount aimed “the movie at the heartland” in an attempt to avoid the kind of bad reviews that plagued Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. The story went on to explain that this is a well-known tactic, “for horror movies or other genre pictures with built-in fans who don’t necessarily care about reviews…[but] not summer blockbusters.” Clearly the plan worked, although the studio was hoping for $60 million in domestic box office (it pulled $100 million world-wide).

Sign me up for that Ebenezer home down there on Park Ave. in Minneapolis. I don’t belong in this media world no more. I want virginless Boy Bands that lip synch and don’t play instruments or write their own songs so I can trash them and not feel insecure about my masculinity. And I want my big blockbuster films reviewed by haughty liberal media critics on the coast who use big words like, versimilitudious, and I want those panned films then released on Memorial Day and July 4th weekend so as to not creep into valuable August back-to-school shopping days. And finally, I don’t want to pay for content that’s my god-given right. It’s right there in the constitution: free news, free internet, free Entourage.

BTW…Did you catch Entourage’s Sunday’s golfing episode? How apropos for the Twin Cities this week. I’ll pony up for HBO if I can watch more of Jeffrey Tambor’s golfing techniques.