YouTube Tuesday: The Ballad of of Buster Scruggs

I gotta say, I'm almost more excited about this movie than I was about the premier of the new season of BoJack Horseman.

    

Nambia exambia

Say what you will about Pres. Trump. His ego is brobdingnagian. Of civil rights, he’s no champion. And as for leadership, well it’s clear his managing is more like mangling.

But I can tell you from personal experience that his endorsement of the health care system in Nambia shows great pansophy.

I’m not from Nambia myself. But I grew up in neighboring Pambia. As you know, the two countries have been close ever since The Nambia-Pambia Alliance Treaty of 1836. And I well remember as a young Pambian rambling through Nambia on autumnal visits to my Auntie Annie (herself a life-long Pambian). We would spend afternoons ambling around the expanding hamlets, and scrambling among surrounding brambles. We’d pass the P.M. with her prized pet panda, handing him samplings of salmon and jam.

Tramping back to her mansion, which had a commanding view of a babbling rapids in which I liked to do some angling, we’d spend a quiet evening chatting about things like traveling, gambling and her dazzling career in acting. One summer I even managed to scavenge some scaffolding and tackled the challenge of renovating her paneling.

Sadly, those days have passed. The housing crisis cramped her finances. No matter how much ranting and haggling she did, she couldn’t wrangle a way into withstanding the bankruptcy. She ended up abandoning and later dismantling the mansion.

But I’ll still have longstanding and everlasting admiration and gratitude for the mind-expanding understanding I gained from my time in Nambia. I hope nation’s leaders can channel the same compassion.

Vital Vinyl

I watched the first few minutes of the pilot for HBO's new series Vinyl last night... then stayed up to watch the rest of it.

It's been an while since HBO has had a series I could get into — a sad fact that has almost let me to cancel my subscription. Well they must have been using their NSA contacts to track my internal monologue and learned what a sucker I am for pretty much any historical period costume drama (srsly, you should also check out The Last Kingdom when you get a chance).

I was hooked on Vinyl from the first few minutes. What a great idea for a show. It manages to reach a terrific balance of great music, pop culture, nostalgia for a dead industry (at least, dead as we knew it) and of course dreamy Bobby Cannavale.

I've liked Cannevale in pretty much everything he's ever been in, especially that movie where he and Tyrion Lannister were super into trains. So it's awesome to see him getting a solid leading role. In the pilot, he had some great scenes showing some real emotional range.

I appreciate how they give so much love to the soundtrack. The music really is one of the main stars of this show, much like with Tremé, and not just background soundtrack. We also get a chance to see Ray Romano in another serious (though supporting, in this case) role and a cameo and (spoiler) terrific death scene from Andrew "Dice" Clay.

So, bottom line: I think I'm hooked. This should keep me interested until the new season of Game of Thrones starts.

Fear and Loathing in The OP

“We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.” — Extreme Behavior in Aspen, February 3, 2003

tagged: Hunter S. Thompson, culture, quote

YouTube Tuesday: The Sunset Limited

I have already set the DVR to record HBO's Feb. 12 premier of Cormac McCarthy's play The Sunset Limited.

Though I'm not a huge fan of Tommy Lee Jones, who stars in and directs the production, I am a big fan of McCarthy's works being adapted for screen. I think it has been done for the most part successfully with his previous works (one of which also featured Tommy Lee Jones).

Here's the official HBO synopsis of the play…

Based on the play of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy, this searing two-character drama mixes humor and pathos while examining the relationship between strangers who are brought together by desperate circumstances. Set in a New York tenement apartment, the story focuses on two very different men — a deeply religious black ex-con who thwarts the suicide attempts of an asocial white college professor who tried to throw himself in front of an oncoming subway train, 'The Sunset Limited'. As the one attempts to connect on a rational, spiritual and emotional level, the other remains steadfast in his hard-earned despair. Locked in a philosophical debate, both passionately defend their personal credos and try to convert the other.

And here's the official trailer…



tagged: YouTube Tuesday, video, Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited, Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, drama

Local gal makes good…satire

If, like me, you're a fan of the LOLz then you're probably a big fan of The Onion, America's finest satire source.

You might also have been eagerly anticipating the premier of Onion Sports Network's SportsDome on Comedy Central. And I'm assuming, since you're like me, that you have impeccable taste and a great sense of humor but nonetheless you were a little underwhelmed by the premier.

I don't know, I guess you just had really high expectations. Sure, you thought it had it's good moments, but I guess you just thought it fell a bit flat… if you're like me.

But that's not really what I wanted to focus on right now.

What I wanted to mention was that a featured part of SportsDome involved a former minor Kansas City demicelebrity.

You may know her as Melissa Wells… here reporting on the city of St. Louis conferring dictator-for-life status upon slugger Albert Pujols.

Onion SportsDome

The actress playing sports announcer Melissa Wells is none other than former Kansas City resident Danyelle Sargent. You may remember her as an actual non-satirical sports reporter for Time Warner Cable-Kansas City's Metro Sports, or perhaps as the sideline reporter for the sucktacular Kansas City Chiefs in 2004.

But, chances are that if you remember her at all, it's probably more for the on-air f-bomb she dropped after climbing the broadcast ladder to a desk spot at ESPN. it was a huge Internet sensation…


It seems that little slip, followed by a later on-air gaffe during an interview with Mike Singletary cost her a promising career in real sportscasting. But I'm not her to throw stones. I mean, hey, I pretty much live with my foot in my mouth.

I actually think working in the satirical news is a step up from ESPN. Maybe not money-wise, hell it is Comedy Central after all. But in terms of respect and meaning, I consider satire a higher calling than lame-ass sports reporting.

Plus, it gives her a chance to make fun of those smug bastards at ESPN who fired her.

tagged: The Onion, SportsDome, Comedy Central, Melissa Wells, Danyelle Sargent, Kansas City, pop culture, media

Soy un perdedor

It's been growing, like another wart on the ugly face of American pop culture, for a few years now.

I'd hear these rumors and rumblings and increasingly regular references on popular fake news television shows. Like jungle drums starting in the distance and getting closer… "beck"…"Beck"…"BECK"… For some reason, everyone seems to be talking about Glenn Beck. Especially the people who hate him the most.

They have virtually canonized him in the social media circle jerks like Twitter, where it's common to see attempts at wise cracks from 140 character pundits such as ... The thing that doesn't make sense to me is why, when so many people dislike him so much, do they devote so much of their cognitive energy him.

I mean, it's one thing to listen, read, talk to people with whom you disagree. This is a sign of healthy intellect. But eventually.you have to realize where a person stands and that person isn't likely to change their position (especially when their career and their millions of dollars are dependent upon them being in that position).

I mean, if you're a hemp wearing, flag burning, drum circle sitting hippie and you've regularly listened to Rush Limbaugh for the last 20 years -- well, you might want to reconsider the hemp thing.

You know what I'm sayin?

If you're one of those delusional Hope&Change suckers with your head stuck firmly in Nancy Pelosi's assets and your pink blinders filtering out all rational evidence that both so-called political parties have failed The Republic (if you can still call it that) miserably and you still bother to scour YouTube for Glenn Beck's latest screed, then I can only conclude that you're either not-so-bright or you're some kind of rage addict.

Or both.

Look, I like you guys. I really do. That's why it's so awkward to try to explain to you how you're being used. But I'll do it anyway. Because when you care about someone, you keep their best interests in mind even when it's uncomfortable.

You see, son, Glenn Beck doesn't give a flyin' FOX what your opinion is. I suspect that he doesn't even care what his own opinion is. To Beck, it isn't important to have the "right" opinion, or even to have a well considered and rational opinion (obviously). It's only important to have an opinion that a lot of people (not to put too fine a point on it, but YOU) disagree with.

In fact, the more irrational and polarizing his statements, the better. This will get people reacting, talking to their friends, posting on Twitter and Facebook and blogs. That keeps him on the top of the consideration ladder. Keeps his audience numbers high (again, that's you).

And that keeps the advertising dollars rolling in.

It's a pretty old game. Something that Limbaugh and Howard Stern have been doing for years, not to mention a certain dumbass from the west side of Topeka and even local bloggers. People like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow do it as well, they just don't seem to be as good as Beck at manipulating large numbers of people who both agree and disagree with them.

So to sum it all up: You are being used¹.

If you hate Glen Beck so much, you should stop paying attention to him. To be ignored is the biggest injury you can inflict upon his ilk.

---

1) Yes. I do realize that by posting this on my blog I have been drawn into the whole affair of promoting Beck by criticizing him. And it does make me ill. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to try to get you people to see that you're being manipulated.

tagged: Glenn Beck, Obama, media, Limbaugh, Howard Stern, FOX, Twitter

Doubleplusungood

Okay, now that we've solved the health care crisis and everyone is living healthy long lives with instant access to the best medical care ever for free, and now that we've solved the financial crisis and our messianic leader has promised us that there will never, ever be another financial bailout by the government ever...

Now that we've accomplished those things, I think it's time that our administration turn it's attention to possibly the new most important issue facing our society: The problem of bad journalism.

By now you've heard of the deliberately sloppy reporting by an unabashedly biased conservative blogger that resulted in the firing and severe emotional distress of Shirley Sherrod, a completely innocent and kind-hearted servant of the people who has absolutely no agenda of her own other than the ennobling of all of mankind.

To review of the situation, let me quote yet another ennobler, the late, great Xaview Onassis:

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a video of Shirley Sherrod (a HUGE PUBLIC TARGET, being Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture) addressing the NAACP.

The video appeared to show her exhibiting a racist attitude towards a white farmer who came to her seeking help. In a knee-jerk reaction by the racially sensitive Obama Administration, Shirley Sherrod was immediately fired.

But guess what? The 2 minute video had been intentionally and maliciously edited down from a 44 minute video to make it appear that she was saying exactly the opposite of what she was actually saying!

That a mere blogger can have such an impact on the administration of our country is clearly a national security risk.

And this kind of thing isn't isolated or even rare. Examples of improper journalistic behavior are common. Remember Stephen Glass's scandalous reporting for neo-liberal publication The New Republic where he made up fictional facts, quotes and even people in his stories.

And who can forget disgraced TV journalist Dan Rather, who created fraudulent government documents for the sole purpose of attacking and discrediting a sitting president.

It's clear that there are systemic and endemic problems with the state of journalism in our republic. This is a problem that we cannot allow to fester.

Journalism is our window into the performance of our leaders. We, as voting Americans, rely on the news media to alert us to government malfeasance, to let us know what our leaders are doing with our tax money and what our national policies are, to keep us abreast of Lindsay Lohan's jailhouse granny panties.

So I think we can all agree that our news media is too big to fail.

Given that, I think it's time for the Obama Administration to step in and take action. We need new regulations that will ensure that the news media is telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Since the free market is unable to guarantee this, we obviously need better government regulation of the news industry.

I propose a new cabinet level position in the White House, the Secretary of Truth.

This new secretary-level position, which I'll just call the Truth Czar, will lead the Department of Truth which will be given the mission of monitoring all news media (including blogs) to make sure all communications are truthful and contain no misleading opinions or partisan slants.

Using the latest technology from various other government agencies, the Department of Truth will be able to exert real-time control over all online, broadcast and print content.

Through the efforts of the government's new Truth Czar and his various regional Truth Agents, we will finally be able to rest assured that we're getting only the highest quality information.

Never again will we have to worry about good people losing their jobs because of unsubstantiated opinions posted on a person's blog.

tagged: Obama, Shirley Sherrod, journalism, reporters, news media, government, Andrew Breitbart

Eat the rich

There was something I wanted to keyboard about a couple of weeks ago, but because I've got a good job in the city, working for the man every night and day, I didn't have time to get to it.

That's what happens with us salary types sometimes. Gotta punch the clock so you can bring home the Benjamins and, more importantly, pay the taxes without which everyone would get sick and die, starve and die, not have roads and die, or just generally freak the fuck out and die.

Ah, yes. That's what it was. I wanted to keyboard something about taxes. It was around April 15, Tax Day ... or as I call it, Pull Down My Pants and Slide On The Ice Day.

At the time there was a pretty concerted pro-tax increase public relations effort put forth by... well, who knows but the source was probably somewhere deep in the bowls of our bloated federal bureaucracy. Even a media avoider like me couldn't dodge the bevy of stories featuring "rich" people who want to pay more taxes. I first heard the NPR version of the story, but it was also pretty common in print and on blogs.

And I take the stories at face value. I mean, if the Washington Post reports …

"I'm in favor of higher taxes on people like me," declared Eric Schoenberg, who is sitting on an investment banking fortune. He complained about "my absurdly low tax rates."

… I'll take their word that this guy Schoenberg exists and that he wants to pay more taxes. According to the reporting, he's not alone.

But there's something fishy about such a sentiment. For one thing, what people like Schoenberg are saying (if they actually exist) is that they want the government to raise taxes on other people. This is a pretty common liberal viewpoint. And by liberal, I mean the current Democrats and Republicans who seem to think we can continue buying everything for everybody without having to eventually pay for it.

That's all well and good. I've pretty much started to come to grips with the fact that the battle is over and the forces of fiscal restraint have lost. Americans (those who bother to pay attention anymore) have discovered that it's easier to vote themselves other people's money and outsource their social responsibility for their neighbors to the government.

I just find it a bit silly that they feel like they have to wage a PR war to assuage their guilt. They're trying to convince me that raising taxes will be a good thing. That even the rich people want their taxes raised because they want to pay more taxes. Okay. Fine. Let the good times roll.

But here's the thing. If rich people want to pay more in taxes, they can. Now. Without any acts of congress or anything. If you're a rich bastard, you don't have to shelter all of your earnings. You don't have to hide your assets. You don't have to take the millions of deductions on your tax return.

Hell, I bet you could even write out a check for $50,000, take it to your local IRS office and just plain donate it to your government that is cash strapped because of its investments in General Motors and insane foreign wars. You'd probably even get a tax deduction for your donation.

So yeah rich people. If you're feeling guilty about not paying enough taxes, then by all means pay more. Just don't expect me to buy in to the BS that I'm getting a good value for my tax dollar.

tagged: Rich, income tax, policy, General Motors, government, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett

Laugh riot

Okay, it's time for me to come clean.

By now you've all heard of the huge riots on the Plaza last week caused by a bunch of teenage rebelz without a clue. You know about the fist fights, the girl-on-girl cat fights, the pushings into fountainses, and the rather ugly spontaneous group line dances in the streets.

Lots of people have covered this. The news, bloggers, more bloggers, still more bloggers.

Oh yes. It's been quite the to-do. And you know what, I can't help but feel a little responsible for all of this. But in my defense, like most race wars, it was all a misunderstanding. There's a perfectly innocent explanation.

You see, it's like this: I took my Supermodel Wife out to the The Cinemark Palace theater on the Plaza to see Date Night a few nights ago. Well let me tell you, that was one damn funny flick. I laughed so much at the antics of Tina Fey and Steve Carell and the rest of the ensemble cast.

When the movie was over and we were walking out of the theater, I said "That movie was a RIOT!!!"

But I said "Riot" very loudly. Too loudly, as it turns out.

So... Sorry about all that.

tagged: Kansas City, Country Club Plaza, black, teen, riot, Date Night, Tina Fey, Steve Carell

Radio blah blah

Sometimes I forget things.

I'll leave my sunglasses in the wrong car, for example. Or, every couple of months I'll head out the door in the morning without the key card to the cube farm I work in. I've even been known to misplace the launch codes to the ... well, never you mind about that.

The point is every one is human (with the possible exception of Lady Gaga), and we all forget things from time to time.

That's what happened a couple of nights ago when I forgot to plug in my iPod to charge before catching some Z's. So when I hopped in the car for the next day's commute, the battery was pretty much deadsville. It had enough juice to play the morning's edition of Planet Money, and the quick and witty TODAY IN THE PAST (John Hodgman FTW!). But it finally gave out on me as Marc Maron was interviewing Antonia Crane on WTF.

Yes, for the past few years for some reason I've eschewed terrestrial radio in favor of web-based broadcasts. There's just a lot more content that is a lot more compelling, much more interesting on the 'net. And with an MP3 player I can control my listening experience the same way a DVR gives me control over my television viewing experience. It's all about the audience taking control.

That is until your battery dies.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a huge problem. I do still have a functioning radio in the car that I flip on every once in a while, for old times' sake I guess. And since the iPod was temporarily crapped out and since I was interested in hearing some discussion about the surging #7-ranked K-State Wildcats, I tuned in to Sports Radio 810 WHB for the last 10 minutes of my commute.

And I was almost instantly reminded of one of the reasons I turned off the radio in the first place. There was a commercial playing when I switched the radio on. I don't even remember what it was advertising. All I remember is that for the next five to seven minutes, I heard one commercial after another, possibly with a radio station promo thrown in.

In a future of sharply honed fastforwarding skills where content is king and the :30 spot is an endangered species, this is just waaaay too much advertising. It was more than I could take. It reminded me of why I stopped listening to terrestrial radio in the first place.

Look, I realize you have to pay the bills. There's no free lunch and even public radio has adverts now (not to mention the week-long pledge drives). I'll put up with the odd commercial break every once in a while. Hell, even the podcasts I listen to have ads in them. And even though I fastforward through Leo Laporte's ads on This Week in Tech, I can still tell you his sponsors include Audible, Carbonite.

But when 50 percent of your content is commercials, you're going to have trouble keeping an audience (at least if your audience it me).

I don't know whether a radio station can survive (let alone thrive) with a higher ratio of editorial to commercial content. It's a tough economy out there after all, and I get the feeling that the situation for terrestrial radio is analogous to the situation print newspapers are facing.

Be that as it may, this was a good reminder to me to charge my iPod and/or get a new car charger.

tagged: media, advertising, iPod, podcast, This Week In Tech, Marc Maron, Planet Money

De-pressing

One of the interesting... not necessarily good, but interesting... things about the time we live in is watching the changes in what us old-timers used to call journalism.
I'm sure you're aware (you being of above average intelligence according to the data I get about you from Quantcast) the newspaper industry as we know it is in it's final death throes. Saint Nick is keeping us abreast as the bells toll for the Kansas City Star's parent company and even that of The Pitch.

As an old newspaper man, I have mixed feelings. Its easy to wax romantic about my previous career in journalism -- late nights in the newsroom, the panic and thrill of pushing a story right up to a deadline, the smell of and feel of wet ink on fresh newsprint as you examine the first pages hot off the press¹. I've got some great stories from my newspaper days. Stories involving poisonous snakes, dismembered fingers, bloody hand prints, bullets lodged in brains -- most of which never made it into print.

So in some ways, it's sad for me to watch what's happening to the newspaper industry.

But it's not surprising. A lot of us saw this coming years ago. I opted out of the newspaper biz about 13 years ago. Decided working late nights and weekends for little pay wasn't conducive to family goals I had. I went into an editorial position at an Internet company because I could see even then that printed paper as a medium was a losing proposition.

That's not to say that the gathering and disseminating of information is a losing proposition, only that the "traditional" print media haven't been able yet to develop the business agility needed to find a new and relevant business model.

Sure, they are trying to convert their old business practices to work in a digital venue -- notably the Press+ system that is currently in beta². Unfortunately, in my view, there are a few problems with this effort.

First, it's nearly a literal translation of the failing offline subscriber model to online. Yes, many organizations have shown that micropayments can be a significant money maker (Amazon and iTunes). But Press+ seems to ignores the fact that money from subscriptions never was the primary revenue source for most publications. It's difficult to see how people will be willing to pay more through online micropayments than they would be through traditional subscriptions.

It also ignores the fact that once information is released "into the wild" it will be pretty much impossible to collect micropayments on it. Just like people who subscribe to dead tree publications like to pass on what they "read in the paper" or even leave the paper at a barbershop or coffee shop for others to read, online micropayment subscribers will want to pass on what they've read. Copy-and-paste makes it all the easier.

Now, lest I be branded a pessimist, I still think there is a way that advertisers can continue to support journalism-- at least for the larger news organizations. In my opinion, the plan being considered by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Microsoft is heading in the right direction.

Essentially, Microsoft pays a fee to the news organization (Wall Street Journal) for exclusive access to the product of their newsroom. Stories from WSJ (and presumably any other NewsCorp organization) don't show up in the Google search results. So NewsCorp gets paid for the content, Bing gets a competitive advantage and the end user pays nothing for the content.

In theory Google would follow suit, bidding for the content of other news organizations -- or maybe even for NewsCorp content. One could even see the news organizations selling "clicks" to content the same way the search engines sell keyword ads. Content creators could "flip the script" on Google resulting in the search engines bidding for their content.

This is the kind of paradigm³ shift required for "journalism" to move forward as a money-making prospect.

---

1. Note: Presses are no longer hot. In fact, the moist ink is a bit cool to the touch when the pages first come off the press.
2. Hat tip to Nick.
3. Off topic: The other day my 7-year-old daughter asked me what a "paradigm" was. I told her it was twenty cents.

---

tagged: newspaper, journalism, advertising, press+, Murdoch, NewsCorp, Microsoft, Bing

Stupid like a FOX

A lot of people missed it last week -- at least I haven't read much local commentary about it -- but there was a bit of corporate cock wagging in the broadcast media realm that was pretty ridiculous.

Of course, it all beings with Rupert Murdoch, head honcho at News Corp which owns a bunch of crap including the FOX TV networks (and, incidentally, The Wall Street Journal).

The 30-second version goes something like this: Murdoch thinks his networks' programming is so awesome that he should get an extra $1 for each of Time Warner Cable's subscribers for the privilege of carrying this supposedly awesome content. Don't pay it, and Murdoch pulls the plug on all FOX programming.

According to my inside sources, Time Warner Cable has roughly 14.5 million subscribers. So, doing some quick math, that's about $14.5 million bucks worth of blackmail. Of course TWC is balking at this. Seems taking a $14.5 million out of their $1.2 billion in income is just too much to swallow -- even though they would surly pass that ransom on as higher costs to their subscribers.

Now I don't really have any love for either company (although I do like The Wall Street Journal). The TWC cable/internet service we get at home manages to frustrate me on a weekly basis. And as for FOX, well, I consider their programming to be at least 25% responsible for our accelerated cultural decline.

So it's easy for me to say a pox on both their houses.

But it strikes that this move by FOX is a bit shortsighted. Their argument is that they have totally awesome shows and they point to ratings of American Idol and 24 as proof.

But let's face it, they would have near the ratings they have were it not for those shows being available on TWC. Yank those show from TWC and two things will happen:

1. The collective IQ of TWC subscribers will begin to go up as a result of not wasting time with American Idol, Glee and Fox News Channel, and
2. The ratings and accompanying ad revenue of those shows go down as a result of being in 14.5 million fewer households.

I suspect that both parties already know this. They need each other like a couple of symbiotic parasites.

Oh well. As long as I get my college football.

tagged: media, pop culture, FOX, Time Warner Cable, American Idol, Rupert Murdoch, Glee, television

Interview with a giant

One of the most anticipated (by me) movie premiers in years is John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road -- now set to debut on Nov. 25.

I'm going to assume that the book is widely enough known that I don't need to give a synopsis of the story line. The film has been in post-production/pre-release for a what seems like forever. I think it was originally supposed to be released last year at about this time.

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the trailer which shows why this movie is sure to be the feel-good hit of the Christmas season:


Looks charming, no?

Anyway, McCarthy himself has the reputation of being a reclusive genius. So when Friday's Wall Street Journal interview with him popped up on my feed reader, I was eager to see what he had to say.

And he didn't disappoint.

I don't want to swagger jack the WSJ so I'll encourage you to go read the interview for yourself, especially if your a huge McCarthy fan. He did seem to have some tacit condemnation for the vast amount of what we call "user generated content." I don't know how aware McCarthy is of blogging and social media, but the quote below was in reference to the amount of content put out by Hollywood:

Well, I don't know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they're really good. And there's just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that's the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there's going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don't care whether it's art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don't think so.

And there's also this insight on the nature of mankind. It says a lot about the perspective from which a lot of his writing comes.

I don't think goodness is something that you learn. If you're left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble. But people tell me from time to time that my son John is just a wonderful kid. I tell people that he is so morally superior to me that I feel foolish correcting him about things, but I've got to do something--I'm his father. There's not much you can do to try to make a child into something that he's not. But whatever he is, you can sure destroy it. Just be mean and cruel and you can destroy the best person.

Like I said, there's lots more great stuff in the interview, so go check it out.

tagged: Cormac McCarthy, The Road, movie, trailer, interview, Wall Street Journal

Anti social media

A bunch of crotchety old geezers have been kvetching about the invasion of marketing into social media platforms and how if it doesn't stop it's going to ruin the the entire online world.

Here are a few examples:

If one is using Twitter, they are “tweeting” not “twittering.” By the way, if you use Twitter to promote your product to me, you are an ASSHOLE.

They see all of this free and open communication occurring. And, being Marketing Fucktards, their first thought is "How can we piggyback on this shit and manipulate it, without people knowing we are manipulating it, and use it to sell our useless crap to people...

On the other hand, these social media promotional tactics are too close to shilling for my taste. Shills were shunned when the Internet was still a collection of crazy-blinking mile-long one-page framed sites of horrible colors, and they haven’t gained in popularity since. That doesn’t stop them from trying.

Essentially, these social Luddites are saying you're a sucker if you take advantage of your social network to get free stuff. I'm not really sure how that makes sense, then again I'm not a demented old fart suffering from dementia.

They also seem to be suffering under the misconception that these forums for social interaction are free. And I guess in a certain, very limited perspective this is true. After all, the end user doesn't pay a purchase price or subscription fee.

Unfortunately, this is the same perspective that concludes that Skittles are made from unicorn poop.

Here in the real world, there is no such thing as free. Somebody always pays a price for something. You know that time you posted on Twitter about how you just ate lunch at the Who Gives a Shit Cafe? Well, someone had to pay for the servers, bandwidth, application development, etc. that made it possible for you to keep everyone updated on the excruciating minutia of your day to day life.

Look, I hate to fail your whale here but in the real world when consumers want content but they don't want to pay for it, it's usually the advertiser that picks up the bill. That's true for all media -- radio, television, some magazines and newspapers -- and yes, even the Internet.

Social Media websites are no different from any other website -- a vast number of which are supported by advertising. In fact, if you don't like advertising and marketing, you might want to stay away from all moderately popular websites/applications/TV shows/radio programs/podcasts/concert venues/etc. Because here's another news flash for you, marketers like to go where the largest audience is, where they can more efficiently spend their increasingly shrinking advertising budgets.

So Twitter and Facebook, with their combined 114 babillion users, are prime marketing opportunities for advertisers.

Like it or not, there will be advertising. Marketers want it that way because they're interested in getting their messages to the audience. The users want it that way because (despite the ill-conceived objections quoted above) they want the "free" content.

And you know what, Twitter and Facebook and other sites/services also want it that way. They want the money. Believe it or not they aren't doing this for the sole benefit of the whiners who hate advertising.

tagged: social media, Twitter, Facebook, advertising, marketing, Internet

TV tech

KCTV Channel 5 was pimping some kick-ass new technology on their news cast last night.

Seriously, every five minutes the announcers were dropping in mentions of this new, cutting edge technology that they were debuting, just in time for the first major snowtastrophy of the season.

What was this new technology? A new form of super live action laser Doppler radar? Pffth, that's yesterday's news. A bitchin' new weather control device? Still in development unfortunately.

Nope, the new technology was a video camera affixed to a news van, the pictures of which show you the road conditions at any given moment.

AWESOME! KCTV5 has invented duct taping a video camera to your bumper.

Actually if my pop culture history serves me well, I'm pretty sure Tony Soprano invented this about 10 years ago.



tagged: KCTV 5, weather, media, technology, Sopranos, video

Go Elf Yourself!

Just in time for the holidays, OfficeMax is teaming up with those knuckleheads at JibJab to sponsor the ElfYourself viral campaign.

And it's obviously working, since they got me to post this ridonkulous video ecard.

Still, with cameos from such local bloggy luminaries as Shane, Chimpotle, Xavier Onassis and The D, I think the entertainment value is worth the two minutes it takes to watch. However, it's definitely NOT as cool as last year's Handbell Hero viral staring Pensive Girl.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

tagged: Holidays, Christmas, JibJab, OfficeMax, viral, marketing, video

Joe's thoughts

I love this point by Joe Poz in his post today:

Why is it that whenever any politician gives a good speech, the announcers say they “hit it out of the park.” Now, I want to say something to Wolf Blitzer and the rest speaking only as a sportswriter: You know how hard it is to actually hit a ball out of a park? It’s REALLY hard, OK? I mean, it happens at Fenway and Wrigley but that’s because of those park’s dimensions. If you want to say, “He hit that one out of Fenway” … OK, fine.

But hitting it out of the park suggests a titanic bomb out of Yankee Stadium. And, it should be noted that no Major Leaguer EVER hit it out of that park. None. Not Mantle. Not Ruth. Not DiMaggio. Not Reggie. None of them. Now, it is said that almost 70 years ago Josh Gibson hit it out of Yankee Stadium (though it should be noted that it is also said that Josh Gibson once hit a fly ball that didn’t land until the next day).

And this is my point. Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, MIke Huckabee (I’m not exactly a Hucka-disciple, but I have to say I think he gives a terrific speech), these people might have hit HOME RUNS. But for “out of the park,” you need a Josh Gibson blast that is so incredible it may be true and may be myth. I say no American politician has hit it out of the park, since, I don’t know, maybe Abe Lincoln in Gettysburg a long time ago.

I guess if TV "journalists" had any creativity, they wouldn't be TV "journalists."

tagged: politics, sports, media

Who doesn't love a caption contest?

Just riffin' on Tony...



tagged: Photoshop, Photochop, Funkhouser, Kansas City, mayor

Media circle jerk continues

Here we go again.

Yes, Tim Russert died. Yes, it's a tragedy. Indeed, it's a dark day for America.

But to paraphrase Mark Antony, I come not to praise Tim Russert, but to bury him. I'm not a huge fan of Russert. I didn't ever really watch him and if you had asked be before a few hours ago what he looked like I would have only a vague idea.

It's not that I dislike him. It's just that it drives me crazy when people are fans of talking heads on TV.

Okay. He died. It's a damn shame that people have to die and my heart goes out to his family and friends. But you just know that there's a building tsunami of blog posts from people who only knew Russert as a face on a flatscreen.

But the worst of it will come tonight during the primetime news casts when every self-important news anchor will feel compelled to "say a few words" about their "friend and colleague" and what a supreme being he was because he was on TV.

There will probably be several video retrospectives with emotional background music as "we remember the life of our dear friend" and "all that he has contributed" as if, by virtue of him being on TV, his contributions are so much more valuable that the ordinary rank and file of America.

It has happened before and it will happen again, because the talking heads on the teevee love being the story more than telling the story.

tagged: death, Tim Russert, media, television