View From the Phlipside - Glee

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the Movies and more. I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View From the Phlipside.

Attention Gleeks! Your current TV crush continues to roll and is prepared to move into yet another medium to feed your ever growing fanaticism. If that sentence didn’t make a lot of sense to you let me explain. A Gleek is one of the dedicated fans of the Fox TV show “Glee”. Glee centers on a high school show choir in Ohio. It features lots of high production music, the world’s most out there cheerleading coach and millions of dedicated fans. Along the way it’s racked up a Peabody award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award and a People’s Choice award. The show also has multiple audio recordings out with over 7 million digital sales to its credit so far. Not bad for a show that hasn’t started its second season yet. Oh, and did I mention that they’ve already been re-upped for a third season as well?

So what’s next? It’s really too soon for a “Glee” movie, although that seems almost inevitable. No the next big thing will be “Glee” books. Reports say that a series of books for younger readers are scheduled to hit the shelves in August to tie in with the debut of the new season. It’s interesting to me that they decide to go with the young reader approach given that there is a huge young adult/adult fan base. I have a variety of friends on Facebook who turn into screaming teenie boppers every time a new episode hits the airwaves.

On the other hand I have to admit to being encouraged. They’re talking about BOOKS! And they’re aiming at books for KIDS! In a time when everyone wants to claim that reading is no longer on kids radars and that they book is dead it’s interesting to see the hottest show on TV right now reaching out to readers. I will admit to having seen most of one episode of the show and not being blown away by it. It was good but it didn’t demand I watch it again. But I will root for any show that encourages reading, brings great music, and great stories to the small screen. We could use some more shows like that.

But Gleeks, can you tone it down just a little bit?


Call that the View From the Phlipside.
"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

Resource Review - Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions - Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women by Dan Brennan (Faith Dance Publishing, 2010) I have to admit my first reaction when I saw the subject of this book is "Why is it even necessary?". At the same time I am aware that there is, in some parts of Christianity, immense tension on the subject of sex and the relationship between the genders. It always seems to me that the underlying assumption for this branch of the family is that human beings go through life balanced on a knife's edge of nearly uncontrollable lust. At the slightest provocation there will be ripping of bodices and sweaty entangled bodies scattered all over the floors. You may note that I find that school of thought rather ridiculous.

Dan Brennan does approach just those kinds of concerns (without my rather jaded point of view)with compassion and care. He walks the reader through a clear understanding of various points of view and the origins/basis of them. He also gives us a clear foundation based on Scripture of where he believes we should rest as a people of faith.

This is a book about marriage and friendships, it deals with the issues of sex calmly and reasonably, and he refuses to deal with the idea of a loving, non-sexual relationship as something dangerous or alien to Christian thinking. While it seems clear to me that it is aimed primarily at the concerns of certain parts of the evangelical branch of the faith family I think it provides a wonderful rationale for all Christian understanding of friendship between genders. The argument is that the church is less when we limit the interaction between all of God's children.
Also that the other approach to sex, friendship and gender is essentially one that traps everyone in an immature place of development.

Might make a great book for newlyweds or soon to be weds to consider as well as young people.

View From the Phlipside - Movie Rumors

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

If there’s anything I enjoy as much as watching movies it just might be listening to movie rumors.  The process of  picking a movie to make is so convoluted and bizarre that you can never be quite sure what will actually happen and what is just being talked about.  Some movies linger for years before they die or before they get made.  Scripts get re-written, actors change, directors change.  Along the way all kinds of great stories and ideas crop up plus boat loads of really awful ones.  For example, to no one’s great surprise, talks have already begun on a “Karate Kid” sequel after it’s great start.

So what’s floating out there right now.  Let’s start with people who are messing with concepts.  I haven’t seen the newest Sherlock Holmes movie because I love the original stories and I’m not sure how I’ll like this “new interpretation”.  The same goes for the rumored new “Don Quixote”.  One description of the approach describes it as “Pirates of the Caribbean” style story.  The Lord of La Mancha isn’t crazy and there really is a fantasty world.  Ummm, I don’t think so.  How about a movie version of the Jim Henson TV show “Fraggle Rock”?  Seems director Cory Edwards and the studio suits at the Weinstein Company are at loggerheads over the approach.  The suits claim it’s not “edgy” enough.  Sprocket and the Doozers need to be edgy?  Maybe something a bit more “Avenue Q”?

Prequels are a big thing right now as is 3-D.  So maybe something that combines them both?  Folks are looking at a prequel of “The Wizard of Oz” that looks at how the whiziful wiz ends up in Oz.  At the moment it looks like Sam Raimi will direct and Robert Downey Jr. will play the man behind the curtain.  Also in prequel mode at the moment is Ridley Scott who would like to revive the “Alien” franchise.  He wants to go back to the beginning and explore a few things that he thinks went unexplained in the original.  Both “Oz:The Great and Powerful” and the Alien prequel would be done in 3-D.

Summer movies are here and the rumor mill is churning.  It’s a good time to be a movie fan.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - World Cup Ads

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

What do you do if you really want an event to get noticed in a place that is rather ho-hum about it?  One approach would be to steal ideas from events that ARE a big deal in that place and use them for your event.  In this case we’re talking about the World Cup, the planetary championship of the sport we call soccer.  That is on those occasions when any of us here in the US of A bother to consider the sport at all.  So what event to steal ideas from?  How about the Super Bowl.  And what’s one of the most anticipated parts of the Super Bowl?  Why the commercials of course.

Last Saturday you may have been one of the dedicated fans of the sport (like yours truly) or one of the more casual fans of soccer (that would be most of the rest of you) to watch the England versus US opening match.  I am recording this program prior to the game so I can’t comment on the outcome.  But I can point out the highly entertaining commercial by Adidas.
In case you haven’t seen it yet they’ve taken the Cantina scene from the original Star Wars movie, added in some soccer players like David Beckham and Franz Beckenbauer, Noel Galagher of Oasis and then handed Snoop Dogg a lightsabre.  Need I say more?

I like the underlying concept though.  The World Cup is a hard sell here.  The sport is still not that familiar to most of us, the event goes on for a month and it’s filled with people with funny names (come on Kaka, really?)  But it is the most popular sporting event in the world.  Super Bowls draw about 100 million viewers.  The conservative estimate for the World Cup is about three times that number and higher.  So how to bring that excitement here?  Make it look more like what we already know.  Fluff up around the edges of the games with some creative advertising.

Oh and some wins by Team USA wouldn’t hurt at all either.


Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - Helen Thomas

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the Movies and more. I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View From the Phlipside.

Not with a bang but a whimper. The line is from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” but it’s been running through my mind over the last week when I think about the Helen Thomas fiasco. Lots of people will say I’ve got it backwards, that her world ended with a bang but I disagree.

It’s easy to forget the place in history that Helen Thomas occupies. She was the White House correspondent for UPI back in the day when UPI was a big deal. Helen wasn’t just a reporter though. She served as the White House correspondent and then as the bureau chief there for a total of 57 years. First female member and first female president of the White House Correspondents Association, first female member of the National Press Club and the Gridiron Club some of the top “boys only” power clubs in the nation’s capitol. And Thomas had to do on merit because she was never, to be polite about it, going to have a career in TV. She was tough, hard nosed and relentless. You did not want to be on the sharp end of her questions if she decided to go after you. Helen Thomas was not afraid of anyone, any office or any question. Fidel Castro once said the difference between democracy in Cuba and the U.S. was that he didn’t have to answer questions from Helen Thomas.

All of which makes the firestorm over her remarks that much sadder. I’m not excusing them at all. I think there’s a chance that they’re being mis-interpreted but they are stupid never the less. First because some one with that much experience should know better than to make those kinds of remarks. And second because Israel is a political “third rail” issue. Like the electrified third rail of a subway, touch it and you die.

Sadly too many people will only remember that comment when Thomas’ name comes up. A long and distinguished career will be forgotten. Truth be told she probably should have retired years ago. Instead her career slowly diminished until it finally ended this way. Not with a bang but a whimper.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - MTV

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

It’s been interesting recently listening to members of Generation X complaining about how one of their cultural icons has deserted them.  And they are absolutely right.  MTV has walked away from its roots.  The shock of that has probably added a few grey hairs to the heads of the generation.

I thought it was interesting earlier this year when MTV took the words “Music Television” off of the corporate logo.  Like ESPN (you remember the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) MTV now no longer is a set of initials representing anything.  It’s just MTV.  Iconic.  A name unto itself.   Music?  They don’t need no stinking music.

Of course the folks at MTV would take exception to that characterization.  While they no longer are in the music video business they maintain they are still very much in the music business.  It’s just sort of in the background now.  Or as the president of the MTV Networks Music and Logo group recently said (and no I have no idea what he’s actually in charge of) music videos are the soundtrack.    Yeah, background music.  Like on all their TV series.  They play music.  To show it’s really important they even put the titles and artists in the credits.  Right along with the Second Unit Director and the Key Grip.  They also do those little pop up things when a song starts in the soundtrack.  So it’s music and video.  Of course there are also the big music video centered programs too like the VMAs, which I suppose are still actually the Video Music Awards.  So MTV is like still really into music.  Sorta.  In the background kinda thing.

As much as I like twitting MTV about abandoning music videos they don’t have the cool factor they once did.  Music videos are really kind of old school, been there, done that.  You knew it was coming to an end when they axed TRL.

The real question for me is can MTV ever regain that cachet again?  Once upon a time they were cutting edge.  Remember the prophecy that Video killed the radio star?  Do they really think they’ll climb to those heights once again on the back of “Jersey Shore”?


Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

Reviews - Lion in Winter and The Sign

Just banging through things these days.

Can't remember if I've reviewed "The Lion in Winter" before.  The 1968 multi Oscar winning film is one of my favorite stage plays.  Great cast (Katherine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins {his first role}, Nigel Terry and Timothy Dalton), a fabulously quotable script, and some compelling if not particularly likable characters.  Everything you'd think you'd need for a great movie.  Yet as I watched it with the kid (her first time after years of listening to her parents rave about the show) I realized that the movie version lumbers a bit.  This is a play with very little "action".  It is dialogue driven and character driven.  Which on stage is fabulous.  But the movie drags.  And it's too bad because most of the performances are amazing.  Hepburn shared an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role with Barbara Streisand in "Funny Girl" and O'Toole was nominated but lost to Cliff Robertson in "Charly" for Best Actor.  Weird to see the wispy and weasly John played by Terry who I usually connect with King Arthur in "Excalibur", and Hopkins who plays more cerebral characters as the burly and not particularly bright Richard.

Bear with the slow pacing and savor the dialogue.

Raymond Khoury's "The Sign" is the second book by this author (I read "The Last Templar") and for what it is it's not bad.  It's conspiracy theory with religious overtones.  Characters are OK, plot was pretty good.  It's the second book in a row for me that has used genocide against the Islamic/Arab population of the world as a story device.  Distasteful is the nicest word I can think of  for the concept.  This book also spends a lot of time bashing not just religion (I have a certain sympathy for that) but faith in general.  Its basic assumption is that most people are stupid and would be better off if we just let our betters lead us in the right direction.  Which would include the previously mentioned plot device.  I'll give Khoury this he makes the folks pushing this agenda the bad guys at least.  But it seems pretty clear to me that he doesn't have much use for faith or religion given that he has no character who spends so much as an instant defending either.  His main religious characters are a stereotypical TV preacher (come on people, I'm not the televangelist's biggest fan either but to keep trotting out these cardboard charlatans is really getting old) and a do gooder RC monk who is rather ineffectual on his best days.

Looking for an interesting read that won't tax your intellect too much?  Great book for a long dreary weekend.

View From the Phlipside - Linkletter and Cowell

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

A couple weeks ago I was struck by a rather strange coincidence of events.  The stars of two media icons passed one another in the heavens.  They will forever share a date, a final date, yet they are almost diametrically opposed to one another when it comes to image and approach.

The date in question was May 26, a Wednesday.  Mid week.  Pretty standard day as I remember.  Except for Simon Cowell and Art Linkletter.  I probably don’t need to introduce Cowell.  The acerbic judge from American Idol is a modern media icon.  Art Linkletter may not be as familiar if you’re under the age of 50 or so.  Linkletter was the long time host of  hit radio and TV shows like “House Party”, and “People Are Funny” but may be best known for his interviews with children on a segment of “House Party” which was called “Kids Say the Darndest Things”.

So what’s the May 26th connection?  That’s the date of Cowell’s last “American Idol” show and it was the day Linkletter passed away at 97.

As I read the two items I thought about the difference between these two men.  Both of them were true media stars.  They both created multi-media businesses that were incredibly successful.  Again you’re probably aware of Cowell’s multiple hit TV shows in the US and England plus his recording empire.  Linkletter had extremely popular radio and TV shows, a very successful series of books based on the kid interviews and made a fortune as a  large investor in the hula hoop.

Beyond that they share very little.  Linkletter was known for his kind and easy going manner.  He perplexed critics because he was so easy going that they found him rather bland and dull.  But his audience loved him.  People could feel relaxed around him and that enabled him to get the best and funniest response out of them.

I can’t imagine anyone ever feels relaxed and comfortable around Simon Cowell.  He is renowned for his biting criticism and often brutal commentary.  He is sarcastic and superior and sometimes down right rude.  And he’s fabulously popular in his own right.

Simon Cowell wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Art Linkletter’s day.  And Art wouldn’t last five minutes today.  The world has changed.  It may be that where we once  laughed with people, today we laugh at them.  That’s probably not a good change.  So maybe that intersection in history gives a moment to reflect.  And that’s always a good thing.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - Cat Tweets

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

This may the single stupidest communications technology idea of all time.  I’m talking historic, epic, colossal in its level of “You’ve got to be kidding me”.  The most frightening part is that there is absolutely no doubt, not the tiniest little speck of uncertainty that this thing will sell and people with follow it.

Sony, a major technology corporation which certainly MUST have better things to do with its time, has created a prototype for the “Cat@Log”, a cat collar with a still camera, GPS, accelerometer, and Bluetooth, all of which will allow, I can barely bring myself to say this, up to the minute Twittering of everything your cat is doing.

Yes, I’m absolutely serious.  The software is designed so that all the information is uploaded via the Bluetooth to the computer and then transferred to tweets.  What happens is that various feline routines then trigger one of a series of pre-programmed tweets that are posted for the world to do whatever with.  The stated purpose of the technology is to help owners understand their pets better.  Now I’ve owned both cats and dogs in my lifetime.  At the moment there are two cats who live at my house.  In my experience the understanding of the two domestic animals can best be expressed by the old joke that says when a dog looks at its human it sees God, when a cat looks at its human it sees staff.  Pretty simple, pretty straight forward.

As I read the article I was even more astounded to discover that this isn’t the first project of this kind.  Apparently a dairy farmer worked with another company to use similar technology to allow his dairy herd to tweet.  Based a variety of information stored in the central computer the farmer is tweeted on whether any given individual in the herd is ready to be milked.  That makes a bit more sense to me although the image of a dairy farmer checking his herd’s Twitter feed  on his smartphone at the entrance to the barn is a little tough for me to wrap my brain around.

The stuff that I would really want to know about, like the cat is shredding the curtains or the cat has left you a small present in your shoe, probably aren’t among the standardized phrases.  Then it finally hit me.  The single fact that makes this entire thing idiotic.  This will be the single most common tweet for every cat.  Do you know what cats spend the majority of their day doing?  Any cat owner can tell you.  What cats do most, is sleep.
I don’t need technology to tell me that.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - Facebook and Politics

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

Well it has finally happened.  After all the struggles and the fiascos and the growth and the controversy Facebook has finally made the big time.  Now you may have thought that Facebook as the dominant social medium in the age of social media had already made the big time.  Sure they are the biggest fish in that particular pond but in the larger scheme of things social media is still pretty much just a puddle.  No now Facebook finds itself right in the center of the biggest puddle that you can possibly splash in.  Facebook is now a political football and even has their first attack ad of their very own.

While the privacy issues debate has made lots of headlines it was still pretty much the territory just of Facebook users and media commentators like me.  Not any more.  A political ad in the California Attorney General’s Democratic primary race has made Facebook and it’s privacy policies the issue.  Democratic candidate for the AG’s office Kamala Harris began running an ad last week that took her opponent Chris Kelly to task for the most recent privacy policy fiasco.  That may sound ridiculous till you discover that prior to running for public office Kelly was in fact Facebook’s chief privacy officer.  The ad claims, in the typical sinister political voice over, that “Chris Kelly released your private information”.    Allowing for the typical political over simplification of the whole issue (Facebook didn’t release anyone’s information so much as they just made the information more available as the default setting.  While I certainly object - and have reset all my privacy settings - no more information about me is out there than I’ve chosen to make available anyway.) what really amazes me about this is that Ms. Harris thinks this is an important issue on the minds of voters in the Golden State.  It also ignores the facts that Kelly went on sabbatical from his job back in August prior to the development of the controversial policy.

But the race in California for the Democratic slot in the Attorney General’s election is close.  Only about five percentage points separate the two.  So who knows maybe your thoughts on people knowing about your Farmville status might just make the difference in your vote.  And maybe this country is in a whole lot more trouble than I thought.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

Review - Critical Mass by Whitley Strieber

This was another book I just grabbed because the blurb sounded interesting.  I knew the name Whitley Strieber but had never read anything by him.  Now I know I won't be reading anything else by him.

The story line is interesting enough.  What if terrorists could sneak the components for a nuclear weapon, a real one not just a "dirty bomb", into the U.S. and other western nations?  It's a very real concern for the real intelligence and security services of the world.  There is more unaccounted for weapons materials (plutonium and the like) floating around out there than anyone really wants to think about.  And there are people who would be more than willing to use it.

Sounds like a concept.  Sadly the author lets the concept down.

Stephen King introduced me to a concept (may be unique to King, I don't know) called author intrusion.  It's when the author uses language or structures that are designed primarily to show just how smart and talented they are.  In fact they show how insecure the author is more often than not.

Strieber is guilty of it all.  Peculiar sentence structures, grandiose language, bizarre character motivations.  I found virtually none of the characters particularly believable or sympathetic.  Characters do things for no obvious or seemingly rational reason and are generally cardboard cut outs.  It's really pretty bad.  He does keep the story moving along (well with the exception of the extremely long section where he described the deaths due to a nuclear explosion of what seemed like every single person on the Las Vegas Strip.  It was both tedious and a bit disgusting).  Periodically I would have to stop and go back over a sentence just to make sure it was a tortured as I'd thought.  I was usually right.

So interesting idea told in a good tempo but written badly.  It's too bad because the writing is just an anchor that drags the rest of it down.  Too many other authors out there to read.

View From the Phlipside - Right Network

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this next item.  Part of me is all in favor of folks expressing their points of view and using the media to do it.  On the other hand I worry when the idea is to restrict the points of view to just one way of looking at things.

The item under consideration is a new TV network, set to launch this summer, called quite simply “The Right Network”.  It’s slogan is “All that’s right with the world”.  Now that may sound like it’s going to be a happy, why doesn’t somebody report good news for a change kind of thing but I’m pretty sure that’s NOT the version of the word right they mean.  Some of their programming looks interesting if only because it’s not the same old, same old that we’ve seen before.  They’ll be offering a show called “Running” which follows 6 first time candidates for public office (one of whom refers to the seat he’s running for as being “infested” by his opponent.  Not exactly sunshine and puppy dogs).  There’s also one called Politics and Poker where they discuss politics while playing Poker.  It’s novel.

The network is financially supported in part by actor Kelsey Grammar of “Cheers” and “Frazier” fame.  The network claims that it will be “Pro-America, Pro-Business and Pro-Military”


If you go to their website at rightnetwork.com and look under the “About Us” link  you’ll find the following statement:

“Our mission is clear: to entertain, engage, and enlighten Americans who are looking for content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview.”

In other words programming for people who don’t want to hear what anyone else thinks or has to say.  And yes, that bothers me.  Not I will be quick to add because it’s conservative in orientation.  I’d be just as bothered if it were liberal in orientation.  Note the words that are not used here - words like inform, expand, explain or question.  This is all about not challenging pre-conceived notions.  It’s about the sureness that you are are correct in all particulars and don’t need to hear anything else.  It is at the same time intellectually arrogant and intellectually lazy.

So I guess I sure of one thing.  The Right Network is Wrong.

Call that The View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - Social Media

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

OK time to be really honest, just among ourselves.  Does it bother you, maybe just sometimes, if no one responds to your Tweets?  If no one seems to comment on your Facebook status, or blog post?  Do you ever feel when that happens that maybe you’ve become invisible, that you don’t really exist somehow?  Come on, you know you do, at least occasionally.  Well here’s what you need to know about that.  That may actually be a problem.

One of the great concerns about social media is how it can suck you in.  You joined Facebook just so you could keep in touch with the family or to re-connect with some old friends, now you’re obsessed w Farmville and Mafia Wars.  You burn up far more time doing that than you would really be comfortable admitting to family, friends or perish the thought, your boss.

That constant need to be reassured that you exist is actually a fairly common behavior at one point in the human growth cycle.  It’s very common for infants.  The concern is that our brains might be backwards trained into a more infantalized condition by long hours on either social media or video gaming.  Infants and small children are attracted to  visual and audio stimulation and the concern is that this ongoing practice into childhood and beyond may have negative effects.

Now the first thing you need to know is that these concerns are not from anti-technology, no fun Luddite.  Rather they are from Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a neuroscientist and apparently a member of the House of Lords.  Lady Greenfield is concerned that if too much of the socialization especially of children is done through computer modes there may be real and very serious problems with attention deficit and even autism.  Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen.  There are lots of studies out there that indicate both positives and negatives to social media.  There IS a difference between interaction on Facebook or even on a video call through Skype and face to face communication.  Making sure our kids get lots of chances for that kind of socializing is probably best all round.

The most interesting discussion to arise in all of this is that gaming and social networking simply isn’t enough fun any more.  The problem is that people end up with hundreds of Facebook friends and it becomes a chore to track them all.  Games become more and more about building social networks and not enough action and adventure.  In other words they’re becoming way to much like real life.  And let’s face it we all know that real life will kill you or make you crazy.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010

View From the Phlipside - Miley Cyrus

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

It was about two years ago that I went after Billy Ray Cyrus and his ex-wife about their decision to let their daughter, pop star Miley Cyrus, pose for some rather racy photos for a major magazine.  Miley was only 15 at the time and the poses, while showing relatively minimal amounts of skin, were pretty provocative.  Letting a 15 year old be shown in that manner, in bed apparently covered only by a sheet, struck me as irresponsible and not at all helpful for young women already facing too many challenges on how they are supposed to look and behave.

So when I saw a report in the New York Times that talked about her new video that used terms like “fetish gear” for costumes and cages for settings I thought here we go again.  Then I looked at the video for “Can’t Be Tamed” and thought “Yeah, so?”.  By today’s music industry and video standards the costume and dancing is amazingly modest.  You have to have some pretty narrow definitions of fetish to qualify Miley’s Bird Woman costume as anything approaching kinky.

Here’s the reality.  Miley Cyrus stands at the most difficult point in the career of any teen pop star.  The point where they have to move from being a teen star to an adult performer.  It’s a transition that has put more than a few teeny bopper star’s careers on the rocks.  Is this video pretty racy for Hannah Montana and any of Hannah’s youngest fans?  Sure.  But this isn’t Hannah Montana people.  Hannah is a character played by Miley Cyrus.  The run on that show is set to end this year and she needs to move on.  This video is a very modest step away from the teeny bopper and into the adult Miley world.  Trying to force her to spend the rest of her career doing material appropriate for 12 year olds is insane.  Miley is growing up and her career is growing up too.  The video really bothers some parents however so this may be good news for them.  Miley is planning on stepping away from her music career for a while to focus on movies.

So no, I’m not really all that upset about this latest Miley video.  If I were her parents and advisors I’d be a lot more concerned about the video from last summer showing her dirty dancing with her 44 year old producer at a party attended by some Hannah Montana aged fans.  Some parents yanked their kids out of the party after seeing that.  In that case I don’t blame them a bit.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010