View From the Phlipside - Oscars and censorship

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 Sunday night was Oscar night, the big night  

for the big awards when it comes to the movie world. If you were surprised by any of the winners of the top awards you probably weren't paying attention. It was pretty much a night for the favorites with The King's Speech coming away as the big winner. Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. I'll be circling back to it in just a moment.

I know there's a small dedicated band of folks who are grossly disappointed that Inception didn't win some big awards maybe especially Best Picture. I saw Inception and liked it a lot but it won where it should have won in the effects categories. There was a little controversy prior to Melissa Leo's win for her self promotion in some of the trade journals for the award but hey I give her extra points for being honest. You hear a lot of actors say they don't care about the awards. That probably means you hear a lot of actors lying through their teeth. I don't think there's a single award this year that you can point to and say it was a gross miscarriage by the Academy.

Now to circle back to The King's Speech. I just heard that a PG-13 version of the movie has been prepared. They do this primarily by eliminating one scene where Colin Firth's character goes on an obscenity laden tirade as part of the therapy for the future king. The scene is shocking only at first then becomes poignant and finally quite funny. But it involves the repeated use of what we now call the F-Bomb. There's a whole industry out there dedicated to "cleaning up" movies for those with apparently delicate sensibilities. And it makes me crazy.

There is gratuitous use of obscene language. For me it has always been the comparison between Richard Pryor's stand up comedy and Eddie Murphy's early work. Pryor used it for a purpose, Murphy just used because it was shocking. The language in The King's Speech is for a purpose. It shows the necessary breaking down of barriers for Firth's character to overcome his disability. When you take it out you screw up the story. All for those people who simply can't deal with the raw-er side of real life. If a few carefully chosen words that are an integral part of a great story are just too much for you then you probably shouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

But do me a favor. Don't screw up a perfectly wonderful movie because of it.

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 2011

View From the Phlipside - 2011 Movies

Somehow I managed to trash the script for this program.  No idea, these things just seem to happen to me.  So instead here's the audio of the program as it aired on WRFA-LP Jamestown

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Xoom Stupid

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.
Call this my just being fair commentary.  You see I rag on Apple for this particular failing so it's only fair that I point out when someone else is doing it too.

In this case it is the impulse on the part of a technology company to decide before hand about how I'm going to use their product.  I'm not talking about normal limitations, every technology has boundaries.  Cars are great but they don't fly and they don't act like boats.  This is more in line with say an auto maker deciding that it felt driving in the early morning hours wasn't in your best interest so they designed the car so it wouldn't start between the hours of midnight and 6 AM.  It's a stupid, pointless intervention into how the end user can use the product.  It's a technological "nanny state".  Apple has done it by deciding that despite the fact that Java is a huge part of the way the web works they won't let it run on their products.  It's stupid.

But the folks at Motorola may have finally surpassed Apple for this kind of corporate arrogance.  Their new tablet computer the XOOM was featured in some

Motorola Xoom

Super Bowl advertising.  Tablet computers are the hot item right now and once again everyone is looking up at Apple.  The iPad currently commands something around 80% or more of the market.  The Xoom will apparently debut at the high end of the price range for this market which doesn't strike me as the brightest move of all time.  But it's the fine print that is truly outrageous.  In order to activate the WiFi on your new Xoom you will be required to buy a minimum of one month's data plan from Verizon.  FOR YOUR WIFI.

WiFi, which doesn't even use the Verizon network.  WiFi, which connects your some other service for your internet connection without ever even sniffing Verizon.

Assuming that they'd sell you a Xoom without the WiFi activation, which I doubt, you'd end up with a tablet computer that was incapable of connecting you to the web.  In this day and age we're talking about an almost totally useless device.  All so they can squeeze and extra $30 out of you for a function that should be considered base equipment.  It's unbelievable and it's likely going to cripple sales of the device.

Going back to our car analogy let's just say I'd rather walk.

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 2011

View From the Phlipside - Bieber fans go Kanye

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.

About a year and a half ago we saw something happen in the music world and you figured it was just so out there that you'd never see anything like it again.  When Kanye West jumped up on stage to make an idiot out of himself and ruin a great night for Taylor Swift you had to believe that he had set a whole new standard for low brow foolishness.

Never underestimate the power the stupid.  Justin Bieber's fans seem to have found a whole new bottom on that page.

It began with the Grammys just over a week ago when the Canadian teen heart throb lost the "Best New Artist" award to little known, but highly regarded Jazz artist Esperanza Spaulding.  The win was a complete and utter surprise.  It would be like my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates winning this year's World Series.  But it's not as if she were a total nobody (like my Pirates at the moment).  She's performed at the White House, was a child prodigy and at age 26 is a member of the faculty at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.  Bieber was clearly surprised and disappointed by the loss.  His fans promptly lost their minds.

Spaulding's web page was hacked and all kinds of statements were inserted. 

The nicest was that she had somehow "stolen" the award from Justin.  The worst were of the sort that say things like "Go Die in a hole".  This is par for the Bieber fanatic course.  This month when photos circulated showing Justin with Kim Kardashian she promptly began receiving death threats.  Death threats!  Just because she had talked and had her picture taken with him.

So a quick reality check for those with a case of BieberFever.  Get a grip.  There are upset winners every decade or so in this category.  You are aware of course that the only person more surprised than Justin that night was Esperanza Spaulding, right?  She stole the award?  Why not talk to the people who vote for it?  And last but certainly NOT least please remember that this is the least important Grammy of an artist's career.  Yes, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bette Midler and Mariah Carey all won this award.  So did the Starland Vocal Band, Milli Vanilli and Amy Winehouse (who beat out Taylor Swift by the way).

There's nothing wrong with just being insanely popular.  There is something wrong with being insanely stupid.

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 2011

A Driving Rant

Coming home from meetings in Buffalo today and had one of my favorite pieces of stupid driving take place.

Here's the scenario:

I'm in the right hand lane, usually doing a couple MPH over the speed limit.  Another car comes up in the fast lane and passes me.  There is no other traffic in our vicinity.  Clear in front of me for about 1/4 of a mile and nothing in his lane as far as the eye can see in front or to his rear.

He then pulls into my lane about two car lengths in front of me!

Why?!?!?!?!

This is an incredibly unsafe pass.  A small problem with his car, or an animal running into the lane or (a recent likelihood) something blows into the road and we can be looking at MAJOR problems.  If he needs to brake suddenly in front of me I'm parked in his back seat.

AND THERE'S NO REASON TO CHANGE LANES THAT QUICKLY!

He has all the room in the world to move safely into my lane.  This isn't racing as much as some morons out on the Interstates seem to think it is.

Unless I HAVE to move over more quickly I wait (as I was taught) till I'm 6-10 car lengths clear of the car I'm passing.  The easy thumbnail is to wait until the entire front of the car you're passing is easily visible in your rear view mirror from your normal driving position.  30 years later my daughter was taught the exact same thing by her driving instructor (not me).

Travelling down the road in vehicles that weigh 2 tons or more at 60 or 70 miles an hour (or more for those of you in some kind of stupid hurry) is a dangerous activity.  Insisting on driving in an overly aggressive manner is just a sure way to end up dead.

I would kindly ask that you do that somewhere that won't result in your taking me with you.

You moron.

Peace

View From the Phlipside - Radio's Back?!?

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've got to be honest with you.  I was not sure that I'd ever write another commentary about radio unless it was another death of radio stories just like the ones I keep seem to be writing about print media.  The oldest of all electronic media keeps shrugging off the death notices however.

Radio was the dominant cutting edge media from the 1920s through the 1950s.  When TV came along that was supposed to be it for radio.  Instead it reinvented itself as THE music delivery system resulting in a whole bunch of us growing up with transistor radios stuck to the side of our heads.  When portable forms of music came along like cassettes and CDs followed by digital music players it looked like the string had run out on radio once again.  So explain to me why some of the most cynical, cut throat folks out there are suddenly on the radio band wagon again?

The folks I'm talking about are the advertising buyers, the agencies and corporate advertising buyers.  With the economy looking up again some more money is flowing back into the media.  You would expect that this would be the time when we would see the big move into the new media and the final stroke for the old.  Yet a recent survey by STRATA Marketing shows that while TV is still king and digital is firmly in the #2 slot Radio holds a comfortable lead in third place over fourth slot holder Print.  Not only that but the number of buyers who reported being more focused on radio than a year ago stands at an amazing 24%.  Equally impressive is that radio is only 5% behind digital in the category of most focused while it is a full 9 points ahead of print.  That's right it's closer to second place than it is to fourth.

So the question is why?  And the honest answer is no one has any idea.  Traditional media is doing better than it has the last couple years.  Even print at its perilously low rates is better than it's been recently.  So there may be a certain familiarity factor working here.  I think there might be another thing working for radio and that is that it translates to the digital world much more easily than Print or even TV.  Basically you can just stream EXACTLY what you've been doing for decades.  Radio doesn't have to change much at all.  TV can require a lot more bandwidth while print needs to learn a bunch of new tricks.

Radio just needs to do what it does best.  Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

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 2011

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.

3 Movies and 7 books

The King's Speech  - (2010) Quite simply this is the best movie I've seen in a very long time.  Fabulous script, incredible acting, wonderful story.  THIS is what movies are supposed to be about.  This is the story of a man who was never supposed to be king and never wanted to be king.  Albert was raised in a fairly nasty family that took great pleasure in mocking his speech impediment, a stutter.  When his older brother David (King Edward VIII) abdicates his throne for the love of an American divorcee who is loathed by his family and advisors Albert becomes the king.  He knows he must conquer the stutter and ends up in the hands of a decidedly unorthodox and irreverent speech therapist.  It's funny and poignant.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this movie.  The swearing scene (you'll know it when you see it) is one of the funniest things I've seen in years.  Yes, it is FILLED with obscenities (to be perfectly honest there's basically not any clean language in the entire section) but it pushes past the whole "dirty words" issue and becomes fall down on the floor laughing funny.  I know a little bit about the history of the story and got a couple new insights into it all.  There haven't been many (any?) sympathetic looks at Wallis Simpson but this may be the most unsympathetic of them all.  Colin Firth is great as Bertie, Geoffrey Rush is amazing as the Logue the therapist, Helena Bonham Carter plays Bertie's wife Elizabeth (one of three Harry Potter alums in the movie along with Michael Gambon as King George V and Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill).  A definite front runner for Best Movie I think.  Go see this movie!

DreamGirls (2006)  I expected to like this movie but not as much as I did.  Based loosely on the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes it is a story of the Black music industry of the '60s and '70s.  The cast is stellar with Beyonce Knowles (who needs anyone else after that?), Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, and Jennifer Hudson in the role that launched her.  The music is incredible, the story is engaging, the acting is outstanding.  The movie was a Broadway musical hit first and some of the numbers remain very Broadway stagy but that's pretty much the worst thing I can say about it.  The rest of the movie is wonderful.  Enjoyed it a lot!


The Men Who Stare at Goats  (2009)  In looking at some of the reaction to this movie I see a lot of folks trying to draw a connection to "The Big Lebowski" which also starred Jeff Bridges as a counterculture shaman.  There really is NO connection at all.  Based VERY loosely on some real life experiments done by our military back in the '60s and '70s it tells the story of an Army unit that worked on psychic powers as for intelligence purposes.  Now straight up that might be moderately interesting.  You could certainly play it for laughs too and that might be moderately interesting.  Instead it's presented as satire, played without so much as a wink at the audience.  These guys BELIEVE in what they're doing despite the obvious absurdity and repeated failures.  Great cast - George Clooney, Bridges, Ewen McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Root,  and Robert Patrick lead the way through a story that is madness itself to everyone except those in the middle of it.  This is a funny movie in its own slightly warped manner.  It may contain the only funny IED moment in movie history.  In the end I'm not sure the story "goes" anywhere so the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied.  But at just over 90 minutes long it's a quick, funny journey into the madness of male bonding, war and the institutional military.  Well worth your time.


The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - A Hugo AND Nebula award winner this is just one of many award winners for the author.  And somehow I had never heard of her prior to reading her book "Black Out" (which I reviewed earlier).  The story involves the same general group as that other book, a group of historians in the very near future (2048) who travel back through time to do their research.  In this one a graduate student gets caught in the Middle Ages at the time the Plague arrives in England.  I've enjoyed both books with one small complaint.  Her characters tend to dither a bit when things go wrong.  But then these are historians who clearly start from the position that they've got the process under control.  When confronted with the truth that things go badly rather quickly they react like academics rather than story book heroes.  So they're realistic.  I just want to slap them sometimes.  Willis has won 10 Hugos and 6 Nebulas and has been inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame so she's the real deal.  Enjoyed the book a great deal and I'm looking forward to reading more.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (a Poirot mystery) and  The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie  Haven't read a lot of the Grand Dame of mystery but enjoyed both of these.  Secret Adversary introduces two minor characters for Christie, Tommy and Tuppence, who appear in a couple more books.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles of course is one of her great characters the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.  Both very English in tone and both a lot of fun.

Death at the Excelsior (And Other Stories) by P.G. Wodehouse  Don't think I've ever read any of Wodehouse before although I think I listened to an audiobook of one of the Bertie Wooster and Jeeves books a couple years ago.  This is a collection of short stories by the English humor author that include some mystery stories along with other lighter stuff.  Lots of fun and a quick read.

Soul Identity  and Soul Intent by Dennis Batchelder    One of the very first current books I got for my NookColor was Soul Identity.  It was free and looked interesting.  It was all of that and more.  The story revolves around the idea that "soul identities" pass down through the human race.  Not reincarnation but a shared soul that is separate from our personality.  It is charted by the lines in the iris of the eye.  Soul Identity is also the organization that is the caretaker for items passed along from one bearer of an individual soul identity to the next.  No matter how long it takes for that soul to be identified.  Put this in the same category with Dan Brown's stuff but without the dubious history and bad theology.  Batchelder apparently couldn't find an agent to touch his novel so he self published.  I'm astounded they all passed but it's quite good.  The second novel in the series isn't quite as good because it's much less about the concept of soul identities and more about a hunt for Nazi gold.  Still good though.  I recommend them both.

Septimus Heap, Book One : Magyk by Angie Sage  Also one of the first current books for the NookColor.  This is the first of 5 novels in a series about a young magician.  Very much a Harry Potter kind of read but in a completely different world.  Like Harry Potter they read very well for both young and adult readers I'd think.  The writing is very readable and the story perks right along.  Septimus is the seventh son of a seventh son but gets lost by his family.  His adventures end up with lots of people in places they never expected to be.   I really enjoyed this one too and will be looking for the following novels as well.  Word is that the movie rights have been purchased and I would expect that once the Harry Potter series is done with we will see these hit the screen.  I'd think they'd do well.

 That's enough for now.

View From the Phlipside - Hot Family Feud

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 may surprise you to discover that there's a TV show that's been around for 35 years that has suddenly gotten a jolt of new life.  I've been watching TV long enough to remember Family Feud back in the days when it was on ABC with its original host Richard "Dickie" Dawson.  The show has been a success both as a daytime and evening show, on network TV and in syndication and has 6 hosts down through the years with comedian Steve Harvey stepping into that role this past year.

What's really surprising are the numbers.  This is a 35 year old game show whose basic format has changed very little over the years.  Yet it's current ratings are not only very solid they show strength from an interesting group.  First of all let's note that it is the ONLY syndicated game show that showed ratings growth over the previous year.   In fact in the crucial advertising demographic of women 25-54 the growth is a rather astounding 71%.  Even more amazing may be the growth in the younger 18-49 demographic among women which showed a 48% increase in the same time period.  In a time when all the competition is either flat or down these numbers are just mind boggling.

New host Steve Harvey deserves some of the credit.  Harvey has the same comfortable but edgy approach that made Dawson such a hit.  Harvey's edge is certainly much sharper than you could get away with in 1976 but the basics of success are still the same.  There is another aspect that may have something to do with it as well and it comes from that edge that Harvey brings.  It seems the answers continue to be rather stunning at times from the contestants.  What makes the difference is that those great hysterically funny answers now get repeated exposure through YouTube.  I recently came across on where the question was "Name something that gets passed around" and the answer came back about a small home made cigarette filled with a decidedly illegal herb.  There's another about what part of a man's body is bigger now than it was at 16 that resulted in an answer that I have no intention of sharing with you today.

Suddenly here is the new media taking the best of the old and benefiting everyone.  Buzz is generated about a show that the average 20 something or even 30 something might never have thought about sampling.  At 35 years old that's the kind of show your grandma likes watching.  Now it looks like you may need to watch it with Grandma just in case she needs some of the answers explained.

Or you may discover Grandma knows a lot more than you think.  It's the media offering a chance to bridge the generation gap.  Survey Says - sounds like a winner to me.

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 2011

View From the Phlipside - Supermarket Blues

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 was standing in the checkout aisle at my favorite grocery store this past weekend taking a look at the various print offerings in the end of aisle displays.  I have to admit they made me rather despair for us all. 

There were plenty of cooking magazines and the usual "too-racy-to-be-displayed-but-we-still-keep-it-right-here" placement of Cosmopolitan but it was the other offerings that really ground me down.

You know the ones I'm talking about, they've been sitting in the same place for so long they even picked up their name from the location, yes I mean the "supermarket tabloids".  Staring at me I found headlines proclaiming the end of Chelsea Clinton's marriage, the star of the TV abomination "The Bachelor" was two timing the contestants with his girlfriend back home, three stars I guess you call them of the "Teen Mom" program have perfectly predictable problems and a photograph of the obviously very ill Elizabeth Taylor who begins this week in the hospital recovering from congestive heart failure.

Let's be honest here - I have no sympathy for what's his name on the Bachelor, I dislike the program and everything it represents.  This display of shallow hypocrisy if the perfect representation of the whole concept.  I have a little more sympathy for the Teen Mom girls.  The challenge of being a mom while you're still basically a child is hard enough.  Trying to do it while the nation watches is just a formula for problems.  I have a great deal of sympathy for Chelsea and wonder why her marriage woes are any of our business any more?  Finally you have Elizabeth Taylor who is shown on the cover with an oxygen tube in her nose, hollow cheeked and with largely empty eyes.  Why do I want to see this?  Let me remember the excruciatingly beautiful younger Taylor (remember her in the white dress in "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof"?) and let this poor woman deal with her health issues in peace and dignity.

But what really bothers me is that we buy this nonsense.  There is a concept called shadenfreude which basically translates as getting amusement out of the discomfort of others.  It's one thing when we know that it's just an act.  How do we justify it when it is the actual pain and suffering of real people?  The Bachelor and the Teen Moms probably want this kind of attention.  That's just one more piece of evidence for the sad and pitiable condition of their lives.  When our prurience pushes us into the apparently sad end of a marriage or the even sadder decline of a great actress it kind of turns my stomach.

It's a free country and folks can read what they like.  Just do me a favor.  Stick back out of sight so I can enjoy my groceries.

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 2011

R.I.P. Chuck Tanner

This is a slightly belated farewell to former Pirates manager Chuck Tanner.  Tanner wasn't the greatest of all the Bucco bosses but I'm not sure anyone ever looked like he enjoyed his job more.  Manager of the last Pirate World Series team he also led the drug addled Bucs teams of the middle '80s.  I always loved that he was a western PA boy (New Castle) who managed the hometown team.  The world's just a little bit dimmer now.

Chuck Tanner was 82.

View From the Phlipside - NBCUNIVERSAL logo

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'll be honest and tell you this next story is probably NOT the most important media story of the year.  It's not earth shattering and it probably won't change how you view the people involved.  At the same time it's still a dumb decision.
Don't know if you've heard but one of the first results of the merger of NBC Universal and Comcast is that the symbol of the network and the movie studio are being exiled from the new corporate symbol.  That's right you will no longer see NBC's peacock nor Universal's globe in the corporate logo any more.  What's replacing them?  Ummm, nothing?  The old logo read NBC, then the peacock as a kind of spacer then Universal with the Universal's stylized globe sort of ringing it.  To be honest it wasn't a particularly brilliant logo but it was obvious and straight forward.  It came into existence back in 2004 when NBC then owned by General Electric merged with Vivendi Universal Entertainment owned by French media giant Vivendi.  It was a marriage of convenience and the logo kind of reflects it.

So then along comes Comcast and gobbles up NBC Universal.  As I've noted

before the reality is that of all the assets of the company the NBC network is probably the least desirable for Comcast.  It's a bad network and creates potential other problems along the way.  But in this case to get Cinderella you have to marry the ugly sisters too.

Let me point out quickly that the new, incredibly boring, monochromatic logo, which is to eliminate the graphics and then just shove the NBC and Universal together to create one long word, is said to be only for the corporate entity.  Which means we'll still see the peacock on NBC and MSNBC and CNBC and all the other places we see it.  Ditto for Universal.  I'm not sure what it's supposed to SAY about the new corporate entity.  We're really boring.  We're a really boring media company.  We're a really boring media company and we don't mind everyone knowing it.  The old logo was average.  This is one is awful.

And messing with logos can have an effect.  The Gap stores found that out last year when they left an iconic image of the blue square with the single word Gap in white for something that looks like a Microsoft clipart logo.  That lasted about a week.  It just makes me wonder that Comcast thought this was the best use of their energies as they take over the company.  Makes you wonder what might be next.

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 2011

View From the Phlipside - Super Bowl 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.
You know I just looked up going into last weekend and realized that it was Super Bowl weekend.  And I hadn't given it a thought.  Not the Super Bowl.  As a born and raised Pittsburgh boy the football game has been center stage in my thoughts for weeks now.  As one friend put it, we are climbing a stairway to seven.  At least I hope so as I write this just prior to the game.

No what I'd not given a thought to was the question of Super Bowl advertising.  Let's face it some years the ads are better than the game.  If you're a dyed in the wool media junkie like me the Super Bowl is every bit as big an event as it is if you're a football junkie.  This is the, well, Super Bowl of advertising.

And I'm really underwhelmed.  Not underwhelmed with the early word on the ads.  Underwhelmed by the whole concept.  Then it occurred to me that I may not be the only one because I didn't hear the kinds of chatter about the ads that I have in the past.  Surfing around on the web I do find some coverage but again I don't detect the kind of breathless anticipation that used to come with the Super Bowl ads.

I can tell you that you are about to watch at least 45 minutes of ads and promos during the game broadcast.  The record is from last year at just shy of 48 minutes.  I can tell you that ad time has risen from only 40 minutes back in 2001.  A 30 second spot?  This year's price was right around 3 million dollars.

And I just don't care.  Looking at the list of sponsors it's largely the usual suspects with a tilt this year towards car ads.  I anticipate the Star Wars VW ads will score pretty well with the fans.  The HomeAway ad where the test baby is thrown into a window will get its share of criticism.  Bud Light, GoDaddy, Pepsi, Doritos...

Yawn.

Once upon a time this was something I got up for, researched, prepped for and looked forward to the breaks in the action.  These were ads that were going to enter the popular culture zeitgeist.  We'd be talking about them, comparing notes on what we liked and hated.  Now it's just the launch of the newest ad campaign.  I find myself confronted with a rather astounding situation headed into Super Bowl 45.

I may actually want the ads to get out of the way...of the football game.



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 2011

Thoughts at 53

A moment, as the odometer of my life rolls over one more time, on what I think I've learned about myself over the years.

• I've spent too much of my life being afraid.  Afraid of failure, of coming up short, of not being what I need to be, want to be, ought to be.  I'm not sure where that came from.  It's robbed my life of a lot I've come to realize.  Joy in victories, useless worry in advance.  I'm working very hard to eliminate it from my life.
• Some people just don't like me and there's not a lot I can do about it appears.  I've been called arrogant and conceited and pompous.  I've been told I expect too much and I'm too demanding.  In the first category I just don't buy it.  People like that think too highly of themselves, they see themselves as better than everyone else.  I don't.  Too often I don't think I'm good enough.  As for the second I'm not sure why I should apologize for that.  I expect other people to work as hard as I do.  And generally I work hard.  If that bothers you so be it.  If you can out work me I'll lead the cheers for you.  But don't expect me to slow down to make you look good.
• I am and probably always will be socially awkward.  The teen aged boy in me is still intimidated by girls.  Women I respect intimidate me.  I feel unsure and awkward and embarrassed and desperately want to impress them in return.  The same goes for men I respect.  I like people and really want to feel like I fit in and am liked.  It takes a while for me to feel comfortable so I tend to hang out along the fringes and feel left out.  I've gotten better but I'll never be as smooth as I wish.
• My greatest gift is also my greatest shortcoming.  I love to talk and tell stories and manipulate words.  There have been many times in my life when what I really needed to do was shut the hell up.  I'm still a very good story teller but I've become a much better listener.
• I have a "glass half empty" approach to life.  I swear I must be the happiest most optimistic glass half empty person on the planet but there it is.  The only advantage to pessimism is how often you are pleasantly surprised.
• That I am blessed with people who truly care about me.  I need to say that this surprises me every time I'm reminded of this FACT.  I have no idea why anyone pays me any mind whatsoever, why anyone should spend a single second thinking about me.  I have an incredible wife, a glorious daughter and family and friends who are so wonderful that it is beyond my capacity to describe.  I don't deserve you but I glory in my good fortune.  Thank you.  I love you all.

I'm hoping this next year will be a little less exciting than last year.  I hope that you will all bear with me when I'm awkward or pushy or focused too much on myself.  I promise to be less afraid, to listen more, to enjoy more, to expect better and to revel in you all.

That would be the greatest birthday present of all.

Peace

View From the Phlipside - Sing the Song!

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 was really kind of stumped for a third show this week. There was just NOTHING out there that seemed to be calling my name. Then the Super Bowl broadcast got started and I was set. The game hadn't even started and I had a topic. It was when fellow Pittsburgh native Christina Aguillera sang the national anthem and screwed it up.

Now before all the Christina fans climb down my throat let me note I have the greatest respect for her. She's a wonderful performer and arguably has one of the finest voices in popular music today. But she screwed up the national anthem. In front of the largest audience she will probably ever perform for she forgot the lyrics while trying perform the song.

So here's my advice for performers everywhere when it comes to the National Anthem.

Just sing the damn song.

My apologies if you feel that language is a bit rough but I am sick unto death with folks who try and make the song their own. Here's a news flash - it isn't your song. It's ours. The National Anthem is a collective possession of the nation so trying to "make it your own" is simply grossly inappropriate. This isn't a pop song, a standard or a classic. There is no place for individual interpretations of the National Anthem any more than there is room for a personal interpretation of the flag. If you absolutely can not live without sharing "your interpretation" please feel free to include it as a cut on your next album. But it keep away from performances at public events. The invitation to sing the National Anthem is an honor because you are singing for all of us. So doing some personal version is thumbing your nose at the country.

Besides haven't you noticed that NOBODY likes it when people start messing around with the Anthem. We didn't like it when Roseann made it a joke and we don't like people turning it into some kind of jazz scat monstrosity. Just stop. And sing the song.

The song isn't all that easy to sing in the first place. The average person mumbles along because it's hard. Right at the end especially it gets really high. So anyone who can just come in and sing it straight is going to be pretty impressive under any circumstances. Why do you think people are so kind and caring when someone tries to sing it straight and struggles. We know how they feel so we work with them.

So my advice to Christina and everybody else is simple.

Just sing the song.

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 2011

Tidbits from my travels

Just got back from my first ever trip to Charlotte NC.  A few thoughts:

Perhaps it was just enjoying the Spring like conditions as compared to what I knew awaited me at home but Charlotte strikes me as a lovely city.  Cities with dedication to civic green space, fountains and public statuary always appeal to me.  Charlotte also has an incredible array of eating establishments.  Special notice goes to Mert's Heart and Soul Restaurant which is right next to the hotel where our meeting was being held.  Didn't get a chance to try any of the soul food other than the banana pudding but loved the decor, loved the pudding, the service was great and everyone ELSE who did get the chance to try the Low Country and Gullah foods loved them.  Everyone in Charlotte was pleasant and helpful and wonderful.  Really enjoyed what little I experienced of the city.

Continental Airlines -  We were 26 minutes EARLY getting into Charlotte and 50 minutes EARLY getting into Newark on the way back.  What can I say?  Wish all my air travel was this efficient.

It is great to be back working with the Provincial Youth Ministry Coordinators of The Episcopal Church.  I only knew 2 of them at all well when I walked in the door but they were wonderful.  Good folks and I'm looking forward to working with them.

Likewise I enjoyed meeting and hanging out with folks from ECCE (Episcopal Council of Church Educators), Campus Ministry and Ministry for Young Adults.  We had a GREAT time bowling at Strike City   Given how Buffalo LOVES to bowl someone explain why we don't have someplace like this.  Think Sports Bar meets upscale bowling alley.  It was a blast!  The fact that I rolled a 182 with a beat up house ball probably colors my memory.  That and the $2/pint beer special (relax I had only 2 over the course of the entire evening)

I come back with some very interesting ideas about bringing the spirit of cooperation of this meeting back home to the Province and the Diocese too.  More on that later.

View From the Phlipside - Kevin Smith

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.
Last week at the Sundance Film Festival movie director Kevin Smith was interviewed about his next film
 "Hit Somebody".  During the interview he dropped in that the movie would be his last.  For some that sent tremors through movie news.  At the end of the day I'm not sure why.

If Kevin Smith never makes another movie (which is unlikely for a variety of reasons) what would be his cinematic legacy?  To be honest it's a very mixed bag.  Probably at the top of his list you would find the movies "Dogma" and "Clerks" without a doubt.  "Chasing Amy" was also generally critically enjoyed and made a lot of money.  But then Kevin's movies usually make a lot of money (although not always, see the 10 million dollar loss on "Jersey Girls") but that's because he makes them for so little money it's almost impossible not to make a profit.  "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" also made a lot of money but I don't know that it deserves to be included at the Dogma/Clerks level.  14 movies in roughly 10 years.  Clerks won a couple of major festival awards but that's it on the big time movie award front. 

So what does that really leave us with?  Clerks is an interesting, rather bizarre little movie that Smith made on a budget that might buy you a decent mid-sized car.  It took Cannes and Sundance by storm.  He would return to the characters and locale four times.  His slacker icons of Jay and Silent Bob have their place in pop culture but I don't see them as the kind of archetypes that you hang your reputation as a great director on.  Dogma is a brilliant and controversial movie is on a whole different level from pretty much anything else he's done (he got three death threats based on the film).  But once you get beyond the fans of what is referred to his Askewniverse movies what else is there?  There's a bit of a cult, some promise that doesn't seem to have been fully realized, and a couple stand out movies.  Smith really seems to struggle when he wanders away from his Silent Bob cast and locale, and he seems to have mined that vein to extinction.

So again where does that leave us?  Smith says that he'll help other people make movies.  That could mean doing some writing or maybe producing.  To be honest perhaps Kevin Smith's most impressive professional credit might be his ability to create movies on controllable budgets.  So if the time has come for Kevin to give up making his own movies so be it.  As with so many his star burned brightly but only for a little while in the Hollywood sky.


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 - Skins

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.
The folks over at MTV find themselves in the midst of yet another flap over a controversial program on the network again.  Now that's hardly a new place for the former Music Television network but this one has an interesting twist because it calls into question not just the actions of the network but of anyone who watches the program as well.

The show in question is "Skins".  This is an American version of a hugely popular British series.  It is a drama about teenagers and the things that go on in their lives.  In that it is hardly unique we've had shows on the networks, PBS and cable channels that deal with the issues in one manner or another for decades.  Skins is different because it is much more graphic.

Now I've never watched the show so I jumped over the MTV web site to check out some streamed episodes.   Here's what I discovered watching the most current episode available that day.

It opens with illicit drug use, the use of a fake ID, picking up someone at a club, having sex with them all before a single word of dialogue is spoken.  The first dialogue is the same character lying to her father.  That was the first four minutes of the program.  From there it wasn't until we hit the 10 minute mark before we got something that was not related to sex somehow.  That followed with more of the same plus the addition of drinking in school.  The adults were predictably all idiots.  MTV claims that the show "confronts" all these issues but I don't see it.  They are certainly a part of the lives of too many of our teens but no solution is shown unless you count drinking MORE and having more sex as solutions.  I don't.

I have no idea why any adult would watch this and the interesting problem is that these are real teens playing the roles, one of them is only 15 years old.  Which means you are watching underage people in sexual situations.  Which in many jurisdictions is called child pornography.  MTV is trying to figure out what do about that particular problem.  The ratings for the debut of the second season were incredible but they fell off significantly for the second week.  Rumors say they still out performed network expectations.

Helping our teenagers figure out how to deal with all the pressures of life is one of the most important gifts we can give them.  MTV could be a huge influence in helping them.  Instead they're peddling something very close to pornography.  They and we would be better off if they focused a little more on the confrontation and a little less on the skin.

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