View From the Phlipside - The End of the Soap

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.

And then there were four.  Or rather there will be four by the fall of this year.  Four what you ask?  Why four afternoon soap operas left on the major networks.  For the record that would be: “The Young and the Restless” (CBS) along with “The Bold and the Beautiful” (CBS), “General Hospital” (ABC) and “Days of Our Lives” (NBC).  But honestly with the cancellation of “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” you have to wonder how much longer these four will hang on.

Once upon a time soap operas were a BIG deal.  At their height there were 19 of them on.  At one point early in our marriage I was unemployed while my wife worked.  Since this was before VCRs it was my job to watch her two favorite shows, take notes and report back at the end of the day.  I remember students gathering in the student Union at Edinboro to follow the hot stories of the day (those were the days of Luke and Laura on General Hospital).  And they were BIG business.

None of which is true any more.  The audience is mostly gone of course.  Soap operas were aimed at the stay at home mom, the housewife looking for something to bring a little drama into a day of, well, housework.  And it was the days of only 3 or 4 channel choices as well.  With more women in the work force and the selection of TV programming through the roof those afternoon “stories” as there were usually called have been in trouble.  Viewer trouble as the audience diminished.  Financial trouble because they are expensive to operate.  They have large casts, large writing staffs and have to crank out five episodes a week.  No TV show other than the nightly newscast even attempts such a schedule.

So how deep is the hole they find themselves in?  Let’s put it this way.  Soap fans went to the queen of day time TV, yes Oprah herself, and got turned down.  Thousands of fans begged Oprah to flex her influence to save their stories and Oprah said no in a video released on YouTube.  All things come to an end she says and it’s hard to argue.  The remaining four all have been recently renewed for either two or four year runs.  It will be astounding if they run any longer than that and pretty impressive if they make it that far.

In a soap opera you never believe a character is dead till you see the body (and sometimes not even then).  At the moment the body count is rising.
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 - RIP Madelyn Pugh Davis

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.

Let’s be honest, here in her hometown there isn’t much discussion of the genius that was Lucille Ball.  Lucy and Desi are just a part of who we are as Jamestown.  Their museum is here and they are just part of the fabric of the city.  The discussion of Lucy’s comic genius ended a generation ago, recognition of Desi’s contribution not only as a top rank straight man but as the business brains behind the DesiLu studios took a while longer but is generally accepted.

But it still overlooks one more vital contribution to the legend of I Love Lucy.  Every one of those classic episode began with a script.  Lucy and Desi had great writers.  Among the very best was Madelyn Pugh Davis.  Her passing last week might pass without a word in many places but here perhaps especially we need to spend a moment remembering.

Just as Lucy broke new ground in television so did the then Madelyn Pugh.  With her writing partner Bob Carroll Jr they helped to create the show that took Lucy and Desi to a new kind of stardom.  She began writing for Lucy on the radio show “My Favorite Husband”.  In her writing career she was usually the only female writer on the staff.  With I Love Lucy she would become a pivotal part of the creative team.  The show would become known for the outrageous stunts that Lucy would perform.  Madelyn Pugh would have done them first, including the stunt that required stuffing several dozen eggs down her blouse.  When Lucy did it before a live audience it got the longest recorded live audience laugh in television history.  Davis and Carroll were the steady presence on the writing staff for the entirety of the run of the show.  Astoundingly while they were nominated for several Emmys they never won.  Lucy trusted them enough that were also writers on all the other Lucy shows that followed.  During her partnership with Carroll they wrote over 400 TV scripts plus that many more radio scripts.  They created shows and were long time producers of the TV show Alice in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Madelyn Pugh Davis was a pioneer, leading the way for women to be taken seriously as a key writer for a hit TV show.  In an age where women still continue to be taken seriously at many levels of the business world she’s worthy of a moment’s remembrance.

Madelyn Pugh Davis was 90.

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 - Vast Wasteland

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 one of the most famous and quoted comments about television ever made.  This past month it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary so maybe it’s time to reconsider “Television is a vast wasteland”.

The comment was made by Federal Communications

Commission chairman Newton Minnow.  Let’s pause for a moment to note that yes, he has a cool name.  Commentaries on the subject always are very serious and never therefore get the opportunity to state the obvious.  Newton Minnow is a cool name.  Moving on.

Minnow made the comment in his very first speech and he did it before no less a group than the National Association of Broadcasters.  Of course the funny thing is that Minnow also said that when TV is good nothing is better but few remember that.

Fifty years later is it any better?  Newton says yes and I’m inclined to agree with him.  Don’t forget in 1961 most places had only two or three channels at best.  Even without cable or satellite most cities have at least 4-6 stations available for free.  With a subscription the number jumps to a minimum of a couple dozen to literally hundreds.  That choice alone makes the world of TV better than it was.  

The question remains are we now living in the world of, to steal blatantly from Bruce Springsteen, 57 channels and nothing on?  Yes, there’s still plenty of mindless game shows, inane talk shows, idiotic comedies, screaming commercials and violence as the former FCC chair noted in 1961.  Some of its worse.  But a lot of it is better.  Channels dedicated to great movies, to programming from around the world, educational TV offered in many different and interesting forms, TV that takes us inside the functioning of government.

In that speech to the NAB Minnow claimed that TV at its best was better than anything that the screen or stage can offer.  I’m not sure that I’d go that far.  But I’ve seen things that have astounded, compelled and delighted me.  There are still vast areas of entertainment and intellectual wasteland and there probably always will be.  Yet just a click or two away are channels that will make your life richer, challenge your mind and inspire your soul.

Seems like maybe the wasteland might just be beginning to bloom after all these years.

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

Books and Movies

God's War by Kameron Hurley - Hurley is a fine writer but the book leaves something to be desired. Looking into her philosophy explains some of it. She doesn't like what's referred to as "infodump". In simplest terms it means explaining the world in which your story takes place. As a consequence you spend the book not understanding who the bel dames are, what sen is or how the world is fueled by bugs. And the bugs are a vitally important part of this world.  They power the world, the are major parts of the technology and they are the center of the magic of this world.  Yet not a word of explanation.  Bugs make your car go.  Deal with it. Because I'm a collector of trivia I knew that a "bakkie" was a light truck. The term is used in South Africa. Hurley acknowledges that the world she's created is involved in the "genocide of a gender" but never explains why or how they got to that point. The list goes on and on. An author always has the right to tell their story as they see fit. For me Hurley's approach of "figure it out yourself" strikes me as disrespectful of her reader and just lazy story telling. Consequently while the story moves along quite briskly it's left as a shallow tale, hollow and without any inner life. It might be argued that the story telling style matches the main character of Nyx. In the end I'm left with the same reaction to both. It occurred to me that a lot of this may be familiar to some from some other universe (gamers etc)with which I'm simply not familiar. Unless you are content to keep your readership to the circle of the elect this is just more bad story telling. There were other small nagging details that bothered me. A gross and obvious mistake in language that none of her readers or editors managed to catch ("Whose bakkie?" became "Who's bakkie?" which given the lack of explanation of the term might just confuse the hell out of the reader) and a really silly piece of boxing action. Why you would follow a left uppercut with a left cross escapes me. A left upper cut sets the body perfectly for a RIGHT cross. But that's a tiny little thing that most people wouldn't catch. After a while however when the author makes you work so hard the little things become bigger. Why should I care? It is highly unlikely that I'll venture to read another of Miss Hurley's books. The book is written to make her happy as a reader. What she isn't interested in she simply heaves over the side. What's left is a tantalizing taste of what could have been a much bolder, grander and more satisfying experience for the reader. Instead she chooses only to satisfy herself.  (available as ebook and paperback)

Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison - This one got off to a slow start but got better in short order.  The story isn't told in a simple linear fashion and I'm sure that will put some people off.  My recommendation is to hang on and keep reading.  The story tracks a small group of Highland Scots who have been convicted and sent to America to serve their sentence.  Along the way Duncan McCallum finds himself surround by murder, suicide, mystery and the demands of suddenly becoming the head of his clan.  Set against the background of the French and Indian War Pattison does a great job of weaving a complex mystery into his carefully researched historical fiction.  Like I said the first 100 pages or so may be tough sledding to wrap you head around (things are pretty confused from McCallum's point of view and he's trying to figure out what the heck is going on just like you.)  I was interested to see that the author has extended the story into a second novel and is calling it the Bone Rattler series.  So there's probably more where this came from.  And that's not a bad thing. (available in print and ebook)

Currently working on Christopher Morley's The Haunted Bookshop.  Which is strange and interesting at the same time.  We'll see who wins.  Thinking of setting aside the Nook and grabbing a print book just to shake things up.

On the movie side -

Repo - The Genetic Opera (2008) - This was one of those movies that my daughter says "Ooh, let's watch this, I love this movie".  Very dangerous territory for Daddy.

Sigh.

Based on a graphic novel which was turned into an opera this is a dystopian future where a company can replace your failing internal organs.  The catch is that they own them forever and if you fall behind on your payments they send a repo man out to reclaim them.  From your living (though not for long), breathing body.  Produced by the folks who brought you the Saw series, it's an interesting experiment.

What did they do well?  Graphic novels are incredibly visual and so can translate to the screen pretty well.  Given the small budget (less than $9 million apparently) I thought it was visually quite impressive.  The story line was also interesting and the cast was actually pretty impressive (how did the land Paul Sorvino?  Plus Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton - who didn't suck and was apparently a joy on the set.  Go figure)

On the other hand the lyrics were largely unimaginative and even idiotic at times.  The music was trying for Andrew Lloyd Webber (love him or hate him he has a certain catchy standard) and came up short.  Got all the bombast of ALW but none of the hook.  There's not a character I really felt connected to, Blind Mag (Brightman) and the heroine Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega) came close but there's not much to either of the characters.  Mag is basically about the voice (and what a voice) and her high tech eyes, and Shilo is the standard weak female lead being buffeted on all sides.  The villains are SO repulsive that they become comic.  Which given the vile things they do is rather uncomfortable.  Add in the standard "women as meat" approach to any other female in the movie and I was left with lots of bad taste in my mouth.

Graphic novels seem like such an obvious idea to move to the big screen.  Incredibly visual they play to the medium's strength.  The problem is that they retain a great deal of their comic book roots.  Consequently what looks great in print looks awkward and weird "in real life" and the dialogue style just comes off as strange and artificial.

I think this could have been pretty good.  Better music and lyrics, lose a large dose of the self conscious "aren't-we-clever"-ness and you might have had something.  Instead we're left with something that revels in its grimness, bogged down by the inferior music.

She's going to stop inviting me to watch her movies.  Sigh.

License to Wed ( 2007) - There are basically two kinds of Robin Williams movies.  Astoundingly wonderful and wretchedly awful.  In the wonderful category you'll find Mrs Doubtfire, Dead Poets Society, and The Birdcage .  On the other side you'll find Death to Smoochy, RV, and this movie.

The movie has a useful if cliche plot.  Two attractive young people fall in love and decide to get married.  There's the usual family/cultural issues to get over.  Sadie's a bit of ditz (played by Mandy Moore) and Ben's a bit of a pushover (played by John Krasinski)  But before they can be wed in the church that means so much to Sadie's family (a herd of cardboard cut out stereotypes) they have to go through Reverend Frank's pre-marital course.  Normally it takes three months but they're in a hurry so it's all crammed into three weeks.

(Side note - no mention of what denomination "Reverend Frank" is from.  He wears a Roman collar all the time, and largely acts like a movie RC priest.  His church is clearly a protestant denomination (pulpit dead center).  Just annoying and strange.  At least for those of us who worry about such things)

The course is asinine and designed to exploit every crack in their relationship.  Apparently the "real" relationships survive the fire and come out the other side stronger.  In fact it's an appalling example of pastoral abuse.  What Ben needs to do is stand up and pop the good reverend right in his nose.  I mean the man puts an audio bug in their bed room to make sure they don't have sex before the wedding.  That's the #1 No No on ole Reverend Frank's list for folks who want him to marry them.  He seems to have forgotten that the deal is between the bride, the groom and God, not him.  And for any young folks out there a word of wisdom from one who has been married for many years.  Your relationship at the time you get married isn't perfect.  You have some amazing challenges still in front of you.  That's normal.  Hang on to the essential fact that you love one another and you'll do just fine.  The idea that you should everything all ironed out before you get married is unrealistic and idiotic.

They try and salvage this turkey with an ooey-gooey happy ending where it was just the Reverend helping them realize they really love each other all the time.  What an enormous load of bovine by product.  Williams gets that look on his face, the one that seems to say "Can you believe I'm taking money for delivering this crap?"  Just wretched.

Want to see a Robin Williams movie that you may never have caught?  Try Moscow on the Hudson.  Or watch Repo - The Genetic Opera.  Just don't watch this movie.

View From the Phlipside - Future of Newspapers

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 been chronicling the battle for the future of the newspaper here for a couple of years now.  Most of the news has been bad as readership plummets, advertising sales goes with it and newspapers have been closed.  I’ve noted that I personally will miss the comfortable physical routine of reading the paper, which section you read first, how you hold and fold the paper to read it.  I’ve also noted the very serious repercussions to a free and open society if the great traditions of journalism that are the legacy of the newspaper are lost.  It is, I believe, one of the most important questions to be answered in the digital age.  How will we be informed?

So I’ve been encouraged over the last year to see at least a few of the print giants finally making a move to create a viable business model.  It’s possible that that grand old lady The New York Times might lead the way into the next era.  Or it could be the folks at the OC Register in Orange County California.

The OC Register is one of 27 daily papers and 8 TV stations owned by Freedom Communications.  In a bid to keep their properties rolling Freedom is looking at doing some innovative work with an app for the iPad that would include interactive stories and advertising all through the use of the HTML5 technology.

What that means for those of us less technologically oriented is that instead of having simple print versions we would be able to select aspects that interest us.  In an advertisement we would be able to make the image of the product rotate so we can see it from all sides.  They’re also looking at making sure that the experience of the app remains interesting even when you’re offline with the content.  

There’s one decision that they’ve made that I think I like a lot.  The overall presentation will retain the look of a newspaper.  The reason for that is simple familiarity.  Rupert Murdoch’s entry “The Daily” went with a different look and got trashed for it early on.  So far indications are that it hasn’t taken the world by storm.

If the folks at the OC Register learn their lessons well and take the best of the old to go with the bright and shiny new we might just see what the future of the newspaper looks like.

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 - Misuse of Language

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.

All right people this week we’re going back to basics.  The most basic level of communication media.  We’re talking language here.  Could be spoken or written although the two examples that are setting me off were both in written form.

I will admit that I think, worry, ponder and meditate on the subject of how words are used a lot more than any normal person.  I’m OK with that.  I certainly would not list myself as a language expert but as a deeply interested dilettante.  I love language when it is used well and creatively.  Doesn’t matter if it is thebeauty of a Shakespearean sonnet or a truly inventive bit of word play.  I love it.

Over the weekend the utter disregard that some people

Never heard of this book but this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about!

 have for language really got to me.  Driving down Interstate 90 I came upon one of those traffic warning overhead signs.  The ones that can tell you about traffic delays or how long the wait is on the Peace Bridge.  This one said “Illegal Cell Use Strictly Enforced”.  Now we all know that they mean the latest ban on using your cell while driving unless you have a hands free device.  But that’s NOT what the sign said.  The sign said that they will be strictly enforcing the use of cell phones illegally.  The exact opposite of what they mean.  Now some will say “Everyone knows what they mean what difference does it make what they said?”  It makes a very big difference in fact.  Our growing casual disregard for proper use of language is opening ever wider the chasm of misunderstanding.  As the world gets more complicated making sure that we are understood will become of greater and greater importance.  Twisting language to obscure meaning is a potent political tool used over and over by tyrants.  When we no longer care enough to pay attention to what is actually being said we open ourselves to futures I am certain we will not enjoy.

A former co-worker of mine insisted on referring something as being a mute point, m-u-t-e, rather than a moot point, m-o-o-t.  The difference is profound.  A moot point is one open to discussion, a mute point is one that is silent.  If we do not care about how language is used we will all fall into that second category.

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 - RIP Sidney Lumet

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.

Over the weekend we lost one of the great film directors of our time.  It’s also possible that he’s the greatest director that most people have never heard of.  If you’re “into” the movies then you know the name Sidney Lumet.  If you’re more casual about them then the name may only ring a bell or it may mean nothing to you at all.  My bet is that Lumet might have been OK with that.

Sidney Lumet was born into a theater family.  His parents were both veterans of the Yiddish theater and Lumet made his debut as a performer at age 4.  He performed right up to his service in World War II then came home and founded his own off- Broadway theater company.  In the 1950’s he became a TV director working first for his friend Yul Brynner and then becoming a highly respected director on his own.  In 1957 he was offered the chance to direct his first major motion picture.  It’s worth taking a moment to look at that first movie.

It’s one of the Lumet movies you probably know.  12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda and a boat load of top character actors.  But think about this - for your first movie you get a script that has 12 guys trapped in a room.  And pretty much all they do is talk.  And talk and talk.  The movie is a wonder, a personal favorite.  For that to have been his very first is even more amazing.  That it picked up 3 Oscar nominations is pretty special as well.  But then his movies could be special.  Check out this list: 12 Angry Men, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Equus, The Wiz, and The Verdict.  Seven movies of his that earned at least 3 Oscar Nominations.  Network grabbed 10.  That doesn’t even include other worthy Lumet films like The Pawnbroker, Serpico or A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Lumet was at his best when he three things going for him.  If the story was set in New York City because he had a profound love of the Big Apple, when he had great actors to work with, because he could draw out of them legendary performances and when the story had a deep social conscience.  When those star aligned he produced movies that are worth watching over and over again.

Lumet was nominated repeatedly for Oscars for his direction but never won.  In the end such awards are irrelevant because Lumet simply did the work so much better than almost anyone else.  In 50 years he directed 50 movies.  Any of which would be worth your time to watch.  Just know that when you see the credit that says Director - Sidney Lumet you have seen the work of one of the best ever.

Sidney Lumet died last week at age 86.

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 - Who Gets Paid?

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.

Once upon a time it was all so simple.  The TV Networks produced or had deals to have people produce television shows.  Then they broadcast them over their network to TV stations who had affiliate agreements or even better to TV stations that the network owned themselves.  It was all pretty simple.  Particularly since for several decades there wasn’t any competition.  It was network TV or nothing.  Independent stations, those without network affiliations, were mostly old movies and TV shows that were at least a decade old.

Then cable came along and it got more complicated.  Now someone else was taking the product of the broadcast networks, paying a fee to use it and making more money for themselves.  More complicated when satellite TV came along.  And then streaming that same product through the internet.  The folks who create TV shows realized that they were doing an awful lot of the upfront risk taking while a whole bunch of people were making money from their work.  Not surprisingly the network producers decided they wanted a piece of that action.  Equally unsurprising the other entities didn’t want to share.

The producers finally put their feet down when Time Warner Cable announced the launch of an iPad based app to stream TV.  The app allows Time Warner subscribers to watch shows on their iPad through their home wifi network.  But that’s not good enough for the content providers.  So 17 channels have been pulled from the app.  The networks involved may feel like they’ve won but the reality is that this is just the first shot in a much longer war.  Cablevision, another big cable company, is moving ahead with their similar app as well.

So what’s to be done?  The industry needs to sit down and figure out some new economic ground rules.  And that’s always a nasty, ugly conversation.  The cable and satellite and internet folk don’t want to pay a penny more than they are.  At the same time the folks who actually lay out the money to create the content have a right to be paid for the use of their material.  Somewhere along the line a compromise has to be made that allows payment to the producers whenever value is created by a service provider.  At the same time the service providers need protection of the viability of their businesses.  A solution will be found.  The question is how many bodies will be left behind in the process.  We the viewers should be urging everyone to settle the issue as quickly as possible so that they can get back to the important business of keeping us amused.

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 - 3D TV 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.

Sometimes innovation can be mass produced.  But more often than not it comes from some little guy in some little office who’s willing to take the risk on an idea that just sounds looney.

So you want small?  How about Stanville Kentucky, population 500.  And in this small Appalachian town you’ll find a local law firm.  Eric Conn’s firm isn’t that large, just four attorneys but Eric likes to think big.  The law for him is what pays the bills.  What really gets his heart pumping is marketing.  They figure they spent about 600 thousand dollars on advertising last year.  That’s about 8% of their revenue.  What has worked best for them historically has been that old reliable, the bill board.  But Eric isn’t willing even there to just sit back and do the same old same old.  His billboards are often bright yellow and involve mannequins of himself on top of them.  The man who started his firm in a storage trailer believes in thinking big.

So when it came time to develop the next level of marketing for his firm Eric turned his eyes to the future.  He had just purchased a 3D television and fell in love.  So clearly the next step in marketing was to go 3D.  That’s right a four person law firm in a town of 500 people is laying out the money to create a 3D TV commercial.  It’s old school technology requiring those old red and blue glasses to see.  So far the return has not justified the expense.  The first problem was that the section of the spot that told people how to get the glasses isn’t real clear.  In the end the idea is to do something that attracts the attention of the kids in the family.  Conn hopes that they will then get their parents to watch and request the glasses to see what’s going on.

The advertising campaign may or may not really work out for attorney Conn.  But a phlip of the lid to him for being willing to take the risk on something new and different.  Once again a man with a vision just might be giving us a glimpse of the future.  Who knew that the next great innovator in TV advertising would rise up from a Kentucky town of 500 people?

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 - Worst Company in America

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.

Given the image conscious nature of big business these days I can well imagine that there are few things that would haunt a corporate CEO more than being named “The Worst Company in America” by a high profile media source.  That’s what you’d think but there may actually be something worse than that.  I mean the fact that you made the list almost certainly means that you have a fair number of people who aren’t happy with your work, your product and/or your service.  And that’s a bad thing.  But what if it became known that instead of actually trying to be better at whatever it is that you do turns out you just decided to cheat?  It appears that cable TV giant Comcast may have done just that.

The poll in question is run by the consumer advocate website called “The Consumerist”.  Taking their cue from the recently ended March Madness basketball tournament they pair up corporate giants into brackets of head to head competition and let visitors vote on who’s the worst.  So you end up with Toyota vs BP, Microsoft vs Apple, GameStop vs Walmart, United/Continental airlines vs Delta and so on.  32 companies making the tournament to start.  None of whom want to be there or to “win” it all.

Comcast got to cut down the metaphorical net last year and clearly didn’t want to win it again.  But instead of making improvements on their much maligned customer service (at least not enough to eliminate them from nomination) they urged employees to try and rig the voting.

Now the reality is that prior to the beginning of this commentary you’d probably never even heard of this vote before.  It’s NOT that big a deal.  At least it wasn’t until some corporate suit decided to over react and make his company look like complete idiots.  If you want to make sure you don’t win you make a big announcement about how you’re improving customer service.  Not get caught trying to cover the whole thing over.

As it turns out they may not be any better at cheating than at taking care of their customers.  Comcast has “advanced into the Round of 8 and could be on their way to a repeat championship.  And they just might deserve 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

My name is Bond, Jay Bond...

Things have been a little hectic recently around the Phlipside homestead recently.  Lots of work and travel and stuff.  So I suggested to my lady wife that we should take advantage of some bonus points that we'd built up with our favorite hotel chain (thank you Choice Hotels) and get away for a little while.  The Kid was going to be away at a convention on that same weekend so we decided to just take a quick trip over to Erie PA.  Got a room at a hotel near to the Presque Isle Downs and Casino  and just went without much in the way of plans.

Dinner our first night was at the the Brewerie at Union Station, a brew pub that we'd never checked out before.  The atmosphere was very cool, the service was great, the food was very tasty as was the beer (I tried an Apparition Ale - named in honor of Clara the train station's resident ghost.  Very dark in color but with a lighter, smoother flavor than you might expect at first glance).  We'll definitely add it to our list of favorite places in Erie.  It's obviously a pretty popular place with the locals as well.  We try to get down to see the Altoona Curve (Pirates AA farm team) play in Erie and the Brewerie is pretty close to the stadium.

We spent a quite evening in our room and hit the casino the next morning.  We had cruised through Friday night just to get a feel for the place (it's nicely done but pretty much casino standard).  I did notice that the table games were pretty pricey, $10 minimums which is too rich for my blood.  My hope was that Friday night and Saturday morning might be two different beasts.  Turned out I was right.

We arrived with vouchers from the hotel good for $7 worth of slot play and when we signed in to get our "member" cards we got $10 more for the slots.  Which is great for my lady wife since slots are favorite part of the casino.  They bore me silly.  Turns out one of the roulette tables had a $5 minimum that morning so I took $20 and decided to try out the James Bond system for playing the game.  In the novel Casino Royale Ian Fleming describes Bond's cautious approach to the wheel.  He bets two of the three fields of numbers.  They pay 2-1 so you always come out ahead if one of your fields is chosen.    A quick check of the board which tracks the 20 or so most recent numbers showed most of the numbers were in two fields.  After an early set back (down to my last $5) I got rolling and in an hour had two bets on the table and $45 stacked in front of me.  Years ago I made a rule - when I double my stake I quit.  So I let the two bets on the table ride, lost them both and walked away pretty happy with myself.  I showed off for my lady and then decided to play my share of the slots.

I started with penny slots and realized I'd be there forever at that rate.  I did win 3 cents.  Found a $1 machine and spun the wheels.  And promptly won $30!  A few more spins added another $5 as well.  So the day at the casino turned out pretty well.

Lunch was at  O'Charleys  a chain restaurant we'd never heard of but looked good.  Very nice.  Good service, good food, good prices.  All right across the street from the Mall.

The rest of the day was spent checking out some area wineries.  We were especially impressed by Lakeview Wine Cellars, Heritage Wine Cellars (where the sampling bar was serve yourself, a first for us), and Courtyard Wineries who introduced us to a new varietal called a Chardonel.   A very tasty way to end the weekend.

Gambling, good wine and a beautiful woman.  Tell me I don't live the life of a secret agent!
Peace