No Kids Rule, RIP James Avery, Woe to Predictions

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Monday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of January 6, 2014


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. 

Woe to Predictions                                                                                              

It’s the beginning of the year which means that it’s prediction time.  I’m not just talking about who will make it to and then win the Super Bowl or this year’s World Series/Stanley Cup/NBA championship etc.  This time of year everybody and their brother is cranking out some kind of prediction on what’s going to happen next in technology, politics, religion, economics, you name it.

There’s one thing that all the predictions have in common.  They’re guesses and many,many, many of them will turn out to be wrong.  It’s like weather forecasts.  If everything keeps doing just what it’s doing now with no more than minimal adjustments then this will happen.  Probably.  There’s a good chance.  It could happen.

But that’s just the point.  Things don’t stay the same.  There are factors that the prophets and prognosticators will overlook, undervalue or just not know about.  Things that look like sure bets will suddenly develop fatal flaws and everything that we expected to grow out of that simply stops.

Here’s what got me thinking about this.  You may have heard over the last couple days that the economy of China may be poised to overtake the U.S. economy as the biggest in the world in the next couple years.  The folks in the world of big economics starting touting that spring.  And I saw someone going on about it on CNN last week.  On the other hand just in the last month a new study from another economics big brain says well, the U.S. is doing pretty well and China is struggling so maybe it won’t happen for a while yet.

I have no idea which one of these super brains is right.  I just know that, as always, the prediction business proves to be harder than it looks.
So in the end why do we spend so much time listening?  I think it’s because we want to believe that someone out there knows what’s going to happen next.  Despite the repeated failure to actually pull it off.

The other advantage is that predictions in January about what’s coming in 2014 will be completely forgotten by December.

At which point it will all begin again.

At least that’s my prediction.

RIP James Avery                                                                                               

There are two ways to a successful career in Hollywood.  Mind you, not just get a little work but to have a career.  The first way is to become a big star.  Every young actor thinks this is the way to go.  It looks easy and it certainly looks like fun.  The problem is that while it may or may not be fun (opinions diverge on that subject) there is no way that it’s easy.  First you have to be the right person in the right place at the right time who makes the right connections.  You have to make sure you select the right scripts time after time (1930’s film star George Raft couldn’t do that and paid the price.  He turned down Humphrey Bogart’s role in “The Maltese Falcon” and may have turned down Bogie’s role in “Casablanca” as well).  Plus you have to rely on the changing tastes of the audience.  When American G.I.’s marched off to World War II five million copies of Betty Grable and her “million dollar legs” went with them.  Just a decade later Grable had trouble getting work in Hollywood.

The other way is to be a character actor.  That’s the actor who specializes in smaller, supporting characters.  It’s not as flashy and you’ll probably never become fabulously wealthy but a quality character actor can work for years beyond the span of a star.

Last week we lost one of this generations quality character actors with the passing of James Avery.  For most people Avery will always be associated with the character of Uncle Phil from the television series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”.  He was the perfect foil to Will Smith’s streetwise character.  That’s the classic function for a character actor.

Avery was more than just that one role.  If you’re a child of the ‘90s then you know him as the voice of Shredder from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.  His full list of credits would run for pages covering both film and television.
But even that is only scratching the surface.  Avery was a veteran of the U.S. Navy and Viet Nam.  In addition to his acting work he wrote screenplays and poetry. Curiously his real life mirrored his most famous role where he was stepfather to his wife’s son.  TV Guide listed his character as one of the top 50 TV Dads of all time.

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” launched the rapper Will Smith into TV and movie stardom.  But it might not have ever happened without the support of an outstanding character actor.

James Avery was 68 years old.

No Kids Rule                                                                                                                             

I’d have to go back and look but it strikes me that it was a couple years ago that I got properly hot and bothered here when someone decided to make the Obama daughters Sasha and Malia into political footballs.  I believed then as I believe now that there is and should be a “No Kids Rule” when it comes to political commentary.  We need to remember that we elected just one member of the family.  That member is open to scrutiny, question and comment.  The line on adult members of the family can be a little more blurred.  If they choose to be actively involved in the political life of their elected member (think Hilary Clinton while she was First Lady) then they become fair game as well.

But not the kids.  And by kids I mean young people below the legal age of majority, call it 18 and under.  They are off limits, out of bounds and to be left alone.  Short of treason or murder in the first degree there is simply no reason to go there.  It’s hard enough growing up most days, I can’t even imagine what it must be like growing up under the microscope that comes with your parent being a high profile politician.

Having said that I have to take note of the stupidity shown on MSNBC’s “Melissa Harris Perry Show” a couple of weekends ago.  The panelists took great delight in sticking it to Mitt Romney’s family and the Republican party in general because in the family Christmas photo was the latest Romney grandchild.  Keiran James Romney was adopted this past year by Ben and Andelynne Romney, Mitt’s son and daughter-in-law in the fall.  The subject of all this “commentary” is that fact that Keiran is African-American child.  In fact Keiran is an baby and a pretty cute one too.

Yet somehow through the planning stage for the show, review by the producer and by the host somehow it was decided that making this kid the pivot for some snarky commentary was a good idea.

It wasn’t and kudos to Harris Perry for offering a real apology for the stupidity of it all.

Which brings us back to where we started.  It’s simple really.  We just don’t go there.  Ever.

It’s the “No Kids Rule”.  Period.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Vanity Google, Apologize, Unsolicited Advice

LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of July 29, 2013


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. 

Unsolicited Advice                                                                                              

Periodically on this program I offer up some utterly unsolicited advice to various media personalities and major corporations. I will be the first to acknowledge that there is no evidence that any of them have ever actually taken this advice.

But they should.


In this case my advice is aimed at the folks at the television broadcast networks. It’s a tough life at the networks these days. Once upon a time just a few decades ago they were the king of the hill. 


Today their viewership is falling overall across the board and for the second year in a row NO broadcast network show was even nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category. That’s the serious win category. It’s the one that makes everyone sit and take notice of the quality work you do. So let me repeat myself. NO, as in ZERO, broadcast network shows were even nominated.


Ouch.


This prompted NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt to rise up on his hind legs and try to explain it all away. Kind of interesting that it’s someone from the #3 network making the noise. His arguments aren’t really worth getting into since they’re pretty mundane but I thought maybe it’s time for a little unsolicited advice.


The networks are desperate to figure out how to turn this all around. NBC’s plan apparently involves more “event programming” which apparently means mini-series about Hilary Clinton and live broadcasts. I think I’ve got a better idea. How about we actually try investing in top quality programming? Maybe take a page from the folks at the BBC and go for short run, high quality programming. I mean BBC is generally accepted as a quality TV producer. Take a look at the new “Sherlock” series. A season is 3 90 minute episodes. Dump some serious time, effort and yes money into creating some real “event programming”. Surround them with your best series TV.


My bet is that ratings will go up and award nominations will pick up too. Beyond that we’d finally get some TV worth watching.


But no one will listen.


Apologize                                                                                                              

Early on in my career I got into a dispute with one of my bosses. And yes it was just one of many, many such disputes I got into with various people. Who knew you could work with so many people who were wrong?

OK, not all of them were wrong.

But I still think I was right this time. I had messed up something on the air, misspoken myself reading a story, something like that. I apologized and went back and corrected myself. When I came off the air I was told I should never apologize because it just drew more attention to the mistake. Just read it correctly and move on.


The problem I have with this is that it assumes the audience is stupid. That they didn’t notice and if you act like it didn’t happen they’ll just forget about it. Pretending I didn’t do it didn’t work when I was 8 so why would I expect that it would work as an adult?

A couple of major news organizations found themselves in the same position. How they handled it is instructive.
A whole bunch of news organizations, including the L.A. Times and Business Insider, recently ran a quote by actress and new host on “The View” Jenny McCarthy about vaccines and autism. Now Jenny has said a lot of uninformed things about that subject but she didn’t say this one. The quote came from a satire site called “The Superficial”. When confronted with the mistake these organizations tried to bury the mistake. Which has allowed the false quote to continue to circulate with their names giving it weight.


On the other hand the Chicago Tribune recently ran a story about a disabled veteran and his seeing eye dog. Problem was the man in the story lied about being a veteran and how he’d lost his eyesight. The Trib ran an apology that explained what was wrong with the original story, took responsibility for not getting it right, explained the mistakes they made and promised that steps were being taken to insure that it never happened again.
So one news organization acted like professional adults. The other ones acted like guilty 8 year olds. Which one do you have more respect for? 

Cover of the Rolling Stone                                                                                                          

Have you ever done a vanity Google? That’s when you type in your own name to see what comes up. For public figures it has become something of a must do because it’s the fastest way to check out your online image. Google’s search will take things into consideration like the how often terms are searched for and common words associated with those terms.
For a cancer surgeon in New South Wales, Australia that was part of the problem. You see when you googled his name the search engine’s autocomplete function added the word “bankruptcy”. He claimed that this cost him patients and financial backers so he sued Google in California court.
This may sound silly but I guarantee the folks at Google don’t find it funny. It is one of a series of such suits brought against the search giant. Another suit had been thrown out in Wisconsin concerning a woman whose name brought up an autocomplete association with the prescription drug Levitra.
Here’s the problem I have with these suits. Both of the people in these two cases DO in fact have connections with the words they dislike so much. The doctor was listed as a creditor to a company that had gone bankrupt and the woman had already sued Yahoo over the same issue with Levitra.
The equations used to determine Google’s search process are way beyond my understanding so I thought I’d try a simple test. I googled myself.
With just my first name entered I got “Jay Phillippi Princeton” (I did some study there years ago), my full name then entries for Jay Leno, Jay Z and Jay McKee. By the time I got my full name in it was just the first two listings. So is that association with Princeton any fairer than the bankruptcy? No, although this makes me look good while making the doctor look bad.
The reality is that if you search the doctor’s name today you get dozens of stories about his suit against Google (which he has dropped without prejudice at the moment). All of which means that the word bankruptcy has that many more associations with his name.
I find it hard to blame Google for this problem. Your online reputation is made up of all the things that appear on the World Wide Web. For the professional it is more and more important that we spend some time working that system.

Call that the View From the Phlipside