View From the Phlipside - Linkletter and Cowell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

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

View From the Phlipside - Cat Tweets

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

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

View From the Phlipside - Facebook and Politics

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

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

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

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

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

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

Review - Critical Mass by Whitley Strieber

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

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

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

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

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

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

View From the Phlipside - Right Network

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Call that The View From the Phlipside.

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

View From the Phlipside - Social Media

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call that the View From the Phlipside

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

View From the Phlipside - Miley Cyrus

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

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

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

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

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

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

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