Archive for April, 2009
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Wouldn&;t You Really Rather Have ABuick?
April 24, 2009
No.
Tags:Buick, GM-kills-Pontiac, Pontiac, Pontiac-Trans-AM Posted in Automotive-industry | Leave a Comment &;
Will Esquire DropDead?
April 23, 2009
So 24/7 Wall Street is claiming.
The collapse in print advertising has pushed revenue at most of Hearst’s large magazines down by double digits after a bad year in 2008. &;Hearst is going to have to cut some of its anemic magazine titles. Esquire is among the weakest of the major men’s magazines on the basis of advertising page performance. Through April, ad pages at the magazine dropped 27% to 206. Men’s magazines are one of the most crowded categories in the industry. Esquire is up against GQ, Details, Men’s Journal, Maxim, and a number of men’s fitness and health publications. The men’s magazines which are performing the most poorly will not last long.
Understandably terrified of being teabagged by a tag-team Maxim/GQ combo, Esquire denies that they are an endangered species.
To that list I would add Playboy. The current issue, with Lisa Rinna (who?) on the cover and nekkid inside, is an anemic 118 pages. Combined with the size shrinkage of the magazine and thin cheap paper stock, it&;s an unprepossessing half the size of my Dad&;s Playboys from the early 1970&;s, when I developed an interest in the genre.
While Playboy the magazine doesn&;t know who it is either, at least their Bettie Page fixation is harmless, if gay.
But I have an active dislike of Esquire, partly based on their ever-snobby attitude. (And just who are their real readers, anyway?) But I mostly dislike them because of the &;investigative obituary&; (investigating her sex life, I recall) of Judith Resnik, the Challenger space shuttle astronaut, right after she was tragically killed. Way to go, Esquire. We won&;t miss you when you&;re gone.
Tags:Bettie-Page, death-of-magazines, Esquire, Judith-Resnik, Lisa-Rinna, Playboy Posted in Men's Magazines, Playboy, Publishing | Leave a Comment &;
Roseanne Barr ApplaudsSuicide
April 23, 2009
Why I don&;t usually listen to KPFK or Pacifica radio: Roseanne Barr at 5:08PM PST 4/22 applauded the suicide of Peter Kellermann, CFO of Freddie Mac.
Tags:death-of-journalism, Roseanne-Barr Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
Gambling on AmericanIdol
April 22, 2009
When I interviewed Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, he took several important cell phone calls in his office&;from his bookie. His wife told me, &;If two cockroaches were racing across the floor, he&;d bet on one of them.&;
But now I&;ve found even more degenerate gamblers&;people who bet on American Idol.
Anything to get straight guys to watch the show.
Tags:American-Idol, gambling, Oscar-Goodman Posted in American-Idol, Journalism | Leave a Comment &;
LA Times All-Access Next Step toDoom?
April 22, 2009
As a loyal subscriber, I got an email from the LA Times yesterday offering me an &;all-access&; subscription for no additional cost. The all-access plan&;pitched as a celebration of Earth Day&;would give me full access to the electronic version of the Times on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, days I don&;t get the print edition.
GO GREEN NOW! the ad screams.
Sound good (if little different than just reading the paper online)&;but my take is that it&;s leading down the road to what the Detroit Free Press is already doing&;cutting out home delivery during the week and only serving subscribers on weekends.
Or maybe this is the first step in trying to charge for content again.
Either way, newspapers can&;t grow by cutting off fingers and toes.
Tags:death-of-newspapers, death-of-print, Detroit-Free-Press, LA-Times Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment &;
Columbine and the Dread Media AnniversaryStory
April 20, 2009
Here we are, &;celebrating&; ten years since the maniacal shootings at Columbine. And last week, &;20 years ago today Sergeant Pepper&; didn&;t teach the band to play, but 96 people were killed in a soccer stampede in England. And today is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing; time to wallow in the people&;s grief.
Perhaps this is one reason people hate journalists, not just asking victims how they feel at the scene of the disaster, but revisiting it 10, 20 or more years out.
As I said last year,
&;If I ran the journalism world, the first thing I would ban would be the “anniversary story.” Even though I won an LA Press Club Award for this LA Times piece about the Rodney King beating.
Basically, a media ‘anniversary’ is an excuse for journalists to write a little history, bring up some (generally lurid) event from the past or do some “Trivial Pursuit’ style follow-up on half-remembered players.&;
And the big one is coming up this summer. No, not 40 years since the moon landings. I&;m sure we can look forward to an interview with Roman Polanski, on his thoughts on the 40th anniversary of his wife and the others slaughtered in the Manson killings.
Tags:Columbine-killings, Manson, media-anniversaries, moon-landings, Roman-Polanski, soccer-stampede Posted in media-anniversaries, tabloid-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Famous Jewish SportsLegends
April 17, 2009
The tribute to Jackie Robinson (and the inane coverage of baseball&;s &;progress&; in getting more American black players) got me thinking about how much each ethnic group cherishes its athletes, although all too often they are malefactors.
Jews are as guilty as any other ethnic group, although Airplane the movie claims &;Famous Jewish Sports Legends&; is only a pamphlet.
Still Jews obsessively obsess over &;their&; athletes, like the one and only Jew in the NBA today, Jordan Farmar (does he &;look Jewish?&;)
Sadly, Jews like other ethnic groups seem much more interested in even the vaguest athletic connection rather than that much more important &;hall of fame&;&;Jewish Nobel prize winners, of whom there are at least 178.
Tags:Airplane-the-movie, Jews-in-sports, Jordan-Farmar, Nobel-prize Posted in Sports | Leave a Comment &;
Jackie Robinson RealityCheck
April 17, 2009
It&;s great that baseball is honoring Jackie Robinson with a rather surreal day where all players (thanks to Ken Griffey Jr.) wear . But Jackie Robinson never got to play in his hometown.
Probably the greatest 4-sport athlete that Pasadena and UCLA ever produced, he was a Brooklyn Dodger through the winter of 1956. They then traded him to the hated Giants and he retired, missing the team&;s move to Los Angeles at the end of the 1957 season.
Most likely, it wasn&;t racism. As they say in The Godfather, &;it&;s only business.&;
Tags:Jackie-Robinson, Los-Angeles-Dodgers Posted in Sports | Leave a Comment &;
The End of Tolerance forBS
April 16, 2009
Things are rough for a lot of people, including me and Sam Zell, facing the publishing precipice. But if there&;s a silver lining, America may have reached the end of its tolerance for bullshit.
Consider:
Instead of placating the pirates of Somalia, the Navy shot them on President Obama&;s order. And few weep for the tragically early demise of these teenagers.
Although they love illusionists, they&;re not big on bullshit in Nevada. That&;s why OJ Simpson was convicted of robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas and immediately remanded to prison, where he is serving what could be a 15-year sentence.
Texas legislators are getting sick of creationism in the public schools.
Despite his millions (billions?), Bernard Madoff was immediately put in jail after he pleaded guilty. He remains there today, even though his lawyers argued he should remain free before sentence is pronounced in June.
Even celebrity Phil Spector was found guilty by an LA jury of murdering Lana Clarkson and, again, sent immediately to jail while awaiting sentencing. This jury didn&;t buy that Clarkson killed herself on her first date with Spector.
Tags:bullshit, O.J.-Simpson, penn-and-teller, Phil-Spector, Somalia-pirates Posted in celebrity-justice, end-of-illusions, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
Olympic Heroes of theBible
April 9, 2009
Now appearing for the Unified Team (Canaan, Judah, Israel, etc.):
Javelin: Pinchas
Single Scull Rowing: Moses
Wrestling: Jacob
Weightlifting: Samson
Shooting: David
Track: Adam, as he was first in the human race
Posted in Biblical Sports | Leave a Comment &;
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