Wretched TV Excess

I’ll never forget seeing the Mona Lisa. Back in the 70’s, I was in Europe, and our Paris stop included a trip to the Louvre. Down a hallway, you rounded a corner, and there it was. One of the most famous paintings of all time. How many people had gazed on that face painted 500 years ago and wondered what she was smiling about?

I suppose to the staff of the famous museum, who see the painting frequently, the Mona Lisa doesn’t have as much emotional impact as it does when you actually see it for the first time. I don’t think familiarity breeds contempt with a work of art as great as the Mona Lisa, but I’m guessing it doesn’t rock you back on your heels when you’ve seen it in person for the hundredth time.

I consume more news every day than the typical person, so I’ll admit I get “overexposed” to stuff more quickly than most people. I haven’t actually counted the total number of times I’ve seen the video clip of Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris saying a tearful good-bye to her daddy. But as of this morning, I’m going to guess I’ve seen it 40 times.

Because I channel-hop, I’m bound to see it more times than most people. I’ll spend 15 minutes with five different TV news channels on an average weekday morning, so I’m bound to see any given news clip at least five times.

But as usual, when there’s a truly compelling piece of video, TV producers run it, run it, run it again and again. In one 15-minute segment Wednesday morning on one channel, I saw the clip FIVE times. Average: once every 3 minutes. This morning: twice in two minutes, on the first five minutes of the "Today" show.

This constant re-running of video clips is not a new phenomenon. In the weeks following the September 11th attacks, the clips of the planes hitting the World Trade Center were run so many times that teachers, psychologists, families of the victims, and media critics openly begged news producers to stop doing it.

How many times do you think you’ve seen the video clip of the houses collapsing into Lake Delton last year? The local TV stations still run it on their “news promos”, and every year on June 9th we’ll probably see it repeated another 20 times per station.

There is no such thing as tasteful restraint any more. Every one of these clips I’ve mentioned represents a personal tragedy for someone - a family member of a victim of 9-11; the owner of a house destroyed in a freak disaster; or the family of a dead pop star, seeing that little girl so emotionally overwhelmed and distraught.

I’m not saying the producers of TV news shouldn’t run these clips. I’m saying their bosses should explain to them that often, in the news biz, familiarity DOES breed contempt.

Robert S. McNamara: Fail

It took him way too long to figure it out, but in 1995, Robert Strange McNamara finally admitted he was wrong, terribly wrong. However, it was far too late for the 58-thousand soldiers who died in the VietNam War between 1959 and 1975. The man who was Defense Secretary to JFK and LBJ thought the war, which he started in ‘59, would be over in ‘65 and that the South Vietnamese would win their independence.

Boy, was he wrong. But at least, he admitted it.

A lot of guys my age hated his guts in the 60’s and 70’s, as our high school buddies got shipped to ‘Nam and either got killed or got really messed up physically or mentally. Popular artists lampooned McNamara, who was a big-shot at the Ford Motor Company before President Kennedy asked him to run the Pentagon in 1961.

McNamara and his colleagues were called the “whiz kids”. A lot of folks over 30 thought these guys were whip-smart and the cream of the crop. Uncle Sam was gonna kick some Commie butt over there in the rice paddies and win the hearts and minds of those folks.

Not so much.

When it became obvious to Walter Cronkite and everybody else that the war was a mistake in the first place and was being horribly mis-managed and that we were being lied to by the Pentagon, McNamara wrote in his memoirs that he wasn’t sure if he quit - or if President Johnson fired him.
McNamara should have learned something when the Bay of Pigs invasion of southern Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro, three months after JFK took office, failed so miserably. McNamara and the CIA were confident we could just barge in there and effect regime change.

Sound familiar?

McNamara and the CIA thought the Cuban people would join the invasion, rise up, and throw Castro out. Exactly the opposite happened. The “smartest guys in the room” didn’t learn from that failure, and replicated the failure in Viet Nam.

Don’t tell me that you can’t see the parallels with the Iraq war. Remember how we were going to roll into Baghdad, put on a shock and awe show, and the Iraqis would shower our troops with love and flowers and give them parades?

“Mission accomplished” - NOT.

McNamara admitted, three decades later, that the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Viet Nam War were wrong. I don’t think we’ll be hearing about any mistakes made by George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld three decades from now - or ever.

Clear Channel: FAIL (Again)

The New York Post yesterday published a story about the latest sign that Clear Channel, the largest broadcast group owner in the known universe, is about to default on its loans - again. The huge Texas-based conglomerate, which owns six radio stations in Madison, floated another loan offer through its billboard division, and it sank.

Seems nobody wanted to buy another 3 billion dollars in debt from Clear Channel. This sets the stage for the company to further annoy its lenders this fall, by breaking the loan agreements again. Clear Channel has fired over two thousand hard-working broadcasters in the past year.

Managers fired? Not a one. Worker bees? Just about everybody. It’s no scoop that most of the stations owned by Clear Channel, Entercom, and Cumulus are down to bare-bones on-air staff. Early-afternoon news on Madison’s WIBA-AM often comes from a Clear Channel station in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

My former employer, Mid-West Family Broadcast Group, which owns seven radio stations in Madison, went through what it called “economic” staff cuts late last fall. Vaunted local TV operation WISC last week went through still another round of cuts and layoffs, and for the first time, the station terminated a news anchor’s job, along with several others. News anchors are the most public faces of the local TV stations, and are usually “safe”.

Not in this economy.

Advertising dollars have gone away from broadcasting and onto the internet, where they can be carefully targeted and efficiently managed. The typical radio or TV station gets 99% of its revenue from advertising sales, and about 1% from renting tower space to cell phone and pager companies. One look at the Sunday paper’s want-ads, and you know times are tough there, too.

The economic model for large-scale broadcast (and print) ownership is no longer sustainable. Wall Street bankers have fleeced the big group owners for outrageous loan fees and terms for more than a decade, and while there may be still one more round of that ahead, it’s gonna die. You just can’t “make the numbers” any more.

Who’ll survive? For lack of a better term, the “mom and pop” operations. Owners who don’t have a boatload of debt on untenable terms, and who’ve made their money since day one by serving their local communities with local news and information, local sports, and helping local merchants with affordable and effective advertising.

Those which will fail and disappear are those who have a company executive in some other city telling them what news to cover, which shows to run, what music to play, how to sell commercials, and a CFO who’s constantly trying to feed the beast called “debt service”.

For Sale: A Madison Icon

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it….Marsh Shapiro is putting the Nitty Gritty up for sale. He wants to sell the famous restaurant to his son-in-law, but they’ve apparently had trouble putting the financing together. The home of the world-famous Gritty Burger up for sale - stunning!

Marsh and his wife Susan have been friends of mine for years. I can’t begin to count how many birthdays my wife and kids and I have marked at his fine establishment downtown, or the great lunches we’ve enjoyed at the Middleton restaurant.

Everybody who’s anybody has been to the Gritty. One time my wife and I were there for somebody’s retirement party, and ran into former UW Athletic Director Pat Richter. We share the same hip replacement surgeon - Dr. John Rogerson -and talked about what a great job Dr. Rogerson did for both of us.

Both my kids, when they graduated from LaFollette High and headed off to the UW, were forced to undergo my indoctrination to The University Of Wisconsin - Madison, and that meant three things: assigned reading of Tom Bates’ book “Rads”; a tour of the campus with my narration about what the REAL campus landmarks are; and a mid-day tour stop for lunch at the Gritty.

Marsh would stop by the table and give exquisite lectures to my kids about the history of the joint, drop the names of a bunch of NFL and NHL stars who hung out at the Gritty during their Badger years, and then would deliver his incomparable spiel about Sterling Hall.

He’d point to a certain booth in the restaurant and say “right there…that booth…in 1970...is where the Armstrong Brothers, Leo Burt, and David Fine planned the bombing. Your dad has told you about Sterling Hall, hasn’t he?” My son solemnly nodded in the affirmative during his indoctrination, and my daughter did the same the next year.

It’s almost 40 years since the blast heard round the world, which ended young researcher Bob Fassnacht’s life and heralded a new attitude about our nation’s involvement in that southeast Asian war.

But, time marches on. I can’t believe Marsh is 70, and I’m 60. As young men, we would never have trusted anyone our age now!

Whatever’s ahead for Marsh and Susan, I wish them the best. My family will continue to patronize the place, but we’ll miss their tremendous hospitality. And I’ll always wonder what really IS in that famous Gritty Sauce……

You Could Put An Eye Out With That Thing...(Happy 4th)

My first memorable personal experience with 4th of July fireworks was in 1957 at my uncle’s summer home on Lake Butte des Morts. There, my cousin Jeff had a masterpiece of Chinese ingenuity called a “Repeating Bomb”. It was about six inches tall, a tube on a base, with a fuse sticking out. I’ll never forget the simple directions on that clandestine piece of pyrotechnics: “Light Fuse and Run”.

He set it on the broad lawn behind the house leading to the lake, lit the fuse, and we ran for cover behind my dad’s green ‘57 Chevy. It did not disappoint. It let off five of the loudest explosions I’d ever heard and brought the adults running out of the house to see if Winnebago County was under attack.

As an adventurous youth in the 60’s, I blew off far more than my fair share of Cherry Bombs and M-80’s. And back then, those things packed a punch - not like the wimpy stuff that passes for fireworks today. One M-80 tossed into a phone booth would blow the glass out with enough force to maim anyone nearby. (Don’t ask how I know that.)

In the 70’s, a pal of mine had invited me to his parents’ Fond du Lac home for some real good cookin’ and a beer or two on the 4th. Late that night, after the fermented malt beverages had taken effect, we went down into the basement of the home where my pal’s dad had created “The X Bomb”. It had a number, like X-17 or X-3 or something; I can’t recall. It was shaped like a rocket. We set it up in the back yard under the cover of darkness and launched it. Suffice it to say that the roar that went off when it had achieved maximum altitude was deafening.

In the 80’s, it was harder to get high-quality fireworks that pack a punch. My brother had made a road trip south in the mid-80’s and had his hands on what he called “some good stuff”. We were at our parents’ house for the 4th of July, and when the time was appropriate, we decided to “test fire” one of the M-80’s he’d brought with him. We set it on the top of my parents’ wooden picnic table, lit it, and put an empty coffee can over it to see how high we could blast it.

It turned out to be REALLY “good stuff”. The detonation actually broke the two-by-eight plank it was set on, and I believe the coffee can is still in orbit. Dad was not amused, and the next day we had to replace the plank and repair and repaint the picnic table.

Nowadays, in Nanny Headquarters USA, a/k/a the City of Madison, anything that’s fun is against city ordinance. You are allowed only sparklers, snakes, snaps, caps, and party poppers. And the fine for a first-time violation is up to A THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Humbug! Party poppers, indeed.

Well, I don’t live in the city. I live in the township of Madison, which is far less nanny-ish. And this old dog has a few new tricks up his sleeve for tomorrow night, and that’s all I’m sayin….

Fatherhood: Michael Jackson

Just as there are print publications like the ones you see at the checkout stand in the grocery store that carry nothing but sensational and largely speculative “news”, there’s a tawdry underbelly to the internet, where people say crappy things about people.

The website TMZ, which broke the story of Michael Jackson’s death, is running a story saying Jackson is not the biological father of his three children. Well, there’s a scoop! Anybody who’s ever seen pictures of the Jackson children knows there’s not a hint of biraciality in them.

Finding out that Michael is not the biological father is like finding out that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were on steroids. Really? You don’t say. Suddenly, in what should have been the waning days of their baseball careers, they put on a huge amount of muscle bulk and started knocking balls out of the park every day - and baseball fans everywhere were in benign denial.

The anonymous were quick to make snarky comments about the TMZ story saying Jackson isn’t the biological father. Well, I have news for them. Whether or not he is the biological father is not relevant one bit: not at law, and not in real life. He brought those children into the world and he is their father, by any definition except biological, and that’s not relevant.

The biology of the issue of paternity does not make one whit of difference to the millions of men around the world who are step-fathers. I’m one of them. And although he may have been connected to his children in a different way than I am to mine, Michael Jackson is every bit their father. He obviously loves them, supports them, and watches out for them, the way any decent father would.

Just a few years ago, when his hometown, Gary, Indiana had a ceremony to give him the key to the city, Michael loaded his kids in the car and took them down to 2300 Jackson Street (named after the President, not the pop star) in the heart of town, to show them the house where he was raised - something any father would do. But most dads don’t have limos and entourages to deal with.

Because my step-son is tall and fair-skinned, people I’ve only known a few years comment “well it’s easy to see where he gets his height from” when they meet or see a picture of my step-son. I’m six-foot-three with fair skin and they just assume that I’m the biological father. And of my step-daughter, they say “she looks just like her mom”, with absolutely no implication about my involvement in the biology.

We tend to judge people by their actions, and not their intentions. And when we first got married, my wife’s parents and siblings judged me largely on how I treated her children. Being a father is not about sex or biology. Anybody can father a child, and lord knows there’s plenty of that going around, and not just in Hollywood. Now, my wife’s family and those two wonderful young adults - my step-children - know that I’m their father, and that I will be there for them and “have their back” to my last day on earth.

So make fun of Michael Jackson and ridicule his often-unusual behavior if you want. But he IS the father of those children. Even the most sarcastic of his detractors has to admit that Michael Jackson was a gentle soul who loved his children and hated no one.

He Came, He Saw, He Got Outta Here....

In his most important political battles, Newton Leroy McPherson Gingrich failed. Oh, sure, there was the Contract With America, 15 years ago, which got him a lot of press, but a year later the Republican engine stalled, and more Clintonistas were elected. Bill Clinton called Newt’s 10-point manifesto the “Contract ON America”.

In the 1998 mid-term elections, Republicans sustained their biggest losses in more than six decades, and, amidst ethics charges and declining popularity, Mr. Newt not only resigned as Speaker of the House, but resigned his seat in congress.

He hung out with the late Jerry Falwell and other God-in-Government types, and now runs a right-wing foundation. Monday, Mr. Newt was in Milwaukee to raise money for Scott Walker’s second run for governor. Walker ran in 2006 but dropped out when he ran out of money.

Mr. Newt himself is frequently mentioned as a Republican candidate for President in 2012, and he says he’s seriously thinking about it. Fox News Channel pays him to be on TV regularly, to keep his face in front of the public.

It’s not a scoop that this fundraiser Monday was pricey. The top ticket was five grand, and for that, you and your significant other (no pun intended) got your picture taken with Mr. Newt and got to participate in a round-table discussion with him. A grand got you the photo-op, and 250 bucks got you into the door, and that’s it. 800 people ponied up.

But the real kicker is that Mr. Newt didn’t even ENDORSE Scott Walker! Apparently Mr. Newt is hedging his bet on who’ll be the Republican nominee for governor, with Mark Neumann also in the mix. Whoever it is will likely face Jim Doyle, who’s giving signs that he will run for a third term. Diamond Jim had better have a few more of those pricey golf outings to fatten his warchest.

Mr. Newt says the voters will be desperate in October of 2010 for low-tax less-spending smaller-government candidates. He claims voters will have recoiled in dismay from the policies of the Obama administration.

I’m not sure if Wisconsin voters in general are still as tired of the same old failed politicians running for office as they were during the Presidential primaries last time around, but there’s sure nothing new about people like Mr. Newt, Mark Neumann, and that crowd. The Republicans seem to like these guys like McCain and Gingrich who have a lot of miles on the odometer.

Stay tuned. It’s gonna get real interesting in a few months.