Don't go in the water, watch this documentary instead

Thirty-five years ago, a Summer movie scared us so much that millions of people got out of the water.


The story behind the making of "Jaws" is an incredible one for many reasons.

I recently watched "Jaws: The Inside Story" an excellent two hour documentary about the movie that highlights the struggle to get the movie made and its eventual impact on the entire movie industry.

The documentary was interesting, insightful and even a bit funny.

I won't spoil anything here, but check it out and let's discuss.

"Jaws:The Inside Story" is airing at least a few more times in the coming weeks on the Biography Channel.  Check your local listings for exact times. It may also be available on the 25th anniversary edition of the DVD, but I cannot confirm this.

2010 Emmy Awards Wrap-Up: Some Hamm, Hodgman and Clooney for all

Because I work in the television industry, I watch the Emmys every year.   

Here's my wrap-up. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts.

The good:

The opening "Glee" number -- It was flat out fun! Who doesn't want to see a diverse song and dance troupe that includes Jon Hamm, Tina Fey and Hurley from Lost (the apparently underrated Jorge Garcia).

Jimmy Fallon as host -- His musical numbers, including his guitar playing and salutes to the departure of 24, Lost, and Law & Order were great.

John Hodgman as announcer -- If you're not familiar with Hodgman's work, particularly his books, you're missing out. As the Emmy announcer, he was funny and he has a soothing voice, not that 'announcer' sounding voice that can get annoying very quickly.

Jewel singing during the "In Memorandum" segment -- Whether you're a fan or not, Jewel 's performance of a clearly very personal and amazingly appropriate song entitled "The Shape of You" was nothing short of an incredibly moving tribute.

The questions asked -- The videos asking the writers and directors about their lives and their work was great. It's about time the creators and visionaries that make the shows get as much air time as the actors who star in them.

Ricky Gervais -- Two words: Bucky Gunts. This man can make ANYTHING funny. He should be on every awards show from here on out, if not as host at least as a presenter. Enough said.

Temple Grandin -- This woman made everything else on the show seem not so pretentious, especially in these times of our troubled economy when people parading around in expensive gowns and jewels seem a little out of line with reality.

George Clooney -- Just when we thought we couldn't like this guy any more than we do now, he accepts an award and instead of mindlessly thanking people, he calls upon them for further action. Amazing.

The bad:

The schedule -- This is just me, but I thought the TV series Best Actor/Actress awards were given out too early in the show. I would have stacked the show a little differently. Yes, I would 've given out a couple of acting awards at the top, but then I would've done all the movie/miniseries stuff, then reality, followed by variety and finally the big awards.

But having said that, this was the only thing I would've changed. I thought as a whole that the show was really well done.

Your thoughts?

(P.S. If you really want to watch an all out fun 'awards' show, check out the TV Land Awards. Every year this show is great. This year, there was a "Love Boat" theme and a tribute to "Charlie's Angels" and "Bosom Buddies". You just can't go wrong with classic TV!! I can't wait to see what they do next year!)

A great idea poorly reported.

I recently read an article on Yahoo that's actually quite interesting. It's about a woman who takes thrift store clothes, the uglier the better it seems, and makes them into something she can wear. And, she does all this for one dollar per outfit, blogging about it all the while, ala "Julie and Julia", which is referenced in the article.

Here's the link to the article. ttp://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/60/turn-ugly-dresses-into-nice-ones-for-1.html

While I did find the article interesting, I found the writing to be very poor.      

This sentence in particular got me:

"Marisa’s now most of a year into the project,..."

Really? That is just sooo bad.

I looked up the author of the article and while I am really never comfortable critiquing another writer's work unless he/she has specifically asked me to do so, that sentence, and the article as a whole really got me. Especially when the author lists as her credentials a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California.

Well, I guess the undergrad, Masters, and Ph.D programs in Literature and Creative Writing don't include classes on reporting and proper, effective sentence structure.

If I were an editor on this piece, the red pen would have been flying.

Your thoughts?

Working Class Hero?

Steven Slater.

Two days ago, you'd probably never heard of him.

If you still haven't heard of him, where have you been? 

On Monday afternoon, Slater finished his day as a Flight Attendant at Jet Blue by pulling the emergency slide, grabbing a couple of beers and sliding off the plane and into a car he'd left at the airport. He was comfortably at home when authorities showed up. He no doubt will be charged with something as there seems to be some Federal security violations here.

It's reported that he got into a tussle with a passenger just prior to his exit and concluded his in-flight service with a rant over the public address system, with several expletives aimed at passengers.

Some people are hailing this guy as a 'working class' hero, saying that he did what every employee has at one point dreamed of doing, leaving a frustrating job in dramatic fashion.

In my opinion, he's not a hero. Yes, maybe everyone dreams of doing something like this, but we don't as we've been told it's career suicide.

But wait, people are talking about this guy getting a reality show! And, I bet every news show is chomping at the bit to interview him.

So it might not be the career suicide we've all been warned about. It might be the ticket to something much more profitable in this day and age of longer hours and more responsibilities while being paid less.

But, it won't work for everyone and right now, when so many people are unemployed and struggling, this might be a hard story to hear -- a guy with a good job and a steady paycheck who foolishly gives it up because he's disgruntled?

If this wasn't the airline industry, which is the bane of many people's existence these day, and if Slater hadn't left in such a dramatic fashion, we wouldn't even be talking about this, would we?

For more views on this subject, check out these Yahoo article at http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100810/bs_yblog_upshot/rogue-jetblue-flight-attendant-being-hailed-as-a-modern-american-working-class-hero

And, as is always the case these days, Slater already has a Facebook page with thousands of followers at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steven-Slater/145469768806134#!/pages/Steven-Slater/145469768806134?v=wall

Your thoughts on this one??

In a future post, I'll tell you about a similar incident I had on an American Airlines flight.

How's that for a teaser?

In light of this story, I hope you enjoy  your day at work, at least enough that your don't pull the slide, grab some beers and storm out.

Talk about bad taste

A few years ago I was out of work for a bit of time.

At that time, it seemed that most everyone else was living high on the hog. It wasn't like it is now, with 10% of the population flat out unemployed and countless others underemployed.

So I ask you this: No matter what the economy, is it ever ok to make fun of someone getting fired?

Ok, I'm sure there are some instances when someone can tell a funny story about someone getting fired.

But would you ever try to use an example of someone getting fired to sell a product?

Believe it or not, Kelloggs did this. Check out this commercial (sorry, you have to watch a commercial before the actual Kelloggs commercial kicks in!):

 http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1835456/crispy_kelloggs_raisin_bran_commercial/ 

Seriously? Who pitched this? And who signed off on it? This has to be one of the worst ads I've ever seen.

Now I will say this, this commercial is just the first in a campaign. There were a few other spots that had Johnson, the employee that manager Smith was trying to fire, getting an intern and then the employee of the month award. So Johnson in essence 'wins' in the end.

But still, it's a series of commercials about someone getting fired.

People seem divided on this one as evidenced by the fact that when I searched for these ads on google, there were some people who loved them and some people who hated them.

I will say this, I think that the Facebook page named "We Love Raisin Bran Crunch Commercials" was not really created by fans. I smell some corporate desperation at work here. Oh and the page has a total of.......19 fans.

Your thoughts?

The evolution of baseball broadcasting

Because I've worked in both minor league baseball and television, I'm often asked to talk and/or write about these two things.

For those not in the know,  I grew up in St. Louis, but not long after college, I left there to take a job in Shreveport, Louisiana.     

As a sports fan, it's hard when you don't live in the city of your chosen team. Having grown up in St. Louis, my favorite team is the Cardinals. My family are die hard when it comes to the Redbirds. I was lucky enough when I lived in St. Louis to be invited into an exclusive group that purchased season tickets. The seats were premium and the package was divided well.



When I told my parents that I was moving out of town, they didn't ask about my job or where I would live, the first question they asked was, "Who's taking your season tickets?" Not to say my parents aren't concerned about me, but it's about priorities, you know.


When I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana, my day job was working at a television station as a show producer and my night (and weekend) job was working for the Shreveport Captains, the AA team for the San Francisco Giants.

For the first few weeks with the Captains, I worked in different areas: running audio, rolling replays, or assisting in the broadcast booth. Soon it became apparent that my calling was to run 'Camera1', the lower third base camera in the home team dugout.

The Captains home games were all broadcast on the local cable channel. The away games were on the radio. I love listening to baseball on the radio. There is something old-fashioned and kind of pure about listening to a baseball game on the radio.


The Captains play-by-play announcer was a man named Dave Nitz, and he is one of the best in the business. I listened to just about every away game on my small radio when I lived in Shreveport. More than once, knowing that I was listening, Dave gave me a shout out during a game. (Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks Dave is the greatest. In 2010, he was named the Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Way to go Dave!)


But, even though I was a Captains fan, my favorite team was still the Cardinals. When the Captains played the Cardinals AA team, the Arkansas Travelers, I wore the Cardinal shorts that my mom made for my whole family. I took a lot of flack from my Captains players over that, but I stuck to my loyalty to the Redbirds. (I know you want to know more about those shorts, but that's for another time.)

During my time in Shreveport, I got my Cardinals updates via "Baseball Tonight" or "SportsCenter" on ESPN. Since there was no tivo in those days, you pretty much had to sit and watch the whole show and wait for them to get to your team. Yes, you could use your VCR, but really I didn't do that. And, I can't confirm this, but I don't believe that there was a ticker on the bottom of the screen at that time, so "Baseball Tonight" and "SportsCenter" were the only way to get scores and highlights. It was great when the Cards played the Cubs, Braves or Astros because some of those games were broadcast in Shreveport, on WGN, SuperStation TBS or a Houston sports channel.

After I left Shreveport, I worked as a Producer for Fox Sports in Los Angeles for three years.


I was there in 1997 and 1998, during the Griffey, Sosa, McGwire homerun chase years. And yes, now that whole chase is tainted and all, but at that time, it was very exciting. But still, there weren't many games broadcast nationally. By now, the Headline News channel had added sports scores to their lower third graphics at night. And, not only would they show the scores, they would list who hit a home run that night. Plus, Headline News, at that time, was strictly on a half hour news schedule. So every half hour at 25 minutes past the hour, they had a three minute sports update. So, while ESPN led "Baseball Tonight" and "SportsCenter" with the homerun chase, they had to get to other news. Headline News was the go-to channel at that time to get a quick update on the homerun chase, and other national news.


Soon after that, CBS introduced an online service, called CBS Sportsline, that included a tracker for individual games. There was no audio, just slow loading graphics that updated pitch by pitch. I remember talking about it with my fellow producers and at the time, we thought it was revolutionary!! We loved it!!  (CBS Sportsline has ceased operation. Now it is CBS Sports and as far as I can tell, there is no MLB tracker on the site.)


Now we have the MLB Channel, the Direct TV baseball package and games broadcast over the internet.


Personally, I don't have the Direct TV baseball package. First, in my opinion the package a bit expensive. Secondly, I live in the Pacific time zone and my team is in the Central time zone so most home games start at 5pm in my time zone and most days I'm still working at 5pm. And, Direct TV does not have the rights to most weekend games. So in a cost analysis, for me it did make sense. In Direct TV's defense, they explain in their materials that the package is aimed at overall baseball fans as they carry all teams in all markets. So, when you buy the package, you get access to all teams. So, if you're a two team family the package might be a good buy for you. (Yes, I'm talking about you, the Bassett family, who live in North Carolina but are huge Dodger and Phillies fans.)


I do have the MLB internet radio feed package (very cheap, about $20 a year) so I can listen to every game on my computer. I love this package. No, it's not TV, but as I mentioned earlier, I like listening to baseball on the radio. And the Cardinals have two of the best calling the plays; Mike Shannon and John Rooney.


And God bless the MLB channel. I love it. It's now my go-to channel at all times. (ok, specifically during baseball season and even quite often during the off-season.) Their live look-ins every night are amazing.


And with the MLB channel comes more games on TV.


My mom visited me recently and she doesn't have the MLB channel on her cable system. But, since she lives in the city of her team, she gets every game. (and my season tickets as you'll recall.) 

I showed her my unique way of taking in a Cards game. I listen to the game on my computer while I have the MLB channel on, but on mute. Then when I hear the Cards have a big play, I turn to the TV to see if the MLB channel does an update in which they show the play.


I don't always do this. Many times, I just listen to the game. (Like that 20 inning humdinger back in April!)


I'm all for watching games on TV, but I'm so glad that technology has come so far that I can listen to my team on my computer. It feels like a meeting of the future with the past, using the technology of wifi to listen to a radio broadcast. But truthfully, that's just the way I like it.


So thank you ESPN and MLB channel. You do fine work. But, for me, there's something special about the radio feed, listening to two announcers describe the day and the play. In my opinion, there's not much better than that.