The social network is lately full of scandal. Scandal production rises to meet the speed of communication. Is there more scandal-- or just more reporting? Trump's adultery, Michael Cohen's payoffs, Stormy Daniels making a media splash-- has been happening since Adam and Eve or, at least, since Luci and Dezi took over the television airwaves.
So, what has changed?
Transparency. The incredible transparency that allows us to get the dirty details on everybody. Think of the big names that disappeared from the scene almost instantly-- Charlie Rose, Louis CK, Russell Simmons, Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Elliot Spitzer, Bill O'Reilly. Those bights ignited, burned quickly and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The speed of collapse has changed. Decades of stardom gone in a few days.
We learn too much sometimes-- the sexual behaviors of Dustin Hoffman, bothered me. I liked his movies... including Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate most of all. Now I have to push Dustin Hoffman's rumored sexual behaviors out of my mind when I watch those films.
Ronan Farrow turns out to be the Sherlock Holmes of our era. Ronan did what The New York Times, Washington Post, etc could not do without him-- got the #metoo movement going.
Ronan got published in The New Yorker to get those Harvey Weinstein stories out. Ronan entered the annals of American history with his reporting on Harvey Weinstein. Ronan began his public career on shaky ground He failed as a MSNBC TV personality starting at too young. But he came back as a muckraking journalist and has changed society. Maybe Ronan has a political future?
Woody Allen is Ronan Farrow's father. Ronan stuck tightly to his sister's accounts of Woody having abused her sexually as a child. We have no proof of what actually happened but does that matter? Once the rumor takes hold, publish the rumor. Suddenly Woody seems guilty in the court of public opinion. Nobody cares to hear Woody's side of the story.
Woody has a wonderful sense of humor. Now I gotta consider Ronan's sister when watching a Woody Allen film. This places Ronan's sister on equal footing with Woody Allen-- one of the great comic geniuses.
Donald Trump has eluded the rapid fire dangers of the social network. Trump has brilliantly exploited the technology to great advantage.
Interesting the Donald Trump figured out Twitter at 70 years of age. Donald showed a preternatural ability to recognize Twitter as such an effective tool. He revolutionized American politics with the Twitter method for communicating with the electorate, at least his portion of it. This has nothing to do with morality. Twitter is available to us all.
Just remember... the electronic world electrocutes instantly.
Showing posts with label Bill O'Reilly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill O'Reilly. Show all posts
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Stop Making Sense: politics as theater
Stop Making Sense... for the game has changed.
It may be worth mentioning ... with the computer there has risen the possibility of extending consciousness itself as a technological environment. If this is to be done, it cannot be done on the basis of any existing notion of rationality.-- 1971 (Marshall McLuhan)
Marshall McLuhan died in 1980 but remains the only man who understands the computer/ internet age, an age he predicted with absolute accuracy. McLuhan knew that computer technology would shift the individual's "central nervous system into the electro-magnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well."-- 1964.
That means your brain and central nervous system are right there in the cellphone you are grasping. You have uploaded your thoughts and emotions into Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. You are vibrating with the universe. The world is one big city. The global village... as McLuhan so aptly named this world we now inhabit. You, and all of us, and Trump, our tribal leader, are family.
So this new world has you scared. We are all sitting around the electronic campfire and people are shouting weird things into the air. These thoughts, the fake news, the insane fears, the terrorism, the 11 year old boy in the Bronx using a knife to protect his mother from an intruder to their apartment... all of that, along with the Kardashians, Sean Spicer, Melissa McCarthy, etc., all spinning around your brain and spinal chord thanks to that powerful computer in your hand. You are the right, you are the left, you are all of it.
And most prevalent of all images is the image of Donald Trump, that orange-haired image has been burned into your consciousness. His name is on everybody's lips. The cable news follows his every exhalation and exultation. You wince-- how did he work himself into your consciousness? You and I are Trump.
I notice that Trump remains ahead of the men and women of the news. They are stuck in the print era like newsmen out of the screwball classic His Girl Friday. All they lack are Cary Grant's fedora and the clever lines of dialogue. The television newspeople-- still called "the press"-- struggle to find rationality in Donald Trump's ravings and whine about fake news and alternative versions of reality. The game has changed and Trump rubs it in with references to "the failing New York Times."
The New York Times worldview, the serious, sober reporting from the Gray Lady, falls to pieces in the lightning war of electrons-- the all spin, all the time world in which we presently live. If you are waiting for Truth... fuhgeddaboutit.
Truth has given way to theater and image-making. Trump knows it and discovered it from his experience with the New York City tabloid newspapers-- not the New York Times.
Every day another drama-- just like the tabloid covers of the New York Post (conservative) and the New York Daily News (liberal).
The difference between now and just a few years back is the depth of our involvement. The Social Network has us all involved. And it moves at the speed of light. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. The master of the "No Spin Zone" got spun like a top and left by the curb by Fox News. I don't think O'Reilly got fired because Rupert Murdoch and his sons found new moral convictions about the rights of women. The global village decided to shun O'Reilly. Twenty-first Century Fox quickly jumped aboard.
The Fox News empire knows that the electronic network electrocutes quickly. They didn't have time to take a poll-- they stuck their fingers in the air and felt the electronic wind blowing hard against O'Reilly's bullying, sexist tendencies. They didn't want to piss off a whole gender-- and O'Reilly hit the road, $25 million in his pocket to ease the pain. And, in some strange way, we feel Bill's pain. After all, we got to know him so well.
An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness.-- 1964 (Marshall McLuhan)
references:
The Talking Heads album-- Stop Making Sense (1977)--
McLuhan quotes from Essential McLuhan (1995)-- p. 296.
"Piss off a whole gender..."-- this line taken from Aziz Anasari's monologue on SNL
It may be worth mentioning ... with the computer there has risen the possibility of extending consciousness itself as a technological environment. If this is to be done, it cannot be done on the basis of any existing notion of rationality.-- 1971 (Marshall McLuhan)
Marshall McLuhan died in 1980 but remains the only man who understands the computer/ internet age, an age he predicted with absolute accuracy. McLuhan knew that computer technology would shift the individual's "central nervous system into the electro-magnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well."-- 1964.
That means your brain and central nervous system are right there in the cellphone you are grasping. You have uploaded your thoughts and emotions into Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. You are vibrating with the universe. The world is one big city. The global village... as McLuhan so aptly named this world we now inhabit. You, and all of us, and Trump, our tribal leader, are family.
So this new world has you scared. We are all sitting around the electronic campfire and people are shouting weird things into the air. These thoughts, the fake news, the insane fears, the terrorism, the 11 year old boy in the Bronx using a knife to protect his mother from an intruder to their apartment... all of that, along with the Kardashians, Sean Spicer, Melissa McCarthy, etc., all spinning around your brain and spinal chord thanks to that powerful computer in your hand. You are the right, you are the left, you are all of it.
And most prevalent of all images is the image of Donald Trump, that orange-haired image has been burned into your consciousness. His name is on everybody's lips. The cable news follows his every exhalation and exultation. You wince-- how did he work himself into your consciousness? You and I are Trump.
I notice that Trump remains ahead of the men and women of the news. They are stuck in the print era like newsmen out of the screwball classic His Girl Friday. All they lack are Cary Grant's fedora and the clever lines of dialogue. The television newspeople-- still called "the press"-- struggle to find rationality in Donald Trump's ravings and whine about fake news and alternative versions of reality. The game has changed and Trump rubs it in with references to "the failing New York Times."
The New York Times worldview, the serious, sober reporting from the Gray Lady, falls to pieces in the lightning war of electrons-- the all spin, all the time world in which we presently live. If you are waiting for Truth... fuhgeddaboutit.
Truth has given way to theater and image-making. Trump knows it and discovered it from his experience with the New York City tabloid newspapers-- not the New York Times.
Every day another drama-- just like the tabloid covers of the New York Post (conservative) and the New York Daily News (liberal).
The difference between now and just a few years back is the depth of our involvement. The Social Network has us all involved. And it moves at the speed of light. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. The master of the "No Spin Zone" got spun like a top and left by the curb by Fox News. I don't think O'Reilly got fired because Rupert Murdoch and his sons found new moral convictions about the rights of women. The global village decided to shun O'Reilly. Twenty-first Century Fox quickly jumped aboard.
The Fox News empire knows that the electronic network electrocutes quickly. They didn't have time to take a poll-- they stuck their fingers in the air and felt the electronic wind blowing hard against O'Reilly's bullying, sexist tendencies. They didn't want to piss off a whole gender-- and O'Reilly hit the road, $25 million in his pocket to ease the pain. And, in some strange way, we feel Bill's pain. After all, we got to know him so well.
An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness.-- 1964 (Marshall McLuhan)
references:
The Talking Heads album-- Stop Making Sense (1977)--
McLuhan quotes from Essential McLuhan (1995)-- p. 296.
"Piss off a whole gender..."-- this line taken from Aziz Anasari's monologue on SNL
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Bill O'Reilly-- Get a Life, Dude
Bill O'Reilly, the 6 ft 5 in gargantuan of a TV performer, and host of the The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, has been lording it over us for many years. He claims to be a good Catholic boy from humble roots on Long Island, New York. Bill and I are both from Long Island-- and we are exactly the same age.
O'Reilly calls himself a traditionalist, claiming to be open-minded on political matters. Says he loves the working class, the regular guy, the average American. He is a hero, a talented broadcaster and spokesman for conservative viewers of Fox. That's cool. We're all entitled to a political viewpoint. He portrayed himself as a rational student of world events but truly has never been welcoming to people with viewpoints at odds with his own. He kind of bullies on the air.
But here's the thing. How did a guy, supposedly so smart, forget the golden rule for avoiding workplace romance... Don't get your honey where you get your money. O'Reilly has a net worth of $85 million, an immense fortune, and the power that comes with having the highest rated show on cable news. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac, with money a close second. Bill has both power and money. He should have no problem attracting women, even at 67 years of age. Does he really have to limit his sexual hunting to the Fox News office place?
Makes no sense-- and you even have to wonder if behind it all Mr. Bill O'Reilly wanted to get caught. I mean come on, New York City is full of beautiful women. Many would be discreet about sharing intimacy with a famous TV personality, O'Reilly is possibly the most successful TV performer out there.
And then there's the first lawsuit, the 2004 situation with Andrea Mackris, a former producer for his show. She sued O'Reilly but dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against O'Reilly after reportedly receiving a $9 million bucks payout. That was the famous loofah/falafel shower fantasy:
Her complaint alleged that in phone conversations, O'Reilly had "advised her to use a vibrator and told her about sexual fantasies involving her" and an allegation that he threatened that if she reported his behavior, "Roger Ailes...will go after you...Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes, and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming." (Wikipedia)
So, Bill had an unpleasant workplace experience back in 2004, gets burned for $9 million, and goes back for more! I would call that Catholic guilt on steroids. It's not okay for me to make all this money, have all this success, and so I won't pursue a beautiful companion by simply walking over to a Manhattan bar/club frequented by super models. No, that's too easy. Instead, I'll hound the women I work with-- so I can be rapped over the knuckles with a ruler by Mother Superior. And that Mother Superior is the Social Network-- the biggest network of them all.
Bill and his show have been totally savaged across the Internet and into the real world. The O'Reilly Factor sponsors are leaving faster his show faster than a woman racing away from a guy with a cold sore. Try to No Spin that one.
O'Reilly calls himself a traditionalist, claiming to be open-minded on political matters. Says he loves the working class, the regular guy, the average American. He is a hero, a talented broadcaster and spokesman for conservative viewers of Fox. That's cool. We're all entitled to a political viewpoint. He portrayed himself as a rational student of world events but truly has never been welcoming to people with viewpoints at odds with his own. He kind of bullies on the air.
But here's the thing. How did a guy, supposedly so smart, forget the golden rule for avoiding workplace romance... Don't get your honey where you get your money. O'Reilly has a net worth of $85 million, an immense fortune, and the power that comes with having the highest rated show on cable news. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac, with money a close second. Bill has both power and money. He should have no problem attracting women, even at 67 years of age. Does he really have to limit his sexual hunting to the Fox News office place?
Makes no sense-- and you even have to wonder if behind it all Mr. Bill O'Reilly wanted to get caught. I mean come on, New York City is full of beautiful women. Many would be discreet about sharing intimacy with a famous TV personality, O'Reilly is possibly the most successful TV performer out there.
And then there's the first lawsuit, the 2004 situation with Andrea Mackris, a former producer for his show. She sued O'Reilly but dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against O'Reilly after reportedly receiving a $9 million bucks payout. That was the famous loofah/falafel shower fantasy:
Her complaint alleged that in phone conversations, O'Reilly had "advised her to use a vibrator and told her about sexual fantasies involving her" and an allegation that he threatened that if she reported his behavior, "Roger Ailes...will go after you...Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes, and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming." (Wikipedia)
So, Bill had an unpleasant workplace experience back in 2004, gets burned for $9 million, and goes back for more! I would call that Catholic guilt on steroids. It's not okay for me to make all this money, have all this success, and so I won't pursue a beautiful companion by simply walking over to a Manhattan bar/club frequented by super models. No, that's too easy. Instead, I'll hound the women I work with-- so I can be rapped over the knuckles with a ruler by Mother Superior. And that Mother Superior is the Social Network-- the biggest network of them all.
Bill and his show have been totally savaged across the Internet and into the real world. The O'Reilly Factor sponsors are leaving faster his show faster than a woman racing away from a guy with a cold sore. Try to No Spin that one.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Commander Chaos: Trump moves faster
Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian media guru, explains that a faster system destroys a slower system. The faster medium circles around the slower medium, surrounds it, consumes it and destroys it. Television moves faster than film. The Internet surrounded newspapers and destroyed them. The Internet destroyed bookstores; digital music did away with record stores; bookstores, likewise, fell out of sight. The cellphone moves around the desktop computer and personal computers decrease in number.
Donald Trump learned the television world as an insider with his own show. Cable TV moves faster than the networks. Twitter moves faster than cable TV and Trump keeps several steps ahead of the "mainstream media" through his Twitter account.
I laugh to hear people, including cables news media pundits, exclaim "can't somebody take that cellphone out of Trump's hand." That's like saying Robin Hood should put down his bow and arrow. What-- and pick up a spear and shield. Robin moved lightly and stayed ahead of the king's men.
Trump has a tool, his Twitter account, for getting to people faster than any of the cable outlets allows. He has a knack for moving quickly. He tries a strategy. If it fails, he never admits failure, just steps to the side, tweaks it, spins the story long enough for the story to get muddled and moves to the next thing. The man is a master of movement. His campaign struggled. He changed campaign managers. The next crew, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway did better and stayed. He found his audience, responded to the narrative they liked and moved ahead like a bull in a china shop.
Trump runs roughshod. His casino business didn't work. He went bankrupt and kept moving. We all wonder if this modus operandi works for running the free world. The story goes that his White House staff is in a state of constant turmoil. To quote a book of a few years back, he doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Presidents usually reassure us. President Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats and reassured the nation across the radio waves. That soothed anxieties through a Depression and a World War. How does the Trump method of stirring the hornet's nest compare to the peacefulness of a Barack Obama? A chorus of angry people, from the Tea Party rabble rousers to the Republican congressmen, hurled a constant chant of invectives at Obama. The right wing radio crowd led by Rush Limbaugh gnawed on Obama like he was a kind of satanic, malevolent force and never relented. Steve Bannon falls into that category. Be careful what you wish for--
Now Commander Chaos is in power. Trump sleeps 4 hours a night and wakes each morning stirring for a fight. Remember "speak softly and carry a big stick" came from Teddy Roosevelt, another master of imagery.
Trump insulted a Judge who rejected his Muslim ban. He called the man a "so-called judge." That move upset me. He spit in the face of the American system, the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Trump knows no boundaries-- hence the Commander Chaos moniker.
He continues to move at warp speed and exhausts everybody, even in the media hounds who thrive on the campaign trail. They love the jab and parry of electoral politics. That election season, the horse race of politics, was supposed to slow down with the election of a new president. Not for Trump, he enjoys King Lear's blasted heath. He refuses to slow down. We all suck wind to keep up and long for quieter days.
Melissa McCarthy's parody of Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, on Saturday Night Live, captured the insane, fever pitch of the present situation better than just about any rational analysis presented these last few weeks. She captured the Alice in Wonderland aspect of Mr. Trump's White House with brilliance and Trump-like intensity. Alec Baldwin has done a great job as Trump. SNL
seems like a voice of sanity in this whirlwind. Is this the new normal? That's the question we all must ask ourselves. Just look at that cellphone in your hand.
Donald Trump learned the television world as an insider with his own show. Cable TV moves faster than the networks. Twitter moves faster than cable TV and Trump keeps several steps ahead of the "mainstream media" through his Twitter account.
I laugh to hear people, including cables news media pundits, exclaim "can't somebody take that cellphone out of Trump's hand." That's like saying Robin Hood should put down his bow and arrow. What-- and pick up a spear and shield. Robin moved lightly and stayed ahead of the king's men.
Trump has a tool, his Twitter account, for getting to people faster than any of the cable outlets allows. He has a knack for moving quickly. He tries a strategy. If it fails, he never admits failure, just steps to the side, tweaks it, spins the story long enough for the story to get muddled and moves to the next thing. The man is a master of movement. His campaign struggled. He changed campaign managers. The next crew, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway did better and stayed. He found his audience, responded to the narrative they liked and moved ahead like a bull in a china shop.
Trump runs roughshod. His casino business didn't work. He went bankrupt and kept moving. We all wonder if this modus operandi works for running the free world. The story goes that his White House staff is in a state of constant turmoil. To quote a book of a few years back, he doesn't sweat the small stuff.
Presidents usually reassure us. President Franklin Roosevelt had his fireside chats and reassured the nation across the radio waves. That soothed anxieties through a Depression and a World War. How does the Trump method of stirring the hornet's nest compare to the peacefulness of a Barack Obama? A chorus of angry people, from the Tea Party rabble rousers to the Republican congressmen, hurled a constant chant of invectives at Obama. The right wing radio crowd led by Rush Limbaugh gnawed on Obama like he was a kind of satanic, malevolent force and never relented. Steve Bannon falls into that category. Be careful what you wish for--
Now Commander Chaos is in power. Trump sleeps 4 hours a night and wakes each morning stirring for a fight. Remember "speak softly and carry a big stick" came from Teddy Roosevelt, another master of imagery.
Trump insulted a Judge who rejected his Muslim ban. He called the man a "so-called judge." That move upset me. He spit in the face of the American system, the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Trump knows no boundaries-- hence the Commander Chaos moniker.
He continues to move at warp speed and exhausts everybody, even in the media hounds who thrive on the campaign trail. They love the jab and parry of electoral politics. That election season, the horse race of politics, was supposed to slow down with the election of a new president. Not for Trump, he enjoys King Lear's blasted heath. He refuses to slow down. We all suck wind to keep up and long for quieter days.
Melissa McCarthy's parody of Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, on Saturday Night Live, captured the insane, fever pitch of the present situation better than just about any rational analysis presented these last few weeks. She captured the Alice in Wonderland aspect of Mr. Trump's White House with brilliance and Trump-like intensity. Alec Baldwin has done a great job as Trump. SNL
seems like a voice of sanity in this whirlwind. Is this the new normal? That's the question we all must ask ourselves. Just look at that cellphone in your hand.
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