Monday, February 07, 2011

HuffPo - AOL Dealbreaker Averted: "No Mushrooms"

Logging on today, I expected to be hit, like a tsunami, with Super Bowl news.

Instead, the conflagration was all about this;


WTF!


I have always thought of AOL as the Horse--and-Buggy of the World Wide Web.

I mean, the bulk of their revenue comes from people still using dial-up services.

High Tech companies, Internet companies, and such have been booming, falling from the sky, like, say Google and Facebook, and many others, out there doing big, fast things, and there was AOL, looking out the garage door, polishing the reins, and longing to ditch the horse and get out there in the growing World Wide Web.

They've, seemingly constantly, been doing the "My Sister/My Daughter" thing, dealing with their troubles.

But, the deal was done, at the Super Bowl, and Arianna Huffington is now a media mogul.

Holy Cow!

Me thinks that, while Dallas is where the "I's" were dotted and the "T's" were crossed, she sealed the deal some months earlier;

Around the same time, I got an email from Tim Armstrong (AOL Chairman and CEO), saying he had something he wanted to discuss with me, and asking when we could meet. We arranged to have lunch at my home in LA later that week. The day before the lunch, Tim emailed and asked if it would be okay if he brought Artie Minson, AOL's CFO, with him. I told him of course and asked if there was anything they didn't eat. "I'll eat anything but mushrooms," he said.

For the saving grace of not serving mushrooms, Hufffington gets to do this millennium's first updated Charles Foster Kane thing, albiet, not in print, but on the World Wide Web, with her new Xanadu being good, ole AOL.

And there's plenty of good snark going on.


Somewhere, right now, Tina Brown is trying to sell The Daily Beast to Compuserve.
[snip]
Swisher writes that Huffington and Armstrong's "motto" is "One plus one equals 11." Which, ha, Huffington better hope that's true if her writers are going to make AOL's insane pageview targets. To that effect, AOL content will be "integrated deeply" into the HuffPo site—alongside terrific HuffPo content like "What Time Does the Superbowl Start?" and "How to Date an Indian (Advice for the Non-Indian)." The new media landscape is going to rule.


Now, by contrast, the constraints on Huffington are much fewer. Lyons frets that “all those bright young things with the glamorous job of writing for the Huffington Post are being sent down into the belly of the AOL galleyship and assigned to an oar” — but the fact is that Armstrong bought HuffPo, and TechCrunch before it, precisely because his galleyship model of managing writers was a signal failure. Arianna gets much more bang for her buck — and has happier and more loyal employees.
[snip]
Best of all, from Arianna’s point of view, is that all the extra investment she wants to make in editorial, starting with HuffPost Brazil, is going to be paid for not by rapacious venture capitalists looking for monster returns on their investment, but rather by befuddled and elderly AOL subscribers with broadband connections who don’t understand that they can cancel their $20-a-month subscriptions and still keep their AOL email address. That stream of cash won’t last forever, but it’s never going to interfere with Arianna’s editorial decision-making


I wonder who will quit first: the unpaid Post writers who aren’t making a dime from this deal, Arianna’s Hollywood buddies, or Arianna herself.


All you writers over on Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and others, prepare to lose your checks, and practice genuflecting, maybe even having to kiss Ariana's ring, mumbling gratefulness and gratitude for being able to write for such a great icon, for nothing.

! + ! = 11?

Sounds like some of Tom Lehrer's New Math


Bonus Riffs






Bonus Bonus Riffs




Posted by 13909 Antiques at 6:15 PM 1 comments
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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Good Post Alert - How Much Super Bowl Is Too Much Super Bowl?

As the years go by, I have become less-and-less fond of Super Bowl Sunday.

Everything, and I mean everything, both related to the game, the NFL, and even family/friends and co-workers get over-hyped, with just about anyone you bump into, breathlessly, in anxiety-soaked voices, ask "Are you going to any Super Bowl parties?"


It may come in the not-too-distant future, that anyone not going to a "Super Bowl Party" will be banished to a leprosy-like island.

The NFL has long surpassed the label of "To Big To Fail".

It's a veritable money-printing machine.


Keep in mind, as the NFL tries to beat down the players' saleries, add more games, that with the money the NFL owners receive from television (and you can thank the former PR hack, and Commissioner Peter Rozelle for choreographing the NFL for television - the early 1960's Dallas Cowboys, perhaps thinking ahead to "Super Sundays", were the first to put numbers on the shoulders and called them "TV numbers"), that they could play the games in empty stadiums and no concessions, and still make a profit.

All this is a lead in to a good post, by David Roth, over on The Awl;


This is not exactly news, I know, but I've always believed that the bloat—more than a game encased within it, which either will be fun to watch or won't, but will still feature four 15-minute quarters—is the thing that puts people off about the game. The week of pump-it-up-when-you-don't-even-mean-it media coverage, all those thimblefuls of glib microanalysis, the leering reach for the nearest SEO-able semi-scandal—Did Player X RIP Player Y (VIDEO)?—all seem longer and louder and more desperate each year, and they will send you flipping to the Puppy Bowl if you're even remotely so inclined. The percentage of the Super Bowl broadcast given over advertisements expands exponentially—last year's Super Bowl featured seven more minutes of commercials than did 2001's. But this is what happens, it's what the market does: big things get bigger.
But the cellular division that powers this sort of overgrowth is not necessarily healthy, and long ago shaded towards decadent-unto-metastatic. That the Super Bowl is too hyped, too rich and too leveraged and branded and expensive and excessive is palpable, even in the corners most excited for it. It looks strong, of course, but these are steroid muscles—puffed up, built the wrong way, grounded in things that ruin.

If you can pull yourself away for whatever Animal Bowl is being fed into your television, or closedown the zillion tabs and take a break from watching the Super Bowl commercials, take a jump over to Roth's post



Bonus Super Bowl Riffs






Bonus Bonus


Posted by 13909 Antiques at 3:15 PM 1 comments
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Friday, February 04, 2011

A Conflicted Life Ends ... Tango Actress Maria Schneider Dead at 58

It was quite a surprise to see the name of actress Maria Schneider in the Obit column today.

As much for remembering the long-ago crush, as for how long she has been out of the news, the limelight dimmed for quite some time.



Ms. Schneider died yesterday in Paris “following a long illness,’’ a representative of the Act 1 talent agency said, but declined to provide details.
Ms. Schneider was 19 when she starred opposite Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s racy “Last Tango in Paris.’’ In it, she played Jeanne, a young Parisian woman who takes up with a middle-aged American businessman, played by Brando.
Full of explicit sex scenes, “Last Tango’’ was banned in Italy for obscenity for nearly two decades, returning to cinemas there only in 1989. In the United States, the movie still has an NC-17 rating for its sexual content, meaning it can’t be seen by children under 17 years of age.

I'm quite sure anyone over the age of 18, back in 1972 either (A) flocked to the movies to see the film 'Last Tango In Paris", or (B) was aware of the controversy surrounding its' explicit sex scenes, or, (C) rushed to the record store to get the smoking soundtrack, featuring the great saxophonist Gato Barbieri.


I indulged in A, and C of the above.

In her youth, Maria Schneider was incredibly beautiful, which was likely the factor in getting her two big roles (Three years after 'Tango', she starred with Jack Nicholson in 'The Passenger').

All the obituaries mention "a long illness", which included drugs and, as a few referenced, "mental illness".

No doubt, 'Last Tango In Paris' was, perhaps, the beginning of what seemed to be a troubled life.

In the film, Jeanne enters into a brief but torrid affair with a recently widowed American, played by Brando. Their erotically charged relationship, played out in an empty apartment near the Bir Hakeim Bridge in Paris, shocked audiences on the film’s release in 1972, especially a scene in which Brando pins Ms. Schneider to the floor and, taking out a stick of butter, seems to perform anal intercourse on her. The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an X rating.
The role fixed Ms. Schneider in the public mind as a figurehead of the sexual revolution, and she spent years trying to move beyond the role, and the public fuss surrounding it. “I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol,” she told The Daily Mail of London in 2007. “I wanted to be recognized as an actress, and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown. Now, though, I can look at the film and like my work in it.”
The famous butter scene, she said, was not in the script and made it into the film only at Brando’s insistence. “I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci,” she said. “After the scene, Marlon didn’t console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.”

Whatever, it still brings about a veil of sadness.

RIP Maria Schneider.




Posted by 13909 Antiques at 7:00 PM 1 comments
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Thursday, February 03, 2011

Breaking News! ...Groundhog Hoax - Famous Phil Balked, Joined Egypt Protest

Controversy has erupted in Gobblers Knob, as sources have come forward, charging that the groundhog that predicted an early spring was not the famous, and well-known, Punxsutawney Phil.

"Phil notified his handlers days before the event," a source close to the event at Gobblers Knob offered, "that he was not going to come out, that he was sympathetic to the protesters in Egypt and wouldn't come out until President Hosni Mubarak left office."

This caused a whirlwind of activity, running up to just hours before the big, public event, of the groundhog's handlers searching feverishly for another groundhog that could stand in, and look like, the famous prognosticator.

Officials at Gobblers Knob refused to comment on the charges.

When reached, protesters in Cairo were pleased that they have the support of an American icon.

"The day we have a free Egypt, we'll bring him over here to celebrate with us." gushed one protester.

This isn't the first time questions have been raised, as in 2005, charges were brought up that Punxsutawney Phil lied about seeing his shadow.

More as this story develops.


Bonus Riffs







Bonus Bonus Riffs





Posted by 13909 Antiques at 8:00 PM 0 comments
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Rumsfeld Goes With The Lies He Wish He Had

Who knew!

Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice;
"Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it."
I just can't picture Old Snowflakes being into Bruce, so he must have just taken his own advice and said "You go to write a book with the lies you have---not the lies you might want or wish to have at a later time."


Yes, yet another of the Bush Grindhouse, one of their most prolific warmongers, has penned a "Not Me, Not My Fault" book, hitting the streets this week.

UGH!

“Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’ ”
[snip]
His biggest mistake, Mr. Rumsfeld writes, was in not forcing Mr. Bush to accept his offers to resign after the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American military jailers came to light in early 2004. Mr. Rumsfeld insists that the abuses were the actions of rogue soldiers and that they did not reflect any approved policies, but nevertheless he offered to step down.
[snip]
While generally defending the Bush administration’s counterterrorism legal policies, Mr. Rumsfeld expresses some regrets. He suggests several times that some criticism and setbacks could have been avoided if the administration had gone to Congress for legislation authorizing the policies instead of relying on the president’s war powers.

"Oh, if we only didn't didn't have contempt and scorn for our critics (you know, the "Appeaserrs ... the morally and intellectually confused" ), and only if we didn't piss on the Constitution and make up our own laws, maybe things would have turned out better."

Heh, that's funny. Of course, since there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in fact there apparentrly had not been any for a number of years, the reason that Rumsfeld would like to take "that one" back is because he was lying. Maybe someday someone will free the Washington Post from the tyranny of the inverted pyramid and they can actually say that.
Donald Rumsfeld lied.

Jack Stuef, over on Wonkette weighed in as well;
America’s Grandpa of Death Donald Rumsfeld is having his memoir published on Tuesday, serving as an addendum to George W. Bush’s book in that it has actual, alleged facts, opinions, and memories in it. So: Abu Ghraib? Not his fault, but he really wanted to resign over it and feels very emo that big meanie Bush wouldn’t let him. Initial troop levels? Not his fault, nobody in the military ever asked him for more troops. Guantanamo? Not his fault the jail existed, and actually he made sure there was less torture and fewer prisoners. Hmm, anything we’re forgetting here? Oh, that one war. What was it called again? Anyway, not his fault, Bush came to him about Iraq before the U.S. even invaded Afghanistan, but at the same meeting, he also talked about Rummy’s son’s drug addiction, so all Rummy could do was cry about that. Whoops!
And this;
Ah, there you have it. Rumsfeld could have said, “What the fuck are you talking about going to war with Iraq for? Our country was just attacked by a foreign terrorist organization we need to go try to destroy. Iraq has nothing to do with this. Aren’t you more concerned with winning this war we haven’t even begun yet?” But instead, his son had done some drugs. Sure thing, Rumsfeld. Perfectly good excuse. You should drop some leaflets on the families of people, American and Iraqi, whose children have died in that war. “Sorry, my son was doing drugs. I was emotional at the time. Not my fault.”

Stuef also had a suggestion for those plans to invade and occupy Iraq to be "creative" that "Rummy says Defense was preparing for offense on Afghanistan at the time, but Bush asked him to be “creative.” Creative! Perhaps the military could stage a production of Grease for the people of Iraq before taking a bow and dropping a bomb on them?

No instead we just got greasy lies, at the time, and more polished greasy lies now, with the book.

I wonder if his Lie Tour will interfere with his, and his former Shadow President's Armageddon weekends?

Like we said above, Ugh!


Bonus Rummy Riffs




Posted by 13909 Antiques at 7:00 PM 3 comments
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