Remembering Steve McNair: The 2000 Super Bowl v. The Rams

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

The passing via murder of former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair is really hard to take.  It's hard because McNair was a major player in my first Super Bowl: Super Bowl 38 (or XXXVIII) in Atlanta to open the new century in 2000. I was their as a guest of the NFL as I was working to bring the Super Bowl to Oakland. (We eventually lost to Jacksonville for the right to host the 2005 Super Bowl.)

McNair's Titans weren't favored to win that game agains the "Greatest Show On Turf", the St. Louis Rams.  The Rams were blowing-out and steam-rollering opponents that year and there was no indication that wasn't going to be the case in The Super Bowl.

But someone forgot to tell that to the Titans, led by a stalwart defense and Steve McNair.  With the Alcorn State legends fancy footwork, laser passing, and quick decision-making, the Titans stayed within scoring distance of the Rams, then came to one (Titans WR) Kevin Dyson-almost-touchdown-pass of tying the game.  After that who knows who would have won? (Come to think of it, what if Rams WR Issac Bruce had dropped that dramatic 73-yard touchdown catch and run?  It would have been a new game with the Titans having the momentum.) 

What I loved most about McNair was that he was such a leader, such a powerful presence, few reffered to him as a "black quarterback".  No.  McNair was just the quarterback of The Tennessee Titans, and an undispurted leader.  When the Titans drafted Texas QB Vince Young, I thought it was excellent because then McNair would be his teacher, but then he was traded to Baltimore and with that a great pairing for the future came to an end.

Off the field, I assumed McNair was a quiet man who grew up in the South and did not want to make waves. He and former Green Bay Packers QB Brett Farve were the kind of friends who'd go hunting in what I once heard Farve call their three-piece suits: suspenders and overalls.   In fact, I'm very surprised Farve hasn't issued a statement at this time, not even on his website.

McNair will be missed by everyone.  A sad moment in time.

Remembering Steve McNair: The 2000 Super Bowl v. The Rams

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

The passing via murder of former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair is really hard to take.  It's hard because McNair was a major player in my first Super Bowl: Super Bowl 38 (or XXXVIII) in Atlanta to open the new century in 2000. I was their as a guest of the NFL as I was working to bring the Super Bowl to Oakland. (We eventually lost to Jacksonville for the right to host the 2005 Super Bowl.)

McNair's Titans weren't favored to win that game agains the "Greatest Show On Turf", the St. Louis Rams.  The Rams were blowing-out and steam-rollering opponents that year and there was no indication that wasn't going to be the case in The Super Bowl.

But someone forgot to tell that to the Titans, led by a stalwart defense and Steve McNair.  With the Alcorn State legends fancy footwork, laser passing, and quick decision-making, the Titans stayed within scoring distance of the Rams, then came to one (Titans WR) Kevin Dyson-almost-touchdown-pass of tying the game.  After that who knows who would have won? (Come to think of it, what if Rams WR Issac Bruce had dropped that dramatic 73-yard touchdown catch and run?  It would have been a new game with the Titans having the momentum.) 

What I loved most about McNair was that he was such a leader, such a powerful presence, few reffered to him as a "black quarterback".  No.  McNair was just the quarterback of The Tennessee Titans, and an undispurted leader.  When the Titans drafted Texas QB Vince Young, I thought it was excellent because then McNair would be his teacher, but then he was traded to Baltimore and with that a great pairing for the future came to an end.

Off the field, I assumed McNair was a quiet man who grew up in the South and did not want to make waves. He and former Green Bay Packers QB Brett Farve were the kind of friends who'd go hunting in what I once heard Farve call their three-piece suits: suspenders and overalls.   In fact, I'm very surprised Farve hasn't issued a statement at this time, not even on his website.

McNair will be missed by everyone.  A sad moment in time.

Megan Fox is right, Michael Bey: "Transformers" is a special effects movie!

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



Today it was reported that Megan Fox is in "hot water" for her statements regarding the movie "Transformers." Director / Producer Michael Bey was even quoted as saying Megan "Has a lot of growing up to do." ABC News agreed with Bey and said Fox "put her foot in her mouth again." Well, folks, Megan Fox, one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood in more ways than one, didn't put her foot in her mouth and Michael Bey and ABC News should appologize to Fox for their statements.

Megan Fox

What did she say? In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fox said this:

Question: What percentage of your (acting) range have people seen so far?
Megan Fox: Seven percent. On the new one, I tried. But unless you're a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience.

And later...

Question: You're a bigger star now than when you did the first Transformers. Did they beef up your role in the sequel?
Fox: The humans are still secondary to the robots because it's a movie about robots. I feel like the part is adequate. I feel like we do something that's watchable on our end and then ILM makes it phenomenal.

Question: You don't sound convinced that this is the greatest movie on earth.
Fox: It's not trying to be the greatest movie on earth. It's going to be the best action movie of the summer. Hands down, it will win that. But it's not trying to be a Golden Globe-nominated film. It's a badass popcorn summer movie.

Question: You up for a third Transformers?
Fox: Sure. I mean, I can't s--- on this movie because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don't want to blow smoke up people's ass. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. And once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can be in the moment and go, ''All right, I know that when he calls Action! I'm either going to be running or screaming, or both.''

Michael Bey's response was less than diplomatic:

Michael Bey

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers”—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

But Megan Fox is correct, moreover, Bey's own comments defend her, as well as the fact that Bey poses not with Fox or the other Transformers stars, but with a robot.

 

The real star of Transformers with Bey

What Fox is saying is what everyone knows: Transformers is a special effects-driven movie. If Bey were to make an actors movie, this would not have been it, and he would have not plucked the unknown Fox for the role. That's essentially what Fox is saying. But what's so bad is Bey's reach for ageism: Fox's being "23-years old" has nothing at all to do with her statements; anyone could have made them of any age and have been totally correct.

Making comments on someone's age is more often than not inappropriate in a society where 40-year old women look like they're in their 20s, 25-year-olds marry 45-year-olds, and rockers are still hard at it in their late 60s, some dating women in their 20s. On top of that, we have 20-year olds establishing companies that reach billions in value.

And to add sauce to the goose, digital media has slammed decades of music and television together, such that today, Michael Jackson's songs of 30 years ago top the Billboard charts in the wake of his death.

Slowly, technology is making age passe, but even with that I must observe that Michael Bey's a bit behind the times. Perhaps he should pay less attention to age and to insulting his stars and more to the substance of his movies.

Bridge Of The New USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Michael Jackson Fans gather at Staples Center for their last goodbyes

Fight in SF Fillmore: bouncer doing his job with patron

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



Saturday July 4th was a great day to be out-and-about in the San Francisco Bay Area. A tradition shared by my friends and I - and thousands of others - is to attend the Fillmore Jazz Festival, which is a good 10 blocks of music, food, and fun. One of the favorite stops along the stretch is Harry's Bar, which serves up a great combination of beautiful people dancing and socializing to funk and rock music. After hanging with friends inside, a group of us ventured outside as it was just too hot. I came back later, but after perhaps a few minutes inside, determined that the outdoor weather was better.

I go to Harry's each year with the same group of friends - except we didn't see Monte Poole this year - so I'm used to the vibe during the festival. I give the staff a lot of credit for keeping the crowd at a manageable level; not that it was ever out of control in the past, or this year for that matter. But in past years one could not even pass through the place with ease; not so on Saturday. The relative calm of the party made the incident I'm about to explain all the more, well, weird.

There was a patron that was giving the Bouncer and the patrons inside a real hard time as the video will show; a guy with a "3" on his back. At first I ignored him and talked to my fellow Oakland friend on the curb, but given the way he was behaving - at first taunting the bouncer to fight, but then more and more relentlessly so - I could not do so. I activated my camera and just stood on the curb holding it up.

The Bouncer had told the patron to leave as he had too much to drink, was beligerent, and had been given a number of warnings. For a beat, it actually looked like "Number 3" (as I will call him) was going to just walk away. But something happened - for some reason it was really important for him to get back in the bar - and he started to ask the bouncer "Are you black or white" (the bouncer's black as is the patron), and he repeated the question again and again. The bouncer said "As long as you stay back away from the door you can say anything." For many of the onlookers, the patron was a source of comic relief; a woman walked up and started dancing sexily behind "Number 3". We kept saying "Turn around. It's more fun behind you." But he didn't. Number 3 was locked in on the person he believed to be his tormentor: the Bouncer.

There were several voices asking for someone to call the police, and another voice said "they've been called." (Don't know if there were any Twitter tweets at the time.) Still the police never came. The bouncer asked for the police to be called. Nothing. Not even security. At that point, "Number 3" decided to violate the space the bouncer told him to avoid and pointed his finger right in the bouncer's face. To me, it seemed like he was about to hit the bouncer. So the Bouncer took a look at his partner, and then kind of grabbed him and put him into a hold, and as soon as he had him on the ground said "I'm going to hold him until the police arrive."

The sudden, wild mix of emotions was dizzying: one man upset with the bouncer and another upset with the man who was upset with the bouncer, and a woman sitting on a stoop calmly looking at the weirdly intertwined pair only to ask "Are you going to kill him?" "No" the Bouncer said, "I'm trying to hold him until the police get here."

Festival security did arrive after a few minutes and they helped the Bouncer escort Number 3 away from the venue, and to the appalause of the onlookers.

On my YouTube page, the comments seems to run mostly to the defense of the bouncer. Someone took issue with the use of the hold - what someone called a sleeper hold - but the Bouncer seemed to take great pains to make sure Number 3 could breath. He was trying to hold him.

Personally, given Number 3's behavior, I'm not sure the Bouncer had too many choices; that guy was going to do something. If the Bouncer let him back in Harry's it's almost certain he would have got into a fight with someone there. Me? I'm not one for violence at all but I understand the actions the Bouncer took; I think festival security should have been there much faster to clear Number 3 away. Given that they were on call for that event, and the day was coming to a close, the Bouncer really should have had some help from festival security.


The new pattern of violence in Sf's bar districts

I and others have noticed a violent male patronage out and about in areas of San Francisco one would not expect to see them: the Marina District and Pacific Heights, where Harry's Bar is located are two examples. Just over a week ago a man fired a gun on San Francisco police at a Marina hotel, and over at one establishment on the corner of Fillmore and Greenwich known for its dance floor, some have complained that certain men are just there to start fights and its only a matter of time before someone pulls a gun. It seems the problems of nightclub violence that have plagued the Mission, Tenderloin, North Beach, and The South of Market, are now almost everywhere in San Francisco.

Why?

That's a good question I can't answer here. But I will return to do so in the near future.

Sarah Palin's former Alaska - Hot for Words

Sarah Palin resigns: thin skin did her in.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

As of July 26th, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will resign her post as Alaska's governor. I deliberately used the term "governor" twice, because even though I disagree with her politics, I always respected her as a governor of a state in America. Moreover, I root for women in politics, period. But I always believed Governor Palin - as I will continue to call her, much as some still refer to California Attorney General Jerry Brown as "Governor Brown" even though he's not been that since the 80s - had too thin a skin to deal with the new level of stardom she achieved after her time running to be vice president of the United States. A lot of this has to do with the life she crafted for herself in Alaska, which totally drove her and the GOP nuts when the media started asking her about her past.

Indeed, with the spotlight on Palin came a set of issues so great in number, I predicted she would be forced to resign in the middle of her run with John McCain and said so in this video:



Here's the list:

1) TrooperGate, where Gov Palin is accused of using her position to fire a state trouper, who's still on the job as of this writing.

2) The news that Palin was part of a group that wanted Alaska to leave the Union.

3) Palin was fundraising director for Senator Ted Stevens' 527 committee.

4) Palin was almost recalled as Mayor of Wasalia, Alaska.

5) She says the Iraq War, costing over 80,000 iraqi lives and several thousand American lives is a war for oil -- she's right, but Republican, so she should not say that.

6) She took earmarks totalling over $197 million, while saying she did not.

Then there was her family. The role her husband Todd Palin had in acting almost as a "shadow governor". Her daughter Bristol Palin, who's on-then-off relationship with Levis Johnston became a media circus itself (and now Johnston's writing a "tell-all" book about the Palins.)

Then there was Sarah the character: the wink, the nasal accent, the dress skirts, the pumps, the boots, and especially the "you 'betcha". Add to that Palin's constant stream of factual errors on federal government operation as she's trying to convince voters she's ready to run the country, and you have what we saw: a media train wreck in slow motion. The process evolved into one where Palin was constantly in front of a camera talking not about Alaska, but putting out some kind of media fire about her family or herself; there was the Bristol / Levy issue, the Bristol / Letterman joke, and the snipping about the McCain campaign staffers. Nothing about Alaska and all that from its governor.

Not good. And it's worse now: she's on Twitter! Yep. Palin's taken to the Twittersphere to attack her critics. Take this latest tweet:

Attached is my "thank you" sent yesterday to express gratitude, & smack down lies at same time http://tinyurl.com/q28wl5
about 2 hours ago from web

Indeed, Governor Palin's used Twitter to deny whatever guess has surfaced about her reason for resigning, particularly those surrounding the charges that Palin steered contracts to build the Wasilla Sports Complex to the company that built her home. (In this, the FBI stepped in and said there was no investigation of the issue.) Take a look at this list of tweets:

Trying to keep up w/getting truth to u, like proof there's no "FBI scandal", here's link http://tinyurl.com/nzlae8 Thanks, AK!
about 2 hours ago from web
so I'll make attempt to keep up w/attaching corrected info. I head 2 West AK villages today, look forward to their busy comm fish activity!
about 5 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again....
about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry
To see full text of the letter from my attorney on baseless allegations of past 24hrs check http://tinyurl.com/mmhv4u
about 15 hours ago from web
See letter from my attorney on baseless allegations of past 24hrs @ http://tinyurl.com/l4ct5n
about 17 hours ago from web

Oh, here's the letter:

Happy 4th of July from Alaska!

On this Independence Day, I am so very proud of all those who have chosen to serve our great nation and I honor their selflessness and the sacrifices of their families, too.

If I may, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the last 24 hours and share my thoughts with you.

First, I want to thank you for your support and hard work on the values we share. Those values led me to the decision my family and I made. Yesterday, my family and I announced a decision that is in Alaska’s best interest and it always feels good to do what is right. We have accomplished more during this one term than most governors do in two – and I am proud of the great team that helped to build these wonderful successes. Energy independence and national security, fiscal restraint, smaller government, and local control have been my priorities and will remain my priorities.

For months now, I have consulted with friends and family, and with the Lieutenant Governor, about what is best for our wonderful state. I even made a few administrative changes over that course in time in preparation for yesterday. We have accomplished so much and there’s much more to do, but my family and I determined after prayerful consideration that sacrificing my title helps Alaska most. And once I decided not to run for re-election, my decision was that much easier – I’ve never been one to waste time or resources. Those who know me know this is the right decision and obvious decision at that, including Senator John McCain. I thank him for his kind, insightful comments.

The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the “politics of personal destruction”. How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make. But every American understands what it takes to make a decision because it’s right for all, including your family.

I shared with you yesterday my heartfelt and candid reasons for this change; I’ve never thought I needed a title before one’s name to forge progress in America. I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint. I hope you will join me. Now is the time to rebuild and help our nation achieve greatness!

God bless you! And I look forward to making a difference – with you! Sarah

If you think about it, Palin declared her independence from the State of Alaska. But a run for President would be completely stupid. I can see and hear the comments now: "Palin quit on Alaska; she'll quit on America." No. I really think, just looking at her tweets, that something "snapped" perhaps after the detailed and far-less-than-flattering Vanity Fair article by Todd S. Purdum. Palin just signed a book deal herself, one that makes her a millionaire, so she doesn't have to deal with politics anymore. She's made it.

When I worked for Elihu Harris, when he was Oakland's mayor, I talked to him about why so many blacks went into politics rather than the private sector in post-war American history. "We could gain power that way," he told me. Of course, there was the major problem of private sector racism, but Harris explained that politics was the best way to "get in the game" of power. It's also true for women, even today.

In Palin's case, politics was her key to wealth, but now that her celebrity has essentially "paid" her, I'm sure she started to see being governor a kind of burden she had to carry; she let it go, and I think forever.

What will she do next? For some reason I think Rush Limbaugh's success presents a window to a possible future for Palin. But if she even thinks of running for office again, she's going to jump right back into the purgatory she's getting out of. I can't see her doing that at all; I just can't see it.

“Q” for Quintessential – Remembering Steve McNair

“Q” for Quintessential – Remembering Steve McNair

By Michael – Louis Ingram

BASN/FRO



PHILADELPHIA (BASN): News out of Nashville, Tennessee report that on or about 1:30 P.M. on July 4, 2009, former National Football League MVP and three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Steve McNair was shot several times and killed in a downtown condominium.

A female, who as of this writing has yet to be identified, was also shot and killed.

McNair, born in Mount Olive, Mississippi, set passing records at Alcorn State and won the Walter Payton Award for best 1-AA college player in 1994; McNair would become the first round draft choice of the Houston Oilers the following year.

After a year on the Oilers’ sidelines, McNair became a starter, and the team’s most valuable player as the Oilers left Houston to become the Tennessee Titans.

McNair would go on to play for 13 seasons, appearing in Super Bowl XXXIV against the St. Louis Rams, where he rallied the Titans on their fateful game-tying drive, falling a yard short after a completed slant pattern to WR Kevin Dyson at the Rams’ six-inch line.

Traded to the Baltimore Ravens in 2006, McNair would appear sparingly due to injuries, and retired in 2008.

Now that’s the factual stuff. Forgive me if I stray slightly off target, but this is where my senses and sensibilities have hit the saturation point:

It’s bad enough when someone dies; and it is always a “someone” – someone’s father, someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone’s lover, someone’s partner.



What makes it worse is that only in death does anyone become a “someone” regardless of what they were before.

Only in death do we all become human.

But the actions in how the story gets out hits at the heart of what we here at BASN endeavor to do in getting the story right.

One particular site (which was so disgusting I will not dignify by giving credit) was so irresponsible in their presentation of the information; first by saying McNair was the victim of a murder-suicide along with his wife approximately three hours after the story hit.

They eventually retracted the information in an update – but left the original info in plain sight – even after requests to take it down!

This is indicative of the downward spiral the mainstream media has helped enable – by lowering the standards; and implying that anyone who can operate a computer automatically qualifies as a journalist.

While there will be more coming out regarding the death of Steve McNair, BASN plans to celebrate McNair’s life with a special edition of Tony McClean’s “The Weekend Sports Rap’ today(Sunday 7-5-09) at noon EST. Featured as guests are BASN’s Lloyd Vance, L.A. Batchelor and myself; along with Dr. Bill Chachkes and Ralph Garcia from the sites Football Reporters Online & the Gridiron Draft Guide.

The broadcast can heard on www.blogtalkradio.com/Tony-McClean



michaelingram@blackathlete.com
mike@footballreportersonline.com
mingram@suavvmagazine.com

Steve McNair found shot dead

News Flash: Steve McNair shot dead.

Special Radio show tomorrow at 12 Noon Eastern on Blog talk radio's weekend Sports Rap with Black Athlete's Tony McClean

Listen to Tony Mcclean on Blog Talk Radio

Michael Jackson | Jackson's kids should decide their fate

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

The latest issue in the ongoing story of Michael Jackson's death is who should get Jackson's kids that he had with his third wife Debbie Rowe. Apparently, Debbie Rowe wants custody of the children, son Michael "Prince" Jackson and daughter Paris-Michael Jackson. Reportedly, Jackson's will states that he wants his mother Katheryn Jackson to take care of Prince and Paris, while Rowe wants them to live with her.

There are many reasons why Jackson's children should go to either person, but what I object to is the fact that what the kids want and where they want to go is not the first consideration of the judge. I write and say that because those kids are taking an emotional beating: they've lost their father and now don't know where their home will be or who they will be living with. That's enough to make any decent person cry for them. There's no reason at all the judge can't let their desires be consideration number one, and the only one.

The children undoubtedly feel like their lives are entirely out of their control, give them final say over their own destiny. It's the only fair thing to do.


A side note on how to look for tv



I was taking a sideways gander at Chris Matthews' show "Hardball" on MSNBC when Chuck Todd, who filled in for Matthews had on as guests Gloria Alred and an African American gentleman who's name I didn't catch appearing on a segment about Jackson. The dude's name's not important; how he looked is: terrible. He had on a slightly wrinkled shirt without a tie, open at the neck, a big 'fro that really needed trimming, and a weird blue colored something-like-a-cheap-blazer. It was as if they just pulled the brother off the street to come on the show. Then Todd asked him the standard issue "questions one would ask a black entertainment reporter" like "Can you comment on the cultural significance of three news networks playing the same video at the same time?"

What!?

I couldn't believe the question and "Frumpy 'Fro Brother" couldn't either, trying to duck it for a time before giving in. I'm sorry, but this isn't yet "postracial" America, so why dress to a "You know, I'm just a poor, hard working brother" stereotype? Come on!

Next time, wear a decent suit and tie; it's national television, your image, and mine too.

Irina Slutsky and Tracy Swedlow: vlogging pioneers

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler

I had the pleasure of hanging out with two of my favorite "vloggers" Irina Slutsky and Tracy Swedlow, of Geek Entertainment Television and Interactive TV Today. The idea was really just to meet at a cool cafe called "Mission Pie" on 25th and Mission in San Francisco and share ideas as friends - we all know each other already; this wasn't our first time talking but it was my first time getting together with both of them at once. We talked about events, vloggers, t-shrts, boobs, and the Karate Kid.

I've long admired what both Irina and Tracy have done. I met Irina in 2006 at an event in San Francisco she helped produce called "Vloggercon" which was my first introduction to the community of video-bloggers.



But what is "video-blogging"?

Video blogging is the act and art of talking into a camcorder or video recording device to tell a story or share information, then taking that video and editing first and / or directly uploading it into a service like YouTube. Some take the resulting video on the service and embed it into a blog, but that doesn't mean one has to do that for the video-blog to be just that. It's just using video recording systems to talk out and show your ideas and observations rather than writing them down. It's that simple.

Video blogging really grew with the emergence of YouTube and Blip.tv before it. For a time, Blip.tv was the service of choice because its quality was far better than YouTube's and that perception remained active until 2008, when a newly-owned-by-Google YouTube started to upgrade its systems. Now, YouTube is the dominant video distribution system. With that, Irina has almost religiously stuck to Blip.tv (though that's about to change).

Irina's one of the pioneer vloggers - remember, YouTube was established in 2005 and Blip.tv in 2006 so vlogging is still new - along with Amanda Congdon and Andrew Baron who teamed up to created Rocketboom and reached stardom in 2006 only to have a breakup so nasty it became an Internet event, causing Rocketboom to zoom from 125,000 views per day to over a million a day. That fight for control between Amanda and Andrew forced companies like ABC to pay attention to vloggers. Meanwhile, in the same year, Irina was "acquired" by a new firm called PodTech, which made video content and drew corporate sponsors to pay to have their image associated with it. PodTech was the first company established to a degree around the content of vloggers.

Unfortunately, PodTech and Irina came to a parting of the ways I will not go into here, but Irina carried on with her work at Geek Entertainment Television. Meanwhile, Swedlow was doing more than just vlogging, she was paying attention to "Interactive Television", which is where the viewer "interacts" with what they're seeing. The best example being voting on television. Anytime you text a message to a number after watching, say, American Idol, you're "interacting" with the television.

Tracy started Interactive TV Today with her husband Richard Washborne in 1998, and rapidly gained a reputation for producing a cool, cutting edge event called "The TV of Tommorrow Show" held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and where she brings together products and personalities for a lively discussion on how televisions future is being shaped today. (You can also hear her show on Blog Talk Radio)

More gatherings soon

Irina, Tracy, and I got together to talk and plan, but I can't say what we're going to do as of this writing. It's not that we don't know; we do - I just can't share it yet. We're still trying to figure out how to include "constantly hugged goats!" (See the video.)

Stay tuned!

Judge Richard Posner's misguided view of the Internet and newspapers

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

Judge Richard Posner teamed with University of Chicago economist Gary Becker to create The Becker-Posner Blog where the two Yoda-like oracles weigh in on the economic issues of the day. Now, the two new bloggers are no slouches: Gary Becker's contribution to economic thought is something I learned at Berkeley: "Human Capital Theory" or the idea that our age, education, and other factors combine to determine our economic income over time. Judge Posner's a famous legal figure, and currently a lecturer at the University of Chicago and on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Both of them are conservative thinkers, so having an intellectual curiosity about those some of us call "Neoconservatives", I was drawn to read what they're distributing. This subject on "the future of newspapers."

Note: I'm Neoliberal.

Posner's right about the future of news -- sort of

First, The Judge gives a good explanation of what's happening with newspaper revenues, but his discussion of the system behind this decline assumes the importance of newspapers. This is the problem with what I call "thinking within your own age group" because while Posner has a blog and is using it, he fails to mention "blogs" at all in his post and blogging is considered by some to be a "young person's game." Using the term "websites" is incomplete because websites don't allow for the installation and updating of information as fast as blogs do. Blogs are much of the reason newspapers are getting hammered by losses in ad revenues as the money has moved to online information sources. Technorati.com's recent blog study estimated that blogs have a mean annual revenue of $6,000, with $75,000 for those with over 100,000 unique visitors per month. Given that bloggers make money via variations in ad revenue payments, that's money which went to newspapers before the emergence of blogs.

Thus, even with newspapers concentrating online efforts on their own websites, competing with blogs is still a problem: for example, 4 of the top 10 entertainment websites are blogs, including TMZ.com, which turns around news and updates its blog much faster than its old media-on-the-web competitors. Judge Posner does not discuss blogs like TMZ, and seems to imply that all original content comes from traditional news outlets, but the success and operation of TMZ, and ProFootballTalk.com, which I see as the TMZ of the NFL, proves that blogs create their own news from their own sources separate from, say, the New York Times, which Posner uses as an example what to do to save newspapers.

This is where Posner makes a total error in thinking when he writes:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion. (my emphasis)

In this Judge Posner thinks only Reuters and the Associated Press are "the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion." That's what he wrote. Let's think about that. To be "professional is to get paid for doing a job" as a professional blogger does and as the blogger's not associated with the government, they are nongovernmental.

I think you see where I'm going with this: enter TMZ.com, which is a "professional, nongovernmental source of news and opinion" that has been first with many news stories. Posner might say, "Well, TMZ can also protect its news via copywrite" - true, but given the expansion of blogs and videos and the rise of citizen journalism, the number of outlets producing original stories is expanding dramatically, which increases the chance that TMZ's efforts to protect its news from being linked to would become useless if consumers can go elsewhere for similar news. If there's another blogger making a call to the same news source even to confirm what that person read on TMZ.com, then the game's over, and that happens all the time. And with this process, the demand for that item of information from that single source is reduced.

Judge Posner needs to code a website

The other problem with Judge Posner's idea is it goes against the process of attracting the "in-bound links" a website or blog needs to maintain a high "page rank" and be placed higher in a search for "Michael Jackson's will". No one will link to the NY Times if they fear a lawsuit coming their way; better to go elsewhere to get the information and let the Times suffer from the lack of link traffic. If Judge Posner understood how to write the code for a website from scratch, he'd have been sensitive to the basic practices of "search engine optimization," and jettisoned his own idea.

Hugh Jackman, James Franco, 134 others new Academy members

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

Ok. Actor Hugh Jackman, before he ran around in the buff in Wolverine, was the host of this year's Academy Awards ceremonies. But would you believe he wasn't even a member of the Academy? Well, that changed today. Jackman, actor James Franco from the Spiderman movie series, and 134 others were announced as new members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a  press release emailed to me today.

According to the Academy, the limit of new memberships extended is 166, but as has been the case in past years, the membership committees extended fewer invitations to become members than the limit. What's interesting to me is that one has to be invited to become a member - I assumed that came with being in the Screen Actors Guild or other movie union organizations.

It explains to a degree why the Academy seems so conservative in its movie award choices: it has a membership that is older than that for the Guild because, according to Academy President Sid Ganis “These filmmakers have, over the course of their careers, captured the imagination of audiences around the world", which generally means they've been around for a while. There are exceptions, however, the best one being Dakota Fanning, who was invited in 2006 when she was just 12 years old. But look at the body of Fanning's work: movies like Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, Charlotte's Web, and Push, to name a few. By contrast, well-known names like Jackman, Franco, Casey Affleck, and Anne Hathaway were just invited to become members this year.

The full list of new members, sent to me by the Academy, is below. It includes not just actors, but animators, art directors, cinematographers, costume designers , directors, documentary producers, executives, film editors, live action short film makers, makeup artists and hairstylists, producers, production designers, public relations specialists, set decorators, sound experts, visual effects masters, scenic artists and writers.

Interesting how writers were the last to be listed. Oh well.

There are notables names in that area, too. One that sticks out is Paula Wagner, who teamed with Tom Cruise to make the Mission Impossible series. And another is under "Director" is Tyler Perry. But what's interesting is how we can see the "Hollywood pecking order": if you're in this membership group, your an elite person in the business. Here's the list of new Academy members for 2009:

Actors
Casey Affleck
Emily Blunt
Michael Cera
Viola Davis
James Franco
Brendan Gleeson
Anne Hathaway
Taraji P. Henson
Emile Hirsch
Hugh Jackman
Melissa Leo
Jane Lynch
Eddie Marsan
James McAvoy
Seth Rogen
Paul Rudd
Amy Ryan
Michael Shannon
Michelle Williams
Jeffrey Wright

Animators
J.J. Blumenkranz
Konstantin Bronzit
Kendal Cronkhite
Rodolphe Guenoden
Byron Howard
Kunio Kato
Doug Sweetland
Chris Williams

Art Directors
Andrew Ackland-Snow

At-Large
Matthew D. Loeb
Redmond Morris

Casting Directors
John Papsidera
Bernie Telsey

Cinematographers
Russ T. Alsobrook
Anthony Dod Mantle
Henner Hofmann
Claudio Miranda
Rodney Taylor
Mandy Walker

Costume Designers
Deborah Hopper
Louise Mingenbach
Michael O’Connor
Michael Wilkinson

Directors
Rachid Bouchareb
Danny Boyle
David Frankel
Rod Lurie
Thomas McCarthy
Tyler Perry
Henry Selick

Documentary
William Gazecki
Rachel Grady
Rory Kennedy
Scott Hamilton Kennedy
James Marsh
Megan Mylan
Doug Pray

Executives
Daniel D.A. Battsek
Steve Beeks
Graham W. Burke
Joe Drake
Erik Feig
Paul Hanneman
Donald P. Harris
Claudia Lewis

Film Editors
Roger Barton
Hank Corwin
Chris Dickens
Elliot Graham
Kathryn Himoff
Leo Trombetta
Brent White
Pam Wise

Live Action Short Films
Reto Caffi
Jochen Alexander Freydank
F. Carter Pilcher

Makeup and Hairstylists
Howard Berger
Mike Elizalde
Louis Lazzara
Gerald Quist

Music
Jeff Danna
Andrew Dorfman
Peter Gabriel
Clint Mansell
A.R. Rahman

Producers
Mark Ciardi
Christian Colson
Gordon Gray
Broderick Johnson
Cathy Konrad
Andrew Kosove
James Lassiter
Russell Smith
Paula Wagner

Production Designers
Donald Graham Burt
Michael Carlin
Jane Ann Stewart
Kevin Thompson

Public Relations
Michael D. Camp
Marc Cohen
Megan Colligan
James C. Gallagher
David Kaminow
Sal Ladestro
Maria Pekurovskaya
Elizabeth Petit

Set Decorators
Rebecca Alleway
Peter Lando
Barbara Munch-Cameron

Scenic Artists
Robert Topol

Sound
Michael Barry
Derek Casari
Aaron Glascock
Ren Klyce
Peter F. Kurland
Karen Baker Landers
Hamilton Sterling
Deborah Wallach
Kim Waugh

Visual Effects
Christopher Bond
Matthew Butler
Chris Corbould
Rob Engle
Scott Gordon
Hal Hickel
Van Ling
Shane Mahan
Steve Preeg
Tim Webber
Edson Williams

Writers
John August
Dustin Lance Black
Courtney Hunt
Howard A. Rodman

Loading...

Obama Interrupted by Duck Ringtone

Obama handled this so well!

Hayward, CA to get new power plant with greenhouse gas controls

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

With BART's deadline to reach a new union contract or face a worker strike extended to July 9th but still coming up on us fast, I took to the streets to learn what the public thinks about this possible event.

What I found was that many claimed they didn't even know of the possibility, but of those who did they all believed it would "severely cripple" transportation service in the Bay Area. I didn't tell those I talked to that the average BART union worker's salary was $115,000, or that the public ridership took in an average of $55,000, as that would be leading the witness. I wanted to learn what was on their minds and you can see that in the video.

But people not being informed about this? That's crazy. But I encountered a frightening number of people who were not informed. It's not that they don't care, but I think they see themselves as powerless to do anything one way or the other, and so stay out of the debate. Many didn't know that BART workers wanted a three percent raise or that BART police couldn't strike for that matter.

This sets the stage for a massive public outrage when a group of people (us) that has been asleep at the wheel finds it can't catch it's BART Train in the morning. Then there will be hell to pay.

George Clooney and Rick Astley are not dead; please stop it.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

Ok we've had a lot of deaths over the past week, from Ed McMahon to Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, and on Monday, the comedian Fred Travelina. All of these great people taken from us in so short a period of time is heartbreaking. But what's all the more upsetting are the fake reports of the deaths of Jeff Goldblum and Natalie Portman last week and George Clooney and Rick Astley this week.

Who's Rick Astley? He's a crooner who's song "Never Gonna Give You Up" sparked a kind of online link trick called "Rick Rolled" where you would click on a link thinking you were going to see, say, the Economist magazine, and instead you got the YouTube video of Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up". But the news reports are fake, someone on the CNN iReport used their platform to create a false AP news story that Astley was dead. That was sad and really not nice at all.

What's going on here with these fake reports?

Some idiots out there think these acts, which have ran Twitter crazy, are funny. They're not. Suppose someone did that to your Mom and dad; put their names out there and have them subject to a negative hashtag reporting their deaths? Let's say your cell phone battery went out and you could not confirm the caller? You'd be pretty upset yourself.

So if that upsets you, imagine how the other people feel.

BART's possible strike - a view from the street

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

With BART's deadline to reach a new union contract or face a worker strike extended to July 9th but still coming up on us fast, I took to the streets to learn what the public thinks about this possible event.

What I found was that many claimed they didn't even know of the possibility, but of those who did they all believed it would "severely cripple" transportation service in the Bay Area. I didn't tell those I talked to that the average BART union worker's salary was $115,000, or that the public ridership took in an average of $55,000, as that would be leading the witness. I wanted to learn what was on their minds and you can see that in the video.

But people not being informed about this? That's crazy. But I encountered a frightening number of people who were not informed. It's not that they don't care, but I think they see themselves as powerless to do anything one way or the other, and so stay out of the debate. Many didn't know that BART workers wanted a three percent raise or that BART police couldn't strike for that matter.

This sets the stage for a massive public outrage when a group of people (us) that has been asleep at the wheel finds it can't catch it's BART Train in the morning. Then there will be hell to pay.

BART Strike & Oscar Grant: strike hampered by police racism

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



YouTube, Blip.tv and Sclipo

For weeks now, BART management and labor have been arguing over who should give up what on the eve of the expiration of contracts with the five unions that represent BART workers. But there's a problem: the matter of the murder of Oscar Grant and the revelation that another BART officer used a racial slur, and this was captured in a new video, raise questions regarding labor's moral standing to strike.

While BART's police can't strike, as one officer told me, the unions essentially represent the labor issues for the police. Thus, the use of the racial slur by a BART officer with BART Officer Johannes Mehserle, coupled with the murder by Mehserle, opens the accusation that it was a hate crime. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it was officer Tony Pirone who yelled "Bitch-ass N__, right?" As he was hitting Grant while Grant was on the ground.

While Pirone claims he was responding to something Grant said, there's no record or video backing his claim. What I think happened was Pirone may have overheard someone else say this but as Pirone is white, it's not likely someone would use that terms against him, especially since he's a police officer. But Pirone leaves himself open to another interpretation: that he was saying to Grant he's a "Bitch-ass N__, and then used the term "right?" as a way of affirming his own comment about Grant.

If so, and I think it is, that's a clear hate crime. Period. End of discussion.

I don't think BART workers want to be associated with this kind of behavior, but that's a looming possibility. BART workers are already seen to be richer than their riders, many who are like Oscar Grant, poor. So here we are with BART workers unwilling to take payroll cuts to maintain service, asking for a three-percent raise when everyone in the public sector's trying to save their jobs, and now we have two BART police officers expressing the ultimate dislike for a passenger due to his skin color. It also opens this question: to what degree do BART police conduct racial profiling?

A good friend of mine in law enforcement told me that many of the people recruited to become officers are white, suburban in their upbringing, not experienced in working with or befriending people of color. That must change.

The Strike Threat and The Race Problem

It's already clear many riders I talked to are concerned about the possible loss of service, but just wait until they get wind of these racial problems!

If BART's unions are going to achieve any degree of credibility in this matter, they've got to have the police address their problems with racism and issue an apology to the black community. The unions have no right to threaten a strike that disproportionally harms the poor and minority after one of their own working partners, represented by two BART police workers, apparently expressed dislike for and then shot a man who was poor and African American, because was poor and African American.

BARTLabor.com

If you want to keep up with the BART labor issue as it unfolds, I recommend you visit BARTLabor.com, a good and comprehensive website explaining just what's going on with the BART Strike and providing news updates.

San Francisco Happy Hour: Aventine is raging! (video)

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

The evening of Friday June 26th started in a rather routine way for me: meeting friends after work at the outdoor patio setting that the restaurant Cafe Americano provides on the corner of Howard Street and The Embarcadero in San Francisco (now, yes, I live in Oakland but as any dweller knows, Oakland, San Francisco and all cities as far north as San Rafael and as far south as South San Francisco make up what I call "The Inner Bay Area": a place of with a population of 2 million people, one college town, Berkeley, and two downtowns in Oakland and San Francisco, both served by BART.  It's common to see the same people anywhere within the Inner Bay Area, from a Cal football game to Friday nights in San Francisco, or a concert at Oakland's Fox Theater.)

Paul, one of my associates who's always on the hunt for the ultimate party. knew of one and said "Let's head over to Aventine. It's going to be raging tonight." (For you older types, "raging" is a term used to decribe a well-attended event with a lot of dancing and socializing.) So he rounded up the group of us gents and we grabbed a cab over to 529 Washington Street, next to the TransAmerica Pyramid.

I'd never officially visited Aventine, so this was a treat. When we arrived I asked one of the owners Adam Snyder, if I could use my video camera to record the festivities there and he not only gave permission he opened the video with an introduction.

Nice.

Aventine itself is a restaurant and bar I've not yet eaten at that shares series of blocks occupied by a number of good eateries and nightclubs which make up Jackson Square where San Francisco's Financial District ends and North Beach begins. With places like Bix, Kell's, and The Bubble Lounge near by, it's important to have an "angle" - something that draws people.

A Happy Hour in an alley

 

Aventine's revelers on Friday evening

The owners of Aventine took over an alley that connects Washington and Jackson streets, closed it off to traffic with the help of the San Francisco Police department, installed a set of turn tables operated by a disk jockey, added two bars and a pizza vendor, and encouraged non-profit neighborhood groups to set up places where party-goers could sign up to donate to their organizations. The result is a cross between a convention for do-gooders and a nightclub in the day, a street fair; and around 7 PM on a hot summer day like Friday was, the combination's electric, drawing a 1,000 people according to Snyder.

Michael Jackson, the amazing force of music talent, tragically passed the day before, so the record-spinner played a number of Jackson's best known hits: Billy Jean, Thriller, Pretty Young Thing, etc. At first, one or two people danced, most notably "D" who holds court with her rhythmically frenetic dancing, but eventually two turned to twenty, and twenty turned to 40, then 40 turned to 80. Now, I've attended a lot of street fairs, parties, and other events in San Francisco, and this one is one of the best I've seen. It's a perfect after work place to go to have good clean dancing fun.

Now some people don't like to dance, but my observation is once they have a few cocktails they start movin' and grovin' like there's no tomorrow, and badly. That was certainly the case for some at Aventine, but others like me just like to dance and need little excuse (or drink) to do so, especially since I just recovered from the worst flu of my life.  I was celebrating!

And for those who just like to socialize and not move their hips, there's the occasional only-in-San Francisco character to talk to. In Aventine's case, that person is the colorful "Emperor Norton" a uniformed chap who claims to own Mexico and California. Give him your attention and he'll write a bond for you he claims you can trade for money!

Aventine's Friday Happy Hour's a cool place for singles; the guy / gal ratio gets better - that is, even - as the night approaches, everyone's nice, and the folks are attractive (and the women who comes to Aventine look like models). But that written, it's San Francisco, so the event draws both Gay and straight and no one cares. We can thank the the energy of the event for that; there's just something, well, joyful about seeing people have fun. It's the best attraction element in the world.

Billy Mays Dies: Reported On Twitter By His Son (video)

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler

I got the word that amazing informercial pitchman Billy Mays (who was recently most famous for his ESPN commercials) died in a very different, but increasingly common way: Twitter.

I had just talked with my Mom, checked emails, and looked at my Twitter feed, when one follower wrote asking if she could post informercials from Mays since we were posting Michael Jackson information; not knowing Mays passed, I wrote "no", then happened to look at the "trending hastags" which tells one what subjects are the most popular posts on Twitter, and I saw "RIP Billy Mays".

I was shocked.

Then I saw his son, Billy Mays III's tweets, which read this way:

I'm thankful I got to talk to my dad last night. I miss him immensely already. But I feel him with me.about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter

With the family. Um... Not quite sure what to say right now. All the support from you guys does help.about 3 hours ago from UberTwitter

On my way to the house. He's gone. I'm gonna be strong for him. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers everyone.about 4 hours ago from UberTwitter

@danielle97X it seems to be all too real at this point. Thank you.about 4 hours ago from txt

My dad didn't wake up this morning.. I'm sure you'll all hear about it. It hasn't yet hit me but it's about to.about 4 hours ago from UberTwitter

@bigjermmusic Good, keep pushin on songs dude.about 15 hours ago from txt

Finally signed up to Guru.com for professional purposes.about 16 hours ago from web

So I went to check the elder Mays Twitter feed since I follow him, and saw the following, which I will post here as it may give some clues to what happened to him. The Associated Press reports no official cause of death as of this writing, but that he told his wife he hit his head on the plane landing in Tampa. Whatever took place, he didn't wake up today. Here are his last tweets:

Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing. Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air.12:01 PM Jun 27th from txt

Getting ready to fly back to Tampa from Philly. Monday is the big day (HIP REPLACEMENT NO.3) Keep you posted.7:40 AM Jun 27th from txt

Just got done shootong a new product with my production company 4 Blind Mice.2:28 PM Jun 26th from txt

Just finished up a brand new oxi-clean show in Jersey. On my way to Princeton to meet with Arm and Hammer and then to Philly and then hi ...12:59 PM Jun 25th from txt

Just got done with the Tonight Show. Had a great time. The episode airs tonight7:21 PM Jun 23rd from txt

Just got to Conan's studio. About to go to the pre-pro meeting.3:47 PM Jun 23rd from txt

This is shocking. On the heels of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson, all within the last six days. RIP Billy Mays. You're one of a kind and will be missed.

Somehow U.S. Senators Get Suckered into asking for Ecuador Chevron trial without "U.S. Meddling"

Considering the smelly deals going on in Ecuador, like the plaintiff paying off the court-ordered environmental economist to the tune of $200K, that four great U.S Senators - Democratic Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Patrick Leahy of Vermont - could be suckered into calling for a "clean trial" without "U.S. Meddling" is totally funny. What about Ecuador meddling? I guess that's ok. With this kind of crap, the real problems in Ecuador of government and legal corruption will never be solved.

Cancelled Wow Account Meltdown

Only on YouTube....wow

Michael Jackson's doctor talks to LAPD; not on the run.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

Contrary to reports, the LA Police have said Michael Jackson's cardiologist, Dr. Conrad Murray, was not missing and did talk to them Thursday afternoon, according to the blog Radar Online.

Officer Karen Rayner said to the blog that Murray has a brief conversation with them but she could not reveal the details of that conversation.

Earlier it was report that police were impounding his car and that he was missing, but the LAPD said he was not a person accused of a crime.

The police will talk with him again soon.

The public share its views:

Mark Sanford asked his wife for permission to see his lover!

Did you read that headline? I'm not making it up; Governor Mark Sanford, who cheated on his wife with a woman named Maria, reportedly asked Jenny Sanford for permission to see his lover, but when she said "no" he secretly went anyway.

That's just plain sick. I can't understand what level of gall he was carrying to do something like that; can you?

That's one for the books.

Michael Jackson passes | public opinion: "We Are The World"

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler


Michael Jackson's passing is still a shock to me. The very idea that someone I feel like I grew up with left us at the age of 50 is just not right at all. I first saw Michael perform when I was 10 years old at the old Chicago International Amphitheatre in 1972; the Campbell family, who babysat me, took me and I remember it like it was yesterday. The Jackson Five was then the must see event and Michael was the star.

Michael was like my brother. In a way for many African Americans he was just that, a sibling. I knew him as the guy who grew up in Gary, Indiana. We knew people who knew them in Chicago, so I felt close to him long ago. I think it's for that reason so many African Americans were on Michael's side during the years when it seems he was kind of flying the coup: changing his skin color from brown to near white; narrowing his nose, and basically seeming to channel his best friend the legendary singer Diana Ross. Then, of course, there were the claims that he "liked boys" which we figured wasn't the case, and was more a byproduct of the money and attention seeking people who surrounded him. Michael was a person with an arrested development: he never had a childhood so to escape the trappings of a constant adult life, he created a childhood for himself.

I think being an adult just literally killed Michael.

For me, Michael Jackson was the person who wanted to bring us all together, as shown in his "We Are The World" effort. That amazing production and song, created with a group of the World's best known music talents, with Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Steve Perry, Bob Dylan, the late Ray Charles, and a host of others and to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, was just amazing. Amazing. I loved that song then; I still do today and I cry every time I hear it. (the lyrics and video are at the end of this post).


Talking with people About Michael's passing

The death of Michael Jackson is one of those events that will cause you to remember where you were when you learned of it. In my case I'd just emerged from a private movie screening at the Saul Zaentz Film Center in West Berkeley, CA. My Mom just happened to call with the news as I was walking to my car; I was stunned. Just stunned. So I took my Flip Video Camera and set out to talk to people about what happened to Michael. I had plenty of places to do this: the BART train station, the San Francisco Magazine "Best of The Bay" party, and all points in between.

What's amazing is the sheer number of people who were immediately informed via text messages and the reactions: shock, sadness, but not joy. No. No one expressed anything close to that at all, even given the part of his life where it seemed he was overwhelmed with "kid" issues. Nothing.

Dominic Phillips, the master of event planning in San Francisco, and who produced last night's "San Francisco Magazine Best of The Bay" party said "It's horrible. First and formost, anybody dying is horrible. There are so many family members that are just gonna be torn apart. But also Michael Jackson; on the one hand he was a very maverick person. But on the other hand he was part of my generation's life. He was like part of my experience, my growing up and I feel a little robbed that he's not there anymore. Like whether you thought his experience was your experience,that doesn't really come into it for me. I just sort of bonded with him in my youth and now he's gone."

Another woman I talked to on Howard Street in San Francisco said "I was just walking and three people got text messages (that he died)...just terrible. My friend Beth Schnitzer, who's the Director of Sponsorship Marketing at Pier 39 said "I can't believe it. Every time I listen to his music, it brings back a great memory from growing up somehow, some way. You know, it really hasn't hit me. He was too young; way too young." Jerusha, "The Last Single Girl In The World" said, as only she can, "We all have to go sometime and boy did he have a fabulous life before he went. He did it up and he did it up right. You know what they say, you only live once and that's all you need if you do it right!"

I talked to a lot of people, and if you see my video there are more than what's presented here, but all just variations on what was expressed. People loved Michael, warts and all. The "Best of The Bay" event turned into a kind of tribute to Michael, with his music playing continuously through the evening, and people danced, especially to "Thriller" which is a modern classic.

Sad day it was to have this happen. Michael, the world will miss you.

We Are The World - Lyrics and video:

Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones.



There comes a time
When we head a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on
Pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God's great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart
So they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Michael Jackson's 911 call: what did the doctor do?

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

TMZ has a quicktime download of the 911 call made from Michael Jackson's home after he fell to cardiac arrest yesterday. According to TMZ, the doctor, a Dr. Conrad Murray , was the only witness. The LA police are searching for Dr. Murray, who's whereabouts are unknown.

Wild.

Here's my record of the 911 call, which you can hear at the link above as well:

Fire Paramedic33: Fire Paramedic 33, what's your emergency?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes sir, I need to, uh, uh I need an ambulance as soon as possible, sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok, Sir what's your adress?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Los Angeles, California, 90077

Fire Paramedic33: Say Carowood?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Carowood Drive, yes.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok Sir, what's the phone number you're calling from, and (unintelligible)

Michael Jackson's Caller: Uh, sir we have a gentleman here that needs help; he's not breathing. He's not breathing and we're trying to pump him..

Fire Paramedic33: OK, how old?

Michael Jackson's Caller: He's ah, 50 years old.

Fire Paramedic33: 50? Ok. He's unconcious. He's not breathing?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes. He's not breathing sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok. Where's he at right now?

Michael Jackson's Caller: He's on the bed.

Fire Paramedic33: Let's get him on the floor.

Michael Jackson's Caller: OK.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok. Let's get him on the floor. I'm going to help you with CPR ok? Just...We're on our way. We're on our way. I'm going to do as much as I can over the phone. We're on the way. Did anybody see him?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes, we have a personal doctor here with him, sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh, you have a doctor there?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes, but he (Jackson) is not responding to CPR, anything.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh. Ok. We're on our way there. If you have a doctor he's a high authority than me and he's on the scene. Uh, did anybody witness what happened?

Michael Jackson's Caller: No, just the doctor sir. The doctor is the only one here.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh, did the doctor see what happened?

Michael Jackson's Caller: (Over to doctor) Did you see what happened? Sir, if you just, if you please...

Fire Paramedic33: We're on our way. We're on our way. I'll pass these question on to our paramedics. We're on our way.

Michael Jackson's Caller: Thank you sir. He's pumping , he's pumping his chest but he's not responding to anything, sir, please.

Fire Paramedic33: OK. We're on our way; we're less than a mile away.

What did the doctor do? Well, it's believed that Jackson passed from a painkiller drug called Demerol according to the Telegraph UK. That medicine reportedly has a side effect of possible cardiac arrest if it's not taken properly. The house Jackson rented is marked as a crime scene.

My God.

(UPDATE: Fox News reports that a house dweller claims Dr. Murray never lived at Jackson's home and no one picked up the phone at Murray's Nevada office. The office is at 2110 E Flamingo Rd Las Vegas, NV 89119-5190 (702) 866-6802 according to a Google search. He's listed as a cardiologist. On the Internet website RateMd's.com , Dr. Murray has a good rating of 5.0.


I talked to people on their views of Michael Jackson's passing: