Tiger Woods PGA Player of The Year

A quick note of congratulations to Tiger Woods for being named "PGA Player of The Year" but in light of this current scandal-plagued episode of his great life, I think the PGA should have renamed the award "Golfer of The Year".

Player of The Year

Or perhaps the PGA was engaging in a cruel joke on Tiger Woods.

The term "player" has several meanings in American culture today. According to The Free Dictionary, they are:

1. One that plays, especially:
a. One who participates in a game or sport.
b. A gambler.
c. One who performs in theatrical roles.
d. One who plays a musical instrument.
2. An active participant: a major player in world affairs.
3. The mechanism actuating a player piano.
4. A machine that reproduces recorded audio or audio-visual material.
5. Slang One who actively seeks out sexual partners and carries on a number of sexual affairs at the same time.

Guess which of the definitions applies to Tiger Woods? Hint: more than one.

Regardless, Tiger Woods is The World's Greatest Golfer. Period.

NY Times picks Utah over Cal in Poinsettia Bowl - Grrr...

I just read the NY Times' take on this evenings Poinsettia Bowl matchup pitting 9-3, 23rd-ranked Utah against Cal. Most of their team of bloggers picked Utah to win because of Cal's poor performance in, as one blogger put it, some games.

He forgot the Big Game, where Cal, not given a chance against the Tiger Woods-backed Stanford Cardinal, beat the Cardinal 34-28 at Stanford Stadium and kept Stanford from a trip to The Rose Bowl.

That game plan Cal used was its best of the year. All Cal has to do is avoid falling in love with the deep pass. A varied short passing game, play action using Running Back Shane Vareen, and occasional gadget plays, combined with Vereen runs off-tackle will move the chains.

But Cal Head Coach Jeff Tedford and Offensive Coordinator Andy Ludwig must show they have the discipline to execute that kind of game plan. They got away from it against Washington and the result was a pasting by the Huskies.

I certainly hope Tedford does this.

GO BEARS!

Top Ten Reasons to Hella Love Oakland in 2009

[by Aimee Allison, Executive Producer OaklandSeen]

By now, you've likely seen the whining from a certain columnist calling 2009 one of Oakland's worst years ever. Um, no. The OaklandSeen team compiled our own list and we're happy to report that good news abounds.

Here are OaklandSeen's top ten reasons to Hella Love Oakland in 2009.

1. Schools Comin' Up: East Oakland's Urban Promise Middle School and Fruitvale's International High School were nationally recognized. The School of the Arts gets a new home at the Fox Theatre and a waiting list around the block.

2. Better Democracy: Oakland finally gets instant runoff voting – now, you'll get to rank your choices in the November election, saving the city 800k, bringing in more candidates and making incumbents play nice or be #2.

3. Good Times ahead for BART: The Bart Police Chief Gary Gee is gone. He should've been fired for his mismanagement of the department, and mishandling after the shooting of Oscar Grant. Instead, he retires silently into the night. Good riddens and we welcome to the opportunity to pick a new and better head of this troubled department. This goes double for the Oakland Police Department.

4. How We Roll: Town Park opens in West Oakland, the city's first skate park. Kiddie skaters all over Oakland are aglow. Just look at what committed community and generous donors can do; thanks to K-Dub and other amazing community organizers.

5. Finally, Oakland is a Destination with big “D”: Uptown is hot: Somar, The Ave (2022), Mimosa, New Parrish, Mua all give us something to do after dark. The new nightlife in Oakland does us proud. Incidentally, a recent visit to the Mission in SF was a stark contrast. The neighborhood was dead, ChaChaCha empty by 10pm on a Thursday. Where are they? Yeah, across the bridge.

6. Government Sometimes Works: It's mostly a secret, but the city economic development team successfully attracted green business First Solar(www.firstsolar.com).

We also got the good news that food manufacturers are making a comeback - manufacturing that's lifeblood in our city. Plus, the first crop of green jobs training graduates complete their innovative course. We gotta put our hands together for Oakland taking a national lead on the new economy. Good use of our tax dollars.

7. We Eat Good: Despite suggestions to the contrary, Oakland has eaten well many years. Now we have even more good restaurants to add to the mix: Camino, Pican, Ozumo, Commis, Adesso, Sidebar, Marzano on Park, Barlata, Burma Superstar, Cafe Trieste. For those “discovering” Oakland – welcome and enjoy the food coma.

8. Festivals are Back, Big Time: The Eat Real Festival found a new home in Oakland (relocated from windy Fort Mason, SF). It went from a pricey fete to a free festival infused with the Oakland vibe. Oakland at it's very best.

OaklandSeen is a compelling mix of radio broadcasts Friday 8am on KPFA-FM 94.1, social networks on Facebook (www.facebook.com/oaklandseen) and Twitter(www.twitter.com/oaklandseen), and a group blog rolling out in February 2010.

Tiger Woods, Brittany Murphy autopsy photo in high demand

Being Tiger Woods neighbor can make you rich. Being a physician working on the Brittany Murphy autopsy can score you a lot of money. Welcome to New Media, where a Tiger Woods and a Brittany Murphy autopsy photo is in such high demand you could earn $300,000. That's the current going rate for a photo of The World's Greatest Golfer; a rate so high it could turn close friends into enemies.

It almost sounds like a George Romero movie - Invasion of the Image Snatchers - but in this case if your Tiger Woods, the blood suckers could be your friends, taking a photo to score big bucks. Again, Tiger Woods' seclusion and silence is fueling a market for his image and allowing others to frame who he is. All for money.

Tiger Woods friends want something...

 If Tiger Woods wants this bad movie to stop, there's only one answer: he has to talk and to show himself. But that does not explain the late Brittany Murphy.

For some of the same reasons, there's a massive demand for even one Brittany Murphy autopsy photo. That image would gain about the same money as that given for Tiger Woods, but I've got to ask who want to see such a thing? I don't. Do you?

Who would show it? Why?

The New Media

I'm frequently surprised that people in media don't understand that the industry has changed from artistic to technical. The future of media is demand-driven and sometimes that window of demand is only a moment - an hour - long. Who captures it consistently is king of New Media.

But more than that, the persons that do that can be black, white, Asian, Latino, young or old. The problem of lack of minorities or women in the newsroom is a thing of the past. A person who knows how to make an online media platform, develop a coordinated content strategy, and gather a group of like-minded folks to work with wins. Job title is meaningless; technical knowledge rules above all.

But I digress, sort of.

If Tiger Woods had people around him who understood media in the way I discuss, this story would have been old news. But he doesn't and so it goes on. Want to score $300,000? Friend of Tiger? Get out your cellphone camera, and hurry before someone else does!

Brittany Murphy remembered by celebs on Twitter

The outpouring of emotion and thoughts on Brittany Murphy's death is still coming at a heavy pace on Twitter. CelebrityTweet has broken down the tweets devoted to Brittany Murphy's death and life.

 Here's a selection of tweets:

Alyssa Milano
http://twitpic.com/ujz4v @dustinpjones just sent me this pic of me & Brittany Murphy on the USO tour. RIP, sweet lady.
Updated 1 day ago via Permalink

Russell Simmons
my man @iambenlyons just wrote an amazing story about his first time meeting Brittany Murphy http://bit.ly/4ZgHyC
Updated 1 day ago via Permalink

Aisha Tyler
Woke up this am to hear about Brittany Murphy. Hung with her several times; she was a sweet, sweet girl. I hope she's found peace.
Updated 1 day ago via Permalink

Ben Lyons
I don't want 2 believe the news about Brittany Murphy. Life is too short & doesn't make sense. Watch one of her movies today & say a prayer
Updated 1 day ago via Permalink

For the rest, visit CelebrityTweet.com

Taylor Swift everywhere: TV, blogs, and People Magazine

Terrific Country Music singer Taylor Swift has had a fairy-tale year. She became the first Country Music singer to win the MTV Best Female Video awards, earned a slew of other awards including "Country Music Entertainer of The Year", hosted Saturday Night Live, and has been romantically linked to Twilight: New Moon star Taylor Lautner.

Taylor Swift is everywhere, and she's now is on the cover of People Magazine, available in airports everywhere. How do I know? Because I bought a copy at the United Airlines' Terminal at O'Hare Airport. I wanted to read their interview with America's newest pop-culture sensation.

I all, I was really disappointed with the People Magazine talk. First, I totally love Taylor Swift's voice and music. Moreover, she's a wholesome, Timbalind-dancing 20-year old breath of fresh air. But the media gives her a big pass way too much of the time.

Taylor Swift and A.J. English

The People Magazine interview was very lightweight, and didn't even touch on her Swastika-gate photo problem with A.J. English at Katie Perry's birthday party. It would be nice if Swift said something to show she really got the gravity of that symbol. But it didn't happen and People Magazine was an enabler in this behavior.

I hold out hope that she "got it". Only Taylor Swift really knows.

Still, she's got a massively bright future and I look forward to her work in 2010. I'd especially like to see her do more cross-over work with Rap and Hip-Hop artists.

Stay tuned.

Blackberry outage December 22 due to air travel delays?

The blogs and newsites like The Globe and Mail UK are reporting a nationwide Blackberry outage. While I have a Blackberry and haven't experienced a phone or text message outage, I have had an email update delay of several hours to this point in time.

This has to be related to several developments: 1) the large use of Blackberry service during this Christmas week, 2) Research In Motion's obvious capacity-handling problems, and 3) a lack of planning to deal with this problem which has reportedly happened twice in December, the last time being the 17th of the month.

NBC Los Angeles reports that RIM has explained they're aware of the outage and are working to fix it, but did not give a timetable. The front page of the Blackberry website has no message about the problem.

I personally noticed a lot of dropped calls this afternoon while I was connecting flights at a crowded Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Another possible reason for this is the number of people using their Blackberry phones while traveling in this terrible winter weather blanketing the East Coast and causing air travel delays.

Stay tuned.