Author: Richard

The family that revived The Chipmunks into a billion dollar brand

NPR has a great show called How I Built This where host Guy Raz talks to people who created successful multi-million dollar brands as they tell the story of how they did it. Most of the episodes are very good. This one about The Chipmunks characters was of particular interest to me since I always wondered what was going on with that brand as early as 8 years old when I was trying to figure out the corporate structure and mechanics of how to build my own empire of cartoon characters – back in an age with no world-wide-web with any helpful information on it, I had to fill in a lot of the gaps on my own. Some of the things I would try to figure out along these lines were:
-What’s up with the Padding Bear stop motion animation shorts? They don’t appear to be American-made. How old are the books and how old are these little stop motion movies?
-Dr Seuss cartoons – The Grinch, The Lorax, The Sneeches – these arent episodes in a series, they’re all – what? – specials that aired on tv whenever a deal could be made? So Dr Seuss would just have a successful book and then be offered to make a tv special half hour animation of it? or how did that work?
-Peanuts – “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” and “Snoopy Come Home” were staples in my childhood but these too were specials just made from the newspaper comic strip? How does that work exactly?
-The Chipmunks – I was familiar with The Chipmunks Witch Doctor song and their Christmas song (“I still want a hoola-hoop”) as a kid and I knew both were old 50s era classics by the context they were presented on tv and radio so I knew their 1980s Saturday Morning Show and related media (an animated Christmas Special that preceded the series and an animated Chipmunks Movie that was a longer version of the Saturday morning show) were revivals of a sort. But how did these characters resurrect after having no public presence for 30 years? Then when all Chipmunk media died in the early 90s – why? Where’d they go?

The Chipmunks have made 2 comebacks experienced in my lifetime. The first obvious one I just detailed and their confusing fizzle from the public until 2007’s live action Chipmunk movie and its sequels – including the much derided “Sequeakual” – which have spawned new cartoons and more movies and made the characters Billion dollar money makers. The episode’s description summarizes: 

Years after his father created a hit singing group of anthropomorphic rodents called The Chipmunks, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. made it his mission to revive his dad’s beloved characters. Over the last 40 years, Ross Jr. and his wife Janice have built The Chipmunks into a billion dollar media franchise – run out of their home in Santa Barbara, California.

Knowing that the Chipmunk revival was a son juicing up a creation of his father and working hard to build it into something was the draw of the tale for me. Kids of mine reading this in the future: please revive my stuff! Run with it. Work hard at it. Go be Bagdasarian Jr’s with my shiz.
Hearing them tell their story also makes the Saturday morning cartoon more touching. It always excited me and was one of the first themes I downloaded to my 2nd generation iPod in the early 00’s but hearing the tale of how a husband and wife were shopping the Chipmunks wherever they could and working day and night to make them what they became brings new energy to the lines of the theme song hailing their comeback. “Watch. Out…. CUZ HERE WE COME… it’s been awhile but, we’re back with style”… Go get em, Alvin.

It’s also especially rewarding to hear Dave Seville himself tell all these stories – as not only is Bagdasarian Jr the voice of Dave in those 90s cartoons, but his Dave voice is his natural speaking voice without change to the good-hearted-overworked-slightly-neurotic-but-optimistic cadence I felt in every line of David Seville on the show and now from the real-life Chipmonks manager, Ross Bagdasarian.

The podcast fills in these blanks and more and I learned the corporate treachery and screwovers the couple went through who own and have dedicated their lives to the Chipmunk characters, and that they evidently went to court over The Squeakual being such a piece of garbage (since the court case was settled with terms that they not talk about it, you don’t get any juicy details in the podcast or anywhere else online except for that it seems that there was an issue over not paying royalties or profit shares of some kind that the Bagdasarian’s were entitled to, and that the family was unhappy with the writing quality over their characters and sued for future control over how they’re treated. I think that’s what I gleaned from the vaguely worded articles I read on the subject, anyway).

Listen to the How I Built this episode with Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman through your podcast app (if you listen to podcasts at 2x the speed like I do) or play it below:

Bonus romper clip: At the end of every episode they have a postscript titled “How You Built That,” featuring a shorter version of the main show that focuses on a new or recent Startup instead of an iconic brand or long standing successful business as is the normal spotlight of the show. The postcript for the Chipmunks episode above is how Daniel Clark-Webster and his three friends came up with RompHim – a company specializing in male rompers.

How Apple’s Craig Federighi handled a potential live disaster with expert smoothness

The first Apple Presentation on the new Apple Campus unveiling the companys new products suffered a bad moment on it’s keynote item and its main feature, but contrary to the initial reports, Face ID on the device didn’t fail. More importantly (to me) – the way the initial flub was handled on stage was a moment of honor.

The big announcement at the 2017 Apple event was the iPhone X (pronounced “ten”, not the letter “X”), which is an iPhone 8 that doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner and instead has a borderless screen and a face-scanner that will let you unlock your phone by looking at it. Apple headed off concerns about this technology in the announcement itself, assuring the public that the scanner will still work with hats, sunglasses, and facial modifications (like if you grow a beard). In what appears to be a nod to the news stories about people fooling iPhone fingerprint scans with high resolution photos, Apple also assured that their face ID technology has been tested against masks and molds of your face (so a Donald Trump halloween costume won’t be able to unlock the Presidential iPhone X, in other words).

This all led up to an unfortunate moment in the presentation when it came time for the world to see the feature work in real life for the first time, and the first attempt didn’t work, forcing the presenter on stage to have to use the backup iPhone.

Right away, news stories came pouring in that “face recognition failed” in the first demo attempt – which was what appeared to happen when the announcement was made that unlocking the phone is as easy as looking at it, and instead of a magical unlocking of the device, the keypad login page was what was thrown up on the giant screen.

I felt bad for Craig Federighi, the presenter on stage who handled what no doubt must have been a terrifying situation just fine and the phone actually worked exactly as designed as it turns out. The failure was in the phones setup, not in the facial recognition feature. The reason the “Enter Passcode” screen came on when Federighi performed his look-to-unlock move was reportedly that others who are not Federighi had their face scanned by the phone during rehearsals for the presentation – thus counting those scans in the iPhones memory as attempted logins by faces other than the phones owner – and what happens to any iPhone after repeated failed attempts to unlock by body part (which up until now has been by fingerprint)? – The device forces you to log in with the keypad.

So all that sucks for Federighi and Apple because it’s a brand new feature, the first time it’s even announced, it’s big debut to the world, announced in the presentation script with the instruction of “Unlocking it is as easy as looking at it and swiping up” and then doing precisely not-that. That’s the most awkward part of showcasing technology whether it’s to your friends showing them something cool only to have an app fail or whether you’re alone in a room and ask my phone a question by saying “Hey Siri” only to be met with silence because the “Hey Siri” feature doesn’t work when the device is in low battery mode. This effect on stage in front of a thousand people and on the worlds stage streaming live in front of millions can make a guy pee a little. But Federighi was a case study in how to handle such a situation:

HE STAYED CALM & CARRIED ON

When something unexpected in any kind of performance happens, the instinct is to stop performing. You can’t. “The show must go on” is a cliche for a reason. Stopping things to bring attention to the problem that is road-blocking you is an impulse because it feels safer because you are sharing the burden of the roadblock with the collective instead of shouldering the entirety of that pressure in ways that are likely to make you, instead of the situation look bad – but you still must resist. Imagine that roadblock analogy is literal and your’e leading a group in a tour bus the vision of the road is such so that all eyes are on you but only you can clearly see the road ahead – and the bus stops because of a literal roadblock. As you start to feel the pressure of the eyes that are on you, you might want to give a “wuuuh-ohhh, whats goin on?” response to signal to everyone that you’re the cause, something unplanned is happening, but it will be okay because you’re guiding them through it. This would make *you* feel better in that moment, but would make the company you’re working for look bad. Instead of commenting and stopping your presentation – you should smoothly keep your tone the same as you check with the driver and what is ahead and react accordingly, whether that is a calm statement about a half hour delay or a reassurance that you’ll only be stopped for just a minute – making your REAL reassurance not through your words but through your tone as you carry on, carry on, carry-TF-on.

Federighi did exactly this. His script said that looking at the phone is as easy as unlocking it and the phone didn’t unlock, so without any big “WUH OHH! HOOOOLD ON JUST A SECOND… UHHHHH” showstopping nervousness, he simply flipped the phone back down away from his face real quick to press the sleep button, filling the dead audio space with “and, you know…” so that the final presentation would have been barely a hiccup as he says “Unlocking the phone is as easy as looking at it [presented with keypad] – and, you know [awakens the phone and Face-ID scans again] – you’re logged right in.
Unfortunately, it failed a second time.

HE DIDN’T MAKE AN “OOPS” FACE

The natural reaction to an unexpected error or roadblock in your actions while in front of an audience is broadcast this physically with a facial expression that signals “wups” to your audience. The reason for this is that it relieves the pressure in that moment that to you feels like an eternity where you appear incompetent and your brain wants to cut that snake off at the head before that look of incompetence spreads and dooms your entire presentation and you as a person extenuating from that experience. In the same way that saying “uh” and “um” is a verbal crutch to fill dead space while you collect the components you need to articulate your next line of actual speech – making an “oops” face signals to those watching that you are alert and handling this bumpy moment and carrying on through it.

This is soOOOooOooOoo important to have been avoided in this Apple presentation. The “I Love Lucy” style “wuh-oh!” face would have been the main image and preview icon for every story covering this flub – and there were a lot of those – which would have been a PR disaster for Apple.

Notable examples of this:

President George W. Bush after cutting short a Q&A for a quick exit, realizes he is trying to open a locked door:

Presidential Candidate John McCain realizing he went the wrong direction exiting the stage at the end of the 3rd 2008 Debate:

Federighi should be awarded a special acknowledgement within the company for this step alone. Again – the impulse to do a cartoony facial reaction is automatic, so it’s a commendable self-awareness and poise that controls stoicism in the face of a goof-up in front of an audience.

HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING DAMNING

While the initial reports savaged Apple for the mishap and continued to be unflattering even after the information trickled in on exactly what went wrong – there is no embarrassing quote to headline the reports. No “oh crap” or “wuh-oh” or “listen folks, not everyone’s perfect!” or anything that – yes – would have patched over the awkward spotlight of intensity on Federighi’s shoulders, but immediately and forever after would have been a marketing scar on the company he was repping that would live in the ages forever.

A TEACHABLE MOMENT… 

Everything Federighi did was the opposite of this clip of Windows 98 crashing in a similar live demo presentation which went viral in the dial-up-internet days of the late 90s that I still remember vividly and knew I would easily find on YouTube today (which, sure enough, it wasn’t hard to track down).

The reaction of the other guy in the Windows clip though is everything lacking in the Apple failure – while Windows dude audibly, physically, and verbally (*and understandably, I might add) leaned into the embarrassing nature of the situation as a way to diffuse it and while sheepishly grinning, pantomimed his way out of the awkwardness – Federighi calmly carried through his situation with no “uuuh”s or verbal acknowledgements of there being a big problem.

In a terribly difficult scenario, he did all the right moves that made him and the company he was representing look the best it possibly could, and he should be commended and emulated.

Take note!

Everything [I have determined that] you need to know about Apples 2017 announcements

Apple announced stuff. Here is that stuff and what it means.

THE STEVEN JOBS THEATER
– a nice tribute to the late Apple founder

First event to be held on the Apple Park campus in the 1,000 seat theater named after the dude who started the company and then came back to make it what it is today.

I would have done it differently, but who cares. Thought the extended voice-over with no visuals was more odd than it was tributary but it was all nice enough. Technically, the Steve Jobs Theater was the first new product unveiled at this event.

Now on to the stuff you can buy:

APPLE WATCH 3
– Cellular data option and a heart monitor feature


LTE on Apple Watch is $10 addition to existing cell plan. that’s just approachable enough for me to not dismiss it out of hand and also ridiculous enough for me to scoff. It’s cool to be able to have a device on your wrist that can communicate with satellites and not need the proximity of another device to get data to it but I don’t see a user outside of athletes that would use the feature. A runner, swimmer, surfer, or sport team member training Rocky style who wants to be able to receive calls and/or listen to music while doing their activity without having their phone on them makes sense but virtually no other scenario outside of sport activity is imaginable to me. Apple also announced that the watch will monitor your heart and notify its wearer of any cardiac arrhythmia. Also, the digital crown is a red dot for some reason now instead of the same metalic covering as the rest of the watch.

APPLE TV
– Now with 4K (and nothing else added)


Notice the difference between the image above and the previous Apple TV? Thats because there isn’t one. Same exact body, same exact remote, and it has the same exact software. No big crime I guess. Underwhelming for something I think should be a much bigger focus by Apple but the current device is suitable enough and the addition of 4k video is… something… to some people. Makes me feel better about buying my parents an Apple TV two weeks ago, knowing this new version with 4k and who-knows-what-other-upgrades would be announced. I needed to get them to cord-cut their cable service before the next billing cycle so I had to buy it and was pre-annoyed that a new model was coming out in just a couple weeks, but today Apple announced the only new thing in the next version of the device is that it supports 4K video. They, nor I, have a 4K display, so this is a non-feature for us.

iPHONE 8
– Wireless charging & it’s a little faster and takes better pictures

The iPhone & iPhone 8+ look much like the 7. It’s got a faster processor (A11 chip they’re calling “Bionic” that has six cores) and better camera (same megapixels as its predecessor but now has a new sensor with optical stabilization), as every new iPhone does. The iPhone 8 Plus will have a better more powerful camera with a dual sensor so it looks like I’ll be shelling out $800 for one of those ($700 for the regular 8). Wireless charging is the only other discernable feature anyone would probably care about. Just enough to make the new product an unexciting but desired upgrade.

iPHONE X
– Same as iPhone 8 but a bigger screen & face ID instead of fingerprint ID


Steve Jobs would end his presentations with “one more thing” and then announce something cool and that’s what Apple was mirroring when they announced “one more thing” and revealed the iPhone X, which Apple pronounces as 10 (“ten”), not “ex” (same as their OSX operating system). There’s no more home button, dashing my concept that the new Apple Park campus building’s “spaceship” design was intended to represent a giant home button – which it still may well have been since it was designed when both Steve Jobs and the home button were alive and planning to go on living for awhile – and instead unlocks by scanning your face since there is no more fingerprint pad, as the screen is borderless.

The camera appears to be the same as the iPhone 8 with a double vertical sensor of 12 megapixels but something slightly different about “optical stabilization”. As reported in leaks and rumors before the announcement, the new phone will be a thousand bucks. $300 more than the iPhone 8 just for facial recognition instead of fingerprint scan and a borderless screen? I can pass on both since neither feature is particularly attractive to me.

In CBS interview, Hillary Clinton reminds us she’s a bigger liar than Donald Trump

For all of Donald Trumps character issues, including his loose grasp of literal and specific accuracy – holy crap, did we dodge a bullet by not electing Hillary Clinton as president.

In a CBS interview talking about her 2016 election autopsy book “What Happened” (to which the joke responses all varying degrees of “YOU happened”), Hillary Clinton reminded voters not only of the levels of her delusions but the level of whopping Pants-on-fire lies she’s willing to tell herself and others to fit her worldviews.

These are dangerous lies. As I’ve explained in detail before: Trumps “lies” are 99% braggadocios machismo New York bullsh*ting. Hillary Clintons lies are oppressive divisive slanders.

“THE PRESIDENT OF ALL AMERICANS” vs “THE WHITE NATIONALIST GUT”
In the interview, Clinton talks about the inauguration day of President Trumps swearing in. Typically, defeated candidates don’t necessarily attend this event, but former presidents and First Ladies do, and she is the latter, so she attended. Good for her for showing up. But that doesn’t mean you had to lie about it…

Ruining the sympathetic upswing she was describing (about showing unity with the nation and putting behind her the heartbreak of not being the one up on that podium taking the oath) she calls President-Elect Trumps inauguration speech “A cry from the white nationalist gut”, which is an insane lie.

Clinton said the speech was an opportunity for Trump to have said “okay. I’m proud of my supporters, but I’m the president of all Americans. That’s not what we heard at all”.

In fact, that’s almost literally 100% verbatim precisely to a “T” what we heard exactly… The speech literally contains the line “The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.”

Which is more likely?: that Hillary Clinton is that woefully ignorant of White Nationalism that she thinks it includes resources and service to “all Americans”? Or that she knows that’s not the case and is just a lying because she thinks she can get away with it? The sad part is that she basically has, as I could find no pundits or fact-checkers who took up this egregious ugly bold faced jewel of dishonesty.

THIS AMERICAN CARNAGE STOPS NOW…
Imagine if CBS cut to that part of the speech after showing Clinton falsely claim that in her opinion it would have been a good time to say exactly what Trump said, followed by “that’s not what we heard at all”. That wouldn’t happen of course, not only because of CBS’s potential bias politically, but because the What Happened book is published by a CBS publisher – but that’s fine. No obligation for CBS to call her out on this if they don’t want to – but this audaciously opposite-of-reality statement did put their video editors in an awkward position since they had to directly avoid showing the part of the speech that proves she’s lying and try to find something that illustrates what she’s talking about.  Typically in a piece like this you’ll hear a person say something like “her speech was very divisive” and then the next shot will be a clip of some divisive line that the person in questions stated. In this case, Hillary’s claim doesn’t exist, so instead they had to find the most incendiary quote of Trumps from the inaugural speech in where they clip out the context and show video of him saying “This American carnage stops right here, right now”. Accepting that Clinton completely fabricated the “white nationalist gut” smear – this line about American carnage at *least* must have *some* innuendo hinting to the scourge of ethnic minority crime rates or some other impropriety by American ethnicities that are in poverty or other disenfranchised groups? Nope. The exact opposite… The “American Carnage” that Trump firmly vowed an end to is a list of traditionally minority-affected disenfranchisements including inner city poverty, lower and middle class blue collar jobs, failing schools, and crime fueled by drugs and gangs. Look at the context of when this line was delivered in Trumps speech compared to that line being chopped from that context and followed after Clinton falsely claiming that his speech embodied the very heart of “White Nationalism”, and then try to not scrunch your face like you just bit into a dirty lemon:

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

THE NONSENSE THAT ARE CALLED “LIES” VS “LIES THAT MATTER
Trumps critics in the media jumped all over the supposed “lie” that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s when photos of the crowds appear to clearly show that not being the case. This suggests that Trumps off the cuff exaggerated bragging is a calculated or careless effort to deceive the American people – over something that couldn’t matter less. Compare that then with the non-reaction to this whopper by the person who was almost the one delivering that speech and the fact that it absolutely IS a calculated or careless (although even the most charitable excuse-making for Hillary leave’s little excuse for such a falsehood to be an act of unintentional carelessness) and the fact that it is of major consequence to the people who hear that lie. Trump says “I got a historically big crowd at my speech” and whether that’s true or not means nothing to anyone, but Clinton says “our president gave a speech that said he was not the President of all Americans but rather only concerned with Whites” and sh*t poisons the minds of millions, feeding them a lie from a source they find credible that makes them feel powerless, disconnected, and adversarial to a Presidential Administration literally going out of its way to include, connect, and unite. Just disgusting.

And that’s what grinds my gears about this: the severity of it. The depths of this Clinton lie is what freaks me out however because of the willingness to revise history we all experienced and with a straight face claim the opposite of what was either seen or is easy to see for yourself and see that the claim she’s making has no basis whatsoever and is instead just a categorical slander.

CLINTONS CHARACTERIZATION WAS AS “OPPOSITE FROM THE TRUTH” AS IT GETS
Sorry/Not Sorry for doing a double-pass on the same point, but the details of exactly how from-the-pages-of-1984 this Clinton Lie was are excruciatingly important.

Trumps speech included gracious thank-you’s to the Obama’s, emphasized solidarity as Americans across the things that divide us, and stated that prejudice will not be tolerated.

A few lines from the speech Hillary Clinton claims was not “at all” a statement of being the President of ALL Americans and instead a “cry from the white nationalist gut” (emphasis, mine):

  • ‘We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.”
  • “Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.”
  • We are one nation — and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

Hillary Clinton literally said that not only did Donald Trump not say anything like “I’m the president of all Americans” in a speech where he said exactly that almost word for word, and she said his speech was from the gut of white nationalism when it actually stated that nationalism can’t possibly have anything to do with race and that patriotism and prejudice cannot coexist.

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?
This is where, even knowing Clintons history with truth telling, I am strained to find an explanation for how this could have happened. How could Clinton utter such a blatant lie on something so easily verifiable and so recent? It was reported beforehand that uniting all Americans would be the highlight of the speech, and as the NY Times reported, that’s exactly what he did. Donald Trump refers to that paper as “the failing New York Times” because it is an openly Leftist/Democrat slanted publication that is highly critical of him and his presidency and his political party, yet that didn’t stop the paper from reporting the truth that the speech’s theme was Unity – so what is so unique about Clinton that she can’t do the same?

You didn’t need to have read the NY Times to know this about Trumps speech – I also know this to be true because I watched the speech (and you can too. does Hillary Clinton know they record these things??). Hillary Clinton not only claims she watched the speech but there is video evidence that she did… and yet there she is a few months later, claiming the opposite of reality is what she observed. That is so nuts – so dangerous in a person with power – so terrifying that neither Jane Pauley interviewing her nor anyone else in the media afterward corrected this crazy falsehood – that this moment alone is enough to fall to ones knees in gratitude that Clinton lost the election.

BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE…
While that smear was the worst in the interview, Clintons divisiveness continued onto other but similar points that were extensions of her “basket of Deplorables” remark that was designed to explain away her failures as a Politician by impugning morals and motives of the supporters of her opponent.

She blames anti-woman sentiment of course. The truth is that “We really don’t want a woman commander in chief” was not a popular opinion anywhere.

She compounds the racism charge in such a ham-fisted way, sating that Trump supporters were angry about “Gains that were made by others” to where Jane Pauly had to help her out and just say what she was dancing around: “millions of white people”. Which again, is false that a prominent sentiment of Trump support was “non-whites have made gains in this country and we need to undo that”. That is yet another ugly smear that has such a non-resemblance to anything in reality that the derangement going on in Clintons mind becomes more and more alarming.

On the fact that she was proved to be completely “careless” in the words of FBI Director James Comey, Clinton baselessly accuses the non-partisan and arguably more-anti-Trump-than-Anti-Hillary Comey to have made those findings for an “audience” of whom she doesn’t know but suggests maybe “right wing commentators, right wing members of congress, whatever”.  This echoes her much-mocked claim in the 1990’s of a “vast right wing conspiracy” to take down her husband, referring to the multiple sexual misconduct accusations non-political and Democrat women were making against him.

WATCH FOR YOURSELF…
Here is the un-edited interview with all the garbage laid out above.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6085db

The Russia and United States “Frenemy” relationship

Russian and United States relations are a mixed bag and the news media is not helping clear the connection, especially lately as it has become politically advantageous for Trump critics to latch onto an evidence-lacking conspiracy theory that Russia not only paved the way for Trump to get into office, but did so with the collusion and cooperation of the Trump campaign. Due to the accusations there are multiple government probes investigating any such collusion in which Democratic senator Feinstein admitted there was no evidence of, but the hopes among most Democrats are that this will change if enough digging takes place. Unsurprisingly, Trump calls the whole thing a total hoax. All of this criticism comes as a total about-face from Democrats whom in the last election cycle mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia America’s top geopolitical threat. This was because the Obama administration was comically cozy with Putin’s Russian.

So are America and Putin’s-Russia friends or enemies? I’m asking rhetorically because this post is presuming to know that the answer is that they’re Frenemies: Never been very chummy with each other but different presidents have had different strategies. Bush and Obama pretty much kissed Putins butt to try and get cooperation on certain global actions and avoid direct conflicts. Hillary Clintons approach was to try to be a badass and trash talk Russia like it would shame its government into doing things we wanted and make her look like a big strong woman standing up to a big scary power she strategized that she could tame or contain. Trump has a more Trumpian policy approach where he talks nice and then sets blunt terms. This is on display in particular in the recent news that the U.S. ordered Russia to close their consulate in San Fransisco in what is described as a tit-for-tat move.

Imagine it like we’re gonna go out to lunch and Anastasia is like “Richard is pretty awesome. Great guy. Fair man. And he agrees with fairness, especially towards friends, right?” baiting Richard to be like, “eff yea I’m awesome and great. I’m so awesome and great you outta pick up my tab for this meal. wudda ya say?” and Anastasia comes in with the hook saying “I absolutely would do that you awesome dude. Although I grilled-cheesed you yesterday, so – you being such a fair dude, you outta actually be paying for me this time around – but yea man, you’re the-tits!” and then Richard, who had plans to get a free meal, is now paying for himself & Anastasia’s.

Anastasia is Trump and Richard is Putin in that scenario. In the news link shared, what happened was that Russia claimed it wanted parity (that means equality – like parallel) with the US on “missions in each others countries”. So the Trump administration move was to be like “Absolutely my friend. We will help you meet this effort. How many American government consulates [offices] do you have in Russia? 3? okie dokie artichokie – we will order the closing of Russian consulates in America so we can get our number down to 3 as well. Big hug my friend!”
So in other words, Kremlin was saying “lets make things fair [implying a balancing in their favor would achieve this]” and the Trump admin was like “sure thing, bro. lemme just check the numbers and make it fair [knowing its not what they wanted, but doing it with a smile as a legitimate execution of the stated desire]”.

Or to have it described by the Guardian:

Heather Nauert, a state department spokeswoman, said the US had fully carried out Moscow’s demands to cut its staff in Russia from 1,200 to 455, to make it the same size as the Russian mission in the US. The deadline for the staff reduction was 1 September. But Nauert also announced that the US was striking back for what she said was an “unwarranted and detrimental” move by the Kremlin.

“In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians,” Nauert said in a statement, “we are requiring the Russian government to close its consulate general in San Francisco, a chancery annexe in Washington DC, and a consular annexe in New York City. These closures will need to be accomplished by 2 September.

“With this action both countries will remain with three consulates each. While there will continue to be a disparity in the number of diplomatic and consular annexes, we have chosen to allow the Russian government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral in our relationship.”

Nauert said the US hoped that “having moved toward the Russian federation’s desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides and move forward to achieve the stated goal of both of our presidents”.

The buildings to be shuttered by Saturday are the consulate general and official residence in San Francisco and trade mission offices in New York and Washington.

Further balling:

“The buildings that are owned by the Russians will continue to be owned by the Russians,” a senior administration official said. “Then it will be up to them to determine whether they wish to sell those or dispose of them in some other way.

“We are not expelling any Russians at this time. We have informed the Russians they may reassigned to other diplomatic or consular posts in the US if they chose to.”

UPDATE: Whoah…. Facing short notice of their eviction, Russian “totally not spies” burned evidence to prevent it from falling into U.S. hands.

Kermit the Frog performer replaced. My Thoughts.

Steve Whitmire, the puppeteer and voice actor who has been performing Kermit the Frog since Jim Hensons death, has been fired by The Walt Disney Company.

Reportedly, Whitmire made obnoxious demands and was being a jerk for awhile. I don’t have any inside knowledge or commentary on that, but I was not a fan of Whitmires interpretation of Kermit which was much more of a bland pushover in a constant state of struggling dissatisfaction and unhappy stress he has to mitigate. Hensons Kermit had only hints of those qualities under a more steadfast, dreamy, and sharp witted observer in his managerial duties. Whitmires Kermit has been a neurotic punching bag for more aggressive characters which often makes him more spiteful and grumpy than Hensons portrayal of a sometimes-frustrated but overall more of a Jim Halpert type that, while affected by the chaos on screen, is more than anything else a wink to the audience to be like “can you believe this sh*t you guys??”. Whitemire’s Kermit is often naive and oblivious while Hensons Kermit was a humble and helpful soul but wouldn’t put up with being taken advantage of, wasn’t above passive aggressive barbs and putdowns, and was always a sharp observer of his surroundings.

While some of this Micky-fication of Kermit could be blamed on Disney (since after all, the productions the characters exist within set the tone of how the characters act much more than the performers themselves), this change in Kermit existed throughout the 90s and Disney only acquired the Muppet franchise in 2004.

Brian Henson, Jim’s son, agrees with me, saying:

“Kermit has, as a character, flattened out over time and has become too square and not as vital as it should have been.” He continued, “What my dad developed was that Kermit the Frog is a little bit of a prankster, he likes to put an act on stage that will shock you and is kind of weird. But, Kermit the Frog, when push comes to shove, is loyal and believes in the family of friends. Kermit believes you should love and respect the being most different from you because of how different they are.”

Matt Vogel has been hired to voice Kermit the Frog after Whitmire’s firing and Brian Henson thinks he “can access that energy really well.” Henson directed The Muppet Christmas Carol (one of the best movies ever made) and Muppet Treasure Island (only an “okay” movie) in the 90s but did not continue working with the Muppets after the Disney acquisition and is only commenting as an outsider but he went on to say:

“Matt is a very good performer. And I believe in protecting Kermit going forward, Matt will do a really wonderful job,” he continued. “I think the fans should not be so scared of change. Steve did Kermit for a very long time — I would say far too long. And the character was no longer being serviced by Steve performing Kermit.”

“My dad’s No. 1 thing was don’t repeat yourself. Innovate. Do something new,” Henson said. “He is the guy who canceled The Muppets Show when it was the No. 1 show in the world after five seasons because he was worried he was going to start repeating himself.”

Proposal: Alternate acceptable way to sing the National Anthem

America’s National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, is hard to sing for most Americans, which makes it not a good choice for National Anthem. Hardly anyone can hit the highs and lows right and those who can are too often compelled to butcher it with by showing off their range in the up and down points.

There is a solution though, and it doesnt involve scrapping the Spangled Banner for a different song: Just sing it differently. I have been in favor of this since kindergarden but in 2015 when Stephen Colbert opened up his new gig as host of the Late Show with exactly this type of re-tuning rendition, all my years of think-singing it differently in my head was confirmed.

In the cold-open to his first show, titled Play Ball, Colbert sings, via multi-location montage from various places and with various people, the Anthem in a way that is goofy for comedic affect, but has a real life implication of accommodating a non-singers vocal range. Throughout the song he is accompanied by singers with talent at singing the anthem in its traditional inflections and the 2 together harmonize wonderfully.

Colberts joke should be the nations reality…

Can you not imagine this being a for-real thing? Each individual in the crowd being able to choose the gifted-singer’s version or the common-mans version and either way – or both together – sounding just wonderful? This should be a thing. I think this should be a legitimate option introduced by official government decree that there are 2 acceptable ways to sing the anthem: the traditional way, and this altered inflection way.

Filed under “this is news, damn it”: Porn Star slaps her boyfriend for telling her to get off the phone

A porn star was arrested on a battery charge after busting her boyfriends lip open because after they had sex she wouldn’t get off her phone and that annoyed him so he told her to leave and in response, she slapped him.

A porn star was arrested for walloping her boyfriend in the face after sex — because he got mad she wouldn’t get off her phone and leave his Florida home, police say.

Lauren Kaye Scott — better known in the adult film industry as Dakota Skye or Kota Sky — was arrested early Saturday in the victim’s Pinellas Park home, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Scott, 23, of Clearwater, is accused of striking boyfriend Robert Anderson Jr. with an open right hand and busting his lip open.

“After sex Scott would not get off the phone,” according to the affidavit. “Anderson Jr. wanted Scott to leave his residence. She became upset and hit Anderson Jr. in the face, swelling and cutting his bottom lip.”

I also like that she listed her employer as the “porn industry” on the arrest affidavit.

 

“Fat but fit” feel-good propaganda is hurting people

There’s a cultural trend that soothes people’s (lets face it: mostly women’s) image of themselves despite being terribly overweight that underneath it all, they are still healthy. As if carrying sacks of fat around their body is just a personal quality like a bump in your nose or a wide pelvic bone and has nothing to do with the actual health of that person. So take THAT, societal/medical standards! You can’t use giving-a-crap-about-me-killing-myself as an excuse to point out that that’s exactly what I’m doing anymore because “despite being fat, I’m still healthy” and so on. Science even backs it up, they say, so boo-ya.


I’m not making fun of the person in this stock photo courtesy of the UK Daily Mail & Ocean/Corbis because cardio exercise is exactly how to aid a diet in burning off and shedding fat – but maybe more than a half-pound weight would be a little more ambitious? maybe? Actually forget it – do whatever works for you. Sorry I said anything. I just couldn’t help but notice that homegirl is lifting a Q-tip in the photo and couldn’t hold back the constructive criticism. 

Of course, it doesn’t, but the hope that it does comes from research that some suggested showed “metabolically healthy obesity” – which describes an obese person who doesn’t have “obese people problems” like insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Good for you if that’s the case – but carrying excess fat on your frame still hurts you, bro – and we’re not saying so to make you feel bad – it’s important that it is known and avoided.

Reality isn’t shaming unless you make it so, and denying reality to make yourself feel better about over-indulging is not a net help to your well being. Stop kidding yourself.

But the lack of metabolic problems, also know as metabolic syndrome, may not mean that the lucky few “healthy” obese people are doing fine in the long run, according to a new study published in the European Heart Journal. In the review, researchers looked data linking coronary heart disease and bodyweight from a 12-year study on more than 7,500 people. They discovered that people classified as “unhealthy”—those with three or more markers like high blood pressure, waist size over 37″, blood glucose abnormalities—had twice the risk of CHD, no matter their weight.

People in the “healthy” column, however, showed a big contrast between those of normal weight and the overweight. Overweight subjects (BMI 25–30), had a 26% higher risk of CHD, while the obese (BMI over 30) had a 28% higher risk of heart problems.

Your heart can only push out so much blood before it collapses under the stress you’re putting on it just because sugar is delicious. Joe Rogan (or maybe it was someone on his show, idk, so forgive the loose credit giving here) phrases it well by pointing out the costs you’re giving yourself just for “mouth pleasure”. The allure is so great that the mentality becomes “how could something so good be bad?” and the excuses come rolling in to justify packing pounds. Break that mental cycle, bruh. Your heart can’t handle it.

Being overweight leads to greater risk of heart disease.

Scientists at the University of Birmingham said doctors should no longer use the term ‘healthy obesity’ to reassure overweight people that they have no signs of type 2 diabetes or heart disease.

Dr Rishi Caleyachetty, who is to be presented today at the European Congress on Obesity in Portugal, said: ‘The idea of being healthily obese is a myth.’

His team found that excess fat increased the risk of heart disease by half – even when blood pressure and cholesterol levels are normal, made a stroke more likely and almost doubled the risk of heart failure.

The Critic didn’t fail – it was Sabotaged

The Critic was short lived but much beloved-by-me-from-day-one show that originally aired on ABC and I started recording because I had a feeling it would be cancelled. Sure enough – it was. But much to my delight and surprise, the show resurfaced on Fox, only to be cancelled again that same year. Considering the show was everything that is popular today: Family Guy style cut-aways awash in pop-culture references and movie parodies framed by a fat schlubby main character and his friends life adventures – how did this show fail?

This list, “10 Movies Sabotaged by Their Own Creators” (which obviously also includes tv series) revealed to me that the show didn’t fail at all – it was internally loathed and taken down from the inside.

The Critic
1994–1995

The Sabotage:
This cartoon from Simpsons show-runners Al Jean and Mike Reiss ran on ABC for one season before being picked up by Fox in 1995. It had done poorly on ABC (running against the Winter Olympics) but it seemed to have fresh promise on its new network. There was just one problem: The president of Fox hated it.

When he and his colleagues previewed two episodes, he allegedly asked those there why they were laughing. When they replied that the show was funny, he yelled, “NO IT’S NOT!”

The president moved the The Critic‘s time slot to make it harder for viewers to know when to tune in. The network didn’t advertise it. Mike Reiss called this a perfect example of a network “actively killing [its] own show.”

Did They Succeed?
Yes. An initially successful and highly rated show on Fox quickly lost its audience and didn’t receive another season. Still, at least the show has a cult following decades later.

This made me dig further and I found this article from March 1995 in the LA Times that details a further, deeper, and very personal rift between the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening (who insists his name is pronounced “Grain-ing”), groaning over The Critic entering The Simpsons world in a crossover episode that was often quoted from by my best friend and fellow Critic fan Johnny and I. Groening was reportedly so angry with James L. Brooks, who executive produced both shows, for “cross-promoting” The Critic in that Simpsons episode that Groening had his name removed from the credits.

At issue is whether Brooks is basically shoving one of his productions that failed elsewhere down the throat of a successful one to launch it on Fox.

This greatly taints my memory of that episode, which I was extremely excited about at the time and remember fondly. The degree to which Groening allegedly sabotaged The Critic runs deep and ran personal. From the 1995 article:

Hurt by the allegation, Brooks said that Groening is acting like an “ingrate” and characterizes Groening’s actions as a public slap in the face to the creators of “The Critic,” Al Jean and Mike Reiss–whose previous work as writers and executive producers of “The Simpsons,” he notes, helped make Groening a wealthy man.

“I am furious with Matt,” Brooks said. “He’s been going to everybody who wears a suit at Fox and complaining about this. When he voiced his concerns about how to draw ‘The Critic’ into the Simpsons’ universe he was right and we agreed to his changes. Certainly he’s allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in the press is going too far.

“This has been my worst fear . . . that the Matt we know privately is going public,” Brooks added. “He is a gifted, adorable, cuddly ingrate. But his behavior right now is rotten. And it’s not pretty when a rich man acts like this.”

Groening said his decision has nothing to do with Reiss or Jean. His dispute is with Brooks and the cross-promotion, or crossover.

“The two reasons I am opposed to this crossover is that I don’t want any credit or blame for ‘The Critic’ and I feel this (encroachment of another cartoon character) violates the Simpsons’ universe,” Groening said. ” ‘The Critic’ has nothing to do with the Simpsons’ world.”

He fears that fans of “The Simpsons” will “accuse us of making the crossover episode just to advertise ‘The Critic.’ That’s why I’ve had my name removed on this episode.”

The angle about the alleged purity of The Simpsons seems silly. As the article recaps exactly the meta reference to exactly that accusation made in the episode:

In this Sunday’s “Simpsons” episode, Marge Simpson comes up with the idea of a Springfield film festival to boost tourism. Movie critic Jay Sherman, the lead character in “The Critic” (with the voice of Jon Lovitz), is invited to judge the event. (In typical “Simpsons” style, however, the producers acknowledge what is going on. When Bart Simpson meets Sherman, he says, “Hey man, I really love your show. I think all kids should watch it.” Then he turns away and cringes and says under his breath, “I suddenly feel so dirty.”)

19 years later, another show that Groening and The Simpsons have swiped at for copying them – Family Guy – another Fox animated show about a schlubby selfish middle aged man with a smarter hotter wife, an unappreciated daughter, anti-social son, infant baby and a dog in suburbia – did a 45 minute long crossover episode, this time airing on the crossers-show (Family Guy) and I found no mention of Groening having any problem with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB5uE6sB71E

Further, I noticed the 2016 Simpsons Halloween Special contained a jab at The Critic, including it in a list of short lived shows that The Simpsons had to serve as a lead-in for despite being “bad. really bad” as the song overlay stated. While it’s true that The Critic was short lived on Fox, it’s a crime to include it in the “bad show” company of other short-lived shows like House of Buggin, Hermans Head (the precursor to Pixar’s Inside Out), and a comedy called Whoops about a post-nuclear earth.