Where's the Best Chow Mein in Cleveland? P.2

In 1985, "The 50,000 watt blowtorch of the great southwest," WBAP, blasted through a clear summer night filling radios from Ft. Worth to Fargo. And even in a moderately sized metroplex like Ft. Worth, several newspapers kept their enormous presses constantly humming, printing multiple editions of daily papers in the hopes of vying for the generous deep pockets of advertisers and their desire to satiate the avid subscribers who eagerly awaited the latest news on the current happenings on main street and the unsightly political wranglings up on capital hill.

Today, a high schooler in sunny Flowermound, TX can compile a musical playlist on a hand held device then instantaneously send it to a fellow Kraftwerk fan living on the icy crags of Kaffeklubben Island with a press of a screen app at zero cost. If you picked up the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram paper today, you’d be lucky if your two-bits bought you enough ink to modicumly adorn the floor of a moderately-sized birdcage. “Times there are a-changin’”

And Clay Shirky clearly describes these tectonic shifts in media in his book “Here Comes Everybody.” He describes three kinds of loss: one, complex media delivery systems will falter; two, censorship will fade; and finally, personal freedoms are up for grabs.

One aspect Mr. Shirky spends a great deal of time discerning is self-help in today’s global world. One one hand, today's media offers an effectual way of gathering like-minded people together to form a mediating place of refugee, but there also resides a dark side. “Khaaaaaahn!”

If I was a person who nipped too heavily at his cocktails, I am a person who relishes an umbrellaed concoctions or two, then there will be a smorgasbord of self-help groups available to me. But, if I hate and wish to exterminate every breathing elephant-bird of Madagascar unluckily enough to be caught nesting in plain sight then I can probably find a like-minded hate group that shares my distrust of such felonious, feathery, flightless abominations.

The phenomenon of Wikipedia represents all that I have regurgitated in this post after reading Mr. Shirky’s book. It is an accessible media whose accuracy can be honed by billions of honestly invested users, but if unchecked, it also can be manipulated by the anti-Madagascarian-flightless-bird ilk.

Where's the Best Chow Mein in Cleveland? P.1

When new students, starry-eyed and dumbstruck, walk onto a new campus grounds, he or she gets the grand tour because they represent America’s most prudent investment; these will be her future leaders and her budding cash cows. Already attending students (wishing to mitigate the expenses of last semester’s used books and shrink the expense of next semester’s preordained stack of used books) chaperon gaggles of youthful, doe-eyed recruits by the towering sports facilities, across the well-kept grounds, and strategically skirt the cobbled buildings of historical import in the Sisyphean hopes of aspiring the newest wave of the would be learned. When the electronic chime rings out from the campus belfry, another queue of new students hurriedly assemble outside the auditorium and anxiously await their personalized guided tour.

Mother’s sign up their children to these institutions in hopes that their child will benefit from an encompassing education. At a state sponsored college, parents drop an average of $7,000 a semester in hopes of seeing their progeny gain the best education that their state taxes have to offer -- even if a large portion of this seemingly sound investment will be erroneously squandered on honing the subtle artistry of beer pong. Nevertheless, certain standards have to be adhered to. Every incoming student will be required to take a mandatory amount of math, writing, geography, physical health, computing, and a touch of a science. On top of receiving the aforementioned scholarly and honorable pursuits, each new student should also have a copy of "Here Comes Everyone" by Chris Shirky shoved into their hipsters backpack.

That Rug Really Tied the Room Together

"Donny, you're out of your element!" Sometimes I can't help but feel like "Donny" Kerabatsos from the Big Lebowski.

May be because I am missing a second X chromosome, may be I am a fusty old fossil, but I could not fathom the allure of this latest internet phenomenon dubbed "Haul Video." That last part, I may have written too hastily because I can actually see how America's mass-consumer society could easily become enthralled by pretty porcelain girls showing off their latest shopping mall hauls.

I will define the fad simply: Young girls go shopping and then post their "hauls" on YouTube.

Admittedly, my immediate reaction was a guttural reflux that threatened to hurl up my lunch's club sandwich and wilted dill pickle. But before I impetuously careened off the rails into an ill informed rant, I steeled myself and watched a few more videos to get a better feel of where this trend might be heading; after all, these gals must be doing something right. Some video posters earn six digit salaries! Yep, six digits to shop.

After my first few viewings, I couldn't help but imagine the nightmare of these videos eternally looping as I helplessly bobbed in a lapping lake of fire, but after the thrid or forth video, something magical occured. The thoughts of eternal damnation faded, the sulphuric dream clouds cleared, and I actually began to get a kick out of these YouTube clips. I could not help but chuckle at the hostess’s bubbly exuberance and gleaned a certain glee from their boundless esprit.

It does takes a certain personality, a unique charisma, and an innate savvy to be good at this type of brazen hucksterism. It’s not my language, it’s not my generation's scene, but even I began to distinguish between the good, the bad, and the poseur.

I can’t see this being confiscated by main stream media. This is unique to this forum of home-made media and informal directness.

It’s not the end of mankind. Honest.

Mad Ad Men

For around a thousand dollars you can buy tv ad space and reach over a million viewers. That is just what the folks at Slate.com did. The video below shows how, with help from Google's Ads, a macbook pro, some stock footage, and a little video know-how you too can see your ad run on late night television.

The Flash Mobs are at the Gates

Years ago, I remember watching on YouTube with piqued interest as large groups of young folks participated in impromptu performances in and around New York City. My three favorites were: "Best Gig Ever," "Frozen Grand Central," and "The Moebius." But like most things on the internet, there is always a group of malcontents determined to f’ it up for everyone else.

That was years ago, and today’s version of the text message troupe is a mass of delinquent minute men bent on dominating and intimidating. Hundreds of kids, via text messaging, are organizing and diving down like biblical locust on city blocks and halting all business and threatening innocent pedestrians unlucky enough to be caught in their path. In my day we may have had the “drag” - young folks slowly driving up and down a prescribed route - but it was relatively benign and localized. Each school had their own preferred path (my drag's waypoints, circa ’85, was the Armory and the Sonic). This phenomenon, on the other hand, is performed at a scary scale with hundreds of bored kids forming en masse at a moment's notice.

Now of course businesses won’t kowtow to these kinds of shenanigans. City leaders are quick to doll out counteractive measures like harsher curfews, parental penalties, and the FBI (yep, the FBI). These are all easy attempts to appease the business sect, but will these near-sighted actions deter the hordes? Never mind that this may be a nuanced racial and class issue that can not be properly addressed with these impetuously implement ham-fisted policies.

But no matter, I would like to thank the flash mobs. Not only have you taken away a unique performance art, now you have given the federal government license to monitor my Tweets.

If there ever was a web site divinely created by the big IT guy in the sky that successfully sowed the seeds of world peace and managed to deliver fresh tulips to every home on odd Tuesdays, inevitably, someone would come along to f’ it up.

Click here to read the NY Times article.

Mind Your Ps and Qs Around this B

The "B" is for beauty of course.

Ms. Cohen is one tall, cool drink of Canadian Club, and according to a once anonymous blogger, she is also the biggest "skank" in a city of 19 million. Past accomplishments aside, this 40-year-old model is now in the news by taking the behemoth Google to task and successfully wrangling the identification of one of its blogger's, that according to Ms. Cohen, was attempting to defame her snow white character.

You owe it to yourself to watch this "interview" on CBS's morning show. At the 6:05 mark, I had to stop and spank the pause button while I attempted to stem the gastric juices from bubbling up my windpipe. One moment she says she just wants an heart-felt apology from her libeler, only to later claim, with a flippant remark and a flick of her locks, that she may or may not pursue charges after all. Can something really be historic when its latent landmark status depends on the precarious whims of an ex-super-model?

Here is the skinny, and you read it here. The entire rabble rousing affair smells to high heaven like a publicity stunt that also doubles as a convenient volley in an ongoing spat between two bored beauties. First off, the blog in question had previously hid dormant in an obscure nook of the vast web for months never collecting more than a spattering of innocuous responses. But our litigious blonde bombshell, after getting wind of the offensive site via a mutual friend, decided it holy necessary to speed-dial her legal team.

Here is a copy of the offical complaint.

A pretty face and an augment frame gets all the ink and a prominent spot on all the morning shows, while the hard questions of anonymity and the internet are being played out all over the web with real consequences -- like the British constable telling all the dirty secrets of the beat, or the young student journalist threatened with physical and fiscal harm because of an article she penned disclosing the identity of a blogger.

Napoleon and the Horse He Rode In On

The above video is my stab at filming, editing, and questioning a subject for my new media class. The subject is none other by my dear mother. I needed to find someone over 50 that was willing to sit in front of a computer for and hour while being subjected to questions aimed at highlighting her generation's deficiency with today's technology. After I assured her my assignment was not agist, she allowed herself to have fun. It turned out to be a very amusing undertaking -- a fact that you can clearly see in the video.