Category Archives: Media & Culture

All we need is an ending

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I have this idea for a screenplay but I’m thinking it’s already been done. And, if not, I don’t have an ending.

Famous female rock star breaks off high-profile engagement to equally famous sports figure. This tough, smart, independent woman hears her biological clock ticking and decides to have a baby on her own  and worry about meeting Mr. Right later (or never). But she needs sperm donor. The normal procedure sounds cold and sterile so she decides to do it the old fashioned way and starts looking for the lucky guy. Several humorous, unsuccessful candidates later, she’s about to give up when fate brings her together with The Guy.

He’s a romantic who wants nothing to do with the scheme but gets tricked into the sack and the deed gets done. She tries to give him a bunch of go-away money but he doesn’t want it and just goes back to his anonymous life.

A few months pass and the media notices that Famous Female Rock Star is in a family way and goes searching for the father. Relentless Reporter tracks down The Guy.

So we’ve got Girl-Meets-Boy…Girl-Loses-Boy… but I’m stuck on how to get them back together.

And I’m thinking this movie has already been made but I can’t come up with the title. Sounds a little like Notting Hill. Any of you film buffs out there help me out on this? Have I seen this movie and just forgotten it?

I kind of see Kevin Connolly as The Guy. And maybe Sienna Miller as The Rock Star? Would help if she could sing but not critical.

I’m gonna keep working on this because I want a happy ending for the Famous Female Rock Star.

Value of New Media vs. Old Media

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Jeff Jarvis on the the Rockeboom ad auction:

And here we have in a microcosm the explanation of why media is so horribly out of sync today: The public is valuing new media much more than the old, but the advertisers still value the old. Most every newspaper and in many cases TV networks and magazines have much larger audiences online, but the revenue for their old media properties remains much higher because the advertisers and agencies still value the old and the safe. They want metrics. They want control. They want guarantees. This, in turn, makes big publishers and producers play it safe because they don’t want to mess with the cash cow. And that means that advertisers miss the opportunity to reach a larger, younger, smarter audience in the new medium, which is — supposedly — what they’re dying to do. And that means that big media companies now face competition from a thousand Rocketbooms and a million Gawkers.

And if you are in the media/advertising business and you’ve never heard of Rocketboom or Gawker… you’re probably already screwed. Tick, tock…tick, tock.

Podfading

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Podcasting is easy and inexpensive which has a lot to do with why so many people are doing it. But, like with many “hobbies,” it can be difficult to sustain over the long haul and some podcasters are starting to pack it in. They call it podfading. Rob Walch (Podcast411) estimates at least a fifth of podcasters don’t make it to their 10th show and he won’t interview a podcaster until the show has at least 10 episodes. This week Henry and I recorded our 16th podcast and I see no signs of fading. I think we both have sort of an unspoken target of 52 shows. Would be fun to make it a full year.

You = Your iTunes

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Tom Peters says his #1 belief about management is: You = Your Calendar.

“All we have is our time. The way we distribute it is our ‘strategic plan,’ our ‘vision,’ our ‘values.’ Period. So how’d you spend your precious time today? Tell me, and I’ll tell you what you actually care about — it’s simple and unerring.”

Maybe. But I don’t want to be my calendar. Nobody has to guess what bloggers care about. It’s all right here. But if I weren’t a blogger, you could look at my iPod and get a sense of who I am. In fact, here’s what you can do in lieu of a memorial service for smays: Plug my nano into a good sound system…put it on shuffle… and let it play until the battery runs down. Friends can stop by for a few minutes and listen.

The Onion: Writers not fans of Sheryl Crow

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From the Onion: “Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong found his endurance stretched “almost to the breaking point” last Friday by a three-hour, 30-song concert presented by his fiancée, pop-folk singer Sheryl Crow.”

I’m posting this because a) I’m a fan and subscriber of the Onion and b) my friend/co-worker Bob took the time to forward. But it just isn’t up to the Onion’s high standards. Shit, I could have written that. Somebody must have been on deadline.