Category Archives: Media & Culture

True Detective

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“Think of the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of non-existence into this meat. To force a life into this thresher. My daughter spared me the sin of being a father.”

Whew. I mean… fuck.ing.whew. Just watched the second episode of True Detective (HBO). It’s too early to compare it to other series, we’ll have to see if it can sustain this level of intensity. I hope so? [Season 1. Season 2 sucked donkey balls]

I found myself thinking of other movie detective partners. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in Se7en. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider in The French Connection. McNulty and Bunk in The Wire. But Matthew McConaughey brings something I haven’t seen in awhile. (Never?) Maybe it’s what Curtis said… the business with the cigarettes? I almost passed out a couple of times, holding my breath, waiting for him to exhale. I also heard echoes of Martin Sheen’s voice-overs from Apocalypse Now.

UPDATE: And how many cigarettes did McConaughey smoke? 40. Someone counted.

The Loudest Voice in the Room

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loudest-voiceThe Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News–and Divided a Country (Amazon)

I rarely read biographies. And I never watch Fox News. But the excerpts from this book really hooked me and the book did not disappoint. I literally had trouble putting the book down. It read like a novel.

The image I had of Roger Ailes — before reading this book — was very superficial. Pretty much the right wing boogyman lurking in the wings of Fox News. Author Gabriel Sherman shows us a complex, talented man who is deeply flawed.

Ailes is only seven years older than I so I witnessed some of the history he helped make, starting with The Mike Douglas Show (he produced); helping Richard Nixon and two Bush’s get elected; the creation of Fox News and its evolution as the propaganda arm of the modern Republican Party.

I won’t look at TV news or politics in quite the same way after readying the book. The author lifted the edge of the tent just enough to see what rubes we are.

It’s difficult to imagine the world won’t be/become a different place after Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes leave the playing field. Has anybody in the last 20 years had a greater impact on the news business (and, by extension, the world) than these guys?

The TV news business that Roger Ailes helped change seems to be changing again. Will the great instincts about television carry over to the world of Netflix and YouTube? Ailes is old and sick and will — hopefully — be on the sidelines.

The Roger Ailes we see in this book is not a happy guy. Rich, powerful, talented, influential… without a doubt. But not happy. I’d give a hundred dollars to know if Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch read this book.

Changing listening habits

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“A new Edison research study warns that among the six most common places where listeners consume audio media, broadcast radio dominates in just two of them (in car, at home); is tied with Internet radio for two (at work, on public transportation); and is defeated by Internet radio in two (while working out, while walking around). Another red flag in the study for broadcasters is that 50 percent of at-work listeners who listen to Internet-radio-only stations/services (that is, stations/services that don’t broadcast on FM/AM) have replaced their FM/AM listening time with Internet-radio-only stations/services.”

“According to Triton Digital, at any given moment among online listeners (M-F 6am-8pm), Pandora has more than twice the audience of all of the radio stations owned by Clear Channel, CBS, Cumulus, Entercom and the next seven broadcasting companies combined.”

— All Things Digital