All that is going to change in 2012.

And I’ll start by talking about the experience of moving Dreamworks Animation (my current work place) from our comfortable and stable email infrastructure to the wild world of Google Apps for mail and calendar…

Stand by it’s a real slice!

Jeff

I wrote this little ditty back in January 2007 when my new career at  KCBS/KCAL-TV in Los Angeles was new and full of promise. We were building a new studio and moving from the Columbia Square Studios in Hollywood. The building was in horrible disrepair (something that might have been a harbinger of things to come) and it was deemed better to move into a completely new facility for the all digital, High Definition future… But the ghosts spoke to me in the short time I spent in the old place and here is what they told me…

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One Month In…

Thought I’d commemorate my first month at CBS (KCBS/KCAL-TV) with a little post about what my life is involved in these days… So I’d like to share (in case anyone actually reads this and cares) a little history of the place where I currently hang my hat…

For those who don’t know what the heck I’m yammering about… I am the Manager of Information Technology for KCBS/KCAL-TV in Los Angeles. This Duopoly of TV Stations are part of the CBS Televison network (well actually, KCBS is the LA Affiliate and KCAL is an independant but Network owned station).

KCBS was originally licensed as an experimental station on May 10, 1931 and carried the call letters W6XAO. On December 23, 1931, the experimental station went on the air one hour per day, six days per week. (There were all of five TV sets in all of Los Angeles at the time.)

On March 10, 1933 the station broadcast the first full-length motion picture ever presented on television, “The Crooked Circle.”

On April 15, 1938, television’s first serial started on the experimental station. The title of the series was “Vine Street.”

On January 1, 1940, the first remote television broadcast west of New York City took place on W6XAO. It was the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

On May 6, 1948, the station was granted full commercial status and adopted the call letters KTSL-TV. It was acquired by the Columbia Broadcasting System January 1, 1951, and ten months later, the call letters were changed to KNXT to coincide with CBS Radio Station KNX.

Opened in 1938, CBS Columbia Square (my current home) at 6121 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California has been home to the radio stations KNX, KCBS-FM (formerly KNX-FM) and television stations KCBS-TV (Channel 2, formerly KNXT and KTSL) and KCAL-TV (Channel 9, formerly KHJ-TV).

Columbia Square was built for KNX and as the Columbia Broadcasting System’s West Coast operations headquarters on the site of the Nestor Film Company, Hollywood’s first movie studio. KNX began as a 5-watt radio station and was purchased by CBS founder William S. Paley in 1936 at a cost of $1.25 million to expand his fledgling network’s California presence and to tap into Hollywood’s talent pool.

Columbia Square opened on April 30, 1938 with a full day of special broadcasts culminating in the star-studded evening special, “A Salute to Columbia Square” featuring Bob Hope, Al Jolson and Cecil B. DeMille. The program was carried coast-to-coast on the Columbia Broadcasting System, beamed to Europe via short wave, and carried across Canada on the CBC. On that premiere broadcast, Hope joked that Columbia Square looked like “the Taj Mahal with a permanent wave.” Jolson quipped, “It looks like Flash Gordon’s bathroom.”

Columbia Square became home to some of the best-known comedies of radio’s golden age. Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Eve Arden “(Our Miss Brooks),” “Blondie,” Jack Oakie and Steve Allen sparked to the airways from the Square.

Dramas included “Suspense,” “Gunsmoke,” “Dr. Christian,” “The Whistler,” “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” “The CBS Radio Workshop” (author Aldous Huxley introduced a production of “Brave New World”) and “Columbia Presents Corwin” (dramas produced by Norman Corwin.)

Musical acts performing at Columbia Square included Eddie Cantor, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Gene Autry. Composer Bernard Hermann frequently scored and conducted Columbia Square broadcasts. Through the facilities of KNX, the Columbia network broadcast big band music from nearby ballrooms including the Hollywood Palladium and the Earl Caroll Theater.

Bob Crane was a top-rated KNX deejay at Columbia Square in the 1960s. James Dean was an usher. The pilot for I Love Lucy was filmed on the Square’s stages in TV’s early years. Some of the Square’s once-luxurious radio theaters were converted to recording studios for Columbia Records where Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand, among many top stars, recorded albums.

KNX moved into new studios in the Miracle Mile neighborhood on L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard which it shares with CBS Radio stations KFWB, KTWV, KCBS-FM and KLSX. KNX, the last radio station to operate in Hollywood, moved after 67 years of operation at the Square just after 11pm on August 12, 2005 following a farewell broadcast from its Columbia Square studios.

KCBS-TV and KCAL move into a new facilities at CBS Studio Center in Studio City in April of 2007 (Something that is keeping me very busy these days!).

The old building really is showing it’s age… But without a doubt, when you are in Columbia Square, you are literally and figuratively Right Smack in the middle of Hollywood!

Happy New Year everybody!

Cheers,

Jeff

Normally, I would just lay down till the conflicted feeling goes away, but I can’t because I work for a major media outlet in the second largest media market in the United States.  Yes… Television Stations.  So I am surrounded by local news and the people who make it all the time!

See, we broadcast live, local news shows for about 11 hours each weekday.   I assume that producing news is cheaper than creating real content and it is all about making money after all…

But I am actually old enough to remember when news was a loss leader designed to provide real, unbiased information to the American public as repayment for the use of the public airwaves.  News was independent of it’s sponsorship so they didn’t influence editorial content.  Those who delivered the news understood the subtleties of the issues because they were the writers and reporters as well as the on-air personality.

Then along came the “New Magazine”, specifically,  ”60 Minutes” on CBS, which always has been and still continues to be one of the best of the breed.   “60 Minutes” committed the ultimate crime that any news organization could…  It scored entertainment style ratings and made a whole heck of a lot of money!

Now the media executives found a new potential profit center.  News was no longer just a device to bring a greater air of legitimacy the broader operation, you could also make money at it.  So it became the target of the marketing machine where audience demographics and ratings are more important than substance and integrity.  When news decided to compete for ratings instead of important information, the quality fell into the toilet!

Did the populace revolt against this trend towards dumbing down our information flow ?  No, instead the audience eats it up !  So much so, that there are half a dozen twenty-four hour cable news channels and local broadcast outlets do live news for as much as 11 hours each day.  While news competes more and more in the space of entertainment, the Journalists become the “Talent” and the reporter on the street needs to fit into a demographic that boosts ratings and is appealing to the sponsor. 

So here we are in 2008 with an audience that has lost an ability to distinguish the difference between a news story and a music video.  We package information into 5 minute slices and fill those 11 hours a day with stories that belong in the gossip columns and claim them to be hard news.  It must pay because it costs a lot of money to fuel the helicopter that hovers for hours over Brittany’s house to catch a glimpse of her nervous breakdown live on the nine O’Clock|

As I said, I live in the middle of this conundrum, so I ask the question to the folks in the newsroom why they do it and they tell me that the audience wants it and will tune out if we don’t give it to them in those five minute chunks.  

Yet I watch the culture around me and I see the decisions we make in choosing our leaders and our public policy and I see a people growing more and more ignorant of their past as well as uninformed and unprepared for their future and I am left confused (along with depressed and discouraged) as I try and figure out what do we do to fix this ?  

So help me out dear reader…  Do we continue to allow the nationwide media pool to provide us with the cultural junk food that provides no nutritional value or do we (to paraphrase the words of Howard Beale (actually Paddy Chayefsky the author) of the film “Network” from 1976) get “Mad as Hell and Not Take It Anymore!”  Should we insist on greater responsibility and information from those we trust to speak truth to power and are we willing as a society to put down the candy for the plate of spinach ?

How does a Democracy like ours survive with an uninformed electorate ?

I am writing to bring to your attention what i believe is a serious flaw in our laws relating to Jury Service in California.  It is my hope that you can look into this and sponsor changes to repair these flaws.

I am the father of 2 wonderful children.  A 6 year old girl who attends afternoon kindergarden in Redondo Beach and an 11 year old son who is in the 5th grade in the same school.  I am also fortunate enough to be able to provide for my family in a manner that allows my wife to stay home and raise our children.

I am also a strong believer in our system of government and the jury system by which we live.   I have been called regularly to serve over the past decade and have been empaneled several times.  I am fortunate that my employer compensates me for my time serving on a jury so it doesn’t cause financial hardship to my family.

My wife was just summoned to jury service at the California Superior Court in Torrance.  Since she is the sole caregiver of our two children.  She applied for an exemption from this round of service because my 6 year old daughter attends class from 11:30am till 2:30pm and the children are too young to be at home unsupervised.

We were both surprised when her petition was denied.  

We contacted the administrator of the jury pool in Torrance, she was told that if you have children over 5 years of age, you are not eligible for an exemption under state law.  The court had no concern for our problem and simply told us to figure it out.

I understand that most citizens look for any way possible to avoid their civic responsibility.  I appreciate that you implemented the “One Day, One Trial” system to reduce the amount of wasted time and productivity that comes from keeping a jury room full of people sitting around for a week.  I’m OK with the juror pool being drawn from the DMV rolls.  But I am appalled that the State of California does not recognize the hardship it causes working families by forcing the caregiver parent of a family with young, school age children to have to find child care for jury service.

The Federal Courts in California have rules that have taken into account the issue of family hardship in jury service.  For example:

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has a rule concerning individual requests for excuse or deferment from jury duty. This rule (General Order Number 99-8, Random Selection of Grand and Petit Jurors; 2.(c) “Individual Request for Excuse or Deferment” (Oct. 1, 1999)) provides an excuse for “Persons having active care and custody of a child or children under 14 years of age whose health and/or safety would be jeopardized by their absence for jury service; or a person who is essential to the care of an aged or infirm person”

And The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, provides an excuse for:

“2) Any person having active care and custody of a child or children under 10 years of age whose health and/or safety would be jeopardized by absence of such person for jury service; or a person who is essential to the care of aged or infirm persons” in the Civil Local Rules; Civil 83.10 Jury Selection Plan; e. Qualified Jury Wheel; 2 Excuses on Individual Request.

I am fortunate to be able to provide some vacation time so my wife can fulfill her civic duty.  But why does it become again My Civic Responsibility, having already served on a jury a few months ago to take time away from my job, this time fully at my own expense for someone else’s service ?  

And what about someone who isn’t as fortunate as I am ?  Is it fair to ask that they go and pay a caregiver so that one can work while the other serves ? Does the state believe the $15 per day after the first day of service will be enough to cover those costs without causing financial hardship to some ?

I urge you to use your legislative clout to address this issue and change the minimum age applied to the juror exemption for child care from 5 years to 13 years of age.  At 5, a child is still totally dependent on his or her parents.  You can’t send a Kindergardener off to school by themselves and not every family has a Grandparent or an older sibling available to help out.  13 is an age where a parent can safely leave their children to care for themselves after school till someone gets home from work or the civic obligations. 

I would love to know your opinions on this matter.

Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,

Jeffro341

Do you feel that having someone lie directly to your face is actually a virtue worth rewarding ?

I have been watching the Mini-Series on TV called The Pennsylvania Democratic Primary, which concluded last night with a fairly lame cliff hanger.  So while the Democrats may not be able to conclusively choose who their candidate is going to be in the voting booth, it seems clear that the American people seem to have decided that having someone lie in their face is not only OK, but makes them worthy of a potential presidential nomination.

Back in the distant 20th century, the Republicans in our Congress felt that Bill Clinton’s lies while under oath (I believe this was related to his testimony regarding the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones.) rose to the level of High Crimes and Misdemeanors worthy of Impeachment!  
Now, if you are a true believer in our system of law, allowing a lie during testimony breaks down the foundations of our method of Justice.

That same Republican Party decided it was OK for the Bush Campaign in 2000 to represent the heroic service of John McCain to his country not worthy of consideration.  (This made it particularly ironic and empty to watch George finish his little tap dance for the press and then endorse McCain in 2008.)  
The King George machine did the same in 2004 when they managed to present John Kerry’s service on a Swiftboat actually in Vietnam as less of a commitment to our country than the Presidents sometimes missed flight training in the Texas Air National Guard during the same war.

(I interrupt this rant to again remind you that I don’t give a crap about your politics…  I’m going after the other side also, you just have to hang in there because there is enough of this hypocrisy on all sides to go around!  You have come this far… follow me to the point if you would be so kind.)

Scooter Libby, as a member of the Vice President’s staff was actually convicted of Purgery by a jury of his peers, yet the political leadership felt that just having to go thru the experience and pay a fine was punishment enough.  So The President uses his Constitutional Authority to commute his sentence. (It is good to know that there are some parts of the Constitution that the President thinks have value…  But that is for another rant8-) )   I’m sure you feel that these same folks would do the same for you!

And I’m not even going to go into the various other lies that have led us into war, or deny a looming recession or declare us safer if we just give up our civil liberties…

So to prove my unbiased lack of political agenda… Let’s now look at the Hillary Clinton Experience…

First we get treated to her Righteous Indignation over the Florida and Michigan primaries being discounted because of the stupid decision of the Democratic Party leadership to protect Iowa and New Hampshire’s right to be first (I somehow missed that in the constitution also I guess).  But be careful not to look behind the curtain dear reader or you may see Hillary signing off on the aforementioned agreement to disenfranchised those voters!  
Then while Hill tells us all how anti-democratic this really is (especially in light of the fact that she actually ran and got some votes in those 2 primaries that might help her catch up on elected delegates), she talks about how delegates to the convention should vote their consence and not feel bound by anything else (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Gee…  Let’s see… If the popular vote and majority of elected delegates support Obama, wouldn’t it effectively disenfranchise everyone who voted in a primary across the entire year if she managed to talk the superdelegates into making her the nominee ?

Then we have the issue of her service while under sniper fire in Bosnia…  

Listen…  If I meet you at a cocktail party and in the process of chatting you up I talk about my service as a Navy Seal in World War II, you would look at my 42 year old, 250 pound frame and tell me I was full of crap. If I then said, oh… Sorry I misspoke. Hey it just shows how Human I am!   You would walk away as quickly as possible and look for the host to have me ejected from the festivities.  
Yet Hill throws the Sniper in our face, somehow forgetting the invention of video tape and YouTube and tells us that she was tired and misspoke, while at the same time advertising that she is the one to answer the call at 3AM (at which time she will hopefully not be tired and order the bombing of Cleveland).   

Doesn’t all this make you feel like these folks see you as a chump ? 

We live in a time where we either believe if it is on some form of media it must be true, or we think that everything on the media is crap that should be ignored.  Combined with a 5 minute attention span, truth becomes a moving target and I guess that is why it doesn’t seem to matter what anyone says anymore.  

So in light of that…  How do you select a Leader ?  Shouldn’t we demand better ?

So…  I waited and eventually was “Old” enough to afford my Jeep Wrangler Sahara and in the three years I owned it, I got to take it out on the dry lake bed near Zzyxz, California  and only drove over one curb in West L.A.

Then the policies of the current administration began to bear fruits (to the Oil Companies anyway) and gas hit around $2.25 per gallon my 70 mile per day at 18 miles per gallon commute got pricey.  So I sold the Jeep and traded up to a Mini Cooper Convertable.  A really fun car to drive and at nearly 30 Miles Per Gallon cut my commute costs in half.  And it was good… for awhile…

As I drove home tonight, Gas at the local Unocal 76 station was topping out at $ 4.11 per gallon.  I can’t imagine what the poor truck drivers are going through, with Diesel at $ 4.49 at the same station.  It is spinning out of control faster than a helicopter without a tail rotor and the government of the people, by the people and for the people has us all on hold while they take the call from the executives of the oil companies.  (But I’m sure if we leave a message at the beep, someone will get back to us eventually…)

While I would really like to see someone in government service actually serve the broader good and consider acting in the public interest with the elimination of corporate welfare during the all time greatest profit season the oil companies have ever seen, I’m realistic enough to know that there is absolutely no hope for change (if there ever will be) till after whatever the hell it is that is going to happen in November happens…  (After all, King George is either so out of touch or so comfortable lying to our faces that he played dumb when asked about gas prices approaching $ 4.00 at a press briefing!)

So for today, I am going to direct my abundant outrage on those who have historically expected to speak truth to power on our behalf.  That’s right…  The fourth estate…  The free press.

For a democracy to remain healthy, it needs a free and impartial press to question those in power.  After all, you and I won’t get the chance to ask The President what the fuck he is thinking when he does stupid shit like a little irish jig for the cameras while waiting for John McCain to show up.   After all, the press is sitting in the room with him and it is their job to remind him that he works for us and he should stop being such an idiot in public!

So I am most frustrated when I find myself watching the “Reporter” for the local news (and I work at a local TV station, so trust me I watch A LOT!) standing at the corner gas station, sticking a microphone in the face of some poor schmuck who is pumping $ 75 into his S.U.V. and asking him how he feels about rising gas prices…   This question is obvious, stupid and it does nothing to inform us.

I want that reporter to walk into the station and ask the Manager when he got his last fuel delivery, when he is due to get his next fuel delivery and assuming the answers to the former isn’t just a few minutes ago… then why the fuck did the price at the pump go up five cents since we started this conversation ?

When the price of crude oil goes up a buck a barrel on the market today, it doesn’t magicially become gasoline in the pump in real time.  It has to be shipped and refined and delivered and… Well you get it.  The cost of the gas already in the tank at the station hasn’t changerd any more that the cost of the gas in your car tank doesn’t change while you are driving (although I’m sure that given the chance, a little man from the oil company would come to your window at the next red light and shake you down for five more bucks every few blocks if he thought he could get away with it.

There is a serious scam going on here and we are getting dick’d around by it.  So what do you say we start to hold all of them accountable!  

If enough of us make sure that the politicians know that you will hold them personally accountable when Exxon produces their next world record breaking quarterly profit while government gives them tax credits, they might have to listen.  It is an election year after all and it is really easy to get the message to them because they each have the same damn web site hosted on the same damn server with the same damn pull down menus with the pre-configured topics for communicating with their constituency.

And Please make sure that the Local TV news know that you aren’t going to consume their useless products if they don’t start providing something of substance.  The airwaves are a public trust and the May sweeps rating period is about to begin!

Listen…  If it costs me half a “C-Note” to fill my little Cooper each week, it has to be killing you folks driving the GM Tahoes and Hummers.  

It’s time to get off the couch and get pissed off people!  A little revolution every so often is not such a bad thing!

So what do you think ?   What is your point of no return when it comes to fuel costs ?  And what are you going to do when you hit that wall ?

Welcome to my blog.   I’m Jeff.  I’m a tech guy who works in the entertainment biz in LA LA Land…

I’ve often kept a diary on and off over the years.  I keep it on paper, mostly because it gives me a really good excuse to use my fountain pen on a regular basis, but also because I never really thought about anyone reading it (including me).

But I’m here doing this, because lately I’ve begun adopting a philosophy of quiet frustration at the modern world that manifests itself into this air of apathy to others that is more based in acceptance that the world is just fucked up and there is no point in ranting and raving about it.  

You know what I’m talking about…  That moment when you are so pissed off at something stupid that you go from being on the brink of exploding to that sudden sense of calm that scares everyone and forces them to carefully check your profile for the bulge of a gun…  

That moment in your life when you look at the person that is doing the totally stupid thing that has pissed you off and you just want to say “Yeah, Sure, Whatever…”

So… Here I am…  Looking for an outlet to share some outrage…   If you are here, welcome to the club!

I’ll be posting when the muse is upon me and I look forward to any potential comments that may follow along.  Let’s all get it off our chests!

Cheers…

Jeffro