“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-16 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of March 21, 2016
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Re-Making Movies
The subject of re-runs is a bit of an issue on the Phlipside home front. The Lady in My Life is a big fan. She loves watching favorite characters in beloved shows. I am somewhat more reserved about watching familiar shows. I prefer finding new stories and characters to watch. So it comes as no surprise that I am unimpressed by what appears to be a growing trend of re-making movies.
We’ve come up with all kinds of new terms for it. We’re not “re-making” the old movie, we’re re-booting it. Spare me. Rebooting seems to mean we’re going to steal the title and character names and then do whatever we want with them. I’ve said before I find the process profoundly disrespectful of the artists that have gone before. A quick look showed that we are looking at remakes of classics like “The 10 Commandments”, “Ben-Hur”, “The Birds” and “The Magnificent Seven, plus perennial favorites like “Pete’s Dragon” and “Dirty Dancing”. I know that the old saw is that there are no new ideas in the world but surely we can come up with something better than just endlessly re-hashing, and usually badly making a hash out of it, the ideas of days gone by.
Or maybe not. What got me thinking about this was the announcement that Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford have agreed to have another go at the Indiana Jones series. Admittedly, this isn’t a remake, since it will be a brand new story. But it still stinks of that “we can’t think of anything new so let’s just do what we did before” odor. Let’s face it, only two of the four Indiana Jones movies are really any good. “Raiders” and “Last Crusade” are true classics. “Temple of Doom” was largely wretched with a TV cute kid and a leading actress with whom Ford had no chemistry at all. “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was a clear sign that the series had lost its way. Now given the good, bad, good, bad pattern we might be in line for a good movie. Asking a mid-70s Harrison Ford to jump back into Indiana Jones’ adventurous storyline strikes me as a bad idea. Given that Ford broke a leg during the filming of the last Star Wars movie, it’s an even worse idea.
If you want to see “Dirty Dancing” or “Ben Hur” go back and watch the original. Then head on down to the movie theater and look for something you’ve never seen before. Choose something that will challenge and change the way you see the world, and not just well worn and familiar story.
Book Music
After all, this time, I assume that regular listeners have twigged to the fact that I love movies and books. It’s probably also clear that I regularly shake my head in sadness over the inability of so much of what I call the “old line media” to figure out that the times have passed them by to a very large degree. So it’s nice when I get to point out someone in that group using the tools available to them.
First a little transparency. Over the last five years or so I’ve been involved in a program run by an independent publisher called The Story Plant. I’ve mentioned them before. Through the “Spread the Word Initiative” I am provided with what are called A-R-Cs, or Advanced Reader Copies. This is how reviewers can review books still waiting to hit the bookshelves. In return, I give an honest review. Not all my reviews of their books have been positive. I am not paid in any form for the reviews.
Recently, I reviewed the first novel of writer Robert Burke Warren, called “Perfectly Broken”. This program isn’t intended to sell the book. I invite you to check the review out at my web page “viewfromthephlipside.com”. No, what I want to talk about here is the interesting promotional idea used in conjunction with Warren’s writing. The book centers on a group of musicians who had a brief moment of fame. That moment is passed now. It also weaves in several songs that were either hits or played some crucial role in their lives back then. Usually, the reader is left to imagine the songs in their heads. Maybe lyrics are included but the rest is yours. Way back when you would sometimes find flimsy vinyl “records” stuck in the back. The audio quality was awful.
For “Perfectly Broken” they took advantage of Robert Burke Warren’s background. He is a musician and a songwriter. As such he had a very clear idea of what those songs sounded like. So he recorded them and they are being made available, for free, to readers of the book. It’s kind of like a book with its own soundtrack. Now when the song “Kiss My Ring”, or “Words Fail Me” are discussed, you can play the songs. What you get is a fuller feel for the vision of the author, one with both words and music. Taking advantage of all the ways that an author stands out from the pack is always good promotion. For a publisher to be willing to step outside their comfort zone by pushing music related to the book is simply a smart use of the media available to us all.
The Sound of It
Somewhere, deep in a box in a closet, I’m pretty sure I have an old answering machine. If you were to see it I would tell you it’s just a backup. I’m a guy who likes to make sure that I have a second line of defense in case things go bad on me. That’s what I’d tell you. At the end of this commentary, I’m going to share the real reason it’s still with me.
It appears that I’m becoming the last of a dying breed. I still have and use voicemail, in one form or another. There’s an answering machine connected to my house phone. (Yes, I still have a landline. If you keep interrupting I’ll run out of time to tell you the story at the end. Just deal with the fact that in this area, I’m still very old school). Answering machines are just the earliest form of voicemail. The reality is that this technology in all forms is rapidly going the way of the dinosaur, the Dodo bird, and middle of the road politicians. In 2014, Coca-Cola gave its employees the option to drop their voicemail. Ninety-four percent walked away from it.
I know why I find this concept rather strange. What has been my primary form of communication for most of my life? Even more than the average person, I communicate by talking. Heck, I’ve managed to make a pretty career out of talking. That results in me feeling a little let down by the predominantly text-oriented communications in fashion today. One hundred forty characters feel like a stranglehold to me. The Millennial generation, like my daughter, is leading the charge towards the demise of voicemail. Truth be told, that generation doesn’t use their phone as a phone primarily. Their preference is for text messages. The closest we come as a family to using voicemail these days is with a walkie-talkie style app called “Voxxer”. Basically, it’s like sending voice texts. Honestly, I think I like it more than she does.
All of this is leading to the probable death of voicemail in the foreseeable future. People think it’s a waste of time, and the younger generation believes that if it’s important you’ll text them.
I think it’s a mistake. The reason why is that answering machine in my closet somewhere. You see it’s not mine. It belonged to my mom, who passed away six years ago or so. On that machine is the last recording I have of her voice. It’s just the standard message, but it’s her.
Maybe voicemail really is a waste of productive time and maybe it is inevitable that it’s going away. But tell me how you will linger over a text from a loved one years after they’ve gone. Tell me you wouldn’t rather hear their voice, one more time.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2016
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Stories Are My Life 
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