“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 May 23, 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.
Week Without Internet #1
We are going to have a little theme week here at The View From the Phlipside. In this case, the theme is “The Week Without Internet”. You see we just moved to a brand new location (still in the same general area) and are dealing with all the fun and games that go with moving. Packing, carrying, stacking and then trying to figure out where pretty much anything is.
Of course, one of the other fun parts of moving is trying to get all our various services hooked up. Back in the day it was easy. You got your phone hooked up and you were good. Today, the phone is probably the least of your worries. Getting the satellite/cable hooked up can be a hassle and then there’s the Internet. It’s a little easier if you got everything in a bundle. Unfortunately, we get our TV from Dish and our Internet through Verizon.
And that is where the adventure begins. You see last August the contract for about forty thousand members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers expired. Those are the men and women who actually do the installation and wiring, up and down the East Coast. Negotiations went nowhere and in April they went on strike. That’s had a negative effect on both corporate earnings and on people like me.
The reality is that Verizon sees far more profit in its wireless business (cell phone service) than in the wired businesses of old school telephone and internet service. So they are trying to leave as much of that business behind as possible. In 2015 they sold a large portion of the phone, Internet and TV services part of the company to Frontier Communications and reportedly have been trying to get rid of its data centers as well. All of which may make perfect business sense. But it is a major problem for those of us who are looking at new services from the company. A group of non-union workers have been trained to fill in while negotiations continue. That group is having trouble keeping up with the work since we were first told that we might get our service hooked up sometime next month. We apparently got lucky and are supposed to be back online sometime this week.
Since this program is delivered via the Internet I am concerned not only about routine Facebook surfing but also being able to fulfill my commitments.
So color me hopeful that President Obama has urged the sides to get back to the negotiating table. The reality is that if they don’t, I imagine I won’t be the only customer looking at alternatives.
My question is, why couldn’t the billing department go on strike?
Week Without Internet #2
It’s a theme week here on “The View From the Phlipside”. Since we are caught between Verizon and their striking workers we are without Internet service here at the International Broadcast Center, we are exploring what happens during a week without the Internet.
First off let me say, it stinks.
It has given me the opportunity to think about things that have come into my life because of the Internet. For example, there is the ongoing problem, at least for me, of people using my email address. Not people hacking my account but people who have mis-typed their own e-mail address and landed on mine. This results in some interesting mail.
Now you might expect that I might get e-mail intended for the other Jay Phillippi that I’ve discovered out in the world. But that has never happened. Instead I have gotten estimates on auto parts from Michigan. A couple summers back I kept getting confirmation for golfing tee times at a course in Oklahoma. I’m assuming that I went into a database there. Recently, I’ve been getting chirpy little reminders about upcoming F-H events for my child in West Virginia. While I have great respect for 4-H, A) we were never a 4-H family, B) The Kid is well beyond 4-H age and C) we do not now, nor have we ever lived in West Virginia.
Because I was raised to be a polite and helpful human being, I want to correct these misguided missives. The auto parts was easy but the golf and 4-H items came from mailing programs, which state very clearly that you can NOT respond to the sending address. I never managed to dig up alternative e-mails so someone is not getting their reminders.
The most amazing mis-addressed e-mails came from Scotland. Someone over there, apparently named John, has mis-typed his address twice so far. The first time I got the confirmation of his airline tickets and the second time I got the confirmation of his train tickets. I tried to contact the airline, but never got a response from them. I resorted to Twitter to reach out to VirginRail about the train tickets. It took a couple of tweets before they understood the issue but took care of it.
The Internet has allowed us ever greater access to the lives of people all around the world. Very often that can be a wonderful opportunity. There are times when it can be more than a little weird as well.
So I guess we can chalk this up as a small advantage of having a week without Internet.
Week Without Internet #3
I’ve been having a little fun with the fact that following a move to a new home here in Virginia, we have been without Internet for about a week. On the day that I record this program we have just been informed that Verizon will not be hooking up our service on the date we had set. So there is still more downtime in my future.
We are not amused.
It does give me the chance to to think about how much being connected has become a part of my life. I’m certain that at some point this week, one or more of you listening have asked if I still have my smartphone. I do indeed. Without that I think I would have gone into greater withdrawl pains than I have. Because in reality, being without this connection has felt like I have been missing something important in my life.
I will admit that that feeling gives me pause. I enjoy the Internet. I spend a fair amount of time doing my job while using it. One of the first things I do after I get up is check various e-mail accounts and favorite websites. One of the last things I do each night is spend some time surfing as well.
I won’t even pretend that all of that online time is productive, useful or beneficial in any way. A very large percentage of it is just goofing around. The fact that I have felt the kind of loss that I have when I can’t, and let’s be honest here, waste my time in that fashion gives me pause. There is no way that I need to spend the kind of time online that I do.
I’m not saying I’m going to give it up. There is plenty of useful, beneficial activities that I do online. Sometimes just goofing off online is fine as well. But there are plenty of other things I could be doing with at least some of that time. Time with family, time with friends, time reading, or listening to music. Time walking or on my bicycle to help me slim down this middle aged dad bod I’ve developed. Time to get a little better in my writing, my photography or my guitar.
In the end, this break from the Internet might just be a good thing. In my working life, we often talk about the importance of time away, a sabbath time to think and find some order in our lives. This week of no Internet has given me the time to reassess my online life.
I still have a business decision to make about who my provider is going to be. At the same time I need to recognize that this has been an opportunity that I have been given.
(Note – the strike was settled the day AFTER we moved to our new provider.)
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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