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Quick review of "The Aristocrats": more laughs in 90 minutes than I've laughed at most movies. OK, maybe "Steel Magnolias" was funnier, but this one is supposed to be funny. It's one joke told repeatedly, and disjointedly, but it's more than that. Highly recommended, as long as the vilest of sexual and bodlly functions and actions won't send you screaming into the night.

Quick review of the Arclight theater in Hollywood: Why can't all theaters be like this? Yes, it's more expensive than other theaters- $14. for a matinee!- but you get a huge auditorium with comfortable stadium seating, huge armrests, lots of leg room, RESERVED SEATING!, no ads before the movie, only three trailers, live and very friendly ushers (one of whom does the "turn off your cell phones" announcement live), no kids running through the corridors... I love the place.

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This is the person the FCC hired to advise them on indecency matters:

In a January letter to President Bush, (Penny) Nance joined others in calling for stricter enforcement of indecency laws and identifying a “huge indecency problem” on basic cable. She has said TV broadcasters should restore a family hour when racy programming is held off the air. In 2002, she asked regulators to ensure direct broadcast satellite provider DirecTV did not fall under control of News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, whom she dubbed a purveyor of “must-sleaze TV” on the Fox network. (Murdoch gained control of DirecTV in 2003, after regulators blocked its merger with EchoStar Communications that Nance backed.)

Turn the f'ing channel, lady.

Nance has previously taken a direct interest in issues of broadcast indecency. “It is time the networks revisited the family hour,” she wrote in a bylined article in The Washington Times on May 5, 2003. The family viewing hour resulted from an agreement among major broadcast networks to keep graphic programming off the air from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. when children are most likely to be watching.

Turn the f'ing channel, lady.

In January, Nance joined others in the letter urging Bush to appoint as FCC chair someone committed to enforcing indecency laws. Other signatories included stalwarts of the conservative political movement such as Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum, as well as longtime FCC critics Donald Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association, and Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, who both argue the agency has shirked its responsibility to crack down on indecent broadcasts.

Turn the f'ing channel, lady.

“The breakdown of standards on TV and radio is a ‘moral values’ problem we cannot ignore,” said the letter to Bush, which was widely interpreted in D.C. as a plea to appoint Martin. It called for “repeated and expanded” fines “until broadcasters understand they are not above the law.” It also cited “a huge indecency problem on basic cable channels.”

Turn the f'ing channel, lady.

This should not be a difficult concept to grasp.

And the Chairman of the FCC is relying on her for her expertise. She doesn't even know how to operate a television set. And she doesn't trust that the rest of us know how, either.

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The idea that, even if your team is still technically in the pennant race, going to see a baseball game when the home team is under .500 is at best dispiriting and more likely painful seems to finally be getting through to Dodger fans. The crowd for the team's return home seemed thinner yet than those at the last home stand. This time, the orange and blue and red empties stood out a little more, the applause sounded a little muted. There may be no joy in Mudville when Casey strikes out in the clutch, but Mudville is positively brutal when the Nine is nine games under in early August, six behind San Diego and ten back in the wild card.

The Phillies are in town, six behind Atlanta but 2 1/2 behind in the wild card, so they're in somewhat better shape, but they, too, don't seem to have the aura of a playoff contender. Nobody in the press box seems to be paying much attention to the game- the Yankees-White Sox game is drawing more interest. So is the Angels-A's game. Those games MEAN something. This one doesn't.

Modest proposal- on August 1, eliminate all but the top two or three teams in each division. Redo the schedule so they just play each other. Presto- every game matters. And then there'd be a good reason to spend three hours at the ballpark.

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Day by Day is a smart, entertaining comic strip on the Net.

Chris Muir is cool, he cranks the strip out every day just for the web, and he doesn't ask for anything.

Until now. He wants you to click on a banner. Here's the explanation:

And here's where to click:

So do it.

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I thought this was kinda interesting: I got a spam e-mail from another of those digital convergence conferences that are sprouting everywhere. The subject line was this:

HD, IP, ITV, Wireless...Games, Movies, Music, Sports, TV Program Executives & Investors flocking to TRENdS 05 Digital Media Convergence, Four Seasons, Las Vegas, Sept. 12-13

What's missing from this picture?

Radio- the No Respect Medium.

And it's not like they're unaware of radio at this conference- they have Clear Channel's Evan Harrison scheduled for a presentation. But radio Just. Isn't. Important. Anymore. Here's more from the e-mail:

The need for dialog among executives dealing with digital media strategies, solutions and convergence issues has become imperative. Join top executives from major companies, new media investment experts and solutions providers from emerging enterprises in bringing television programs, movies, games, sports, music, advertising and information over the Internet, broadband cable, satellite & wireless technologies. Be there as they tackle growing market demands for secure pipelines, devices and interactivity.

Again, what's missing? They have TV, movies, games, sports, music, advertising, and "information." Radio programming? Nope. And "Music" doesn't cover it. Is Howard Stern "music"? Rush Limbaugh? Ryan F'ing Seacrest?

There are eight panels at this thing. No radio representatives on any of them. Not a single one.

I'm not sure who gets the blame for this- the organizers, sure, but are they merely reacting to increasing irrelevance of the medium or are they just guilty of undervaluing the industry? Is it radio's own fault for slowly lurching into digital while other nations like the UK are several years advanced? And why is there not even a mention of podcasting or satellite radio or radio via streaming and wireless broadband?

I guess when you call your conference TRENdS, you ignore what's not trendy. I thought podcasting was trendy enough, but apparently I'm mistaken. Maybe radio needs to deck itself out in whatever the kids are wearing these days. But don't ask me what's in- I wouldn't know. I'm in radio.

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The Philadelphia Daily News has, for most of its history, been known for these things:

1. Great sports section.
2. Crime coverage.
3. Scrappy, populist local news coverage.
4. Local street-wise columnists.

The Philadelphia Daily News podcast does NOT contain:

1. Great sports section.
2. Crime coverage.
3. Scrappy, populist local news coverage.
4. Local street-wise columnists.

The Philadelphia Daily News podcast DOES contain:

1. NPR-like somnambulent production.
2. Deadly earnest interviews with college professors.
3. Boring recitations of what's on the website.
4. Nothing terribly local.

In other words, you don't get the flavor of the paper on the podcast. It might as well be one of those WHYY public affairs shows. That's partly a failing of the paper- buffeted by Knight-Ridder cutbacks, a population shift to the suburbs, and the loss of key personnel over the years, the Daily News is a shadow of its former self. It used to be a must-buy with classic headlines and world-class sports coverage and columnists like Pete Dexter. Now, it looks like what an art department would design without regard to what the readership wants, a front page with a full-page color picture that often buries the headline at the bottom, where people won't look for it, and it's easy to ignore. Numbers don't lie: the circulation's down below 140,000. I still pick it up when I come to town, and there are still traces of the old days (Byko, Conlin), but it's not the same.

And it's that homogenization, that carelessness with a legacy, that permeates the paper's "Philly Feed" podcast. From the amateur-hour intro ("Philly Feed," a nasal voice intones over bland production music, "it's like NEC-tar... for your EARS") to the indistinguishable/interchangeable hosts to the dull, monotone interviews, it's useless. I want to hear some wise-ass writer challenge Mayor Street, I want to hear Conlin rip Ed Wade or Rich Hofmann take apart the T.O. situation, I want to hear some Philly accents. Sorry, that might sell some papers and entice more people to listen.

Urgh.

The mainstream media knows something's going on in their industry, and they know they need to be in on it. But it's not enough to hire techies to get a podcast on the Net and throw some staffers into the fire and expect something worthwhile. They need to hire someone who understands not just what you can do on a podcast but what you can accomplish with it. Aping NPR when the product you're promoting isn't designed to appeal to the NPR listener makes absolutely no sense; they just don't have anyone in-house who's figured that out yet.

But what do I know? All I've done is create popular talk radio shows. Obviously, there's no place in the New Media Order for that.

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