Category: Television

  • Take it like a man

    Last night I watched an hour-long interview with Jesse James. (West Coast Choppers, ex-husband to Sandra Bullock)

    Pier Morgan, who conducted the interview, did his best to find an excuse that Jesse could latch onto as to why he had behaved the way he had.

    • Was it because your father beat you?
    • Were you lonely when Sandra was away working on movies?
    • Were you trying to maintain an image of being a bad boy?
    • Do you blame the paparazzi for shining light on the situation?
    • Were you using drugs?

    Down the list Mr. Morgan goes, trying to find a psychobabble-worthy reason why this man had cheated on his wife.

    Jesse’s answer?

    Here’s a summary of what he said during the interview: It was my fault. I take 100% responsibility. It’s no ones fault but mine. I’ve hurt her. I’ve asked for forgiveness from her. She has given it. I was a horrible person unfit to love anyone and I’ve had to learn to love myself. My upbringing didn’t lead me to this, I made my own choices.

    The level of honesty displayed was refreshing. No spin. No softening the blows. Just take it like a man because you brought it on yourself.

    When asked if he thought that discussing this stuff and writing about it might hurt Sandra’s feelings he acknowledged that it might, but that she understood he was just out to promote his book. Who admits that?

    Dealing with Failure

    Dealing with failure is part of life. It is unavoidable that you will mess up. It probably won’t be as blatant or as messy or as public as Jesse’s affair but you will have to deal with the ramifications just the same.

    One thing I’ve learned over the years is that I need to fail well. Hiding from mistakes, oversights, and outright bad things I’ve done doesn’t help anything. It just makes it worse.

    I had a mentor early in my career that taught me how to talk about my own failures in a team setting.

    • Lead with the failure – Don’t bury it in agenda. Come right out and say it because it’s the #1 agenda item.
    • Follow up with how it happened – Don’t just gloss it over, explain how it happened in as much detail is needed. Others might learn from how you got to your mistake.
    • Tell us how you’re fixing it – If you don’t know than ask for help. But you better have a plan for how you’ll fix it or else your silence is giving the team the most logical solution…
    • End with apologizing/taking ownership of the mistake – Don’t weasel out of it. Don’t accept someone else’s apology. Own that mistake, learn from it, and move on.

    In short, while failure may display a lack of character which defines you for a moment, dealing with failure well displays the type of character that can define you for a lifetime.

    What have you learned about dealing with your mistakes?

  • The Man Who Punk’d the World



    It’s becoming increasingly clear that this family punk’d the world.     In fact, it looks as if the man who scripted the whole incident, less the involvement of the child, sold his story to Gawker.

    What isn’t clear is why they tried to play it this way. OK, so you pulled a fast one with the world’s media? Awesome! Why not use the spotlight to look into the camera and say to Wolf Blitzer, “You just got punked!”

    Sure, he’d be opening himself up to a big bill from the agencies who wasted taxpayer money playing pawn-like roles in his publicity stunt.     But, if he got the last laugh on CNN and then told Wolf that he had a place where people could chip-in to cover his impending legal problems– all of this would have been funny, he would have collected a million dollars, and the Heene family would have pulled something off which would have made Ashton Kutcher blush.

    In that moment Richard Heene’s held choice in his hands which would change his family forever. Would he tell the truth and become a legendary prankster? Or would he lie and become a legendary mook?

    Richard Heene chose to try to keep the hoax a secret. Even after 6 year old Falcon Heene spilled the beans on live TV. And now the family looks horrible. And now the parents may get arrested. And now the fame they so eagerly wanted will be replaced by visits by the Child Protective Services.

    The hoax had the potential to live out an example of Seth Godin’s blog post from the same day. Instead, we’re stuck with this sad story of 3 little kids who may now see their family encounter hard times.

    I just wish Richard Heene had chosen the other option.     Now that would have been captivating television. “Wolf, the truth is that you… and the whole world… just got punked!“

  • Alone in the Wild

    wide shot ed walking

    Last night I watched a fascinating documentary on the National Geographic Channel called, “Alone in the Wild.”

    It was difficult to watch. Here was this outdoorsmen named Ed Wardle. He wanted to test himself to see… can I live completely independent of others and survive in the Yukon wilderness? He intended to make it 90 days. He made it 50. And the last few weeks weren’t pretty. As time wore on, as hunger set in, as the reality that he could contact people but was choosing not to set in, the pain set in. It was agonizing TV. He cried a lot. He dealt with a lot of emotional pain. And of course he documented his unraveling. With the pressure of shooting a film on his mind all the time and the reality that he was lonely– he was paralyzed. He was in the wild, all by himself trying to prove that he could do it on his own, and he realized he needed people. He could technically do it but he chose to give up.

    Deep exhale on that. He needed people. He had the skills to do it on his own. But we just aren’t wired that way. We’re hardwired to need one another.

    And so he quit. He couldn’t do it. Check out what he said:

    The isolation was the most difficult element of this adventure. With no contact I immediately began to lose direction and reason. Without food I lost concentration and the ability to think straight. I worked hard from week one to keep myself motivated and keep going and by the end I was spending hours every day just convincing myself to carry on one day at a time. When I was travelling or doing something physically hard I had a military voice superimposed on my thoughts keeping me going and getting me organised, other times I had a female voice that would tell me to be sensible, breathe and take it easy on myself. They helped and I could feel them getting stronger and more necessary as time went on. link

    I doubt Kristen would remember saying this to me but when we were dating in college she wrote in a letter, “I love you because you don’t need anyone but you chose to let me into your world.“ True– I was raised to be independent. One of my parents goals in raising my brother and I was that we’d be able to take care of ourselves. (I don’t think they ever meant this emotionally, but physically we knew how to take care of ourselves with food, laundry, cleaning up, and stuff like that pretty young!)  When things got rough in high school and college I took that desire to be independent to an extreme. In my dysfunction I translated “you can do it on your own” to “I will do life with no ones help, I will muscle through anything, I don’t need to depend on anyone.”

    Kristen was right. Back then, I didn’t need or want anyone in my life. It was amazingly fulfilling to find my own way, take care of myself, and go from absolutely nothing to paying my way through college. But it was also dysfunctional. And it took someone I loved calling that spade a spade to motivate me to change.

    This is where Kristen has completed me in a powerful way, though. She reminds me, in words and deeds,  that we need others in our lives. We need good friends. We need the wisdom of our peers. We need to be open in these relationships. She has taught me that while we don’t “need” others to survive… life is infinitely better with people than without.

    Doggone it if she wasn’t right, too. Life is way better surviving in the wild with friends.

  • Unreal Soccer Skills

  • Ben Stiller at the Oscars

    There weren’t many memorable moments, but Ben mocking Joaquin Phoenix’s Letterman appearance was classic.

  • So Long American Idol Season 8

    american-idol

    I watched most of the American Idol audition shows this year. I love the auditions! And I gave Hollywood Week a shot… and it was fun. But after last nights show, I’m out. I’ll come back in a few weeks when the quality of musicians starts to shine through. It’s one thing to have the occasional bad singing… and they had that covered last night. (The woman who went first probably killed their ratings; horrible outfit; she butchered that song. Someone please tell the 95 pound woman she can’t pull off an Aretha Franklin song, need I go on?) But I’ve seen and heard enough to know that they are merely hyping the “most talented group ever.” And the judge who is Paula’s stand-in just in case Paula falls off the wagon one more time… she was a complete Paula Abdul clone last night! What exactly did she add to the panel?

    I’ll be back for the finale. But I don’t think I can sweat it out all season with this cast.

    Then again, there isn’t a lot else on so I’ll probably just whine and watch next week. Yeah, who am I kidding? I have a love-hate relationship with the show.

    And I voted for Danny Gokey 25 times before going to bed. Man, that guy can sing.

  • All about The Price is Right

    Here’s a random list of things I learned about my trip to The Price is Right.

    #1 It’s so clear that I’ve found a new tribe of people in the San Diego Tweet-up. Had a lot of fun and useful conversations who think about things I think about.

    #2 If you ever go to be a contestant, try to get a group. With a group of 15 or more you get guaranteed seating. That really means you don’t have to arrive around 5:00 AM to get into the taping at 12:30 PM. Instead you just all have to be there and check-in by 9. (8:30 would be better) Also, one person from your group is guaranteed to get called to “come on down!” If you’re in SoCal and want to get a group together please let me know. I definitely want to go again.

    #3 Getting qualified to be on the show is super simple. You just have to bring a picture ID, not work for Viacom, and be willing to show proof of your SSN if you win.

    #4 There will be lots of lines. There is a line-up to get into the line. Then there is a line where you just wait to fill out paperwork and get your magic nametag. Then a line to get your picture taken. Then a line to do your 10 second interview with the producer. Then a line to go through security. Then a line to go into the studio. Then after the taping, a line to get your cell phone back.

    #5 Read the instructions on the website. Everything will happen exactly as they say. There will be no exceptions. And they are very strict on the rules, in general. Polite and nice but firm. Park where they want you to park. Wear what they tell you to wear. On and on… just follow the rules!

    #6 They say you have to be obnoxious to get called down. I just think you need to be yourself. If you’re excited, be excited. If you are faking it “over the top” you won’t get called. The most obnoxious people in our audience did not get called.

    #7 The woman next to me got called to “Come on Down!” That was a ton of fun… from the moment she heard her name called to the moment she bid on her showcase. In her interview she talked about doing fundraising for AIDS research, I wonder if that helped?

    #8 The studio isn’t that big. There are only a few hundred seats in the audience. The set is actually no where near as big as they make it seem on TV. It’s about the same size as a typical high school stage. Just with WAY more rigging in the ceiling and lots and lots of space behind and on the sides for moving stuff around.

    #9 The crew was amazing. I know they shoot this show twice a day and that they’ve done it for 30+ years. But the whole show was pretty much shot in “real time” and there was plenty of theatrical stuff going on. Such as, when they revealed the prizes, the audience had no idea what it would be. How they move a car into an a set completely silently is beyond me.

    #10 I grossly underestimated the showcase showdown. I think everyone did. There was a vacation in there that must have been 3x’s what everyone thought. Oops.

    #11 It’s loud during the taping! There is so much excitement and noise that it’s no wonder people make such bad bids. You can’t think straight and I’m pretty sure that is part of the psychological advantage.

    #12 Drew Carey is way cooler in person than I had thought he would be. He was a master of working the audience in a genuine and non-Hollywood kind of way. I didn’t hang around but the group we came with went out to eat. It turns out Drew was having lunch at the same spot. He came over and was very generous with his time. Rumor has it he was exceedingly generous with his tip as well! The only thing that really cracked me up was that he referred to himself as a celebrity. I am pretty sure no one has ever said that in front of me. “I’m a celebrity.” True statement, just funny to say. Made me wonder if he put that on his tax return.

    #13 I am only a little disappointed I didn’t get picked. I think I now know what I need to do for next time to get picked. But over all, it was a 9 out of 10 trip. Have I mentioned I want to do it again yet?

    #14 They shoot about 2 months in advance. So my show will air February 10th.

    #15 If you win, you fill out the paperwork on the spot. Like literally, you win, they go to commercial, and you start filling out paperwork as soon as they seat you.

    #16 CBS Pages are a unique breed of people. They wear these unsexy red jackets and walk you through the whole process of getting on the show. They are a lot like people who work at amusement parks. Permagrins, tired jokes, ugly outfits, and likely underpaid for what they do.

    #17 Drew Carey is up on his social media. Our group kind of hijacked the show with a twitter reference at the beginning. The contestant from our group, Peggy, who got on stage told him her shirt was her Twitter name. Then Drew explained what Twitter was to the camera. Then in the break he went on and on about Twitter. He asked Peggy what her favorite webapp was of the moment. (Addicto-o-matic… Not Twitter!) Then he mentioned it a few more times like “are you going to Tweet this?” Seriously, Peggy is going to have about 25,000 followers for being the first person to get Twitter mentioned on The Price is Right.

    #18 Not really a Price is Right comment. But this trip made me think it would be fun to go to LA for a week and just go to various TV show tapings. Did I mention the whole thing was free? Other than the cup of coffee and a snack I bought on the way home I didn’t spend a dime!

  • The Price is Right

    Today I am fulfilling a major dream. Well, I’m attempting to fulfill a dream by going to a taping of The Price is Right in Burbank, CA. I’m a total geek but I am super excited about seeing the show taping as well as seeing, live and in person… Drew Carey!

    I’ll let you know the air date of the show.

    Our group is meeting up at a park-n-ride at 5:30 AM, we need to be up there by 9:00 AM. From there it’s all top secret.

    All I know is that I’m winning a car and a showcase showdown. I feel the need to go on the record about that.

  • Hot Like Me!

    Just a little reminder of why we want Fall TV to launch.

  • Catching up on The Office

    The OfficeRecently I had the time to sit down and watch all of the episodes of The Office, Season 1. It’s a cool show but not the best show on TV. People talk about it as if it were as good as Cheers or The Cosby Show or other classic NBC hit sitcoms. It isn’t any of those things. While I will continue to catch up, it’s not that great.

    Perhaps I’m ruined because I saw the British version of this show first? About two years ago I checked out the original The Office season one from the Romeo Library and laughed my butt off.  In U.S. terms it would be rated R… so if you check it out be warned. And as I watched the U.S. version is like the quirky, not-so-funny and squeaky clean cousin to the real thing.

    Steve Carrel is funny. He’s very high on my list of comedians… but not nearly as funny as Ricky Gervais