Let's play two!

It’s a new season. A new school year is like the beginning of baseball season. Baseball starts when winter ends and around here, the end of winter is usually celebrated.

I have been to most parts of this country and there is no finer place to be in summer than right here in Central New York. But here at SU, summer is like the winter before baseball season starts. At first you kind of look forward to the slower pace. You have some time to catch up on the things you couldn’t get to when the students were here. You take a little time off. The university’s shifts to “summer hours” which means starting and ending your day thirty minutes earlier than usual. It feels nice. For a while.

But like winter, you’re ready for it to be over. You want to get back to the excitement and energy that the new school season brings. It’s time to play ball. And speaking of baseball, today the Cubs are still on top of the National League in their division as well as having the best record in all of baseball. I mention that because the Cubs were Alex Taft’s favorite team and one of my favorite baseball players of all time is Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. Banks loved baseball so much, any day was a good day to play baseball. So good in fact that he was often fond of saying, “It’s a great day to play ball, let’s play two!”

So as we begin the new semester and remember Alex and the Cubs, let’s play two!

Welcome back!

Last week, as a family, we spent a few days in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Our agenda was to just get away for a few days before school starts as well as take our very first “college trip.” My oldest daughter is 16 and will be a junior this fall in high school. She has her sights set on a drama career and there’s a good school in Boston we wanted to visit. So off to fight the traffic and visit Emerson College we go.

We are very early in this process so there really wasn’t any pressure to make sure this college was “the one.” The tour was good. Emerson has some very nice facilities. Since it was the dead of summer we couldn’t get a sense as to what the campus was like when school was in session but one thing we could understand right away was that it was an urban campus located in the heart of the Boston theatre district. Looking for ivy and a quad at Emerson? Forget it. But that said, for an aspiring actress it has a good feel. Anyway, we finished the tour and went off to Faneuil Hall for some lunch at “Cheers” and shopping.

Over lunch my wife and I compared notes about our tour. In the end we decided it was a good school and if Rachel felt that was where she wanted to go, and she could get in, she would be well served there. But afterwards, as I mulled over our discussion, I started to do the obvious comparisons to Syracuse.

Was it academically as rigorous? Did it have similar opportunities for students to learn and grow outside the classroom? How does our faculty stack up to theirs? Do they have a strong career center? In the spirit of professional courtesy, I won’t offer up a scorecard instead let me say something. I am deeply grateful that you are here and chose Syracuse. I do not take your decision to do so for granted. I love this school and truly believe your experience here can be enriching, fulfilling and successful. I also understand that I have a responsibility to help you achieve that success. I promise that I will do everything I can do to make that happen.

I can't wait to get started!

Ah, the French

My wife is a French teacher at a middle school here in Syracuse. She spent a year in France after high school as a Rotary student and then while in college, spent another year in France. One of her first jobs after college was working for French company that required her to travel to Paris frequently. She knows France quite well.

One of the things she most likes about the French is August. Seems that they don’t work in much in August. The entire country goes on vacation. Well, in honor of the French, I’m going on vacation today . . . . kind of. Next week I’m taking a few days off because we have good friends coming in from Chicago and then the week after that I’m going to Boston for a few days with my wife and children. So for the next couple of Fridays, the day I usually post my blog, I’ll be trying my best to be French.

So, until I get back you might want to check out a few other purveyors of TV and media wisdom. Check out:

www.shellypalmermedia.com
www.jackmyers.com
www.tvnewsday.com

When I return the start of the semester will be upon us and hopefully I’ll be ready to rock ‘n roll.

Au revoir!

American Iron

Lots of things trigger memories. When I smell shrimp I am thrust back to my childhood home on New Year’s Eve because that’s when my mother cooked the little critters. Whenever I watch “Field of Dreams,” which happens to be my favorite movie, I am taken back to a very pivotal year in my life, 1989. I bought my first house and met my wife that year. And when I see a 1966 Ford Fairlane I am reminded of my very first car.

This past weekend I went to the Syracuse Nationals at the NYS Fairgrounds. The “Nationals” is one of the largest gatherings of classic automobiles in the Northeast. There were about 6,700 cars there and almost all of them were made in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and most were American, or as my brother affectionately calls them, “American Iron.”

I got my Fairlane in the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. My father worked as a service writer at a local car dealer and he saw my car come in on a trade. He bought it for $300 in 1972. The car you see pictured is a convertible but mine was not. Mine was a green, low mileage (driven by a little old lady, honest!) two-door sedan, and automatic with a 289 V-8. I put in an 8-track player and water and oil pressure gauges. It was a TOB: “Thing o’ Beauty.”

I drove that car for two years before rust started to take its toll. I was very sad to see it disintegrate. I remember taking my first real road trip in that car going to West Point to visit a high school buddy. On that trip the solenoid crapped out in Albany, my first test with car problems away from home.

But mostly the car reminds me of my father. “Pop” was pretty good with cars and could fix almost anything. He was a child of the Depression and a veteran of World War II having been stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was a man of few words but had a gift for dialects. He could imitate almost any accent. Pop assigned everyone a nickname that made sense only to him. He had a good laugh and liked his hamburgers with a slice of onion and a beer. He really loved my Mom and credits her with straightening out his life. I never really knew what he meant by that but as I got older I kind of got the feeling that Pop had some “adventures” growing up.

Neither my wife nor my two girls share my passion for old cars and I can understand that, it’s a “guy thing.” So when I see an old Fairlane the memories are personal and private. It’s a chance for me to conjure up my father’s laugh, his smell and his voice. This summer it’s been 25 years since Pop died and the memories are still there, thanks to a ’66 Ford Fairlane.

My New Shirt

When I got back from the AHECTA conference a few weeks ago I had a lot of mail to sort through from having been gone for over a week. There was one large cushy envelope, the kind that’s padded, which I went for immediately. Inside was a real nice black “Fox News” t-shirt. Fox News is a corporate sponsor of AHECTA and I think they sent these shirts to everyone who visited their booth. This shirt has a nice embroidered logo over the left breast and another one on the right sleeve. As swag goes, this was top shelf. But Fox News? Could I wear a shirt from a network that airs Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly with pride?

Now before you go to apoplectic on me hear me out. Full disclosure here: I’m not a fan of either of those guys and readers of this blog know I like “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” so you might be thinking, “So Robinson is just another Al Gore supporting, Volvo driving (I drive a 2000 Dodge Stratus actually) latte sipping (prefer Paul DeLima French Roast) tree hugging (okay, guilty there) liberal so OF COURSE he wouldn’t wear it. Wrong. I did and am wearing it now. And okay, I did vote for Gore in 2000.

But here’s what went through my head this morning. “If I wear this shirt, what label will people attach to me? Conservative? Neocon? Republican? News junky? I guess we’ve always labeled people: rich, smart, handsome etc. It seems like you have to be either or these days. The middle has washed away. I’m not sure why that is as I’m not a sociologist but I think I’d have to say that the business I work in has had something to do with that. Between talk radio and the 24 news cycle on cable news channels, we’ve created a big echo chamber for whatever your political persuasion happens to be.

So what’s the point? I don’t know other than I decided I didn’t really care what label someone cared to assign to me. People who know me know what I’m like and what I believe and that’s all I really care about. People can think what they want. And for the record, I’m not a fan of Hannity or O’Reilly mostly because they just always seem so angry to me. They’re never happy unless they’re bashing something or someone.

As for the shirt? Nice swag, I’ll wear it again.

The Original Realty TV Show

If you google “NBC Olympic Coverage” these are a few of the results.

From nbcolympics.com . . . “NBC Universal will show 3600 hours of the Beijing Olympic Games, the most ambitious single media project in history . . .”

And this from USA Today . . . “Network and cable rivals are mostly writing off August, avoiding the launch of fresh programming to dodge the tsunami better known as the Summer Olympics . . . “

And more from USA Today . . . “Imagine the moon was colonized a few years after humans first landed. That's sort of what's happened to Olympic TV.”

It used to be that every four years, the Olympics became the 900-pound gorilla of television, dominating the airwaves. Then a few years ago (probably because of television not wanting a four year break between those gorilla visits) they went to alternating the winter and summer games so there is an Olympics every two years. And as you can see from the google results, it still garners a lot of whoop.

Televised Olympic coverage was the first, and maybe the best, reality television show. Was there a better moment than “Do you believe in miracles?” That was reality at its best. In the early years the Olympics were tape delayed and at most you’d see a few hours of prime time coverage because of the time differences but as the outlets for distribution grew, they went live but still mostly on television. And now? Thousands of hours of coverage. Go that? Thousands! Everywhere there’s a screen. Now forgive me as I digress into my little “I know I’m a dinosaur and I remember when TV was black and white” mode, but . . . OMG! Thousands of hours? I just can’t get over a few things about this. In no particular order of importance:

- I’d love to see some statistics on how many people watched and more importantly, on what device they watched it on.
- I wonder if NBC will make much money at this
- I hope our students from Newhouse have a thrilling time.
- I will be remembering Jim McKay.
- What will be the slickest production innovation NBC will unveil?
- I remember if you wanted to watch extended coverage (translate: the unpopular sports) you had to pay extra and now they’re giving it away.

“Survivor” and “The Bachelor” got nothin’ on the Olympics. Get ready for thousands of hours of coverage.

I do believe in miracles.

I Like TV

I like TV.

I’m often amused when people say, “There are 500 channels and nothing to watch!” C’mon, nothing? If you have 500 channels there’s got to be something you might like. But the truth is most people don’t have 500 channels, that’s just an expression, or more like an exaggeration actually. Even if one has basic cable or satellite, or just “regular” TV for that matter, there is bound to be something to watch. I’ll tell you some of the shows that I like to watch.

I’m a big fan of “The Daily Show.” "Frontline" gets my vote too. I like “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” most of the time but sometimes the partisan politics gets a little predictable. I like watching college football and basketball and the NFL. “Iron Chef” and “Ace of Cakes,” my daughter turned me on to those. There’s a show called “The Directors” on Reelz, which I find interesting and “Inside the Actor’s Studio” is almost always excellent. I’m never home when it’s on (probably should DVR it) but when I’ve watched “Ellen” I’ve always laughed. I like “Dexter” even though glamorizing a serial killer feels a little weird. I love TV Land especially now that they’re running “Mad About You.”

“Seinfeld, Friends and Fraser” . . . part of the old “Must See TV” which my wife and I loved. It was the last appointment television we’ve done or that I can remember as being any good. My wife LOVES to watch the Tour De France; she lives for the three weeks in July. I like “Two and a Half Men.” Not sure what it is about Charlie Sheen but he’s just fun to watch. And I’m not ashamed to admit this; I like “American Idol.” One of the reasons I like it is that it’s live. If you work in TV, you have to love live television.

Oh, and I love everything on OTN channel 2. We do some pretty good TV.

Finally, Happy Birthday USA. In spite of our current problems, I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world.

Tell me what you like to watch.