Athletic Scandals

  It seems like if play professional sports, as long as you’re not sleeping with your coach or someone famous, no one really cares about you sex life. Of course unless you are breaking the law, by being a peeping tom or rapist, you’re in the clear. There have been some weirdoes that have gone that route but not many or at least not many that get caught.

It is kind of sad when the biggest sport scandal of our time is Tiger Woods and his affair. It is shocking for a Golf player, but hardly for the sports industry. The unexpected is what gets noticed because people are shocked when they see this kind of behavior from such a role model. It seems as long as athletes are scoring points we don't care how much they are scoring under the sheets. It is not like other athletes don't do it or get caught. As a society we really don't care about it and turn a blind eye when it is an athlete. I believe that questions are what drives a scandal. 

Look at Michael Phelps and all the scandals surrounding him. There were two that stuck out in my mind, a three some with some strippers and his, still not forgotten, pot scandal. The stripper scandal didn't go that far because we as a society expect that from a young, successful, single male. On the other hand a pot head winning 8 gold medals in the Olympics is unheard of. It is lucky if a pot head gets off his couch let alone win any gold medals for anything. If it was a performance enhancing drug I’d understand peoples skepticism but even I question how he did it and think he deserved all his metals, plus one for pulling it off. It makes me wonder if he didn’t smoke how much better he would have done If not smoking. His cardio would be insane.

YouTube killed the video star

YouTube killed the video star... Probably not, but it might be helping the CD industry along the way to its grave. Unfortunately, I believe if you are anyone trying to do anything to promote yourself YouTube is your friend. As a consumer I don’t quite understand this phenomenon but I think that it’s because I’m getting old. From a Mass communications standpoint, YouTube is THE BEST CREATION EVER!  You can make your own short video to advertise yourself on YouTube for FREE and who doesn’t love free, I DO.

There have been a lot of sensations that have come from YouTube. Some artists have been able to sign with record labels like Justin Bieber and others, who are self produced of which my favorite is a beat boxer called DubFx. Justin Bieber has created so many hit singles I feel he does not have to worry about money in this age of the internet and pirating. He is reaching the top 10 charts on single download format like ITunes, which is becoming a hard thing to do. In addition to being able to sell singles, I feel that most artists are making more money selling concert tickets. That is definitely something this teen age sensation can do with the fan club he has going. But there are people not as fortunate, like DubFx, who find themselves asking for donations to make it to the U.S.A in order to book shows. Both are talented artists with a definite passion for music. With YouTube Bieber found Stardom. Hopefully DubFx will make over to the U.S.A. and to Baltimore. But both would have not made it as far or as FAST without YouTube and all for FREE!!

Now someone can advertise before a short video instead of having to wait for commercial breaks to post their ads. Most people just TiVo and fast forward through commercials anyway but with YouTube you can’t view the video until the commercial is over. Since this service is FREE to BOTH USER and VIEWER someone has to be paid somehow.

Shouting the News

First i feel the need to explain this isn't something i would normally watch so i picked some people at random like Larry king. After watching Foxed out in class Bill O' Reilly seemed like a good candidate to watch seemed at least interesting to see what makes him say shut up. 

When watching Bill O' Reilly's Show i'd have to say i was disappointed. He did not tell anyone to shut up. I was rather bored, I'm guessing the election is going his way. He was still louder than his guests, but not yelling at anyone like seen in the documentary. All of his guest seem no agree with him. I wonder if thats because they were all Fox New Contributors. He seems very opinionated and i don't feel i learned anything from him. He seem very arrogant, that is a big turn off for me and normally ends in me changing the station. I think a one hour of him is torture not informational.

Larry King seems a little different. He speaks more Calmly. Larry king ask questions and tries to lead you you in to what he want to say. He doesn't use the shut up method from what i could see. He seems to talk to more famous style people like Jon Stewart. Larry king Doesn't seem to use CNN Contributor to make story swing more there way. I think i could play him at least as background noise his demeanor is much more tolerable.

So Larry king wins this battle for less annoying. I doubt anything will compare to the original.

Reality Television: real or unreal?

Will We Survive Reality Television?

   I personally miss the days that you could watch music videos on MTV and VH1. I staying up late and falling asleep watching Bevis & Butthead, and then waking up red hot chilli peppers " give it away". Most children had nightmares of scary things, mine evolved five half-dress naked gold men dancing around and singing "give it away now," woke me up in terror every time. I then get up turn off the tv and go back to bed, ah... the good old days of my childhood.

   Now looking back and reminiscing, my break up with MTV was the debut of Real world, and I haven't since looked back. Over 20 years ago now, I can still remember the useless drama of the real world. All what seemed like stunts to grab attention of America, and that it did. With reality television now being the staple for our popular culture I find my self watching less cable television and more movies or documentaries. Of course this does mean I have a whole lot less to talk to with people, especially people in my age group. when I took my nephew snowboarding while walking around looking for this instructor, I asked another instructor, "where I could find Mary Kate?" he said, "look for the Snooki look alike". Never seeing Jersey shore I was still confused and asked, " who's Snooki?" I think he was more confused that I have never seen the show. 

   The only real length of reality show I ever really got to watch was the Deadliest Catch, and Ultimate Fighter, thanks to my husband's obsessions. When ever he would watch the Deadliest Catch, a men's catered reality T.V. show, I would just complain or leave the room. I felt it was just another one of those stupid show in the wave of popularity with most reality shows, but apparently this is one of the most watch.

    Now does this mean that it is a better show or do we just have more men watching theses shows? I doubt it but I do hear more men talking about theses shows around town. I had to listen to one of graphics teachers talked about the teen mom and how it makes him feel better about himself. I feel better about my self if I was learning graphic design not about his addiction to teen mom. 

I feel as a society, we are putting to much time and brain power into these reality shows. The only reality to this is that we are wasting precious lives watching this junk. This is another thing I blame for making our society stupid. STOP worrying about these people. YOU making more inbreed Americans popular to save a dollar. Do you really want your children to act like this? They should use reality shows for what not to do campaigns. Not to promote and display to our bad behavior to our children. Forget if Martians use this as a way to see how humans behave, what if some other country is looking at this?and now think this is how all americans act. Will American survive reality television?

Remember the Newspaper

A Dying Breed

    Do you remember the Newspaper? Will the day come that we will be asked that very question? I was wondering about that the other day before breakfast, on my way to the donut shop with my nephew. Unfortunately the answer might be, yes.

As we passed the newspaper dispenser my four year old nephew asked for a paper, just like his Poppy. I just hope he can read fast enough to help support what might be a lost American tradition. Newspapers like the Baltimore Sun are fighting everyday to survive, laying off many employees and limiting staff jobs. I think as a society we need to support business like this.

    We need to protect our american traditions and protect Americans from "stupid". The newspaper has standards, rules, and regulations to uphold that the Internet doesn't. My favorite thing to do as a child, was to mess with people on the Internet and pretend to be someone else, as a joke.  I was to young to actually relate to the older people on the Internet, so my father and I would make up things just to be able to try out the Internet.

    With the dawning of the age of the Internet, newspapers like the Baltimore Sun need to find a way to keep up so they do not disappear, or we could be DOOMED for stupid. The newspapers may need to band together to save on distribution costs or something.

BOTTOM LINE NEWSPAPERS NEED TO STAY ALIVE for the sake of human preservation and American tradition. So go get your subscription today and SAY NO TO STUPID & YES TO AMERICAN TRADITION. 

The world of the magazine…

  Do you ever wonder whether or not all the models you see on the covers of magazines are air brushed or "retouched"? I did, until I had some exposure to the topic studying graphic design and photography in school. I had to learn basic techniques on how to air brush, nip, tuck, and remove unwanted items from images. 

  Well today I was asked to evaluate what I think when I go through the check out lines and see all of the magazines covers. If I think the images that I see are realistic? Probably not, based on what I’ve learned in school, what you can’t do with make up, you can now do thanks to Photoshop. 

  

  Do I agree? Depends on how you look at it and what side of the fence you are on. As a photographer,  I agree with the statement “I’m only making her look her best”, well its true. You want to betray the client the best you can with highlighting their best feature with hopefully classic artistic poses and have the best make up artist to hid any unwanted flaws that the camera might highlight. Not only do you want your client to look their best,  but you want to look good too. You do this by making them look good or better than the camera might betray them. When you photograph someone it can highlight flaws that you may not notice or focus on. We try to hide that and show you how we see the client. Then sometimes we go to the extreme so that we don’t look bad. 

  Do I think this misrepresents men and women? Sure. Nothing you see anymore is real. People have flaws. It is what makes them unique and different. They are REAL , not some spray painted Hollywood picture. That’s why I have always loved the pictures showing real life shots, not their glamor shots or pictures with no make-up. It shows how much they are real people just like you and me. And if you enjoy these to,  here is MORE.