DramatistDreamer

That was what they did to a lot of the male "leads" in the '00s.

Some don't even make that distinction. When you mention NY or CA, the first thing that many people think of is Coast. Then some, 'Coastal Elites'. It's weird to me because growing up on the East Coast, our dairy was always from farms in NY, NJ or CT. Consequently, federal prosecutors have granted immunity to Pecker (sorry but what a name!). Is now a good time to open those floodgates?

Yes, I heard about that lone holdout on the jury at the Manafort trial. Wonder what her reasons for not finding Manafort guilty on all eighteen counts? This almost (almost) makes me believe that, given all the facts (not alternative but real facts), the American people could actually make fair, judicious, even wise choices. The media didn't do their job in 2015-2016 though--instead of facts, they choice to present narrative. Instead of true comparison and contrast of the candidates, they choice to present a horse race, rife with sports analogies and false equivalencies. And instead of a deep examination of issues like the history of voter suppression (why were initiatives like early voting dismantled in 2016?), they chose to prattle on about supposed voter apathy and predictions that many voters would stay home (which became a self-fulfilling prophecy, although there were no genuine discussions of what barriers might have led to low turnout). Also, why is there no discussion on the fickle nature of SuperDelegates and how they could be ruining the Electoral system? Now, we're stuck with an elephantine jackass in the White House. Speaking of that elephantine jackass in the White House, his immigration and trade policies are forming a deadly mix with climate change (which his environmental policies will cause more of) and is causing a crisis for farmers in New York state. I mean literally deadly as some dairy farmers have resorted to suicide-- perhaps those who have not been able to sell their farms. Interesting fact: the majority of farms in New York state are family owned farms. Farmers are now selling their farms at 4x the rate they did in previous years. People forget that farms are not just located in "flyover country". Blame Trump’s Tariffs and the Weather. New York’s Farmers Do.

Just thinking of how incredible it was to have Aretha Franklin singing your show's theme song! I took this for granted back then but thinking about it now, it was a big deal! Speaking of ADW.

And these days this is what is considered to be a slow news day.

This is breathtaking.

Bernie Sanders' son Levy is running for office in New Hampshire and shouting to everyone that he is different from his father, he's his own man. Levi Sanders Is Not His Father. He Keeps Telling That to Voters.

That is Anne Sward who played Lyla. I do agree that pretty much every 50+ actress from ATWT has aged like fine wine. I think the actors had a nice chemistry even after it was clear that they were never going to be a couple (like when Bob and Kim were engaged). Bob and Lyla seemed more like friendly colleagues by then but they still had a kind of chemistry, albeit mostly platonic by then. The only time I can remember is at Bob's bachelor party, he was roasted by a fellow doctor who made fun of all Bob's failed relationships before Kim. Miranda and her infamous profession was mentioned.

More good news.

I haven't been able to see Qualifying at all since I don't subscribe to TC. Oh well. I've been getting to see the messy tournaments in New Haven and Winston-Salem.

I'm still in the process of reading but the race to catch up with Netflix is clearly for the big outfits that compete on that level. It's not so much the streaming platform itself that is very expensive, it's the content that will cost a lot of money. All those platforms that want to stream original content that can compete with the big budget Hollywood fare on the big screen. When Netflix was distributing independent films by indie filmmakers and streaming mostly classic films and second run TV series, the costs were very modest. Once Netflix made the push for original programming, not even so much for TV (although that has changed with the likes of Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes and Kenya Barris, not to mention Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock), things got a LOT more expensive. Although you can make the case that once the U.S. version of House of Cards became a hit, it drove Netflix into a much higher cost echelon and began the drive for original content in earnest. The smaller outfits are in no position to compete and so they don't. Acorn streaming service does very well streaming British based series that are produced by other outfits like the BBC, Channel 4, Thames, etc. It is subscriber based and charges a monthly fee at $4.99 per month, which is relatively modest by today's standards. Bounce TV is an interesting case study. It has a terrestrial TV channel that is antenna based yet they also have a website that streams their original programming. It is not subscriber based, so I assume that advertising plays a big role in their monetization. You can only stream their original programming, which is still not bad considering it's free. With a decent antenna, you can watch everything else. If an enterprising soap production company wanted to stream their classic series, The Bounce TV model seems like the most sensible one.

Kokkinakis won that match in three sets. If Tomic doesn't win in straight sets, it's a pretty good guess that he'll tap out before the match is over.

Manafort is looking at serious time, irrespective of what happens with the other 10 charges.

Partial verdict so far. The jury has agreed on 8 of 18 charges so far. EDT: And those 8 counts have all been guilty so far.

We may actually hear about that sometime soon today.

What can one say about C-SPAN these days? The call screening is...at least this was a good time not to screen the call though. He got cut off unfortunately.

She looks so gorgeous here!

So Cohen copped a Plea?

The music video goes by an altogether different model than it once did which is probably healthier and a bit more democratic than what it had become under MTV. I suspect that MTV was likely finding it more difficult to monetize music as easily as they once did. It happened sooner rather than later, when I suspect a 'Napster for music videos' type service was likely to show itself and eat from MTV's bowl. It was inevitable.

Music video is still very much alive on the Internet through the likes of Vevo, Noisey, Vimeo, BBC, WorldStar and those are just the mainstream sites.

Clive Davis holds some sway and if he has anything to do with it (which I can't see him not being involved), it's going to be a sure sight better than anything MTV can think of. I only saw clips of last night's VMA this morning. I lost interest in MTV a very long time ago. When I was a child in the 80s, I ranked MTV and BET about even. For awhile, BET had more diverse programming, in the fact that they didn't just do videos, they also had cooking shows and game shows and so I probably watch BET more than MTV earlier on. MTV was known for playing the same small number of music videos in heavy rotation early on. It was known that if you watched for 90 minutes, you saw pretty much what they had to offer for the rest of the day. When the Thriller album videos started airing, around '84 (MTV was late), MTV actually started to become appointment viewing TV. Still, if you wanted to see groups that did less known musical genres like freestyle, that was very popular in the NYC metro area, you couldn't get that on MTV, you were more like to see that on a local show like Video Music Box or even BET, if it was a black artist like Shannon. There was just so much in music that MTV didn't cover that you had to supplement by watching other channels, networks. That was just the way it was.

Speaking of Video Soul, I just took a peek at Donnie Simpson's social media and his posted this tweet from Maxwell about Aretha Franklin. This is too cute!

Yeah, that's why I referenced that interview that Bowie did with MTV. Everyone knew that MTV systematically devalued Black music until that system was losing them money. I do think that Fab5 Freddy did a very different show than Ed Lover & Dre. Freddy didn't want to be in a studio every day like other VJs at MTV, so he turned them down when they suggested a daily 'in studio' show. He felt it was best to go out and talk to people, which is why you saw him on location with his interviews. Ed Lover & Dre were not music or art connoiseurs like Freddy, they were comedians-- they had a totally different approach that dealt more in shallow comedy and silliness, which seemed to suit MTV's purposes just fine.

Maybe now that a conservative website has been hacked, enough GOP will take the matter seriously. I doubt it though. Speaking of the Hudson Institute, it just reminds me that while conservatives whine about how liberals are supposedly embedded in college and university campuses to indoctrinate students, they do just as much to try to indoctrinate students, the only difference is that conservatives have been less successful at it. As a grad student/alumni, I can remember getting spammed by the Hudson Institute and my university was in the heart of liberal NYC. I was offered an associate membership in the organization and I allowed my e-mail to be on the mailing list because they not only was I curious about what this organization was about but they were offering freebies, LOL. They had some celebrity speakers basically giving lectures, mainly about achieving success in business and/or in certain fields/industries as well as free subscriptions to certain magazines like Forbes (a conservative leaning financial publication). Well, I was only ever tempted to attend one of the lectures and I never made it there because by then I had moved out of NYC and I didn't want to bother taking a train and subways just for one lecture. I also got bored of the same old self-aggrandizing white men on the covers of the magazines, which had no appealing or useful advice for me. Even when they offered to extend my membership, I canceled. They had nothing of value or interest for me and I no longer wanted to deal with the clutter their mailings had been causing my mail and e-mail. Also, Republican politicians began to send me mail about their campaigns and they seemed way too familiar with referring to me as a fellow Republican which was the final straw as I didn't want to hear from anyone from the GOP and I definitely didn't want anyone thinking that I was a Republican! (Had they seen me in person, surely they would balk, ) Reading about the GRU hacking the Hudson Institute and other conservative sites that had been critical of Russian interference just reminded me of my very brief time as a member of the Hudson Institute.