ANTI-PRESS EZINE #08 "We're Positive About The Negative" A July E-dition (C) Copyright 1999 Anti-Press Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Reality Center. We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern New York State, USA. (For your own good: STAY THE FUG AWAY!) ============================================================= KILLER CROC-- WHAT A CROCK! Here in the Reality Center we have been tracking the controversy swirling around the new movie, _Lake Placid_, and the nearby community of Lake Placid, NY (Home of the 1980 Winter Olympics and Prohibition Hang-Out for Bootlegging Gangsters). The Village is trying to keep its distance from the Movie, fearing the average citizen might believe a monster lurks in its eponymous lake. On TV, radio, and in newsprint the concerned officials of the Village of Lake Placid are getting the word out that they're proud of their community and no movie is going to besmirch its grand history (grand if you overlook the Prohibition hijinks). Recently a Village politico stated to the media that no crazed creature-feature lives in the lake, that there is nothing to fear. When ads first appeared for the Movie, Village officials were considering legal action against the film company. But the events in the Movie take place in the wilds of Maine, not the Adirondack Mountains. The film stars a giant crocodile-- or alligator or moody manatee, whatever the critter is-- that devours people-- and even a cow-- without warning. (Snap! Krunch!) The Village found that legally there was nothing they could do, even though they thought they would garner some money from a lawsuit or a licensing agreement. Let's see-- the name of the Movie is not the name of the lake depicted in the film, it takes place in another state, and apparently the Village of Lake Placid has no copyright or trademark on its name. Yup, that's a strong case. So now the public relations ploy is to make the public aware of the non-connection between the Village and the Movie. Hhmmmm, a mayor telling the media that everything is OK, no carnivorous behemoth is snacking on people. Sounds familiar. Wait-a-minute-- that's from the movie _Jaws_, the cover-up scheme to save the tourist season! If life is imitating art... Quick! Get the word out! Stay away from the beaches! There is a monster crocodile in a feeding frenzy in Lake Placid, NY! ============================================================= LIVE ON THE SCENE OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING By Viki Reed (LOS ANGELES) If the local news covers Charlton Heston's "All Right, I'm Gay!" Press-Conference, I'll tune-in. I can't be the only Angeleno who watches all the news from the whacky AM teams to the somber Late Night Reports who is overcome with a desire to buy a gun, show up at KKTV Channel Eleven and make the news. When I moved to California I had to analyze the situation. For some time I assumed that because of the time zone difference that the real news-- the news that I was used to seeing in New York-- must be three hours behind. So I thought, "I'll wait". But the news never came. While I was waiting for the local stations to tell me some real news, _A Current Affair_, _Hard Copy_, _Entertainment Tonight_ and _Access Hollywood_ blipped through my cable box. CNN seemed forever stuck on the weather and a loop of bloody international headlines . I couldn't tell when one celebrity stopped posing and talking and the next UPI clip began. There wasn't any apparent journalism involved in the programs I saw. There was no evidence of reportage. Just video with voice-overs (and closed captioning where available). My eyes were too tired to skim through all the Los Angeles rags for an accurate accounting of what was happening in my new city, so I went to bed knowing that Vendela still looked young enough to proof at a liquor store. Every day I'd wake up and think, "It was just a slow news day yesterday." Driving through Los Angeles I noticed terrible things that shouted out for discovery and change but no reporters heard the cry. How could they? The News Choppers were hovering low, preoccupied with their pursuit of a moron in a stolen car. Channel Nine _News-At-Noon_ recapped the previous day's stories of babies born on the freeway, babies left in trash-cans, and babies shot in gang wars, all sprinkled with the morning's updates, then they proudly trumpeted: TOFU! EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S GOOD FOR YOU, BUT NOT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH IT! Tofu? I thought maybe Tofu was a new feature on the local news and what to do with Tofu was a good place to start. But I watched the credits scroll by after the broadcast, and sure enough, there was no Tofu Desk or Department listed so this must be a hot story. Or as Local Channel Nine, KCAL News at Nine describes it: "Live, Local, and Late-Breaking!" After the Tofu report I half-expect to hear this headline: "ORANGE COUNTY WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN OWN HOME; SUSPECTED CAUSE OF DEATH: WIPING BACK-TO-FRONT! We take you now LIVE to the BATHROOM..." Followed by a LIVE broadcast of yellow-police-tape flickering LIVE just beyond the crime-scene, at a place LOCAL to me, where the victim was once ALIVE... It is LIVE, at eleven p.m., so of course it's really DARK, and you can't SEE anything, and everyone connected with the crime is ASLEEP right NOW, and of course the flunkie stringer's teeth are CHATTERING while he's trying to keep his ear-piece from blowing-away or fusing to his frozen ear wax in the LIVE WIND. Nothing's happening, no one's there, but we will be here LIVE with every bowel movement of every stray-cat in the neighborhood, LIVE from the SCENE OF THE CRIME. We are live on the scene but the local news desks are confused as to what the crime is. But then the perps never cop to it, do they? Is it too much to ask that local news programming actually should be compelled to demand real journalists and an assessment of relevancy in their editorial process? Isn't it true that I can find out what it's really like to be Jim Carrey... anywhere?! How do these local stations sleep at night knowing that their main story was only moments before the star of the Network's Movie-of-the-Week? I can't blame the news-hounds, or can I? They're just hired journalists with degrees that they never get to use because the news is a business first and a place of information second, right? Oh, so that's why Jane Velez Mitchell opened the afternoon report with this goofus line: "Today at the U.N. a convoy of envoys..." She actually slowed down as she read this off her Teleprompter. The news is not a country and western ditty; it's not supposed to rhyme or otherwise alliterate. Her co-anchor (Dave Hernandez) introduced his first headline that day, "Misery is cloaked with mystery as..." Another local grunt assigned coverage of the Presidency In Crisis (well, that's what the Graphics said) described the President waiting for his attorneys to agree upon some terminology with his interrogators as "passively listening". How do you passively do anything? Is this what I missed by not going to college? Pray for us all because that fellow was one of an entire reporting group, amongst a fellowship of other groups of trained writers who don't understand common usage of the language they speak. Paul Moyers, a wunderkind to watch when drunk and in the company of friends, recently described a house fire as "a pretty good-sized fire". Isn't that the valuable kind of estimation you would expect from a homeless, toothless man standing on the sidewalk watching the fire? Pretty good sized? What's an ugly bad-shaped fire? What's just a good-sized fire? Just don't let Moyers near fire as he'll probably hurt someone other than himself. The whacky morning crew on the same network actually host a brilliant "Paul Moyers Quote of the Day" segment. It's a sad day when the morning news can lambaste the evening news and have tape to back it up. So many middle-aged men should have to dye their hair and tuck their faces just so they can read off of a prompter...slowly with a fake understanding... with absolutely nothing in their heads except how mighty lucky they are to be pulling down the change they are. My headline tonight? You do notice when someone is using Grecian formula. To the local news-affiliates: You can cry economics when you stop bludgeoning me with commercials about microwave meals fulfilling for the whole family every four minutes. To the same people: You tell me to shut-up until I've tried to produce a news-program; I say: ditto. Hey, maybe you could even work on beating "The Star" Magazine for accuracy in reporting since you have the time to produce segments about "Ostrich-Meat: The Low Fat Wonder Food for the Nineties"!!! Being fair, the locals aren't the only highly paid air heads around. Watching MSNBC is more boring than watching a screen-saver. Guessing how many jelly beans in a fish bowl is easier than guessing how many times the MSNBC profiles on Seinfeld, Phil Hartman, and the entire cast of Saturday Night Live were rerun. Their show Time & Again should be pronounced "Time and...Again?!" Why again, for crap's sake? Again with the clips from A&E's biography mixed with clips of the Blues Brothers? It's unfortunate that the most respectable journalists working are stuck on Sixty Minutes where they fight for a mini time slot to do a story that likely warrants the whole hour. Why did it take so long for everyone to realize how fascinating Bryant Gumbel is? (As fascinating as drying gesso.) Didn't think it possible to screw up an Emmy Awards Show? How hard could it be to distract you from the packed gowns and famous clowns? No one knows as well as Bryant. You could see him mouthing, "Fine, thanks, and you, Katie?" all night in search of creature comfort. So Dateline really needs to be seen more than once a week. Is that why every story is milked dry and stretched thin with little effort towards writing, finding a compelling angle, or fact finding? Who told NBC that horrible two camera interviews (will someone explain to NBC News that the reporter/investigator's reaction is NOT the point of a question and answer session) with the depth of a bowl of Cheerios does NOT an investigation make. Was Diane Sawyer as high as I would have to be in order to avoid asking Michael Jackson: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU AND WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE A KID THAT WE ALL MISSED? DON'T YOU SEE THAT LISA MARIE MARRIED YOU TO ALIGN YOUR MONEY WITH THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY? DON'T YOU THINK YOU APPEAR A BIT FREAKISH, MIKEY?" Doesn't real old pro Hugh Downs get squirrely in the stomach sitting next to wooden news decoy Barbra Walters, being forced into post story quips like, "Yes, well, that's awful, we can certainly hope someone does something about that...just awful, yes..." Can't we just banish Babs to _The View_ forever since that is truly her speed. So you dated Kissinger, does that make you a world power or a powerful intelligent woman? Did having Donald Trump's kid turn Marla Maples into Meryl Streep? The news is not supposed to be a fashion show for The First Lady or a free infomercial for a Hard-Rock Cafe opening on Mars. The news was never intended to be a promotional campaign for Tofu. Not that I don't know better than ever what to do with Tofu if I ever see a Channel Nine News Producer in person. Hey, I'm not Stephen Hawking with tits. I didn't pass geography in school. That's why I would watch the news, you see? Disturbing is the timbre in the air when a wealth of investigative information was never more available or more important. The local Fox News Anchors couldn't tell you what borders Zaire any more than I could if it came up during Trivial Pursuit. Dear Local-News shows: please stop insulting even my intelligence, wasting hours of programming time that would be better used by broadcasting movies from the roaring twenties, and regularly lowering the standards and expectations of the better part of the general public. This generation of local news shows is not the first to make banal, slanted, shallow, abbreviated presentation the Theme of the Hour. But isn't it scary that you do it better than anyone at any time? Until the general public is disallowed from getting what they want (like hours long car chases covered live and bobcats stuck in back yard tennis courts), I have some suggestions: 1. Make Paul Moyers wear a squeaky, red, clown-nose and his co-anchor has to impetuously tweak it throughout the news-hour. 2. Film MacNeil and Lehrer watching the local news-broadcasters, making fun of them, much like "Beavis and Butthead" ridiculing the red-leather pants worn by Whitesnake's lead singer. 3. Stop sending Asian reporters to Korea Town for ethnic-associated stories and the white reporters to Washington for image-oriented stories. 4. Act out the headline news items like a game of charades. 5. Cut away from Jim Lampley and Bree Walker when they don't have copy to read... you can hear them thinking and it's pretty awkward, indeed. 6. Perhaps hire Barney the Dinosaur as a new anchor. You treat Los Angeles adults like they're five anyway. Besides, Barney can sing the news: "Hillary...Hillary...wears nice clothes for a First Lady..." 7. Make Gene Shalit, and all of the Hollywood On the Scene Gossip and Movie 'reporters' broadcast from the real Hollywood Blvd., where they can be confronted by the Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson and Madonna impersonators-for-hire. They can be yelled at by tourists trying to be photographed next to Bruce Lee or The Duke's Feet. They can be bothered by panhandlers like Antennae Man. They can see REAL Hollywood actors doing what real show-biz people do: begging, schmoozing, and making fun of Gene Shalit. 8. Have Tony Randall sit in as a drop-in anchor. He always perks-up Conan O'Brien's or Dave Letterman's show. I'd watch him talk about Air-Bag Regulation. 9. Why not broadcast the news live from Spring Break in Daytona or live from the Funny Car Championships at the Whiskey Pete Casino and Resort in Stateline, Nevada? 10. Why not broadcast all news as to how it affects Arnold Schwarzennaggar and Bill Gates? After all, they're the real men with power in this country-- maybe the world. Hell, why not broadcast news? ***Viki Reed on Viki Reed: "I've worked in entertainment full-time since 1986. I've worked below and above the line-- that's no pun, it's the truth... As a stand-up comedian, my idols begin and end with Carlin, Bruce, Odenkirk, Cross, Rivers, Rickles, Kauffman, Kineson, Brooks, Newhart, and Hicks. I perform in Los Angeles in venues as diverse as The Comedy Store and Little Frieda's Coffee Shop of West Hollywood." Her work can be read online currently at www.explode.com and www.subbrilliant.com.*** ============================================================= NICE GIRLS QUASI-SHILL FOR STRIP CLUB Here deep within the bowels of the Reality Center we are simultaneously tracking a multitude of media: print, TeeVee, radio, even channelling the Beyond (we'll talk some other time about our conversations with Walter Winchell and what he thinks of that punk, Matt Drudge). Despite our jaded eye, we are sometimes shocked by what we notice. Years ago there was a TeeVee series called _Sweet Valley High_, based upon the books by Francine Pascal. The lead characters were twin girls in high school and the two stars of the TeeVee show were nice, well-bred young ladies. The series is no longer shown in our locality but the legacy of its winsome stars lives on-- albeit in a form we find questionable, both in the areas of taste and copyright. We tried to contact Francine Pascal via email but so far no reply. Here's what we wrote to her (twice): Mon, 7 Jun 1999 Ms. Pascal: We did a quick search of the Net and we found this email address. We don't know if we should be trying elsewhere but we thought we would start here. We were wondering how much control you had over the images of your Sweet Valley characters, especially those related to the SV High TV show. A local television station has been using parts of the promo clip for the SVH show for a topless bar commercial. For example, in the original promo the two lead actresses say something like "You'll never know what will happen!". This pops up during the topless bar ad as if both girls work at this local nightclub. My daughter is offended by this and as a father I am also very upset. Why do you let this happen? We think this ad has been on at least for a couple of years.> When we received no reply, we tried another email address for Francine Pascal but that one was no go. So we re-emailed the above letter to the first address with an offer to provide additional details. No response. The silence has been deafening. It bothers us that the wholesome, delightful twins from Sweet Valley High have been exploited to promote a tittie bar. So if you happen to see the actresses Brittany and Cynthia, the Daniel twins, ask them if they like rubbing elbows (and possibly other body parts) with "the best girls from Penthouse!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Submitted works must be ready for publication (edited and proofread). Word Limit: 1000 words. No sci-fi, poetry, sci-fi poetry, poetic sci-fi, etc. Do some research and read a couple of issues to find what we want. 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