Author Archives: Kevin Walsh

About Kevin Walsh

Kevin began MyMediaDiary.com in 2013 as an experiment that was as simple as "What's a blog?" and ended up becoming a forum for fellow writers. He's been a high school teacher for 28 years and worked as an administrator and instructor in colleges for 10 years since then. Contact him at: kevin@mymediadiary.com He is also the producer of the web-series and blog, www.DiggingDetroit, founder and producer for MMD Productions at www.mmdphotovideo.com which offers quick, professional photography, video and multimedia solutions for individuals, organizations and businesses. His high school media production text, "Video Direct," has been used in 40 states--and he occasionally still sells a few. He is the current president of the non-profit DAFT (Digital Arts Film and Television) which sponsors the Michigan Student Film Festival. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, is married to Patrice and is tolerated by his two kids Aidan and Abby who have all graciously allowed him to write about them on occasion.

Too-Tidy? Breaking Bad’s 94%-Pure, True-Blue Conclusion

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The reviews were in last Monday for the finale of Breaking Bad and some cried:  “It’s too tidy.  It’s too neat.  The rest of the show wasn’t like this.” 

It was the polar opposite of the terrible “But-They-Were-All-Dead-All-Along” finale of Lost.  It had no irritating fade to black with Tony’s knowing smile as he sees his daughter or a hit-man in The Sopranos. 

Sure, Walter White didn’t wake up beside Suzanne Pleshette like the end of The Newhart Show, but the ending of Breaking Bad was completely satisfying because it was so neat–as precise as Walt’s nearly pure blue meth.

Marty Robbins’ classic “El … Read More… →

Post-Season Tigers: Ethical Crossroad for Detroit Fans (Moral-less)

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Tonight the Tigers give it another try.  Under Jim Leland, they’ve been to the post-season many times and twice been to the World Series–crushed by the Cardinals in ’06 and crushed by the Giants last year.  It’s a battle of the big-dough, Little Caesar’s fortune against Billy Bean’s rummage-sale sabremetrics (although he’s never publicly endorsed the scheme).

Poor Mike Ilitch (a phrase not heard often), born just four months before the stock market crash, has had to endure plenty of Great Depressions.  He transformed the 1970’s Red Wings from a group outdrawn at Joe Louis Arena by the Ice Capades into the Yankees … Read More… →

Little League Purgatory: Nostalgia is 20-20 and Cornfields Line All Outfields

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It might have been a Hallmark Channel’s special–everyone was completely bathed in sunset gold; there was even corn behind the outfield.  But hidden in this pastoral setting lies the fine print for parents–the eleventh commandment of my nephew’s little league game.

  • “If a new inning doth start ere 8:30 PM, the game must continue until both sides have batted completely.”

Coach-pitch is that bastard child, somewhere between tee-ball and concussion–when dads (mainly) publicly humiliate themselves by missing the plate repeatedly–at least that was the way it was way back when my kids played.

Now, after too many trips to the chiropractor or too many threatened lawsuits, some clever dude invented a gadget that throws a perfect pitch each time.

But … Read More… →

Gorillas & Government Shutdown: What Would George Bailey Do?

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[Updated after the September 30th shut-down.]

Last night’s vain countdown to midnight with no expectations for our leaders to avoid a government shutdown seems to be creating a sense of normalcy with these panics–making the bank-scare of George Bailey’s savings and loan look like over-reaction. We’re pretty used to these games of chicken, unfortunately.
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There’s the old joke asking where a gorilla sleeps.  The punchline of “Anywhere it wants” always made me chuckle.  It creates a visual of a Warner Brothers gorilla bending … Read More… →

The Fading Power of Handwriting: My Dad and Journaling in Northern Michigan

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D-Day was just three months away, but my dad’s Uncle Walt was instead worrying about the folks back home, specifically his sister Laura and her husband.

I didn’t know my grandparents had a rocky marriage, or that they were even separated, until I’d read this folded letter in my grandma’s shoebox.

Sixty years later,  I attended the funeral of Walt and Laura’s youngest brother Jerry in Florida, I had a chance to give the letter to Walt’s children, whom I had never met.   Walt had died thirty-four years earlier and they had never seen their father’s handwriting from a young hand–smooth, and confident.  … Read More… →

Thanking Two Men I’d Forgotten to Thank 30 Years Ago: Mr. Denstaedt and Mr. Wentz

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After attending 25 years of high school graduation ceremonies, it finally dawned on me as I sat in my robe and was thanked by grateful students and their parents–I really didn’t deserve such nice seats.

Compared, to the folks who were really responsible for the pomp and circumstance, my hourly contribution was minimal.  Elementary teachers put in the long hours and are stuck with the kids all day long.  Middle school teachers are fighting the two-headed dragon of hormones and immaturity in a short, nasty body that hasn’t often developed a soul yet.

Within two days, Clawson lost two of its icons–John Denstaedt and Bill … Read More… →

Jimmy Kimmel’s Flaming Yoga Pants or Syria: What Climbs Your Firewall?

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Thanks to my teenage son and a gaming site, I spent five hours last Saturday removing a virus from our computer.  “Conduit,” was a crazy search-engine device that refused to leave, breezing past my security software.  The kid had let the intruder in disguised as an update of Adobe Flash that was “required” on my computer.

A good friend was startled to see a scary warning of a virus on his computer–so he clicked the large red “Remove Virus” button and thus began infecting his hard drive.

With “tears in my eyes” and begging for money from a US Embassy in London,  a modern Odysseus, disguised as me, wrote to hundreds of my contacts.  Most didn’t fall for the scam but a few did write … Read More… →

Abilify’s Bathrobe: The Joe Camel of Anti-Depressants

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The first time I saw the Abilify ad, I thought Saturday Night Live’s monologue had just finished.  There was no way it was serious…

I am fortunate not to suffer from the crippling effects of depression, but when I saw this cartoon, I felt insulted for the millions who do.  It’s tough enough to have to admit that you’re at the mercy of this syndrome but to have a pharmaceutical company display its complexities with an animated bathrobe, like a possessed Linus’s blanket, is wrong.

Not only does it perpetuate the “loafer/just get out of the house” stereotype of depressed people remaining … Read More… →

Cyber Schools–What the FAQ? A Union Goon’s Tea Party Question Reveals New British Taxation (with Podcast)

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Podcast of interview with Kevin about this post by Night Shift’s radio host, Tony Trupiano (WDFN Detroit, AM 1130).  (Begins at 1:40)

If Columbus explored as much as the Detroit Free Press, he’d have never left that dock in southern Spain.

In a  “Free Press-Release” yesterday by Lori Higgins, “Michigan Students to Have Many Options for Online Learning,” we learn of the many choices that Michigan students now have to their education via online learning following the passage of Senate Bill 619.  I had high hopes that I’d finally learn a little more about the companies that are running these schools … Read More… →

Life Epicenters: Where Are Your Memories Formed?

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It’s not normal, I suppose, to think of Cher at one’s high school reunion.   One of my favorite seeming non-sequitors in movies is from Moonstruck, when her Oscar-winning Loretta informs her dad Cosmo that she’s got to tell him something important.

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” says Cosmo.

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I’ve seen it dozens of times at household parties, the living room and dining room are empty, and the 12×18 kitchen has 24 people in it.  We had a joke growing up that the only room in the house that had no life to it was the living room.  I still remember sticking to … Read More… →

Breaking Bad-Ass: AMC–the Michael Corleone of Cable TV

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It’s hard to decide what’s more cold-blooded–Walter White’s slow-decline into Hell or the transformation of AMC?

This weekend, Breaking Bad and Hell on Wheels continue new bloodbaths on the same network that endeared us all to the old-man-in-the-fake-livingroom-introducing-the -movies.  In Detroit, the folksy host of my childhood afternoons was Bill Kennedy, a b-movie actor who was known for such great appearances as, “the guy out of the submarine hatch, just before Cary Grant climbs out.”  He’d read letters during the breaks, tell war-stories then press the play button again.

When cable TV hit my neighborhood in the early 1980s, I couldn’t believe that there … Read More… →

Death of a Whistleblower: Detroit’s Bankruptcy, Edward Snowden and Jerry Buckley

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*Updated on 3/24/14 with video of hotel implosion courtesy of Laurie Rutzel Lessard.

50,000 people is a considerable crowd at a ballpark, but a graveside service is pretty remarkable–particularly in a thunderstorm.

Two recent news events have merged for me to remember the 1930 Detroit gangland assassination of a man with a questionable past that was compared to half of Mount Rushmore’s occupants…

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Quite a quote from the one-year anniversary memorial service on Belle Isle honoring a martyred radio announcer–even elaborated upon … Read More… →

The Contagiousness of a Happy Couple: True Story or Con-Job (or Doesn’t It Matter?)

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I’ve seen it three times today and I could see it another 12 more times before I go to sleep. 

So it’s been seen already 17 million times by the rest of the world–I’m a little slow!

I was totally exhausted this morning and trying hard to wake up when I saw the link to this Tonight Show video on my friend’s Facebook page.

And, as expected, if it seems too good to be true…

Out came the speculators that it was staged.

And a blog that gave folks another reason to hate Jay Leno.

It’s the same debate I’ve had with myself a hundred times.  When the headlines hit, can I separate the work from the artist?

Read More… →

Golf Voyeurism: Tiger, Phil, Stevie and Reality TV

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NASCAR’s ratings are high because it has two audiences–those hoping for a great race and those waiting for an accident. Tiger Woods is golf’s NASCAR.

It was like having to stand-up at a wedding with your ex-fiancee.  For pure TV reality-show squirm-factor, this morning’s second-to-last pairing at the British Open couldn’t have been better. 

It wasn’t so much Tiger Woods opposite this year’s Masters champ, Adam Scott; it was Tiger Woods and Scott’s caddy, “Stevie” Williams.  ESPN referred to it as a “frosty handshake.”

Steve Williams became Tiger’s Robin after the previous sidekick, Mike “Fluff” Cowans, was dismissed for treason to his majesty, after … Read More… →

Blackouts & Cutting Utility Dependence: “Sir, We Would Never Get Anything Done if We Had E-Mail”

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The first thing out of my mouth when my son called me at work and told me the power was out should not have been, “Oh my God! Unplug the new TV before it gets fried when it comes back on!”

Perhaps I might have first considered, after verifying there were no downed lines on top of my kids, that our poor hairy dog was okay in the 94 degrees. But I didn’t.

Or, based on terrible back-flooding of raw sewage in the basement of our first house, you’d think I would remember that without electricity, the sump pump won’t work.

The insurance company didn’t … Read More… →

Duck and Cover: Educational Fallout Shelters for a Sputnik Moment

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I’d only been through this doorway a few hundred times in my life–and never noticed it.  There, on the top left.

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I certainly hadn’t noticed that there was a faded “capacity” circle.  I wonder who had to enforce that one?

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ID Those Old Snapshots! The Orson Starr House and “Lots of Love, Lois”

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You don’t meet that many women named Lois–perhaps Superman was kryptonite to that name after the 1940s.  But today I met one and was immediately reminded of another–someone I’d never met but I’m sure I’d like her.

As a family historian, I’ve always been grateful to the long-gone folks who took 30 seconds to identify people on the backs of their snapshots.  In the large shoebox of Brownie pictures I inherited from my grandmother, most with no notations (since it was obvious to her who they were!) I enjoy this note the most.

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Brain Ruts: Phantom Pets, Facebook Anger & Geographical Literacy

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I’ve been opening the wrong cupboard for 15 years now.

After the first two weeks in our house, it became obvious that having the glasses right above the dishwasher made more sense.  (You can stack plates, so moving them all at once to the cupboard four feet behind us was more “logical” — to quote my Spock-fan son.)

But it doesn’t matter.  When I’m thirsty, I swing open the wrong door, swear under my breath, and trudge across our eight foot kitchen floor and get a glass from the correct place.  15 years.

I was recently going through a three-day training of a new software platform at work.  Part of the drill was for us to respond with insightful comments on our experience.  … Read More… →

County-Wide School Districts? Kicking the Tires in Ol’ Machiavellian Michigan

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Quoting billboards is kind of a family hobby.  “Keep up the good work, Governor Snyder,” my son read on I-96 last Tuesday.

“Kind of like, ‘Brownie, you’re doing a helluva job,’” he chuckled.

My poor kids have, surely by osmosis while sitting at eternal dinners with me, come to expect no good news from our state’s capital for most of their lives.  And this morning’s headlines didn’t change that pattern.

Growing up in the micro-town of Clawson, Michigan, I was amazed, even as a clueless junior high student, that we had our own superintendent.  Heck, most of us couldn’t believe we had our own laundromat.

… Read More… →

The 5-Cent Anti-Parent

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I’d ruined years of my wife’s child-rearing–for only a nickle. 

My two-year old son and I  were heading into the local K-Mart.  I can’t even remember what I was buying, probably something for my beat-up boat, but I’d brought Aidan along.  We were heading in to the store’s entrance when he saw the merry-go-round, one of those three-seaters.

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I put him on the donkey and congratulated myself on my parenting skills.  Aidan rocked back and forth, having a wonderful time.  I smiled at the joy that was about to happen. 

I put the nickel in the box,; he lurched forward with the music and grabbed those painted ears tight.  … Read More… →