Turnaround Pistons Team Looks to Stay the Course on Heels of Leader’s Injury

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Kale

Achilles was the grandest warrior of the Trojan war. With godlike looks to match his skills on the battlefield, Achilles lead Agamemnon’s forces to legendary status. Achilles was a man to emulate and any athlete would be floored to be compared to—if not for the frailness in which his rival Paris disposed of him. It’s why on Saturday night when I received a text from my brother that said, simply, “Jennings f#$@ed,” my heart sank. I wasn’t watching the game. I was at a bar and it was loud and there were too many people there and I couldn’t see the TV screens, but eventually I saw the replay of Brandon Jennings falling back on his heel and my deepest fears aligned with that of Homer and … Read More… →

New (and Old) Frontiers: Above Detroit with Aerial Photographer Alex MacLean

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Kevin Walsh

Alex MacLean has seen Detroit from the sky at various stages since 1980.  The large green-spaces below, for example, were once crowded neighborhoods and business districts in a city’s footprint that is large enough to fit Houston, Boston and Manhattan.  These grassy fields seen from Google Maps might be mistaken for parks.

Similar green spaces a few miles north of town generally have bunkers and greens fees.

A trained architect, pilot, author and photographer, MacLean lives in Massachusetts but has seen Detroit from above as Ronald Reagan received the Republican presidential nomination, for the 1998 demolition of the landmark Hudson Building and last autumn at  a request from the New York Times.  Each visit is like dropping into a different chapter of the city’s history–urban farms were previously dangerous abandoned homes and lots.

From the sky, many travelers … Read More… →

Assassins & Teamwork: Filmmaking (and Break-Making) for Cooper Brothers’ Film “Five Windows”

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Kevin Walsh

Sometimes, feeling useless can feel quite nice–particularly on a movie set.  Hurry-up-and-wait sums it up, of course.  But if you’re just lurking like I tend to do, watching former students do their thing, you can be quite invisible and love every minute of it.

As an extra in Gran Torino, on the other hand, I felt useless even though I did have a job to do.  I was told to walk down the street toward the Grosse Pointe hardware store and act like that wasn’t Clint Eastwood in front of me.  It took me five times, but I did it.  And when the camera stopped rolling, I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t a person, really–I was a prop, a prop that could be replaced much easier than the rake in the window … Read More… →

New Podcast: OSU’s Urban-Renewal, Harbaugh & the Tigers (with MMD Writers Kale Davidoff & Steve Mitzel)

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Kevin Walsh

On the two-year anniversary of MyMediaDiary.com, featured writers Kale Davidoff (a MSU Spartan) and Steve Mitzel (a UofM Wolverine) cover the following sports topics with host Kevin Walsh:

  • Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes national title
  • The new NCAA playoff system
  • Jim Harbaugh’s arrival in Ann Arbor–and likelihood to stay?
  • The Big Ten’s return to power
  • Is the SEC hurt by the new system?
  • Different venues, different fans
  • Being a stranger in a hostile stadium
  • The Tigers and Justin Verlander (and will they ever win the Series)

Read Kale’s posts on MMD

Read Steve’s posts on MMD

The Consolidated States of America

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Steve Mitzel

This past summer the kids and I took our annual trip to the beach in North Carolina from Connecticut.  We decided to play the old license plate game along the way.  Of course, the kids added a new media twist to it using an app.  As we ventured down the east coast and tracked our states we started to question why there were so many states.  Why was Rhode Island an actual state?  No offense the Dakotas, you are awfully small.

3 teenagers and a preteen quickly reeducated me in the history of the United States, the colonies and how we came to be.  The capitalist and cost optimizer in me then challenged them with new thinking.  What if you had to start over today … Read More… →

New Podcast: Digging Detroit – Dodge, Detroit & Women in Industry

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Kevin Walsh

Digging Detroit’s Tom Reed and Pete Kalinski discuss the early days of Detroit’s automotive history with historians Bailey Sisoy Isgro and Madelyn Rzadkowolski.

Topics include:

  • Advertising’s current portrayal of the Dodge Brothers
  • Dodge’s famous dependability—and fix-it-yourself car kits
  • General Patton and the Dodge military contract
  • Women and Detroit’s cigar industry as a vehicle for entry into the workforce (and why Detroit was a cigar center)
  • Using campaigns of conscience to get women into the workforce during WWI
  • Detroit’s African American 600% population boom between 1910-1920
  • Detroit as the “Paris of the Midwest”
  • More campaigns of conscience to force women out of the workplace after WWII
  • Dodge’s role in the arsenal of democracy
  • Fear of women earning too much–and gaining political clout)
  • Promoting the myth … Read More… →

New Podcast: Detroit From Above – Alex S. MacLean’s Aerial Photography of Detroit

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Kevin Walsh

 

Following the December 7, 2014 publication of his New York Times Sunday Review, “Detroit By Air” which examines the city’s dramatic haves and have-nots, photographer Alex MacLean is interviewed by Kevin Walsh and Thomas J. Reed, Jr. of the new website, DiggingDetroit.com.

Topics include…

  • Alex’s background, including his fear of flying leading to his pilot’s license
  • Detroit’s past, present and future
  • Regrowing urban communities
  • Alex’s transition from aerial surveyor to gallery artist
  • His favorite audiences
  • Switching to digital, but still loving prints—and those amazing drones!

 

More information on Alex can be found at his website:  http://alexmaclean.com

My Trip to Green Bay: Experiencing America’s Most Primal Football Fan-Base and How it Made Me a Bigger Lions Fan

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Kale

Stadium Strangers

It was 2008. We decided to take a family vacation to New York at the end of July. By we, I mean: my mother and my father wanted to take a trip to New York and my brother—Chicago’s newest citizen and most eligible bachelor—and I—readying my venture of four years in East Lansing—agreed to go on one more family trip before I officially became a co-ed. Part of the lure, though, was the opportunity to see one of America’s most treasured landmarks: Yankee Stadium; which was especially important, since Yankee Stadium was about to see its final turnstiles turned that fall. The Davidoffs have, are, and will always be a baseball family at heart (much like Detroit is a baseball city at heart). There’s been … Read More… →

“God, I Love My Job!” Welcoming Mistakes and Exploding Stuff – The Life of Sound FX Guru–Ric Viers

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Kevin Walsh
Listen to Kevin’s podcast with Ric Viers…[powerpress url= “http://traffic.libsyn.com/mymediadiary/MMD_SoundFX_Expert_RicViers_Dec22_2014.mp3″ length=”14313591″ type=”audio/mpeg”]

 

Perhaps it’s osmosis, but Ric Viers has noticed that his son seems to have his dad’s ear.  In the middle of The Hobbit:  The Battle of the Five Armies, there is a Foley mistake–a sword that didn’t clash to the ground.  “And I saw it and I just kind of smiled, but before I could even say anything, my kid leans over and says, ‘Dad, they forgot one of the sound effects.’”

After years of on-the-job training, sound effects expert Viers has learned valuable lessons for not just audio but life, not the least includes keeping ones car keys in the refrigerator.

Owner of the world’s largest collection of sound-effects, The Detroit Chop Shop, Ric Viers was a guest speaker in November … Read More… →

New Podcast – Life Lessons & Sound FX with Ric Viers

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Kevin Walsh

 

 

Veteran film and TV sound expert Ric Viers, author of The Sound Effects Bible and The Location Sound Bible, joins Kevin Walsh following a workshop Ric gave to Michigan high school students on his 10 Location Sound Commandments, which offer important life-skills as well.

They discuss:

  • Soft Skills and Reputation-how the most skilled person on the set may not be the one who stays on the set.
  • How Does One Begin as a Sound Guy?
  • Fatherhood and the osmosis of sound-awareness
  • Gathering sound-effects (and where to leave your keys)
  • Publishing a book (after finding a niche)
  • The “Oh Crap” Kit

Check out Ric’s page on Amazon as well as his own website, Read More… →

An Apology to My Daughters, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan Among Others…

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Deb

As I was reading a magazine today I turned the page to an article about Congress’s First Black Female Republican and I sat there stunned for a few moments. How could this be? I was honestly struck dumb with the realization that this was a milestone that was just NOW happening in the year 2014? Hadn’t it happened sooner? I had assumed that we had all sorts of women of every color and race populating the corridors in Washington DC. I was truly stunned that this was an event to celebrate in the year 2014. Where have the last 30 years gone?

I was raised with the idea that I as a woman could do anything. I sat down in front of the TV back … Read More… →

Love, New America Style with “Liberty’s Secret” – The 100% All-American Musical

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Deb

The Dance-Nikki and Liberty

 

Liberty’s Secret: The 100% All-American Musical is a movie that brings to

mind all the memories from my childhood that made my middle of the road,

Midwestern upbringing so rich with its dependable sameness over

the years.

 

Memories of good ol’ fashioned bake sales, the smell of freshly bought apple

pie, sounds of Lawrence Welk’s Orchestra in the evening on TV and baseball

Sundays filled with the voice of Ernie Harwell keeping a steady drone in the average

and typical sun-filled family room that made my childhood so special.

 

Liberty’s Secret is a special movie. … Read More… →

“Whiplash”: Truly One of the Greats

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Kale

I’ll start this review how I start every review, which is: go see Whiplash before you read this post. But this time I say this not only because there be spoilers below, but because it’s one of the best damn movies I’ve seen in long, long time. A long time.

As I begin my thoughts on Whiplash, I am reminded of the Honest Trailers trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you’re unfamiliar, Honest Trailers is a fantastic YouTube channel that takes films we love and makes trailers for them that rip them to shreds; pointing out every plot hole and confusing character motivation they can find. Here was the trailer they made to rip Cap 2 to shreds:

[youtube http://youtu.be/JvHyk2ESFCI?t=1m29s]

 

Honest Trailers wanted to rip Cap 2 … Read More… →

House-Breaking Your Phone–and Lowering Your Blood Pressure

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Kevin Walsh

I was too calm at work.  Something had to be wrong.  Then I realized that I had left my phone at home—on the kitchen counter–probably under the bread wrapper.  It was the same unnerving peace I felt on a vacation last summer–when we left the dog with friends.

Smudge is a hybrid, a schnorkie-poo, who, in the thankful absence of rats, is obsessed with one thing—the perfect blend of dye, felt and rubber toxins that is the tennis ball.  He is so completely focused on bringing you that ball for you to obediently throw it across the yard/basement/bathroom that he’ll forgo food, rest and common sense—crashing into fences, couches and unsuspecting two year-olds.  If you don’t follow his escalating sequence of hints (sitting patiently, rolling the ball closer, grumbling, grumbling louder), he’ll finally … Read More… →

New Podcast: De-Agonizing the Essay with Erik Bean, Ed.D.

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Kevin Walsh

 

Kevin Walsh interviews author and educator Dr. Erik Bean on his most recent books, including:

– Rigorous Grading Using Microsoft Word AutoCorrect

– WordPress for Student Writing Projects, Grades 6-12

They discuss…

– Overcoming student and teacher fatigue essay-fatigue with the technology

– Student and teacher reactions to new tricks for the old dog of MS Word

– Advantages of blogging for students (and overcoming stage fright)

– Trolling (and how to address them)

– Getting published–five times!

Faded Snapshots & Time Travel: Unfogging the Past with PhotoShop

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2 Comments
Kevin Walsh

Take a minute and flip through your phone’s pictures taken this Thanksgiving weekend–now zoom-in to something in the background.  Do you notice anything interesting–or something that <em>might </em>be interesting in a few decades?

The new Stephen Hawking bio-pic, The Theory of Everything, can drive you a little crazy if you are one of those people who needs to straighten a picture frame in a friend’s house.  Hawking’s glasses are always crooked and always needing cleaning.

stephen-hawking

The color-correction folks in film know what they’re doing when they choose their palettes.  It’s hard not to get nostalgic with a shot like above–and if you add in string instruments and piano you’re … Read More… →

When Opponents Weren’t Enemies: Michigan’s Harry Kelly and G. Mennen Williams–Politically Opposed, Mutually Respectful

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Kevin Walsh

It was once Armistice Day–in recognition of the end of the Great War, begun 100 years ago with an assassination in Sarajevo and ending with the loss of millions of lives, the restructuring of the world’s balance of power and with heavy reparation requirements on the defeated paving a certain path to another world war 25 years later.

 

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and George Marshall refused to let history repeat itself in 1945 and created a plan to rebuild former foes into allies—not the humiliated vanquished whose death we might celebrate.  The GI Bill would create the foundation of a new middle class—turning returning soldiers into college graduates.

Today we thank our veterans for their service but do we really follow the lead of “the greatest … Read More… →

New Podcast: Marketing Guru Discusses Google-Ads, App-Creation & Common Mistakes

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Kevin Walsh

 

Kevin Walsh interviews Sandy Barris, a longtime marketing expert.

He is the author of 97 Marketing Secrets to Make More Money and the app, Sales Goal On Fire Pro.  More information at www.SandyBarris.com

Sandy shares his lifelong journey and lessons, including:

– Writing a book, not to sell but to use as a giant business card of credibility

– How Google’s AdWords works, and which words cost the most)

– Creating an App (or hiring the right people to do it for you)

– Marketing a la carte (one-day turnaround for customers who just need booster-shots)

– War stories (successes and failures)

– Election Ads (does negativity work?)

Ken Burns-on-a-Shoestring: Creating Buzz to Launch Mini-Doc “Digging Detroit”

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Kevin Walsh

“The Joe,” the battleship-gray windowless box on the Detroit River, is slated for 2017 demolition, making way for high-rise condos, a hotel and shopping as part of a pay-back to creditors owed $1 billion.  For a few months in-between wrecking-ball and ground-breaking, Detroiters will once again have an unobstructed view of the river at the corner of Fort and 3rd–as if looking back in time and seeing the Purple Gang hijack another bootlegger at the docks, before moving its haul up the street to the speakeasy beside the church.

And that same little brick building on the left will probably still be standing when the condos are torn down in 60 years–perhaps making way for the next home for the Wings.

When the 1974 picture above was taken, I was probably immersed in Channel 50’s after-school reruns of Get Smart, Gilligan’s Island or … Read More… →

Meet Your 2015 Detroit Tigers

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Steve Mitzel

dejection-01

As a displaced Detroit Tiger fan in New England and more specifically right on the Mason Dixon line of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, I need the Tigers to desperately win a World Series championship. The Red Sox have won three championships in ten years and the Yankees won in 2009 and have won 27 of them. I’m starting to need Marty McFly’s time machine to get me back to even remembering 1984.

There’s been much angst with fans about our new manager, Brad Ausmus, and how he managed the worst bullpen in baseball. And there’s been the same angst towards Dave Dombrowski, our General … Read More… →