INTRO: This is a revival
After sending out a couple beta tests, I realized that I’m not “A Blog Writer,” in the 2014 sense of the term.
What I’m doing now is much more akin to what my father, Louis Weinberg, Jr., wrote for the last 13 or so years of his life.
He was originally an adman—a copy writer starting in the 1930’s, two decades before Mad Men. From 1947 until he died in 1967, he was the president of a baking mix company, PY-O-MY.
The letter he sent out was usually 4-5 pages, every four to six weeks. He called it The Weinberg House Organ. It was duplicated on the Ditto mimeograph machine, hand stapled and sent via U.S. mail (for less than a dime). Frequently, he would show it to me before it was sent out.
Many of the eventual 1000-plus “subscribers” called it “The PY-OMY Letter” because of the logo on top. Most issues would include comments from readers.
So, I see this as a digital version, carrying on from where he left off 46½ years ago…the new, and perhaps not improved, Weinberg House Organ/PY-O-MY letter. It will reflect my points of view, possibly controversial to many of you. I’ll say what I feel and think as of the moment. Some of it might be self-promoting, or at least keeping you current on my meanderings and michigas. Like the original, it will include clips, with the added advantage of links to writing and images that you might have missed.
Plus, maybe an occasional puzzle, ongoing dialog on some of the items, and a sprinkle of funny/ironic stuff. As I said when I was interviewed a bunch of years ago on Entertainment Tonight about THE 90’s TV series:
“If it’s not entertaining, we’ve failed.”
I’ll try not to fail.
ALL GOVERNMENT IS LOCAL: Was Tip O’Neill Right?
We can’t ignore globalism and the way the world economic and financial systems are intertwined.
Here’s a local example: The City of Chicago sold off the ownership rights to all of its parking meters in a fire-sale deal a couple years ago. And because the Mayor Richie Daley needed upfront money so badly (to pay deficits rather than raising taxes or spending less), the purchaser, a Wall Street consortium, paid a rock-bottom price…about 50% of what the rights were estimated to be worth, and in perpetuity.
Wall Street did what it does best, of course. It chopped up the parking meter deal and sold it in pieces. One large portion is owned by a wealth fund in the Middle East.
How does that grab you?
If you’ve paid to park in the city of Chicago over the past few years, the money no longer goes to the federal or local government. It’s not for our schools, roads, or pensions. It goes to Wall Street bankers and to oil-rich Middle Eastern rulers.
The rates recently went up again. I might add that the meters are one of the most user-unfriendly parts of living and driving in Chicago…inconvenient, old technology, time consuming and unnecessarily exposing parkers to the rain and snow.
Does Qatar care?
OH, BROTHER!
Here’s a 2007 email from my brother John, perhaps unwisely published without his permission (He IS a federal judge). It’s a clear indication of what we seniors go through. He has been the coach and captain of his Seattle softball team for decades. Here’s what he wrote:
My softball team is in shambles.
Seven of our eleven men from last year are out of the lineup.
One moved away, four quit for various personal reasons,
two have significant injuries.
So far, we have four new guys, but only one is really good.
It might be time to fire the coach. Unfortunately there is no general manager to blame.
We have lost our first three games (I was in Tahiti for the first two), and we play a very tough team tomorrow (actually, a little later
this morning).
Oh well, none of us depends upon this for making a living.
But our egos, and denying our advancing ages …
that’s another matter.
Be talking to ya.
An update: he’s still playing, his team has won at least two titles since then, and he’s still SCUBA diving.
My “team” is similarly challenged. Our Wednesday night tennis group is now in its 38th year, but, as long as we’re alive, nobody will ever quit–except to take time out for an occasional new hip or knee.
This baseball thing must be in our DNA…son Jesse is the captain and instigator of his co-ed team in Los Angeles that plays “Chicago Ball” with the 16” Champions. They lost in the finals a few weeks ago, but in L.A., a new season starts in a few weeks.
MY BOOK: Still In Process
On the subject of persevering, I’ve been spending dozens of hours lately writing and refining the ~200+ pages of the book I started in 1971. I invented the term, Media Burn, a name which, as many of you know, has been lent to both the singular 1975 Ant Farm event and to our remarkably successful independent video archive. The first incarnation of the title—the book–examines my observations about how TV affects all of us–the people who are on it and the rest of us who watch. These ideas co-mingle with personal experiential realities of my 40+ years producing hundreds of TV shows.
I still have a long way to go to craft the book the way I want to, but
if you choose to, you can see a sneak preview–the introduction and a few of the opening pages. I invite you to go here. As always, your comments on this and whatever is in the Weinberg House Organ, will be welcomed with open mind. Media Burn, like all of us, is a work in progress.
LOST CITY—NOT SO LOST!
One more example of not giving up: our documentary project, trying to discover a legendary lost city deep in the Miskitia jungle in Honduras is alive and well. We are nearing the “ground-truthing” stage. Our leader, Steve Elkins (aka in Latin American press as “Dr. Helkins”), and I began researching, documenting and tyring to locate this legendary Lost City (sometimes called Ciudad Blanca or City of the Monkey Gods) nearly 20 years ago. We have made fantastic progress in the last 18 months, with the combination of the use of LiDAR (high tech laser imaging that can “see” through the dense jungle canopy), a genuine and cooperative partnership with the Honduran government, and the vision and commitment of Bill Benenson (who, along with Steve, has just been recognized in distinguished company as one of 100 “Global Thinkers of 2013”) by Foreign Policy magazine (it might take a minute to load).
We now have the involvement of about a dozen PhDs from several disciplines all over the country who are stimulated and challenged by this compelling story—an unknown place, from an unknown time, populated by unknown people. We plan to go to at least one location we’ve identified and document it on video in early 2014. We’ll land helicopters on the fringes of the dense and impenetrable jungle and see with our own eyes, cameras, and archaeologists, exactly what we have already discovered from above.
Steve and I have been called “Lost Boys” for some 20 years…but we’re still on the case. More soon. If you want to read a succinct account of how LiDAR is changing archaeological discovery, check out Douglas Preston’s terrific background piece from New Yorker last May.
KLEPTOCRACY?
It’s a huge honor for Bill and Steve to become certified Global Thinkers, but before I close, here’s an excerpt from 2009 piece about Terrestrial Stinkers. It’s disturbing…and resonates on many levels, still, five years later. Ultra-conservative economics/finance maven, Bill Bonner wrote it.
WHEN THEY SAY “IT’S NOT THE MONEY”…IT USUALLY IS
At least for me personally, 2013 was a hard year to figure out how to invest the relatively small discretionary money I manage. I’m constantly reminded of the story told by Marvin Frank, a terrific storyteller of my parents’ generation:
A guy walks up to the craps table in Vegas.
With the most determined look on his face, he says:
“God I hope I break even…I need the money!”
I now know exactly what he meant.
But, I also know that the Beatles were right: money can’t buy love. The major highlight of our 2013 was the wedding of our youngest, Anna, and Christopher (Kicker) Kliner. They’re a great couple and the event was fantastic.
Of course, I cried…with joy!
I’m a lucky guy…I started writing this issue about a mont
h ago, sitting at my post, looking out at the Caribbean Sea. As I was writing, a pelican flew by, swooped in and grabbed a fish, less than 25 yards away. It reminded me of one of the few poems I memorized in eighth grade:
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more
Than his belican.
–Ogden Nash
I close this first edition of the revived Weinberg House Organ/PY-O-MY letter with a quote from my dad’s favorite comedian/musician, Victor Borge:
Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.
—Victor Borge
Here’s hoping you and your family have a healthy and fulfilling 2014.
PY-O-MY 
Happy Fourth of July Warren Leming
Same to youse