March 2022

This is not a Lou Weinberg PY-O-MY Letter (“an interesting thing happened; I had this idea; you won’t believe my trip story; read this excerpt.”)  He wrote newsletters for 15 years and sent out 7-8 a year.

This is not my ordinary House Organ either.  It’s not like any I’ve written in the last eight years.  It’s more personal business… about the guy I WORK for. 

I’ve been around more than six dozen years. 
For about 50 of them, I’ve spent most days and nights thinking about and being involved in what’s on screens. 
Focus is always on what to do that would be better than what we’re watching.

Being a dad, doing dishes and growing meaningful relationships with partners are also priority everyday activities.

At this point, most people would say “And WORKING has taken up most of the rest of the time.”  I’ve never thought what I do with my days and nights, reading, writing and looking at screens,  was WORKING in the Studs Terkel sense. Work ethic? Absolutely.  But not commuting and showing up at WORK every day for decades.

 I’ve had jobs, but never working regular hours every day in the same place, working for the same people, at least not for long.

Every day, I consciously acknowledge that I work for myself.

And that I don’t pay well – or at all sometimes!  

I’m writing this now because the WORK I’ve been doing nearly every day and night for more than a year has reached its second plateau. My inner boss says it’s time to let you know what I’m thinking and feeling and get YOU involved.

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In January 2021, Eleanor Bingham Miller, my son Jesse and I set out to create a unique streaming video site (a channel that could be seen all over the world.) In addition to being an all-in investment of time and money, it has been a challenge beyond what any of us imagined.

We knew what we wanted:  to find, show and create a home for videos and films not widely seen on-air or online…to build a community that wasn’t defined before.

The goal was to do globally in the digital world what the Image Union TV series did locally when I created it in 1978. Image Union aired for more than 30 years on Chicago public television.

Now, after a year of developing, we have accomplished plenty:

1. We produced and curated 28 programs with a couple hundred individual videos.

2. They have been showing on our website, on Roku and other channels, 24/7 fo r a month.

3.  We have 1500+ followers and thousands of views on Instagram.

4. At this point, the Image Union audience is small, but we have viewers in 14 countries. This is corroborating evidence that people are there to watch if we find ways to let them know. 

That’s the biggest challenge now… let more people know about IMAGEUNION.TV and get them to check it out.  And generate enough cash to sustain it.

We have some credibility now.  We’ve proven that the ideas we started with can work.  We have assembled a terrific group of committed creative people.  

We can’t go much further as a tiny blip on the world’s screens…a blip looking for ways into the competitive multibillion-dollar screen world. The only way to keep going is to be recognized as having developed a unique and valuable seed for a partner that has the money and brains to make it grow. 

We’re proud of the bubble we have blown up, but we can’t continue to make programs and expand without significant new investment.

If you have a daughter, son, sister, cousin, or friend who might recognize the potential value we offer in the digital media world,  please ask them to spend some time at imageunion.tv or on Instagram @imageunion.

Please let me know!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR 2-MINUTE SAMPLE VIDEO REEL 

CLICK THIS TO SEE OUR PITCH BOOK

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It Wasn’t Always This Way

This month’s edition is about my current WORK and life.

I often go to the archives of the Weinberg House Organ for perspective on my father and his times.

In the March 31, 1959 PY-O-MY Letter, he highlighted an essay by Al Capp titled CHILDREN.

Al Capp created Li’l Abner, the popular and immensely influential comic strip that ran for 33 years, 1934-1977.  It dominated popular culture as much as anything would later on TV.  Capp (Alfred Caplin) was a satirist who used the characters in Dogpatch to reflect his world views.  His biographer Denis Kitchen says Capp went “from a progressive figure to a student-hating pro-Vietnam war pal of Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon.”

“When I was in school, we didn’t worry about emotional stability.  All children were emotionally unstable.  They were full of hatreds and frustrations. Who wouldn’t be if they were half the size of the rest of the world and didn’t have a nickel to their name…

“Are teenagers unhappy? Sure they are. Let them stay that way.  We’ve put too much emphasis on security.  Teenagers today have been told they have rights.  Why should they have rights?  In Europe, kids have no rights.  If they asked for it, they’d get belted by their fathers.  But in America things have been all twisted around.  Children used to have to please their parents…now the parents try to please the children…

”Keep in mind we owe children nothing. We’ll supply them food, shelter and clothing only because we’re gambling that some day these subhumans will turn into civilized beings and possibly make reasonable and honest citizens.”

Mostly, my dad didn’t act that way…he was generous and respectful in most ways.  But, for sure, he didn’t think Al Capp was completely wrong.

Now, there are two more generations of parents and children.  We’ll see and hear from those generations on April Fools Day.

Meanwhile, try to live a reasonable and civilized life since Putin has put EVERYTHING in jeopardy.

And thank you in advance for letting let me hear from you about ImageUnion.tv.