JolieSimons.com

Does the podcasting world yet have a superstar?

Podcasting as a medium is pretty small-time, but podcasting is growing as media moves online. Today, we can consume whatever media we want, whenever we want it. Terrestrial radio is being hit just like every other form of media as evidenced by the recent format switch of KLSX, the station that used to have Adam Carolla’s morning talk show. KLSX decided that they want to spin cheap records rather than pay for expensive personalities and, in that ugly shuffle, Adam Carolla was unceremoniously axed. 

Fans cried. Many a fan called on the last two day of The Adam Carolla Show to weep as Adam comforted each and every one of them, reminding them that change is almost always good. As a shot in the arm to those suffering, Aceman—he calls himself “Ace”—assured each of his listeners that he wasn’t going anywhere. Huge numbers of fans across the world were downloading his daily KLSX-sponsored podcast and streaming KLSX live. Adam knew then his potential: if terrestrial radio won’t have me, I’ll still have fans out there.

Carolla took a giant leap into the podcast-only world. Sure, other big personalities put out podcasts. These podcasts are almost always marketing for another vehicle—like a TV show or a radio how—or an in-the-basement kind of affair. The This American Life podcast, for example, wouldn’t exist without the NPR show already broadcasting nationwide on NPR affiliate stations. No giant star has tried to monetize or capitalize on the podcast-only medium. That is, until now.

The Adam Carolla Show ended on a Friday. That following Monday, fans all over the world took to their computers and found a podcast just for them. Carolla was using his own money. He had no sponsorships, no advertising. He was using his own equipment, his own domain name, his own electricity to record about 45 minutes of Adam being typical Adam, uncut as the marketers say. Often times, he says, he is in a bath robe. Sure, it was no four hour radio time slot and didn’t benefit from a studio full of equipment with people to run it. But the feeling was very raw and organic. The show was, indeed, that methadone to keep Adam fans satiated. 

Since then, Adam has pulled out all the stops to get guests, the usual suspects of Adam’s circle: Dr. Drew, his former co hosts Theresa and Bryan, Larry Miller, Bill Simmons, and David Allen Grier, all popular guests on the morning show. But from the moment The Adam Carolla Podcast went online, it was pretty obvious that Carolla has stumbled on something great. His first show, a sort of airing-out of laundry, certainly an uncharacteristically melancholy Adam, was downloaded over a quarter of a million times. Granted, the show wasn’t even on iTunes for easy download yet. 

Since then, ratings have been high for the show. It is ranked number 1 on the iTunes “Top Podcasts” list. In a little over a week of podcasts, the show has been downloaded over a 1.6 million times. This begs the question: have we found Podcasting’s first superstar? When Carolla was on a podcasted corporate radio show, he enjoyed the backing of a company to do the work for him. Today, he’s paying his own way just to connect with fans (and maybe get some bread down the road). It’s genius marketing and self-promotion. Most of all, it’s great talk radio, the kind of radio we’d actually like to hear over the airwaves.

2008, my husband and I both agree, was the worst year on record for both of us. Not only were we living in a new city, my husband got a job with a very long daily commute. We didn’t know anybody in town, and finances, being what they are, were also causing strife.

Sometimes life becomes a little more bearable with the introduction of a new hobby. In this case, we started listening to The Adam Carolla Show, a morning radio station syndicated from KLSX in Los Angeles. Adam’s multi-hour show had celebrity guests, two adorable sidekicks, and was the funniest thing I’d heard on the radio, well, ever. TACS didn’t actually air in St. Louis, so we would podcast the program and listen to it a day later. It made the long St. Louis commutes seem shorter and made our lives a little better.

Now the LA Times is reporting that KLSX is switching formats from FM talk to Top 40. Advertising dollars in the tough economy are harder and harder to come by, and KLSX has decided to cop out and go with what works: radio for teens.

Tomorrow, February 20th, will be the last day for The Adam Carolla Show, and will be a sad day. While I know it’s coming, I won’t be able to listen to it until I can sync up my MP3 player tonight.

Losing The Adam Carolla Show is like losing a best friend. Adam Carolla, Theresa Strasser, and Brian Bishop have become like family, a strange digital family that I never get to see but still feel I know. While I thank them all for the laughs, I hope to hear one or all of them again soon. After all, TACS is a very popular podcast. Perhaps go podcast-only? I’m just sayin’…

I very rarely have the knee jerk reaction to boycott anything. I’m a friend to the large corporation. I use plenty of products from so-called “evil” organizations, including the Microsoft-powered laptop on which I currently type. Now why in the world would I send a letter to Kellogg’s informing them I couldn’t purchase their products anymore?

As might already know, the story goes like this: Swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, more than anyone else in history.  After the games, Phelps signed a bunch of very lucrative contracts to hawk products for the likes of Kellogg’s, Omega watches, and more. A few days ago, a British tabloid printed a picture taken by some jerk at a college party of Michael Phelps smoking marijuana. A few days after that, Kellogg’s informed the public that they would no longer honor Phelps’s endorsement contract.

Why did this action by Kellogg’s get me so upset? Well…

• Phelps, for all intents and purposes, had his privacy violated at that party, even if there’s no inherent right to privacy at a public event.

• Phelps, like most Americans, probably has the opinion that marijuana isn’t all that big a deal. The worst harm that the drug can cause a person is if they get caught by authorities. The punishment for marijuana in this country far out weights any of the dangers of the drug itself.  What do people in countries with more sane marijuana policy feel about the Kellogg’s decisions? Are they insulted?

• Several states in this nation have legalized medical use of marijuana. Whether you agree or not, this reflects the shifting position of Americans that marijuana isn’t that big a deal to anyone but the authorities.

• Kellogg’s is insulting all Americans who believe that this country is founded on principles of privacy and personal liberty, even if our federal laws don’t always reflect those values. 

I’m sad to see Kellogg’s leave my life. Kellogg’s makes several products I really enjoy, including Morningtar Farms meatless products and All-Bran cereal, both of which I’ve eaten to help me with my recent 50 pound weight loss.

I urge Kellogg’s to reconsider their position and apologize to Phelps for their much ado about nothing. Reinstating Phelps as a spokesperson would also be nice.

I’d also like to pose the following question: What year does Kellogg’s believe it is, anyway?

I’ve just learned the sad news that George Carlin passed away. He was 71.

Carlin had a chat with my husband backstage at a concert once. George was performing at our college’s performing arts theater. George was waiting around for his showtime and my husband was doing some security, a boring job that amounted to keeping people from coming in a certain door. My husband had his homework in hand, a book of short stories.

George, who couldn’t have been nicer, signed a record for our mutual friend, talked to my husband about literature, and reccommended a book that my husband loved, the short stories of Breece D’J Pancake. This was, apparently, one of George Carlin’s favorite authors.

Everyone else might remember George Carlin from the seven words you can’t say on TV or from his movie roles in Dogma, Jersey Girl or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Still others will remember Carlin as a counterculture icon with an ascerbic tongue, a witty pen, and a knack for knowing what’s funny.

Words can’t describe how much the pioneering comic will be missed among fans of movie, comedy, or the counterculture.

TMZ is reporting that the American Medical Association or AMA, and more specifically the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is issuing a decree against various types of home birth and midwifery, aimed specifically at Ricki Lake.

Why Ricki Lake? Well,this year, Lake helped produce a documentary about the birth industry called The Business of Being Born. The documentary centered around various insiders in the home birth world as well as a few doctors who doubt the efficacy and safety of home births and midwives. The conclusion of the film was, essentially, that the birth industry is being run like a business and women are suffering for it. Infant mortality is very high in this country, higher than in nations that support home birth and midwife options. Countries highly accepting of home birth and midwifery have lower infant mortality rates, lower incidences of cesarean sections, lower birth costs, and generally better conditions for pregnant moms.

Lake’s argument is nothing new, of course. In the film, the director interviews Ina May Gaskin, a famous home birth advocate since the sixties who, over the course of her career, has assisted in the home-based births of thousands of women.

My older brother and I were both born in home-based births and, since I was a child, have heard about the horrors of the medically-controlled birth industry, including the views of Ina May Gaskin. Now, I’m not that old, but am still old enough to know that this was an issue that’s not recent since I was hearing about the ineffective birth industry more than twenty years ago. Now, as an adult, the issue is being revisited by the likes of Lake and Naomi Wolf who, in 2003, published a scathing indictment of the birth industry in her book Misconceptions. Both Wolf and Lake come to similar conclusions: medical intervention is nice, but is not necessary for all women. Home-based birth and midwifery are effective, cheap, and emotionally and physically beneficial to women with normal pregnancies.

Not surprisingly, the AMA has a beef with home births. Think of it this way: the AMA is an organization of doctors that has far too much influence on the medical industry. The AMA is known for opposing many ideas, not for the general health of the populace, but as a self-preservation method. The AMA is interested mostly in the bottom line of doctors, not the health of Americans.

Home births obviously cut into the profits of OB/GYN’s. The average hospital birth can involve steady drips with drugs, a delivery by a doctor, and medical intervention that often leads to cesarean section births rather than preventing them. A cesarean will net the he hospital and OB several thousand dollars extra. While a home birth with a qualified midwife might only cost a few thousand, a vaginal hospital birth will be twice that, and a full medical birth with a pitocin drip, epidural, and cesarean intervention may run up to $8,000 or more.

The AMA’s resolution states that they are trying to write and pass legislation (PDF warning) affirming their belief that hospital births are the safest, the same argument they’ve been giving for years. What they fail to mention in their resolution is the high infant mortality rate that is a very possible result of the large number of hospital births in our nation. The United States ranks 163rd in the work in infant mortality, and nations like Luxemborg, Cuba, Singapore, and South Korea have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. Is hospital birth really safer with numbers like these?

Lake shot back at the AMA report, telling the AP, quote

“It’s scary that both (the ACOG and the AMA) have sort of targeted me,” Lake told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And, you know, I’m all about choice. This is not unlike the abortion issue. I am pro-choice when it comes to childbirth and choices in birth. Home birth was around long before hospitals were taking over — and I just think women need to know (the information) so that they can make the best choice for them.”

Reports have surfaced that legendary actor and director Sydney Pollack has died after a nine month battle with cancer. Pollack was 73.

I remember Sydney Pollack from great films he directed like Tootsie, the Dustin Hoffman vehicle that was hilarious and touching at the same time. Pollack was also responsible for such award fodder as Out of Africa (starring Meryl Streep) and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They.

Youngsters will probably recognize Pollack not from his directing but from his acting. In his later years, Pollack became a sort of everyman character actor and appeared in many different projects ranging from Will and Grace to last year’s Michael Clayton.

At first, I wondered who would really care about the new Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff they’ve created. Apparently the cast consists mostly of fresh-faced teenagers much like the old show only now it’s a new cast with new problems. Jennie Garth rehashes her character and manages to come back as a guidance counselor. Other actors on the original series have expressed interest in coming back.

As what? The guy who refills the vending machine at school? But I digress.

Today they released the publicity photo for the new show and guess who’s on there? None other than the fabulous Jessica Walter. Walter, as you may or may not remember, was the fabulous Lucille Bluth on what was once America’s best television show, Arrested Development.

I know I miss Arrested Development a lot, so I’m hoping that the producers of the new 90210 fully utilize Walter’s talents. Maybe I’ll even like her as a character besides Lucille.

And let’s hope they give her plenty of time off to shoot the Arrested Development movie. Please?

I don’t understand why critics didn’t like Leatherheads.

Actually, I understand completely why critics didn’t warm up to Leatherheads. The comedy was much like a movie you’d see sixty years ago. The comedy was slapstick and more than a little dependent on the comedy mechanisms of yesteryear.

Renée Zellweger plays a classic ballbuster journalist, fresh from the boy’s club in red lips and well-coiffed hair. John Krasinski plays the boy fresh off the farm, so to speak, as the young college student about to essentially make the world of professional football. George plays the well-meaning yet old bad boy, ready to school the young Krasinski in the true way of the world. The movie is full of those old movie gender dynamics: the love/hate relationship, the unconventional attraction, the somewhat happy and traditional ending.

For all of that, I actually liked Leatherheads. Liking the movie was key because Clooney has now thrice proven himself to be a highly competent director. No longer considered a bad-boy bachelor of Hollywood or interpreted as his character from ER, Clooney has become a film genius. Good for him.

Watch the special features on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to find out how hard Clooney went to prove himself as more than a pretty face. This labor of love, based on a book written by Chuck Barris, became a masterful black comedy about what would happen to a man who was a game show host by day an a CIA hitman by night.

What is most striking about Confessions, and later Good Night and Good Luck, is how good Clooney’s eye is. Clooney does what so many directors hope to do: he dreams his films in pictures. Some filmmakers do it for dialogue. Some for explosions. Some for visuals. Clooney uses good scripts and his boyish charm to make his movies, and the formula works. Confessions used low-tech camera tricks and well-framed shots to paint pictures. Good Night and Good Luck filled the screen, even in black and white. Leatherheads is soft and dreamy, much like you’d expect of a slapstick comedy set in the twenties.

Clooney is now set to make his fourth film called Suburbicon, written and produced by the Coen brothers. Details about the script and plot are sketchy, but fans of the Coens and Clooney (like myself) can’t wait for another collaboration between the two, not seen since O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

I don’t care what the critics say. George Clooney has made three great movies. Can’t wait for the fourth.

Everyone’s favorite celeb-mocking gossip blog, Perez Hilton, has posted this new photograph of the boys of New Kids on the Block. Apparently there’s enough reason for them to get back together in order to take this nifty publicity shot, looking hot in nice suits and sans mullets.

Perhaps NKOTB is getting back together?

I’ll probably be showing my age, but I was a huge, huge New Kids on the Block fan as a kid. I had a t-shirt and paperback book filled with black and white photos and band member profiles. Did you know that Danny really loves Oreos and that his bandmates called him “cookie monster?” I think that factoid was in there.

Anyway, I love kitsch from my childhood and would love to see an NKOTB reunion. Danny, Donny, Joe, John, and Jordan deserve another chance. Looks like Jordan isn’t even the hot one anymore.

Seems like this movie might be coming together. Yes!

As if like a magic wand to tell us all we can breathe a sigh of relief that yes, IMDB has posted this link to the in-production Arrested Development movie.

Apparently the actors on the show have been contacted by creator Mitchell Hurwitz and show producer Ron Howard to see if they’re on board. The large cast (Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, David Cross, Ali Shawkat, Michael Cera, and Ron Howard as Narrator) will, fingers crossed, all come together for a final visitation to the Bluth family saga. Hopefully other players (Henry Winkler as the incompetent lawyer or Liza Minelli as the vertigo-suffering Lucille II) will also be able to join the cast one last time.

For those that are curious, you can watch the entire series streaming online on MSN here.