A reference to Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” Not Easily Amused is as much a declaration as it is a description. In the presence of a menu dominated by pablum we should all choose wisely. Why be satiated easily?

BTW, I’m NOT the John McDaniel from Rosie’s old show.

Random bits of info about me:

• Before the term “tween” was invented, as one, I watched the Watergate hearings on TV in the summer of ‘73. A newshound was born.
• I’ve flown on Air Force Two a couple of times assisting the fourth estate. Over the course of a couple of years I participated in media gang bangs, waited for dawn to reveal a disintegrated plane, worked undercover, shook hands with a mass murderer, and collected a very strange list of brushes with fame/infamy.
• I’ve had a hand in various mediamaking activities such as:
• • films that made it to Sundance
  • documentaries
  • commercials for radio & TV
  • webstuff
  • museum content
• I can spell a German augmented sixth chord

This writing exercise will be, in part, about finding threads from past thinkers on mass media and communication culture that connect to contemporary conjecture and perhaps together point to the future. It will also be about observing avant media trends with the goal of seeing things in the larger picture that others don’t. If lucky, i’ll uncover the observer effect along the way.

Though we are immersed in a communications cultural dominated by images, I believe that words still matter.