Sound Bites For Dummies, by Michael Davis

Michael Davis

Master Of The Universe, Lord Of All Media, Most Interesting Black Man In the World, Sexiest Man on Earth, Mentor, Writer, Artist, Producer & Uppity.

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7 Responses

  1. Martha Thomases says:

    Maybe LA is different, but in New York, spa etiquette is not so strict. If you are in the "relaxation" room (really, the waiting room), you can sit, read a gossip magazine, have some tea or water (sometimes with lemon or cucumber!). Cell phones are rude, but that's the only rule I know.

  2. Rick Taylor says:

    It reall must be an LA thing.A friend of mine who just bought an 'upscale' spa in a wealthy suburb if Wilmington DE has all the same trappings but not to that level of pretensiousness.BTW – Her girls are hot. She has this little tiny gal who gives messages and she has hands of steel.More to your point I think that the public probably would've been more at little more satisfied had Obama said something a little stronger a little sooner about Rev. Wright. Maybe he thought he'd answered people's questions a earlier but Wright, being the egomaniac he is PUSHED him into action.You can't just walk away thinking you've done you're job while the public still has questions. I also know this confrontation had to be extremely painful a thing to do.We are talking a guy who is running for President.

  3. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    Lady asks for a milk bath."Do you want the milk pasteurized?""Honey, I'll be happy if it comes up to my chest!"That didn't have anything to do with Reverend Wright either. I'll give you my opinion of why Obama finally chose to denounce Wright after weeks of standing up to the media and the Republicans by rightly and properly saying that it didn't have anything to do with him personally.Wright didn't play ball.I am wholly confident that there were very intense talks between Obama's (and the Democratic Party's) people and Reverand Wright. Talks that went along the lines of okay, Reverend, you're gonna make the media circuit for the next few days; this is your chance to explain the method to your…actions. Talk about how black ministers often use a very bombastic tone to excite the churchgoers, talk about the differences between that and the very pedestrian and inoffensive homilies you see in other (read: white) churches. In short, explain that even if you might have meant a little of what you said, you turned it up to 11, much like a pro wrestler will say crazy things to get a reaction from the crowd, and get across your message.He chose to "go for his 15 minutes." Every paper in the country chose to run the photos of him making all these crazy poses, and made him look like a wacko. So Obama had no choice to allude to the title of a Richard Pryor album (And while he could have used "Who Me? I'm Not Him." or even "Are You Serious???", that ain't the one I'm referring to.) And throw Wright under a bus.It's common practice – If you can't use the enemy's OWN words against them, use the words of their close friends and business partners, and use the power of guilt by association. Geraldine Ferraro was dropped like a sack of batteries after her "It's cause he's black" comments, and so on back through political history. These aren't new tricks; indeed, the very fact that these weapons are being used should almost be considered a compliment. Obama's enough of a threat that they have to combat him. They didn't bother to do it to Jackson or Sharpton. They knew they weren't "real" candidates….so, do they use new milk every time, or do they re-use it? I always wondered about that.

  4. Mike Gold says:

    Well, I'll give you my opinion of why Obama finally chose to denounce Wright.Rev. Wright made five speeches this past week, knowing full well that every comment he made would get major teevee coverage and get nuanced to death. So all he had to do was deliver some nicely provocative sound bites that Obama could denounce in order to undue some (as much as possible) of the damage he had done.In other words, Wright did his parishioner a solid: he fell on his book contract.

  5. Russ Rogers says:

    Four years ago I was excited by Howard Dean's campaign. He was generating a similar kind of grass roots enthusiasm and fervor from his supporters as Obama does today. He came into the campaign a relative unknown and a Washington outsider. But, he had a good organization and was one of the first political candidates to truly tap into the power of Internet fund raising and organizing. He made two mistakes in Iowa. First, Dean brought in a LOT of ground support in the form of young, out of state, college aged kids to do volunteer work for him: door knocking, phone calls, pamphleteering. Iowa is a small state, very proud of it's position as one of the first primary states. Iowa takes this role seriously. I think many Iowans got annoyed with Howard Dean's Army of volunteers. "What are a bunch of out of state kids doing knocking on my door, telling me who to vote for!" In short, Dean overplayed his hand in Iowa. No big deal. He still made a strong showing in the caucus, even if it was a disappointing third. It was time to move on to New Hampshire.Here comes mistake number two. The fatal mistake. Dean is in a hotel lobby. There is a THRONG of volunteers that have driven hours and hours from out state to work for him, volunteer for him, campaign for him and celebrate his first victory in Iowa. Dean is facing a cheering crowd of disappointed fans. But Dean is staying up beat. He is shouting above the general noise of the room. The din of the crowd.Dean yells, "And, you know something, not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, and Arizona, and North Dakota, and New Mexico. We're going to California, and Texas, and New York. And we're going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House. Yeeaaahhhh!"That was it. That, "Yeeaaahhh," ended any hopes of Howard Dean becoming President. Why? Because he was recorded with a parabolic microphone designed to focus in on his voice and cancel out the crowd. Without the context of the crowd noise and him shouting above it, Dean doesn't sound like a man whooping up an excited crowd. He just sounds like a desperate, raving lunatic. His voice cracks, goes very high pitched for a moment and then dives into a guttural growl. That moment, that sound bite, that tid bit of video got hacked to death by every hack comic in the country. The Internet, which just a few days before was Dean's playground, his sandbox, became Dean's litter box, with ton's of remixes of the Speach and samplings and YouTube jokes.Here was a guy, a very smart guy, with great ideas. He is a Doctor, an M.D. As Governor of Vermont he instituted near universal health care for children. I'm still a fan. Dean was (in my opinion) at least deserving of the Country's serious attention and consideration. "YEEAAAHHH!"Poof.All gone.Dean had other problems. The DNC (the Democratic National Committee) was nervous about his campaign. They feared Dean might be another McGovern, a charismatic Governor from a small state with enough fan support to get the nomination, but without enough substance to carry the election. The DNC started circulating memos EARLY in the campaign looking for ways to stop Dean. It was the Washington insider machine working against the outsider. In the end, I think this kind of divisiveness, this in fighting, played a large role in the Democrats ultimate defeat in 2004. The DNC dissed Dean and his supporters. And I don't think Dean's supporters came out for Kerry with the enthusiasm they might have.So what did Dean do? How did he get his revenge on the DNC?He quietly organized his grass roots support, his little army of loyal fans, and took over the chairmanship of the DNC! When he did this, he promised not to run for President in 2008. That was the carrot. The DNC wouldn't have to worry about another Dean Presidential campaign. I think Dean's leadership of the DNC directly contributed to the Democrats big wins in the Congress in 2006. I think his leadership will directly contribute to the Democrats winning the Presidency in November. But, I do think that he and the DNC have made some mistakes. They scheduled the Democratic convention too late this year. They spread the primaries out across the calendar. The thinking was, "This will get us a lot of free publicity closer to the time people vote!' It will end up dragging out what is becoming an increasingly bitter and divisive contest. Dean and the DNC also set up rules to try to control the scramble and squabble by states trying to get earlier and earlier primaries on the calendar. They put into the rules the draconian outcomes of having a state's delegates not count in the Presidential Primary voting. They assumed this would be enough to keep states from trying to break for the head of the pack. The DNC didn't count on pig-headed and proud Michigan and Florida. Now the DNC has a mess. The Democrats were the one's, eight years ago, rallying around the battle-cry, "Every vote must count! And Florida voters are being disenfranchised!" Now the Democrats are in danger of being seen as the party where votes don't count.What does my comment end up having to do with milk baths and massages? Uhm, nothing.Does this have anything to do with Comics? No. That would be a stretch.But Dean's campaign was crushed by one sound bite for dummies. How stupid are we!"God Damn America!"I looked up the transcript of Dean's Iowa Speech today. Near the end of the speech, the audience (who obviously weren't put off at all by Dean's ranting, they are fired up and ready to go) is chanting, "Dean! Dean! Dean!"And Dean responds by chanting, "Si, se puede! Si, se puede! Si, se puede!" (Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!)It seems very familiar.

  6. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    "But Dean's campaign was crushed by one sound bite for dummies. How stupid are we!"Dukakis was torpedoed by a picture of him rising in a tank. Lonesome Rhodes was done in by the turn of a potentiometer. Michael Davis (the one from Seinfeld, that is), a heckler who got under his skin. It only takes one thing for America to turn its back on you.Snapwatch. It's coming.