Brindle Media

Archive for the ‘Baby Booomers’ Category

Earl N. Brindle died on a Saturday night in early December, 2006 just a few weeks shy of his 87th birthday He and my mother started dating when they were 16 and had been together for 71 years. The only time they were apart was for four years during World War II. They were married 66 years ago this month.

Dad was born in Raynham, MA., the son of the late Thomas H. and Gertrude (Smith) Brindle. He was a resident of the small Rhode Island village where I grew up since 1947 where he had owned and operated the former Earl N. Brindle Insurance Agency.

Dad served as the Treasurer of the Greenville Vol. Fire Dept., a trustee of the Greenville Baptist Church, he was the first chairman of the Smithfield Sewer Authority (He was amused that the town named the sewage processing plant after him), he served on the Board of Directors for the Greenville Public Library, and in 1999, was inducted into the Smithfield Heritage Hall of Fame. He was also a WWII Army Aircorp Veteran serving in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater as part of the ground crew which took care of the cargo planes which flew over the hump from India to China.

That’s my father’s official bio. But it doesn’t really tell you much about the man.

Something I discovered after my father’s death was that in the summer of 1929 when he was 10 years old Dad and his best friend hitchhiked from Cranston, RI to Raynham, MA and then back home again. That’s a distance of more than 30 miles. And it was back in the day when cars were still relatively rare and most roads were either dirt or two lanes. Today’s equivalent would probably be a couple of 10 year olds hitching a couple of hundred miles from home.

When Dad was a boy, some kid threw a rock which hit my father in the head and all but blinded him. From that day forward, he had to wear glasses with lenses as thick as Coke bottle bottles and his dream of becoming a pilot was ended. Dad didn’t complain about it. He just “made the best of it.”

My father was in the insurance business but he wasn’t a hard-sell kind of guy. Dad was a little ahead of his time because his approach was what would be described today as “consultative”. Of course, he wanted to do a good job for his company but he felt that the best way to accomplish that was by doing what was right for his customer. It wasn’t uncommon while I was growing up to have the phone ring at midnight or 2AM with someone calling to say that they had been in an accident or that there’d been a fire at their home. When that happened, Dad would help them through it and make sure that his customer got what they were owed from the insurance company.

Dad wasn’t really a social kind of guy. He was friendly, amusing and a good conversationalist in a social setting when he had to be. But my sense is that he was somewhat of a loner and, given the choice, would have avoided social scenes. Nevertheless, Dad was generous with his time and several people became his clients when he stopped to give them a helping hand with a flat tire or some other car problem.

When he was a young man, Dad had joined a local Providence insurance firm and had been a rising star in the company. After 20 years with the firm, Dad asked for a raise. My brother and I were heading off to college and , although Dad appreciated some of the perks and small salary increases that he’d been given over the years, he still felt that he was being underpaid. His employer interpreted Dad’s request as ungrateful and impertinent, fired him and then sued my father for potential business he might take away. Amazingly, the judge upheld the company’s position and ordered my father to pay the company $10,000 (approx. $ 100,000 in 2010 dollars) for potential business that he might take away. It was an unjust and devastating decision, especially with two kids about to head off to college, but Dad just hunkered down and started his own business.

My father was a man who had the courage of his convictions. He tried to be open-minded and just. And he tried to accept others on their own terms as who and what they were. Nevertheless, he wasn’t afraid to speak out about what he considered to be right and wrong.

When Dad was chairman of the Smithfield Sewer Commission, an unpaid position, he devoted a lot of time and energy to make sure that the town got the best and most economical system available. Some cynical folks accused him of being corrupt because they assumed that anyone in that position must be taking bribes. I’ll always remember one meeting which I decided to attend when I drove home for a visit. My father didn’t know I was there but during a break in the meeting he went to the lobby for a drink of water. While he was there alone, a group of 7 or 8 men who were about half my father’s age approached him menacingly. They disagreed with his position on whatever issue was being discussed and they were trying to bully him. As I watched, the group started closing in on my father and I thought I was going to have to step in. But Dad just stood his ground, stayed calm, explained his opinion and walked away. It was quite a performance and I was proud to be his son.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to notice similarities between myself and my father. Our body types are more alike than I’d once thought. I like learning new things and sharing information with others that might help them to increase their understanding or improve their life. Although perceived by some to be an outgoing socializer, my nature is to be somewhat of a loner. At home, I’m not handy. Neither was he. But I know it and hire experts. He tried to do it himself. Then we brought in the experts!

Through his actions and his words, Earl N. Brindle taught me about being a generous and compassionate friend and neighbor, about being a trustworthy and equal partner in marriage, about being a good parent and about being focused on getting the job done right.

My dad. His life ended three years ago but his spirit is with me on this Father’s Day.

Have you ever been at a large event and become swept up with the crowd in the emotion of the moment? Have you found yourself choking up while watching someone cry on TV? Or have you suddenly found your mood lightening when someone enters the room in a happy mood?

Recent research has shown that the human brain contains something called “mirror neurons” . When we see or hear someone else experiencing an emotion , these “mirror neurons” cause us to experience that emotion, too.

I envy Robert Krulwich his ability to make science interesting.

Here’s my question. If your brain can’t tell the difference between whether YOUR body is doing something or instead you’re watching someone else do it, why would you put yourself through the stress of watching a horror movie?

Dr. Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma , believes that by understanding the concept of mirror neurons you can become more effective in communicating your ideas to others.

And here’s some animation which does a great job of explaining how “mirror neurons” were discovered.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about this research.

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The way you think of and read magazines is about to change. Watch this short video about how Viv is creating editorial content for their digital-only magazine specifically with the iPad in mind.

Mashable reports that GM “has been working with several universities to develop a working next-generation heads-up display that turns an ordinary windshield into an augmented reality information dashboard.” The system could help drivers in conditions of poor visibility to identify things like road signs, the edges of roads, animals near the road, etc. and also go your GPS one step better by outlining the exact building that you’re heading to. According to General Motors, the system should be available in its vehicles in the relatively near future.

This week, the RIAA sent 5 people to the National Association of Broadcaters’ headquarters in Washington DC with a blow-up pig to protest NAB’s stance against the Performance Rights Act. NAB responded by sending them a sausage pizza.

Dennis Wharton, the NAB’s Executive VP says:”It’s no surprise that RIAA is now employing silly frat-boy stunts, given its well-documented practice of suing college kids to rescue a bankrupt business model. It also seems appropriate for RIAA to use an inflatable pig as its mascot, since its foreign-owned members would be the biggest beneficiaries of performance tax pork. RIAA is losing this issue on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion, and today’s demonstration represents a new low in a campaign of utter desperation.”

About the sausage pizza, Wharton noted, “We’re suggesting they provide this food to the scores of exploited musicians who have had to sue their record label to recoup allegedly unpaid album royalties.”

As music industry veteran Steve Meyer notes in his DISC & DigitalAudioTechnology (Music & Digital Audio/Video News):
“All the artists who have earned a whole lot of money from selling a whole lot of records from a whole lot of radio play should think twice before they try and get what they wish for. Because if the Performance Tax is ever passed, a whole lot of newer artists won’t have the same ability to make a whole lot of money from record sales because they will most likely not receive the same whole lot of airplay. But that’s my opinion.”

“Back to the RIAA and their lame brained stunt. Labels fund the RIAA, and they should demand the costs of the stunt be deducted from the salaries of all those in the association who thought it was a good idea to draw attention to a matter so far removed from the public’s consciousness. It accomplished nothing and it allowed the NAB to retaliate with words the public is more likely to side with.”

(Read Steve’s weekly newsletters at www.freewebs.com/stevemeyer )

I like the sausage pizza move and Wharton’s responses but, unfortunately, visuals tend to trump the written and spoken word with we humans so I think that radio broadcasters need to respond with their own creative and iconic visual to represent the greedy labels and those ungrateful artists who dismiss FREE promotion and advocacy of their work as having no value.

Any suggestions?

Note to MusicFIRST: In a survey of its readers the broadcast trade, INSIDE RADIO asked if the Performance Rights Act were passed would they consider switching their music-formated radio stations to talk, sports or news programming. More than half (52%) said yes. A third of those responding said that their decision would be based on the size of the royalty payments.

musicFIRST is at it again.

Yesterday, Dionne Warwick was in Washington trying to persuade Congress to pass the Performance Rights Act. According to Dionne, “This is a critical issue for not only those of us who have made music our careers, but for those who are trying to make a name for themselves in the business. Performers from every genre of music should be fairly compensated for their art. Thus far, radio is the only medium that fails to provide artists with fair compensation for the use of their music and we feel it is time for radio companies to join Satellite, Internet, and Cable music distributors in giving musical artists what they have worked so hard to earn.”

I’m sorry, Dionne but could we review your tax records for the past 45 years? I would suspect that a lot of money has flowed into your personal account primarily because of the FREE exposure and promotion you received from radio stations playing your songs in high rotations and on-air personalities reinforcing your brand by praising your talent. I’m sure that your contract with your record labels was designed more in their best interest than yours but that’s not radio’s fault. What all that FREE exposure on radio did for you, however, was increase audience awareness of your talent, increase your TV exposure, increase demand for your live performances and increase the fees you could demand for those performances. Seems to me that you profited nicely from all that FREE exposure.

And before someone posts the same lame comment about radio gets free use of our airwaves and we the people own the airwaves, it would be useful to remember that radio stations are granted short-term licenses to access those airwaves with the promise to operate in the public “interest, convenience and necessity”. Then, companies must invest millions of dollars in order to build their facilities, purchase the equipment, pay the electric bills (which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year), pay the personnel (on-air staff, engineers, support staff, sales people, management), pay a large
percentage of gross advertising revenues to music rights companies (BMI, ASCAP, SESAC) and pay local, state and federal taxes. If times are good and the station does a good job of serving its listeners, it can earn a nice profit. If times are tight, it can lose money even if it’s doing a good job of serving its audience. So, saying that radio gets “free” use of our airwaves is a bit misleading.

It amazes me that the artists who support musicFIRST’s efforts don’t understand that if the RIAA gets its way and forces radio to start paying for the right to play songs then fewer stations will choose to continue playing music and those stations that do continue to play music will become more selective about what they play. If a station is paying for songs, its budget will dictate that it choose the most cost-effective tunes which will be obvious hits by artists with established track records. Consequently, playlists will become even tighter. I’m not sure that’s the goal that the musicians supporting musicFIRST are trying to accomplish.

Augmented Reality promises to integrate existing internet content into a physical context which can benefit small businesses.

Jeremiah Owyand points out in his blog that the businesses which can benefit from Augmented Reality include “Any retail or commercial entity with a physical space, any company that sells physical products, any company that does advertising in real life” http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/category/augmented-reality/

According to Owyand, in spite AR’s promises its biggest challenges will be creating useful applications instead of things which simply appeal to the geeky among us.

In this clip, GoWeb3D’s founder, Dave Elchoness shows Augmented Reality in action.

And this short video about using AR to buy a car is fun

In January, I wrote about Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense. You can see the video from his TED presentation by scrolling down on this page to the entry titled “Ready To Have Your Reality Augmented?” Sixth Sense is very futuristic but you know that augmented reality is going mainstream when a company like GE starts using it in their presentations.

Check out this video by Steve Garfield:

Order Steve’s new book, “Get Seen:Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business” using the Amazon link on the left side of this page.

Opponents of President Obama’s health care proposals need to come up with something as entertaining as this bit from The Daily Show: