Frank Beacham's Journal

Before this day in 1986 — 36 years ago — a woman could not be a “Ms.” in the pages of The New York Times

Styles often change very slowly. Before this day in 1986 — 36 years ago — a woman could not be a “Ms.” in the pages of The New York Times.

That’s because a top editor had persuaded the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, that the usage was a passing fad. Reporters had to pry when interviewing women: Are you Miss or Mrs.? “It’s none of your damned business!” reporters were sometimes told.

In 1972, “Ms.” was accepted by the American Heritage School Dictionary. But it took protests, internal pressure, time and a smart strategy to persuade The New York Times to follow suit.

Paula Kassell, a feminist writer and publisher, bought Times stock so that she could raise questions about the policy at shareholders’ meetings. In April, 1986, Kassell persuaded Sulzberger to convene language experts — but then received word that the paper would allow “Ms.” without further discussion.

As The Times prepared its first edition using “Ms.,” Betsy Wade, a Times editor, wrote, “Gloria Steinem, Mary Thom and other editors of Ms. magazine walked into the city room with a basket of flowers for the editor” — A. M. Rosenthal — “and the copy editors and reporters applauded.”

The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world

The main reading room of the Library of Congress.

Photo by Richard Perry

It contains 167 million items and 838 miles of bookshelves, and it adds 12,000 articles of history daily.

The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. It was established on this day in 1800 with the same sweep of President John Adams’s pen that moved the federal government from Philadelphia to Washington.

As its name suggests, the library was originally for members of Congress, but its role as the leading research arm of the government has expanded. Anyone 16 and older may get a library card and use the collections on site.

While its main building is in Washington, the library has offices around the world and has materials in 470 languages. It is home to a Gutenberg Bible and a 1507 world map that is the first known document on which “America” appears (over what is now Brazil).

The Librarian of Congress is a title that has been held by 14 people since 1800. Carla Hayden, the current librarian, is the first woman and first African-American to hold the post. “If you can absorb information yourself and make your own decisions, that’s a freedom,” Dr. Hayden told The New York Times.

Thanks New York Times!

Today is World Consumer Rights Day

Today is World Consumer Rights Day.

Started in 1983, the day was inspired by an address that President John F. Kennedy gave in August, 1962 — 60 years ago.

Many of Kennedy passages resonate more than ever today.

“The march of technology — affecting, for example, the foods we eat, the medicines we take and the many appliances we use in our homes — has increased the difficulties of the consumer along with his opportunities,” Kennedy said.

The government, he said, should protect the right to safety, to being informed, to choice and to being heard.

Kennedy’s message helped pave the way for activists like Ralph Nader and his push for auto safety, and well as many other consumer safety initiatives.

Upton Sinclair, whose 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” depicted the deplorable standards in the meatpacking industry, prompting legislative action, was also viewed as an early advocate for consumers.

As corporations have accumulated more power, the movement is now cast in the role of underdog. This is especially true with the Trump administration systematically abandoning consumer protections that it took years to achieve.

“There are a lot of powerful interests trying to tilt the scales against consumers,” the publisher of Consumer Reports wrote in 2012. “But there is one important asset that they don’t have and we do. That asset is people power.”

That is if the people will wake up and recognize what is happening.

Thanks New York Times!

In the above photo, President Kennedy in Pierre, S.D., in August, 1962, when he made the speech.

Photo by George Tames

Think “selfies” are something relatively new?

Think “selfies” are something relatively new?

These photos were taken in 1920 in New York City. Five photographers posed together on the roof of Marceau's Studio, while Joseph Byron held one side of the camera with his right hand and Ben Falk held the other side with his left hand.

The photographers wrote that occupational self-portraits “proclaim a new profession independent from tradition. Images of photographers taken by photographers illustrate a developing self-awareness, an inventiveness and an introspection at once calculating and as casual as the experience of noticing one’s reflection in a shop window."

The image features Uncle Joe Byron, Pirie MacDonald, Colonel Marceau, Pop Core and Ben Falk long before the era of social media.

Having known both right-wing politicians and radio/TV preachers, I can tell you that most operate identically — they just wear different costumes

Jim and Tammy Bakker, 1986

Having known both right-wing politicians and radio/TV preachers, I can tell you that most operate identically — they just wear different costumes.

Sadly, most are after the money of poor, uneducated people who become their “believers.” These unsuspecting people buy the arguments of the public mouthpiece who blames third parties for whatever is causing their sad, miserable existence. This sort of evangelism has probably been around forever in some form.

The modern electronic media version, however, probably began with Father Coughlin, one of the first Roman Catholic priests to use radio to reach a mass audience. He began his broadcasts in 1926.

Coughlin started out as a supporter of President Roosevelt in the 1930s. He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads and protection of the rights of labor. The membership ran into the millions, resembling the Populist movement of the 1890s. Coughlin had a great platform, blaming others for the Great Depression.

After hinting at attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to support some of the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The broadcasts have been called "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture."

After Coughlin’s radio show was canceled by the traditional radio networks, he raised money to build his own network, which soon reached millions of listeners on a 36-station hookup. What Coughlin proved is that anyone with the microphone and a “message” could raise money on the air. It was a revelation that many understood and adopted for their own uses.

This, of course, extends with variations of theme to the modern day. On the political side — all far to the right on the political spectrum — are the likes of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the late Rush Limbaugh. Donald Trump took it to an absurd new level.

Add to that the late Sen. Jesse Helms, who rose to the U.S. Senate from racist broadcasting in North Carolina, and created one of the biggest money machines of all of them.

On the religious side were Jerry Falwell, Billy and Franklin Graham, Kenneth Copeland, Reverend Ike, Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and two of my old favorites, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

Jim Bakker created the PTL Club, a popular television program. A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce from Tammy Faye.

You can’t keep an old evangelist down, though. Bakker is still on the air and still owes the IRS about $6 million. These days, he pitches buckets of survival food to sell his audience for “the end of days.” And, yes, he’s a big Donald Trump supporter.

Tammy Faye, Bakker’s on-air cohort, died in 2007 of cancer. Today, she would have turned 79 years old.

Sadly, these media hustlers prey upon uneducated people by giving them someone to blame for their problems or someone who can fix them. The politicians, from Limbaugh to Helms to Trump, have blamed welfare mothers, dark-skinned people, draft dodgers, immigrants or anyone who challenges their own status quo.

The preachers say belief in “God” can fix all problems and it helps if listeners send them money to help them continue do their “good works.” Many of the people run for their checkbooks and some even leave their entire estates to these media evangelists.

At the end of the day, both groups solicit money from people, who keep paying them month after month. It’s a sad but true story that continues until this day.

It’s part of the human condition I’ll never understand.

On this day in 1963 — 59 years ago — the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, was patented by the company's co-founder, Arthur "Spud" Melin

On this day in 1963 — 59 years ago — the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, was patented by the company's co-founder, Arthur "Spud" Melin.

An estimated 25 million Hula-Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone.

In 1948, Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr founded a company in California to sell a slingshot they created to shoot meat up to falcons they used for hunting. The company’s name, Wham-O, came from the sound the slingshots supposedly made.

Wham-O eventually branched out from slingshots, selling boomerangs and other sporting goods. Its first hit toy, a flying plastic disc known as the Frisbee, debuted in 1957. The Frisbee was originally marketed under a different name, the Pluto Platter, in an effort to capitalize on America's fascination with UFOs.

Melin and Knerr were inspired to develop the Hula-Hoop after they saw a wooden hoop that Australian children twirled around their waists during gym class.

Wham-O began producing a plastic version of the hoop, dubbed "Hula" after the hip-gyrating Hawaiian dance of the same name, and demonstrating it on Southern California playgrounds.

Hula-Hoop mania took off from there. The enormous popularity of the Hula-Hoop was short-lived and within a matter of months, the masses were on to the next big thing. However, the Hula-Hoop never faded away completely and still has its fans today.

According to Ripley's Believe It or Not, in April, 2004, a performer at the Big Apple Circus in Boston simultaneously spun 100 hoops around her body.

Earlier that same year, in January, according to the Guinness World Records, two people in Tokyo, Japan, managed to spin the world's largest hoop — at 13 feet, 4 inches —around their waists at least three times each.

Following the Hula-Hoop, Wham-O continued to produce a steady stream of wacky and beloved novelty items, including the Superball, Water Wiggle, Silly String, Slip 'n' Slide and the Hacky Sack.

Thanks History.com

Joan Baez, 41 and divorced, met Steve Jobs, 27, in Palo Alto, California in 1982 and they began dating

Joan Baez, 41 and divorced, met Steve Jobs, 27, in Palo Alto, California in 1982 and they began dating.

Baez addressed their relationship in an interview in the New York Post.

Jobs had described the relationship between him and Baez as “two accidental friends who became lovers.” Baez said it was a case of opposites attracting.

“He was always very nice to me,” she told the Post, “[but] we didn’t agree on anything. He’d say, ‘I’m going to make a computer that won’t just duplicate a Beethoven sonata — it will be better!’

“And I’d say, ‘Excuse me? What about the soul? Where’s the soul in it?’

He’d say, ‘It’ll just be better,’ and I’d be dumbfounded . . . and then we’d grab dinner.”

That was usually Indian food, she said, though later, even food was a struggle.

“[Jobs] kind of turned into a fruit-arian,” she recalled. “He wanted the woman who cooked for me to work for him, but he’d quit eating anything but nuts and grains.”

Baez’s cook stayed put.

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Apparently prospective horse sellers in England would give old or droopy specimens a rectal dose of ginger to make them cock their tails for a younger, zippier appearance.

From there it was just a short jump to alcoholic drinks that made humans perk up. The name stuck.

Thanks Dave Wondrich, a drinks historian, from the second edition of his reconstruction of mixed drinks, “Imbibe!,” and the New York Times.

The landmark smoking Camel sign blew its last oversize puff in Times Square 56 years ago this month

The landmark smoking Camel sign blew its last oversize puff in Times Square 56 years ago this month. The two-story sign had been blowing out smoke since a few days after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

During World War II, the model morphed from sailor to soldier to Marine to airman and back again every four months, The Times reported. In 1966, the tobacco company R.J. Reynolds decided that the iconic billboard had “done its work.”

The company’s advertising agency told The New York Times that the change had nothing to do with cancer warnings or the increase in popularity of filtered cigarettes. “We’re just always looking for ways to support other forms of advertising,” a spokesman said.

Eddie Hausner, a Times photographer, took this unpublished photo in 1964 as a Times reporter spoke with Kjell Lindell, a maître d’ who admitted to smoking about three cigarettes a day.

Thanks New York Times

What's your story?

It’s about the end of 2021 (thank God!) and most of us working in the creative arts are plotting away at plans and resolutions for the new year.

It doesn’t matter whether we are musicians, writers, photographers or other visual artists — the challenges are the same. Covid continues to devastate our careers. We have to re-think our futures.

In these tough times, none of us are making the amount of money we need or deserve. We all know that times have changed, but few of us who truly concentrate on our art take the time to consider how different the world has become today.

In order to reach a wider audience in this lockdown era, most of us know we must be internet and video savvy. Yes, I know it’s a nasty concept among most artists, but it means our names must become instantly recognizable to our audience (it’s why I do this Facebook page). If you don’t have your own name in an internet domain, you are missing out on a powerful tool.

Some basic advice: Try to get “your name” dot com, and use it with a service that allows you to mask the real e-mail and web/blog service. This costs surprisingly little and is the first step toward internet success.

Then — one of the most misunderstood things — is that each artist must be able to define their work and what makes it unique in 10 seconds or less. Try telling a total stranger exactly what you do in that amount of time. It’s damn hard. It takes a lot of work.

I took an eight-week course on this very subject in Los Angeles at the American Film Institute in the 1980s and it became THE most valuable class I’ve ever taken.

Being able to succinctly describe the uniqueness of what you do is essential to finding audiences for your work. You need short and long form written pitches defining your work for audiences. Every artist needs to tell a compelling story about his or her self.

In today’s world, people want to know your story before they open themselves to your music or other art. It’s simply a fact of life in our media-centric world.

The use of video in today’s marketing is more important than ever. Your work and your story are being told in videos — the key medium for the internet — whether you like it or not. Anyone with an iPhone who recorded a snippet of a musician’s public performance in the past and puts it on YouTube is defining you to the public — bad sound and all.

And, you guessed it, most are total amateurs who are clueless how to tell your story effectively. As unfair as it is, you can’t protect yourself against bad YouTube videos. That cat is out of the bag.

Today, it is essential to fight back by producing high-quality videos to counter them. In fact, if you don’t, your non-career as a musician will be swamped by bad video. I can’t tell you how many genuinely talented musicians have no usable videos on the internet. It is sad to watch.

It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to produce a great video. Some of the best are made now for free at radio stations who do simple live performances in studios during guest appearances. Audio companies like to show off their new gear with videos of bands.

Capitol Records even does a series of highly professional videos against bare studio walls called “1 mic, 1 take.” It asks what happens when you take one artist, one mic, one iconic recording studio and give them one chance to show their raw talent? It is bare bones in production, but fantastic in audio and video quality — where it counts.

With any video, remember that the sound is most important. There is no question that audio recorded at a distance on an iPhone sucks big time. One good microphone in mono served many artists well in the 1950s, and still works today if the artist can handle it.

Saying you can’t afford video means you are choosing not to play the game today. It’s that simple. It’s the same with live streaming. Do it often and do it right.

Keep your video very basic to keep costs down. Do close-ups with a couple of cameras if you can. It’s all you need, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Billions of people watch videos online — both pre-recorded and live streamed.

Use low-cost free video distribution and social networking tools like podcasts, blogs, Facebook Live, Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo. All that adds up to a superior, but low-cost new way for artists to reach global audiences.

Of course, there are no precise formulas for artistic success. There never has been. No textbook will tell you how. Each artist must design a specific narrative, and plan, for his or her own individual attributes. You must cut through the noise.

As the new year approaches, everyone should evaluate their creative life. If it’s not working, consider what to do and how to get started in taking control of the future.

Now, a gentle pitch. I help certain artists combine the best of the written word with video, audio and still photography to produce compelling stories that speak to their chosen audiences. I don’t choose to work with everyone, but will do it if our goals are compatible. If multimedia marketing is combined effectively, results can be achieved in a matter of months.

I can help artists create key messages and videos to be used as live streams and on web sites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook to help market their name. I can help create “stickiness” to keep fresh messages that keep fans coming back to your web sites for more. It has worked well for me and can work for you.

If you want to talk about any of these services, please call me — Frank Beacham — at 212-873-9349 in New York City.

In the meantime, Happy New Year!