Frank Beacham's Journal

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!

In 1962 — 59 years ago this week — New York’s Playboy Club opened its doors on East 59th Street

In 1962 — 59 years ago this week — New York’s Playboy Club opened its doors on East 59th Street with a rollicking $100-a-plate benefit for the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

“Nothing Stays Those Bunnies,” read the headline in Billboard, accompanied by a photo of Bunny Wanda chiming the call for Playboy Breakfast.

Opening-night talent included a quartet doing vocal impressions of jazz and pop singers — Tony Bennett caught the act of a Tony Bennett impersonator.

The club, complete with mood lights on each floor and “technomated” murals in which lights on buildings actually flashed, was a beacon to a certain kind of “Mad Men”-era businessman or those who sought to live like one.

It also attracted the attention of Gloria Steinem, who went undercover as a Bunny for a 1963 exposé.

By the mid-’80s, the club had closed.

Thanks New York Times!

In the autumn of 1963, Beatlemania was a raging epidemic in Britain, and it was rapidly spreading across the European continent

In the autumn of 1963, Beatlemania was a raging epidemic in Britain, and it was rapidly spreading across the European continent.

But in the United States, where the likes of Bobby Vinton and Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs sat atop the pop charts, John, Paul, George and Ringo could have walked through Grand Central Terminal completely unnoticed.

It wasn't Grand Central that the Beatles were trying to walk through on this day in 1963 — 58 years ago today. It was Heathrow Airport, London, where they'd just returned from a hugely successful tour of Sweden.

Also at Heathrow that particular day, after a talent-scouting tour of Europe, was the American television impresario, Ed Sullivan. The pandemonium that Sullivan witnessed as he attempted to catch his flight to New York would play a pivotal role in making the British Invasion possible.

It wasn't for lack of trying that the Beatles were still unknown in the United States. Their manager, Brian Epstein, had tried and failed repeatedly to convince Capitol Records, the American arm of their British label EMI, to release the singles that had already taken Europe by storm.

Convinced that the Merseybeat sound wouldn't translate across the Atlantic, Capitol declined to release "Please Please Me," "From Me to You" and "She Loves You," allowing all three to be released on the minor American labels, Vee-Jay and Swan, and to languish on the pop charts without any promotion.

Desperate to crack the American market, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a song explicitly tailored to the American market and recorded it just two weeks before their fateful indirect encounter with Ed Sullivan. That song was "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

Ed Sullivan had his staff make inquiries about the Beatles following his return to the United States, and Brian Epstein arranged to travel to New York to open negotiations.

And in what surely must rank as one of the greatest one-two punches in the history of professional talent-management, Epstein convinced The Ed Sullivan Show to have the Beatles as headliners for three appearances rather than as a one-time, mid-show novelty act.

He then leveraged that contract into an agreement by Capitol Records to release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in the United States and back it with a $40,000 promotional campaign.

As a result of the chance encounter at Heathrow, and of Brian Epstein's subsequent coup in New York, the Beatles would arrive in the United States on February 7, 1964, with a #1 record already to their credit.

The historic Ed Sullivan appearances that followed would lead to five more #1 hits in the next 12 months.

Thanks History.com