Sears Sucks, Part 2

After the catalogue incident, I called Sears, and then I got on the email, and sent them my last post. Within a few hours, I had the following reply. I will keep you posted on the outcome. Meanwhile, it is snowing here again. We are likely to get another ten inches of snow tonight. My snow banks are already ten feet high. I doubt if I can throw snow that high. But I am back to shovelling.

Here’s the the reply from Sears.

Hello Mr. G.

Thank you for taking the time to bring your concerns to our attention.

We value you as a Sears customer and regret that you have had an unpleasant experience.

We have directed this important issue to our Corporate Customer Service department where one of our specialty agents will be in touch with you to rectify this matter.

We look forward to discussing this matter further and working with you to find a suitable resolution.

We appreciate your continued patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Thank you for shopping at Sears.

Sincerely,

Why SEARS Sucks

Editorial by Mike Gange

I am up to my waist in snow, and I am thoroughly peeved at SEARS.  Let me explain.

I live in Eastern Canada. We regularly get snow storms that bring the world to an end. Or at least a complete stop. We live north of Maine, the U.S. state famous for its ruggedness. We are three hours north of Maine. When we want to go south, we often go to Maine. We often remark how much less snow there is in Maine.

We had one of those world-stopping snow storms last night. Thirty six inches of snow in my driveway. There is no school anywhere in my Canadian province that is open today.  The universities are closed, and most of their students live in dorms on campus. The local army base is closed today. Now those guys train in the arctic. So, you know when Canadian soldiers say they can’t go, it is a snow storm to be reckoned with.

I use a snow blower to clear my driveway. It shoots the snow about 30 feet into the air, and we need it to move the snow over the ten foot sidewalls of the driveway, where the snow has piled up this winter. My driveway takes me about two hours to clear. Then I usually go in front of my house and clear the sidewalk.  I’m a good citizen like that.

Snow blowing is a leap of faith. You know there is a sidewalk there, so you keep walking behind the snow blower, shooting the stuff up over the yard, high over the yard. About two feet from the end of my property, I hit a SEARS catalogue. Still wrapped in plastic, all 200 pages of it get jammed into my blades that break up the snow.

Gummed into the impeller that launches the snow into the chute that actually throws the snow 30 feet in the air.

The snow blower stalls.

I go look into the impeller and there it is…some bright looking babe in a bathing suit looking back at me, smiling, suggesting that summer would be a good time.

Why am I pissed at SEARS? Their delivery person has to live here too. He or she has to know that if that fat catalogue is not deposited right at the doorstep it will cause a problem. But the delivery person likely heaved it out of the car window, thinking that was good enough.  

If I fish it out, the impellers could turn, and I could lose my arm. It is a real skill to get that deep into a snow blower and not be cut in half. 

I called the local SEARS store. I got the automated answering machine, voiced by a faceless female.

“Hello, SEARS store is open today. And I would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said.  

I’m thinking it will unlikely I will sleep tonight given how mad I am now.

“If you know the extension of the department you want, please press that number now,” she continues. “For photos please press 1, for hardware please press 2.” She gives me about six automatic possibilities. I try hardware. The phone rings three times, and then the mechanized voice intercepts again.   

“Hello, SEARS store is open today. And I would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said.  

“If you know the extension of the department you want, please press that number now,” she continues. “For photos please press 1, for hardware please press 2.”

I press 1. It rings three times. Then the mechanized voice intercepts again.  

“Hello, SEARS store is open today. And I would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said.  

“If you know the extension of the department you want, please press that number now,” she continues. “For photos please press one, for hardware please press 2. For shoes please press 3.”

I try shoes. I mean, we are up to our ears in snow. Somebody must be buying boots today.  “Hello, SEARS store is open today. And I would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said.  

“If you know the extension of the department you want, please press that number now,” she continues. “For photos please press 1, for hardware please press 2. For shoes please press 3.”

This continues through all six digits. Then I look in the telephone book and find a 1-800 number. I call it. The mechanized voice picks up again. “Hello, SEARS would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said. “But all of our agents are busy, so please stay on the line, because we value your call.”

Finally a young girl in a call centre somewhere unknown to me picks up the phone. I explain to her that the SEARS catalogue has embedded itself into my snow blower. She wants to know if it is a SEARS snow blower.

As a matter of fact it is, but I explain the issue is not the snow blower, but the errant catalogue. She puts me on hold, and I wait five minutes until a supervisor comes on the line. I explain the situation to her. She wants to know if the snow blower is a SEARS model, and when I purchased it. I explain the details again. I make her listen to me twice. She says this is not usually her problem, and she needs to pass me onto someone else. She gives me a different 1-800 number. I call it. I have a sense she is also forwarding my details to the SEARS legal department.

I call the new number.

“Hello, SEARS would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight,” she said. Your call is important to us, so please stay on the line until one of our agents is available to help you.”

It is my old pal, the mechanical, dis-embodied voice.  I get to talk with a real person finally, a man who tells me he is in Montreal, and has never heard of this problem. Translation “I don’t see that here in the manual in front of me at this call centre. Sounds like a legal problem. I don’t want any part of this.”  He tells me someone will call me soon about this.

I’ll keep you posted.

Nobody has called yet. But I won’t be surprised if  I get a call from some mechanical-voiced, dis-embodied female, saying:

“Hello, SEARS store is open today. And I would like to remind you that our white sale continues today. We have pillows on sale, and it will enhance your sweet dreams tonight.”  

“If you know the extension of the department you want, please press that number now,” she might continue. “For photos please press one, for hardware please press 2. For shoes please press 3.”

 

 

 

Impresario and Philosopher King

 

Review by Mike Gange 

Another Day in Show Biz:
One Producer’s Journey
Pierre Cossette
ECW Press $19.95 CAN. 237 pages

When the Grammy Awards are presented, the stars in attendance could include everybody from the rock band Aerosmith to country crooners like Dwight Yokum. As diverse and demanding as those entertainers might be, all of them would politely defer to a nearly 80 year-old former Canadian from the province of Quebec, who has helped increase their collective visibility and popularity. Pierre Cossette has produced the Grammy Award Show on television since 1969, even investing $125,000 of his own money in the early years to ensure it got onto network television. The Grammy Award Show now brings in millions in advertising dollars but more importantly to the musicians, Pierre Cossette has given them the kind of public exposure they could never buy.

As an impresario with an impressive track record, Cossette has taken life’s lessons to heart. Born in the working class town of Valleyfield, Quebec, Cossette moved to Pasadena, California with his family in 1928, when he was five years old. During his childhood, his father pumped gasoline while his mother ran a small apartment house. Using tenacious determination and every advantage fate might bring him, Cossette went from working-class poor to owning a mansion in Malibu, as he eventually became one of the major producers in the entertainment field. His well written memoir Another Day in Show Business: One Producer’s Journey is inspiring and humorous.

Upon graduating from U.S.C. under the G.I. Bill, Pierre Cossette landed a job as a booking agent for MCA, working with bands like Harry James and His Orchestra and entertainers like Jack Benny, (Dean) Martin and (Jerry) Lewis and Spike Jones to promote their concert dates on the college circuit. Soon he was booking major talent into the hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. While most of his experiences were positive, Cossette relates how on one occasion, he got the casino bosses to book Harry Belafonte, who was then a rising star. Cossette picked up the then young singer at the airport and delivered him to the front door of the hotel, only to have Belafonte tell him he could only enter through the side doors, because he was black.

After booking Las Vegas casinos for MCA, Cossette went out on his own, founding Dunhill Records (which he sold to ABC in 1966), then producing a variety of weekly TV shows and specials. He even had a foray into Broadway, where he produced “The Will Rogers Follies.” Pierre Cossette may have had his share of ups and downs, but in this book he accentuates the successes and human kindness he has found rather than business deals gone wrong.

Cossette is not just another Stage-door Johnny, having fun while hanging out with the stars. He admits he is a bit star struck, but certainly knows how to make the stars shine a little brighter. Repeatedly, he shows how he lives the old adage: success is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. Maybe what the entertainers appreciate about him is the hard work behind his genius.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

 More information on Grammy Awards: http://www.grammy.com/

 

 

Hello, Old Friend!

Review by Mike Gange

Dictionary of Teleliteracy
by David Bianculli
Continuum, $29.95, 416 pages

Sometimes, at parties or casual gatherings, it helps me solve disputes. Other times, it helps me amaze people. Sometimes it reminds me of some favorite old stories, gems long forgotten, but worth re-examining. And year after year, I go back to it for opinions and ideas. Truly, Dictionary of Teleliteracy is more like an old friend than just another dictionary.

Dictionary of Teleliteracy author David Bianculli watches television for a living. He is the TV critic for the New York Daily News, and has been a television critic since 1975. He also provides TV reviews for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air.” In his introduction to Dictionary of Teleliteracy, he points out how Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations contains only two references to television programs, while The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy includes a single reference to Star Trek, but ignores The Honeymooners. Bianculli took the slights personally, and with what he does for a living, why shouldn’t he? The result is this fun to read, fact-filled gem, a worthwhile addition to classrooms and libraries and a likely bedside companion for afficionados of the airwaves.

Omitting commercials and music videos, Bianculli writes about television programs from A to Z – from ABC World News Tonight to Zorro. Writing with intelligence, wit, insight and great research, Bianculli shares rich details from 500 TV programs. Some of the write ups about shows are brief, barely 100 words in length, and others are much longer, but all contain essential details such as networks, starting and ending dates, stars and other notable facts.

This is what he writes, in part, about M*A*S*H: “M*A*S*H 1972-83. CBS. If this book were organized by popularity, not by alphabet, the finale of M*A*S*H: would put this entry at the front of the list: its expanded concluding episode, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” attracted 77 percent of all TV viewers that night and earned a Nielson rating of more than 60 – something no Superbowl has ever done….”

Two other random quotes from Bianculli show his affection for and interest in television. He writes, “The Flintstones was the first cartoon series in prime time – and along with The Jetsons and The Simpsons, one of the very few successful ones. The Flintstones was patterned as a stone age variation on a previous sitcom classic, The Honeymooners.”

About CBS’ Beverly Hillbillies he said, “One statistic I unearthed about this show continues to amaze me. In the entire 50 year plus history of network television, the Beverly Hillbillies is the only series to wind up as a top rated show on television in its first season on the air.”

With all the treasures he has created in this volume, I can only look forward to more of David Bianculli’s writings about television. Reading his work is like chatting with a long lost friend.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

 

Survivor Author Fails to Out Wit, Out Write

 

Review by Mike Gange

 

Jump In

By Mark Burnett

Ballantine Books, $34.95, 272 pages

 

When the television show Survivor premiered in the summer of 2000, it was wildly different and broke all the usual rules of programming. You might recognize the predictable formula by now: sixteen oddball castaways are taken out of their homes and comfort zones, and marooned on a deserted island. By conspiring and conniving, they work to eliminate each other, one by one, until only two remain.  Despite the hurtful backstabbing and lying, the eliminated tribe members all come together in one more friendly meeting at the end to financially reward the person who they think played the game with the most chutzpa.  In barely five years, ten versions of Survivor have been filmed, and it has become a huge cash cow for its North American producer Mark Burnett, and of course for the CBS Television Network.

 

In many ways Burnett typifies the American Dream of the penniless immigrant who made a fortune. A former British paratrooper who saw military action in Ireland and the Falklands before coming to L.A., Mark Burnett arrived from England at age 22 with only $600 in his pocket, then sold T-shirts on Venice Beach and took temporary work as a rich family’s nanny to make ends meet.  In addition to the ten Survivor programs he has produced, his list of credits includes three of the Donald Trump series “The Apprentice,” and nine versions of Eco-Challenge. His show, The Contender, about up and coming boxers, is just getting underway on TV. He and Martha Stewart have a deal that will see Burnett take on production for Martha’s daytime shows later this year. 

 

In Jump In, Burnett shows why the business side of television is truly a game of “Outwit, Outplay and Outlast” among network executives. For example, after the huge success of Survivor 1, the president of CBS Television sent over a personal note of congratulations, a fruit basket, and a champagne colored Mercedes 500 SL. However, four days after the 9-11 calamity, that same CBS president called Burnett to say that preparations for Survivor 4 had to continue because advertisers had committed over $100 million to sponsor the program. Ironically, version 4 had been planned for the Arab Emirates, and was to be called “Survivor: Arabia.” Given the tension between the U.S. and the Arab world at that time, and despite the personal intervention of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who promised things would go smoothly, it was hurriedly changed to “Survivor: Marquesas” and 50 containers of cameras and production gear were diverted en route from the middle east to the French Polynesian Island.

 

 

Jump In contains some interesting tid-bits about the world of television, such as those mentioned above, but on the whole, it is hugely disappointing. First of all, Burnett takes himself way too seriously. He fills the book with some of his principles for success, many of which sound like they came from the Homer Simpson School of Business: “Start small and build,” “Choose teammates who possess greater skills than you,” “Stay calm under pressure,” “Recognize when its time to move on,” and “Never quit.” Secondly, in total he tells us two new things about the behind-the-scenes efforts of Survivor: there is a production crew of about 400 who video tape the 16 contestants and edit the proceedings into a 13 week television show, and the best way to get on the show is to be wildly flamboyant on the audition tape.

 

Burnett comes across here as just another egotistical producer from ‘LALA’ land. He crows about his successes, but glosses over some of his TV ventures that have not worked well. He hardly mentions The Commando Nanny, for example, which was based on his own early experiences in Hollywood and was cancelled almost as soon as the pilot was filmed. Also swept aside here is the short-lived NBC show The Restaurant, which was based on a talented New York chef who lacked entrepreneurial acumen.  Because of its much too quirky and blatantly obvious product placement, it proved to be distasteful to critics and audiences alike and was quickly yanked by NBC executives.

 

Ultimately, Jump In is a lot like the Survivor series itself: it is shallow and self-serving, and filled with stuff that will be quickly forgotten.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

 

 

 

 

After Pauline: Famous Last Words

Review by Mike Gange

Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael
by Francis Davis
Da Capo Press $18.00, 134 pages

Something I had read once from Pauline Kael has always tickled my fancy. The former New Yorker magazine film critic said “The role of the critic is to say what ISN’T there that ought to be, and what is there that ought NOT to be.” That was the moment I said “A-Ha! Here is someone worth listening to.” And I set about to read Ms. Kael as often as I could, which quite frankly was never often enough, because I could only sporadically get my hands on the New Yorker.

Pauline Kael retired from the New Yorker in 1991 and died on Sept 03, 2001 at age 82. This slim book that speaks volumes on Kael’s ideas, observations and movie icons was published one year after her death. It is written mostly in Q & A format, which helps bring an immediacy to Kael’s responses to questions posed by her friend, jazz critic Francis Davis.

Kael said she liked to write about movies the way people talked, not in academic terms. Her writing style earned her many devoted fans as well as many who were not so enamored of her comments, particularly those in Hollywood circles who were skewered by her wit. Kael admits she had difficulties with editors within her own magazine, because she sometimes felt her writing about pop culture was not fully appreciated by the New Yorker, which she said had gotten “a little stiff.”

Kael shows a remarkable memory for details about movies she had seen through out her life, and builds on her observations to analyze genres and styles, trends and careers. And like her bi-weekly columns, Kael is true to form, never being known to be diplomatic about her feelings. “I never liked Chaplin,” she said, “because he pushed too many buttons. Much like later movies from Spielberg.” Kael said she never believed in the ‘auteur theory’ that certain directors could only make excellent films. “Just look at Hitchcock,” she said, “he was only good in the beginning.”

Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael is one of those tiny books that packs a big punch.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

 

Drop the Gloves, Ralph!

Review By Mike Gange 

Walking with Legends: The Real Stories of Hockey Night in Canada

By Ralph Mellanby with Mike Brophy

Fenn, $32.95, 236 pages

 

Ralph Mellanby knows hockey.

And he knows just about everybody who was ever in professional hockey. Mellanby was the long-time executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada. And in that position, he revolutionized the popular Canadian Saturday night television spectacle, making it more fun, more about hockey stories, more about the game.

 Mellanby started working on the most popular television program in Canada in 1967, and has acquired an admirable career track record. He’s produced television broadcasts of 13 Olympic games and won five Emmy Awards for his Olympic presentations on U.S. networks. He has been named Canada‘s Broadcaster of the Year. And he was named to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

 He helped relatively little known sports figures and broadcasters become household names in Canada, as he hired — and thus launched the careers of — such legendary broadcasters as Howie Meeker, Don Cherry, Dave Hodge, Brian McFarlane and Ron MacLean.

Throughout his career, Mellanby has worked with hockey broadcasting luminaries such as Foster and Bill Hewitt, Danny Gallivan, Bob Cole, and players such as Rocket Richard, Bobby Hull, Frank Mahovlich and Bobby Orr. Mellanby had a history of breaking eggs to get his omelettes made. For example, he ordered Don Cherry, after his first broadcast, never to say “I think the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to make the play offs this year.” Instead, he instructed to Cherry to be more positive, more definite. Cherry, of course, took Mellanby at his word, and has been bombastic ever since, revelling in his own outspokenness on Coach‘s Corner, aired during the first period intermission every Saturday night since the 1980‘s.

 

But in spite of Mellanby’s revolutionary ideas about how to make the broadcast better — ideas that must have rubbed some people the wrong way, such as those powder blue suit jackets on the hosts, a new logo and a new distinctive theme song — Mellanby hardly says a bad word here about anyone. Boom Boom Geoffrion? A great guy, my good pal, a joker and a gentleman. Howie Meeker? A great guy, my good pal, smart and courageous enough to be willing to step on toes when he said players were making mistakes. Bobby Orr? A great guy, my good pal, gentlemanly, smart, revolutionary hockey player. Harold Ballard? A great guy, my good pal, had the best of intentions.

Well, you see where this is going. Mellanby likes everybody and he has nice things to say about them all. About the worst he will say is that somebody was hard headed. In a world full of egos that were being inflated by weekly nationally broadcast television, there must have been more than one hard headed broadcaster. Chapter after chapter of niceties about hockey? After a while, you want to say, “Oh, come on Ralph, take the gloves off. Deck somebody.”

 Late in the book, Mellanby does speak his mind. He calls current NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman the “Reign of Error” and author of a litany of mistakes. “If hockey was the sport of the future under (John) Zeigler, it is close to being the sport of the past under Gary Bettman,” he writes.

 If you are going to truly tell a story about hockey, there’s got to be some rough stuff and maybe a slash or two. Unfortunately, in Walking with Legends: The Real Stories of Hockey Night in Canada the clock had nearly run out by the time Mellanby actually gets into the game.

 Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism courses at Fredericton High.

 

 

 

Adult Fare: The Degrassi Diet

 

Review by Mike Gange

 

Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures

Edited by Michele Byers

Sumach Press, $28.95, 320 pages

 

Here is a quick quiz: How many television shows from the 1980’s can you name that are aimed at teens? Here’s some help: Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, The Wonder Years. Now the second question: Name one other television series from the same time frame that relates better to teens, discusses deeper social issues, and shows better character development.

 

You might be hard pressed to find one, until the shows from the Degrassi series come to mind.

 

The Degrassi series of shows include The Kids from Degrassi, Degrassi Junior High, Degrassi High and Degrassi: the Next Generation. The shows spoke to teens in their own voice about sexuality, teen pregnancy, racism, money, drugs and alcohol, HIV/Aids, body image and relationships. The characters in the series were much deeper than typical two-dimensional characters in the majority of teen oriented TV shows. Incidents that impacted on the characters were evident in the long-term character development through out the series, and were not just a lesson learned for the duration of the program. 

 

It may be hard to believe but the Degrassi phenomenon dates back some 25 years, spans two generations, and has fostered countless academic investigations. TV critic Geoff Pevere calls Degrassi “the program that once began as a low-budget, no frills, socially conscious Canadian public broadcasting project about urban teen life (and) has become one of the most passionately watched and discussed artifacts of teenage culture.”

 

One of the academic studies about Degrassi that will prove useful to teachers and aficionados of television’s best side is Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures, a series of 16 essays written by academics from across Canada and the U.S. The editor of the book, Michele Byers, is a professor at St. Mary’s University in Halifax. She has written extensively on television, and her doctoral dissertation at University of Toronto was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In one of her own essays in the book, Byers writes, “ What really distinguishes Degrassi from most other teen series – both its contemporaries and those which came after DC – is that these things happened to core characters, characters the shows viewers were deeply connected to and this, undoubtedly, made the narratives more meaningful than they would have been had they been created for special guest stars….And this is equally true of the abortion episodes mentioned (earlier); their power is not only in presenting an issue which has and is still largely taboo on television, but also in the way the viewer is allowed to live through the before, during and after experiences with the character they already know and will continue to know through the story arcs beyond this one issue.” 

 

The essays in Growing Up Degrassi are broken into three sections: “Degrassi and Youth Culture,”  “Building Identity on Degrassi” and “Websites, Fan Clubs and Reminiscences” and each contains essays that are enlightening and passionate.  

 

Clearly, a simple little program has become an example of television at its best.  And, yes, I would have answered the first question on the quiz with ease, but would have had difficulty on the second. Few among us would have considered Degrassi to be such adult fare.

 

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies in Fredericton.