Something about the first uses of video tape...

April 28, 1958
Los Angeles

As The Times noted in November 1957, NBC planned to introduce videotaped programs with the switch to daylight saving time.

Although the time switch didn't occur until April 27 in 1958, we have already rolled the clocks ahead, so this seems to be a good time to focus on the technology that revolutionized television.

Arye Michael Bender (who worked under the name Leslie Michael Bender) worked at WBKB-TV in Chicago at a young age as mail room clerk, freelance publicity photographer and entrepreneur filmmaker. He attended Columbia College of Broadcasting while in high school in 1959. From 1960 to '63, he worked his way through college as a staff director for WSIU-TV in Carbondale, Ill. He began working with videotape at ABC in Los Angeles in 1963. He shares his recollections of the early days:

Got into editing when a microscope was added to the razor blade and mylar tape system.

Have been spending too much time here and not enough on the three major projects staring me down.

Thank you all for the support in writing and sharing ideas.

I'll leave the door open, just a crack, in case there is something that compels me to share it with you all.

Again, thanks for the stimulation and support.

Best to you all,

-Arye Michael Bender

The following Google ad was running on the Writernia home page as I was looking over your posts: 

...They're All Scams These websites are absolute scams I will show you the ones that work

It turns my stomach. 

What about the rest of you?

Just added an article to a motion picture and television database. It may shine a tiny bit of light on some ancient talk show history. Although my purpose was to correct a casting error in the database, I got carried away, again. Despite that, you may find it interesting...

The following story appeared today on the Associated Press wire: 

This story is dedicated to a fellow writer who dreamed of being a writer, before realizing that she already IS a writer. I write it, rough as it is, to spur us all on to achieving what others may call impossible.

Please forgive the unedited stream...

I was twelve years old when I first saw 'Citizen Kane' on WGN television, Chicago. It was a bad, sixteen millimeter print, cut to fit a time slot too short, and rudely interrupted every sixn minutes or so. None of that mattered. I was enthralled. Knowing nothing about Orson Welles, my young life was forever altered -- for better AND worse.

Before that night, I liked movies alright, but wasn't hooked. After that night, I couldn't get enough. Within a year I knew that I would grow up to be a director, no matter how improbable that seemed to be.

Okay, I have a problem and I admit it. It's a problem that sets me at odds with the current mindset of America, as well as my own financial well being.

It's advertising. Yep, that ubiquitous, inescapable, lying heartbeat of capitalism, advertising.

If advertising only did what it was originally designed for, to present a product of service of value, I’d have less trouble with it.

But the fact is, almost all advertising is targeted at our subconscious minds, our emotional brains. And those programs that make us all ache to fill a false void by consuming, are what is making our society insane.

We are constantly bombarded with words, images, and sounds directed at overriding our free will. Most contemporary ads grab hold of our emotions, and manipulate them mercilessly to achieve a not-so-hidden agenda. You know, to feed somebody's greed.

A new phrase has entered the American public consciousness. In the last few weeks, I've seen it in print almost as often as 'weapons of mass destruction' was used in the propaganda run-up to invasion. It smacks of government double-speak, a language to which we are becoming far too accustomed.

The words are: "Global climate change is just a natural, cyclical process. There is nothing we can do about it."

The phrase has just enough truth to it to be a useful excuse to maintain our throwaway greed at full throttle. After all, what can we do to overcome a natural planetary process? So have another Chivas Regal, fill up the SUV, and let's head down to the mall, and consume everything in site before it's too late. Hurry on down!

Just squeezed myself ,,,(caught you! No, it was not erotic) a glass of juice. As I sliced into the fruit, an ancient question popped up. Couldn't fathom the answer, so I put it too all of you...

Was the fruit named after the color, or was the color named after the fruit? ... Or, were both named after a city in eastern New Jersey?

Now that led to another: Was New Jersey named after Old Jersey?
And if so, what became of Old Jersey? ...Did it have a face lift, or something?

Ponder well my fellow Writernians. There may be a pop quiz in the morning...

In some circles, I'm known as old 'pop' Quiz.

Have you no shame?

Since it seems you must spread hate, I suggest you take it and use against yourself. At least that way it may be self canceling.