Professional pole dancing ready for prime time; Natasha Wang wins 2011 championship

With a beautiful performance inspired by “Black Swan,” Natasha Wang of Los Angeles won the 2011 U.S. Pole Dance Championship Friday in New York City.
Eleven women competed in the professional event, sponsored by the U.S. Pole Dance Federation, at the Symphony Space. Earlier in the day, seven women competed in the amateur division championship at the same venue.
Wang’s theatrical performance in the second round earned a standing ovation and clinched her top-place finish. Earlier she performed an excellent routine in the compulsory round.
Wang, an account supervisor at Raz Public Relations, was the 2010 USPDF West Coast Champion. She trains at Los Angeles’ Be Spun and Kinetic Theory Circus Arts and is a principal dancer with Kelly Yvonne’s Girl Next Door show.
I’ve covered a lot of fringe sports, but professional pole dancing is one that has a great shot at breaking through to the mainstream. It features amazing athleticism, grace and beauty. And it doesn’t hurt that the women are gorgeous. But it still has to overcome the stigma that pole dancing is something only done by strippers.
Aside from that perception challenge, professional pole dancing needs more press coverage and a TV contract for the championships.
The day after the championships it was difficult to find coverage of the event. The only video reports were from Al Jazeera English and the U.K.'s ITN. With all the TV stations in NYC, you’d think one would cover the big event. But no.
Reuters sent photographer Jessica Rinaldi, but no writer. I guess they figured a picture was worth a thousand words. But even then, the only websites that picked up Reuters' pole dance championship photos I could find were China Daily, Christian and family-themed media corporation Salem Communications, and online publishing platform Daylife.
To review, news organizations from the Middle East and China, as well as a conservative U.S. news outlet, covered the sexy sport but no one from the U.S. mainstream media? That’s a shame. They’re missing great performances and human drama.
Coming in second place at Friday’s national championship was Gabrielle Valliere of New York City. Valliere is a former NFL cheerleader and is now a dance instructor and registered nurse.
Leigh Ann Reilly of Hollywood, Calif., came in third place. Reilly owns the BeSpun dance studio.

Photo of Natasha Wang by Mike Quain of Quain Photo in Los Angeles.

Facebook 'like' button can be awkward with certain news stories, as HuffPo learns

Today I noticed that the Huffington Post swapped out the Facebook "like" button with a "recommend" button for a news story on the brutal rape of reporter Lara Logan.
AOL's HuffPo and other news organizations should do that with all news articles just to be on the safe side.

Royal wedding gets spoofed by porn makers

The royal wedding of the U.K.'s Prince William and Kate Middleton was a big news story today, treated with all due respect and decorum by the media.
But some people haven't taken the proceedings too seriously, including the porn industry. An English adult movie studio recently released a porn parody of the royal family called "The Royal Romp."
Good heavens, have they no shame?

Photos: Stills from "The Royal Romp" featuring sexed-up caricatures of Prince William and his bride Kate Middleton and brother Prince William.

‘Supernatural’, ‘Vampire Diaries’ renewed

Two of my favorite TV shows were renewed this week for next season. Thank heaven they’re on the CW.
A top-rated show on the CW or any cable network would be a bomb for the big four networks. So I’m glad “Supernatural” and “The Vampire Diaries” are on the CW, because they wouldn’t have survived on ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox.
Science-fiction, horror and fantasy shows have a tough time making it on the big networks because they tend to attract a niche audience. (Consider ABC’s “No Ordinary Family” and NBC’s “The Event,” which are both likely to be canceled after their first seasons.)
This fall, “Supernatural” will begin its seventh season and “Vampire Diaries” its third. (See articles at EW and TV by the Numbers.)
Hear, hear.

Two years on Twitter

I signed up for Twitter two years ago Friday.
Since then I’ve posted 2,128 tweets, most of them retweets of interesting news articles.
I haven’t posted many standalone comments on my observations and thoughts. Mostly I’ve just used Twitter as a news feed and to publicize my professional and blog writings.
I recently spent some time sorting through all those tweets looking for representative samples of my standalone comments over the last two years. What follows is a few of them organized by subject.

First tweet

Signing up with Twitter to see what all the fuss is about. (April 22, 2009)

Family observations

Embarrassing parent moment: my kids, 5 and 7, in the car singing along with Rihanna’s song “S&M.” (March 26, 2011)

What song will Enrique Iglesias be singing when he’s old and fat?: “Tonight I’m Loving Food” - joke my son, 7, came up with. (March 18, 2011)

My preschool daughter needed words starting with “i” for school today. She came up with ice cream, iguana, iPhone and iPod. (Nov. 16, 2010)

Watching the Notre Dame football game Sat., I asked my Dad if the ND leprechaun had a name. He suggested Tony. Where’s his sitcom deal? (Oct. 12, 2010)

Just got back from taking my daughter, 4, to the Disney On Ice princess show in Bridgeport, CT. Good father-daughter bonding event. (Jan. 1, 2010)

My son Christopher, 6: “I wish I was Santa Claus.” Why? “Because then I’d only have to work one day a year.” (Dec. 20, 2009)

Daughter is princess. Son is a Star Wars Clone Trooper. For Halloween, of course. (Oct. 31, 2009)

At son’s insistence, tonight watched “Star Wars: Ep. 1: The Phantom Menace.” It was as bad as I remembered. Of course, my son, 6, liked it. (July 6, 2009)

Father’s Day: Watched Empire Strikes Back with my son. Bonded over Darth Vader’s “Let’s rule the universe as father and son” bit. (June 21, 2009)

Judgment Day Terminated

According to the “Terminator” movie and TV show franchise, the world was supposed to be destroyed last night by Skynet, a robotic military system that humans created.
Well, Judgment Day, as it’s known in Terminator lore, didn’t happen.
Our destruction on April 21, 2011, joins a list of science-fiction dates that have come and gone without incident.
Other examples:
The HAL 9000 computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey” was supposed to become operational at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Ill., on Jan. 12, 1997.
In the 1981 action movie “Escape from New York,” a crime-ridden United States converted Manhattan Island into a maximum security prison in 1988.
But some sci-fi predictions could still come true.
As Unreality Magazine notes, “Back to the Future II’s future is 2015, so we can still hold onto hope for hoverboards.”

Record and book stores might as well be selling buggy whips

Saturday was Record Store Day, a celebration of independent record stores.
Record stores are dying out as more people download music from online services. It’s a sad, unavoidable fact that we’re losing part of our culture as record stores close. (Read: “Digital culture means less public culture.”)
But times change and technology advances.
The same is true with book stores. They’re going away as people read fewer physical books. There’s no bad guy in this change. It’s just the way it is. (Someone should explain that to U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.)
What follows are some interesting articles detailing the relentless march of progress.

Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Book by Anna Jane Grossman)

9 Gadgets That Smartphones Made Obsolete (Huffington Post; April 12, 2011)

Beloit College Mindset List 2013 (Beloit College)

Wanna Feel Old? (Blog on Tumblr)

20 Dying Technologies (Bloomberg Businessweek; Oct. 21, 2010)

20 things that became obsolete last decade (Huffington Post: Dec. 22, 2010)

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About (Wired; July 22, 2009)

50 things that are being killed by the Internet (The Telegraph; Sept. 4, 2009)

10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids (Wired; Sept. 21, 2009)

Tech Evolution: 18 Gadgets that Used to be High-Tech (Gajitz)

10 Industries That Are 'Dying'? Or 10 Industries That Are Changing? (Techdirt; April 7, 2011)

The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations (NPR)

Last hurrah for Flip camcorders

I'm still reeling from the shocker that Cisco Systems is shutting down its Flip pocket camcorder business. It's not divesting the business, which makes the top-selling camcorder in the U.S. -- it's closing it down. The end. Good-bye.
New York Times tech columnist David Pogue shared my feelings in an article Thursday titled "The Tragic Death of the Flip."
I was in a Staples store in Norwalk, Conn., Thursday and snapped the above photo of a nice multimedia endcap display for the Flip product line. No close-out sale yet.

Cisco flips off Flip fans

Cisco Systems shocked fans of the Flip pocket camcorder Tuesday when it announced that it is shutting down the business.
Cisco acquired Flip two years ago when it purchased Pure Digital Technology for $590 million. The consumer electronics company was never a good fit for Cisco, which makes networking gear. But the Flip is a well known product and still the best-selling camcorder in the U.S.
The biggest surprise from the announcement was that Cisco is simply closing down the business and not trying to sell it. The message is that Cisco thinks the business is worth next to nothing now.
Smartphones with video recording capabilities are replacing standalone camcorders. But not everyone owns a smartphone with a video camera. And a good percentage of people probably prefer to use a dedicated camcorder with higher quality video and audio.
I own a couple of Flip camcorders and enjoy using them. I'm sad to see the product go bye-bye. Others, like Kara Swisher at All Things Digital and Om Malik of GigaOM, seem to agree.

Top real-life targets for porn parodies and exploitation

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Being a porn actress isn’t a crime, so women shouldn’t be harassed because of it

Recently two women in separate incidents were exposed by students at schools where they worked as having been employed previously as porn actresses.
One lost her job and the other has been suspended.
These women did nothing inappropriate with the students in their schools. They are being punished for doing things in their personal lives that, while legal, conservative people dislike.
The teenagers who ratted out the women weren’t old enough to be watching porn in the first place. If there’s a problem here, that’s where it lies.
In March, a high school science teacher in suburban St. Louis who worked in the adult film industry in the mid-1990s resigned from her job after a student outed her. AVN writer Mark Kernes wrote an excellent article explaining how current and former porn actors and actresses are treated like “second-class citizens.”
More recently, a Canadian high school student harassed a clerical worker at his school when he discovered that she had acted in several adult movies. When she refused to give him an autograph, he created a Facebook page under the woman’s porn name and outed her. She’s been suspended and is waiting to see if she can keep her job.
This is why actors in adult films use fake names. But even that doesn’t afford them much protection from harassment.
A disgruntled porn producer is connected with a WikiLeaks-style website that exposes the real names and addresses of over 12,000 former and current adult performers. The site, Pornwikileaks.com, is opening those performers up to potential harassment and embarrassment. (See articles at CNet and AVN.)
Some retired porn performers have resorted to Witness Protection Program-style vanishing acts, such as Bambi Woods from “Debbie Does Dallas.” (See archived article from the YesButNoButYes blog.)
The Internet is making it easier for people to harass porn performers. Such harassment is plain wrong, regardless of what people think about porn.

Dec. 24, 2011, update: 'Samantha Ardente,' High School Employee Fired For Porn, Launches Porn Firm. (Huffington Post)

Photo: Canadian porn actress Samantha Ardente.

It’s the iPod Touch, people, not the iTouch

Lately I’ve heard at least four parents talking about their kids and the “iTouch.” Their kids either have an iTouch or want an iTouch.
A what?
Oh, you must mean an iPod Touch, I think.
Yeah, that extra syllable is a real bear.
Parents are always screwing up pop culture references and showing their ignorance about new products that are popular with kids. I’m sure I’ll be in that club soon enough. It’s kind of a joke with middle-aged adults, who refer to “the Twitter” and the like. But I digress.
I did a Google search to see how often people write about the “iTouch.”
To my amazement, there were 24 million search results for iTouch.
Apple, maker of the iPod Touch, and retailers like Target and Amazon.com are wise to the fact that people call the portable media player the iTouch. They’re putting the word iTouch in their meta tags and even buying the term through Google AdWords. (See screenshot here.)
If you can’t beat them, join them.