{"id":3570,"date":"2009-02-28T15:28:04","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T20:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3570"},"modified":"2009-02-28T15:28:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T20:28:04","slug":"pay-no-attention-to-the-people-in-front-of-the-curtain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/pay-no-attention-to-the-people-in-front-of-the-curtain\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay No Attention to the People in Front of the Curtain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dear Turner Classic Movies (TCM):<\/strong><\/p>\n

I fell in love with you years ago. Who wouldn’t love a cable channel that broadcasts (and re-broadcasts (and, all right, re<\/em>-re-broadcasts)) timeless movies, often in black-and-white, that otherwise would have faded into obscurity years ago?<\/p>\n

True, I had moments of doubt (they happen in the best of relationships).<\/p>\n

Mostly, you didn’t seem to care that I had to change the channel. Not because I didn’t want to see the feature (I did! I did!), no. Rather, I had to change the channel because I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, or could hear only sporadically. I could often read lips in the closeups but eventually I’d tire. I’m no spring chicken anymore, you know. So I’d sigh melodramatically — you never noticed, did you? — and switch over to something ghastly like SPIKE or SciFi or even the Hallmark Channel… at least until they, too, turned a cold shoulder to me.<\/p>\n

But you kept winning me back. More and more films would be close-captioned — even the oldest ones from early in the sound era. And I know, I know — the studios and distributors probably paid for the captioning. So maybe it was out of your hands, not your decision anyway.<\/p>\n

Still, I think maybe you were just toying with my affections.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because, damn it, you <\/em>still do not provide captions for the introductions and wrap-up commentary by Robert Osborne, RoseMcGowan, and others.<\/em><\/p>\n

In your frequently asked questions, I did find a relevant one<\/a> with your (not entirely satisfying) answer:<\/p>\n

When will Robert Osbourne’s <\/strong>[sic<\/em>] segments be available with Close Captions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though we are not able to offer a definite timeline, we hope to caption Robert’s intro & outros sometime in the future. Our challenge is overcoming the number of segments and small turn-around time before they air.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your patience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And at a forum on your Web site, I found a recent thread<\/a> on this topic. So I know I’m not alone in wondering about this, and not crazy. And I know it’s expensive, and I know — and I appreciate, O my love, I truly do — that you are, after all, providing your services free of cost to me. (Well, except however my cable charges get dribbled out to you.)<\/p>\n

Maybe you and I will have to part ways about this eventually. I hope not. But in any case, surely Mr. Osborne, Ms. McGowan, and the rest deserve better treatment from you.<\/p>\n

Yours,
\nJES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Turner Classic Movies (TCM): I fell in love with you years ago. Who wouldn’t love a cable channel that broadcasts (and re-broadcasts (and, all right, re-re-broadcasts)) timeless movies, often in black-and-white, that otherwise would have faded into obscurity years ago? True, I had moments of doubt (they happen in the best of relationships). Mostly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,410,426,53,196],"tags":[1054,1055,1056,1057],"class_list":{"0":"post-3570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-hearing","8":"category-celebrities","9":"category-movies-media","10":"category-television","11":"tag-turner-classic-movies","12":"tag-closed-captions","13":"tag-tcm","14":"tag-robert-osborne","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-VA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3570"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3578,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions\/3578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}