TONY OF ALL MEDIA

OK, most of us are pretty sick of being reminded several times a day that Trump is closing in on his first 100 days in office, but The Simpsons, as usual, nails it. Favorite line, via Homer: "Marge, give the President of the United States some time. He's only 70 years old!" Depressingly, the bit reminds us that we're only 6.8 percent of the way through this national humiliation. Remember when life was simple and we didn't have to wake up every morning full of dread about what was going to happen at the White House that day?

CNN gives whole new meaning to stealing the pennies off the eyes of a dead man Call it, "Bait-dance." Or maybe, "Controversy"? "Thieves in the Temple"? How about "Sign o' the Times"? Is there any more suitable way these days to honor a beloved, deceased icon on the one-year anniversary of his death than with a load of cheap content concocted for the sole purpose of making you click? Or if you're Morris Day, is there any more obvious opportunity to make people remember you your dear friend? Prince died a year ago today and every "news" organization is swooping in to take advantage commemorate his life and career—CNN, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, NPR, Variety, Billboard, People, the AP, The Guardian, TMZ, and on ... and on ... and on. No actual news , mind you. It all pretty much boils down to: Prince Is Still Dead, But We All Remember How Great He Was, So Here's to Driving Web Traffic and Pushing a Shit-Ton of Ads. So...

So, the cover of the new Bon Appétit was shot on an iPhone. Yeah, that was completely new and different—when Billboard and Condé Nast Traveler did it. It's not that it's a bad picture, and I realize publishers need to do all they can to generate buzz and make magazines cool, but not only is this idea not novel or creative, it also happens to be terrible for the business of magazines. Why would you embrace something that's anathema to your very being? As Bon App's creative director explained: "We wanted to create something our readers could relate to. This is technology completely changing how the publishing and design industries are moving forward." Well, that's a depressing thought for those of us whose life's work is creating content that strives to be more special than what you'd find on a 14-year-old's Instagram feed. Really, this idea that something great can be done not just by talented, experienced professionals with the right train...

It's hardly a stretch to imagine that YouTubers like Tyler Oakley and Lilly Singh, with their multimillions of devoted groupies online, would also be a massive draw live. But Mike Mills thought of it and you didn't.  And now, the 40-year-old guy from upstate New York who once ran a magic store and whose big break came when he bet that the sketch comedy series Who's Line Is It Anyway? would translate to the stage—ultimately generating more than 500 shows and $30 million in revenue—has become the king of cross-media programming, working with social media stars and TV celebs like Dog Whisperer's Cesar Milan and Cake Boss's Buddy Valastro to transform their acts into live theater, as Forbes reports in a new  profile of Mills. We all know live is where it's at. Madonna's latest album was a notorious bomb, failing to produce even one charting single—a first in the 30-year-plus career of the pop tartare—and yet Billboard named her Woman of the Yea...

Another satisfied United Airlines customer Don't worry—I'm not going to get all Jerry Seinfeld from the 90s and start ranting about the airlines. At this point, unfortunately, we've all become quite accustomed to the domestic carriers' crappy treatment of their passengers. Even JetBlue—the brand that, when it launched at the millennium, promised it would be different and which was, for a brief, blissful moment, as close to a pleasurable experience as one can get on an airplane these days—has gone the way of its more feeble brothers, squeezing rows in coach to within an inch of their life to make way for premium-class seating and nickel and diming us for checked bags and such. But this business with United Airlines over the weekend—could it do anything more brazen toward murdering its own reputation and that of the whole industry? You probably know the story by now—a doctor was forced to give up his seat to make way for a United employee, and when he (correctly)...

Tryin' to keep this content fresh, people, really I am. But sometimes a boy's gotta pay the rent. Traveled to L.A. this week for the annual convention of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (known to all of you as the 4A's, with apostrophe), where I ran into a lot of people I've known awhile (IPG's Michael Roth, 72andSunny's Matt Jarvis, Fast Company's Bob Safian, every ad reporter on Earth) and enjoyed meeting and listening to talks by a few others (Pinterest's Ben Silbermann, Facebook's Andrew Bosworth and MEC's Marla Kaplowitz, incoming CEO of the 4A's). One of the hot topics was the advertiser boycott of YouTube over ads that pop up alongside objectionable content—Roth addressed it from the stage (contending that marketers, including IPG clients Coke and J&J, were right to take the stand, contrasting with more skeptical execs like WPP chief Martin Sorrell), while Google reps showed up to reassure the crowd it was ...