Kevin Cirilli, Futurist, reporter and founder of Meet the Future website speaks with Mendte in the Morning, about why people need to embrace the future and the type of news his website offers. Robert Thompson, Professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University talks with Mendte in the Morning about the recent pop culture deaths and how those deaths can impact people who grew up idolizing these stars.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's bring in Kevin Surreally. I love talking to
Kevin because he doesn't just talk about what's happening now.
He doesn't talk about what happened in the past. He's
talking about the future. In fact, he is a futurist
reporter and I really believe he may be the only
futurist reporter in the country. And he is founder of
the Meet the Future website. Kevin. Before we start, is
(00:22):
that how you get to your website. You just write
out meet the Future. Ye meet the Future dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You can go to m you go to MTF for
me the Future, MTF dot TV, MTF dot TV. And
we are just growing like crazy. And honestly, Larry, thank
you so much for all the time that you have
me on and it's really exciting to see how this
has taken off. And trust me when I tell you,
in the next six months, it's only going to get
(00:48):
bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I can well, that was a tease. Why what's happening?
I look into the future?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I look it. Well, we've got our daily newsletter and
we're just at the early stages now putting together a
board and it's gonna hopefully be you know, I don't
trust the media. I trust Larry, but I don't really
trust the mainstream media. And I think it's because the
media has stopped covering a lot of the huge transformations
(01:20):
that are happening right before our eyes robotics, space, exploration,
health technology and explaining it to people. And when they
do cover it, they're very doom and gloom about it
and not very optimistic. And so I think the intention,
one of the intentions of MCF Meet the Future, is
to help empower people about the future that they don't
(01:43):
have to be so afraid of it, and to help
explain how technology can help them become more human and
that it could be a good thing, especially in the
health side.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, it's MTF dot TV. Thanks for clearing that up.
But I believe, and look at I've worked at newspapers,
you know, I've worked in radio, i worked in TV
my whole life. I've had a long career in media,
and I believe that media doesn't cover it the way
it should be covered simply because they don't understand it.
They don't have someone life I agree, someone like you
(02:14):
who's an expert in this, and that's the only reason.
That's that's what you're seeing in the media right now
is they should be hiring people that have a grasp
of what's going on. Instead, they take a reporter and
they put them on this story and they and many
times they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, a lot of like earlier this week, to your point,
I got to hear General Guteline, here's the head of
Space Force. I heard him speak about the Golden Zome
and the technology that that is going to require to
protect not just Americans, but all of our cyber assets
and whatnot and just a way of life. And hearing
(02:54):
him speak about it and the technology that that is
going to happen in order to deploy this capability twenty
twenty eight, which is just around the corner, it's an
incredible feat for America that we're able to launch such
technology to protect ourselves in the next couple of years,
and that is really unprecedented. And to your point, I think,
(03:16):
regardless of your thoughts on Elon Musk or Sam Altman
or Mark Zuckerberg, we can't cover going to Mars as
just a vanity project for a billionaire, which is how
the media covers it. They don't talk about why it's
important from a security standpoint, from a communications standpoint, from
a technology standpoint, why should you want to go to Mars? Well,
(03:40):
the average human being interacts with space based technology more
than two dozen times per day, I mean right now
and calling into your radio program, the satellites that are
involved with this. You take out space. Our whole entire
way of life, our banking systems, our communication systems, the
(04:01):
way that we navigate the world every single day as
Americans is taken out. And so I really totally agree
with your point that the media does not do a
good job explaining these issues to the public, and the
public sees right through it. The public understands that they're
not getting the full story, and they've had it. And
(04:21):
so MCF is hopefully going to help translate all of
these issues to the public so that they can make
more informed decisions about these issues.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
He who does get it, And to your point about
how important space is, he's the one that launched space
for us, even though people talked about it since Eisenhower.
But he also had an executive order this week, as
a matter of fact, a series of executive orders to
boost US dominance in artificial intelligence, which is huge isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, Oh my gosh, yes. And I grew up outside
of Philadelphia, and last week President Trump was outside of Pittsburgh,
on the other side of the state from where I
grew up, with really all of the heads of AI
and technology and revitalizing a plant in outside of Pittsburgh
is the data center. Data centers are what power artificial intelligence,
(05:16):
and so the electricity needs as a result of America's
boom on artificial intelligence, which by the way, Americans inventive.
We should be proud of that as an American invention,
we are going to need more electricity. We're going to
need data centers, which is a complete revitalization of the
energy sector here in the United States. In fact, they're
talking about putting data centers on the Moon because of
(05:37):
how much AI we're going to need as a society,
which is another reason people should care about space. But
to your point, earlier this week, President Trump signing three
executive orders for AI and trying to declare dominance against
the Chinese Communist Party. And that's really what this is
all about. And so I thought you were going to
(05:57):
say that Trump invented space, force that she also I did.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I did say that. Yeah, you missed it on that.
You know what, Kevin, We we do have to run,
but let's get let's get you on again. We have
to talk more about AI because it's absolutely the future.
Don't be sorry, don't be sorry. You were fascinating, Kevin
surreally futurist reporter and founder of the Meet the Future
website WTF dot TV. That's it a short span and
(06:25):
these are people that did leave an imprint on pop culture.
And with that, I want to bring in Robert Thompson.
He's a professor of TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. Hey, Bob,
thanks for joining us again. I appreciate your.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Time, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I want to play for you a talkback week got
I think, which sums up the feelings of a lot
of people when they hear about these celebrity deaths. Malcolm,
Jamal Warner, Connie Francis, Chuck Mangione, Hulk Hogan, Ozzy.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Osbourne, Larry. I don't know how old you are, but
my youth seems to be a figure in the far
distance that grows banker every day.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
How wonderful is that?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Bob?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, and you know I know what that feels like.
Because however old you are, you grow up with the
people who were you know, when you're a kid, the
people who are famous for singing in sports and TV
are what ten twenty years older than you. I'm sixty five,
so I'm getting to that period where everybody that was
big and stars and performing when I was ten years
(07:33):
old are reaching the end of their lives one way
or another.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Before we run through the people that died recently, to
talk about what you believe the impact of those people
have on pop culture, talk about what you just said,
the fact that all of these people that were a
big part of your lives, especially when you were younger,
when they pass What does that mean to a person?
(07:58):
Can that have a profound a fact or is it
just the passing of time?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Well, I mean I think it can, and it depends
on how deep ones relationship were with any of these people.
And of course there are a lot of people who
developed very very strong relationships with people they've never met.
And it's not surprising. I remember how a bunch of
my students were really it seemed like on the verge
(08:24):
of having some serious emotional issues when Matthew Perry died,
and I think part of it is that they grew
up long after that show had been off the air,
but they watched it all the time. First it was
on all the time on cable, and then they were
watching it on streaming. So there's a sense that some
of these people a musician you listen to all the
(08:45):
time or a TV show you watch a lot, you
actually spend more time with them than you do with
many of the people that you love deeply, and I
think there is a sense then when they go that
there's some sort of loss. However, there is a silver
lining to all of these celebrity passings is that they've
all lived in the electronic age, and the performances they
(09:10):
did and that's how we experienced them were recorded. So
it was very sad when Michael Jackson died, when Elvis
Presley died, but we still have enormous bodies of work.
We can still listen to it. There are many people
that were gone. Most of the Three Stooges and the
(09:30):
Marx Brothers were long gone before many people discovered them,
and they can still watch all their movies and all
of that. So, you know, when we talk about famous
people from the nineteenth century, when they died only memories
were left of their performances. Now, you know, Kurt Cobain
(09:51):
and Nirvana, we can still listen to them right now
if we want.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
To, Yeah, or see interview Now it's pervasive of the internet.
Now we can and see you know, interviews with them,
we can see stories about their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Coincidence, just two days before Malcolm Jamal Warner died, I
was teaching my TV history class by summer class, and
we had gotten to the eighties, and I had played
that very first episode of The Cosby Show where Doctor
Huxtable teaches the kid the value of money using a
(10:26):
monopoly game, one of the most exquisitely executed scenes in
all of sitcom history. And of course, as we watched that,
Malcolm Jamal Warner was thirteen years old all over again.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
What about people like Ozzy Osbourne and people like Hulk
Hogan that were really, you know, fringe celebrities because they
weren't always in the mainstream, but then they forced them
way their way into the mainstream. Do they have the
same profound effects.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, well, of course some people before they forced themselves.
I mean, some people were enormous fans when they were fringe.
The Black Sabbath fan, the Ozzy Osbourne fan. While there
were many radio stations still refusing to play these guys
and critics were saying it's noise and all of that
kind of thing, there was a dedicated fan base that
(11:18):
had emerged by that time. But it is interesting how,
so yes, I think the answer to that your question
is yes. In the case of Ozzy Osbourne, he did
have this. He was an enormously famous person, had been
recording stuff, and people had known about him since the
nineteen sixties. But it is interesting how that MTV show,
(11:41):
which debuts almost exactly at the six month anniversary of
nine to eleven March of two thousand and two, and
that did bring Ozzy Osbourne to an entirely new population
of people. They'd heard about them, and they'd heard the
story of their bat biting and Prince Darkness and all
of that. But that MTV show The Osbourne's, which is
(12:04):
kind of designed to evoke Ozzy and Harriet, a suburban sitcom,
completely repackaged Ozzy Osbourne as this kind of baffled but
really lovable kind of a guy, the huggable Azsy. Even
though every other word had to be beeped. It sounded
like listening to a telegraph message when you watch that show,
(12:26):
which was actually kind of hilarious, but he was totally repositioned.
It was as though we took heavy metal, which was
dangerous and bloody and all of that kind of stuff
and completely domesticated it. For all of the weirdness of
the relationships on that show, it seemed like every bit
as loving a family as Leave It to Beaver or
(12:49):
Ozzie and Harriot.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
That's exactly right. That was extremely well said. Ozzy Osbourne
became a character. He wasn't just the character that like
the devil on stage and had that incredible voice singings
music that your parents hated. He became a dad. I
mean sort of like Overnight. That was a It was
(13:11):
an extremely powerful reality show and gave gave birth to
so many many.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, And it was practically every
night Overnight that that show hit big. That brought flocks
of people back to MTV who had not watched MTV
since flocks of Seagulls were on the playlist and just watching.
I mean, of course we knew him as this heavy
(13:37):
metal all that stands for and he spent most of
the episodes, stepping in the piles left by the multiple
dogs that were there trying to figure out how to
make the remote control work.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Robert Thompson enjoyed talking to you, Professor of TV and
Popular Culture at Syracuse University. Thanks for spending some time
with us this morning and making us laugh. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It was my pleasure. Thank you,
Now let's bring in Kevin Surreally. I love talking to
Kevin because he doesn't just talk about what's happening now.
He doesn't talk about what happened in the past. He's
talking about the future. In fact, he is a futurist
reporter and I really believe he may be the only
futurist reporter in the country. And he is founder of
the Meet the Future website. Kevin. Before we start, is
(00:22):
that how you get to your website. You just write
out meet the Future. Ye meet the Future dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You can go to m you go to MTF for
me the Future, MTF dot TV, MTF dot TV. And
we are just growing like crazy. And honestly, Larry, thank
you so much for all the time that you have
me on and it's really exciting to see how this
has taken off. And trust me when I tell you,
in the next six months, it's only going to get
(00:48):
bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I can well, that was a tease. Why what's happening?
I look into the future?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I look it. Well, we've got our daily newsletter and
we're just at the early stages now putting together a
board and it's gonna hopefully be you know, I don't
trust the media. I trust Larry, but I don't really
trust the mainstream media. And I think it's because the
media has stopped covering a lot of the huge transformations
(01:20):
that are happening right before our eyes robotics, space, exploration,
health technology and explaining it to people. And when they
do cover it, they're very doom and gloom about it
and not very optimistic. And so I think the intention,
one of the intentions of MCF Meet the Future, is
to help empower people about the future that they don't
(01:43):
have to be so afraid of it, and to help
explain how technology can help them become more human and
that it could be a good thing, especially in the
health side.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, it's MTF dot TV. Thanks for clearing that up.
But I believe, and look at I've worked at newspapers,
you know, I've worked in radio, i worked in TV
my whole life. I've had a long career in media,
and I believe that media doesn't cover it the way
it should be covered simply because they don't understand it.
They don't have someone life I agree, someone like you
(02:14):
who's an expert in this, and that's the only reason.
That's that's what you're seeing in the media right now
is they should be hiring people that have a grasp
of what's going on. Instead, they take a reporter and
they put them on this story and they and many
times they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, a lot of like earlier this week, to your point,
I got to hear General Guteline, here's the head of
Space Force. I heard him speak about the Golden Zome
and the technology that that is going to require to
protect not just Americans, but all of our cyber assets
and whatnot and just a way of life. And hearing
(02:54):
him speak about it and the technology that that is
going to happen in order to deploy this capability twenty
twenty eight, which is just around the corner, it's an
incredible feat for America that we're able to launch such
technology to protect ourselves in the next couple of years,
and that is really unprecedented. And to your point, I think,
(03:16):
regardless of your thoughts on Elon Musk or Sam Altman
or Mark Zuckerberg, we can't cover going to Mars as
just a vanity project for a billionaire, which is how
the media covers it. They don't talk about why it's
important from a security standpoint, from a communications standpoint, from
a technology standpoint, why should you want to go to Mars? Well,
(03:40):
the average human being interacts with space based technology more
than two dozen times per day, I mean right now
and calling into your radio program, the satellites that are
involved with this. You take out space. Our whole entire
way of life, our banking systems, our communication systems, the
(04:01):
way that we navigate the world every single day as
Americans is taken out. And so I really totally agree
with your point that the media does not do a
good job explaining these issues to the public, and the
public sees right through it. The public understands that they're
not getting the full story, and they've had it. And
(04:21):
so MCF is hopefully going to help translate all of
these issues to the public so that they can make
more informed decisions about these issues.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
He who does get it, And to your point about
how important space is, he's the one that launched space
for us, even though people talked about it since Eisenhower.
But he also had an executive order this week, as
a matter of fact, a series of executive orders to
boost US dominance in artificial intelligence, which is huge isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, Oh my gosh, yes. And I grew up outside
of Philadelphia, and last week President Trump was outside of Pittsburgh,
on the other side of the state from where I
grew up, with really all of the heads of AI
and technology and revitalizing a plant in outside of Pittsburgh
is the data center. Data centers are what power artificial intelligence,
(05:16):
and so the electricity needs as a result of America's
boom on artificial intelligence, which by the way, Americans inventive.
We should be proud of that as an American invention,
we are going to need more electricity. We're going to
need data centers, which is a complete revitalization of the
energy sector here in the United States. In fact, they're
talking about putting data centers on the Moon because of
(05:37):
how much AI we're going to need as a society,
which is another reason people should care about space. But
to your point, earlier this week, President Trump signing three
executive orders for AI and trying to declare dominance against
the Chinese Communist Party. And that's really what this is
all about. And so I thought you were going to
(05:57):
say that Trump invented space, force that she also I did.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I did say that. Yeah, you missed it on that.
You know what, Kevin, We we do have to run,
but let's get let's get you on again. We have
to talk more about AI because it's absolutely the future.
Don't be sorry, don't be sorry. You were fascinating, Kevin
surreally futurist reporter and founder of the Meet the Future
website WTF dot TV. That's it a short span and
(06:25):
these are people that did leave an imprint on pop culture.
And with that, I want to bring in Robert Thompson.
He's a professor of TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. Hey, Bob,
thanks for joining us again. I appreciate your.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Time, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I want to play for you a talkback week got
I think, which sums up the feelings of a lot
of people when they hear about these celebrity deaths. Malcolm,
Jamal Warner, Connie Francis, Chuck Mangione, Hulk Hogan, Ozzy.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Osbourne, Larry. I don't know how old you are, but
my youth seems to be a figure in the far
distance that grows banker every day.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
How wonderful is that?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Bob?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, and you know I know what that feels like.
Because however old you are, you grow up with the
people who were you know, when you're a kid, the
people who are famous for singing in sports and TV
are what ten twenty years older than you. I'm sixty five,
so I'm getting to that period where everybody that was
big and stars and performing when I was ten years
(07:33):
old are reaching the end of their lives one way
or another.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Before we run through the people that died recently, to
talk about what you believe the impact of those people
have on pop culture, talk about what you just said,
the fact that all of these people that were a
big part of your lives, especially when you were younger,
when they pass What does that mean to a person?
(07:58):
Can that have a profound a fact or is it
just the passing of time?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Well, I mean I think it can, and it depends
on how deep ones relationship were with any of these people.
And of course there are a lot of people who
developed very very strong relationships with people they've never met.
And it's not surprising. I remember how a bunch of
my students were really it seemed like on the verge
(08:24):
of having some serious emotional issues when Matthew Perry died,
and I think part of it is that they grew
up long after that show had been off the air,
but they watched it all the time. First it was
on all the time on cable, and then they were
watching it on streaming. So there's a sense that some
of these people a musician you listen to all the
(08:45):
time or a TV show you watch a lot, you
actually spend more time with them than you do with
many of the people that you love deeply, and I
think there is a sense then when they go that
there's some sort of loss. However, there is a silver
lining to all of these celebrity passings is that they've
all lived in the electronic age, and the performances they
(09:10):
did and that's how we experienced them were recorded. So
it was very sad when Michael Jackson died, when Elvis
Presley died, but we still have enormous bodies of work.
We can still listen to it. There are many people
that were gone. Most of the Three Stooges and the
(09:30):
Marx Brothers were long gone before many people discovered them,
and they can still watch all their movies and all
of that. So, you know, when we talk about famous
people from the nineteenth century, when they died only memories
were left of their performances. Now, you know, Kurt Cobain
(09:51):
and Nirvana, we can still listen to them right now
if we want.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
To, Yeah, or see interview Now it's pervasive of the internet.
Now we can and see you know, interviews with them,
we can see stories about their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Coincidence, just two days before Malcolm Jamal Warner died, I
was teaching my TV history class by summer class, and
we had gotten to the eighties, and I had played
that very first episode of The Cosby Show where Doctor
Huxtable teaches the kid the value of money using a
(10:26):
monopoly game, one of the most exquisitely executed scenes in
all of sitcom history. And of course, as we watched that,
Malcolm Jamal Warner was thirteen years old all over again.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
What about people like Ozzy Osbourne and people like Hulk
Hogan that were really, you know, fringe celebrities because they
weren't always in the mainstream, but then they forced them
way their way into the mainstream. Do they have the
same profound effects.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, well, of course some people before they forced themselves.
I mean, some people were enormous fans when they were fringe.
The Black Sabbath fan, the Ozzy Osbourne fan. While there
were many radio stations still refusing to play these guys
and critics were saying it's noise and all of that
kind of thing, there was a dedicated fan base that
(11:18):
had emerged by that time. But it is interesting how,
so yes, I think the answer to that your question
is yes. In the case of Ozzy Osbourne, he did
have this. He was an enormously famous person, had been
recording stuff, and people had known about him since the
nineteen sixties. But it is interesting how that MTV show,
(11:41):
which debuts almost exactly at the six month anniversary of
nine to eleven March of two thousand and two, and
that did bring Ozzy Osbourne to an entirely new population
of people. They'd heard about them, and they'd heard the
story of their bat biting and Prince Darkness and all
of that. But that MTV show The Osbourne's, which is
(12:04):
kind of designed to evoke Ozzy and Harriet, a suburban sitcom,
completely repackaged Ozzy Osbourne as this kind of baffled but
really lovable kind of a guy, the huggable Azsy. Even
though every other word had to be beeped. It sounded
like listening to a telegraph message when you watch that show,
(12:26):
which was actually kind of hilarious, but he was totally repositioned.
It was as though we took heavy metal, which was
dangerous and bloody and all of that kind of stuff
and completely domesticated it. For all of the weirdness of
the relationships on that show, it seemed like every bit
as loving a family as Leave It to Beaver or
(12:49):
Ozzie and Harriot.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
That's exactly right. That was extremely well said. Ozzy Osbourne
became a character. He wasn't just the character that like
the devil on stage and had that incredible voice singings
music that your parents hated. He became a dad. I
mean sort of like Overnight. That was a It was
(13:11):
an extremely powerful reality show and gave gave birth to
so many many.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, And it was practically every
night Overnight that that show hit big. That brought flocks
of people back to MTV who had not watched MTV
since flocks of Seagulls were on the playlist and just watching.
I mean, of course we knew him as this heavy
(13:37):
metal all that stands for and he spent most of
the episodes, stepping in the piles left by the multiple
dogs that were there trying to figure out how to
make the remote control work.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Robert Thompson enjoyed talking to you, Professor of TV and
Popular Culture at Syracuse University. Thanks for spending some time
with us this morning and making us laugh. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It was my pleasure. Thank you,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.