7.8.19 Bee-otch of the Day: AT&T

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Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday; Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Sunday morning on Chuck69.com.

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Name: The American Telephone and Telegraph Co.
Age: 134
Occupation: telecommunications giant
Last Seen: San Antonio, TX
Bee-otched For: reaching out and taking shit away from us
 

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When your company is too big for their own good, they need to break up, just like AT&T did in the early 80s.

And now, you can thank that same government for putting that monopoly back together, plus making them some of the biggest assholes on the face of the earth.

Case in point: the fact that subscribers of AT&T's U-verse and DirecTV services are missing their local channels. Suddenly last weekend, the stations of Nexstar Broadcasting - including NBC WOOD-TV 8 and ABC WOTV 41 here in west Michigan - were all blacked out on their systems. Now, WOOD and WOTV are running scrolls begging viewers to call AT&T to put their channels back on the system.

Of course, transmission disputes are nothing new in the world of broadcasting. But considering that AT&T just purchased TimeWarner for $108 billion, well, they have a ton of pots to piss in.

But then, there's the heartbreaking news that was announced last week that after 67 years, MAD Magazine was going out of business. The magazine that gave us decades of Spy Vs. Spy, MAD Fold-In and Sergio Aragones' Drawn Out Dramas will go to repeat articles after issue #10 in October. Sadly, the claim is of course decreased circulation. In 2017, the magazine only sold 140,000 issues per month. That, of course, is WAAAAAY lower than the two million issues it sold per year in the mid-70s.

Of course, the downfall of MAD might have began when founder William M. Gaines sold his company, E.C. Publications in 1962 to a company called Kinney Services for tax purposes. Kinney - a company with mafia backings - owned parking lots in New Jersey. But one day, they decided to diversify their portfolio and bought out MAD and DC Comics. In 1968, the company bought out Warner Bros. Pictures and in 1972, the company was renamed Warner Communications while their parking lots were spun off.

When Gaines sold to Kinney, he made them sign an edict that they were not to interfere with MAD or other E.C. properties. Everything was all fine and dandy for decades, especially since MAD always remained popular and the magazine's only advertising was all parodies.

But then, William Gaines died in 1992 from a heart attack. He was 70. Because of his death, it allowed MAD's corporate parent, TimeWarner to sink their claws further into the magazine. It seemed that the magic Bill put into the magazine was quickly disappearing and TimeWarner was doing idiotic things like italicizing the logo and even putting in real ads. Yep, MAD was selling out and as they all said, William Gaines should be spinning in his grave, but he was cremated.

Now, AT&T owns MAD and sadly, they moved it from its longtime home in New York City to Burbank, California two years ago. The magazine got a total makeover, especially with new editor Bill Morrison last year. There were high hopes for MAD's reboot. However, the thugs at AT&T decided to simply kill off the magazine.

True, MAD's circulation has shrunk thanks to the internet and the fact that the articles were drawn months ago and maybe not as fresh. But methinks that AT&T killed MAD over the fact that the company is huge donors to the Republicans and they didn't like how they treated Drumpf over the years. What's next? The left-leaning shows on HBO like Real Time With Bill Mahar and Last Week Tonight With Jon Oliver? What's sad is that CNN is supposed to be the most-fair of the big cable news networks and, well, they're too far into the center for my liking. Hell, I'll betcha that Ted Turner's spinning in his grave for selling his company to them, but then again, he's still alive.

I'll admit, MAD was the only magazine that I bought on a regular basis. Why? It's because it was folks like the aforementioned Sergio Aragones, Al Jaffee, Dick DeBartolo, Duck Edwing, Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Bill Wray, Jack Davis, Sam Viviano, Tom Richmond, Paul Coker, Anton Emdin, John Caldwell and waaaaay too many others to mention who brought me joy with each issue. It was still useful while other magazines changed formats and/or sold out, like Playboy and TV Guide. Same with newspapers and other media overrun by big corporations that simply want to throw their rightest agenda down our throats. MAD kept it real, but as big corporations throw shit at us, well, it's time to pay our respects.

Thanks, MAD. Say hi to Sylvester P. Smythe for us. As for AT&T, as a former customer of theirs, I hope they and their salespeople stay the hell away from me when I'm at the store.

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