So, I went to 5th and 6th grade with Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine fame. Yeah, probably lots of people have met Jarvis, described as “Blog Daddy” in a CNN screen capture at BuzzMachine. But how many of them know that in 1964, today’s liberal wore a political campaign pin sporting a plastic bubble with gold glitter suspended in water — get it? — Gold Water? Or that he was a lieutenant on the safety patrol? Or that he played Captain Hook (to my Peter Pan) in the 6th grade play.
That’s him in May 1965 in the lower left corner of the photo above (I’m the one with with four round buttons on my jumper in the upper right). To me, he looks exactly the same today as he did then, today’s beard nothwithstanding. Who knew back then that he would grow up to spoil TV and movie reviews for me forever because he, to the best of my knowledge, invented the system of giving letter grades in reviews. Now, if a review doesn’t have a letter grade, I don’t know what to make of it. I even make my husband give my cooking letter grades. Jarvis carried this invention to Entertainment Weekly, of which he was the founding editor. He’s long gone from EW, but he set the tone for a terrific magazine, to which I still subscribe. For a time in the late 80s, my husband and Jeff both worked at People magazine.
Is this tribute to Blog Daddy Jeff Jarvis a cheap attempt to get more attention for my blog? Ummmm ….. yes?