BLOGOLOGIE

AN OPEN LETTER to MAD SCIENTISTS, VAMPIRES, WITCH DOCTORS, AND ZOMBIES from THE LIVING PEOPLE OF EARTH

2009-02-07T14:27:00.006-06:00

Dear makers of the undead:

Last week one of us died too early. So, would one of you please us do us a solid and use whatever dark magic or black science or hoodoo or unholy power you have to please, please, please re-animate Lux Interior?!?!

Here�s the deal. Most of us are working pretty hard, stressed out about money, or taking pills to get to sleep at night. It�s been a rough few years. We�re trying to keep our merde together and do what needs to be done. Kinda sucks, but we pretty much got ourselves into this mess in the first place, so now, it seems, we�ve got to suck it up.

But when Lux died last week, a lot of us looked up and said, �Wowie-zowie, I never realized how much comfort there was in knowing that at least one of us was doing whatever the hell he felt like at any given moment.� Because that�s what Lux did. At least on the nights we saw him, anyway.

e.g.

Lux somehow bulldozed right through our huuuuuge aggregation of �thou shalt nots� in order to decide for himself that whenever he felt like he wanted to be a spike heel and lady-undergarment-wearing polyvinyl-chloride-bedecked rock and roll ghoul, well then, that was just what was gonna happen . . . and anybody who didn�t like it better get the hell out of the way.

So here�s our offer. Help Lux kick the crypt, rise from his grave and return to shaking his moneymaker, and we promise to feed him the blood, braaaaaaiiiiiiiiiins, mojo hands, electrical charges or whatever he�s going to need to keep it in gear.

Like we said, Lux had worked himself two-thirds of the way down the ghoul path already, so it seems like this is not going to be an especially burdensome re-animation. And once he�s up and rocking again, you�ll have had a hand in creating � clearly � the greatest undead rock and roll icon of all time (we anticipate the added bonus of Glenn Danzig finally realizing that he just isn�t that scary, really).

We mean no disrespect to your previous efforts at rocker re-animation, for which we remain most grateful. You guys did a really great job with Screamin� Jay Hawkins. And Alice Cooper was pretty great too, at least until he started to get �serious� about golf � but we can hardly blame you for that.

We don�t know how the whole re-animation thing works but we can�t imagine this is going to take up too much of your precious time.

OK, OK, we�ll sweeten the pot.

Re-Animate Lux and we�ll deliver the Backstreet Boys to you for their/blood/braaaaaaains/shrinkable heads/spare parts. Just be sure not to inadvertantly re-animate any of those guys when you're done with them. That�s a dealbreaker.

And if you promise not to bite or dismember anyone, maybe you could come to Lux�s first �Back From the Grave� concert. We can trust you on those points, can�t we? Pinky swear?

So, you�ll get back to us soon, right?

Maybe you could just lean Lux up against a lamppost on the Sunset Strip?

We�ll be looking for him.

Sincerely,

THE LIVING PEOPLE of EARTH

Touchdown, Jesus!

2009-01-28T14:11:00.003-06:00

The NFL has backed away from is obnoxious exercise of so-called "intellectual property rights." Now football fans can pray for the Cardinals in their favored houses of worship (as � notwithstanding my headline � I presume the League's largesse extends to synagogues, mosques, ashrams . . .)

Free Music That Saves Kitties from Neko Case and Anti-

2009-01-16T18:53:00.003-06:00

And it's even GOOD music.

Go here.

Download:http://www.anti.com/media/download/708

And, apparently, both Neko Case and her label will donate a significant chunk of change to a worthy Animal Rescue organization. Details are here: http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=1301

Is this a promotional ploy? Sure. But it helps kitties. And it's free music. And it's creative. And if you can track down the online press kit for Neko's album with the broken-down pianos and the wind whipping through the farmhouse you'll see that she is now earning comparisons to her hyper-creative spiritual godmothers like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. And that's just one side of her work. I'm not even talking New Pornographers now.

So go, get a free MP3, and/or make your own post. And save a sad,lonely little kitty.

The 10 Commandments of FACEBOOK

2009-01-01T17:01:00.008-06:00

...found on tablets in Second Life. I translated them from the original XML.

John Logie's TEN COMMANDMENTS of FACEBOOK

1. You shall not maintain a Facebook profile without an actual picture of your face. Not your whole body . . . which makes the face all-but-illegible. Your face. YOUR FACE. (If Faceless people want to be my friend � and the number will probably shrink after I post this list � the place for faceless friends is MySpace. Find me there.)

2. You shall not substitute a picture of your baby, however adorable, for a picture of your face. (Personally, I looooove babies, and will look at your baby pictures. There are great places for baby pictures elsewhere on Facebook. Your Facebook profile picture is expressly for viewers to weigh the latest returns in the battle of You vs. The Ravages of Time, or You vs. Your Latest Questionable Haircut.)

3. You shall not substitute a picture of your pet for a picture of your face. (I am reasonably certain that no one else on the planet finds your pet as cute/charming/by-gosh charismatic as you do, and again, that pet is not welcome in the place where your face belongs. Don't wanna? Go start "MyPet'sFaceBook".)

4. You shall not seek to "friend" those with whom you have an obvious ongoing professional power imbalance (e.g. student/professor; employee/boss; drone/Queen Bee). I have friended former students, but there's an embedded discomfort that properly arises when the people who grade or evaluate one another are also announcing themselves as "friends."

5. You shall not dispatch your zombie/vampire/werewolf/slayer/superpower to attack more than once, excepting in those cases where you sustain a reciprocal attack. And that principle goes for li'l green things, too.

6. You shall not SuperPoke more than three other people at any given time.

7. You shall not draw a virtual bath via SuperPoke for anyone with whom you have not already shared a terrestrial bath.

8. You shall cc any important professional information to the recipient's actual personal e-mail account.

9. You shall think long and hard before attempting to extend the reach of your local fundraiser � however noble � into Facebook, recognizing that most people are already committed to concerns in their own non-virtual communities. (NOTE: this refers specifically to fundraisers � online political action and badging for various causes is not targeted here).

10. You shall continue mortifying one another by posting scans of dredged-up high school photos.

Hating the H8

2008-12-08T14:26:00.004-06:00

I'm weighing in late on this, but I need to say that the month since a very inspiring election has consistently been undercut by my anger at the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I circle back almost daily to this, thinking about my gay friends who � on a daily basis � face messages that their love doesn't count, or counts less than, or counts almost as much as, but not quite.

Well, fuck that. And anybody who is knowingly or unknowingly sending out those vibes.

Full citizenship is this country is as foundational a right as I can imagine. That we are, at this late date, sorting people into bins because of who they love is, simply put, insane.

I'm past the point where I can simply sit back and thank my lucky stars for my good fortune that I was born liking women rather than men. I'm past the point where I can leave the status quo in place for my daughters, my nieces and nephews, and all the kids of the next generation who deserve to grow up in an America that will -- should they be so lucky as to find the love of a lifetime -- not actively disrespect that love.

This Wednesday is scheduled to be "A Day Without A Gay." I'll be at work, because the point of this day is to make visible how many of our friends and family are not as straight as, well, me.

But my heart will be with my friends who are "Calling in Gay." And I made a Creative Commons licensed poster to underscore this point.

The CC license means you are free to take it, clean it up (my graphic design superhero/wife is a tad overbooked), improve upon it and maybe challenge the thinking of some people who need a good swift ~~kick in the~~ challenge.

Take this poster and use it or make it better.
H8.pdf

Norm Coleman and I are very, very different.

2008-12-05T18:18:00.003-06:00

If I had held elected office for the better part of six years, and at the end of that period, an election was held, and I could not successfully persuade 50%+1 of my constituents that I was the best person for the job going forward, and further, if one of my opponents had managed to duel me to a stalemate, demonstrating the presence of a viable alternative . . .

I WOULD RESIGN.

I simply do not understand how Norm, having witnessed nearly 60% of his constituents saying "it's time for a change" on Election Day can, without apparent embarrassment, press his claim to return to the Senate. I'm not naive ��I understand his obvious attachment to power and clearly nobody wants to be looking for a new job in this climate. What I do not understand is the lack of apparent mortification at the current result . . . the lack of humility scaled to the settled judgment of most of his constituents that his tenure has been a failure.

While Al Franken could and should have run a better campaign, ethically his claim to the office is much stronger than Coleman's. If we understand the election as, effectively, a stalemate, does the incumbent who failed to make his case for more of the same deserve the office more than the insurgent who, despite the incumbent's inherent advantages, managed to match the incumbent's total?

For me, the answer is clear.

For Minnesota, not yet. But if you'd like to see some awesome coverage of these events as they unfold, go see my pals at The Uptake.

Emissaries from Munchkinland urge you toward . . . something.

2008-12-05T11:00:00.001-06:00

I'm not quite sure what yet . . . I'll get back to you.

Definition I feel the need to share . . .

2008-12-03T23:10:00.003-06:00

crap�puc�ci�no [krap-oo-chee-noh, krah-poo-; It. krahp-poot-chee-naw] �noun

any of a number of hot, sweet, frothy, and vaguely coffee-flavored beverages dispensed from a shared spigot, typically found in a gas station or vending area.

My Two-Word Review of Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, NY

2008-11-29T21:55:00.002-06:00

Forrest Dump.

Does the Cosmos Itself Want John Hinderaker to Understand That He Is Wrong?

2008-11-12T22:53:00.006-06:00

This is just too easy.

November 9, John Hinderaker posts the following at Powerline:

Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

This clearly offended the Gods.

I have on good authority that George W. Bush did not always "choose his words with care and precision." My support for this claim? George W. Bush three short days after Hinderaker's post:

"I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said," Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: "I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'"

He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: "There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."

'Be Careful'

In the interview yesterday, he said, "My wife reminded me that, 'hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say.'"

Yeah, Laura Bush agrees with me, too.

GUY I DO NOT LIKE.

2008-11-06T14:11:00.005-06:00

Norm.

I find his pre-emptive declaration of victory in the current Senate race profoundly offensive. And yes, I know that the AP momentarily declared Coleman the "winner" � but given the numbers, Coleman didn't have to pounce. And he did, and this was enormously disrespectful to the voters. Part of the reason why this was so disrespectful is because of the CONTINUAL mismanagement of elections in urban centers (which just so happen to tilt democratically). In my neighborhood, people waited alomst two hours to vote. I watched people arrive, look at the line, and turn around. Now I've heard people argue that if your vote isn't important enough for you to wait then it's tough luck, but I don't want to hear that from anyone in a) a "red" county where there was b) no significant wait for voting. People were losing their opportunity to vote in neighborhood because they had to go to work. That's not right. At this moment, Senator Coleman is up by less than 400 votes, and the number is shrinking as the counties double check the bottoms of the vote bins. I honestly don't think Franken would be playing his hand this way if the numbers were reversed. When Franken was up ever so slightly Thursday night, he expressed cautious optimism, but also the importance of being patient and counting all the votes. Given how long people waited TO vote, this is entirely reasonable. I've been struggling to come up with an analogy that captures how jarringly inappropriate Coleman's behavior is here. This is my best effort so far.

Heck, if Rachel Maddow can go the well for a football analogy, why can't I?

Imagine a football team (the Pachyderms?) that won the last Super Bowl because the opposing team's quarterback was killed in a horrific accident days before the game. Imagine further that this Super Bowl winner talked a lot of smack after edging the other team (the Donkeys, captained for that one game by an old second string QB who comes out of retirement for the game). After the game, the Pachyderm QB says that he's a better QB than the late Donkey quarterback ever was, while wearing his "Pachyderm Super Bowl CHAMPS" t-shirt. Fast forward to the next Super Bowl. The losing team is back with a new, better QB. In the 59th minute of a hard-fought game, the Donkeys manage to tie the game, and they kick off to the Pachyderms, who respond with a drive that stalls on the Donkey 45-yard-line as time expires. The Donkey QB takes a deep breath and prepares to play on. The Pachyderms, by contrast, led by their QB, begin a victory celebration at midfield.

"Hey," the Donkeys and the referees say. "The game is not over yet."

"We win!" shouts the Pachyderm QB. We've got the ball and we're in your territory!"

"Yes, but you don't have more points. The rules say you need to score more points. This game is tied at 42-all."

"Well, I'm driving, and we probably would have scored more points on this drive had the clock not expired, so let's acknowledge that we're the better team. Woo-hoo! We win!"

"No, the rules specify we flip the coin and start a new quarter until somebody scores. Might be you, might be us, but after a short break we're starting the overtime period."

"But won't that mean we'll have to pay the referees extra?"

"Sure, they get time-and-a-half for overtime."

"Given the financial pressures that the league is facing, shouldn't you spare us all that added expense?"

"Ummmm, NO. Because we've already budgeted for this possibility, and because the fans are still waiting in their seats to see who won the game according to the rules of the game."

"Are you really going to put us through all of that trouble?"

"Y'know, it's not really me, and it's not really my Donkey teammates. It's the rules. We have the rules so that we stand a good chance of finding out who has the better team today. So far, you're not better enough. Don't you want to know whether you're really better than us?"

(long pause)

"Repeat Super Bowl Champions! Woo-hoo! We're going to Disneyland!"

Norm Coleman would like to think that he can reconcile his professed interest in bipartisanship with his overt and profound disrespect for the votes of the 1,211,190 Franken supporters who did not wish to see him returned to the Senate (to say nothing of the votes of the Barkley supporters).

He can't.

57% of the people of this state DO NOT WANT HIM to continue as Senator.

DO. NOT. WANT.

Yet Norm surveyed that lanscape, and decided to shout: "VICTORY."

To which I think a lot of Minnesotans are responding: Uff da!

GUY I LIKE.

2008-11-06T13:33:00.001-06:00

Robert Gibbs. For years I have watched liberalism be characterized as a refuge for unpricipled, mealy-mouthed equivocators. Robert Gibbs, by NOT being afraid to use the "L" word (in this case, I mean "lie") here shows what tough liberal sounds like.

We. Could. Be.

2008-11-05T14:23:00.001-06:00

Stubbed

2008-10-18T00:06:00.001-05:00

I am saddened by news of the passing of Mr. Levi Stubbs. I was fortunate enough to see him in late 1985 or so, when the Temptations and the Four Tops were together on a package tour in the wake of the Motown 25 TV special. At this point, the band hand been together with the original four members for three decades. I interviewed his fellow Top, Obie Benson, for the University of Michigan student paper and Benson said that once one of them died, they would probably pack it in as a group (the survivors have since changed their minds, in part because the catalog of songs sung by the Tops is too enthralling for audiences to leave behind). At the time, Benson was making a competitive boast. The Tops' tour-mates, the Temptations, had always been a bit of a revolving door. But not the Tops. They were always the same four guys. And they had a lead singer. The band easily could have been Levi Stubbs and the Tops - the set-up would not been much different from Gladys Knight and the Pips or Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- but Levi Stubbs was, apparently, content to be one of four friends from Detroit who made it big, and the Tops were thus perceived as a quartet in ways that diminished Stubbs' own recognition as one of the greatest singers of his era. Oddly, the most attention I remember Stubbs receiving during my adult lifetime was when he voiced the part of the carnivorous plant Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors." He was great as Audrey, but that was Stubbs on a lark. His catalog with (mostly) Motown, offers so many more treasures. Billy Bragg wrote a beautiful tribute to Stubbs - a testament to the power of a truly emotive vocal. This one spiraled out from a shabby home studio in the shadow of downtown Detroit, found Bragg across the Atlantic in Barking or London, and drove Bragg, with his own odd, distinctive, and emotive voice to make more. And that, perhaps, is the highest kind of tribute we can offer one another. Goodnight and thank you, Levi Stubbs.

Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

2008-10-18T00:05:00.001-05:00

1966 Reach Out I'll Be There Four Tops

2008-10-17T23:59:00.001-05:00

What I did on my "summer vacation"

2008-09-06T21:58:00.004-05:00

For a little over a year now I have been volunteering with the local citizen journalism outfit, The Uptake. The Uptake's core is the committed team of live and almost-live video bloggers who are now earning a lot of praise for their coverage of the RNC and the attendant protests in St. Paul. As my family albums attest, I am not great with a camera, so I have contributed some ad-hoc political commentary, some punditry (most notably at the dramatic DFL Convention where Al Franken wrested the party's endorsement away from a strong challenger, Jack Nelson-Pallmyer). I have also moderated the liveblogs for most of the past two weeks' major party conventions.

So this led me, Thursday night, to the offices of the Uptake, a stone's throw from the Xcel Center.

Others are doing a great job of digging into the various claims and counter-claims regarding the violence attendant to the protests. My purpose here is not to unravel who did what to whom when. The Uptake's coverage at times offers a clear sense of what was transpiring, but also testifies to a lot of chaos. For the moment, I simply wish to observe how depressing the landscape of downtown St. Paul was as I threaded my way through closed streets to get to the office.

It is hard not to feel a sense of shame, as a U.S. citizen, when the mere presence of a major political party in a city prompts waves of outraged protestors, numbering in the thousands. Our democratic process should � in theory � effectively tether the parties to the will of the citizens. Parties ought not inspire massive displays of contempt, disgust, and rage � because they should be representing the will of the people.

This shame is exacerbated by the sense of uncertainty and discomfort one has when simply driving through streets filled with heavily armed police officers and members of the National Guard. While all of the officers I encountered were unfailingly polite and helpful, the aggregate effect of their presence � loaded with riot gear that had the unfortunate effect of making them look like B-movie knockoffs of the "Star Wars" stormtroopers � was to deliver an unmistakeable threat.

We will never know what might have unfolded in the Twin Cities had there NOT been a wave of questionable police raids (my wife and I observed that our own home had most of the common household items listed in one of the warrants) on the eve of the Republican National Convention. I would tend to think that protesters committed to the general notion of peace would tend to speak out and pursue the kinds of civil disobedience that would reinforce and underscore their commitment to peace. But the raids raised the thermostat on the protests. And I've now seen video coverage journalists being arrested, people displaying wounds they attribute to police brutality, and a protester assaulting a police officer.

And I say, we must do better.

Most of the time, when I see my discipline, Rhetoric, referenced in the media, it is presented as the counterpart/opposite of "reality." The New York Times did this just today as the headline for its fact-checking of the convention speeches.

But I'm turning over an idea that I heard Wayne Booth say, as if he were newly discovering it, at a conference a few years back - what if the opposite of "rhetoric" is "war"? What if rhetoric � persuasive communication � is the sole meaningful bulwark we have against "solving" problems with brute force.

To our eternal shame, the bulk of human history has seen the rule of the club supersede the rule of the word. The closed fist had a huge head start relative to the open hand.

I love language and I place great stock in its power, when used effectively and ethically, to resolve even the most difficult of human problems. But last week, St. Paul, Minnesota delivered a series of scenes which shook my confidence in our ability to depend of discursive persuasion. First, I watched as Wednesday night's speeches were celebrated despite their ugliness, their dependence upon ad hominem attacks, and their loose relationship with substantiated facts.

And then, Thursday night, I saw a landscape that testified to our collective uncertainty that citizens could demonstrate against the Republican Party (and in many cases, for peace) without spontaneous violence erupting.

What a sad comment on our current circumstance. I was born into a time of social protest, violence, and suspicion (my mother had an FBI file for her protesting against the VietNam War). In my brief time at the RNC I saw downtown St. Paul hurtle ominously backwards toward Chicago, 1968, and at moments it seemed on the brink of veering toward Kent State.

But this time, the Uptake, documentary filmmakers, citizen journalists, and just plain folks with video cameras were there to record it all as it happened.

Are we ready to face up to what we will see once this archive is sorted, sifted, and clarified?

Are we ready to do better?

Presenting the Anti-Ulrich

2008-04-05T10:10:00.005-05:00

I'm tempted to go buy a t-shirt to support OK Go and Damian Kulash, Jr. While Kulash is overstating things a bit by describing his band as among the first to find real success on the Internet (I'll grant "via YouTube"), he did do the body politic an immense service by testifying before Congress in a way that can help our elected representatives understand the culture of the Internet. This is Kulash's description of the band's experience with the "Dancing in the Backyard" video:

With the help of my sister, we choreographed a parodic dance routine and shot a single- take home video of us performing it in my back yard. If you include the Starbucks run, the total budget for the video was about $20. We posted the clip online, and it caught on like wildfire. We watched, astonished, as the video racked up hundreds of thousands, then millions, then tens of millions of hits at online video sites. Before long, we were getting offers to play to thousands in countries where our record had never even been released.

And something even wilder started happening: fans started posting their own versions of the video. Thrilled by the direct connection with our fans, we launched a dance contest, and received homemade remakes of our video from all over the world. We got hundreds of entries, videos of the dance at weddings, in churches, at high school talent shows, in firehouses, and even a version performed by animated legos. This is a whole new phenomenon, a feedback loop of creativity that allows us to be more than just a commercial product to our fans � we are the center of an active, creative community.

It is this last point that makes me so grateful for Kulash's testimony. While the fate of the world doesn't hinge on the presence or absence of the next OK-Go-wedding-reception-parody video, this is a form of creativity, and our public policies should, wherever possible, err on the side of promoting and encouraging creativity.

Kulash's follow-up to the video offers his attempt to offer a metaphor that has the potential to counter Lars' Ulrich's infamous assertions that peer-to-peer file transfers are the equivalent of shoplifting, and that the Internet is analogous to a handgun. (My critique of Ulrich's testimony can be found in several spots within my freely downloadable book). In his
NYT editorial today, Kulash offers metaphors that extract the Internet from the criminal context that Ulrich mined, and repositions it as an engine for both creativity and free speech:

We can�t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn�t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it.
For some parallel examples: there are only two guitar companies who make most of the guitars sold in America, but they don�t control what we play on those guitars. Whether we use a Mac or a PC doesn�t govern what we can make with our computers. The telephone company doesn�t get to decide what we discuss over our phone lines. It would be absurd to let the handful of companies who connect us to the Internet determine what we can do online. Congress needs to establish basic ground rules for an open Internet, just as common carriage laws did for the phone system.

A better Congress would have long ago figured out how to address the concerns of both the "aggrieved artists" represented by Ulrich, who reasonably fear that an unfettered Internet will diminish their pecuniary rewards, and the "concerned creatives" like Kulash, who recognize all too clearly that the default impulses of Congress will lead to an Internet that pursues compensation for copyright holders, and defers to corporate impulses (like the non-neutral 'Net) at the price of promoting creativity (dare I say "progress") in the Useful Arts.

The FCC pursuing something worthwhile?

2008-03-14T11:05:00.003-05:00

After spending an inordinate amount of time and energy on a putatively accidental exposure of nipple jewelry and determining how and whether to gradate uses of the F-word, the FCC is now, apparently, poised to actually, serve citizens' interests, by enforcing principles of Net neutrality. Comcast has pretty clearly been "throttling" speeds for users of P2P networks like BitTorrent. While it is not clear whether the FCC's actions will have any legal teeth, it is a relief to see somebody in Washington paying attention to the "shaping" of the Web by one of the largest ISPs in the country. Obviously, this is one of many reasons to weigh your choices carefully when selecting an ISP.

THINK FAST!

2008-02-09T10:23:00.000-06:00

Will you have:

"Be Dental Alveoli Quick to Salad Bangkok Hot Paddle Fish"

OR

Barbecued guinea pig?

Personally, I'm leaning toward B.D.A.Q.t.S.B.H.P.F..

Mmmmmmm, Be-Dental-Alveoli-Quick-to-Salad-Bangkok-Hot-Paddle-Fish-y.

The Pre-School Demographic

2008-02-05T11:06:00.000-06:00

My four year-old weighs in with her endorsement.

Looking at a picture of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

S: Who's that?

ME: Hillary Clinton. She wants to be President.

S: Who's that?

ME: Barack Obama. He wants to be President, too.

(pause)

ME: Who do you think should be President.

S: Both of them!

Chanting. "I want both of them! I want both of them!"

Kindergarten Political Acumen

2008-01-03T20:46:00.000-06:00

Actual conversation between me, my six-year-old daughter, and her four-year-old sister as we watched the early coverage of the Iowa Caucuses.

N: (looking at Republican contenders) Is that George Bush?

ME: No.

N: Is that?

ME: No.

N: Is that?

ME: No. None of them are. George Bush can't run in this election.

N: Why not?

ME: It's a rule. You can only be President for eight years. He's been President for seven years. It's going to be somebody else's turn soon.

N: So he won't be President anymore?

ME: No next year we will have a new President.

BOTH GIRLS: YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

Talking Radio Heads

2007-10-12T20:17:00.001-05:00

If'n you think you might enjoy hearing my latest thoughts on online music including Radiohead's innovative release and the Thomas verdict (along with engaging and pithy comments from Chicago music critic Jim Derogatis, and the usual from RIAA P.R. person Cara Duckworth) streamed at you in glorious stereophonic sound, go to MPR's page and hit the little audio icon.

The Rainbow Connection

2007-10-10T08:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm now listening to the most dramatic intervention in the debates over online music since Wilco put Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online while waiting for its record company to quit dithering and release the band's best record. Radiohead's In Rainbows will inevitably be remembered at least as much for its distribution as for its content. The delivery this morning was amazingly easy, in sharp contrast to the purchasing process. One element that I have not seen addressed s forcefully as it should be in the various discussions of Radiohead's innovative approach to distributing this record is that whether one paid or not, the registration system for the record required joining Radiohead's mailing list. (Or didn't you read the sentence buried at the bottom of the Terms and Conditions which read: "Mailing list : By registering with the shop, w.a.s.t.e. products may use your e-mail address to send you Radiohead news, updates, ticket info etc." Oh, you say you didn't read it? Hmmmm. Go figure.)

For those who opted to pay nothing, this is arguably a fair deal. For those who paid even a nominal sum, this was not so fair. Sure, I can set up a spam filter to purge my impending Radiohead spam (however artful it may be, spam is spam). More to the point, Radiohead's approach is not scalable. While I might be willing to type in all of my vitals for the new Radiohead record, I am not willing to do this artist by artist for all the music I purchase, nor would I be willing to be on all of those mailing lists. Still, kudos to Radiohead for being both big enough and smart enough to generate such a huge publicity splash for this approach.

And, as a practical matter, Radiohead will probably see more cash from me on this release than they have ever seen before. While I like the band, I've previously been content to wait around for their records to hit the CD Clubs or used bins. Neither of these types of purchases do much for the band's bottom line (indeed, the latter does nothing for it). My payment of a few pounds � paid directly to the band � will certainly dramatically exceed all of my previous net compensation to the band. And while I'm old enough to be mildly mournful about the lack of a physical something to hold on to and scratch, some fan somewhere is probably developing her own JPEGs that she'll then upload as the unofficial cover for the record.

And physical copies are so 20th Century! while Prince also deserves credit for giving away physical copies of his most recent CD with a UK newspaper, that doesn't do much for those of us who weren't able to get our hands on a copy of The Daily Mail.

For the price of name, rank, and serial number + whatever one's conscience dictates, Radiohead's latest album is available to anyone with an Internet connection. No matter how you slice it, that's progress.

And the record sounds great.

The Most Danceable Internet Research Tool Ever . . .

2007-09-20T11:08:00.000-05:00

I am astonished by this.

As you can see, what we have here is a remarkably comprehensive rundown of the first decade of Internet celebrity -- including an up-to-the summer inclusion of Minneapolis' own, and mighty Tay Zonday -- all set to a peppy, hyper-caffeinated pop beat.

I will teach this the next chance I get.