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Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, History & Politics, Humor & Pop Culture, Storytelling.
Another one stolen from Raj Beri’s Unfit2Print:
In a sign of solidarity with their Writer’s Guild of America brethren, the nation’s top political speechwriters went on strike early Thursday morning. The move comes at the worst possible time for the Democratic and Republican candidates vying for their Parties Presidential nominations. The Head of the Political Speechwriters Association (PSA) commented on the decision, which caught most DC insiders off guard, saying, “We thought it was the appropriate action at this point. We don’t really have any grievances or complaints, it’s more symbolic. Just like the rest of America, we’re tired of watching The Daily Show without writers. It’s just not funny. Maybe this action will spur some governmental pressure on Hollywood to get a deal done, so we can also actually get to see the Scrubs series finale.”
When asked how this would affect the Candidates in advance of Super Tuesday on February 5th, the PSA Head responded, “We hope this will not be too much of an inconvenience to them. We’re sympathetic to their situations and have given all the Republican and Democratic candidates a 2008 Oxford Dictionary, the New York Times Style Guide and taught them how to use the Thesaurus feature in Word, in preparation for our strike.”
The effect of the strike can already be seen in the Candidates’ public appearances. Just today, while addressing an outdoor rally in Syracuse, New York, Barack Obama appeared flustered and incoherent on stage, saying at one point,“Our Moment is Now. Me Black. Vote me now. Our Moment is Now. Ebony over Ivory. No harmony. You vote Obama. ” Hilary Clinton did not fare much better, as evidenced by her speech this afternoon to a packed stadium at Harvard University, in which she simply cried for 27 minutes, without pause, and then another 15 minutes during the Q and A session.
Without Speechwriters, Clinton Beefs up Crying Strategy
On the Republican side, political insiders reported that Mitt Romney stands to be the most affected by the strike. One political analyst commented, “Romney is going to be really challenged by this strike. The speechwriters at least did a good job of having him not come off as a religious nut. Now? Without the softening affects his speechwriters provided, he’s definitely coming off as uber-Mormon, which is not a good sign. Might as well stick a fork in him and call him Big Love if the strike drags on. Saying stuff like, ‘Polygamy is not such a bad thing… unless it’s same sex polygamy of course…then it’s just wrong. Like burn in Hell wrong”, might be a good platform to run a campaign on in parts of the Middle East, but it definitely won’t win him voters here, outside of Utah.”
One politician who is an unlikely casualty of the PSA strike, however, is President George Bush. Surprisingly, it was revealed today that Bush actually has been using a speechwriter during his terms as President . “Really?”, said one Senator, “Someone was actually writing for him? I just assumed that he had to be coming up with that stuff on his… I mean, really? Wow, I hope that guy can find work after the strike ends.”
Unfortunately, at the time we went to press, the Obama, Clinton, Romney and Bush Camps were unable to offer an official comment on the strike as their speechwriters were unavailable to craft it for them.
Posted on January 21st, 2008 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Humor & Pop Culture.
One of our very first contributors, Raj, has taken up investigative journalism on his own blog Unfit2Print. Here I’ve republished a fascinating article from his site:
The Church of Scientology held a press conference yesterday to formally cut ties with Tom Cruise. The prepared statement read in part, “After much careful deliberation, we have decided that it is best for all parties concerned that Tom no longer be affiliated with the Church. This is not a decision we took lightly, but in light of many factors, including his recent lackluster box office performance and the ‘ickiness’ of his relationship with Katie Holmes, we thought this was the most prudent action. That, and frankly, he’s a little out there even for us, and that’s saying a lot.”
When asked if there was any one particular incident that drove the Church of Scientology to take this drastic action, a spokesperson commented, “It wasn’t one thing really. Even before the Oprah jumping up and down on the couch episode we started to wonder if Tom was really the type of high profile person we wanted to represent the Church. We’re trying to be taken seriously as a religion and having Tom as a public spokesperson has been, well, disastrous. I mean, there are ways to defend your religion in public and ways not to. Saying, ‘Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then F-you. Really. F-you. Period.’, is not a scholastic rebuttal we as a Church endorse. ”
The Church, founded by author L. Ron Hubbard over 50 years ago, is used to controversy and mocking, but apparently draws the line at pint-sized movie stars who claim to know more than some of the worlds greatest minds. A high ranking member of the Church told us, “Discrediting Freud and Kinsey? I’m no medical genius but psychiatry and what-not have been around for a little longer than our Church I think. And saying giving a kid Ritalin is akin to giving them Cocaine? Whoa. Hold your horses. My kid has a little ADD and when he gets in one of his hyperactive moods, I admit, I slip him a little Ritalin to focus him…and yes maybe a little Nyquil in his milk to knock him out so I can have 20 minutes of peace in my day…but the point is, who is he to knock 200 years of medicine? He hasn’t even played a doctor in a movie as far as I can tell. Now, maybe if it was George Clooney, people would take him seriously, because of his longstanding role on ER, or even the guy from Scrubs, but Tom Cruise? That’s stretching it. ”
Martha McLoskey, a devout Scientology follower, agrees with her Church’s decision. “I can handle John Travolta and even Katie Holmes to an extent, but I cringe every time I go to TMZ and see Tom has done something stupid again in the name of Scientology. Most of us are just regular people. We practice medicine without a license and perform the odd ritual sacrifice just like any cult…um, I mean, religion.” The Scientology spokesperson went on to say that severing ties with Cruise was mandated by the Church’s Disconnection Policy, which, in his words states that, “members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members considered annoying or ballistic”. When we corrected him and let him know the actual Scientology texts say Disconnection applied to “friends and family members considered antagonistic”, not “annoying and ballistic”, the spokesperson retorted, “Whatever. Our Church was started by a Sci-Fi writer. And not even Asimov or Orwell.”
One reporter pushed this point, questioning whether Scientology was actually a religion or more of a pyramid scheme like Amway. The spokesperson responded, “We’re nothing like a pyramid scheme. We pay our members for bringing in other people to the Church and the more members they bring in, the more money they, and the church make. Does that sound like a pyramid scheme to you?” When told that this was, in fact, the accepted definition of a pyramid scheme, the spokesperson abruptly changed the topic back to Cruise, saying, “In the end, the values of the Church and Tom were just diverging. It was one thing to put up with him making us watch ‘Days of Thunder’ over and over again when he had a high Q rating, but now? I don’t think so. And then we heard he had been seen lunching with Mel Gibson. That was the last straw. We have enough bad press already and the last thing we need is all the Jews breathing down our necks.”
Posted on January 16th, 2008 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment.
A while back I wrote about the impending death of the CD and my thoughts on it. To summarize: Who cares? Well now as we rock into ‘08, I thought it would be interesting to look at the year in review from a music consumption standpoint and where the industry might head in the future. First, let’s look at the overall numbers. According to Nielsen Soundscan, total CD sales were down 19% in 2007 and total album sales, which includes digital downloads, were down 15%. Compound that with the fact that the biggest album of 2007 was Josh Groban’s Noel (In my opinion, another sign of the impending apocalypse. I know I definitely want to end it when I hear one of his songs.), and that video games officially passed music as a lucrative industry in 2007, and you have pretty bad news for the music industry right? Yup, but not necessarily for consumers. Does this mean that we’re listening to less music these days? Hell’s no. In some cases, we’re just not paying for it. Piracy is a big reason for the decline in sales as music freely changes hands. As is the rise of the single download. People aren’t buying whole albums anymore, they’re picking and choosing songs that they like and buying those. These numbers aren’t factored into the figures above.
But, the bottom line is that the industry isn’t making as much money, and in the end the fans could suffer if good music doesn’t reach its intended audience. With the power of the web to virally spread music and Web 2.0 tools to engage consumers, however, the relevance of the Labels is starting to fade. It’s been shown that you don’t necessarily need a label to make it big and more artists are bypassing the middle-man and reaching out directly to the consumer. Ok, the model is obviously broken and has been for sometime. But, there are right ways and wrong ways to fix it.
Wrong way: Digital Rights Management (DRM) to prevent piracy and the sharing of music. This way of thinking is dying a much needed death with Amazon, and even Apple recently, opting to offer music without DRM. This just annoys the consumer and makes them find other ways to get the music they want.
Wrong way: Limit single downloads and force the consumer to but the whole album. An example of this was Jay-Z, with the American Gangster soundtrack (great album by the way). His reasoning was that the album was a story and needed to be listened to in its entirety. You could say the same thing about the Bible, but people seem to get along ok reading passages from it each week as opposed to the whole thing. If it’s good enough for God, it should be good enough for Jigga. i.e.; this just doesn’t work and pisses off your audience.
The moral of the story? The consumer is king. You can’t tell them how to consume your music, how to virally spread it, what format to listen to it and more so now with mash-ups, how to manipulate it. So what is the answer? Well, I’d be doing it if I was sure, but it will involve some sort of new business model. One idea I think might be worth exploring in the near future is ad-supported content, similar to other web based business models. Inevitably, I see that music can be offered free to the consumers the same way content from newspapers is now free online. One way to do that is to link advertisers with artists and labels, in a co-branding type enterprise. You go to download the latest Killers album or Kanye song and you have to see a pre-roll video ad and some display ads fromvToyota or Budweiser. Will consumers go for it? If you can get your music for free, I think so. It’s obviously not that simple and there are underlying economics to be worked out to see if it could be viable, but I believe fundamental shifts like this are necessary for the music industry to survive over the next few years.
Posted on May 22nd, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: History & Politics.
Big Brother is watching you…online. Google searches now being used at border crossings. This one is scary. From the NY Times. Being convicted of a crime is one thing, but simply mentioning in article that you took LSD 40 freakin’ years ago (Hello…so did half the population, it was the 60’s) is apparrently now enough to be permanently barred from entering the US:
The Nation’s Borders, Now Guarded by the Net
Published: May 14, 2007, NYTimes
Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a
friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble
at the border. A guard typed Mr. Feldmar’s name into an Internet search engine, which
revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an
interdisciplinary journal. Mr. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer
welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and
where both of his children live. Mr. Feldmar, 66, has a distinguished résumé, no criminal record and a candid
manner. Though he has not used illegal drugs since 1974, he says he has no
regrets. “It was an absolutely fascinating and life-altering experience for me,” he
said last week of his experimentation with LSD and other psychedelic drugs.
“The insights it provided have lasted for a lifetime. It allowed me to feel
what it would be like to live without habits.”
Mr. Feldmar said he had been in the United States more than 100 times and
always without incident since he last took an illegal drug. But that changed
in August, thanks to the happenstance of an Internet search, conducted for
unexplained reasons, at the Peace Arch border station in Blaine, Wash.
The search turned up an article in a 2001 issue of the journal Janus Head
devoted to the legacy of R. D. Laing, with whom Mr. Feldmar had studied in
London about 30 years before.
“I traveled to many regions many times with the help of many different
substances,” Mr. Feldmar wrote of his experiences with Dr. Laing and other
psychiatrists and therapists. “I took peyote, psilocybin mushrooms,
cannabis” and other drugs, he added, “but I kept coming back to LSD.”
He was asked by a border guard whether he was the author of the article and
whether it was true. Yes, he replied. And yes.
Mr. Feldmar was held for four hours, fingerprinted and, after signing a
statement conceding the long-ago drug use, sent home.
Mike Milne, a spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection agency in
Seattle, said he could not discuss individual cases for reasons of privacy.
But the law is clear, Mr. Milne said. People who have used drugs are not
welcome here.
“If you are or have been a drug user,” he said, “that’s one of the many
things that can make you inadmissible to the United States.”
He added that the government was constantly on the hunt for new sources of
information. “Any new technology that we have available to us, we use to do
searches on,” Mr. Milne said.
Mr. Feldmar has been told by the American consul general in Vancouver that
he may now enter the United States only if he obtains a formal waiver.
“Both our countries have very similar regulations regarding issuance of
visas for citizens who have violated the law,” the consul, Lewis A. Lukens,
wrote to Mr. Feldmar in September. “The issue here is not the writing of an
article, but the taking of controlled substances. I hear from American
citizens all the time with decades-old D.U.I. convictions who are barred
from entry into Canada and who must apply for waivers. Same thing here.”
The waiver process would require a lawyer, several thousand dollars and
dishonesty, Mr. Feldmar said. He would have to say he has been
rehabilitated. “Rehabilitated from what?” Mr. Feldmar asked. “It’s degrading, literally
degrading.”
Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which
works to ease drug penalties, said Mr. Feldmar’s case proves how arbitrary
American drug policy can be.
“Roughly a majority of the population of the United States between the ages
of 18 and 58 has violated a drug law at least once,” Mr. Nadelmann said, and
there is no reason to think that Canadians and other foreigners of a certain
age have experimented much less. It has been a long, strange trip from the Summer of Love to the Age of
Terror, from excluding people based on actual criminal convictions to
turning them away based on a border guard’s Internet search. The first
approach is rooted in due process and enhances the nation’s security. The
second is profoundly arbitrary and effectively punishes not past drug use
but honest discourse about it.
“I should warn people that the electronic footprint you leave on the Net
will be used against you,” Mr. Feldmar said. “It cannot be erased.”
Posted on May 1st, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Humor & Pop Culture.
So, is it just me or are bathroom gender signs becoming way too difficult to decipher? I know something like this has happened to you: You’re at a restaurant or bar, need to hit the head and find youself facing two doors with signs.
On one door: a picture of a ladder prortruding out of a tree being barked at by a dog wearing a bowtie on a vespa scooter
And on the other door: a tree protruding out of a ladder seemedly barking at vespa scooter wrapped in a bow on the back of a dog.
WTF? Seriously, who comes up with these signs and how the hell are we supposed to know which door to choose? When did an advanced degree in contemporary art symbolism or knowledge of greek hieroglyphics become a prerequisite for taking a leak in public?
Let’s take the typical bar situation. It’s 1 AM, you’re a guy at the bar and have just consumed 6 beers in the last two hours. It hits you and you rush to the bathroom with only one thing on your mind. Now you come face to face with two doors, one with a picture of a cactus and the other a picture of a bronco. Then there’s the inevitable confusion and perplexity about which door to use. Remember, this is a time when your brain is not functioning at full capacity; you’ve had a few drinks and the blood is rushing south not north. Not the ideal time to expect people to solve Da Vinci’s code with a Captain Crunch decoder ring to figure out your “cute” bathroom signage. Yes, I’m sure you thought it was clever when you came up with it and if we spent 30 minutes or so we’d figure it out, but the bathroom door is not the place to display your sharp wit and creative mind.
Keep it simple please. Take it back old school and flash the M and W but if you must be creative abide by certain rules. For example as a guideline:
Buoys and Gulls- Acceptable.
Laddies and Lassies-Acceptable.
Mr. T in drag and Hilary Clinton dressed like Charlie Chaplin-Not acceptable.
In general, if we need to think more than five seconds, have a knowledge of college level physics or be familiar with 4th century Aramaic religous texts to read your bathroom signage….get rid of it.
I mean, the worst thing is to have to ask someone at the bar which bathroom to use. It’s just embarassing. I once just held it in for an hour rather than ask my buddies which door to use out of fear of being made fun of. Bathroom signs as a rule should not make one feel dumb and frustrated, rather they should be welcoming and calming.
So establishment owners, let’s dial it back. No more abstract art depictions that thematically depict the male or female persona with their symbolic undertones. M and W. Stick man and Stick woman. Guy in suit and girl in dress. Keep it real.
Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Arts & Literature.
Living in Philly the last two years, the two things I’ve been most pleasantly surprised by are the restaurant scene and the art galleries. Good food and good art are things I thought i’d be leaving behind when I left LA but that hasn’t been the case (except for Mexican food. Can’t get a decent burrito in the city). Today, for example I checked out the TODT Collective’s exhibit After Next at the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Center City.
TODT first appeared on the scene in New York in the 80’s and took the art world by storm with its experimental and intense works of art. The mystique around TODT (which translates to “I love David Hasselhoff” in German….just kidding it’s an old German and Dutch word for death), stems from the four member collectives anonymity and disdain for attention and commercial success. The collective’s members are still largely a mystery and they pretty much dissapeared from the art scene in the 90’s….until now. The current exhibit has many works from TODT’s early days, some new ones as well and is a good representation of TODT at its most brilliant and bizarre.
Laps is a toilet with brown fluid and a pair of Speedo goggles that flushes every five minutes, Phalanx is an installation of Weed Wackers hung on the wall ready to be plugged in. Photos fusing sexual acts with dental procedures, paintings of animals hooked up to draconian looking mechanical devices and a 3D image of a fetus spinning around in a kaledioscope type device are other examples of TODT’s mad scientist type work. The point? The common theme through all of TODT’s work is the depiction of a world controlled by science and government as well as a dry commentary on our consumer culture.
The exhibit also includes Double Fuck Susie which gained notriety in the 90’s when it was censored at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a ballistic weapons installation that apparently stopped onlookers on the streets of Philadelphia when it was being brought into the museum. Definitely check out TODT if they ever come to your town. And if you find out who they are definitely let me know.
Posted on February 4th, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Consumer Products.
So, does anyone actually buy CD’s anymore? If you’re like me you get your music in one of four ways:
1) Legal downloads
2) Illegal downloads
3) Digital music transfers from friends
4) You steal it from kids and old ladies on the street
Ok, so maybe 3 of the 4 ways are more widely used but you get the point.
The recent bankruptcy of traditional music retailers like Tower Records and the decline of CD sales over the last few years doesn’t auger well for the CD, and the rise in digital download sales, which doubled in 2006, has not made up for the decline in CD sales. Digital downloads now make up over 10%, or $2 Billion, of the total music market. My question is does anyone care about the death of the CD? Do we have an emotional attachment to CD’s the way our parents generation loved the album? While the album continues to survive in its niche markets (collectors, DJ’s, the Amish, etc.), will we cherish our CD collections? Now, granted, I like leafing through my CD binders and I probably have over 1000 CD’s, but I’m not nostalgic. I find it much more convenient to store and listen to all my music digitally. When do I use a CD? Maybe when driving in a car but not really now with my Ipod connector. To me convenience is King, and the CD is no longer convenient. But what about the CD artwork and booklet Raj? All (more…)
Posted on January 23rd, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Humor & Pop Culture.
Was reading one of my favorite emerging trends e-newsletters put out by iconoculture and found myself intrigued by the latest in sustainability efforts: the sustainable dance club. The concept, unveiled under the moniker “The Critical Mass” had it’s kickoff party late last year in Rotterdam and unveiled its concept: “Going out in a hip and trendy club and still be responsible. This idea forms the base for the Sustainable Dance Club. The presentation of this concept took place under the name ‘The Critical Mass’. It combines contemporary lifestyle with the latest ideas on sustainability. This club night is the kick off for the realization of the Sustainable Dance Club” What’s the meat behind this? In summary:
The environmental implications are huge as well with dance-clubs being labeled the “SUV’s” of the underground, in terms of wastage (water bottles, plastic, etc) and the power drain. This will def appeal to the young urban ravers who already have environmental impact at the forefront of their minds.
Now, can it be a reality? Check out a demo of the concept here. And this is no pie in the sky pipe dream. Enviu, a sustainable nonprofit is collaborating with academics in the Netherlands, club industry experts, entrepreneurs and creative types to promote the idea of sustainable clubbing. Gotta love it.
Posted on January 17th, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Travel & Leisure, History & Politics.
Spent the last 2 1/2 weeks wandering aimlessly around Morocco searching for the perfect hookah and the meaning of life (could they be the same thing?). Found instead that riding on a camel hurts my ass and that David Hasselhoff means nothing to Moroccans but Bollywood is king. (more…)
Posted on January 17th, 2007 by Raj.
Categories: Media & Entertainment.
So, if any of you are interested in Digital Media and just don’t know where to go for all the latest developments, start by adding these sites to your favorites tab: I Want Media and Paid Content. A good commentary and rundown of the latest in this ever changing space.
Today’s digital media question is brought to you by the letter A and the number 3: If a social networking site is created in the forest does anybody make money? Up until now that’s been the question when it comes to sites like MySpace, etc. which have a ton of users but no real monetization model. Investors, corporate America and advertisers alike have long been scratching their heads on how to best make money off these immensely popular sites. And how do you value companies like these that have a bunch of users but no real revenue streams? Well it’s damn hard as some have postulated. But the future seems to becoming a bit clearer….or has it? A recent report by Deloitte says that these sites will start charging members for privacy to appeal to the older generation and subscription services like voice messaging and online storage. Ok, I see this as a possibility but still think the big money will be coming from targeted advertising, corporate branding and strategic partnerships, like what MySpace is rumored to have in the works with its charging of third party users, but only time will tell. These social neworking sites have become such big news in investing circles that even the Street (Bear Stearns) put out an analyst report valuing MySpace and showing why it won’t be the next Friendster based on user survey data and other metrics. It’s actually kind of funny to see a site like MySpace dissected coldly by some analyst sitting behind a cubicle, complete with projected earnings, returns, blah, blah, blah. Def not what anyone thought would be happening a couple years ago, but that is the new media crazy world we live in.
