When you get older, these kinds of reflections start to seem all the more uncomfortable don't they? That makes them all the better to consider and think about.
In the comments someone posted a monologue from Craig Ferguson that was worth a listen:
Recently in Movies, TV, Radio, Comics, Books Category
Was the call to Conan's defense against Leno a Gen-X and Gen-Y cry against Baby Boomer entrenchment?
All I ask is one thing. And this is... I'm asking this in particular of young people that watch. Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record its my least favorite quality. It doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you - Amazing things will happen. I'm telling you. It's just true.
Gawker: CoCo's Last Dance: "Hardest Thing I Have Ever Had to Do"
"People were told to read it, memorize it, and destroy it because if they were caught with it, they could be killed." - Joe Wos on the dangers of possessing a copy of "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story", a comic book, in the 1960s.
You can read the comic, originally published 1956 online. It still has a message that resonates.
You can read the background on the comic book from Tom Christopher.
Check out the Metafilter Thread and links from Bleeding Cool.
YouTube: Doctor Who: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Daleks (The Peter Jones-y Edit):
Related:
Rich's The Ten Doctors - a fantastic fan made graphic novel.
YouTube: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (warning - NSFW language by a homicidal maniac with a prisoner in his basement):
Yeah, its a long, long, long review, but it needs to be to nail just how bad the movie was.
The Muppet Newsflash: Sesame Street Celebrates 40th Anniversary with Two New History Books
Old clips of Elmo with Kermit on YouTube helped me expose Emma to the Muppets a few years ago. Now Muppets are part of the Sesame Street universe for her, as it was me and Richelle when we were growing up. Here are two great ones:
YouTube: Sesame Street: Kermit Reports News On Elmo's Idea:
YouTube: Sesame Street: Kermit And Elmo Discuss Happy And Sad:
Gotta love Cookie Monster:
YouTube: Sesame Street & The Origin of Om nom nom nom:
YouTube: Sesame Street: Cookie Monster Sings C is for Cookie:
Or Ernie:
YouTube: Sesame Street: Ernie and his Rubber Duckie:
I could post a million videos but you're better off just visiting the Sesame Street channel on YouTube
And as Emma knows, Kermit's my personal favorite. Its great that we can watch the old Muppet movies with her and she loves them is so much fun.
YouTube: Muppet Movie - The Rainbow Connection:
Lately on YouTube, the Muppets Studio has been posting new videos, this one is genius!
YouTube: The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody:
And one last one, not to show to kids, but too funny not share:
YouTube: The Song of the Count - Lemon Demon Version:
I wonder, now that the Muppets and Sesame Street are owned and operated so separately, will there ever be a moment in any future movie like the wedding chapel in Muppets Take Manhattan? When Emma saw Big Bird and crew in the pews, she yelled with surprise and joy.
I think we used Sesame Street as a guide for what constituted 'good' children's television for us. The Backyardigans, Jack's Big Music Show, The Wonder Pets, Blue's Clues (did you know Blue's Clues was created by former Sesame Street writers?), Dora and Diego, all are in its spirit. No Baby Einstein, and nothing that had more quick shot cuts than Sesame Street for example, Yo Gaba Gaba. Good songwriting, flow, encouragement of imagination and *thinking*. That's what we were looking for in children's television. And I think we can say thanks to Sesame Street for that.
Related Articles:
NPR.org: Lessons Of 'Sesame Street': Letters, Numbers And TV
NPR.org: 40 Years Of Lessons On 'Sesame Street'
NYTimes: Same Street, Different World: 'Sesame' Turns 40
NationalPost: 101 Muppets of Sesame Street
Time Magazine: Ludwig Wittgenstein: He began by trying to reduce all mathematics to logic and ended by finding most metaphysics to be nonsense
Ludwig Wittgensten is a major character in Logicomix.
YouTube: Logicomix: the making of, Part 1 of 3:
YouTube: Logicomix: the making of, Part 2 of 3:
YouTube: Logicomix: the making of, Part 3 of 3:
Darryl Cunningham is a comic book creator, blogger, sculptor and more. He also spent time working in a psychiatric ward.
He is chronicling his experience working in a psychiatric ward in a new graphic novel titled "Psychiatric Tales". He's been posting draft chapters of of the book on his blog over the past year.
Every chapter has been speaking to me on one level or another, but I want to call out two for now: "It Could Be You" and "People With Mental Illness Enhance Our Lives"
Along a similar vein is "LOGICOMIX", a graphic novel documenting the experience of some of the largest names in mathematics, and what they sacrificed to make their contributions, including, sometimes, their mental health.
YouTube: (Michael Jackson) Billie Jean - Sungha Jung:
Wow.
I had posted the following to Twitter, but it belongs here:
"11 years old, standing on chestnut st. near 11th, outside store, watching tvs play Thriller thru a window. that was me."
Michael Jackson's death triggered moments of reflection for many. So many that services across the Web struggled to stay functional as people either reached out for news, or to share their memories with one another.
He stands as a kind of Rorschach test. What you think of him and his contributions to music and entertainment are dependent on you - the information published about him you cared to absorb, rationalize, relate to, or reject.
He was a force. He left an imprint.
YouTube: Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" cover by Amanda Palmer (live):
Some links:
WNEW.com: The Epic of Michael Jackson
Metafilter: Ongoing thread
Attytood: The Love You Save: Michael Jackson and the rear-guard Baby Boomers
NPR.org: Michael Jackson: Life Of A Pop Icon
Susie Madrak: The Life and Death of Michael Jackson
Jeneane Sessum: Have You Seen My Childhood
Comcaster Scott Westerman: Michael Jackson's place in the pantheon of our lives
Lisa Marie Presley: He Knew.
CSMonitor: Outpouring over Michael Jackson unlike anything since Princess Di
Koax! Koax! Koax! (via boing boing): Some thoughts on Michael Jackson
YouTube: I'll Be There Acapella:
And lastly, a very deep thought by co-worker John: "The Michael Jackson we knew died a long time ago"
comcast.net Music: JT Ramsay: Is the Rock Star Dead?:
The days of major labels turning ordinary people into rock stars is over. There will be pop hits here and there, but chances are you'll never see someone reach the heights of (sustainable) fame in the manner that artists as disparate as Guns 'N Roses and Britney Spears enjoyed again. You could blame Britney and Miley, but we've always had pop stars. We could just as soon blame Frankie Avalon!
But that's not just because of the major label's money woes. It's that major music media just keeps disappearing, whether it's in print or on television. It seems much tougher for stars to create myths about themselves at a time when we know even the most minute details about them, whether it's through outlets like TMZ.com, or from the star's themselves (or their ghost-tweeters) via Twitter.
Most well known for playing Lorne on Angel, a demon who could predict your future if you sung or hummed a tune. It doesn't seem right he was so young. You can pay your respects at this link.
I didn't know how to feel when I heard about the "Where the Wild Things Are" movie adaption or when I saw the trailer, but Emma liked it. A lot. Talk about a hard movie to produce. If they succeed, it will be magical. If they fail, it will be more of the same... unfortunately. Keeping my fingers crossed. It would be great to take Emma to this.
How BSG wrapped up (or didn't) will be talked about for a good long while. And that's perfect if you ask me. Unlike The Sopranos, a show that begged for a close that had resolution, Galactica wouldn't have been served well if every if every question was answered. Like Dave Rogers I feel that the show attempted to hold up a mirror to life itself, which ultimately is a mystery.
Something to think about - while the survivors ultimately reject technology - there is a marriage of man's creations and forces beyond knowledge that carry the survivors to Earth.
You tell me - didn't you feel pain watching Galactica, itself, herself, 'break her back' in that final jump?
Some related reading:
io9: As Battlestar Ends, God Is In the Details
Seattle PI: Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore Answers Our Burning Questions
geekdad: BSG at the UN: Wow, That Actually Worked!
YouTube: BSG at UN
Salon: Goodbye, "Galactica"
guardian.co.uk: Battlestar Galactica: Better than The Wire?
"Sita Sings the Blues" and "Thru-You"
Related:
Tor.com: Tickled Pink By Sita Sings the Blues
Laughing Squid: Kutiman Remixes YouTube on Thru-You
Obsidian Portal - I have a few friends that would LOVE to dive into this.
Ask yourself, who today would argue, "I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."
Not many. Think about this - by participating on the Internet - logging on your client - you've already permitted yourself to be identified by a number.
Number Six's pursuit of freedom and individuality gave fans of the show something to root for. As did finding who was the hidden Number One behind the Village.
When revealed, the answer drove many fans of The Prisoner crazy. I *love* the ending. There's layers of meaning there. But I wasn't living in that day and age, waiting, and waiting for the answer, only to be confounded once broadcast (far more shocking than the controversial Soprano's ending (which was a cop out)).
Like The Prisoner, Battlestar Galactica explores themes about humanity, individuality, community, mob dynamics, fear, surveillance, soulless commercialism, politics, the good and evil within us all. I wonder when we find out who the Fifth Cylon is there will be a collective "meh" or outrage? You'd have to be brave to pull off what The Prisoner did. Very brave in this day and age. The Prisoner challenged us to think about the world we were creating for ourselves - our world as it exists today.
Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: We want information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information... information... information.
Number 6: You won't get it.
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number 2.
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a number, I am a free man.
Number 2: Laughter.
Wired: R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner's TV Visionary
AMC is doing a new version of The Prisoner, due later this year. They have a blog where you can follow the production and the main site is well done. Lacking are links to the pre-existing Prisoner community of fan sites and that is criminal if you ask me.
Wired: The Prisoner Reboots the Panopticon for 21st Century
Related links:
Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society
Wikipedia entry for The Prisoner
- Be seeing you.
"The Prisoner", and "The Wrath of Khan".
Tor.com: Will you be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered?
AMC has put all 17 original episodes of The Prisoner online!: The Prisoner 1967-1968
"Put on Yoda movie. Put on Yoda movie. Put on Yoay movie."
....
"Where's Jar-Jar?"
Charles Hatfield documents a project by Jack Kirby where The Prisoner was almost published as a comic.
Bettie Page (April 22, 1923 - December 11, 2008)
LATimes: Bidding Bettie Page farewell:
"I was not trying to be shocking, or to be a pioneer," Page explained in an interview years later."I wasn't trying to change society, or to be ahead of my time. I didn't think of myself as liberated, and I don't believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn't know any other way to be, or any other way to live."
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (February 23 1932 - December 18 2008)
Projo Subterranean Homepage News: Voice of the Star Trek computer, Majel Roddenberry, dies at 76:
See, Gene was a fantastic storyteller, probably the best in the business. What he did was tell stories. He didn't lay plots and ideas and things like that -- he told stories. You can take any one of our stories that we use right now, put western clothes on us, stick us out in the west and they'll work just as well -- any single one of them -- because they're stories about people, they're stories about things. And, of course, Gene had to put some of his philosophy into each one of them, but that was just his way of, really, getting past the censors. The censorship in those days was just horrible.
The Existential Clown: Why Jim Carrey makes us uncomfortable:
Jim Carrey will loom large in our shattered posterity, I believe, because his filmography amounts to a uniquely sustained engagement with the problem of the self. Who knows how the self became such a problem, or when we began to feel the falseness in our nature? "There's another man within me, that's angry with me," wrote Sir Thomas Browne in Religio Medici, three and a half centuries before the scene in Liar Liar where the hero stuffs his own head into the toilet bowl. Other clowns have risen since Carrey first stormed the multiplexes with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective--Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Seth Rogen--but for more than a decade now, he has been the go-to guy for high-concept metaphysics, for Hollywood's sci-fi of the self. How about ... an insurance salesman who discovers that his whole life is an elaborate fiction created by a malign TV producer?! Or--yeah!--a mendacious lawyer compelled to tell the truth for 24 hours?! Or even a blacklisted screenwriter (The Majestic) who loses his memory and wakes up to find that everybody thinks he's a war hero?!
Lifehacker has some useful links.
Well not exactly. But I know I'm going to enjoy this over any of the "Clone Wars" cartoons that have aired so far.
That's what John Baichtal at his Wired Blog "Geek Dad" called Cory Doctorow's book sci-fi novel "Little Brother", in his glowing review posted last week.
While you can download the book for free legally from the website, I'm going to want to buy a copy for the bookshelf - it's a great book so far.
One of the best purchases of mine these past few months was following his comic book series "Futuristic Tales" from IDW. As a sci-fi and comic book fan, I gotta tell ya, it was worth every penny.
There is a great Wired retrospective on "Weird Al" Yankovic's career.
YouTube: The Port Angeles, WA. High School Mondo-Band!!!!:
YouTube: nice version on keyboards:
What a radical concept - not looking down on your audience.
ohnotheydidnt: Kermit Bale - cute... and suspicious.
WFMU's Beware of the Blog has a great piece on George Carlin's early years, including clips and audio.
WFMU's Beware of the Blog: "The Early George Carlin 1956-1970":
"The musicians I knew had gone through that transition ... I'm listening to Bob Dylan ... and I realize these artists are using their talent to project their feelings and ideas... not just please people ... I was in the wrong place. In 1967 ... I was thirty. I was entertaining people in nightclubs who were forty. They were at war with their kids who were twenty. There was a generation war. I was in the middle of it. I said 'what the fuck am I doing over here?' [The twenty year olds] are the people who will understand me and give me a chance ... I took two years to change and it happened on television ... happened on ... shows like Della Reese, Virgina Graham and Steve Allen," He added, "Virginia Graham was a real shit stirrer. She just loved to get me to talk about smoking pot and Henry Mancini... she got Henry Mancini to cop out to being a pot smoker on TV ... I went on there ... my beard was growing ... my attitudes ... were changing. And I talked about my changes on the panel... a lot."
io9 has a terrific guide: "Doctor Who: How To Discover Classic Doctor Who In 3 Easy Steps".
Empire has a feature sharing their choice for the Civil War crossover that took place in Marvel comics over 2006 and 2007. It's weird, but back when I was a teen, there was no way I'd ever claim to be a fan of Captain America. But as an an adult, I recognize now that his character didn't represent the blind patriotism I thought it did - far from it in fact.
Here is a related story at NPR.
Now some choices from Empire's top 50
(But first note, no Superman, sorry Oliver. All powerful super heroes that aren't the least bit flawed in some way, never really interested me all that much. The funny thing is Supes used to be the template for super-heroes in comics - now he's the exception - which is making him more interesting to me now)
But they will be unavoidable today. So all I will say is when I get home tonight from work, I'm going to have a good drink in his name.
You made us laugh. And think. At the same time.
We'll miss you George.
Not all of us, but that is as it should be, how you preferred it, and that is why you left an impression on so many.
Metafilter: George Carlin Dead at 71
The NYTimes looks at the effects of DVRs and Web video on mass entertainment. It's not as clear cut as you think: In the Age of TiVo and Web Video, What Is Prime Time? - New York Times: "As a result of time-shifting, the biggest shows are getting bigger and some of the smaller shows are getting negatively impacted," the senior television executive said.
That's so counter intuitive. In my experience, my TV watching not only increased, but Richelle and me watch a far wider variety of shows.
TechRepublic.com: Sci-fi rant: When did Star Trek jump the shark?:
...there was the Borg Queen, and that ruined everything.The Borg were originally defined as genderless, faceless, nameless, all-consuming man-machine hybrids with which you could not negotiate, could not overpower, and only by sheer luck and creative individuality could you ever hope to defeat-temporarily. That is until First Contact, for which the producers needed a conventional villain for the "dumb audience," so we get Alice Krige gothed up in H.R. Giger fetish gear going all creepy-vampy on Data and retconning Locutus of Borg from a terrifying perversion of our beloved Captain Picard into a spurned cyborg concubine that Miss Borgy needed to acquire some V'ger-esque spark of humanity.
The Borg Queen single-handedly diminished the Borg from a personification of everyone's secret fear of the dehumanizing power of technology and conformity run amok into two-bit techno-zombie henchmen of everyone's un-fondly remembered codependent ex-girlfriend. (It's worth noting that in First Contact, the Borg assimilate you vampire-bite style, rather than through the slow, tortuous process seen in "The Best of Both Worlds." These are B-movie monsters now, not powerfully terrifying metaphors for identity-stripping monoculture.)
TechRepublic.com: When did Star Wars jump the shark?:
...Phantom Menace came along and, with all due disrespect to Jar Jar Binks, gave us the single worst Star Wars moment in a rapidly expanding history of awful Star Wars moments: Midi-chlorians.Jedi, you see, aren't made, they're born. They're of the blood, nobility, maybe even a master race. If your midi-chlorian count isn't high enough, don't even bother to apply. Anakin Skywalker was basically the equivalent of a can't-miss basketball prospect from the mean streets of Tatooine who got a Jedi Academy scholarship despite being a punk. Yeah, that's going to resonate with all the athletically addled dorks who used to idolize the franchise.
Yoda wasn't awesome because he was a zen-master adept who spent centuries honing his communion with The Force, but because his little frog-pig body was jam-packed with psionic parasites. That single slap in the face to Star Wars fans was the first of many attempts by Lucas to expand and explain the mechanics of his franchise, and in the process he knocked out the foundations of what was once the coolest character concept in all of sci-fi. Thanks, George.
Fun, worthy of argument :)
It used to be life or death to make it home in time to tune in to Star Blazers after school. It still resonates with me on some deep levels I have a hard time putting to words.
Looking back, I'm surprised it made it to the air the way it did. Certainly today, it would be far more censored than it already was. The plot had so much death. So much horror. So much pain.
So much that hinged on faith, honor, and ultimately love, overcoming fear.
Watch the following six videos in their entirety, with an open mind. Then imagine yourself as an eight year old doing so. Pretty profound for a "just a cartoon".
Star Blazers links:
- 20 Years Later: The Legacy of Star Blazers
- Star Blazers / Yamato: Wave Motion Web Page
- Star Blazers and Yamato Ultimate Resource Page
- Wikipedia: Space Battleship Yamato
- The Star Blazers You Didn't See
- All Things Space Battleship Yamato / Star Blazers
- Official Website
- totse.com: Star Trek:TNG - Enterprise vs. Star Blazers Yamato (beware - lots of NSFW content here)
This post was inspired by a post at Metafilter about 80s Cartoon Intros.
BSG's season, after a terrific start, culminating in one of the greatest sci-fi space battle scenes ever has gone downhill since. Far too much X-Files-like myth twisting over character and story development finalized last night in the killing off of it's most developed, interesting character - Kara Thrace - "Starbuck".
Good bye BSG. The move to Sunday night was killing me anyways. At least now I have my time back.
Ummm.... NSFW due to language okay?
Sounds ludicrous right? Not really. Because that's where Survivor is going to need to go to top the concept behind this year's series - dividing the tribes up by race. Yes you read that right. By blacks, whites, Asians, and Hispanics.
I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't believe in the suppression of it whatsoever. And I'm as un-politically correct as they come. Sam Kinison and George Carlin are my favorite comedians. South Park is one of my favorite shows. So never would I advocate banning or fining this.
The FCC is no friend to free speech.
So why be concerned or upset? I've talked to people in my line of work who don't feel the way I do. That this will be great TV. That generating any kind of discussion is good. And this last sentiment is one I always agree with.
But they don't come from where *I* come from. They don't know by what rationale my old neighbors will decide who to root for. And when "our" race's members lose - it will be talk of conspiracy and bias.
And hey, Survivor's Jeff Probst pretty much admits this in a recent interview. Watch it.
Survivor isn't a comedy. It's a competition in the hearts of its fans, and in the minds of some social scientists and economists. It's producers call the show a social experiment. Check out the ongoing conversation about Game Theory and how it applies to Survivor. So is it really surprising that this season is already being thought of as "Survivor: Race War"? No. Not at all. It's to be expected.
A dark part of me admires the marketing genius behind it. The degree to which the show's producers will go to get ratings. Sure the season will sprinkle heart warming lessons in a few episodes. And they will move to integrate the tribes within two or three shows and those that integrate the best, supposedly, will do the best. But that does nothing to change this show's exploitive starting point - segregated tribes - and it will be that, which sets the tone for the audience.
And bring in the viewers.
Are they holding a mirror to the reality of American society? Maybe.
But I can't help but feel this story joins a growing number of race and racism related stories surfacing in the news. Stories that, when coupled with rising crime and poverty figures, set us back to the early nineties - at least.
This, at a time, when real bridges must be built, and re-built, between members of different races, different religions, different classes, and different sexes, and different political parties.
Ask yourself, does this Survivor season help or hurt fight the realities that Katrina exposed? The story of Katrina is one of race, class, and indifferent government and society.
Does it help? Or does it exploit?
There is a difference. Think about it.
From my point of view, there seem to be too many damn people are busy dividing us, to sell us something.
Too damn many.
Finding the old Wayne's World trailer on YouTube was sublime.
Don't you think the story line - new medium enables amature to reach many, the amature gets lured by money and power the big corps offer, disillusion follows, and wisdom (well that's one of the endings) results - timely?
It both marked the end of the 80s metal subculture I grew up in, and foretold the rise in participatory media.
New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin thought the idea of "Wayne and Garth's late-night, public-access television show, the one they do from the sofa in Wayne's basement, is so good that a wily television executive (Rob Lowe) will scheme to exploit their commercial potential" strained the movie's credibility.
Heh. No foresight that one.
The Long Tail suggested that it will be within narrow communities of interest where the future of entertainment lies. Jeff Jarvis has long been a proponent of this point of view. With online music it is probably already so (Washington Post). But would you ever think this applied to Beer?
Check out this quote by Scots whisky manufacturer James Thompson in comments at gapingvoid: "We have decided to create a drinks product that will never be made available to large retailers - ever. We don't need them and we don't like them that much."
Technology shortens distance and time between people and the things they desire. Likewise, it enables companies to market to individuals, or small communities, instead of the masses.
Related thread in Slashdot.
Jon Stewart hosting the Oscars has helped draw the attention of many, many bloggers. Lots are trying to cash in on the hype by publishing prediction lists of winners - an old cheap writing trick. Admittedly, I'm curious, so for once I will tune in for a few minutes, but nothing more. If something interesting happens, I will hear about it from my online community of friends and I will download it via Bittorrent. Even with all the new buzz this year, I'm sure the Oscars remain the self-congratulatory circle-jerk they always were. 'Nuff-said, right? Well no. This opens a door to connect some dots...
Publishing a list is one type of attention drawing tactic, being snarky is another...
These days you could rename Memeorandum to Snarksforall, with one blogger trying to top another for the most vacuous post.
So true! Performancing has a handy guide to these techniques: 10 Killer Post Ideas:
...Here are ten proven post formulas to get your creative juices, and your traffic, flowing....1. How to...2. Lists...3. Campaign...4. Interview...5. Review...6. Case study...7. Research results...8. What's new, trends...9. Attack!...10. Ask the audience...
There are other linkbait guides out there for you, go ahead and search if so inclined. Howard Stern was ahead of his time man. Way ahead of his time.
Then again, you can have the best writing or service in the world, if no one knows about it, you're shit outta luck. You need to know how to get the word out. You need to know who has influence and who doesn't.
Publishing 2.0: Who Are the New Media Gatekeepers?:
Who decides what�s worthy of your attention � a Web 2.0 application, a newspaper columnist, a talk show host, an editorial staff, an influential blogger, a community of thousands, a community of millions?
Answer for today: bloggers!
Jeremy Zawodny: How to give Oral Sex to Bloggers in Return for PR Favors:
..there's nothing like a few excited bloggers to kick off a good viral marketing campaign, right?! Who cares if your product is lame. Just get some bloggers to talk about it!
But which ones? Well it's Technorati to the rescue...
Guy Kawasakli: How to Suck Up to a Blogger:
...Nowadays buzz begets ink. Journalists no longer anticipate or create buzz--rather, they react to it: "Everyone is buzzing about FaceBook. There must be something to this, so I had better write a story about it." This role reversal has fried people's minds.The latest development is that blogs beget buzz. Blogs have changed everything because they represent a cheap, effective podium for creating buzz on a massive scale. Technorati provides an easy way to identify the A-listers, so all you have to do is attract the most influential bloggers.
...Sucking up is not an event--it's a process.
Don Dodge: The new way to launch your product or company:
It doesn't cost anything to publicize your new product or service. Simply engage a couple of the "A-List" bloggers (Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Om Malik, Steve Gillmor, Cory Doctorow, Richard MacManus, Stowe Boyd, and others) by sending them a link to your new product or service. Tell them what problem it solves and why it is cool. When they blog, people listen. When their stories hit Tech Memeorandum, Digg, TailRank, and other services the story explodes across thousands of blogs within hours.
You see, if you don't have buzz, you don't have reach. You don't have reach, no one will know you exist without one hell of a hard slog - no matter how good you are.
NYMag: Blogs to Riches: The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom:
...By all appearances, the blog boom is the most democratized revolution in media ever. Starting a blog is ridiculously cheap; indeed, blogging software and hosting can be had for free online. There are also easy-to-use ad services that, for a small fee, will place advertisements from major corporations on blogs, then mail the blogger his profits. Blogging, therefore, should be the purest meritocracy there is....In theory, sure. But if you talk to many of today�s bloggers, they�ll complain that the game seems fixed. They�ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches�gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)�yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs. It�s as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs�then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can�t figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. �It just seems like it�s a big in-party,� one blogger complained to me. (Indeed, a couple of pranksters last spring started a joke site called Blogebrity and posted actual lists of the blogs they figured were A-, B-, and C-level famous.)
That�s a lot of inequality for a supposedly democratic medium.
It's because the web resembles the wishes, desires, and motives of humanity. And humanity, while striving for something greater, is grounded in behaviors inscribed in our hearts, in our minds, in our genes.
Clay Shirky: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality:
...In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution....inbound link data is just an example: power law distributions are ubiquitous. Yahoo Groups mailing lists ranked by subscribers is a power law distribution. (Figure #2) LiveJournal users ranked by friends is a power law. (Figure #3) Jason Kottke has graphed the power law distribution of Technorati link data. The traffic to this article will be a power law, with a tiny percentage of the sites sending most of the traffic. If you run a website with more than a couple dozen pages, pick any time period where the traffic amounted to at least 1000 page views, and you will find that both the page views themselves and the traffic from the referring sites will follow power laws.
...any tendency towards agreement in diverse and free systems, however small and for whatever reason, can create power law distributions.
Because it arises naturally, changing this distribution would mean forcing hundreds of thousands of bloggers to link to certain blogs and to de-link others, which would require both global oversight and the application of force. Reversing the star system would mean destroying the village in order to save it.
Given the ubiquity of power law distributions, asking whether there is inequality in the weblog world (or indeed almost any social system) is the wrong question, since the answer will always be yes. The question to ask is "Is the inequality fair?"
So, lets get this straight shall we? The new way of doing things looks remarkably like the old way. The names and methods have have changed, but that's pretty much it. At least Technorati lets me see who those with influence are. I wonder when that will go behind a pay wall?
Some A-listers seem to want to keep this knowledge obscured while selling an ideal that doesn't exist. It's a very sellable ideal. In a way, these few folks exhibit a form of long tail denial. Kent Newsome connects the dots nicely here: Bloglogic and the Litmus Test for Link Love:
...making traffic and links your focus is not the most effective way to build a blog. Most of the people who have been at the table when we've talked about it seem to agree with that.But just because traffic and links aren't the focus doesn't mean they aren't legitimate goals. To tell someone that traffic and links don't matter at all is a little like a rich guy telling a poor guy not to be so concerned about money. I don't obsess about money, but making some is certainly one of my goals when I head out the door each weekday morning.
The key is to have many goals, but a narrow focus.
...Here's the only question you have to answer to determine whether traffic is one of your blogging goals: would you blog happily for an extended time if no one ever read your blog? No Comments, no clicks, no links. Just a dark corner of cyberspace where your blog sits idle and completely unnoticed
It's just marketing.
Indeed.
For my part, I'm going to keep doing it the way I always have - by trying to put out the best service I possibly can, and be a good person. That service attempts to use its influence to expose those who should be heard to a wider audience. I don't have the time, nor inclination, to play suck up. I guess that's my loss.
Update: I check Technorati fairly regularly to see who is linking here and to my surprise, Memeorandum picked me up. I was indeed there for a few seconds, as you can see from this archived page, but whatever algorithm Memeorandum uses has replaced me, with someone who ranks higher.
Update: Whups. Incorrect. It moved my link reference to someone else. I'm still there. It's fascinating to watch it move links and references every few minutes to help present a picture of the thread. Okay.. I'm breaking my Lent promise...walk away... walk away...
I'm really enjoying the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Nothing like it on television. These past few episodes have been some of the best.
Here's some recent related links:
Dave Rogers: BSG: Flying Toasters:
Adama raises the central question, but doesn't have the answer. Events conspire to propel him even further along this journey as he's forced to confront loss on a scale that seems incomprehensible. It's been fascinating to watch his character wrestle with these questions, his conditioned and habituated thinking, and the consequences of the choices he's forced to make, as someone with authority and responsibility. I was surprised and pleased last night in the scene were Adama confronted Boomer to ask why the Cylons hate humanity so, and Boomer said that "hate" probably wasn't the right word. Adama indicated his impatience with her by saying he didn't intend to fence with her. Boomer then reflected his own words back to him, from his retirement speech aboard Galactica.It is, I think, the logical conclusion of believing one can create a technology that can "patch" or "work around" the worst failings in our own nature.
What happens if we succeed?
The All Spin Zone: SpinDentist: Pray for Herb (via Philly Future):
No, that's not a stoner's lament as he scrapes up the last of his stash and wondering where his next hit will come from. It is an emblem of a cyber-phenomenon, where a community residing on the internet, in this case the Philadelphia Eagles Message Board (EMB) (registration required), is mourning for one of their own. Herb, a member of that community for many years, is dying (article by Dave Spadaro is here.) The outpouring of love is amazing, and while this cyber-community has many members who have met each other, it is not like these people are lifelong friends. They all met on a Message Board, yet their love, support, grief, it is very real and touching. It makes me dizzy in a sense, that so much connection can be felt by so many whose real world connection is mostly through a modem...He's a member of the military, a husband of Jess, and the father of three little ones aged seven and below. Today he lies in a bed, and I imagine there are tubes connected. His cancer is in the very last stages, and he may not make it through the weekend. But he will be taking phone calls from his friends on the EMB, all day probably. They will call to cheer him up, and they will call so that Herb can cheer them up, just as if they are real friends. "Real" friends? Well, it seems we aren't in Kansas anymore, and those definitions we so comfortably hold do not hold any longer.
... I met Herb first in late November of 2003 at an away game in Charlotte, the "MOFO Roadie." A bunch of us gathered to attend the game, but also to meet. It was odd addressing others by their screen names. I met NotPlainJane there for the first time, and subsequently married her. But EaglesFeva, FastFreddie, Beermonkey, DieHard, RSbirdman22 and Emerald Eagle were also there. So was "73," Herb, and he was healthy and in remission, but he was already a strong focus for the group, because we'd rallied for his first bout with the big "C." We joked about his big feet.
Several months ago it was discovered that Herb had a tumor. the cancer had come back and it has now invaded throughout his internal organs. Herb is at the end. And yet, he brings the people of the EMB together in his ending. I expect we'll run some sort of fundraising for Herb's kids in the next week or so. We've done that before for one of our own, and that fundraising ultimately ended up in inspiring the organization of a charity, Fans Helping Fans. I'm guessing we can raise $10,000 entirely online to help establish a college fund for the kids. In a global sense that's not much, not "Abramoff-like" money for damned sure. But doing so entirely on the internet among a group of people who first met there is a phenomenal feat. It is the face of the future, where emotion and caring burst from the confines of family and neighborhoods and extends through the internet, as it has here.
A friend at work sent this along over the weekend: BBC: Song sites face legal crackdown:
The US Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents sheet music companies, will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006.MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed.
He said unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the internet but were "completely illegal".
Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".
Lo and behold, my favorite tab site on the web shut down in reaction to it: Powertabs.net.
Back in 1998 this happened to OLGA, it went overseas and relaunched. OLGA has a solid claim on being the first collabrative file archive on the web - 1992. Guitar tablature written by fans, for fans, in plain text. It is still running today. But probably not for long.
Make archives people. Quickly.
LATimes: At Inland Base, Scientologists Trained Top Gun: As Scientology's highest-ranking figure, Miscavige, 45, has found in Cruise, 43, not just a fervent and famous believer but an effective messenger whose passion the church has harnessed to help fuel its worldwide growth. "Across 90 nations, 5,000 people hear his word of Scientology — every hour," International Scientology News proclaimed last year. "Every minute of every hour someone reaches for LRH technology … simply because they know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist."
Did you watch the Apprentice on Thursday? Come on. Admit it. Okay then, be a snob. If you missed it, you missed awesome live television. Randal revealed himself the dick he was on winning. Richelle and me were speechless and friends at work argued over if he was right in doing what he did.
Stephen Lynch: Kill a Kitten
Edison Hate Future: edison say: hate keep you young. edison is A HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS OLD
Spoken Word by Ernie Cline: Genuis.
Google Video: Car faces a 747 backwash. CRIKEY!
An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer: A Christmas Carol:
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
("Just the thing I need, how nice!")It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Nor how heart felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!So, let the raucous sleighbells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
Google Video: Randy Rhodes in Quiet Riot - except for Randy's awesome guitar solo... my band smokes this version of Quiet Riot (they got far better by the time they got signed)... but Randy... unbelievable even then. He even plays a version of "Dee" in here! It made me cry when he slowed down and started to play those delicate passages. May he rest in peace.
Google Video: A killer Paul Gilbert guitar solo
Google Video: Canon in D Guitar: Wow, wow, wow
Google Video: Mario Guitar: Wow (not as awe inspiring as Canon in D - so just one wow)
the Onion: Metal Council Convenes To Discuss 'Metal Hand Sign' Abuse (hell ya!)
Please take the 'Cool Person Test'
Wired: The Hit Factory: On MySpace and the future of music marketing
the smedley log: Give the music back (quoting lyrics to one of my favorite songs)
Matt at Philly Future: Creating Buzz: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on NPR.
ScientificAmerican: Creativity Linked to Sexual Success and Schizophrenia. via Garret.
And not music related, but why not:
Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga: this script has been thru hell and ba... no... it still seems in hell
Guardian: The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award. NSFW and funny.
Let me second Jeneane Sessum in offering well wishes and good luck to Shelley Powers who is about to be deployed by the Red Cross to points unknown to people who need help. Like Jeneane, I am very proud to know Shelley (well online at least :)). She's taking the compassion she shares online to help in the most direct way possible. It takes guts and heart.
Matt Raible continues his evaluation of open source CMSes and centers in on Joomla and Drupal/CivicSpace.
Jeremy Zawodny writes about how three year plans at Internet companies are a bit of a stretch and links to a great presentation on planing and design by Adam Bosworth.
Rollyo lets you roll your own search engine, and the results, I think, exemplify the utility of a Memeorandum seeded with a specific set of feeds. Rollyo looks like to be another great webservice. One to watch (and to use!). In fact, a long, long time ago, Philly.com hosted a search engine - Philly Finder - that was seeded with only high quality sites reviewed by its editorial staff - I miss that search engine. RSS search at Philly Future will solve a similar problem once I have it up and running.
Corruption surrounds White House and GOP leaders this week. First David Safavian, President Bush's top procurement official - was arrested. Now, in what will overshaddow that news Tom Delay is indicted in the Texas Finance Probe. From the comments comes a link to the Smoking Gun and the actual bill of indictment.
An officer seeks clarity in codes of conduct for the handling of prisoners - and is attacked (Rumsfeld was heard to have said "Either break him or destroy him, and do it quickly."). via rc3.org. Read his letter to Sen. John McCain.
And now for something more lighthearted - read Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon's interview in Time.
GoogleBlog ushers in the launch of Google Video: "The era of the couch potato is so over. We're rooting for the desk (and laptop) potato". Speaking of Google Video check out the "everybody hates Chris" premier. The quality is good (not great), but it is very easy to use, and since it is Flash, no new plugin to install or some external app to load. Nice. Another great example is Google's Recruiting Video - no really!
Rafe Colburn and Ted Leung (who deleted my comment while cleaning out spam - I can relate - did that myself quite a few times), second a thought I've had on improving Memeorandum - feeding it a group of RSS feeds that you care about. They are thinking in terms of a personal aggregator - I would like to make that personalized page public as as service.
Microsoft is taking radical steps to beat itself back to life. It's facing facts - Windows was broken - and Longhorn wasn't going to fix it - and taking bold corrective measures that should pay off down the line. The folks at the Register aren't very optimistic.
Jason Calacanis gives his thoughts on recent moves by Microsoft and Google, Fox, Yahoo, and AOL.
Speaking of Microsoft, Steven Sinofsky gives us a behind the scenes look at MS's dev team management structure.
And look at this - Internet ad revenue climbs 26 percent.
Did you know it's Banned Books Week. Check out the discussion at Metafilter and buy one.
Oh, and a Saudi Prince Buys a 5% Stake in Fox how ironic is that?
Ummmm... Michael Brown, former head of FEMA, is still getting a paycheck there - as a consultant.
Bush wants to expand the role of the military on domestic soil, giving authority over to the Pentagon in disaster response (Washington Post), overturning the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that baned the armed forces from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil. John Scalzi calls it the mother of all bad ideas.
Speaking of bad ideas... read "Bush administration threatens veto against Geneva Convention" at Metafilter.
Rest in Peace: Don Adams, TV's Maxwell Smart, Dies at 82.
I've been 'bit-blogging' a a little too much these past few days...must step away from the keyboard...
Check out the first chapter of IMPS - The Relentless. Breath taking. And funny. Wow.
Oh, and how to be a Ninja in seven steps. Heh.
Tom Cruise is out of the news. Isn't that interesting? "Batman" and "War of the Worlds" have come and gone - and Cruise is outta the news.
Fascinating. Simply fascinating.
An oldie, but a goodie, Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions is fun to geek-out with.
Local10.com - Entertainment: Prinze Says Gellar Doing 'Buffy' Movie Is Unlikely:
Freddie Prinze Jr. is plunging a spike into hopes by some fans that his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar, might do a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie -- for either television or as a feature.
Ever since Sarah Michelle Gellar married him, the series went south, and she disassociated herself with it. Now he is apparently speaking for her.
Yesterday afternoon I heard the news that James Doohan had passed. My wishes to his family, his friends, and to all my Star Trek buds out there.
CNN obit and Memory Alpha's Bio of Montgomery Scott.
Previous employers have looked at me as ummm a "miracle worker" - and ahhh - I let on my secret once to my former boss, Rajiv: applying the "Scotty Rule" to project estimations. Never, ever, ever quote the time it would take to finish a project accurately. Pad it. Double and triple it.
From the TNG episode "Relics':
Scotty: "Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want."LaForge: "Yeah, well, I told the captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour."
Scotty: "How long will it really take?"
LaForge: "An hour."
Scotty: "You didn't tell him now long it would really take, did you?"
LaForge: "Of course I did."Scotty: "Laddie, you got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker!"
From "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock":
Kirk: "How long to re-fit?"Scotty: "Eight weeks. But you don't have eight weeks, so I'll do it for you in two."
Kirk: "Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?"
Scotty: "How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?"
Kirk: "Your reputation is safe with me."
God bless and God speed.
Ron Moore's Deep Space Journey - New York Times:
The original ''Battlestar'' was often dismissed as a ''Star Wars'' rip-off, but it was always stranger and more ambitious than that. There was an element of 70's-era ''Chariots of the Gods'' crackpot-ism to it. (''There are those who believe that life here began out there,'' spoke the tweedy voice of Patrick Macnee at the opening of each episode, and proof of this common ancestry was provided weekly in the King Tut-style space helmets Apollo sported.) But that was blended in an intriguing way with late-cold-war anxiety over Soviet appeasements and an openly biblical story line, widely considered a tribute by its creator, Glen A. Larson, to the parables of his own Mormon faith. Twelve colonies of space-faring humans, survivors of slaughter driven away from their home planets, had set off through space in search of the mythical 13th tribe that, legend tells, settled a promised land called ''Earth.''...Compared with the thriving ''Star Trek'' and ''Star Wars'' franchises, ''Battlestar'' fandom was marginal -- the province of a few diehards making Web sites and sewing Colonial-warrior costumes. But these diehards rallied around Hatch, donating the costumes and props they had fabricated or volunteering to do the computer graphics for the space battles. And as they did, Hatch became for most of them the face of the fight for the new ''Galactica.''
In 1999, at the San Diego Comic-Con, he showed his completed trailer, titled ''Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming.'' He reports that it received a standing ovation. I can report that it looks remarkably professional and engaging and certainly faithful to Larson's original story. But you will probably never see it, because Hatch spent somewhere between $20,000 and $40,000 of his own money to create a film within a franchise in which he owned absolutely no rights and which, for this reason, as well as actors' union regulations, he can never show or distribute for money.
But that was fine. Because for Hatch, it was always about convincing the world that it made sense to bring back ''Battlestar.'' And in fact, soon Universal would indeed be relaunching the Galactica -- although Richard Hatch would not be on board.
...Moore said he would do it, but he wanted to make some changes. After numerous meetings and a full script treatment, he wrote a two-page memo that laid out the basic tenets of what the new ''Battlestar Galactica'' would eventually become. ''We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera, with its stock characters, techno-double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics and empty heroics has run its course, and a new approach is required,'' it began. ''Call it 'naturalistic science fiction.''' There would be no time travel or parallel universes or cute robot dogs. There would not be ''photon torpedoes'' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening.
''To this day,'' Eick says, ''I don't think either of us could have anticipated how valuable the memo would be.'' It would repair everything that had been worn down to convention in a genre Moore had once loved. But ''Battlestar'' would be more than just an opportunity to do ''Voyager'' correctly.
''When I watched the original pilot,'' Moore says, ''I knew that if you did 'Battlestar Galactica' again, the audience is going to feel a resonance with what happened on 9/11. That's going to touch a chord whether we want it to or not. And it felt like there was an obligation to that. To tell it truthfully as best we can through this prism.'' In the miniseries Moore wrote to introduce the new ''Battlestar,'' the echoes of the war on terror were unapologetic and frequently harrowing: what happens when an advanced, comfortable, secular democracy endures a devastating attack by an old enemy that it literally created (which enemy, in Moore's version, also happens to be religious fanaticism)?
Hope you caught it. I thought it was terrific. Got worried it was about to sell a Star-Trekian technological solution for a spit second there - thank goodness that wasn't just the case. About time we had a space battle too. What do you think?
BTW - Wikipedia's Battlestar Galactica page is fine resource for fans of the show.
Judging reviews of "Fantastic Four", which will bomb, and by the reviews of "Elektra", I predict we'll be seeing less comic book movies being produced. Makes me sad. Hollywood seems to be thinking that movies simply based on comic books, while giving their characters no respect, will sell. They won't. I'm not going.
I will be going to see "Batman Returns" today however. I think it would be ironic if DC based characters suddenly made a comeback by taking into account the real lessons of success for Spiderman and X-Men - heroes are three dimensional.
Ummm... ok, this is not newsworthy... and I'm lowering myself by re-publishing - it's not even blogworthy... but ya gotta admit... it sure is strange - and it's FoxNews:
FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Fox411 - Katie Holmes' Missing Days
...on April 4, she had not yet made the acquaintance of Tom Cruise....Holmes was busy during that first week in April. On April 7, she was photographed at the Fragrance Foundation's FiFi event.
Four days later, Holmes was still in New York and was photographed at VH1's "Save the Music" concert. She still had not met Cruise.
Sometime that week, her friends say, she flew to Los Angeles for a meeting with Cruise about a role in "Mission: Impossible 3." The meeting took place after April 11.
The next time anyone heard from Holmes was on April 27, when she appeared in public as Cruise's girlfriend and love of his life.
Where was she during those 16 days?
Somewhere during that time, she decided to fire both her manager and agent, each of whom she had been with for years and who were devoted to her.
The manager, John Carrabino, also handles Renée Zellweger and is beloved by his clients.
Holmes also acquired a new best friend, Jessica Feshbach, the daughter of Joe Feshbach, a controversial Palo Alto, Calif., bond trader.
The Feshbach family, according to published documents, has donated millions to the Church of Scientology. Jessica's aunt even runs a Scientology center in Florida.
According to Richard Behar's now famous 1991 story in Time magazine about Scientology, the Feshbachs were the subject of congressional hearings in 1989.
Behar wrote: "The heads of several companies claimed that Feshbach operatives have spread false information to government agencies and posed in various guises — such as a Securities and Exchange Commission official — in an effort to discredit the companies and drive the stocks down.
"Michael Russell, who ran a chain of business journals, testified that a Feshbach employee called his bankers and interfered with his loans. Sometimes the Feshbachs send private detectives to dig up dirt on firms, which is then shared with business reporters, brokers and fund managers."
The risk-taking Feshbachs, known the world over for making their fortune "shorting" stocks, and the level-headed, conservative Holmeses would be a difficult mix at a dinner table.
Katie's father, Martin Holmes, is the senior partner in a large and respected Toledo, Ohio, law firm. His son, Martin Jr., has recently joined the firm. He's a Harvard graduate. Katie's mom, Kathy, is frequently cited in Toledo for her charity work.
There is some fear among Holmes' close circle that her instant romance with Cruise is not as organic as portrayed.
For one thing, Holmes was raised a strict Catholic. Also, gone from the picture are two close Holmes friends who used to be with her when she did publicity for a film.
One of these is Meghann Birie, a childhood friend who has suddenly disappeared from Holmes' world. Another, a local TV producer here in New York, was too afraid to discuss the situation with me.
We know that Cruise auditioned several actresses for this role before settling on Holmes. This column reported a story about Jennifer Garner. There have been published stories about Kate Bosworth, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Alba being approached.
A newer one involves Scarlett Johansson, who ran for her life when presented with a fait accompli dinner at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood.
And history has been rewritten since the April 27 unveiling.
Curiously, since the Cruise-Holmes situation popped up, we have heard over and over again that Cruise was the young actress' idol when she was growing up.
That's certainly interesting because all of the publicity that used to run on Holmes — still found all over the Internet — lists another Tom as her favorite actor.
That would be Tom Hanks.
ytmnd.com - you're the man now dog!'s Darth Vader Noooooooo parody site list. Lots of fun. Wish I could explain why.
Starts off real, real bad... then gets very, very good. Part of me was creeped out watching this. Kept expecting something horror-movie bad to happen.
First, lets get this clear, Troops was and still is the best Star Wars fan film ever made. Download it. Watch it. Laugh. It's old. But somehow, since it mashes COPS with Star Wars, it works.
Turns out the makers of Troops have started production on a new, epic fan film, and the Slashdot crowd isn't impressed. Their criticism's aren't close to fair. So far, if you ask me, this rocks.
As some of you know, I have a life long love of Star Blazers, a Japanese, Americanized cartoon that ran in the late 70s/early 80s. I just wanted to share some links for reference:
The Voyager Entertainment official site.
A Frontier article from 1999 marking 20 years of Star Blazers.
totse.com fan fiction: Star Trek:TNG Enterprise vs. Star Blazers Yamato
Wikipedia: Space Battleship Yamato
MSN Groups: All Things Yamato & Star Blazers
Star Blazers/Yamato - Wave Motion Page
Yamato Mechanics.org (Japanese)
A starship comparison chart.
Related:
Neal Stephenson, NYTimes: Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out
If you want to be surprised, don't read "TV Squad".
One of the three in New Jersey is where I might catch the digital version of "Revenge of the Sith" (TheForce.net). The one in PA is probably too far away (TheForce.net). I've heard it's a sight to behold.
Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming has kindly made available his entire work of fan fiction (some of the best I've read - fun and thought provoking all at once) chronologically as html and pdf. Check it out.
Arrived at the Death Star. Spent the day in meetings. I need a stiff drink.Whether or not history appreciates the fact I am more than just a tyrannical dark overlord -- I'm also an engineer. So my first meeting upon stepping into the landing hangar from my shuttle was with the chiefs of all of the station's operational divisions, the victim of long multimedia presentations from each department detailing their progress, expenditures, and time-table for task completion.
I fell asleep for a while, but nobody could tell because of my masque.
The bottom line is that, with the exception of one department, every system promises to be one hundred percent for tomorrow's big test. The chief of the errant division was apologetic, but I was unimpressed. He said, "We'll have the internal security sensors operational before the week is out, of that much I can assure you with nearly full confidence, Lord Vader."
"That is insufficient."
He shrugged and shook his head. "What can I say? Good, fast, or cheap: pick two."
I pointed my gloved hand at him and he began struggling for air. He clawed at his throat, his eyes bulging as he slid off his seat and hit the floor. He convulsed briefly before the final stillness. "You're fired," I said.
Hehe.
The Wikipedia has a terrific Star Wars resource portal. Check it out.
I was at the Star Wars premier at Neshanamy Mall last night with Richelle, her mom and dad, and some friends from work. The movie rocked. I said this in Binq's comments thread: I went in looking for something great and the movie did not disappoint. That's a rare thing.
This one movie should have been made into the three.
I don't take much stock in critics, and as always there have been plenty of negative reviews, but surprisingly, this time around there have been just as many positive ones as well. Here goes two:
Washington Post: 'Sith': The Promise Fulfilled
NYTimes: Some Surprises in That Galaxy Far, Far Away
Related: Turns out there are some on the right uncomfortable with some lines in the movie: NYTimes: Latest 'Star Wars' Movie Is Quickly Politicize.
You'll want to see this on the big screen. I'm seeing it again this Saturday with another group of friends and family.
Google Groups : net.movies.sw.
Wow. Some terrific reading here. Things never change. They just never change.
Traditionally, bands toured cities and played dive bars to create buzz about their music. But with MySpace, bands can host demos of their songs, announce shows and connect with fans without spending weeks on the road.Wired News: Bands Embrace Social Networking via Scripting News."We've developed communities for unknown bands really quickly, which would take a lot longer a few years back," said Alan Miller, co-founder of Filter magazine, which last month teamed up with MySpace to develop The Booth, an online promotion featuring a different band each week.
"It's a medium where people can go and hear new music and develop an attachment to the band," said Miller.
You must remember that critics are not interested in serving the public trust; they're interested in serving themselves. You're a critic, and you need to pay the rent: there is a sea of other critics out there in the same boat. Some people in that situation will always go against the tide, to try and stand out. Some people will focus on gushing with the popular opinion as cleverly as possible - perhaps their punchy little quote will end up in a big ad in the newspaper, and their notoriety/income will increase.millenniumfalcon.com - The Official Media Review Links ThreadAnd there are, of course, intellectuals who align themselves with elitism; they are forced to have disdain for all things popular. Their inability to be objective is indication of how ironically intellectual they are not.
In the end, critics are just people. People with an agenda. You are seldom going to find well thought-out, thorough objectivity in that demographic, no matter what they're critiquing.
But mostly, there's the bitter, sad realization that while they can write and scream or praise and jump up and down, they will be utterly forgotten in the annals of history, where Star Wars will not. For all their words and self-important positing, they know they have made no lasting contribution, no great impact. They've changed no lives, and shaped no futures. They're resigned to being wordy because they've done so little. Like a fat, lazy sports fan who doesn't like how Barry Bonds is hitting this season. Beset by jealousy, and ignorance, compensatory self-importance and bluster, they sit at their keyboards, furiously typing, and turn their self-hatred outward, to the very things they long to be part of most.
...Wait a moment. Do you even know the difference between the light side and dark side of the Force?The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster: The Tao Of SithIt must be understood that the Force is, above all, singular. The so-called "sides" arise from differing matters of perspective. (If you study the way of the Sith you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend entirely on one's point of view.)
The opposite of the singular Force is the all-encompassing void of death. Time began with the Force, and will end in desolation. This is the way of things, and an inevitable consequence of the flow of events from the past into the future.
Without the inertia of the fall toward the abyss, the Force would have nowhere to go.
For in the chaotic tumble toward doom the stuff of the worlds enact loops of complexity that change the grade from life to death, introducing valleys, peaks and cycles. Between creation and destruction comes a flutter of improbability, a brief sonnet of meaning against the noise of time. Life!
It is the causal contagion that ties every ounce of us together through the network of the Force, our actions resonating against our almost-actions and our non-actions in a web of fleeting possibility that spans this galaxy and beyond. The beat of a child's heart detonates supernovae, the beat of a bug's wing tilts the orbit of worlds.
We are all connected.
Anyone who awakens to the Force knows this. The divisive issue is what to do with this knowledge.
When you can run the mechanism of the universe forward or backward, scrubbing through possible histories with a thought, a theme develops. You cannot escape it. Death, death, death. It is the final destiny of all things, great or small, matter or idea. But there is astounding beauty in the arts of the not-death, the filigree dances of life's loops as it spins from light to void. If you are human, it moves you.
It should move you. But this is what the Jedi Order denies. They preach that the heart of a beast cannot judge the destiny of a galaxy. They preach dispassion and detachment, a condescending compassion for the damned. They stand by the sidelines and watch history happen, intervening only in trivia that offends their effete sensibilities.
Every Jedi knew the cycles of civilization, and every Jedi knew an age of barbarism was nigh. And yet they did nothing.
In contrast, the way of the Sith is predicated on a love for man. We have inherited the godhead of the galaxy by colonizing its every world. Though lesser species might have flourished given infinite time, it was our kind who got there first. We have won this galaxy with thousands of generations of our blood and our dreams. We call the others "primitives" because we are their kings.
And we will not sit idly by as it all careens toward a morbid interregnum. Inspired by our passions we will act to bridge the gulf between civilizations, shortening the period of disorder by decisively maintaining connections between societies from one side of the galaxy to the other. We will weather the storm.
Hate! Love! Misery! Joy! These are paths to the dark side, for to invest in the emotional life of civilization is to care about its fate. To care is to suffer, and suffering is real.
The Jedi were mere spectators.
They jabbered amongst themselves as a committee, no one of them wielding enough power to see through my master's veil, their light resting on the shoulders of three. In contrast by the Sith way the Force is gathered and concentrated in a single individual, making him a catalyst for vision. With Jedi arts a gifted one can see the next moment -- with Sith arts a gifted one can read the decade. The Force is focused through my master so that I might by way of his preternatural alignment also brightly see the many forked face of destiny.
Because of this the Dark One traditionally exhibits a bewildering confluence of humility and potency -- the bleak peace of one who has seen the endless doom at the end of time and returned with an oath to steer life well.
Wow. Who is writing this?
Just another post by Lord Vader. Death Star construction is picking up...
Learn how Lightsabers work and what they can do for you around the house. Cool hedge trimmer.
NYTimes: Its Long Trek Over, the Enterprise Pulls Into Dry Dock. The headline shoudl be: "Rick Berman and Brannon Braga ship wrecked Star Trek long ago, and it finally sinks".
Check out the site suggestions thread at Ask MetaFilter.
Me? Mine is almost always from the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Read all about it here.
Catch the link and discussion at MetaFilter. The trailer left me feeling optimistic about the film.
It's not your imagination. Read A Recording Engineer's Plea for Dynamic Range.
Admission: I'm a geek. I know, that's self evident. But I don't let my geek flag fly high on the web that much anymore because, well... this stuff gets cached forever. Besides, who wants to hear me rant on Episode I and how it ruined Star Wars...
Anyway, you just gotta read this message thread on the greatest Jedi ever. I dare you not to laugh.
You need your video codecs up to date and a good video player. Even then the footage isn't the best quality, but, wow, wow, wow, wow!
Episode III History Spoilers - The Ultimate Lightsaber Site: Episode III lightsabers! Errr... sorry... geeking out. Can't help it.
millenniumfalcon.com has a great message forum. Beware going there if you don't want to be spoiled.
Then again, you can read the book. I just finished it and can tell you that it was absolutely terrific. Way better than the previous two screenplay adaptations - which leads me to hope that this movie will be similarly better. Keeping my fingers crossed.
More at Slashdot.
Oh, and I got it, I've seen it, and it really is Dr. Who! At least as great as Peter Davidson. At least. He's my second favorite by the way. Tied with Pertwee.
Click here to see a ton of pics from the upcoming movie. Be warned. Heavy spoilers.
You can download it and many other titles from tha past at Liberated Games. via Metafilter.
For me, it's playing my guitar, or playing Jedi Knight Academy online, but back in the day there was a game on the Mac called Marathon that I loved. Now I can download it and its entire series for free. Thanks Bungie. You rock.
Yep Bill, that's what we did too. "24" made it a TV day (or night that is...).
So many things don't live up to the hype, but The Watchmen, the greatest comic book of all time - does. Hope they don't mess this up.
For a while, it seemed, I was part of a generation with no discernable qualities, no great contribution to American culture. Too young to be boomers, too old to be "Gen X," this generation was a product of the burned out excess of the seventies married to the surface glow of the eighties. But here in 2004, I realize I belong to the luckiest generation, and not only that, I am part of the luckiest sub-culture within. Maybe we didn't give the world the Beatles or John Updike, but we gave the world Dungeons and Dragons.Boston.com: How 'Dungeons' changed the world: 11/15/2004
Rembember when MTV used to play videos? Well now you can get them yourself.
No, it's not out yet. But this is where you'll find it once it is.
Me neither. Well, at least not clearly. But there is a nifty free version for you to play online.
The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America by John Sperling .
The Reveolution Will Not Be Televised by Joe Trippi.
Related link: Extreme Democracy
Updated: Just had to add one more book....
Grab some links over at Boing Boing.
I think it's the only way me and a few of my old friends in high school survived auto shop class.
A great fan made movie that is just a little sick, but in a good way. I love it.
Credit needs to go to local area weblogger gigglechick.
It cuts just a little too close :) Hehe.
Anthony Leong wrote a great article back in 1999 about one of my favorite TV shows.
Check out the latest. I just love this.
Do not go gentle into that good night,Dylan Thomas
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I never heard this poem before today when I found a powerful, deep review of the Angel finale. Go read it.
Redemption isn?t something that gets handed to you along with a certificate and a gold star saying "I?m Redeemed, Ask Me How!" It?s an ongoing struggle, and it has been the focus of the series since the beginning. After the initial shock of the ending, I realized that Joss Whedon was absolutely correct to end the series as his did. ANGEL has never been about happy endings and loose ends tied with a happy bow. It?s about fighting the good fight. That?s how it began, and that?s how it ended.From another review at DarkWorlds.
Is it possible that Angel, Spike, Gunn, and Illyria survived that final onslaught? Probably not, especially the all-too-human Charles Gunn. But that?s not the point. The point is that they fought. They made a difference and stood their ground in the face of the consequences of their actions.
"After five precarious seasons, Angel goes out like the ornery rock star showcase it might have been. " Read it (beware - there be spoilers here) at PopMatters.
Woah :) As seen in various places on the net...
Don't forget the The Mario Brothers Saga movie series.
Just wanted to share with you this fun series:
Mario Brothers Part 1
Mario Brothers Part 2
Mario Brothers Part 3
I don't think of myself as a TV person. Yet I'm taken aback at how many shows I've watched thru the years are going off the air. "Angel". "Sex and the City". "Friends".
Speaking of "Friends", Dave King speaks for me when he explains it's true appeal.
On IMAX especially. I highly recommend it. The critics can kiss off.
Dave Rogers shares his thoughts about it, and they match mine exactly. Warning: don't click the link if you havn't seen the movie yet.
Books don't make me cry. It just doesn't happen. Until now. I didn't even see it coming. "Green Grass Grace", by Shawn McBride has to be one of the greatest novels I have ever read. A rollercoaster of emotion, plenty of laughs, characters I relate to, and places I've actually been.
People let themselves get frozen in a bad place, lost in space, until they get used to it and can't change. They bury the best of their love beneath a pile of stubborn bullshit, losing chances, wasting time, missing life. But no more, not me, not the people I love. That shit stops today. Tonight I want to show them all that you tell the people you love that you love them now. You can't wait another fucking second. And if they don't get it after tonight, I'll rain pain on their cupcake asses. I'm down in a karate crouch just thinking about it, ready to inflict the Toohey Chop Suey on the hard-hearted.
That's 13 year old Henry "Hank" Toohey, during the end of the summer of 1984. After much, much has transpired. Hank is an Irish-Catholic living in an Irish-Catholic block in Northeast Philadelphia. His family, his neighborhood, and his friends are as genuine and as real as day. McBride brings it all to life while you follow Hank's plan to propose to his 14 year old (and much more mature...err... worldly...err.) girlfriend, thinking this will fix the broken hearts around him - especially those in his family.
I'm sure some probably don't like the characterizations he gives (Fishtowners anyone?) - but man does he nail it. I love this book!
I recently finished reading, for what will become the first time of many I hope, "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller. I tend to look at anything called "classic" with suspicion, but for once - the critics are right. If you like science fiction, or fantasy, or just love fiction that helps to expose the human condition - this book is for you in a big way.
It consists of three small, separate, but in order, stories that revolve around a monastery in a post-apocalyptic world. The first story takes place relatively near the event. Civilization no longer exists in a recognizable sense. A new dark age. Learned people are hunted down and killed. The second occurs during a time of renaissance and rediscovery (or new discovery as one of the characters thinks it is). The third in a new nuclear age, far more advanced then our own (they have starships and off-world colonies), with laws and organizations designed to prevent a new apocalypse. The story is told thru a set of characters you can't help but care about.
At Slashdot there is a great book review and discussion thread.
Buffy, excluding its last, never-shoulda-happened season, was one of the most unique pieces of fiction I have read or seen anywhere. It had characters that you can relate to, humor that was actually clever, and story lines that compelled you to watch. But it featured something I have yet to see in any other series - long term consequences. Each character has had face consequences for their actions - sometimes severe. And in facing the aftermath of both good deeds and bad - there were lessons imparted, and growth.
Virginia Postrel, in this Reason Online story shares some precepts that are imparted from the show:
Tonight's the end. If you haven't watched the series before I suggest not tuning in since its plot line will leave you spinning. Chuck it up to missing a TV show that when it was bad, it was good, and when it was good, it was great. If you were too stuck up to get past the title - your loss bub.
Two keeper sites: The Buffy Dialog Database, and The Buffy Chords Page (tablature!).
The show has reached its end anyway. Kinda like 90210, it had it's best footing before it's characters reached adulthood. In the end I will think of it like I think of the "X-Files", "Star Trek The Next Generation", "The Prisoner", "Doctor Who", or "Star Blazzers". It's just one of those shows ya know? BTW, too many forget that "Xena" came along first. Buffy could only happen after Xena had a strong run for a couple of years. Barrier busters always get forgotten don't they? At least this Washington Post article mentions Xena briefly.
Salon has a good interview with Joss Whedon. It's other Buffy related article isn't worth linking to today. How many times can you read the same things?
Beware clicking any of the links above today if you don't want to read any spoilers. If you are looking for more linkage, check out Whedonesque.
The investigation of the cybercafes, also known as "PC bangs" or "cybercafes," came after a brawl erupted between rival groups playing in a tournament involving the online combat game "Counter Strike." ... One unidentified teenager was shot in the leg on Monday outside an Internet cafe in Northridge, a suburb that is part of Los Angeles. A second youth was struck in the head, reportedly with a chair.
Read the rest at Reuters.
In unrelated news.... the new Reuters design is tailor made to make it my source for news over CNN. Good job Reuters.
It's universal - Al Gore rocked SNL.
I highly suggest printing, reading, and re-reading this piece from Tim O'Reilly on piracy and distribution if you havn't already.
Impressive, most impressive. Using Cold Fusion, Access and good experience it get's the job done extremely well. Check out the numerous different paths to navigate the database. A great site for Buffy fans and for developers to think of similar projects. You can surf around here for eons. Whadda great job! Highly recommended.
That's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How is it that a program that delves into the consequences of sex, violence, and cheep use of power is not better respected by groups like The Parents Television Council? They rated Buffy the third worst family show on TV.
That's sad. If their critics are simply sitting there, counting instances of so-called explicit material, then that is what it is. A body count. But what of the nightly news when ranking shows in such a fashion?
Buffy's storylines share a core set of values and themes that a simple, type-of-scene count will miss entirely. These are great for starting discussions on. They include the power of love, taking responsibility for others and yourself, being a leader, realizing your not the center of the universe, finding time for friends and family admist work demands (naw-I'm not kidding-really!), being a misfit yet still belonging, forgiveness, redemption, life, death, and exploring the natures of good and evil.
Christianity Today, in it's recent article Don't Let Your Kids Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer - But you can tape it and watch after they go to bed at least recognizes the quality of the show.
Hatred, vengeance, and witchcraft turned Willow evil, but Xander's unconditional love showed that no sinner is beyond grace. Moments like this explain why Christians such as myself watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Yep. But watching the show after the kids are asleep can be a missed opportunity. I think if I had children entering that age where these kinds of questions are being asked... well this show provides a great starting point for discussion. No - not for teaching - but for starting discussion. That can be a hard thing to do with just about anyone. And from what I've seen, just doesn't happen enough between parents and kids.
Buffy does all this with plenty of humor, characters that are easy to care about (watch a few shows and I dare you not to relate to one of them), and lots of scary villians. Who could ask for anything more in a TV show?
This post is part of The Buffy Blogburst.
Here go some others to check out:
Silent Running Willow turning to evil and the Arab-Israeli situation?
Charles Kuffner compares Buffy and the Sopranos.
Nick Danger defends the latest season. Probably the darkest yet.
Stacy Sekimori Buffy mp3s.
Kathy shares her Buffy routine.
Again, this post is part of The Buffy Blogburst. Hit the link to get better descriptions, it's the definitive index, and more posts as the day goes on. Thanks to Meryl for organizing this.
I'm with Garret, this William F. Buckley Jr. piece gets close to the point I've tried to make.
On similar matters, this resembles a Howard Stern news weblog, if your so inclined.
Also on similar matters, the oft-mentioned Jump The Shark is a fun site.
In more serious news Michael Fraase reports the FCC is trying to finish what it started a few years back - making way for the age of the media empire.
It's a crime I tell ya. CNN, I'm sure, nails it, but that don't make it right.
Speaking of Buffy, watch out for the Buffy Blog Burst. I will be in this. Should be fun.
Meanwhile, David Brin, sci-fi, and real science research author, comments on Episode II. Man that is alot of deep thinking.
And for more deep thinking it's Star Wars vs. Spider-Man. common! be fair!
And even more Star Wars related deep thinking - don't click if you don't want to be spoiled messge board thread that explains it all.
And for a bit of humor Buffy Calls Dr. Laura. cough.
Speaking of sci-fi... that opens up the conversation to comics... anyone else ever read Lone Wolf and Cub?
Contrary to popular opinion - Vince McMahon isn't a genius and wrestling's hayday has passed. It will come around again. It's just lost it's way. That article is brought to you by Movie Poop Shoot. Yes. The site from the movie "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". The site is pretty cool. Check it out.
THE folks at Infinity Broadcasting kicked popular shock jocks Opie and Anthony off the air over last month?s St. Patrick?s Cathedral sex scandal, but the company still has to pay their hefty salaries. According to a source close to the canceled talk show, Infinity bigwigs can?t figure out how to get out of their reported three-year, $30 million contract with Greg ?Opie? Hughes and Anthony Cumia without having to pay them a king?s ransom. ?Everyone?s still on the payroll,? the tipster tells PAGE SIX?s Ian Spiegelman. Even comic Jim Norton, an O&A staple, is still receiving regular paychecks while lawyers for both sides try to hammer out details about how to part ways. If it goes to court, Infinity will surely claim the company had sufficient cause to cancel the show after Hughes and Cumia broadcast a blow-by-blow description of a couple having sex at St. Pat?s as part of their ?Sex for Sam? contest. But Opie and Anthony can argue that every detail of the contest was approved by company brass before the segment aired. An Infinity rep declined to comment, while the jocks? agent did not return calls.
What was it I was saying?
It would be among history's greatest understatements to say that Star Wars is a popular topic among web surfers and home theater enthusiasts. George Lucas' sci-fi fantasy saga is without a doubt among a beloved and influential part of modern movie pop culture. Legions of fans are willing to wait in lineups to see the movies re-released in theaters, and wait even longer to see the new prequels, despite harsh critical reaction. Star Wars fans are among the most loyal, outspoken and dedicated members of both the online film community, and that growing aggressive segment of consumers known as movie-buffs. They follow their favorite film legacy with complete devotion, and have made their love of Star Wars and options on the films very clear. Why, then, does writer/director/producer/creator George Lucas seem to be ignoring those who have been most loyal to him? Is he not paying attention? Is he clueless as to what the fans really want? Something isn't right. Some undesirable scenario is playing out that began a few years ago when suddenly, out of the blue, in a scene we thought we knew Greedo shoots first.
Read the rest at Test Pattern.
While you're at it you probably would like to check out this Episode II DVD review.
For geeking out. Some of the movies are pretty cool.
In other words, their employers knew exactly what they wanted from these guys. They got it, and only after it arrived with a bonus hailstorm of criticism, did they stop the show -- but not the paychecks. The show was canceled because Infinity Broadcasting needed to protect its corporate butt; if local religious leaders and broadcasting critics had all been on vacation that week, the two idiots would still be making pooh-pooh jokes on the air as we speak....Where is the reprimand against Infinity Broadcasting? (my emphasis) Or its mogul, Mel Karmazin? What's his punishment? He hires "Opie & Anthony," pays them to play with explosives, and when they blow things up, all he has to do is pay off the rest of their contract?
Read the rest of Keith Olbermann's Salon piece. He nails it. That's been my point. O&A are easy to point to and scream - "that's wrong!", but look behind the curtain folks. Look behind the curtain.
Read the rest at the NY Daily News.
Pleased to meetyas. Anyway, feel free to look around the site or post comments in the O&A threads Clear Channel to Opie and Anthony - we have no interest or Opie and Anthony Canceled. For or against. You're all welcome.
If you'd like to know about me, I'd like you to consider a beef and beer in support of the Sleeping Angels Fund. A non-profit that helps families in need memorialize their lost children.
Beyond that, two songs I wrote; Kensinton and The Future Knocks, tell you a lot. Yeah, they suck. But not too bad. Check out the stuff under "Main" for more. And check out the site's in my sidebar. Some great ones there.
Recently I've gotten massive traffic from three things on the site (other then getting people pissed off); the funny and false divorce story tied to 9-11, the words "Kill Bon Jovi" (hey I'm a fan! Check out The Future Knocks. You can hear my influences. I was commenting on the scrawl on the back of James Hetfield's guitar!), and O&A.
BTW - You can check out the first single from Bon Jovi's upcoming album here. It rocks.
Speaking of music, hope you had a great time at the Bruce Springsteen show last night Bill.
Today's O&A story is from CNN "Viacom should have known the risky-sex shock jocks would eventually go too far"
It was obvious from their antics that Opie and Anthony would go too far someday. Heck, this is the third time they did this sort of contest.Viacom, however, was oblivious to this inevitability. It was willing to take the money the show made, but not willing to look over its shoulder and look for trouble BEFORE it happened. At best, it was lazy and, at worst, negligent. Viacom wouldn't comment beyond its official statement on the matter.
Sure, the station manager and producer are getting punished too. But the corporate chieftains, who ultimately made the firing decision, should be held accountable too. At the very least, the corporation should donate some part of the profits it made off the show to the church it offended.
That's who people should be pissed at. Whether you are an O&A fan or a someone who's been offended. Because ultimately... they put out the paychecks. I'm a little disappointed in William Donohue, head of the Catholic League, who said, "I'm satisfied.", after hearing that they were canceled. Sounds like simple retribution to me. I'm with the article writer above - they should make a donation to the church. They should apologize. I guess you can say I'd rather them repent then be punished. Instead, by cancelling them, they've been recast as the victim. Read some more articles on the web, or my message thread. They will probably come back bigger then before. You'll see.
Other then O&A though, it's gotta be said, there are bigger things goin' on in the world.
Welcome Google users! For the discussion click here.
How'd it happen?!? For "Opie and Anthony Canceled" I'm number one on Google.
Here goes some more links:
update: 'nychick' passes on that O&A were *not* fired. Their show was canceled. They're still WNEW (NYC station) employees. Click for the discussion.
Now Clear Channel is moving to shut down Howard Stern!
Please click this url to continue the discussion.
Following is a previous post on Opie and Anthony:
Opie and Anthony got the door slammed in their faces by Clear Channel yesterday, as the radio giant said it had absolutely no interest in hiring the just-fired shock jocks. "They don't fit in with the brands we have in New York. God bless 'em, but we have no interest in them at all," said Andy Rosen, Clear Channel's regional vice president.
Read the rest in the NYPost.
I can't believe someone actually thinks this is a free speach issue. Common! That's bullshit. I *listened* to the show regularly and I still realize that just makes no sense.
Normal people have gotten fired for much much less. We may not like it. But that's the way it is. If the employeer felt strongly enough, they could have took it to court. But it looks like Infinity caved. Don't get mad if some Catholic groups are upset. They have every right to be offended.
You an O&A supporter and you wanna get mad? Get mad because Infinity caved. They are the employers. They held the cards. Could have took the fines. Could have went to court. Could have done as they did for years with Howard Stern. O&A were doing what they were paid to do after all. They just got fired for doing what they were told to do.
Believe me - back in the day - Howard Stern was way more controversial then O&A. President Bush was recently joking around with Ozzy! Do you realize the relationship those in power had with the entertainment industry in the 80s? Remember - the 80s were the PMRC decade. It's a whole new ballgame now.
Lileks sets the matter straight.
It looks like good 'ol free market capitalism is going to do it's work. No advertisers - no jobs. But that's temporary. I'm sure someone somewhere will take a chance on them soon enough.
WNEW-FM has issued the following press release:Based on recent events, The Opie and Anthony Show has been cancelled, and will be replaced by other programming beginning tomorrow.
Westwood One, Opie and Anthony's syndicator has also cancelled the program. The program aired on 18 stations across the country.
Also on Thursday, the top U.S. communications regulator ordered an investigation into complaints that the shock jocks allegedly broadcast a live, eyewitness account of a couple having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. This report lead to today's cancellation.
Read the rest at wcbs880. Maybe now we'll get music back on what was once a great rock station - 94 WYSP.
Yes, it's true. Yes I realize you don't believe me. That's ok. What did I think? Great movie.But the best? I don't know. I still have my favorite five and this didn't budge them. In my top five lies another mobster film that is more of a fan, then critical favorite - Scarface.
It was Opie and Anthony who put up the idiots who had sex infront of church goers last week. Looks like the station is in for serious trouble. More from the NYPost. via relapsed catholic.
Looks like Buffy was again screwed by the Emmy's but this year there is a twist.
Found in the Slashdot thread... The Center for Strategic and International Studies: Biological Warefare and the "Buffy Paradigm"!!!
Virginia Postrel defends comic books and the make-believe violence they portray against the idiots that would like to deprive kids of this imaginary outlet.
Look man... they have yet to give Buffy the Vampire Slayer what it deserves.
They're fake. They're phony. They're stuck up bullshit.
The show has rocked, and continues to rock with not just humor or attractive stars, but powerful story lines dealing with redemption, forgiveness, death, responsibility, and the consequences of using power - or not using it.
Last season was great. But after seeing most of season two again - well I'm never allowing that stupid ass awards ceremony to be played in my house ever again. Never.
Fuck the Oscars too for their treatment of Jim Carrey. The Truman Show deserved something.
And don't get me started on the Grammys.
Stupid awards shows. Boycott the Emmys!
I see that Meryl's a fan too.
This concludes Karl's stupid meaningless rant for today.
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