Napster Bad, Metallica Good?
Maybe Napster is killing music after all.
Not in the RIAA sense of screwing thousands of starving musicians out of publishing revenue that is rightfully theirs. Hell, I've played on quite a few records in my day, and I've never seen one red cent from publishing.
No, I would posit that Napster is killing music simply because it's just too much of a good thing.
Sure, at first an endless supply of free music sounds like a good thing. I can download something I've heard about, or never heard about, swish it around, and spit it out if it's wack. If it's good, I add it to my folder of more than 3,500 other wonderful mp3s. (I'd have more, but my 13GB hard drive is pretty much maxed out.)
So my Winamp is on endless shuffle, and I can listen for a whole week at work and never hear the same song twice. Groovy. But as time goes on, I start to wonder, "Is this all there is? Am I missing something? Is there something out there that I haven't heard?"
And like the actor or rock star or politician who has easy access to every sexual aberration, I've become bored of the plain vanilla. I feel compelled to seek out new, strange sensations, musical perversions I never would have considered before Napster. Like Fantomas or Dillinger Escape Plan. These bands are like musical paraphilias, the aural equivalent of frotteurism. These are the kinds of bands you want to sleep with, but no way are you bringing them home to meet your parents.
Napster is to music what the birth-control pill was to sex: We can now listen without responsibility. If I'm actually paying for this stuff, all of the sudden I'm a helluva lot more selective. But with free music, like free love, I'll slip it to the fat girl in the corner without thinking twice.
Napster may be in its death throes now, but the damage has been done. I've already got every Elvis Costello and Burt Bacarach demo there is, as well as all the really cheezy emo-pop I wouldn't be caught dead walking up to the counter to purchase. God forbid I should have to start cruising mp3.com for my fix.
Oh, and the Metallica thing in the title? That was just a gag. They suck too. ßßß
Blawg is down as of this writing, so I'm kind of in "If a weblog falls in the forest and it can't get FTPed or read, does it make a sound?" mode. Too bad for you, because I had many wry witticisms and scathing social critiques to drop on you. Of course if you're actually reading this it means blawg is back and all the preceding is moot, but what the hell.
Along those same lines, .ronn, admin, owner, guru and all-around genius of the .ronn network, has informed me that Toast, the server that (usually) provides you with blawg, is being moved to its new colocation tomorrow, so there will most likely be outages tomorrow and Saturday. We apologize in advance for the inconvenience, and we thank ronn for his continued absolutely free hosting of blawg! Buy him a highly caffeinated beverage if you see him.
You guys and all your friends must be happily and gainfully employed, because I did not receive a single résumé yesterday. Of course my blawg mail was down for some of the day, so if you did send one, g'ahead and resend it here. Much obliged.
Do you know what happens when an entire culture represses any and all sexual behavior? Hentai.
Hentai is that crazy Japanese cartoon porn, typified by slender (read preteen) women being raped by tentacles. I'd provide a handy link to an example, but that's probably not the kind of thing you want popping up on your monitor at the office, right? You show me a guy turned on by cartoon 12-year-olds getting violated by squids, and I'll show you a guy with serious psychological problems. And a guy owed a serious ass-kicking by me.
Shifting gears now.
The Major League Baseball trading deadline is almost upon us, and there's no better barometer of the health of a ball club then their behavior during the week before the trading deadline. Both the A's and the Giants seem to think they have a shot, at the wild card at least: The A's traded for Jermaine Dye, and the Giants dealt for Andres "Big Cat" Galarraga. Galarraga paid immediate dividends for the Giants yesterday, going 3 for 5 with 2 RBIs.
But I still think the Giants are screwed. Before yesterday's win over the hapless Rockies, they'd lost four straight, and Arizona is on a tear. But maybe I'm wrong. It's happened before. ßßß
Anybody wanna be my bitch for a living?
So I'm trying to hire someone for our editorial department. The ad was posted on craigslist on Friday, and as of this writing I've received 112 résumés. That's a lot.
The position in question was billed as "Junior Copy Editor," but that hasn't stopped people with more than 20 years of newspaper experience, people with PhDs, and people with no apparent grasp of the English language from applying. I feel bad for the overqualified people; the market must be really bad if hardcore newspapermen with fedoras and drinking problems are applying for an entry-level gig. Same with the MFA and PhD people, although they probably should have thought about their complete lack of job prospects when they got their advanced degrees in Netherlandish Art History and shit like that.
But what of the people who didn't think to proofread their own résumés or cover letters when applying for a copy editor job? Here are just a few of the gems I've been sent:
Now even though I'm the copy chief (among other things) where I work, I'm no grammar Nazi. In normal correspondence, I wouldn't even think twice about any of these errors. Actually, I would forward the "commiserate" one around and point and laugh, but the others are relatively harmless. But these people were applying for a copy editor job. If they can't copy edit their own stuff, why in God's name would I pay them to copy edit mine?
So I'm still looking. If you or anyone you know is a year or two out of school, unemployed, and has a useless Liberal Arts degree, tell 'em to email me today. I'm serious. ßßß
When I grow up, I wanna be a Professional Celebrity!
I don't know about you, but when my guidance counselor tried to steer me onto some stupid career track, I don't remember Professional Celebrity being on the list. You know, those people that keep appearing in the media despite a complete lack of any discernible talent? Those people who's only talent lies in being a celebrity?
And yet Professional Celebrity seems to be a valid career choice. Just ask Carmen Electra, Tiffany Shlain, or anyone from a reality TV show. Carmen Electra can't sing or dance, but that hasn't stopped her from getting her own Las Vegas show. Tiffany Shlain's only talent seems to be in unrelenting self-promotion. And that girl from Survivor that looks like a guy can't act, but that didn't keep her from getting a part in that fabulous Rob Schneider vehicle, The Animal.
So am I jealous? Goddamn right I am. These people are just like you and me, with the notable exception of their inexplicable fame. So, apart from eating rats in Burma or marrying Dennis Rodman, neither of which I'm man enough to do, how can I get to be one of these people?
The trick seems to be in getting large parts of the population to believe that you're worthy of adoration. Doesn't seem to matter how you do it, so I figure if I can start a little fame snowball going, I'll eventually be famous. You know, convince a few people here and there that I'm important, then steadily expand my sphere of influence to eventually encompass all the world. Then I, too, will be a professional celebrity.
Maybe blawg is the ticket. Maybe through the viral medium of the Internet I can get droves of people to believe I'm somehow better and more deserving of praise than they are. Today blawg, and tomorrow the world. But I won't forget you, the little people who made it all posssible. And, thanks to the miracle of the modern multinational media machine, you will not be able to forget me. No matter how hard you try. ßßß
Separated at Birth, Part II: Sting and Anthony Michael Hall.
Who knew?
Anthony Michael Hall, after star turns in such classics as A Gnome Named Norm, Freddy Got Fingered, and Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story, has embarked on a singing career! Hurry over to his mp3.com site and download all his soon-to-be hits! As of this writing, AMH had earned $1,288.00 in mp3.com money. Props to you, Anthony Michael. We can't stop you, we can only hope to contain you.
Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story is the best movie I have ever seen.
Some observations I made this morning while watching MTV with the sound off.
MTV has a new policy: Every third video must have a guest appearance by either Ja Rule or Missy Elliott.
Beyonce Knowles is really, really hot right now, but will be really, really fat someday.
The new Crystal Method video is a really lame rip-off of the Daft Punk video with the guy in the dog mask that Spike Jonze did.
The current crop of MTV News correspondents makes Tabitha Soren look like a freaking quantum physics professor.
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
