Collected Thoughts 01-08-09

• Radio Free Silverlake scoops the future of 20 LA bands.
  

• Illegal downloaders buy more music than non-downloaders? It follows with me.
  
  I used to think "music is free, now and forever". I don't anymore. But I do think music has been re-valued to a price that is more acceptable to every day folks.
  
  I also believe in Platonic ideals and that sounds are discovered, not "invented," so that colors my viewpoint. Ultimately, I think ideas and even documentations of ideas should belong to the public, at the very least much sooner than they do.
  
  I don't download illegally much. Here's my own personal code:
  
  
  1. I don't download the latest album from an artist if they are on an indie label, unless I actively despise the band and wish to do harm to them.
  2. I don't download the latest album from an artist that is on a major label if I ever think I'd be willing to trade money for it. I'd never think of stealing the most recent Weezer. (Which would still be paying too much.)
     
  3. I'll download back catalogs of a band if the catalogs are too hard to find in stores and if the artist is old and filthy rich.
  4. I'm will occasionally break the code if I don't expect to "use" the album much, but I feel the need to hear it for context or to write about.
     
     
  That's all silly because it's still stealing. But the sum total is this: of all the music I listen to more than twice, probably 35% was sent to me by the band or reps, 55% was purchased, and 10% was stolen. I'm trying to teach myself to never steal music, but as a product of the Napster Golden Age, that's hard to do.
  

• I really loved Chuck Klosterman's new book Eating the Dinosaur. He's gone from being a trendy, hyper-ironic magazine writer to a really thoughtful, talented personal essayist. The book has an excellent essay on the conservative-liberal contradiction in the nature of football. I also really enjoyed his essay on the Unabomber. Worth a read.

• I also recently read Story by Robert McKee. I wish I'd been required to read it in college. I'd only read passages before. There's really nothing in there I especially disagree with.

• I think Kick-Ass looks lame. It looks like they're just trying to raise the target age of Spy Kids. I've not read the book, but the only purpose of telling a story about "regular Joe superheroes" is either to 1) lampoon them (The Tick) or 2) show how we're all perverts. (Watchmen) I'm not seeing it.
  

• The reason newspapers are failing is ultimately a matter of medium. I think propping-up the papers, at this point, would be like propping-up the telegraph companies.
  

• It occurs to me I haven't chimed-in on my Colts in forever.
  
  Well, it goes without saying, I hated the call to pull the starters when they were undefeated and leading the Jets. I was so angry I slammed my fist on my dad's coffee table. My dad's coffee table was covered in newspapers; I didn't notice the section bellow my fist was glass until I heard it shatter. So that's about how I felt about that.
  
  I'm fine with protecting the players. What I'm not fine with is protecting the players from half a game at home, giving up on Perfection, then playing players for half a game in a blizzard the following week in order to get Dallas Clark and Reggie Wayne some personal records. It was hypocritical and mean to do to the fans. The fans, by the way, are the point of the game. The fans pay the players and the coaches and the GMs.
  
  Anyways, I love the Colts' chances going into the playoffs. I love them against the Bengals and the Jets, and I like them a lot against the Ravens. I think Indy would beat Sandy Eggo at home (they're due to win one over the Chargers anyway) and I think New England is limp without Wes Welker, whose shredded knee is a good case for resting your starters.
  
  Predictions: Jets, Ravens, Cowboys, Packers.

• I've grown to hate Peggy Noonan, a writer whom I used to enjoy. Her NYT column has gotten so unbearably wistful and embarrassingly disconnected from the problems of people who make $150,000 a year or less. (Nevermind poor, she even mis-reads much of the middle class!) Anyways, here is a proper takedown of Noonan by Sullivan.

• The cable news seems to have gotten even worse in the last year. These days it just feels like rich media guys hanging out with their rich political friends on camera. Nobody on MSNBC, Fox, or CNN (or in the Washington Post) dares challenge the assertions of their guests unless it's to score ratings. There are no facts left.

• In my hometown of Indianapolis there is a controversy over the local government selling advertising space on fire extinguishers to KFC.
  
  Let's suppose this relationship works out. Everyone likes the arrangement. They love it so much that they expand on the idea. Soon KFC is putting its ads on squad cars, ambulances, and in the yards of public schools. In fact, KFC is dumping money into the city government. Then hard times hit. The city is dependent on those ad dollars.
  
  Then let's say KFC comes along and says "Oh, by the way, we'd like a contract to sell fried chicken lunches in Indianapolis Public Schools." And the government says "Gee, I don't know..." and then KFC says "Gosh, we'd hate to spoil this relationship and pull our ads..."
  
  This is the problem with central government making deals with corporations. The government is us, the people. The corporations are not people. The government exists in part to protect us from the power that is accumulated when large sums of money are gathered into a single place. This is a lesson that many fiscal conservatives just don't see, that corporate government is a very real thing, a very real threat, and needs to be checked-and-balanced just like congress, the courts, and the presidents.
  
  I'm of the opinion that saying as much is not communist or socialist and very much in line with how the founding fathers conceived of democratic government. They never foresaw business entities as having human rights, and they'd have insisted on checks and balances if they could have known.

• I fear these kinds of videos may become a trend. I just can't get over them.