It's not all just politics politics politics around here

Last night while waiting to get into an awesome Ted Leo show, Lisa and I had a brief geek-off on the merits of blogging. We discussed everyone's preferred topics: Dany blogs about music, Eavvon blogs about pop culture, Matt blogs about movies and books, Jamie blogs about Jenell, and Joey blogs about rad explosions. "And you blog about politics," Lisa added.

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. I'll have you know that I blog about plenty of other things, people. Yeah, politics is a pretty important subject, I'll concede that -- but I write a lot about the so-called "liberal media", the FCC, the mayor's race in Philly, Fortune 500 mergers...... okay, so maybe there is a lot of politics there.

Whatever, because it doesn't even really matter: the top keyword search for people that find Open All Night from search engines is...(drumroll).....BILLY JOEL SUPER BOWL.

Alright, fuck this. I'm taking my ball and going home.

Ha.

Link via [Crooks & Liars]

TL at the TLA

First stop on the '07 tour. The last couple of shows I've been to have been kind of short and impersonal, so I'm hoping that after he's had a bit more rest, Ted Leo and his Pharmacists (plus one = James Canty) are ready to rock hard tonight.

I can still point to the Princeton show when he played in a goddamned frat house dining room as being one of the best shows I've ever been to. People were hanging off the porch out back trying to get a peek inside. This show won't be that, but hopefully it'll be a little better than watching them play in front of 3,000 uninterested Death Cab fans from the back row.

Here is the part of the post where I pretend like I write an MP3 blog:

Ted Leo - Keep on Pushing (Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions)
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Who Do You Love?
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Already Too Late

Tip: never buy music from these people

Some music artists are now coming out in defense of the indefensible new Internet radio royalty rate hikes coming down the road. We here at Open All Night have touched on the topic before, and it basically comes down to this: if you're for independent, affordable Internet radio, you're against these new royalties. Should they come to pass, they will make it unaffordable for the smaller Internet stations to continue legally broadcasting online.

A variety of musicians have spoken out in favor of the controversial, proposed higher royalty rates for Internet radio proposed by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). Drummer Jody Stephens (Big Star, Golden Smog) said in a statement, "If music adds commercial value to someone's site, then there is a monetary value due the writers and recording artists. The decision by the Copyright Royalty Board helps us afford to continue to add this value of music."

"A lot of internet users think of music as a product created and generated by major labels with corporate megadollars and so think nothing of taking or paying very little to use this music," added singer Michelle Shocked. "But the evidence shows that a large majority of music is now created by independent artists with very small margins trying earn a living and it's in that context that the recent decision to raise the internet broadcasting rates are seen as an encouragement to creativity and independence."

Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister added, "With the shrinking royalties from the usual sources, the ever expanding digital universe is apparently becoming the future and, before our very eyes, it is here now. I wholeheartedly support all organizations that endeavor to collect and account to all the hard working artists whose material is exploited. I applaud these new royalty increases as they scratch the surface of the new world order."

Last week, following criticisms and petitions from NPR and other broadcasters, the CRB agreed to grant motions for a possible rehearing over the royalty rates.

So, Big Star, Michelle Shocked, and Twisted Sister are the only musicians FMQB could scrounge up that were in favor of these new rules. As such, they should be punished -- with our wallets. That punishment can include simply not purchasing their records, or, as I like to do, hunting down the individual artists and whaling on them with a purse like a tough little old granny that just left her weekly karate lesson.

Also, this seems like the perfect opportunity to pimp this cool site I found that lets you search for RIAA-safe artists: RIAA Radar.com

Link via [FMQB]

Joey's Explosion of the Day

"Not all explosions are visible displays of fire, combustion, and things that make you go hmmm. Some explosions are the opposite of volcanos. They don't shoot up from the earth; they shoot down from the Lord. The Holy Ghost explosion is one of the most rare kinds of explosions. You are not always aware you are witnessing a Holy Ghost Explosion. Luckily this YouTube footage captures these rare occurances in action." -- Joey Coombe

Who's Your Daddy?

I'm really disgusted (but not surprised) by the media's reaction to the way Congress is attempting to subpoena White House aides in the USA Firing scandal. The conflict between President Bush and Democrats leading the investigation has taken the tone of a stern father reprimanding misbehaving children, as though it's somehow out of line for Congress to want to hear some official testimony on this case.

Events like this have been a hallmark of the Bush presidency. Even when it's perfectly clear that the administration is wrong, and well past the point when any savvy politician would've given in and let the news cycle run it's course as quickly as possible. Instead, by puffing his chest out and taking a stand on exactly how Karl Rove and Harriet Miers ought to be interviewed by investigators, Bush is keeping the negative issue in the limelight for extra days and even weeks.

He must really be covering something good up here, because allowing testimony on the record here shouldn't hurt them any more than if they continue to act like they're actually succeeding in hiding any wrongdoing. In fact, the stalling is making it look worse than it probably is. If they were smart, Rove and Miers would've squealed already, everyone's suspicions would've been confirmed, Alberto Gonzalez would probably take the fall, and the American public goes back to their new episodes of Law and Order by the end of the week.

However, this "liberal" media has pretty much removed the necessity for any political savvy in instances like this up to this point. Why should they (or Bush, for that matter) change what they're doing now?

Got my vote

Always refreshing to see the rare politician that's got a sense of humor about themselves...

Vote Different: the anonymous "1984"ad

In case you haven't seen it yet, watch this mash-up of Apple's "1984" ad with elements of the 2008 Democratic primary mixed in:



Pretty much everything that's going to be said about this particular video has been said already. We've graduated from the JibJab flash cartoons of 2004 to the Youtube election of 2008 and all I can say is watch out -- this is only going to get worse. The word going around is one of amazement, that some anonymous kid on the internet got his hands on the all-powerful 30 second spot and took it back from the big networks, that Youtube mashups like this will do to TV commercials what blogging is doing to journalism.

Well, not everyone can write well, which means that the majority of bloggers and journalists are people with at least an ounce of intelligence and a semi-valid idea of some sort in their heads. If they didn't, then they wouldn't even be trying to write. However, as we've seen with Youtube's predecessor, Flash, you don't even need that much to communicate using the visual medium. The proof of the pudding can be found on sites like Newgrounds and eBaums World, where any mouth-breather can proudly display their new animation of Martin Luther King Jr. dressed up as an African tribesman.

For every well-thought out JibJab cartoon, there are thousands of these crude scribbles, just as for every "1984-Obama" mashup there are thousands of videos of kids lighting their own farts on fire. Putting the political advertising battle online removes all of the boundaries of traditional television advertising , and seeks to amplify everything that's wrong with an already-flawed method of democratic discourse.

Like bloggers, Youtubers aren't held accountable like journalists or political action committees when they write or tape something that is verifiably false -- and that lack of accountability will be dangerous. While a user-created political ad like this is certainly not a first, you can be sure that the visibility of this one will spawn an entirely new genre, one that will try to make the national discussion more accessible but only succeed in dumbing it down on the whole.

House update

I experienced the strangest mix of emotions yesterday -- anger, confusion, relief, and regret -- when our bid for the house was turned down in favor of another last-minute offer by a competitor. I got the call from my uncle, who has been generous in providing his services as a realtor, around 5:30 while I was on the train. It brought a tumultuous roller coaster of a weekend to a crashing halt.

We're thinking now that the sellers were never really serious about accepting our offer, and that they were simply using us as bait to squeeze an 11th-hour deal out of the other buyer all along. The entire process, which probably was set to suck us nearly dry, took over a week from the time we decided to place a bid to the time we found out we'd been blown out of the water. In retrospect, nearly every action the sellers took were purposely designed to be stalling tactics -- ways to tentatively accept our offer while still holding out should something better come along at the last minute. Unfortunately, it played out exactly like that for them, and so now we've got nothing to show for two months of planning and searching.

The good news is that we're in a great position to continue the search later in April or May. We're on a month-to-month lease, the housing market continues to trend downward (read: good for buyers) and we'll continue to save money so that we don't have to borrow from our parents and tap our retirement accounts in order to have the buying power we need. We'll get through May, when my sister is getting married, and then Lauren will be on summer vacation from grad school and we can dedicate all the energy we need to what we now know to be a very hectic, stressful home-buying process.

But for right now: fuck you, sellers.

Man, I'ma double you up

While on the way to Exton Station this morning, I was listening to this report on KYW: (I know the link says ABC but I couldn't find the story on 1060's website yet)

Detectives tell Action News that someone shot the person near the concourse at 15th and JFK.
Officers found the victim in a stairway at around 2 a.m.
The victim died a short time later at a local hospital. Right now, police are looking for the shooter.
SEPTA officials say, the investigation will not affect the morning commute.

I knew 15th and JFK was the address of the buildings where I work, but either I wasn't really awake or didn't really think twice about it. It hit me when I got off the train and was walking through the Suburban Station underground and heard this exchange:

Homeless Dude who holds the door for people at Dunkin Donuts: "Man, I'm a double you up."

Other dude: (inaudible)

Homeless Dude: "Some guy got killed down here last night, man. Yeah, I was down here when it happened."

Now, I know this might sound callous, but being in Center City and commuting to the 'burbs each day is a little like living in a bubble within the City of Philadelphia. When you hear about "the killin's" as Milton Street put it so eloquently a couple weeks ago, it's on the radio, it's on TV, it's in the newspapers, but it's not a common topic of conversation outside your workplace. In fact, it still seems like it's happening in another area. Hell, look at this map from the Inquirer that maps the incidents in the city from 2006. Up until now, these shootings HAVE been happening somewhere else -- there are dozens of blocks that make up that blank area that represents where I've been going to work every day for the past six months.

But today, some dude was shot and killed in a spot I walk through every day, six hours before I walked through there. And while it might still seem to be some sort of surreal, alien issue to me that I only hear about on the news, to the folks who can't just hop on a train out of town every day at 5PM it's a fact of life.

Joey's Explosion of the Day: March 16

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7875720485308344066&q=civil+war+explosion

"TJ,

The Civil War was a very important war. America lost a lot of brave men on both sides. Historians recently recovered this footage of the infamous Battle of Raleigh, which was a turning point of the war. Some say, it was the fourth turning point of the war. When union soldiers marched onto this estate in Raleigh and ordered its owner to surrender or else, the owner replied, "Or else, what?" That's when the General responded with a cannon fire so devestating, it exploded his entire house. It actually took at long time to walk back to the cannon and set it up, load it and wait for it to fire. The owner of the house stood on his porch yelling at the soldiers to answer him goddammit before finally the cannon fired. " -- Joey Coombe

Joey's Explosion of the Day: March 15

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Whoa

I try to avoid posting about my personal life on here, but I thought I would share that Lauren and I are beginning the bid process for a house in Downingtown this evening. We will likely be surrendering every liquid asset we own in order to cover closing costs and whatnot, and it will probably be really tight for the next 4-6 months until we get used to putting nearly 7/8ths of our net income towards bills each month.



We've still got our friends, though -- and now we'll have lots of places for our friends to sleep over, grill in the backyard, pound lagers, and play hide-and-seek. Who needs money when you've got that?

Joey's Explosion of the Day: March 12

"This Canadian explosion, while inferior to American explosions, offers a unique explosion-perspective. The foregrounding of birds in this shot contrasts the natural with man-made, the man-killed with the man-blown up. Although Canadians have good beer and healthcare, their comedians wear dresses and their explosions are half-assed. Blow up a whole bulidng Canadia!" -- Joey Coombe

Congratulations to Joey Coombe as his new compelling series, Explosion of the Day, just happens to be the content of the 50th post here at Open All Night. May we post 50 more times, and then maybe 50 more after that!

Joey's Explosion of the Day

"The special effects are so '96, but this classic explosion will have you nostalgic for a time when you could only see american monuments blown up in movies." -- Joey Coombe

Recording Industry trying to kill Internet radio again

From CNET News:

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) had harsh words for a ruling released Tuesday by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board. It proposes raising the amount that commercial Internet radio services pay to record companies by 30 percent retroactively to 2006 and in each of the next three years through 2009. Each station would have to hand over a minimum $500 royalty payment.

"This represents a body blow to many nascent Internet radio broadcasters and further exacerbates the marketplace imbalance between what different industries pay," Markey said at a hearing here titled "The Future of Radio". The hearing was convened by the House panel on telecommunications and the Internet, of which Markey is chairman. "It makes little sense to me for the smallest players to pay proportionately the largest royalty fee."

What we have here is a move by the recording industry, prompted by the XM / Sirius merger proposal, to squash independent online broadcasters who dare to play by their own rules. The RIAA wants to place impossible spin tracking requirements and charge exorbitant fees for the rights to play music -- moves that are not designed to recoup money from these online broadcasters, but instead crafted to severely limit the playing field.

Under these rules, only internet broadcasters that can afford to pay the already-astronomical fees would be able to continue, and those that can't afford payments retroactive to 2006 find themselves in shit up to their necks. The $1.28-per-listener-per-hour rule being proposed here could completely shut down the internet operations of little guys like WCUR and WPRB, and even severely hamper the efforts of some bigger players like KEXP and Y-Rock on XPN.

To take WCUR for example, assume a rather meager 20 listener hours a day for 275 days out of the year (June, July, and August are typically pretty dead) -- that's $7,000 on top of the initial $500 fee. Seven grand is a solid one-third of that station's budget, and could probably force their hand to either turn off their internet simulcast or to (gasp!) start advertising on their online stream to make up for their lost revenue. And, if the station's listener base grows, the problem grows in proportion as well: if WCUR ever gets so popular as to have just 50 listener hours a day, these fees will suck them completely dry.

Of course, we're using the WCUR example because it's the one we're intimately familiar with -- but we know the world probably won't miss it when another shitty college station that plays pro wrestling entrance music as the majority of it's format gets canned. The stations that truly care about the music enough to dedicate their time and effort to providing quality alternatives to the homogenized muck that's out there now will certainly all perish. This bill has the power to single-handedly destroy the most promising radio medium since FM went mainstream -- and the best way to stop it, it would seem, would be to contact the guy we already know is on our side, Rep. Ed Markey, and voice your support for his actions against this crap.

Link via [CNET & Open Congress]

MACRoCK 2007 coming .... in 2008

Thanks to a timely heads-up from Eavvon, we see now that the MACRoCK website has been updated to include a new design and a new message for 2007:

Guess what?! MACRoCk has gone on safari!

Contrary to some rumors, our ship has not sunk. During our trip, we found a new home that we loved so much we decided to stay. The MACRoCk committee has thought long and hard about our mission and has decided to partner up with the Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance. We are now in stride to become a completely independent conference, free of the legal backing of James Madison University, with whom we have operated over the past ten years. The conference will now be housed completely in the Harrisonburg downtown area with the support of local independent venues and businesses.

In order to bring our community the highest quality conference we can, we have decided to forgo the conference this spring and prepare for April 4, 5, of 2008. To all our friends and supporters, we're sorry to have inconvenienced anyone with our lack of communication. No worries, next year the shit is going to be bananas!

We look forward to seeing you all next year.

Hugs and Kisses,
The MACRoCK Committee

First of all, kudos to the MACRoCK kids for soldiering on under what must have been tremendous pressure from James Madison U. to make this show profitable. While having a decent-sized influx of indie kids from all over the East Coast every April was undoubtedly a small boost to the local economy, JMU had pretty much nothing to gain but headaches from the annual rush. Disassociating themselves from the university is a good move that should free them up to do some wild new things, such as getting more sponsors and growing the conference beyond the limited capacity it had before. Once they're independently financially stable, we ought to see some bigger musical attractions as well.

The cons to this move? Obviously, a move off-campus means there might suddenly be more "21+ only" than all-ages shows for a conference that has traditionally appealed to the 18-20 year old college crowd. MACRoCK's slow creep from JMU's prestigious concert halls to Harrisonburg's many strip-mall bars and clubs has been spreading for years, though, which means the transition away from the school probably won't lock out too many underage kids. The price range is a slight concern, too -- MACRoCK has always had dozens of shows, expos, and discussion panels available over the course of two days for the approximate equivalent of the tank of gasoline it takes to get down there -- a fucking bargain when compared to the music industry circle-jerk that CMJ has become.

In all, Eavvon and myself have been keeping pretty close tabs on what the WXJM kids have been up to these past couple of months, and I suppose we're generally pretty happy with the steps they're taking. Obviously, completely skipping 2007 is bogus, but not really avoidable with less than a month to go before the conference was scheduled to go down. However, these folks are wise to recognize the potential the event has, and they're making a courageous move stepping out of the comfy confines of a university that has probably grown a little tired of the annual migration of freeloading idiots such as ourselves.

Goddammit though, there goes my annual built-in road trip! Where to now? Boston in May? Perhaps Los Angeles in June? Who knows?

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

Atrios breaks down the Ann Coulter Hate Speech episode:

I know there are those who wonder why we bother with this stuff because it's all very predictable.

1) Ann Coulter makes racist or homophobic comment.
2) Ann Coulter provokes outrage.
3) Ann Coulter gets more TV appearances because of it.

It's true. But I'm not outraged at 1) or 2), I'm outraged by 3). That part was predictable as well, but it's important to keep calling them on it.

Link via [Eschaton]

Jack Cafferty is an angry, angry man

Jack Cafferty returns to the Situation Room and tears shit up over the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.


The entire story is just another disgraceful episode of incompetence and mismanagement in this administration -- and I bet most people aren't even concerned with the story. Well, this story in today's Metro paper sure got my attention (emphasis mine):

Under what conditions were you first sent there?

I was at Walter Reed from April 2004 until 2005 with a gunshot wound to the head. They did the surgery in Baghdad and replaced part of my skull with a titanium plate. They transported me to Germany before sending me to Washington.

Were any of the problems that have come to light in the last few weeks visible when you arrived?

It struck me immediately that they were completely overwhelmed. Things like mice, mold and roaches — they didn’t just get there overnight. Those were conditions that had been building for some time, and it became painfully obvious while I was there that I would be competing with my fellow soldiers for the staff’s attention.

The treatment of soldiers has come into question as well. How were you treated?

Let’s put it this way: On my first day there, I was asked if I wanted inpatient or outpatient treatment. This was less than a week after I’d been shot in the head.

Another Hurricane Katrina, indeed.

Video via [Crooks & Liars]
Link via [Metro]

Fare thee well, Cingular brand

The freshly-redesigned AIGA has a touching goodbye to the Cingular "Jack" logo:

Jack and the Cingular brand identity contrasted with other phone brands. According to Koval, its competitors “were about all about [airtime] minutes and sound quality. We made it about linking and communication and self-expression. We wanted a human symbol and made it a character.” When Jack arrived, mobile phone logos “were stiff and bold and italicized, red and blue. We took a totally different approach—soft and lowercase and orange. ” Jack’s replacement is the blue marble, the kinder, gentler AT&T globe logo introduced in 2005. The maker of the marble, which replaced the previous, two-decade-old AT&T logo, is the firm Interbrand, whose parent company wears the sinister Hollywood moniker Omnicom. That original orb, by Saul Bass, was nicknamed the “Death Star” as soon as it arrived on the scene in 1985. But that was because AT&T was already seen as an empire, not the lethal weapon menacing Princess Leia’s republic. AT&T is an old-line company, with roots in the 19th century—a company, after all, that still has the word “telegraph” embedded somewhere behind its initials.

Link: [ Bell System Memorial ]
Wikipedia: [ Cingular Wireless ]

Wherein the Philadelphia Mayor's race is decided with a Battle of the Bands

Gospel Crooner Milton Street:





Punk Rocker Larry West:







Ok... this Larry West kid is a guy I can get behind based on enthusiasm alone.



Well... that and the haircut.

FUCK YES LARRY WEST

Links via [Philly Will Do & Live From...]

T. Milton Street: The "T" stands for "Tirade"

I came back from Milton Street's "rally" (read: small get-together) in front of City Hall about an hour ago. I still have no coherent words or thoughts from what I saw there.



For those of you who refuse to follow politics (or maybe just aren't interested in Philly politics), T. Milton Street is Mayor John Street's crazy older brother. He's decided that he's going to run for mayor in a race that already has like a dozen candidates in it already. He's also decided that he's going to say and do all the comically insensitive and outlandish things that politicians AVOID doing if they're going to run for public office. This guy has been in the limelight of the mayor's race for maybe two weeks now, and already he's calling opponents "Watermelon Man", gotten arrested for years-old parking ticket violations, and the list goes on and on. I could list all of his wacky missteps, but instead I'll just let you peruse the archives of the world's preeminent Milton Street analyst / historian, D-Mac over at PhillyWillDo.

Some choice statistics from today's event, courtesy of D-Mac:

2: Number of members of the reggae band that was supposed to perform that were killed this morning, according Milton Street
1: Number of hecklers who yelled "You're going to jail, Milton"
1: Times Milton Street returned fire against the "white people heckling me over there"

To call this rally a circus would be accurate, except for the fact that people usually come out to see the circus by the thousands. And, even though he promised he wouldn't run unless 5,000 people came out to this event, Street of course went back on that when it was clear that no more than 200 curious onlookers and a couple of news helicopters were going to make it today. He said God was telling him to continue on, likening his struggle to that of Jesus' toil in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. This, of course, was AFTER he drug a casket out onto the stage and launched into song in the middle of his rambling, hour-long speech.

You're sure to see a replay tonight on TV, as every media outlet in town was there gathering up the precious footage to chuckle at on the evening news. Even WIP, the sports-talk station, was there asking people what they thought about the whole thing. It's good for a laugh, if nothing else, and you might even see some B-roll with me in the back of the crowd, looking dumbfounded.

Links and pictures via [Philly Will Do]

Edit: Forgot to mention that I saw the Inquirer's Peter Mucha there doing his "Live From..." blog. Here are the entries (typically short and unfiltered) he posted while walking through the crowd with his laptop caddy attached to his torso: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8