Happy New Year

The true profession of man is to find his way to himself.
Herman Hesse

You are free and that is why you are lost.
Franz Kafka

The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates

Every revolutionary needs a color TV.
Jerry Rubin

Reality is a movie.
Abbie Hoffman

It is only the religious mind that is the truly revolutionary mind.
J Krishnamurti

If a pickpocket meets a holy man, he will see only his pockets.
Hari Dass Baba

I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower . He has never looked at a star. He has never done anything in his life except add up figures and that makes him swell with pride. But he is not a man. He is a mushroom.
Antoine DeSaite Exupery

It is often difficult to understand what encloses us, what walls us up, what seems to bury us, but, nevertheless, we feel undefined bars, gates, walls.
Vincent Van Gogh

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness completely different. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness disregarded. They forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.
William James

Life Imitates Art: Reality Revisited

I guess that's my current answer to this age old question. Does life imitate art or does art imitate life? Obviously, both. It's a cycle, yin/yang. But I'll put my money on the artist as incipient initiator originator. First God, consciousness, then manifestation. All begins as thought, idea.

First, there were just these poorly acted and recreated versions of reality...early radio, movies, TV... don't they all seem so phony now? We were not ready to demonstrate or view real life on our airwaves, nor could we act as convincingly as we do today. As time went on, cameras & cassettes became more prevalent, people got more and more used to being filmed and at the same time were watching more realistic dramas & early reality TV: game shows, talk shows etc. We were also filming lots of reality, as early as the 50's....only it was called home movies. And the last thing we wanted on there was our arguments (how little we knew), we wanted white glove waves from happy holidays. There was a huge gulf between the home movie "reality" and Hollywood... that is changing, in film/TV... and in music.

Now everyone is media savvy and ready to be filmed. Everyone is ready to be real, at least a fake TV version of real. Over a million people applied to be the next Apprentice. Even these Survivors from Appalachia are smooth, it's unreal, er, real... too real. At the same time more and more of us keep signing up to the big hive brain here and will soon have their very own, free, easy to use, anonymous if they like, site. So, in a sense we're all becoming public actors in this human drama and that comment of Andy Warhol's about each of us having 15 minutes (plus a website) of fame won't seem like such a joke. Mark Burnett commented that his shows are not reality shows but unscripted dramas, and he's right. His shows are not real situations, though more and more reality is going into the home.

I saw one where this British nanny went into this real home, with a real family. The basically loving Dad was getting out of control and getting violent with the kids. Somehow she actually seemed to break through to this guy and it really looked like the situation was turned around. Wife Swap also goes into these real homes. Really, the permutations are endless. I wouldn't want to be a scriptwriter any more than I'd want to be working at a label right now. Even in film, as I discussed in the Super-Size post, it's documentaries on the rise. Next up for scrutiny is the drug industry. Sicko, Moore's next film, due out in two years already has big drug reaching for the meds. They are sending around internal memos telling everyone to watch out.

People now want it real.... and close to home. Virtual reality is in tech too, from our games to our home tours.... more reality, more interest, more interaction (more Intervision.. I had to) more control. We increasingly want to become the director, the actor, the artist, the creator. We each want to direct our own movie, even if it's only a life unfilmed. We want to be in control of our lives, make them happy and more interesting, and seeing it on film helps us do that, as does controlling our music and blogging.

Anyway, I think the more interesting question is; what is the line (intervision) between life and art? Where do they merge and blur? What happens when you can't tell which is which? For example, you have more and more celebrities doing reality shows. First Nick and Jessica, who are omnibranding themselves into the well-overplayed. Next up, you guessed it the Ashlee Simpson lip-synch show. It's already on the air.

There's more rock reality, a step behind American Idol. There is The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliot where Miss Hip Hop Pop, certainly an inspiration herself, will mentor a group of aspiring singers. I'd like to see a little record insider expose but w/ Madonna popping in it could be label propaganda for all I know... after all, Idol is. They bust their fucking butts on that show for the big prize, that glorious record deal. Well yeah, when you have a hit TV show, cross branding, getting these kids familiar with the public, yeah, they'll be successful, only because they sell a few million records if they win a top spot. Then, they've hopefully got some control. You want to guess what those initial record deals with Kelly Clarkson and Rueben Studdard, amazing voices, look like? Let's just say they are looking for hinterland singers for a reason.

Another show in the works, which I bet will be another Burnett hit is Rock Star featuring the surviving members of INXS ( a killer group!) looking for Hutchence's replacement. As I mentioned in my Elton post, the bespectacled one is behind a scripted sit-com roughly imitating his life. So, what's real and what's not? The dramas, dramadies, and comedies mimic real lives while the reality players, like survivors Jerry Manthey and Johnny Fairplay, not to mention Omarosa, feel they are playing roles on these reality shows. They say, "hey, that's not really me, it's a character the producers had me play". Anyway, you can start getting into some pretty deep philosophical stuff here. What's real to me is humanity and all the frailties that not only pervade mankind but all it's great dramas from the Bible to Shakespeare, who said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." Feelings are real.

And soon each player will have their own blogspot, then their own fulfilled identity and voice, and then their own audio/visually incredible website and then their own personal Steadman Graham, the guy who branded Oprah into being the first multimedia omnibranded black billionaire. Seriously, the guy wrote a book about branding. Doesn't have to be Pepsi people.... it's you! How did Oprah get that billion? By being Oprah fucking Winfrey, just being herself, with an incredible voice and vision. Very real.

So, what's the next step for reality television? Well, if I wasn't so naive and protected by extremely stringent copyright laws and personally, so forthcoming, I wouldn't put this out there but here it is. We have what Mark Burnett calls unscripted dramas, but each person is at least ostensibly, themselves. We also have dramas, where actors pretend to be other characters and read a script. But what about a blend. A show where you have the "cast" come in and be real to their characters, but there is no script, they are improvising, however, not as real people, as characters. It's almost like a game, and very fun for them, it can be filmed to look as good as any reality show. It's like a soap opera without a script.

And what does the creator do? I mean, there's no director, no writer...just a creator (hope I'm not getting too spiritual here). Well, the creator creates the characters and perhaps a story, or does the story tell itself in the characters? Anyway, when this film comes out, and, believe me, I'll keep you posted...it will be, I guess, a hopefully well-improvised and well-acted, produced and reproduced recreation of a story, of my life, which came before the art, but... not really, because it will be fresh and new and changing and provide even more insight. So, I guess, in the end, the art does come first... unless you're Oprah ...who became her art.

The bigger question... what is real. We can make movies, but we can never make our lives come out like the movies. We can control our music, but not our lives, not reality. We're not gods, even the Googlionnaires. We can't control others, or our own thoughts or passions sometimes. We're not omniscient. We can never really know what others are thinking. Boy did I learn that one the hard way, living with one well-hidden for too long. But, if we're smart and attentive... if we care about being real, then at least we can be in touch with ourselves, and feel what we really feel, and be honest enough to be that, share that and not flinch. Be your authentic self, the good, bad and the ugly. Accept it, forgive it, be it. That, to me, is being real.

We can all handle reality now, we have more exposure, more vocabulary, hell, we've got Dr. Phil. How fucking real is that? The guy goes into these devastated families, teen pregnancies, etc. and actually turns them around as a psychologist, giving all sorts of external high-priced help. His son has a show where he takes a family and literally, with a full team of people, renovates their home and their lives, helping them quit drugs & other bad habits, teaches them to be real and respectful of each other. It's even more amazing than the Nanny.

In my view, when it comes to media. It's not about how realistically it's presented, it's about the message and where it can take us. If, by watching reality on TV in our living rooms, instead of watching each other live in our living rooms, we can learn lessons on how to feel and express our feelings constructively and how to live better and be better, then and only then is it valuable. And I have. I learned a lot of business skills on the Apprentice. I sure as hell wish I'd known to strongly advocate for yourself instead of taking the approach of receptivity toward critique. I've seen more up close how people truly are small and petty and insecure and think primarily of their own stake in any situation. I've seen how much unhappiness that can bring people, and why Buddah taught that ego limits us. In seeing others share our plight, we forgive ourselves, and hopefully do better. Why do we learn it better, when it's once removed.... on TV instead of in our office, or home? We can't see it when it's too close, we're too invested, we're too concerned about losing control.

So, bring on the reality, baby. As was presaged in Network, reality TV is here to stay and is spreading like wildfire throughout the real world.... whatever the hell that is.

Women of '04: Steele & Keys

Man, this was a tough one. Not tough like it was with the men, how to choose just two, but to FIND two of sufficient stature and power! I looked through all my recent Netflix movies, even those I hadn't rented, in the hopes there was a promising new female director; another Sophia Coppolla coming to light this year. Nope, even the chick flicks are directed by guys. Politics? Hillary is always a good choice, she's been diligent and smooth. But, she didn't do much recently except be classy during the election. Increasingly saddened and frustrated.... music? Anyone influential on a policy level? Yes. Hillary fucking Rosen. But, she would have to be a born again music freer, not just a Lessig listener, before I'd choose her. I'm not Time magazine, people. They choose the most influential person(s) of the year, for good or ill. I don't. I choose someone who elevates us.

If I've overlooked someone, please let me know, but, I'm gonna go Alicia Keys. The artists have a platform, a voice, in this case literally, so unless someone behind the scenes is really making waves, I'd go with an artist. I went into this a bit before on my Billboards (12/9/04) post, but I'm choosing Alicia over Beyonce, who had a better album(s) this year, because she does have a better message. If I have to choose one, I'll go with the one who has expressed some desire to raise awareness, through her music. Alicia has shown focus on social/political issues and is more innovative. I have no problems with Beyonce's in your face sexuality, at all, as I've said, but she needs more message. Madonna had some success, with her church-fighting angle and artistic take on sex.

Alicia is a serious artist, playing in bands since age 9. She blends classical, gospel & R&B with a very contemporary rock/pop feel. She is original and Falling was one of the most daring and fresh songs I'd heard in years. Her tango number at the VMA's stole the show. She's not aftraid to try new things. She did have two major hits this year, one with the lush Usher, the other one made my top 20. She shows a lot of emotion and maturity, vision and direction... all of which was Key to my vote.

From Alicia to Shari, artist to activist. Shari Steele was my original choice, but, since I did two Men '04, I was not about to dis my own. Her group was one of the first to bring attention to the issue of internet freedom. Many, like me, got on board when music came online, but Shari has been on to internet issues since the internet. She's one of the many footsoldiers out there working almost invisibly in the public interest.

She's in charge of an effective organization, one that has inspired others to organize. EFF, which I recently posted about, was one of the first of a whole new generation of public interest and political action groups, which are getting increasingly public relations oriented. The article in the link above is a good example. Not only is she fighting hard in the courts finding lawyers for any manner of internet harassment, but she is organizing grass roots efforts to bring awareness to these issues and pressure to bear in DC. Moreover, she's putting her money (which is pretty scarce in the non-profit world) where her mouth is. Magazine ads are not cheap. Her efforts have done much to slow down Big Brother and RIAA rampage, and they are much appreciated.

It is not easy to take on the rich and powerful in this country, but, behind the blond curls is the Woman of Steel & she's my choice for the Woman of '04.

Men of '04: Spitzer & Moore

I couldn't choose between them, why try? Better to see the intervision. Both are like pit-bulls in heat but with opposite styles. Moore so humble and mild. Spitzer...all I can say, as a born and bred New Yorker....you do not fuck with New Yorkers. God, I just love to see men out there fucking with RIAA and other dangerous, dark powers. I'd love to see the girls go at it, and, don't worry, I've got my lady of '04 all lined up.... it just doesn't warm me in quite the same way.

Elliot Spitzer, the dashing, politically ambitious NY Attorney General does not like the labels. Thanks to him, my latest issue of RS is laden with ads looking for artists the labels ripped off, that is, completely, did not pay.. anything. The ones they give a check to are also ripped off, big time, by a labyrinthine, arcane system of payment only RIAA lawyers understand. What Spitzer eked out is chump change, but, that's what they're living off, so, hopefully it hurts enough to make some of the mega-parents think about spinning off their now cashless cows. Especially, since he's not done. He's now going after these indie promoters (label stooges) who front payola to radio. He's keeping up the pressure, keeping up visibility. You've got to keep hitting, hard, from all angles... keep them on the defensive, and he is doing that.

Midwestern Moore has plugged away, speaking from his heart. Talking to folks in Flint, really feeling their pain, as the city turned into a ghost town in the wake of the first wave of offshore displacement. Then, guns. Bowling for Columbine covered all bases; from the irony of these kids bowling before massacring, and then getting us up close and personal with why and how it happened, the easy availability of guns paired with our media culture of fear coming out of a history of slavery and white guilt. Now maybe we're ready to really look in the mirror and see ourselves for what we really are.... insecure bullies. It's not just red-state/blue. We've got two cultures co-existing in this country. It's not even black/white. It's more urban/rural. In the blue states urban suburbanites are in the majority, in others, rednecks rule. Face it, there are lots and lots of people in this country living in tiny towns with gun selling Wal-marts & McDonalds, but no economy, no internet.... just TVs.

Those of us with degrees, maybe pedigrees, and condos don't see them, god knows we don't understand them, but, they vote, and they have power, enough power to get us into wars and military actions all over the place. Powerful enough to drain our economy taking care of their health and subsidizing their Soma. They're not gonna be making any more of our Wal-mart crap. The world is now too small and set-up and bountiful of the poor ready to embroider boots for $1./day. We can't get through to them on the airwaves, those are owned by big drug and fat who are still able to make money off them. But Moore... he makes movies. Maybe they'll help inform us & them, help us get to know each other. I have been through these places, went to school in one. But, it's hard to relate. Can we just ignore this vast, underserved part of our country forever? At what cost?

All I know is, Moore is shedding some light, raising awareness. He's doing it in an entertaining, thought-provoking way (my own mission, see my Mission post) and that's why it's Moore '04.

AudioBlogger

Innovation '04: Ipod. Therefore I Blog.

Google, having it's IPO this year, is certainly a contender, and I did write on that. Other contenders, according to the Washington Post are VoIP, Spyware and Oracle. But, it's clearly these two flowering this year. They both add so much to the lives of many people in terms of enjoyment and creativity; eclipsing business developments in an economically flat year.

I got my Ipod earlier this year and it has definitely enhanced my life to be able to easily carry 8k songs with me. I simply plug it into whatever stereo I'm listening to, and airports, dentists, previously unpleasant places, are so much better when you've got great tunes, the ones you want, coming into your ears, without the insipid commercials I had to listen to, to pay for them. When I lugged those boxes of unplayable albums in my car for months at a time, there were probably only a few hundred great songs in there, sure hundreds more mediocre songs, but, they only made it more dilute. They were big, heavy and unwieldy, so unlike my cute little Ipod.

From what I understand, there is nothing that really compares to it for ease of use. The wheel and button are pretty easy, though, I carry so many artists, it is hard to find a given song unless it's on a playlist. I only tried one other mp3 player, years ago, and couldn't even get my library on it. I just plug P Poddy up to my iBook, and it completely updates the songs and playlists in minutes, the whole library in a few hours, which is what I'll have to do again soon. My iPod hungry son is still some $100. short of his dream, so I generously, posssibly stupidly, lent him my iPod for a week. He already deleted my amazing library for his little 90 song library. But, that's what you can do with a hard drive. I see more and more folks with the givaway white wires coming out of their ears. On the U Mich campus, and many others, ear emanators outnumber the podless. And, of course, these little beauties will spur on Mp3 downloading, free & non, forever extincting CDs.

I, obviously, started to blog this year. Shout out to Hank Barry, who once again turned me on to a Brave New World of fun and creativity. I had wanted a website for quite some time but was daunted by my lack of HTML, which I'm now learning by trial & error. Kudos to Blogger and Google for coming up with something easy to learn. I'm sure it's just the beginning. Already you can upload photos and audio. It's pretty basic stuff, but it's still audio.... coming soon, not, I just tried it and it's completely useless for music. Speech, which I guess is all it's designed for, may be ok, who cares....I guess I could phone in my posts, but I don't think the world is ready for quite that reality. I did leave you a little blurb up top, after deciding to spare you a longer rant.

The link up, editing, organizational and archiving systems are not bad considering I don't know much HTML and it's free webhosting. In fact, the money flows to me, and should. I am, in effect, an extremely low-paid, yet uncontrolled, staff writer for Google. Their algorithms reward text-rich pages. They're hoping my words attract eyes and give me a certain support to achieve that. Unlike most tomes, they don't care what I write, cause they only pay me when someone who looks at my words clicks on their ad. Print can't offer writers commission based pay.

Blogging may explode in a way the more passive Pod won't. Most people I know are well aware of iPods, even if they don't care enough about music to own one. But few, even here in Palo Alto, know much about blogging yet. They don't realize how approachable and empowering it is. They think of blogging as something done by semi-pro political pundits, not as a way to express yourself, allow others to get to know you, record your thoughts and your life, and, most importantly, to have a voice, and possibly a positive influence in this world. We are so inculcated into this role to our role as passive viewers (fat & happy Americans), but, people have a natural desire to express themselves. It just gets cut off. I went into that in great depth earlier in this blog. But, it can get turned on again. I see it in the Dad's bands, and the many other bands and film projects that are becoming more prevalent.

For me, being single, and an artist, it's a way to let others get a very, very good sense of who I am, without having to personally spend a lot of time revealing myself to each. My life is literally an open book here....available to any who care to look, and I'm finding many do. My conversations are more interesting because people often do know quite a bit about me, sometimes before we have even met. It is kind of like Warholian fame; and has actually hepled me understand a bit what fame must feel like. You're "out there". There is a certain loss of control. People know stuff about you that you have not personally told them. For others, it's more professional, commercial, and I think it will develop in that direction for me. The medium can demonstrate not only our voice and personality but our productive output as well. BTW, anyone who likes my art is welcome to buy it... email me. These blogs are quite interactive, so, interact... visibly.

Electronic Frontier License

I've been an EFF referral attorney for several years now after exchanging a series of emails with Shari Steele who I contacted upon reading about the organization in SV Biz Ink. Hers was one of the early organizations dedicated to protecting the freedoms that the internet offered and fighting the various powers that be who have sought to use the internet to invade privacy and restrict our rights to share and communicate over it. Most of their fighting has been in the courts, where it started. But, more and more this will be fought in the court of public opinion.

This article of theirs (link above) is a good discussion of the compulsory license concept and how it might work. RIAA will fight it to the bitter end because they rightly view the internet as their ultimate undoing. But, according to EFF, music will be included on your broadband bill, or college bill or whoever is providing the internet access, and whatever money goes into that pot will get divied up on the Big Champagne/ Neilsen type model. If TV worked on this model it would be like Comcast collecting the most cash for Apprentice because that's the top rated show on TV, and then doling it out to every other show that comes through their cables on the basis of how popular it is. The only way you could get them to do that would be to offer them (Comcast) the ability to not get sued for using their lines to transmit the music. Ooops, we don't hold the providers responsible now, so they're not gonna do it. Why should they?

But, you know who does pay Apprentice the most? The advertisers. They know the most eyeballs will be on the most popular show. Same concept except Trump does not expect money directly from those eyes, or to get it from cable providers, but from the newtworks who use the show to bring in revenue. Hello. And TV shows can take a lot more to make than songs. If not for the threat of prosecution what you'd see is iTunes, (knock-off) Napster and a million new competitors have to bring in users on the basis of quality of site, best sound quality, songlists, control, search, DJ's, entertainment, ease of use, look of site, innovation, ability to use the content creatively.... there are so many ways to add value.

The best sites would attract the best ads and make a lot of money like Google and Yahoo did.... from advertisers. EFF kind of gets the first step when they talk about the emergence of filesharing being similar to the emergence of radio, but, they lose the analogy somewhere along the line. Artists have been selling their content to sponsors instead of directly to the public for many years on radio and TV and now the new mediums are also finding the most success on the sponsor/advertising dollar model... just like Yahoo and Google.

EFF suggests some type of voluntary payment directly from end users in exchange for not getting sued, like that failed RIAA amnesty program. Know why it failed? Few are stupid enough to make their identities more visible as file-sharers, or step up to half-assed programs. Maybe with a more reassuring govt. insured type amnesty, it could work. The only real thing they have to offer anymore is to withhold the threat of prosecution. But, that threat is diminishing and it will continue to diminish as word of their abuses and broadband availability emanates through the world.

Most of the world uses our intellectual property for free so why do they focus most, if not all, of their prosecutions on Americans? Because they can. The legislators we elected to represent our interests are in their pockets. Sixty million Americans download, who represents them? That is more than the audience for any TV show or movie. Stop trying to charge people for songs, and instead use the songs to bring in your (humongous) audience, like radio, like TV. Yes, you're giving them control and portability, the technology is doing that, just like TiVo and Comcast-on-Demand. These labels should be grateful for all that time they had their monopolies, since, at the time, people did need those disks to control their music.... but....it's fucking over!! Move on.

There will be others to try and stick their finger in the dyke and make money doing so. But it's a lot of fighting for something that is so quickly becoming extinct. The genie is out of the bottle, the music is out there. I just don't see any way of getting it back in. People who feel guilted about stealing might volunteer some money for a while, but, you've got a whole generation of kids who see music as just another file you get over the internet.

When it comes to software and films, which take so much to develop, I feel differently. But, a song, sorry. There are too many talented artists out there. We'll still have great, if not much greater, freer, more varied music. That's not the same for films and software. Search/ matchup stuff will grow as will the use of music as a component in selling other things. But mostly, I think people wanting to make money off music will have to perform it, or help those who do. And, I have no problem with that. Music is now an 11 Billion dollar industry. The diet industry is a 35B industry. Get all those flabbies dancing & you're all set.

Intervision Mission

Intervision's mission is to entertain and inform about current issues and offerings in the arts and culture and to discuss technologies that can expand creative opportunities.

Intervision seeks to provoke thought and action by highlighting the connections between seemingly disparate aspects of our culture and shed light on the big picture of our development as a compassionate, cohesive, creative, productive society which offers quality of life and personal freedom.

Intervision's goal is to raise awareness of how the internet can be used to facilitate creativity and access to pertinent information as well as the ways it is used to invade privacy and restrict freedoms and to shine a light on some of the machinations of corporate interests which undercut us as a nation.