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Big Bust On The Block

Blockbuster’s quarterly report, issued earlier this week, stated a loss of $491M. While most of this loss is a result of it being spun off from Viacom, there are plenty of big problems for Blockbuster. So many, in fact, they warned of seeking bankruptcy protection. Most of the problem stems from the fact that their business model is being supplanted by the internet. They will soon go the way of Wherehouse & Tower Records.

People are getting sick of going to the video store, just to make life easier for Big Entertainment. This leaves them with their Netflix rip-off division. However, while talk of takeover circles around Netflix, which is being courted by Amazon, I just terminated my mailing relationship with Blockbuster because, unlike Netflix, they can’t turn the DVDs around fast enough. Netflix was first on the scene, nimble, modern, so Blockbuster, with all its marketing muscle and name awareness was unable to go forward there.

I was in Fry’s the other day, looking around at a virtual warehouse of digital media that could all be fed directly onto my laptop, or the bigger screen downstairs, so easily. Why should I spend hundreds of dollars on a bunch of little disks to hold information I probably just want to see/hear/use a few times? Bill Gates is up in arms right now because he understands what is happening, all software, all digital media, will soon be online. Our grandkids will find the idea of going to a store for your software, movies and music laughable.

What is a blockbuster? The name came from the press from Jaws, the first movie ever to see people lined up around the block. That was 1975. Well, it’s 30 years later and now maybe people don’t want to wait in line for two hours to puke on the theater floor. Start delivering your product in a way which dignifies your consumer, giving them convenience and choice, and you’ll flourish. BUT, you’ll need to do it like you did it the first time, the way you originally built your company, by challenging the powerful studios that own the rights to all those great films you want to distribute.

Blockbuster was sued by the studios when it first started renting out movies. The studios saw them as an enormous threat (they see every new distribution model as an enormous threat) and sued to shut them down (they try to shut every new distribution model down), but Blockbuster won and flourished. Perhaps it’s time for Blockbuster to start renting films over the internet. The technology is there. Looks like it’s that or bankruptcy.

Menasha

You know, you live your life and all you can hope for is that you learn something new every day. Today definitely qualifies. Today I learned that the woman who introduced me to the Dead, almost thirty years ago, went on to have Jerry's love child. Oh yes, life is freaky. Here's the story.

Many years ago, after discovering the Dead, I noticed a little blurb on the back of Live/Dead about joining the Grateful Dead Fan Club. So, I sent off some letter and many months later received a letter offering me the chance to see the Dead at some tiny club, like 300 people or something. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance and was soon seeing the Dead at their best.

I really should look this up in my journal somehow, if I could remember exactly when/where this all was, cause, it would be a hoot. Anyway, best I can remember, this woman in "Menonite" sort of Amish garb, introduced herself, we made friends, and she somehow mysteriously led me to the Dead. By some miracle that can only be described as a spiritual divining rod, or scary fanaticism, we arrived at their suite.

Bill Kreutzman answered and Menasha seemed to sort of know him, something about making love to Jerry the previous night. Anyway, we hung out with the band that night, got high, I mean you can only imagine what a blast it was to party all night with the Dead, particularly after just seeing them play, practically in my face. All of them were there, except Jerry. Unfortunately, to the bane of my existence, Jerry was sick that night, so sick in fact that the show the next night, at Meadowlands, had to be cancelled after the crowd had been let in. What a let down, I've never seen such downed Deadheads.

Anyway, back at the suite, Bill asked us to stay over but I felt more comfortable sleeping in my car. Menasha stayed over and told me the next morning that Bill came out during the night and scared her off. So, end of story.... until tonight, when I went out with a guy who's worked for Bill Graham Presents for 22 years. We were talking about Jerry and how bad it got with the drugs and how all the hippie do your own thing types around him stayed silent, and he goes..." the one period of Jerry's life when he was clean was when he was with this woman Menasha".

What did I learn? This was more than some crazed fan I ran across that night, as we blazed through the darkness, talking about our mutual fascination with Jerry Garcia. This woman has his child, and has made a huge impact on his life. She started out as someone who was simply absorbed with him, but had the capacity to ultimately understand him and get through to a man who no one else got through to. None of his bandmates, not Caroline, his kids.... no one but Menasha got him happy enough to give up the drugs he was so helplessly addicted to. How does a guy, who is loved, adored, by millions get to crack cocaine? How is it, with all that love, no one loved him enough to elevate him beyond the drugs.... except Menasha.

It really makes you ask a lot of questions about what is love, what is music, what is drugs... what is it we really want and need? Is it the devotion of someone who loves us truly and completely for who we really are? I'm glad Jerry was smart enough to let Menasha in his life. Did I meet the eventual true love of Jerry's life that night? I believe I did.

Looks like Mountain Girl's gonna be Jerry's Yoko though. She's collaborating with the production company that just optioned two books on his life to produce a biopic. Menasha, my guess is that you were far more focused on Jerry than having your story told. But I would love to hear your story and have another late night car ride with you.

Thanks for what you did for Jerry. There are probably lots more people who got to hear his music because of you. I got to meet the Dead because of you. Maybe you were the one person who understood what it's like to carry a burden like he carried. He was an artist, a free spirit, but he had direct responsibility for the livelihoods of hundreds and felt a great need to address the millions of people who wanted to see him perform.

Wayne Rosso: Make A Buck Off Internet Music Or Die Trying

OK, before reading the story below in shock and disbelief about my mellow tenor and primer tone, keep in mind that this was written for Slashfilm, a film site I write for. The site is somewhat mainstream and its principal has been courting the studios, everyone does. So. apparently they (the overpaid bigwigs raping our culture) have been eyeballing the site, which has done quite well in the few months it's been running. Today I went to log the story (below) on, and the site was so full of pop-ups, it wouldn't function. The writers have been complaining. Anyway, here's your preview, along with your own title:
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Grokster, yesterday, reached a settlement with RIAA, MPAA & other entities representing Big Entertainment (we had Big Tobacco, then Big Pharma…. ) who had sued it in 2002 for offering software which allowed people to exchange files. Since most of the files “traded” (downloaded) were owned by five big record labels who had secured most of the money making value of those songs through far reaching Copyright laws that they pay $35M/year to have made, they were pretty miffed and continue to seek recompense where they can find it.

Unfortunately, for them, most of the value of their booty has seeped back into the hands of the people it belongs to, the kids of the people who made those songs hits and paid up the ying yang for them. Since the labels have no way to recoup from all these kids, except of course, the twelve-year-old Harlem girl, and the many grannies they’ve sued, they go for where the money is.

Well, they’re reporting the Grokster settlement is $50M. Hmmm, now Grokster isn’t a public company but if they have $50M in the bank, I’ll eat my iPod. No, no, that’s the value of Wayne’s (Shawn’s) new software. Wayne Rosso, former President of Grokster sold out to the labels a long time ago. His new company is Mashboxx, which should launch later this year.

He and Shawn Fanning have been in bed with any label they could find and were making great headway at Sony/BMG until Clive Davis decapitated their buddy Andy Lack. Andy actually was trying to bring music to the internet and wanted to use Shawn’s Snocap software, which promises to turn P2Ps legit through filtering software. To make sense of all this, we need to go back to the original Napster.

Shawn Fanning, staying up night after night, wrote a program that changed the world. It allowed anyone who downloaded it to find files that had been uploaded onto the internet. It slowly started to catch on, and when it was sued by the labels, written up in Newsweek and then Hank Barry got Hummer to put up $11M, things went nuts and it became the fastest growing application to ever hit the internet.

The labels took the position, hey, it took a lot of work ripping your cultural heritage off of the artists who created it, It’s worth about $12B/year dribbling it back to you, and we want our money. No one is innocent and idealistic enough to invest in these P2Ps now, so they continue to go after Hummer, which is insured. As to the others, they just want them down, take whatever assets are there, which, in most cases there are assets, including the 10 million eyeballs on these sites every year.

So, that’s the five minute skinny on what’s happening with the Grokster settlement and P2P music. What does this have to do with film? Plenty. Remember, Sony is Big Five in both music and film. Next time you go to the theater, or video store, think about this. You could be watching that film in your very own home theater, if you wanted to, whenever you wanted to see it. The technology is there, believe me. Big Entertainment does not want that to happen, at least not yet. While the gun lobby pays $2M/year for access to Congress, Big Entertainment pays $35M. That’s a lot of money, money that they get from you and me when we buy music and film. They pay that money for control over content and distribution, and for Copyright terms of over 75 years!

If this is how you want your money spent, fine. We’ve seen a huge democratization in music and film is following close behind. We’ll continue to see the internet play a bigger and bigger role in the film industry. My concern is that Big Entertainment will continue to slow the growth of the internet as an entertainment delivery system, which it is ideally suited to be, because of their paranoia about control, and their insistence in wringing every possible dollar out of their capital.