FB Music Club
 

I am outraged that you would cite the sacred NTTAWWT (or some bizarre variant thereof) with regard to college guys in their underwear, but not to letting your formerly estranged gorgeous daughter romp with a babyfat Lolita in a series of faux-lesbian musical vignettes. Double standard, say I! Unseemly!

If I am ever blessed to sire a drop-dead gorgeous daughter, I would consider myself honored to cast her in a lesbian scene for my music video. If the lesbianism is faux, well, that's her right to choose.

BTW, there were guys in that video?!?! NTTAWWT.

New Big Firm problem
 

spree- tight neckties constrict bloodflow to head, causing Glaucoma http://www.msnbc.com/news/945161.asp?0si=-

on the bright side, the constricted blood flow can be just the ticket for a little autoerotica during those long conference calls.....

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Enh. Artist-owned labels are pretty common in the singer-songwriter genre, and many of the more "popular" S/S artists like Ani DiFranco created their labels (in Ani's case, the aptly named Righteous Babe Records) in the Dark Ages before Napster.

If memory serves, Ani put out her first CD in 1990. Somehow, I don't think that the reason that she wasn't offered a five record deal by Clive Davis was because a young RT was using a cassette recorder to tape Michael Bolton's version of "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?" (number 1 in February 1990) or "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips (number 1 in June 1990).

And as for Sidd -- property is theft, dude.

Not (I am 32 flavors, and then some) Bob

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

Not a real world study, but the Game Show Network's original program "Friend or Foe" has a Prisoner's Dilemma as its end game. There isn't any data on how it comes out, but it's very interesting.

For those of you who haven't seen it, the team of two players builds up a bank of money during the game. Then at the end, each player decides whether to go "Friend or Foe." I believe the effects of this decision are:

Both go friend: both players split the money
One goes friend/One goes Foe: Foe gets all the money
Both go foe: both players get a little bit of money (less than half).

str8.

House Hunting
 

Originally posted by cheval de frise

Given the influx of Vietnamese boat people into the South, a gourmand such as the gatti wouldn't stoop to hibachi'd cat. He'd opt for something more exotic, like canh chua ca bong lau, with some fetal duck eggs, and a nice bowl of rat blood soup.

And fringie, stop maddogging the stupid. It lowers your game.

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Yeah, well, I'd say it's pretty clear that at least one of those flavors is COMMUNISM, pinko-boy. I bet your grandma was a commie too. Given that you are ancient, she probably participated in the revolution. Hell, she was probably in with those Debarge people in France, knitting away.

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

El Debarge (f/k/a Mr. Janet Jackson) was in the crowd that stormed the Bastille? Shoot. I had no idear. I suppose next you'll tell me that Bell Biv Devo were somehow involved in shooting the Tsar.

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Duh, obviously he's French, his last name starts with "De" and his first name is "Chico." He lamely tries to hide his Frenchness by messing with the capitalization. Chevy, babe, I think you need to give the FB some lessons in recognizing Frenchness.

The answer to my question is "no."
 

Let's see . . . music piracy and fat bashing, so, anything new happen on the FB today?

Even(t's stealing)Odds

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Silly girl. Mixing up El and Chico Debarge? What's next, wondering who is Johnny?

Anyway, here's El:

http://www.vh1.com/shared/media/imag...sts/P07615.JPG

And here's Chico:

http://www.tvland.com/shows/chico/im...s/main_pic.gif

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Must be past my bedtime. Damn you and your pernicious knowledge of pop culture!

Edited to take out pictures.

TSG's Legal Document of the Year
 

From The Smoking Gun:

JULY 28--Yes, five months remain in the year, but we're ready to announce the winner of the prestigious 2003 Legal Document of the Year award.

The below motion was filed earlier this month in connection with a criminal charge filed against a Colorado teenager. The boy's troubles started when he was confronted at school by a vice principal who suspected that he had been smoking in the boys bathroom. When presented to the principal, the kid exploded, cursing the administrator with some variants of the "F" word. For his outburst, the boy was hit with a disorderly conduct rap, which was eventually amended to interfering with the staff, faculty, or students of an educational institutional. Faced with what he thought was a speech crime, Eric Vanatta, the teen's public defender, drafted the below motion to dismiss the misdemeanor charge. The District Court document is an amusing and profane look at the world's favorite four-letter word, from its origins in 1500 to today's frequent use of the term by Eminem, Chris Rock, and Lenny Kravitz. The criminal charge, Vanatta argued in the motion, was not warranted since the use of the popular curse is protected by the First Amendment. TSG's favorite part of the motion is the chart comparing Google results for the "F" word and other all-American terms like mom, baseball, and apple pie.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/fword1.html

The answer to my question is "no."
 

Put down that bong, Evenodds.

There's no stealing going on here. The file owners are gratuitously sharing them in a voluntary manner. I own a file, I share a file. Share and share alike. No cash money is changing hands and the fair use exception applies as after all, it is just students of musicology becoming educated in the ways of the rhythm.

Its obvious to me that the music industry is in the death throes of self-destruction here in attacking its own consumers. Much like the airlines did, although this time I pray to the good lord that we refuse the bastards any federal bail out and let em rot in chapter 11.

As an aside, I ain't gonna be weeping any crocodile tears over the fact that any of these candy assed leftwing liberal entertainers are losing any money. These shills produce little of any tangible value and usually even that little is borne out of their dysfunctional and and morally retarded psychosis-see Streisand, Madonna and her ex-Sea Penn. Without the facade of entertainment there is little doubt most of these social misfits would be haunting the employment offices and living off government cheese.

Even worse, is that these would be cheese eaters are constantly bitching and moaning about how bad America is or how bad the rich are or how dum Bush is while without the America that patriots like Bush and his family created and that the wealthy support with the burden of income taxes and estate taxes and the like, these enterainment weasels wouldn't even have their social safety of government cheese.

Damn em! I'm going download some Kazaa tonite!

more shocking than Bob Hope's death
 

They are celebrating diversity, and are, accordingly, applying that principle to weekends as well. I mean, how can you say one weekend is better than the next?

Yes. It's a travelling circus, can't you tell? Bearded ladies, check. Tattooed people, check. Human pin cushions (i.e., those who are overly fond of piercing), check. Clowns on motorcycles, check.

Hmm. That wouldn't be very diverse now would it?

Generally, I avoid parades and other events (including Pride) that shut down the main thoroughfares. I don't like crowds. And I especially don't like crowds of nude, middle-aged men prancing about and getting in my way as I run my weekend errands.

p(a member of this diverse community)c

TSG's Legal Document of the Year
 

Paragraph 24 rawks.

The answer to my question is "no."
 

You bought a license, dude.

The gels are obviously interfering with your analytical abilities.

TSG's Legal Document of the Year
 

This is ridiculous. The bottom line here is not only did this little cretin deserve a major league asswhuping, so do his retarded parents for letting him pursue this suit. Human waste product of the most fetid variety and the exact cause of the decline of American society, the dumbing down of its youth and the death of what our parents referred to as decency.

Given that his parents seem to be absent any sense of adult responsibility, the school would have been doing the kid a favor by beating him senseless as a lesson.

From my own youth, I can still recall the taste of the motor oil my mom made me wash my mouth out with when I inadvertantly called our priest a buttfucker at a CYO basketball game. The punishment for that oral faux pas was swift and meted out with extreme prejudice. Never used that charming phrase again.

The answer to my question is "no."
 

Sir, stop bogarting evenodd's bong.

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Bell Biv Devo? That's a band I would pay to see. I'm hearing a medley of "Girl U Want" and "Poison."

It's also an interesting juxtaposition between "They tell us that we've lost our tails" and "Never trust a big butt and a smile."

TSG's Legal Document of the Year
 

It is, I'm surprised the lawyer didn't spend time discussing the use of the word fag too, that would have been good.

As to pride festivals, if someone had showed up nude we would have thrown him out and he would have been arrested. There was a guy in a gstring but everyone looked at him strangely.

Different cities, different festivals.

FB Music Club
 

Are these rap videos?

Thurgreed(so confused)Marshall

TSG's Legal Document of the Year
 

Agreed. Deplorable and I for one blame the parents first, the kid second and the lawyer third. I'd like to have five minutes alone with the whole lot of em in the woodshed behind my stepfather's farmhouse. With a nice sturdy fagot. applied injudiciously to their backsides. That'd learn em.

FB Music Club
 

Repulsive through the ages. Smarmy, leering, ugly, smug--the Bruce Willis syndrome of thinking he is thousands of times more attractive than he actually is. Actually, when Christian Slater went into his Jack Nicholson phase is when I started to find him unappealing too--a damned waste of good noir eye candy.

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

1. The middle man is nearly impossible to remove. People need to create false barriers throughout industries to create "broker" income for themselves. The middle man adds no value to the equation. In some industries, like the market, you need highly skilled middle men. Music is not such an industry. The more middle men we put on the welfare line, the better. The perfect end result is all the useless promoters/distribution people being fired and the artist being able to record digitally for minimum cost and the music to be sold directly to consumers through a Napster like service. That day is coming quickly.

2. Nobody has implemented an artist-to-consumer model because it would wipe out thousands of middle men. Nobody is harder to remove in a downsizing than entrenched middle managment. They have college tuitions to pay for and no hope of alternative employment - they'll fight to the death to maintain status quo.

3. Initially, the effcet of the file sharing will be less marginally commercially viable bands will get released. However, as the industry radically downsizes and the cost of distribution comes down due to the thinning of human costs and attendant thinning of physical plant costs (files don't require expensive cd plants which are staffed by costly union workers), you'll see labels put more marginally commercially viable bands than ever because the cost will be so low. Also, bands may be able to put themselves out buy putting their tunes on the net, such as the fame Yankee Foxtrot debacle.

FB Music Club
 

Ok, so you wouldn't want to fuck Jack, but you gotta admit... Jack's a hell of an actor.

Christian Slater???? He hasn't done a good movie since Heathers, and he was playing a very bad caricature of Jack in that one. Slater's just plain awful, imitating Jack or not. He is not worthy to wash jack's jockstrap.

Jack is the Keith Richards of movies - a relatively normal guy with great talent and real everyday vices who excels at what he does because he really loves his work, rather than the usual queens in cinema who preen about fluffing their high school cheerleader egos and phoning in bad performances for cash. The thing that makes jack great is that he's probably a dick in real life, but not a prententious dick. He's probably just a depressed guy who'd spout out his gripes like the rest of us over a beer. He projects a pragmatic disgust at most everything around him, but at the same time, he recognizes the need to get his ya yas out and not take life too seriously. In many regards, he's the everyman's id.

Bruce Willis shouldn't even be allowed in the same room with Jack.

House Hunting
 

Please. The fact that a handsome, coiffed man is in the suit is what makes it TIM. Put Shaq in it and its fly.

The answer to my question is "no."
 

Take it to politics, jackass.

TM

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

Was Burger that annoying, pedantic law student who everyone thought would get an A in Crim Law first semester but then got a C? Probably. Can I ignore him? No.
:rolleyes:

House Hunting
 

I think the whole outfit would be quite becoming on a gigolo. At least, there'd be no doubt what that handsome gentleman at the bar's occupation might be.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a Dunkin Donuts
 

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/ar...px?news=129587

Apparently, Liza left him because he went on So Graham Norton and called her "hugely fat" during an "illness." First of all, she is a bit fat (although a hubby shouldn't say that -- especially on television). Second, do celebs really think that we buy the illness story when we know it is substance abuse and rehab?

If you have never had the pleasure of viewing Graham's show, I recommend giving it a go -- if they did a marathon of So I would likely become very fucking annoyed with Graham but I like him in half-hour doses a time or two each week.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a Dunkin Donuts
 

Need money-grubbing pathetic professional hangers-on really be told that it is unwise and ungentlemanly at best to describe your meal ticket in such unflattering terms on a TV show?

Really, community-property laws or not, he ought to have his share stripped for sheer stupidity. Not to mention that youngish men who nonetheless appear to have had a Joan Rivers-esque amount of face-stretching plastic surgery are hardly in a position to criticize.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a Dunkin Donuts
 

Very out-of-school comment, to be sure, but I thought it was she who was the money-grubber in the relationship. Isn't it that she doesn't have much dough, so married this guy to continue to lead her spendy lifestyle? Why else would she marry this guy? (Not that she's such a catch herself, but she's famous -- I suppose there's his incentive, but what's hers?)

I'm probably confusing them with another couple -- who can keep track?

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

This is ridiculous. Independent radio promoters are not the problem with the industry. The problem with your radio is corporate radio programmers and the sweetheart deals they have with majors.

In the industry, you need people other than the artists to ensure the artists' music does not suck. You need producers, you need A&R, you need people to broker the deals with other artists and producers to improve the product. Or else no one would want to hear it.

You also need distributors so that the music can get into stores. I know independent distributors who service mom-and-pops with indie product -- they spend days on the road, putting the right product in the right stores at the right time so it can be there when you want it.

We have an artist to consumer model -- it's called buying cds at a show. It's incredibly inefficient, but the artist has the ability to get paid for their work. Unlike peer-to-peer, when the artist gets screwed.

Wilco is a pretty awful example, and there are others like the Yellow Jackets, who have released their own product on the web and have done great. They have three essential things most of your marginally commercially viable bands don't have: (1) name recognition; (2) existing fans -- so a market already exists for the product and so that independent, college, and public radio djs will program it upon release; and (3) most importantly, money to make and release their own product.

(As for money, if they can do absolutely everything themselves, and can independently support themselves, it will cost between $5,000 and $25,000 to record and manufacture a cd. If they need producers and musicians and want to press 10k units and get it on local radio, you are looking at up to $250,000. For most struggling musicians, the $5,000 is as hard to come up with as the $250,000.)

Without those three elements, you would never know the music exists if you didn't stumble into one of the MCVBs shows (as we did with Charlie Hunter a few years ago, and Bavu Blakes last year).

Your model ensures a healthy regional market with very little national coverage. It works well in hip hop, but then some of those artists have other ways of supporting themselves.

House Hunting
 

Yeah. I'm prejudiced against handsome, coiffed men. What are you talking about? My standards apply equally to Eurotrash metrosexuals and overgrown idiots whose beady little eyes are too close together. In fact, I'm more critical of athletes and their 32 button suits in colors like purple and red than I am about most other people. So, fly, it's not, on anyone.

Thurgreed(although I will note that Lebron had a white suit on at the draft and it didn't look that bad on him -- the shirt was nowhere near as bad as the one in the picture finch never wants to see again)Marshall

House Hunting
 

My point was that white suits are just fucking rediculous no matter the material or the shirt underneath it. I dont think Shaq would be any more fly in that outfit than Slave or Jack from Will and Grace would be.

House Hunting
 

You should try having your posts reflect the points you're attempting to get across.

TM

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

Every other industry has laid off tons of middle managers. The music industry can't do the same? I don't think the potential artist-to-consumer music model is really caring about some middle manager's college tuition bills.

RIAA's New Chief
 

The RIAA has hired Bill Frist's former Chief of Staff as its new chief lobbyist.

The RIAA is the lobbying group for the major labels, so I foresee very bad things coming for consumers and indies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jul28.html

Even(rock on)Odds

And One Last Shocking News Item
 

All of those middle managers perform the same function for the music biz that Westlaw performs for us. When some court in Buttcrack, Idaho issues a ruling on liability for speeding dogs, Westlaw takes it in, indexes it, catalogs it, and makes it findable to people like me in Buttcrack, Minnesota. Without Westlaw, I'm forced to keep current in all of the various jurisdictions if I want the ability to know about that particular treatment of speeding dog damages.

Similarly, when some sitar player in Buttcrack, Idaho makes a new song, the music bureaucracy takes that song in, indexes it, catalogs it, and distributes it over the music version of the Westlaw site (i.e., the radio/CD/promo circuit) in a way that makes it findable by me in Buttcrack, Minnesota. Without that service, I need to be looking at every indie musician's website, in every genre, if I want the ability to catch that sitar act.

So, I would disagree that the system is worthless. I have seen little or no info that suggests that it overprices the merch, and the artists don't seem to be fighting to leave that system. I think that the development of p-to-p simply made theft of IP so easy that it's worthwhile to come up with some justifications and rationale that assuage consciences.

The A&R man said "I don't hear a single"
 

Actually, we gave up all the people named "Chico" in the Louisiana Purchase, two hundred years ago.*

As for how you can recognize a Frenchman, look for the Coq Gaulois and a certain supersillyusness. Plus those Mickey Mouse ears that they sell at EuroDisney.

CDF

* for the history Timmies, yes, I know that some of the territory (specifically, a portion of present-day Louisiana), was transferred by the Spanish to the French, and then immediately to the U.S., in a three-way transaction. This year is actually the bicentennial of those transfers.