Category: Joints After Midnight & Rants

I remember being 10, or thereabouts, sitting in front of my parent’s stereo system, entranced by the albums they had collected in college. The system – tuner, turntable, and speakers – was a Craig, cheap, Korean, and dependable, an early indication of where the consumer electronics business was heading. I’d put on the albums they owned – Rachmanioff #2, Man of La Mancha, a lot of Kingston Trio – and listen, right up next to the speaker. I was entirely engaged – the albums were transits to another world, a world of music, no matter that it was entirely inconsistent with the world of a ten year old boy. I’m pretty sure the only new album my parents bought between 1953 and 1983 was the soundtrack to Cats, around the time I was a junior in high school.

But that stereo system, the turntable in particular, was my introduction to recorded music.

Now that entire world is dead, gone, history. 30 years after I was entranced, it’s been eclipsed by the iPod, the cel phone, the Internet.

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These are the two essential ingredients to any successful media property, to my mind. But I’m not alone, I’m really just parroting Clay Felker, my partner for a few brief years when I taught at Berkeley, and a legendary figure in the world of magazines.

So why do I bring them up? Because for once, I have something nice to say about Time Inc., in particular, its flagship magazine, Time. When I was in Europe, I read the cover story of Time that week, “The Clean Energy Myth.” The piece was a winner – a conceptual scoop, an important and timely topic, and – this was the really surprising part – a true argument, an attempt to make a point. It was so refreshing, and so different than the warmed over “on the one hand, on the other hand” pap I was used to from most newsmagazines. This article was great journalism, and it had a serious point of view. The last graf, for example:

Advocates are always careful to point out that biofuels are only part of the solution to global warming, that the world also needs more energy-efficient lightbulbs and homes and factories and lifestyles. And the world does need all those things. But the world is still going to be fighting an uphill battle until it realizes that right now, biofuels aren’t part of the solution at all. They’re part of the problem.

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SEW points to the Googolopoly.pdf on Box.net (an unabashed link bait ploy, I’m biting). The game pokes fun at Google’s market share, as well as the current fate of the MSFTs, AOLs, and Yahoos of the world. It’s actually well done. But, it’s only a matter of time before Hasbro sues these guys, which I am guessing is exactly what they want. (After all, Hasbro is going after Scrabulous…)

Are. You. Kidding. Me.

I know the folks behind this. This is going to be amazing.

ANOTHER PLANET, SUPERFLY AND STARR HILL ANNOUNCE THE INAUGURAL OUTSIDE LANDS MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL


MAJOR THREE-DAY EVENT TO TAKE PLACE AUGUST 22 – 24 IN SAN FRANCISCO’S GOLDEN GATE PARK


RADIOHEAD, TOM PETTY AND JACK JOHNSON TO HEADLINE

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From BBtv:

http://p.castfire.com/Xu7m0/video/8218/bbtv_2008-02-27-214913.flv