Little River Band - Take It Easy on Me

 This song was rolling around my head for some reason.  Don't know why, just was.

Oh well...

Patience...

Things happen in their own time
 
What we all need...

Just a little patience.

My Favorite versions of classic Christmas Songs.

 

I'll let the music speak for itself....

 

Kyrie To Moving in Stereo....God I'm so white.....

  

So I started out here..../\ /\

And Ended up here \/ \/

OMG!  What does it all mean!

P.S. Not looking for an answer here....Jeez! Lighten up!

How Long...

No, nobody's secrets have been revealed.  Just a song that's been buzzing around my head that I happen to like.

I'm painfully familiar with the subject matter, however. 

More than once...

Thankfully not recently...Well, at least not that I have any right to bitch about.

Just a cool song. 

Leave it at that....

Somebody Save Me!

Sometimes....yeah...

Some songs just move me...

Is it apropros?

Is there a message here?

At certain points in time... yes 

but really now...

It's just about how well ZZ Top fuses blues and hard rock.

That gyrating bass line borders on the pornographic in its sultry repose against the cry of a blues guitar with just enough of a slow grinding drumbeat.

One of my favorite ZZ Top songs is all.

I aint apologizing for it either so just enjoy the groove...

Little River Band...

Just a good song.  

Maybe someday I'll tell you why I think so...

You can't "Dude Walk" to it around the living room though.  

But you can to this ...

 

How am I feeling right now....

 

 Remember, these entries are points in time.  Truth, raw emotion, reflection and right now....just cool.

...heh, got me doin' the "dude walk" all over the living room..

All the Best for a Happy Holiday Season and bright New Year!

Let's face it, It's been a pretty lousy year for most people. If ever there was a time for Holiday cheer it's now.  To that I end I hope the video above provides you some.

Regardless of the Holiday Celebration may it be warm and bright.

...and let's try to have a Happy New Year too!

John Batiste, Colbert & the unexpected...

Say what you will about late night talk shows (and I have) but every once in awhile you get something that transcends the context.

That happened tonight at the end of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert when Colbert introduced bandleader, John Batiste as musical guest.

Colbert explained that the performance was meant to mark the anniversary of the Beatles first TV appearance on that same stage some 52 years earlier.

The music that flowed from Batiste's piano was a quiet medley of Beatles standards finally coming to rest in a rendition of Blackbird.  

The history of it all had weight but Batiste's performance is what almost moved me to tears.

I was floored. 

To be honest, up to that point I hadn't thought much of John Batiste outside of just being a happy go lucky bandleader and sometime sidekick.  

Nothing wrong with that.  I mean Reggie Watts of the Late Late Show is entertaining, The Roots on the The Tonight Show are a lively bunch but I wouldn't go out of my way to explore their musical catalogs.

They all may be decent musicians in their own right but they're just not at the same level as what I saw on Colbert's stage tonight.

Batiste is something different and for me, unexpected.  Till tonight we hadn't really seen the breadth of his talent having been primarily performing upbeat jingles and backing for other visiting musicians on the program.  

In short, not exactly the kind of stuff they invite you to Carnegie Hall for.

Batiste and Stay human are releasing an album of the show's music plus a few of Batiste's own songs.  Might be worth picking it up which is something I never thought I'd say. 

Apparently I need to give Colbert more credit for spotting talent.  

If you're paying a subscription you're not buying "Art"

A guy's gotta eat right?

I've noticed an annoying trend over the past few years.  It seems like everywhere I turn on the Internet there's a hand out.   I get that somebody's got to pay for all this stuff but when it comes to online, we're paying too much.

Either you've got a pay wall in your face when you try to consume content or you're constantly getting pitched an "upgrade."

If I go to the online version of a local newspaper more often than not I'm greeted with a demand to purchase a subscription to see their content.  Yeah, I know, newspapers have it rough these days what with all those tablets and smartphones floating around.  At some point, however, I start to question their value when they want me to pay for the same dubious content I can find in the average blog post.  (of course I exclude myself...tee hee hee)  

For example, my local paper's online extension AZCentral.com now requires a paid subscription to access more than a few articles on the web.

In the old days I could just pick up a paper when I wanted it or suffer a few ads to read the same content online.  I didn't have to take out a subscription to get today's hot news story or have a pile of wasted newsprint lying around in the corner of my house. 

Now I have to pay not only for that story but the digital equivalent of the clutter than comes with it.  You just know that the minute you sign up your inbox is going to be flooded with pointless garbage until you turn it off in your subscriber "Profile."

So why did all this happen?  Why does it seem that every digital highway now has a toll booth? 

The claim is that the ad-supported media model has failed with the rise of the Internet.  Advertisers have too many choices for their ad dollars these days and have to spread it around to get their pitch across.  That means declining revenue for traditional media sources or so they claim. 

It's the justification behind the rise of "premium" services like Hulu, Pandora and even TWITCH.TV some of which still show ads even with a paid subscription.  Yes there are free levels of these services but they're usually a shadow of their premium counterparts and cluttered with intrusive ads.

The latest entry into the subscription model is Jay-Z's new "premium" music service, Tidal.  It's claiming CD quality audio over the Internet and exclusive artist tracks to subscribers.   There's no pretense here.  The service unabashedly demands a minimum of $9.99 per month for access to a glorified Internet radio station.  The argument being, " We're not for everybody."  Meaning people who pay are somehow of a different caliber than all of those poor people. 

Classic marketing trick.  Buy your way into the "in crowd." 

The simple premise of the service (minus the marketing fluff) is that starving recording artists (like Jay-Z and Madonna) can make more money and subscribers can get an exclusive experience with premium-only content. 

Hmmm, The last I checked Madonna wasn't eating out of garbage cans and Jay-Z could use $100 bills to wipe his ass with reckless abandon.

Ok, here's where this crap has to stop...

At what point do we just admit that the whole "artist" thing has gone off the rails.  Hey, I firmly believe that you have a right to make a living off of doing what you're best at.   You do not, however, have a right to fleece me to pay for a new coat of paint on your private jet by offering me the artistic equivalent of post-it notes.

And what about all those "little" people like the engineers, producers and song writers?  You can bet Madonna and Jay-Z aren't hammering out hits in their back bedroom with an IPad and some old amp.  C'mon now, someone has to make those middle-aged fading vocals sound passable.  

One thing is for sure.  The people that make these "artists" sound good aren't flying First Class.

But we must protect those poor, suffering "artists." 

In a country where the top 20% of the population controls 85% of the money, you can't sell me on how my $10 a month to Tidal is helping Main Street. It is, however, keeping Easy Street paved with gold.

The problem with the current definition of "Artist" is that it's intermingled with the "business" of art.  It's all about the money and somehow having one hit song on ITunes entitles you to a lifetime of privileged status.

When art becomes business then the result of all those "artistic" efforts is nothing more than a "product."  Mass produced, packaged and disposable.

Art was never meant to be a commodity.  It was meant to be an expression with its primary reward being the appreciation of the work itself.  The great societies of Greece and Rome recognized this and while they may have "commissioned" great works of art, they were never meant for resale.  Rather the intent was meant to enrich a culture and advance a society. 

I can guarantee Krewella will never do either of those things...

In the context of what Jay-Z considers to be "Art" (aka: products)  the great works of a Michelangelo or Beethoven would be held in the same light as a toddler banging on pots while scribbling on the wall with a crayon.  All of which would be behind a pay wall.

In that light, today's popular "artists" are frauds.  They produce commodities for no purpose but their own gain regardless of claims to the contrary.

Art is meant to be shared freely and has no intrinsic value in a vacuum or behind a toll booth.  Which means what Jay-Z and ITunes sell is not art, it's a product and products don't deserve such exalted status.

Real art is only sold once in awhile with its value dependent on a market's interest in that unique article.  Copies, on the other hand, are sold in the millions and their value reflects their status. (aka: fake)

When you pay for streaming content or a newspaper article online with anything but a few seconds to watch an ad you're attributing excess value to fake product.

Would you pay millions for a Van Gogh knockoff? 

Then why would you pay full price for access to the online equivalent of a Redbox rental?   Does anything available on Tidal really rise to the level of being art?  How exclusive can a work be if it's distributed like a magazine subscription?

I'll answer that, it's not.  Art is given freely, products are sold.

So if popularity isn't enough to bring adequate compensation for your (product) efforts then maybe it's time to look at who's got their hand in your pocket.  That or you just suck...

I know, for example, that for all the ads that run on my YouTube videos I make the princely sum of .001 per view on average. 

But then I create content, not "Art" and the market (and YouTube) decides the worth of my "product."

Pop Culture is no longer popular or culture

There's no accounting for taste...

Well at least not on the Internet.  Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man but all these new creative outlets have left popular culture in chaos.  What else can explain over 2 million YouTube views of a flatulent dog let alone that Miley Cyrus gets even one ITunes download. 

Even commercials are senseless.  I mean c'mon, 80's hair metal to sell a Honda Minivan?  I may be old enough to remember what MTV was like before Rap music but even I'm not that lame.  The rise of Reality TV in the last century certainly didn't help either.  Maybe it's the cause of all of this. 

It's got to be tough to be a TV writer these days.  The opportunities are few and far between when the big networks are crowded with such "gems" as Survivor and Big Brother.  

I guess we didn't know how good we had it when we were wondering who shot JR or whether Fonzie was going to make it over that shark. 

Maybe that's when popular culture jumped the shark.  Oh yeah, in case you don't know, the Happy Days episode where Fonzie jumps a shark on water skis is commonly regarded as the point where the series finally lost popularity with viewers.

It seems that was also the point where popular culture developed a severe case of ADD.  Take a look at your local TV schedule these days and you'll soon find that if you want something other than reality TV or infomercials there's going to be a monthly charge attached.

Ok, ok I know.  Ol' Grandpa hates that evil rock and roll and Elvis is corrupting our youth and you can get pregnant from sitting on a public toilet. 

Though before you judge me too harshly, let's look at a few examples of popular music  from the past few decades.  I happen to believe an era's music says more about its popular culture than any other medium.

1960's - Let's spend the night together, The Rolling Stones.   Risqué for its time but harmless.

1970's - Go Your OwnWay,  Fleetwood Mac.  At least we were thinking above the belt on this one.

1980's - I Still Haven't  found what I'm looking for, U2.   Maybe a bit cerebral ,not that it's a bad thing.

1990's - Smells likeTeen Spirit, Nirvana  A Ha!, there it is, I mean with a chorus of ...

Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

Hey, it's a great song and all but it might as well be the ADHD anthem.  Soon to be followed by a pop  culture confused by its own identity or a lack thereof.  Gender bending pop-stars pushing limits nobody cares about anymore and talentless hacks that even their peers can't stand.  I'm lookin' at you Bieber...

I'm not even going to bother with the 2000's, they're part of the problem with so-called popular tracks like "Poker Face" and "Give it 2 u" which never get above the bikini line let alone the belt...

Oh but the great equalizer that is the Internet, where anyone with a YouTube channel can be "discovered."  It's led to gushing pundits proclaiming the end of the "gatekeepers" and "curated" entertainment.  Evidenced by 2.7 million views of a bad fart joke.

Funny thing is that you're never going to see anyone get a Grammy or an Oscar based on YouTube views or ITunes downloads.

Maybe we need the gatekeepers.  For all their rumblings over piracy and copyright their real problem is that they  don't know how to read the public anymore.  It's true that business  concerns should never trump talent but we've gone too far in the other direction.  The entertainment industry has become  more flaky than a Wall Street broker with oil futures.

However, it's still a fact that nobody becomes successful without the blessings of the gatekeepers no matter how fickle  they are.  Some of them have even moved into the "New Media" space but in the end the new media is really just an extension of the same old construct.

That's a problem, because the gatekeepers have lost their focus by trying to entice a popular culture that doesn't know what it wants.  The result is a product only marginally better than YouTube fare.  It caters to the lowest common denominator and that part of the equation has gotten lower.

We're literally awash in cat videos, Jackass wannabes and bad movie trailers.  Hollywood is clueless, stuck in an endless cycle of formula sequels and kid friendly animation that would be better suited going straight to video.  They've become so bereft of creativity that any recent list of the top ten movies will undoubtedly include films based on either comic books or games.  

The rest usually involve vampires, werewolves or somebody's organs violently being removed from their body.  Let's not forget the new trend of "reboots" that Started with J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" and has moved on to 80's slasher flicks.    

Maybe I am too old but it seems I've managed to find a lot of things to like about every generation of popular culture.  Even those I wasn't around for. 

Something's different now.

Even with the overwhelming quantity of content it seems the quality has become insignificant.  Make no mistake, every era has had crap.  Face it, there was good reason why most of the hair metal bands didn't  manage to get past their first album.

Now imagine if all those bands were still around clogging up Pandora or Spotify.  You'd waste a lot of time wading through crap just to hear what you like. 

Art needs curation and entertainment deals with artists.  Pop culture is inextricably intertwined with art.   That means there needs to be some level of quality control.  Even if it runs against the whole "free and open" argument . 

Imagine the alternative. 

Would any museum be worth visiting if any hack with a paintbrush could throw up their paint by numbers portrait of Elvis?