Rally ’round a cage, cringe at the paper then place the blame on “these days”
As if we don’t know what we’ve seen ’til we view it on the big screen
Understand it’s not getting any better and it’s growing outside
A price paid in full for the conscience that lied
All the billboards in the world can’t cover our eyes
I don’t understand

Don’t tread on me

But we act like we didn’t know, then kids shoot kids or community defies its role
Then of course it’s everyone’s fault except anyone we might know
Tell me are the colors of the flag much prettier to see
When viewed from the requisite comfort of the knees
We’re the loyal little chorus still singing out “please”
I can’t understand

Don’t tread on me

— Let Them Eat Thomas Paine, Dillinger Four

Something I found on my harddrive. I honestly have no idea how it got there.

The “cover hieararchy” of Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen. Wow. Almost rivals allmusic.com for obsessive completeness, but less soul-crushing in presentation.

Suzanne was recorded twice before Leonard Cohen released his version of it? Apparently Judy Collins in particular recorded several of Cohen’s songs before he considered singing them himself.

“I can’t do it, I can’t go back.” He smiled his handsome smile. He looked about ten years old. His mouth drew down at the sides, he started to untangle himself from his guitar strap. I stopped him, touching him on the shoulder.

“But you will,” I said. He shook himself and drew his body up and put his shoulders back, smiled again, and walked back onto the stage. He finished Suzanne, and the audience went wild. He has been giving concerts ever since.

As much as I love the cross-genreness of James Randi, veteran debunker of paranormal claims, taking on overpriced speaker cable audiophile bullshit, I think he may have misjudged the scenario. Michael Fremer and Pear Cable are calling him on his challenge. The thing is, unlike spoon benders and aural viewers, some people really are redonkeykong good at hearing infinitesimal differences in the quality of sound reproduction. At least when they’re using ultra-high-end reference systems, under carefully calculated listening conditions, and after some practice. And Fremer doesn’t necessarily have to prove that the $7000 audio cables sound better than some cheapo throw-away $100 monster cables, just that he can tell which is which. As far as I know, there is no quantitative standard of “danceable”.

I’ll be sad if Fremer wins, and Randi has to pony up the million. I doubt if JREF will be able to raise another million to replace it, and the million dollar challenge is the main tent pole in the carnival of weirdo-baiting that he has conducted for so long. If he loses it will be more than usually satisfying, these audio snobs are really annoying, and clutter the music equipment reviews with so much black magic elitist nonsense as to make the signal-to-noise ratio worse than readable. (This is why I’m a fanboy of PSB/Paul Barton, who has spent a career applying gasp basic research to making cheap speakers sound pretty good. My desk is graced by a prized pair of LR1 speakers I got used for a fraction of the cost of the cables that will fill in as “offbrand” when Fremer tries to do his trick).

There is a third option, which is Randi setting the “win” conditions so tightly as it to make it debatable whether or not the contest was held in good faith. If that happens people will believe what they want to believe and JREF will keep it’s million and everybody will be suspicious of everybody. I hope that doesn’t happen, but given the ambiguity around “proving” something like this — how many times out of how many trials does Fremer have to spot the fancy cables? On whose system? Does he get to practice? Does he get to rest his ears in between trials? — I kind of expect it will.

“I did all I could, I did it right there and then.
I already confessed, no need to confess again”

— Bob Dylan, Thunder on the Mountain

The music industry was obsolete 10 years ago, and kind of corrupt and exploitative 10 years, 20 years, and 100 years ago. There are existing technologies and candidate business models for having a thriving, artist-centric music scene where we all get to hear what we want and pay the artists for hearing it, instead of hearing what Big Content let us and paying them so they might pay the artist if they feel like it, a little, possibly not. Indie labels are halfway there already. The RIAA and it’s governing cabal of entrenched transnationals are determined keep up their rent-seeking as long as they can, and since they don’t have any legitimate logistical reasons to exist anymore, they’ve turned to political clout and legal warfare as a substitute. We all know this. I can shut up now. I could have shut up at the start of the paragraph.

Jammie Starr is the first of the (3000? 30 000? depends who you ask) victims of the RIAA’s industrial-scale blackmail program to fight back. The court case went against her and the jury, prompted by some dubious directions from the judge and a bizarre set of copyright rules, have pegged her with $222 000 in penalties. Because by “making available for download” a couple of dozen music files she did $220 000 dollars worth of crime. Seems fair.

She’s going to appeal. She has, in a calm and friendly tone, announced herself a lifelong “thorn in the side of the RIAA”. Lawyers bills t0 date are estimated in the $100 000 + range (yay blind justice!) and now they’re going to go up. She’s taking donations. Jammie died for all our sins. Kick a little something her way to cover the bills.

update: between 8:30am and 10:30pm today, the tally went from $500 and change to just shy of 4 large. The lady needs some crucifix money. Keep it coming.

“Put your love in a bag and swing it round your head babe’
Yeah, it can be done baby I know, I told you”

the Chob, We’re Pretty Quick

“Baby, sweet baby if it’s all the same
Take the glory any day over the fame”

–Lucinda Williams, Fruits of My Labor

The moon was worn just slightly on the right,
And they slow danced so the needle wouldn’t skip,
Until the room was filled with light.

I Remeber Me, The Silver Jews

It’s another video roundup.

Hipster Olympics:

This could have been a hollow concept but they flesh it out pretty well. From the scorn round: “If they only knew he was a 911 hero.” “They do.” From Poykpac, but don’t bother going to their website. It belongs to the increasingly common brand of website that has no content other than links to myspace profiles and youtube tag queries. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Outing the SQ at Montebello:

As if the Sûreté du Québec needed to build it’s profile as cynical any-means-necessary thugs, here’s some fun footage of disguised officers getting called out as agent provocateurs by union leaders at the Montebello protest. By fun I mean kind of depressing, in the same way that most aggressive cop:protester or peaceful protester:civil disobedience protester interactions are usually depressing. But it probably advances the cause, as most of these things eventually seem to do.

The SQ had a nasty rep pre Oka, and it hasn’t gotten much better since. I’m guessing the only thing they’ll learn from this is not to send their undercover types in wearing police boots (which they could have learned by watching Serpico anyway). Or perhaps the supreme court will insist they continue to wear their boots to protests as a clever scheme to balance the rights of protesters and security.

West/Galifianakis:

And if you haven’t seen the Zack Galifianakis/Will Oldham video for Kanye West’s Can’t Tell Me Nothin you best be watching that now son. You’re gonna wash out at the hipster olympics ifn you don’t and it truly ranks as one of the year’s sublime moments of hilarity. It’s also damn pretty, makes me nostalgic for grey county. I was impressed West would release it as an official video until I found out it was the alternate official video, but I’m still impressed. And if you like that, or if you don’t, Galifianakis has plenty of alternate comedy gold for youtubing. For instance:

I assume I’m behind the curve and the entire hip world is listening to Mother Mother all the day long, but in case you aren’t as hip as that yet I recommend a listen. They’re not exactly a deep well of profundity but they are a lot of fun, and seem to be deploying this new technology of “key change” with devastating affect, you might jump around.