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Cash Prize

I have mixed feelings about the news that enough donations have been made to clear all of the music and images from the embattled civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Kudos to the Ford Foundation and Richard Gilder for caring, but for every prize-winning, connected documentarian out there, a thousand others are trying to do important (if obscure) work.

When you consider the bigger picture, Ford's funding of Eyes is actually part of the problem. Rather than challenging a copyright system that shackles documentarians, Ford and the other Eyes backers opted to feed it. With the funding securred, Eyes can now be used to show that the system works.

As with Mad Hot Ballroom, the number of clearances that the documentarians must obtain is insane. It is a shame that anyone is enforcing the terms of the original limited-time licenses. It is a pity that the ransom will apparently be paid. Eyes is the exception, not the rule; it was able to raise money because it has proven itself historically. Under the current system, the majority of films won't be given the same chance.

Just for Pubic Hair

Apparently Just For Men has decided that the new aggressive marketing for shaving one's nads is a sign that a new niche has opened up. How else to explain this ad, which - judging by the placement of the rifle scope - suggests that the guy should start coloring his pubes.

When my time comes, I am going to let myself go gray because it will make my penis look distinguished.

(Thanks, Jeanne!)

Vote, Brooklyn

Tuesday, September 13 is Primary Day in New York and the Brooklyn DA race is among the more interesting.

Incumbent Charles "Joe" Hynes looks vulnerable and is facing his first real challengers since winning the job in 1999. John Sampson is a current State Senator. Mark G. Peters is one of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's former lieutenants. Arnold Kriss, a former Brooklyn ADA, is taking on his former boss.

In addition to the high profile (for a DA contest in the boroughs) candidates, there is intrigue: Paul Wooten dropped out of the race under curious circumstances and the FBI is investigating the signatures obtained by many of the Democratic candidates.

We don't endorse candidates here, but Stay Free!'s contribution to voter education is my interview with Mark Peters from Issue 24. Read the interview, judge for yourself and remember to vote on September 13. Or die.

Stay Free! subscribers party in NYC

We're going to be having our quasi-annual Stay Free! subscribers party on the weekend after next. If you're a (paid) subscriber to the magazine, you should have received the details by now. If not, email me at cm at stayfreemagazine.org and I'll send them along.

Of course, it's never too late to become a subscriber and, yes, that is a bribe.

Wal-mart: Helpless victim of dastardly monopoly

Poor Wal-Mart. The company with an internal economy larger than all of Ireland is moaning that it isn't big enough to compete with a UK grocer. In fact, Wal-Mart has called for an antitrust investigation of U.K. chain Tesco, arguing that it has too large a share of the U.K. grocery market.

What's the matter, Wal-Mart? Afraid of a little competition? Maybe Wal-Mart should use its profits to form a standing army to invade stores that dare to sell anything on Wal-Mart's shelves.

(Thanks, Iain)

And while we are on the subject of Wal-Mart, the company is jumping into the hard liquor market. To goose sales, they plan on putting the liquor next to the guns. The liquor move appears at odds with Wal-Mart's puritan reputation; alcohol is not permitted at any company sponsored events. When asked about this seeming contradiction, a Wal-Mart spokesman did not say, "We don't let people shoot each other at the company picnic either."

Great Moments in Journalism, #30,405

From this morning's NY Post:

If you were in Manhattan yesterday, you might have thought an enemy force had taken over the island and severed the East Side from the West. The invaders were not Al Qaeda, but the Pakistani Parade and Festival... (bugmenot)

What the fuck? How is this any different from the St. Patrick's Day parade? The NY Post: 25 cents gets you last nights boxscores and subliterate writing. The racism is yours free.

American Science, RIP

While standing in line at the post office, I saw this new series of stamps devoted to American scientists...which is kind of ironic considering how our sciences are now under attack from all corners: from evangelicals to pharmaceutical marketing, educational declines, and funding cuts. It's like singing "Happy Birthday" to a man as he's being taken away on a gurney.

I don't know much about the individual scientists, other than the fact that they are dead, and that their tiny, stick-on tombstones can now service your mailings for 37 cents. But Jason, Charles, and I thought a parody was in order.

And with that we bring you an updated version of American Scientists. (We know God isn't precisely "American," but try telling that to the evangelicals...)

Download sheet of parody stamps (pdf)

Original View original stamps

Spoofing American Apparel

Some friends of a friend have been pasting these posters around Los Angeles, home base of American Apparel.

From where I stand, the jury is still out on the American Apparel's various misdeeds. The owner, Dov Charney, is clearly an ass. But at the very least, you've got to credit the company for showing it's possible to make money selling sweatshop-free clothes -- and without relying on sales from the granola crowd.

(Thanks to Mark Hosler)

Can We Still Be Friendsters?

Mark down August 28, 2005, as the day that MySpace.com officially jumped the shark. For that was the day a New York Times article proclaimed how of-the-moment the site was. (Though one could certainly make a case that the shark-jumping occurred when R.E.M. joined. Or when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought the site. Take your pick.) My gripe is sour-grape based in part, I’ll admit. As I age, I only learn that life is designed to make me feel old. With one simple newspaper article, it seemed like my merry band of Friendsters were instantly obsolete. Quaint. Yesterday’s news. In short: Old. According to the article, MySpace’s average user spends 1 hour, 43 minutes per month on the site, compared with 34 minutes for Facebook.com and 25 minutes for Friendster. (With the Stay Free! blog running close behind, I’m sure.) I apologize for making you click on that.

Technology taunts me around every corner. I listen to music on the wrong medium. (Thankfully, I’m not listening to the shit bands being forced down young throats by MySpace. Corporate rock still sucks.) I don’t have a gmail account. I cling to outdated operating systems. I’m driving my father’s Oldsmobile and didn’t even get the employee discount.

But it suddenly came to me. One: I use too many parentheses. And two: I’m sticking with Friendster, and I don’t care who knows it. And why? Because random foreign women love me. They love me for me. It started on August 15, with a message in my Friendster in-box from Caris:

hi Jack~~!!
my name is Caris...
I'm 27 years old from the Philippines.
I worked as a teacher for about 3 years.

I taught asian students like koreans, japanese...
It's nice to see you on friendster :)
I hope you don't mind me asking,
can I be your friend?
I hope you would allow me by then..
anyways, have a good day

Later that day, it was Maria, she of the exclamation points and sensual line breaks:

Hello!!!!!!
My name is Maria.
I liked your structure and I have decided to
write to you.
I live in Russia, republic el Mari. To me of 29
years.
I very much want to correspond with you, it is
possible our friendship will pass and to the
greater.
I shall wait for your letter. You can find me on
xxxxxl@inmail24.com
See you soon!

On August 18, Jessica joined my widening circle of admirers:

howdy stranger ;) my name is jessica but alot of my friends just call me "RED" cuz i love red so much. if you visit my homepage you'll see what i mean HahAHa. i found your profile here on friendster and by your profile you sound like an interesting guy to talk to. have any more pics?

me? i'm about 5'4", 95 lbs... light brown hair, blue eyes.. ample bust ;). i have some pics up at my cam site if you wanna check me out cutey.

redangel320.tripod.com is my cam site.. look forward to talkin to ya soon hun

And then on the 20th (with a gmail account, no less):

Hello, I write you from agency where have found out
yours profile. I have decided to write to you. I the
lonely girl from Russia also hope after that letters
to you it to stop and become possible we can good
friends. My name Sidorkina Natalia. I Live in small
city in Russia. I work in shopping center as the
seller of footwear. At leisure I try to visit sports
halls or to walk on park. Sometimes I with
girlfriends visit club. I like to dance. I so love Pop
music. At present I live one in a separate
apartment. My mum lives in the other city. I was
not married and I have no children. More you can
learn about me having looked my structure or to
write to me the letter on mine email:
xxxxx@gmail.com

And finally, on the 21st:

Hello. My name is Tanya. I saw yours profile and
it has liked me.
I would like to get acquainted with you and to
find out you better.
I live in Russia in city Omsk. If you want to
find out me better
write to my E-mail: xxxxx@mail.ru

Those Ukraine girls really knock me out; they leave the West behind. Caris, Maria, Jessica, Sidorkina, and Tanya don’t care that I’m a Luddite fuddy-duddy. They think I sound like an interesting guy. They want to get acquainted and see more pics. They like my structure.

So, sorry, MySpace, but the girls and I are staying over at Friendster, kicking it old-school. Da svidaniya, my friends.

Unkosher Art

Look for the artists at a Beijing art farm to get a cease and desist letter after tattooing the Louis Vuitton logo on a pig. The artists in residence tattoo the anesthetized pigs and show the tattoos after the eventual natural deaths of the pigs. According to the artists, the pigs live longer because "their increased value protects them from being killed for food."

On the other hand, they can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

(Via Agenda Inc.)

Copyprotecting musicals

Man, are those Rodgers and Hammerstein descendants killjoys or what? First they try to stop a black high school kid from playing Huck Finn in Big River, and now they're after the gays: The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization has asked co-writer/director Justin Tanner to remove the parts of his play that reference the musical Oklahoma!... which may be a bit tricky since his play is titled Oklahomo!

Described by some observers as "very gay," the play-within-a-play is about "marginal West Hollywood theater types putting on an unauthorized gay adaptation of 'Oklahoma!' "

Sound familiar?

On the Commons

A recent item of interest, from On the Commons (the blog by David Bollier of Public Knowledge):

Is the fashion commons at risk?
Unlike the film and music industries, fashion has thrived by shunning strong property rights for its creative output. No one can 'own' the herringbone jacket or the 'little black dress.' Upstart entrepreneurs can make exact copies of gowns worn on the red carpet, and no one cries 'piracy' and sues. But now there are signs that the open fashion commons is coming under siege. The Financial Times of London reports that brand-name fashion houses are increasingly suing the discount imitators of high-end clothes for copyright infringement...

Yes, I am going to do the unthinkable

I am going to recommend that you read a Malcolm Gladwell article. From the latest New Yorker: The Moral-Hazard Myth. An illuminating and surprisingly class-conscious look at why the U.S. health care system is so bad.

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193... What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations...Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens...

Selling Sickness

I haven't been very good about finishing books lately, but did manage to read this one the whole way through: Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels. The book is short, easy, and loaded with arresting anecdotes about drug company efforts to "brand" disease.

For instance, the criteria for what constitutes high blood pressure and high cholesterol have been defined downward in recent years, multiplying the number of people said to suffer from these problems. The pharma companies marketing new drug treatments essentially created the new criteria, but Moynihan and Cassels show that the drugs themselves have dubious value. In the case of high blood pressure meds, an extensive, long-term, federally funded study found that generic old diuretics were significantly better than new drugs--and a small fraction of the cost. But after the study was released, big pharma tried to bury the results. When one of the study's authors was scheduled to give a talk at a scientific conference in San Francisco, Pfizer even organized a sight-seeing trip for attending heart specialists to take place at the same time!

Each chapter focuses on a different ailment, including menopause, attention deficit disorder, social anxiety disorder, osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and female sexual dysfunction. The emphasis is not to deny that real people suffer from these problems, of course, but to point to the dangers of letting drug companies define illness. A good read, even if you're not paranoid about modern medicine.

Future of Music Policy Summit in DC, Sept 11-13

The good people behind the Future of Music Coalition are organizing their fifth annual policy summit in Washington DC, September 11-13. Speakers include Stay Free! faves Fred von Lohmann (EFF), Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Kembrew McLeod, not to mention Hank Shocklee, Dan Rose, and scores of politicians and industry reps.

There's lots more info at the Summit website, including a 30-second PSA by George Clinton!

I'm leaving early also

According to a presenter at the American Psychological Association conference, workaholics are the best lovers.

Me? I'm blogging from work.

(Via PsyBlog)

Bomb away

Marc Ecko can have his graffiti party after all. Judge Jed Rakoff called New York's revocation of Marc Ecko's event permit a "flagrant violation of the First Amendment" in an opinion that showed a sense of humor that you don't see often in a judge:

"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of Hamlet would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder," Rakoff wrote. "... As for a street performance of Oedipus Rex, don't even think about it."

Judge Rakoff agreed with me - and he did it without adding a "but."

Could Vioxx come back from the grave?

I don't know how many of you are following the Vioxx story but it's taking a surreal turn.

First, a quick recap: Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in September 2004 when evidence linking the drug to fatal heart attacks became too much to ignore. (By some estimates, Vioxx has caused tens of thousands of deaths.) The news sparked a slew of lawsuits from survivors and the verdict in the first of these cases came back on Friday. The jury ruled against Merck and awarded the plaintiff -- whose husband died of a heart attack after taking Vioxx -- a symbolic $253 million.

Coverage of the trial in today's Wall Street Journal was sympathetic to Merck, pointing out the varied ways that the plaintiff's lawyer manipulated the jury emotionally. Merck's lawyers argued that Vioxx didn't kill this particular guy -- and there's good reason to believe they're right. But the jury blamed Merck anyway because the company clearly buried evidence of the drug's dangers and fought to keep it on the market. Merck plans to appeal, but the verdict is bad news for the company, seeing as it has 4,000-plus trials to follow, some of which are bound to have better plaintiffs and all of which are guaranteed to have the same unsympathetic defendant.

But here's the surreal part: buried in the WSJ article is an indirect quote from a member of Merck's board, William G. Bowen, saying that Merck is "is mulling whether to put Vioxx back on the market--partly to blunt plaintiff attorney's ammunition."

I had to read that twice but that's what it said. So not only did Merck representatives know about Vioxx's ill effects in advance, not only did they fight to keep it on the market after discovering the heart problems, but they're considering bringing back the drug to help sway future court decisions! (Apparently, they are unconcerned about creating more plaintiffs.)

That's the only info the Journal article had about bringing Vioxx back, so I looked elsewhere and found this Houston Chronicle story from August 9, which ends with this paragraph:

Since [Merck pulled the drug off the market], a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has determined that other drugs in the same class as Vioxx also have increased heart risks and that Vioxx could be put back on the market with appropriate label warnings.

So, unless I'm reading this wrong, the FDA is essentially saying "the competition is killing people, so it's only fair let Vioxx kill 'em too."

Fighting back

It's always a charge to see people standing up to cease-and-desist letters or fighting back against government officials restricting free expression. Two recent, heartening cases:

1) Marc Ecko wanted to do a promotion for a new graffiti-themed video game. As part of the release party, artists were invited to tag on subway car mockups. When city officials found out the nature of the celebration they pulled the permit for the event, claiming that it would "encourag[e] people to hurt this city."

Instead of altering his plans, Ecko is suing the city for violating the First Amendment by making the permit contingent on a willingness to restrict how they express themselves. No actual vandalism is taking place, so his case is strong. (The hearing is going on as I write.)

2) The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Tampa, Florida planned an exhibit of skinned human cadavers and other organs. When the Florida Anatomical Board found out about the exhibit, they voted to deny permission to display the bodies because the exhibit did not show proper respect for the dead.

Instead of altering or cancelling the exhibit, MOSI announced that the Board lacked jurisdiction over the display and ignored the ruling, opening up the exhibit ahead of schedule. The Attorney General, who had publicly endorsed the authority of the Board to stop the exhibit has decided not to take steps to shut the exhibit down. Looks like victory.

Fighting back not only helps preserve one's own rights, but those of the rest of us as well. Kudos to Ecko and MOSI for confronting their bullies.

Winnie the Pooh gets it

Diana Thorneycroft, who I had the pleasure of working with on the Illegal Art Exhibit, sent me a few new drawings last week so I thought I'd share them with you all. These appeared as part of a show in Winnipeg this weekend, called "Lifters, Grifters, and Sifters."

 

Real beauty (for ass men)

Since Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign has won raves in the press, other advertisers are rushing to cash in on some of that "real bodies" action. Nike has just launched an image campaign in a similar vein, celebrating “big butts, thunder thighs and tomboy knees" -- or at least that's what Advertising Age said. I looked at the ads myself but the closest thing to a fatty here is, as Charles put it, "a tight, perfectly round ass."

Nike's campaign celebrates athleticism, not "real" bodies.  I can't begrudge 'em for that (at least they're not selling anti-cellulite cream); still, the self-satisfaction of it all is a bit much to take.  Dove's campaign was unbearable for similar reasons.

The ad agencies that come up with this stuff are largely responsible for perpetuating the anorexic model ideal in the first place. The only reason Dove's campaigns have caused such fervor is because advertisers have ignored feminist critics for decades and continued to parade the same bony skeletons with such uniformity that simply using non-anorexic models is enough to cut through the clutter. What advertisers are doing, then, is kinda like kicking someone in the shins and then offering to sell them a bandage. Far from thanking them, we should be kicking 'em back.

POPaganda screening, Thurs 8/25 in NYC

Our friends at the Onion are doing a sneak preview screening of POPaganda: The Art and Crimes of Ron English at Anthology Film Archives next week. We'll be there and you should too. Ron English is an artist/billboard liberator whose work you might recognize from Supersize Me and Adbusters. The documentary was directed by fellow billboard bandit Pedro Carvajal. (8 pm, 32 Second Ave @ 2nd St; 212-505-5181).

And if you're not in New York, fear not: the movie will be showing up in theaters elsewhere in September.

Brain Taunter

Little, stupid Flash-based ads that tout low mortgage rates are pretty much everywhere on the web, kind of like the soot-blackened gum wads pounded into the sidewalk of any big city: ubiquitous, mildly repugnant, and ignored.

But, much like soot-blackened gum wads, sometimes one of these ads catches my eye. Like today. This ad, pictured below, seems to have some kind of slightly stoned green hippy troll-thing giving me a wobbly peace sign, surrounded by a sea-like miasmic soup of low-mortgage rate information. The troll has also made the questionable choice of tattooing "Bad Credit OK" on his distended abdomen. The text reminds me that mortgage rates have hit record lows.

What the fuck? I almost NEVER take advice from trolls, let alone stoned ones, and certainly not about anything as important as my mortgage. I'd love to know the thinking behind these ads; I've seen dancing gingerbread men, drunk penguins, some kind of rubbery cowboy, all shilling low mortgage rates. Is it just that mortgages are too abstract a concept to apply anything that makes sense? Is it intentionally dada, or, more likely, are these automatically made by some bot programmed to randomly search and assemble animated images?

I'd like to believe that these are all the work of some brilliant designer, and I'm just too base and limited to really see what's going on.

Anyway, those mortgage rates are low. That troll may know what he's talking about.

UPDATE: For another winning mortgage offer, see the comments.

You MUST pay the rent!

In the wake of the Supreme Court's "anything goes" eminent domain decision in Kelo v. New London, states across the country began reconsidering whether state law should permit such lax, abuse-encouraging standards. Even the Governor of Connecticut has called for a moratorium on the exercise of eminent domain, freezing the development that was at issue in the case.

Meanwhile, what are the developers who won Kelo doing? They're planning to sue the litigants for back rent for the time spent fighting to keep their property. One owner allegedly owes over $300,000. They intend to press this claim even though, according to the residents' lawyer, "the [developer] had agreed to forgo rents as part of a pretrial agreement in which the residents in turn agreed to a hastened trial schedule."

Un-fucking-believable.

(Via Protein Wisdom)

Can't a gay Batman get a break?

Oh, will the copyright madness ever end? D.C. Comics is going after a Chelsea art dealer, demanding that it cease and desist from exhibiting Mark Chamberlain’s series of "gay Batman" watercolors. As Kathleen Cullen of Kathleen Cullen Fine Art explained to Artnet, "D.C. Comics wants me to hand over all unsold work and invoices for the sold work!"

I hope she told them to make their own gay Batman watercolors.

Artnet has also received a cease-and-desist for hosting several images from the series on its website. Let's hope they have some spine and keep them put. As I've said a million times, corporations routinely churn out ceast-and-desists, when they have no real intention of following up with a suit. (Though, naturally, no one wants to be the outlier.)

Whenever I give my Illegal Art Exhibit talks, I usually mention that fine art is unlikely to draw legal threats from corporations: "If it's hanging on a museum wall, it's usually safe." But from the look of things, that may be changing. Fine art may still have an easier pass than works using popular media, but now all it takes is a search engine or a blog analyst to discover art like Chamberlain's.

One steak, hold the cow

I saw this article recently which gave me great hope for something I've been eagerly anticipating for years: lab-grown meat. It looks like they're going to be able to do it, growing real animal muscle tissue from single cultured cells, with no unpleasant abottoirs, massive stinky inhumane herds or anything. Finally, I'll be able to enjoy a nice burger, free from the guilt that is normally associated with this kind of carnivorism. And, perhaps, even free from the holier-than-thou stares from my vegan friends.

And the possibilities! The mind reels at the thought of sleek cubes of steak, of glowing chicken spheres and the vision of one of those perpetually rotating cones of gyro lamb meat actually GROWN in a cylinder! Oh brave new tasty world.

I bring this up also because I have an idea for a related business, and thought I'd see if any Stay Free! fans were interested in investing. (My studies show SF blog readers have LOTS of liquid capital) I plan to manufacture artificial plastic bones, meat-shaping stamps, and related materials to aid people's acceptence of artificial meat by providing an easier transition via familiar meat-shapes and accoutrements.

I can be contacted via Stay Free! if interested.

Beer for kids

Following on the heels of candy-flavored cigarettes and kiddie deodorant, a Japanese company is marketing a nonalcoholic drink it calls Kidsbeer:

"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads the product's advertising slogan.

[...]

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the beverage maker, said: "Children copy and mimic adults. If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

All of a sudden those pre-teen tampons are starting to sound realistic after all...

(Via BoingBoing)

Speaking of soundalikes...

The Coq Roq thing reminds me of poor Tom Waits, who keeps getting ripped off by advertisers aping his voice. The Frito Lay case (which Waits won) is the most famous use of a Waits soundalike, but it happens all the time. Most recently, Opel (General Motors) used a Waits soundalike for spots in Europe -- the third time a car company has swiped Waits' voice. (You can view the commerical here.)

Waits issued a statement in response: "Commercials are an unnatural use of my work. It's like having a cow's udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating." Then, he threatened to sue.
Opel, in turn, issued a statement of its own, completely denying that the sound is an imitation of Waits: "We actually are surprised about the fact that Tom Waits considers the music... his voice and style of singing"....which is not only an insult to Waits but to anyone with functioning ears.

Which isn't to say I have sympathy for Slipknot, who deserved to be punished (or parodied, as the case may be).

Death to false metal!

Coq Roq Slipknot (like Coq Roq but without the chicken)

Nu-metal stalwarts Slipknot are on the warpath. The enemy? Coq Roq, the fictional band featured in Burger King's new ad for Chicken Fries. Slipknot are threatening to sue the fast food chain for ripping off their likeness and sound in a diabolical scheme to "influence the Slipknot generation to purchase Chicken Fries."

Sure, Coq Roq wear masks like Slipknot, but so do a lot of other bands. And their music is better - not the bloated, double-kick-infested, sexless sludge that Slipknot has been cranking out for way too long. I think Burger King's ad is genius. In fact, just looking at Coq makes me hungry!

Who knew faking barcodes could be so easy?

Some of you may remember when pranksters from Conglomco created a website that allowed people to download barcodes of various consumer goods, print them out, and stick them over more expensive goods at Wal-Mart, enabling them to buy at a discount. (The site was quickly shut down.)

And you may recall Packard Jennings, who has has created a variety of fake products and placed them in barcoded packaging at Wal-Mart. Storm motor oil, for instance, which "commemorates the spirit of our national priorities" and Mussolini action figures. The trouble with Jennings's creations, however, is that he didn't design functioning barcodes.

Ironically, that wasn't the case for an 80s compilation CD that uses a blown-up barcode as the cover art. So when customers of Tesco supermarkets bought "Electric 80s" (featuring winners by Tears for Fears and Duran Duran), and when salesclerks accidentally (!) scanned the cover art, the CD rang up as a much cheaper release. Not a bad deal for shoppers, though, personally, I'd rather have a Mussolini doll.

(Thanks to Becky Ebenkamp)

Talk back to your doctor

As an unabashed iatrophobic, I was psyched to come across this site, RateMDs.com, which allows you to post reviews about doctors in your area. Not that the site is particularly informative. It's extremely skimpy, in fact, and I can't with any honesty recommend that you select a doctor based on it. Still, if you have ever tried to file a complaint against a doctor before (not for lawsuit purposes but simply as a warning to others) and been frustrated in your attempt to do so, let me just say that RateMDs is extremely gratifying. 

Win 2K users get worms

From: CNN Breaking News <BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM>
Date: August 16, 2005 6:11:12 PM EDT

A worm shut down computers running Windows 2000 software across the United States.

Call me a crank but isn't it a little presumptuous to use "worm" here without some qualification like "a computer worm" or "a cowardly worm"?

Baby can't board

I'm not big on faux security but I can't say that I'm against anything that keeps babies and children off of planes. Apparently "every major airport" has prevented a child under 2 from flying because his/her name was the same as someone on the no-fly list.

Maybe I'm just being selfish but if I can't get to sleep on the redeye back from the West Coast because of a crying child, [joke has been deleted by the dignity of the author and he asks that you forget it was ever here].

Home taping is killing music (again)

For years the RIAA has been saying peer-to-peer is destroying the music industry, but it looks like the suits are changing their tune: The RIAA is now saying CD burning, not filesharing, is the industry's biggest threat.... which is their way of preparing us for more copy-protected CDs and other digital rights management. As if we needed another reason not to buy major label releases.

Which reminds me: after months of letting the peer-to-peer "Debate of the Century" sit in my news reader, I finally listened to it yesterday and can now recommend it highly. This debate, held at Cornell in April 2005, pits four panelists on on the industry side -- Cary Sherman (RIAA), Fritz Attaway (MPAA), Avery Kotler (Napster II), and Alex French (NBC/Universal) -- against Siva Vaidhyanathan (Copyrights and Copywrongs) and Fred von Lohmann (EFF).

Mild-manner von Lohmann proves himself a badass and pretty much steals the show, making a sound case for a collective licensing plan that charges users a modest fee for the right to download with abandon. There are excellent, thought-provoking arguments throughout the debate, though, which you can listen to via streaming video (.ram). The visuals aren't necessary, of course; I just put it on and cleaned up the apartment.

In The Papers

Want to know what's in the newspapers, but too lazy/drunk/blind to read them yourself? NY1 has your back.

New from Stay Free! magazine

Francis Heaney made a fine crossword puzzle [right-click and download to disc] for the most recent Stay Free! and, thanks to modern crossword technology, you can now do it on your computer at work. It requires special software, which you can download here. The puzzle is titled "Brooklyn Unreal Estate" and that's the only hint we'll give you (unless you count the answers).

Pfizer promises to stop marketing Viagra to teens

Seriously, is there any other way to read this?

Charles adds: Are they worried that teenage boys don't have erections all the time? That they need something to bridge the tiny gap between them?

(Via Spin of the Day)

How to get a suit from Fed Ex

Wired News has a story about Jose Avila, a broke kid who, instead of buying actual furniture, decided to build his own out of Federal Express Boxes.  His bed, couch, desk, chairs, shelves, and dining table are all made from Fed Ex shipping boxes.  He even made a website about it called Fed Ex Furniture.  Now FedEx has come after him for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 

Lawrence Lessig's crew at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society now represent Avila and it appears Fed Ex will soon be retreating.

This reminds me of when Michael Stipe wore an outfit made of FedEx envelopes on Saturday Night Live in the mid 90s, only his suit didn't bring a suit.

Thanks to the wife for the tip.

Could it be a typo?

Just for fun, I was checking out coops in Brooklyn and found this ad:

$175,000. -large 1 bdrm coop, glass elevator, painted ready to go. LOCATED on the 3rd floor.... Ocean Parkway area,  The shoulder of Ocean Parkway has trees & benches and a kike path to prospect park all the way to the beach.

For love and leeches

After yesterday's depressing medical news, it was nice to read an article about an "advance" that appears to be working: the reintroduction of leeches to mainstream medicine. (The New Yorker doesn't have the article online.) The quirky and fascinating history of the leech's use in medicine contains the single most depressing line ever uttered by the wife of an obsessive (Lorna,  wife of leech expert Roy T. Sawyer):
"I knew that leeches would always be the first love of his life."

The article continues: "The Sawyers live with their adopted teen-age daughter, Bethany ..." [emphasis added] An adopted daughter friend of mine felt that the descriptive was gratuitous and somewhat belittling, as if the author had said "obese daughter" or "secondhand daughter." Kinda like how the producers of Brat Camp refer to the juvenile delinquents on the show as adopted. Alas, I have to disagree. The New Yorker didn't identify Bethany as adopted to denigrate her. It was to make clear that Lorna was barren.

Home Movie Day 2005

WHAT IS HOME MOVIE DAY?
Many archivists are concerned about what will happen to all of the home movies that have been shot on film during the 20th century, most of which are sitting in boxes in attics or basements. Besides their importance as family records, these films often contain a history of the hometowns and areas where these films were shot. We know that many people have boxes full of family memories that they've never seen because they lack of a projector, or are afraid that the films are too fragile to be viewed again. We also know that many people are having their amateur films transferred to videotape or DVD, with the mistaken idea that their new digital copies will last forever and the "obsolete" films could be discarded. Original films can long outlast any film or video transfer and are important documents of our cultural history! The 3rd annual Home Movie Day will take place this August 13, 2005 - all around the world!

So dig out the ole' family movies and bring them out to Home Movie Day! And don't throw your family's films away!

Read the Stay Free article about Home Movie Day.

In NYC, Home Movie Day is being hosted by Anthology Film Archives 32 Second Ave. (at 2nd St.) from 1:00 - 5:00 pm. More info...

In North Carolina, Home Movie Day is being held at:
NC State, G107 Caldwell Hall from 10am - 3pm. More info
Duke University, Special Collections Reading Room, First Floor of Perkins Library from 1 - 3pm
For info about other locations across the world, visit the official Home Movie Day site.

Be cool ... like everyone else

I picked up a copy of amNewYork this morning and checked out the special campus guide, which is basically a back to school section for robots and morons.

"Essential pop culture for college," begins with an oxymoronic title and declines from there. The article implores incoming freshmen to "memorize ... the pop culture phrases and quotes most overheard on college campuses." As if there aren't enough people constantly screaming "I'm Rick James, bitch!" already?  Leslie Savan is having a good cry right now.

The guide moves on to unironically recommend the most mainstream of CDs (Counting Crows and Norah Jones but somehow not Bob Marley's Legend), DVDs (Sex and the City, Old School and Top Gun) and TV shows (Family Guy and The O.C.).

After pimping such fare (some which I like, but I'm hardly a tastemaker), the article makes the hilarious recommendation to "be strategically uncool" by ironically watching Matlock or Golden Girls.

But how do you tell the ironic crap from the unironic crap? I ask that seriously because that is advice freshmen could really use. An arched eyebrow at the wrong time could mean you have to transfer to another school.

On the opposing page is a feature on joints for late-night outings. More than half are  diners and drugstores. Do they think that the students wouldn't have figured out the meaning of those huge neon "Open 24 Hours" signs? To cap it off, according to editors all the cool kids are eating ramen noodles and cereal, advice about as necessary to a freshman as "drink beer and screw with abandon."

Quick links

Our Global Food-Service Enterprise Is Totally Down For Your Awesome Subculture - from the Onion. Could it have been inspired by this ad?

Not an Onion headline: Duane Reade to open across the street of another Duane Reade... and down the block from four Starbucks.

Starbucks knockoff extravaganza! Places to get a fake cup of coffee: Ethiopia, Chile, Saigon

Syrofoam Hummer by artist Andrew Junge (via)

New anti-consumerism magazine: CONSUME®EVOLUTION (via)

A sad story (reg. or ad viewing req.) about a man who goes to great lengths to stretch his penis - and the sad sacks he advises. (Is penis-fixation the new anorexia and can we blame spam?)

Meet the smoothies! (reg. or ad viewing req.) - Salon TV columnist Heather Havrilesky on the new male consumer: "macho, high-maintenance pretty men who love women and Budweiser -- and have perfectly waxed privates."

Blurb Racket

Via WAXY, I happened upon Blurb Racket, a column documenting the more egregious misrepresentations of reviews cited in advertisements. The column needs some editing, but with a little filtering you'll find some outrageous examples:

The Girl in the Café  (HBO film)
Blurb from Oregonian: "An endearing romantic comedy."
Actual line: "This new offering from HBO Films is at its heart a bit of political propaganda wrapped into an endearing romantic comedy that starts losing its laughs when it gets to Reykjavik and decides its teachable moment has arrived."

Hustle & Flow (MTV/Paramount)
Blurb from Los Angeles Times: "Place Terrence Howard front and center!"
Actual line: "Above all, 'Hustle & Flow' places Howard front and center as a man with little education but much street wisdom."

Fantastic Four (Twentieth Century Fox)
Blurb from Charlotte Weekly: "Fun!"
Actual line: "Fantastic? Not exactly, but Tim Story's take on Marvel Comic's first family of superheroes can be fun if your expectations are low enough."

And sometimes a cigar is a metaphor

A new study by a Cornell researcher has found that men whose masculinity is threatened are more likely to buy an SUV, support the war in Iraq, and gay-bash.

Obviously, these guys doth protest too much. They should just relax and get themselves a facial.

(via Eyeteeth)

Maybe Christian Science is on to something

You know there's something wrong with a given trade when it launches a feel-good ad campaign; the question is only a matter of what. So when American Medical Association launched its new "Everyday Heroes" campaign, you had to wonder: is the group worried about the public awareness of medical errors? ...its reputation as an opponent of patients' rights? ...its sagging membership?

Well, I don't know, but there has been a lot of solid reportage lately on the sorry state of American medicine. I'm currently reading the illuminating and surprisingly level-headed (given the title) Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes. There's also been a spate of good newspaper and journal articles. And by "good" I mean frightening.

"Speak Not of Error: Does legal fear increase the risk of medical error?"
(Regulation, Spring 2005)
From the authors we learn that "Medical error is the eighth-leading, sixth-leading, or third-leading cause of death in the United States, depending on the source." Yet the AMA has been a major force in pressing for tort "reform" -- limiting a patient's rights to sue for medical malpractice. Somehow the AMA and similar lobbyists have managed to promote the argument that holding medical practitioners and institutions accountable for medical errors *increases* errors. But David A. Hymen (University of Illinois) and Charles Silver (University of Texas) handily debunk such nonsense in this readable journal article.

One group of doctors changes its ways
I mentioned this earlier but I'm blogging it again in case the above isn't enough to convince you. It's about anesthesiologists' novel way of lowering the malpractice insurance costs: by improving patient safety.

"Bad Practices Net Hospitals More Money:
High Quality Often Loses Out In Medicare"
(Washington Post, July 2005)
The first in a three-part series on the upside-down economics of Medicare, which gives the worst doctors and hospitals the biggest bag of money. Parts two and three.

"Plague of Errors"
(Governing, August 2005)
"Hospital infection rates are rising and killing 90,000 patients a year. Can the states put a stop to it?"

Take Action! via Consumers' Union
Convenient links for taking action to improve patient safety in your state.

What do pharmaceutical giants and anti-abortion nuts have in common?

The Wall Street Journal reports that drug companies have started putting language in their contracts with medical institutions to shape what doctors can and cannot tell patients about specific drugs.

Case in point: Eli Lilly offers a discount to major purchasers of antidepressant Cymbalta as long as those purchasers refrain from "negative D.U.R. [drug utilization review] correspondence to physicians" or "negative educational counter-detailing" -- in other words, as long as they shut the fuck up about side effects and the drug's high costs.

Kind of ironic considering how PhARMA has been pushing the line that regulating direct-to-consumer advertising is unconstitutional because it inhibits corporations' "free speech." 

pdf of Eli Lilly's contract
Full text of article below the fold:

How Lilly Influences What Prescribers Learn About Cymbalta

By SARAH RUBENSTEIN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
August 5, 2005; Page B1

From TV commercials to pitches in doctors' offices, drug companies try to cast their products in the best possible light. Some use a far less visible approach: contractual restrictions on what insurers, hospitals and other health facilities can tell doctors about certain drugs.

Drug makers commonly offer price breaks to insurers, hospitals and other medical facilities. In exchange, they often get favorable placement on drug formularies, the lists these entities use to encourage prescriptions of certain products. Some of the contracts go further, restricting insurers and medical organizations from making unflattering statements about the costs and risks of drugs when they communicate with health practitioners.

A case in point is the discount contract Eli Lilly & Co. has offered health facilities in connection with Cymbalta, an antidepressant that the Food and Drug Administration approved last year and that faces competition in some cases from cheaper generics. The contract illustrates tactics that some insurers and prescribers say they find troubling.

The Cymbalta discount contract offers large purchasers of antidepressants a 5% discount, but specifies that they could lose most of that discount if they engage in, among other things, "negative D.U.R. correspondence to physicians."

While not defined in the contract, D.U.R. is industry shorthand for "drug utilization review," a kind of analysis of prescription patterns that insurers often use to identify inappropriate or risky practices and often also to cut costs. Prime Therapeutics LLC, an Eagan, Minn., pharmacy-benefits manager owned by nine Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, used drug utilization reviews to try to reduce what it determined was overprescribing of Vioxx and Bextra, painkillers that were later pulled from the market because of safety concerns.

Some insurers worry that contracts such as Cymbalta's could have a chilling effect, discouraging insurers and other groups from disseminating medically relevant information about the drugs on their formularies -- or discouraging them from pursuing D.U.R.s altogether.

Dale Kramer, director of pharmacy contracting at Kaiser Permanente, the big health-maintenance organization based in Oakland, Calif., says his organization doesn't agree to such restrictive terms.

"If I signed something like that, I think our clinicians ... would be very upset," he says. "Someone on the business side should not have the authority to make clinical commitments for the company they represent."

Nancy Stalker, vice president of pharmacy services at Blue Shield of California, based in San Francisco, says she doesn't think her company would sign a contract with broad language that could permit such interference by a drug maker. "We just don't want the manufacturer to drive what we do," she says. "We want to be able to make the best clinical decision."

Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, says it has a legitimate interest in controlling negative D.U.R. communications. Drug-industry executives say many of these types of communications, while ostensibly clinical, often are really designed to cut costs. Insurers or other groups may use these communications to steer doctors toward cheaper drugs that may be inferior to more-expensive competitors.

Tarra Ryker, a Lilly spokeswoman, says the Cymbalta contract isn't meant to stop communications that are "backed up by clinical data" and "presented in a fair and balanced manner."

The company also has contracts with the same language for the antipsychotics Symbyax and Zyprexa. "There are a lot of things that are said to physicians and prescribers that in a lot of cases cannot be backed up with scientific evidence," Ms. Ryker says.

One type of communication that might be disallowed under the contract would be a description of side effects for Cymbalta that didn't also describe its benefits, she says. Another possibility: a side-by-side price comparison between Cymbalta and a generic. A comprehensive list of prices for all antidepressants, however, would be OK, Eli Lilly says.

Others in the insurance industry say the contractual restrictions don't compromise their communications with doctors. Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an insurance-industry trade group based in Washington, says, "The signing of contracts does not in any way interfere with the ability of clinicians [at insurance companies] to discuss or disseminate information on the appropriateness, efficacy and safety of any given drug."

Eli Lilly says more than 100 medical facilities belonging to the Minnesota Multi-State Contracting Alliance for Pharmacy, a St. Paul-based group purchasing organization including student health services, regional psychiatric treatment facilities and hospitals in many states, are signed on to agreements for Cymbalta this year. Representatives reached at several of the member facilities said they weren't aware of these restrictive terms in their discount contracts. Lilly says it hasn't revoked any discounts among this group for noncompliance with those terms.

The power of the contractual restrictions depends, in large part, on how much credence doctors give to the information they get from an insurer or other medical facility. Larry Fields, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians, of Leawood, Kan., says while doctors generally pay attention to such information, they rely primarily on doctors associations and other sources that "don't have a dog in the fight." Insurers, hospitals and other health facilities are "trying to save money," Dr. Fields says.

Still, some people in the industry see the contract terms as a troubling lever for drug companies to use. Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a pharmaceutical-economics professor at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, worries drug makers could invoke the clause if they suspect a drop in sales is the result of medical questions raised by an insurer or health facility. "I would never say that having a clause in a contract, even if it's not implemented, has no effect," he says. "It has the potential to be acted upon."

Also restricted under the Cymbalta contract is "negative educational counterdetailing." Counterdetailing is the industry name for efforts, often made by insurers, to counterbalance drug makers' sales pitches (which are often referred to as "detailing"). Counterdetailing efforts commonly push patients toward generics or poke holes in drug makers' claims about their products.

People in the drug industry say counterdetailing often serves to steer patients toward cheaper drugs. Counterdetailing "language is probably in everyone's contracts," says Jack Cox, a spokesman for Pfizer Inc., New York. He declines to comment on Eli Lilly's or Pfizer's practices specifically, but adds that insurers and others who make drugs available to patients "will come in with clinical data, but their goal is financial."

Counterdetailing and the D.U.R.s restricted under the Lilly contract are generally communications aimed at doctors and others who prescribe drugs -- not at patients.

The contract says that it isn't meant to preclude an individual physician "from making an independent prescribing decision based on such physician's medical judgment in the best interest of patient care."

Dramatic Headlines on the Rise!!!

I hadn't read Gay City News before (for the same reason that I also haven't read Ebony or Guns & Ammo), but the headline in last week's issue - beneath a picture of two young, blindfolded men having nooses tightened around their necks -  jumped out at me:

Iran Executes Two Teens
Human Rights Groups Denounce Punishment as Anti-Gay, Barbaric.

It pushed all of my buttons: anti-death penalty; pro-gay rights; afraid of organized religion weilding political power. Imagine my surprise when the article began

After an international outpouring of anger from gay organizations at the news that the Iranian government had executed two young men because they were homosexual, human rights groups are saying that while they strongly object to executing minors the two men may have committed a crime. "The only thing that we have been able to corroborate is that they were convicted of a sexual assault on a 13-year-old boy," said Ariel Herrera, acting director of OUTfront. (italics added)

The rest of the article is a series of outraged quotes from various human rights and gay rights organizations made before the actual charges against the boys were revealed.

I don't mean to cavil about Iran's horrible human rights record, nor dispute that homosexual conduct can and has resulted in executions in Iran in the past. I won't pretend that the execution of juvenilles - even for sexual assault on a minor - doesn't make me queasy. And I take seriously this editorial, run later in the paper, that questions the authenticity of the rape charge.

Still, the inflamatory headline is almost entirely contradicted by the article that follows. If they had time to rewrite the entire article, how did they manage to miss the headline?

The Pirates and the Mouse

Last December, Reason ran a cover story on Disney's war against the '60s underground comic Air Pirates. I could be wrong, but Dan O'Neill, who came up with Air Pirates, may be the only successful artist to intentionally provoke a copyright lawsuit. O'Neill picked a fight with Disney, not simply by publishing lewd comics featuring Mickey Mouse and the gang, but by making sure Disney executives personally saw them. When Disney struck back and won a resounding victory in court, O'Neill -- incredibly enough -- kept at it, using Mickey to satirize his legal battle in "Communique #1 from the M.L.F. [Mouse Liberation Front]" (pictured at right)

It's a good story, and you can read more of it in Bob Levin's book The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Counterculture.

Texas Dolly thanks New Yorker Malcolm

As if we needed more evidence of Gladwell-mania, Blink has made its way into the poker world. Congratulations to "steely" for providing the worst poker advice I have ever read, imploring his readers to think less at the poker table.

Steely treats experience-based instinct as mysterious, claims quasi-psychic powers and suggests that a player should follow his gut even if (s)he knows that it is the statistically wrong play. Somewhere in Las Vegas, Doyle Brunson is laughing and calling a contractor to add another wing to his house.

Bluffing in poker always throws a wrinkle into mathematical analysis, so a certain amount of guile and guile-detection is necessary. Still, the best advice I have ever heard about dealing with bluffing comes from tournament poker expert Dan Harrington:

The big mistake that most players make in this situation* is not calling or folding, but calling or folding quickly. Their nerves fail them and they say either "He's got [the nuts]" or "Nobody bluffs me off aces - I'm calling". Here's a better thing to say: "I've invested $10,000 and several days of my time in this tournament - I can afford to spend a few minutes and think this through."

In other words, the best players benefit from thinking more, not less. When playing high stakes poker, your money can be gone in the blink of an eye, so take your time. The cards aren't going anywhere.

(via Kottke)

* For poker junkies, "this situation" is facing an all-in raise on day two of the World Series of Poker holding Ad Ac on a flop of 9h-5c-2s. Non-poker junkies can ask a poker-playing friend what that means. See Harrington On Hold 'em at 131.

Gangsta gangsta

Speaking of Freakonomics: as discussed earlier, the authors attribute the 1990s drop in violent crime to the legalization of abortion (in combination with increased jailing and tougher gun laws). But  anthopologist Grant McCracken has a still more novel hypothesis: the drop in crime, he argues, can be attributed to hip-hop. (After all, they coincided...)

Imagine how big the drop in crime would have been if only Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Jam Master Jay, et al. weren't gunned down.

(Via Consuming Things)

My cuddly new pet is a Smith & Wesson

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story about new gun industry promotions - "now with adjustible safety... in fashionable olive green or 'urban camouflage!' (which basically means you can sneak them in your Dockers). [Cue Apple parody.]

Lots of choice anecdotes here, including this line from a Smith & Wesson ad: "I hike alone. I bike alone. I climb alone. But with my Smith & Wesson, I'm never alone."

Speaking of Smith & Wesson:

One industry initiative that is being widely embraced is an emphasis on safety features to lure people frightened of firearms -- a notable reversal from a few years ago when Smith & Wesson was the lone gun manufacturer to agree to a Clinton administration demand to install internal locks. (The brand was widely boycotted as a result.)

Boycotted for installing safety locks!? Why is it that every article about the gun industry makes me think that the last people who should be owning guns are gun owners.

At risk of changing the subject, this reminds me of another point I wanted to make about Levitt and Dubner's book Freakonomics. In one chapter, the authors tout risk analysis data showing that kids are more likely to die from falling in a swimming pool than from having a gun in the house. At least with a swimming pool, people enjoy the pleasure of swimming; the purpose of owning a gun in the house is to kill intruders. What I'd like to see are statistics on the likelihood of actually preventing a crime by owning a gun. The scenarios gun owners dream up - masked man breaks in your home, rapes your wife - are far more improbable than the pedestrian concerns of parents. Methinks these guys have have watched too much Dirty Harry.

Is it just me or is she holding a penis?

Thanks to my friend Becky for sending this 1970s (I'm guessing) jewel from the makers of 7 UP. Like cola has long been retired to the dustbin of failed products, but what a pitch:  "Yesterday... woman's sufferage. Today... a soft drink just for girls. " An ad even Tom Frank could love. I can't figure out whether it was intended to co-opt feminism or make fun of it.

A Curious Warning

You might know that mixing ammonia and bleach is potentially fatal. But did you know that boiling water and children represent another dangerous combination? Bodum was started in Denmark, which might explain the curious wording.

Musical Attention Deficit Disorder

At first I thought I was just tired of my music. I'd had an iPod for a year or so and increasily found myself skipping from song to song on shuffle mode, vetoing each one after about 5 seconds. Was I really tired of all 3,800 songs? Or was something else happening?

I dimly remembered using a CD player at one time and merrily rotating through maybe 10-20 CDs. I didn't have immediate access to seven Kinks albums and the entire recorded output of The Monochrome Set, but then again, I wasn't frantically changing CDs every ten seconds looking for the "right" song. I resigned myself to this being yet another symptom of my rapidly deteriorating attention span, like reloading Gawker every 3 minutes.

One day I saw a guy on the subway using his iPod in exactly the same way -- it bore as much resemblance to music listening as skimming a web page does to reading. I felt at once relief (it's not just me!) and dispair (our culture is going down the tubes!).

So, people, are you having this problem too? Do we need a "slow music" movement where we dig out our old cassette and CD walkmen so we can learn to listen to whole albums again instead of skimming? I ask this question knowing full well that they'll have to pry this $300 hunk of white plastic from my cold, dead fingers (cue appropriate song, whatever that is).

(Don't even get me started on podcasts. I've caught myself many times trying to listen to a radio program and simultaneously read a web page or something. That, I assure you, works really well.)

Geniuses of (Christian) Rock

So I was listening to one of my favorite WFMU DJs the other night, Dave the Spazz, and was surprised when he invited a Christian punk rock band to play live on his show. Dave usually plays 60s r&b, soul, country and punk, and so it wasn't much of a stretch, particularly considering the band was playing Maxwell's that night and did indeed rock. They also had a delightfully goofy sense of humor. Their album is titled My God Is Alive! Sorry About Yours!; a song about Catholics' gambling is "Father Bingo."

I found the lead singer's earnestness and conviction appealing, at least at first, as he expressed his love of punk rock and complained about the "Christ industry" and phony Christian bands...the more they kept bantering and playing, though, the more troubling it all seemed. Imagine the worst of the Maximum RNR crowd, but spouting religious dogma instead of politics. One song calls for theocracy, another denies evolution. And meditation and martial arts are denounced as "demonic."

If you don't believe me, you can listen here yourself. In fact, I'd recommend doing that before you read on....

Okay. Later that night I ran into a friend of mine from WFMU and told him about the show. (I'd be talking to several friends about it, actually, because I found the whole thing so strange.) He listened and then let me in on a secret: None of the band members are Christians. He knows the lead singer. The act is a put-on.

Suddenly, the lead singer's assertion that "it takes more than Christians to make a Christian band" took on a whole new light.

Now, this isn't a very closely held secret, but many people who see the Knights* play have no idea. The Knights are often the only "Christian" band on a bill. And according to my friend, they're often the target of the audience's hostility, before they even begin to play.

Whether the band is parodying Christian punk rock or punk rock itself is an open question, but the singer is so convincing when he talks about Jesus (I say this as a former Christian) I think it's brilliant.

I hope someone is filming their shows, which are reportedly carnivalesque. They'd make a great subject for a documentary.

###

* The band is called K n i g h t s  of the New C r u s a d e but I've avoided naming them here so this post doesn't show up on search engines (don't want to spoil it for anyone).

Not the best example of copyright-free material

A friend who works for a small newspaper in Texas forwarded me an invitation he'd been sent to use material from the North American Precis Syndicate:

Free, non-copyrighted features for editors. View this week's features, taken from our latest issue of Featurettes...browse through our library of articles, categorized for your convenience, or just look at our artwork--including many photos in full color.

The "featurettes" have intriguing headlines, such as Our Insect Enemies and Foot Puncture Wounds Need Prompt Treatment*, and come with amusing Reader's Digest-worthy cartoon illustrations.

Best of all, nearly every single one contains a convenient reference to a commercially available product or service.  *(I suggested to my friend that the Taylor Daily Press package this as an editorial - it's about time someone took a strong stand on whether or not foot puncture wounds need prompt treatment.)

Death Rides the Bus

I don't like bus wraps; the rolling billboards are intrusive and they make the view from inside the bus hazy and depressing.

Damn you, HBO, for finding a bus ad that I can't resist! Claire Fisher's lime green avocado hearse is going to roll down New York's streets like a harbinger of death to us all for the Six Feet Under DVD release. San Francisco and Los Angeles turned down the ad because they thought it would reduce ridership, but New York (and Chicago) approved it. More proof that New Yorkers are tough, unflappable and looking for any source of revenue.

Don't judge me, but I would love to see one of these ads roll through a Century Village and watch the residents start openly weeping.

(Via AdRants)

Apartment woes

So my landlords just dropped the bomb today that they plan on nearly doubling the rent when my lease expires in two months. People often ask me how I'm able to keep Stay Free! solvent and the answer has always been some variety of: below-market rent. Urgh. I feel like a family member just died (though not a very close family member). So I have a new excuse for not blogging now -- for the next month or two I'll be searching the hinterlands of Brooklyn for an affordable apartment. Wish me luck.

Meet me before first period

So a bit ago Carrie posted something about deodorants aimed at pre-teen girls; a target demographic known for lots of things, but I've never really found them to have offensive body odor. Relatedly, a friend of mine working at an ad agency here in LA tipped me off to a new Procter and Gamble product: pre-menstrual tampons. They're called Almost, and I think they will be sold under the Always&trade brand.

Yep. Tampons aimed at pre-teen, yet-to-menstruate girls. It sounded absurd, but she confirmed it for me and even snuck out to me some roughs of the site they're planning, which I'm mirroring on one of my own servers; you can see it here.

She's taking a risk by letting me make this public, but she feels creeped out enough working on it that doing so makes her feel a bit better. So nobody judge her too much, ok? Thanks.

Now, feel free to be disturbed.

Stay Free's Aristocrat

I'm not an opening-weekend kind of moviegoer, but I couldn't wait to see The Aristocrats. Paul Provenza and Penn Jilette's new documentary about the cult of a comedian's inside joke was better than I expected, but you can read better reviews than what I would write elsewhere.

Instead, I will point out that our own Tim Harrod has one of the best lines in the movie, during a writer's meeting for The Onion.

Now that he is writing for Conan O'Brien, the blog is short on Harroddities, but you can always read the excellent fast-food themed articles he wrote for Stay Free!:
Two All-Beef Patties Special Sauce Lettuce Cheese Pickles Onions on a Sesame Seed LIE!: Surreal McDonald's advertising
The Mouse That Whored: The sad decline of Chuck E. Cheese