verbal space

sometimes, the world blows

2012-02-02T10:13:00.002-06:00

so, sometimes my job involves rather distasteful things. today is one of those days. my firm represents a company whose driver ran over and killed a young woman. i have to depose the administrator of the estate, the young woman's mother. i've going through documents and other things the plaintiff produced to prepare. it's pretty difficult because it seems this girl was beloved by her friends and colleagues alike. the outpouring of support and emotion is amazing, the breadth of it is striking, makes you wonder why certain lives are snuffed out when it seemed to be on this amazing trajectory....

at the same time, you wonder if your life would create something similar from people: do i have friends and colleagues who would feel the same way and write so eloquently about me? have i touched lives in some similar manner? have i accomplished things of the magnitude that this woman did, at a younger age than me? when i ask myself these questions, i'm left with the notion that the answer is no, that i'm not doing what i should be doing, that i'm not going where i should be going, that i'm not fully engaged with my life or my decisions that brought me here....that's actually the most painful part of this.

back to the grind

2012-01-30T12:33:00.003-06:00

hmmm, so i find this really interesting. a random conversation at a bar with a friend has led me BACK to blogging. and why? to be honest, i didn't particularly enjoy it in the first place. i also didn't hate it. it seemed like an appropriate outlet for the garbage that floats around in my head. shit, i'm an attorney with no creative outlet so this seemed to help. it kept me to busy sometimes. seriously, it's been nearly two years! maybe i have something interesting to say, but i don't it.

beyond that, fuck, do i have some life changes going on. i'll slowly get to them for all my eager beaver readers. oh wait....

first though, blogger/google make it so fucking difficult to transfer accounts, when the solution was actually really simple. i used an old yahoo account to set this up. i have since cancelled that yahoo account and formed a gmail account. you can't actually just switch it over. but blogger allows you to either add authors or admins. the problem is you search google help for hours (literally, i just wasted about an hour of my day searching) without explanation or a helpful guiding hand in a particular direction.

love it or leave it!

2010-04-15T10:01:00.002-05:00

remember that? back when the progressives had the gall, the GALL, to protest President George Bush and his polcies. "america, love it or leave it!" i know there are some that did leave.

today seems particularly appropriate to post this as the tea partiers continue their protest against President Obama. "america, love it or leave."

anytime you guys are ready, i'll carry your bags.

militant christians

2010-04-01T08:58:00.002-05:00

wow, do these assholes in michigan annoy me. look, i was baptized and raised catholic and i was a history major so i know all about fighting wars and being violent in Jesus' name. the crusades were a messy affair. but now, we have right-wing, christian militants wanting to blow up cops? what the fuck!?

what i wonder is how these people reconcile their "christian" morals and beliefs with their violent means. isn't that against the teachings of Jesus? i mean, just a little?

i guarantee these jerk-offs think glenn beck is onto something. is it time we start holding media personalities accountable for their words? yeah yeah freedom of speech and such but there are exceptions and i'm guessing, with evidence like this and the dude who flew his plane into an IRS building, their words are trending very close to "inciting violence" or creating a "clear and present danger."

2010-03-31T08:19:00.001-05:00

i get into work today and read this...and i'm reminded of that. see what i did there?

i'll say this: i doubt i'm the only one to have made that connection but why did it take the tradmed so long to put that together/publish it?

fees fees fees everywhere and not a drop to drink

2010-02-13T12:28:00.002-06:00

i've held a citibank card for 12 years, since i was 18. it was my first credit card, my only credit card for about 8 of those years. it's not my back up card and we use it mainly for low interest rate balance transfers. the credit limit is insanely high which works well for those transfers.

earlier this week, i read an article on the new credit card reform law going into effect shortly. the article basically said, beware, the law kicks in soon and some issuers will make sure tho change your terms and conditions before then.

imagine my surprise, then (none), when citibank mails me a change in terms and conditions letter! they are going to start charging me an annual fee of $60, UNLESS i use their card for $2,400 in charges per year.

fuck them! mind you, i get no benefit from this card. it isn't an amex with points redeemable, etc (at least i don't think so, i don't use it enough to know) but even if it is, amex didn't just bend me over and give me an annual fee on my blue credit card.

here's the thing that infuriates me about the whole thing, it ain't like $60 a year is going to break the bank. it's my options, or the lack of them. when are my choices, really? bend over, grab my ankles, grit my teeth and bear it or cancel the card. im pissed enough to cancel and i will. i have until the end of my current card to pay off the balance (something like 16 months).

here's the rub: my credit is now going to take a hit. my FICO score will now reflect this canceled card and my overall credit available will go down so my percentage of used credit goes up. which, as i've constantly read is bad for the score. this is what pisses me off so much. the banks have a choice, we as consumers don't. the choice we have is to bear or take a credit hit. either one isn't a good choice. i wonder if fair isaac takes that into account when the calculate score. fuck sticks.

interaction

2010-01-20T11:59:00.002-06:00

all the cool kids (brands) have an online presence, be in facebook, myspace or twits. they think, or least outwardly show, this makes them a great company with whom you can interact with.

here's the thing though: most of them don't have shit for customer support. they spend all this cash to look great online where lots of people interface with the brand. fine, and that's great. but similar to my mtg problems, when you actually CALL a fuckin' company to talk to somebody, they better know what the hell they're doing. in my opinion, interaction with a customer service rep can make or break a relationship with that brand.

here's my story: nixon. the verbal spouse and i have headphones from them. we've had problems with them so i fedexed them back to the company for repair/replacement, along with a key chain that needed a new screw. they held on to the merch for over a month w/o telling me anything about what the hell was going on, whether or not they headphones would be replaced, yada yada yada. i call, they apologize and say they will send my package out priority. two weeks go by, nothing. i call again. we're sorry sir, the gentlemen you spoke with didn't mention they were closed the day after i talked to him for a whole week! my shipment sat at their warehouse. awesome, it's on its way though. i get the package and THEY SENT ONE OF THE ITEMS INCORRECTLY. i got regular headphones, not speaker, iphone compatible headphones. what a mess. i call again, they apologize, AGAIN, and they say they'll send the correct ones out immediately. a week later and i still don't have anything.

the brand's great, i love their stuff and frankly, ive never had a problem with them before. this experience has been beyond a problem though. this is atrocious customer service! not informing me what was going on, holding the package for over a month, telling me it was going 'priority' but really not and then sending me the wrong stuff! not exactly the type of endearing help that makes me want to spend anymore money on nixon.

large brand managment

2009-12-30T17:05:00.002-06:00

i propose no solution to the problem i address. but really, should this happen.

my mtg is with bank of america. an institution i truly wish i did not have to deal with. they are horrible, completely disorganized, the classic right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

i tried to sign up for automatic drafts to pay my mtg. it would deduct from our checking account (no way in hell is that with bofa) twice per month, starting middle of november. i called to verify it was set up properly earlier that month and assured it was. middle of november, there goes my money to bofa, no problems. not so fast....

december doesn't get taken out. i called them and was told that the first november draft is floating out in bank of america cyberspace land and was NOT applied to my mtg. awesome. 'how do we correct this problem?' i ask. they said go pay HALF of the mtg and the rest, the floating rest, will be applied and your mtg current.

i hope you got that.

i had to call SIX more times to resolve that fuckin' little problem. everytime i called, the conversation started with, 'sir, did you know your mtg is past due?' 'yes, jerk off, and its not past due!'

i understand in large entities, especially ones strewn about the country (and bangalore, for that matter), need to link their systems and input accurate data. i don't mean to sound like an ass here but it's not that hard of job. or, they can't train their employees for shit.

i just want some appropriate diligence on their part. i do my part by paying. the least they could is properly ACCEPT and CREDIT my payments.

anyway, thirty days later, it was finally resolved and i'm no longer late. let's see if they grab their money on monday...

list of stupidist thing of 2009?

2009-12-11T13:17:00.002-06:00

i hate the end of the year for one reason (actually, two if you count how freakin' cold it is). that is all the 'top ten _____ of 2009." even better, this year we get, top ____ of the decade lists."

these fuckin' things are repulsive. look, the end of the year is three weeks away! something drastic could happen anybody remember that tsunami a few years ago? that happened on....december 26, 2004. huh, i'd bet that was after all the 'top ten events of 2004 lists were compiled and released to a hungry public?

can't we wait till after the new year/decade starts? then decide what was best of 2009?

are you anonymous?

2009-12-10T16:11:00.002-06:00

for starters, read wired. really good mag with very interesting articles.

i'm particularly fascinated by the article "gone" in last month's issue. one of their writers tried to 'disappear' for a whole month. anybody that found him got $5K; if he stayed away, he got $5K. in a digital, where you are really never anonymous, he managed to stay away for about 25 days before getting caught.

the lengths the 'hunters' went to find him was truly staggering. they tracked him all over the country despite him setting up a phantom computer and IP address in vegas.

just think about this the next time you're fucking around on the internet. somebody's watching you.

did advice to brand tiger follow the template of brand jordan?

2009-12-07T14:46:00.002-06:00

so last night, verbal spouse commented about the silly tiger woods story and more mistresses "stepping" forward and nike's full support of brand tiger.

so i thought a bit. now, i'm from chicago and remember another cash cow icon for nike (their first and arguably most important one). i recall a few years ago (maybe more by now) when numerous allegations came out about jordan's affairs going as far back as shortly after his marriage. i don't remember the particulars but i do recall somebody commented about jordan's "arranged" marriage, more of thoughtful push really. somebody (i'd guess nike) wanted to make him more marketable, protect the image of what they created. so it was a "why don't you get married, mike?" type conversation. "jordan is more than incredibly talented athlete, he's a family man. see? he's married, with kids!"

the family jordan emerged even though, later reported and google-able (is that a word?) he was having affairs all over the place. cut to recent events and tiger woods.

is it possible that tiger was always this guy, as apparently jordan is/was? not the family man you see in the media but the image that's now come out? tiger seems to be following the same playbook, down to the build a huge house and insist on complete privacy while you compete for public adoration and money. similar stories: uber talented out of college, signs with nike, becomes marketer's wet dream, wife and kids, and oops! mistresses!

as i previously said, i don't care about the affairs, it's not my business. but isn't it curious that these two have the same story? anything to do with nike, their advice, their creation? or am i totally off my rocker here?

conclusion?

2009-12-03T19:13:00.002-06:00

i swear there is a point to all this nonsense. control. control your band and your brand. project what you, as a band (or whatever), want to be. why let someone else control you, your b(r)and and your income.

labels want to control. control your revenue stream, your music, etc. so clearly they don't have your best interests at heart, just their bottom line. if you’re a one-and-done-band, at least they made their money.

bands make such shitty amounts of money off albums sold. something like $2 per album, spread over the number of members. watch this for a great explanation from dave ellefson, former bassist from megadeth. for radiohead, five members, that’s 40 cents per album per member. selling a 100,000 albums gives each member $40K, EXCLUDING payback to the label. if you need to pay them back, then you're talking about a lot more money. $40K is not a small amount of money, until you realize how long it can take to make a great record. music publishing is a whole different animal. that's here. could make up for a lot of holes in revenue stream. for bands, all the money is in live acts, hence the 360 deals.

so, another ellefson video is on playing live. look, it's not rocket science, he puts up numbers for one show, one venue. yes, its general but damn straightforward. he doesn't even go into merch. do the simple math yourself. 360 deals are wasteful and stupid for bands.

so anyway, i'm no expert. i just saw a bunch of articles in Rolling Stone and elsewhere on the interwebs and got interested in the topic. as a non-musician, my advice is to do everything independently. free (or very cheap) downloads. play like mad live. maybe you can get on some sort of tour, then you do it yourself and made your own money.

and, just to pay myself on the back, this pertinent stuff. steven tyler is talking about working on "brand tyler" while he ditches his band of 40 years. and major labels are losing money hand over fist (or, really, just not making money hand over fist anymore). they're banking on just a few albums this holiday season to make their year's money. avoid them like the plague, you can do it yourself. it will take a damn load of time. watch the videos and learn.

that is all. nothing groundbreaking, right?

on social media and b(r)ands, pt. 3

2009-12-03T11:56:00.002-06:00

so new bands are always looking for ways to be noticed. back in the day, that meant getting a record deal (and by 'back in the day' i mean 5-10 years ago if not less). so now, what's a new band to do?

play live like like hell and get on facebook and myspace and promote the hell outta yourself. as a new band, getting a 360 deal seems stupid. why allow the record company to do and take credit (read: $) to do stuff you can do just as easily? these are all free available spaces. you don't need to pay for hosting or domain names. leverage the hell out of it. get as many other people and bands to friend you and take notice.

as for the music, these days, you can publish you music pretty easily, using the players on myspace. release your music as free downloads. get your name out there like a madman. play play play and get cheap merchandise.

you have to develop you band and your brand. the band is THE brand. that's kinda the whole point here. create a unique identity about what you band is, from the music to the image to the fans. and then sell it. people need to note that you're different in some way.

prowling tiger?

2009-12-01T11:13:00.002-06:00

huh, so others are starting to notice some chinks in the armor now, too? i'm not going to sit here and speculate about WHAT led to the accident, the talking heads and gossip rags are doing a fine job, but this just appears to be more dents in the perfect suit of armor for the man. he's been pretty impenetrable for the last ten years plus.

something happened that led to the accident. at quarter to three in the morning, the accident just looks suspicious. the "cover-up" for brand woods just kinda makes the whole episode more questionable.

on social media and b(r)ands, pt. 2

2009-11-24T16:51:00.003-06:00

ok, so 360 deals.

ya gotta look at these things in two ways. from a label standpoint, they're pretty damn smart. they continue to do the things they did before, albeit for less profit. by that, i mean, record and distribute music. 360 deals allow them to get into the bands' revenue stream of touring, merchandising, etc. with new bands, they have very little risk. if the band sucks and goes nowhere, they didn't expose much of themselves. if it's a huge act like madonna, see below, it's not risky because she's gonna make the money over the next several years.

which, to me, is exactly the problem of 360 deals for the bands. traditionally, they handled that part. they had a tour manager and a booking department that took care of that. now the label's involved with a 360 deal; what exactly is the label doing that they get a slice of the pie. is the booking department in house? are they reserving venues and arranging for tour buses and equipment transport?

read the shit out there ya like, touring is where the money is. labels came up with the 'innovative' 360 deal and now drain artists money they deserved. they work, if you're madonna and you have large, global established fanbase. she's already established the madonna brand.

what if you're a small and unknown band? the guess here is that you won't be offered a $120M, 10 year deal. if you are offered a 360 deal, the label will dig itself into you, force you to sign a long term deal. if you break and become marginally successful, it will work for them and be shitty for you. they have no risk and you the band have all the risk.

on social media and b(r)ands, pt. 1

2009-11-23T21:12:00.002-06:00

ok, following up on my post yesterday, pt, 1 is bands self releasing albums for free or very little. the first two that pop into my head are radiohead and nine inch nails though i'm quite sure they are not the only ones to have done this. i'll stick with radiohead because i'm more familiar with it.

radiohead was the first, to my knowledge, with in rainbows. thom yorke told time, "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'Fuck you' to this decaying business model."

pretty damn smart from yorke. i'd argue he truly understands the band as a brand. the band then decided to protect their band, mold it and grow it the way they wanted. no label had input in what was on the record, how it recorded or mixed and what singles were on the record, etc.. the band was financially invested in the music and, most importantly, got to keep the rights to the music. radiohead paid for studio time, producer time, sound engineer time, etc. nobody else could change the sound of the album or force singles out of them.

the distribution was handled fairly simply. the site told fans to pay whatever they wanted to. some paid, some didn't. radiohead later released hard copies and licensed the music to labels. and the toured like mad behind it. oh, and along the way, their label, emi, released a greatest hits record without band approval nor input. nice of them, eh?

here's the key though...they were big enough b(r)and to take that chance. what about smaller or new bands? in my world, they have two choices, 360 deals or leveraging social media to their advantage.

wind of change

2009-11-22T23:31:00.004-06:00

so the music industry is changing. whether it's for the better depends on who you're asking. social media, of course revolutionizes how individuals interact with each other. bands also use it to change their interactions with fans, and even more importantly, potential fans.

check myspace for your favorite band. go ahead, i'll wait. done? find them? did they have a player to listen to their music? i bet that band listed 'friends,' too and it included a bunch of other bands. you can find all kinds of bands in obscure or relatively unpopular music categories out there.

the point of all this is that lately i've been reading numerous articles on how music is published, distributed and consumed. from labels to bands to promoters to venues. music labels are becoming obsolete, archaic. a band used to need a label for promotion, to get on tours, for distribution. social media does that for them.

higher profile bands such as radiohead nine inch nails and others now release albums for free. i think this might be starting something larger from bands. 360 deals are starting to take over the labels. i recently read in rolling stone about bands now slowly release albums over the course of a few months. ya know, three songs in january, three in march, three in may, etc.

so, i want to examine the avenues bands (and i'm sure there are other categories of performers/artists this can help as well like stand up comedians) now have to reach their goals and dreams.

h/t gareth kay for posting the money metrics. i figure i'll take it further.

is the post office necessary?

2009-11-20T11:33:00.002-06:00

this is another one of those old news stories that i take too long to address. but, really, is the post office necessary? or, alternatively, is the size of the service necessary. i think every zip code has its own brick-n-mortar building. so even your tiny towns have structures. and despite raising rates all the damn time, they are still losing something like $3B a year! it strikes me as a general waste of government resources and natural resources for that matter. how many postal trucks drive how many miles a day? and it's stop and go from mailbox to mailbox to mailbox. what a waste of gas!

now, i dunno about any of you, but is the postal service necessary? for myself, we don't get any mail of substance save magazine subscriptions. all of our bills are emailed, i pay all our bills online and most contact with family and friends that live far away is now done via social media. so what does the p.o do for us? deliver a whole of junk! that's it! most of it ends up in our recycling, catalogs i don't give a shit about (and can see online), credit card offers that i shred, etc. that's just a general waste of paper.

so, what to do about it? can we consolidate offices? especially in parts of the city and the less suburban places, i'd think two zip codes (at least) could be handled by one office. i certainly don't care if a piece of mail takes a few days longer to reach me. again, all my important stuff is emailed and i don't write checks. this could help reduce wasted money for services most of us neither use nor need AND it held save the government money on providing the services and sell the land where p.o's sit for revenue. we raise some money and save some money!

in the meantime, sign up for online banking and paperless billing. and google 'stop junk mail' and help out, huh?

thought this was pretty damn funny....

2009-11-18T14:52:00.001-06:00

h/t devin townsend. if you don't know who he is, ya should.

tiger slays melbourne

2009-11-17T11:24:00.005-06:00

so i listen to a lot of NPR because it rules. they cover a lot of things that the tradmed doesn't (i'm not that big a fan of the tradmed). more of a global look.

now, i'm a bit late on this one since the tournament is over and all. didja notice tiger woods played the australian masters is melbourne? no? well, shit, he won the damn thing by two strokes. didja know he accepted an appearance fee to play? here's the rub: the appearance fee for him was $3 MILLION. by winning the tournament, he won $300,000. look at those numbers again for me...what if he didn't win? what if he missed the cut?

oh hell, i nearly forgot to tell you WHO paid the appearance fee. that would be the local government.

seriously, i'm a lonely little blogger here and who gives a shit about my opinion on the subject but this bugs the hell outta me. woods makes approximately $75M (prolly more) in endorsements each year, add winnings and whatever else on top and i'll bet my house he's knocking on 9 figures a year.

lots of players/celebrities accept/demand appearance fees and i, on its face, have no issue with that. and i get the point of leverage (money) to appear halfway across the world. but when the appearance fee is 10x the winner take, don't you think there is something tragically out of step? ever more so, during this wonderful economy, that a government paid that fee? NPR said that because of woods' appearance, tickets were sold out for the tournament and officials/organizers/government would make a good chunk of money above and beyond what they paid him. so we're left with a golfer taking $3M in australian taxpayer money. i'd have no issue if this was privately funded, to be clear.

the other part of it is that he accepted the money, or even demanded it! the least woods could do is donate some back into the community. build a park or something for the, ya know, taxpayers. the story didn't seem to get a lot of play here but should brand tiger take a hit for it? i think so, terrible planning there. i think the demand or acceptance (whether it was offered by the australian government or demanded by brand woods was unclear) really stinks. what did the taxpayers get out of this? how do they directly benefit from spending their money to bring woods over? maybe brand tiger should re-examine their guidelines to play in tournaments.

anybody from melbourne reading? fly me out and i'll write and say whatever you want. it's getting cold in chicago...

brock lesnar, really?

2009-11-16T16:01:00.003-06:00

so, big news of the day is brock lesnar may never fight again because of some intestinal problem. dana white apparently gave the 'scoop' to TMZ (incidentally, shouldn't they be following kate gosselin? they are a celebrity gossip organization or have a i missed something?). i'm a bit confused on this one. i'll start by saying i don't watch ufc or any mma at all. there's something disturbing about watching these guys TRY to hurt each other...breaking arms, legs, noses, whatever they can for a not-very-large payday. there are lots of stories about how these guys don't get paid very much to fight. contrast with boxing and the fighter's paydays.

back to the point: this is big news? i saw it on cnnsi.com and espn.com and a posts on lots of other blogs i read (now i'm posting on it. hell.). two questions: has mma/ufc hit critical mass where it is considered news for tradmed to cover, beyond the sizable group that follows it? it takes precedence over a lot of other sports stories out there? shit, michelle wie won a damn tournament! in terms of lesser sport stories, i thought that would be the big one. she's actually fulfilling some of that potential. five years + late but she won a tournament! c'mon, wheeeeeeeee wie!!!!!!

redundancy

2009-11-15T21:59:00.003-06:00

i don't know why, redundancy really annoys the hell out of me. you don't need to repeat things like that! take, for example, your atm pin. it's not a 'pin number.' the damn thing is already called a personal identification number. you do not need to add the other 'number' to it. then, you'd have a personal identification number number. think about it the next time you say 'pin number' out loud.

or, 'writing a blog.' look, sport, you're blogging! that, as part of its definition, says you're writing. that word, blog, has become quite versatile. it can be a verb, noun, adjective, etc. reminds me of another word.

anyway, stupid people...