So let me get this straight. The Bush administration, the very people who religiously eliminated regulation and thwarted any attempts at oversight — in other words, the very policies that have brought us to the brink of financial disaster — want close to $1,000,000,000,000 of our money to fix it. No strings attached, no obligation to Congress, and absolutely no potential review by the courts.
I say No.
What do they propose to do with ONE TRILLION DOLLARS? Buy all the bad debt from the companies that benefitted most from this lax environment, which leaves them wholly intact to pursue the very same corrupt practices, allows the people criminally responsible to escape without penalty, and sweeps the entire mess under the proverbial rug before the election. No accountability, no meaningful examination of the policies behind the mess, and no chance of enacting new laws to prevent this from happening again.
I say No.
Just like oil revenues were supposed to pay for the War in Iraq, the Bush administration claims this deal will pay for itself, meaning that someday we’ll profit from the purchase of their currently worthless assets — if that’s the case, why are these financial companies so desperate to sell? I see this as nothing more than a short-term fix to prevent their worst fears from coming true: not the collapse of the economy, not the final death of the American dream, but the ultimate revelation that George W. Bush and his Republican party ruined America. They’ve bankrupted us, morally and financially, and now they not only want a “Get out of jail free” card, they want John McCain elected to serve Bush’s third term.
I say No.
And it was absolutely amazing. Watch for video in the morning, until then here’s the pics:
UPDATE: Finally uploaded two videos.
On the growing masses of Apple iPhone fanatics, most of whom are ardent advocates eager to share its many virtues with you, and the lessons those of us in the music industry must apply to our business and bands, Bob Lefsetz saidbest:
So you’ve got to create something great. And it doesn’t have to sound like anything else, it’s just got to fire on all cylinders within its chosen genre. Hell, if Apple were a major label it wouldn’t have put out the iPhone because there was nothing else like it in the marketplace, there’d be no demand for it. But a great band creates its own demand. And, it takes a while for it to catch on.
We’ve been focusing on instant. Ever since we learned video can blow acts up.
But those acts crashed back to Earth just about as fast. Turns out if you want something to last, it’s got to grow slowly. You need early adopters, who believe and spread the word. You’ve got to let your act percolate in the marketplace. True riches come down the line. And they last, because you’ve got a legion of believers.
I live this every day, on both sides, with an iPhone and a small but promising music label. Believe me, the iPhone is a lot easier to share…
Earlier this summer, my good friend Stewart Brown created five exquisite organic electronic tracks for a project called Sky Observer’s Guide, and I put together the FORKLIFT ENTERTAINMENT website to present it to the world. Right now we’re seeing a handful of hits each day, with plenty of positive reaction, but very little growth momentum. At first I was disappointed, but over the past few weeks I realized that everything is proceeding as I expected, albeit much more slowly than originally planned.
We rightly recognized that putting a price tag on these songs is a barrier to entry, and so we designed the site to make the music immediately accessible. We simply want everyone to hear these songs, and if they like it they can share it with their friends. That’s why each and every song can be streamed in its entirety for FREE, downloaded for FREE, and purchased on the cheap (I know Bob will say lower the price!).
There is no field of dreams to speak of, and certainly no instant payoff, and that is why we have completely taken the money out of the experience. I do believe we will attract interest, given enough time we will develop fans with strong and lasting passions, and then and only then we will be able to reap the rewards, whatever they may be.
All of this is a round-about way of saying, “I hear you, Bob.” And I would love to hear what all of you think of the music, the strategy, the implementation, or anything else that strikes you as interesting or odd. I’m all ears.
The day was winding down and the fog was rolling in, but there was still plenty to see on our flight back to San Francisco. Here are just a few of the best pictures taken from the window of the airplane…
High above Mt. Tam, nearing the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco, as usual, is covered in fog. Everything else is untouched.
The Golden Gate Bridge takes my breath away every time I see it, no matter the angle.
The entrance to San Francisco Bay at the Golden Gate is a magnet for fog.
Truly iconic. An amazing feat of creativity and engineering.
That’s our neighborhood, SOMA, seldom covered in fog, and often the warmest part of town. And how cool is the curvature on the shadow of the Bay Bridge?!!
There’s 23 more pictures on flickr, including Lake Tahoe, Napa, Oakland, and San Francisco. I had so much fun on the last part of this flight, it was almost enough to wipe away the memory of a six hour delay at O’Hare and the realization that our two week vacation had finally come to an end…
More soon.
I met my caterpillar friend this morning in Bryant Park, which is this incredible public space directly across the street from our hotel in New York City. I sat down, looked up, and immediately saw this crazy furry monster crawling up the chair next to me. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of shots (all of which were as fuzzy as he was), then sat back down and went to work on my computer. I completely forgot about my new friend, until I saw him at my feet about ten minutes later.
I have always wanted to find a way to calm my initial reaction when I find a bug on me, but as with every other time before I freaked when I felt him crawling up my leg. I politely brushed him off, then moved him farther away from me, only to find him crawling up my table a few minutes later. He made it all the way to the top, and promptly went right for me again, coming up to the edge as though he wanted to jump into my lap. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before…
At this point, I grabbed a leaf and moved him to the ground cover behind me where I could watch him without fear of attack. I was mesmerized by the way his body moved, his five sets of antennae, and his tiny suction-cup feet. Whenever I got too close to him, he immediately stopped moving and pulled his brilliant red head into his yellow body. See Harry in action here:
I loved watching the way he surveyed the scene as he came to the edge of each leaf. He methodically but quickly examined his options, picked his path and moved forward, making the most of his caterpillar time on earth. I was especially surprised to see the strain he put on those leaves and the way they bounced back as such tiny creature shifted his weight to the next one. Truly, all of us, even the smallest living thing, leave a mark on earth with each and every step…
When I mentioned this story to my friend Sharon, she suggested that this experience was not a random accident but a gift from the universe. I could easily spend a lifetime reflecting on this very moment, dissecting each and every second in a million different ways, proposing any number of well-known and richly-detailed symbols to help make sense of it. But for tonight, I simply want to delight in the experience itself, and the account of it here.