Music Education 101: Open Letter to NBC Universal

(NOTE: Not the usual case, but this post is being posted on both blogs since the series that is the subject of this post resides on both blogs…)

So, based on a glance at my Tweets on Twitter that night, I noted that I spent approximately nine hours replacing YouTube videos that have been removed since the last time I looked at my (so far) four-part Music Education 101 series of posts. If you missed that before (or just want to check them out again), all the video links except maybe one are working now, although I’ve had to replace several with “alternate” versions (some I’m not too thrilled about), but also added some extras that weren’t there before.

The series lives in my Music Education 101 category on both blogs, or here are the links:

• Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts – The Beginning
• Coming Into My Own – Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts
• No Turning Back Now – Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts
• Postscript – Lynnster’s Musical Education, Now In Four Posts

I can’t even begin to illustrate what a painfully tedious process it was, searching for and updating all those video links – made even worse by the fact this series is on both my blogs, since it was begun before I added the music blog, so that doubled the work. But of all the posts on either of my blogs – spanning back nearly 13 years on the main blog – those four are probably the most important to me, so whatever.

What pains me, really, is the number of them removed because so-and-so company/organization has declared their ownership/copyright. Fine.

Do these people not understand the power of YouTube these days and the potential for financial gain in a YouTube partnership? When there are everyday people uploading their own videos – be it comedy, commentary, their own music, or what amounts to the video version of a traditional blog (i.e., vlogs) – and making better money doing that than they would with the salary of many very good full time jobs – is the potential financial gain of allowing music and video to be heard and seen on YouTube completely beyond the comprehension of the music and visual media companies?

If Joe Blow next door is able to make a living wage off of YouTube these days, just think how much cash these record companies and other media companies could be raking in by putting up their own partnered YouTube channel. Some have, yes (mainly individual artists/bands though) – but not nearly enough.

There’s one case in particular that gripes me the most – some of what are undeniably the most important performances – American debut and otherwise – of many artists’ careers are their first appearances on Saturday Night Live. These are almost impossible to find – if they get uploaded, it doesn’t take long before they get pulled. Replacing some of those (like Elvis Costello’s famous show-stopping appearance from 1977) is what took me so darned long the other night, and it just irritated the crap out of me.

So here’s my open letter to NBC Universal:

Get your heads out of your collective asses and put up your own YouTube partner channel with these fantastic performances so that they’ll be back in public view where they SHOULD be, for people to enjoy these fabulous pieces of music history – instead of repeatedly blocking them and keeping them hidden from public view.

In this day and age when almost anything can be instantly viewed on the Internet in all kinds of different venues, it’s a doggoned shame that some of the finest musical performances in rock & roll history are being withheld like this. You have the potential to make far, far more profit on those clips as a YouTube partner than you likely ever will recoup in DVD or video sales.

I guess there’s a DVD or music video out there on the market already – point being, I don’t care, and they probably don’t contain the clips I want to see most anyway. How many DVDs have I bought in the past three or four years? Less than ten, and virtually all are feature films.

That said, I’m your target audience with those SNL music clips, NBC Universal – listen to me. Do the right thing and get those clips up on YouTube under your own account so those precious pieces of musical performance history are out there for the public to enjoy (and for those young musically-minded kids, like I once was myself, to learn from) – and make money off of me and everyone else who will watch, rate, and favorite those clips time and time again.

You have nothing to lose – except for the profit you’re not making by withholding them for DVD or whatever purposes, in which case you’re never likely going to profit nearly as much as you would have as a YouTube partner – and instead, the whole world is losing out by not being able to easily access and view these like you now can most anything else on YouTube. I know a big music fan – and Elvis Costello fan – in his twenties who has never even seen that priceless infamous clip. It’s a danged shame.

C’mon, NBC Universal. The solution’s so simple, and everybody wins. You line your pockets probably a lot more than you would have counting on DVD sales – and that music’s back out there where it belongs, for folks to dig. Simple.

Mountain Dew Revolution – From F to A in 5 Minutes

I was at the store late last night and needing a cold drink, and there was no orange soda in the refrigerated soda case, so I was looking around and noticed something I had never seen or heard of – the new Mountain Dew Revolution, with wild berry flavor and ginseng.  It’s blue, which is usually a tipoff that it’s either really bad or really good.

So I get home and take a swig and immediately hated it.  Seriously was grading it a big fat F, not even a D.  It tasted like carbonated cough syrup.  But I didn’t have anything else cold to drink in the house, so I was going to finish it anyway.

Then a funny thing happened about 1/4th the way into the bottle.  Suddenly, it started tasting good.

I don’t know.  It would certainly never be a favorite, but it’s all right (after the initial couple of swigs anyway).  It’s sort of similar to some of those energy drinks I don’t really like all that much but there’s something about them that tastes both good and not so good.

So if you haven’t tried it and want to give it a shot, be forewarned, but stick with it past two or three drinks.  The carbonated cough syrup effect kind of goes away.

PS: New music blog here.  (LOL, yes, I’m going to keep repeating that for at least a week or two.)

O Onion Rings, O Onion Rings (and a Note About Back Yard Burger)

Speaking of Buchanan, Tennessee – and to lighten up the mood in here a little bit, much needed after that last post – I am really just about to die for a plateful of Bull Durham’s onion rings. I haven’t one in my mouth in about 35 or so years, I guess, because it’s been gone about that long.

Bull Durham’s was a restaurant down at Kentucky Lake that was pretty much your regular steak and seafood kinda place, but the onion rings – oh, the onion rings. They just, literally, MELTED in your mouth. They weren’t all packed with breading like the ones you get at Sonic; just lightly battered and browned, and yeah, they just melted in your mouth.

Back Yard Burger just started carrying onion rings a little while back and they are very, very close. In fact, I just had some for lunch, but while they’re close, they’re just not like Bull Durham’s real deal was. Ah, some days I would just about kill for Bull Durham’s onion rings and a dish of Pagliacci’s lasagna, another Paris restaurant that has been gone just about that long.

Speaking of Back Yard Burger – I don’t know how long they’ve been on the menu, but don’t bother with the “loaded” potato skins if you like your potato skins loaded, ‘cos they’re not. I don’t know who came up with the brilliant idea that loaded potato skins means just slap some cheese and bacon bits on ‘em, but they are sadly missing a key ingredient that would truly make them “loaded” (i.e., sour cream), and some chives would be nice too, but I’m not that picky.

That Bytes: Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T Propose to Byte the Hands That Feed ‘Em

Way to go, Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T:

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic

Yes, let’s take the future of technology BACKWARDS about about a hundred steps instead of moving forward, why don’t we?

I’m not even likely one of those that would be highly affected, the principle of it all just annoys the techgeekchick in me.

I’ve about decided that one of the best things that could happen is that the United States takes some of the money that gets wasted annually on unnecessary junk, WiFi the entire country, and be done with it all.

By the way, Comcast, you’ve got a lot of nerve even proposing such a thing, seeing as how you lost thousands of the customers you inherited from Time Warner (both Internet and cable TV customers), and most everyone (in Tennessee anyway) agrees that your service sucks. I know people who had RoadRunner accounts from practically Day One, and for YEARS, that jumped ship soon after you moved in. I’d back off if I were you, but hey, that’s just me.

(No offense to the one unnamed friend of mine who works for Comcast, of whom I am certain does a standout job amongst a sea of ineptitude.)

HT: Newscoma via Twitter

UPDATE: In browsing links to blogs talking about the NYT article, I just read the most perfect comment about this whole situation from someone in Canada, I believe:

The internet providers were given massive tax breaks to improve their networks (fiber to the home and whatnot). Now they not only haven’t done that with the money, but the inferior networks they’ve built instead are reaching capacity.

Somebody should make your ISPs sleep in the bed they made.

Well said.

UPDATE #2: And oh yeah, no offense either to my other friend in the Metro Nashville area who works for AT&T, even though I wouldn’t call that the sea of ineptitude Comcast is.

Bits & Pieces – The Sequel

(1) Skittles Chocolate Mix – Well, I’m a big fan of Skittles in general (especially the Sour and Tropical), but as many know, I’m not a big fan of chocolate. (It’s “okay”.) So I wasn’t really expecting to like Skittles’ new Chocolate Mix that much, but I sure did expect to like it more than I do. With flavors like S’mores, Vanilla, Chocolate Caramel, Chocolate Pudding, and Brownie Batter, you would just think they’d be better than they are. The Brownie Batter ones make me cough. Real chocolate fans will probably love them though.

(2) Dogs with Little Dreadlocks – Enough said about that, but if it would just (A) stop turning cold or (B) stop raining…

(3) No No No No NO Tornadoes! - Speaking of the above, it’s a gorgeous day out right now and feels REALLY nice outside even though it’s about 100 degrees in my house, and I am so sick of rain. So the news from Channel 2 Weather this morning regarding potential tornado activity here in the west is a bummer, and I don’t deal well with the sirens nowadays. Go away, tornadoes, shoo!

(4) The Beanie Army – Tojo, my cat who terrorizes the rest of the house and lives in the guest bedroom otherwise (but he’s such a sweetie when it’s just me and him), has a new project going too, I noticed. As I’ve mentioned before, since no other animals in the house want to be friends with him, he has made all of my old Beanie Baby and Teenie Beanie cats and dogs that were back in the bedroom his only friends. (As Churlita called him, he’s “resourceful” like that.) Yesterday I noticed he’s got them all lined up, almost in single file, down one entire side of the bed back there. I wonder what this means?

(5) In Hiding – Also, wonder where I put my W-2 and 1099? Hmm.

Blogger, You Still Suck

I wanted to comment today on this post over at Knuck’s because he has a really cool little kid having a birthday today, and the post is a really touching father-to-daughter post even with that special Knuck brand o’ sarcasm (heh), and I just liked it. Having also been an only child and daughter (in this scenario my sister doesn’t count), I dug it (and got just a little bit teary reading it, but don’t tell anybody).

But alas, I have given up all hope of being able to comment on Blogger blogs anymore after months and months of trying and even having consulted with a Blogger/Blogspot expert of sorts, who also eventually gave up trying to figure out why I can no longer comment on blogs on the Blogger platform. When someone who actually was a part of building the damn Blogger platform in the first place can’t even figure it out, I’m sure not going to keep wasting my time trying to.

I love all my Blogger blogging friends, they probably think I don’t care anymore nor read but I do, and I miss being able to comment over at their respective cribs. It figures, and is just my luck, that the majority I would like to comment often on are using Blogger’s regular comment system and not HaloScan or something. Most of these folks I have tried a time or two to get them to convert to WordPress (or ANYTHING besides Blogger) and my powers of persuasion have failed miserably. Or simply, as with some, they just never have had the problems those of us who fled Blogger lo now so many moons ago have had, so they felt no need to move.

Which is okay, really. I still read most of them. I just miss being able to comment at Knuck’s, or Lindsey’s. Or Short & Fat’s. Or Rex L. Camino’s. Or Chez Bez. Or Klinde’s. Or Linda’s. Or Larry Elvis & Curly’s dad’s. Or The Vol Abroad’s. Or Mrs. Bez. Or Dr. Woo’s. Or my out-of-state blog crushes Churlita and Margaret. Or many, many more.

On the upside, the list of folks my powers of persuasion to move to WordPress worked on (or someone else moved indirectly because of it, thanks to some of those) is WAY longer than the Blogger holdouts, as well as the ones who never went to the Dark Side in the first place, so I guess I shouldn’t grouse too much.

No, this post wasn’t meant as a sneaky way of tossing out some link love, I just wanted to bitch about Blogger again ‘cos it sucks. Hee.

On another note – hey, I just noticed I got written up at AnimalShak a couple of weeks ago, sorry it took me so long to notice. I’m not the most observant crayon in the box some days.

Dumb and Dumber – AKA Major Record Companies & the RIAA

First things first – Happy New Year, blogosphere!

So I was over catching up at Music City Bloggers this afternoon, when this post about now even more RIAA/record company-related lunacy and related issues got my blood pressure up. I was in the process of commenting over there when I realized that (in my usual long rambling fashion when ranting and raving with a bug up my you know what) I had gone on several paragraphs too long for a mere and appropriate comment. Thus, today I blog.

I am sooo glad this post appeared at MCB today because, a few weeks ago, there was a similar post on this same basic topic that I meant to comment on then and forgot to get back to. Then it got way down in the queue of posts, so I just let that thought go for the moment. Now I’m back and raring to chew on it ’til it’s a bloody, ugly, and messy unidentifiable pulp.

And yes, I meant that description to be as nasty and ugly and violent as it sounds.

I was just saying to someone last night, in fact, that I just do NOT understand why the record companies and the RIAA don’t understand that – over now all these many years these battles have been going on – they have not only COMPLETELY alienated but TOTALLY pissed off their largest and most profitable customer base to the point where most of us will NEVER buy another CD or similar media ever under any circumstances.

In 99% of most cases, I will simply do without rather than put another cent into record company pockets. There is, for the most part, just not anything I need enough that bad any longer… and whatever I will spend in the future is mere pennies compared to what I have spent on recorded music in the past.

I am not your “average music buyer”. I am your hardcore music JUNKIE who – up until all this RIAA battle crap started now years ago – spent probably on average of 95% of my disposable income on, commercially produced and sold, first vinyl records, then 8-tracks and cassette tapes, then CDs.

Yes, you read that right. Probably 95% on average. But just in case that figure is an overestimation, I know I can say, without a doubt, most certainly over 85%.

I have been buying records since I was three years old, walking around to the corner store from my family’s downtown store with a relative and picking out and purchasing those three 45 RPM records myself. My collection of storebought music – especially if you include the vinyl I eventually decided to part with – is HUGE. That’s nearly 39 years of buying commercial produced music in literal DROVES – again, averaging probably 95%, at least 85% of my disposable income, up until very recent years when it has drastically decreased because of this RIAA/record company BS and the ridiculous cost.

In addition, my father was also a pretty hardcore music junkie with a vast and huge collection – maybe not so much as me, but yes, exceptionally large – so put us together and that’s two consumers who spent, absolutely and most certainly, thousands and thousands of dollars on recorded music starting in probably about 1953-54-55-ish. So for the sake of argument let’s just say there’s 50 YEARS of extraordinary amounts of disposable income spent on recorded music there.

Then cometh the RIAA and its gestapo tactics and other pain in the neck policies and procedures and just general irritation and annoyance, as well as ever skyrocketing prices (I won’t get into DVD and VHS in this discussion, but I have a pretty large collection there too and talk about cost… ugh).

The result?

I have not purchased a commercially produced CD for myself in over two years. In fact, the number I have purchased in the last FIVE YEARS probably less than TEN.

The ONLY CDs I have purchased in that past five years or so were requested Christmas or birthday gifts for family, and that number is also probably less than ten, definitely less than 15… and more often than not, purchased on the secondhand/used market.

In the past, I used to buy more CDs (or tapes or LPs) in a YEAR than the average person probably does in a LIFETIME.

I now go out of my way to not have to purchase another commercially produced CD ever.

That’s sad, folks. That’s really sad. I’m sure record company profits look pretty pitiful as well and have for a while now.

They’ve done it to themselves.

I have a lot of love for some independent and not-major labels who have bent over backwards to try to do right by consumers and make up for what the majors and the RIAA have done. I’m not talking about those wonderful folks, many of whom I have at least a direct and remote acquaintance with some of their staff.

But at this point, and after all the increasingly horrifying tactics executed over the last several years, every major record label in the world that has fought alongside the RIAA deserves nothing less to go bankrupt and disappear. The RIAA deserves to be eradicated and in the future be nothing more than a past memory much like the Hays Code is to film.

Couple all this with the fact that in the last couple of years I have discovered that some of my storebought and paid for, commercially produced CDs are disintegrating (when they told us back in the ’80s that oh, CDs will last forever and it’s just nearly impossible to destroy them)… I’m done with buying music in the “old traditional way” unless (A) the record companies and RIAA stop being such idiots and a*holes and (B) the price becomes something REASONABLE again.

Right now my alternative means of acquiring music are perfectly legal. If the record companies and RIAA push it some more to make that impossible or just a more major freakin’ hassle too – I, again, will likely just choose to do without.

Sadder still that – not as a career but as a hobby of sorts and labor of love – in the past 15 years, I have probably been one of the fairly major independent supporters and mouthpieces for the alt/indie community in both the U.S. and (more especially) Australia, especially in certain circles; and as the Internet has grown, my influence has grown as well. Yeah, I should have made a real career out of it at some point probably, but didn’t.

Nonetheless, I have helped sell PLENTY of those CDs, records, and tapes over the years for many of those greedy companies simply as a major supporter and a fan of various and sundry artists, and a supporter of modern music in general.

Heck, I LITERALLY sold those CDs, records, and tapes for a time. I’m (surprise, surprise) a former record store employee myself, after all. You saw Empire Records or High Fidelity? I lived it (unfortunately without the hotness that is John Cusack, but that’s another blog post…).

Again, take heed, RIAA & record labels: I am not just Jane Average Music Buyer, but it’s bad enough you’ve angered and alienated the Jane and Joe Averages of the music consumer world. If a completely addicted, hardcore music junkie like myself hasn’t bought a CD for their personal use in two years, and few for three years before that – you people have got a problem that, at this point, you probably CANNOT really make that much better by attempting to do anything MORE about it.

But you certainly might be able to staunch the flow by simply STOPPING the current and ongoing utter madness.

From my viewpoint, the wound’s fatal; the illness is terminal. The RIAA and record companies have simply gone too far, and there’s a rare music consumer who’s going to forget about it in the rest of their lifetime of potential music buying. Even the most remote and not very active consumer who doesn’t think much about the music they buy and how and where they buy it – I guarantee you they are still thinking, when considering a purchase, about the insane cost of music these days and could they possibly get what they want by some other means than what the RIAA and record companies think – and are more and more often insisting – they should.

There are now, literally, TWO bands in the entire WORLD that might have future major label releases that I will support with my dollars in major corporate pocket if I must. There’s two more that could, but probably won’t. That’s four bands in the WHOLE WORLD.

Additionally, I will continue to support my favorite indie and small label artists however I have to. Hopefully by means that are music consumer-friendly (and most of them are) and not major label gestapo-like.

Even so, I suspect that – unless things in the corporate music biz change drastically – five years from now, I’ll be telling you I still haven’t bothered to purchase and spend any more of my disposable income on any major label, commercially produced recorded music. If at all, the number will probably equal exactly one. Yep, one CD.

There’s plenty of stuff I never got around to replacing on CD (or buying for the first time) over 39 years of music buying. Some box sets. Some special remastered CD reissues with all the bells and whistles and extra goodies. Extending my collection of some of the “biggies”, like the Stones, Zeppelin, etc.

But nowadays, I don’t care. Thanks to the RIAA and its cohorts within the major label industry, I no longer care one bit about that stuff I never got around to buying. Be nice to have, but I don’t need it that bad for what the industry has put this entire country – the entire world - through in the last decade.

And unless things change drastically – and I mean drastically - I don’t think I’m likely to ever start caring again. And I feel certain there’s lots more like me out there, as well as many, many more millions of Joe and Jane Average Music Consumers out there who are leaning in that direction these days as well, if not already there.

Ain’t that a shame?

ADDENDUM:  Don Coyote & I are kinda on the same wavelength this week, it would appear.

In Which All the Lipton Green Tea with Citrus is Half Frozen, So I Evaluate A New Product

RE:  New Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash

What it is:  Lemon-Lime Soda “with a splash of cranberry” (and caffeine free)

Verdict:  Not impressed.  I am thinking this is one of those things that might only be good with some alcohol added to it.  But I say “might” because…

Helpful Hint:  Whatever you do, do NOT add coconut rum to it.  Ick.

Open Letter to Wendy’s

Dear Wendy’s,

I am relatively certain that if one goes to France and orders Chicken Cordon Bleu, one will not find a slice of American cheese anywhere on the plate.

In a word – YUCK.

Lunchless and unhappily yours,

Lynnster

Technogripe

So, I get that you’re this incredibly huge, incredibly famous, humongous tremendous media site with a bazillion readers and probably about as many advertisers.

But you also aren’t the online alternative site to a print media paper/magazine, either.  (Not that I don’t have pretty much the same issues with many of those, too.)

So why, why, WHY is it so hard to read anything - and find things one wants to read – on your site?

Heck, I can’t even read the RSS feed.  You’ve got that all bamboozled too.

I know you take in more than enough money in advertising alone to paste up something that’s not worse than trying to read Usenet articles in a circa 1995 newsreader.  Use it.