A few things. One, cursing, and strong words!
I happen to agree. I swear very little, and do so very carefully (which is to say I treat swear words like any other word). But still, someone who thinks they have no place has never seen them put to great use (my favorite example is still the Pope Song).
Strong words!
Slurs, on the other hand, are pretty awful. I handle how I feel about these case by case. I happen to think, like swearing, we put too much weight on these as a society, but that's easy when you're tall, skinny, straight, and pass for white like I do. Normally I'm happy to leave well enough alone. But this Daily Show clip wins.
Finally, I love 2010. First you get this story on the news:
Which, naturally gets remixed:
But here's the best part: a school picked it up and playing it for marching band!
Are we lucky to be alive now, or what?
August 25, 2010
August 14, 2010
In light of the Essays that were the last two posts...
... enjoy some lulz. Some Nirvana meets Jackson 5:
And "I'm retarded, I guess":
Why do I enjoy this? A former music TA of mine summarized it best. "This should not be."
And "I'm retarded, I guess":
Why do I enjoy this? A former music TA of mine summarized it best. "This should not be."
Making a living being an artist
This blog seems to have veered from code and cute whimsy to Paul Screed and Bloviation. Lets add one more post to that list, in part spurred by a post by Jason Robert Brown (writer/composer of Parade and The Last 5 Years, among others) that was making the rounds for a while. You should skim it, but he's basically making his case for how it's wrong that artists get cheated out of their royalties by technology by debating the issue with someone who is actively giving away and receiving his music.
First, a note on the post: it's pretty awful. He picks an inarticulate opponent to represent the other side, to the point that it's literally Master Writer vs. Opinionated Teenager. He doesn't contest the more grounded, better-expressed arguments refuting his own position, or even really acknowledge their existence. It's as if the only arguments there are are the ones this girl mentions, and he predictably takes her to town.
Let's make another distinction: this post isn't to say stealing music is okay, it's more to say royalties are doomed, think of something else. With this I mean I won't go into the ethics of downloading music illegally because, like most discussion on ethics and law, it's just way too hairy. It sounds like it should be a no-brainer that the proposition "stealing music is wrong" is true, but a) everyone may have very different definitions of stealing, particularly when b) music isn't a good or service that easily fits most tractable economic models for production or consumption, and c) assumes both speakers agree on a moral or ethical standard, notions of right and wrong, and fair behavior. So the only problems with "Stealing music is wrong" is "stealing," "music," and "wrong."
But I do believe Jason Robert Brown, like most artists who are successful or wish to be in the traditional sense, are clinging to a model that has failed and will continue to do so. That it's not a good idea to cling to an income that is primarily sustained by royalties. Like newspapers, that model only made money when people couldn't opt-out of a bad system. You're hedging your livelihood hoping that people will choose to opt-in to the same bad system, against a better alternative.
I can't find a link, but I remember a quote from the early days of the internet, when a 12-year old kid who loved Dave Barry articles would transcribe them from the newspaper onto his Geocities site: "When someone destroys your business model not because they hate you, but because they love you, you know you're in trouble."
And people won't opt-in. The Times of London online had a 90% drop in readership after instituting a paywall. The most compelling point the girl in the post made, which JRB never addressed, was that she literally couldn't access the music legally since you'd need a credit card to buy it online, and her parents didn't support her passion for theatre.
The act of buying legally itself is also marred with complications. See this graphic of watching a pirated DVD vs. a legitimate DVD, or read about this guy who pirated Starcraft, and had to wait two days to play it when he decided to buy it. While I believe the main reason people pirate is because they're cheapskates (most people pirating could afford at least some of the music they pirate, and could cut consumption like in any other market to make up the difference), it doesn't help that the experience is often better when you pirate.
Finally, and this goes back to arguing over whether it's "right" or "wrong:" most people are incredibly confused by this. When CD burning just started, I offered to make copies of commercial CD's my family bought legally to take with us to Guatemala, for us and only us to listen to. My mom relented (and looked at me like a criminal), thinking the act of burning the CD's was the illegal part (rather than the distribution... and I'm sure some RIAA lawyer would or can make the case that it is).
So regardless of whether or not what you perceive as stealing feels wrong to you (phew), even if you were 100% right and you die and go to Heaven and God himself says "Yes, Jason, you were robbed wrongfully by your brothers on Earth," it doesn't change the fact that while you were on Earth, your model was dissolving and you were being made irrelevant. I'm not arguing right or wrong, I'm arguing working and non-working.
So what should you do instead? Um... well, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to stay on a sinking ship.
I can make a few suggestions though, as this generalizes nicely into the hard problem of how to make a career as an artist. The first step is to accept that you will take a pay cut. You can't keep the salaries and lifestyle you kept in the bad old days doing the bad old things. This might mean getting a second (or different) job.
The second thing to remember is branding. You're recordings may not be worth much anymore because we can now distribute them losslessly to whoever we want. But there is still only one of you, and that scarcity should factor into your model.
So try using the technology to brand yourself. Form connections. Don't stop producing and respond to your audience. If you're lucky, you can get as famous as Radiohead and give your music away for whatever anyone wants to pay for it. If you're a little less lucky, you could probably still get well-known enough to enough people to score a regular job or commissioned work. Ze Frank did a great daily show and seems to get regular work, even getting to be a speaker at TED.
A fringe benefit of this is that you no longer have to deal with middlemen taking big cuts, and stealing. Hollywood accounting means that you could still, technically, lose money on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson and the estate of JRR Tolkien had to sue to get any royalties from the movies). It's how TLC could sell 10 million CD's and still go bankrupt. The bad old days were bad for artists too. So leverage the technology, and work for yourself.
Many of the same artist survival tactics still apply. Persevere, and understand the hardest part of the game is not giving up too soon. Picking up a skill will help you greatly. Like John Goodman said in Inside the Actor's Studio, the most useful advice he got for his career as an actor was to learn to type, allowing him a stable day job to live off while he worked. That skill may even supersede your love for your art, as happened to me. At the very least you will get more perspective of how most normal, non-artists people think and work.
On an institutional level, I can't recommend enough Brendan Kiley's article 10 Things Theatre's Need To Do Right Now To Save Themselves. It caused a major splash and proposed a lot of uncomfortable truths. Many artists hated it, which is precisely the type of reaction an appropriate solution would generate in such a broken system. Incidentally, and I know this makes me a Bad Actor, but I'm tired of seeing Shakespeare.
Obviously, easier said than done. But those are my two cents.
First, a note on the post: it's pretty awful. He picks an inarticulate opponent to represent the other side, to the point that it's literally Master Writer vs. Opinionated Teenager. He doesn't contest the more grounded, better-expressed arguments refuting his own position, or even really acknowledge their existence. It's as if the only arguments there are are the ones this girl mentions, and he predictably takes her to town.
Let's make another distinction: this post isn't to say stealing music is okay, it's more to say royalties are doomed, think of something else. With this I mean I won't go into the ethics of downloading music illegally because, like most discussion on ethics and law, it's just way too hairy. It sounds like it should be a no-brainer that the proposition "stealing music is wrong" is true, but a) everyone may have very different definitions of stealing, particularly when b) music isn't a good or service that easily fits most tractable economic models for production or consumption, and c) assumes both speakers agree on a moral or ethical standard, notions of right and wrong, and fair behavior. So the only problems with "Stealing music is wrong" is "stealing," "music," and "wrong."
But I do believe Jason Robert Brown, like most artists who are successful or wish to be in the traditional sense, are clinging to a model that has failed and will continue to do so. That it's not a good idea to cling to an income that is primarily sustained by royalties. Like newspapers, that model only made money when people couldn't opt-out of a bad system. You're hedging your livelihood hoping that people will choose to opt-in to the same bad system, against a better alternative.
I can't find a link, but I remember a quote from the early days of the internet, when a 12-year old kid who loved Dave Barry articles would transcribe them from the newspaper onto his Geocities site: "When someone destroys your business model not because they hate you, but because they love you, you know you're in trouble."
And people won't opt-in. The Times of London online had a 90% drop in readership after instituting a paywall. The most compelling point the girl in the post made, which JRB never addressed, was that she literally couldn't access the music legally since you'd need a credit card to buy it online, and her parents didn't support her passion for theatre.
The act of buying legally itself is also marred with complications. See this graphic of watching a pirated DVD vs. a legitimate DVD, or read about this guy who pirated Starcraft, and had to wait two days to play it when he decided to buy it. While I believe the main reason people pirate is because they're cheapskates (most people pirating could afford at least some of the music they pirate, and could cut consumption like in any other market to make up the difference), it doesn't help that the experience is often better when you pirate.
Finally, and this goes back to arguing over whether it's "right" or "wrong:" most people are incredibly confused by this. When CD burning just started, I offered to make copies of commercial CD's my family bought legally to take with us to Guatemala, for us and only us to listen to. My mom relented (and looked at me like a criminal), thinking the act of burning the CD's was the illegal part (rather than the distribution... and I'm sure some RIAA lawyer would or can make the case that it is).
So regardless of whether or not what you perceive as stealing feels wrong to you (phew), even if you were 100% right and you die and go to Heaven and God himself says "Yes, Jason, you were robbed wrongfully by your brothers on Earth," it doesn't change the fact that while you were on Earth, your model was dissolving and you were being made irrelevant. I'm not arguing right or wrong, I'm arguing working and non-working.
So what should you do instead? Um... well, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to stay on a sinking ship.
I can make a few suggestions though, as this generalizes nicely into the hard problem of how to make a career as an artist. The first step is to accept that you will take a pay cut. You can't keep the salaries and lifestyle you kept in the bad old days doing the bad old things. This might mean getting a second (or different) job.
The second thing to remember is branding. You're recordings may not be worth much anymore because we can now distribute them losslessly to whoever we want. But there is still only one of you, and that scarcity should factor into your model.
So try using the technology to brand yourself. Form connections. Don't stop producing and respond to your audience. If you're lucky, you can get as famous as Radiohead and give your music away for whatever anyone wants to pay for it. If you're a little less lucky, you could probably still get well-known enough to enough people to score a regular job or commissioned work. Ze Frank did a great daily show and seems to get regular work, even getting to be a speaker at TED.
A fringe benefit of this is that you no longer have to deal with middlemen taking big cuts, and stealing. Hollywood accounting means that you could still, technically, lose money on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson and the estate of JRR Tolkien had to sue to get any royalties from the movies). It's how TLC could sell 10 million CD's and still go bankrupt. The bad old days were bad for artists too. So leverage the technology, and work for yourself.
Many of the same artist survival tactics still apply. Persevere, and understand the hardest part of the game is not giving up too soon. Picking up a skill will help you greatly. Like John Goodman said in Inside the Actor's Studio, the most useful advice he got for his career as an actor was to learn to type, allowing him a stable day job to live off while he worked. That skill may even supersede your love for your art, as happened to me. At the very least you will get more perspective of how most normal, non-artists people think and work.
On an institutional level, I can't recommend enough Brendan Kiley's article 10 Things Theatre's Need To Do Right Now To Save Themselves. It caused a major splash and proposed a lot of uncomfortable truths. Many artists hated it, which is precisely the type of reaction an appropriate solution would generate in such a broken system. Incidentally, and I know this makes me a Bad Actor, but I'm tired of seeing Shakespeare.
Obviously, easier said than done. But those are my two cents.
August 12, 2010
Life isn't fair and Eat, Pray, Love
One of the smartest people I know recently wrote a blog post on Eat, Pray, Love and the backlash against it; the post was something of a defense against that backlash.
She was speaking of a different type of backlash (namely women who've taken up Yoga and Spirituality and suffered dearly), whereas I belong to another group that's pretty well known: guys who hate Eat, Pray, Love. Hate is probably too strong a word, allow me to elaborate.
First things first: no, I haven't read it. I probably won't, either, so feel free to add that to a long list of reasons to discredit or grain-of-salt this post, because there are a many. But my criticism isn't so much based on the book itself, which I'm sure is fine, but on its cultural impact based on how I've observed other people react to it.
I'll start by citing a tweet: when PZ Myers was being criticized for being too mean to his opponents (calling them idiots, frauds, etc.), he more or less brushed it off. But then someone mentioned that many of his targets don't deserve it, as they're normally acting out of ignorance. His response floored me with how he could, in 140 characters, point it out so clearly:
My major problem with Eat, Pray, Love is that it is a product of - while bolstering - a vague, responsibility-absolving entitlement to "happiness," comfort, "enlightenment," and self-satisfaction. And that this is inevitable (you are a strong, wonderful person! You deserve it) and can be lots of fun! Note that while this book is overwhelmingly more popular with women, my observation is that the previous point affects both men and women pretty hard. Tons of guys I know get distraught over the fact that they don't feel good warm things all the time. I'll address the gender differential in the specific case of the book later.
Maybe it's just from attending private school followed by Brown, but I'm always observing people who are pretty lucky in their lives, are well-educated, but just don't feel happy, and feel deep anguish that they don't know what the meaning of their lives are.
I hate to burst your bubble, but you shouldn't. "Happiness," "inner peace," "enlightenment"... these aren't finish lines. You won't reach a point in your life when you're like *BAM*! I'm happy! Things are good! And I will never be insecure about my talents or role in the world again!
It's kind of like getting your first sexual urges in Middle School: sorry, but you will always feel this way. You never reached a point in your life where you suddenly stopped getting horny. You just acknowledged the urges, and learned to deal with them, incorporating those feelings in your life in a more healthy, day-to-day way.
Note that until you did, you struggled with the insecurities, exacerbated loneliness, and questions about sex and sexuality in society that came (lol) with those new sexual urges. It takes years (and some people never get there) to get over the social cattiness and mess that arises from those insecurities. There's a teething phase.
Similarly, there are big points in your life when you feel miserable, and mostly, untapped. You feel your life is shallow, you haven't made a dent in the world, your talents are unappreciated; you especially feel guilty that this bothers you because you are better off than many others.
To which I say it's true: you are shallow, you're not impacting the world that hard, and there are people who are much worse off. But that's just life, and it's no weakness or inadequacy on your part. There isn't anything you're missing (or that you reasonably could do with any significant probability) to change any of it. So learn to live with it, because, as we say in software, there is no silver bullet. Yoga might help, but probably won't. Same with eating in the long term.
Though, here's the hardest one: you have no guarantee (or even an unofficial right to the prospect) of a magical person you find lovely, wonderful, and attractive will walk into your life and love you. This might have nothing to do with how wonderful you are as a person; you can be the kindest, smartest person on Earth, and while this bumps up your odds a little, there's never a guarantee. You don't get what you deserve, just hope you get what you need.
As to how EPL fits in to all this, and why it bothers me: EPL shows the story of someone we (privileged, educated unsatisfied people) can all relate to and shows her either crossing the finish line, or making giant, giant steps toward it. It (without meaning to) exploited our misunderstandings and fetishism of Eastern Mysticism and Hot Ethnic Love Abroad and pushed desperate people wildly in that direction.
I feel about Elizabeth Gilbert and her talks, writing (i.e. the magazine articles I've read) the way I feel about most priests: you clearly believe what you preach and live pretty happily by doing so. You have every right to do it and I won't stop you. But overall, I happen to think your messages are snake oil/placebo, and ultimately takes us down further down a path I think we're already too far into.
People then start looking at Yoga, travel, and Eastern Mysticism and get conned they way they do at homeopathy, or chiropractors (note that I don't find the exercise component of Yoga nearly as toxic as those two. But lots of those "gurus"? Most definitely). I just wish people would stop looking for silver bullets, and I feel that EPL puts a toy carrot in front of everyone.
Regarding the gender difference: I think the book and its reception really highlights the impossible situation women are put into. See the Male Privilege Checklist: women are expected to be superbeings with contradictory measures of success, and we are taught that they fail if they don't.
So if you're a woman, you get told by society as a whole, implicitly and explicitly, that you're a failure or 'failing to perform' much more often than guys. Guys like you a lot less, unreasonably soon.
Given all this, I find it not at all surprising that when you read a book that appeals to your wants and wishes, that you too could go to eat and pray and love and feel warm and fuzzy and find what you've lost and oh my god it's you!, that they love it. Again, guys fall for this mindframe too, but this book in particularly highlights the troubling situation women are in.
Personally, I'd rather put energy and resources in addressing the sexism in society, trying to prevent insecurity and doubt becoming a problem in the first place, rather than setting people up to fail by filling their heads with fantasies of ashrams and vague, impossible notions of fulfillment.
I'll end with a favorite quote. It comes from _why the lucky stiff, a minor genius of our time, more or less prescribing what I think is the best way out of these loops of self-futility and doubt: create. Write plays, or short stories, or code, or fan fiction, or sand castles, or design model trains. Do something you care about and can share with people. Give back. As he says:
She was speaking of a different type of backlash (namely women who've taken up Yoga and Spirituality and suffered dearly), whereas I belong to another group that's pretty well known: guys who hate Eat, Pray, Love. Hate is probably too strong a word, allow me to elaborate.
First things first: no, I haven't read it. I probably won't, either, so feel free to add that to a long list of reasons to discredit or grain-of-salt this post, because there are a many. But my criticism isn't so much based on the book itself, which I'm sure is fine, but on its cultural impact based on how I've observed other people react to it.
I'll start by citing a tweet: when PZ Myers was being criticized for being too mean to his opponents (calling them idiots, frauds, etc.), he more or less brushed it off. But then someone mentioned that many of his targets don't deserve it, as they're normally acting out of ignorance. His response floored me with how he could, in 140 characters, point it out so clearly:
"Deserve" is a red herring. Life isn't fair, you don't get what you deserve...just have to hope you get what you need.
My major problem with Eat, Pray, Love is that it is a product of - while bolstering - a vague, responsibility-absolving entitlement to "happiness," comfort, "enlightenment," and self-satisfaction. And that this is inevitable (you are a strong, wonderful person! You deserve it) and can be lots of fun! Note that while this book is overwhelmingly more popular with women, my observation is that the previous point affects both men and women pretty hard. Tons of guys I know get distraught over the fact that they don't feel good warm things all the time. I'll address the gender differential in the specific case of the book later.
Maybe it's just from attending private school followed by Brown, but I'm always observing people who are pretty lucky in their lives, are well-educated, but just don't feel happy, and feel deep anguish that they don't know what the meaning of their lives are.
I hate to burst your bubble, but you shouldn't. "Happiness," "inner peace," "enlightenment"... these aren't finish lines. You won't reach a point in your life when you're like *BAM*! I'm happy! Things are good! And I will never be insecure about my talents or role in the world again!
It's kind of like getting your first sexual urges in Middle School: sorry, but you will always feel this way. You never reached a point in your life where you suddenly stopped getting horny. You just acknowledged the urges, and learned to deal with them, incorporating those feelings in your life in a more healthy, day-to-day way.
Note that until you did, you struggled with the insecurities, exacerbated loneliness, and questions about sex and sexuality in society that came (lol) with those new sexual urges. It takes years (and some people never get there) to get over the social cattiness and mess that arises from those insecurities. There's a teething phase.
Similarly, there are big points in your life when you feel miserable, and mostly, untapped. You feel your life is shallow, you haven't made a dent in the world, your talents are unappreciated; you especially feel guilty that this bothers you because you are better off than many others.
To which I say it's true: you are shallow, you're not impacting the world that hard, and there are people who are much worse off. But that's just life, and it's no weakness or inadequacy on your part. There isn't anything you're missing (or that you reasonably could do with any significant probability) to change any of it. So learn to live with it, because, as we say in software, there is no silver bullet. Yoga might help, but probably won't. Same with eating in the long term.
Though, here's the hardest one: you have no guarantee (or even an unofficial right to the prospect) of a magical person you find lovely, wonderful, and attractive will walk into your life and love you. This might have nothing to do with how wonderful you are as a person; you can be the kindest, smartest person on Earth, and while this bumps up your odds a little, there's never a guarantee. You don't get what you deserve, just hope you get what you need.
As to how EPL fits in to all this, and why it bothers me: EPL shows the story of someone we (privileged, educated unsatisfied people) can all relate to and shows her either crossing the finish line, or making giant, giant steps toward it. It (without meaning to) exploited our misunderstandings and fetishism of Eastern Mysticism and Hot Ethnic Love Abroad and pushed desperate people wildly in that direction.
I feel about Elizabeth Gilbert and her talks, writing (i.e. the magazine articles I've read) the way I feel about most priests: you clearly believe what you preach and live pretty happily by doing so. You have every right to do it and I won't stop you. But overall, I happen to think your messages are snake oil/placebo, and ultimately takes us down further down a path I think we're already too far into.
People then start looking at Yoga, travel, and Eastern Mysticism and get conned they way they do at homeopathy, or chiropractors (note that I don't find the exercise component of Yoga nearly as toxic as those two. But lots of those "gurus"? Most definitely). I just wish people would stop looking for silver bullets, and I feel that EPL puts a toy carrot in front of everyone.
Regarding the gender difference: I think the book and its reception really highlights the impossible situation women are put into. See the Male Privilege Checklist: women are expected to be superbeings with contradictory measures of success, and we are taught that they fail if they don't.
So if you're a woman, you get told by society as a whole, implicitly and explicitly, that you're a failure or 'failing to perform' much more often than guys. Guys like you a lot less, unreasonably soon.
Given all this, I find it not at all surprising that when you read a book that appeals to your wants and wishes, that you too could go to eat and pray and love and feel warm and fuzzy and find what you've lost and oh my god it's you!, that they love it. Again, guys fall for this mindframe too, but this book in particularly highlights the troubling situation women are in.
Personally, I'd rather put energy and resources in addressing the sexism in society, trying to prevent insecurity and doubt becoming a problem in the first place, rather than setting people up to fail by filling their heads with fantasies of ashrams and vague, impossible notions of fulfillment.
I'll end with a favorite quote. It comes from _why the lucky stiff, a minor genius of our time, more or less prescribing what I think is the best way out of these loops of self-futility and doubt: create. Write plays, or short stories, or code, or fan fiction, or sand castles, or design model trains. Do something you care about and can share with people. Give back. As he says:
When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create.
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