Last Monday I watched, what would otherwise have been, the season finale of NBC’s Chuck. If you’re unfamilar, here’s the short, SHORT version:
Geeky guy works at a Best Buy-like store with his high school best friend, gets all the combined secrets of the US Military downloaded into his brain, and for four seasons he has used this information to help take down bad guys. Insert nerd references to video games, movies, and other forms of celebrated (or obscure) Geekdom and serve!
I’m a male. I’ve lived for 29+ years, mostly in either Virginia or North Carolina. I am an audiophile. I am a technophile. I love reading, going to the movies, and playing video games. I studied film at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, earning a B.A. in Communications. I worked for 5-6years for CBS Radio in which I worked in promotions and sales. Concurrently to the later portion of my tenure at CBS Radio, I went to school at Johns Hopkins University studying digital technology and the means by which people communicate, for which I will earn a M.A. in Communications this May.
All of the above equates to one thing – my favorite band doesn’t owe me a DAMN THING.
Today marks 3yrs and 8months that I have been dating my girlfriend Crystal. In that time she’s graduted from UNCA with a BA in MultiMedia Arts & Sciences, moved into my mom’s place and started her journey into the workplace. We’ve moved from North Carolina to Maryland so that I may pursue a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins in Communications, and we have struggled to keep our heads, and wits, about us. We’ve known each other a long time and with luck, and a little patience on her part, we’ll be able to get through near anything.
The last few years have shown us a lot of hardships. The Bush Administration, 9/11, Katrina, the fall of the Economy. I could speak at length about a number of things on each of these, but today I’m only going to discuss the hypocracy of the RIAA. Since the first file was swapped through a P2P service, the RIAA has been up in arms over piracy. Granted, it falls within their station to combat piracy, but their attempts the last few years have done nothing more than alienate consumers who know better, but refuse to give in when alternates are unrelieable. The business model of the music industry is crumbling and the only thing the RIAA cares about is making sure they get their cut before it all crashes down.
Reading an article in the Daily Examiner, I learned that 4 years ago, Whitney Harper was ordered to pay $7,400 in restitution for piracy at the age of 16.
“Yes, this is a form of tough love but it is a necessary one to protect the rights of artists,” said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. “Look at the extensiveness of the coverage on Friday. Every single newspaper and TV station carried the story that a jury of Thomas’ peers found her guilty of copyright violations. This sends a very clear message that if you steal music online there can be real consequences. There is a lot of deterrent value to that message becoming public.”
I’m up in PA right now visiting my girlfriend’s folks and celebrating her brother’s 23rd birthday, so that plus the dial-up connection I’m using will require that this be short.
Since last December I’ve jumped on the Guitar Hero bandwagon and last weekend picked up Rock Band. As an audiophile, I love everything that music is and can be. A book I read Spring semester 08 discussed the history of the phonograph and the impact it had on our culture and county. For instance, women sold records for two reasons: 1) women were the caretakers of the home at the time the phonograph was released and 2) women were less likely to invite male strangers into their home, so companies hired women to sell the records and the players. Women were able to work their way up from seller to executive in the recording industry because of their involvement and quite possibly helped the woman’s movement because of it. The book also discusses how music can develop collective memory with a group of people – enabling you to hear a song which takes you back to a specific moment in time, almost allowing you to relive the experience.
Anyway, driving up to PA yesterday we listed to a recently compiled playlist of songs used in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series that we ourselves own. One of my favorite on Rock Band was the DLC track Zero by The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m not a huge fan of them, and didn’t get to see them when they came to Baltimore for Virgin Fest nor during their short, small venue tour but something about their music always takes me back.
Last night, driving down I-78, belting Disarm at the top of my lungs, I remembered a party held by my friend Jamie back in middle/high school. I can’t remember if we were friends then, but later became quite close until I moved. From my doorstep, I could hear the songs of The Smashing Pumpkins wafting through the trees from her backyard where a live band, made up of our classmates, played. I mostly remember hearing Today sung by…Emily?…I think, but my other friend Damien was on guitar at the time. He was another close friend in school that I’ve lost touch with. He introduced me to The Smashing Pumpkins, and I can remember vividly driving down the road in his Volvo listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Damien later played Siamese Dream for me where I heard Today, Cherub Rock, and Disarm (which would become my favorite track). Damien opened my ears to a lot of music (Future Sounds of London, Orbital, Garbage, The Prodigy – to name a few) and he was a great friend. For a while, and maybe it had to due with the close proximity of our houses, but Damien, Jamie, and I spent a lot of time together – especially the summer Jamie was under parental house arrest for someone else’s mistake. We had a lot of good times hanging out, watching tv, eating chinese, and listening to music. I can’t remember why I never went to that party – maybe we weren’t friends then, maybe i wasn’t invited, maybe I was just to damn awkward for my own good – but I’ll always have the memory of the music.
Anyway, that’s my little random trip down memory lane. I’ll add links when I get back to broadband, assuming of course that the hurricanes haven’t flooded our apartment.(Updated 9/8/08 – with sights AND sounds) Enjoy your weekend, everyone, and if you can – put on some old records. See where those take you.
