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Today in Web Links

Macy GrayPay to Play

For Netflix people on a PC who kinda-sorta dig the rasx() context, I recommend streaming A Day in the Life of Macy Gray. More “youth-oriented artists of color” should self-produce programs like this one because it allows the “fans” to actually meet the pop artist. So perhaps some young girl in “love” with Macy Gray can marvel at her big-ass house but then take some time to reflect on that playroom with her five(?) children in it—and really start to think about whether having a grip of cash solves all problems.

What’s important for young artists trying to make it “big” like Macy Gray is to listen to her lengthy talk about Pay to Play. She submitted to the practice for years (with one or more of her ex boyfriends) and one can argue that it paid off. But I prefer to recount the report, “And the Band Paid On: Pay-to-play booking still rules L.A. music scene,” from Corey Levitan:

If a modeling agency says it’s interested but requires a fee up front, most prospective Cindy Crawfords know enough to run screaming for the elevators.

However, if an L.A. rock club says it wants a band to perform but needs a fee for the privilege, it’s considered routine business.

The policy, called pay-to-play, forces untried bands to buy 100 or more of their own tickets in advance. They’re expected to sell the tickets themselves, so the club bears no risk of a sales washout.

Individual clubs may find pay-to-play a handy survival tool. However, the policy really does the entire music community harm by fostering mediocrity and enhancing consumer cynicism.

But in A Day in the Life of Macy Gray that is exactly the vibe I got off Macy Gray: a seasoned, cynical professional (with a little spliff medication on the side). Macy Gray is successful because her vibe does not radiate in isolation. There is a lot of spliff medication to pass around—and this is why we can smell teen spirit. The mob rule tells an “elitist snob” like me that Pay to Play is not going away—this is going far beyond being a sell out… this going to places incomprehensible to the likes of young Stevie Wonder.

But apart from all those paragraphs above is the most important question for me: Why does the Netflix streaming video service fail to work on the Macintosh in spite of all the hoopla about Silverlight? It seems too, too obvious to me that Microsoft should make the proper payoffs to make this shit happen. Yes, even Microsoft has to pay to play.

“The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is NOT a long game!!!”

This one goes out to my eldest son, Amon… speaking of cynicism, some dude made a video of playing an entire Elder Scrolls game in about 15 minutes. I guess an “elitist snob” would only take the time to play the game slowly and really enjoy the benefits of immersive, imaginative game play… And, son, I come from the Quake camp. This Elder Scrolls stuff is new to me…

Buy this book at Amazon.com!“An Insurgency of Quality”

A fellow “elitist snob,” Alan Cooper, gives a talk entitled “An Insurgency of Quality” where he talks about ‘infiltrating’ or ‘sneaking’ quality into traditionally hierarchical organizations. I don’t think I am alluring and seductive enough to slink my way through a bunch of barbarian Spartans. This is root reason why I am not a millionaire—of course when you read this you think I am joking at least or delusional at best… My father told me, ‘Keep living, kid…’ There is need to strive for dominion over the wicked, just leave them to face death and they will (by their own design) perish. This is an Inconvenient Truth.

So when I read a headline like, “Hollywood now outsources to India for visual effects,” I see that the real elite Americans find it easier to instantly gratify themselves with cheap, professional labor than to invest in the youth of their supposed homeland. This is business by design. Instead of setting up cheap-labor special effects shops in an unheard of place like South Central Los Angeles, it makes “objective business sense” to bypass the poor in resources but rich in imagination in this country. This topic is touched upon in the first kinté space interview with designer Floyd Webb. I thought the Pixel Corps would have come out with something from Zimbabwe by now—but so far Alex Lindsay comes of Africa with a wife and child. Congratulations, kid.

The only authentic South Central Los Angeles design firm I am aware of is from my homeboy R/Kain Blaze—and his homeboy David. Blaze was interviewed back in 2002 in “Blazed Up with The Undefined”—he also appears in the new documentary This is the Life.

rasx()