The Nashville Feed

Usually people take the last days of a previous year to reflect and make predictions for the coming year. I prefer to make my predictions a few days into the New Year after all the commotion has settled. So here are my predictions for 2009 when it comes to Music technology and New/Social Media:

Social Networks/New Media

MySpace Will Finally Become Irrelevant:
The downward slide of MySpace began at the beginning of 2008 and some would say even earlier. People have social network overload or burn out and keeping up with the next greatest trend will end. Accounts will be abandoned in record numbers but News Corp (MySpace owner) will not report that slide. They will either sell it or try merging content from other properties in order to keep users engaged. MySpace will become the next Friendster.com ever trying to gain back it's glory.

Facebook Will Cement Itself as the Standard Social Network:
Facebook has made all the right moves barring a stumble here and there but overall it will be the main social networking site that everybody has an account. Kind of like Yahoo! back in the day. Will Facebook become profitable? The direction the economy is going I'd say no in 2009 but the pressure to generate revenue will be emence with the tight credit market. Will Facebook become the next Friendster MySpace I can't predict either but the trend looks like someday it will.

Twitter Will Go Mainstream but with Problems
2008 was the year of the tweet but 2009 is where businesses want in on the action. Many will try but few will get it right. They don't understand the way it works and how to utilize the site to it's fullest potential. See my previous post: Twitter is Not Like Any Other Social Network

What about the rest? Other websites will pop up and hit like at cat 5 hurricane while others will fizzle due to the economy and credit market. 2009 will be the year of creating revenue and trying to attain profitibility. All the VC firms are getting impatent and are wanting to see the end in the long tunnel of funding startups. Also 2009 will be the year of many adverstising based sites will go black or sold while many are going to try the "Freemium" model some will work but many will fail.

Music Industry

This is pretty easy almost to easy. The Music Industry still won't get it and revenue will continue to drop. The CD plastic disc model is dead and been that way for a long time. The revenue from downloads doesn't match and won't. They've tried download cards of albums (only place I've seen them is Target) but the fact is people are not going to pay what they used to for physical media plain and simple. I get buy a Blu-ray music with hours of extras for $14.99 why would I pay for 40 minutes of music for $12.99. I won't. So the big 3 labels have built this huge infrastructure the plastic disc which now can't be supported with the changing enviroment. Feels like this is the same as last year because it is. The industry won't collapse but that would be the best thing for it. The prediction for 2009 is down again but in all areas music sales, touring, merch basically everywhere. It's going to be a gloomy year for the industry.

That's it for my predictions. Hope everybody has a great 2009!

With each election, we see a new crop of states change their constitution to forbid people with the same parts in their pants from marrying. No one was surprised when Tennessee did it. More recently, the more progressive constituencies in California, Florida, and Arizona kept any serious perusing of Bride magazine for chicks pledging devotion to dicks.

But we Americans are a short-sighted bunch. All this anti-gay marriage amending is actually quickening the approaching death of traditional marriage.

The biggest spoon to recently stir the gay marriage pot was Proposition 8 in California. The Mormon church deserves a great deal of credit—or blame—for its passing, the Catholics did their part, Evangelicals were likely involved, black Obama supporters helped, and that plumber from Toledo probably contributed indirectly in some way. They all seem like a bunch of people who probably want their grandchildren to enjoy an old-fashioned hetero legal love commitment just like the one they had. But if they’d held their finger up to the wind prior to stepping into the polling station, they would have voted to just let the queers have their ceremonies already.

Marriage is declining throughout the country. It has been sliding for some time, long before there was any public consideration of His and His towel sets.

Out of wedlock cohabitation has become quite popular from Generation Xers down. Maybe all of the divorces we witnessed as children showed us marriage is little more than a cheap show leading to expensive legal commitment. Maybe it was feminism telling women they didn’t have to be owned to have children. Maybe it was just finally time for the society to move forward. It was probably some of all of this, plus a few other factors, that moved the newer people away from matrimony.

A 2004 Rutgers University study found 56 percent of both teen boys and girls saw bearing and raising a child out of wedlock as a worthwhile lifestyle. Compare this to the numbers for the same question from 1980, when only 41 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls viewed the practice as cool. Less than half of the high school seniors in the study saw getting hitched as contributing to their long term satisfaction. They also want to try shacking up before committing on paper. In 2001-2002, almost 65 percent of boys and 55 percent of girls thought it was a good idea to share a lease and some household chores prior to marriage.

A 1999 University of Chicago (pdf) study found only one quarter of American households lived up to the ideal of a traditional family: husband, wife, and children.

Want more numbers on the declining value of old school marriage? Get a bunch of stats in favor of my argument at unmarried.org.

The gay issue did not start this ride, but it is certainly pushing on the accelerator. And it’s not because they are getting married. It is because we won’t let them.

Beyond the harm inflicted on marriage, prohibition of gay nuptials has a negative impact on the society banning their espousal. In particular, it threatens a local economy.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is some kind of funny Republican, cited economic reasons for his opposition to Proposition 8. In his books, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent, economist Richard Florida stresses the fiscal benefits of attracting and keeping homosexuals in a community.

Many corporations, whose primary interest is making bank rather than fighting culture wars, have recognized this. According to a 2006 study by the Human Rights Campaign, 78 percent of Fortune 100 and 49 percent of Fortune 500 companies offered domestic partner health insurance to their employees. This number is only going to increase. Disney showed us boycotts from the moral police are unlikely to alter company policy. In order to remain competitive for talent, businesses will move towards similar benefit packages. Domestic partner benefits are on their way to becoming the norm.

Our elected officials, frequently fearful of the holier than thou crowd, have no control over the human resources of a private corporation. But even political figures are reducing incentives for traditional marriage. Calls for civil unions, with all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, are being heard at every level of government. Three states already allow them. More are likely on the way, with the Obama administration offering support at the federal level.

Two gay prostitutes may never have the thrill of gathering together before someone’s god in Ted Haggard’s church for a Christian wedding. But with all the legal protections and employee benefits already in hand, is there any reason to complicate things with the old fashioned sacrament? We have the wonderful tenet of church/state separation. This means Reverend Jeremiah Wright will never have to oversee the commitment ceremony of two hot lesbians no matter how the law reads. But it also means no American has to seek the approval of any religion for a relationship.

Slowly bleeding out marriage is about all we are accomplishing with anti-gay betrothal legislation. As we provide more options short of marriage for homosexual couples, heteros will be taking advantage of those same alternatives. Permitting gay marriage could slow the progress by quieting the call for civil unions and restoring the exclusive employee benefits.

With the next generations of adults increasingly accepting of unwed couplings and the practical motivations for matrimony no longer relevant, we are likely to see a sharpening decrease in traditional marriage.

But this trend works completely in my favor. As a straight man, I should support ballot measures like Proposition 8 in order to move the country away from marriage.

I have been with my girlfriend for over four years. We’ve lived together for the past two and a half. We plan to move to a new city together soon. We have every intention of spending several more years together, if not our entire lives. We both agree that marriage is not for us. The only thing that would push us towards it is a desire for the legal rights and a sweet insurance plan. In a few years, as domestic partnerships are more commonly afforded these benefits, we will have no reason at all to book a ceremony.

I should be absolutely supportive of bullshit regulations like Proposition 8. It is the quickest path to increasing my benefits as an unmarried partner. Still, I just can’t do it.

What kind of asshole takes away the rights of others just to make himself a little more comfortable?

What a great week this has been! What a fantastic follow up with a great weekend of live music. Seriously, Saturday is a complete toss up. Deciding between De Novo Dahl, the Protomen and Pat Buchanan??? Good luck. Anyway, bring a jacket, it's going to be chilly out!

Friday!

• Royal Bangs w/ Willem Maker & Jim Mize at The Basement. 9pm
• The Lonely Hearts, Danger Bear, How Far West & Cartright at the 5 Spot. 9pm
• Tommy Womack at Family Wash. 9pm

Saturday!

• De Novo Dahl w/ Ricky Young at Exit/In. 9pm
• The Protomen EP Release Show featuring Eureka Gold & Shoot the Mountain at 12th & Porter. 9pm
• Pat Buchanan at 3rd & Lindsley. 10pm

Sunday!

• Matthew Sweet w/ The Bridges at 3rd & Lindsley. 8pm
• Brian Wilson in-store meet and greet at Grimey's. 1pm

Get out, have fun! 

j.

Four years ago I was knocking back blue drinks at the Belcourt Theatre, watching the election results on the big screen with increasing frustration. I finally just gave up and got drunk.

Last night, I was in Memphis, in its hip Cooper Young neighborhood. There were no big screen events to be enjoyed, but I had no problem finding alcohol and a television tuned to CNN. There was no sound, but cable news has made audio unnecessary with easy color coding, maps that can zoom in enough to get cleavage shots of unsuspecting voters, and bottom of the screen numbers updated to the minute.

I honestly didn’t care what Bill Bennett had to say anyway.

CNN’s technology is so advanced, in fact, that they can call a winner with 0 percent of the votes tallied. They did this several times through the evening. Tennessee was actually one of these states. I don’t know how they could offer such ungrounded speculation as a final result, but they did turn out right on each call.

Perhaps it was their ability to break down the voters in surprisingly specific categories. They somehow could tell us precisely how Latino hockey moms, welfare recipients, pregnant lesbians, Enron convicts, and dismembered vets were voting.

Remarkable.

After a mammoth margarita and a few Dos Equis, we headed home to catch the equally as accurate but far more humorous reporting of The Daily Show. Comedy Central was perhaps the only network without a commentator in pin stripes. I guess that reassured me they could be independent. Commercial breaks provided us with opportunities to check back in with CNN’s pundits and gadgets.

At some point, Bill Bennett vacated his chair. I did not hear an explanation for his sudden disappearance. Perhaps he had to consult his bible, or try to get in a last minute bet, or just bawl unashamedly off camera.

Back to The Daily Show. It was Mr. Jon Stewart who told me that Barack Obama had officially won. I was, appropriately, sipping on a New Belgian Brewery 1554 “Enlightened Black” at the time. Someone outside began setting off fireworks.

Of course, there were still several states’ electoral votes to acknowledge. Still, the victory was decisive. It would end up making the Supreme Court completely irrelevant.

Senator McCain conceded in a very gracious speech to what appeared to be an exclusively white crowd. They couldn’t find even one Hispanic in a border state? As we’ve come to expect from these groups, there was a great deal of jeering. Mr. McCain attempted to rein in the angry villagers before they reached their torches and pitchforks. This was the McCain I had liked so many years ago, the McCain I shook hands with in 2007. Well done, sir. You maintain my respect. I still have a distaste for many of your supporters and your vice presidential pick, but I do raise my glass to you, Senator.

Bill Bennett returned to his chair. He was not happy with the outcome, but announced he would pray for our country. Hey, fatass, if your prayers couldn’t get McCain elected, do you think they’re going to do our country any good?

Our new first family soon took the stage in Chicago. CNN cut to a weepy Oprah. President elect Obama gave a speech that stirred my drunken soul.

Mr. Obama overcame more than 200 years of racism, a Clinton, and the Republican machine to become our leader. Now he must fix a broken country. He bid on it, he won it, now he has it. I hope he can do the impossible with the nation. But his victory Tuesday demonstrates that very little is truly impossible in these United States.

Happy Halloween!!! So much going on this weekend...it's really not easy to narrow it down, but I'll do my best.

This weekend, the Shining kicks off Stanley Kubrick Retrospective: Celebrating 80 Years at the Belcourt with a special screening of Fear and Desire at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts on Sunday. See the Belcourt's website for more details. Also happening Friday and Saturday at midnight, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Thankfully, it looks like things will warm up for the tricks and treats...

Friday!

• The Legendary Shack Shakers w/ Joshua Black Wilkins & Gone City at Exit/In. 9pm
• Nine Inch Nails at Sommet Center. 8pm
• The Hold Steady w/Drive-By Truckers & Bobby Bare Jr. at the Ryman. 9pm
• Halloween Bash featuring Guilty Pleasures & The Devonshires at the Wildhorse Saloon.
• Movement Nashville Halloween Bash featuring Kyle Andrews, Jeremy Lister & The Lonely Hearts at 12th & Porter. 9pm

Saturday!

• Here Come the Mummies at the Mercy Lounge. 9pm
• Leon Russell w/ Old Union at 3rd & Lindsley. 8pm

Sunday!

• Jeffrey Lewis and the Jackals w/ The Mattoid & Lylas at the End. 9pm
• MAC AIDS Fund Benefit featuring Bodhcitta Belly Dance Troupe & Music City Burlesque at Exit/In. 7pm

Get out and have fun this Halloween weekend! Be safe! Don't take candy from strangers!

Boo,
j.

At Least the Scientologists Have Better Things To Do.

The numbers show that the Ten Commandments displayed in Kentucky courthouses have no identifiable impact on murder or theft in the county of their display. Since the other eight commandments really have nothing to do with law, it is impossible to accurately track their impact on the relevant behaviors of the county’s citizens. If these displays aren’t really doing the county any good, why do people persist in putting them up in the courthouses?

David Friedman, the ACLU attorney who successfully argued McCreary vs. ACLU before the Supreme Court and continues to pursue Ten Commandments cases in Kentucky, isn’t certain that “there is one monolithic reason.”

He believes that the reason behind some displays is a religious motivation. “Groups want to trumpet their religious views through the government. This is as close as they can come,” Friedman said.

He also recognizes a more secular agenda rooted in politics. Those in elected office score big points with a primarily Christian constituency when they wrap themselves around the stone tablets. This was arguably former Governor Fletcher’s motivation for pushing the church/state bounds with a new display at the state capital during his failed re-election bid.

Friedman identifies his own motivation for making the displays a legal issue as the need to protect the minority point of view. For him it is a crusade to insure that the government does not place its support solely behind the popular religion in a country where individuals are free to pursue a variety of religions—or none at all.

Frank Manion, an attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice, has argued the opposite side of the issue. He successfully defended Ten Commandments displays in two Kentucky counties and is currently litigating a third.

Despite Manion’s position at the other table, he seems to share Friedman’s skepticism of the true motivations people hold for displaying the commandments.

“You hope that their purpose is to express their connection to American law and government,” Manion said.

That may be an idealistic belief, but it is also the argument that stands the best chance of fending off the ACLU’s challenges. Both Rowan and Mercer Counties won their cases with that contention and something called the Foundations for American Law and Government exhibit.

This handy little kit comes pre-packaged with all of the necessary items, like a computer desk from Ikea. Contained within the box are ten items, each framed at a similar size to avoid stressing the importance of any one over another. It has met with mixed results in litigation, but it seems to be the best hope for those promoting the commandments. Surrounding the Bible’s words with documents such as the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, and a photo of Lady Justice supposedly diminishes the religious context and replaces it with a legal environment. The intent is to make the commandments a non-Christian artifact.

To strengthen the heritage and education standing, many counties have added explanations to tie the Ten Commandments in with the others.

Manion pointed to some original colonies’ recognized history of adopting certain Ten Commandments as laws prior to the Constitution. This is a documented fact, and it would seem worth mentioning in any text seeking to establish a legitimate legal history for the Decalogue. But there is no allusion made to this past in the Foundations for American Law and Government exhibit. Instead, most follow the example set by Mercer County, which has thus far successfully defended their display in District Court. Mercer included the following statement in their display:

“The Ten Commandments have profoundly influenced the formation of Western legal thought and the formation of our country.  That influence is clearly seen in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  The Ten Commandments provide the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the formation of our legal tradition.”

A reference to a Creator may link directly back to the Ten Commandments for some, but not everyone sees Christ in their fish stick. “Their Creator” could be a reference to Zeus, Allah, Satan, or those aliens that the Raelians place their beliefs behind. Scientologists might interpret it as Thetans animating energy and matter. This single ambiguous religious reference does not establish that the founding fathers found inspiration in Moses’ tablets.

If the exhibit’s passage is intended as a history lesson, it asks the viewer to presume a lot.

The colonies’ pre-constitution laws against adultery, graven images, blaspheming on the Sabbath and other commandments did not survive into our modern legal code.  Carroll Rousey, the Mercer County citizen who donated the Foundations for American Law and Government display to the courthouse doesn’t see the demise of these laws as such a bad thing.

“Do I want to see them all made as laws?” Rousey asked himself, then quickly answered: “No.”

If the Ten Commandments displays in courthouses are not making the citizens safer, and if the exhibits’ historical education is presumptive at best, and if there is no desire to return the commandments to law, and if the religious denotation is necessarily removed to gain entrance into the courthouse, why all the controversy?

Are the people of Kentucky, and across the nation, putting all of this time and effort into debating a symbol, even when that symbol has most of its meaning stripped from it? Could that time and effort be better used to find an effective approach to reducing theft and murder?

Previous Posts:

• Kentucky has the Commandments
• The actual numbers, after 10
• And the other 8

Last Tuesday will be a monthly column on cultural and societal issues. Please offer responses in the comments section. Your suggestions for future topics are also welcome.

October Surprise

With one week to go in the latest nastiest election ever, we’ll see contenders all over the swing states saying the most absurd things into a microphone.

At this late stage of the battle, things get messy. Candidates are exhausted and frustrated. Voters expect some gaffes, some slip-ups, or a badly timed debate photo of a ghoulish old man stalking an unsuspecting victim. Those of us who still maintain some sense of non-partisan political reality don’t take any of this too seriously.

But, there is this scary governor/VP candidate. Like most Americans, I don’t expect much in the way of intellectualism from her. Her schtick is folksy, down home, working mom stuff without any acknowledgement of complexity. That role works for her amongst certain crowds. And it makes it so damn easy for Tina Fey to parody her.

Recently, Mrs. Palin was rallying the horde in North Carolina, and she offered some thoughts on America and not so America. The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin quoting Governor Palin in Greensboro:

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe" -- here the audience interrupted Palin with applause and cheers -- "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."

I’m not going to use this as opportunity to attack the self-proclaimed “pit bull in lipstick.” Picking on someone with the intellect of a pit bull is just cerebral bullying. But I am going to tear into the concept behind her uninformed assumptions about what is “real” in our country.

This “one good America” fantasy is not limited to the governor of a disconnected border state. McCain’s advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer also made a reference to something she considers the “real Virginia” outside the metro D.C. areas of the commonwealth. Even outside the McCain campaign, there are citizens who regard their relatively small spot of the country as more American than other portions of what is, in fact, the same country.

What makes one part more authentic than another? I don’t think anyone is considering landscape in their judgments of American reality. If it is truly about location, then something landlocked, smack dab in the center, and probably in Kansas, is the realest America you will find.

This is a cultural issue, not a geographical one. It is a desire to not acknowledge the incredible diversity of a vast land. Anyone possessing some familiarity with both Memphis and Nashville knows that less than an inch on a map can represent a world of difference. Yet, both cities are in Tennessee, and therefore both are America. Which one is real Tennessee? Real America? You may be inclined to cheer for your home team, but this is not a football game.

Neither city likely rates well with Mrs. Palin. The ultra-northern governor seems to hold the small towns in between these two metropolises in higher regard. There are undeniably some good people in small towns across the nation. But a blanket label of “the best of America” only demonstrates an unwillingness to recognize there is a variety of personalities even within Wasilla-esque towns.

Matthew Shepherd was beaten and left for dead by a couple small town citizens in Wyoming. James Byrd was dragged to his death behind an ’82 Ford just outside Jasper, TX, population 8,247.

Does this mean everyone in a small town is a hate filled asshole? Of course not. It just means people are different, and we cannot apply blanket labels to any group based on the size or location of their community.

Perhaps my friend J. (first initial only to protect his legal interests) can help better illustrate this point.

J. owns a home in Hickman county. It’s as rural as the rest of rural Hickman county. He protected us in uniform as a U.S. Marine. Almost everyday, he drives his pickup into suburban Nashville for a blue-collar job, then comes home and shoots empty cans of Coca-cola Budweiser in his front yard. Pretty damn American, huh?

But there is more to J. He is an atheist. He also rolls a nice tight joint. And that pickup? It’s Japanese. He is not married, but lives in some version of sin with his girlfriend. Still pro-American? He’s not quite Palin’s ideal, nor is he a left-wing model, but he is a real American. Like every individual in the country, he is a bit more complex than some wish to admit.

I grew up on a farm 13 miles outside of Rock Lake, ND. I graduated high school with six other teenagers. Most of us were drunks. This was before meth had hit rural America, so we were just drunks. Many of those drunks were fine Americans. Even some of the sober people in the area were pretty good folks.

At 18, I moved to Fargo. By some perspectives, this made me a little less pro-American. Patriotism supposedly has an indirect correlation with population. My time with a Seattle address must have removed most remaining appreciation for my country. When I hit Nashville I must have been so anti-American as to serve on charity boards with Bill Ayers.

Contrary to mistaken assumptions, I actually like this country more today than when I was shoveling grain well outside of anything considered civilization.

The street kids I hung with on Seattle’s University Way are as real as the ranchers in Tensleep, WY who bought me a beer. The trailer park residents off Dickerson are as much a part of the republic as those rich guys buying up the land around my buddy’s home in Hamilton, MT. My Iranian friend who works in a New York City HIV clinic is no more or less authentically American than the blue haired, tattooed, and pierced white girl from small town Wisconsin with whom I had brief but heavily sexual relationship. America would not be America without all of these influences. If you are not seeing each citizen as a piece of the whole, then you are hiding from the reality of our country.

Some of us acknowledge the variety of influences that compose this very unique nation; others pretend there is but one good America, it wholly agrees with them, and it is probably republican.

We are a remarkably vast and varied country. Only the Sioux, Navajo, Cherokee, and other native tribes can honestly claim to be more American than the rest of us. And the nature of their claim has more to do with a geographical heritage than ownership of a cultural ideal.

To those other Americans who still believe they are more real than anyone else in this country, I join Jon Stewart in saying “Fuck all y’all.”