Interesting Juxtapositions

The following is a video of George Stephanopoulos interviewing Vice President Biden on This Week on ABC. At first, by the tone of the interview you’d think that George is going to call the administration out on their “misread” of the economy. Not until he brings up Paul Krugman, who is pretty much a socialist, do we realize that he thinks the administration has not gone far enough. Krugman wants another stimulus package and it seems that Stephanopoulos might want one as well, the VP was very ambiguous not for or against another round of stimuli and even seemed a bit reluctant to say just how much money we’ve actually spent.

And here is President Obama saying “there’s nothing we would’ve done differently.”

Yes, sir, that is exactly what we’re saying.

This video is an ad angry with President Bush’s deficits. Don’t get me wrong, he spent way too much, but this is slightly humorous in hindsight, considering how much the current administration has spent.

And this video should put everything into perspective. Thanks to Political Math for this one.

More Serling For The 4th

The Fourth of July is not only marked as the birthday of the United States, but it is also a day that (provided you have cable television) you can watch the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel. The man behind the show, Rod Serling, is one of the most influential television figures, one of the best writers, visionaries and voices of the 20th century.

Here is a two part interview from 1970, conducted by Kansas professor James Gunn. Enjoy! Feel free to comment.

Part 1

Part 2

Tales of Tomorrow Introduction

“Political Bickering” Is Not The Problem

There are many left leaning politicians out there, most notably President Obama, that want to see the partisan bickering stop. What does that actually mean? It means be quiet and just let us do whatever we want.

It is completely false to think that that “partisan bickering” is to blame for the many ailments in Washington and politics in general. I actually favor partisanship when it comes to our politicians, it allows for healthy debate and a place where a plethora of ideas can be presented, rather than just one.

They play this card because they need to turn debate into what they call “bickering.” It should be called healthy debate, because its not like they are choosing a color to paint the walls, they are making life changing decisions. Butting heads in politics is a good thing, it would be far worse for a politician to do nothing, because that is not what the people elect politicians to do. What reason would I have to vote if every candidate, afraid to step on the others sides toes, did nothing and gave in to the powerful party in Washington. Would there even be a powerful “party” in Washington? No, and this reasoning makes no sense. Its an emotions game.

We need to look at this as a diversion. Its one of the last plays that the President and his congressional friends have to offer. This is no different than when they tried to make the Republican party look to be what they called “the party of no.” When that is the furthest thing from the truth. As I said when President Obama won the election, when he does something good he deserves credit. But when he bows down to Nancy Pelosi and congressional leftists, essentially handing over the reins to this sled known as The United States, that scares me. And that is something that has happened far too much in the first five months of his presidency and that is what leads to a lack of compromise on the Republicans part. Its so far left that if the Republicans were to give in, even a little bit, they are still very left of center. So what good does compromise do for the Republicans if the only two options are very left and pretty close to very left, not even close to the center.

As I said earlier, this is an emotions game, they point to one thing as they do another, in hopes of making the people feel bad about it. The Democrats know that with an election in 2010 they must take every chance they can get to continually make it look like Republicans are to blame for everything. And this is how they do it. Blaming lack of progress on the Republicans, whether they call them “the party of no” or blame “bickering” on them, Republicans get blamed. But again it can only be blamed on the extremely left leaning ideas presented.

What may look like a lot of fast work and a good effort trying to get stuff done on the part of the President, turns into what can only be looked at as a get it done while we can approach. I think that he doesn’t think the Democrats will gain seats in the 2010 elections. Which on my part is a fair assessment, considering how the proverbial political pendulum works. But I also have think he wants, even more, to see these far left wing ideas passed before he looses that power. So putting blame on the Republicans turns into something that doesn’t guarantee anything, and is rooted in a hope that some people will fall for this trick. A hope that only he can believe in.

Liberty Isn’t A Four Letter Word

Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Sheehan, and Kevin Spacey. That is a list of celebrities and activists that have recently (within the last couple of years) visited with the totalitarian leftist known as Hugo Chavez. The man that rails on oil tycoons, yet rules one of the most oil rich countries in the world, effectively controlling its oil. Maybe I’m wrong but it kind of seems like he plays both the tycoon and president in this instance.

Not only are we now seeing protests in Iran, now we are seeing smaller protests in Venezuela. This, because the Chavez regime plans to shut down a television station critical of his presidency.

Filled with one common desire, a hatred for former President George W. Bush, Penn and Chavez seemingly became fast buddies two years ago, as they made their way through the Venezuelan country side. Chavez, who pals around with the oh so wonderful Fidel Castro, refused to renew the license of Radio Caracas Television in 2007 because they were anti-Chavez. Now he plans to the same to the station Globovision by using regulatory measures. Please read that again people, regulatory measures. That is why I despise Sean Penn and his ilk, because they go to these totalitarian countries that have leaders (AKA dictators) that can’t even take a little criticism from their own media.

Regulatory measures, sounds a bit like the fairness doctrine now doesn’t it. Yet these progressives in our country claim that all of our ills can be blamed on one thing, a lack of regulation. In the name of “fairness” we will silence those with whom we disagree. In an age where information is constantly flowing we need fairness? I don’t think so. This is a power struggle people, if they are not trying to take over the media, they are taking over companies. The government now has a 60 percent stake in GM and has taken 30 billion of your tax dollars and injected it into GM to get it on its feet again, you now own GM and you didn’t even ask for it. Chavez jokes “Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right.”

Now they plan to do the same thing with your “health care,” or what really should be called health insurance, and take more of your money via cap and trade in the name of saving the planet from climate change. Again this is a power struggle, and Washington is not just sticking its fingers into the private sector, its grabbing the private sector by the neck and choking it to death, and you will foot the medical bills for the poor thing.

First take health insurance. The free market is based on competition, what do you think will happen when the government is offering the American people at an unrealistically low and uncompetitive price? People will undoubtedly flock to the cheaper option, forcing the private health insurance providers to raise their price just to stay alive, essentially pushing them out of business. And the old adage you get what you pay for strongly comes into play here. Quality anything is not cheap.

Now to cap and trade. Please tell me who pays for taxes that are enforced on companies? The consumer. The consumer has always and will always pay for any tax or regulatory measure imposed on a private company. That rule applies to this new 1,000 plus page bill that Nancy Pelosi wants passage on. You must understand this. If companies are going to be penalized and have to pay for the carbon that they emit into the air, you, the consumer, will end up paying for that penalty. Even Warren Buffet understands this. And is this a good thing to be doing to the American people when they can hardly pay the bills right now? No.

As for Sean Penn and people like him, they are supposed to be the ones fighting imperialism here. They are supposed to be the ones on the side of what, liberty? Why don’t you ask today’s Venezuelan protestors if they have liberty. Penn, you were wrong about Chavez. You did a good job narrating Dog Town and Z Boys and you are a fairly good actor, but you have a screw loose, and I don‘t feel like writing about you any more, you’re not worth my time.

In no way am I saying that President Obama is the next Hugo Chavez. While Chaves’ Venezuela is not a mirror image of today’s America, its too close for comfort.

Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen

Yesterday afternoon I bought some tickets for a midnight showing of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. It took about three hours to get everyone situated to go into the theatre. We actually sat down at about 10:45 and we sat for the next hour and fifteen minutes waiting. We stared at the screen, watching the monotonous slides with trivia questions on them, with the occasional interruption of a popcorn and soda ad. So that got old pretty fast. The two young girls that were sitting next to me decided to leave their nerd/stoner friends about fifteen minutes after I sat down. After wondering why these fairly attractive young ladies were with these quite geeky guys, I received an answer to my question, when they returned to their seats wearing Transformers shirts and boxer shorts. Finally after an hour of slowly drinking a Dr. Pepper, sitting with my friends to my right and the girls with their nerd/stoner guys to my left, the real previews started.

Generally I am excited to see the real previews, but this time they were awful. I was not that enthused by the next installment of the Harry Potter series, though the girls next to me sure didn’t mind showing their admiration for Harry. They had a preview for some M. Knight Shyamalan movie that looked as though it was based on an anime cartoon. And after The Happening I don’t think I can trust this guy to make a decent movie. Other previews included some new alien movie and G.I. Joe, which looks to be about the same or worse than Spiderman 2, and that is bad in my book!

Now to the movie, I will try to make this really vague so it doesn’t give away any of the details. First, it’s a long movie, remember that Dr. Pepper I talked about earlier, don’t drink one before you see this movie, I did, its not fun. Next, its rated PG-13 and its even pushing the limits there, if your kids are not 13 don’t bring them to the movie, see it first and judge for yourself, but its rated that way for a reason.

The plot of the movie is basic and it works fine, it’s the plausibility factor that ruins part of the movie for me. Just taking into consideration the enormous amount of money that it must take reconstruct what these transformers destroy is mind boggling. I know its just a movie, but it starts to be a little bit much. Tucson can’t even rebuild a downtown that already exists in a 10 year time frame, the enormous amount of damage done to these cities must ruin their economies and take decades to repair.

The action is probably the strongest part of the movie. Its great fun to watch them transform and the battle scenes are pretty amazing. The battles that take place in wide open deserts and forests are much better than the ones that take place in cities, it’s a bit easier to believe.

As far as humor goes, it’s a bit racy for a PG-13 movie. There is a lot more cussing and sexual innuendoes in this movie compared to the first Transformers. Scenes that got the most laughs were generally either sexual in nature or awkward for Sam. There is also drug consumption that ends up not being that big of a deal and what they call “sci-fi violence” what I call Transformers fighting, again not a really big deal. At times Meagan Fox, who plays Sam’s girlfriend Mikaela, is wearing some pretty skimpy clothing and is not afraid to flaunt it. The other girl at college try’s to force herself on Sam and she too is at times scantly dressed. I am not entirely bothered by a lot of this stuff, but I’ve heard many parents complaining that it goes a little bit too far, so I am giving you fair warning, this is more racy than the first movie.

The political angle is interesting. You might remember that they poked fun at former President Bush in the first movie. This time around they don’t really overtly make fun of President Obama, but they do poke fun at his foreign policy approach. They send in a Washington bureaucrat to “oversee” the operations that the transformers are involved in. It finally comes out that the government does not want to work with the transformers, fearing that their presence has brought wrath form the Decepticons to the country. Then he goes on to say that they might be willing to negotiate with the Decepticons, hmmm, seems a little similar to real life now doesn‘t it. I’m surprised he didn’t ask Optimus Prime to address him by his tile, whatever that might be.

The ethical angle is interesting as well. The transformers chastise humans because they wage wars. Yet throughout the whole film you get to see what amounts to be an extremely long and damaging war between good and evil transformers. It seems a bit hypocritical of the transformers to chasten humans for their capacity to wage wars yet they are fighting in a war that hardly ever ceases.

All-in-all, its alright. I wouldn’t buy the movie and I wouldn’t see it again. It was definitely better than those Spiderman movies that I mentioned earlier, but it doesn’t hold a candle to last summers The Dark Knight. If you are over the age of 13 and/or not easily offended go see the movie for yourself and find out. If you don’t like anything that pushes the line a bit then don’t go see the movie, wait until you can fast-forward.

Morality Shmorality: Moral equivalency and its dangerous consequences

It amazes me that there are people that are afraid to make moral judgments, and for that they claim moral superiority over those who do. Allow me to show you how these people think, take Al Qaeda and The United States, lets stand back for a second and look at these two entities, but we must refrain from making any moral judgments about them. Lets point out something obvious and go from there, the United States kills people, as does Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

See, we’re both using the same tactics, we’re killing people! Often times that is as far as the argument goes with those that have this irrational fear of making moral judgments. It stems from another irrational fear, the fear to take a side. And that fear stems from the desire to live in a perfect world. A desire labored for in vain. They mistakenly make this assumption that peace and war are different positions on the political spectrum, when they are not, they are states of being. They also make the assumption that we are to blame because we’ve “offended” the enemy. First, you can be at war and you can be in a time of peace. You can be in favor of peace, as all should be, but you cannot have desire for peace and have it exist if it does not, because its existence is vastly out of your control. Secondly, just because you cower in the corner offending no one does not mean that you are at peace, and it surely does not mean that the enemy won’t kill you, that type of “peace” if it is a type, is artificial.

You’d be hard pressed to find moral humans that are actually in favor of war or like war, but you can find a lot of moral people that don’t mind a bit the needed action of killing a killer or the needed action of freeing a people from an oppressor.

This problem comes from what I call a perspective deprived world and a world that desires easy moral decisions rather than difficult ones. It is very easy to say that something is bad, but it is incredibly hard to say that something that looks bad might not be bad, but in fact it might be good. The easy road can work for a while, but at some point as you lackadaisically make your way down the “easy” road you become complacent with its easiness, you become weak and defenseless, and you will find yourself at the end of an oppressors boot heel and eventually dead.

Lets apply this idea to the original argument against war, which essentially boils down to the idea that because people die it must be bad, and because the United States is doing the killing they too must be bad. Allow me to shed light on the issue. Who is the US killing? They are killing the enemy, an enemy that seeks to kill and destroy innocent lives. But the US is killing innocents, are they not just as guilty as the terrorists? No, why should they be, the United States is not aiming to kill civilians, they don’t want it to happen. But just because you don’t want something to happen doesn’t justify it happening? Yes, in fact it does, the death of innocents is to be blamed on the terrorist and not the one trying save the innocent ones form these terrorists. Conversely, just because you want something to happen does not at all mean that it will happen.

Take for example a man held at gunpoint while driving a car. You must assume that this man has no way of fighting back, no way of removing himself from the situation. The maniacal man holding the driver at gunpoint has a bomb laden building down the street filled with 200 hostages just waiting to be detonated. The man with the gun wants the driver to deliver some drugs. If the man does not drive through a crosswalk filled with people, essentially running them over and killing them, the man will blow up the building. What, then, should this man do? A. Run over the people killing 10 or 15 people? B. Refuse to drive through the crosswalk, because its “morally” wrong, essentially letting the 200 perish? It seems only right that the man should choose A, run over the 15 and save the 200. Is the man driving then to blame for the death of the 15? He cannot be blamed because the only reason he is in that situation is because of the hostage taker.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Gray Champion” an oppressed New England is at the brink of a small war. “James II, the bigoted successor of Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion.” That soldier was Sir Edmund Andros, Sir Edmund and his men begin marching on a crowd of civilians, who are undoubtedly overpowered by the Red Coats. Cry’s for a “champion” come from the crowd as the people are looking for a way out of the situation. Then an old venerable man comes from the crowd, fearlessly walks up to Sir Edmunds army and speaks with them in a voice that beacons listeners. He brings news of James II soon to be demise. His words rally the crowd and start a fire underneath them, his voice “stirred their souls” and helped them confront the soldiers, “ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons.” Needless to say Sir Edmund does the smart thing and backs down, for reasons unknown.

Where is our gray champion? I wish he would come and save us. It is not the Red Coats or people of the like that we face, it is not even the terrorists that are our worst enemy. We are our own worst enemy, our desire to appease and to please those who wish to kill us will weaken us, as well as our desire to wish peace into existence. Imagine if the Gray Champion in all his glory had gone up to Sir Edmund and said “I wish we didn’t have to fight” or “no offense but can‘t we work this out?” Sir Edmund would’ve trampled over the champion and the people would have been complacent and had no desire to overthrow Sir Edmund.

In C.S. Lewis’ “Why I Am Not A Pacifist” he says “all we have to fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active duty.” He then goes on to list everything that is to be feared from a soldier. Later he says that “…pacifism threatens you with almost nothing.” He goes on to say that he cannot be pacifist because he suspects that his wishes had directed his decision. That is a very good reason why the plight of the pacifist or the modern person that refuses to make a decision about moral questions, for fear that one might offend, actually lacks morality, because it is in fact based on artificial or contrived morality. And it all stems from their “wishes” or their desire for something to be, therefore, if I desire it, it must be, when that reasoning is completely false and baseless.

If one wishes for the sun to stop shining at noon it will not happen, one must pick himself up and go indoors to escape its burn. We have to act, if feelings are hurt in the process we must regard that as a small casualty. It would be far worse to have no feelings hurt with large human casualties, while we all sit helpless at the hands of a maniacal dictator as he keeps the “peace.” Surely, if the same liberty seeking spirit that existed in hearts of the revolutionaries, in the abolitionists and slaves, and in the men that stormed the beaches of Normandy exists today, I fear not, despots will be overturned. But if that spirit is dying, or close to dead, I fear, not for myself or the others like me, but for those who killed it. Freedom is a large responsibility, and if you freely abdicate your liberty and allow for evil to triumph, all out of fear, a fear that you might offend, you might as well just count yourselves as dead subjects.

Standby Red 5: Yearning For Recovery

Standby Red 5 is a band that summons the deepest feelings of the listener and allows for cognitive thoughts to flow clearly through the mind of the listener. The lack of lyrics and vocals is a plus because it allows the listener to play the part of the writer and the character in the song, in short, it draws you in.

Music is an incredible and unique apparatus. It starts with a performer and the yearning to communicate with the outside world. In many cases it is a group of performers communicating as one. The performer takes on the seemingly effortless, yet daunting task of bringing two parts of the body together to produce one product. What is more, if in a band, the performer joins his band mates and plays along with the music, in one accord. Standby Red 5 is a band of performers and a grand example of what music is supposed to be.

Alternative and indie music has come a long way. Though it was always innovative even when it looked simple and it was always intelligent even when it looked irrational, it, like all artistic realms has moved on, grown up and is now more of an adult. A lot of the youthful elitism that once existed, that may still linger with the old-timers of the punk, metal and indie scenes is disappearing with the rise of, ironically, new innovators and the younger artists. Walls that were put up are now being torn down by bands that approach music from the same angle as Standby Red 5. Standby exemplifies the progress made in the alternative music realm, as they experiment and pull from many areas of the alt-rock world and other areas of music in general, to put together what is good. There is no sense that Standby desires to make the listener cringe at the sound of the music, but there is also no lack of what one might call infectious edginess and finesse. The former is a desire that need not always exist within the alternative music realm in order to make the music set apart. Contrary to what some might believe beauty is not archaic.

The journey that is Standby Red 5’s new album “Yearning for Recovery” begins with a short and punchy introduction “Champion of the Deep.” You then travel to the catchy more pop based “Our Sinking Legacy,” a song that makes good use of the delay effect on the guitars and has a simple yet infectious drum beat, all in all this song will make you happy. The next stop is the ominous tale of triumph that is “Our Journey By Water” and “The Great Contention of Sea and Sky” two songs that when played back to back make a good team. “Our Journey By Water” starts off with ominous tones, but leads you to a place that eventually overcomes, sending you into the next song, which is arguably the heaviest part of the album musically. These two make for a good listen on a stormy night, because they pack the power of lightening and thunder while creating an atmosphere that pleases the ear.

“He Had The Faith” and “Noble Tealock” are catchy songs that showcase the bands good use of effects and diverse instrumentation. “A Riddle and Its Answer” begs for a little movement on the part of the listener, either clapping of the hands or stomping of the feet. The song wants you involved. At the end of the journey we find ourselves at “Iron Vessels” and “Hold Loosely…Love Strongly,” two songs that really let you know that Standby Red 5 does not believe in limiting themselves. Both songs bring an eclectic combination of instruments whether its the violin, the electric guitar and the xylophone, all while maintaining their sound, which makes for a good conclusion to this album.

All in all this is a good  solid album, coming from a good solid band. “Yearning For Recovery” does a great job of combining more pop oriented songs and heavier driving songs. The band is as musically tight live as they are on the album, but their live act is far from a mere copy of what is heard on the album, live it is even better. “Yearning For Recovery” leaves you yearning to listen to the album a second time, so that you may once again feel that desire to move, that moment of triumph or just allow your mind to be engulfed by the music, creating for you a world where your thoughts can run wild and your ear is thoroughly pleased.

Standby Red 5 MySpace

IRM: Dave Mason Interview

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If there was one guy I’d ask about the current state of radio, internet radio and the technology that effects them both, it would be Dave Mason, so that’s exactly what I did.

Dave Mason is an 18 year veteran of talk radio and the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show “Computer Talk with Dave Mason” heard Saturday’s from 1-3pm EST. Whether you have a question or just want to find out what is worth knowing in the tech world, Dr. Dave is your man.

IRM: There is a slight argument as to why radio is floundering and it comes down to technology vs. deregulation. Last week I wrote an article discrediting the idea that the fall of radio must be attributed to the deregulation that we saw during the 80’s and 90’s. I think that with the rise of the internet technology poses more of a threat to terrestrial radio than deregulation. What do you think?

DM: First, there was no deregulation. There was big change in regulation, but not deregulation. It’s important to understand that. But I’ll call it that so everybody knows what I’m talking about. There’s also a misunderstanding of deregulation that doesn’t take in to account poor decisions made by executives post deregulation. The deregulation of the end of the 20th century allowed the wrongheaded consolidation that killed quality local radio. That doesn’t mean deregulation was wrong. The national media conglomerates were wrong. Check their stock prices for the last few years. But the wrong-headedness of bureaucrat’s is often far worse. In fact it could be argued that the pent up demand artificially created by prior stiff over-regulation, lead to over-valued stations whose owners couldn’t turn down offers made by the national media companies. But the cookie-cutter strategy didn’t work and the stations weren’t strong enough to endure the “McDonalds-ization” of radio.

IRM: What other threats do you think terrestrial radio faces?

DM: Primarily the complete commoditization of inventory, and the lack of exciting local content. There is NO attention paid to nurturing talent and personalities, so we have no radio that anyone wants to hear, outside of the top 5 or 10 national hosts and a handful of large market local hosts. You cannot generate the kind of listener numbers you need by putting the oregano oil guys on all the time. Yes, the station gets a check but you drive one more nail in the coffin at the same time. People tune out and stay tuned out.

Of course the economic environment right now is deadly. Many will not survive this downturn.

There is another major negative factor that dampens excitement about radio is the cool factor. Radio doesn’t have it any more. All the stats about the effectiveness of radio can’t undo that. I don’t know if it will ever come back.

We live in the time of decentralization. Smaller station groups and smaller stations. The management that is good at VERY lean organizations with highly targeted listeners that they can identify and appeal to will be successful. Look at the fragmentation/specialization of cable TV networks. Similar dynamic in radio.

IRM: We’ve talked in private about poor radio station management, what can terrestrial radio station managers do to better radio in the 21st century?

DM: I don’t know if there is a long term answer. The best management I’ve seen by far is Good News Communication’s management (Dave Masons flagship station). From maximizing signal, to efficient, high integrity personnel, quality content and community involvement that matters, Clear Channel could learn a thing or 2 from those folks. The panic of dwindling revenue makes you do stupid things sometimes, and you have to get paid, but we quite often sabotage our best interest for the short term buck. Good News management seems to make the most rational decisions in the upside down “looking glass” world of radio today.

So what is management to do? We have the convergence of the negative response to the change in regulation in the late ’80’s, the complete lack of a farm system to develop talent and content, and the introduction of alternative distribution models, primarily the Internet. Super lean organizations, accurate audience identification, pertinent exciting content, highly effective marketing and promotion ability and effectively leveraging Internet presence are all required by Radio today.

Radio will be more polarized in content, with a few big national hosts, and a few effective local hosts. The stations that have more targeted compelling content that listeners want to hear and advertisers want to support, along with a serious Internet presence will survive.

IRM: Where do you see terrestrial radio in 10 years?

DM: Satellite is on it’s heels so I don’t think they are a major long term threat. The Internet is a big problem for radio, but can be utilized by savvy stations to add to their reach and appeal. Helps get back some of the cool factor. But it must be integrated with the radio portion rather than as an afterthought. The Internet will be the distribution model. AM/FM will be all but gone.

IRM: Do you feel like its not a matter of if terrestrial radio will die but when?

DM: Radio will die eventually, but will take years. Until then it will change dramatically. Weak shows, stations and networks will evaporate. FM will move more to talk as music continues to shrink. But radio will exist for the time being. Cellular and satellite Internet access in cars will eventually become the distribution model of choice. When that occurs, the stations and networks who have not produced an effective on-line presence will die.

IRM: Lets talk taxes. How do you feel about the governments desire to put a new tax on radio?

New taxes will kill an already weak industry. I’ve never understood the reflex of the Government types at all levels to tax what is marginal already. Comprehensive economic ignorance is the only explanation.

IRM: Talk radio is not only on AM radio these days, a lot of talk radio is moving to the FM side of the dial. Do you think talk radio will eventually move over to the FM side of the dial? If so do you think music on FM will be slowly faded out?

DM: Yes, and yes. Then on to the Internet…

IRM: Lets move on to Internet radio. Where do you see Internet radio in 10 years?

DM: Internet radio will be THE distribution model. Cellular and satellite broadcast of the Internet to computers in the car. AM/FM radios and even CD’s will go the way of the 8 track and cassette.

IRM: This is a question that is on everybody’s mind. How long will it be before we start seeing live internet radio in our cars?

DM: As mentioned in my prior answer, it’s on the way. In fact Ford is doing it now. It’s not mainstream yet because reliable, universal geographical access is not available. Give it 5 years for access and another 5 for content availability to work itself out.

IRM: You are a talk radio host, do you feel threatened by the large volume of pod casts and live web casts that are available these days?

DM: No, we are doing it. It’s a no brainer. It’s difficult to stand out in the crowd though. That’s new territory that we are all trying to get our heads around. But a host has no choice.

IRM: Pandora and Last FM, do you like/use these? How and why?
Love them personally, but haven’t seen a way to have them significantly contribute to our business model, other than giving listeners an easy way to hear our incredible bumps…

IRM: Whether you are doing a web talk show or a show on terrestrial radio advertising is a must. One issue I brought up in my article last week was the shrinking attention span of people in the 21st century. Hulu can get away with 15 second spots. Do you ever think that 60 and 30 second spots will become a thing of the past?

DM: It depends on what you’re trying to do. Video lends itself to shorter spots. I think both :30’s and :60’s will continue to be available, because of the lack of effectiveness of :15’s for some advertisers. Remember several years ago micro spots of 5 or 10 seconds were tried, but failed. You have to get the listeners attention, then tell your story. Hard to do in less that :30 seconds for many products.

I think you will have polarization in spot length. Long form spots will become more popular, as will :15’s and even :10’s.

IRM: For anyone that uses the web to distribute information social networking is a must. As a talk radio host what’s your opinion on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace? Do you use them? How and why?

DM: The Internet is still in it’s infancy, and consequently effective business use of the technology is lagging. Add the faddish nature of many of the popular services and it’s clear it has a long way to go. Clearly certain technologies, particularly the social media services can be used to good effect in business, but the details of how to do that most effectively are yet to be fully understood. Even the most successful social media companies themselves are having a hard time figuring out to monetize the millions of members they reach.

I believe you utilize the most popular social media outlets carefully. Overt commercial appeals only isolate you. Genuine personal interaction works. Understand that it is mostly a fad with questionable demographics, but great potential. It can be used to position yourself for the shakeout, so you’ll be experienced and ready to take advantage when we finally get an idea how things are going to go.

It’s easy to be distracted by all the opportunities. Choose carefully and be consistent, and personal. We’ll know more in a couple of years…

Death In The 21st Century

When I was in high school I had the unfortunate experience of having some of my fellow students die. They were not my friends but I did have a couple of classes with them. It was strange going to class the next day and knowing that they were gone forever.

The death of a young person in the 21st century is different than has been in previous years. It used to be that when someone died they were gone and there was not much left of them. You might find a personal diary or something of that sort, but that didn’t make it out into the publics hands.

Today things are quite different. With the advent of social networking sites like Twitter and FaceBook, you have status updates in which people are constantly telling others what they’re doing. “I’m going to the store” or “I’m cooking dinner.” These are just a few examples of something that someone might update about.

Then you have the aspect of a user laying everything out on the table. Their favorite music, their favorite movies, things they like to do, people they really like, people they admire and a whole host of other things that indicate that these people really are human.

All of these aspects of the social networking arena are great! But here is the interesting area that I am exploring. What happens when one of your FaceBook friends or Twitter buddies dies? Everyone that knew this person is left with a full profile of a someone that no longer exists, a self written obituary and a perfect picture of who this person really was. A page filled with memories, hundreds of pictures and conversations all documented for the whole world or at least his or her friends to see.

No longer is the mom or dad of a dead young person left with a diary or two that they can privately skim through solely for the memories, now everyone has one.

Another aspect that interests me is the usage of social media in court. What if someone’s status indicates that they are going to the store to pick up some eggs, but they don’t make it back from the store. If no one knew where this person was headed in the first place and they are found miles away in a dumpster, maybe this could assist in putting a person in the right place at the right time and lead to prosecution of a perspective criminal.

Its just interesting to me that people have the desire to constantly tell other people what they are thinking. I do this just as much as the next person, but it perplexes me. Why?  Why do I have this desire? Does anyone really care? Why do I check my FaceBook first when I get online? Why do I want everyone to know that I like Bob Dylan? All of these questions interest me.

Its not because I want to meet people that I agree with, because I don’t agree with a lot of my online friends. I will admit that it can help in finding women, but in a not so creepy way. It does connect me with people that I don’t consider my best friends and it connects me with people all over the world. I can use it to tell people about my newest article or blog post, as I did when I posted this one. And it allows for you interact or engage others on their time rather than your time, while at the same time granting you the same privilege when someone interacts with or engages you.

This way of communicating is interesting. But of all the things, the idea that we are all constantly writing our own obituaries is quite interesting.

Tech vs. Deregulation, Why Is Radio Dying?

If you work in radio, read anything about radio, or if you are one of the few people who still listens to the radio, you probably know the future of radio is unclear. There are many arguments as to why the radio industry is failing. Many attribute it to the “deregulation”, which started in the 80’s and continued in the 90’s. Others, like myself, tend to blame new technology; and there are some who blame both.

I would actually side with the theory that deregulation is to blame for the current state of the radio industry, if not for one little issue: it’s happening in every medium. It’s not just radio that has been wobbled by the rise of technology. The internet and computers have changed everything for every medium and that has allowed for more freedom than ever before. Radio, the recording industry, record distributors, software distributors, the book industry and their distributors, newspapers and even television are feeling it.

As the popularity of blogs rise, some people get scared because there’s so much freedom when it comes to information distribution, but I tend to feel pretty good about it. These days newspapers lack the clout they once had and no longer are they totally reliable when it comes to lack of bias – much of the news is designed for nothing more than selling advertisements. The fact is that yellow journalism is the norm and bias that in the past was close to nonexistent or fairly well covered up, is prevalent. Am I afraid of that bias? No not really because when all is said and done facts are facts and the reliable sources will be just that, reliable. Any bad and unreliable source will be regarded as unusable and will either fade from existance, go even further into weird land, or try to clean up their act.

The same concept applies when it comes to the recording and record distribution industry. Record execs are scared because any kid can download Audacity (a completely free audio recording program), or buy ProTools and go to work. The internet is key to distributing music and allowing people to listen to music. No longer is having an actual CD important. And no longer is being signed the “be all end all” of being in a band, in some cases it hurts bands and depletes their following if they are signed to a major label. Now, bands tend to create their own label or join a label with other local bands they are associated with. Do It Yourself (DIY) bands have been around for decades, but now the bar has been lowered and the big boys and the little guys are nearly at the same level as far as potential to distribute goes.

The same goes for the radio industry. The emergence of the iPod has changed everything and the music side of radio is hurting. There are many alternatives to radio with sites like Pandora, Last FM and even MySpace, which all allow free access to music. And in what seems like an attempt to kick’em while their down, congress wants to pass new music taxes that would effect both music and talk radio.

While I believe talk radio has more staying power, it too is down for the count. As podcasting becomes prevalent and “on demand” media is the norm, advertising agencies and radio stations are in a tizzy because they don’t know how to respond. No longer is the listener on the station’s time, the listener is calling the shots. And as technology increases and it takes fewer employees to operate a station, voice talent for small cities is being outsourced to larger cities. The disk jockey of the past is old hat. So while I don’t think radio as a whole will die, radio as we know it will definitely be gone.

So what will happen in the future? Advertising agencies will have to find new ways to attack this market. Some already know the answer – take Hulu for example, you get a free television show or movie if you can endure about four 15 second ads per show. 15 seconds is tolerable but the 30 and 60 second spots of the past are slowly becoming obsolete. As attention spans shrink in America and around the world companies must adapt. Technology has changed everything and I am willing to bet that when we finally think we’ve got this thing figured out, technology will rear its head and companies will have to start from square one once again.

Read this and more articles like it plus a whole lot more at Internet Radio Magazine.