First time, last time

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Former TOC associate music editor turned classical music record label fat cat Marc Geelhoed tagged me with this. I think if I don’t respond, a cousin of mine will die of malaria or something…

The rules of the meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

My desk sits next to my bookshelf so finding the nearest book is easy. But when I lean back in my chair, the books nearest me on the shelves* are those by P.J. O’Rourke. And so, from Eat The Rich:

And is there some middle way like the ball-up in Sweden? All the world’s Russia experts (and most of its Russians) are trying to figure these things out. But Russia is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, tied in a hankie, rolled in a blanket, and packed in a box of little Styrofoam peanuts,” said Winston Churchill, or something like that.

Yeah, kinda dated, huh?

And so, I tag ejshea, Tankboy, Wood-Tang, Bridgeport Seasonings, and Tales of a Post-Grad Nothing.

More to come in the next few days: book reviews and the return of the Wood-Tang/OMIC letters.

How will Google Transit help us when the Blue Line breaks again?

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(A quick note: Yeah, yeah. The next 25 in 12 is late. Sorry.)

CTA President Ron Huberman has done a lot of things right since he took control of the agency. With respect to funding, re-organization, and general upkeep and maintenance, he’s made the CTA a better public agency. But over the last week, we saw that systemic problems still exist at the CTA, and that the city’s riders don’t trust that the agency will do what it says it will do: deliver “service that is on time, clean, safe, courteous and efficient.”

We’re all used to being active riders if we want information about schedules and closures. That’s partly why the news that Google Transit would be delivering CTA schedules and maps was so celebrated: At last, a trusted source was able to deliver information we need, quickly and easily. Plus, it was a sign that an antiquated agency was becoming a modern one (along with the CTA’s expanded bus tracker program).

But over the last several years, CTA riders have expected service that is discourteous and inefficient. And so we’ve found ways to work around that, too. So an agency that has consistently expected its riders to fend for themselves shouldn’t be surprised when a group of stranded riders who aren’t being told why their train is shut down, suddenly self-evacuates from the train. Especially when another group of stranded riders are being verbally abused by a conductor.

While the CTA has made strides to improve everyday communication, they have a long way to go when communicating in a crisis. (Or even, as I argue here, after a crisis). Until they learn to do that better, expect riders to keep doing whatever they can to ensure that their CTA experience is “on time, clean, safe, courteous and efficient.”

A post for people who have jobs like mine

Internet, Music

Two online biz topics today and a third at the end that’s just silly to encourage you to keep reading. For those of you who don’t have jobs like mine – or don’t much care for Web nerd talk – come back tomorrow for a new 25 in 12 post that’s been brewing for months.

For the two of you who are still reading, here are two interesting articles from this morning’s MediaBistro Newsfeed:

Mark Glaser at Media Shift thinks paying bloggers by page views is wrong. He lays out some solid arguments as to why, though I’d note that if you’re the editor of a site these days, your job performance is going to be judged, in part, by page views even if there isn’t a direct link from your salary to your PVs. While more people are starting to recognize that the number of returning visitors you have and the time a reader spends on the site is more important, your base hits or views is still going to be a benchmark.

Glaser’s best point is this:

“I believe that a blog with 50,000 loyal, repeat visitors is much more valuable to the publisher, advertisers — everyone on the business side — than a blog that has sensational posts that bring in 100,000 one-time visitors for entertainment snacks who are then gone the next moment.”

Niche topics do really well in the online world, mainly because it’s easier for the writing to find a larger audience than it would in a print publication. I’ve found this to be particularly true at TOC with our Theater coverage. It’s a small audience, but a fiercely loyal one that returns often, and comments frequently.

Also, Wired is unveiling a Web stylebook. With so many people coming onto the Web from other mediums and industries, this is something that’s sorely needed. There’s an ethics and method to the way Web publishing works that flies in the face of what works in print. Oddly enough, a “dead tree” product might be just what the industry needs.

OK, this isn’t related to wonky Web shit at all, but I’m curious: is Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time” secretly good? Forget that it’s by Eddie Murphy for a moment and consider it as a Rick James song. It’s not bad, right?


25 in 12: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju

Comics,


I should have filed six posts by now in my 25 in 12 series, but I’m still a bit behind. Thought not as much as it seems. I finished this book a couple weeks ago for a review I wrote for Time Out Chicago, which you can find here. Since then I’ve been finishing two other books and starting another.

One additional thing I will say about The Ten-Cent Plague that I didn’t have space for in my review is that it ends rather suddenly. I would have preferred that Hadju delve into the history of pop culture in the 1960s and beyond, and how what happened with comics replayed itself over the years. But he had a particular story to tell about the medium’s birth and first near-death, and told it well. Plus, I admire the respect he has for the reader in assuming that the person who picks up the book is wise enough to know how those events unfolded for him or herself.

And finally, this year’s going to feature lots of comic-book-related material in my book selections. There’s clearly no getting around that.

Ace Frehley is back in a old stuck groove

Internet, Music


Speaking of Space Ace, Time Out New York’s classical music writer Steve Smith interviewed former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley last week (check out his blog for some backstory on it). He mentions that Frehley isn’t playing songs from his new album on the tour to prevent leaks on YouTube before its official release date later this month. This seemed insane to me, so I went looking for a direct quote and found one in
this story from Billboard:

“Every show’s on YouTube, every song…I don’t want to play any of the new songs ’cause I don’t want to give away anything. I want that magic and mystique of hearing something for the first time when you’re supposed to, so I don’t think I’m going to play any of (the new songs) until the CD’s released.”

To some extent, I understand what he’s saying: part of what’s exciting about music is hearing it within a specific context, whether it’s in a live club or on an album. And if you’re hearing or seeing it on YouTube, you’re getting a grainy picture with distorted sound that could potentially turn off the audience you’re trying to entice into buying your new record.

But with all due respect to Ace, the time for cultivating mystique has long since passed.


No one’s going to be playing Ace Frehley’s new record on the radio. That’s not a comment on the quality of his work, it’s just a reality of the biz in 2008. Rock radio has been in decline recently, and most classic rock artists – even touring behemoths like Springsteen – have a hard time getting adds.

But that audience is out there. They’ll still go to see these artists in clubs, and are chomping at the bit for new music. Steve’s post alludes to the personal connection that people have with the people who first introduced them to music. But they’re not kids anymore, looking up in awestruck wonder at the man with the makeup. They know the addiction battles, and the difficulties that he’s gone through. In fact, it’s a lack of mystique that inspires his current fandom. That kind of connection inspires a rabid fanbase, and there’s no better place to feed that rabidity than on the Internet.

The best way to beat the bootleggers has been to join them. If Frehley were to post his own YouTube videos (filmed with a decent video camera, not a camera phone) of live performances and the occasional behind-the-scenes clips, people would flock to them, and then buy tickets and the new album in order to have that same “first-time” experience again. And perhaps he ought to look into putting together his own site, so no one has to go searching for news about his latest record or tour. I guarantee that there’s a huge Frehley fan out there who’s just dying to be Space Ace’s webmaster. Probably for free.

In a world of instant nostalgia, rockers like Frehley ought to be trying to bring their audience closer, not keep them at a distance.

Tragic kingdom, indeed

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You know, when dudes do stuff like this, it’s perverted. When Gwen Stefani does it? It’s “building a brand.” But hey, when you’re seemingly incapable of producing a hit song that doesn’t bite from a schoolyard chant or Broadway musical, you take your ideas where you can get them, I guess.

Speaking of her “brand,” her backup singer’s names are also Love, Angel, Music and Baby? I never thought I’d hear stage names that were stupider sounding than The Demon, Starchild, Space Ace and The Catman, but there you go.

Image via Getty.

What I learned at the bar last night

Music

Note: the following is NSFW unless you’re wearing headphones and your work is cool with electro-rock artists who shimmy alongside 50s sitcom stars.

From a purely musical point of view, you can draw a direct line from “Pussy” by Lords of Acid…

Honestly, that’s practically Matthew verse 1 in terms of genealogy.

Edited to add: Is this already common knowledge? It occurred to me that this is so obvious that it might have been postulated long before me and my barfly compatriots arrived at it.