Posts from June 2005

• copy_of_josh_rouse_nashville_01_its_the_nighttime.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
  (tags: fred’spodcast music)
• Gotham Gal: Gazpacho
  (tags: gothamgal recipes)

I blogged my feelings about this case in early April.

The bottom line is that the Supreme Court has decided that companies that make technology should be liable if people use the technology to do bad things.

It’s a terrible decision, a really bad precedent, and I guess it means more innovation will happen outside the US going forward and less will happen here.

Because you can’t stop technology and its a flat world.

My friend Cliff turned us onto a bunch of new music last week.

My favorite so far of his recommendations is Josh Rouse.

He’s a singer songwriter working out of Nashville but he’s got a very midwest sound.

Josh Rouse has got a new record out called, suprisingly, Nashville.

It’s been in heavy rotation for the past week and so I am going to make the first song on the record, called It’s The Nightime, my MP3 of the Week.

I hope you like it.

I read a great article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about KCRW’s programming director Nic Harcourt who is also the host of possibly the best radio show going, Morning Becomes Eclectic.

The article called Nic "The Star Maker of the Semipopular".

That’s what I want to be – semipopular.

My mom always told me "everything in moderation".  That’s a good rule to live life by.

I think being too popular isn’t a good thing.  You often crash and burn that way.

Obviously being unpopular isn’t a great way to go about living life either.

But semipopular, that’s a great place to be.

So I would be happy to be taken off all these nutty lists.  I don’t want to be a star.  I want to be semipopular.

I’ve noticed a few lists out there trying to determine who the "movers and shakers" are in the blog world.

There’s blogebrity.

And now Always On and Technorati have published the Open Media 100 .

To paraphrase from the famous Treasure of Sierra Madre line, we don’t need no lists and I don’t want to be on any stinking lists!

Open Media?  Then let’s make it open. Let’s keep the desire to rank and create clubs in check guys.

And in any case, the technology will let us discover what and who to read better than any blog or media company will.

And if everybody is directed to read the "A list" bloggers, we’ll miss all the best stuff which is being blogged by people who get maybe 100 to 1000 readers.

That’s what I love about blogging.  Everyone has a printing press and I can read whomever I want.

Please don’t ruin it with old media crap like lists.

The sixth Positively 10th Street show is up.

This one is different because the kids aren’t on it.

That’s right, our kids left for camp today.

And they did that without doing one final podcast.

Actually, we were supposed to do this podcast last night as a final
family project before our 2 month separation.

But in the craziness that precedes their departure for camp, we forgot
to do the podcast.

So the Gotham Gal and I did this one solo. Which is the format for
the next 7 weeks.
But the kids did leave their song choices with us on the way to the camp bus, so they are on it in spirit.

Here’s a picture of our podcasting studio in Long Island.

On this show, we talked about putting the kids on the bus, what we are going to do in
all of our spare time, lazy summer afternoons, and lots more.

Song List:

Jessica’s Song – Trouble Sleeping – The Perishers

Josh’s Song – Black Dog – Led Zeppelin

Fred’s Song – The Beach – Jonathan Richman

Emily’s Song – The Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams

Joanne’s Song – Sunny Afternoon – The Kinks

The Positively 10th Street RSS Feed

It’s time I came clean about my 50 favorite albums. 

Yes, these are my 50 favorite albums, but I have penalized certain artists who have produced a bunch of great records and aren’t really properly represented in my top 50.  That list would include The Stones, Dylan, Bob Marley, Wilco, David Bowie, Neil Young, The Replacements, and U2 for sure and probably a few more.

When I put the "short list" together I started with artists and then started listing records.  Every week I browse through that list for the pick of the week.  It’s a really fun exercise and I recommend it highly for anyone who loves music.

But the result is that certain artists get penalized when its hard to pick one record over another.

No artist fits that bill better than this week’s choice.

I do not think any artist has ever put together a string of amazing records to compare to what Steely Dan did in the five years from 1972 to 1977.

Can’t Buy A Thrill – Nov 1972
Countdown To Ecstasy – July 1973
Pretzel Logic – March 1974
Katy Lied – April 1975
The Royal Scam – May 1976
Aja – Sept 1977

When I was in college and lived in The Lounge, we had a rule:

"When you don’t know what to play, just play Steely Dan."

That worked pretty well.

And it never mattered which of these six records we played.  They are all that good.

But I have to pick one and its going to be Katy Lied.

I tend to lean toward Katy Lied a tad more than the others.

Every song on this record is exceptional.

And that is an amazing accomplishment considering that it was the fourth of six records produced in five years.

If you have never listened to Steely Dan, a distinct possibility for those of you who were born after 1970, then I highly recommend going to Amazon and buying this record.  You won’t regret it.

• WSJ.com – Threatening eBay’s Dominance, More Online Sellers Go It Alone
  (tags: ebay search ecommerce)

I’ve been taking a few days off to spend with my family before my kids leave for a couple months of summer camp, which explains the light posting this week.

Reading books is something I don’t do enough of and generally don’t do at all unless I have time off.

This week I am reading a book suggested to my by my friend Jerry.  It’s called "What The Dormouse Said" and it was written by John Markoff, the technology columnist for the New York Times.

The book is a walk back in time to the late 50s and early 60s when a bunch of engineers started developing the technologies that ultimately led to the personal computer.  But its also about the cultural revolution of the 60s and how it impacted these engineers and drove them to build computers that were extensions of themselves.  It’s a fascinating story and I recommend it to anyone involved in the technology business today.