I’m thrilled to announce that my good friend Ethan Winer has just gone live with his latest video and DVD release.
Tele-Vision is an orchestral rock video by Ethan Winer that follows on the heels of his wildly acclaimed, “A Cello Rondo” - a video that has received critical acclaim and has exceeded over half-a-million downloads.
Tele-Vision is dedicated to the electric guitar and features original music written and produced by Ethan. His exciting soundtrack is mixed visually with an array of over 40 different Ethan’s on stage (via green screen technology) performing each of the instruments used in the score, timed exactly to the beat.
And would you like to take a guess at who did all the filming - yes, homeboy - some of you might even recognize some of my CoolTea event wardrobe being repurposed, like the multi-colored jacket, hats, glasses, etc.
This was a great summer filming and working with Ethan on his latest release. At 4:30AM this morning we went live with the CoolTea shopping cart, and by 11AM we had already sold several orders from around the country.
Not only is this a very entertaining DVD, but it is also jam-packed with hours of behind the scenes and making of sections that cover the principles behind audio and video editing on today’s PCs, plus interviews with guest performers like Ed Dzubak, three-time Emmy winning composer, who sat in on drums for this production.
In AlwaysCreative, I argue that property rights as currently advocated in North America are a human tragedy in their current state.
Balancing cultural needs with artists' and inventors' rights has been an ancient issue and one that our Founding Fathers spent a great deal of time in drafting a suitable framework, which as time has moved forth, has been all but lost.
U.S. property rights seem to resonate the greatest with those rooted in greed, stinginess, insecurity, and/or paranoia. Often found hiding behind soulless bureaucracies, these Darwinian life forms continue to advocate tinkering with a system mostly for their own profits while failing to consider the overall culture's needs (e.g., Fair Use, Public Domain).
Why is it the man most responsible for cementing the democratic framework has been so ignored in this department?
Thomas Jefferson realized that a balance between cultural need and artistic need could be solved by offering the artist limited rights for a period of time. The U.S. Constitution states:
Article 1, Section 8 - "The Congress shall have Power…To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries… Amendment I - Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…"
Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights via the United Nations (1948) places cultural needs above artists' rights:
"Article 27 - 1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."
Michael Hart's Project Gutenberg newsletter, March 1997, states:
"Copyright in the US was originally proposed by Jefferson to be 14 years - which was extended to 28 years immediately, then 56 years to defeat the first steam and electric powered printing presses of a century ago, and to 75 years to defeat the Xerox machine. Now they are trying for 95 years to defeat text made available via computer networks."
Hmmm.
I've heard intellectual property experts argue that patents are the highest form of absolute protection under U.S. law; they are above trademarks which are above copyrights. The U.S. Patent Office, created in 1836, legislated in 1790, offers patent recipients only seventeen (17) years of free reign. This is only three more years than originally proposed by the great frameworker, Thomas Jefferson, son of the Republic, for copyrights! What's more is that many patent attorneys will confess most patents don't make money. So why the stranglehold on copyrights - greed hidden behind the soulless!
Consider the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, and The Black Rat's approach to intellectual property rights.
Both bands allow their customers to tape the live concerts and share those tapes with friends and family. During an interview with Charlie Rose, Dave Matthews even went so far as to suggest this sharing strategy was a huge part in their growing popularity. And during another interview, Grateful Dead lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia commented, "My responsibility is to the notes. Once they leave my guitar, they have a life of their own."
Yet, The Brothers Grimm who a century before Walt Disney came on the scene, wrote about folklore and fairytales, many of which became the basis for Disney motion pictures. The reason we have the Sony Bono Copyright Act which extended copyright protection another twenty years on average, is chiefly because the Disney corporation's home turf was in Sony Bono's district when he was serving as a Congressman.
So even though the Disney organization (aka The Black Rat) has enjoyed so many cultural heritages leveraged from the likes of the Grimm Brothers, the Disney position can only be viewed as being about money and greed. Apparently, then Disney Rat Pack CEO called Congressman Bono and said, "We're going to loose Mickey if you don't do something. Under current copyright law, Mickey is about to expire and enter the Public Domain."
So here we are with yet another round of unnecessary copyright extensions that prohibit all of us from truly participating with our contemporary cultural heritage for the balance of our foreseeable lives.
But there is a bright spot and a reason for hope despite the misguided government action and corporate one-sidedness, and that is with the work being championed by the Creative Commons.
Viva the intellectual property rights' rock stars among us!
And here's hoping a new breed of government leaders will emerge in the near future and help course correct back to Jeffersonian wisdom.
This audio interview is approximately 35 minutes in length and an 8.6 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download mp3 file
Some of the Themes Discussed in This Interview with Howard Include:
Why capitalism should be re-invented …
The ethical imperative of saving neighbors …
Institutional growth in the record industry ala Warner Brothers vs CBS …
How to feel great about your work no matter where you are or who you are working for …
The cost of ripping people off and Enron reflections …
Selling commodities versus selling novelties …
Getting to the heart of art, science, and everyday things …
Saving Western Civilization and the miracle fabric of kings …
The protest industry …
And, the truths behind Vision Quest Live that will change your work life forever plus more …
About Howard Bloom Howard Bloom, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, is founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, executive editor of the New Paradigm book series, a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, The International Society of Human Ethology, and the Academy of Political Science. He has been featured in every edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering since the publication’s inception.
Bloom has taken an unusual approach to the study of mass moods and cultural convolutions. He started out normally enough, building his first Boolean algebra machine at the age of twelve, becoming a dedicated microscopist that same year, codesigning a computer which won a Westinghouse Science Award before he left grade school, and being granted a private brainstorming session with the head of the Graduate Physics Department of The State University of New York, Buffalo, at the age of thirteen. By sixteen he was a lab assistant at the world’s largest cancer research center, the Roswell Park Memorial Research Cancer Institute, where he helped plumb the mysteries of the immune system. And before his freshman year of college he designed and executed research in Skinnerian programmed learning at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education.
Then came an act of academic heresy. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from New York University, Bloom turned down four graduate fellowships and embarked on a 20-year-long urban anthropology expedition to penetrate what he calls “society’s myth-making machinery”–the inner sanctums of politics and the media. During his foray into “the dark underbelly of mass emotion” he edited a magazine which won two National Academy of Poets prizes, founded the leading avant-garde art studio on the East Coast, was featured on the cover of Art Direction Magazine, then gave up listening to Beethoven, Bartok, and Mozart to become editor of a rock magazine. Using correlational studies, focus groups, empirical surveys, ethnographic expeditions into suburban teen subcultures, and other scientific techniques, Bloom more than doubled the publication’s sales, and was credited by Rolling Stones’ Chet Flippo with having founded a new genre–the heavy metal magazine. Seeking still further ways to infiltrate modernity’s mass mind, Bloom formed a public relations firm in the music and film industry and won the confidence of those whose territory he’d invaded. The payoff in knowledge proved invaluable.
Bloom worked with Michael Jackson, Prince, John Cougar Mellencamp, Kiss, Queen, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Joan Jett, Diana Ross, Simon & Garfunkel, The Talking Heads, AC/DC, Billy Idol, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run D.M.C., Simply Red, and the heads of many a media conglomerate. He was adept at spotting new subcultures, entering them, and helping their members achieve their goals…a skill which gave him an inside role in the rise of rap, disco, and punk rock.
This audio interview is approximately 33 minutes in length and an 7.6 meg mp3 file.
If you don’t have flash player click here to download mp3 file
Some of the Themes Discussed in this Interview with Birgitte Include:
The global loss of vision and role of artists and poets
The media industry as a cultural force and its current cancerous state
Good money vs bad money and how Wall Street needs to change too
How Michael Angelo never would have made a David if he did media research first and the slippery slope of research metrics for those who lose touch with their art and audiences
Green Washing vs Blue Washing and the real job of media
A call for everybody to be active media consumers and aware
and how content is not king but is queen and perception is king
plus much more …
About Birgitte Rasine Birgitte Rasine, CEO, LUCITÀ Inc. The founder and primary driving force behind LUCITÀ, Birgitte Rasine is a writer, producer, journalist and a tireless thinker and innovator. Deeply committed to positive change in the media industries, she drives and personally oversees all of LUCITÀ’s major inhouse projects and initiatives, such as the recently published report The Colors of Perception and the upcoming Project Tsunami. A passionate speaker on socially conscious media and related topics, she has most recently spoken on a panel on social responsibility in the media at New York’s Stern School of Business, and gave a keynote on the topic at WIN 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland. She has been interviewed by NPR in the U.S., and the Australian national radio.
In line with her diverse media career that spans film production, journalism, publishing, marketing and public relations, Birgitte has worked with civil society, business, government and the scientific community. In her previous career, Birgitte wrote for two of the media industry’s top publications, The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. Her articles have also appeared in Business Week and Diálogo Mediterráneo. Prior to that, Birgitte was a visual effects coordinator, camera assistant, and electrician on Hollywood and independent feature films. She worked for companies such as PDI/Dreamworks, ILM/Universal Studios, HBO, and Disney, and credits them for giving her time in the trenches.
An award-winning poet, Birgitte speaks 5 languages and has lived in 6 countries. She holds a BA in Aesthetics of Film from Stanford University and has completed a professional graduate course in cinematography at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, and a professional masters degree program in International Relations at the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset in Madrid, Spain.
This audio interview is approximately 40 minutes in length and the file is a 8.9 meg mp3 file
If you don’t have flash player click here to download mp3 file
Some of the Themes Discussed in this Interview with David Include:
David’s upcoming book about Herbert Feiss - an economic advisor to the State Dept during the early years of the Cold War who was a first hand witness to policies implemented that explain many of today’s middle east issues and problems we are now dealing with …
David’s book which has been in continuous print since 1972 and biography of Frank Zappa …
What it takes to be a visionary …
Aspects of Teanage Nervous Breakdown, another book authored by David …
Experiences teaching at Williams College and going for grants …
Delivering on the 1960s and how today’s yuppie is the same as the dooper of the 70s …
What it is was like to go to school with guys like W and how their arrogance compels them to surround themselves with medicore yes people …
How the CIA could change the world if they only employed comic gag writers who know how to cut …
And many other tibits re: culture, politics, society and much much more …
About David Walley WalleysWitzEnd.com - David Walley has been a critic, cultural historian and freelance editor for more than 30 years. A graduate of Rutgers University in the late Sixties he began his career as a columnist for Jazz and Pop Magazine which lead to a full-time position at one of the alternative press’s most influential papers, New York City’s East Village Other. During the late Sixties into the early Eighties, his essays, reviews and columns appeared in such magazines as Zygote, Fusion, and Changes. During a two and a half sojourn in Los Angeles, he distinguished himself as the Arts editor of the LA Free Press. His interviews with Iggy Pop and Detroit’s legendary band, the MC5 are considered classics of their type and for their time. During that period he also ghosted books on Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Bobby Darin, a classic despite itself.
In 1972, Walley published the first (and only) American biography of the avant garde musician and social critic Frank Zappa called “No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa” . After numerous reprints and three revisions, it is still in print thirty years later available through DeCapo books. David is known as the father of the contemporary rock and roll biography, and his book was characterized by the Village Voice’s Milo Miles as “one of the earliest rock books and unjustly forgotten”. Obviously it no longer is. Continuing his fascination with American originals, in 1975 he released, “Nothing in Moderation: The Ernie Kovacs Story” a seminal and unique biography of television’s first surrealist comedian who became an iconic and inspirational figure to the original crew from Saturday Night Live, as well as comedians like Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, George Carlin and others. Though subsequently published by two other imprints as “The Ernie Kovacs Phile”, and, much to the author’s dismay because he won’t realize one thin dime, this classic can still be purchased at more discriminating on-line used bookstores. He encourages you to seek it out anyway, it won’t hurt and you’ll laugh. Is that so bad?
Pursuing his various interests American cultural history, in 1998 Walley brought out “Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music and Politics in the Post-Elvis Age” which, having survived hardcover hell is currently available in paperback through Perseus Publishing.
In a series of interconnected essays Walley examines how and why America has become hostage to the corrosive effects of an increasingly celebrity-driven consumerism, itself the result of the cumulative effects of the commercial exploitation of high school peer group dynamics. Animated by a throbbing rock and roll and hip-hop beat, this virulent form of consumerism has given rise to a multinational, adolescent-driven corporate consciousness in which MTV has become the virtual Voice of America wherein all manner of goods from tranquilizers to tanks, from insurance to politics are sold to an unconscious public. It is a book for thinkers on American culture.
One Amazon.com reader described it this way: “If you ever had the sneaking suspicion that you never escaped high school, this book explains why…This is a fascinating, fast-moving series of think pieces without boring the reader to death: Thorsten Veblen meets Camille Paglia, the most subversive book on American culture to be published since Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class.” Recently the book was used as the basis for a Winter Studies course at Williams College called, “Decadent Memories: The Sixties in Theory and Practice”. It took a little while but the students finally got it. He has been a guest lecturer in Sociology at Williams as well.
During the Nineties, Walley’s words and ideas have appeared in Cosmik Debris, an on-line music magazine, and more recently in New Partisan, some of which are archived in columns.
Walley is working on another biography about another American original named Herbert Feis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning economist and diplomatic historian of the Cold War. This story of epic proportions details how a Jewish emigrant from New York’s Lower Eastside against all odds and by dint of incredible drive plus some amazing coincidences rose to be Economic Advisor in the State Department from 1931-1943, a crucial period in American history, to become an observer/participant in some of the most momentous happenings of 20th Century American history. At one time Feis was a familiar voice on foreign policy and a frequent anti-Vietnam war speaker on college campuses. His life touched many of the important intellectual figures of the 20th century, from Lewis Mumford social historian and philosopher to Felix Frankfurter, Franklin Roosevelt, and Louis Brandeis. Sample chapters for the book called for the moment” The Shackled Historian: The Life and Times of Herbert Feis can be found in Works in Progress.
David Walley is currently living in Maine and is hard at work on this project and in the future is planning afterwards to be working on a movie about Ernie Kovacs with Bob Cecsa who runs CampChaos, god help the both of them.
click here to download the mp3 file The other day I was talking to Frankie, and when we got to the part about CoolTea’s upcoming Blog and Dine networking event at Chocopologie, Frankie said, “You know Chuck, a couple of years back I co-wrote* a song about chocolate.”
What followed our conversation was permission for me to include his song here on this blog and podcast for your personal enjoyment. I also am thrilled to announce a special deal for audio chocolate lovers which I’ll explain shortly.
In addition to writing multi-platinum hit songs for people like Tim McGraw, Frankie is also a seasoned jingle writer with credits that include: CBS, CMT, Fox, MTV, USA and others (e.g., Frankie’s CBS Football of the Week TV theme aired for over 12 years and during 5 SuperBowls).
Just because one does audio work in the major leagues doesn’t mean they charge outrageous fees. “A lot of local business people would be surprised to learn just how reasonable a custom jingle can be created by top writers like myself.” said Frankie.
Custom jingles are great for your next CDROM, DVD, and/or Video project. They can make your web site sing and add to your sonic branding.
So in honor of Frankie’s song and chocolate sensibilities, if you mention “I Like Chocolate” between now and November 30th, 2006, Frankie will give you a 10% discount on your next audio project you commission him on.
*I Like Chocolate - Co-Written by Frankie Vinci and Jimmy Santis; Produced/Arranged and Music Tracks Performed by Frankie Vinci - Multi-Platinum Award Winning Songwriter (Tim McGraw) who has Written/Arranged/Produced and Sung on countless number of National Jingles and TV Themes in the span of his 20 year career in the Advertising business - e.g., brands such as: Diet Coke, Duncan Hines, 7up, Bounty, Nestles Crunch, CBS sports, NFL Football, Superbowl Themes, Nashville Star, MTV, just to name a few
In 
