Hey everybody -

Go buy Radiohead’s new album ‘In Rainbows’. It’s only available from their site and they’re letting you decide how much you want to pay for it.

So pay something fair. Maybe this kind of thing will help kill off the RIAA, if it proves successful and it doesn’t turn out that we’re all a bunch of criminals.

Oh man, I was so ready to get all up in arms today. My arms were all set, seriously. It’s because of the fact that the R.I.A.A. – an organization whose main goal, it seems, is to suck our financial resources dry and then return to Planet Bigwig and laugh until the apocalypse – just convinced a jury to slap a 30-year-old single mother of two in Minnesota with a $220,000 fine for illegally distributing 24 songs.

So, knee jerk time – I get all enraged. Since music went digital – and we’re talking about CDs, here – the RIAA and its constituents have made somewhere in the ballpark of around $140 billion (source: RIAA site). Now, maybe it’s because I have yet to even make my first billion that this seems like an obscene amount of money to make in just 11 or so years. Now, the RIAA tries to blame the fact that their numbers have gone from $14.5 billion in 1996 to $11.5 billion in 2006 on peer-to-peer sites and dastardly music pirates.

Yeah, well – guess what, RIAA? You just lost an amount of money that I won’t even come close to making in my lifetime. In fact, from my grandparents to my grandkids, it’s unlikely our entire family will see that kind of dough. So yeah, boo-hoo, your business lost some scratch. Deal.

But much to the chagrin of my righteous indignation, neither side is really in the clear. Sure, Jammie Thomas says she didn’t do it, but that just means that her kids did. Or maybe she was on a file sharing site and accidentally marked those songs to be shared (that’s something that could easily happen). But there’s maybe a 0.001% chance that someone Jammie doesn’t know surreptitiously set up a P2P account on Jammie’s computer and traded songs without her knowledge. I mean, come on – her name’s “Jammie”.

But even so – 24 songs? Even if a million people of the 9 million P2P users out there downloaded all 24 songs, that’s… hold on… I can do this… $0.99 per song… no, wait, wait… $24 million. Right? Okay and… let’s say that the RIAA does really poorly this year and they only come in at the $5 billion mark. That would mean that Jammie would’ve cost them another half a percent of revenue? And let’s take into account that it’s very possible, regardless of what songs they downloaded from whom, these 1 million users may not have gone out to buy anything, period.

So then I was half up in arms, because the RIAA clearly isn’t hurting for cash, but then… $24 million is a lot of money. Still I was somewhat angry, so I said to myself “Self, what better way to restore the balance of power than to swear off purchasing from RIAA-affiliated artists and really hit them in the pocket book?” So I looked through my collection of music and… well, very little of it comes from RIAA-backed artists. Even the occasional “illegal” download of mine – not involved with the RIAA.

Then I read a bit of unsubstantiated news about how the AARC (an organization closely linked with the RIAA, but sort of vaguely not in a way that makes it seem like they’re a money laundering front) collects money from all sales of music CD-Rs, CD recorders, etc., and this money allegedly never gets to the artists. This infuriated me again! You mean we’re already paying for piracy and then you’re going sue us on top of that?

But the further I got into it, the more the argument wasn’t there – I don’t buy music CD-Rs. Who does? And I burn data CDs from my computer, while the surcharge the AARC collects is on dedicated audio CD burners. And so on. There may be a charge built into my iPod, but… meh.

So, all my thunder stolen and all my sail-wind absent, I wrote this here post.

But lest you think the RIAA isn’t totally overstepping its bounds and prosecuting needless claims, there’s this from Gizmodo:

The labels’ first witness, Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation for Sony BMG, offered testimony that pretty much encapsulates everything wrong with the way the RIAA sees things. When asked if it was wrong for consumers to make a single copy of music they’ve purchased, she responded, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a song you bought is “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy.’ “

For me, the fault for loss of profits lies with the major labels and the RIAA. If you don’t have the business sense to exploit a gigantic online market hungry for your product, it ain’t Jammie Thomas’ fault. Your business doesn’t deserve to survive. Period.

Finished up ‘The Third Half’ and sent it off to the Zoetrope contest. A lot changed in the last couple of days, very much for the better. Still, I can’t bear the thought of giving it to someone to read right now as, inevitably, they will find some glaring error and tell me, which I will torture myself with until the end of days. Or until February 2007, when the winners are announced. Which ever comes first.

Anyway, in bringing this screenplay to a close, I realized that my last post on music to listen to as you write was hopelessly short and shallow.

Herewith, the music that got me through the last 48 hours:

Micah DesJardins – Days With Wet Corners
Beck – Sea Change
Islands – Return to the Sea
AC/DC – For Those About to Rock
PJ Harvey – Rid of Me
Ice Cube – Laugh Now, Cry Later
Rocky Horror Picture Show (Original Roxy Cast, yo)

All are highly recommended.

—

So what’s next?

Well, I’m working on an adaptation of a short story called ‘The Waving Man’. Interesting if only because it is almost definitely based on a real man that I used to see driving from NC to Maryland. This story was sent to me by a friend and former teacher at school and… it’s all too weird a coincidence. I actually wrote a song about this guy years ago.

Then, I’m working on a TV spec. Totally in the planning stages. Trying to figure out what show I want to do. You might say “Well, Craig, since you’re so stupid for Veronica Mars, why don’t you spec that?” And I’ll tell you – because I’m so stupid that I want to actually possibly write FOR Veronica Mars, and that means I can’t spec it. So… trying to navigate all that.

Finally, there are still a couple of remote (but very cool) possibilities that are orbiting planet Gig right now, but refuse to land. We shall see.

Screen Gems and Maverick (you know, Madonna?) will be re-imagine-making the 1987 movie The Stepfather. For those who haven’t seen ‘The Stepfather’, you’re missing out on a pretty terrific cheeseball horror movie. The opening is a great lesson in reveals. But there’s nothing cheesy about Terry O’Quinn’s performance. If all you’ve ever seen of him is on the show Lost, then you’ve been missing out.

Who could they possibly cast to replace him? Look at him – he’s like a psychotic Mark Harmon.

Also, Rob Zombie is gonna re-imagine-make Halloween. I don’t like his other movies all that much, but the idea of this still has me happy, if only because Zombie certainly won’t make a boring Halloween, ya know? I think this series is way beyond being sacred – the first movie is still the gold standard and the rest of them are pretty disposable. So at least the series is in the hands of a director who isn’t just trying to break into movies.

—

I’ve listened to St. Elsewhere now and… I don’t know, it sounds like Moby to me. I loved the Grey Album. I loved Danger Doom. And this one just kind of lays there. It is probably the victim of lots of hype – everything I heard about it was so glowing I figured I’d be in for another Teenager of the Year/OK Computer/The Score/Lincoln/Dusk/Want One-type listening experience in which my mind would be blown.

However, mind not blown, sadly.

Though I feel like I’m the last person to find out, very cool band and kinda sorta former roommates of mine Army of Me have signed to Atlantic records. Go listen to their songs and watch their videos and ask aloud “You mean they only now just signed?”

Congrats to AoM!

The Pixies are, for me, the standard by which all other bands are judged. (Well, it’s them and early They Might Be Giants. The difference is that They Might Be Giants didn’t stop after their fifth album, though I increasingly wish they had. And me saying that is really saying something). Seeing them last Tuesday was a milestone, a trip to Mecca, a dream come true, etc., etc.

I have nothing to say here that will top what other people have already said about the new shows. It’s nothing Deadheads haven’t said about the Dead and nothing Parrotheads haven’t said about Jimmy Buffett. (Still, I feel compelled to point out that, regardless of how trite it might sound, it was the most awesome show I’ve ever seen.)

I never wanted to be a part of a big fandom. Listening to the Pixies meant I was hearing something that most people didn’t know about, at least in Concord, NC. In the 11th grade, Matt lent me his Bossanova tape and I knew it was something different. My musical landscape shifted. And this would end up being my least favorite Pixies album.

Not much later, I heard Doolittle over at Dave’s house (Matt most likely lent him that one, too) and the doors were completely blown off my musical landscape. All colors seemed new again, everything I was listening to sounded clunky and vague.

And for a long long time it felt like me and Matt and Dave were the only ones who knew about them. And even then, we didn’t talk about them much. The only external reference to the Pixies I can think of that the three of us might have shared was the picture you see above that was pinned to Matt’s wall.

So when I saw them rock out on a grand scale last Tuesday to a PACKED HOUSE here in DC, it was surprising and sorta disappointing to that little kid inside me who wanted this to be my own solitary experience. Well, mine and Keeks’. And Irene’s and Russ’. And Marissa’s and Nick’s and Jim’s and Sage’s and… well, there were a few of us there. But I hope you understand my point.

Later we would talk about how screwed up it was that some people sat through the whole show, looking bored. And I agreed that it was a bummer. But it fed the need of that little kid who wants to believe that other people don’t get it, but me and my friends do. That, if we were to meet up with the Pixies one night in a smokey bar, we would all hang out and commiserate because no one else understands us and how groundbreaking we all are.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. But some fantasies you hold onto longer than others.

The Pixies’ contributions to the alternative rock canon are sacred texts, the alpha cell of a paisley-flecked v23 flowchart that, down various impeccably typeset branches, might lead to Nirvana, to the Breeders, to Throwing Muses, Guided By Voices, Modest Mouse, Trail of Dead, or Enon.

There’s good news in that there link.

Despite Black’s hesitation, he does admit that the Pixies “do get together and have private jams together, but not for public consumption.”

Until now?