What can you say about a twenty five year old girl who died?

Well, maybe she was a couple of years older than that. But one day, Rob Sheffield’s wife, Renee, just keeled over and died. Just like that. No illness, no warning, just kaput.

How do you cope with that?

By writing a book. After you can’t find a place to put your hurt, your loss.

I hate Rob Sheffield on principle. Anybody who takes the bait and gets airtime on VH1 is suspicious to me. They called me in, I told them I wouldn’t do it. Maybe if they built a whole show around me, maybe… But to be a talking head, commenting on some evanescent rock moment… God, I’d look like the rest of the talking heads on that channel, LIKE I LIVE WITH MY PARENTS!

And there’s more to hate about Rob in this book. Saying what an outsider/loser he is, then dropping the fact that he went to Yale. Hey ROB! This makes it hard to root for you. And I was rooting for you before that. You didn’t quite have me from hello, but not deep into your memoir, "Love Is A Mix Tape", I was drawn into your world. And, don’t you know the literary code for Yale is NEW HAVEN?

You see Rob was a geek. Who fell instantly and madly in love with a southern girl with flair. One with personality, a force of nature. And in not that long a time, she reciprocated. He was in heaven.

They went to see indie bands together. They got fucked up in the backyard. And they made mix tapes.

I can’t say that this was an avocation of mine. Oh, I did it for a while. But, setting levels was too much of a pain in the ass.

Then again, I got the CDs for free. But, eventually, so did Rob and Renee. They started writing reviews, still they assembled cassettes, reflecting their loves of the moment. Not only hipster alternative, but Top Forty. They shared a love for Top Forty.

That impacted me, the love. Oh, at the end of the book Rob details his disillusionment with the format. But what he loved in the old days I’ve come to love in today’s country. Sure, too much of it is manufactured, but you don’t have to think to listen, it’s a great accompaniment, you live to turn on the radio.

The way Rob delineates his love for Renee is positively infectious. She gains weight, but his affection for her never wanes. They fight, but they’re still together. They got married too young, but this one seemed destined to last.

When I finished this book at 3 a.m., I wanted to jump up and write just then. But I was at the beach, I had no computer. And I haven’t been in the mood since. Not until I just got an e-mail from someone asking me HOW COULD I LOVE THIS COUNTRY CRAP! DIDN’T I TESTIFY ABOUT JAMES MCMURTRY?

Then, I said I had to write about Sheffield’s book. Because, despite his CV, it’s sans attitude, he’s not trying to look good. He just needs to tell his story.

We all need to tell our stories. So we don’t feel alone.

When you read "Love Is A Mix Tape", you won’t only feel Rob’s pain, but an incredible sense of connection. Maybe you liked different tracks, but the passion for music, you had it too.

This is one great rock book. Maybe because it’s not about rock, but life. But isn’t rock about life?

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

Is this Hillary’s "Arsenio" moment?

Bill Clinton rode to victory in ’92 as the candidate of the baby boomers, someone hip enough to drive a pickup and play the sax, someone who BELIEVED in Elvis as opposed to pooh-poohing him. But Bill Clinton had sex appeal.

If you’re watching TV, or reading the newspapers, you’re at least one day behind, if not COMPLETELY OUT OF THE LOOP! I started getting e-mail about this just a little after noon. And I won’t say it’s become an avalanche since, but everybody from Nic Harcourt to Lonn Friend has weighed in. This is the story of TODAY!

Isn’t it funny that POLITICIANS are more in touch with the moment than musicians. While Charlie Walk dreams up his next campaign with V Cast, the Clintons, to use the parlance of the seventies, are TAKING IT TO THE STREET! They know the power of YouTube. They know the power of the Internet. Is the tide turning and are the Republicans just one, or maybe two steps behind? Believing it’s all about religion, home and hearth, instead of the Wild West Web?

Howard Dean illustrated the power of the Internet during the last election cycle. Credit goes to the Clintons for harnessing it this early in the campaign. But although I have to give them props for MAKING this video, why is it SO FUCKING BAD?

Conception is the key to art.

But this isn’t art.

I know five year olds who act better than Hillary Clinton. As for Bill? Maybe he’s up there with eight year olds. Could they be any more wooden? At least Al Gore uses a Mac, these two appear even stiffer than HIM!

But, Bill & Hillary are smarter than David Geffen. Boy did HE play his cards wrong, fucking with them before it became clear that Obama was history. And Obama is history. He’s not only inexperienced, the Clinton organization has YEARS invested in the party, in relationships. Geffen may have bolted, but not Spielberg. And sorry David, but Steven means more than you.

Maybe if they continue this trend. A video a week. Maybe then the Clintons can overcome this non-laugher. Maybe have Larry David walk into the frame, better yet, have Will Ferrell’s landlord come in and hassle them.

The Landlord

But I wonder if they’re truly on the right track. Picking a CELINE DION SONG?

Hey Hillary, the Titanic sunk LAST CENTURY! And she’s CANADIAN TO BOOT! Classic rock was just too dangerous for you? God, "You Shook Me All Night Long" is on jukeboxes in the SOUTH TOO! Really, this is playing it just too safe.

You need a bit of edge, you’ve got to hang it out there a bit.

But Bill & Hillary (oops, did I put Bill’s name first?) are so focus-group/researched that they’re leaving their instincts behind, they’re OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE PEOPLE!

Bottom line, too many people hate Hillary Clinton. She could have used this clip to humanize herself, to show some naturalness, to leave her edgy personality behind. I was rooting for her, but I just saw that New England college girl I didn’t want to fuck.

Yup, that’s what Hillary needs to radiate, a little SEX APPEAL!

Oh, don’t call me sexist. IT WORKED FOR BILL!

And the Winner is…

P.S. But it was great to see Johnny Sack!

I remember the exact moment I fell in love with "Sweet Home Alabama". It was in a traffic jam.

I was driving cross-country, right after Labor Day, right after I’d graduated from college. I took two days to get to K.C. And after a week there, I got back into my car and headed for the City of Salt, to line up a job for the winter.

Now I hadn’t caught that much radio on my trip so far. There were giant holes in reception between Connecticut and Kansas, I’d spent a lot of the time listening to my tapes. But during my journey, I had heard "Sweet Home Alabama". I just hadn’t fallen in love with it yet. But working my way from the suburbs to the Interstate, on one of those eight lane boulevards in the rain, my fingers stopped on the AOR station and I heard those guitars pouring out of the speakers in the rear deck. My windshield wipers were going at full tilt, I was barely moving, but I had a smile on my face, the music had invaded me and taken over my mood.

Oh, I had the first Skynyrd album. But I wasn’t in love with it.

Now I was a fan.

Funny thing about this Internet. We’re getting to the point where you can hear ANYTHING! Every act has a MySpace page. You don’t have to fire up the radio to hear the latest tunes, you’ve just got to boot up your computer. Actually, we’re disappointed if we can’t find the track online. We feel like the act is cheap, dishonest, playing the old wave game, wanting our money before they let us experience the magic. We align them with the major labels.

That’s another funny thing. We hate the major labels. But, if you play it right, we don’t hate your act. If you make US a priority, if you serve US, if you give US something for free, we’ll give you ALL our money.

So, there’s a conundrum. More people are experiencing more music than ever before. But the labels are sinking. You see they’re just not delivering the tunes the way people want them. The public wants a certain FLUIDITY! It’s less about piracy than USABILITY! If the labels only focused on making it EASIER for us to experience and acquire their wares, we’d give THEM all our money.

And that’s just a long-winded explanation as to why you can’t instantly hear Gary Allan’s "Right Where I Need To Be". And if you loved Skynyrd, the OLD Skynyrd, with Ronnie, you’ll want to hear "Right Where I Need To Be".

But you can SEE IT!

But like Lewis Black says, music goes in the EARS, not the eyes. It’s gonna rape all the charisma, all the specialness from the track. Still, go to Yahoo Music. Hell, I’ll make it easy for you, just go to:

Gary Allen, and click on "Right Where I Need To Be" under "Videos".

I was hiking in the mountains and heard the lyric. So country, about the balance between work and family. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I kept the track on repeat.

I was putting away the laundry, with my Nano in my pocket, playing my country playlist. And "Right Where I Need To Be" was about the fourth or fifth track in. But when I hit it, I couldn’t move on, I kept needing to hear "Right Where I Need To Be" again and again. I wasn’t listening to the lyrics, only the GUITARS!

Maybe that’s what I miss most about the seventies, the GUITARS! Roger Waters wrote great lyrics, but without David Gilmour’s transcendent guitar licks, it’s not PINK FLOYD!

But the style of the English pickers was so different from the rednecks from the south. The southerners seemed to get fired up on alcohol, stand up on stage, and get into a GROOVE!

Skynyrd laid down a groove, and then the guitarists DANCED ALL OVER IT!

Oh, "Right Where I Need To Be" starts with a lick off an Eddie Money record. ("Trinidad"?) But when the organ comes in, and then the drums and bass, it becomes positively NORTHERN FLORIDA!

And when it all breaks down, the lyrics seem so IMPORTANT! But what seals the deal is the guitar ACCENTS, after every other line, a staccato burst of sound straight from the genitalia. And then a bit of organ, representing the sweat lubricating the bodies involved.

Oh, eventually there’s a fiddle. But Papa John Creach played with Jefferson Starship, and his work on "Red Octopus" WAILS!

You can get anybody’s story on Wikipedia. Read Gary Allan’s and you’ll see that his emotions are authentic, anybody who survives the suicide of a spouse is entitled to sing the blues, to ROCK the blues.

This is an old record, it came out before Napster hit. I only found out about it from a subscriber, a rock refugee now working in country whose name I don’t even know, since he has an AOL address which comes sans appellation. But that’s how it works now. You tell people what you’re into, and then you find trusted sources, tapped into your taste. This one unknown guy, I’ll follow him anywhere. Because he hasn’t missed YET!

If you liked Skynyrd, check out "Right Where I Need To Be". It feels really GOOD!

Verizon/iPhone

The "Wall Street Journal" revealed that Steve Jobs approached Verizon. Wouldn’t you? Verizon Wireless is the kingpin, Cingular’s merger with AT&T might have given that entity a few more subscribers, but that merger was necessitated by the need to compete with the Verizon/Vodafone juggernaut. Verizon uses better technology, CDMA, and has fewer deadspots, partially as a result of this, and has a far superior high speed network, EVDO, dispatched in many locations.

But Verizon believed it didn’t need Apple. Their failure to accurately assess the landscape won’t be fatal, but if they’d made a deal with Jobs, Verizon Wireless would be assured of being the dominant force in wireless in America for years to come. Now?

This iPhone juggernaut is utterly amazing. It’s like a Beatle album. Will the iPhone live up to the hype? Well, there were two negatives. The onscreen typing and the plastic screen. Apple has made a good case that the onscreen typing feature isn’t a detriment, that the iPhone is not for road warriors, but common folk, who just won’t type that much. As for the screen? Yesterday, Apple announced a switch to glass, and battery life so long, it makes you lament your time management with your Treo or Blackberry.

But the road warriors want the iPhone. Did you read today’s WSJ article?

Companies Hang Up on Apple’s iPhone

The beneficiary of all this hype, AT&T. With its inferior network, lousy coverage and shitty customer service. They’ve got an exclusive on the iPhone.

What did they have to give up in return?

Control to Apple.

Usually the providers dictate to the manufacturers. Everything from features to availability to price.

Apple said the iPhone could only be sold by them and AT&T, no Best Buy, no third parties. And that the price would be extravagant. And it wouldn’t support AT&T’s content stores.

But, AT&T would get the extra charge each month for data usage, which can equal the cost of the voice plan ALONE!

Samsung can’t catch up. Neither can Nokia or LG. Motorola? It’s struggling for its life. You see what gives Apple the edge is software. Nobody else has got a reasonable operating system, never mind Mac OS X. Nobody can compete with the iPhone’s functionality/ease of use. The only thing the other handset makers can hope for is that the iPhone just doesn’t work. But as we get closer to launch, it seems that Apple is covering all the bases. And the iPhone being upgradeable, like a computer, software updates will fix glitches, competitors can only pray for a DESIGN FLAW!

And where does this leave Verizon Wireless? With the best network without the hottest handset. And although Verizon has made incredible inroads based on its quality service, the RAZR craze illustrated that the handset is king. Verizon didn’t have that product for a long time, to its detriment.

The best connections? The best coverage? Those aren’t sexy. And, if they were the determining factor, why would anybody even SIGN UP with T-Mobile, which ADMITS it’s got lousy coverage?

But Verizon didn’t want to give up control. They didn’t want Apple to have that much power. They want to build their own content stores. They don’t want sideloading. They want to be king.

But by being arrogant, they just lost the advantage. If AT&T rapidly improves its network, which the exclusive deal with Apple gives them time to accomplish, Verizon will be neutered. Whereas if Verizon had just made a deal with Apple, AT&T never would have recovered, it would continue to be a service that delivered dissatisfaction, that people were defecting from.

I only have one question Verizon… CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

I know you can.

XM/Sirius

Well, I hear Hugh Panero has been neutered.

But it’s too late.

If XM had made a deal with Howard Stern, Sirius would be out of business. Instead, if this merger doesn’t go through, XM is in serious trouble, it could even go bankrupt. Because Sirius has the momentum. Hell, they even get more BLOG HITS!

Sirius launched later. Relying on proprietary chips, as opposed to using off the shelf parts like XM.

Sirius went through three programming regimes, to XM’s stable one.

Sirius has serious reception problems. The moving satellites and brief buffer cause constant dropouts, far exceeding those of XM.

But Sirius has got Howard Stern.

Sure, Howard was handsomely paid. But he DESERVED THE MONEY! Because he saved the service.

Howard was worth more to Sirius than XM, but XM needed to pony up the cash, make the deal, because otherwise the loss was too great.

People signed up for Sirius just for Howard, no other radio personality has that power. And this gave Sirius buzz. And this begat momentum.

XM could have put a stake in Sirius’ heart, but it was too arrogant and too cheap.

Labels/Napster

I hate to quote "Rolling Stone", but did you see the lead article in the latest issue wherein they go on about the labels being done, history? And everybody, including even Hilary Rosen, says THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE A DEAL WITH NAPSTER! (Page 13 of the June 28th issue, with the Police on the cover, not available on the magazine’s glacially slow Website, illustrating that RS is willing itself towards extinction.)

But the labels wanted control, they didn’t want to give up control. And now they’re a shadow of their former selves, in revenue, in stock price, in impact. It was a classic mistake.

And now that "Rolling Stone" and the mainstream press detail the labels’ plight, it’s a race to the bottom, it’s a death spiral. The labels’ only hope is to make a P2P deal, IMMEDIATELY! Only one problem, the do it yourself and indie spheres have grown in the wake of the majors’ decline. Rather than get these new players on their team, with fair new deals, the labels said business as usual was good, like Verizon said to Apple. Now, with legalized P2P, the majors will no longer have a lock on distribution. True, this would have been the fact back in 2000. But if the labels had opened their accounting services to everyone, made fairer deals, then they could have salvaged MORE OF THE BUSINESS!

CONCLUSION

Just because you’re on top today, that doesn’t mean you will be tomorrow. You’ve got to plan for tomorrow.

If you see a disruptive technology or product on the horizon, EMBRACE IT, ignore it at your peril.

Look at Yahoo. They couldn’t even see that search was the future, they helped BUILD Google by employing it as their search engine. Lamely believing that the future was entertainment content, and banner ads. Now Google dominates and Yahoo? Well, Terry Semel just lost his job. Which he never should have had, because he knows entertainment, not tech!

The landscape rolls under your wheels ever so quickly these days. You’ve got to prepare for the future.

Suddenly, instead of selling for a premium, RAZRs were $29. Motorola was so busy selling RAZRs that it didn’t develop a 3G strategy. Now, Motorola has its back up against the wall.

The record business was one based on history. Old institutions. Reductions in royalties for breakage when young customers don’t even know what a DISC IS!

The movie companies, worried about exhibitors and Wal-Mart, have no viable online strategy. Trying to protect their old partners, and their old way of doing business, with windows of distribution, they’re going to get slapped in the face.

Did you see that "Sicko" was on YouTube? You can’t show at Cannes and think you can then sit on the movie for over a month without anybody getting ahold of it.

It’s no longer about a run-up in marketing, a controlled marketplace. It’s about making it today and SELLING IT TODAY!! In a land of iPods and TiVos, it’s about immediate gratification. You want what you want NOW!

If you’re on top now, don’t think twice about putting a stake in your competitor’s heart. Pay a premium, give up a bit of control. Because, as detailed above, the tables can turn seemingly INSTANTLY!

Don’t move slowly, don’t kick the tires, move NOW!

MySpace may not last forever, but Fox got it cheap relative to today’s value, and they got all their cash out right away via the Google deal. While MTV pondered the deal, thinking about the long term prospects.

Les Moonves sells CBS radio stations and buys LastFM. BRILLIANT!

Steve Jobs is prepared for the future. Hell, Safari on Windows is about iPhone apps, and selling stuff in the future to AT&T. Only a bozo would think he’s competing with Microsoft.

The Seduction of AT&T: Why did Apple write Safari for Windows? Because their big customer wants it.

Are you prepared for the future?

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?