LISTEN TO IT #12: WE ARE THE REAL OUTSIDERS

I’ve been a fan of Luke Haines ever since The Auteurs somehow found their way to American college radio in the mid 90s. They were the dark side of Britpop and the only really good thing that ever came out of that scene, for my money.

Haines eventually dissolved the band, came back with Black Box Recorder, and now he’s pretty much solo – and judging from his new album, as acerbic and bloody-minded as ever. Who else could write a song about Klaus Kinski, or about his own critics?

Or, in this case, an ironic ode to Southern England?

Haines is admittedly an acquired taste – people often complain about his snide cynicism, lightweight voice or black sense of humor. And if he didn’t win you over with The Auteurs or Black Box Recorder, he’s not likely to do so now.

But I’m rather enjoying it, me.

Times are tough for the chosen people,

This is dF

HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC: I MEAN, JUST LOOK AT OUR LEGAL BILLS

ITEM: The Record Industry Association of America reportedly paid over $16 million to law firms in 2008 to help it sue people for copyright infringement via illegal downloads.

Total amount of compensation recouped from greedy thieving music fans: $391,000.

That was just for 2008. If you include 2006-2008, the RIAA spent $64 million in legal and investigative expenses to recover around $1.3 million.

Genius!

Of course, that might actually mean something if the point of the lawsuits was to actually get back the $12.5 billion the RIAA claims the music industry is losing globally every year. It's not, and the RIAA has admitted as much – they said early on that they considered suing music fans as more of an anti-piracy educational campaign to deter future file sharing.

Which might make sense if it worked. It hasn’t. So either way it’s $64 million down the drain.

But then the music industry made $17 billion in 2009 – so it’s not like they can’t afford to blow a few million here and there on lawyer fees.

On the other hand, that $17 billion is $1.3 billion less than 2008. So clearly piracy is gutting the music business and soon there’ll be no music anymore and it’ll be the fault of you greedy punks who think it’s cool to steal from starving artists like Akon, T-Pain and Justin Timberlake.

Money to burn,

This is dF

I’M NOT SAYING OBAMA IS HITLER OR LENIN, I’M JUST SAYING HE’S JUST AS DANGEROUS AS HITLER OR LENIN

ITEM [via Def Agent bedsitter23 ]: The North Iowa Tea Party wants you to know something about your President.



The sign is already down, evidently thanks to a backlash from the Iowa Tea Party, which wasn’t pleased and called the imagery “unproductive”.

The best bit – apart from the Rose Bowl bowling alley in Mason City deciding to ban tea party activists from further meetings because they listed the bowling alley’s general line as a party contact number – is how NITP co-founder Bob Johnson (who says he wasn’t on the committee who approved the sign) admits the Hitler/Lenin visuals probably detract from the message, but it’s not disrespecful to compare Obama to either of them because the basic message is that Obama is taking the country in the wrong direction – just like Hitler and Lenin did.

See what he did there?

In any case, the incident illustrates one of the Tea Party’s more persistent problems – its apparent inability to prevent the paranoid extremists in its ranks from defining the party’s image. Numerous Tea Party leaders have insisted that the party is not racist or extremist or packed with right-wing conspiracy theorists, and that the few racist extremist conspiracy theorists who turn up at rallies aren’t representative of the “real” Tea Party – but somehow those few manage to be put in charge of billboard ideas.

Which is one reason (of dozens) why I can’t take the Tea Party seriously. Whatever you think of the GOP and the Democrats, they’re both reasonably good at building a party platform and then sticking to it and staying on-message – except when they don’t, of course (which is why I don’t take them too seriously either). Obviously you’ll have differences of opinion within the ranks, but generally the ones who go off the reservation don’t define the party image. They’re the exception that proves the rule, if you like.

The Tea Party has the opposite problem. And if yr constantly having to put out PR fires started by the extremist wing of yr own party that you apparently have no control over, what makes you think yr organized enough to run a country?

Not that being organized makes you any more qualified, as the Republicans and Democrats have repeatedly demonstrated. Which, ironically, is why the Tea Party has a following in the first place. So maybe what the party really needs is to just say “screw it”, roll with the flow and find itself a modern-day George Washington to bring the grass roots together under one banner.

Like, I dunno, Glenn Beck.

Why not? If nothing else, he can’t possibly make the Tea Party look more radical.

Well, not much more.

Mixed messages,

This is dF