Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

current events

Remember when?

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I remember convincing my mother to let me stay home from school to watch news coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I remember my grade school wheeling a television into our chapel, begrudgingly, to watch Clinton’s inauguration.

I remember Chestnut Street streaming with people, adults and students, on September 11.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to remember about last night, or why.

Life is binary. Someone terrifying and monstrous was alive. His ideals and goals were completely opposed to ours. Now he is dead. There is little to digest or debate.

Life is binary. Liberty is digital. Progressive. Freedom is not an on-or-off state. After slaves were freed they still lacked many liberties. Women won the right to vote but were still treated as second-class citizens. Gays and lesbians will soon be free to serve openly in our military, but not to enjoy the status of marriage.

Life is binary. Liberty is digital. The pursuit of happiness is infinite. It is endless possibility that your life and liberty help to define. It’s who you are and what you do, and how satisfied you are about doing it.

What will I remember about last night? That it concluded four days of celebration around the marriage of two of my favorite people. That the bride’s family traveled from across the country and globe to be here. People I had heard about in stories, whose sickness and health had stuck in my thoughts. All of us in the ballroom as I endeavored to steal the bride’s shoe from her foot (a tradition). Sitting in a hotel bar watching her pose with Colonial War reenactors, a perfect juxtaposition of the men who fought to secure our unalieable rights and someone who came a long way (in distance and life) to be able to enjoy them.

I will remember Elise and I, lying in bed in our own house with my laptop on my chest, exhausted from celebrating for days. Watching reaction blossom from one Facebook status to a dozen to my entire Twitter feed. Watching President Obama speak.

I woke up this morning in the same bed, next to the same person, free and content.

If anyone ever asks me what I was doing when I found out that Osama Bin Laden was dead, I will tell them it had nothing to do with death, and everything to do with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Support Net Neutrality (Bob Brady, I am talking to YOU)

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Yesterday Philebrity posted an article about 74 Democrat Congressmen who have come out against Net Neutrality.

I struggled with how to define Net Neutrality for you, but then I discovered that I had blogged about it before. I love being my own source! That post (re)directed me to Save the Internet, who over the past four years has further condensed the definition to the following:

Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies.

… With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Life without net neutrality?

What does that mean for you?

Imagine if your internet provider could meter and limit your internet usage for different things, just like a cell phone plan or your cable TV subscription. Any of these statements could become true..

“Like to shop online? Shopping sites are just $5 extra a month!”

“Get your news from Fox – Fox sites load 10x faster than CNN on our network!”

“Are you an online gamer? Game for free overnight, 1am-8am. Standard hourly rates apply to peak time gaming.”

“Do you need to upload music for your band? Sorry, you’ll need our Business Plan to upload MP3s.”

Basically, ISPs would gain the right to selectively charge, tax, or even restrict your internet usage based on their own internal policies for or against certain sites, activities, or services. Wikipedia can tell you more about the reality of this threat to our internet freedoms.

I appreciate that the internet has been created as a level playing field for information, whether you’re a newshound or a gamer, a liberal or a conservative. It is terrifying to me to think that my blogging or music could be stymied because I can’t find an affordable carrier for it.

Which brings us back to the 74 Democrats, including my representative, Bob Brady.

Understandably, they are looking at the internet from a business and regulation perspective. In Brady’s case, Comcast is one of his biggest constituents. The reps hear companies and lobbyists saying, “We’re providing a utility, so let us regulate it!”

The internet should not become that kind of utility. As soon as you make the internet equivalent to cable TV or electricity, you start pricing people out of the amazing era of democratized production we’re currently a part of.

Yes, maybe businesses need to meter bandwidth, but should they really have power over the sites we access and the services we use? Once that door is opened it can never again be closed.

That is why I called my representative, Bob Brady, to tell him I do support Net Neutrality, and I do not support his signing Rep. Gene Green’s (D – TX) letter to the FCC arguing against neutrality. I told him I would campaign actively against him if he continued his stance.

Mr. Brady, consider this a shot fired across your bow.

You can read the full Rep. Green letter at Balloon Juice. It’s a small step, but if left unchallenged it leaves the door open for further action or legislation against Net Neutrality.

Below I have reproduced the letter and its list of signatories. If you see your representative on the list, please give their office a ring and comment – Philly residents, you need to call either Bob Brady (215) 389-4627 or Chaka Fattah (215) 387-6404. If you’re not sure what to say, I’ve included a sample script from Save the Internet.

[Read more…] about Support Net Neutrality (Bob Brady, I am talking to YOU)

Phillyist votes a qualified “NO” on Philly promoter bill (#100267)

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Short version: Phillyist used me a source for an article about the proposed Philly promoter bill! They agree with me that the bill is well-intentioned but misguided, and will likely do more harm than good to the city and its blossoming music scene.

Longer version:

Over the past two weeks Philly performers and promoters have been up in arms about a Philadelphia City Council bill (#100267) proposed on April 22 that would require local venues and promoters to be more closely licensed and monitored.

How closely? The following passage is drawing most of the ire:

A Promoter of an event must obtain a promoted event permit from the Police Commissioner for each such event. Application for such promoted event permit shall be made in writing to the captain of the police district in which the event is to take place at least thirty days prior to such event …

The application shall be deemed approved unless it is
denied at least ten days prior to such event.

…must include all of the following:
(i) The promoter’s business privilege license number;
(ii) A detailed security plan…
(iii) A copy of the written contract between the promoter and special assembly occupancy licensee.

Speaking anecdotally from personal experience, let’s just say that I’m not always booked 30 days in advance, the promoter is often me or a friend putting something together on a lunch break, that our shows don’t usually require private security, and that I very rarely have a written contract to refer to as an artist or a promoter!

I have a lot of other things to say about the bill, and how it would have completely altered my opportunities as a musician as well as a promoter for our festival and #blamedrewscancer. While that opinion continues to brew into a post, Joe Ross of Phillyist did a great job of distilling my rambling to two succinct soundbites:

Peter is in support of the petition to kill the bill because it appears to limit the opportunities available to the local music scene, saying that “to try to legislate every performance takes away a lot of those opportunities — not only for artists, but for indie venues and promoters.”

Peter also had doubts about the solution we suggested above. He told us “that might just encourage known promoters to charge new, indie artists and promoters to use them by proxy. The entire system invites abuse.”

For more background on the bill, the petition, and how the two can be reconciled, check out Phillyist’s entire article on the topic.

(Also, many thanks to Joe for the multiple-platform shoutout to both my musicianship and my blogging!)

Man In the Mirror

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Now a month after he passed, the MJ hoopla continues.

Rolling Stone finally got around to shipping an issue with him on the cover, with a solid accompanying article tracking his whereabouts over the last two years. Still has its lurid bits – prosthetic nose and Latoya trolling through Neverland looking for bags of cash – but it’s more of a portrait than most of the continuing coverage.

The thing that gets me about all the coverage is that people still don’t seem to know all that much about Michael Jackson as a musician. Like anything else, it’s just an echo chamber of the same small handful of facts on spin cycle.

For example, “Man in the Mirror” – a fantastically constructed song that has leapfrogged all of his freaky-video hits to become his official theme and lament. So very Michael, right? Definitive?

It may have been definitive, but it was one of the few big hits of MJ’s solo career that he didn’t have a songwriting credit on. It was penned by Siedah Garrett – an 80s pop artist, songwriter, and killer backing vocalist (frequently with Madonna), and arranged with Glen Ballard, best know as the co-writer and producer of Jagged Little Pill (as well as the debut of Wilson Phillips).

Rolling Stone‘s fantastic Smoking Section just interviewed Ballard about how “Mirror” got onto Bad at the last second.

Siedah and I wrote it for him directly. It was near the end of the recording for Bad — it was the last weekend before they wrapped up Bad — and think I had written something for the album but it didn’t get accepted. Quincy [Jones, Bad‘s producer] called me and said, “Don’t you have anything else for us?” He thought we were idiots not to try again, and Siedah had an idea, and we got together on a Saturday night, met at my house in Encino, and we just wrote it on the spot. It was really simple, we just wrote it on a Fender Rhodes, and did a quick demo with Siedah singing. It felt really good, but you never know. And we didn’t have time to dress it up, so I didn’t feel like it had a chance.

As for Siedah, at a recent service she briefly eulogized Jackson and then delivered an unbelievable solo turn on the song, backed by the tremendous Agape International Choir.

I started working on my cover of “Man in the Mirror” sometime last fall, and it only started coming together a week or two before Michael died. I love playing it, but I might need to wait a few months before doing it at open mics feels something other than opportunistic.

I’m sorry that Michael Jackson coverage has reached a point of backlash. Honestly, I would listen to him all day and cry two months ago, so I don’t see why I can’t keep doing it now.

Everything is local … even currency.

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I’m a pretty jaded news-browser, but this USA Today headline got my attention: Communities print their own currency to keep cash flowing.

Yes, in the United States.

It sounds a bit dubious in concept, but the practice is sound:

The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.

In the BerkShares system, residents can buy the local currency directly at the bank. Effectively, entire communities are locking into the same Gift Certificate system, and using that purchasing leverage to slightly lower prices across the board. It’s safer than buying gift certificates to a single store, as many Circuit City customers discovered earlier this year.

The missing element in the article is … who manages the cash? Are banks holding it in escrow until the money is spent at stores, and then reimbursing store owners who submit used bucks? And, what happens if a resident buys in and then wants to buy back out – do the local dollars exchange back to cash at the same rate they were bought?

Also, I’m interested in the counterfeit angle. Real money is one thing, but what could these local currencies possibly be printed on that’s safe from duplication? I’m sure the things can’t be photocopied – it’s easy enough to buy coded or watermarked stock – but what about bootleg versions? All it would take is a designer with a keen eye and a closet full of paper catalogs. Even a complex serial-numbering system wouldn’t help detect fakes at the register.

I’d love to get my hands on a piece and see if the designers at work could comp one that would pass muster.

HuffPost has some further coverage, and is seeking additional examples from readers.

Editor’s Note: Check out the comments for detailed answer from Mark Herpel from Community Currency Magazine. Note that the BerkShares system is using AB Craine, which supplies the US Mint. I’m sure other community cash programs – like the one in Detroit – might not have such high-end business partners.