Hamm On Wry

So I’ve been going through my iPhoto library and found that I have tons of pics, and I hated most ways of putting them online. I finally settled on using SlideShowPro and as it’s given me the versatility and the control that I want, plus it keeps from making people navigate all over hell and back, doesn’t spawn windows maniacally like a madman with confetti, and doesn’t require me to go through and hand-code a series of numbers to allow it to be styled correctly. I’ve found that sharing pics has been a pain, but that’s over. So, I’ve posted a page… er, um… a Page of Photo Albums where you can see two of them now, and more will come later.

Now, if there is a way to create a QuickTime multi-player like this… hmmmmm….

Having sung the better portion of my entire life, music has been a consistent entity around me, forming my days, guiding my dance through life. I know that seems a bit overly poetic, but music is a really powerful force created by nature and reformed by humanity. I find that music of all types, even country (which I used to despise) has this amazing ability to connect people who in many instances don’t have a clue what the words are, if there is even a vocal going on with it.

Also, having been a singer, I’ve always found it interesting the subtle biases that people have. I never refer to myself as a musician, because I don’t play an instrument, I merely use the talent and genetic toolset for audio production that my particular combination of genetic quirks has produced. And that audio production tool is best described as “LOUD!” You can ask any of my co-workers at Rich’s about my ability to be heard over the million-dollar sound system of our club. In fact, one owner when responding to my yelling his name one night responded immediately with “It’s amazing, the system is so loud I can’t even hear myself think, but I can hear you.” Imagine!

But again, I don’t consider myself a musician. Now, before all the singers out there freak out and think that I think this of all singers, let me be clear, I don’t. In point of fact, I will consider anyone else who sings a musician until they prove otherwise. I just have already proven this to myself, or I’m having a humble moment, I’m not always sure on this.

However, I know that violinists are. Big time. They are sure singers are useless, and the oboist feels that way of the flutist. All just generalizations, but let’s face it, lots of people can make music, but that doesn’t make them musicians. And I’m a singer, that’s all.

And now, my point. (Yes, again, there is one.)

Last night at the club DJ Kimberly S. owned the dancefloor. She was casting this beautiful spell over the people at the club, causing them to jump, wiggle, shake, groove and prance, all in the rhythm of the music she was playing. She was playing lots of tracks we all know, several great remixes of various songs, and she picked up the energy of the crowd and like a diamond with a laser, reflected, refracted and split the energy a billion different ways before cycling it all back through the music and out the sound system and into the souls of everyone there. She kept the people who showed up and she kept them on the dancefloor. She was marvy.

In fact, DJ Kimberly S. is a true musician. I can hear the people in the orchestra asking about ‘pulling a Cheney‘ now.

The turntables, which in this case were digital and were holding CDs, are instruments of music creation. The fact that the sounds coming forth are recorded and mixed together prior is immaterial, they are instruments. The people who press ‘play’ aren’t musicians, but some people can do much more than press play. And that’s just it, it’s what Kimberly did last night. She took, in a sort of musical version of “Pimp My Ride” she created something more than the sum of it’s parts. She mixed them together, created a story, guided the crowd and kept them all entranced from 11 pm Saturday till just after 4 am Sunday. I’m just happy to point this out, there are very few things I enjoy for 5 hours non-stop, and music, while being amazing, is not always one of them. Hell, I can’t cope with the 4 hours of any part of the Ring Cycle which I actually do like, but fully agree needs more intermissions. There can be no intermission in a DJ’s performance, so it can’t suck at any time, or people will leave. So to be a good DJ, you need to take a stack of other’s art and make new art from it, live, for five hours non-stop, and you have to make it compelling enough that when someone is forced to have a break due to the need for water or to pee or just to get off the floor for a minute, it has to be compelling to hold onto them enough while they are away to bring them back. That’s amazingly difficult work!

Kimberly’s mastery of mixing live was beyond amazing, it’s colossal. She is a musician, she plays the turntables. Although, after last night, I think her real instrument of success was the people - she played (in a great way) the crowd.

Sidenote: I was asked to give Kimberly a ride back to her hotel, and she was planning on immediately going to the airport to catch an earlier flight back to her home, so I offered to give her a ride to the airport as well. Given that the drive in total was about 45 minutes, we had some time on our hands. She is an absolute doll, and we got to chit chat about just about everything, which was really nice. Her stories, her experiences, her actions, and her very real care for those around her is amazingly evident. She’s not just a DJ, not just a musician, not just a star, she’s a wonderful person. If you ever get the chance to hear her, do so. And I hope we bring her back, soon!

Love this! The French are drafting a law to break up the supposed monopoly that Apple has with the iTunes and iPod Commerce-verse that’s grown up around these products. There are so many things wrong with this law that it will be nothing more than 2 seconds in effect before it’s challenged in the EU Court system, which, thankfully, has a habit of doing exactly the opposite of the French desire.

First things, we’ll do a bit of definition checking with the handy dictionary.com:

monopoly:

Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: “Monopoly frequently… arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals” (Milton Friedman).

Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.

A commodity or service so controlled.

Exclusive possession or control:

arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.

Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled:

showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.

And now that we’ve covered that, let’s look at what Apple really has - the iPod, a very well designed device used for both storing and playing gobs of music and it fits in your pocket. Handy that. And iTunes, a program that both catalogs your current digital music library by allowing you to import CDs you already own, and a service to sell you more music, television, etc., to fill up the remaining space on your iPod. The files that you download from iTunes are of a specific type and have DRM, Digital Rights Management, software embedded in the files. Big Brother is hiding out with Bob Marley, mon!

So where’s the monopoly again? Microsoft, the convicted monopolist, has Windows Medea the Slayer which is truly miserable software yet several different online music retailers use this as the basis for their iTunes competitor. As does Microsoft itself, of course. And other lost souls use the RealMedia monstrosity to attempt to accomplish the same goals - an online music store. Real and Microsoft are both vendors and competitors to the companies using these whackjob programs as foundations for their businesses. It’s not a wonder that they aren’t doing well, the basics of their businesses aren’t sound on top of having crap software. So iTunes can’t be a monopoly because there is competition, even if it’s weak and sad and pathetic. Like Bill Gates chin.

And the iPod isn’t a monopoly either. Wildly successful? You betcha! The only game in town? No, but this is mostly like Internet Explorer for Windows isn’t the only game in town, but it’s the game most people play. Only unlike IE/Win, the iPod doesn’t have it’s own gravitic anomaly that is responsible for more sucking than a cargoship of Dysons could ever hope to muster. But still, ‘wildly successful product’ and ‘monopolistic device’ are not the same.

So what are the French really up to? Aside from wanting to be seen to make any decision that doesn’t involve corruption in Iraq, riots in their cities, or a rash of births of baby boys destined to be under 5′2″ tall and wanting to rule the world, they are trying to understand technology by reading the funny pages. And they are wasting their time, as this will probably have the exact wrong effect they imagine.

Here’s how I see the scenario playing out.

1. France passes this Silly Law. Great. Woo. Yay. We. Are. Voters! But the law is passed, which is like lighting the fuse on a fireworks display. The one you knocked over by accident. The one that is now horizontal and facing the fine art and architecture of your city. Flame on, Froggy!
2. Apple will appeal to the EU.Why? Because they have to. You will know that something is amiss, however, when Microsoft, RealMedia, and the RIAA or it’s EU analog join Apple in the appeal.
3. The EU shall make rumblings about ‘zat damn buncha sheitze-knobbins’ or however the German’s will say it. Press conferences will be held, much will be ballyhooed, and the law will be technically in effect, but none of the software biggies will make software to remove the DRM’s from the files sold in France. That would be software that could remove all the DRM! Aha, first real problem!
4. Apple threatens to shutter the iTunes:France store! Riots with the cities cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Cloris Leechman is hired to, yet again, lead the peasants in a revolt against the government. She punctures her breast with a knitting needle once again.
5. The French Get a Clue! But alas, our heros are too late! People all over the world are looking at the members of the organizations like the RIAA and seeing the illegal businesses they really are, for the first time.
6. Apple fires a salvo across the bow of the USS RIAA! Saying something like “We never wanted DRM in the audio anyway” (which is true) and perhaps,“Our customers have always wanted to own their music, we’ve been forced to add this crap to the tracks because of the RIAA and the MPAA. We’d rather not have to deal with it.” And the RIAA shall be caught with it’s pants firmly around it’s ankles.
7. Poo Collides with Spinning-thingies! Now the real monopoly is exposed. The RIAA and the various European, Asian, African and South American analogs are exposed as The SongFathers they are, leading to serious investigations, new artist contracting, many hurt feelings and yet another instance of someone actually purchasing a Cockapoo voluntarily.
8. STRIPPPED! DRM goes all Christina Aguilera on us!
9. iPod sales go up! Why? Well the last of the reasons to not own a version of this device is removed, which is not being able to play the pirated crap you stole anyway. Which you can already do, actually, the iPod has been able to do this since the very first one. However, the myth that it can’t is the current problem, and that myth goes away here.
10. iTunes sales go up, too! Huh? Wha… how?!? Oh, wait, the software is easy to use and I can now watch those music videos and tv shows iTunes sells on devices like, um, my PlaystationPortable or my DVD player, if I burn the DVD. OOOH, I can play the files on my TiVo, I think! Can I? Regardless, the store is a simple, fun, easy-to-use and well designed, and once you use it you’ll agree. Once the restricted rights crap is gone, so goes the myth that you can’t play the files anywhere, and iTunes sales go up.
11. The French burn a soufflé. Tired after a long day of destroying Vivendi, the last of the truly World-wide French companies, the populace thinks about rioting, but instead torches a soufflé as a warning to others of their national just-not-happy-with-anything-ness. We are, understandably, doubled over in mirth.

Regardless of what happens with this legislation, the concept of being able to own what you pay for is core to humanity, and in turn core to democracy and our planet-wide society. It’s always a shock for people to find out they don’t own any of that fancy software they use, it’s merely licensed for their use. That license can be withdrawn, refund not included, too. We humans like to own things, and music has been for the last 100-some-odd years one of the defining ‘things’ for most people. We all know those people with amazing collections of vinyl albums, and you probably know people with 8-tracks, cassettes, or even 45’s or the old tubes from the Victrolas.

Regardless, those things, be they metal tube, vinyl platter, magnetic spindles or a pile of shiny plastic coasters of music, we own, and when it comes to the computerized pile of 1’s and 0’s, the digital versions of those tubes, platters, spindles or coasters are the files sold, not rented, but sold in iTunes. The sooner we rid of the DRM madness the better, but, the French cannot lead us in this battle. Charlamagne is long dead, and the charlatans of Paris lack the insight, foresight, knowledge, aptitude and balls to actually do this the right way, although they have fired the first, unwitting, volley.

Just a quick thought on the whole mess by Carla Martin, but you might want to read Tamper-Proof - Carla Martin’s witness tampering wasn’t rare, just sloppy. By David Feige at Slate.com first.

Done reading? Good deal. I know that there is as much strategy in the court system as in any match of chess or battle of actual armies, and anyone with half a brain or more knows this. Hell, considering Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Intent and even Conviction (which I’m liking quite a bit, mind you) we should all have a pretty decent handle on what goes on in our courts. I will admit wishful thinking is involved when pointing to fictional television shows as an example of ‘reality and truth’, but then you’ll have to admit that ‘reality and truth’ hasn’t been seen in any form for so long as to be listed with the Dodo as extinct – at least as far as this case is concerned.

So after all is said and done, what has Carla Martin really done? Perhaps more than you know. And, more importantly, perhaps more good than harm.

Her ‘mistakes’ seem to me just bizarre. She did things that no prosecutor has ever done and not been caught. Not ever. She left obvious trails that forced the hand of the prosecution into the admission. She deliberately disobeyed a judges order, created havoc and confusion for a huge team of prosecutors and has ended her own career. All with two meetings and four emails, or thereabouts. No matter whatever else she might be, she’s damn efficient.

In committing these acts she derailed a farcical trial that, for well over four years, has done nothing but reduce the United States’ ethical standing by eroding the foundation of our legal system to but wisps of air, while simultaneously replacing said foundation with the insanity normally reserved for dictatorships. The trial of Moussaoui was quickly damning every American citizen as it reduced our rights as citizens, flipped the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense, removed the guarantees of the Constitution and slowly eroded any and all hope that justice would be served.

You must realize that this trial was a facade erected to hide the fact that we couldn’t get even with the 9/11 hijackers. This trial was cobbled together from anger and fear and the manic need to show that the Justice Department was “doing something” by a (mad)man (who lost his senatorial re-election campaign to a corpse). Moussaoui is a nobody, and there isn’t any reasonable way to prosecute him as “the 20th hijacker” when all the evidence points away from him. He’s not the guy, folks, he’s just not. But the Justice Department and the entire Executive Branch of our government has said he is, he’ll pay, and a righteous smiting shall commence upon the reading of the verdict - Guilty! Yeah, that’s a group that could back down easily. Right. To be fair (I can hear my mom quipping, “why start now?”) the press is also to blame for this, but the PR surrounding this case wouldn’t let it just disappear.

Even if you don’t accept the aforementioned concept as fact, the facts of the day are, the trial keeps going forward, the mess keeps piling up, and, nothing is going right - for the government. The more evidence that comes to light, the less likely Moussaoui is the guy. The longer the case drags on, the more times the Justice Department will have to spout the party line that this is a case that is needed and that we will win. The louder the maniac defendant screams while in court, the more everyone is, quite rightly, embarrassed to have ever thought this moron capable of tying his own shoelaces, much less assisting with the hijacking. It all just needs to go away. But how?

There were few choices left. Do “we” (the grand, all of the USA ‘we’):

• drop the case? No. We can’t. Were the prosecution to do so, they’d be admitting that the Justice Department doesn’t have a clue and hasn’t done a thing to make us more safe from terrorists. Not an option, not when the Justice Department is core to the leading 3rd of our government.
• finagle a mistrial? Nope. What good would it do to have to start this mess all over? It’d be worse, if only because it’d waste at least another 4-plus years.
• kill the defense? HA! Wishful, but it’d have the same effect as if he’d been acquitted because ‘he got away’ despite our government. (Keep this in mind, please.)

What’s a government prosecutor to do?

Sometimes you do what is right and what is necessary. Sometimes you break the law to do so. Sometimes doing what is right and necessary requires you to look stupid and foolish. Sometimes you have to suck it up, because there is no other way.

The Impossible Solution.

Find a way to make the trial go away without having to drop the charges. For all the Star-Trek fans out there, this is the test that Captain Kirk was faced with, the one he cheated. When faced with two options that both suck eggs, create a third option by changing the rules.

Well, when you throw out the constraints of what can and can’t be done, you get one solution, and Carla Martin, perhaps unwittingly (although, really, a high-power attorney in government with years of experience and scads of support doesn’t make the mistakes of a rookie) implemented it. Make such a HUGE blunder that absolutely no one can find a way around the judge just throwing the whole thing out and being done with it. The charges don’t have to be refiled, the case need never rear it’s ugly head again, and, more importantly, the Justice Department gets to point to a flunky and say “we’d have gotten him if it weren’t for her!” (and then pout, cross it’s arms, stamp it’s feet, and kick the dirt like any petulant child, perhaps).

By making it a procedural faux pas it taints the entire case in many and various ways, which is necessary to destroying the case. Had it been a mere evidentiary blunder, i.e. something stupid like “we mislabeled a box” or “we lost his shoes” it’d be lost evidence and more chance that he’d be acquitted and the Justice Department looks to be a ship of fools. The best that could arise from that sort of mistake would be a mistrial, which puts everything back at square one. No one really wants to be at square one. Square one just means starting this merry-go-loony all over again.

The entire case, from evidence to witnesses to statements to even the lawyers involved (at least one of them) had to be tainted, so this case could go away. With that level of taint the charges can’t realistically be refiled, the case won’t rear it’s ugly head again, and, more importantly, the Justice Department gets to point to a flunky and say “we’d have gotten him if it weren’t for her!” (And then pout, cross it’s arms, stamp it’s feet, and kick the dirt like any petulant child, perhaps, but I would never say something that snarky.)

Remember what I asked you to remember? The bit about him dying not being viable because he’d have gotten away despite all we could do? Now’s where it makes sense. You see, once the case is tainted by a person who can, and will, be charged with the blunder, Moussaoui gets away not despite our system, but because of our system. Our system of justice works, and the procedures and rules in place protect the innocent, as all are assumed to be, even to the point of letting a guilty party go free. Something about “tis better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent be imprisoned” or some such. Whatever the sentiment, the result is tangible proof that our legal system works as we’ve always said it does.

Carla Martin didn’t make a mistake, she fixed the unfixable. She’ll still pay for it.