Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Totalement, Tendrement, Tragiquement

On nights when I feel like I know the APA Style Guide better than my own name, the thought that I'll soon be here keeps my chin up...


Also, on a less poetic and fantastic (but kind of interesting note), I'm playing an outdoor show at 1:30 in the morning this Friday. Time to put all my jargon about "making music magical again" where my big idealistic mouth is. I know I said I'd post something by the end of the weekend. That clearly never happened, seeing as how I'm again making excuses for why I haven't posted anything intelligible in weeks. Give me time- I'm working on two papers right now which are fascinating that I'd love to blog about, but I fear that I'd lose more readers by doing so than just posting pictures and videos that don't belong to me. The only relatively relevant thing I can muster at this hour is that you should really get out there and read up on this TicketMaster/LiveNation merger and what complete and utter bullshit it is. Last time I checked, anti-trust laws were still in effect. Though you couldn't tell by looking. I don't want to start brandishing the "corporatisim is unequivocally toxic" sword, because that's one of the more irritating and reductive cultural critiques of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Nonetheless, the last time this kind of vertical integration was allowed to occur was in the pre-1948 Hollywood studio system. The major film studios of the day, Paramount in particular, decided that it would be great to own the production, distribution and exhibition phases of the movie industry. This resulted in shitty things happening left, right and centre, like block booking (forcing a theatre to buy a whole whack of lousy B-Movies just to get a single decent one) and bogus cuts of first-run revenues. The 1948 Paramount decree effectively shattered this system because, in basically every way, it was unjust. Why is it suddenly okay now? A tuppence to whoever can offer me a reasonable answer to that question. I need sleep now. France soon. School sooner. Night.

2 comments:

esther said...

1. These are photos of Aix-en-Provence, are you going there? I'm going there in 90 days, holy.
2. How did the first gig go?

TM said...

1) I am indeed going to Aix! I'll be there in 50-ish days? (!)

2) Awesome actually- hence the second show Friday. I trust you took my advice to heart and signed up for the Coffee Shop thing?