Skynet hasn't dropped the big one yet. So far, so good, but the day's not over yet.
Friday, August 29, 1997
Monday, June 23, 1997
The Adman, behind blue eyes
Here's a fun fact.
America -- and basically the entire Western world --subsidizes almost all of its intellectual and cultural life on the back of advertising. The marketplace of stuff pays for the marketplace of ideas. Free speech ain't really free. Advertising pays for it.
As a result, newspapers, magazines radio and TV shows are dirt cheap. Gosh, what a win-win situation for the content consumer!
Most content is basically free.
You may think you're paying for it--but that quarter you pump in the newsstand or the check you send for basic cable is chump change. It's a very small percentage of the real cost of the content you enjoy. You don't pay for content. Content is basically a loss leader. You access content and advertising comes with it. Advertisers pay for the content. What they're really paying for is you--access to your ears, eyeballs and brain. To get that access, advertisers pay for car explosions and George Will's inane baseball references. It's the cost of doing business.
Advertising's paying for the show.
It's naive to assume advertising wouldn't try to control the show.
If Satan picks up the check, Satan's going to tell you what to order.
YOU: Uh, excuse me, Mr. Satan. I don't wanna order the child's plate.
SATAN: You paying for this fucking meal?
YOU: No.
SATAN: Then go fuck yourself.
There's a notion floating around that there's a "wall of separation" between advertising and editorial content. There ain't no wall. That's a polite fiction. Everybody knows it's bullshit.
Here's how it works.
If advertisers take out ads, they assume there's a quid pro quo. They figure, in addition to paying for ad space, their money entitles them to cover stories, interviews and favorable coverage.
Advertisers will call you and preemptively try to kill stories that hurt their business interests.
Beyond blunt quid pro quo, advertisers will pressure you to take certain editorial positions. Say, there's a notion that Sarasota is the lovely arts community by the sea. If you (or one of your writers) say it ain't, they'll tar and feather you and ride you out of town on a rail.
This applies at all levels, from shitty tabloid publications to big time Hollywood.
Back in the 1960s, there was something called the Payola scandal. Basically, DJs gave airtime to records in exchange for money and stuff. The world we live in now is so far beyond payola it's sickening. It's all payola.
In the big world of electronic media, TV talk shows are basically ad PR for somebody's latest project disguised as a conversation. TALK SHOWS ARE COMMERCIALS.
LENO: How do you do it, Arnold?
ARNOLD: Well, it's really kind of magical. I become Mister Freeze. It is really the costume that does it. That's my process.
LENO: Look! Wolfgang Puck has a frozen dessert!
Audience laughs.
Interviews with directors and actors are highly stage managed. You read the byline, you think it's one dude doing the interview. It's a ROOMFUL OF REPORTERS asking a list of pre-approved questions under the prior agreement that the interview subject can vet the quotes -- in other words, rewrite it. These "reporters" are bought off with hotel rooms and baskets of designer goodies.
There's obvious shit like product placement. James Bond drives a fucking Beamer now. Pardonme moneypen, while I check the time on my Rolex watch. But Bond movies don't need product placement. IT'S ALL PRODUCT PLACEMENT for cars, suits, vacation resorts, the whole fucking package of the life we all dream of.
Beyond that, the medium is the message. In America, we don't have a loudspeaker booming YOU ARE WHAT YOU OWN. CONSUME MORE. YOU ARE DEFINED BY THE STUFF YOU BUY. SPEND MONEY TO BECOME SEXY AND DESIRABLE. YOUR BODY IS DECAYING AND REPULSIVE. BUY PRODUCTS TO FIGHT ODOR, FAT AND REPULSIVE SMELLS OR NO ONE WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU. BUY MANY NICE THINGS THEN THROW THEM AWAY AND BUY MORE, OR NO ONE WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU. CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES!
They ain't saying it outloud. But they're saying it.
That's the basic message in the Alice in Wonderland world on the other side of the tube. A freaking waitress lives in a 100,000 square foot house the size of an airplane hanger stuffed with gleaming, wonderful shiny objects.
Advertising pays for content.
Ineluctably, our content has turned into advertising.
America -- and basically the entire Western world --subsidizes almost all of its intellectual and cultural life on the back of advertising. The marketplace of stuff pays for the marketplace of ideas. Free speech ain't really free. Advertising pays for it.
As a result, newspapers, magazines radio and TV shows are dirt cheap. Gosh, what a win-win situation for the content consumer!
Most content is basically free.
You may think you're paying for it--but that quarter you pump in the newsstand or the check you send for basic cable is chump change. It's a very small percentage of the real cost of the content you enjoy. You don't pay for content. Content is basically a loss leader. You access content and advertising comes with it. Advertisers pay for the content. What they're really paying for is you--access to your ears, eyeballs and brain. To get that access, advertisers pay for car explosions and George Will's inane baseball references. It's the cost of doing business.
Advertising's paying for the show.
It's naive to assume advertising wouldn't try to control the show.
If Satan picks up the check, Satan's going to tell you what to order.
YOU: Uh, excuse me, Mr. Satan. I don't wanna order the child's plate.
SATAN: You paying for this fucking meal?
YOU: No.
SATAN: Then go fuck yourself.
There's a notion floating around that there's a "wall of separation" between advertising and editorial content. There ain't no wall. That's a polite fiction. Everybody knows it's bullshit.
Here's how it works.
If advertisers take out ads, they assume there's a quid pro quo. They figure, in addition to paying for ad space, their money entitles them to cover stories, interviews and favorable coverage.
Advertisers will call you and preemptively try to kill stories that hurt their business interests.
Beyond blunt quid pro quo, advertisers will pressure you to take certain editorial positions. Say, there's a notion that Sarasota is the lovely arts community by the sea. If you (or one of your writers) say it ain't, they'll tar and feather you and ride you out of town on a rail.
This applies at all levels, from shitty tabloid publications to big time Hollywood.
Back in the 1960s, there was something called the Payola scandal. Basically, DJs gave airtime to records in exchange for money and stuff. The world we live in now is so far beyond payola it's sickening. It's all payola.
In the big world of electronic media, TV talk shows are basically ad PR for somebody's latest project disguised as a conversation. TALK SHOWS ARE COMMERCIALS.
LENO: How do you do it, Arnold?
ARNOLD: Well, it's really kind of magical. I become Mister Freeze. It is really the costume that does it. That's my process.
LENO: Look! Wolfgang Puck has a frozen dessert!
Audience laughs.
Interviews with directors and actors are highly stage managed. You read the byline, you think it's one dude doing the interview. It's a ROOMFUL OF REPORTERS asking a list of pre-approved questions under the prior agreement that the interview subject can vet the quotes -- in other words, rewrite it. These "reporters" are bought off with hotel rooms and baskets of designer goodies.
There's obvious shit like product placement. James Bond drives a fucking Beamer now. Pardonme moneypen, while I check the time on my Rolex watch. But Bond movies don't need product placement. IT'S ALL PRODUCT PLACEMENT for cars, suits, vacation resorts, the whole fucking package of the life we all dream of.
Beyond that, the medium is the message. In America, we don't have a loudspeaker booming YOU ARE WHAT YOU OWN. CONSUME MORE. YOU ARE DEFINED BY THE STUFF YOU BUY. SPEND MONEY TO BECOME SEXY AND DESIRABLE. YOUR BODY IS DECAYING AND REPULSIVE. BUY PRODUCTS TO FIGHT ODOR, FAT AND REPULSIVE SMELLS OR NO ONE WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU. BUY MANY NICE THINGS THEN THROW THEM AWAY AND BUY MORE, OR NO ONE WILL HAVE SEX WITH YOU. CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES!
They ain't saying it outloud. But they're saying it.
That's the basic message in the Alice in Wonderland world on the other side of the tube. A freaking waitress lives in a 100,000 square foot house the size of an airplane hanger stuffed with gleaming, wonderful shiny objects.
Advertising pays for content.
Ineluctably, our content has turned into advertising.
Sunday, May 11, 1997
Flag a' Fryin' Dept.
Originally posted in "Free Speech" forum on ACLU message boards.
Aw c'mon. Not this flag-burning shit again. As Saint Bill Hicks once said, it's not like there's exactly an epidemic of flag-burning going on out there....
Re: DocRobby25
"But on the day the constitution was written.... I am willing to bet that there wasn't a SINGLE 'American' that had thoughts of burning the American flag." Um sorry. Maybe I outta go back in time and burn one...."
OK. I'm sure you'll admit you don't have a time machine. And -- I'm also willing to
bet you don't have a thought-reading machine.
So, failing a verifiable Obi Wan Kenobi appearance of the Founding Fathers ...
ME: What was your intention, anyway?
FOUNDING FATHERS: Our original intent was to get the British off our ass so
we could make shitloads of money and kill the Indians...
... the only thing you can talk about when you're referring to the
Constitution & Bill of Rights is WHAT THE WORDS MEAN, and not what was,
hypothetically, in somebody's bewigged head way back when.
What the words mean in the first amendment is pretty damn simple. Off the top
of my head -- "Congress shall make no law restricting free speech." No law. None.
You say there's a legal basis for not restricting flag burning because:
"If you own your own flag.... you can do with it as you please. No one has the right to tell you what you can or can't do with your stuff." And, after setting up that strawman, you say: "But hey.... why speed limits? We own our own cars right?"
Etc.
But the issue isn't "I have an absolute right to do what I want to with my
stuff" -- which everybody knows isn't the case (and which you were so easily
able to illustrate). The issue is: "I have an absolute right to free speech."
(Within the obvious limits of contract law, not telling Joe to put a
bullethole in Jane, yattayatta.)
You have the right to burn your flag, not because you own it, but because
that act is a form of speech.
Why people get so crazy over a piece of cloth is beyond me -- I can only
speculate (and more on that later).
Why do you think us comsymps get so crazy about the right-to-burn-the-flag?
I mean it's not like I've got some burning desire to go out for an Old Glory
Roast, tonight -- like some kinda Weather Underground Satanic reversal of the
Fourth of July where parades of freaks go marching up and down Main Street
chanting "Fuck America! Fuck America!" each with a flaming flag in their
hands. No. I have better things to do with my time.
If you make a No-Burnee-Flagee law, its legal foundation is the principle of IMAGE AS PROPERTY. This principle is older than the principle of free speech. It has survived, side-by-side, with the principle of free speech. The principles are inconsistent and contradictory. They're basically at war.
Allow me to expand.
Here's a few fun facts to know and tell:
Did you know?
That the Founding Fathers you worship applied the social contract principles of Locke and Hobbes to their newly formed constitution. These principles replaced a previous legal theory. Before the right to free speech was established, the prevailing legal notion was that image and reputation were forms of property. Dueling was justified according to the notion that an insult constituted real damages. That notions of libel and slander (and the penalties attached) were much stricter because of this legal theory. If you spoke ill of the nobility, the church or anyone with any power, you could be slammed in jail.
Did you know that vestiges of this legal theory survive in statute law (especially laws governing libel and slander?).
That W.C. Field's face is somebody's property?
That, via the miracle of necromarketing, Fred Astaire can sell vacuum cleaners?*
That recent Supreme Court decisions have kicked the press in the nads, particularly the Food Lion case.**
That Janet Malcolm didn't go to jail because, by a miracle, she found her interview notes?
That I could go to jail if I drew a cartoon of Mickey Mouse buggering Donald Duck?
That, without express permission and consent, it is not legal to publish of photograph of anything in DisneyWorld other than the SKY because they own the rights to the image of every building, every stone, every rock within?
That Hemingway's heirs are hassling the Key West politicos who've been running a Hemingway Festival that's just too damn grubby, besides which they're not making any money, which they damn well should, because they own his face; they own his image?
What unites all these disjointed cases is they're all expression of the impact of controlling the image on free speech. The argument raised in most of these cases is: I own the image to this actor, this dead guy, my store, my vacation resort -- therefore your editorial cartoon, your parody, whatever isn't just a form of free speech. It's a form of theft. It's a personal attack.
Let's say the government can say: "You can't burn the flag." What the government is really saying is: "We control this particular image. You don't have the right to modify, degrade or destroy it."
In the case of the flag, control of the image -- obviously -- means control of the idea behind the image. Flag=America. Burning flag=disrespect. Flags aren't toxic substances. The problem is the symbolism. Burning the flag is a symbolic act. It's an expression of an idea. If the no-flag-burning amendment passes, expressing that particular idea becomes illegal. It's a step backwards to the earlier legal theory.
Well, OK. Why not Jesus? America's one nation under God, right? And here we are -- and there's millions of God-fearing Arabs would like to put a bullet in Salman Rushdie's head because he insulted the prophet -- and nobody wants to do a damn thing about Serrano and his "Piss Christ." I mean, what is Jesus anyway, chopped liver?
But let's be broadminded. Let's pass a broad-minded "It's something sacred!" act banning desecration of Jesus, Moses, Joseph Smith, Buddha, Mohammed, not to mention assorted crosses, stars of David, om symbols, etc.
From here, it ain't much of a jump to politicos slamming cartoonists in jail because they didn't like the caricature.
*Through the miracle of CGI, Fred Astaire dances with a Dirt Devil in a commercial launched at the 1997 Superbowl. His heirs sold the right to the image.
**An ABC journalist with a hidden camera caught the grocery store selling bad meat in 1992. Federal Court found him guilty of fraud.
Aw c'mon. Not this flag-burning shit again. As Saint Bill Hicks once said, it's not like there's exactly an epidemic of flag-burning going on out there....
Re: DocRobby25
"But on the day the constitution was written.... I am willing to bet that there wasn't a SINGLE 'American' that had thoughts of burning the American flag." Um sorry. Maybe I outta go back in time and burn one...."
OK. I'm sure you'll admit you don't have a time machine. And -- I'm also willing to
bet you don't have a thought-reading machine.
So, failing a verifiable Obi Wan Kenobi appearance of the Founding Fathers ...
ME: What was your intention, anyway?
FOUNDING FATHERS: Our original intent was to get the British off our ass so
we could make shitloads of money and kill the Indians...
... the only thing you can talk about when you're referring to the
Constitution & Bill of Rights is WHAT THE WORDS MEAN, and not what was,
hypothetically, in somebody's bewigged head way back when.
What the words mean in the first amendment is pretty damn simple. Off the top
of my head -- "Congress shall make no law restricting free speech." No law. None.
You say there's a legal basis for not restricting flag burning because:
"If you own your own flag.... you can do with it as you please. No one has the right to tell you what you can or can't do with your stuff." And, after setting up that strawman, you say: "But hey.... why speed limits? We own our own cars right?"
Etc.
But the issue isn't "I have an absolute right to do what I want to with my
stuff" -- which everybody knows isn't the case (and which you were so easily
able to illustrate). The issue is: "I have an absolute right to free speech."
(Within the obvious limits of contract law, not telling Joe to put a
bullethole in Jane, yattayatta.)
You have the right to burn your flag, not because you own it, but because
that act is a form of speech.
Why people get so crazy over a piece of cloth is beyond me -- I can only
speculate (and more on that later).
Why do you think us comsymps get so crazy about the right-to-burn-the-flag?
I mean it's not like I've got some burning desire to go out for an Old Glory
Roast, tonight -- like some kinda Weather Underground Satanic reversal of the
Fourth of July where parades of freaks go marching up and down Main Street
chanting "Fuck America! Fuck America!" each with a flaming flag in their
hands. No. I have better things to do with my time.
If you make a No-Burnee-Flagee law, its legal foundation is the principle of IMAGE AS PROPERTY. This principle is older than the principle of free speech. It has survived, side-by-side, with the principle of free speech. The principles are inconsistent and contradictory. They're basically at war.
Allow me to expand.
Here's a few fun facts to know and tell:
Did you know?
That the Founding Fathers you worship applied the social contract principles of Locke and Hobbes to their newly formed constitution. These principles replaced a previous legal theory. Before the right to free speech was established, the prevailing legal notion was that image and reputation were forms of property. Dueling was justified according to the notion that an insult constituted real damages. That notions of libel and slander (and the penalties attached) were much stricter because of this legal theory. If you spoke ill of the nobility, the church or anyone with any power, you could be slammed in jail.
Did you know that vestiges of this legal theory survive in statute law (especially laws governing libel and slander?).
That W.C. Field's face is somebody's property?
That, via the miracle of necromarketing, Fred Astaire can sell vacuum cleaners?*
That recent Supreme Court decisions have kicked the press in the nads, particularly the Food Lion case.**
That Janet Malcolm didn't go to jail because, by a miracle, she found her interview notes?
That I could go to jail if I drew a cartoon of Mickey Mouse buggering Donald Duck?
That, without express permission and consent, it is not legal to publish of photograph of anything in DisneyWorld other than the SKY because they own the rights to the image of every building, every stone, every rock within?
That Hemingway's heirs are hassling the Key West politicos who've been running a Hemingway Festival that's just too damn grubby, besides which they're not making any money, which they damn well should, because they own his face; they own his image?
What unites all these disjointed cases is they're all expression of the impact of controlling the image on free speech. The argument raised in most of these cases is: I own the image to this actor, this dead guy, my store, my vacation resort -- therefore your editorial cartoon, your parody, whatever isn't just a form of free speech. It's a form of theft. It's a personal attack.
Let's say the government can say: "You can't burn the flag." What the government is really saying is: "We control this particular image. You don't have the right to modify, degrade or destroy it."
In the case of the flag, control of the image -- obviously -- means control of the idea behind the image. Flag=America. Burning flag=disrespect. Flags aren't toxic substances. The problem is the symbolism. Burning the flag is a symbolic act. It's an expression of an idea. If the no-flag-burning amendment passes, expressing that particular idea becomes illegal. It's a step backwards to the earlier legal theory.
Well, OK. Why not Jesus? America's one nation under God, right? And here we are -- and there's millions of God-fearing Arabs would like to put a bullet in Salman Rushdie's head because he insulted the prophet -- and nobody wants to do a damn thing about Serrano and his "Piss Christ." I mean, what is Jesus anyway, chopped liver?
But let's be broadminded. Let's pass a broad-minded "It's something sacred!" act banning desecration of Jesus, Moses, Joseph Smith, Buddha, Mohammed, not to mention assorted crosses, stars of David, om symbols, etc.
From here, it ain't much of a jump to politicos slamming cartoonists in jail because they didn't like the caricature.
*Through the miracle of CGI, Fred Astaire dances with a Dirt Devil in a commercial launched at the 1997 Superbowl. His heirs sold the right to the image.
**An ABC journalist with a hidden camera caught the grocery store selling bad meat in 1992. Federal Court found him guilty of fraud.
Friday, April 25, 1997
Transgressing the Boundaries
Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity
Alan Sokal's satire of post-modern bibble-babble disguised as scholarship. Text below jump ...
Alan Sokal's satire of post-modern bibble-babble disguised as scholarship. Text below jump ...
Wednesday, February 12, 1997
This just in
In a recent out of court settlement with R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris, ABC news recently apologized and recanted on charges that the tobacco companies routinely spiked their cigarettes with added nicotine.
In a related development, Oceania is now at war with Eastasia. Oceania, of course, has always been at war with Eastasia.
In a related development, Oceania is now at war with Eastasia. Oceania, of course, has always been at war with Eastasia.
Tuesday, February 11, 1997
Palmer Eldricht, lifecoach
Re: "Stigmata"
Palmer notes that he's read the book...
Yup. Another brilliant creation from the mind of Philip K. Dick. Hollywood has scarcely begun to mine this guy...
Etc., etc.
So you're comparing yourself to an evil fucker who wants to suck everybody into his solipsistic universe on purpose.
OK.
Just checking.
Palmer notes that he's read the book...
Yup. Another brilliant creation from the mind of Philip K. Dick. Hollywood has scarcely begun to mine this guy...
Etc., etc.
So you're comparing yourself to an evil fucker who wants to suck everybody into his solipsistic universe on purpose.
OK.
Just checking.
Saturday, February 1, 1997
Necromarketing
Fred Astaire ... dancing around with a Dirt Devil?
The only word for this is necromarketing.
The only word for this is necromarketing.
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