No Prizes
Week of April 14, 2002

April 18, 2002

If you ever wondered whether you learned anything in high school, I can tell you that I did. I learned how to listen. Or how to emote that I was listening.

Among several of my geekier pastimes in high school, I was a drama geek. For the handful of high school plays that I was in, I was a character actor – solidly typecast in the supporting role. My first role in high school was Major Metcalfe in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. My last role in my senior year was as General MacKenzie in Ten Little Indians. Two different drama teachers gave me those roles. When you don't have many lines, you spend much of your time on stage paying attention to other people's speeches. Really, you're trying to make sure your mind doesn't wander and you don't forget your lines. But for most scenes, it's not okay to stand on stage with your eyes rolled back in your head while others are having a conversation. So, as a frequent supporting character, I had to learn to give attention – how to nod at significant points, when to change posture at a change in the speaker's tone, when to show surprise, when to glance at another supporting characters and give a look.

Eighteen years later, this training has served me well in meetings. Usually, I'm in a meeting for a reason. However, that reason frequently disappears; in some cases it never existed. The same faux pas of letting one's eye's roll back in distraction seem to apply even in office life. And as a minor role in the drama, it pays to give the stars their attention; stars in all arts like that. So, to play my part in meetings, I apply the following techniques from my early dramatic training -

• Don't just turn your head towards the speaker, but turn your shoulders as well. Don't do it by swiveling your chair. This should be done from the waist up. Even if the interlocutors are seated near each other, you can effect a small turn as the speaker changes.
• Keep your posture straight. Don't slouch or bend over the table. You can lean forward and rest your chin on your hands, if someone is making an strong point, but don't hold it. Snap back up once they've stopped speaking. Tilting your head to one side is good as well, but only for brief periods.
• Maintain eye contact with the speaker. Occasionally, do a quick take to read reactions in the room. Don't roll your eyes or raise your eyebrows at a co-worker.

Of course, all of these strategies provide a moderate level of activity to stave off drowsiness as well.

April 17, 2002 (barely)

I was in the 7-11 before midnight to buy some milk on my way home. There were only three people in front of me, but the line had stopped. When I walked in, a gray-haired man in a striped sport shirt and a baseball cap smiled and nodded to me. I grabbed a quart of 2% milk and paused by the ice cream cooler to get a drum stick. It's been unusually hot this past week in Richmond.

The store operator, a middle aged woman with neatly cut short hair and small glasses was helping an older stooped woman with flat, dark hair find a light bulb. The older woman then wanted to cash in a winning scratch game ticket for more scratch tickets. A young woman in a tee-shirt (her daughter or granddaughter?) was talking to the man in the baseball cap, "...if you've got a winner, you should keep buying..." I snatched from the conversation.

"Yeah..." said the man "I won 500 dollars once."

A pair of young men entered – one in a vest and track pants, the other in a white tee shirt and shorts. The one in the tee-shirt grabbed two 24 oz bottles of Corona. The other grabbed something from the ice-cream cooler. Once the older woman had made a choice, the store operator put four or five tickets in a plastic bag along with the light bulb. By then, there were six of us in line. I read the Spanish text on the front of the Snack Stix™ grill. An LCD screen over the cash register displayed the news from ESPN and CNN. The clerk rang up the old woman's sale The man in the baseball cap stepped out of line in front of me and went behind the counter. There were now four people behind me. I paid for my milk and ice cream and went out the doors to my car. The smell of pollen in the air was sugary sweet.

April 16, 2002

Review of Upcoming Guided by Voices Album

No, I don't have a copy. But Nude as the News posted a review this week. I'd have to add that the new songs that GBV performed on Sunday were great; there second song of the set, "Everywhere With Helicopter", held its own following "Hardcore UFO's". Now we just have to wait until June 18. As I was poking around Matador Records, I also saw that Mary Timony recorded her latest album in Richmond. So that's what she was doing at the Hole in the Wall.

Slashdot Digital Music Roundup

Slashdot had a good summary topic covering a variety of articles on digital music, file sharing and their effects on the music industry. The most interesting articles are a review of Wilco's new album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on The New Republic (yes, The New Republic) and a study of file sharing and its impact on new artists. There was also a a link to a great interview with Billy Bragg - ...those poor, poor fuckers in Metallica. There was a lot of debate in the comments about better technology and consumers driving the technology. However,one thing to note is that the last technology shift in music from LP to CD's was sponsored by the recording industry. Negativland has a great article on the adoption of CD's – how record companies decided to kill the LP format and make more money without paying more to artists.

I download a lot of music, but mostly from Epitonic and record label sites. I suppose I'm a "white-hat" MP3 consumer – I sample then buy what I like. However, I ran around on Napster for the last month of its existence and it was intoxicating. On my cable modem, I could download whole albums – especially out of print stuff like Durutti Column and Opal – in less time than it took to play the tracks. There were live bootlegs, radio show performances and rare B-sides, all for the taking. If there was any artist that interested me, I could grab a couple of their tracks and listen.

Having gotten a taste of Napster, I can see how people would just download everything. I knew people from work who downloaded entire current albums, found the artwork somewhere else and made nearly perfect copies. Of course, they tended to make copies of top selling country albums. I still bite the bullet and plow chunks of my paycheck into my CD collection.

Ultimately, there needs to be a way to compensate artists fairly for the music. Even more, there needs to be a better mechanism for showcasing artists than the monoliths of Radio and MTV. The fact that major label system doesn't provide those things still does not justify grabbing everything from a file sharing service.

April 15, 2002

Guided By Voices at Alley Katz, Richmond, VA

Last night's show started with "Hardcore UFO's". And it kept getting better.

Perhaps it's because of their roots in Dayton Ohio, but Guided By Voices is starting their tour by hitting America's other cities – Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Towson, Maryland and Richmond. In fact, it was the band's first visit to Richmond. The initial crowd was somewhat thin, but enthusiastic. The opening band was Dead Meadow – a power trio from DC with a heavy psychedelic sound, mixing Cream and Blue Cheer. They put on a solid half hour set until equipment problems forced them to stop. I'm not sure what was wrong; they sounded great. I'd like to see them back in town for a longer set.

Guided By Voices led with the first track off of Bee Thousand then had a powerful set, mixing old classics with tracks from their upcoming album as well as a cut from Choreographed Man of War – "I Drove a Tank". Robert Pollard started the show holding up the set list – two pages of letter size paper long. For the first forty-five minutes, the set went from high energy to a gradually mellower tone. Then the band took a brief on-stage beer break and began to kick – hard. Robert and the band drove through the next forty-five minutes with relentless rock punctuated by Pollard's Daltryesque mike spinning and "rock kicks".

At the end of the regular set, they left the stage to a packed and roaring crowd. Pollard, who had finished at least a dozen beers on stage announced, "I'm hammered!", then led the band into a rapid series of songs for the encore. They band ended with five songs in a row from Bee Thousand – their early masterpiece. The crowd sung along the lyrics. By the time they finished with "I Am a Scientist", the audience was nearly crazed. After a thunderous ovation, the surprised band came out and banged out three more songs, ending with the Who's "Baba O'Reilly". By then, nearly two and a half hours later, both the band and audience were drained.

Delicate Monster

Joe tells me that the curtain has gone up on Delicate Monster - a new independent voice for arts and opinion on the network. Check it out – there's essays, poetry and fiction. There's some great artwork as well. It's a lot for one visit, so don't try to do it all tonight – you can always go back for seconds.

Boston Marathon

There was an interesting segment on NPR about the first two women to run the Boston Marathon – unofficially. Before 1972, only men ran in the Boston marathon. One of the highlights is Katherine Switzer's story, who snuck into the race in 1967. After running the race by enrolling under her initials, Switzer was suspended from collegiate track and field for several reasons, including -

• She ran the race without a chaperone; Switzer was 20.
• She ran over 1.5 miles. Distances greater than 1.5 miles were thought to cause sterility in women.

Over 5,000 women completed the Boston Marathon today.

April 14, 2002

Pyschic Hotlines

Miss Cleo and her customers have already taken a beating in the press. However, this AP story reveals an even seamier layer than I anticipated. It was printed in the business section of the Richmond Times Dispatch today; I like what they did with the lead-in, very nice. In short, psychic hotlines prey on poor people to get them to prey on stupid people. In most cases, the large 1-800 numbers (like Miss Cleo) are subcontracted out to "bookstores" - companies who manage a groups of psychics. The individual psychics sign a contract claiming to be psychic to protect the bookstore. The psychics then work from home with callers queued to their home phone. If the psychics can't keep customers on the line for an average of 15 minutes, they stop getting calls - and stop getting paid. The article goes on to detail the stories of people who call in and they kinds of answers they get. I originally thought the Miss Cleo commercials on cable were funny; I've stopped laughing.

Live Music in Richmond

What the hell's going on? Live music is coming to Richmond. Since the closing of the Flood Zone, national club acts seemed to be following 295 and driving around Richmond on their way between North Carolina and DC. Even local bands stopped playing here. But tonight, Guided By Voices is playing at Alley Katz. Bernard Nix, guitarist for Ornette Coleman, played in Shockoe Bottom last night. I still have to drive to DC to see JSBX at the end of the month. However, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel for Richmond Music.

Now, get back to working on your taxes.