talk of sampling and even more about derivative works…

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I came across this article about sampling over on BoingBoing the other day and I thought it was an interesting read because it kind of ties back into my rant from a couple of months ago about the whole Nina Paley thing and derivative works. And before we even begin, I’ll admit that part of my disdain for this concept of sampling is simply because I don’t really care for hip-hop or rap music in general, but nonetheless I think it’s still an intriguing topic to continue the discussion of creative entitlement amongst artists as a whole.

Now the post itself is actually a review of a full book, which I haven’t read, but it sounds like the book does a good job of covering many different perspectives on sampling, and one in particular that caught my eye mentioned “musicians who want to sample but can’t legally do so.” This is where the discussion links back to Nina Paley’s argument about seeking rights for her film because she wanted to use specific songs, couldn’t do so because it was cost-prohibitive, but also refused to select alternate songs because she felt that they were vital to the essence of her work. The blog post goes on to cite examples of how two well-known albums would’ve never been commercially viable had sampling fees been paid…

And that’s where I have to call bullshit, for a couple of reasons.

Reason #1 is that the math here seems fuzzy at best – if you refer to the chart about halfway down the post, it cites that the artists only made $2.10 off of an $18.98 album, and thus after subtracting ten bucks in sampling fees, the artists would be in the hole -$7.87 for each copy sold. Which sounds horrible … until you ask “Why are the artists having to foot all of the sampling fees by themselves???” Another $16.88 being made off of that sale is going to other mystery businessmen, so why aren’t those guys contributing to the costs to create this work in the first place?! I know that if I was only making 11% royalties off of my sales, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be splitting that down into even further shares after the fact!

Reason #2 builds on this from both artistic as well as business logic then because as far as I’m concerned, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it! Whether it’s because your industry is muddied with middlemen that leave you with pennies on the dollar for your creative work or simply because the work that you want to derive your own from is out of your price range, the solution isn’t just to do it anyways and then grumble about the system keeping your art down afterwards! Unless you want to make music in your basement and never show it to anyone else, creating work that you’re actually allowed to distribute and profit from requires that you play by the rules of anyone who you’re borrowing from, and if those terms don’t work for you, then you’re more than welcome to try something different or heaven forbid, actually create an original body of work all by yourself…

I guess it all comes back to original vs. derived for me because hey, when you create an original work, it’s yours – end of discussion. But if you insist on making things that include other people’s things in them, you’re inherently entering into a relationship with those people, and you have to understand the risks involved with that. Some people are extremely open to sharing their work with whoever else wants to build on it, and some would prefer to be the only ones working in that space. Either way, it’s their work and thus they get to set the price if you want to play with their toys, like it or not. And if you decide to just steal one of their toys because you think it costs too much, don’t be surprised when they hit you over the head with a legal shovel for feeling entitled to their hard work in the name of creating your own art.

Sure, some great new albums and pieces of art have come from being derivative works, but so have a lot of crappy ones and what seems like artistic genius to you might not actually sound that desirable to the guy who wrote the song that you want to include in your stupid, little movie. As a result, it’s his right to charge out the ass for the rights to use his music, or flat out just say no altogether. It’s not a “problem with the system,” it’s a problem with entitled artists who feel like they should be able to build off of anyone else’s work that they want without any repercussions. It’s easy to play the little guy and cry how the big boys never want to play with you, but I’d bet you’d feel differently if you had created songs that were worth charging $20,000 a pop for!

The bottom line for me is that if you insist on using other people’s stuff, you have to play by their rules. You can call that artistically-stifling if you’d like, however why is using the work so important if there’s no mutual respect for the other artist who created it anyways? If you only appreciate the work itself and can’t have enough respect for the person who actually made it to understand why they should get paid for their efforts, then you really have no business collaborating with them in the first place.

Oops, I did it again…

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So yeah – the final outcome of last night’s D&D game? Scott’s character died … again!

That’s what happens when you charge into battle and do something heroic without any regard for your own health, though, I suppose. Fortunately, the DM is feeling sympathy on me, considering that this was only our second session AND I haven’t even finished fleshing out the character yet AND mine was one of only two that died in the last game, so young Adran the (something I haven’t decided yet) will get the opportunity to hunt again by means of resurrection, on account of having perished in the act of saving the Duke’s daughter and all.

Note to Resurrected Self: ranged attacks save lives!

Mourning for the ’80s…

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I know I should be in bed, but I just got home from playing D&D and for the entire 30-minute drives both to and from, I was nearly bludgeoned to death with the news that my absolute favorite radio station of all time is no longer on the air!!!

That’s right – 101.5 The Point – sounds of the ’80s, and more! – has officially been axed so that the station owner can better compete with the horrible hip-hop, booty-shaking, gangsta-raping club music that already dominates two or three other stations here in the Tampa Bay Area.

In a word – this makes me very sad…

I still have fond memories of being just absolutely amazed when I first rolled into town upon discovering that we had an entire radio station dedicated to nothing but ’80s music! It was literally like I was driving around Vice City every single day, except for the whole stealing cars and shooting hookers in the head part, anyways… I had finally leveled up into the Big City where they played Cool Music that didn’t Vibrate the Car Next to You by the Third Chorus!

For the last eight years I’ve spent many an evening cruising around between beaches and theme parks grooving to the tunes of Survivor, Duran Duran, Huey Lewis, Tears for Fears, and so many other of the true classics. To me nothing said, “I love living in Florida!” like driving with the top down along Gulf Blvd., the salt water in the air and a cool breeze off the Gulf blowing in your hair while Baltimora sings of a young Tarzan Boy’s monkey business on a sunny afternoon…

It looks like it’s time for me to dive into iTunes and finally make that Ultimate ’80s Playlist that up until now, Corey Dylan and her crew had always strived to deem unncessary. Talk about a cruel, cruel summer, indeed!

character creation thoughts for a new world…

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So upon completion of our last campaign, it was ultimately decided once we made arrangements for our next adventure that everyone would start with fresh characters at level 1 as opposed to the more advanced characters like last time where we all started at level 8 and ended up just into paragon before we had to bring things to a close. And at first I think a few people may have been a little disappointed after getting the chance to play around with some of the fancier powers that a lot of the time we don’t reach in our regular LFR games, but the more I think about it myself I think I’m actually looking forward to developing a new, long-term character from a slightly different perspective.

I think one of the big problems that I personally experienced while trying to play Searil, my level 11 Eladrin Swordmage, is that ultimately I made his backstory a little more epic than his statistics were actually able to support! So whereas in story here was this guy who had been trained to be this weapon of arcane destruction by an evil vampire lord throughout his upbringing, when actual combat came along he wasn’t exactly able to clear an entire battalion of guards as his story may have suggested. And then at one point when he actually came back from the dead, naturally he wasn’t really all that stronger than when he had died, even though in my head I couldn’t help but picture the video game hero who dies and then reunites back with the party much later with all of these new moves and special abilities that he didn’t have before.

And granted, he did get bumped up to paragon with the rest of the party when this happened, so you could still make the argument that he did in fact grow stronger, but I digress…

My point is that in building this new character of mine fresh at level 1, I think I’m looking forward to creating an everyday guy who becomes a hero throughout his adventuring career as opposed to having this incredible backstory that leaves me with little upward mobility 3 or 4 levels into the game. And that’s not to say that I’m going easy on the backstory, so to speak, but more along the lines that instead of being this fierce warrior who slew dragons and could warp time and space with his mind, he was more so just a strong warrior who one day sets off to explore the world after hunting alongside his fellow tribesmen through his life up until this point. His people will have an interesting past that he was a part of, but I’m trying to avoid the stereotypical orphan whose parents were killed by the main bad guy who he’s sworn to kill in revenge… or anything like that.

I’ll post more about the actual character once I develop more of the details, but after our first session I think this new world is going to be a lot of fun to explore. It’s kind of like this being all of ours second campaign together, we’re trying a lot of things differently and so far it seems to be leading to some new roleplaying experiences that have been a lot of fun to watch unfold!

Thin Post : A Furry, Little Fitness Machine

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I know I haven’t posted about diet stuff for a while – life in general has just been incredibly busy, so while I don’t want to directly come out and admit that I’ve been slacking just a bit, there’s probably a good chance that I’ve been slacking just a bit!

I mean, aside from a couple of late-night dips in the pool to wind down at the end of a long day, I haven’t really done much for exercise lately – no time for elliptical’ing or anything – so I felt a little stupid upon reflecting Saturday night while I was out walking Cleo that in the six weeks that we’ve had her, that was the first time that I had actually taken her on a bonafide walk around the neighborhood. Granted, I suppose part of it can be written of with the fact that for a while she really wasn’t having her harness and leash, but after being required to wear it to her classes at Petco over the last few weeks, she’s really been doing a lot better with it to the point where there’s no reason why I can’t be taking her out to walk in the evenings a little more often.

It’s really good for both of us because it gives her a chance to go out and explore, all the while I get a little quiet time to myself because she’s distracted enough by all of her surroundings that it’s enough just for her to keep up with me on her leash! Admittedly I haven’t weighed myself in quite a while, in accordance with my new policy to avoid demoralization via statistics, but it would probably help to tip those scales back over in the right direction to set aside a little time to walk with her a few times a week … and besides, it’s not like she doesn’t need the exercise to help calm down at the end of the day, anyways!

I suppose if it can help me to shed a few random pounds towards my long-term goal along the way, then all the better…

Cleo vs. Fireworks

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So tonight we learned the sad way that little puppies and fireworks do not mix…

Although we were going to try and find a dog beach where we could go and watch fireworks, or even just leave her in her cage and go enjoy them ourselves, we ended up just staying home because we were afraid that she would freak out being locked inside if our neighbors decided to celebrate with rockets blazing throughout the evening. And it ended up being totally the right thing to do – around 7pm when it just started getting dark, we heard the first bangs out in the street and Cleo ended up being petrified for most of the night. At one point she ran underneath our bed, afraid to come out even after Sara left a trail of treats leading back out into civilization.

I mean, I can only imagine what it all sounded like to her – for all she knew, the castle was under attack, and so ultimately I am glad that we opted to stay home so that we didn’t return to find a traumatized puppy even more scared of the world than when we left her! The last thing I would want to do is reverse a lot of the training that she’s been able to pick up in her classes and just with us – about being around other people, not barking at random things, not throwing a fit when it’s time to go to bed. It’s a whole learning process and I guess along the way you have to make sacrifices, just like you would with a newborn baby or whatever.

Hopefully we’ll be able to condition her, though so that maybe next year we can take her down to Bayshore Blvd. to watch the fireworks in the distance over Old Tampa Bay. That might be a little easier on her because being a little farther away, most of the noises aren’t as loud – the concern more at that point would be with the inevitable other people who just randomly shoot off stuff from the sidewalk in between swigs of their cleverly-concealed beer bottles. But we’ve got a whole year to work towards that – she’s been doing really good on her leash lately, so with any luck just the more she’s around other people and cars and strange noises outdoors, maybe she’ll eventually become desensitized to at least some of the sounds…

speaking of Cars 2…

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Woof.

I had always hoped that the day would never come when I watched a Pixar movie that I wasn’t absolutely moved by, but after just getting back from an afternoon matinee of the sequel to the very first Disney movie that my wife and I watched together, well, I guess they say that eventually all good things must come to an end.

Even going into Cars 2, I had heard lots of rumors that it felt more like a merchandising machine than an actual story worth telling like every single one of Pixar’s other movies to date have been able to boast, but honestly being a fan I know that I tend to shy away from the cynical opinions (at least with regards to Disney) anyways and also, despite being the third in its series, Toy Story 3 managed to just blow me away, so ultimately I was willing to give Lasseter & Co. the benefit of the doubt.

I think my biggest problem of all – it didn’t really feel like a kids movie to me.

I don’t know – maybe it makes me sound like an out-of-touch prude who just doesn’t realize what kids are already exposed to these days anyways, but name for me one other Pixar movie that actually features the phrase, “Kill him!” There aren’t any – not in any of the evil battles that The Incredibles face, not in Ratatouille where the kitchen has to deal with a rat infestation, not in Finding Nemo where Bruce actually tries to eat the other fish! The closest I can even think of is from Toy Story 3 near the end, where we saw Woody and his friends nearly gobbled up by the incinerator, and admittedly that seemed a bit traumatic for young kids, too, however I think it ultimately got a pass from us adults who got all choked up recalling the friendships that were built over the other movies and how they all stuck together until the very end.

But frankly, there was nothing nostalgic about Cars 2 – truly disappointing because I have a lot of great memories, even starting with the excitement of the opening credits, from the original. Instead, somebody had the genius to decide that a James Bond-style spy parody somehow fit well with the quaint, Radiator Springs universe, thus thrusting upon us nearly two hours of cars trying to blow up and kill other cars, cars being tortured for information, and bizarrely enough, Mater’s child-like behavior being the only kid-friendly theme to carry the entire movie!

It’s too bad because I actually do like some of the merchandise that has come out of Cars 2, but the merchandise should never be cooler than the property that it’s based on. To me Cars 2 felt like just another one of those horrible, direct-to-DVD sequels that Disney has become infamous for bastardizing its timeless classics with … The Lion King 1 1/2, The Little Mermaid 2, Cinderella 3 … the exact trend that John Lasseter himself specifically spoke out against when he first took over as head of Walt Disney Animation back in 2007. The story sucked, the script was far too edgy for the G audience that it totes, and ultimately it just really missed the mark that up until now most of us would’ve thought Pixar had an unbreakable lock on.

I think the truly telling thing will be whether the trend continues after Cars 2 because unfortunately just like all of those other stupid sequels, I’ve got a feeling that this one is bound to make money hand over fist and if profit is the core value that the storytellers at Pixar are serving these days, I won’t be long before Monsters, Inc. 2 and The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 become a sad, fiscally-driven inevitability.

How did that old saying from Walt Disney used to go?

“We don’t make movies to make money – we make money so that we can make more movies.”

The original Cars movie had a budget of $70 million and eventually grossed over $460 million worldwide, and that’s purely ticket sales – no merchandising whatsoever (add another cool $250 million for DVD sales), so it doesn’t seem like Disney Studios should be so hard up for money that they need to sell themselves out with lackluster features like Cars 2 to keep themselves afloat…

A Chronicle of Cleo’s Chew Toys

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Any puppy owner knows that it’s easy to spend a lot of money on puppy toys. A ridiculous amount of money, and it all happens so naturally because at least to us people in the pet store, everything looks so cool and all we can imagine is how many fun-filled hours our pet will enjoy playing with their new plaything!

Well, make that minutes because let’s face it, whereas you’re picturing a fun and productive playtime filled with joy and learning, puppies pretty much have one specific need in basically any chew toy that you put in front of them, so instead of asking yourself, “How much fun will my puppy have with this new toy?” you might be better of just asking “How much chewing can this thing withstand???”

Here are some of the best and worst that Cleo has managed to mow through thus far…

Can with a Rope Through It “Thinking Toy”
The idea is that you put food in it and then your puppy learns to manipulate the rope so that her food will slip out through the top.

Or in our case, she learned that if she bangs the hard plastic against the patio long enough, the whole thing would just shatter and all of the goodies were hers to enjoy forever…

Hot Dog
Just a cute, little chew toy – a dog inside a hotdog bun … get it?!

Apparently Cleo felt threatened and didn’t like the imagery that this toy suggested, so she saw fit to make a few aesthetic modifications.

Rasta Ball
This one was just a big, stuffed ball for her to bat around – we got it because she really seemed to enjoy playing with the soccer ball that the neighbor kids accidentally kicked over the fence and lost in our yard.

It turns out, though, that the different between a soccer ball and Rasta Ball is that she wasn’t able to gut the inside of the soccer ball, and so now we see Rasta Ball here completely devoid of its original stuffing, a mere shell of what it used to be…

Spikey, Pink Rubber Ball
Out of everything that we’ve purchased at the store, and believe me when I tell you that this list really only scratches the surface, this simple, rubber ball has somehow managed to hold up the best – as you can see, she loves to latch onto it when retrieving it for fetch and miraculously it has never popped.

We even bought a second one she liked it so much, so now she has her choice of either pink or purple. Yeah, yeah – she’s a princess…

Random Chunk of Wood
And finally, the only “toy” that I didn’t actually have to pay a dime for – this random chunk of wood that she found out in our backyard one afternoon whilest playing. At first I didn’t want her to bring it inside because it had been outside and was all kinds of dirty, as such, but over time you get to a point where you’re like, “Whatever – at least she’s not chewing on the couch…” and thus Random Chunk of Wood was formally invited into our home for full-time Cleo rotation.

It didn’t seem worth the picture, but it should also be noted that she loves rocks and lizards that aren’t fast enough to get away from her that she comes across outside as well, so the moral of the story is simply this … if you want to waste your money on all of those neat, shiny toys from the pet store, just keep in mind that they’re more for you than they are for the dog. Once given to her, she’ll most likely just tear their noses off and move on to something a bit more durable…

“Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power…”

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…the deceptive summer blockbuster trailer!

Finally went and saw this one last night, and as much as I really wanted it to be awesome, it just really wasn’t. Sure, the movie looked nice, even in 3D, but the plot just felt like a bunch of scenes taped together simply for the sake of limping us in the direction of the final battle … which by the way was basically the same battle that the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four fought against Galactus four years ago. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even Ryan Reynolds’ fault – I didn’t really see him as a superhero, but I think he performed as admirably as he possibly could given the absolutely dreadful script.

You’d think when spending $200 million to create the next Hollywood blockbuster, they could’ve set aside a couple hundred grand to hire an actual writer to write the damn thing!

TL;DR – should’ve just stayed home and watched the trailer on repeat a few dozen times instead…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oazFv302DIM