BATTLE STUDIES

John Mayer's fourth studio album is all about his relationship with Jennifer Aniston. Battle Studies (as if the title doesn't give it away) is an album about nasty break ups. The songs are about as bitter as you can be while going through a break up. Here are some of the titles of the tracks off the album: Heartbreak Warfare, Assassins, Friends, Lovers or Nothing, War Of My Life....sounds like a break up album to me. Not exactly the happy, love struck tracks from Mr. Mayer's previous albums.

If this is what going out with Jennifer Aniston is like, EEEK! That said, Battle Studies is a very good album. I really like the songs Heartbreak Warfare, Half of my Heart, Who Says, War Of My Life, Edge of Desire, and Do You Know Me.

For anyone who has ever been through a break up (and who hasn't), to say that you can relate to this album is an understatement. Personally, I haven't been through a break up this bad, but I understand where he's coming from. (And I will definitely take Jennifer Aniston's list of lovers - Brad Pitt and John Mayer - now that's what a I call an ex list).

The true test of any break up is who comes out on top. Jennifer Aniston is a true talent and outstanding comedienne. While Courtney Cox has her own TV show, only Jennifer Aniston has managed to become a major movie star post FRIENDS. And she deserves it. The trailer for Ms. Aniston's next movie looks like a big flop (The Bodyguard). Whereas with Battle Studies, John Mayer is doing his very first all arena tour selling out 20,000 seat venues all over the U.S. and internationally.

Believe me, I will be scanning the audience on Thursday, March 25th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles to see if Jennifer Aniston is front row center to hear the album that is all about her.

NINE IS THE BEST MOVIE OF 2009

Of the 10 films that will be nominated this year, my early prediction is that Up In The Air will win Best Picture of 2009. For me though, the Best Picture of 2009 is Nine. Nine is a beautiful movie. The film is shot all over Italy, so the setting could not be more picturesque and romantic. Even though it's a musical, there are only a few songs that really stand out. The lighting, set and costumes will all get nominations. There's so much going on in the film that I have to see it again.

As I've said in a previous blog, Daniel Day Lewis is the best actor working today. And he can actually sing, which was an even bigger surprise. Although Nine is the story of man, it is a film about women. Mother, Lover, Mistress, Wife, One Night Stand, Girlfriend, Friend, Muse, Whore - they are all present and all representing a different aspect of this man's life. He loves them all, but cannot be with just one of them. Some of the women love him, some used to love him, some are too deep in love, while others are falling out of love. Nine is about love in all of the forms that it can take in a man's life.

What I like most about the film that is missing from films today is that Nine is about real love, not the kind of love you see in your typical Hollywood romance. Up In The Air had the same quality. You think it's going to work out for them, but, just like real life - things don't always work out like they do in a film. There is no "Happily Ever After", just After.

Without a doubt, Nine is most emotionally resonant film of the year for me.

AVATAR IS A GAME CHANGER

No less than Steven Spielberg called Avatar, "The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since 'Star Wars'." And he's right. Avatar is a game changer. It is truly a movie unlike any other. A game changer for 3D and motion pictures on a global scale.

The world that James Cameron has created is mindblowing in its detail. Every tree, leaf, flower, mountain and creature, and even the ground has been thought about and fully realized. The true genius in the movie is the emotional depth of the Na'vi, the humanoids who inhabit the world of Pandora. With their large eyes and long faces, I have never seen such realistic aliens rendered with such an emotional range. And therein lies the genius. In order for the movie to work, the audience has to believe these are really humanoid aliens. That's why both Hulk movies didn't work with audiences. The Hulk was so poorly rendered as a digital creature that the audience couldn't form an emotional connection to the Hulk. So as an audience member, you didn't care about what happened to him as a creature. The Hulk was more caricature than character. Not so with Avatar. Their lips looked like human lips, their eyelids looked human. The movie is 3/4 aliens on Pandora and 1/4 humans in a their futuristic environment. And to pull off a movie like that truly shows that James Cameron is visionary director unlike any other director currently working in the 21st century. Every single dollar of the $350 million that was spent is up there on the screen. I always think it is so pretentious when any director is quoted as saying, "I had to wait for technology to catch up with my genius mind and ideas for this movie to be made." This is the first time I have found that statement to be true.

And while the movie is action packed and visually stunning, Avatar is a very predictable movie. Every plot twist and turn is telegraphed way ahead of time. It's like Titanic all over again - you know the ship is going to sink. With Avatar, you know what's going to happen a long time before it occurs and exactly how the movie is going to end. Although their is plenty of magic in the world of the movie, the script is formulaic and with a paint by numbers quality to it. That doesn't mean it's not a good movie, but the fact that you know everything that's coming up does take away from some of the enjoyment of the film. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen, it definitely should. Expect to get carried away in the film to a world unlike any other, but as far as story goes - cinematicly "going native" has been done better on film ("Dances With Wolves").

My only other criticism of the film is that the bad guys in the film are the humans, us. As an audience member, it put me in the very awkward position of routing against my own species. It was bizarre to hear other audience members (not me) cheering when the humans were being attacked and killed. (Then again, I did see the movie with a Floridian audience.....).

And yes, the film had a very timely eco-friendly, environmental message to it. But the audacity of the film is that Americans always root for the natives. And that's strange. The U.S. is always the aggressor with the superior technology and overwhelming firepower, and yet, we always cheer for the underdogs. It's a strange dichotomy.

That said, go see Avatar in 3D. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

I'M EXCITED TO GO BACK TO FLORIDA!?!?!?

I know, I know, I can't believe what I'm typing either, but it's true. I'm really looking forward to spending 2 weeks in Florida.

The first week will be Christmas with my family. And what's Santa bringing down the non-functional chimney this year? Turns out its a .45 or a .38! Gee, just what I always wanted! That's right boys and girls, I'm going to the gun range for Christmas! Sometime over the Christmas holidays, my parents and I are having a family outing to shoot real guns at a real gun range. Awesome! My parents (and all of their friends) have decided that the economy is so bad that people will inevitably turn to home invasions to make their money and my parents and the rest of the baby boomers are armed and ready for them! You gotta love Tea Party Republicans. And I'll have to keep a count of how many broadside hits I take because of "my" President. ("Well, you voted him.")

Seriously, it will be nice to spend a week with my parents, go to Hooter's for dinner, start working on my tan, catch up with them, discuss real estate options, get some home cooked meals, take the motorboat out on the bay and the Gulf of Mexico, watch a ton of movies in the cinema so I'm fully caught up by the time I get back to LA., and get reacquainted with as much of real America as I can possibly take.

I'm also really excited to return to Miami for New Year's weekend. Although I've only been gone for 6 months, I know a lot has changed. There are new clubs, new bars, new restaurants and new shopping centers that have opened up. I am looking forward to seeing what the new tenant has done with my condo. I want to see how the recession is effecting Miami. I'm looking forward to seeing my former co-workers at Warner Bros. Miami and catching up with old friends. I can't wait to spend as much as possible on the beach, get some sun, and listen to the waves crashing in the background. It may be too cold to go in the ocean, but maybe I'll jump in at least once.

I really miss Miami. It's a beautiful city filled with party people and I had a great life there. Going back as a tourist for the first time will be a bit odd. But at least I will know my way around. And New Year's in Miami is always a festive time of year. Nearly every hotel is sold out for the weekend. And I can't wait to go shopping. Not only will I get to hit the outlet malls with massively discounted after Christmas sales, but the 7% sales tax will be so much better than the 10% sales tax in California. I need new suits, new work shoes, new work shirts and some jeans. The weather looks to be in the 80's, so hopefully I'll be able to come back to LA with a tan. Moving back to LA was definitely the right career move. And keeping the condo in Miami is definitely the right lifestyle choice. I would gladly make Miami one of the cities I either teach or retire in.

Even though I was born, raised and educated in Massachusetts, between my parents on the west coast and my condo (the only home I owe), on the east coast, Florida will feel like going home again.....

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?

As I was walking the floor of the LA Auto Show last weekend, probably the slickest and most unique car that I saw was the 2010 Lexus LFA. The Lexus LFA is a very stylized car for Toyota's luxury brand and the car is definitely ultra luxury, and here's why - it cost $375,000!!! WTF?!?!?

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful car. Apparently Toyota had it in development for 6 years and at $375,000, I cannot see how Toyota will make a profit on the car. The LFA is powered by a 4.8L V10 engine that dishes out 552 bhp. The much power allows the car to hit 62 mph from a standstill in 3.7 seconds and go all the way to 202 mph. (From Googling, I'm not this much of a car freak). But come on, $375,000!!!

A car is depreciating asset. I cannot imagine what the depreciation is on a $375,000 Lexus, but I imagine it's pretty steep. Car payment? Auto Insurance? They must be through the roof. And on top of that think of the constant worrying. Should I park it on the street? Do I dare give it to the valet? Should I use that car wash? Who's going to steal it?

And really, $375,000 is money better spent on a house, not spent on a car. If I had that kind of money, you can be sure I wouldn't be spending it on a Lexus. I would definitely buy a Bentley convertible, or a Ferrari or a top of the line Barbus Mercedes, but definitely not on a Lexus.

APPLE MOVES INTO THE CLOUD

It had been rumored for about 2 weeks, and then this week, it happened. Apple acquired a music company called Lala. Lala is a web based music streaming service. You select your music artists, and Lala matches the artists to the music you've already downloaded, giving you complete access to your music library (stored on your computer) on, and putting it up in the cloud. Lala's music matching service lets you use any web browser anywhere in the world and have access to your entire music collection any day, any where, any time. Not that big of deal? I would beg to differ, not only is Apple moving into the cloud and giving consumers a jukebox in the sky, but it's also very interesting what it means for the future of the music industry (since Apple is the Walmart of music retailers now). Even more interesting is what it says about consumer choice.

ITunes is a classic walled garden, like the old AOL. You can only buy music from ITunes. ITunes is not compatible with any other service, and, as I've complained about before, it is not easy or convenient to move your purchased music from device (IPod) to device (IPhone). Apple has begun to plan for the future by moving its music service ITunes on the web by merging it with Lala's proprietary technology. The most interesting part of this whole acquisition is just that, Apple NEVER makes acquisitions. For Apple, when it comes to build or buy, Apple always builds. But by buying Lala, this means Apple wants to get ITunes onto the web quickly and buying was the fastest way to do that.

What does it mean for consumers? Well, Apple is stealing Pandora's business model. When ITunes was first released, it meant the music was going to be all about consumer choice. ITunes and the IPod revolutionized the personalization of music. From now on for the consumer, music was exclusively going to be about singular personalization. You could create your own playlist, listen to any track of any song you owned or ripped at any time, basically, you were your own DJ all the time. Apple saved the music industry with ITunes. Prior to ITunes, pirating music was fun, fast, cool, and easy. (Legal Side Bar - Don't steal music, movies, TV shows, or anything else illegally off the web). And ITunes worked for a number of years, but now there is a new generation of kids and teenagers who grew up with ITunes as one of their musical selections, but ITunes had 2 problems: 1. It cost money to buy songs, and kids are cheap and poor and 2. You could only listen to ITunes from your laptop, which you would have to lug around with you everywhere you went.

Pandora's business model, while I'm sure it's not very profitable, is a more compelling statement on consumer choice. Like Google, it's free, which is great, since it removes the pay element. But freedom does have a price when it comes to music. On Pandora's web based free music streaming, you can listen to most songs by your favorite artist, but Pandora would also suggest and play other artists similar to your favorite musician while also playing your favorite artist. Pandora does play commercials on its free web streaming service. And Pandora is highly portable because all you needed was a web browser and your favorite musical artist can go with you anywhere with you without you having to take your computer. The ease and portability combined with free (with restrictions) music, was too tempting for anyone to not use. With Pandora, the consumer model went from ITunes hyper personalization to the consumer giving up some choice and some control in return for free music, sampling other artists music, expanding their musical horizons, and unlimited portability. The music business is evolving yet again.

For Apple, the IPhone and ITouch (which itself has evolved into a portable gaming and web browsing platform), Apple must have taken notice that consumers are using internet radio apps to simply stream music onto their IPhones & ITouches. Consumers are slowing moving into the cloud without even realizing it. As a consumer why would I store all of my music on my IPhone or ITouch when I can simply store other media (TV shows, Apps, Movies) on my IPhone or ITouch, save space and stream music off the internet for free? The entire concept of not being able to stream your ITunes downloads off the internet is a rising concern that Apple has wisely identified before it becomes a major competitive threat and Apple has made a smart strategic decision to rapidly move into that space.

My prediction is that Apple will release a new version of ITunes this summer using Lala's technology (now Apples) and allow you to access all of the songs on your ITunes library via any web browser anywhere in the world at any time. While Microsoft may hold market share, it is increasing looking like Apple and Google are going to end up fighting for consumers in the cloud.

http://www.lala.com/ http://www.pandora.com/

DOWNTOWN LA

After 6 months in LA, I finally made it downtown. Downtown LA has changed quite a bit since I was last there 5 years ago. I was killing 2 social commitments with 1 trip downtown, and I wasn't driving or parking, so it was well worth it. The first reason for my downtown trip was the LA Auto Show. I really like the LA Auto Show. I've been going to auto shows either in Miami or LA for the last 10 years. While everyone has their reason for going to any auto show, I have 2: 1. I LOVE the concept cars. Concept cars rarely made, but always so futuristic and cool. At this year's LA Auto Show, only BMW had an incredible looking concept car. 2. I am eagerly awaiting the first 2 door hybrid hard top convertible. No sign of it yet, but I was looking.

After the auto show it was dinner at Rock N Fish, one of the 10 new restaurants at the Nokia Live concert venue right next to the Staples Center. The city has really tried to make downtown LA into an entertainment destination downtown. The trees were decorated for the Christmas season. The LA Kings were playing a hockey game at the Staples Center, the LA Auto Show as at the LA Convention Center and after the auto show and dinner, it was off to the Stevie Wonder/Jonas Brothers Holiday Toy Concert at Nokia Live. Now there's a double bill I thought I would never see, a Motown legend and the biggest boy band in the country right now. Nokia Live is a great space to see concerts. Nokia Live is the best indoor concert space in LA. (LA has the best outdoor concert spaces in the United States, from the Greek Theater to the Henry Ford Theater and the mother of all outdoor concert spaces - the Hollywood Bowl).

Stevie Wonder sounds as good as he always have and I love seeing musical legends playing their hits with some Christmas carols thrown in for good measure. Stevie let himself go. He's now Aretha Franklin big. The Jonas Bros. also played their hits and the girls would scream their heads off the entire song, all set long. I almost lost my hearing.

Downtown LA is very similar to downtown Miami. There was a lot of overbuilding and what were once condos are now apartments. And also just like downtown Miami, there's not a lot of infrastructure to support living downtown. Although I haven't seen it, I heard there is 1 grocery store in downtown LA. The Ritz Carlton is about to open a huge hotel in April 2010 and the Marriott also is about to open their hotel right next door. Now why someone thinks LA needs 3,000 hotel rooms I'll never know. But LA wants to attract all that lucrative convention business once the economy bounces back.

Also just like downtown Miami, downtown LA is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

WHY CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM IS THE BEST COMEDY ON TV

In 1996 when Larry David left Seinfeld at its peak, everyone in the TV industry thought he was insane. Why would anyone leave a TV show that was the most popular television show of the 1990's? Seinfeld wasn't just a TV show, it was an American cultural icon.

Larry David left Seinfeld and in 2000 created Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO. Curb was a fictional, slightly skewed and Hollywoodized version of Larry David's life. Curb was an evolution of Seinfeld, only HBO allowed for much racier jokes and language. Most episodes have always been fall down funny. And most of the cast of Seinfeld has been on the show for their own episodes. But the 7th season of Curb was all about Larry trying to win his wife back by working on a Seinfeld reunion show. And believe me, the season's finale of Curb is the only place you're going to see a Seinfeld reunion.

What's great about the Curb is that Larry David had to write a probable set up for a Seinfeld reunion, successfully balance the "reality" of Curb with all of its characters and put in 3 of the most recognizable actors in the history of television (Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Jason Alexander) into the show as well. It's a talent balancing act of epic proportions. Not just the story, the season, and the actors, but the weight and expectation of living up a Seinfeld reunion (especially since the Seinfeld finale - written by Larry David, was such a let down. The only worse series finale in television was The Sopranos). And I have to say, Larry David pulled it off brilliantly.

The treat to the audience at the end was about 10 minutes of The Seinfeld Reunion show. It was so good to see those characters again and see how they were living in New York City in 2009. Seinfeld was as funny as ever.

Anyone who's a Curb enthusiast (as I imagine they would be called) should note that there are no writers on the show. It truly speaks to Larry David's genius that he just sketches out what he wants in each scene of each episode and then leaves it to his cast and guest stars to write up the dialogue and improvise it on the show. Actors hate improvising. I don't know how he does it, but those actors and comedians trust him enough to allow them to be funny and they are.

Now let's see if Larry David can creatively top himself once again on Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

AT SPAGO IN BEVERLY HILLS.....

Yesterday one of our vendors had a Holiday Party for all its International TV Research clients at Spago in Beverly Hills. The party was fun, the conversation interesting and I had a real revelation about my career trajectory.

First of all, this recession is only halfway over. 2010 is going to be better than 2009, but not by much. There's a whole other wave of misery coming in 2010. For example, I was out at yet another holiday party last weekend and ran into a friend of mine I haven't seen since I moved back to LA. He's an indie actor, who has a 4 bedroom home and he's renting to roommates in 3 of the other bedrooms. And even with 3 bedrooms rented, he's fending off foreclosure. In New York over Thanksgiving I met this really nice couple. Both were working, one got laid off and the other doesn't make enough money to keep their Manhattan apartment. They may need to move to another city, because NYC is too expensive. Another friend of mine was a senior vice president making good money, got laid off and nice severance package, didn't cut down on going out to restaurants, vacations, or the expensive gym membership. She turned down some Director level positions because they were a big pay cut and she thought better offers would come along. I mean, she was a highly skilled, very competent SVP with an MBA. 8 months later, the money's almost gone, the offers have dried up, and she doesn't know what she's going to do.....and the horror stories go on and on.....

Getting back to lunch at Spagos....all of the other studio's international research teams were there. I brought my 3 employees, for a total of 4 Warner Bros. employees. The set ups at FOX and NBC Universal are about the same, a Vice President leading the international research department with a Director and 1 or 2 Analysts. This summer, the other 2 VP's and I had a side conversation about our futures. We decided that 1 of us needed to get to the Senior VP level and that would give impetus for the other studios to elevate the rest of us to SVP. A good plan, and I'm definitely on board. But then I realized something. The VP of International Research at FOX is 52 or 53. The VP of International Research is 46 or 48. The VP of International Research at Sony (who was not present) is 43 or so. Of my peer group, I'm the youngest VP of International Research at 38 (39 by the end of the month).

What the may be the worse recession any of may see in our lifetime has taught me 2 very important lessons. 1. No job, no matter how long you have been in it, is a given. And 2. Plan for the next phase of your life/career.

I'm 39 in 2010. I want to work at Warner Bros. for as long as I possibly can, at least the next 15-20 years, which brings me to between 55-60. At that time horizon, I will definitely make it to Senior VP and maybe even Executive Vice President by the end of my entertainment career. In this recession one of the largest groups fired from their jobs were highly skilled workers in their 40's or 50's. Companies simply fired them and then rehired equivalent workers at a much lower salary. So as I approach my 40's and 50's I'm keenly aware of this fact. I need to start planning now for the second phase of my career and that's where teaching comes in.

Beginning this January, I'm co-teaching a course on the future of media and television at UCLA. Granted, it's not a paid position yet, but I do get to add Visiting Assistant Professor at UCLA's Film and Television School to my resume. My plan after working at Warner Bros. is to leave the entertainment industry entirely and enter higher education. With the past as a cautionary tale, and in an uncertain economic future, we all need a back up plan that needs to be executed now to prepare for the future.

THE GOD GENE

I recently read a fascinating article in the New York Times about the God Gene. While the article gives a fair and balanced account of the both the pros and cons of the science that religion is hard wired into our genetics, it does make some sense.

Throughout history, as long as there has been man, there has been God. What's interesting to me is the evolution of religion from a polytheistic to now a monotheistic perspective in modern times. And an even larger evolution in religion having taken place over the last 2000 years, where if your god wasn't humanized (Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Dali Lama), then you're religion seems in decline in the world today.

Regardless of how religious you are or are not, it's an interesting read: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?scp=1&sq=god%20gene&st=cse

NOW THIS IS HOW YOU REMAKE A TELEVISION SHOW

While this TV season has seen many great shows, one of the hardest and least successful ideas in television is remaking an old series. (This is almost as unsuccessful as TV series being made into theatrical features, but that's for another blog....).

TV shows are very emblematic of their times. The stories, the themes, the costumes, all need to speak to today's contemporary audiences. For example, right now, almost every TV show has acknowledged the recession and how it's effecting all of their characters. Flash forward 20 years later when we're in an economic upswing, and those recession stories just seem dated.

V has a very interesting history. It was originally conceived as "what if" story. What if the United States was invaded by the Nazi's? For obvious reasons, that plot was reconfigured as an alien invasion. Same story, just made for TV. After a successful 4 hour miniseries in 1983, V was followed up by an even more successful 6 hour miniseries in 1984. After a hit that big, the obligatory TV series followed. It was horrible and was cancelled after 1 season.

Now in 2009 comes another V series. And this series is good. Same premise, but with a terrorism slant that totally works. It's much harder than it looks to remake a TV series. Just look at 90210 or Melrose Place.

THE NBCU-COMCAST IS A BAD MERGER

"One of the world's largest media companies." "Promises consumers new and high speed digital delivery of content." "A perfectly complementary set of assets." Those the headlines used to describe the NBCU/Comcast merger this week? And they are also the exact same headlines used to describe the AOL Time Warner merger back in January of 2000. Granted the AOL/TW merger was an internet play and this is a cable driven merger, but that's besides the point. It's a great deal for GE and poor move for Comcast.

For GE, it's a great deal. GE gets to offload some debt into the new company, as well as get a cash payout of $6 billion, even though most of that goes directly to Vivendi for their 5% stake in the company (and speaking of bad deals, the Universal/Vivendi merger was another bad idea). GE sheds a non-core low growth asset for a profit in this economy, so its a good deal if you're a GE shareholder.

It's a different story at Comcast. Comcast rolls its cable channels (E! Style, G4, Golf, etc.) together with NBCU's cable networks (CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA, SyFy, etc.) and that's makes good business sense. Cable has long been the growth engine of NBCU. But look what else Comcast gets...They get the #4 network in primetime with the most failed TV strategy of the season with The Jay Leno Show. The same goes for the NBC O&O stations. Theme park attendance is down due to the recession. The movie studio's entire summer was flop after flop - remember Land of the Lost or Funny People - flop, flop. The advertising market is still down significantly in the United States. Basically, every other piece of the NBCU empire, except cable, is low growth with no significant growth on the horizon. So why would Comcast, which has billions of dollars and could buy anything it wanted, possibly want to buy a low growth declining asset like NBC? My guess, pure ego. Comcast made a play for the Walt Disney Company in February 2004 and was spurned by Disney. The owners of Comcast, the Roberts family simply want to own an entertainment company. And that's the whole problem.

CEO/"lyricist" Edgar Bronfman is another example of a purely ego driven deal about follies in the entertainment business. These CEO's aren't looking at the spreadsheets, they're thinking about going to premiere's in Hollywood with George Clooney and Megan Fox, and that's no way to run a company, even if it's your own money. The Bronfman family lost billions of dollars buying Universal. AOL and Time Warner shareholders lost billions in that failed merger. One of the most valuable lessons I learned in business school is to take the emotion out of business. As a CEO, if your primary goal is to maximize shareholder value, spending billions to buy a low growth company is not the way to do it.

Comcast should be spending their billions buying other cable companies. If I was a Comcast shareholder, I would vote against this deal. Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable companies should be buying other cable systems. The high growth revenue in buying cable systems is no longer the cable channels themselves, the real money is in broadband speed. The cable business is a capital intensive business. Cable is under pressure from the phone companies (Verizon's FIOS and my soon to be TV provider - AT&T Uverse) and from the satellite companies for TV delivery (Dish/Echostar & DirecTV). And they are, but where they're under pressure is two areas which can be improved.

My cable box is horrible. It takes too long to scroll through the channels, sometimes it works fine, sometimes it pauses. Cable companies in the United States have effectively missed a huge revenue opportunity with VOD. Why? Because the cable VOD technology is terrible. And the other major issue is customer service. Cable has horrible customer service. AT&T, Verizon, EchoStar and DirecTV have terrific technology and great customer service. All cable needs to do is produce state of the art set top boxes and be more responsive to their customers to beat down their competitive threats.

But the real revenue is in broadband speed. Broadband is like technological heroin. The more you have the more you want. Everyone wants faster broadband. Remember dial up? Could you ever even imagine going back? Now imagine 100 MB broadband speed or 350 MB broadband or 500 MG broadband speed. You Tube videos load and launch as soon as you press the video, instant bill pay, pages load immediately, video chats and conferencing....the possibilities are endless. And the technology already exists in other countries. By 2012, South Koreans will get a 1Gbps broadband connection. To put that in context, that's 100 times fast than your average 5 MB connection in the average American household today. And I will pay for that speed. I would pay $150 for a 100 MB broadband, and that's on top of the $75 for all my cable channels. For cable, the real money is in broadband, and the phone companies service with DSL has been as bad as cables' technological shortcomings.

Instead of buying NBC's low growth entertainment assets, Comcast should have purchased Cablevision New York or Charter. A missed revenue opportunity if there ever was one.

JAY Z IS THE HIP HOP BEETHOVEN

Continuing my ode to artistic geniuses blogging.....

Back in the late 1700's and 1800's there were thousands of classical music composers. Today, only a handful have truly stood the test of time and survived for almost 250 years. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Wagner....these are names in music that will be remembered in music and live on forever.

When I look around at today's modern musical artists and acts, I find myself asking, who are today's genius musicians? Who in my lifetime will be remembered 250 years from now in 2260? Certainly Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Madonna, U2, Bruce Springstein, but there is definitely another name to add to that list and that's Jay Z. Jay Z is an indisputable musical prodigy, just like Beethoven. His lyrics, his beats, and his music will always be remembered.

Truth be told, I may have 3 Jay Z songs in my whole music collection. But I can always recognize true geniuses, the art that they create and for how long it will endure.

Just like a symphony goer in the late 1800's going to see the world premiere of Symphony #5. To be among the first human beings ever to hear that music. How incredible must it be as an audience member to be there the first time that music is ever played? It must be truly a magical experience. It may seem silly to say so, but going to a Jay Z concert is the 21st century version of seeing Beethoven live.

JEANNE CLAUDE PASSED AWAY

Jeanne who? Jeanne Claude was the brains behind her husband Christo's artistic genius. Christo is well known for his "wrapping". He takes huge, well known buildings or landmarks and wraps them in a recyclable material. Christo's installation's take years to finance, obtain city permits, construct, display and then disassemble.

What's amazing about both artists is not just their art, but how they make their art. Unlike most artists, they do not accept corporate money or sponsorships to make their hugely expensive outdoor displays. Instead, once they have selected a building or object, Christo begins making color renderings of the exhibition, sells the renderings and with the profit, they actually create the artwork. Their displays never last more than 2 weeks, but they can be over 20 years in the making. HBO did a fascinating documentary on their last exhibition, The Gates in Central Park. It was the dead of winter, and to this day, I was so upset I didn't travel up to Manhattan to see it in 2005. Check out their website: http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/index.shtml

Christo's next display is Over the River at the Colorado River in 2013. I fully intend to go see this display during the 2 weeks it is up: http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/otr.shtml

Jeanne Claude & Christo were a husband and wife team whose artwork is know throughout the world. It's artwork that you only get to see once in your lifetime and the canvas is always nature. I am in awe of their genius.

2010 - THE YEAR OF THE PAY WALL

Even though it's November, I'm already willing to make a prediction for 2010. 2010 will be the year that most, if not all free content goes behind the pay wall. Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch threatened to move all of his newspaper sites, worldwide behind the pay wall. Most of Murdoch's newspaper publications are already paid, such as the Wall Street Journal. And it's no coincidence that the 3 paid newspaper sites (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and The Economist) audiences are all what I like to call "pay insensitive" - or rich. However, search engine news aggregators frequently pick up on newspaper sites popular articles and publish them on their sites (such as Google News) for free.

The Pay Wall is fraught with complications. A newspaper sites current audience is wholly dependent on delivering a certain number of eyeballs to the site. By going behind the pay wall, and not allowing search engines not to aggregate your site, you severely reduce your online traffic, decreasing ad revenue, while creating a competitive advantage for an an audience exodus to your competitive newspaper sites. Eliminate your online traffic and you have to make a calculated (although completely unknown) gamble that the number of pay subscribers you pick up to your site is greater than or offsets the loss of your free online ad revenue. My prediction is that in 2010, newspaper sites will adopt a blended subscription model - some previews and free content, with either a pay per article fee (25 cents) or a full subscription for a monthly fee.

And newspapers aren't the only ones going behind the pay wall. The second most popular video site in the U.S. after You Tube, Hulu will also adapt a blended subscription model. Hulu will follow the newspapers lead with some free content such as select clips, trailers and other promotional content, a pay per episode fee of $1.99 (like ITunes), and/or a full subscription fee of $30 monthly for a buffet style "all you can eat - or in this case, watch." Viewers will either have to watch a full ad load to watch a free episode (12 minutes of commercials for a 1 hour show, just like on TV - this is double the current ad load for a 1 hour show, which is about 6 minutes).

And the leader of getting an audience to pay for digital content - ITunes will adopt a $30 a month subscription fee for all you can watch TV & movies on its site.

THE "FREE BLACK HOLE"

In an effort to avoid becoming the music, radio, and after witnessing the collapse this year of the newspaper business, the entertainment industry is going to stop with "Free" everything. I work in the entertainment business. I don't work for free, and neither do the actors, writers, directors, and producers who create the content. Just like getting a drink at a bar, if you want to watch the movie or TV show, you're going to have to pay for it.

Watch this blog posting for an UPDATE! in 2010 to see if I'm correct.

UPDATE: December 2009 - Variety Online has gone behind the pay wall.

UPDATE: January 2010 - The New York Times goes behind the pay wall in early 2011.

UPDATE: February 2010 - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/business/media/03brill.html?hpw

THE STATE BY STATE STRATEGY IS OVER

I was very disheartened on November 5th, 2008 when the State of California passed Proposition 8 and gay marriage was repealed in California. I found it to be especially cruel because over the summer, so many gay marriages were performed when they were legal, and now, those marriages could be annulled. It is one thing to ban gay marriage, but it is very cruel to then be told months later that your marriages no longer counts, according to your own state. And from that terrible moment forward, there has been a fierce debate inside the gay community on the way forward in the fight for gay marriage.

On one side is the state by state solution. Get as many states as possible to pass gay marriage and, like a domino effect, other states would pass gay marriage, until eventually the almost every state would allow it. On the other side was a new, younger, and rapidly growing generation of new gay activists who argued for a national strategy to take cases to the Supreme Court and get them to overturn the federal ban on gay marriage. After all, the Supreme Court struck down the ban on interracial marriage on June 12, 1967.

After personally contributed money to fight Prop. 8 (even though I was living in Florida at the time), I decided that I would no longer put my financial backing behind a losing strategy. But which strategy was the losing strategy? I don't back losers with my money.

In Washington D.C., there are 2 national groups that raise money to lobby Congress for gay rights. There is the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Both organizations mean well, but neither would commit to either a national or state by state strategy. Also, every state has an Equality coalition that lobbies on the state level while getting financial support from both the HRC and the Task Force. It was with a heavy heart that I decided that I could not send any organization 1 more penny until a winning strategy was decided upon and implemented.

Well, after this week's crushing defeat of gay marriage in Maine, it is clear that all the liberal states that have passed gay marriage have passed it. As a community, we've reached the end of the line with the state by state method and now it's time to admit that we lost, get up, brush ourselves off, and put all of our time, money, and political resources towards the federal Supreme Court fight.

If you believe in equal rights, then I encourage our political lobbiest to fully get behind the federal Supreme Court case and to put all of our political and financial resources toward overturning the federal ban on gay marriage. Find out more at: http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/index.html

And until the HRC and Task Force fully back this initiative, I will continue to not support either group financially until they fully endorse the new national strategy.

UPDATE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/nyregion/03marriage.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=gay%20marriage&st=cse

New York State rejects Gay Marriage Bill

U2 LIVE FROM THE CLOUD

On Sunday, October 25th, U2 played a sold out concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California. The Black Eyed Peas were opening to an audience of 96,000 people. It promised to be quite an amazing evening of great live music.

But let's look at both the time and the cost of getting there. I definitely wouldn't want to miss BEP as the opening act. They would be on around 7:30PM. To get there I would have to take the 10 to downtown to get to Pasadena in the Valley. And with 96,00 people, you have to figure not everyone's going together in the same car, so that's 120,000 all converging on the freeways of Los Angeles. I would probably need to leave my apartment by The Grove at 5PM. The concert would go on until 11-11:30PM, so I would get home at 1AM and off to bed immediately since Sunday was a school night. Total time 5PM-1AM - 8 hours round trip, door to door.

What about the financial costs? My ticket price alone is $250 and that's for the nosebleed seats. Gas would be about $10 round trip. Parking would be at least $20 and God only knows how long it would take to get in and out of stacked parking at the Rose Bowl. Then I have to buy at least 2 beers at the show. That's probably $27 with tip. Total financial expenditure - $307.00.

People, we are still in a recession. I do not have 8 hours and $307 to spend to see any band from nosebleed seats. Hell, on Broadway, $150 buys me great orchestra seats. How am I supposed to see 4 short Irishmen from 3/4 of a mile away? But I do really want to see U2. My solution turned out to be YouTube.

U2 was broadcasting the concert live on You Tube. So rather then spend 8 hours and $307, I got to see the show for free, while pausing it, sitting in my own home for 2 1/2 hours with the lights off watching the U2 concert. Of course there were some drawbacks. The stream wasn't digital in either sound quality or picture. But it was good enough for me. And the fact of the matter is, I would have paid $10 for a digital music and digital picture stream (and then have found a way to connect it to my 41" TV and watch it live on my digital TV). It's a new revenue stream for both U2 and Google and great publicity for the site. According to U2, over 10 million streams were served of the concert. Can you imagine how much server space and computer power and technology it must have taken to produce 10 million simultaneous streams of the U2 concert? Simply incredible.

I love concerts, but I don't go to nearly as many as I used to. And now when I go, I have to get seats. I can't handle standing for 2 hours in some general admission SRO section. My perfect concert solution is MTV's HD concert channel (in LA) and HD Net (in Miami). I just record the concerts on the DVR and then play them back whenever I want to in my apartment with digital sound and a digital picture, all for free, with better seats than I could get by actually attending the concert.

But I digress, back to U2. I love how Bono is financially raping rich white men to feed the children of Africa. And for a save the earth icon like Bono, the carbon footprint on this tour is massive. They need 3 days in between shows just to set it up, at 100 tractor trailer trucks to haul the massive and unique genius of concert engineering city to city (I cannot imagine the cost to fly it continent to continent). The gas prices alone must be staggering. But at $250 a ticket X 96,000, that's $24 million in 1 night. U2 is not impoverished, and you know they fly a private jet show to show too.

Getting back to the concert. It was definitely the best U2 show I've ever seen. The set list was perfect, the band sounded great, the stage was a spectacle unto itself, and I literally had the best seat - in my house.

THE RETAIL MODEL IS BROKEN

Frankly, I don't understand the retail model. This occurred to me as I was in line at the grocery store the other day. I was standing in a long line with about $200 worth of groceries in my cart, meanwhile, someone else with only ice cream and kitty litter was quickly breezing through the 10 items or less register. WTF?

Those 2 items, ice cream and kitty litter, could not have cost more that $25 total. Here I am with more groceries and more money spent in store, and I'm being penalized by having to spend more time by spending MORE money? What kind of f-ed up business treats their lower paying customers better than their higher paying customers?

Here's how the grocery/WalMart/Home Depot/Target stores of the future should work: All stores need to have RFID tags (radio tags) embedded in all their items. I place all my groceries/items inside my cart. Like the Whole Foods in Manhattan, there are 2 lines, the 10 items or less line, where there is only 1 line for ALL the 10 items or less customers and a second faster moving line with triple the number of registers for more customers with more than 10 items. The larger number of items line, further breaks up into 3 lines where they are separated out, the cart moves into a standing line, and very quickly, the RFID tagged items are checked out instantly by a cart scanner, a credit card pays for it, and then there is a separate bagging area if necessary. Here the faster moving line is the lines for customers with more items/groceries.

From an incentive point of view, I would be encouraged at any store to spend more money, if I thought I would be spending less of my time in a line. As a high paying customer, I want to be rewarded for more spending, not penalized for it.

CELEBRITY BLING CRIME RING EXPOSED!!!

The LA Times has to be one of the worst newspapers in the United States. The only thing the LA Times had going for it was its celebrity & entertainment industry coverage, and the LA Times has even managed to screw that up with bloggers getting bigger scoops than the city's only newspaper. But last night, as I was waiting in a hotel lobby for my dinner guests to arrive, I read what has to be the most fascinating LA Times story of 2009.

Over the course of late 2008 & continuing into 2009, there were over 10 celebrity homes broken into, usually younger stars - Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Meghan Fox, Ashley Tisdale, Audrina Partridge, etc. No one knew what was going on, until yesterday's story broke with the arrests of several teenage girls and boys from Augora Hills Continuation High School. (A continuation high school is where older teenagers to to finish high school - such as, if a girl gets pregnant, did some jail time, so these were already problem kids).

According to the police reports, the teenagers would watch TMZ, read Perez Hilton.com, TMZ's website, and other celebrity blog sites, choose the hangbag, jewelry, shoes, watches, whatever that they saw the celebrities wear that they wanted and then using the same websites, track when the celebrities were out of LA (at an awards show, attending a premiere or travelling overseas), break into their homes and steal the same items they saw online! Insane! It's taking celebrity stalking to a whole new, and scary level. (And don't these celebrities have home security systems - they have cameras - see the photo above, but just locks on the doors?)

Enjoy the links below:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-celebrity-burglaries27-2009oct27,0,4883183.story

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/reputed-bling-ring-celebrities-including-ashley-tisdale-and-megan-fox.html

IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST AND NO ONE GIVE A STATUS UPDATE ON FACEBOOK, DID IT REALLY FALL?

Professional Movie and Television Reviewers are officially irrelevant. The days when a local daily newspaper or magazine's review could make or break a TV show or a movie's opening weekend are gone and they're not coming back. Although the age of the reviewer is gone, the review itself is not. It's just evolved.

The idea for this blog posting actually came from my boyfriend, who is a religious user of Facebook. A few weeks ago in NYC, after looking up the time and location of a film we were about to see, he went online (Facebook) to see what his friends said about the movie. Did they see the film? Did they like it? What were their personal reviews of the film. In this new digital age, what an "expert" thinks about a film or TV show has no weight with intent to view versus what your peer group and social network thinks about a movie or TV show. As my boyfriend put it, "If it doesn't happen on Facebook, maybe it never happened." And he may very well be right.

The majority of first weekend moviegoers are usually teens. It's estimated that 94% of all moviegoers are online, and of that percentage, 73% are on social networking sites. With "friends" from coast the coast on Facebook, a teenager in California can easily check out what his or her friends in Boston thought about the film before going themselves. Here is an article on this very point: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118009343.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1

As if I needed any more evidence, Nielsen Media Research (whose whole business is audience measurement) recently struck an alliance with Facebook to track the sites online audience: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125356656635628897.html While this article is about tracking advertising responses on Facebook, the natural extension of this business alliance will be tracking word of mouth on media properties.

Prior to social networks, there was no audience metric for tracking word of mouth. No company could possibly count the number of text messages, phone calls or emails people made about a film or TV show, but Twitter and Facebook changed all that. Eventually we will be able to track word of mouth. But tracking word of mouth and then being able to effectively promote it (good word of mouth) or try to turn the tide (bad word of mouth) will be the new digital frontier to ride.

A movie or TV show's success of failure may depend on it.

RECESSION = COMEDY

Earlier this week I went to see the film Zombieland. For a Monday afternoon film on a lazy day off, it's the perfect film to see. No belly laughs, but some funny moments and a good comedic twist on a a horror genre staple. But Zombieland opening as the #1 at the U.S. box office with $25 million? That's just as strange as the "comedy" film Couples Retreat opening at #1 with $35.3 million. The same thing is happening in TV. There isn't just 1 big new comedy, there are 3. Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Glee are all doing very well in the ratings. So what's going on?

A cultural pattern is beginning to emerge. Every economic recession in the United States has given a rise to comedy overall in American entertainment. Americans want to laugh, and apparently looking at the U.S. box office lately, they want to laugh at just about anything. This isn't the first time this pattern has emerged, and given the stunning lack of banking regulation not being legislated, this will not be the last time we experience a deep recession and witness a rise in the comedy genre.

Comedy is really hard to do. Comedy is hard to write, it's hard to act, and it's all in the timing and set up. Don't get me wrong, I love a good drama, but comedy takes real talent. And comedy writers may be able to write comedy, but that doesn't make them funny people. And comedic actors may be funny with lines, but they can't write comedy. Only stand-ups have the one-two punch of both being funny and writing funny (since most of them write their own material). With comedy, the result is immediate and successful or crushing. Put simply, it's either funny or it's not. Either you get a laugh or its crickets. I love a good comedy, and the more engaging and smart, the better.

While I hope the country and the world pull out of the recession soon, I'm enjoying all the laughter.

THE FALL TV SEASON 2009 - 2 MONTHS IN

There is a lot to admire in the new Fall TV season. BIG BANG THEORY is the next #1 sitcom in the United States (it is currently #2 after TWO & A HALF MEN - which it will replace in 3 years). The actors are really developing their roles. Jim Parsons is turning into a great comedic leading man and Kaley Cuoco is also a rare commodity, a sexy comedic leading lady. The entire cast of BIG BANG THEORY is bringing its 'A' game each week.

Besides their singing talent, the cast of Glee is also the most diverse cast in the history of network television. Never in U.S. TV history has an ensemble cast included an African American, gay, Jewish, handicapped, Asian, and Latina actors all in 1 show. And that's not the only unique aspect of Glee. It is also the first musical series to successfully air in U.S., ever. One of my favorite TV show's of all time was Popular. Glee is from Ryan Murphy, who is an incredibly talented writer, director, creator, producer. The runaway funniest character on Glee is Sue Sylvester. For those of you who watched Popular, Sue Sylvester is basically a grown up Nicole Jilian. Actually, most of the cast of Glee is just an updated version of their Popular counterparts.

NCIS is the new #1 series in the United States. NCIS has been on the air since 2003 an it was always the "Rodney Dangerfield" of primetime. Always getting good numbers, but no respect and no one in the TV industry really talked about it, outside the millions that were watching the show. NCIS will be the #1 new show all year, and depending on how far American Idol declines this season (my prediction, not much). NCIS has broken through for 2 reasons: 1. The repeat airings on #1 cable network USA have helped a whole new audience experience the show and 2. It makes the audience feel safe. NCIS is a procedural about how a government agency should and would work in an ideal world. Fighting terrorist, capturing bad guys, a whole cast as James Bond like agents with the best technology the United States has to offer. The fantasy element not withstanding, NCIS is a very good show.

FRINGE is the new X-Files. Full stop. Period. I always liked The X-Files and I like the new X-Files - FRINGE, even better. I'm always excited when someone manages to improve upon an original, although both shows owe their series DNA to The Twilight Zone from 1959. The production of FRINGE moved from New York City to Vancouver Canada this season. Like most states during the recession, New York cut way back on tax credits for local productions. JJ Abrams borrowed an idea from his last series, Alias. Both FRINGE & Alias use the helicopter city shot to establish the location (Seattle, Boston, New York City.....). This allows the series to travel all over the world without ever leaving Vancouver. It's a cheap easy story telling element, but it totally works to the benefit of the show.

The other most underreported story of the this TV season is that every sport is up in the ratings on TV. If the World Series continues to shape up as an East Coast versus West Coast battle, watch baseball ratings go through the roof. Football is also up, no matter what night its on. Monday Night Football on ESPN is delivering the largest cable audience ever. Sunday Night Football is the only good story on NBC's Fall Schedule, too bad they can't use the "halo" effect to promote the rest of its male skewing primetime schedule. Something tells me Sunday Night Football fans better get ready for a lot of CHUCK promos. College Football is network television's only bright spot on Saturday nights. Bravo to ABC for successfully experimenting with putting college football on network primetime.

The other trend, reality is down, and interesting enough, what we're all witnessing is the revitalization of the U.S. network sitcom. It is a television truism that in times of economic decline, Americans want to laugh more. Other than procedurals, comedy is in. Everyone needs a laugh. Modern Family is the funniest of the new comedies. And as much as I love BIG BANG THEORY, the funniest show on television is Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

THE OTHER PUBLIC OPTION THAT'S FAILING

Let me state right up front that I am the successful product of the American public education system. Other than a brief stint in elementary Catholic school, I went to elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate college all at public schools (and all in Massachusetts, which places a particular emphasis on education, plus I have 2 parents who are college professors at a community college.....). The first private university that I went to was the University of Miami for my MBA.

What's sad is that over the last 20 years, the American education system has become a two tiered system, with 1 tier succeeding and the second tier failing. The tier that is succeeding is the private school system. The wealthy can afford to send their children to private schools, from elementary up through high school and then into a private college. This is a minimum $1 million dollar investment over 18 years. This investment usually pays off huge dividends towards a child's successful professional future.

And then there is the second tier, which is the public educational system, which is largely failing the majority of children. Public schools are underfunded, understaffed, overpopulated, potentially dangerous and not giving kids the level of education they need to succeed in the 21st century.

In the 1970's when I was growing up, my parents did not hesitate to send me to a public school. They felt, rightly so, that math was math, English was English, and science was science, so other than the cost ($0 versus thousands of dollars for a private education), what was the difference? And they were largely correct. The decline in the public education system really began 20 years later in the 1990's and has continued to steadily decline ever since.

And although I'm not an expert in private education, as a parent, it seems to me that you're really paying for 2 things in a private education: 1. 2 or more teachers per classroom with a smaller class room size to give students a more personalized educational experience. No one inspires you more than your teachers, and the more teachers in the classroom, the better. And 2. the other cost of private education is largely equipment costs (computers, software) and every student having their own computer, versus one 10 year old computer in a public school classroom that all the students can use (for about 10 minutes each).

Although I'm not a parent, I would want my son or daughter to have their own personal computer in their school throughtout their entire education and to have more than 1 teacher per class and a small class size to facilitate a more productive learning environment. And I also want to make sure my son or daughter felt safe at school. Public schools fail on all these levels, and it's so sad, because it does not have to be this way.

When I was growing up, a high school diploma was the minimum degree you needed to get a blue collar job and a college degree was really necessary to succeed in a white collar job. Now, almost everyone has an undergraduate degree, and to really succeed in your career, you need a master's degree. These realities are creating a stark differences between succeeding and failing in life.

I would think the financial component of your child's early, mid and future education would have to figure into any couples decision of whether or not to have children. But I suspect that if the public educational system was comparable to the private educational system, couples would be encouraged to have children, or even more children, knowing there would be no educational cost and that their child would receive a great education to help them succeed in life.

With over 40 million American adults who are functionally illiterate and growing, the United States should declare a War on Illiteracy and properly fund the American public education system in this country. This is a long term investment in the country that will pay dividends decades from now, but unfortunately is hurting the future of the United States in the 21st century.

UPDATE: Thomas Friedman on how a poor American educational system contributed to the Great Recession: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html?em

20 YEARS OF PEARL JAM

This past Tuesday I went to see Pearl Jam concert for the very first time. I have seen well in excess of 500 concerts, but until this week, I had never seen Pearl Jam perform live. Pearl Jam was the music of my junior and senior year of college, so this was going to be a bit of a nostalgic trip down college memory lane (which is always a pleasant journey). The other interesting bit of trivia is that this year is Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary as a band. That's right, 20 years of Pearl Jam. And yes, that makes me feel old. The other interest tidbit is that I know all of the first 10 years of Pearl Jam music and none of the last 10 years of their music.

Turns out this is as close a concert as you got to Pearl Jam playing a greatest hits tour. It was a great show. What I like is that a PJ concert is all about the music. There's no video, no cameras, no light and smoke show, just Pearl Jam playing their music and singing their songs. It was a bare bones, stripped down concert experience, but PJ always wanted it to be all about the music and not about "the show".

So while they were playing the songs that I knew, I would sing along, but with the songs that I didn't know, I would sit back (yes, I have to sit down at concerts now) and think about the history of the band. Back in the early 90's Pearl Jam was the biggest band in the world. As I looked at my Ticketmaster purchased ticket, I remember how Pearl Jam fought against Ticketmaster and by now had apparently lost that battle years ago. So much for the power of the fans. Also, as I was seeing the concert in the Gibson Amphitheater (which is a decent sized space), I wondered if they had embraced their rock god status in the early 90's if they would be playing stadium tours now instead of smaller arena venues.

Despite not playing Jeremy, Pearl Jam played all of the hits that I loved from my college years. During the encore, PJ brought out Chris Cornell to duet on Hunger Strike (the rare male rock duet) and Jerry Cantrell (of Alice In Chains) to play guitar on the final song, Pearl Jam's best and signature song - Alive.

The other interesting note from the concert was how drunk lead singer Eddie Vedder became as the evening went on. He went from sober at the beginning to slurring by the end of the show. Apparently he does this at every concert.

Between Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, Blind Melon, Mudhoney, and of course, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Pearl Jam is the last band left in the 21st century still playing the Seattle grunge music scene. That signature sound itself was an cultural offshoot of the pop overhang of the late 1980's (coincidentally, the last time the U.S. went through a real estate devaluation). I vividly remember the press at the time pitting Kurt Cobain (the more talented songwriter, lyricist and lead singer) against Eddie Vedder (the more successful, but less talented) of the two. For the press, it was a good story to set up a fake rivalry between Pearl Jam and Nirvana. And on that thought, I wondered what kind of music Kurt Cobain would be making today, were he still alive. And would Foo Fighters would even exist if Nirvana was still a band?

Overall, it was a great concert and a good trip down memory lane. What more can you ask for for $90?

Entertainment Weekly's Review and You Tube posts of the concert:

http://music-mix.ew.com/2009/10/07/chris-cornell-jerry-cantrell-pearl-jam/

For my history with Pearl Jam see my blog post:

FINALLY! A TONIGHT SHOW FOR MY GENERATION

3 STUDIO HEADS OUT

For most of this decade, Hollywood movie studio heads enjoyed a relatively stable tenure (3-5 years or more). A few box office flops here or there were expected, and even tolerated by corporate parents. Not so anymore. Within the last 2 weeks, David Linde & Marc Shmuger at Universal and Dick Cook at Disney have all been shown the door by their respective bosses, Ron Myer and Bob Iger. But who installed the new revolving door at the top of the Hollywood executive suites? Turns out the true culprit, who is never given any credit for the firings, is DVD sales.

Universal has had a dismal year at the box office with such high profile flops such as Funny People, State of Play, Land of the Lost, Public Enemies, Love Happens, and Duplicity. While Disney has had such awful films such as G Force, Race To Witch Mountain, Surrogates, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Bedtime Stories. With both Universal (15-20 films a year) and Disney (10 films a year), 5 flops in a row at the box office is now almost half your slate.

For the early part of the decade, in most consumers minds, if a movie was a flop at the box office, that doesn't necessarily mean a consumer would not buy it or rent it on DVD. DVD sales would largely compensate for a failed box office release. In fact, there were even consumers who were willing to wait for the DVD release just so they could watch it in their homes versus the "hassle" of going to the movie theater to see it. But DVD sales turned out to be Hollywood Heroin, as the market became oversaturated with product, BluRay is not filling the DVD revenue hole due to a higher price point and equipment upgrades, and the recession, have all put new pressure on the theatrical box office. Have a flop at the box office now, and no one is buying the DVD to cover the revenue shortfall.

It's time for the heads of studios to make more hits at the box office to keep their jobs.

UPDATE: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010123.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Kevin McCormick is out as President of Theatrical Feature Production at Warner Bros.

WOMEN TO SAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?

Well, here's something I never thought I would write about. If the Democrats can get an African American President elected, the Republicans are going to need to get a woman elected President of the United States to get back in the political game. Crazy? But from my perspective, the only qualified Republican candidates to run at this point are all women.

Candidate #1 - Current Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (who is now running for Governor of Texas against Rick Perry), would be a good Republican candidate. She's been a Senator, so she knows Washington and the Texas governor's office has already propelled a Texas governor to the White House.

Candidate #2 - Call me even crazier, but firebrand conservative Liz Cheney is another viable candidate for the first female President. Liz Cheney unapologetically has taken up her father's mantle on conservatism, national security, and torture. She's literally a chip off the old block.

Candidate #3 - No female Republican Presidential conversation is complete without mentioning Sarah Palin. I think she would make an even worse President than George W. Bush 2, but she's a candidate for Republicans nonetheless. The woman can barely run a state and her own household, so I would never vote for her.

There is no doubt that the midterm elections in 2010 will see Democrats losing seats, but unless there are major upheavals in 2010, we're unlikely to see a repeat of the 1994 Democratic political massacre that occurred that year.

The male Republican Presidential candidates are all terrible choices. Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Charlie Crist, Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, and John Thune are all very weak Republican candidates.

May the best man, or woman, win (only the nomination, not the office).

UPDATE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042903222.html

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/09/lawless.women.politics/index.html

FYOU BILL CLINTON

Last week, Bill Clinton gave a condescending interview to Anderson Cooper (who else?) where he stated that he had changed his mind and now supported gay marriage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcAKCy1Med4

With all due respect President Clinton, FYou! This is another case of too little too late and frankly, when you're back to being a private citizen, your "opinion" really has no actual power. Where was this opinion when you were actually President of the United States and had the power to do something about it. Under President Clinton, gay rights took 2 gaint steps back. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has to be the most discriminatory legislation ever passed. Can you imagine if it was the Defense of Interracial Marriage Act that said that states didn't have to recognize other states interracial marriages? And Don't Ask Don't Tell was another disastrous policy, that only eased when the U.S. was fighting 2 wars.

And President Obama is no better. Gay dollars were constantly pandered to in the last Presidential election with a wink and nod that after 8 years of a President requesting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (effectively enshrining discrimination INTO the U.S. Constitution), Obama would be better. Well, 9 months in all we've gotten in same sex partner benefits for federal employees. Pardon me if I don't stand up and cheer. OK, I get it, healthcare and Afghanistan are priorities. Of course they are. But that doesn't mean Obama can't issue an executive order banning DOMA. It's going to be a really a long argument to link healthcare or Afghanistan and gay rights. I understand you don't need headwinds, but the voters who didn't vote for you are certain not pro gay rights either, so what's the difference? It's the same issue with Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

This brings me to my theory on gay rights. I think that gay rights make their biggest strides during Republican administrations. When the American public perceives that government is oppressing a minority, that engenders sympathy votes at the ballot box. Under Bush, we had gay marriage passing in states. During Democratic administrations, gays get lazy and just sit back and say, "Well, we've got a Democratic President, let's sit here and wait for our rights." With Obama, just like Clinton, we're still waiting. And what else have we gotten under Obama, a spirited defense of DOMA from the Obama administration? Not exactly the gay rights advocate presidential candidate who gave a very compelling argument on Logo for gay rights.

Frankly, at this point, Obama does NOT have my vote in 2012. He hasn't earned it.