CULTURE/SOCIETY: Jingle Bells Backwards

Another email from Ernest T Spoon. - OlderMusicGeek

A wicked version of Jingle Bells backwards

ENTERTAINMENT: Great Pumpkin Carvings

These are some pics forwarded to me by my girlfriend, The Sassy Witch. - OlderMusicGeek

HUMOR and POLITICS: A Joke

I was checking the websites at blogger.com and came across this joke from the website,
Marc Perkel Rantz. - OlderMusicGeek

What's the difference between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam? George W. Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

HUMOR: The Donkey and the Raffle

Another email from my girlfriend, The Sassy Witch. - OlderMusicGeek

The Donkey and The Raffle

A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died."

Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Kenny said, "OK then, just unload the donkey."

The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"

Kenny, "I'm going to raffle him off."

Farmer, "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"

Kenny, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."

A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"

Kenny, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00."

Farmer, "Didn't anyone complain?"

Kenny, " Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron...

ENTERTAINMENT: Halloween Comic

Here's a comic my girlfriend, The Sassy Witch, sent me. Happy Halloween!

HUMOR and CULTURE/SOCIETY: Like His Momma Used to Do

Another email from my girlfriend, The Sassy Witch. Once again, I hope it's not a warning! - OlderMusicGeek.

He didn't like the casserole
And he didn't like my cake.
He said my biscuits were too hard...
Not like his mother used to make.

I didn't perk the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I turned around and smacked the crap out of him ...
Like his MOMMA used to do.

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Which Halloween Monster are You?

YOU ARE A VAMPIRE

Somewhere in your murky past, you were seduced to the dark side. You developed a fondness for velvet and dark fabrics, for long capes and dark red lipstick. You enjoy the evening, the shadow of the night. You tend to be sensual, and whether it's a new conquest or an old flame, a nibble on the neck is quite enticing.

Keep an eye open for the unbelieving, for those who treasure an early sunrise and have a wooden stake or two in their pockets. You never know when those bat-haters will track you down and put an end to your nocturnal pleasures!

Which Halloween Monster are You?

HUMOR: Married 43 Years

Was clearing out my old emails and came across this email The Sassy Witch sent me. - OlderMusicGeek

Subject: Married 43 years ~

Well, it's not a midlife crisis, but here's how things worked out for me. Married 43 years, took a look at my wife one day and said, "Honey, 43 years ago, we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 20 year old. Now, we have a nice house, nice car, big bed and plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 56 year old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 20 year old blond to sleep with, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed, and not have anything nicer than a 10-inch black and white TV ....

ENTERTAINMENT: In This Digital Music Age, The Listener is King

Here's some excerpts from an article in The Chicago Tribune that gives some hope for the future of the music industry. ("Some" being the key word.) - OlderMusicGeek

In this digital music age, the listener is king
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published October 15, 2006

MONTREAL -- For six years at its annual policy summit, the Future of Music Coalition has tried to navigate a path through uncertainty. Now, with the music industry in the midst of its most profound transition since the invention of the phonograph more than a century ago, some solutions are finally coming into focus.

The big labels continue to lose money; record sales are down for the fifth consecutive year. Commercial radio has been publicly embarrassed by payola investigations conducted by the New York State attorney general's office, in which record companies admitted that they've been paying off radio stations to play songs for decades. And retail stores are losing business; more than 1,200 closed in the last year, and last week the bankrupt Tower Records chain announced it was closing its 89 stores in 20 states and laying off 3,000 employees.

But the summit was hardly a wake. Instead, a roll-up-the-sleeves optimism prevailed, especially for artists and consumers.

"More people are experiencing music than ever before in the history of mankind," said Paul Spurgeon, general counsel for SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. "The great question is how do we get paid for it?"

Panelists agreed that record companies are now at a do-or-die crossroads. Their prognosis: The labels that survive will do so by spreading sales across a wider range of talent, rather than concentrating on a handful of megasellers to ensure profitable quarterly statements to satisfy anxious shareholders. The new marketplace isn't being built for the 10-million selling act. It'll be about building a foundation for artists that sell less than 100,000 albums.

It makes sense. More than 80 percent of the music that is released in America is made by independent artists who don't sell big enough numbers to attract major-label interest. Yet a handful of corporations continue to haul in the bulk of the shrinking industry's revenue. That's because they concentrate their marketing efforts on a few dozen mega-selling artists, while more than 90 percent of the artists who record for a major label never see a penny in royalties. That business model looks particularly rickety in the Internet era.

System of sharing

A new Internet-savvy music hierarchy is being created. Commercial radio, MTV, retails stores and even record companies are losing their tastemaking status, while consumers are becoming de facto music programmers who share information and music via message boards, Web pages, e-zines and MP3 blogs.

In the process, more people than ever are making and consuming music. Without a physical product to sell, costs for recording and distributing music are sinking. At the same time, opportunities to be heard are increasing. In this world, the narrowest music tastes are being served, and a musical planet encompassing thousands of subcultures is being created.

The debate about the future of music is going back to the past

In a sense, it brought the debate about the future of music back to the past, and the oldest marketing concept of all: playing in front of an audience. It's one thing to hear an MP3 file of a new band like Montreal's Lovely Feathers, quite another to hear that band perform that same song on stage. The breathtaking intensity of the quintet's live performance at Pop Montreal made the songs on their latest album sound quaint in comparison.

"It's hard to quantify how we got noticed," said the Arcade Fire's Win Butler. "No doubt Pitchfork had an impact. But who really cares reading an article? It's the music ultimately. You listen, and you either like it or you don't. For us, we've been so much about playing live and making that connection that I don't know any other way."

"Live music," said former Talking Heads singer David Byrne, "is an experience you can't digitize."

Link to the complete article

ENTERTAINMENT: Cool Pic

Found this pic at Digital Traveler at http://digitalartphotographyfordummies.blogspot.com/and I thought I'd share it.