It’s official, I’m an internet nerd: “LMAO” stands for laughing my ass off..  

The Noz, this guy is off the hook…  I found this google searching for a blog  post that’s about to appear here about Jimmy Carter’s solar panels…
http://thenoz.wordpress.com/

Trav the Butcher. This is a guy right here in Utah who is actually the son of a friend…  Really really funny, all about meat…  
http://travthebutcher.blogspot.com/

And check out this monster…

FOR a nation seeking unity, a recipe has swept the Internet that seems to unite conservatives and liberals, gun owners and foodies, carnivores and … well, not vegetarians and health fanatics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html

Mmmm, bacon…

 By the way, Bacon fits into the “religion” category…  (at least on this blog).

My buddies the Williams brothers (two awesome, super down to earth white guys from Utah, who own about a dozen Hammond organs, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzers, Clavinets etc – even though they both play different instruments) turned me on to these guys. The Breakestra – who are one of my favorite bands, even though I’ve never even seen them in person. They really only have about one album (which you can listen/download in it’s entirety here).   I took a few of my favorite tracks and posted them here for your enjoyment. I also particularly like the last song, which is an instrumental:

Make sure you turn it up!

Here is a snippet from there blurb/bio on their website:

The Los Angeles based ensemble is based in deep funk, soul, jazz fever and musical friendships. A Breakestra show is about dancing and swinging — eight men on stage getting loose, playing serious grooves. Think James Brown. Watching the Breakestra live is a tour de force. As Miles says, “What are the first three letters of FUNK?”

The Breakestra began as the house band for the legendary club called the Breaks. Egon from Stonesthrow Records further explains the etymology of their name: “Break. As in “breakbeat.” That ten second slice of percussive magic in the middle of a funk song that, when looped together by progressive South Bronx DJs in the 1970s, became the basis of the hip-hop movement. Arkestra. Out-there jazzer Sun Ra’s funkafied concept of the stuffy classical orchestra.” When we combine the two concepts, you have the Breakestra or in other words an orchestra that plays breaks. Back in 1999, Stonesthrow first introduced the world to the Breakestra with a few 12” releases and soon after the full-length album Live Mixtape Part Two.

“The Breakestra should become a class or a 4-year graduate program for funk musicians. Playing with the Breakestra is a great way to get a degree in funk,” says former longtime keyboardist Carlos Guaico. Indeed it is a way to get your degree in funk because the Breakestra have played an A to Z of funk classics. James Brown, Jimmy Smith, all the way to the endless breaks sampled by Gangstarr and A Tribe Called Quest. The Breakestra have played so many covers of the aforementioned grooves that the only way a musician could be in the group is if they really knew how to play.

Here is a bizarre twist of two of my interests meeting each other - social media, at the Sundance Film Festival.  

From The Festival Awards Page about it:

“For the Documentary Competition top honor, the jury selected Ondi Timoner’s We Live in Public from the 16 films in the U.S. Documentary category. Timoner’s second Grand Jury Prize (she won in 2004 for Dig!) is the story of the Internet’s revolutionary impact on human interaction portrayed through the perspective of Josh Harris, the web maverick notorious for his experimental public art projects.”

I posted this on another site about it: 

“This week at the Sundance Film Festival, a film called “We Live in Public” won the Grand Prize Jury Award from the festival, the festival’s highest documentary prize. The film is about the future of the Internet and how it will develop, via use of social media.

It’s told through the story of the Internet pioneer Josh Harris, founder Jupiter Research/Media Metrix [now Forrester Research]; Pseudo.com , etc. There is no doubt that Harris (for those of you who are aware of his story) is questionable, as are his techniques. The film does not shy away from this, it actually tells the story of a very compromised man.

Variety writes this about him, in this excellent review about it:

An intensely immersive, even draining film, “We Live in Public,” which doubles as a short history of the Internet, is technically tops on every level — including its volume. Much of the film is set to an ear-splitting cacophony of moody pop-rock, as befits a character as loud and abrasive as Harris.

This said, he has actually has been able to forecast the Internet (and specifically, how users of the Internet will use it) with tremendous effectiveness, and at least 10 years ahead of the curve.

The story and conclusions and specific conclusions are about exactly the Internet we are starting to see via the increasing onset of social media: youtube, blogging, microblogging, facebook/myspace, etc.

The film just premiered so it will be some time before you can see it if you haven’t. I would say this movie is a mandatory see for anyone mildly interested in social media, particularly any developer. If you are a netflix subscriber, you can add the movie to your que and it will mail it to you when it’s released. Otherwise pay attention and when it comes out make sure you check it out.

Also, as crazy as it sounds it’s also very applicable to Burning Man. I’m currently making efforts to possibly screen it at Burning Man a few times if I can get a copy and they’ll allow me to.”

Relevant Links:
Cinematical Review of main character and director
Cinematical Podcast Recorded Interview

It’s about 3/4 through the festival and here’s an update on what we’ve seen and what’s been good…

Rudo y Cursi  – 6 or 7 out of 10.
This is a pretty good movie about two brothers in rural Mexican who make it big for about a year in the Mexican Futbol (soccer) leagues.  It’s produced by Guillermo del Toro (most famous for directing Pan’s Labyrinth) and a couple others from an increasingly heavyweight Mexican movie scene.  This movie was pretty good, a comical feelgood movie that doesn’t push you too hard, about what you’d see in the theater other than it’s in subtitles (so you’d never see it).  Probably one of the better movies about soccer made though…
Relevant link:  Sundance Blog about it.

Sin Nombre  – 10 out  of 10
Carrie & I were reading on the blogs about this movie and there was a ton of hype about it.  We always wonder about the hype and the movie in reality.  In this case it was accurate…

The setup of this movie was really interesting and big gamble on the part of the studio behind it, Focus Features.  The director was a first time feature maker that somehow drew full studio support to make a movie in subtitles with actors that had never acted before – a pretty remarkable feat!  He did have direct support from the Sundance Film Institute though.   The guy to the right in the photo above (the lead) is a kid from Honduras who was literally never  in a movie before.    But the gamble paid off..  He was *amazing.*    This movie is gut wrenching, out there and violent, it told an awesome story, and really frankly scared the shit out of me about some of the Mexican gangs in way southern Mexico in the border towns.  I have friends and acquaintances who drive down there through Chiapas (where much of the movie takes place) and really looking at this really accurate portrayal, if frankly scares the shit out of me to ever take such a trip.  These guys care about nothing…

We still have a lot of movies and award winners to see.  I have a good feeling this movie will be an award winner.  It is that good.   That said the question is if it ever makes it.    It is just as good as Slumdog Millionaire, if it helps, and it’s always a shame to see movies like this go unnoticed…

Relevant link: Review that talks about the hype too.

Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience – 9 out of 10.
I looked all over for a photo of the film or even a press photo and it doesn’t exist.   I found this one on the ‘net and it’s a picture of Sasha Grey, the porn star who stars as the lead in the movie all about being a high priced call girl.  It’s a porn pic though, not anything to do with the film.  We caught the world premier/sneak peak on Wednesday night in an edit that was supposedly “rough” but actually flowed and told the whole story really really well.  This movie was *awesome,* really natural and real-feeling and may possibly be the next Sex Lies and Videotape, one more time, from the same guy who made that movie too.   It has the look and feel, but way trendier, hipper.  The movie is actually not lewd at all, hardly shows nekidness, just gets to the grit and has a real New York feel…

Soderbergh is a real pro.  It turns out in this movie, not a single actor was an actor as well.  He just sort of turned on the camera, told them what the plot or synopsis was, and let the actors go.  As a result they were really natural.  I mean, really really natural.  This is also why he cast a pornstar to protray the character, someone who would handle the subject naturally.  It was almost amazing, some of the best performances I’ve seen.  Sized up with Soderberg himself (Ocean’s 11, Che, a slew of other big movies) it comes to life well.   This one will be out, it might be obscure but if you can handle hip and trendy, sexy, New York, you should dig it.  It also actually covers the slumping economy pretty well too.  Relevant Link: Another blog posting from someone else in the crowd.

Honorable mentions:
Yes Men Fix the World.  About a 5 or maybe 6 out of 10.  You can google this for more info.  The tale of two extremely balzy Greenpeace style activists who do a bad job of preaching to anyone else but the choir.  But it is nice to see actually and they are funny guys in funny situations.  Polarizing though, unfortunately.    Bummer they don’t have more money to do the subject some good and build the film into something better or more honorable for themselves.

Movies that weren’t so hot,or were decent but “Sundancy” and won’t make the screen, and/or maybe rightfully shouldn’t (sorry if anyone reads this and is offended):

• Rough Aunties.  Documentary that felt like Dog the Bounty Hunter meets women in South Africa doing good work on behalf of women and children.  But they never develop the story, location, etc.  The film maker is completely captivated or sold so as a result she does a piss poor job developing the characters, location, story, etc.  I was almost even polarized against the main characters.
• Toe to Toe.  About two lacrosse players.  Good story but we already saw it with Kiersten Dunst in Crazy/Beautiful and this version doesn’t do much better.  The bummer is the actors were really good actually, especially the white lead actress.

Enjoy!   We have audience & jury winners coming up so I’m sure there will be a couple more.  I really like documenting this stuff as it’s sad when these killer movies never make it anywhere…

Not a lot of people know about water issues in the west.  The combination of population growth and some environmental issues, and then human practices like agriculture and drinking water tactics is restricting water flow to rivers and replenishment to important lakes and drinking water sources, and even places like The Great Salt Lake.

Take a look at the map to the west and see how this Western Nevada/Utah/California drainage basin effects nearly everyone in the west, all the way down to Southern California.   If you are looking for the next “oil-like” battle that is going to occur, this is it.   Unfortunately, water=life.  I consider water to be the most powerful substance on the planet.

On the evening of Monday Feb 9, an organization I participate with called the Wasatch Back Environmental Alliance will be having a guest speaker from the Great Basin Water Network, Steve Erickson.  If anyone is interested please come and check it out. (Open to the public).   Click here for more information.

Slumdog Millionaire has already won a lot of big awards this year.  You may have seen an earlier post giving it the official endorsement, because it’s a great.  But a lot of people think that movies like this are ‘rare.’

We’re lucky in that Carrie and I live right here in Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival.  The truth is we’ve seen maybe even dozens of movies over the years that are so good, emotionally riveting like Slumdog, and excellently made.  It’s just that there isn’t a whole lot of demand for them.  Slumdog, through it’s atypical release and reasonably well know director and producer, happened to catch the waive and hit the mainstream.  This is great, and in my opinion a long time coming.  But I’ve been emailing links of movies that are just as good to my friends for years…

My favorite movie of 2008 Sundance was Mancora, a film that sort of like Kids meets Dazed and Confused meets a surf movie.  And it’s in Spanish.  This move is *awesome* but no one’s ever heard of it.  I think it’s because it has subtitles because it’s from Peru but it also has some of their most famous young actors in it.  These actors are awesome, good looking, and everything that could fit into Hollywood.  It seems no one wants to bother with subtitles I guess…

Carrie (my wife) is the ultimate ticket master, she has spreadsheets and whole system for getting good movies via our local’s ticket lottery system regardless of the time slot.  This year we had a so-so slot (6PM on the first day).  Last year we were at 9AM on the first day, so 10 out of our 13 movies were premiers, including the Crosby Stills Nash and Young premier CSNY Dejavu, and a DeNiro movie premier (that was so-so, but had a lot of great actors who were also right there).  It’s pretty cool to be feet from Neil Young or Robert DeNiro or Bruce Willis or Robert Redford himself, even just for curiosity.

This said, one of great pieces of advice we’ve gotten for Sundance is generally the less well-known actors, the better the film.  And that’s the truth, something like 3000+ films compete for about 60 spots.  So if it’s obscure, chances are it’s pretty good.  But of course we’ve seen a couple weird movies that have squeaked through.  But that’s a rarity, not the norm.  Some of the amazing ones have been a gay themed one that made the whole audience cry, completely appropriate and right up there with Brokeback or even better.  A couple of Danish movies including one that was possibly the funniest movie I’ve ever seen.  Also, some of the best movies we’ve seen have been from Mexico.

Carrie’s technique this year, as we’ve been learning over the years, is go for movies with subtitles.  No one buys the tickets and usually they’re not just great but are awesome (again, to be able to make it to Sundance).  A lot of the documentaries are amazing as well.  One I saw last year documented the thorough incompetence of the Bush administration (by interviewing Bush administration members, speaking in their own words), if you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole of Bush era corruption goes.   Some of the world wide documentaries are real gut-wrenchers too.   Finally, an excellent technique is to buy or acquire tickets to the award winners (locals get to see award winners for free at the end).  You don’t get to see the actors as it’s towards the end of the fest, but you know it will be a good movie.  The audience awards are a little less predictable (popular choice wins) but these are usually good.

Our movie break down this year is:

Sneak Preview 2 (Steven Soderbergh premier)
Carmo, Hit the Road
Sin Nombre
The Yes Men Fix the World
Heart of Time
Rough Aunties
Toe To Toe
Rudo and Cursi

Award winner tickets:

Best of Fest 1
Best of Fest 2
Audience Award Dramatic
Dramatic Grand Prize Award
Grand Jury Prize Documentary

Look for a writup on the winners during & after the festival!

I personally see little potential in twitter, or so called “microblogging” as a social media marketing tool, as I consider it a communications tool.  It’s sort of like marketing via the telephone. We all know how this this ended as a result of marketing initiatives: we have a federal do not call registry.  Meanwhile, it appears that social marketers appear to continue to focus on twitter heavily.  I consider twitter at about a stage where it is about realize a period of the “trough of disillusionment” for a variety of reasons.  Most notably: I believe it will never catch onto the main stream.

To summarize my own social marketing experience, I have been in social environments since about 1999 but am new to paying attention to a blogosphere of social marketing experts.  I am small potatoes, but I own my own forum, am developing several others, and have been paying attention to social media and it’s core characteristics for a long time.  Likewise, several of my campaigns in social marketing environments have had what I consider to be tremendous successes for small businesses, and I have repeated these successes several times.

My conclusion?  Many so-called social media experts have no idea what they are talking about.  They hardly understand social media and it’s core principles.  Their focus on Twitter, again, is an excellent example.

Social media is like asking a question with 3,000 people in the room.  Software is the moderator.  As the discussion goes on, those who enjoy the discussion keep coming back. Eventually tell their friends about it, the awesome experiences they had, and what have been able to learn.  They also enjoy the environment of providing information for free, and learning themselves.

However, what occurs in communities is what I call parrots. I believe this is what Peter Kim calls “reverb” and others are calling an “echo chamber.”   These people start repeating the information whether correct or not for the sake of sounding knowledgeable to their peer and to increase their own “standing” in the community.  They are basically caught in the playing of the social media game themselves.  Kim refers to it as “ego trap“  and this is excellent terminology.  These so-called social media experts appear to be unable to hop on the fence once in a while and take a gander at the shape of  it as it grows, they’re just meandering through the hallways like the users themselves.

Interestingly, in my social media experiences I’ve found as more people started to enter the room the quality of information is enhanced.  Once fully realized, it not only enhanced but soars, provided the community itself is managed correctly.  Likewise the parrots are snuffed out.  To make a conclusion about the blogoshere of social media experts, it appears that it’s in its infancy itself.

Here are a some examples of quality of information from online communities:

• Mountain bike technology has taken leaps and bounds since 1999, primarily with input from social communities.  My belief is that the “29er movement” was directly born out of the social media group Mountain Bike Review, with its active community of 25,000 members.  Today, almost every manufacturer now makes a 29er model,  but two years ago it was hardly on radar.  Many interpret the rise of the 29er as big companies “getting caught with their pants down.”   Smaller, trendier companies started beating out bigger companies because they were paying attention.  A side affect: the boutique builder also became mainstream as a result.   Opps! This is why I personally own a Ventana over a Trek or Specialized. And guess what, it’s a superior product as well.  Interestingly, many bike company owners, senior bike company execs, and other key decision makers are now on the MTBR forums.
• This poster identifies a $25 part that has played havoc with diesel Ford Excursions and Superduties and their other widely known reliability problems.
• This poster creates panic or possibly identifies what is wrong with Suunto watches or their customer service.
• I plan to post a summary about how Toyota used the IH8MUD.com community to develop its marketing programs for their FJ Cruiser.  For a quick summary, view the full profile for Brian Swearingen on LinkedIn (make sure you’re logged in and click link for ‘full profile.”

I disagree that ‘social media will not change the world.’  We’ve already seen the slopes distrust of traditional media. Ultimately I believe social media sites can be such a killer information source that ultimately it will replace traditional media as we know it, particularly print media.  This is primarily related to speed and that 3000 or 6000 or however many enthusiasts is always > than a paid using the journalistic technique.  I like journalism.  My old man is a journalist and I have even been one myself.  This said, anyone who’s been interviewed or quoted for a newspaper article can tell you the journalistic technique is flawed.  It leaves too much room for bias, much like the Cultural Anthropological technique (I have a degree in Cultural Anthropology).

At this point, we are basically just waiting for the systems, software, and architecture to catch up.  Likewise, we are also waiting for renewed faith in social media, as an information source, because of so many years of the data from unreliable infant communities because of the damage parrots have been able to create.  Social media, and it’s conclusions, are not trustworthy.

And that example is, again, the social media expert community seems to me absurdly focused on Twitter and Facebook, probably related to their high growth numbers.  My conclusions on Facebook? I don’t pretend to be an expert on facebook, in the slightest, and probably never will be.  I believe facebook’s an excellent environment that will be long lasting and I enjoy it myself, considerably.  But I also believe it is so personal that I there are so many other social environments that can provide much greater ROI.  For example, if you produce dishwashing machines, you will probably have better results with marketing in an online community oriented to home improvement.  You have already heard my criticisms of twitter.

In the meantime, the industry seems to have forgotten its core.  My belief is it’s core has evolved into online forums and topic based communities.  This is also what makes my interest in Ning and WetPaint‘s architecture so interesting.  My understanding of the genealogy of this core is:

usenet groups (the origin of ebay, for example) > listserves > forums

These were all here long before facebook and twitter, and forums (it’s current-day iteration) appear to be thriving.  But their not “whales” (or at least don’t outwardly appear to be, until you actually take the time/effort to market in them) so no one is paying attention to them.   However, when you add the membership of the top 20 forums alone, you have over 85 million registered members.  That is 1 in every 70 people on the planet.  Not to mention the thousands upon thousands of independent forums beyond these.

I feel that much of modern ‘social media’ draws its roots from this, but it’s also skipped a beat.  Likewise, Ning in particular hasn’t quite 100% figured it our either.  It has great architecture but way too much emphasis on ‘the social’ and not enough on ‘the data’ of sites oriented by topic.  As a result, most of these technologies appeal to the technological enlightened (including the social media ‘expert’ community, and people willing to take greater risks with their time and personality online), but not the mainstream.

“Something’s not right” and the question will be how long until the social media community itself develops (the maturity) to figure this out.

Here is an interesting read from the NY Times today about Obama’s proposed stimulous plan… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/politics/11radio.html

Some quotes from it:

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday again raised the estimate of how many jobs would result from his economic recovery plan, now saying it would create or save three million to four million, nearly 90 percent in the private sector, by the end of 2010.

Mr. Obama’s address was his latest effort to sell a $775 billion proposal to Congress, where leaders have pledged to adopt a stimulus bill by mid-February, and to Americans stung by the recession.

“The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries,” Mr. Obama said. “And they’ll be the kind of jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term.”

As most of my friends know I was an Obama supporter in the election for a slew of reasons. I am really looking forward to seeing President Obama’s plan in action particularly with its commitment to green jobs.

This said these are some bold predicitions. If his calculations are correct that sure would be a hell of an impact from a stimulous plan. I do wonder if it’s political rhetoric. Unfortunately sure sounds like it…

For my friends in the Wasatch Cruisers I thought I’d put up a post about the bass player Charles Mingus. Listen to that bari saxophone starting it all off…

This song, Moanin’, I call “Out of Cloud Chaos Comes Structure.” It gets pretty crazy there, lots of voices, and out of the chaos comes structure (a “song”) and bam, does it rip…

Mingus is one of my favorite jazz musicians of all time; the folder I put these songs in is called ‘fat soul,’ which is about how I describe Mingus… He weighed a couple hundred pounds, “a real heavy weight,” and was way out there. Huge heart, kind of narcissistic and wild at the same time; wanted everyone to know what he was doing but at the same time he hardly cared what anyone thought… Sort of reminds me of my old man a little actually.. I think he was even an outwardly known Communist by the time he died in the late 70′s when we were at war with Russia in Afghanistan and it was not cool to be a Commi in the slightest. He also had big bouts with depression that would lock him up for months or even years, yet he was still one of the most productive jazz players out there with a new record once a year or even more often. Some time in the late 60s he tried to open a music school. It never panned out for whatever reason (probably because he was a little nuts) and he was living in the space surrounded by huge piles of tons and tons of junk — literally waist-high piles of it — and the whole place was little paths around and through it all. When it didn’t pan out he was getting evicted for shooting a gun through the wall into a neighbor’s apartment and there is a great hour long documentary of the process of it all. He was even arrested at the end of it all. His little daughter is meandering around the room with him while they’re waiting for the cops to come as he’s banging out a couple jazz songs on the piano for her. It’s a great lead-up and story about the life and craziness of the Mingus and how nuts he was…

From all that weight he had tons of physical power. His wikipedia page almost immediately makes reference to his nickname “The Angry Man of Jazz” because he would repeatedly get into brawls with other players, sometimes even on stage. He was supposedly the only person to ever personally be fired by Duke Ellington because of it. There were even rumors he used to beat the shit out of some of his players when he was running jazz workshops in the late 50′s with a plethora of young aspiring killer/future jazz musicians, mostly in Brooklyn I believe; guys like 20-year-olds who played on his Live at the Bohemia recording, literally playing killer jazz music out of fear… Messed up, uh? This is, coincidentally, one of my favorite albums (I mentioned it in an earlier post too) so I guess in this crazy situation it actually worked. And again, this is messed up.

Check out these photos of him and his fat fingers; look at the action of the strings (distance of the strings to the wood of the bass) — way way far so it took a lot of strength to get the strings down to play each song. No one sets up their bass like this. Even then, he played sort of like a torrent or a hurricane; one of the fastest players out there at the time, playing rippin’ intricate, complex lines….

Check out this pic, he’s even smoking a cigar. This is 1976 in New York City. He would die 2 or 3 years later…

Again, look at those fat, powerful fingers… When I played jazz saxophone in high school, though we were pretty advanced, I tried to play quite a few Mingus songs. But they really bounce around, weird keys, quick changes, and are really really hard to carry even though these are some of my favorite jazz tunes. I frankly could never play most of them. Again, one more testament to the complexity and skill of Mingus.

And finally speaking of saxophones, this first song has the young aspiring Pepper Adams (and a slew of other horn players; literally a slew) who is one of my favorite baritone sax players, single-handedly from this song and this album. He just rips it up. Really played that big old accessory sax like a lead instrument, as you can tell from these songs, even has a solo at the end. This is about as difficult as a guy choosing to solo who plays the tuba. The baritone sax (thanks for posting this photo [on another forum] DMC!) is the black one, third ‘deepest’ sounding. Little did I know he would be “widely considered one of the most significant and influential baritone saxophonists in jazz. Nicknamed “The Knife” for his sound on the horn, his hearty tone and driving rhythmic sense” according to his Wikipedia page.

The bari sax is actually the largest saxophone I’ve personally seen in person. I knew about a bass sax (the one to the left of the black one) but had never heard of a contra bass sax; the one the guy is holding. Dear lord!

And I really dig this era of Mingus, a little wild, a little crazy. Church influenced.. You can hear Mingus yelling in this one… Real ‘Blues and Roots‘ (the name of the album these songs were on).

This is a great old recording in relatively high quality, which is demo/sales pitch where Herbie talked about the Fender Rhodes and some of the effects he was using.  This was recorded some I figure in 1973 or 1974, just before his Thrust album came out. 

The Spook Who Sat By the Door was a Blaxploitation era movie that Herbie Hancock did the soundtrack for. The theme song eventually became the song “Actual Proof” on Thrust. Look for more posts about this album and ‘the spook’ soundtrack coming up some time…