The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors isn’t your average west side gallery in New York. It’s home to selected works by painter/mystic Alex Grey. It’s closing up shop and moving upstate, but there is one final gathering on Janauary 11th at the W 27th Street location for a full moon gathering. Fortunately, I don’t have to write anything else — just check out the videos below:
My favorite mainstream/corporate news web site, MSNBC, is running a story titled Msnbc.com’s most-clicked stories of 2008. In order, the list reads:
1. Heath Ledger found dead in NYC apartment
2. Boy’s death highlights a hidden danger: Dry drowning
3. Palin disclosures raise questions about vetting
4. National overview of 2008 presidential election results
5. NBC’s Tim Russert dies of a heart attack at 58
6. Black and white twins born to same mom
7. Chelsea Clinton asked about Monica Lewinsky
8. Presiden’t daughter Jenna married
9. You could get your tax rebate by May
10. Families speak about switched identity ordeal
11. Baby with 2 faces born in north India
12. Texas authorities defend polygamous sect raid
13. Discovery or doom? Collider stirs debate
14. Girl’s twin is found insider her stomach
15. Bride dies during first dance with husband
Now, I’m going to republish this list again. This time, however, it includes my dispensable analysis with each headline:
1. Heath Ledger found dead in NYC apartment
What does this say about the Internet’s primary users and the media’s target audience when the number one story on a popular web site for an entire year is the death of a young Hollywood actor from prescription medications? For opponents of mass movements or the wisdom of crowds, it provides more disappointing evidence that many people care about things that simply don’t matter. The real issue — a bright, wealthy, young man fatally addicted to pharmaceuticals — wasn’t even big enough for our favorite cult, Scientology, to be able to make a bigger story of it. Keep in mind that this was the year of the biggest election in recent history, there’s an illegal war still being fought in the Middle East, technology is rapidly advancing at exponential rates, and a little thing called a bailout happened. If we’re as stupid as our interests, we’re superfucked.
2. Boy’s death highlights a hidden danger: Dry drowning
Pure fear-mongering. You know what’s a greater danger in the US? Waterboarding, aka SIMULATED DROWNING. I’m sure Dick Cheney supports dry drowning. In other news, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR KIDS AND THEY PROBABLY WON’T DIE. Then headlines like this can be avoided.
3. Palin disclosures raise questions about vetting
Palin raised a million questions, and how they “vetted” her isn’t even close to top of the list. How about she raised questions over the strain of weed McCain was smoking, if my mom and sisters are qualified to be VP (I’d back them over Palin), and where the dude in the background slaughtering turkeys buys his mustache dye. Thankfully, it also changed the question from “Will Obama win?” to “I wonder just how big this landslide is going to be?” Nothing was going to save McCryptkeeper, but it’s still strange to see an old man commit political suicide so openly.
4. National overview of 2008 presidential election results
Finally, something that kind of matters. Until you realize the two-party system and supposed democratic process in this country is the biggest inside joke this side of Dirty Dave’s cat being the reincarnated drummer from Dr. Z.
5. NBC’s Tim Russert dies of a heart attack at 58
See #1. Tim Russert seemed like a nice, smart guy, but telling the stories doesn’t make you the story.
6. Black and white twins born to same mom
This is probably really important to certain branches of science, but I highly doubt most people clicking were hoping to see a breakdown of the human genome and how anomalies like this occur in nature. They were probably hoping to see Michael Phelps and Lil’ Wayne giving each other a high five or something. Who cares? Obviously, everyone. What a fucking waste of time. If you want to be entertained by wacky race-related births, just watch the season finale of Californication, which I promise you is better than this.
7. Chelsea Clinton asked about Monica Lewinsky
Ask anyone you know about the last time their dad got a blowjob. I beg you to send me a recap of their reaction. Seriously. It didn’t matter then, it doesn’t matter now, and it will never matter in the future. Get the fuck over it and have some class. People who ask questions like this are the reason brass knuckles were created.
8. President’s daughter Jenna married
As if celebrity “news” isn’t the worst strain of information already, people who are not celebrities are getting covered more often than ever. How about more stories on how Bush is the worst president times infinity forever? Or about Cheney’s lesbian daughter? Who the fuck cares? This is beyond useless. God damn. If you read garbage like this, you’re a piece of trash that deserves a place right next to it in the landfill.
9. You could get your tax rebate by May
Sweet, so the government is returning some of the money they stole from me? (Still waiting to see the part of the Constitution that speaks to the tax issue). Roughly equivalent to getting shot at your job at 7-11, watching the dudes take off with everything, then one of them comes back two minutes later and throws the band aids they stole in your face. Woo.
10. Families speak about switched identity ordeal
Get fucked. No one cares. If you followed this story, you’re an idiot.
11. Baby with 2 faces born in north India
If it had been born with 6 arms, it would have been an even bigger event. Jokes about religions that I actually think are cool aside, this belongs in the same category as #6. If you want to read about freak shows, I suggest Katherine Dunn’s “Geek Love.”
12. Texas authorities defend polygamous sect raid
People came to America to do exactly this kind of thing. It’s clearly stated you can own guns, believe in whatever stupid fantasies you want, and that smarter/better people can overtake the weak/stupid (see: Capitalism). Dunno what’s exactly wrong here. I bet this shit didn’t happen in Russia in the 60s.
13. Discovery or doom? Collider stirs debate
The Large Hadron Collider goes off, so there isn’t much shit I can talk about it. However, people reading this are, like in #6, probably not too interested in the inner workings of physics. They just probably want to know if Quetzalcoatl’s return is from a South American astro-temple or from some hole in the ground in the middle of Europe. Jesus saves, Satan spends.
14. Girl’s twin is found inside her stomach
“Hey Tom, what’s up?”
“Nothing much. You?”
“Well, I was just reading about how this girl was born and her twin sister was inside of her stomach. Pretty newsworthy, eh?”
[Silence, as I leave the room and make a mental note to NEVER TALK TO THIS RETARD AGAIN]
We’ve had enough freak show articles above to indicate the decline of civilization already.
15. Bride dies during first dance with husband
If you read this, you know it’s about a real-life Big Fat Greek Wedding (which was a movie or television show, if my pop culture knowledge is on target). Again, as in #1, this should be an indictment on the failure of society to speak to the ills of preventable medical tragedies. PETA and people who liked Fast Food Nation should have picketed the funeral. Blargh.
2008 - love it or leave it! I’m leaving it.
“An extraterrestrial visitor examining the differences among human societies would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.
Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars…We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this work…and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins…star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth…Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.
We are one species. We are star stuff harvesting star light.”
According to TIME Magazine and Yahoo!, the top 10 searches of the year were:
1.) Britney Spears (editor’s note: slut!)
2.) WWE (editor’s note: Ben Boudreau is pumped!)
3.) Barack Obama (editor’s note: teeth of Horus rule the divine)
4.) Miley Cyrus (editor’s note: slut!)
5.) RuneScape (editor’s note: AS IF! WoW pwns you forever!)
6.) Jessica Alba (editor’s note: slut!)
7.) Naruto (editor’s note: huh? NERD ALERT!)
8.) Lindsay Lohan (editor’s note: slut!)
9.) Angelina Jolie (editor’s note: slut!)
10.) American Idol (editor’s note: see also “teenage homoeroticism”)
I’d like to respectfully disagree with this list. Through my own research, analytics, and other covert means, I’ve discovered the top 10 alternative/hipster/fuck-up/weirdo (i.e. “real people”) searches were:
1.) Bestiality (editor’s note: term synonymous with “child pornography,” “two girls one cup,” “hot 3way sexcapades,” and other searches that blow up your parents’ computer and get the FBI watching)
2.) Come and get some (editor’s note: see also “play a riff” if at a Wolf Eyes show in the greater Los Angeles basin)
3.) Thomas Mahoney ruler of the internet and all multiverses
4.) Celtics 131 Lakers 92
5.) Psycho Matt Model Ryan Gay Homosexual Meltdown Party
6.) Crystal Meth
7.) Warcraft funeral
8.) Sasha Grey (editor’s note: unlike whores listed above, NOT a slut due to interest in existential and post-modern theory, not to mention fan of dark poetry broadcast by the likes of Joy Division, et al)
9.) Laser cats (editor’s note: see also “Dirty Dave’s cat nuking everyone and admitting via mimicry that he is indeed the drummer on Dr. Z’s epic prog album “Three Parts To My Soul”) / “Say hi to your mother for me”
10a.) Spiders on drugs (editor’s note: see also “Gary Vaynerchuk“)
10b.) Twitter ain’t shit but Obama and iPhones
If you have any doubts about the validity or impartial nature of this list, please consider there was no mention of “going off” or of getting “RickRoll’d.” Care to disagree with the list? You know how to contact me. Come and get some, turkey.
I rest my case.
- If you follow my Twitter, you might remember the other night I went off about rewriting an .htaccess file to modify some PHP script on my server. And I did it on a Mac, which is a fucking wickedly brutal feat to pull off for someone like me (from what I’ve read) with little server experience. Anyway, the people at Perishable Press, who are way smarter than I’ll ever be, have a great overview on .htaccess tricks you should check out if you are into such things.
- Led Zeppelin is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band ever. This is not an opinion. It is fact — watch the Royal Albert Hall performance if you need some evidence. I’m pretty sure before Stephen Hawking and his android wheelchair kick it, he’ll release some kind of equation proving it. Of course, Led Zeppelin is trying to sabotage this with talks of doing a tour without Robert Plant. Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Is a $100 million a piece a good price to destroy a legacy for? For instance, say if I find a cure for cancer, make a gazillion dollars, and at a late age decide I want even more gold, would I, let’s pretend, go on national television and tell everyone I’m a serial child rapist/murderer? Too brutal/illogical of an analogy? Not in my mind. Don’t do it. Just play, “In The Light” over and over again and read some Crowley texts, Jimmy. The shark isn’t ever going into the vagina again.
- I was recently privy to the most terrible conversation to have occured in the western hemisphere in the past several months. No, it wasn’t racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or violent, or in any way offensive to your average emotionally-challenged civil lawsuit plaintiff. It involved one past and one current heroin addict. Actually, it was really just a monologue with the occassional interjection by the other party, who later laughed with me about the shittiness of it all. One person just kept on saying how much it irritated them how a certain strand of heroin on the west coast is called a certain thing, when in reality that kind of heroin is only on the east coast and a much better product. As the voice of reason — and if you have made me the voice of reason you’ve already lost — I declared the conversation to be beyond all that is useless and annoying. You do drugs? Fine. But when you’re high, it’s in your best interest to follow a simple rule I have tattooed above my right wrist (for non-substance abuse reasons): DON’T TALK. Talking about drugs while on drugs is the only morally reprehensible part of the act of using, henceforth illegal in my eyes.
- Enough about me. What about you? What did you do today? I’m not being facetious or sarcastic when I ask this. I really want to know. Email me. What are you doing and why? God bless.
TM
This is for all the psychic ninja occultists out there and for all the readers who may have forgotten my gang out-mindfreaks Criss Angel on an hourly basis. Woo!
So you have a band. You’re on MySpace. Or you have a Facebook page. Or you’re on iMeem, Bebo, whatever.
It’s cool that these companies exist that allow you to freely post your music and info, and connect with potentially millions of fans.
There are several problems with this model that are only now apparent.
First, and totally deserving of its own post, is the fact that your band is probably terrible and doesn’t need or deserve an audience outside of whoever you are fucking and whoever is stupid enough to want to load your equipment in and out of your local venue.
More important is this: you are, under 99.9% of circumstances, not sharing revenue from the ads generated when your fans are accessing your content. Until recently (see YouTube and MySpace Music over the last month, if you are a real band with real financial backing), you gained nothing from the banner ads generated around your content. Sure, it might be a miniscule amount, but times 8 million bands, it’s the reason FOX Interactive and their competitors are able to employ hundreds upon hundreds of employees.
But I’m going to assume since you are at thomasmahoney.net that you are somewhat smart. Your IQ is above 100, you have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience, and you’ve read books slightly above the norm for a nation in which newspapers demand their writers produce for an 8th grade level audience or less.
So what else could possibly be of value? You’re making 50-70% from your iTunes deal, your t-shirts sell well, and your tour guarantee is at least a grand a night, right? What could possibly be of more value?
Well, let’s say you’re some tattooed kid from the midwest who used to play in shitty metallic hardcore bands. You’re the bass player and your band — we’ll call you Fall Out Boy — has exactly 1,776,554 friends on your MySpace profile. Fuck yeah! You married some babe. You’re hosting MTV shows. You’re in Rolling Stone. Sweet!
Except you share something in common with the band that has 2,500 friends or 117 friends. Hmm?
You have exactly ZERO knowledge of your audience. Zero. None.
Whoever is hosting your shit online for free knows. They know the IP address. They know the age. They know the DMA and most of the time, the exact geographic location down to a T, displayable in Google Earth. They know what site the kid was on before they came to yours, and what site or link bounced them away from you. These days, they even know how much your visitor makes, their level of education, their marital status, and other information that’d make both the drug-shooting anarchists and gun-toting conservatives shit their pants in disbelief.
They have your data.
Who gives a fuck about a percentage of ad revenues when you can potentially know a hundred different traits about each and everyone of your friend and non-friend visitors?
The so-called Information Age, or the Age of Google, is built upon data. Do you have your data? Can you access it? Can you control it? Can you analyze it? Can you determine, based on current input, your best course of action in response?
Most likely, no. Why not?
We could say that these corporations are committing crimes, but I don’t believe that. You are committing a crime against yourself. You are willingly selling off your content for exactly zero dollars and zero cents, with absolutely no equity. Why? Because it’s free, and easy, and trendy, and the norm?
Don’t worry — this isn’t a Bob Lefsetz newsletter that lets you down with all vitriol and no solution.
Save up $50. Buy a domain and a web host. Get your nerdy friend who plays World of Warcraft to tell you about Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress or some other free, open source content management system. Maybe he’ll already have a Google Ad Manager and AdSense account or have done an install of Open X, and maybe he knows how to build a sitemap, install Google Analytics, or Quantify the site. Maybe you do. And maybe you know how to call up someone and tell them that your new site attracts 10,000 uniques a month, and that is worth value for a local business focusing on some niche that your typical fan is interested in.
I don’t think you are stupid. I think you may be ignorant, and most definitely lazy. To this day, the internet, this giant fucking tool of communication and community and commerce, is mostly free. Definitely way more free than television or radio or print. If you play an instrument and you play it well, it means you are reasonably gifted, and you should simultaneously be picking up any given O’Reilly or “For Dummies” text on web development, design, or metrics.
Steve Albini once wrote about how fucked your friends were for signing to a major. I’m telling you how fucked you are for thinking you’re independent when you’re signing up for “free” services backed my Microsoft, News Corp, Universal, or whoever else.
My friend James, who is twice as big as me, asks the same inane, rhetorical question every time he sees me: “Do you want to live or do you want to die?” Without fail, I always tell him I want to die. And as we have this personal relationship, he knows that translates into, “bring it on, motherfucker.”
So you want to live? Fuck that shit. It’s time to die.
Come and get some.
