(Our) Life Inc.

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

It is with some regret that I admit, I've had a galley copy of Douglas Rushkoff's new book Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back which I have been unable to devote enough attention. Between medical issues and my wedding, I just haven't had the time to sit and read much. Hopefully I can squeeze out a review before the book hits store shelves in just under two weeks (Sorry, Douglas, I really appreciate the advance copy and hope this doesn't negate my chances for advances of future publications). Everyone can read Chapter One here courtesy of BoingBoing, where Rushkoff has been guest blogger this week.

For the time being, I highly recommend Life Inc The Movie (above), which sets up the book's premise. In light of the current economic woes worldwide, I think it is crucial to examine the path that got us here: corporatism. You may be surprised to learn how it all began, and even more surprised to discover how much corporatism has become ingrained in the way we behave. Pre-order Life Inc. on Amazon.

UPDATE:
Great continuation of the conversation, with more excerpts from the book, here at BoingBoing: Everything's Open Source but Money.

Profanation

Praxis is one of those super-groups with an evolving cast of heavily decorated recording artists. The kind that manages to continually defy genre boundaries with extreme prejudice. Praxis had a fairly significant influence on me (mostly because of Transmutation, Sacrifist and their contributing artists), which is why I'm typing this post right now...



I'm listening to Praxis' new album, Profanation, currently available as a Japanese import (or a .zip file here). It's Bill Laswell with the likes of Bernie Worrell, Mike Patton, Iggy Pop, Serj Tankian, Brain, Rammellzee, Otomo Yoshihide, Killah Priest, and of course Buckethead. It's interesting to hear what happens when musicians from such varied backgrounds hook up with a prolific guy like Laswell. Interesting to me, anyway. Take a listen and decide for yourself.

Status Skills, Obsolete Or Not

The notion of status skills isn't exactly new. As Trendwatching's report stated in September of 2006:

"In economies that increasingly depend on (and thus value) creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from 'STATUS SKILLS': those skills that consumers are mastering to make the most of those same goods and services, bringing them status by being good at something, and the story telling that comes with it."

When I first read that, I interpreted it as a growing, collective desire to acquire new skills. But after reading this Kottke post, I'm revising that original interpretation to include any skill, new or old... er, obsolete. I feel compelled to, because I may know more of these obsolete skills than I do these.

Ego, Not Infotechnology, Is Source Of Overload

This morning my inbox at work had an email from AdAge, with a link to an article by Steve Rubel called Too Much Infotechnology Can Lead To Overload. I wanted to see what Rubel had to say about it, because my opinion of this phenomenon goes against what most people in my industry seem to think. Like most of the articles about the imaginary "infotech overload" afflicting folks in their forties and fifties, is a fluff piece at best. Rubel's got it all wrong when he blames technology for the overload:

Over the last decade, Americans have become hopelessly addicted to information and busyness. We have all overheard people bragging about their back-to-back schedules and massive e-mail inboxes. We crave information and busyness because it makes us feel wanted, needed and, above all, important. However, too much of a good thing is never ideal.

So, being needy is a good thing?

I used to work with a guy whose blackberry was a constant source of self-esteem. He swore he was busy busy busy, but he never did much but fuss with that device. Take the blackberry away and he's still an asshole looking for anything to do but work (part of the reason he's no longer a co-worker). Rubel would blame the blackberry and email. The root of the problem lies elsewhere.

I bring this up whenever I read anything that claims "today's target audience leads a hurried and harried lifestyle". I have to call "bullshit" on it. We're actually less busy than we used to be, despite our best efforts to prove otherwise. We have DVRs and voicemail, Roomba's and automated bill-pay options. We can time-shift a lot of things for which we used to make appointments -- but most of us are still terrible at time management. That's why the GTD folks are making so much bank right now.

But technology is not the problem. The people who insist every little alert is an excuse to drop everything are. It's called an instant message, but you are not obligated to address it this instant. When your phone rings, it only indicates that someone is trying to call you - not that you need to stop the world to take a call. If this kind of busyness makes you feel important, consider a career as a secretary or administrative assistant. But don't blame the technology for your own inability to cope and adapt.

And maybe try not to waste article inches on this stuff, especially considering the subject matter. Rubel's entire premise is that infotechnology leads to overload -- but all of his evidence supports the notion that human ego, however enabled by information technology, is truly the source of the problem.

Would Rubel's article have the same effect if he were complaining that his iPod holds too many songs to listen to in one sitting, or that his DirecTV has too many channels? When you boil down the article, it's a bit of whining about feeling overwhelmed by all these emails one might otherwise use to validate one's own sense of self-importance. If having options is a symbol of status, the truly hip will be the ones who exercise the option to opt-out at least as often as they opt-in. But that's an idea considerably less ingratiating to the bulk of Rubel's marketing industry audience.

There is no information overload, but, as has been true throughout human history, there are a few too many egos getting in the way of common sense.

Album Art = More Than Mere Packaging

More people buy music digitally now than ever before. The demise of DRM-crippled product makes digital purchases all the more appealing. But some folks - the kind who make money designing static album art, coincidentally enough - complain about "loss of the importance of album artwork." But, contrary to the lamentations of these naive suburbanites, nothing is lost. I think they're simply missing the bigger picture.

Album sleeves were originally intended to protect the analog disc, and preserve the quality of the music encoded on that disc. Every release was packaged essentially as a white label until Alex Steinweiss came along. He's the guy we have to thank for album art as we know it today:

In 1939, 23 year old Alexander Steinweiss proposed to Columbia to make a change in the presentation and packaging of the 78 RPM record albums and to use original artwork (drawings and paintings) on the covers. The new look skyrocketed the sales of an already very popular composition. From that day on the artistic packaging became an important part of the record.

But it's been a long time since album art was limited to the sleeve around a disc. In fact, album art is so important that it transcends packaging. It evolved to include merchandise, concert stage sets, web sites and interactive experiences -- all of which allow an artist to elaborate on the concept(s) of an album. Consider these examples: Pink Floyd Amon Tobin, Air, Kraftwerk, or even the White Stripes. The visual art of an album can be, and for many artists already is, so much more than packaging. I would argue that it's more important than ever.

Drop Where You Shop

Saw on Consumerist today that shopdropping is experiencing a spike in popularity. Fun!

SHOPDROP: To covertly place merchandise on display in a store. A form of "culture jamming" s. reverse shoplift, droplift.

Brings to mind The Droplift Project, who've been droplifting for years. Doesn't quite top Bansky's museum-hack, but it's the same idea. The Center for Tactical Magic demonstrates a lot of the ideas I first heard articulated in Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone. Not that I've read all that, I recommend you absorb it the same way I did - listen to it*.

[* If anyone knows of an acapella version of this recording, please share. (I think the mid-90's "world/ambient" music bed might prevent some listeners from getting the most of Bey's reading, plus I'd like to mash-up some bits of it myself.)]

For those who want to skip the strategy and go straight to the rush of shopdropping, there's PeopleProducts123, an endeavor of the Anti-Advertising Agency.

The Vinyl Frontier

Via BoingBoing, via Laughing Squid, comes news of this:

The Vinyl Frontier, A Documentary Exploring the World of Vinyl Toys

I'm kind of interested in seeing this. If you've ever been to my office, you've seen my collection of Qee Eggs and other assorted goodies picked from the shelves of Kid Robot and Rotofugi. (Qees attracted me early in my [adult] vinyl fascination because of their "blanks" -- non-decorated figures for which you can download templates and embellish with your own design.) For me, designer vinyl represents two important ideas:

1. You're never too old to collect "action figures", and...
   
2. Vinyl figures are a low price-of-entry to the world of collecting "art"; a way for people of all budgets to get in on the action.

What's also fascinating to me is the bigger notion of "nobrow"; what's left between the somewhat-outdated concepts of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" art, which is driven by curated consumption and strategic marketing. That's how we get a category in which skateboard graphic artists and fine artists meet on a relatively level playing field: the canvas of a vinyl figurine, a limited edition T-shirt, or even a post-card sized print (a big money-maker for contemporary galleries which, like small vinyl figures, are easier to produce and stock in large quantities). Almost everything is a limited edition, which makes for volumes of stuff that seems worth collecting. Or creating yourself. You don't even need to be a professional artist to design your own vinyl figures, with all the DIY versions available.

What I still wonder is, where will all this vinyl go when it's no longer in style or in galleries? As far as I know, none of it is biodegradable. If we don't learn to recycle them, we could be looking at some designer landfills in the not-so-distant future. A little disturbing, and easy to ignore when you're bent on collecting toys as an adult, but that could be the real vinyl frontier we're working toward. Unless we find a way to bury our non-degradable trash on the moon. Then that would be the vinyl frontier.

Street Is The New Mall

I know it might sound surly or even old of me, but I think the whole streetwear thing has just about jumped the shark.

Twenty years ago, Vision Street Wear introduced the term streetwear to kids like me - and it wasn't hip-hop. It was skateboarding (street skating was a more resourceful and opportunistic alternative to vert skating). It wasn't saying "I'm from the streets" as much as it was saying "that's where I go to play". Vision Street Wear at the time seemed to be against a lot of the things it seems to stand for now. Granted, the brand went relatively dormant after one of its premier skaters convicted of killing his girlfriend, and probably needed to come back rejuvenated for a new generation of skateboarders. But do a little homework and you see the brand is almost a parody of what it once was. I suppose you don't think of it that way when you're 13, let alone do your homework*.

Likewise in the past decade, Nigo's A Bathing Ape has gone from a fringe fashion delicacy to a much-counterfeited eBay favorite. I won't get into it now; you've already gotten my thoughts on it. Suffice it to say, there are dozens of guys proudly sporting knock-off Bape gear all over the Green Line these days. At least it's not about authenticity; that would require individualism and a lot more work. It's just about having the look.

Which brings me to Satchel of Gravel's brilliantly insightful post "So You Wanna Be A Streetwearer". Follow the link to their full write-up, or check out my copy-and-paste lift of their "Ten Steps to Becoming a Streetwearer" below.

1. This is the simplest step. Learn everything about Japanese street culture. Just take everything you know about American street culture and mentally make it more expensive and limited. What do you think Bape does?

2. Perfect your masturbation skills. If this is how you’re going to start dressing, you’re never getting any ass. You may get a BJ from other dudes who really like your Jordan IIIs, but definitely from not any girls. Accept it.

3. Stay online till you go blind. Never leave the internet. Don’t worry about going to the store to buy product. You have ebay, Niketalk and a gang of forums at your disposal. Plus, you run the possibility of running into girls and with your newly perfected masturbation skills, you don’t need them.

4. Buying IS rebelling. The more you buy, the more you’re showing that you’re against the system of mass consumption. Get as many overpriced sneakers, tees, jeans, jackets and shades as you can. Also make sure that you have at least one (two max) small luxury items like a Gucci belt or LV wallet, to show off your well rounded sense of style.

5. You probably want to be white.

6.Pick up an action sport. Literally. Just buy a deck or a fixed bike and walk around with it. Don’t actually use it, you’ll lower the resale value, which you’ll need for…

7. A digital camera! Get as many megapixels as your parents will let you have. Then, go around and take pictures of your friends, pets, food, chewing gum, dirt and basically whatever ends up in front of your lens. Take a page from Bobby Hundreds and use awkward angles to illustrate your “artistic” side. When that’s done, start a blog detailing your excursions. Like we did.

8. If you’re living in Los Angeles or New York, make sure that you can be found in front of Supreme or Flight Club vying for a photo op on a cool guy blog.

9. Memorize Dipset and Wu-Tang lyrics like your mother’s life depends on it. Because it does.

10. Finally, hit up as many streetwear parties as you can (remember your camera!). As long as they’re in a small venue and Sapporo is the liquor sponsor, it’ll be awesome! These parties are really good for comparing your new hyperstrike deadstock purchases and masturbation techniques with the other guys that are there.

[* Full disclosure: I always did my homework.]

How To Have A Number-One The Old-Fashioned Way

Taking time to talk pop reminded me of something I meant to post a while ago, yet I never got around to. That something is The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way. Long out-of-print and impossible to find, this book was hugely influential on my early forrays into the music industry. The K Foundation's combination of discordianism, Illuminatus references and unabashed pop sensibility stuck with me. I've followed the further exploits, musical and otherwise of Jim Cauty and Bill Drummond. I've had The Manual in my Amazon wish list for years, never to see it actually "available". I loved it when I read a friend's copy in college, and always wanted to have my own copy. Now we can all have it.

A relatively recent BoingBoing post about the KLF links to a PDF version of the manuscript. So while you miss some of the illustrations and the tactile sensation of holding this adorable little case study, full of instructions (which were guaranteed to work, BTW, if you followed them to the letter), you can still read it.

It's worth knowing that The Manual did in fact work, too. The Austrian Euro-trash band Edelweiss found #1 hit status with "Bring Me Edelweiss" - a song they claim was created by following the instructions in The Manual. And this was some time before you could use a MySpace page to collect friends or distribute a new single. Of course, with theories like The Long Tail afoot, it's probably not so much about having a number-one anymore.

Does anyone feel like telling Kanye?

Undertones Make It Pop

Stronger Revisited from Kanye West on Vimeo

I'll admit it, I get down on Kanye West a lot. I never understood why he got popular for speeding up R&B samples, a.k.a. "chipmunking", a rudimentary sampling tactic which had been going on long before he tried it. I have never cared for the blatant, just-add-a-drum-track style of sampling he often employs, either. And I personally don't see or hear enough original talent to justify his notoriously pissy arrogance. On top of that, it bothers me that someone of his disposition has come to represent the Chicago music scene to the masses. He's from upper-middle-class Oak Lawn, not proper Chi-Town - and folks* in the city of big shoulders just don't whine like he does.

That said, I find this clip sort of endearing. Kanye just can't get his drums sounding the way he wants, and has to consult eleven(!) different mixers... until finally Timbaland schools him about undertones and proper drum-tone layering. Watching it, I considered that maybe West is so desperate to win awards because it won't be long before people realize his naiveté. It's almost cute, in a way. He's really just trying to become a super-star.

But, back to my beef with him, that's the approach you expect from NYC or LA, not our beloved Illville. (I know, I know... then how do I explain Billy Corgan? I don't; he's another over-entitled rich kid from the burbs clamoring for attention over integrity.)

Clip courtesy of E.
[* Full disclosure: I'm originally from the "Chicagoland" part of NW Indiana, and truly dislike it when people claim to be "from Chicago" when they actually live outside the city limits, sometimes further from the actual city than I was growing up in Indiana.]

Where My Raccoon Dogs At?

It's probably silly of me to point out this and other ethics issues in the mainstream hip-hop community, but I feel like someone has to point a finger back at the finger-pointers once in a while. Which brings me to today's post:

Jay-Z's RocaWear* is made with dog fur.

The Humane Society of the United States tested the "faux fur" and found that it is from raccoon dogs, which may have been skinned alive for their coats (as seen in this WMV).

I'm not against wearing fur or leather per se. But I do think this is more evidence that pop culture's beloved hip-hop moguls are not beyond exploiting third-world production in an effort to glamorize the first-world's ghetto-chic. People look up to you, Jay-Z... and what an example you set for them. Selling dog-fur coats to your people kinda takes the piss out of any otherwise sentimental and poignant lyrics you might have on Kingdom Come, eh Sean Corey Carter? (Or should we call you DogFur Hovito now)?


* WARNING: The Wikipedia entry for RocaWear seems heavily biased and laced with BS.

Two Tips On (Not) Sounding Stupid

Two things that, for some reason, I've heard or read a LOT in the past couple weeks. Two things that are widely over-used and very incorrect. Two things I hope you'll learn to avoid saying, because they make you sound stupid. Two things that make me ignore everything else a speaker has to say, because these popular errors do a lot to remove a speaker's credibility.

1. Trying or giving anything more than 100%. Say this and you not only are a liar, but you've proven that you are terrible at math and not thinking about what you're really saying. Do the math. You can't have more than 100% of anything, because 100% is all of it. It's impossible to give 110%, so don't say that to someone if you want them to have more confidence in your abilities. You might as well come out and say "2+2=17".

2. Saying "it's in our company's / corporation's / brand's DNA". Absolutely not. Companies, corporations and brands do not, nor will they ever, have DNA. Claiming that anything is part of your organization's DNA shows that you don't understand what DNA is, and that you are spewing meaningless gibberish. Do your homework before you ape something that sounds scientific, or you'll look like a fool. What you're talking about are ideas, not genetic information. It's likely that, if you're referring to anything at all, it's a "meme" or "meme-complex". Have some respect for science; try not to butcher it just to feel like you sound important.

Does that make me lazy? Possibly.

I thought I was edgy in pointing out that at least one lyric changed between the leaked version of Crazy and the album version ("possibly" was originally "probably" in the refrain -- I'll work on getting some mp3s up here to compare). I am now somewhat humbled, because I am so late on this juicy tidbit of trivia:

Crazy is primarily (heavily) based on a song from an Italian movie soundtrack called "Nel Cimitero Di Tucson" [source: Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good].

Aside from the fact that it has been generally over-played for the past several months, the song seems much less crazy to me now.

CoolHunting loses its cool.

Leading participant in and non-objective observer of fashionable fads, CoolHunting has announced that it is expanding to form a mobile marketing company called Bond Art and Science (which offers a stunning lack of design and dismal brand experience on its own web site). Judging from what Josh Rubin says, this latest effort is all a bit convoluted if not misguided:

“Experiences now span beyond the first and second screen,” says Rubin. “Our solutions are based on a belief that mobility is a critical element that anchors effective communications.” He continues, “Bond designs all digital touchpoints to work cohesively, offering a consistent brand experience. The result is an exponentially positive impact.”

I see a big problem in that statement. Mobility is not what anchors a communication, consistency is. Communication has to be consistent through all touchpoints, not just digital ones. And just because you have digital touchpoints linked together does not in any way indicate that you have created a positive brand experience. Rubin apparently wants us to believe that technology alone makes for a positive brand experience. If you're getting a strong sense of deja vu, you're not alone. This kind of thinking helped burst the dot-com bubble just a few years ago. It would seem that Rubin is now poised to replicate such disaster on a mobile platform.

The technology is not the message; the technology is the vehicle for the message. A good "experience designer" would know this. But Rubin's quote dodges common sense and sinks straight to BS-buzz-word hype. What's cool about that?

GSTV: you can't spend five minutes without TV

Wouldn't the money spent installing televisions in gas pumps be better spent defraying the high price of gas? If my gas station is installing flat screens on the pumps, I get a strong sense that they're making more money than they need. Why compromise my concentration while I'm pouring highly flammable fluids into an automobile, anyway? Why not let me sit in my car with the inane DVD player I installed in the dashboard and use the GSTV money to provide full-service instead?

If it really is so "maddeningly tedious" for you as AdRants claims, you need to start walking, biking, or taking public transportation more often.

Seriously. If you can't go five minutes without television, you probably aren't fit to be driving at all.

The Backlash Bandwagon

It always happens... The industry leader is the brand that takes criticism for the entire category. The brand's competition may very well be worse for you, but it doesn't matter because you armchair activists and podcast pundits aim for the biggest target. I'm not defending McDonald's or Microsoft, but pointing out that "anti-hype" is little more than a backlash bandwagon - based on misplaced emotion more than fact.

You can see the anti-hype around MySpace more frequently now. From the half-assed "Fox bought MySpace" panic that, in the end, only attracted millions more people to the social networking site... to this article. Let me get this straight: a site that has 70 million members is "out" because one 18-year-old out of just 400 high school students surveyed said she's done with MySpace? Can't we just admit that we're tired of stories about MySpace's dominance, instead of publishing superfluous fluff and clutter about it? I'm not defending MySpace, but wondering where our collective common sense went.

We bitch about MySpace being too big, yet we've more than doubled the site's population in the past year. We claim that we don't eat McDonald's any more, yet we actually go to the fast-food giant more often and spend more when we're there since SuperSize Me came out. We bitch about Bill Gates and Microsoft, yet somewhere around 90% of us still claim Windows as our operating system. As consumers have proven that we are lying through our teeth; that we love to complain, but we have no resolve to effect change.

Why not get off the backlash bandwagon and put your money where your mouth is, folks?

Ape shall exploit ape.

If not at one of A Busy Workshop's painfully hip and sparsely stocked boutiques, kids will pay $100 US or more for one of the relatively simple silkscreened T-shirts you'll see Nigo creating here [via PSFK's "me-too" site of fashion links].

The issue that's bothered me over four or so years of watching Nigo, Bape and A Bathing Ape gain notoriety is, you can't tell a knock-off from an original -- primarily because the design is so easily imitated, and actually stolen from Planet Of The Apes. Nigo built his career on infringing on the film's intellectual property, in fact. He branched out to borrow heavily from Nike's Dunk (or fakes thereof), too. The cool-hunters of the world quietly ignore this fact, presumably so they don't blow major holes through their own inflated senses of "cool". That is so not-cool.

I hope the video is a lesson to us all: don't buy ridiculously priced T-shirts; make your own. That's how Nigo got rich. Otherwise, you might settle for an imposter on eBay, because you'll get the same look for a fraction of the expense. I'd rather have the cash and the look than the demented satisfaction of paying an amount that would've bought plenty of supplies to start my own shirt line. But that's me.

If Nigo wants to curb the bootlegging (which fans of Bape must support at least in principle, since Bape itself is predicated on bootlegs of Planet Of The Apes imagery), he needs more sophisticated designs. Nigo's camo patterns are mediocre; he's no Maharishi. The promo video only underscores the simplicity of much of his design, meaning it's the demand he's manufactured that's really made his brand. But that demand seems like it might be little more than a revisitation of the large-scale merchandising of the original Planet Of The Apes film series.

A Letter to Wal*Mart Dance Party-People:

Kids, no anarchist spends so much effort trying to make a big-box store look like a fun time. You've practically produced three spec advertisements for Wal*Mart and Target here, playing up to cliches and ultimately showing that you (suburban alterna-kids, nu-metal heads and army brats) enjoy yourselves at the big-box stores in your town.

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure you all had a great time at Wal*Mart. But you are neither anarchists nor punks just because you wear black, mohawks and tatoos into big-box retailers (and dance to mainstream pop music, and film what amount to guerila promo videos for said retailers).

Wal*Mart and Target both have big corporate marketing departments, public relations agencies, branding consultants and advertising agencies that are very pleased with you all right now, for giving them inadvertent "viral" marketing (about which they can now say "the kids think we're cool enough to have a dance party here") - even if the sales clerks turned your party off.

RE-Remixing movies

This PSFK post reminded me of a Mike Meyers film-sampling effort that was talked about a few years back but has yet to materialize. Now Xeni Jardin has Steven Soderbergh talking about this allegedly "new" approach...

But film and video remixing isn't a new idea. Films ranging from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid to Kung Pow: Enter the Fist have already dabbled in this territory. And these barely compare to the complexity of Emergency Broadcast Network's work. (Remember U2's ZooTV? That was video remixing.)

Steven Soderbergh implies that it's as simple as recutting and rescoring your own film. Meyers seemed to be taking more of a mash-up approach (much like we see in the other examples listed above). Both count, technically, as remixes (a vague term that is too often co-opted and over-used for the sake of sounding hip). But neither is a new revolution in film-making (or re-making)...

It's been forty years since Woody Allen "remixed" new dialogue into International Secret Police: Key of Keys - which would become What's Up, Tiger Lilly? - it just wasn't called "remixing" then.

Buzz-words aside...

Are Current TV's "pods" and Squidoo's "lenses" basically the same thing? When you get through the fluffy language written around these entities, each is just a meme pool with somewhat proprietary nomenclature.

Are we really just seeing a revival of self-appointed experts... the kind that used innumerable day-time talk shows as their platforms in the 1980's? Maybe. One thing is certain: When everyone is an expert, being an expert becomes meaningless.