Garageband on the iPad

I fiddled around with Garageband when I got my first MacBook but couldn’t really figure out much to do with it. Figured it was just for musicians. Today I tried out the new iPad app and discovered a completely different experience.

First, there’s something about using your fingers that just seemed so much more intuitive than a cursor. And they’ve made the iPad app for people like me who can’t read a note of music or carry a tune.

I’ve only started playing with Garageband so won’t attempt a review, they must be all over YouTube and the Apple website. But here’s my first effort.

AUDIO: Bust-A-Bean (The Coffee Zone Song)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I read The Handmaid’s Tale 25 years ago and it scared the crap out of me. It’s the story of “a future America under the violently oppressive rule of a far-right Christian sect. Women are back in the home and divided into domestic and reproductive functions, branded by coloured robes.”

If Tea Partiers read books this one would make them say “Hell yeah!” The rest of us cross our fingers and say, “It can’t happen here.” But it can, of course. We’re closer today than when the book was published.

BBC Interview »

A brief chat with Keith Povall

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts featuring brief interviews with some of the friends I have made online.

Keith Povall and I have never met but I know more about him (and he about me) than most of the people that live on our street. It’s a rare day that we do not exchange a few words.

Keith is a curry chef; raises carnivorous  plants and, of course, a blogger. He is also the curator of a cringe-inducing (for me) archive of photos of people wearing sandals and sox. Yes, he was a dry, biting sense of humor.

You also need to know that I am a shameless anglophile. I love all things British. The way they talk, their food, and their weather. So, my plan to to touch base with Keith every week or so and get his take on things happening in the world.

And when we run out of things to talk about, I’ll introduce you to some other lovely people.

AUDIO: Interview with Keith Povall (13 min)

April Winchell has a better music collection than you

Paul Winchell was a well known ventriloquist in the mid-1960s, the voice of Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. His daughter is April Winchell has her own accomplishments, including a website where you can find some great music.

There’s a collection of cover versions of Stairway to Heaven, including

AUDIO: The Dixie Power Treo (tuba and banjo)
AUDIO: Dolly Parton.

But my favorite section was Terrifying Christian Recordings.

Then I Start to Yodel by Princess Ramona

Jogging for Jesus

Amazing Grace (Tim Gibson as Donald Duck)

AUDIO: Then I Start to Yodel by Princess Ramona
AUDIO: Jogging for Jesus;
AUDIO: Amazing Grace (Tim Gibson as Donald Duck)

Mel Karmazin interview: “Fucking with the magic”

Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. Before that he was head of CBS Radio. For most of his career he has been known as a “Wall Street darling” for his ability to drive up the price of his various companies’ stock. Don Imus frequently referred to him as the Zen Master. Let’s just say he knows a lot about radio and advertising. I was struck by his description of advertising and frank assessment that Google was “fucking with the magic.”

“I loved the model that I had then. At that point I had… I was the CEO of  CBS and I had a model where you buy a commercial… if you’re an advertiser you buy a commercial in the Super Bowl and, at that time, you paid two-and-a-half million dollars for a spot and had no idea if it worked. I mean, you had no idea if it sold product… did any good… I loved that model! That was a great model! And why …if I can get away with that model… if I’m in the business where I can sell advertising that way, why wouldn’t I want to do it?

No return on investment. And you know how everybody looks for return on investment? We had a a business model that didn’t worry about return on investment and then here comes Google. They screwed it up. They went to all these advertisers and said, we’ll let you know exactly what it is.”

Oooh. Reminds me of the old saw, “I know that only half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half.” The full interview is worth a watch and confirmed my feeling that a real sea change (in advertising) is taking place.

Jonathan Brownfield: Sports Photographer

Jonathan BrownfieldI don’t remember how I happened across Jonathan Brownfield. One of those six degrees of Twitter things, probably. Jonathan is a professional sports photographer and has shot games involving “our” teams so that was probably it.

Along the way he mentioned visiting family in Missouri over the holidays so I tweeted him with an invite to stop by for lunch/tour/interview.  Today was the day.

Here’s some background from one of Jonathan’s websites (for those that take a pass on the interview):

“While in high school, I started working as an assistant for Sports Illustrated photographer, David Klutho. That marked the beginning of my career as a professional photographer. This lead to having over 20 photos published in Sports Illustrated.

When I started college I began working for the University of Missouri Athletic Department and became their Head of Photography. Besides shooting, I coordinated a group of photographers to make sure every home event was covered.

During my sophomore year I was recruited by Hooters to photograph some of the local girls for the 2008 and 2009 calendars and the 2008 Miss Hooters International Beauty Pageant.

I currently shoot sports for US Presswire.

Now days my work is regularly seen in USA Today, ESPN Magazine, and in the LA Times.”

Did I mention that Jonathan is 23 years old?

I made a list of questions to ask a professional sports photographer only to discover that Jonathan has branched out from that (still a passion but now kind of a weekend thing). I rambled on with my questions so I’ve chopped the visit into two, 20-minutes chunks. The first one is mostly bio and social media. The second finally gets around to some sports stuff.

AUDIO: Interview Part 1

AUDIO: Interview Part 2

I was very impressed with Jonathan. Accomplishing what he has at 23, it would be easy to conclude one’s poop is odorless. He is what your grandmother called “a nice young man.”

You can see some of his photography here. He blogs here. And he’s @johnnybond86 on Twitter.

Joe Bankhead’s History of KBOA

joebankhead

Joe Bankhead was there when radio station KBOA went on the air in 1947. One of the original employees. He recently retired (at the age of 92) and set down at his manual upright and banged out 17 pages of memories about the early days. My thanks to Joe (and his son, Jimmy) for allow us to share them here. You can hear some of Joe’s recollections in his own words (recorded in 1982)

AUDIO: Excerpt of interview with Joe Bankhead

Here’s Joe’s “History of KBOA”

“Official” Song of Kennett, MO

I’ve posted this little ditty a few times but it’s buried deep in 4,000+ posts. So here it is a again, tagged and categorized, for your listening pleasure. The song was recorded sometime back in the ’60’s (?) to promote the town (and the sponsoring businesses). Feel free to download the song, re-post, spread it far and wide. May it play for a 1,000 years.

Kennett, My Home town (MP3)

Tim Robyn: Bringing consistency to state government websites

I recently learned of an ambitious undertaking involving the websites of some of the divisions of state government here in Missouri. The objective is to bring some consistency of design and how the information is organized.

tim-robynFor example, why not put the search box in the same place on each site? Or, when deciding on names for different kinds of content areas, use the name most common to the public, rather than some acronym known only to those within the division or agency.

The man responsible for overseeing this sisyphean task is Tim Robyn, Deputy for Web Presence with the state’s IT services division. We had a cup of Rocket Fuel here at the Coffee Zone yesterday and he talked about the program.

AUDIO: Interview 15 min MP3

The state of Missouri has dozens of websites but ten have been selected for this UI make-over. I forgot to ask Tim which ten but when I have that list, I’ll grab some screenshots so we can see a before-and-after.

PS: Tim has what might be the coolest title I’ve heard in a while.

UPDATE: The official State of Missouri site (below) and the MO Dept. of Agriculture were among the first to get the make-over’s. The Dept. of Insurance is up next, and offers a good “before” example. On deck: Revenue, Office of Administration, Economic Development, Labor and Industrial Relations, Mental Health, Natural Resources, Health, Social Services

I could be wrong, but the design below sure looks like a WordPress them to me.

SOM-website