Category Archives: Personal History

Rock and Roll Fantasy

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So you have great singer/song writers like Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Don Henley and Glen Frey who –as far as I know– aren’t making hit records any more. They’re rich, the royalties are coming in, they worked long and hard…so maybe they’re just taking it easy. Why should they bust their asses writing songs. Because they love writing songs. It was once their passion and I want to believe it still is. So where are the songs?

Let’s suppose in the hip-hop musical world of 2006, nobody wants to hear a song by these old farts. But that doesn’t sound right. I’m betting they’re still writing songs…and there are millions of fans who would love to buy/hear them.

Okay, here’s the fantasy part. Let’s say you’re one of these musical legends and you still noodle around in your home studio, writing and recording songs. Not necessarily ‘hit’ songs, just songs. Stuff you like. Why not put it up on a website, give your fans a little taste, and let us buy them?

I think Janis Ian (if you don’t know, it doesn’t matter) does something like this. And why not. If your music is no longer “commercially viable,” but you still love making it… put it up there. Let us buy it direct. Like I said, it’s a fantasy.

Speaking of music… I would love to hear Sheryl Crow do Me and Bobby McGee. Not the Joplin screamer. More of a ballad treatment maybe. Has she ever performed that song?

Still speaking of music… I kinda like the song Table for One by Liz Phair.

But reaching back it occurs to me
There will always be some kind of crisis for me

Not a good drinking song, but haunting.

If somebody has Doug Howard’s email address, he can probably answer the question above. Play the Kennett card.

You say you want a revolution

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A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I’d been invited to be on a panel titled, “Revolution in PR Technology,” at joint meeting of the Community Service Public Relations Council and the St. Louis chapters of both the International Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America.

I think the idea is to explain “how blogs, podcasting, wikis, RSS, and audio streaming technologies are transforming the world of communications.” The luncheon/panel is tomorrow in St. Louis and my contact emailed they have 260 people attending. Last time I spoke before 260 people was our high school production of Music Man.

Should be fun although I’m not sure I can explain podcasting in 15 minutes. The technical aspects aren’t complicated, but explaining why this is such a (potentially) disruptive technology is like tryin’ to tell a stranger ’bout rock and roll.

David’s coming along and we’re gonna try to sneak Andy in, so maybe between the three of use we can triangulate the panel on our respective blogs.

Learfield Interactive

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I have three “pet projects” (for lack of a better description) at work. They make a little money but not much. One could make a good argument that these are things we shouldn’t be messing with. But I am quite proud of them and today seems like a good time to bench-mark them.

Legislature.com (how lucky were we to get that domain?) has to be one of the more expensive subscription services on the net. We charge $750 a year for a live stream of debate audio from the Missouri House and Senate. All the more amazing since those two bodies offer a live stream for free. In addition to the live stream, we archive each day’s debate. We’ve got it all going back to 2002. Don’t ask me “who cares?” because I don’t know. It’s a little bit of history and it seemed dumb to discard it.

UPDATE: We registered Legislature.com on September 16, 1999. Roger Gardner called me the day before and asked if the domain was available. I assured him someone had snapped it up but had our IT guy (Phil Atkinson) check. Lo and behold, it was available. Not many one-word domains still up for grabs in 1999.  Post-Dispatch story on Legislature.com 5/14/00 (PDF)

Supreme Court of Missouri Oral Arguments. Very dry stuff. We stream audio of the oral arguments before the court, and then we archive it. 637 cases, dating back to December 14, 1999. The service has been free until just recently, when we started charging an annual subscription of $99. [We started doing this in January of 2000.

So we have the audio of the state legislature making the laws…and the audio of the state supreme court interpreting many of those laws. While I don’t care that much about the process, saving this audio record just seem very cool to me.

Last, but not least… Missouri State Highway Patrol Crash Reports. These are the initial reports filled out by the state troopers and radioed back to the dispatcher. He or she then enters the information into a computer and it gets distributed to various points around the state. Several years ago, Phil did a little hack that put the reports on a website which, today, easily generates 800,000 Page Views a month. There’s a free, “public” version of the site…and a “premium” subscription service which includes a searchable database of reports going back to the beginning of 2004. Two years of crash reports. God (and maybe Andy and Phil) know how many files that might be. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands? A shit load.

A good businessman would tell you these projects are “distractions” that “dilute” our efforts from our “core businesses.” Which, for the most part, is selling 30 and 60 second commercials on radio networks. I think it’s a credit to our company that they let me (and others) explore these murky, digital waters. But I wonder… if I went to that Big Blogging Convention in the sky tomorrow, would anyone keep these projects going?

High speed Internet access

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A co-worker recently announced that he could finally get high-speed Internet access (Sprint ADSL) at his appartment. The speed/price package was much better than mine, so I called the Sprint folks. Now, I’m probably jinxing myself with this post but I can’t resist.

I’m currently paying $60 per month for 1.5M download/256k upload. Beginning tomorrow, that goes up to 3M down/??? upload, for the same price (thanks to some kind of rebate). Still not up there with cable speeds but a long way from the 2400 baud dial-ups of yesteryear. I’ll let you know if access seems twice as fast.

Christmas morning

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Cozy fire. Holiday mix on the CD (Did you know James Brown did some Christmas songs?). Dogs playing with their new toys. Good smells from the kitchen. Santa brought me some nice warm socks, a cowboy shirt and some Tired Old Ass Soak. Barb received a Netflix subscription and some motion-sensor light bulbs. We might break down and buy a new TV after the Super Bowl when prices go down.

Best Christmas post is over at the Dilbert blog: “If you’re reading The Dilbert Blog on Christmas day, your family probably hates you. But that’s okay because I still love you. Have a great holiday. Or failing in that, just hold on until January. You can make it.”

Unbundled Media

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“The natural ability of the Internet to distribute unbundled media is disrupting broadcasting’s basic business, and that will accelerate in 2006.” (The Unbundled Awakening by Terry Heaton)

BundleAfter reading this excellent piece, I can’t get the idea of “unbundled media” out of my head. Like all broadcast media, radio stations offer a bundle of content/programming. Music, weather, sports, news, etc. We bundle it all together in something we call a format and deliver it to the audience (in a very linear manner).

I remember getting calls from frustrated listeners demanding to know when I was going to give the school closing report (I had just given it 2 minutes earlier but they had missed it.) They couldn’t get it when they wanted it because it had to be bundled up with other content/programming.

For the past 20+ years I have worked for a company that supplies content/programming to radio stations and for most of that time, a big part of my job was to insure that our “stuff” made it into the bundle.

And now the unbundling has begun. iTunes has just about any song I might want to hear. Weather.com has my forecast. Cancellations.com (or my school’s website) has the cancellations. Same for school lunch menus.

And RSS means I won’t even have to go searching for all this. It will come to me. Wherever I am.

It seems pretty clear that most people don’t want their media bundled. They like to choose. A bit of a sticky wicket for businesses dependent on being part of the bundle. Is the value shifting from being able to bundle (TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, etc)… to creating the content that was once part of that bundle?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me

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Got an email today from a life-long friend (who happens to be my age) who said something to the effect of “…I only plan to work for 6 or 7 more years.” My first thought was, why so soon. Then I did the math and realized he (and I) will be 63 or 64. Daaaammnnn. Is it retirement time already?

We can’t predict what will happen in the next 6 or 7 years, but I don’t plan to hang it up anytime soon. I think I can do 75 in a walk. Maybe longer. And as long as world continues to be populated by clueless and lazy people, I’ll have something of a competitive edge (I’m not talking about you).

“First National Bank, may we help you?
“Yeah, this is Steve Mays. I’m just checking on my fuck-you money.”
“Hang on a second. (Pause) Yep. It’s all there.”
“Cool. Talk to you next week.”

Road Trip (Des Moines and back in one day)

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Des Moines and back in one day. Ten hours in the car with David. Almost nobody I’d rather travel with. Laughed my ass off. No voice mail, no email. Passed adult book store on trip home and made David turn around so I could take a photo for the masthead. So cold my shaking hands ruined the shot. It would have been a killer. “Adult Videos & Toys.” Just in time for Christmas.

Secret Scrooge

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A coworker came by my office today, held up a little cup, and told me to draw a name. When I asked why, she explained it was for my Secret Santa. I said I’d be glad to contribute some money but didn’t think I wanted to have a Secret Santa. Too late, she explained.

“I sent an email around yesterday and it clearly said to contact me by 5 p.m. (yesterday) if you didn’t want to take part in Secret Santa.”

Seems the Secret Santa program is opt-out only.

“I got a couple of hundred emails yesterday,” I explaind. “If one of them had ‘Secret Santa’ for the subject line, I probably didn’t open it. Can’t I just give you some money?”

“No. Someone already has your name and if you don’t participate, I’ll have to go back to them and have them pick another name,” she explained.

“Uh, what’s involved in being a Secret Santa?” I asked.

“You buy a small ($5.00 limit) gift for your Secret Santa pal each week for the next four weeks,” she replied.

Right. I gave my wife a check for our 28th wedding anniversary. I won’t be searching the mall for a clever gift for a coworker. I came off sounding like an asshole that didn’t want to join in the holiday fun and my coworker huffed out.

While it’s too late to be Jimmy Stewart, maybe I can offer some alternatives to Secret Santa. You could buy a card for the person in the next cube. Or bring in some fudge to share. Remember, it dosn’t matter if they get you a card or some fudge, it’s the giving that counts. But that’s no fun and there’s no…mystery. So how about this: Secret Scrooge.

The SS is chosen by lot. Nobody knows his or her identity. Early in the morning (before anyone else is at the office) on the last work day before Christmas, the Secret Scrooge leaves a sealed note on the desk of coworker, informing him or her that they have to work Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day. They don’t have to do anything, they just have to be at their desk. And — here’s the fun part– they spend that time trying to guess the identity of the Secret Scrooge. Can we count you in? It’ll be fun.