aric with an a

Today is a big day. First night of many that I’ll be spending with 2 of my closest friends, Tim & Robin, on their insanely large R.V. - in fact, it’s more of a bus. A bus that sleeps 6, houses a 42-inch flatscreen (with Wii, of course) in the main cabin (along with a 32-inch flatscreen on the outside…next to the grill), fully stocked bar, climate-controlled belly which all of their Portland Microbrews lie safely in and more. This is their home and they invited me to come play with them for a while.

So I said ’sure’. You know.

We’ll head to Austin tomorrow and then back to OKC and then we just don’t know. New Orleans? Florida Keys? I suppose that’s the nice thing about having a house you can drive. You sort it all out in the morning.

Will take some photos and vid of this monster just as soon as we stop playing Galaga and making White Russians.

This whole ChinesePod fiasco got me thinking. Part of me is so upset at the fact that this show, one that we started, would even release such poorly-produced content. This isn’t an attack on John - it never has been. And fair play to them for trying. It is a discussion about the dangers of trying to make your product edgy and what it does to your cred if the offering is bush-league.

Everyone want their product to be sexy. Everyone. Things need to have that…thing. Even Bibles.  Gone are the days of the understated ‘sex sells‘. We get it. But ’sexiness’ is what all seem to be after. I’ve been approached about making podcasts/vidcasts for the most absurd of things. Textiles being the strangest. I’m sure if I went to college, I could categorize this all into ‘marketing’ or whatever - but I didn’t. So bear with me while I state a few obviouses (university would have also helped my vocab).

If and when you do decide to add that edge to your product, there is no room for anything that’s not at the same standard, or, caliber, that your existing product isn’t already at. Everyone is trying their hand at using new media to create a viral porthole but beware.

Be very beware.

It has become amazingly simple to create media these days - hell, I did the entire Shanghai [Exile] Diaries with a point-and-shoot Leica and iMovie…

Actually - having mentioned that, I’ve proven my point. Anyone who saw The Shanghai Diaries and then the Exile Diaries can see the difference in production. I didn’t like the Exile Diaries. I mean, I would have, had I more time on my hands to do them right. But they were rushed. And you can tell. The Shanghai Diaries were better. More time spent on them (1 a day as opposed to 5). They embodied the whole ‘organic production‘ that people seem to want these days. But the last big project I did were the Exile’s. Which makes me a little embarrassed. I have more to offer as a producer/writer/whatever than those, but you wouldn’t know if you didn’t know me.

This is the mistake I see so many making - a 60 year-old CEO goes on Twitter and makes an ass of himself. Start-up company spends one million for a Superbowl ad and didn’t think to upgrade their server. A stale corporation shoots a staff music video for Christmas. These stories are common.

So - yes. New Media. I don’t have to explain what it is and why it’s important, but as Nick Hornby penned in ‘High Fidelity’, ‘you gotta punch your weight’.

There’s a place for everyone in this convoluted new world, there is. I promise. But realize that whatever goes viral is the only standing representation of your company.

Take the brilliant 42 Below ad:

This thing spread like wildfire and wouldn’t ya know it, the gay crowd ate it up! This TVC hit on all the things their desired market wanted. And liked. And passed on. A perfect ad.

But you’re not going to pitch something like this to Ford Motors, are you? No - of course you’re not. But some have. Some go too far (Pepsi, anyone?!). Some just get too excited and say ‘yes!’ to the first thing offered. It’s dangerous.

It’s also dangerous to allow anything sub-par to represent your product. I don’t mean to keep harping on the ChinesePod show, but it’s what got me thinking about this. Frank’s video made sense for a business like CPod - green screen, adjusted colors, sound was mixed down. A good production. John’s was not. Same would be if Frank tried to blog about living in China. He might. He knows enough to pull it off. But it won’t be as good as John’s.

Punch your weight.

I know, I know - some will bring up the few Saturday Shows we took to video. The production was bad, but it was supposed to be like that. We weren’t teaching much, it was a laid-back weekend coffee talk. So the fuzzy video and shaky camera made sense. It was the online-equivalent of buying BedHead.

So - yes. Please use and abuse new media. It works. But think very carefully about what it is your sending out there instead of simply getting excited about people knowing the product itself.

Shanghaiist picks this story up.

I recently gave an interview to Louis Yu on Victoria’s CFVU 101.9 on my travels, trouble with the Chinese gov’t, state of the music scene there and my move back to the U.S. It was then picked up by the widely-respected 56 minus 1.

Louis is a guy I’ve gotten to know over the past few months and has turned me onto a lot of the ‘younger’ stuff these kids are listening to today and Adam Schokora is someone who makes me glad I’m not living in China anymore as he is what a true producer of new media should be and I would have ended up slagging him off behind his back out of pure envy.

Not to mention I was compared to the most loyal of all subjects on another blog - which actually made me smile.

Worse things than waking up to these 3 after the fucking bickering that’s begun over the previous ‘larceny!’ post…

Happy Boxing Day, indeed!

Not a week goes by that I’m asked about the old show. Correction - my old show. Show’s still going as well it should. It’s brilliant and revolutionized how languages are attained and absorbed. And I’ve put off penning my thoughts. Had put it off. Until a few things came to light these past few weeks.

For-the-record, I’ve never gone on-the-record about what happened, but shall. ‘Cause people ask. And they did someone wrong. Blatantly. So here goes.

My Exit

…was eminent. Gone were the good ole days of free beer in the fridge and everyone having no idea who did what. Not to say we didn’t get it done - we did. And had fun. Hell, more concept was conceived in the pub than in the boardroom and it was everything you read about in cool start-ups. The converted warehouse. The excitement. Late nights and early mornings. The risk. The mayhem. All of it. But with success came structure and that really killed what was had. It happens, I suppose - the need for someone to start counting the money going out. But what a drag. No more free beer. A timeclock. Someone who reviewed the timeclock and wore a tie. Squares - you know the type. They needed to make money, fair enough. But when I went from producing a show I was a part in starting to being also told to produce the corporate programs said suit brought in to help pay the bills, I walked. Walked under the announcement that it was becoming a ‘production house’. It did - but more on that later. I was asked back to continue doing The Saturday Show (and at half-a-million downloads a month, you can see why) I agreed. Purely for the money. A few months later I started making a whole lotta money (that sounds weird to even write), so I left. On good terms. Still am. Ken’s a big brother to me and Hank is one of the smartest men I’ve ever worked with. So that was it - ‘thanks very much’ and ’see ya at the pub’. All things good and all things fine.

Spanish/Italian/French/etc

…this is what I meant. Now - as stated, no one paved the road towards online learning more than we did. No one. I can show you obvious knock-offs and apologetic ones. There’s a reason we made Time Magazine’s Top 10 List. ChinesePod ‘coming from our studios in Shanghai’ along with the Chinese staff on board to help in a Chinese neighborhood with Chinese culture in China is what made it that. But ‘ItalianPod coming from our studios in Shanghai’ doesn’t seem to carry the same…oh, what word am I looking for here - ‘credibility’? No, that’s not it, because they had true speakers and the same approach, but it seemed…greedy, I suppose. But they have to make money and I understand that. ChinesePod, despite being flown into teach the CIA Mandarin wasn’t making anyone rich. So dowhatyagottado, I guess…it just seemed to cheapen it.

The Man

Said suit is the band promoter who tries to grope groupies by promising them backstage access (no pun intended). He began to stifle the creative flow there. With everyone. Trust me on this, I’ve heard it from them. The program director called me once to produce some much-needed openers/closers for them which I did. My policy being ‘you-give-me-that-pile-of-money-and-I’ll-give-you-this-cd’ meant he had to pay me out of pocket, as suit was somewhere out of town touring a bean farm or whatever. When suit came back, he allowed for the promos to be played, but told director that because he didn’t okay it, he wouldn’t get paid. He’s one of these guys. So PD left. Suit implements a ‘no free coffee’ rule for the staff of 40+. Now their last hope of bringing an edge to the show, [Dear] Amber has left. Gone. Sorry to break it to ya’ll but she has. So - It ain’t looking good. And here’s the kicker - as good as this is to learn a language, the economy is shit and people are starting to cut back on things. Now - you have a educational program with pop culture benefits and an amazing cast, it becomes a personal attachment and perhaps will make the cut. But without these, it could be deemed a ‘lose-able luxury’.

Now…the kicker.

They. Fucking. Stole.

This is what is comes to? God - I hope not. But they did. Here’s what happened. A friend of ours, of yours and mine, came to Shanghai with an idea. An idea for a new show for ChinesePod. He played it to them and they loved it. Told him to keep his phone on over the next few days. No reason why they shouldn’t have - it was a good show.

Then nothing. Silence. Then the ‘would love to but we don’t have the budget’. Fine. And fair play. They don’t have the money. That’s how a pitch goes. No hard feelings.

Then this (if you can’t see the link, it’s restricted to premium access so I ripped it and uploaded it again):

Didn’t see the dates? I’ll help you.

• ‘Radical Approach’ (remember the pitch? ‘no money’?) - uploaded on April 15, 2008.

• ‘The Radical Show’ (even stole the name? are you kidding me with this?!) - released on December 16, 2008!!!

To be honest - I’m fucking floored. It - despite its choices in suffocating surrogates - is a classy operation. It has huge potential and not just in this capacity. I remember Ken talking once about how he wanted to put basic Arabic onto mp3 players and send them off to our troops! It was this kind of thought and intellect that  started this entire thing, but to stoop so low as to not only steal from a man who helped them along the way, but to not even change the title, it’s pathetic. As is the show, but that’s neither here nor there.

So that’s it - up until I saw that video, I was fine. If it weren’t for Ken and Hank, I’d still be teaching English. I have nothing but respect for them. That being said, whoever had even a finger in the release of this is a cowardly hack.

Shame on you.

So, after spending time with Brother Scott in Chicago that went exactly as some might think (late nights, 6am tequila toasts, heart-to-hearts and way, way too much music talk), I opened his gift to me. A Wattstax 3-cd compilation of the live show (previously unreleased, thank you) which got me revisiting my love of gospel. All things gospel. Even Elvis’ period. So, I went online to find more gospel and ended up downloading this ‘Flashbacks’ 8-cd set which included all sorts of goodness from the 1920-30’s: loneliness, drugs (!), fantastic gospel and war propaganda song/ announcements.

I’m in love with this - imagine over 100 songs from that time period along with gems like the intro to the (still) cult classic program ‘Lights Out’:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Someone mix this into something…Bauhaus-y.

Happy Christmas!

…now you know where I get my good-lookin genes.

Although you can tell by the placement and affection which one is married and successful!

Happy Christmas!

Hope you liked it - we did. Was fitting, in a sense, Lake Michigan frozen over. Scott sang the song, ’cause my iPod couldn’t handle the 32-below weather, but it was better that way. I joked that we needed to be upwind ’cause your sense-of-humor would have loved to get all up in our coats for a few weeks, but you didn’t. You just headed out north-west. We’re not sure what was there, but you went in a hurry, so we didn’t try to understand. I froze my ass off - Scott was more prepared. We needed to do this, you see - as both of us still carried a bit of guilt for not being better friends, despite being your best friends. We could have been even better best friends and we’re sorry. Stop by every once and a while, if you can (Scott prefers evenings as opposed to early mornings, but is guessing the flying suitcase told you that the last time).

We also got to toast you a few times in New York as well - everyone seemed to have their own version of the same story.

You’re missed. But unable to be forgotten.

Guess you planned it that way…

Cheeky bastard.

[Click for a slightly larger size]

So, hrm. Here’s the next few months or so. Seein’ a few friends before Christmastime, then more afterwards. Bit of work and we traded in Mexico for The Keys [and definitely not Cuba!]. This is the travel I don’t mind, as there is someone to say ‘bye’ to ya at the airport and ‘hey you!’ at the next. Nights are spent recollecting, not reminising - that’s important. Big of work in there as well, which is nice to be back into.

I like being back - took me the better part of a decade to realize that.

I have a new friend online, but because she’s a new friend, I’m unsure of proper protocol before linking to her pics, writing her name, etc, so we’ll just say ‘my new friend’.

Anyway, she’s got some cool shots of Jersey and I asked her how she got that ‘antiquated look’ on ‘em and she sent me this app. One you might like. It’s from the guys at Polaroid, who I assume are broke, as Polaroids are now discontinued. Which sucks, but hey. Anyway, it’s worth playing around with, so wanted to pass it on.