Burnin’

“Supposedly cosmopolitan, San Francisco is in fact a collection of separatist ghettos. Mexicans live in the Mission, Gays live in the Castro, Chinese out in Sunset, and transient yuppies in the Marina; and they avoid each other as much as possible. The city is entirely lacking in glamour. The old money is inbred, and the new money is too geeky. The pretty people are in Los Angeles or Miami; the intellectuals are in New York; and the carpetbaggers left as quickly as they came.” -Nick Denton

Outspoken Oxford grad, Nick Denton, is a former journalist and currently king of his very own nanopublishing empire. In short, he’s the man responsible for Gawker, Wonkette, Fleshbot, Defamer, and Kinja. That is, he is the publisher, not the writer. He hires writers. Notably, Choire Sicha and Ana Marie Cox*, of Gawker and Wonkette fame respectively. Elizabeth Spiers was the first Gawker writer, until traditional media swooped in. Now she works for New York Magazine.

Denton appeared on my radar last spring when this Wired article arrived in my mailbox. The timing was especially interesting, as I had recently advised CenterStage, Chicago’s indie-owned entertainment site, on the need for a blog. I contributed to this effort for a time, but stopped shortly thereafter, realizing that I was the wrong blogger for the job.

Now, there’s another opportunity to be a paid blogger. Denton’s chief rival, Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc. is looking for a blogger to take on the advertising beat. Basically, what Denton and Calacanis are up to is carving out, and then capitalizing on, a highly defined niche for each blog they create. Which is smart, especially when the objective is ad revenue. The blog you are reading now is not laser-like. I write here about several topics. Should I ever devote myself to one topic, my traffic would surely increase. But, I do not blog for more traffic. I blog because I have something to say. Of course, should Calacanis bring me onboard, I will focus on the ad world with laser-like intensity. Sounds like fun.

*Cox, a native Nebraskan (like me), reportedly just inked a deal for a book, film, and TV show. This according to Calacanis. You go girl.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a.k.a. Kos (rhymes with rose) is one of the world’s most popular bloggers. Thankfully, he’s also a smart guy and good writer. Actually if his traffic is any indication, he may be much better than good. His blog DailyKos receives 350,000 to 400,000 visits a day or over 8 million a month. That’s twice the traffic of FoxNews dot com, and a readership that equals many of the world’s leading print publications.

Now, Kos has a new gig. He’s writing a column for The Guardian. In his first effort for this venerable news organization, Kos pontificates on the rise of a true liberal media online. He also wisely points out that liberals are just starting to shape the story–something conservatives in this country have been successfully doing for over 30 years now.

From his Guardian column: “It would be really sexy and dramatic to claim that a few brave blogger souls set out to build an alternative media structure, but that’s not really true. We set out to write for ourselves, to provide an outlet for the angst we felt in a politically hostile environment - where criticising the president on domestic policy was somehow unpatriotic. And we weren’t alone: there was a huge audience out there hungry for this content. And suddenly, the seeds of a liberal media blossomed online.”

Founded in 1986, in direct response to the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Rome’s famous Piazza di Spagna, the Slow Food movement–dedicated to supporting traditional ways of growing, producing and preparing food–is today gaining traction with people around the world. According to this excellent article in The Nation, Slow Food offers a kind of pleasure-loving environmentalism that does not reject consumption per se but the homogenization and high-speed frenzy of chain-store, fast-food life.

I’m experiencing my own little backlash against the pervasiveness of technology in our lives. Two areas I find particularly bothersome: 1) Plastic surgery and 2) Cell phones. I understand that both technologies have a place in society. Plastic surgery’s place is helping to reconstruct one’s body after a terrible accident. Cell phones, on the other hand, prove convenient when one’s car breaks down.

Since moving to Chicago last year, I’ve noticed several people talking to themselves on the city’s sidewalks. The odd thing is these ladies and gentlemen don’t look to be insane. In fact, these fast talkers are usually well dressed and often appear to be rather hurried. Then, I’ll see the earpiece and realize what it is I’ve been witness to–a cell phone conversation, masked by the smallness of the device itself.

the offending device

An even worse environment for cell phone use (of any type) is on the train. The train is a public venue. Thus, most people respectfully keep to themselves. Until their cell phone rings. Then all within earshot get to learn all about the formulating plans, relationship troubles or business dealings of an imperfect stranger.

Regarding the medical enhancement of physical features, all I can say is I feel sick when I see a person who’s volunteered to go under the knife. Michael Jackson, Cher and Joan Rivers (most notably) are humans willingly transforming themselves into something less than human. I see these celebs, or others likewise transfigured, and I see no beauty whatsoever, only disease. Some may argue that plastic surgery can help improve one’s self-esteem. I’m sorry, but that’s a crock of shit. All “enhancement” does is reveal one’s suffering soul.

“In retrospect, the real beginning of Lands’ End probably lies interred with the bones of some distant ancestor of mine, who passed along those genes compelling me toward total independence. The idea for the company though, appeared the winter of my discontent, bumming in the Swiss Alps around Davos. I read The Magic Mountain and contemplated whether there would be life after 33, and what it might consist of. One thing, I did not want to go back to the job I left (but I did go back to Young & Rubicam for a year) and I wanted to start a business, something to do with my hobby, sailboat racing.” - Gary Comer, former Y&R copywriter

I’ve been pondering what some of the Forbes 400 richest did to achieve their great wealth. Often, when I see a mansion that’s simply too big or some other ostentatious display, I’ll point and say, “Arms dealer.” I’m only too pleased to report my speculation is off kilter. In Chicago, the richest people got that way by building great companies–Lands’ End (now operating out of Dodgeville, WI), CDW, Oprah, Hyatt, Wrigley, and Motorola to name a few.

In a twisted insight into consumer buying habits, the richest Chicagoan (at five billion in net worth) is H. Ty Warner, the man behind the Beanie Babies phenomenon.

The Chicago Tribune reported today that local gay rights activists protested last night’s concert at Chicago’s House of Blues by Jamaican dancehall star, Capleton. This is the latest in an ongoing struggle by gay activists to bring international attention to the hate-filled lyrics of several Reggae artists, including Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man, Sizzla and most notably Buju Banton, an artist Amnesty International claims took part in a June beating of six gay men in Jamaica. Banton’s own performances have been recently cancelled in England, and his contract with Puma–despite his recent Olympics performance–is under intense scrutiny by the hip lifestyle brand.

Capleton’s show at HOB went on as planned, solidifying HOB’s position as one the most corporate venues in popular music today. According to The Trib report, Jack Gannon, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based entertainment company, said performers deserve the same freedom of expression on stage that the protesters have in the street.

Mainstream press organizations are at once embracing blogs as source material, while also discounting them as coming mostly from men in their pajamas. Why any one blog gains traction among mainstream journalists, I can’t say for sure. I suppose existing readership has a lot to do with it. When a writer has thousands of daily readers, which some popular bloggers do indeed have, journalists correctly respect that kind of thing, and they are no doubt forced to question their own numbers.

Dan Rather’s recent “document situation” didn’t pass muster in the blogosphere, and I’d say that’s a good thing. I think the ongoing nature of the story is overblown, and totally hypocritical coming from other equally-guilty, faux journalists. Regarding the role bloggers now play in fact-checking a story, I’d say it’s a positive development for society. Knowledge is power and the blogosphere is a living web of knowledge. An intelligent, interconnected community working, mostly for free, to keep it real. Like Linux–the open source operating system created by a Finnish student and made better by thousands of contributors around the globe–the story of the day, whatever it happens to be, is now being made better by bloggers.

This cat has an interesting pro micro-fame slant on why bloggers blog.

Brad Serling, the creator of the famous live downloads site nugs.net, and more recently a partner with Phish in LivePhish.com, is a young entrepreneur to watch, and I must admit it, admire. He’s a Cornell grad, dot com techee, and live music aficionado. He’s provided music-on-the-web consulting to The Dead and many other prominent bands. He’s also doing what I do with Leftover Cheese, except on a much larger scale. Where I get about 2000 listeners a month, his streaming audience, according to reports, tops 50,000 a month. nugs.net also presents dedicated streams of live Phish and live Cheese, exclusively. That is, the bands are working in concert with nugs.net, letting Serling and crew handle the digital distribution of their intellectual property. And why not? Bands make music. Fans and geeks are only too happy to package and distribute it for them. Makes sense to me.

Check this USA Today article on Serling and LivePhish dot com.

Or this in-depth discussion on technology at Jambands.com.

English citizen Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, the legendary 1970s folk singer was taken off a flight from London that was forced to land in Bangor, Maine yesterday. Islam, who was born Stephen Georgiou, took Cat Stevens as a stage name and had a string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including “Wild World” and “Morning Has Broken.” He abandoned his music career and changed his name in the late 1970s after being persuaded by orthodox Muslim teachers that his lifestyle was forbidden by Islamic law. But last year he released a re-recording of his 1970s hit “Peace Train” to express his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Does this man look dangerous to you?

Thanks to Open Secrets dot org, I finally found one category where Cleveland Congressman, and my favored Presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, managed a clear victory. Kucinich gathered the highest percentage of campaign contributions worth less than $200. At the opposite end of this pole, Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Smilin’ John Edwards, is the man large donors love to like.