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January 2012

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SOPA vs. The Mash Up Generation

A piece ran in Slate the other day that proclaimed passing SOPA would lead to an economic and social disaster. Click here to read that post.

It’s a fantastic look at how the socia-economic sensibilities have changed considerably in the last decade and the movement of copyright infringement has helped to shape this brave new world. I disagree with the overly simplistic view that states that the entertainment industries revenue has not been offset from online piracy. It is a fact that the record sales are down 60% in the last decade. One might argue that’s a good thing – the scam of charging $18 for a full length record that’s only 20% good was akin to forcing you to go into Disneyland with only 2 or 3 of the rides working. Now, the consumer can choose to buy as much or as little of an album as they want. And there is direct proof that if the whole album is good, people will buy it. Quality rises to the top and people respond. Refer to Adelle or Mumford and Sons for evidence of that. Of course there’s another, somewhat more complicated, side. In today’s media savvy world there’s a whole generation that simply types in “Mediafire Mumford and Sons” into Google to acquire new music. Easy. Two or three clicks and it’s done.

Some experts say the psychological subtly that a music file is only a few megabytes and is so easily shared (stolen) that it really doesn’t amount to stealing in the first place. It’s just sharing your stuff with your friends. It’s the same as viewing a non authorized video on YouTube or borrowing a book like the Slate piece talks about. Most people under 25 would say this is true, digital music feels intangible thus it doesn’t hold any concrete place in the material world. It’s just a file that can be passed on over and over again. The thought doesn’t even occur to most kids that effort and money went into producing said file and thus it does actually hold monetary value. All true but I think it goes deeper than that.

If we look back at the previous few decades they all have a very concrete stamp on how they can be defined. The 60’s were a time of social unrest and revolution, the 70s were groovy and had disco, the 80s were the MTV generation and the 90s had grunge and the birth of the web. Each era can be very succinctly defined. Can the same be said of the 2000’s? Sort of but not really.

The 2000s saw the rise of the iPod, Facebook and YouTube. Those are certainly three pilars that this generation can be proud of and no doubt forever changed the way we live. However, take a look at the core value that each one of those three products has to offer. The iPod allows you to store tons of the aforementioned intangible digital files of music that inherently encourages you to just plug your iPod into a friends computer and go wild taking whatever you want. Facebook is a tool that has changed the way we communicate and stay in touch but it’s also largely a forum for people to share other peoples content that they love without thinking about it. How many times a week do I see a rare Pink Floyd clip posted over and over again? Lots. And then there’s YouTube – the mothership of them all. YouTube has essentially created a cultural conversation that is based on the mash-up. People taking others peoples work and slicing it up into new work. It’s a blender of cultural vernacular, music, iconic images, acting without any SAG card and all around power to the people creativity. That’s what the 2000’s was – it was the decade for mashing-up and sharing stuff that moves us. It’s defined this generation.

The 1990’s gave rise to this anarchic uncontrollable giant of the World Wide Web. It, accidentally, became the last free dimension where there is no police force and is completely egalitarian. SOPA would add a layer to this that is so contrary to it’s DNA that it would disrupt what can not be disrupted. Additionally, to me more importantly, it would change the cultural conversation that made the 2000s (and now the 2010’s) so great. Our favorite viral videos would be subject to government regulation. Blogs could not freely publish half of what they do. Girl Talk could not make his genius albums and most of all the kids could not simply share the stuff they love and make into their own cultural statement. SOPA would start a war with an entire generation that has made mash-ups and the appropriation of content into a unique voice all their own.

I understand that the entertainment business is scared of lost revenue and needs to react to that somehow. I don’t have a point of view on that. But I do know that the music business, particularly the musicians, are going to go through a radical shift in their place in society. A friend of mine and I often talk about how modern society will hold a place for the professional musician from here on out. We think that todays musician will go back to their roots of how it used to be. I don’t mean how it used to be in the 1950s. I mean how it used to be in the 1890s. The musician will once again become the village bard that expresses our core emotions simply because they have no choice. They will once again become the story tellers who are passing on myths of the generation simply because their dharma calls for it. Very few will now do it for the seductive draw of money and fame. Surely there will still be a few of those but mostly todays musician will contribute into the modern tech laden social mash-up because it’s a damn good thing to do. The economic model how to make it as a musician still needs some things answered but the sentiment of this modern world of free roaming content will be a good thing in the long run.

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Steve Jobs and Jerry Garcia in India!

It’s been well documented that Steve went to India in 1974 in search of enlightenment. I have no idea if Jerry Garcia ever went. This is post is about neither. Rather, it’s about how I just met both of them on my recent trip to India.

Upon my departure I loaded up my iPad with 10 or so books that I thought would be essential reading while in Rishikesh and Vrindavan, two very holy cities where the bhav is plentiful. One of which was “Steve Jobs” by Walter Issacson. Also on my iPad were your basic go-to spiritual manuals like The Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam.

Sunset on the Ganga, Rishikesh

On the plane flight over I was well into the Steve Jobs book and found myself getting more and more sucked into the story of how two guys started a company in their garage that later became the worlds most valuable technology company. Even as I arrived in India and was settled into my daily routine I just couldn’t seem to put it down. I was occasionally going back to the Gita but time and time again the Steve book seemed to have all the instruction and inspiration that I needed while enjoying my own spiritual meanderings in India.

The new agers and touchy feely types decry the Steve story as a downer because he often times wasn’t such a nice guy. He was brash, rude, insensitive, sometimes dishonest and didn’t display behavior of that of a counter culture infused guy from Northern California. All that is true. However, that’s not what his story is about. If you’re reading the book to try and find value in him as a model human being that’s missing the point. Rather the book is about one mans ability to manifest the things he held dear to him, without compromise. It’s the story of one mans dharma. What more appropriate thing can you read about while in India?

Steve has the ability to strip out the clutter and distractions that got in the way of realizing his vision for creating products that fused together technology and the humanities. He was not the best programmer or engineer or even business mind around, but he had a vision for how human beings could build relationships with digital interfaces. Those interfaces had a variety of applications over the years that changed the way we live and behave on a daily basis. Indeed, our entire persona of life in the digital age has roots that go back to something that Apple did within the last 30 years. Steve was a modern avatar who slashed and burned his way to success but through it I found that he was also a shining example of someone who found what he loved to do and then did it. That is discipline. I can’t think of too many modern examples who had such a clear vision of how they saw their little slice of the world and had to share it with people no matter what. In life it is about adding all the things that make you a better person but it’s also about getting rid of the extraneous clutter that is preventing you from realizing potential. Just as Steve slashed most of the Apple product line upon his return in 1996, I look to slash most of my personal product line that no longer serves any purpose. Simplify.

That’s the end of the first part. On to my second story.

After Rishikesh I went to Vrindavan. While there, I did get the typical bug that shut me down for 24 hours. It was about my 12th day on this trip. I was laying in bed not able to hold anything down and feeling really distant from why I went there in the first place. I was sick, it was dirty and noisy. Temple life was rigid and predictable. And most importantly I was losing site of the person I wanted to be. Embarrassingly, I thought I was doing this for all the wrong reasons like fashion or because it felt “cool”. I kept asking myself why did I have to go half away around the world to get closer to my guru when I could have just as well found him in the cozy confines of my Culver City home. I just didn’t know what I was really doing or why I was doing it. It was a dark night.

As I was laying there it occurred to me that I hadn’t listened to any western music in nearly two weeks. I thought that perhaps a nice way to distract myself from feeling lousy inside and out was to listen to some music. So I got out my iPod, hit the shuffle button and just took in what was to unfold and once again reshape my experience. The first song to come up was Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s song “Isn’t this a lovely day?”. The soothing subtle nuances of Ella and Louis immediately warmed my heart and took me back to my childhood home in 1989 where I could see my parents just hanging out being in love by the fireside. They loved Ella and Louis and no music epitomizes their love more than that. Getting warmer, cozier…slowly feeling a manifestation of spirit. I was feeling love for my parents together and how it used to be, which doesn’t happen too often.

The next track to come up was by the Grateful Dead, it was a 1973 version of “Eyes of the World.” More than any other music the Grateful Dead really is the soundtrack of my life. I think you can guess what happened next. Less than 2 minutes into the song I got the chills from the familiar strains of Jerry’s guitar and the music then set forth in motion a complete overhaul of my attitude, thinking, perception and overall happiness. It all made sense. I knew exactly why I was India and I loved it!

Now it’s funny that the intangible can produce a tangible physical experience. What is it about sound that can trigger emotions which can then trigger thoughts which can then shape your experiences? By merely listening to a performance of a song the seemingly confusing state of my spiritual emotions suddenly went away. The music fixed me! One could add another fascinating tangent to this discussion – how matter and energy is really connected to the same “stuff” which leads to a realization of how the material world and the spiritual world may not be as far apart as we may think.

But this non-dualist probing will be saved for another post.

It’s funny that I traveled so far to be in the presence of such mystical and wonderful places and traditions but in the end the things that were already nearest and dearest to me are what brought me closer to those mystical and wonderful things! That really speaks to the point of what being a seeker all about. It’s so important to remember to not get caught in the trap of searching for something outside of yourself in hopes of attaining some goal. The external things that you may be investigating as methods or tools are really just conduits to bringing you closer to what’s already dwelling inside. That familiar love is always right there. Trying to avoid traps along the way…

I found Jerry Garcia in Steve Jobs in India!