Things Change

Let me recount a little story a dear friend of mine told me about when she was a reporter for the AJC and used to cover technology, back when they actually cared about technology...

Friend said she had "sent herself", late nineties I assume, to a biggy music industry conference, just as the music industry was starting to have some serious shifts in their tectonic plates. Napster was running loose through the industry, and the industry was fighting back hard... in all the wrong places. At some point in the Biggy Conference, the head of the RIAA stated that the industry would go digital and drive themselves totally off the industry farm via the MP3, and I paraphrase here, over her dead body.

At that point, a young indie music techno type stood up and yelled towards the titans at the front of the room, "You're a fucking dinosaur, lady." Others took up the chant. All hell broke loose, and my friend, always the intrepid reporter, ran off to call the AJC desk in excitement to say things were just completely in chaos in, gee, of all things... the little 'ole recording industry, and that she needed a LOT of room, like maybe the front page even, to tell this kind of story the way it should be told.

The utterly disinterested (editor) voice on the other end of the phone told her, "You can have 10 inches."

I recount this tale only to warn of times here in a town long run by Cox Plantation Enterprises, and one other alt publication, that the music industry fought and raged against the new, digital machine, and they lost. Their entire industry is in turmoil. And as we move towards what the APC so quaintly calls "New Media" here in the news biz, don't be surprised if we too experience a few You're a fucking dinosaur moments of our own. It's not so much "New Media" as it is an industry-smashing tsunami.

As I mention over at Radical Georgia Moderate, it is a sorry day in hell when journalists like Doug Monroe, who at this point in a fine career should be running papers, are run out of town, and the papers are left to be run into the ground by the likes of Ken Edelstein and Julia Wallace.

Then again, with arrogant, clueless jerks in charge of papers, we have nothing to fear. They’ll only help steer an entire industry right into the ground… just like a lot of aging dinos did with the music industry. As if all the people watching ‘em crash and burn, here on the ground going digital, could care less.

I hope they don’t ask us to come and haul their derisive, dismissive, divisive, arrogant butts out of the wreckage either… we’ve got new media product to keep on cranking.

Pretend Voices Carry

Couple of magical thinking ops for "the public" coming up...

1.) The DNR is solicitous of your thoughts on our state park system. More info here. My only wish is that they reinstate Sally Bethea to the developer-skewed board. But you likely already know that if you read this blog.

2.) Atlanta Press Club wishes to dismiss, excuse me, discuss new media. I'll be there to help facilitate the stoning of -- myself. Or to mangle a line from Life of Brian: "Crucifixion? Excellent! Just ahead on your right."

3.) Neither here nor there, but it needs to be said to Creative Loafing:

I hope you (CL) are happy with your smug, arrogant, snotty-ass, pompous, over-inflated selves and sense of media importance now. You’ve managed to really
hurt and confuse a lot of hard working, indie bloggers by playing favorites, first time out of the cover story gate, with a piece about the Atlanta blogosphere.

You might as well be 17-year old cheerleaders at Wheeler High for all the maturity you’ve shown towards our new media community. We’ve worked so long and so hard and created such amazing bonds and systems of support, only to have you announce to the world that not only do you not understand social media, you want to trample on it at every given opportunity.

I’m so angry right now, I can hardly see straight. I hope I calm down enough by the time we ever cross paths again. You’re no better than Newt Gingrich with your divisive, derisive ways.

So there. Got that off my chest I suppose. It's not yet noon and I need a drink and a smoke. Plenty of that, and hot air too, all around.

Mayor Franklin's Not So Great Mother's Day

Given that CL is stirring the investigative pot with Atlanta's top journalist Mara Shalhoup at the stove, my thoughts are with Mayor Franklin. I know what it's like to have a really really bad Mother's Day. From CL this week:

In addition to the allegations about the killings, the April sentencing hearing also offered insight into whether Kai Franklin Graham (Mayor Franklin's daughter) had anything to do with her husband's crimes. According to the Greenville News, IRS Criminal Investigations Special Agent Wayne Wright testified that she's currently under investigation by his agency and the U.S. attorney's office.

Once again, Shalhoup's investigative journalism, right here the ATL, reads like a crime novel you cannot put down. Just remember, she's getting her information from police reports, indictments, court docs, etc. Papers of public record that all those reporters over at, say, Cox Plantations just kinda sorta missed somehow.

Let The Great SC Dissing Begin

Trust the NYT's Alessandra Stanley to fire an opening shot at my ye 'olde home state. As if I could possibly have expected otherwise. I've been totally intimidated, dissed too, by seemingly scores of Ivy League women, given my dubious education credentials and pronounced accent.

It's really rather pathetic, in a Bridget Jones way. Those Ivy Leaguers of all genders could be so haughty and dismissive, and just kinda mean-girl when we used to rub shoulders in network news.

Then again, I could always drink their lipflapping, snotty, privileged, toned butts way under the table... in my day of course. And dissing SC is my territory, Alessandra. Not yours. Nobody really can do it better, if I do say so myself.

Least I can still go out drinking here in Georgia with whomever, wearing whatever, whenever I damn well feel like it, wearing only a comforter and a push-up bra maybe! Lord knows what the women of Iran won't be allowed to do next. This is sickening here. Just sickening. It knots my stomach in a billion different ways for the hell it implies. No need to wonder why I have always been an unapologetic feminist.

Bombing back to the stone age to free women from religious, nonsensical oppression? Sounds plausible, initially; but if I was for that, we'd have to start here in Georgia, given our own religion-inspired nonsensical legislation.

One other thing before you run away... congratulations to Mara Shalhoup at Creative Loafing for her Best Journalist in Atlanta award last night at the APC awards gala. She really deserves that recognition for being the hardest working, lowest-paid reporter in this city. I hope the NYT comes a'callin' for her kinda talent soon.

Sigh... I fear a total Bridget Jones kinda afternoon coming-on here for real. Bloggers must have so many self-esteem issues. Sigh... Know what could really pick me up though? Anyone got ANY good gossip from last night's APC soiree? Did anything remotely resembling monkey biz transpire without me there to blog it? Come on. The SGR needs some good 'ole schadenfreude-dirt right about now.

Bimbos, Incompetence and Junk Science

Seeds and stems:

John Sugg does the current Georgia Legislature up right. And he's just barely scratching the gold plate off of that toilet bowl. More episodes surely to follow.

The McMansion Madame is undergoing a career surge. Let's hear it for the forty-something ladies. We rule. Now if we bloggers could just get on her attorney's to-call list...

Jeff Jarvis quizzes me on Davos. I give him the dignity of a straight-up reply. I like him. I really do.

SoCon07 is heating up. Leonard has the who's who here.

And yeah, the new Shins release is really really good. Always the best. True blue.

Makes Tony Soprano Seem Impotent

Quote du jour: "All Meech did was walk in the spot and panties got moist."

Wow! Know who Big Meech is, white ATL? You will now. Here's the kinda throwdown, hardcore, local reporting work we've been waiting for: exposing the moguls and the scenes behind the scenes of Atlanta's music industry, and veering into something very sinister called the Black Mafia Family.

Wanna know more? Mara Shaloup has a crack investigative piece, a year in the making, in three parts, the first part being in this week's Creative Loafing. This is some serious dirt folks, appropriately titled: Hip-hop's shadowy empire. Get reading. You can thank me (and PS) later.

(Why don't I ever get invited to these kinda parties? I adore champagne. And if you're a real writer, here's your New South material just waiting there in the gutter for you to reach down and pick-up.)

Big Media Dreaming, On Such A Yucky Day

I enjoyed writing this comment on John Sugg's blog so much that I'll just turn it into an open letter right here!

I have a Big Media dream... a dream that Atlanta media, alt and otherwise, will one day be free of the bonds of the fatuous, white male pomposity and uselessness that currently bind our local radio, TV and print to the wheel of cultural irrelevance as it continues to pass dull, relentless, tired 'ole opinionista babble off as some kinda fresh journalistic leadership.

Thank you Jesus, for most of us weary longtimers now have the power to tune-out the tired 'ole likes of Sugg and Shipp and Williams and Lindsay/Clark and Edelstein and Bookman and Wooten and Boortz, and move on to other perspectives via new media and mediums.

Your thought leadership is now hollering only in the vacuums of boring insignificance you've talked and written yourselves right into.

I gotta go pour another cup of coffee and power-up the iMovie.

Oh, one other thing... I'll toss Lois Reitzes in to the above pit 'o names to give you boys something to play with. Then again, you wouldn't know what to do with her. She doesn't crank-out silly trash-copy about sex and girlie-gay stuff; she just plays really hideous music on our public airwaves for 6 agonizing hours a day.

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH