Year: 2008

Twitter is like an indie band that did well and now is selling out stadiums across the world.

It’s interesting to me that when I first started using Twitter in 2006, the amount of “in-twitter” replies using the @ sign were low. If I came across someone using the @ sign more than a few times a day I tended to not follow or unfollow them because, at first, the platform wasn’t about conversing. Twitter was about answering the simple question of what we all were doing. It was interesting and amazing. The music and giddiness of something new was there.

Now, in 2008 and with 700k members, Twitter is less about telling people what we are doing and more about the “conversation” and follows the aesthetics of an IRC chat. Twitter has become a Rolling Stones-esque performance show with lead singers prancing around on the social stage clad like Bono and jubilant like Mic Jagger. It’s fun to watch, but after a few hours, I’m ready to go home and put the headphones on so I can enjoy the music like I did years ago.

I follow around 600 people, and now seeing a tweet without the @ sign is a rarity, but always gets my attention and makes me nostalgic for the good old days before Twitter made it to the cover of Rolling Stone and we practiced in a garage.

Then isn’t better than now, and the opposite is true. However, now is different than then. I don’t necessarily want Twitter to become a social network because I don’t need or want another social network. I do want to see what other people are doing, though.

Perhaps someone will make an @-less platform where we can just play our music and not have to worry about the crowds or the groupies or the roadies.

How about an acoustic Twitter album?

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story…

Finish the rest here. It’s short but good.

And here’s some background on the Desiderata.

Cat Powers’ new album Jukebox comes out next week, but it’s available for streaming and listening pleasure exclusively on Rhapsody. I highly recommend it.

For all the beatings that Rhapsody takes, I do love the service and have been a subscriber for a while. If you don’t mind “renting” your music and have a constant internet connection (and about $12 a month to spare), I highly recommend it as well.

If you’re a Ryan Adams fan (you’re not? you’re nuts), check out this YouTube channel (D.R. Adams) for all sorts of goodness.

Tremendous. Speaks volumes…

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/xml/mdc_embed.swf?episode=313

My friend, mentor and hero Prof Larry McGehee does a weekly column called “Southern Seen.”  This week’s edition is a must read and tugs at your heart strings (especially if you know Larry and Betsy):

Betsy won her first round and stayed on for the second, both taped the same day. She won that one, too. Then she returned next day for her third appearance, adding an unbuttoned sweater to her attire, and this time she was defeated by a uniformed serviceman—a sailor, best I recall.

For her two wins and her three half-hour shows, Betsy received a set of Compton’s Encyclopedia (which we gave to her niece and nephew the next Christmas) and $1,225 (her memory–I recall it as $1,210).

Elizabeth was born November 2nd in what was then New Haven Hospital (now Yale Hospital). Betsy’s Jeopardy winnings paid the hospital and doctor’s bills. That fall and spring we house-sat a professor’s home for a year while he was on leave, and the absence of rent coupled with funds left from Betsy’s winnings made it possible for her to give up her teaching position. A year later we moved to the University of Alabama for my first post-graduate administrative job.

Thank you, Larry.