Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Chocolate elitism | Jul 17, 2009 11:12

Someone else has covered off the death of consumerism today. This leaves me free to talk about chocolate. I really like chocolate. I do not like big-bar commercial chocolate, so Cadbury's recent decision to make its chocolate even worse (and even more ethically dubious) by putting palm oil in it will not affect me personally as a consumer.

Cadbury's stated reason for adulterating its chocolate with palm oil -- that its customers have expressed a desire for chocolate that is even more soft and greasy -- does, however fill me with dread. The flagship Dairy Milk chocolate contains only 21% cocoa solids in the first place, putting it well on the road to wtf-is-this Hershey Hell anyway. And now they've made it even more mucky.

So I do think that Whittaker's has a point in its attack advertising against Cadbury, even if its marketing director Philip Poole should never be allowed on Close Up again without some media training (Philip: "We believe we have a better product" might be a good marketing line. And stop closing your eyes on television). Whittaker's is the best of the big-bar chocolate brands, and the Peanut Slab has an undoubted iconic appeal.

But really: when there is the choice of a number of fair-trade brands (including the sub $5 Scarborough Fair range) and in a city where Phillippe's hand-crafts slim, shiny slabs of 70% cocoa heaven, I don't understand quite why people prefer the mucky stuff. You can't even use the "dark chocolate is full of life-giving antioxidants" rationalisation. I suppose this makes me part of the chocolate elite.

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I recently got an advance peek at some of the Moving Image Centre's Homegrown programme for the film festivals, and was impressed by what I saw. So I'm happy to say that I have some double passes for Homegrown screenings in Auckland to give away.

I have a pass for each of the Drama on Video programme screenings at the Sky City theatre (tonight at at 6pm, Sunday 19 July at 11.45am and Wed 22 July at 4pm). Click "Reply" and email me with Drama on Video in the subject line. Preferred sessions will be first-come-first served.

And I have a double pass per session for the Animation and Experimentation on Video programme at Sky City (Friday 24 July at 6pm and Sat 25 July at11.15am). Same deal: programme name in the subject line, we'll sort out who gets what session.)

Stay tuned in other centres: I'll have giveys for those too.

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On a completely different note, last night's Media7 programme is up for viewing online.

The programme opens with an interview with Kristin Dunne-Powell about pursuit by media. The degree of intrusion she suffered was troubling (not only at her home, but at her place of work, where she was given an indoor car park to protect her privacy), not least in the sense that it could serve to deter other women in her position from speaking up about abuse.

I also feel I need to address comments I've heard from a couple of other journalists: to the effect that it was a bit rich for her to complain about media intrusion if she was going to give interviews. The 60 Minutes interview that screened this week was recorded two months ago, and held back until things had calmed down. And she did not seek to be on our show -- I asked her after seeing that programme, because her experience spoke directly to the theme of our show: the media and privacy.

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NZ On Screen's Screentalk section has a good interview with a friend of this site, Outrageous Fortune co-creator James Griffin:

It's available to view, distribute and remix under this Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial licence.

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The Gregory Brothers are back with another instalment of Auto-Tune the News. This one is notable most of all for the revelation that not even the auto-tune can render any musical quality into Sarah Palin's voice. It's actually quite amazing:

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Very nice remixes of Mylo and Kraftwerk, lighting up the Hype Machine right now.

Via various folks on Twitter David Bowie's mug shots. As Brenda says: You will never be this cool.

Jonathan Ganley's Point That Thing photoblog continues to provide gems from his archive. Here, for example, is Grant McLennan from the Go-Betweens playing a few records and talking up at bFM in 1985, with Debbi Gibbs at the controls and Martin Phillipps pottering about in the studio.

You can keep up with Jon's updates on Twitter. Actually, I don't think I've mentioned that you can also keep up with me on Twitter.

(All the cool kids are doing it! Actually, apparently they're not.)

Via @Mukuna_GigGuide, The Mint Chicks have a very cool bandwidth-straining thing on their home page.

And with that … have a good weekend, y'all.

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When it's Not Okay | Jul 14, 2009 12:07

Kristin Dunne-Powell's interview on 60 Minutes last night was important, and, I think, the better for being held back two months. Had it run as scheduled, days after Tony Veitch's guilty plea, it would have been subsumed in the mania around the case.

Now, I think the following passage in particular can stand alone. It picks up where Paula Penfold asked her why she fabricated a story (she "fell down the stairs") about the serious injuries she suffered after being assaulted by Veitch:

Why didn't you tell them the truth?

I knew that as soon as I told someone, it could escalate out of all control. Because of who he was. And I was protecting him, his confidentiality. I was ashamed.

Did at least a part of you not say, "I've just been the victim of a serious domestic assault -- I've got to go to the police"?

No.

Not at all?

Not for some time. I was in denial of the sort of relationship I had been in. I was in denial of being … a battered woman. No one unless you've been in that situation, no one can understand. And that's why for me it's important to say something.

Because there are women in households all over New Zealand, and they are not just Maori, and they are not low socio-economic … There are women who are confused of their own feelings, and of the behaviours of their partner. And it is, it's a spiderweb that abusive men stitch around you.

I'm not a stupid person. I'm educated, I'm intelligent, and I got so caught in that trap. And if I can get caught in that trap, anyone can.

She has, of course, had help in finding these words. But they are so important because they put a real face on what can otherwise become a cliché about family violence happening in any kind of home.

I thought the report itself was well-handled. It was sympathetic, but Penfold certainly didn't lob soft questions at her subject. Given the way some media organisations have behaved over this story, I think credit is due here.

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Something else Dunne-Powell said in that interview -- about living for three months "with the curtains closed" -- is at the heart of this week's Media7 show. We're looking at privacy and the media from two angles.

The first is the news media's pursuit of prominent and newsworthy people. The unfolding scandal of the News of the World's phone-tapping and voicemail hacking of possibly hundreds of people in Britain represents a new extreme. But what goes on even in more workaday reporting, here? Are victims re-victimised? Do others invite the attention? Panelists there are Simpson Grierson lawyer Tracey Walker and Star-Times deputy editor Miriyana Alexander.

Also, we'll look that the privacy of ordinary folks in the context of shows such as Target (which is made by Top Shelf Productions, the same company as Media7) with its hidden cameras. For that panel, it's Steven Price, Screentime's Philly Isles, and the founder of Top Shelf, Vincent Burke.

And to wind up, we'll compare and contrast the branding and advertising of your three mobile phone networks, with NBR's Hazel Philips and Whybin TBWA's Dave Walden.

If you'd like to join us, we'll need you at the Classic in Queen Street before 5.30pm. If you'd like to come along, click Reply and email me to say so.

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Our new strategy is to FAIL | Jul 12, 2009 17:06

Several times in the past few years, I have recommended the subscription music download service at eMusic.com. Indeed, at times I've asked readers to allow me to refer them to it, so I get bonus downloads.

And now, one of those readers, who works in the area of intellectual property, justifiably complains about being shafted by eMusic. He puts it so well, I'll quote at length:

As you are no doubt aware, eMusic have changed most of their plans to reduce available downloads and introduced album pricing. The main motiviation for this is securing rights to the Sony back catagloue (basically all Sony product other than stuff released in the last 2 years), which is eMusic's first real win with the major labels. However, this is coming at a cost to Australasian subscribers which seems hard to justify.

eMusic is no longer accepting new subscriptions from New Zealand or Australia although existing users can continue to access the service, although they can no longer purchase booster packs. In addition, the Sony back catalogue is not available to Australasian users and album pricing is not generally available to Australasian users (and in some cases, this works in eMusic's favour - e.g. an 8 track album with album-only songs costing 12 download credits). Some fairly ominous statements about the status of eMusic users from Australasia can be found here.

The net result for existing NZ and Australian users is a price hike with no apparent benefit - we are effectively cross-subsidising an improved service for US and (eventually, according to eMusic) Canadian and European users. It appears we have also lost the ability to claim free downloads for encouraging new members to join (although this has not been made explicit). Like the debacle with getting iTunes launched here, this seems to be yet another case of Australian and New Zealand consumers being left behind because our markets are too small (from a global standpoint) which means no one can be bothered with us.

I know you use eMusic's service and have recommended it to others - in fact, I was one of your referrals to the service. You may already know all this and I don't know what if anything you will do with this information, but as a fellow user and supporter of the service I thought I should send it through just in case.

As an aside, a commenter on eMusic's message boards also mentioned the paradoxical situation where we can purchase a CD from Amazon but not download music from Amazon's download service. This raises some interesting issues around copyright law and the law surrounding parallel importation, which I am considering looking into further - particularly in respect of the legality of circumventing territorial restrictions for paid music download services based on parallel importation exceptions to copyright law.

My view? Well, not everything's bad. Album pricing had to come: some indiepunk album with 20 tracks shouldn't be worth four times as much as a Sun Ra classic with five.

And minor shifts in pricing -- such as the jump last year in my Basic account from $US9.99 monthly to $US11.99 -- don't mean much to me. You get that volatility in the exchange rate anyway. And for the extra cost, I got an extra 10 tracks a month (although oddly, eMusic seems to have bumped me up to 50 for the final month of the good old days).

But as an existing subscriber (since April 2006), I get grandfathered next month onto 30 tracks a month for $US11.99, while new subscribers get only 24. But some long-term subscribers on bigger accounts are getting completely rogered -- their cost per track has doubled. That's a really bad way to treat long-term customers -- especially when you've explicitly promised them you won't do that.

On one hand, I realise that indie labels were justifiably keen to increase their yield from eMusic. Even given eMusic's excellent ability to create a buzz, by the time you take out promotional freebies, its returns were on the slim side. I'd swallow a higher price if it meant new indie releases were on eMusic from day one. (On the other, we subscribers' commitment to spend a certain amount every month on music does warrant a discount, especially when monthly download allowances don't roll over.)

So all this wouldn't be so bad if the service was working properly. But it isn't. It's not just the Sony catalogue we southern plebs can't get, it's more and more stuff.

And that's not entirely eMusic's fault. It can't sell catalogue where it doesn't have the right to do so. Further, I realise that some of the people with exclusive local distribution rights are indie folk who I personally know.

But I'm still paying for something I don't get, because Sony can't get it together to localise its eMusic sales. I don't doubt that this is possible -- of course it is. It only happens because it's inconvenient to interrupt business as usual.

And here's why the majors have a case to answer on it: in the RIANZ/IMNZ submission to the select committee on the copyright amendment bill, eMusic was touted as precisely the kind of service that needed to be protected by draconian measures.

Well, because old business models won't change, eMusic now looks broken by the very people who deemed it in need of protection. I suppose I'll hang on till next month, collect my sorry-about-this bonus, and then cancel. That will be sad.

eMusic was great because it offered something like the discovery environment of the wider internet: fans finding new stuff via other fans. I've found and purchased some great stuff there. I'm not sure you'll be able to blame those fans for looking elsewhere now they've been shafted.

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Staying with intellectual property, the Electoral Enrolment Centre has sent a takedown notice to should-a.com, a parody site that lets users write their own mock referendum questions. I realise that the Orange Election Man is worth protecting. I'm not sure that applies in the case of a site that only makes any sense if you know who he is anyway, and which states: "This site is intended for the purposes of amusement. Any and all trademarks remain the property of their owners."

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In the nicest possible way | Jul 10, 2009 12:42

I've mentioned several times here the New Zealand response to the Lily Allen 'Fuck You' YouTube meme. We showed a rough cut at the last Great Blend, and we only had time for a short look at the finished clip on Media7 last night, but here it is on YouTube, in all its gay, gay glory:

The link is here

Onya Anne, Tess and James -- and everyone in the video. Much love.

Speaking of Media7 last night -- it's online for viewing. First up is Tim Pankhurst talking about the police attempt to make John Campbell and his colleagues give up the identity of the so-called medal thief. Then it's a panel on disability and the media with Curtis Palmer from Attitude, Sacha Dylan from hereabouts, and the sparkling Sally Wenley (also, a few soundbites from Philip Patston). And then it's strong language in the media with Pam Corkery, James Griffin and Bill Hastings. We swear a lot.

Look out also for a nice report by Simon Pound about Sticky Pictures.

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Issue 2 of Gordon Campbell's excellent webzine, Werewolf, is out now. The feature is an interesting interview with Phil Goff, Transformer.

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Back in the early 90s, we ran a very lengthy interview with Camille Paglia in Planet magazine, in which she said things like "Post-modernism is nothing but a bunch of depressive, mediocre, bullshit artists saying that they can't make an artwork," and, "Australian men are very macho, they're very athletic, they're very beautiful. They have a cult there, of manhood, because Australia and New Zealand are frontier countries …" and "I used to dream about my cars. The car is the ultimate symbol to be of human freedom."

Back then, all the cool kids were hanging on Paglia's every word. These days … not so much. Indeed, the only real reason you'd read Paglia's columns on Salon is to see her get merrily taken to bits by Salon readers. Their letters are funny as hell; her columns are sometimes spectacularly dumb.

Her most recent effort is dedicated to Sarah Palin, working-class hero, and incorporates sycophantic "letters" from fans, real or imaginary. The actual Salon reader letters are here.

As a bonus, here's the famous 1993 Julie Burchill-Paglia "fax war", in which Paglia comes off as humourless and smug, and Burchill signs off with the immortal:

Dear Professor Paglia,
Fuck off you crazy old dyke.
Always,
Julie Burchill

Always loved that.
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We have a download for you. b-Net listeners may have heard 'Kingmaker', the first single from Come Howling, the debut album of Wellington seven-piece The Family Cactus. It's a great song, and for the next week or so, you can grab it here, as a 13MB MP3 file. (Right-click to download.)

The album itself is out on Monday, and the band are playing as follows:

SATURDAY 18TH JULY – Wellington BODEGA with Dimmer

FRI 24TH JULY – Auckland LEIGH SAWMILL with The Sing Songs and Special Guests

SAT 25TH JULY - Auckland BACCO ROOM with The Sing Songs and Special Guests

FRIDAY 14TH AUGUST – Christchurch GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY with The Eastern and Undercurrents

FRIDAY 21ST AUGUST – Wellington – SAN FRANCICSO BATH HOUSE with Dictaphone Blues and The Sing Songs

I am now going to ride my new bicycle. Yay. Have a good weekend all.

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