Here's the Government Warning label on my bottle of Yuengling Traditional Lager by America's Oldest Brewery® (whatever that means):

(1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.

Now why, exactly, is that there on the curved bottle neck label in virtually illegible 4pt ALL CAPS type? Obviously, it's to make sure this warning is always available to someone who is just about to drink a beer. OK... why? So that if they drink it and experience some ill effect as described, they can't say they weren't warned. Again why? The only logical reason I can come up with is to help indemnify the manufacturer against legal action. It's a disclaimer that makes it harder to sue them. Placed there by government mandate. Same thing on cigarettes.

So the government is helping to protect the livelihood of the alcohol and tobacco industries. Makes sense... after all, they bring in oodles of tax revenue.

Anybody got a better explanation? I'd love to hear it.

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Continuing my vendetta against this latest annoying, contrived, "reality" show (see Feb-12-2004), here's the advertisers from tonight's episode. Boycott them if you hate the show, too... or buy them if you liked it. I don't particularly care. Just don't try to tell me, like, oh-my-god, you, like, can't believe what Omarosa said about Heidi. (Anyone else grow up in the Philadelphia area and find the name "Omarosa" just reminds them of a bakery?)

Anyway, here they are:*

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* - Many thanks to my lovely, beloved, TV-lovin' wife for taking notes. I can't stand to watch it.

To harp again on my aforementioned noodlings with Garage Band (see Feb-15-2004): the software has spawned a significant subculture of digital music engineers in scarcely a month. A bona fide phenomenon in an age where revolution is routine. Of course, the products range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Everything from pointless, techno-dance-mix crap (ahem...) to impressive experiments. You'll find a pretty respectable collection at macidol.com.

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The town I live in runs a little shuttle bus to and from the train station. It's a very useful service (my tax dollars at work), and I ride it every day. In a few weeks, we're moving to a new house, no longer on the bus route, and I'll be forced to walk to the train station.

The driver in morning listens to an R&B station featuring a group of chattering DJs serving up assorted comic fare such as a crank call segment (titled "Y'all Been Snapped!" ... or something similarly goofy) or political wisdom from Reverend Al. The driver in the evening listens to a conservative talk show, dedicating to saving America from terrorism and the lies of the liberal media.

I can't wait to start walking to the train station. Though, I'm sure someday I'll be trudging along in the rain wishing I was on that little bus, listening to reason number 9 why George W. Bush is the greatest Commander-in-Chief in U.S. history.

Now that I'm officially an Independent Record Producer (see Feb-15-2004), here's a metaphor for my new status that occurred to me.

You hire somebody to redecorate a room. They hand paint murals on the walls, build shelves and furniture from scratch, and dye all the upholstery. The finished design is edgy and original. You hate it. You hire somebody else. They whitewash the walls and buy a bunch of stuff from IKEA. The finished design looks like, well, an IKEA showroom. You love it.

Who's the greater artist? Who showed more creativity and expressive honesty? Who gave you something bold and challenging? And who simply recycled the work of others to give you something blandly comfortable?

All I'm going to say is that I like IKEA stuff.

Just made my first "song" with Garage Band. For those not of the Apple faithful, Garage Band is new music-creating software included with the latest release of the iLife suite. It's designed to let you assemble multi-track digital sound compositions from a library pre-recorded loops--or record and edit your own vocal or instrumental performances. Basically, for $50, you can do anything Moby can.

That's not meant as a slam at Moby (about whose work I know little), but a comment on how technology has once again plopped professional-level artistic tools in the hands of the masses. Anyone who can invest a little hobby money can record decent-sound music, take high-quality photographs, animate cartoons, make movies, typeset magazines, print in color, or publish globally online. Simply put, that's a democratizing of the ability to create and distribute works of art unprecedented in human history.

Of course, there's no accounting for talent. Any yutz with a Mac (case in point) can hold up his noodlings for the world's consumption. It's for the world to decide if it cares. There's always been a glut of would-be artists and wanna-be stars. History has no qualms about remembering a handful forgetting the rest. Perhaps it has ignored some unfairly, anointed others undeservedly, but that's life. At least now we have techno-toys that make taking your whack at immortality a lot of fun.

(BTW... here's my my_first_song.mp3, 1:36 of pointless, techno-dance-mix crap. But it was fun to do.)

A favorite line from the movie Harvey (with my apologies to Jimmy Stewart for any paraphrasing):

"My mother always used to say, to get by in this world you need to be oh so very smart, or oh so very pleasant. For a long time I was smart, and I recommend pleasant."

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So a group of scientists in Korea have announced they've successfully cloned human embryos from adult somatic (i.e., not reproductive) cells, with the purpose of harvesting stem cell lines (i.e., not creating people). In preparation for all the assorted lunacy this is likely to stir up, I have a few thoughts.

Basically, cloning is just a way of replicating DNA. People around the world replicate human DNA all the time, and with a lot less concern for the ultimate outcome than scientists. In a world where millions live under poverty, war, oppression, etc., the fact that we get all worked up over the contents of few dozen petri dishes proves to me that our priorities are completely out of whack. Yes, the future possibility of human cloning raises moral and ethical questions. The current reality of mass starvation raises a shed load more.

What it comes down to is that I simply can't take politicians, religious leaders, or the public at large seriously when they rant about the evils of cloning--of scientists manufacturing people--when they seem to care so little about so many of the ones we've already made the old-fashioned way. It's simply grand standing about a "hot" issue to grab some headlines, and reprehensible in that it exploits ignorance, paranoia, and obliviousness to more immediate problems.

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Been watching (to my great shame) The Apprentice. It annoys the crap out of me. Like all reality shows, it's completely contrived--and if not formally scripted and rehearsed--every moment is coached. The camera angles alone tell you that. Can't film a conversation between several people with close-ups, reaction shots, and wide angles without at least one of the multiple cameras getting in view at some point. Unless, of course, you stop, move the cameras around, then shoot the conversation again. (Anybody remember William Hurt in Broadcast News?) At that point, it's all controlled by a director who says "OK, now tell him again that you think he's incompetent, and you shake your head when she says it." It's pro wresting, without the athletic ability.

But, the thing that really burns me is that a show that, in theory, is about young, bright entrepreneurs applying their talents to a variety of bizarre business situations, ends up being about nothing but staged bickering. I could give a dozen examples, but in the end, it's just an example of network television treating viewers like idiots. Real business is beyond your comprehension. Cooperative problem-solving is boring. We're going to give you people acting obnoxious and immature and downright stupid since we know how you love to feel superior to others.

And the worst bit of all? They're right. But it's not the cast of the show I'm enjoying feeling superior to (they're sniping all the way to the bank... a lot smarter than me); it's the creators. I'll have to pay more attention to the commercials so I can avoid the products.

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Hadn't started the blog yet!