uninteresting :: rich

2 big clubs are closing down this weekend and goin out with a bang…Arc & Centrofly. i’m gonna hit up Arc tonight (Danny Tenaglia spinning his last night of the 5 year old party called “Be Yourself”), and Centrofly tomorrow (Fatboy Slim doing a dj set!). i saw FBS dj @ 1015 Folsom in SF once, and it was off the hook.

i need to start thinking about feeding myself. i’ve been grocery shopping once in the 2 months i’ve been here. it’s hard to cook though, when there’s a stack of takeout menus just begging to be called…and the 24hr gramercy cafe is right next door serving my favorite cuisine in the world - diner food.

though eating takeout every night certainly isn’t healthy, there are some benefits to having no food around. like when i find myself starving late at night, i have to resort to munching on olives and crackers. call it a forced diet.

i hate it when people leave voicemails that just say “hey this is XXX, call me” first of all, i probably screened your call to voicemail (especially if your caller id is blocked…and for some people, especially if your caller id *isn’t* blocked). and second, when you’re leaving the message you can take a minute to describe the nature of the call. the whole point of voicemail (for me) is so that people are forced to summarize what they want and so i don’t have to actually talk to your dumb ass. that’s why i love technology.

and yes, i think there IS a stick up my ass right now.

if you haven’t been following what’s going on, here’s a little summary:

Clear Channel:

• the media conglomerate Clear Channel owns the majority of radio stations, concert venues, and ticket outlets in the US.
• CC is in bed with the Bush administration. CC’s vice president Tom Hicks helped make G.W. a multimillionaire. in return, Bush’s administration passed deregulation legislation that allows large companies to own as many radio stations & media outlets as they want.
• CC has a history of dropping artists & dj’s that speak out against Bush or the war in Iraq (a la The Dixie Chicks)
• CC dropped HS from it’s radio stations about a week after HS took a firm stance against the Bush administration. the FCC had not even fined HS at this point. HS had been on CC stations for 10 yrs without incident. in fact, a year ago, CC sent a letter to the FCC firmly supporting HS. it was only after HS turned against Bush that CC changed it’s tune. “As soon as I came out against Bush, that’s when my rights to free speech were taken away. It had nothing to do with indecency,” Howard Stern said on March 19, 2004.
• Chris Rock was recently on the HS show and mentioned that CC screws him over as well: Rock sets ticket prices around $100 so people can afford to go, and CC tells him that all tickets sell out immediately - when in fact, most tickets are given to CC brokers who then re-sell the tickets for several hundred dollars.

the FCC:

• the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,”
• the House recently voted 391-22 to pass a bill to increase indecency fines from $27,000 to $500,000 - and the Senate is poised to follow.
• with a law like this, “free speech” could become extremely expensive, especially since “indecency” is whatever FCC Chairman Michael Powell deems it to be.
• “The very notion (of the legislation) runs counter to everything prescribed in the First Amendment,” Marvin Johnson, an ACLU legislative counsel, said. “The vagueness of the language will lead broadcasters and individuals to stifle their remarks and remain silent rather than run the risk of facing an FCC fine. Not only will our First Amendment rights suffer, but so will the national dialogue.”
• Viacom, the parent company of the HS Show, staunchly supports HS. however, when opposing the FCC in the past, they suddenly found that the government started “losing” their radio license applications, making it impossible for them to do business
• Michael Powell was given his job by Bush as a favor to Colin Powell. he has no prior experience in the media.
• HS is being selectively targeted: HS’s recent fines by the FCC were for material clearly less racey than a segment recently aired on Oprah Winfrey describing in detail what “salad tossing” is. only after HS urged his listeners to complain about that segment is the FCC “investigating the issue.”

what can you do? for starters, go to stopfcc.com. sign the electronic petition. use the online fax form to send a fax to your senator opposing the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004 (the one raising indecency fines to $500k).

dontcha think the government should be spending their time/money/effort on *other* things??

i had a little unofficial housewarming party this weekend. a christening of the apartment to gauge it’s entertaining potential. overall, it went pretty well. i didn’t ask for any rsvp’s, because it’s more fun to not know exactly who’s coming. the invite went out to about 15 ppl, and from there i have no idea. it doesn’t really matter to me if 5 or 50 people show up.

the flow of people worked out well - started slowly with a few people chilling outside, peaked with a backyard packed with people (and one neighbor complaint), and by the time i kicked everyone out at 2:30am it was back to that same group out back who’d been pounding and having good conversation the whole time. then we headed out to the east village for some dancin til 4. =)

karaoke didn’t happen because there were too many people and i was a little concerned about the noise level. plus, i don’t think many people would sing with a roomful of people lookin on, either. save that for a smaller group.

i’m bummed because i had the digital camera out, all ready to take pictures…but once the buzz kicked in and people started arriving i forgot all about it. =(