Archive for 'Essays'

Malcolm McLaren’s other big thing

Posted 09 April 2010 | By | Categories: Essays, Music - Retro | 1 Comment

Upon its release in 1983, Duck Rock’s distillation of Soweto, South Bronx and proto-electronica sounded like nothing on earth and everything on it at the same time.

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Fela and the fourth wall challenge

Posted 26 February 2010 | By | Categories: Arts Biz, Culture, Essays | No Comments

Even if it’s staged as a rock concert with an open bar, it’s pretty tough to get musical-goers out of their seats.

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“Just change, baby!” – Passages in the barber chair

Posted 04 January 2010 | By | Categories: Essays, Sports | 1 Comment

Nobody plans to have a combover. They’re insidious. They are the product of years of attrition, denial, compensation and the simple refusal to adapt to new ways – just like the Oakland Raiders.

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Rethinking The Newspaper: It Can Be Done

Posted 14 May 2009 | By | Categories: Business & The World, Essays, Media, Oakland & The Bay Area | No Comments

A recent Clay Shirky post, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” says that the newspaper as a business model is dead, killed by its reliance on industrial printing technology. The future, he tells us, will be based on experiments in journalistic form and not any particular form of media, new or old. Meanwhile, as I talked [...]

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The 15 Albums Meme

Posted 06 May 2009 | By | Categories: Essays, Music - Retro | No Comments

In celebration of my birthday today, I’m republishing this article that I previously posted on Facebook about six weeks ago.  Birthdays are always a good time for summing up, thinking about the past and how it got you where you think you may be going – and as my friends know strong opinions about music [...]

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Magazines Giving Up; Tabloids To Come?

Posted 29 April 2009 | By | Categories: Business & The World, Essays, Media | No Comments

As an old print hand, the collapse of the magazine business model has been a sad thing to observe and play a small part in. The typical big US title think something youd pick up at the airport or (tellingly) from a waiting area has staked its business for decades on printing & distributing [...]

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Sports franchises need to take a cue from airlines and Apple

Posted 28 April 2009 | By | Categories: Business & The World, Essays, Oakland & The Bay Area, Sports | No Comments

With all the fuss over the empty luxury seats at the new Yankee Stadium, I was mildly surprised to find something similar happening in my own backyard.  At Sunday’s A’s-Rays game at the Oakland Coliseum, all the ingredients for a great day at the ballyard were in place: sunny April weather, last year’s AL champions [...]

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Tires, onions and panic

Posted 10 February 2008 | By | Categories: Essays, Oakland & The Bay Area | No Comments

We got a little surprise Tuesday night when we let Ruby out back to do her evening business. For those of who have never been lucky enough to feel the full fury of fresh skunk, let me give you some quick wisdom. Fresh skunk does not smell anything like the mildly unpleasant musk you occasionally [...]

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Roll On You Bears?

Posted 02 September 2006 | By | Categories: Essays, Sports | No Comments

Today presents a challenge to my core identity. I’ve been attending Cal games since I was a wee cub of six. That’s thirty-three years (cough) of futility. Not totally futility, mind you — there have been a few bowl games and good years — but thirty-three years without playing in the Rose Bowl or BCS [...]

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