glitterfish.com

Mark Cuban did not contact me about saving the theater exhibition business. Clearly, he is the moron. Nevertheless, he had some worthwhile stuff to say about YouTube…

Billionaire investor and dot-com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words Thursday for YouTube, the online site that lets people share video clips, saying only a “moron” would purchase the wildly popular start-up.

Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be “sued into oblivion” because of copyright violations.

Sure, YouTube hosts copyrighted material but it isn’t facilitating piracy in the same way something like Napster was. So far YouTube has been aggressive in policing its content for copyrighted material. It has also worked to strike deals with content owners of content that has seen large-scale piracy like music videos.

“They are just breaking the law,” Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. “The only reason it hasn’t been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.”

Big money? There are plenty of movie studios, record labels and television networks out there with big money. I think nobody has sued yet because the MPAA has proved that lawsuits don’t stop copyright infringement.

Cuban is right that YouTube is more hype that profit potential. The site is a classic example of how traffic does not automatically translate into revenue. That being said, unlike something like Napster; YouTube has created value. Clearly there is not only a market for user-generated content but also a percieved value in YouTube as a viral marketing platform. But wait, he has something to say about that too:

In other remarks, meanwhile, the often-controversial Cuban also told advertisers that the reach of YouTube is limited, particularly when it comes to user-generated videos.

“User-generated content is not going away,” he said. “But do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?”

“Somebody puts up something really good and you get, what, 60,000 viewers?” Cuban added during the event at Advertising Week in New York.

60,000 viewers?!?! Hell yes if that means its 60,000 of the right viewers. If of those people 10 are the assistants of studio execs or 2000 hadn’t read Glitterfish.com but would read it daily if they knew it existed.

But I’m a little fish and Cuban is talking to the big fish. The kind of fish who can sink YouTube. What good is YouTube for them? I don’t have a complete answer for that. All I know is that YouTube is a magical place that incubates talent, offers a tremendous amount of free publicity, and is eager to work with copyright holders.

Link round up:

• Original article at Cnet.
• Cuban’s first blog post on YouTube.
• Cuban’s rambling rebuttal to assertions that YouTube falls under safe-harbor provisions in the DMCA.

She’s Your Sister is playing this Thursday at the Silverlake Lounge. Jonny and I are shooting material for the video. It’s gonna be tremendous.

When:
Thursday Sep 28, 2006
at 11:00 PM

Where:
Silverlake Lounge
2906 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
US
View Map

Hugh pulled this quote off Paul Kedrosky’s blog today.

No sane adult moves to the Bay Area for lifestyle; they move there because they think they can make money. So, while I think it’s nice people like to ski, hike, bike, climb, surf, and golf, I don’t care. I want people who are greedy , competive bastards who would move to Fargo in January to make money, and who don’t know any other way to work than hard. The rest of it is a distraction.

Reminds me of the LA vs. New York debate. Link.

Speaking of quality of life:

Two decades after the federal government effectively blocked construction of a subway to Los Angeles’ Westside, Congress, at the urging of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), is expected to repeal a ban on tunneling through West Los Angeles, a key step in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s drive to bring the Red Line from its current Mid-Wilshire terminus to the sea.

Link.

UPDATE:“Lifestyle” is dead. Welcome to the Neo-Puritan World Order. Say goodbye to your expensive “Real Life” with all the “shopping, beaches, cocktail parties, vacuous conversations etc.”

From the rock band She’s Your Sister’s website:

In the winter of 2004, three musicians responded to a classified ad in the Chicago Reader. Thay all met, decided that they didn’t hate each other, and formed a little band. Six months later they found themselves on a California tour, and eighteen months later, they moved to California, abandoning Chicago and its nu metal for warmer climates.

Its a rare thing to get excited about a local band just because you saw one of their concerts. I promise, go to one of their shows and watch Joel scream his guts out, you won’t be dissapointed.

In October their cutting a new album with producer Rae DiLeo whose credits include Filter and Veruca Salt. In the same month their shooting a music video directed by my friend Jonny Pully and produced by myself. How do you make a video with no money, no equipment, and a crew of two? Brainstorm…

Links:

• She’s Your Sister on Myspace
• She’s Your Sister official site
• Listen to “Gravity” (mp3) off She’s Your Sister’s debut album, In Between.

In addition to being a DJ and a Glitterfish contributor, Erock is also a hell of a well dressed dude. He has superior matching skills and vast street wear knowledge. His new blog is dropping some serious Cap knowledge.

This new 59/50 from New Era and Acapulco Gold is set to drop later this year in 3 different colorways. The underside of the bill has a monogram print that matches the 3d embroidered logo on the front. You can see some smooth detailing in the interweaving of the “AG” on the front. I will definitely be looking to pick up all three when they drop.

Link.

There is a barbershop in Venice called The Old Glory. All of the internet’s coolest Hollywood Assistant types get there haircut there so naturally, I do too.

On top of a good haircut, I got some excellent Hollywood wisdom in the form of my barber’s life story. In the early 1980’s Chuck was part of a thriving Buffalo New York music scene. His band never broke out of Buffalo, but he did manage to party really hard. Chuck was broke and glam metal was over so he moved to LA to pursue acting. Many bit parts and TV spots later, he was back on the east coast living with his PHD student girlfriend. His experiences with her stuffy academic friends demystified college enough to convince Chuck he needed to go back to school. He studied Traditional Chinese Medicine but ended up missing performing so much he quit school in his last year to return to acting. “I mean yeah–it’s fucking cliché to be an actor in Los Angeles but then again it’s not really. I mean what the fuck, if you want to be a country singer you live in Nashville right?”

Currently he cuts hair, performs in David Bowie and Queen Tribute Bands, and was recently in the Jack Black starring revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Chuck gave me a lot of gems but the partial list includes:

• Actors are really arrogant and also really insecure (”I was great, don’t you think so?).
• Don’t be scared to swim with sharks. These people are your mentors.
• His generation was told a big lie: go to school and you’ll get a good job. (”My generation lived with our parents fucking forever.”)
• Value your anonymity. There is something to be said for a person who is a rockstar within the industry but unrecognizable outside of it.
• Despite critical success, its hard to feel like a man when your girlfriend pays your bills.

“If your happy and can do something you live nobody can say shit to you.” I’ll see you in a month Chuck.

Old Glory Barbershop - 1716 Main Street - (310-821-1103)

I’m not sure yet but I have reason to believe that I am an honest to god true life victim of identity theft. Pray for me.

Charlie Siskel, who I first mentioned a few days ago, just alerted me that he has posted two additional Blogland clips on youtube.

• Not a Retard Just Want an Extreme Home Makeover
• Porn is Crashing Your Hard Drive

Glitterfish got a bit of a face lift. The design is based off a painting my buddy Nathan Swango did.

PS: Happy Birthday Nicole.

Today a little bit of me died when the supposed creators of YouTube auteur LonelyGirl15 came out and announced their presence. For those of you who haven’t been arduously investigating the mysterious LG, I’ll fill you in because she’s my new favorite obsession now that I no longer have cable television.

LG has taken the place of Laguna Beach in my heart. Not only because this season of Laguna is now colossal suck, but also because she’s so damn cute. Her first videos were mediocre, but I kept watching because she was just so charming, her screen presence is amazing. After I developed my crush on her, coherent storylines started to develop in her short posts and speculation about her authenticity rose keeping me even more interested. I read as much about her as possible from the NY Times, LA Times, New York Magazine, Business Week, and even became a big time lurker on the forum. The theories surrounding her were so fascinating and ranged from her being a viral marketing concoction to a covert religious message (and an occultist one at that) to a Brian Flemming TV show pitch. And then even weirder shit started happening like a crazy creepy audio file from a girl once briefly mentioned in an episode arrived in Times’ blogger Virginia Heffernan’s inbox and then people kept pointing out Aleister Crowley references. The only thing that would make it better would be a note written in blood hung to Virginia’s door with a butcher knife warning her to stop probing.

But sadly, the creepiness ended when the creators gave some existential rationale behind the whole charade:

“Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is “who is she?” We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us.”

While Glitterfish bossman Andres tells me this is just the beginning of LG, part of the fun that was LG has died to me. It was fun sometimes to pretend like this could be real, that there really is a charming, little home-schooled occultist out there. It was just as much fun to make up theories about her and try to catch her missteps, and I was definitely not alone here (gohepcat’s my favorite LG investigator). The other part of the fun was the video responses to LG. I wonder what kind of impact knowing she’s fake forreal will have on these as most center around the fake vs. real. Is it possible to interact with fictional characters like they’re real? The creators say they want to “usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between ‘fan’ and ‘star’ has been removed, and dedicated fans like yourselves are paid for their efforts.” Paid for interacting? Something sounds a little bit off about that. Yes, this is the beginning of something new, but I’m going to miss my old LG. Check her and her fans out before cash flows and superstardom corrupt her and she starts giving us coked up videos where she ditches her loser pal Danielbeast for someone hotter and who actually has enough balls to hit it.

I’m glad I got to know LG15, good luck on your next journey. Stay Sweet! Kisses!

This is amazing news. Youtube blogostar Steve Sutton is reviewing Channel 101 content. For those not in the know, Steve Sutton is a real life 40 year old virgin who documents his pathetic, meager life on a painfully hilarious daily Youtube video blog. From his faq:

Q: Who do you live with?
A: My mom, brother, nephew and niece.
Q: Where do you work?
A: I’m currently unemployed.
Q: Are you looking for work?
A: After looking for five years, I gave up.

Here’s the review:

These links deliver the hilarious:

• Something Awful’s exhaustive Steve Sutton writeup
• Steve Sutton’s video blog

UPDATE: Steve Sutton himself responds to Glitterfish! Life apparently not pathetic:

I’m no longer doing that. Also, I don’t consider my life to be pathetic. I would suggest that you try to behave in a more mature fashion.

While I am saddended that Steve will not be a Channel 101 regular, its nice to see him standing up for himself; however, I would suggest he reads his own fact before making such ridicolous assertions.

UPDATE 2: I just watched today’s episode and learned that Steve Sutton’s work will be airing on Tucson public access show “Happy Hour” around 2:30 pm (plus tomorrow at 8:30pm and every weekend for the next month or two). Set your Tivo’s!

Nicole, of CuriousJayne.com, was featured on Make Magazine’s craft blog, Craftzine. Nicole is a whiz at taking oversized and overugly thrift store smocks and turning them into lovely dresses. Link.

This is a portion of a larger 15 minute cartoon that MTV passed on earlier this year starring Andy Daly and Laura Silverman. In this clip, a college professor “absently mindedly” has sex with one of students then spills all the “masturbatable” details on his blog.

Hilarious. I hope the series creator, Charlie Siskel, will put up the rest soon.

Many filmmakers I know are obsessed with 8mm cameras. The exceptionally grainy quality of the 8mm film creates a very iconic and nostalgic image.

Filmmaker, Singer and Songwriter, Killian MacGeraghty of the San Francisco Rock group The Gun And Doll Show presents their latest video. I Dropped My Super 8 Off The Golden Gate, combines amazingly shot Super 8 footage with the Gun And Doll Show’s hit song, “The View”, from their album American Radio. Directed and conceived by MacGeraghty, this video not only presents great music but gives the viewer an insight to what a camera sees when it is dropped from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Via: BoingBoing

In college I took a class on Steven Soderbergh. If you’ve never watched a director’s entire filmography I highly recommend it. Steven Soderbergh is a good one because he wrote a book, gives a lot of interviews, and likes to do DVD commentaries on his movies.

One of Soderbergh’s favorite things to talk about is the creative process:

A lot of people who write about art don’t understand the importance of failure, the importance of process. Woody Allen can’t leap from Annie Hall to Manhattan. He has to make Interiors in between to get to Manhattan. You’ve got to let him do that.

Check out this Believer Magazine interview.