by cameron | Nov 11, 2006 | Uncategorized
Last night I went out on the town with Brian Walsh from Castfire and his business partner Trip. Brian took me to dinner at their restaurant SAUCE. Great food and we had a big night. I’ve been suffering the after-effects of it all day so have decided to avoid the parties tonight and stay home and watch the net. Here’s a random selection of interesting stuff I found.
Mac Spoof: Gaming – These guys from TrueNuff TV have some great stuff. Also check out their Undead Insurance commercial.
Sam Has 7 Friends – a short-form video drama. I’ve got something in the works along these lines and so I’ve been checking out what else is out there. This is a great show.
Well it looks like AllOfMP3 really has stopped accepting MasterCard and Visa. What other mp3 sites are you using?
A few people have uploaded videos of Lou Reed’s recent US tour up to YouTube. Check out this version of Femme Fatale. Brilliant. Apparently Lou was the surprise entertainment at the Web2.0 party and he was pissed off because everyone was talking and not paying attention so he turned up his amps so loud they hurt everyone’s ears. 🙂 Here’s the full story on JustInsomnia. Ben Metcalfe doesn’t think Lou is hip enough for a Web2.0 conference. Here is some footage of his opening number, What’s Good from the album MAGIC & LOSS, which is about losing your friends to cancer.
Following on from my recent post about Van Halen, here they are in their prime – Unchained.
Have you seen the slasher version of Office Space? Brilliant.
by cameron | Nov 11, 2006 | Uncategorized
This clip of Bush admitting to journalists that he lied to them a few days before the elections about his ongoing support for Rumsfeld is amazing. Have you ever seen him this squirmy?
A couple of nights ago I was strolling around Chinatown and stumbled across the City Lights bookstore which is apparently pretty famous. I picked up a copy of Kalle Lasn‘s 2000 book Culture Jam
and grabbed a seat in a cozy little bar called Tosca on Columbus near the bookstore to start reading it.
I’ve been admiring Lasn for sometime. I first heard of him a year or so ago when he launched the Blackspot Sneakers and then I learned about his magazine called Adbusters. He’s trying to get people to wake up to the way that corporate advertising is conditioning us to live lives which are killing us and destroying the planet. I invited him onto the show last year but was palmed off to one of the marketing folks at Blackspot and it was a pretty boring interview so I never aired it.
Anyway, Lasn’s book has really messed me up. It made me remember why I started TPN in the first place – to create a new kind of media that is small, intelligent, passionate, informed, global, viral and for the people. To fight the system. To change the system. To change the world. Now the problem is that these thoughts don’t sit nicely with thoughts about raising venture capital and doing the whole Silicon Valley thing. I’m having an existential crisis. I keep asking myself over and over – “what is my definition of success?”.
I hate questions like that.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Podcast
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So tonight I went to see Lou Reed play a gig in Redwood City, an hour by train outside of SF. It was HUGE!
As some of you know, back in Jan 2005, as we started TPN, I published my dream list of people I’d like to interview on my podcast. At the top of the list was… Lou Reed. Next was Noam Chomsky. Well I got Noam out of the way about a year ago. And tonight…
While I was standing in line I started chatting with some of the other folks in the line, and eventually realized that if I can’t get a chance to actually interview Lou Reed, I can at least interview his fans! So I pulled out my iPod asked the people who they were, where they came from, what they did for a living and why they were going to see Lou. I kept doing the interviews while we were sitting inside the theatre, waiting for the show to start. I also recorded 99% of the show, but that’s just for my personal collection. 🙂
In the interviews I met a fine art photographer, a sci-fi author, a landscape gardener, the manager of a comedy club, a psychiatric nurse, the president of a search engine optimization company… and a german. A fair cross-section of Lou Reed fans. I’ve always suspected Lou Reed fans are more intelligent than your average rock fans.
By the way, the show was brilliant. No drums, no keyboards, just Lou on guitar and Rob Wasserman and Fernando Saunders both playing bass! The set list included mostly tracks from Songs For Drella Magic And Loss and The Raven. There was one VU song, a brilliant version of Femme Fatale, and one encore from New York. During the show, Lou announced that the Democrats had taken back the House of Reps and he, along with the crowd, clapped and cheered for about five minutes. Lou made a comment about how convenient it was that Saddam was sentenced the day before the US Elections and then said how he’d like to see George Bush hung. I think the election result must have buoyed his spirits because he did TWO encores – the first was a new track called “Gravity” and the second was “Dirty Boulevard”. Anyway… this show is about the fans, not a review of the concert, but let me just say that it was awesome. And today there was news that he is touring Australia again next month!! And will be performing the entire Berlin album!! Rock on.
Enjoy.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Uncategorized
I know what you’re thinking – Flickr is all about photography, so how can it equal the death of photography?
Hear me out.
I was on the Caltrain this afternoon, heading down to Redwood City where I had a meeting and then a Lou Reed concert to attend, and I realized I hadn’t taken my camera with me. Immediately I thought – ah well, it doesn’t matter, someone else will take photos of the concert and I’ll be able to find them on Flickr within hours.
Sure enough – check these out.
Now I could have bothered lugging my camera around. But why? Those photos are exactly what I would have taken and he probably did a better job. What’s the point of 1000 photos of the same thing?
Here’s an example – pick your favourite holiday destination. Pick something iconic about the place that you would normally want to photograph when you were there.
Now search for that thing on Flickr. Find a pretty good photo? So what’s the point of taking your own?
Now, of course, you might be the kind of person who wants to have photos of yourself standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, just in case no-one believes you actually did go to France, or perhaps to prove to yourself you really did go when the Alzheimer’s kicks in.
But really… do you need photos of yourself? What percentage of photos taken on holidays contain people versus icons? I wonder.
By the way, when I was standing in line at the concert, and sitting inside the theatre waiting for the gig to start, I interviewed a bunch of people. It was a lot of fun, I met some great people and it should make the gig tax deductible, right? It’ll be up tomorrow.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Allow me to vent for a minute on something few of you will care about – Van Halen. Long time viewers will know that I grew up listening to VH and pretty much decided to be David Lee Roth when I grew up (something I never really got over but now I’d be happy to get him to do a podcast on TPN… Dave, the offer is still open man).Â
Confirmation today from the Van Halen camp that Michael Anthony aka “Michael Fatteny” as we used to call him (a reference to his generous girth) is no longer in the band and has been replaced on bass by Eddie’s 15 year old son Wolfie! Gah! So now the band is Eddie, his son and his brother Al on drums.
Now, losing Mike on bass is bad enough – those of you who aren’t VH fans probably think that all bass players are the same, but Mike has always been a key ingredient to the VH pie. He’s a master on the instrument, provides the dog-whistle-soprano back-up vocals, and of course comes across as the only truly nice guy in the whole outfit. And how is Wolfie going to drink Johnny Walker from the top of his bass? At 15? Although if he’s got his dad’s genes, I doubt it’ll be a problem….
As bad as losing Mike might be, the worst part of all this is that rumours that DLR might be back on vocals is unlikely if they can’t even make peace with Mike. Apparently the problem between Mike & the brothers VH is that he’s still mates with Hagar and plays the occasionaly gig with Sammy at Cabo. Mike’s been with the band since the beginning, around 75/76, that’s 30 years, if you don’t count the last year of them sitting on their rich asses. And they have dumped him because he’d rather play gigs with Sammy than sit around getting even fatter? So you have to surmise that if Eddie can’t get over that, there’s no way in HELL he’s going to tolerate working with Dave again.
So my chances of EVER seeing DLR out front of VH in this lifetime are pretty much zero minus something. Thanks Eddie. Thanks a lot. By the way, hope you enjoyed doing that porn soundtrack cuz I think that’s pretty much where your career is headed now dude.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Uncategorized
Richard Geasey, who works for Austrade, is based in Seattle, and who I unfairly gave a slightly hard time on G’Day World 162, has started a blog. His job is to help Aussie companies export their product to the Unites States of Amorica. After some harrassment from Buzz and I at ANZA, he has started a blog which I think will become a terrific resource for Aussie business people wanting to know more about how to get here and what to do when you get here. Let’s face it – the official government sites are so dull and lifeless they will kill you. We need folks like Rich to tell it as it is. Quickly and painlessly. Good on ya mate.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Uncategorized
Of course the big news over here at the moment, isn’t the Congressional elections happening today, but the way BORAT took out the #1 spot at the Box Office over the weekend.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. It was directed by Larry Charles, one of the masterminds behind Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage. And how many of you remember Mahir Cagri, the guy who stormed the net back in 1999, the days of the Dancing Baby? He claims he was the original inspiration for Borat and he intends on suing Sacha Baron Cohen.
Cohen, meanwhile, is in negotiations to make a film based on his character Bruno. Last night at the Cup drinks we were talking about this clip where Bruno takes on the Frat Boys during Spring Break. It’s a classic.
by cameron | Nov 8, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
Update: Kevin Maney has posted about the night here. Apparently it was called The Second Annual Tech Industry Charity Jam. What a great idea. According to Kevin:
The event was underwritten by iLike, a new service from Garageband.com, and Garageband CEO Ali Partovi kicked in a couple songs on stage.
Last night a group of Aussies, including the folks from Atlassian, Touchstone and Tangler, with a few American hangers-on, herded together into a bar called 21st Amendment (apparently the 21st Amendment to the US constitution was the prohibition law) to watch the Melbourne Cup. Well that was the plan. It was supposed to be running here live on some Spanish racing channel at 8.15pm West Coast time. However when the big moment came – nada. Our cup runneth empty. We had to resort to using someone’s laptop to find out who won the sweep.
Afterwards I went to a semi-private shindig I’d been invited to at Annie’s Social Club. This is apparently a semi-regular thing where a bunch of tech industry journos, including guys like Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief, Red Herring, and Kevin Maney from USA Today, have a jam session. They bring their equipment and have an open stage. I mainly went because I heard John Wood was going to be there. John used to work at Microsoft in Australia and I met him a few times early on in my career. For the last few years he has been running a start-up called Room To Read with the mission of getting books, education and scholarships into the hands of kids in Third World countries. He’s just published a book about it, “Leaving Microsoft To Change The World“, and he was at the event doing a book signing. I went along to re-introduce myself to him and organize to have him on the show. Watch for that soon.
So anyway I get there, chat with John a while, then go out back to check out the band. On my way I run into Randall Leeb-du Toit again. I ran into Randall in the middle of the city yesterday as well. San Francisco is a small town. Either that or Randall is Mr Everywhere. He snapped this photo of Kevin and I watching the band.
Then I spotted Cathy Brooks on stage singing lead vocals. Cathy is the Chief Podcaster for The Guidewire Group and we’ve met a few times over the years. She was on the same panel as me at last week’s ANZA Tech event. I didn’t know she could sing! She has a terrific voice.
Someone else with hidden talents (okay, not so surprising) is Renee Blodgett. She was single-handedly taking up the dance floor, grooving and bopping and generally keeping the rest of us amused by doing the Charleston. Renee’s clients, the Israeli eSnips babes (as apparently they are known), were there, watching their PR representation tripping the light fantastic. Yael, their CEO, took some photos which I hope she’ll put online. eSnips just raised $2M in Series A funding and are announcing their new Micro-Portals at Web2.0 today.
Later in the evening the band did an AC/DC medley (TNT/Ride On) and which forced me up to the stage where I sang lead vocals for a couple of tracks, including Back In The USSR and Cocaine which had Kevin Maney on guitar. I don’t think there will be any photos of that though. And yes, the sunnies were on. It’s been… oh… 18 years since I’ve been on stage in front of a band and it felt strangely…. right. I need more.
O’Reilly’s Web2.0 conference starts today but it’s sold out so I can’t get in. I’ll be going to the after parties though which, I’m assured, is where the networking all happens.
Today I’m catching up with Mark Smallcombe. Mark is now VP of Engineering at InsiderPages, one of Bill Gross’ companies, and I’ve known him since he was a BizTalk client back in the days when he was CTO at Deloitte Australia. He also was a senior executive an Sensis briefly. He’s been here a year now I think.
Everyone over here has told me that getting funded in Silicon Valley is all about “who you know”. You don’t just walk into a VC and say “G’Day”. You have to get introduced, preferably by someone they trust, like someone else they have already funded, or an angel investor they have worked with in the past.
Oh and my XDAII had it’s 2nd meltdown in as many weeks last night. Did a hard reset so I lost ALL of the data on it. It did this to me after I’d been here a few days, causing me to lose some appointment information. Fortunately I had backed it up regularly to my SD Card since then but it’s still a pain in the ass when it hard resets. You have to re-install all of your apps, restore your data, figure out what the delta is from your last backup, etc. I think it’s time to go back to paper. Technology sucks.
by cameron | Nov 7, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
J. David Markham and I recorded a new episode of our Napoleon podcast yesterday and it was unique because we were actually in the same room! Check it out.
by cameron | Nov 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
I went out to dinner last night at Bacar with the Young Dudes – Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian) and Chris Saad (Touchstone). Also there were some not-so-young dudes like myself and Randall Leeb-du Toit from NICTA (thanks Randall!). There was some lively discussion and excellent food. As an old bloke, I’m continually stunned by how sharp and smart guys like Mike and Chris are at 26 and 24 respectively. Both have several start-ups behind them and are killing it with their current businesses. I’ve learned a lot about Atlassian’s success and history and Mike’s background over the last few days (I’m sleeping on his sofa) and he’s a seriously impressive dude. Chris and Nik from Touchstone are also seriously smart and focused. I’ve just installed the latest alpha of their product. It’s invite only and I’ve got 5 invites to give away. First in, first served, people. Email me if you want one. I’ve also just installed the latest version of another young Aussie dude’s product – Omnidrive (Nik Cubrilovic is the young dude… I think he’s like 22 or something). It’s an online storage service. I left Australia with my external 200Gb USB drive which has a lot of show production files on it and I’m sick of having to plug it in every time I edit a show, so I’m going to dump some of the key files into my Omnidrive account and pull them down from there in future (I don’t want them sitting on the laptop, it’s low on space).
Anyway… hanging around with these young dudes makes 36 seems so old. Where did those last 20 years go?
