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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 days

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It’s been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk

On THURSDAY (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On FRIDAY (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

This week on my podcast,This week on my podcast, I read my June 17, 2004 Microsoft Research speech about DRM, a talk that went viral two decades ago, and reassess its legacy:

https://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

It's been 20 years (and one day) since I gave that talk. It wasn't my first talk like that, but at the time, it was the most successful talk I'd ever given. I was still learning how to deliver a talk at the time, tinkering with different prose and delivery styles (to my eye, there's a lot of Bruce Sterling in that one, something that's still true today).

I learned to give talks by attending sf conventions and watching keynotes and panel presentations and taking mental notes. I was especially impressed with the oratory style of Harlan Ellison, whom I heard speak on numerous occasions, and by Judith Merril, who was a wonderful mentor to me and many other writers:

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

I was also influenced by the speakers I'd heard at the many political rallies I'd attended and helped organize; from the speakers at the annual Labour Day parade to the anti-nuclear proliferation and pro-abortion rights marches I was very involved with. I also have vivid memories of the speeches that Helen Caldicott gave in Toronto when I was growing up, where I volunteered as an usher:

https://www.helencaldicott.com/

When I helped found a dotcom startup in the late 1990s, my partners and I decided that I'd do the onstage talking; we paid for a couple hours of speaker training from an expensive consultant in San Francisco. The only thing I remember from that session was the advice to look into the audience as much as possible, rather than reading from notes with my head down. Good advice, but kinda obvious.

The impetus for that training was my onstage presentation at the first O'Reilly P2P conference in 2001. I don't quite remember what I said there, but I remember that it made an impression on Tim O'Reilly, which meant a lot to me then (and now):

https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/844

I don't remember who invited me to give the talk at Microsoft Research that day, but I think it was probably Marc Smith, who was researching social media at the time by data-mining Usenet archives to understand social graphs. I think I timed the gig so that I could kill three birds with one stone: in addition to that talk, I attended (and maybe spoke at?) that year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, and attended an early preview of the soon-to-launch Sci Fi Museum (now the Museum of Pop Culture). I got to meet Nichelle Nichols (and promptly embarrassed myself by getting tongue-tied and telling her how much I loved the vocals she did on her recording of the Star Wars theme, something I'm still hot around the ears over, though she was a pro and gently corrected me, "I think you mean Star *Trek"):

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4IiJUQSsxNw&list=OLAK5uy_lHUn58fbpceC3PrK2Xu9smBNBjR_-mAHQ

But the start of that trip was the talk at Microsoft Research; I'd been on the Microsoft campus before. That startup I did? Microsoft tried to buy us, which prompted our asshole VCs to cram the founders and steal our equity, which created so much acrimony that the Microsoft deal fell through. I was pretty bitter at the time, but in retrospect, I really dodged a bullet – for one thing, the deal involved my going to work for Microsoft as a DRM evangelist. I mean, talk about the road not taken!

This was my first time back at Microsoft as an EFF employee. There was some pre-show meet-and-greet-type stuff, and then I was shown into a packed conference room where I gave my talk and had a lively (and generally friendly) Q&A. MSR was – and is – the woolier side of Microsoft, where all kinds of interesting people did all kinds of great research.

Indeed, almost every Microsoft employee I've ever met was a good and talented person doing the best work they could. The fact that Microsoft produces such a consistent stream of garbage products and crooked business practices is an important testament to the way that a rotten organization can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm a fully paid up subscriber to Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (not so much his other views):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Coase says the reason institutions exist is to enable people to work together with lowered "coordination costs." In other words, if you and I are going to knit a sweater together, we're going to need to figure out how to make sure that we're not both making the left sleeve. Creating an institution – the Mafia, the Catholic Church, Microsoft, a company, a co-op, a committee that puts on a regional science fiction con – is all about minimizing those costs.

As Yochai Benkler pointed out in 2002, the coolest and most transformative thing about the internet is that it let us do more complex collective work with smaller and less structured institutions:

https://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF

That was the initial prompt for my novel Walkaway, which asked, "What if we could build luxury hotels and even space programs with the kind of (relatively) lightweight institutional overheads associated with Wikipedia and the Linux kernel?"

https://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/10/coases-spectre/

So the structure of institutions is really important. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the idea that there are "good companies" and "bad companies." Small businesses, family businesses, and other firms that aren't exposed to the finance sector can reflect their leaders' personalities, but it's a huge mistake to ascribe personalities to the companies themselves.

That's how you get foolish ideas like "Apple is a good company because they embrace paid service and Google is a bad company because they make money from surveillance." Apple will spy on you, too, if they can:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Disney and Fox weren't Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table at MPA meetings. They were two giant public companies, and any differences between them were irrelevancies and marketing myths:

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

I think senior management's personalities do matter (see, for example, the destruction of Boeing after it was colonized by sociopaths from McDonnell Douglas), but the influence of those personalities is much less important than the constraints that competition and regulation impose on companies. In other words, an asshole can run a company that delivers good products at fair prices under ethical conditions – provided that failing to do so will cost more in lost business and fines than they stand to make by cheating:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Microsoft is a company founded and run by colossal assholes. Bill Gates is a monster and he surrounded himself with monsters, and they hired monsters to fill out the courts of their corporate palaces:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

To the extent that good things come out of Microsoft – some of its games products, the odd piece of hardware, important papers from MSR – it's in spite of the leadership; it's the result of constraints imposed by competition and regulation – and that's why Microsoft pursued such an aggressive program of extinguishing its competitors and capturing its regulators.

In retrospect, I think one of my goals in that talk was to convince those people doing good work for a rotten institution to go elsewhere and do other things. Certainly, that's one of the goals I pursue in the talks I give today. At the time, some of Microsoft's highest-profile technologists were publicly resigning over the company's war on free/open source software, so it wasn't an unrealistic goal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030214215639/http://synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html

What I did not expect what that publishing the talk on my site and blogging it on Boing Boing would spark a wave of public interest that would get its message in front of several orders of magnitude more people than I spoke to at Microsoft that day. Partly, that was because I released the talk into the public domain, using the brand-new Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (which was later replaced with the CC0 mark, due to legal issues withBu its drafting):

https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035835/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Some mix of the content of the speech, the spirit of the moment, and the novelty of that wide open license sparked a ton of interest. Jason Kottke recorded an audio version that Andy Baio hosted:

https://kottke.org/04/06/cory-drm-talk

My brutalist ASCII transcript was quickly converted to beautiful HTML by Matt Haughey and Anil Dash:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622235333/http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

For people who needed a hardcopy, there was Patrick Berry's printer-friendly stylesheet:

https://patandkat.com/pat/weblog/mirror/cory-drm/doctorow-drm-ms.html

Multiple people recorded (and sold!) audio versions, and then there were all the fan translations, into Danish, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (both EU and Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish. I stayed in touch with some of those translators, and they helped me translate the position papers I wrote for UN WIPO meetings. Those papers were so effective that ratfuckers from the copyright lobby started to steal them and hide them in the UN toilets (!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20041119132831/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Re-reading the speech for my podcast on Sunday, I expected to be struck by the anachronisms in it, and there were a few of those to be sure. But far more clear was the common thread running from this talk to other talks I gave that took on a significant life of their own, like my 2011 "War On General Purpose Computing" talk for CCC:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

And my work on Adversarial Interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

And my most recent work, on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

In other words, I've been saying the same thing – in different ways – for more than 20 years. That could be depressing, but I actually found it uplifting. Two decades ago, I was radicalized by a fear that the internet would be seized by corporations and governments and transformed into a system of surveillance and control. I found my way into a job at EFF, where I worked with colleagues across multiple disciplines – coders, lawyers and activists – to fight this force.

At the time, this was a fringe cause. Most of the traditional activists I'd come up with in the feminist, antiwar, antiracist, environmental and labour movement viewed digital rights as a distraction and dismissed its partisans as sad, self-obsessed nerds who mistook fights over the management of Star Trek message boards for civil rights struggles:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

I thought I was right then, and I think history has borne me out. The point of waging these fights – both in the wide public sphere and within political movements – is to get people activated before it's too late. Every day that goes by is a day when the internet becomes more inhospitable to political organizing for a better world – more surveillant, more controlling. I believed then – and believe today – that the internet isn't more important that the other fights I waged as a young activist, but I think that the internet is fundamental to those fights.

Saving the planet, smashing patriarchy, overthrowing tyranny and freeing labor are all fights that will be coordinated – Coase style – on the internet. Without a free, fair and open internet, those fights are infinitely harder to win.

The project of getting people to understand, care about, and fight for digital rights is a marathon, not a sprint. When I joined EFF, it was already 12 years old. There were six people in the org then (I was the seventh). Today, there's more than a hundred of us, and we're stretched so thin! The 30+ year old idea that internet policy will intersect with every part of every fight has been utterly vindicated.

Back in 2004, I asked Microsoft why they were willing to fight the US government to the death over antitrust enforcement, but were such wimps when confronted with the entertainment industry's demands for DRM. 20 years later, I think I know the answer: Microsoft understood that DRM would let them usurp the relationship between creative workers, entertainment industry companies, and audiences. Their perfect instincts for seeking out and capitalizing on opportunities to seize monopoly power drove them to make deliberately defective products, in the belief that their market power would let them cram those products down our throats:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/27/protect-your-investment-buy-open/

Here's a link to the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/16/my-2004-microsoft-drm-talk/

And here's direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470_-_My_2004_Microsoft_DRM_Talk.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

#pluralistic #drm #enshittification #microsoft #microsoft research #podcasts #mp3s #history #trusted computing #ngscb #retrospectives

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steveyockey · 8 months

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this is the most comprehensive piece on the ongoing #BlocktheBoat protest (first in Oakland, now in Tacoma where the boat has stopped to load cargo) I have come across,

The Cape Orlando is part of the US Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force [RRF], auxiliary supply and service ships kept mothballed until needed to supply US strategic needs. Ships like the Cape Orlando are quasi-civilian, crewed by a civilian company and used only by the US government, usually for military purposes. The Orlando is one of two RRF ships currently lay-berthed at the Port of Oakland and was actively used during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Organizers told this reporter that they had reliable information that the ship was likely being mobilized in the US’s military aid for the government of Israel during its current decimation of Gaza. The Oakland Observer has confirmed with relative certainty that the Orlando’s ultimate destination was Israel as of Friday through another confidential source.

The Cape Orlando finally arrived at port in Tacoma on Monday morning, and as of this writing, protesters are using Block the Boat picketing tactics to block the loading of cargo on to the boat—that includes forming a picket with the goal of prompting local union workers to decline to cross for any number of reasons in ILWU policy. As of this writing, it's unclear whether the tactic is working, but it does seem as if workers have not been able to load the ship.

If you are in Tacoma, Washington, the Block the Boat protest organizers are asking you to show up so the blockade can continue for as long as possible and protestors can rest in shifts

#Palestine #I need to be in Tacoma so bad #the one thing this piece doesn’t have is that apparently one crew member is being reported as walking off

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captainsophiestark · 6 months

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Parents Weekend

Platonic!Percy Jackson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: Percy Jackson

Summary: Percy's clear-sighted mortal cousin on his mom's side flies out to California to visit Percy for his first parents weekend away from home, at New Rome University.

Word Count: 2,166

Category: Fluff

A/N: This is full of spoilers for every book that features Percy Jackson, so if you're a new fan brought in by the show, welcome! But this fic might not be for you, unless you really don't mind spoilers. Also, it is loosely related to this other platonic Percy fic I wrote, but you don't need to read one to understand the other

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"HALT! Not another step without approval!"

I jumped backwards as a talking statue appeared in front of me out of nowhere, stopping me right on the threshold of the city of New Rome. Of all the things I'd seen as a clear-sighted mortal, this ranked among the weirdest for sure.

"Who are you, and on what authority are you here?"

"Uh... I'm Percy Jackson's cousin, and I'm here to visit him at college?"

The statue narrowed his eyes at me.

"Percy Jackson's cousin, hm? I know him well. He spent quite a lot of time when he first got here disobeying and disrespecting my rules. But we killed a giant together, and he defended Rome honorably. So as long as you are not armed...?"

The statue raised an eyebrow at me, and I quickly held out my hands and shook my head to show him I didn't have anything on me. He narrowed his eyes, then nodded curtly.

"Then you may enter. Tell him hello, and to get a haircut."

"Yes sir."

The statue nodded, clearly pleased, as I walked past him and into the city of New Rome. Percy had told me all about his adventures whenever we caught up with each other, and I felt fairly confident that I'd just met Terminus, the Roman boundary god. He was even more uptight than Percy had said.

It was a beautiful fall day in California, the sun lighting up the Oakland hills and creating just the right amount of warmth. I stared around in awe at the city before me, which practically sparkled in the sun.

Percy had told me all about it, and I'd even seen a few pictures. But nothing quite compared to seeing it in person.

I joined the crowds moving through the city, laughing and talking with one another. Luckily for me, a very easy to find street sign pointed me in the direction of New Rome U, and I started heading in that direction.

Percy had just started college this fall, moving all the way across the country just when I'd finally settled for the long haul in New York. I gave him a bit of teasing for that, but I knew how happy he was to be going here (especially with Annabeth) and how hard he'd worked to get in, so I really was happy for him. I'd just made him promise to visit New York often, which I knew he would do for more family members than just me.

What I hadn't told him was that I also intended to visit him. This weekend was officially "parents' weekend" at NRU. Sally and Paul couldn't come, since Estelle was still a baby, but I had no such limitations. I'd booked a flight the second Sally had told me the date, and now, I was finally here.

Percy had no idea. As far as he knew, he had nothing special happening this weekend. I couldn't wait to see his face when I surprised him.

My head was on a swivel the minute I set foot on campus, looking for my favorite cousin. He wasn't short, so I hoped he'd be easily visible over the heads of people in the crowd, but I wandered between buildings and students with no luck. I needed a better plan.

It didn't take me long to come up with one, thankfully. A big, beautiful fountain sat in the middle of a cluster of university buildings, so I headed right for it and hopped up on the ledge, standing tall and scouting the crowds from my new vantage point. After a minute, I heard a surprised voice from behind me.

"Y/N?"

I whipped around to find Percy standing at the top of some stairs, apparently just coming from class in the building. He was hand in hand with his girlfriend Annabeth, which always made me happy to see. I beamed at him and waved like a maniac before hopping down and heading his direction.

"What are you doing here?" he called, momentarily dropping Annabeth's hand to race towards me, meeting me halfway across the square. I laughed as he picked me up in a tight hug and spun me around.

"It's parents' weekend for New Rome University, isn't it?" I asked, once my feet were back on the ground. "I might not be your parent, but I'm pretty sure the event has changed to mean 'family weekend' by this point."

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming!" he cried, laughing a little as he apparently didn't quite believe I was really here. Annabeth joined us, a smile on her face to match mine and Percy's.

"Because I wanted to surprise you, duh!" I laughed and pulled Annabeth into a tight hug, which she returned. "It's so good to see you both! Oh, and Percy, Terminus said you need to get a haircut."

Percy groaned and shook his head while Annabeth laughed.

"You met Terminus? How did you even get in here?"

"I name-dropped you for street cred with Terminus, obviously," I teased. Percy rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. "And I might have found a way to reach out to a friend you mentioned had some power here. Frank Zhang was very nice when a total stranger appeared through a very shaky Iris message asking him to let me into his camp."

Percy and Annabeth both laughed at that, sharing a smile.

"I'll have to remember to thank Frank for the assist," said Percy.

"I actually have some of your mom's cookies with me for that exact purpose."

Percy's mouth dropped open in outrage. "And you didn't bring any for me?"

"Did I say that?"

I turned and reached into my bag, then pulled out a tupperware container of Sally's famous blue chocolate chip cookies.

"These are for you. I ate mine on the plane, and I have a batch of purple ones for Frank, since that's Camp Jupiter's colors."

"My mom is amazing," Percy breathed, the box of cookies already opened with one in his hand.

"Yeah. Yeah, she is. Now come on, I flew all the way out here from New York to hang out with you. I want to see your new school and hear about all your classes and everything else. Just tell me where we're going first."

Percy grinned. "I know the perfect spot."

My cousin didn't disappoint. Annabeth had to do a bit of work to prepare for the coming week, so after getting a promise from her to meet us later, Percy and I hiked to the top of a beautiful hill overlooking the entirety of Camp Jupiter, apparently called the Garden of Bacchus. With the sun shining and a slight breeze blowing, I quite literally couldn't have imagined anything more perfect.

"You know, I love New York. But I could stand living somewhere with more weather like this," I mused. Percy laughed.

"Yeah, it's a perk. I do miss the city sometimes though."

"Of course. But you'll be home for the break, right?"

"Yup. Annabeth's coming with me. I can't wait to see my mom, and Paul and Estelle. And we'll probably visit camp, which will be nice."

"I'm sure everyone will be excited to see you. Just don't forget to come visit your favorite cousin in fun places I can actually get to," I said, nudging him in the shoulder a little as I teased him. He grinned right back at me.

"Never."

"Good. Because otherwise I'll have to come track you down, and based on what you've told me about Camp Half-Blood, I'd have a hell of a time getting into that place."

"If any mortal could pull it off, I bet it'd be you."

I grinned, and Percy smiled. We paused for a minute, taking in the gentle breeze and bustling city below us, then I spoke up again.

"Alright, so catch me up. How's everything? Classes? Annabeth? Being on the West Coast? Any more of the Olympians trying to give you trouble?"

Percy frowned at the mention of the Olympians, which seemed incredibly fair to me.

"Thankfully no, at least for now. Otherwise, things have been good. It's still a little weird to be here, and I miss a lot of people back home, but I have a lot of friends here too. Mostly I'm just happy to finally have some normal life time with Annabeth."

"I can't think of two people who deserve it more." Percy huffed in agreement as I continued. "And one of the hardest parts of college is leaving behind people you love to go do what you need to do out in the world. But like you said, there's a lot of people you love and who love you here, too. And you know me and Sally and everyone else in New York will always leave our doors open for whenever you want to come back."

Percy gave me a small smile.

"I know. And I'll always be happy to see you visiting me here, or wherever else I might go. Especially if you keep bringing my mom's cookies with you."

I laughed. "Yeah, that makes sense. I think her cookies could open most doors for me, honestly."

"For sure."

We took a moment, smiling and laughing and breathing in the fresh air. Then finally, I sighed and stood, facing Percy with my hands on my hips.

"Alright, I've gotten the bird's eye view and I'm finally warm again after New York got that early cold snap. Now let's see what else this Roman camp has to offer."

The more we walked around, the more my jaw dropped. It looked just like the pictures I'd seen of Rome and Italy as a whole, places I'd always dreamed about visiting. Only bright, shiny, new, and right here in front of me, where I could reach out and touch it.

As we walked around and Percy gave me the full campus tour, we found more and more people who knew him, smiling and calling out hellos as we passed each other. I beamed every time, happy to see my little cousin doing so well. He'd been through hell, but he seemed at peace here. Settled, in a way I hadn't really seen him before.

"The camp itself has pegasi stables and stuff, but we'd need to get special permission to visit them," Percy explained as we walked into the plaza where I'd first found him, headed for 'the best coffee shop this side of the Mississippi'. The basic tour was completed, so we were on our way to meet Annabeth. "I can ask Frank about that, maybe. How long are you here?"

"I'm staying for the whole parents' weekend, so hopefully that means I get to see the pegasi! The day I met Blackjack might still be my best day ever."

Percy laughed as we walked through the door, a bell jingling happily over our heads. Annabeth waved to us from a table near the window, and we headed her direction.

"I think Blackjack enjoyed that day, too. He always likes to be appreciated."

"He's a flying horse. Who the hell isn't appreciating him?"

Percy just shrugged as we joined Annabeth at her table. She grinned and slid two drinks our way, one for each of us.

"Percy told me your order. Hopefully they got it right."

"I'm sure they did," I said, taking a careful sip. My jaw would've dropped, if I weren't incredibly determined not to let a single drop go to waste. "That is... actually maybe the best thing I've ever had."

"Right?" Percy grinned as he sipped his own drink.

"So, what did the two of you get up to?" asked Annabeth.

"Percy gave me the whole campus tour," I said, smiling as I leaned back in my seat, leisurely sipping my drink. The sun coming through the windows gently warmed my face, and I could've stayed right there for the rest of the day and been perfectly happy. "We hiked up to the Garden of Bacchus too, and I got a bird's eye of this whole place. I know I'll probably never get to see Camp Half-Blood to compare, but... this place is stunning."

"It really is."

Annabeth and Percy shared a smile, and he took her hand across the table. I beamed. I loved Annabeth, and I loved the two of them together. I'd never met somebody other than Annabeth who got such an immediate, unanimous family seal of approval.

"So, I got the tour of campus. I heard there are pegasi stables, which I will not be leaving without seeing. But what else is a can't-miss?"

"Don't worry," said Annabeth with a grin. "I had enough time after homework to make the perfect plan."

"Athena always has a plan," said Percy. He and Annabeth shared another smile, and I couldn't help smiling with them.

"Well good. Because I'm here all weekend, and this seems like a city I don't want to miss."

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

Percy Jackson Taglist: @valkyriepirate

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bikinikillarchives · 1 year

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Le Tigre announce 2023 tour!!! touring for the first time since 2005. tickets on sale on Friday the 27th at 9AM PST/ noon EST. link to tix & new merch.

photo by Leeta Harding, 2004.

05-27 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer

06-01 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Sound Barcelona

06-03 London, England - Troxy

06-05 Manchester, England - Albert Hall

06-06 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland Ballroom

06-08 Madrid, Spain - Primavera Sound Madrid

06-09 Porto, Portugal - Nos Primavera Sound Porto

06-11 Paris, France - Le Trianon

06-14 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso

06-16 Berlin, Germany - Huxleys Neue Welt

06-17 Hamburg, Germany - Markthalle

07-01 Oakland, CA - Mosswood Meltdown Festival

07-03 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom

07-06 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre

07-07 Portland, OR - Roseland Theater

07-09 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre

07-15 Chicago, IL - The Salt Shed

07-17 Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre

07-18 Millvale, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre

07-19 Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage

07-21 Toronto, Ontario - History

07-22 Montreal, Québec - L’Olympia

07-24 Boston, MA - Royale

07-28 New York, NY - Brooklyn Steel

#kathleen hanna #jd samson #johanna fateman #le tigre #2023

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filmnoirfoundation · 5 months

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#NoirCity21 opens this Friday, Jan 19, 7:30 PM at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre with our newest restoration project NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR. Eddie Muller will be signing his books up in the mezzanine, 6pm-7pm. Tix: http://NoirCity.com

Restoration performed by UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Program notes follow.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19:

7:30

World Premiere FNF Restoration!

NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR | NO ABRAS NUNCA ESA PUERTA

Argentina, 1952. Estudios San Miguel. 85 minutes

Screenplay by Alejandro Casona, from two short stories by Cornell Woolrich (William Irish)

Produced and directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen

More noir films have been based on the stories of Cornell Woolrich than any other writer, and NOIR CITY is proud to present this brand-new restoration of one of the best of those adaptations. In “Someone’s on the Phone,” Ángel Magaña plays a man bent on avenging the death of his sister, driven to suicide by gambling debts. In “The Hummingbird Comes Home,” Roberto Escalada portrays a racketeer who brings the gang to his boyhood home to lay low after a robbery. His blind madre doesn’t approve. Originally a three-part anthology of Woolrich tales, Never Open That Door was released separately from the 73-minute If I Should Die Before I Wake, also adapted by Casona and Christensen. Benefitting from the incredible cinematography of Pablo Tabernero, this is one of the most evocative realizations of Woolrich ever produced, featuring masterful sequences of sustained suspense. Said Buenos Aires film critic Horacio Bernades, “Rarely has an Argentine film been more purely cinematic than this.”

CAST: Someone on the Phone: Ángel Magaña (Raúl), Renée Dumas (Luisa), Diana de Córdoba (Nelly), Nicolás Fregues (money lender), Pedro Fiorito, Orestes Soriani, Percival Murray, Rosa Martín , Arnoldo Chamot. The Hummingbird Comes Home: Roberto Escalada (Daniel), Ilde Pirovano (the mother), Norma Giménez (María), Luis Otero (Juan)

9:30

STREET OF CHANCE

United States, 1942. Paramount [Universal]. 74 minutes

Screenplay by Garrett Fort, based on the novel The Black Curtain by Cornell Woolrich

Produced by Burt Kelly. Directed by Jack Hively

The first case of amnesia in the film noir era comes with a typically intriguing Woolrichian twist. Frank Thompson survives a near fatal accident only to have the shock partially restore his memory! He realizes he’s lived the past several years as someone other than his true self. With the help of his incredulous girlfriend Ruth, Frank embarks on a nocturnal quest to determine his true identity. This modest offering from the B-unit at Paramount benefits from some A-list contributors, principally stars Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor, and director of photography Theodor Sparkuhl, whose contributions to the look of early ’40s noir have gone largely unheralded. A wonderful gallery of supporting characters skitter and sneak through Frank’s waking nightmare, well rendered by journeyman director Jack Hively who had previously helmed many entries in RKO’s mystery series The Saint.

CAST: Burgess Meredith (Frank Thompson), Claire Trevor (Ruth Dillon), Louise Platt (Virginia Thompson), Sheldon Leonard (Joe Marucci), Frieda Inescort (Alma Diedrich), Jerome Cowan (Bill Diedrich), Adeline deWalt Reynolds (Grandma Diedrich), Arthur Loft (Sheriff Stebbins), Clancy Cooper (Burke), Ann Doran (Miss Peabody), Paul Phillips

#film noir #eddie muller #noir city #noir city 21 #film noir festival #film restoration #don't open that door #street of chance #cornell woolrich

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kickmag · 2 months

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Missy Elliott Going On Arena Tour

Missy Elliott is going on her first-ever headlining tour with Busta Rhymes, Ciara, and Timbaland. The rap legend announced the tour on social media today. All of them have worked together in the past. The Out Of This World Tour will travel through more than 20 cities in North America. Missy and Busta Rhymes are known for their colorful high-tech videos and fans are already excited about what their stage sets will entail. She stated that she was thrilled about making a few firsts including the tour and being the first woman rapper inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tickets will go on sale Thursday at 10 AM local time.

Out Of This World Tour Dates

Thursday, July 4 — Vancouver, BC — Rogers Arena

Saturday, July 6 — Seattle, WA — Climate Pledge Arena

Tuesday, July 9 — Oakland, CA — Oakland Arena

Thursday, July 11 — Los Angeles, CA — Crypto.com Arena

Saturday, July 13 — Las Vegas, NV — T-Mobile Arena

Tuesday, July 16 — Denver, CO — Ball Arena

Thursday, July 18 — Austin, TX — Moody Center

Saturday, July 20 — Houston, TX — Toyota Center

Sunday, July 21 — Fort Worth, TX — Dickies Arena

Wednesday, July 24 — Tampa, FL — Amalie Arena

Thursday, July 25 — Sunrise, FL — Amerant Bank Arena

Saturday, July 27 — Atlanta, GA — State Farm Arena

Thursday, August 1 — Baltimore, MD — CFG Bank Arena

Friday, August 2 — Hampton, VA — Hampton Coliseum

Saturday, August 3 — Belmont Park, NY — UBS Arena

Monday, August 5 — Philadelphia, PA — Wells Fargo Center

Thursday, August 8 — Washington, DC — Capital One Arena

Friday, August 9 — Newark, NJ — Prudential Center

Saturday, August 10 — Boston, MA — TD Garden

Monday, August 12 — Brooklyn, NY — Barclays Center

Thursday, August 15 — Detroit, MI — Little Caesars Arena

Saturday, August 17 — Montreal, QC — Bell Centre

Monday, August 19 — Toronto, ON — Scotiabank Arena

Thursday, August 22 — Rosemont, IL — Allstate Arena

#missy elliott #busta rhymes #ciara #timbaland #live music #tour

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brettesims · 10 days

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Drink & Draw BTS

Thanx to everyone who came out to my first Drink & Draw event! I had so much fun and an epic First Friday adventure after! Can’t wait until next First Friday yee ✍🏾✨🥂

~ B

#artbybrette #art #quotes #artist #quote #women #illustrations #illustration #consciousness #drawings #Oakland #Oakland first Friday #Oakland art events #Oakland events #Oakland galleries #Oakland gallery #first Friday Oakland #Bay Area events

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jules-has-notes · 6 days

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2018 VoicePlay winter wrap-up — conclusions, adventures, and fortifications

The guys started the year by recharging from the rush of the holiday season, releasing more of the previous year's music, and working on some personal projects before they hit the road again.

Hot and cold

First up was J.None's feature on ATK's single "Guilty" on New Year's Day, followed the next day by VoicePlay's "Waving Through A Window" collaboration with Kurt Hugo Schneider that they'd filmed in October, and a fun animated version of "Happy Birthday" for their fans a couple days after that. J also completed filming for his nephew's first music video with some help from family and friends.

Amid the celebrations, though, they also lamented that Florida was experiencing some actual winter weather that their homes weren't built for.

Luckily, they had an escape planned, in the form of a quick cruise to the Bahamas aboard the familiar Disney Dream. J.None livestreamed part of their drive to the ship, and recorded a short Instagram video in the port.

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A post shared by J.None 🧈🎶 🎙📝🎬🎹🎸📽🤣 (@itsjnone)

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Business and pleasure

Once they were back home, they announced the release of their "Look What You Made Me Do" video with pocket.watch, then headed even farther north for their annual trip to the Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference in NYC. During a day of showcase concerts, they spent some backstage time with the Plain White T's and singer/songwriter Eric Hutchinson. Once they were done, they met up with their fellow Floridians in Vox Audio and The Edge Effect for some hang time.

The conference seems to have paid off in interesting ways, since it led to this vague Twitter conversation:

Mouse-apallooza

While the other guys tended to things at home, J.None headed to Los Angeles as part of the workshop week for Disney's new touring group DCappella, under the musical direction of Deke Sharon.

The first wave cast that emerged from this process was Morgan (soprano), Shelley (mezzo), Sojourner (alto), RJ (tenor), Orlando (baritone), Joe (bass), and Antonio (percussion). That lineup was featured in music videos and live shows.

J.None was chosen to sing baritone in the second wave cast, which ultimately didn't end up touring, but those members were still featured on some of the group's audio recordings, and some later cycled into the touring cast as the original members retired.

Meanwhile, Layne and Tony finished up PattyCake's long awaited "Grande Mermaid" video and released it into the wild, then got to work filming their next project, "The Disney Showman".

Hey there, cats and kittens

Once J.None was back on the East Coast, VoicePlay spent a Saturday morning entertaining animal medicine professionals as part of the opening day of the annual Vetinary Meeting & Expo. They even met fellow animal lover Michael J. Fox, who spoke about the emotional benefits of pets to his quality of life as a disabled person.

It's unclear whether the guys got to spend any time with the animals that were on site for hands-on educational sessions, or the pets attendees had brought with them to participate in a 5K fundraiser fun-run. At least most of them got to go home to their own furry friends afterward.

Southwest adventures

The next weekend, VoicePlay headed west. Their show in Oakland, CA was cancelled due to a scheduling conflict at the venue, but they still had a grand time in Tempe, AZ and Las Vegas. Especially since they got to see several Patreon patrons in person. (And some fans continued the tradition of gifting them with snacks.)

Back to the grind

The following weekend was bookended by business time. After facing disappointment at a restaurant on Friday, they played it safe for their weekly planning meeting on Monday by gathering at Casa Lucci.

Positive vibes

J.None spent the Presidents' Day holiday filming an anti-bullying music video with Alexis Taylor Kritsky, his big sister and nephew, a local activist, and a group of volunteers.

The next day, DCINY announced the featured singers for their annual Total Vocal a cappella concert, including VoicePlay.

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A post shared by VoicePlay (@thevoiceplay)

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While that was happening, the PattyCake guys teamed up with their old friends at Entertainment Central Productions to film a fun video for their grown-up girl group, 4Eva29.

Oh no, Mister Bill Earl!

February ended with a little more excitement than expected when Earl wound up in the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. But through a combination of his otherwise good health, stubbornness, and the wonders of modern surgical techniques, he was back on his feet in just a couple days. The guys didn't even need to postpone their shows at the beginning of March.

Midwest trip

With their tenor on the mend, VoicePlay headed toward the Great Lakes for a loop through central Indiana, western Ohio, and eastern Illinois.

Thursday — Culver, IN

photos by Mary D. Fox

Friday — Cincinnati, OH

The guys discovered a tiny, creepy attic door in their accommodations for the night.

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A post shared by Layne Stein (@laynestein)

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Saturday — Crystal Lake, IL

photos by Sarah Kay

They returned there a year and a half later as part of their 2019 Warm Up holiday tour.

Sing for me!

The PattyCake guys started the next week by filming a Greatest Showman / Phantom of the Opera mashup video with classical singer Fernando Varela. They recruited Leah Lowman from their rotating "Unexpected Musicals" cast to play Christine, and Tony dusted off his mask and cape to cameo as the lurking Phantom.

A couple days later, Layne lent a hand — and his home studio's equipment — to one of his girls and her friends to record a song for a video project they entered into a student film contest at their school. (And they won!)

When the weekend rolled around, VoicePlay headed over to the Gulf Coast for a show in Tarpon Springs.

In the middle of the week, the guys gathered at Rayne's Room to get nostagic with a new "Aca Top 10" countdown featuring the cartoon themes of their childhoods.

They spent the next day performing at a private outdoor event in Palm Beach (and communing with some of the local wildlife).

Big Apple time

In advance of the Total Vocal show, Layne and Cyndi took their older girls and Layne's parents to NYC for a couple days of spring break family time, seeing the sights and a couple Broadway shows.

The rest of VoicePlay flew up on Friday to rehearse for the concert on Saturday and perform on Sunday. A grand time was had by all as they reunited with Deke Sharon and other aca-friends from DCappella and Vocalosity, and met new friends from Pentatonix and the Pitch Perfect movies.

Work, work

After flying home and getting a little rest, it was time to get back to business, planning their video projects for the coming months.

From four to five once more

VoicePlay capped off the season by finally formally welcoming J.None to their permanent ranks.

Since J had started appearing at concerts even before Tony officially left, had guested in four music videos before they stopped crediting him as a featured singer, and was included as a member of the group on the liner notes for their new holiday album, this was more of a confirmation than an announcement, but it was a very welcome one.

#VoicePlay #traveling musicians #behind the scenes #long post #link-o-rama

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wwwdlabrie · 1 year

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Thanx Back History Month Bandcamp Friday.next 3/3 We encourage people to make effort to Buy our Music today. Artists receive 100 percent of Sales -1st Fridays. Thank you for buying DLabrie music and merch on Bandcamp Fridays Click here to purchase Music and Merch from DLabrie Bandcamp Click here to purchase Music and Merch from DLabrie…

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ghostflowerdreams · 8 months

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While working on this post about California in 1987, I realized that the Lost Boys wouldn't stay at the boardwalk and in their cave all the time. They've probably visited other places like nightclubs, concerts and interesting events. They would definitely have to keep in mind how long it takes to get there though.

For example I can’t picture them driving all the way to Anaheim for a Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Foreigner and Loverboy concert (and yes, there actually was one on July 17, 1982 with them all). If they went it would’ve taken them about six hours just to get there, and that's if they don't get lost or stuck in traffic.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some concerts start at 7:00pm and others at 8:00pm. Depending on when it happens, such as in the summer there's also gonna be more daylight hours. According to this, the sunset on July 17, 1982 was at 8:26pm and sunrise was at 6:02am. With it taking about six hours to get there, they'd end up missing most of the show. They also wouldn't be able to make it back home in time either.

They could get a room and cover the windows, but usually with huge events like this, a lot of motels and hotels in the area get fully booked in advance. I don't think they would risk it, at least, not for events that are far away from Santa Carla.

So...this brings me to the purpose of this post. I want to make a extensive list of nearby concerts and events that they might've gone to. Ya know, before the Emerson family arrived or even before Star and Laddie joined them. I think it'd be fun to know and maybe one day I might write a story about them at a concert or something.

To start off I need an accurate time frame. In the novelization we learn that the events of The Lost Boys film takes place on the last month of summer, July, which is about 2-3 weeks before school starts. This is hinted at in a conversation Michael had with Lucy.

“Mom,” Michael began. “I think I’d like to get a job.” His mother looked up from the sink, a question in her eyes. She didn't ask it. "School's only a few weeks away", she mentioned.

In general, most public schools in California start the school year in mid to late August or early September. If we’re sticking to Santa Cruz as the basis for Santa Carla, that would mean the first day of school is in August. This is why my list starts with January 1, 1980 and ends at July 10, 1987.

Timeline

On January 13, 1980, the American rock band The Grateful Dead, along with Joan Baez, The Beach Boys, Jefferson Starship and Santana, performed at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $7.50 in advance / $9.00 at the door. Hours: 7:00pm

On March 6, 1980, the American rock band, Eagles and American singer-songwriter Roy Orbison performed at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $7.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On March 28, 1980, the American rock band, Journey and the British rock group, The Babys, performed at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On April 18 - 20, 1980, the English rock band, The Who performed at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $12.50 / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On May 9, 1980, Friday the 13th was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On May 23, 1980, The Shining was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 13 - 14, 1980, the British rock band, Queen, along with the American rock band, The Blasters, performed at Oakland Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $8.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On September 5, 1980, the Australian rock band AC/DC performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / $11.0 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On October 9 - 10, 1980, the American rock band, Van Halen performed at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On December 5, 1980, Flash Gordon was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On December 31, 1980, the American rock band, Blue Öyster Cult, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / $11.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On January 14, 1981, Scanners was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On February 11, 1981, My Bloody Valentine was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On February 21, 1981, the American rock band, Santana, performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $10.00 in advance / $11.50

On March 2 -3, 1981, the American rock band Styx performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $11.00 in advance / $13.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On April 15 - 16, 1981, the English rock band, Echo & the Bunnymen performed at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco, California. Ticket Price: $6.00 / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On April 25, 1981, the American rock band, The Grateful Dead performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: $6.50 in advance / $8.50 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On May 1, 1981, Friday the 13th Part 2 was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 12, 1981, Raider of the Lost Ark was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 5, 1981, the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne and featured artist Motörhead performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / $11.00 at the door. Time: Unknown

On August 21, 1981, An American Werewolf in London was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On October 29, 1981, the English rock band, Echo & the Bunnymen preformed at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 30, 1981, the English rock band, Echo & the Bunnymen preformed at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 30, 1981, Halloween II was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On November 30, 1981, the American rock band, Journey and Canadian rock band, Loverboy performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / $11.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On February 14-16, 1982, the Australian rock band, AC/DC performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $12.50 in advance / $14.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On May 21, 1982, The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On May 25, 1982, the rock supergroup Asia performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: Unknown

On June 4, 1982, Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 11, 1982, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 25, 1982, Blade Runner was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 25, 1982, The Thing was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 9, 1982, Tron was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On August 13, 1982, Fast Times at Ridgemont High was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On August 13, 1982, Friday the 13th Part III was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On September 18, 1982, the American band, Eddie and the Tide and the American rock band, Missing Person performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On October 20, 1982, the British-American rock band, Fleetwood Mac at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $15.00 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On October 22, 1982, First Blood (also known as Rambo: First Blood) was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On October 22, 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On November 19, 1982, the English heavy metal band, Judas Priest and the Canadian hard rock band, Coney Hatch, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $11.50 in advance / $13.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On January 7, 1983, the American rock band, Aerosmith and the Canadian rock guitarist and singer-songwriter, Pat Travers performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $11.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On March 16 - 20, 1983, the American rock band, Styx, performed at Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On April 15, 1983, The Evil Dead was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On April 26, 1983, the English rock band, The Kinks and the American rock band, Scandal, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $11.50 in advance / $13.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On April 27, 1983, the punk rock band The Ramones performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $12.50 in advance / $14.00 at the door. Time: 8:00pm

On May 25, 1983, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On May 28, 1983, the American rock band, Jefferson Starship performed at the Marriott's Great America, which is an amusement park also known as California's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On July 2, 1983, the English heavy metal band, Iron Maiden, the English heavy metal band, Saxon and British hard rock band, Fastway, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $12.50 in advance / $14.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On July 14, 1983, the rock singer Joan Jett performed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On September 4, 1983, the hard rock/heavy metal band, Y&T performed at the Marriott's Great America, which is an amusement park also known as California's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On September 14, 1983, the American band, Eddie & the Tide performed at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On September 15 - 16, 1983, the English rock band, Def Leppard performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 4, 1983, the American singer-songwriter, Stevie Nicks, and American guitarist and singer-songwriter, Joe Walsh, performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 19, 1983, the Australian rock band, AC/DC performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $13.50 in advance / $15.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On December 9, 1983, Scarface was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On November 18, 1983, A Christmas Story was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On December 31, 1983, the American heavy metal band, Dio, the American glam metal band, Dokken, and the American hard rock/heavy metal, Y&T performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On January 6, 1984, the American heavy metal band, Dio performed at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $9.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: Unknown

On January 29, 1984, the English rock band The Cult preformed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On February 1, 1984, the American rock band, KISS, the American heavy metal band, Riot V and the Dutch–American hard rock band, Vandenberg, all performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: $12.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 7:30pm

On March 9, 1984, Children of the Corn was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On April 13, 1984, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On April 29-30, 1984, the German hard rock band Scorpions and American rock band Bon Jovi performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $13.50 in advance / $15.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On May 9 - 11, 1984, the American rock band Van Halen performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $13.50 in advance / $15.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm [x]

On May 23, 1984, Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 8, 1984, Ghostbusters was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 8, 1984, Gremlins was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 22, 1984, the American heavy metal band Dio, along with the English hard rock band Whitesnake and various others performed at Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, Watsonville, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / $16.00 at the door. Hours: 6:00pm [x]

On October 26, 1984, The Terminator was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On October 27 - 28, 1984, the American rock band, The Grateful Dead performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: $15.00 in advance / Unknown Hours: 7:30pm

On November 2 - 3, 1984, the American rock band, Grateful Dead, performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On November 9, 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On December 8, 1984, the American heavy metal band, W.A.S.P. and the hard rock/heavy metal band, Krokus performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Ticket Price: $13.50 in advance / Unknown Hour: 7:30pm

On December 14, 1984, Dune was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On February 9, 1985, the American rock band, KISS, and the American heavy metal band, Queensrÿche, performed at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $15.00 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On February 15, 1985, The Breakfast Club was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On March 21, 1985, the English heavy metal band, Iron Maiden and American heavy metal band, Twisted Sister, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / $16.00 at the door. Hours: 7:30pm

On May 22, 1985, Rambo: First Blood Part II was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 7, 1985, The Goonies was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 3, 1985, Back to the Future was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 10, 1985, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 19, 1985, Day of the Dead was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 22, 1985, the musician “Weird Al” Yankovic performed at The Catalyst, a night club in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On August 2, 1985, Fright Night was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On August 16, 1985, The Return of the Living Dead was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On October 4, 1985, the American rock band The Youngbloods performed at The Catalyst, a night club in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 12, 1985, the American rock band, The Red Hot Chili Pepper performed at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. Ticket Price: $7.50 in advance / $8.50 at the door. Unknown Hours: 8:00pm (doors open) / 9:15pm (show starts) [x]

On October 18, 1985, Re-Animator was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On November 1, 1985, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On November 18, 1985, the American heavy metal band, Mötley Crüe, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / $16.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On November 24, 1985, the American thrash metal band, Megadeth performed at One Step Beyond, a small night club in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On November 24, 1985, the American heavy metal band, Mötley Crüe, and American glam metal band, Autograph, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / $16.00 at the door. Hours: 7:30pm

On December 10, 1985, the American rock band, Heart performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $15.00 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On January 18, 1986, the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at One Step Beyond, a small night club in an industrial part of the city of Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On February 4, 1986, American rock band, KISS, and special guest the American heavy metal band, W.A.S.P., performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / $16.00 at the door. Hours: 7:30pm

On March 19, 1986, the rock band Blue Öyster Cult preformed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On March 21, 1986, Rad was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On April 2, 1986, the English heavy metal band, Saxon, American heavy metal band, Armored Saint and the American heavy metal band, Dammaj performed at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: 8:00pm (doors open) / 9:15pm (show starts) [x]

On April 18, 1986, Legend was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On May 1, 1986, the American thrash metal band, Anthrax performed at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. Ticket Price: $7.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 9:00pm [x]

On May 13, 1986, the American pop rock band, The Bangles performed at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On May 15, 1986, the English heavy metal band, Judas Priest and the American glam metal band, Dokken performed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. Ticket Price: $14.50 in advance / Unknown Hours: 8:00pm

On May 16, 1986, Top Gun was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 9, 1986, the British rock band Sioiuxie and the Banshees preformed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On June 11, 1986, Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 17, 1986, the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne and featured artist the American heavy metal band, Metallica, performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $15.50 in advance / $17.00 at the door. Hours: 7:30pm [x]

On June 27, 1986, Labyrinth was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 16, 1986, Aliens was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 18, 1986, the American glam metal band, Poison performed at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On July 25, 1986, Maximum Overdrive was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On August 1, 1986, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On August 15, 1986, The Fly was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On September 17, 1986, the punk rock band The Ramones performed at One Step Beyond, a small night club in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On September 18, 1986, the rock bank Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at One Step Beyond, a small night club in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On September 19, 1986, the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at The Catalyst, a night club in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On October 31 - November 3, 1986, the American rock band, Van Halen performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $16.50 in advance / $18.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On December 19, 1986, Little Shop of Horrors was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On December 20, 1986, the American rock band Journey and the Canadian rock band, Glass Tiger performed at The Cow Palace, an indoor arena located in Daly City, California. Ticket Price: $17.50 in advance / $19.00 at the door. Hours: 8:00pm

On February 27, 1987, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On March 6, 1987, Lethal Weapon was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On March 13, 1987, Evil Dead II was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On April 28, 1987, the English rock band Motörhead performed at One Step Beyond, a small night club in Santa Clara, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On May 1, 1987, the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, the American hard rock/heavy metal band, Y&T, and the American rock band, Tesla as well as the British hard rock band, Waysted, performed at the Spartan Stadium (it's known as CEFCU Stadium now) in San Jose, California. Ticket Price: $17.50 in advance / $20.00 at the door. Hours: 7:30pm

On June 6, 1987, the rock band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts performed at The Catalyst, a night club in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: Unknown Hours: Unknown

On June 12, 1987, Predator was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On June 24, 1987, Spaceballs was released in cinemas across the country, such as in the Santa Cruz Cinema, the Landmark Del Mar Theatre, CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge and so on. Ticket Price: Unknown

On July 10, 1987, the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers performed at The Catalyst, a night club in Santa Cruz, California. Ticket Price: $5.00 in advance / $6.50 at the door. Hours: Unknown

Notes:

Again, using Santa Cruz as the basis for Santa Carla, that would mean...

It would take about 1hr 30 mins to get to the Cow Palace.

It would take about 1hr 45 mins to get to Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena (also known as Oakland Arena).

It would take about 5 mins to get to The Catalyst.

It would take about 55 mins to get to CEFCU Stadium (formerly known as Spartan Stadium).

It would take about 46 mins to get to One Step Beyond.

It would take about 5 mins to get to Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

It would take about 1hr 4 mins to get to Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

It would take about 55 mins to get to Marriott's Great America (also known as California's Great America and Paramount's Great America).

It would take about 1hr 30 mins to get to Berkeley Community Theatre.

It would take about 1hr 30 mins to get to Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center (it was also known as Oakland Civic Auditorium from 1914-1984).

It would take about 1hr 34 mins to get to the Old Waldorf.

It would take about 50 mins to get to Keystone Palo Alto (it was also known as the Vortex in the mid-80s, then The Edge in 1989, and closed in April 2000).

It would take about 4-5 mins to get to Santa Cruz Cinema (which was originally known as Regal Cinema 9) and Landmark Del Mar Theatre.

It would take about 15 mins to get to CineLux Capitola Cafe & Lounge.

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #thoughts #tlb 1987 #the lost boys (1987)#santa carla #writing help #writing reference #fanfiction help #the lost boys fanfiction #writing research #1980s

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mostlysignssomeportents · 13 days

Text

Uplinkchump Linkdump

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

It's Linkdump Saturday! This is the day on which I clear the giant backlog of links from the previous week that I haven't managed to post in my newsletter's "Hey look at this" sections. This is my 19th linkdump; here's the previous 18 dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Let's start with some fun and games. Liam is a high-schooler who created "Bad Plumbing," a Jenga-style boardgame using a variety of 3D printed shapes; the game was a smash hit at his local game-jam, so now he's kickstarting it:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liamclift/bad-plumbing

The shapes are delightful and Seussian, and there's a very ingenious game dynamic that's not just "make the pile bigger." You can pre-order for $30, and for $100, you'll get a version with a custom-designed shape of your specification. I backed!

It's lovely to see something that's both excellent and delightful, but to be honest, the majority of this week's links are excellent and enraging. Most of these links from The American Prospect, which has, under David Dayen's executive leadership, gone from "a magazine I really like" to "the first thing I read every day."

This week saw a the Prospect publish a stunning series of articles on prices, a sacred object for neoliberal economists, who see them as the carriers of the information that allows society to order itself for maximum efficiency and broadest benefit. Unfortunately for these economists, the love-affair with prices is one-sided: they may love prices, but prices hate neoliberalism.

The dogma that says that any government interference in pricing will destroy the economy by "distorting" prices does not survive contact with reality. The instant the government steps away from regulating monopoly, and its handmaiden, fraud, prices go batshit crazy.

This week's Pluralistic newsletters were dominated by this brilliant series in the Prospect. On Wednesday, I wrote about the Prospect's investigations into algorithmic and surveillance pricing:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

And yesterday, it was the epidemic of junk fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off

There's more than I could fit into the newsletter, though, like Friday's excellent piece on the scourge of surge pricing by Sarah Jaffe:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/

Jaffe's piece was especially interesting given economist Ramsi Woodcock's compelling case that surge pricing is a per se violation of antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#pure-transfer

The Prospect series was so timely. After decades of pricing orthodoxy, economists like Isabella Weber are making huge waves (and attracting a tsunami of abuse). Weber's interview with Vass Bednar on the Globe and Mail's Lately podcast this week is a must-listen:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-the-millennial-economist-who-took-on-the-world/

(Though if you get your econ ideas from the New York Times, you'd miss this whole revolution, as the Grey Lady's views on prices remain mired in the Reagan era:)

https://twitter.com/HalSinger/status/1798849195664916648

Few prices are more important than the price of the roof over your head – after all, "shelter" is only second to "food" in the hierarchy of needs. Dayen's Friday story for the Prospect in NIMBYism gets to the crux of the cost-of-living crisis: people who own houses want houses to be expensive, and will go to enormous lengths to make sure that shelter costs as much as possible:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-06-07-homeowners-want-housing-prices-to-go-up/

Dayen attributes this to "the wealth effect" – that is, most people would like to be richer, and the minority of Americans who have a positive net worth owe that status to rising house prices, and the plurality of Americans who have a negative net worth thanks to a mortgage are counting on rising house prices to flip them into the black.

When America threw off the Gilded Age, we charted two courses to prosperity for working people: labor unions and home ownership. The ruling class cannily convinced us to rely solely on the latter. The housing emergency raging across the country is the inevitable result of that decision:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

The Prospect's consistent brilliance isn't merely an editorial matter, of course. The magazine features a recurring cast of some of the best muckraking writers in the field, and the absolute peak of that impressive pile is Maureen Tkacik. Tkacik's work on Boeing is stunning:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Her labor coverage is second to none:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

And no one writes better than her about private equity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

I am in pure awe of Tkacik's prolific and expert work. So when I read her piece on Long Covid in the Prospect this week, I was stunned to learn that she has been severely disabled by this heavily downplayed – but rampant – chronic illness:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-06-06-nih-perpetuating-long-covid-denial/

The fact that Tkacik is doing this career-defining, high-frequency work while being randomly smashed by a series of acute Long Covid incidents makes her achievements nothing sort of heroic. But Tkacik's Long Covid coverage isn't a lament for her personal situation – it's a characteristically brilliant investigative story about the systematic cover-up of Long Covid by the NIH, which has a long history of dismissing inconvenient illnesses as psychosomatic, from black lung to chronic fatigue.

Tkacik's Long Covid coverage adds yet another subject where I'm learning more from the Prospect than from other sources – part of a host of issues where the magazine leads the pack. An issue far more squarely in its wheelhouse is antitrust, especially the intersection of antitrust and labor rights.

This week, I eagerly devoured Luke Goldstein's story about the latest in a series of lies that Amazon executives were caught making to the US government:

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-06-06-senators-allege-amazon-lied-delivery-drivers/

You may recall when Jeff Bezos lied to Congress, claiming that the company didn't spy on its sellers and clone their best products:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836

Or when Amazon posted a lying rebuttal to a Congressman who objected to its drivers being forced to pee in bottles in order to meet its punishing schedules:

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/our-recent-response-to-representative-pocan

The latest lie: Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy lied to the Senate about the company's relationship to its drivers, whom it insists are "independent contractors" because they are hired through cutouts called "Delivery Service Providers":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

These drivers work for Amazon. It dictates their working conditions. It installs cameras that watch their eyeballs while they drive. It enforces an illegal "no poach" system that fixes their wages. And it lies about all this. To the Senate.

You know what they say, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Tech barons go through life in a warm bath of their own bullshit, surrounded by lackeys who are contractually prohibited from calling them on it. They forget that there are people out there in the world who won't offer them this deference – including lawmakers and regulators.

That's why Facebook lied to the FCC when they bought Instagram, withholding key information in order to secure regulatory permission for the merger:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftc-claims-facebook-withheld-information-152834983.html

After decades of inattention, the world's governments have discovered a newfound energy for busting trusts and smashing corporate power. Five years ago, it looked like maybe this was a fixup by Big Cable or Big Content to take Big Tech off the board so they could claim more dominion over our lives:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/04/why-is-there-so-much-antitrust-energy-for-big-tech-but-not-for-big-telco/

Today, every sector is coming in for antitrust scrutiny, and the tempo is only increasing. Just this week, the FTC and DOJ opened investigations into Microsoft, Openai, and Nvidia:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/6/24172868/ftc-doj-antitrust-openai-microsoft-nvidia-investigations

Yeah, there's still a lot of policy focus on tech, but that's because tech has extended its tendrils into every area of policy. That's the end-point of a decades-long process of tech going from sitting alongside important policy questions to being inseparable from them. I've had a front-row seat for that transformation, through my work with EFF, whose brief just keeps expanding as tech infuses every aspect of our lives and rights.

The latest example; EFF's "Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests" by Rory Mir, Thorin Klosowski and Christian Romero:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/surveillance-defense-campus-protests

The military has gone all-in on electronic surveillance, and campuses have gone all-in on militarized policing, so campuses are now sites of electronic warfare, and protesters are vastly overmatched. This is an excellent and timely guide.

Well, this is where this week's linkdump comes to an end. It only falls to me to send you off with one last week: Libro.fm's buy-one/get-one sale on DRM-free audiobooks, with a share of each sale going to an indie bookstore of your choosing! This is a heckin deal, and a great way to start weaning yourself off of the Audible monopoly (also, my latest novel The Bezzle, is in the sale):

https://libro.fm/bogo

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/08/medley/#the-prospect

Image: Cjp24 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Automobiles_in_a_french_junkyard.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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