Bully Punches You in the Mouth
Here’s a site that offers some techniques for communicating effectively during tense conversations – Quick Verbal Tactics. My favorite example of the technique in action is Scenario #7 The Bully.
Bully: Shoves you and mumbles, “Jerk.”
You: “Why did you say that?” (respect question)
Bully: Shoving you again, he says “Because you’re a jerk.”
You: “I can’t allow you to keep doing that.” (outcome statement)
Bully: “Oh yeah?? What are you going to do about it?”
You: “Whatever you force me to do.” (outcome statement)
Bully: “Wanna fight?!”
You: “I’m not interested in fighting you.” (outcome statement)
Bully: “We’ve got a chicken here!”
You: “Why are you angry with me?” (respect question)
No kidding, this is where it ends. As if it’s RESOLVED. As if the bully is now so wowed by your respect for his feelings, and your stern declarations of outcome that he’s all “Oh forget about it you crazy kid, I love you!” Or this one from Scenario #9 The “Come Here” Jerk:
Them: “Come here.”
You: “Why?” (respect question)
Aha! Gotcha! Didn’t think I was going to ask why you want me to come over there, did you? Well I’m asking, sucker, I’m asking. It’s so great to finally have a good response for “Come Here” jerks like that. Here is Scenario #5 The Manipulative Gossip (I have added the third line myself, for completeness and accuracy):
Gossip: “I’m not saying I do, but some people here think that you’re a suck-up.”
You: “What do you gain by telling me that?” (respect question)
Gossip: “Fuck you, suck-up.”
Lessig and Tweedy
A couple of months ago Lawrence Lessig (author of Free Culture) and Jeff Tweedy (from Wilco) had a discussion about P2P, file sharing and copyright at the New York Public Library. The audio and video has been posted, and if you’re at all interested in this topic it’s really worth checking out. Lessig gives his famous powerpoint presentation (which is the best I’ve ever seen about any topic – I love that man) and Tweedy talks about his feelings on the whole file sharing thing from an artist’s perspective.
My favorite piece of this discussion is Tweedy’s description of how they used the internet for the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot situation. Reprise dropped Wilco because they didn’t like the new record. Tweedy figured that they’ve only ever made money by touring, and without a new record, there’s no tour. Since they didn’t have a record company telling them what to do, they released it FOR FREE on the internet and toured. Tens of thousands of downloads later, they were picked up by Nonesuch records who released YHT as an actual CD. It then became their biggest selling album ever, despite the fact that there had already been plenty of people who downloaded it for nothing. An interesting counter-example for the argument that file sharing can only hurt artists.
This is an important topic whether you are an artist or a pirate. Listen, watch, read the book (which is available free under a Creative Commons license).
More Fun with MP3Tunes
Let me know when this gets boring, but Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow is now #5 in the list of top albums and Jonathan Coulton is now #1 (!) in the list of top artists. No special quirky filtering necessary. Dear Brobdingnagian Bards: eat it, sincerely, me.
I thank all of you who have been kind enough to buy my music from one of the only sites that lets you do whatever you want with the music you buy. As they say, w00t.
How Do You Like Them Apples?
Airplay people! Airplay! Ikea has been getting a workout on a few specialty/mix shows at various radio stations around this great nation of ours, and is actually showing up on the fmqb submodern chart, tied for #10 with Dropkick Murphys and The Aquabats. What does this mean? Who knows!
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