Cathy’s birthday. Here’s Michael Franks with Popsicle toes in commemoration.
A genuine, actual genetic difference between male and female homo sapiens is blood-flow to the extremities. Men can deftly work a bow or a knife or a snare in weather that leaves women with frostbite. We were talking about this at dinner the other night with Pirate DJ Russell Shaw. Another topic of conversation was the idea of the epicene, the sexual ambiguity in art upon which Camille Paglia built her early career. Here is Bryan Ferry as a post-modern epicene performing These foolish things.
And while I would rate both of those tunes as good jazz, they’re both really very clean jazz. Here’s something a little grungier, piano bar jazz for for Zillow’s dive bar, Tom Waits with On the nickel.
I don’t want to be mean to Redfin.com. It’s Christmas, for one thing. Plus which, Cynthia Pang, Redfin’s PR Queen, is even nicer than David Gibbons. And, all things considered, Redfin’s latest bold PR thrust is not all that awful. But still, it is funny…
The fact is, these Dilberts don’t actually work in real estate, or they never have until now. Not just Redfin.com, but all the venture-funded Realty.bot mechanics. I think there were people at Zillow who really did believe that real estate could be sold without intermediaries. And Redfin beams with an infant’s delight every time it discovers something actual working professional Realtors have known for years — had to learn in order to survive as actual working professional Realtors.
But, take just a moment to consider this idiocy, which was on BusinessWeek’s Hot Property weblog earlier today. What is it? Fake news generated by a Realty.bot and spoon fed to a mainstream media outlet. The “story” itself is stoopid, but the transaction is atrocious, exactly the kind of media whoring that all of us should rebel against — exactly what the mainstream media has always been and what the world of weblogging should never be.
In this light, Redfin’s press release is not so bad. The advice it proffers is actually good, even if it is comically obvious to anyone who has gotten good at getting paid for doing this job. It is going to form the core of Redfin’s agent-training program, and that really is funny — though maybe not so much if you’ve sold a home with a Redfin agent who didn’t know this stuff.
In any case, it is in that light that I am going to cover it, albeit briefly. It’s funny to me. It should be funny to anyone reading this here. But it’s not as bad — all things taken together — as it might be.
So here we go, with a death grip on the obvious: “Seven tactics for selling a home.”
Don’t overprice your property. You just can’t make this stuff up, kids.
Set your price to show up in web searches. That means pricing in Read more
I admit that I haven’t paid much attention to Zillow.com’s forums feature since it was announced. I argued then that forums were a mistake, and that the design paradigm should be the weblog. There are many good reasons for this, but a very important reason is that weblogs are defensible redoubts — “for each one spot should prove beloved over all.” Internet forums, by contrast, frequently devolve into free-for-alls, Kilkenny cats’ battles survived only by the rudest, most vulgar, most odious participants.
Is this going on at Zillow.com? Ask China Moon Crowell, a Wisconsin Realtor. She posted something innocuous to a Zillow buyer’s forum and found out that she is crispy flame-bait. She has had the most vitriolic scorn heaped upon her, and she has been called a variety of incendiary names. Her initial purpose was self-promotion, surely, and this might in fact be a violation of Zillow’s rules. But if it is, her slap on the wrist was delivered with a cat o’ nine tails. At this point, China just wants to kiss Zillow goodbye, but her parting seems to be delayed by an email loop.
But, what the hey, that’s free speech, right?
Wrong.
No one has a right to free speech on another person’s property. Zillow has decent rules on bad behavior, but, from a spot check I did this morning, they’re not being enforced. This again is a curse of a forum as opposed to a more-proprietary kind of salon: The ratio of crooks to cops can be unworkably high. If the discussions on Zillow were broken up in weblogs, then each weblog “owner” could establish his or her own tolerance levels — just as I do here.
The way to think of social spaces on the web is to analogize them to social spaces in the real world. (C’mon! You can make the leap!) When you go out for a drink with friends, you go to a place where you feel comfortable. If you’re gentle, smart and prosperous, you’re not going to pick a place where Fight Club wannabes are welcome. And if Fight Club really is your favorite movie, you’re Read more
Warren Zevon again, this time with the Boss on vocals and banging on a blistering Telecaster. I forget who suggested this, but I’m playing it tonight for the Hatfields and McCoys at Point2 Agent. The song is Disorder in the house:
Zevon was in the process of dying when that video was made. “You lose your grip and then you slip into the masterpiece.” I’m willing to cut Leonard Cohen a lot of slack, and A thousand kisses deep seems like the proper requiem for the excitable boy:
Warren Zevon’s Mohammed’s radio for Russell Shaw, recovering pirate broadcaster:
Patty Loveless has one of the richest high lonesome voices in newgrass. This video, You’ll never leave Harlan alive, is all but nothing visually, but that’s really not a defect: The sound is so rich that just about anything would get in its way. This is very nice exposition of people who are chained everywhere they look.
Adventure seeker on an empty street,
Just an alley creeper, light on his feet
A young fighter screaming, with no time for doubt
With the pain and anger can’t see a way out,
It ain’t much I’m asking, I heard him say,
Gotta find me a future, move out of my way,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.
Listen all you people, come gather round
I gotta get me a game plan, gotta shake you to the ground
Just give me what I know is mine,
People do you hear me, just give me the sign,
It ain’t much I’m asking, if you want the truth
Here’s to the future for the dreams of youth,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.
I’m a man with a one track mind,
So much to do in one life time (people do you hear me)
Not a man for compromise and where’s and why’s and living lies
So I’m living it all, yes I’m living it all,
And I’m giving it all, and I’m giving it all,
It ain’t much I’m asking, if you want the truth,
Here’s to the future, hear the cry of youth,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.
Next is Bruce Cockburn’s Lovers in a dangerous time covered by Barenaked Ladies: Brutal winter, a cover that’s better than the original and the extreme liberation of that stand-up bass.
To finish the day, we have to rank on the mainstream media: REM and LL Cool J KRS-One with Radio song. “Now our children grow up prisoners/all their lives, radio listeners!”
I was going to rank on the mainstream media, but I’ll save that for tomorrow. This is more Michelle Pfeiffer, singing Makin’ whoopee from The Fabulous Baker Boys.
Another bride, another June
Another sunny honeymoon
Another season, another reason
For makin’ whoopee
A lot of shoes, a lot of rice
The groom is nervous, he answers twice
It’s so killin’ that he’s so willin’
To make whoopee
Picture a little love nest
Down where the roses cling
Picture the same sweet love nest
See what a year can bring
He’s washing dishes and baby clothes
He’s so ambitious, he even sews
But don’t forget, folks, thats what you get, folks
For makin’ whoopee
Another year, or maybe less
What’s this I hear? Well can’t you guess?
She feels neglected and he’s suspected
Of makin’ whoopee
She sits alone most every night
He doesn’t phone, he doesn’t write
He says he’s busy, but she says “Is he
Out makin’ whoopee?”
He doesn’t make much money
Only five thousand per
And some judge who thinks he’s funny
Says he’s paying six to her
He says, “Now, judge, suppose I fail?”
The judge says, “Son, right into jail
You might just keep her, I’d say it’s cheaper
Than makin’ whoopee”
This one is from Brad Coy, who wanted to tip his hat to pseudonymous commenter Joe Strummer with a Joe Strummer cover of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.
If I have a favorite Clash tune it’s This is Radio Clash, simply because I like the idea of a pirate satellite. As with pirate radio, the actual capital outlay per independent broadcaster (or publisher) turned out to be much smaller. Ecce sum vivens in saecula saeculorum et habeo claves mortis et inferni. Take that, Dan Rather!
But: Don’t let’s forget that these are the same knuckleheads who brought us Sandanista, so we should close with a more rational kind of psychotic violence, Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise.
Not all rap sucks, and I’ll watch Michelle Pfeiffer in anything.
At the 2007 Star Power conference in Phoenix I learned about Jott, the safe and legal way to text message while you’re driving; so when I noticed Greg using it to send himself a reminder, I signed up, too. This is a tool that has really come in handy. When my dad was still alive he would tease my eighteen year old niece and me about text messaging. He couldn’t understand why anyone would prefer something so clumsy over simply using that cell phone to talk. But there are times when text messaging is more appropriate — for example, when the timing of your message might be an inconvenient interruption for the person who you telephone. You may want to connect with someone in a more passive way. You’re not disturbing them like you might be doing with a phone call, but your message is more intimate, direct, immediate than email. My dad was right… texting manually can be clumsy, tedious. And what do you do when you’re driving? Here’s where Jott is champ. I hold down the J key on my Treo, tell Jott I want to jott Cindy Client, say “please call Cathleen when you’re free to talk,” and hang up. My voice is transcribed to text and that’s sent to Cindy Client’s phone as a text message.
I know I’m behind the times… as long ago as last monthblogs were abuzz with the cool ways the cool people at the NAR convention were mashing up Jott and Twitter and Utterz and WordPress. And here I was, like my dad when he was questioning texting: Why use Twitter? How will that help me, my family or my business? Since last night, when I signed up on Twitter, I’ve connected in a different way with people whom I’m already reading and feel kin to by blogging. And I’m not sure yet whether this Twitter-difference is better. It’s not as though I’m going to save any time by reading a 140-character version of Read more
Another way of understanding the unchained idea is to envision a world (I call it yesterday) where marketers avidly sought ways to tie down consumers — with tricks, with lies, with a lack of alternatives. Consumers have broken those chains. That world is gone.
The defectors know something you don’t. The defectors know that if they hurry, they can build a new monopoly, a monopoly you don’t control. They know that they can build a direct and long-term relationship with the end user, one that will survive competitive incursions and will last a long time. If they hurry.
And so, learn from these folks. You should hurry. You must hurry. If you understand that the game is radically and permanently being changed, you can go out today and start building mutually beneficial relationships with your listeners/readers/watchers. You can offer these folks something of value in exchange for their attention. You can then build a new monopoly.
More:
You have a relationship. You understand that every interaction has to benefit BOTH of you or the relationship is over. If you’re going to build a monopoly on consumer attention, you’ll need to do the same thing.
Here’s how I boil it down to as few words as possible:
1. Make it easy for your happy users to tell as many of their friends as possible.
2. Give away free samples early and often.
3. Get permission from anyone who likes what you do to follow up with anticipated, personal and relevant messages that benefit both of you.
4. If this requires changing what you make and what you charge for, fine.
5. If steps 1,2, 3 and 4 mess up your current business model, fine.
The article is about the mainstream media monopolies, but it’s directly apposite to the real estate industry. Read the whole thing.
This is a Teri and Greg mash-up, which is appropriate. It was Teri who first brought up the idea of musical themes for Unchained. At that time, I wrote this to her in email:
Here is why I like Unchained:
The idea of free or even feral dogs
Unleashed implies has-been-leashed or will-be-leashed-again, but unchained can suggest never-having-been-chained
Again unlike unleashed, unchained has connotations of human slavery or imprisonment, and hence manumission or liberation
The word looks and sounds hard and edgy, promoting a hard and edgy graphic representation
Teri cares about dancing, though, so we start with this, Fred and Ginger, George and Ira and all that jazz:
I like that talented-nebbish-gets-the-girl thing, and I like the idea of people growing into their own moral authority, and who better to express those ideas in dance than… Jim Carrey…
Finally there’s this, from the King of Soul, James Brown:
Are you dancing to a different beat? Tell us what we’re missing — but be patient. I have dozens of tunes on queue and it will take a while to get to them all.
Johnny Cash’s cover of It ain’t me, babe is used to huge advantage in the Cash biopic, Walk the line.
It’s all over now, baby blue is another one that gets covered a lot.
Here’s a tune that no one covers: It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you’d just be
One more person crying.
So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know Read more
