Opening acts

We saw Alice in Chains open for Velvet Revolver last Saturday at Jones Beach. It was a great show, but it reinforced the drawback of having an established opening act.

Let me explain by example. We saw Stone Temple Pilots open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Jones Beach a bunch of years ago and STP blew us away. They played only eight songs, but each one was amazing and had a ton of radio play. Vasoline. Interstate Love Song. Some of my favorite songs ever. Add in the fact that I never thought I’d see them in concert before Scott Weiland overdosed and it was a powerful experience. Scott mooned the audience as they unfurled a giant American flag at the end of their set and I sat there in awe.

Then the Chili Peppers came out and bored me. I knew at least half of the songs they played and I even loved their new Californication album at the time, but every time I tell people about that night I’m telling a story about a brilliant STP show.

Now Scott Weiland and most of Guns N’ Roses are the band called Velvet Revolver. You’d think that some of that STP concert magic would have rubbed off of Velvet Revolver, but no such luck.

Alice in Chains came out and I knew every word to all of the songs they did: Grind, Again, We Die Young, Down In A Hole, Man In The Box, Would?, Them Bones, Dam That River, Rain When I Die, Angry Chair and Rooster.

Amazing.

Then Velvet Revolver came out and bored me. Sure I loved their take on the GNR songs It’s So Easy, Patience and Mr. Brownstone. They even played Vasoline and Interstate Love Song.

The funny thing is that if the bands were switched, Velvet Revolver would have done a tighter set with only their best ten songs and the long Alice in Chains set would have had some boring moments.

It’s a no-win situation.

Blog baiting

I was pretty sure when I saw this in the newspaper yesterday that Hilary was hoping this one would go viral — getting blogged by hundreds of A-list bloggers and increasing her audience ten-fold. At the very least it will get clipped by the moms of all the kids who live in their parents’ basements while they create the next big blog network.

Over on her site, Hilary explains how you can get Rhymes with Orange in your local paper:

The very best way for this to happen is to contact your local paper and tell the editor what you like and don’t like on the comics page. I think Rhymes With Orange appeals to a small niche of witty, intelligent and incredibly good-looking people. (As you know, not everyone falls into this category, so not everyone is going to get, or like, the strip.) To newspaper editors, I write one of those “edgy” strips. Letting the editor know you like the strip will be a buffer every time someone calls up saying, “I just don’t get that Rhymes With Orange strip. Can’t you just print Garfield twice on the page?”

Remember, you can’t spell hilarity without Hilary.

Better than watching Geller bending silver spoons

Better than witnessing newborn nebulas in bloom.

(Pardon me while I burst into song.)

Niki and I saw Incubus two Thursdays ago at Jones Beach. I already loved the band and knew two of their albums intimately, but they still blew me away. They put on a fantastic show. What an amazing vibe. I would see them again in a heartbeat.

Here are five photos from our seats. Looking at them today takes me right back to that night at Jones Beach.

I dig my toes into the sand. The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds — strewn across a blue blanket.
I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless. And in this moment I am happy — happy.
I lay my head onto the sand.
The sky resembles a backlit canopy — with holes punched in it.
I’m counting UFOs. I signal them with my lighter. And in this moment I am happy — happy.
Wish you were here.

Just for the taste of it

Every now and then I have some awful dream where I’ve made some weird life choice and I’m regretting it. Sometimes I’ve married the wrong person or I’m stuck in a crazy job that I should have never taken. Other times I’m back in high school with one more class to finish to get my diploma because of some mix up. It doesn’t matter that I’ve already graduated from college.

The other night I dreamed that I was sipping on a can of Diet Coke by mistake. I had opened it up out of reflex after staying away from Diet Coke for five months — my last Diet Coke was on March 15.

To make matters worse, I was on my second can before I realized what I was doing. I had to start my streak over again. I was so disappointed with myself for not noticing what I was drinking. How bizarre.

They do it down on Camber Sands, they do it at Waikiki

What a great Squeeze show the other night. Slap And Tickle was the highlight of the show and I never could have predicted that. Their keyboard player, Stephen Large, was unreal and between Jools Holland and Paul Carrack he had some some gigantic shoes to fill!

Niki snapped some great pictures and here’s the one she sent me.

I took way more pictures at Incubus and those will be online soon too. I like it when Niki sends me pre-treated and pre-sized JPGs instead of raw camera photos. How cool is that?

Reactions to AOL being renamed TMZ

The most amazing thing about the AOL->TMZ meme was the thoughtful commentary.

  • “I have to admit that yes, it’s probably time for a change.” Bill Hartzer
  • “Mark my words, this is the act of a frightened set of executives that don’t realize that they are the big dog and they control the shots. They need to focus on how they’re going to market to potential customers instead of over-reacting. These are exciting times online. It’s only going to get more exciting. Rebranding will hurt AOL ultimately.” comment on Bill Hartzer’s blog
  • “No one cared that much about Alvey while he was here so I can’t value his insight that highly.” comment on Bill Hartzer’s blog
  • “It will be stupid thing to do. How come they are ready to bury their reputation and brand value? Do you think you can become popular by changing the name and starting the game again from square one?” comment on Bill Hartzer’s blog
  • “Hey, some people thought the name ‘Wii’ was a joke.” POPwink
  • “AOL hired child molesters in their kiddy chat areas”… “TMZ will inherit the same bad reputation that destroyed the AOL brand, and when you consider that TMZ will be using the same Big Brother tracking that AOL used – it will soon be known to all that their surfing on TMZ might be reported to the world, possibly Big Brother and definitely advertisers – people will stop visiting TMZ.” comment on Shawn’s Blog
  • “SRSLY? TMZ? As in the celebrity gossip silliness? Isn’t that gonna freak millions of senior citizens out when they go to check their email ( using their 2400 baud modems )?” comment on Ryan Block’s blog
  • “I RTFA. Did you RTFA? How is that article a joke? what is a joke is that you got 26 digs by people who did not RTFA.” comment on Digg
  • “This is BS. Why would they change their name to a celebrity gossip site? That makes no sense. TMZ stands for ‘thirty mile zone’ which refers to the area around hollywood. It would be absolutely retarded for an ISP to name themselves that.” comment on Digg
  • “This post is an example of how to reply to a comment. Please look closely and learn.” comment on Digg
  • “i suppose they think if they just simply dive bomb into the ground they’ll come out on the other side a great company people want to use.” comment on Digg
  • “The best part of AOL is Weblogs Inc…” comment on Digg
  • “Good idea – stop pretending you are mainstream and start working solely on media-whoring.” comment on Digg
  • “‘The Moron Zone’ doesn’t have nearly as nice of a ring to it as ‘Army of Lamers,’ I’m afraid.” comment on Digg
  • “This could really spell a unique opportunity. AOL has been sliding for a while now, and they’re so far gone in the real search race that maybe the time is now for them to look in a new direction.” The Online Marketing Guy
  • “No, what Alvey didn’t mention — but would make more sense — would be to free TMZ from its warring parents, and all their conflicts. With 9.4 million unique visitors a month, TMZ could easily stand on its own. Forget an AOL spinoff. Bring on the TMZ spinoff.” Valleywag
  • “If you notice, Alexa and Compete graphs say that traffic for AOL has been decreasing steadily, and traffic for TMZ has been increasing. Personally, i think that this is a good decision, because AOL is renowned for the word dial up, and Internet newbies.” Kedoa Blog
  • “Why the hell would AOL do something so stupid? It would require so much work on their part, and it would be absolutely retarded for them to change an established name brand.” Tumbblogr
  • “Why do I get the feeling I have been had?” comment on Netscape
  • “How long do you think TMZ will last as a name?” Product-Reviews.net

Fantastic.

AOL changing its name to TMZ, part two

I wrote a silly post last week about AOL changing its name to TMZ and then I forgot about it.

Two nights ago I was at Rye Playland with Niki and our sons catching a free show from the Plain White T’s — that Hey There Delilah band — and letting the kids ride some of the safer-looking rides. I saw an email thread on my BlackBerry started by Jason about my TMZ name change idea getting picked up on a financial news site.

By yesterday morning the story had spread to more than a dozen sites.

Yesterday evening it was on Valleywag and Digg’s home page.

First, I have to say that I thought Valleywag snagging Owen Thomas was a great move — even before he wrote this piece and called my idea “brilliant.”

Second, I’m not sure what he means when he says “explain the joke” — what joke? Heh.

Here’s a quick round up of links related to the AOL->TMZ meme:

There are more than two dozen other sites out there covering the same story, but many of them are clipping sites which don’t add anything to the original story that they clipped.

Remember: it’s only a joke if it doesn’t happen.

UPDATE: I’ve collected a bunch of my favorite comments about the big name change.

Meeting Stan Lee

I’ve seen and met a lot of legendary creators at Comic-Con this week, but only one of them was Stan Lee. At the New York show I ran into him for about a second in the hallway when he was on his way to preside over his reality show contestants, just long enough to say hello.

This time I got the chance to thank him for the tour of Marvel that I got on my eleventh birthday. I’ll say more about that visit in the future, but for now here’s something for my scrapbook:


I hope that someday when I get my picture taken meeting Dave Grohl I am wearing my classic Spider-Man vs. Sandman t-shirt.

Update: When I finally met Dave Grohl ten years later at the Fillmore I was wearing a jacket. I’d like to think I have that Spider-Man shirt on underneath.

Welcome. You’ve got gossip!

My first thought when I saw TMZ headlines months ago next to the new AOL mail client was, “Why aren’t they showing any from our blogs?” Of course, headlines from Autoblog and Slashfood get a 0.5% click-through while a headline about Lindsey Lohan’s latest cocaine-related carjacking chase gets a 125% click-through, so I didn’t complain. Much.

Reading all of this news about how Facebook is the new AOL Buddy List and seeing how many people can only understand what I did in blogging when I tell them that my platform is what TMZ runs on, I am now convinced that AOL will be undergoing another name change by the end of the year.

Last year it changed from America Online to AOL and this year AOL will rebrand itself as “TMZ.”

Soon we’ll all be using TMZ Mail, TMZ Messenger, the TMZ Client and TMZ Space (formerly known as AIM Pages).

TMZ will gain members at a rate AOL could never have dreamed of.

It’s going to happen.

I can feel it.

Triple play

Niki, the boys and I spent the last four days in Cape Cod and on the last day of our trip I completed The Cape Cod Triathlon. I’m not sure if that’s its official name, but in the morning we played miniature golf, then Niki and I hit the batting cages and after that I did several minutes of intense trampolining at Jump On Us in West Yarmouth.

After beating me by four strokes the day before, Niki and I tied at golf. We both had a blast at the batting cages and did respectably well considering neither of us has swung at a pitch since we’ve known each other, which is more than eleven years. Surprisingly to me, I actually broke a sweat on the trampoline. I had no idea it was so much work.

Jump On Us has 16 trampolines arranged like pool tables in a pool hall, but level with the ground over five foot deep pits. You pay four dollars per person for ten minutes of jumping so money-wise I’m sure it’s cheaper than digging a hole in your backyard, building an enclosure with a roof and maintaining a bunch of trampolines.