Snap, Crackle, and Popular Culture

I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Behind the high pitched 15 year old voice, executives are making a substantial amount of money. This is not because Justin Bieber is a good musician, it is because people think he is a good musician in the way that people are superficially taught things. The fact is, Justin Bieber himself, is not a good musician. I am qualified to say this because I have listened to music at least once in the past. There is just no way possible to enjoy his lyrics, but, when combined with a studio beat, the lyrics become secondary, and the clashing of his high pitched voice make for the perfect formula- a new pop song is born.

Pop, as I understand it, is not music. Rather, Pop, is the commodification of music and a manipulation of the cultural understandings of people. For these people, these listeners, Pop defines the way they associate things such as: premature understandings of love, premature understandings of relationships, and further defines the way younger people interact and associate. In a sense, Pop, is a musical fairytale that seldom reaches beyond the naïve. The is apparent because naivety is demonstrated in correlation among Pop’s range of listeners. The younger the listeners are, the more concentration of sycophants there is. This then sharply diffuses in proportion to age.

Pop is not serious music and should not be taken as such. This is because while Pop gives the appearance of genuine emotion, it is actually a reflection of what it perceives, and how it perceives it’s listeners will feel. The reason for this is that people tend to purchase what they feel comfortable with and people feel comfortable with things that they can draw associations.

Pop removes all the intrinsic emotional, and brilliances that are found amongst non-Pop genres and is a cash-flow conspiracy backed by corporate tycoons, and tainted “producers.” But, this is not necessarily such a bad thing…

Because revenue’s generated from Pop music sales are so advantageous, it provides a fund of money which allows record labels to invest in musical talents, not falling into the pop category. Simply stated, when a record label invests in a pop “artist,” they are hedging on the guarantees of instant success, which then allows record companies to put out albums for artists who are not as, and will never be, as “successful” as pop artists.

This is a bit of a mystery because it appears that the success of non-pop music relies upon pop music sales (in an economic sense). This is further confirmed by the use of Usher is Justin Bieber’s music video. Usher does not perform, he merely appears, and the association (the endorsement) aids in increasing listeners (which translates into revenues).

So, all-in-all, Bieber is a myth. He is the front-man for executives who know how to manipulate music markets, but in a sad way, we need him. We need the successes of popstars in order for nonpopstars to disseminate their music by ways in which they otherwise would be foreclosed from doing. My guess is that electronic media and electronic distributors (e.g., iTunes, Amazon, etc.) should have an impact on this. The result of which should logically allow nonpopstars to become successful for nominal amounts of monies put up by the record companies in which they belong. While I would like to say something along the lines of “…this will lead to the end of the need for Pop music,” I just can’t. I can’t say it because, it is not true.

It is not true because the revenues that would be recycled into investing in nonpop artists are just transformed into profits. Superadd the thought that brick-and-mortar music stores will soon be a recollection in history, it makes for one heck of a profit now that CD’s will no longer need to be produced.

Additionally, it is also not true that Pop music is coming to an end because Pop music has characteristics similar to a cancer. One of these attributes is that it spreads, and once it spreads, people define themselves according to the messages conveyed. When people define themselves in such a way, they become devout, and when there is a devout following (+ the potential to make a lot of money) there is no incentive to stop making bad nonmusic such as Pop.

Blame profit, blame bad taste. Pop is an economic anachronism.

Bookmaking is a crime. It is a crime because the government has an interest in maintaining traditional notions of social values, and it is a crime because the gains gotten from betting are seldom reported as income and thus not taxed. So, there are two issues: First, the government has an interest in promoting social values, and secondly, the government likes to get paid.

This law is still enforced as it is illegal (in FL) for a person to accept, facilitate, or place bets unless they are: (a) Native American, (b) a registered parimutual, (c) the government conducting a lottery, (d) all of the above.

Promoting Social Values

Another crime (in FL) is recognized by Florida Statutes 798.01, and 798.02. Together, these are known as Florida’s Adultery laws. In sum, Florida makes it a crime, to engage in what are considered adulterous acts. This can be seen as the law’s recognition and promotion of healthy family lifestyles, in accordance with traditional social mores. These laws promote and protect the values and sanctity of things such as marriage and the role of family.

But, as technology is making it easier for people to keep in touch, technology is also making it easier for people to meet. For example, take the Ashley Madison Agency. The Ashley Madison Agency is a website that promotes marital affairs. “Life is short, Have an Affair” says the homepage, which also states that it has over 4.5 million members. In fact, the website guarantees that it will “change your life” with the “Ashley Madison Affair Guarantee.”

As a student of the law, I see several issues with this website. Please keep in mind that none of this is to be taken as legal advice, rather I am merely proposing possible legal issues and not solutions. Readers should seek a licensed attorney for legal advice.

Issues

Criminal Solicitation AKA Advertising

Criminal Solicitation involves asking, enticing, inducing, or counseling another to commit a crime. Certainly, Ashley Madison’s advertisements are simultaneously asking, enticing, and even possibly counseling another to commit a crime, namely adultery. Thus, it can be seen that the Ashley Madison Agency might be vulnerable for criminal solicitation in states that recognize adultery as a crime. At common law, in order to be guilty, the solicitation must actually reach the other person. Therefore, all television advertisements seen, radio commercials heard, and emails received, would be considered individual counts for criminal solicitation. But, more shocking is that under states laws which have adopted the Model Penal Code, the solicitation does not have to reach the other person. This may actually enable Ashley Madison to consolidate any possible liability.

Furthermore, it is interesting to query the possible liability of television shows/radio shows/websites that have aided in the advertising of this agency (I.e., Dr. Phil, Good Morning America, etc.)

The Agreement AKA Criminal Conspiracy and Attempted Adultery

Conspiracy involves an agreement between two or more persons, an intent to enter into the agreement, and an intent to achieve the objective of the agreement. Thus, when members, either after they are solicited, sign up, or sign up for the adultery service on their own accord, they are entering into an agreement with the intent to achieve the objective of the agreement. Therefore, it would appear that any active accounts in the Ashley Madison database are considered illegal via criminal conspiracy. Readers should note that the agreement does not have to be express as criminal conspiracy recognizes implied agreements too.

The Overall Scheme AKA Aiding and Abetting in Criminal Activity

The above demonstrates the propensity for the Ashley Madison Agency to aid and abet criminal behavior. Thus, the agency might be liable as a coconspirator/codefendant.

Contractual issues: VOID AS AGAINST PUBLIC POLICY, CONTRACT TO ENTER INTO AN ILLEGAL TRANSACTION

Parties seeking to rescind their contracts might be able to challenge their membership agreements by arguing that the contract/membership agreement is void as against public policy, or that it is a contract to enter into an illegal transaction and thus void. Ultimately this means that over 4.5 million membership agreements are simply void.

Pay me… Please.

While I do recognize that Florida’s adultery law is an “old law on the books” and that the Government may not care because we will assume the revenues are reported, and taxes are paid, it is interesting to consider that government acquiescence might lead some to believe that the government is an inadvertent promoter of illegal conduct.

** PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS POSTING WAS PUBLISHED PRIOR TO HANNITY’S INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MOORE**

I have just seen Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. I did not pay to watch this film, and as such, I don’t think that anyone should pay to watch this film either. Doing so would just make Moore richer, and according to this movie, America should be moving away from making people, like him, richer.

Just like all of Moore’s movies, this is yet another one which presents his sensationalistic one-sidedness. At first I noticed that one of Paramount’s subsidiaries put this movie out. This is interesting to me, because the only interest that a company like Paramount would have in releasing a film like this, is nothing more than to make money. In other words, Paramount knows that Michael Moore’s films create controversy, and that people pay to learn about and become a part of controversy. In effect, this is an investment, to make money off of an anti-capitalistic movie- its an anti-capitalistic captialist investment. One should note that the total gross for this film thus far exceeds $5,000,000.00 which, granted, is not a lot of money for a feature film, but then again this is not a franchise film, nor a box office blockbuster. Rather, it is a near three hour twisted history lesson with amateur special effects.

To be fair, there were some interesting “factoids” which this movie brought to light that piqued my interest, but that’s not the purpose of this review. Rather, I think it is important to review the things which I witnessed the audience’s most animated responses. It is my belief that because Moore is good at mixing images with dialogue that are antagonistic to each other, he is able to manipulate and convey messages of his choosing. Additionally, there are other things that I think Moore did not give the audience a fair opportunity understand, and all of the aforementioned combined, plus some feeble minded movie-goers who take Moore’s word as gospel, makes for a heck of a social experiment.

On to the analysis…

At a point in the film, Moore convinces the audience that he is exposing greedy corporations because they are profiting off of the death of their employees. In other words, Moore explains how corporations take out insurance policies on their employees. When the employee dies, the corporation, as beneficiary, is paid according to the policy. This, juxtaposed with a family who lost a mother/wife that worked for one of these corporations and did not receive any money, makes the audience shreek in horror. Though, when one stops to think about the situation there really is nothing wrong with this because the corporation, as the employer, has an insurable interest in their employees. Why should the corporation’s rights under the insurance policy be impaired because the private individual, or the family, failed to take out its own private policy? The answer is: it shouldn’t. But, with all life insurance policies the owner of the policy and the policy provider have interests which are diametrically opposed. The policy provider hopes that the insured (the person who’s death will trigger the pay out) keeps living. This ensures the continuation of premium payments, and the prevention of the policy provider from having to pay out a large lump sum of money. On the other hand, the policy owner (who sometimes can be, and often is, the insured) is basically saying: Hey insurance company! I know how to beat you, all I have to do is die. This is the basic fundamental’s of life insurance. It is not as morbid of a concept as Moore makes it out to be, instead life insurance is an investment tool to protect those who rely on others, when that “other” is no longer there. It is a type of risk avoidance.

At various other points in the film, Moore “captures” several families who are going through foreclosure. Scenes of ejectment and eviction cause the audience to watch in shame. Moore, then uses these images and superimposes them with scenes of “greedy corporations.” The fallacy of all of this is that at no point does Mr. Moore assess any personal responsibly on the borrower/mortgagor for taking out a loan that they couldn’t afford- instead, it is the fault of predatory lenders, who, as it would seem from watching the film, forced families to buy houses that were unaffordable. At no point did it appear to me that any audience members saw that Mr. Moore was guilty for the same thing which he was proselytizing banks for. Michael Moore is making money off of people who are losing their homes by capturing their loss on video, and selling it to an audience. No where in the movie did Moore say that he would contribute any of his profits to the families who lost their homes and helped make his film sell. To me, this is just as egregious and exploitative.

Moore also faults businesses for going kaput. It would seem that he is almost suggesting that business is always supposed to be profitable. From the beginning Moore projects 50’s utopian images of the American worker. These images, taken together, capture the evolution of Horatio Alger’s dream, the American Dream. Moore then shows the results of failing businesses- that is, dilapidated neighborhoods, and the increase of the jobless. Subsequently, Moore calls for higher taxes for the rich, which mind you, it is the rich who create jobs, not the poor. This is another inconsistency of Moore’s because if you tax the rich, that is less money that the rich can use for things like: reinvestment into small closely held businesses, to buy products which takes laborer’s to create, or to purchase accessions which need to be installed by other skilled laborers. So much for Moore’s solution to unemployment.

Towards the end of the film, in humor, Moore rents a brinks truck and tries to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on entire Boards of Directors for some of the world’s largest banks. He tries to ask for our, the taxpayer’s money back, but is rejected and he is often escorted off private bank premises by security guards and police.

I do agree that Moore does raise some interesting issues: For instance, the relationship between Goldman Sachs and the approval and enactment of the $700,000,000,000.00 recovery act. But, again, this seven hundred billion dollar figure is actually a misrepresentation of what is needed to dilute toxic assets because most people do not consider the fact that not all of the assets which the money ($700bil) is being used to purchase, are toxic. Moore explains that the only reason that this bill was passed was due to fear mongering on behalf of the media, and corporate tycoons who had their hands in the pockets of big government.

Moore then goes to Washington to visit the constitution. He asks the security guard where he should check in the constitution to see where it guarantee’s a capitalistic financial system. This is just more misplaced humor because according to Moore, the security guard qualified as an expert on constitutional interpretation. The inference that people may have missed is that the constitution is a fundamental document of American democracy. The document promotes individual liberties and freedoms. Capitalism is the crystallization of free individuals and the ability of those individuals to determine on their own, how to spend or invest their money in a free society. Remember, their money, our money, your money, is a representation of the fruits of labor. In any other economic system, where there is government intervention, there is less freedom, and thus a more attenuated connection with the guarantees of the American constitution.

Over all though I agree with the general theme of this film and that is: People do some pretty bad things for a buck or two. Additionally, I am a strong believer that there is a price for everything. At the end of the film, Moore calls for a revolution. For someone with a networth exceeding $50 million dollars, this is a sick joke because Moore is not a revolutionary. Rather, he is someone who has been successful for taking advantage of a capitalistic system that allows him to reproduce his thoughts and images at a markup. To me, that is romantic.

CHOP CUP from :weareom: on Vimeo.

Remember it now?

Although there are many things that I don’t understand, as of right now, two are of the utmost importance. The first thing that I don’t understand is what to  say to someone who has won over 150,000 tickets in virtual skee-ball? The second thing is: how does one write a song that nobody can legitimately dislike?
While I don’t know what you would say to the individual with a lack of social life for being the most achieved virtual skee ball player, I do know that Bill Withers’ Lean on Me is a classic. No, wait. It is better than a classic, because sometimes there are people who dislike certain “classics.” This is where Lean on Me wins by a long shot because no one can ever dislike this song.
Lean on Me is not just a song, it’s an existential/emotional guide for the ill. Though Withers’ other songs include Aint No Sunshie, and Just the Two of Us, it is my opinion that Lean on Me continues to subvert the mainstream (although it is and was mainstream at a point) by being buried in history, only to be used on certain occasions. What makes this song an anachronism is that it will always be perfect.
So, what do you tell the individual who has the highest amount of virtual tickets earned in virtual skee ball? Well, how about “…we all have sorrow, but if we are wise, we know that there is always tomorrow. Lean on me”?