brooke maury

photo courtesy of floetic_justice @

Man – the King of Pop is dead. I did not think I would be writing that any time soon.

Like most people of my generation, Michael Jackson played a very big role in my pre- and early teens. We all loved his music, his mad dance moves and his larger than life presence.

But I’m pretty sure I took it to another level when it comes to fanaticism. I adored him as a kid. I still do. I had all the paraphernalia – a sequined glove (made by my mom), the thriller jacket, the beat it jacket, pins, posters, pictures and all of his records. I listened to Thriller everyday and cried when he caught fire during that commercial filming. I attended the Jackson 5 Reunion Victory Tour at RFK stadium with my mom when I was 11. As a “DJ”, I judge a song’s value by whether or not I can mix it with Billie Jean.

Despite all the things that have transpired since the height of his popularity, all the things that he has been accused of (the worst of which I don’t believe he is guilty of), and all the odd things he’s done or said to have done, he will remain in my mind that brilliant, massively talented and plainly bad ass performer of the 70’s and 80’s.

I’m personally saddened by his death. At least I know I’m in good company.

We have a new sound system and fresh sounds to pump through them. Get up and get down to Olive this Friday, 6/19!

Because it's like that.

Becaue it's like that.

This Friday at Olive is a special one. Stitcher won a Webby People’s Choice award, and we are throwing down at Olive to celebrate. Add to that the usual fun @ Olive on the 3rd Friday of the month, and you have a perfect storm of fun! Come on down, meet the Stitcher team, have a drink, eat some pizza, listen to some music and generally enjoy yourself!

Pappa's got a brand new bag!

Come on down to Olive for a night of music, food, friends and fun! It’s a gorgeous day and the evening will be divine. Hope to see you!

It’s that time of the month again, folks! And in a good way. Come on down to your favorite Tenderloin establishment for delicious music, food and cocktails. Listen to the Infamous Jeannie Yang and the Notorious Brooke Maury drop tracks you love, or love to hate.

Come say hi! This Friday – 3/20 8PM – late.

Get up for the down stroke

The differences between the old administration and the Obama administration will be many and massive. One difference that I hope becomes most striking is the relative transparency of the two administrations. As citizens, we deserve deep access to the decision making apparatus in the White House. The last administration was notorious for it’s opaqueness. Hopefully the Obama administration will follow through on its commitment to be bring unprecendented transparency to government.

If the new White House website is any indication, they are moving swiftly and boldly in the correct direction. Via various sources, compare the ‘robots.txt‘ file from the old site, to the new site:

Bush:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /query.html
Disallow: /omb/search
Disallow: /omb/query.html
Disallow: /expectmore/search
Disallow: /expectmore/query.html
Disallow: /results/search
Disallow: /results/query.html
Disallow: /earmarks/search
Disallow: /earmarks/query.html
Disallow: /help
Disallow: /360pics/text
Disallow: /911/911day/text
Disallow: /911/heroes/text
…. (x 2,400)…

Obama’s:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /includes/

That’s it! An encouraging, if small, indication of where we are going. Of course, this also illustrates a more elegant design that perhaps precludes the need to disallow crawling on 2,400+ different locations. Either way, it’s so nice to see smart work coming out of the highest office in the land. On a side note, nice work to all the folks who put this together! Congratulations.

Come on down to your favorite Tenderloin establishment for NYE! I’ll be spinning with the infamous Jeannie Yang starting at 9.

Practice saying it. President Elect Barack Obama. Has a ring to it, no?

I never thought I’d have a video of Colin Powell on my blog, but these are strange times. This is a remarkable statement by Colin Powell. His endorsement isn’t shocking given his statements over the last few months, but his frankness and honesty are stunning. I was really moved watching this.

Among other things, the McCain campaign seems to be drifting into the unsavory ranks of alleged copyright infringers and digital pirates against whom the senator no doubt has voted time and again on the senate floor.

Wired magazine is running an article today that the McCain campaign has complained to YouTube executives that the company is way too stringent with regard to the company’s take-down policy for content that a copyright holder claims violates their copyright.

Evidently, the McCain campaign has seen several of its ads removed from YouTube after copyright holders complained that the content contained material that was copyrighted and not cleared to be used by the campaign. McCain says the ads are protected under the Fair Use doctrine. Fair what? Poppycock, McCain! The ads may or may not be protected under fair use, but the point is that your campaign doesn’t seem to realize that there may be legal issues at stake when you use content that isn’t original. Says the Wired article:

The letter is notable both because YouTube and online video generally have become prime platforms for communicating political messages during the 2008 presidential campaign, and because this is one of the rare instances when a member of Congress is speaking out in favor of fair-use rights, after experiencing for themselves the onerous burden put on citizens using media to express ideas.

Snicker. Who the hell is running this ridiculous, Orwellian mockery of a campaign? This isn’t the first episode of McCain’s campaign misappropriating content, and even people, in their advertising. Remember the whole Paris Hilton fiasco?

The McCain campaign, and John McCain himself, seem to have completely lost their way. I truly hope that John McCain can return to congress when this is all over and rediscover some of the good qualities he once possessed. Given his recent copyright travails, maybe he can now take up the mantle of fair use and end the strangle hold copyright holders have on creative expression once and for all.