I think I know it all, relatively speaking. | | | | Dead &Company live at Dodger Stadium. 7/7/18. John Mayer is not a good guitarist. Not great. He is beyond exceptional.
(Jim Brock Photography) | | | | |  | “I think I know it all, relatively speaking.”
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| | rantnrave:// Went to my first DEAD & COMPANY show on Saturday night at DODGER STADIUM in LA. It's a great place to see a show, but beyond really poorly run getting in the actual venue during a concert. I grew up with new wave. Classic rock and rock came next. Then some blues and jazz. The GRATEFUL DEAD were never my thing. I don't think I knew any songs. But over my lifetime I've had hundreds of friends who loved them. And went to hundreds of shows. And they don't shut up about them. One of my pals, ERIC EISNER even produced a documentary about them, LONG STRANGE TRIP. A 4-hour doc to be exact. So while I missed the original. I got a shot. As you may know, JOHN MAYER is part of Dead & Company. And as you may know, I'm a big Mayer fan. He's a prodigious pop songwriter. He gets a lot of s*** for writing great pop songs from know-it-all "critics." It's hard to deny his talent. My playlists have at least 30 good ones. But Mayer is also one of the great musicians of our time. A great guitarist to be exact. Now on his albums, the guitar serves the song. He doesn't show off. But there are many memorable solos. But when you see him live he can stand next to basically anyone. He shreds. He's played with all the greats. The greats you would go to for comment. From ERIC CLAPTON to BUDDY GUY. They all praise him. With Dead & Company, he's taken his talent to another level. Not his songs, but not easy to play by any means. Amazing how he's picked up the songbook. He's playing with just about the best musicians on earth. Loved every minute of the show. Dead fans are super nice and supercritical. And he's been accepted. You hear it from those sitting next to you, Or you hear it in the crowd roaring after a solo. And he clearly loves it. Grinning ear to ear. He's not a good guitarist. He's not great. He's beyond exceptional. As his friend RICKY VAN VEEN said to me via text, "It’s truly unreal"... In 2012, NETFLIX said its goal was “to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." But what does competing with or being like Netflix look like in 2018? Today we publish MATTHEW BALL’s Part 3 in our own REDEF Original Series on NETFLIX MISUNDERSTANDINGS. Part 1 explained how Netflix spends much more than you might think. Part 2 focuses on why Netflix is a technology company, not a media one, and what that means (good and bad). Part 3 discusses why Netflix’s invests so aggressively in every aspect of its business – to monopolize the entire premium video market (and potentially others, too). You have to skate to where the puck is going as they say. Netflix is ahead, not impossibly so, but by a long while. Just replicating their playbook isn’t enough. You have to be different... Then there was this article in the NY TIMES about HBO and AT&T that started a big TWITTER debate. Lots of economics class mantras on the twitters. With an unfortunate choice of words from AT&T's JOHN STANKEY. "Bigger... Broader... Engagement." Unfortunate because he was taking to the premiere creative organization in the business and they don't necessarily use those words. And they (and critics) are worried that they just want "stuff" to shove through the pipes. But I know what he meant. The media business is a business of minutes. And you get that through your programming/content, etc. Doesn't mean it needs to be schlock or tonnage. And the verbiage may not suit the know-it-alls. But that's what it is. And most of the comments are around HBO trying to be NETFLIX. Which is not the case. Or they just make fun of the telco where the execs sometimes wear blue jean shirts with wooden buttons with AT&T logos. Me? I say, back off the hot take judgment. AT&T has been giving HBO away for free and below cost for two years now. They are playing the long game. HBO knows how to run their business. Give them a minute. HBO has been managed by TIME WARNER to sell. That means they've been hamstrung in spending. They turn away shows they would do at the same level of quality they are known for. My guess is that they could spend $2-3 Billion more on programming (still not Netflix, still not CHARTER) and grow their base substantially. They also need to fully embrace all the release velocity and functionalities that OTT-only services like Netflix have introduced and mastered. And that release velocity is how you get users to stay after they binged GAME OF THRONES. Refer back to our piece from 2015, It said HBO should go truly over-the-top (i.e. take on the product, customer service, billing, delivery), collapse CINEMAX into HBO, add kids content, ramp volume, take back foreign operations (v licensing). Netflix goes high, medium and low. They are Netflix and they are great. HBO is going to do more high. And they have room to. It's not about a 1-to-1 race. It's about them being able to be bigger while still being better. Once that tapers, they need to pull back. But only then... Saying someone is considerate is a big, big compliment. At least from me. Great trait... The lead story on the news every night should be these kids at the border at their treatment. And not fall for all the other daily nonsense this pig perpetrates... Happy Birthday to MERYL POSTER and WENDA HARRIS MILLARD. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| Netflix may be playing a dangerous game, but it's not doing so recklessly. To the winner, goes untold spoils. | | |
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 | Atlas Obscura |
| Hat tip to Tom Freston. Turns out it's an image thing. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Despite inadequate rules and toothless regulators, we must battle to safeguard our voting system | | |
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 | BBC Four |
| BBC4 documentary hosted by self proclaimed comic book fan Jonathan Ross. He charts the career of legendary Marvel comics artist Steve Ditko and seeks out the reclusive artist to possibly be granted an exclusive interview? | | |
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 | Wired |
| The social network exploded in Myanmar, allowing fake news and violence to consume a country emerging from military rule. | | |
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 | Open Culture |
| Jews made their way to America, culminating in a massive surge of immigrants towards the beginnings of the twentieth century." Impelled by economic hardship and brutal persecution, the migrants came from Russia and Eastern Europe and settled all over the country. | | |
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 | Kotaku |
| When one of "World of Warcraft's" top ten guilds recruited Cam as their chief hunter, his suicidal thoughts surged. To earn the enviable invitation, Cam had spent 16 hours a day grinding on "WoW, "to the detriment of everything else. | | |
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 | Vanity Fair |
| After five tumultuous years, construction on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally underway. "Star Wars" creator George Lucas may be one step closer to establishing a showcase for his collection, but his project has landed in the least likely of cities. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| The trouble with living in this year of our Lord 2018 is that startling, bad, once-in-a-generation things happen with such swift and disconcerting profusion. You can be upset about some things all of the time, and everything some of the time, but you can't be upset about all of the things all of the time. | | |
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 | Locus Online |
| For 20 years, privacy advocates | | |
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 | Aeon Magazine |
| A new interpretation of a classic psychology experiment will change your view of perception, judgment -- even human nature. | | |
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 | Brian Balfour |
| I rarely accept guest posts on this blog, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. A couple months ago Tal Raviv (Growth PM @ Patreon) sent me a short email - "Brian, the results are in. We doubled (yeah, doubled) new creators in our onboarding." My imme | | |
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 | Tedium |
| Pondering the nature of digital connectivity in the one room nobody wants to consider internet access in, even though we use it all the time: The restroom. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| In the Czech Republic, "terapie tmou" is said to restore the psyche--through seven days without light. | | |
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 | Polygon |
| Inside the first ever TanaCon, a convention thrown by YouTuber Tana Mongeau to rival VidCon | | |
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 | POLITICO Magazine |
| How politics, and Donald Trump, turned America’s most important repair job into a $30 billion grudge match. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Five centuries ago, the world’s longest rave took place in Strasbourg - a ‘plague’ of dancing that was fatal for some. What caused it? Art, poetry and music of the time can provide some clues | | |
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 | BuzzFeed |
| The unusual prosecution has been praised by men's rights groups, but Nikki Yovino's confession has raised questions about how police treat women who report rape. | | |
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 | Salon |
| There's a common perception that Muslims pose a threat to the security of the U.S., but the real threat is to them | | |
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 | Fast Company |
| Amazon Web Services, a government contractor, was among the sponsors of a recent conference at the hotel, raising concerns about conflicts of interest. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Dead & Company (feat. John Mayer) |
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