Jim Connelly

Tom, Don’t Sue The Chili Peppers!

June 5, 2006 by Jim Connelly

An Open Letter to Tom Petty,

Tom, you don’t know me, but I’ve been a pretty big fan of yours for nearly 30 years. Recently, I read an article that said that you might be contemplating suing the Red Hot Chili Peppers because of “similarities” between their new single “Dani California” and your 1993 hit single “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

All I can say is this: Tom, don’t sue the Chili Peppers! While it might be legal, it just wouldn’t be right.

The Weekly ‘Loper – June 4, 2006

June 4, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While you were praying for the strength to leg press 2001 pounds, here’s what we were looking at:

Books And Bytes – It’s All Good – There is no one perfect method to store human knowledge and information. Just as long as we keep storing it in every conceivable manner.
How Can I Burn iTunes Videos To DVD? – In the inaugural edition of yet another new feature, “Dear Lopy,” we tackle the thorny issue of why you can’t burn those cool iTunes videos you legally downloaded to a DVD for easy viewing.
Some Saturday Suggestions – In the age of time-and-space shifting, perhaps the networks oughta rethink their wholesale abandonment of an entire evening.
Long Tail: Introduction Version – Among many many other things, the Long Tail is also good for niche artists, who can have long, fruitful careers without ever becoming actual household names. Just ask Yo La Tengo.
That’s What I Like: Jennifer Crusie – Kassia looks at an author who helps her get through the summer that has already exploded upon us with a thousand points of heat.
Forget 2.0 WSJ Is Going Straight To 3.0 – Is the Wall Street Journal going turn into the first true newspaper of the 21st century?
Teaching Kids About Copyright Laws – You know how The Joker or Lex Luthor would periodically pretend to perform great acts of public service, all the while furthering their nefarious purposes? Say hello to Captain Copyright, who just might be the Medialoper’s mortal enemy. What will happen next? Tune in tomorrow: Same Lope-Time, same Lope-Channel!

Some Saturday Suggestions

May 31, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Once upon a time, the TV networks gave a rats ass about Saturday nights. It almost seems apocryphal, but there was a fabled season long ago that had this Saturday night lineup: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. Three solid hours of comedy all-timers.

Slow-forward about 35 years, and what do we have on Saturday nights? As Al Swearengen might say, a huge bag of shit. Sports. Reality. Magazines. Not a single scripted comedy or drama. Saturday night has become a major TV casualty of the overabundance of entertainment choices, and the networks aren’t even bothering to address it.

But isn’t there *anything* they could do? Maybe. But it would involve taking a gamble on some programming concepts that they’ve been slow to embrace, and actually taking advantage of what I will dub “The Spinal Tap Paradox.”

The Weekly ‘Loper – May 29, 2006

May 29, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While you were trying to figure out exactly the hell was going on with that Lost finale, here’s what we were looking at:

That’s What I Like: O’Reilly Media’s Safari Bookshelf – Kirk likes how O’Reilly migrated their essential technical books seemlessly into the eBook space.
Publishing Versus The Net Generation – What that the rest of the publishing world could learn from O’Reilly’s success instead of fighting the inevitable.
Copyright And The Artistic Process – Kassia wades into the continuing struggle between artists recontextualizing existing art to create new works and the copyright holders of said existing art.
Why Not The NiPod? – It is, of course, entirely possible that the two greatest advertisers of our age will use their combined muscle to make the Nike+iPod Sports Kit the must-have item of Summer ’06. But I doubt it.
The RIAA Is “Feeling Pretty Good” – Next up for the RIAA: suing a fetus for “future intent to download copyrighted music.”
That’s What I Like: The Lightwedge – I’m really still amazed at how simple it is, and wonder why it took so long for somebody to come up with it.
Lopetop Theater – Series One, Episode The First – Lopy is excited to be the emcee of our latest feature, and hopes that you’ll think of her as the Ed Sullivan of the 21st century.

That’s What I Like: The Lightwedge

May 26, 2006 by Jim Connelly

I don’t sleep very well. If the noisy neighbors downstairs aren’t slamming doors and scraping furniture at 1:00am, then something that I should have done at work instead of writing for Medialoper is bothering me.

So I read, hoping to distract my brain away from whatever is going on so that my body will drag me to sleep without my brain realizing it. That’s the theory, anyways. However, when Rox sleeps, she likes it dark. Vampire coffin dark. So there has always been a bit of a problem with me waking her up when I need to read in the middle of the night.

Until I discovered The Lightwedge, the bestest book light ever.

Why Not The NiPod?

May 25, 2006 by Jim Connelly

I am a runner. At least five times per week, I get up at an incredibly stupid hour and run several miles through the dark, quiet streets where I live. It’s just a thing I do; the one piece of order in an otherwise chaotic existence. Also, I get some of my best ideas through oxygen deprivation. (Some might say that all of my ideas seem to come from a place of obvious oxygen deprivation.)

Like the vast majority of runners, I listen to music when I run, and I also listen to the radio. I own an Nano (which I don’t use for running because they refuse to build in a radio receiver), and I certainly don’t have any animosity towards Nike, whose shoes I wore for several years. As a matter of fact, in just about every way, I would seem to be the target audience for the Nike+iPod Sports kit.

So why am I not more excited about it? Is it just because you’ll separate me from my New Balances when you pull them from my cold, dead feet? Or is it something else?

[Read more…] about Why Not The NiPod?

The World Cup of Bad Music

May 22, 2006 by Jim Connelly

This week, millions of people will be participating in one of our most cherished democratic rites: choosing the next American Idol.

And unless there is another fluke of “Since U Been Gone”-like proportions, that winner will go on to have a completely inconsequential career, annoying us with hype far beyond even any actual sales.

And yet, and yet, as evil as Idol is, it’s just a swaddling babe in the woods compared to the grandaddy of all bad music contests — the Eurovision Song Contest. For a half-century, it’s been foisting upon the world acts such as Lulu, Abba and the Shivery Silvery Queen of Melisma herself, Celene Diononnwaoonnnonnnnwwwaaaoonnnnnnn.

It’s pretty much the World Cup of Bad Music. OK, the European Cup, anyways.

The Weekly ‘Loper – May 21, 2006

May 21, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While you were standing in line to see The DaVinci Code, here’s what we were looking at:

Why I Hate The Sunday Paper – And of top of all that, it’s 2006 and the LA Times still hasn’t figured out how to keep newsprint from melting in our hands.
Upfronts: Will Studio 60 Be The Greatest Thing Ever? – Is NBC hoping for too much from Aaron Sorkin?
See You Next Year! – With 45,090,999 shows on 98,909 networks (not an exact count), not to mention the Internet, DVDs, and all of the other choices for your ever-dwindling mindshare, Season Finale Season is becoming increasingly anachronistic.
Hillary Rosen vs. the RIAA – Though she’s currently on the side of the angels, it’s amazing how some people’s principles shift with their paychecks.
Upfronts: CBS? More Like CBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ – I was trying to remember the last time CBS put out a drama that I was interested in, and I seriously can’t. Is it me? Or is it them? It’s them, right?
No, No, Let’s Wait – Remember how Radio replaced Newspapers and how Television replaced Radio and how the Internet replaced Television? Me neither. So why do people insist on thinking that these choices are “either/or” instead of “and/or”??
BEA 2006: News Embargo Broken – A report from BookExpo America in Washington, DC., where oldest of old media is quite possibly having the most trouble adapting to the newest of the new media. Also, erstwhile National Nanny William Bennett? Whalelike.

Upfronts: Veronica Lives!! FOX, Not So Much

May 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

I know, I know — we’ve all been reading for a few weeks now that the low-rated but critically-loved Veronica Mars was going to make the cut at the CW, but I wanted to wait until it was officially announced.

I’m so happy that I promise not to make fun of their name for at least a few months. Though I think, given all of the narrowly targeted shows that they offer — the aforementioned Veronica Mars, Smallville, Supernatural, 7th Heaven — their name stands for “Cultshow Watching.” OK, now I won’t make fun of their name.

It will be interesting to see where they go. More towards the WB than UPN, I should think. By the late 1990s, the WB pretty much took over the mantle from FOX as the network that would try just about anything. Yet anybody who actually watched their shows could see that there was much more going on than pretty white teenagers who happened to be aliens and/or superheroes.

Upfronts: CBS? More Like CBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

May 18, 2006 by Jim Connelly

The original plan for this week’s look at the upfronts was to single out a single interesting thing that each network was doing with one of its more interesting shows.

That plan worked out fine for NBC, who are pinning their hopes on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and ABC, who have responded to rerun-crazed Losties by putting the kibosh on repeats.

But when I got to CBS, I realized that from where I sit, they really don’t have any interesting shows.