The Future of Media

00:01 Regardless of the weather, rain sleet snow or even sunshine once a week you're guaranteed you'll get exactly what you want and it's not scheduled. It's no agenda can you tell I'm jet-lagged from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom? I'm Adam Curry I'm John C. Dvorak up here in what's going to be a hot day in Northern California and it is Sunday, we are a day late Adam was on a plane and sounds like it too Thank you Actually um... It was nice in Los Angeles I was there Thursday Thursday afternoon, Friday and part of Saturday it was absolutely beautiful. I mean it's a messed up town but they got some weather man let me tell ya. Well you know if you really want the great weather in California its San Diego and um...I can't imagine any place that beats Los Angeles actually. Ummm....I've only been to conferences in San Diego which uh... I'm sure has given me very skewed view of the city

01:04 Yeah, well it's not as you know as exciting is Los Angeles by any means but yeah man LA is so full of shit. It's just Unbelievable but it was fun we had a good time. Yes except for the traffic Well, let me think. We were up Friday... we had a Friday morning breakfast meeting at 730 and I recall saying to Ron in the car, I said dude where is everybody? He says man you're driving through Beverly Hills at 7 30 in the morning these people don't work at this time Yeah give them a few hours and they'd be there Exactly

01:44 Hey, I just wanted to say or did you want to start off with something because I had no go ahead. Yeah We've got a couple items that I've been You know hey by the way? You know so I got on Twitter yeah How many you got now you passed 10,000 on the phone limit? Yeah? I'm at ten thousand two Seventy or something like that unbelievable It's not bad for you like somebody pointed out. I've only been on for 20 days dude. I don't have five thousand I'll get you some more. Yeah, yeah could you please can you please pimp me out a little bit? I need more fans! More followers!

02:21 Is that how it works? Now, you know the thing is not the number of followers like I'm an expert now. It's not the number of followers...it's the quality of the followers. Oh yes! I have to say though my 10,000 are high-quality people Of course they are, of course that goes without saying but now you're right and we had this conversation last week You want to have people who are gonna take your information and do something with it hopefully propagate it further Well, that or give you stuff you need to know about. I mean, I query the group every once in a while for stuff and so then when I put out... In fact, I'll put this on Twitter. I need to find the best program that's out there with Shareware open source or whatever that takes a DVD and then turns into a viewable file on your laptop without... You know? In other words, I want to move my DVDs through a laptop portrait

03:15 For a trip, but I don't want to bring the DVDs with me. Well there's uh? I know on the Mac There's lots of there's lots of programs that'll do that Yeah, there's a bunch on the PC too but I haven't found one that I like. Right You know they either screw up or they give you the wrong...the files looks weird Or I don't know I just started looking for this yesterday so Give it a couple days On the Mac because I had to do this the other day on the Mac It's called fast DVD copy is the program I use and it was fast as like boom You know just did it and I could either make a copy or just Spin out of file to my desktop that was great Hey, I watched the... you gave me two DVDs. Oh yeah? One was empty! You're kidding?! It kept coming up as an empty disc. What did it say? Maybe I didn't finalize it or something. What did it say? What was written on the thing? Hold on, I'm getting there. The one that was good was Indie Spirit

04:17 Okay, I know what the other one is. There was a couple comedy things...I'll bring you another copy. The Indie Spirit Awards was kind of fun to watch actually! I thought you'd get a kick out it because when i saw that I was kinda amused by the fact that uh You know, this is probably the way the Academy Awards were when they began in the 30s or whenever it was. Yeah! It was cool and laid back and everyone's having a good time... And uh.. it was nice Right you had all those celebrities there but it seemed like a lot more fun yeah and ummm.... There's little more profane which is probably what I'm sure you appreciated That turned me on, yeah absolutely The other DVD was Stan Hope & Carlin Right right that's two comic things George Carlin?

05:00 Yeah, it's from George Carlin latest thing. Wait a minute... Is it brand new from George Carlin or is this something that came out like a year ago? It's brand new just came out because he did one about maybe was two years ago and that was no I know this is like a month ago now understand but did you see that when he did his big comeback thing Yeah, I've seen all of them. This one's better because he felt off to me his timing wasn't what it was. No he was terrible He was like he was sick or something this one here is kind of he superseded that he's gone beyond That that when you saw and now he's actually funny again. Oh, he's my hero. I love the only guy You know he's like a hyper curmudgeon so it's like very very funny. That's Hyper curmudgeon? I know I read that a lot It's like no agenda curry and the curmudgeon

05:47 Yeah, people like the word because I think they can spell it so Bring that disc back by the way cuz I want to see what would happen wrong. Okay? So here's one thing I wanted to say And it's something that probably will be better for a blog post But I'm just too tired to deal with the follow-up and all the comments and you know whenever I blog something about anything controversial It's just too tiring, so I just want to say it here. Podshow changed his name to Mevio and in general the change you know the acceptance people are like okay we get it that makes sense don't really understand where the names coming from and if anything The most comment is what the fuck is that name all about? Are you guys so stupid You couldn't come up with a better name

06:37 People always say that. Well, yeah but I just wanted to say because we did go through a process and this is literally the web 2.0 conundrum if you will We had hundreds of great names. I mean really really good names The URLs unfortunately the domain names were absolutely unobtainable I mean there were some...we had some good names dude We had like Mojo was one i liked that alot The Show was another one. Dude, people were asking $200,000-$300,000 for a freaking domain name and really nonnegotiable or negotiable but they just wouldn't give it up for anything that we felt was reasonably...just reasonable! Yeah you know I don't think Mevio is that bad by the way Callie Lewis in iCalli.com on her blog she has a very good post on the name change You mean the one where she says I'm still a podcaster?

07:35 I didn't like that post because...I liked it because i thought was explanatory. I also had a post on my blog where I read yours yeah crackdown thing no I thought I like that but there's a misconception you know this now there's this kind of meme running around people saying well did you see the video that Ron did okay so you've seen the comments on it No, you know I just I'm over it. You know I saw what I saw and then maybe it was a fine name and then on to the next thing but no I didn't read all the comments about Ron's. It was something else. Well no it was something else. Ron said there is no business model in user generated content. And a lot of people are like well what are we doing then? What a slap in the face of independent producers everywhere and podcasters!

08:27 user-generated content, am I wrong or is that not clearly understood as to be basically everything that's on these sites like YouTube and social networking sites? Isn't that more the definition of user-generated content?" Yeah it is to me but I think when you win the way was presented it sounds... You know the problem is what we're doing here which is commercially viable, no agenda show. is by broad definition, is user generated. And by the way let's take a look at the Star Wars movie By all you know by a broad definition it's user-generated I mean somebody... there's a person involved not done by a robot

09:09 So but no I think what they there has to be a better term Inside baseball people like you and me. I mean people that are in the business as it were that's user-generated Can snow I know everything we our definition of user generated means YouTube one shot videos Yes, exactly And or myspace stuff viral stuff on like Facebook or mice MySpace That also is whatever it is that's user generated in my mind. Yeah, or just your pictures on Flickr but yeah so no it's a lousy word, it's a lousy term I mean It's not very descriptive or too broad Right, too broad and when Ron says something public you know the next thing they're all over him The best comment I heard was people thought he looked like the Fonz

10:05 Now I did see that one. That was funny, he does. So it came back and we have a small pond in our backyard we have a very English garden is maintained meticulously by the woman who grew up in this house It was built in the late twenties So she grew up here and she's always done the garden, and now she's a gardener. And she maintains the garden it is really beautiful it's very mature we have upon which is man-made pond and its small It may be oblong so maybe six feet by four feet something like that Maybe little bit bigger but about that size Two ducks have come into our backyard Now are living in the pond which is great

10:53 You know, because I'm sure they're brooding. So it's a male and female and we've had property before where birds and ducks would come to roost or to breed...to brood whatever the hell it is To lay eggs But I was looking in the pond And there's about a 4-5 inch fish that has appeared It looks really weird! It has whole bunch of like fins I'm trying to get a picture of it, but you know the minute of course it comes that to the surface It's you know and I'm there with a camera. It pops back down But like how do I mean is this evolution at play or? How does a fish all of a sudden show up in basically a swimming pool? I mean how did that happen oh

11:39 I don't know. Are you asking me? Actually, yes, I am asking you. I'm not sure what your... Maybe your gardener threw the fish in or somebody threw it over the... Who knows maybe there was a fish egg that got thrown and got into somebody's eye. That's what I'm trying to figure out because this is really strange to us and Patricia said well i think a bird flew by and dropped it. And I'm like sounds ridiculous! It's possible Maybe a bird ingested something and pooped out an egg is that possible do you think no I that seems unlikely But I think the bird could have dropped it. Well, I'm gonna say yeah, I got a bunch of you know Predatory birds around my house There's a bunch of hawks And everyone so well one of them is carrying something this little too big of a load and they drop it Yeah drops it yeah, but it's a four-inch fish. It's just like appeared out of nowhere all right man We should throw some fish in there

12:32 No, it's not really meant to be a fish pond. We've had that... I don't like fish. I'm not into fish. Not big on fish. Unless it's on my plate So we're talking about food Yeah you forgot! We missed our date, I'm sorry. I apologize For what? You failed and bummed people like this to a degree that i don't want to get back down on the guys wanna thank uh... uh... john arnold who's a year who does photo walkthrough dot com is a british photographer yet he has a show on the on the network and he sent me a care package from england with some teas in it so nice finally somebody anybody what he said was you got some of the british twine at uh... some british deadly some mom

13:21 some Yorkshire that's in a different package. I'm always suspicious about the teas, you know like the twinings we get in the United States is packed in North Carolina or someplace like that and you can always find it on there. You have to look carefully and see it. And its never as good, it seems stale but this stuff from England is very good so he sent me a big giant box of twinings. I've never seen this tea before and he says this what he drinks instead of PG Tips. Which one is it? It's called every day. Oh, I've seen that. Twinings everyday... I guess I have to go back to England more often but it says twinings everyday and it is obviously meant to be a competitor with you know the

13:58 The Tetley's and the right PG tips and whatever else is every day, so I was actually Gonna do a taste test with you. So I tried it It's actually pretty good somewhere in between it actually tastes somewhat in between the regular PG tips and the PG tips gold It's a little more earthy. It's a little it's pretty smooth. That's actually not bad. I'll pick some up tomorrow Check it out see what you think yeah? I certainly will I did have dinner at coy in Los Angeles you familiar with that restaurant Yeah, that was damn good man. They had a Cod it was like a slab of cod with With the skin still on it and it was kind of in this sweet mmm Like this is kind of sweet sticky sauce that was over it And and the cod sliced chunk if you will was laid over a bed of rice It was it wasn't like addictive man. It was awesome hmm You familiar with that dish?

14:49 Never been there. You've never been to Coy? Oh... I don't go to LA much, you know. Yeah, yeah, so I'm sitting there and then someone walks up to the table, excuse me is your name David? Like, well is there any benefit if I am? No my friend said you just look like David the stylist. Oh no... David this hair stylist! Do you know him? You know David the hairstylist? No I don't but i could just see somebody seeing you thinking your hairstyles are that hair. Oh man Los Angeles I tell ya what a town

15:26 Yeah, it's an interesting place. I mean, I think it's vapid in a lot of different ways but it has its moments. It's very entertaining if you want to just kind of lose yourself in a brain dead shallow environment. Well what's been interesting is now... The business in general I think is in so much turmoil. And there's lots of consolidations and shit going on, because these studios... the finance for a movie comes from hedge funds you know? Have you ever read The Kid Stays In The Movie? Robert Evans autobiography No, but I've heard about it. Okay well don't read the book get the audiobook because Robert Evans reads it himself It is that would be an intonation That's great and he has a great voice so Robert Evans is the guy who produced love story The Godfather He was married to Ali McGraw I mean it's a fantastic story about Hollywood And the guy you know made a lot of money lost a lot of money, and he's still around he's not rich by any means But he's still a Hollywood icon and

16:31 In that book, I listened to the audiobook version. He goes meticulously how these... like the Godfather was financed and this was like the days of golf in Western big industrial, like the old German guy would cough up the money you know? And so this is a town in trouble because money's kind of scarce right now and there are less projects, less stuff getting green-lit as they say And everyone's talking about the web and the internet, and they have all these little buzz stories now. Even though no one has ever seen it I'm sure they're just

17:10 Copycatting what people are saying about projects like quarter life I don't know if you follow any of that but all these failed projects and but they're just also full of shit John They really know they're totally full of crap up down there. That's for sure Yeah, there's something you can get used to though You know now what you say is kind of interesting But it kind of contradicts What's actually in some ways going on which was discussed in great detail on shootout which is a show I recommend people watch if they're interested at all in the business side of Hollywood, which is hosted by Peter Guber. And Peter Barton Guber's of course a famous producer and also professor at UCLA.

17:49 It's on AMC and the cable channel. And then Peter Bart is editor-in-chief of Variety, and they have all these guys on that are amazing but let me preface it by mentioning the last time they had Coppola where he's complimenting Evans and as in a side he says But he's an incredible liar. Oh, but in the book they hated each other because Coppola wouldn't deliver the movie and he wouldn't deliver a movie under six hours so they literally took the Incredible liar part comes in but anyway But the copilot anecdote that he brings up which is that with Godfather 2 or got for the three things got father to he suggests bringing in another director

18:33 and he suggested Martin Scorsese. And Evans hate, said no way this guy's a loser! He goes on and on. They'll never make it in this town but anyway what they say though is not that there's a bunch of stuff that's you know dying on the vine but they two of them both say that in Hollywood right now they're actually over producing There's way too many movies being cranked out that are junk and uh... you know from canada in every place else and that the companies that are doing all these movies did he all the people at all of the studios now always big coming general electric or real via com and they don't really have any interest in the business answer everything to them some you know kind a bottom line item and um... it's just a business is just a mess well so

19:23 I think that what's happening is up until probably a year ago, maybe two years ago. There was a thriving DVD retail market not just for blockbusters or movies that had hit the cinemas but there was an actual market where you could produce a movie and it could be maybe a five million dollar movie or ten million dollar movie And you could make money by sending it straight to DVD And that retail market of DVD has melted, it's gone. So these are probably projects that were funded 12 to 24 months ago and now there is no outlet for them and it is disarray for sure and they all want to go online, they all want to do something and they all want their money up front which is not going to happen

20:12 Yeah, in fact one of the things I've noticed as a trend that I've been watching this show for a long time is that there are more and more of these movies that become successful and they're actually really good movies like Little Miss Sunshine for example. They bring these different people on from the show and uh... they uh... each of them says um... you know i why did i do this and by the design to bring about big-time actors in director said it is a sense scale or specker on scales back to india anything about basically work for free well that's the same thing with the uh... the the in the spirit awards a lot of big name actors were there who worked either for scale around spec

20:49 Right, which is an interesting labor of love versus mercantile approach. And I think there's a lot more of that going on in all forms of art. Hell yeah! I mean, I think writers are doing books on spec more than they used to... Obviously people were doing movies on spec more than they used to. So the amateur now is the one that comes up and goes, I need my money upfront! I need this, I need that. Yeah exactly, exactly. And I guess spec could... The web 2.0 version of that is what we call RevShare. Right. Hey by the way you open a chat room because I'm getting people twittering me about whether or not like you did last time? No, I didn't do anything

21:36 I mean, are you going to open a chat room? Oh, a chat- I didn't open a chat room last time. You opened something didn't ya? Was it a chatroom or an IRC channel or something? No no no! Not at all What show were you on John? It was a show with you. I'll go back and listen to the tape. Sure it's not something Leo did? Your real friend? No, no, Leo does that... he always done that but you did something off the wall and that why i got bunch of twitters this morning from people saying what is this Adam gonna stream this or is he gonna... Oh no no no! I know what it is, I know what it is. What I always do because people always want to know Whenever I fly somewhere myself or commercially when I land. I always Twitter Landed safely at fill in airport code and this morning, I landed and I said landed safely London Heathrow No agenda 28 coming up later today So that's what happened hmm so people are waiting for it That's what it is hey just staying in Hollywood for one second if you follow this Wesley Snipes story

22:43 It's weird. Dude, this is fucked up! Yeah I mean what are they- how do they get sp- you know what are you throwing? This is because it was not as though we haven't got enough You know, we have- this stat came up recently and people always complain about We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners I mean, it's like we just want to throw everybody in jail for any reason. But now we're having paupers jails? I thought that was always considered impractical! What you want to do is what they did with the Fresh Prince...what's his name?... he was at a tax bill like this and they just attached your salary for 10 years. Okay but so here's here's the story

23:21 So Wesley Snipes was advised by one of those kooky guys who, of course I'd love to do this because you know being a Ron Paul supporter. You know we all feel the IRS is illegal was never ratified and that the government has no right to take your money at a federal level And Wesley Snipes got one of these guys, one of these advisors who says he can prove that you don't have to pay any income tax. So they literally did not file and these guy's went... One guy got four and a half years the other guy got ten years so this is statement here is You do actually have to pay income tax Apparently you do But what pisses me off is you've got these Hollywood bitches like Paris Hilton

24:04 Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan driving around the city fucking tanked out of their mind an actual threat to society, and they go in for 24 hours. This is ridiculous! It's it's just killing me and meanwhile OJ Simpson is a free man. He's golfing, he's gonna do a reality show! That really freaked me out I've been going through some tax stuff in the US even though I paid my taxes for you know 99 through 2004 or whatever appropriate to file you have to file a form with

24:42 even if you're living in another country and paying taxes. And so either the forms weren't made up or whatever it is, so that had to be all reverse engineered and let me tell ya man these guys are heavy on me! Now I'm seeing this... Well here's the example they always do this, this has been going on forever they always find some guy they make an example out of him This is a worst case scenario So he got made an example just to scare the public And which is, you know the way it's just this. It's almost like a publicity technique but what bugs me the most is the jail thing because it's not as though that they attach and took his mansion or whatever but it's just saying we look for any excuse there is to just throw people in jail!

25:24 So people in jail and one somebody pointed out on one of these right-wing talk shows that I like listening to that You know the problem is is that these many of these jails are privatized? And these companies are making money by having more prisoners, and they're lobbying Congress to pass moral laws To make more things illegal with mandatory prison sentences realize it's a money making operation And I realized the other day in California you have us. I don't remember the term you have a special type of jail that you can pay You can pay, it's like room and board. It's a jail only you pay us a set fee per day And it's a luxury jail and this is where all these Hollywood bitches go to have you heard about this? Yeah I don't know anything about it But I haven't heard about it They came up in the conversation of some recently then I kind of lost track of it actually should look into it You should it's ridiculous if you have money you can go to a more luxurious Jail what a great country

24:42 even if you're living in another country and paying taxes. And so either the forms weren't made up or whatever it is, so that had to be all reverse engineered and let me tell ya man these guys are heavy on me! Now I'm seeing this... Well here's the example they always do this, this has been going on forever they always find some guy they make an example out of him This is a worst case scenario So he got made an example just to scare the public And which is, you know the way it's just this. It's almost like a publicity technique but what bugs me the most is the jail thing because it's not as though that they attach and took his mansion or whatever but it's just saying we look for any excuse there is to just throw people in jail!

25:24 So people in jail and one somebody pointed out on one of these right-wing talk shows that I like listening to that You know the problem is is that these many of these jails are privatized? And these companies are making money by having more prisoners, and they're lobbying Congress to pass moral laws To make more things illegal with mandatory prison sentences realize it's a money making operation And I realized the other day in California you have us. I don't remember the term you have a special type of jail that you can pay You can pay, it's like room and board. It's a jail only you pay us a set fee per day And it's a luxury jail and this is where all these Hollywood bitches go to have you heard about this? Yeah I don't know anything about it But I haven't heard about it They came up in the conversation of some recently then I kind of lost track of it actually should look into it You should it's ridiculous if you have money you can go to a more luxurious Jail what a great country

26:19 Where are they going to jail at all? Half the time these people shouldn't even be in jail. I mean, they have people on minor drug offenses you know they've walked around with some or they... Some weed on him and the next thing you know they're in jail for 10 years I mean who needs it and the worst part about that Wesley Snipes thing that bugs me the worse instead of collecting The money from the guy by making them do a million films And then just taking all the money and putting in the tax coffers Putting the guy in jail cost me money, and he shows like costs 40 thousand bucks a year to keep a guy in jail And it's like why am I paying? for his tax issue. I mean, why don't they just leave him out of jail and make him work it off? It doesn't make any sense that the guy would go to jail." And he showed up with $5 million in checks and said let me give you a down payment—he has to pay 17 million or something like that—and he showed up with money!

27:09 billion bucks, which they did collect by the way. They still throw them in jail but it just seems to me to be a complete back ass word way of doing things I mean and then the fact is that we're getting prisons are just ridiculous We have more people in jail per capita in the world and more people in total numbers in the world of any country I mean, this includes China and Russia and all these other crazy places. What's wrong with this picture? And then we...I was just watching the other day Schwarzenegger was on America's Most Wanted talking about how we need more prisons so we need to put more people in jail. How about doing something about the crime? Why is it happening? We're doing very important work John! We're making sure that death by lethal injection doesn't hurt too much. We've been uh..doing alot of work on that. Have you been following that?

27:59 Oh yeah, you know. God it's messed up! I think we'll go back to a guillotine anyway so... Yeah isn't that much less painful? I would think. Yeah and then it's over done with and I'm a big well fan is the wrong word, but I feel you know this should be televised We put everything in the world we kids getting shot up the fuck up in that desert. We put it all on television But then we're gonna hide it when we kill someone who we think is deserves to be killed really deserves It and that's that's a reality show we should do that it should discuss before I have actually

28:35 Figured that some years ago that this is one of these days I mean like the Roman Empire or whatever we're gonna have to televise these things But you know the fact is there's so few and these executions are so few and far between they just as soon keep these guys on death row You know forever, but that's what's great Mark Burnett will do a fantastic job because it will actually call it Death Row And every you know It's like The Big Brother house meets The Guillotine Because you know you've followed the inmates, you fall in love with them. They become endearing to you as they're on death row and then we kill them Yeah well that's never gonna happen in with this group that is currently running things They'd rather just put people in jail So talking about

29:18 the society being kind of um... posed skewed uh... no this is we're finishing up in today you probably notice it as your to busy with meetings but that this last week was greenweek you know i did notice a saw a saw buttons badges and posters this is what we can't do we always love debate lip service to these things buttons badges and posters everybody how greenery And it's the inside been actually recording a few of these things because they have like special There's two things that have cropped up that in the green week one is if you start to really start looking at some of The reports that were going on there's always the one that always sneaks in which always makes me suspicious Is there's always some anti meat?

30:05 Anti-beef, let's don't eat cattle kind of a slam in there which indicates to me that there is like bunch of vegetarians behind Great New East. I heard you talking about this... Is this the meat from a test tube? Well the meat from a test tube came out this week too, which is PETA's idea to make meat in a test tube. Which is sickening if you think about it I love that! Hey I'm making fish in my pond why wouldn't we make... But but I'm watching..I started off at the beginning of the week with watching Bill Maher and they're going on and then all out of the blue There's talking about some green thing and all the blue out of the blue Bill Maher goes when there's one other thing we need to talk about which is meat People eat too much meat and meet uses so much grain and all the grain industry doesn't talk about grass-fed Which is really the trend in beef, you know today as people don't want

30:58 grain-fed beef, they want grass fed. And most of these that means a cow can graze on an otherwise useless field and actually it's part of the cycle. It's very important for them to exist there. The buffalo used to do that. Like the Netherlands has cattle. You eat grass so where is the grain thing coming from? But its part of propaganda. So Mara goes off the deep end like some vegetarian nut ball about how this is the worst thing in the world. So meanwhile, a couple days later I'm watching a green report on one of our local stations Channel 11 in San Francisco Bay Area and they have this green report and then they have special logos and some screwball correspondence that look like a bunch of...

31:43 Sorry, you know so they bring on these kind of you know look like vegetarian vegans And so the woman comes on and she goes and then the real problem is meat? And she brings up to meet thing again She's that in any her thing though wasn't the fact that they eat a bunch of grain But that there this this is the this one here which is always like a eye roller This because they fart And they give off all this methane and it's the methane from the cows that are causing global warming. I love that, yeah i've heard that one. Every time I hear this I go what are you criminally insane to even bring this up? Throw that person in jail not Wesley Snipes! Are you nuts?!

32:24 So anyway, and but this is all part of this green week And it's just like there seems to be some vegetarian undercurrent you know with the whole thing and it just makes you sick to watch it because It's like obvious propaganda and the news reporters say nothing about especially this idiotic methane thing from the cows they say not by the way if they stop feeding them grain They probably have less farting It just grass-fed, but that's beside the point. But anyway there is nobody brings anything up and nobody questions any of this they just parrot whatever shows up from whoever is behind the whole thing and I'm suspicious to that And I find the whole thing incredibly annoying. It is... Want me make myself clear? Yeah oh I love it when you get pissed off

33:06 I believe it's related to the food prices, which is another big story. Everyone talking about... They should be talking about that rather than this! But i think its related to that and by the way can we just say that 116 or 120 dollars a barrel of oil, can we just say this is a scam? Can't we let everyone know that the eleven billion which who's gonna report tomorrow Maybe Shell. 11 billion in profit, you know? Come on! Can't you see where the scam is?! Throw those fuckers in jail! Free Wesley Snipes There used to be a thing called the excess profit tax Why isn't that implemented anymore I don't know about this tax

33:50 Oh, it used to be very popular in the 20s and 30s when some company would all of a sudden corner the market and start making so much money that was ungodly. They'd just have an excessive pass up bill in Congress as an excess profit? Give us the money! Well John do you really wonder why that isn't implemented now? I mean let's go talk to Dick Cheney and see. Gee why is there... What dick?! Hey Bush, Why is there no excess Pro tax where's the excess profit tax? That's what I want to know oil company. Exxon should have been paying it these guys They make everybody suffer when they're suffering, but then when they're doing well they do they throw the money Stick it in our back we're knifed How did we stop that excess profit tax we need a Congress has got a backbone Yeah But you see the problem is all been set up over the years since the 80s about this You know that this kind of

34:45 non-regulatory, uh... But hold on. You know can't have regulation did not deregulate everything and you know don't have any control you just basically become an anarchy and they let people run rampant that's the way it all work itself out in the end it doesn't work itself out either would work you know I don't see is an interesting thing to think about There were all these, you know the people who are free market deregulate everything. This group of thinkers they always have the argument that the market, the free market will work itself out. Yeah well working itself out also entails the government stepping in and taking excess profit tax from these guys. That's part of this system it seems to me

35:31 But that won't actually help us because we're still paying four bucks for a gallon of gas. The tax won't alleviate that I know, but at least it makes me feel better. Oh so we can buy more weapons and kill people in deserts? Ah! It makes me feel grand. Well it's better than me paying for it. But whatever the case is the point is that there are a lot of things that aren't being done to slow this down and I agree with you. And by the way I think the barrel of oil will go up to $200 before it collapses. Wait a minute excuse me...I told you that last week No, I told you. No! I told you it was going to be a two dollar euro and it was gonna be $200 a barrel of oil by the end of the year and that's not gonna happen that fast? I don't think its gonna happen that fast. We're in agreement though on the pricing

36:17 I think it can head that way and if it did, it wouldn't surprise me. But the fact is a lot of people observe this which is these futures guys are trading this stuff up and they're taking all their profits and trading it higher. They're pyramiding. They're in... All-in as it were to take this thing up as high as it can, but the problem is when it finally hits the brick wall because in fact demand is down for these things. It's going to collapse like there's no tomorrow. It's going to be a very interesting short sight if people can figure out what the timing is. So you think it'll then just collapse onto itself and go down to something reasonable like $23? I don't know if we'd go that far but definitely below 50

37:03 Because that's what it is, right? It's just futures trading and commodities markets. The minute someone lights a fucking firecracker in the Gulf somewhere then the price goes up five bucks Right well right now somebody will say essentially the smart money has been selling dollars and buying oil And then at some point you reverse it You start buying dollars and selling oil Then you make your money going both ways Well, let's try and predict that timing John because I wouldn't mind making some Soros money on that And oh by the way you're right. I read in The Economist we talked about it last week Maybe the week before That source was everyone television saying the bailout was the right thing to do of Bear Stearns He bought he bought bear stearns at $45

37:54 The Wednesday before they did the backroom deal and when the stock went to $2. Huh? And so he got screwed, well not completely screwed because he didn't lose everything but wow! He must be pissed off Somebody suckered him Big time Yeah, I got a deal for you. I gotta I got an absolute certain one for you dude This is going all the way Georgie Another note from somebody else asking about the chat room I Didn't say I was gonna set up a chat room and I'm not streaming it live either and nor do I want to

38:40 I don't blame you. One of these days we got to reverse it though, i want to be an early morning side of the equation. I'm always the end of the day or when I messed up and when...when I've been flying for 12 hours Yeah that's no problem! We did it once at night. We did? Your night? Yeah one time yeah early on And my morning?! Yeah. I don't even remember that. Well, it probably sucked so let's not do that if i don't remember it. It sucked! I don't remember either but I remember doing it So here are the big comments I got First of all lots of people still angry about the non-explanation of soy milk shrinking your brain

39:20 I'm just gonna take your word for it. My son is the guy who's nutty about this stuff, he has all the documentation. Tell him to send me some links! He's the one that brought it up...I will have him do that because he's like uh..He's the one who got the family off of soy altogether, soy oil and the rest of it and the soy oil thing is not an unknown issue you know? It has a estrogen type effect on some people And I've always said its what causing the current uptick in man breasts Um, moobs And also, the other oil that I don't like which is canola because then always people say we're real healthy. We only use canola oil and I'm thinking have you ever seen a canola plant? I always ask them and well what do you think it looks like? Well I don't know, I can't think of... Like a palm tree

40:10 It's a rapeseed. And so he said, no it's rapeseed. Of course for marketing purposes you don't want to ever sell rapeseed oil doesn't sound very good but rapeseed oil is naturally...it's got an acid in it that's naturally bad for your heart and They have, with canola they've managed to process the acid so it's reduced so much that it is not as bad for you. But canola stands for Canadian oil with low acidity and there's no plant, it's just a marketing term and the fact that health food nuts are all over this. I didn't know that! Oh yeah... And so the health food nuts are all over this, they don't have a clue. They think its'a plant?

40:53 Yeah, the canola plant. There it is! I got one growing on my lawn with my fish... My four-inch fish. You know just doing some self examination there John, I think i should cut back on the soy. I'm developing kind of an A cup here. You know olive oil is this oil of choice? I mean there's a couple other healthy oils that are out there that are traditional they're old like grape seed oil is very good for you doesn't have any harmful Sunflower oil and safflower oil are good for you, although the commercial ones tend to be hexane extracted which some people don't like the idea of that. What's hexane? Hexane is a solvent that used to extract oil from seeds in commercial environments and most of the oils whether it's soybean or anything else is hexane extracted so you use the hexane pulls the oil out then you flash off the hexane

41:46 and you end up with just the oil, probably a minuscule amount of hexane dissolved within the oil. But it's so small I'm not a big nutball about that as much as some people are. So how is the soy milk created? And why is that so bad? Soy milk? Yeah what's that made... Well for one thing there's no such thing, so obviously its artificially made. I don't know what the process is, But somehow they emulsify it and they get a milky color, and they probably add some sweeteners to it of some sort. So it has some flavor because it should be naturally tasteless. I mean if you ever have tofu there's not a lot of flavor there. It's just something that you soak in things. That said, I've always been a fan of tofu skins. I think they're pretty tasty. And I like those little beans that they have at Japanese restaurants which are soy beans. Yeah, I like those too. Edamame

42:43 Man, they're popular. They're popular. So I want to... Go ahead. Okay, I was just gonna say the only other thing is we really hit a nerve with China Yeah In fact, I just got a new post on my blog which if somebody would by the time they hear this they'll probably scroll off but type in... What's that address again John? Dvorak.org slash blog in the search box type in China space Congo and you'll hit this particular post and it was somebody sent it on Twitter actually The real Dvorak by the way from if you want to put me on there

43:21 It's an article from BBC, but it's mostly from BBC too. It's not necessarily pure BBC news they got some reports but a deal was just signed with the Congo and let me read this because there is a kicker paragraph at the end which is exactly what we were talking about due to be signed in Beijing in the next few days gives the DR Congo six billion of desperately needed infrastructure which includes 2,400 miles of road, 2000 miles of railway 32 hospitals and 145 health care centers and two count them to universities in exchange for the Chinese having access to all the mines that produce copper and cobalt

44:01 And of course my comment is, any bets they get started on the mining before the 32 hospitals. The kicker is this one right here which I was talking about last week And this is in the same article. A copy of the original DR Congolese Chinese Memorandum of Understanding obtained by Newsnight appears to exonerate the Chinese side from all taxes and customs duties until the promised building work is completed This is where they bring in everything they can, they set up shop in the country. They never complete the work so they essentially can bring anything they want duty-free into The Congo and what they do Is according to everybody who's witnessed this They'll bring in like computers by the ton Open computer stores put everybody else out of business sell you know some of it somewhat dubious quality Computers power supplies and everything else

45:00 and also bring in household goods, food. Essentially ruin the local economy with all this duty-free Chinese goods pouring into the country never really finish these projects and then either colonize the place or just bail out after a few years after you get all of the cobalt out there and leave the place decimated. And this is only in the Congo? No it's going on over Africa This is the latest deal Okay, so who runs the Congo? It's a kind of dictatorship. Well yeah figures but... They do these deals with these... The worst governments are the ones that buy into this because you can buy off you know they're bribe incented and You just basically take over the place for awhile. You can stay there or not I figure my scenario is that if they try to stay you know in colonize at some point the locals go crazy

45:58 and just start killing them. And then of course the news media says, oh the poor Chinese are getting butchered in the Congo. Let's go help them bring in the UN! Yeah and they'll bitch to the UN and we'll help em'. You know I mean the whole thing is a joke but let it play out. We end up buying our copper from the Chinese I guess. Where are we going with this world John? To hell in a hand basket. Speaking of which, I did this on the Daily Source Co., but i really wanted to bring it up with you Researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria Which is that New Zealand or Australia? Victoria Yeah I think that's New Zealand That's a bad thing to mess up Anyway... amongst our new zealanders Sorry guys We actually have alot of new zealanders who listen to this show

46:49 So researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria found that men who masturbated more than five times each week were one third less likely to develop prostate cancer. Yeah, that's been all over the talk shows all week But here is what I found interesting Why do they say men who masturbate what if you just have sex five times a week? Why does it have to be masturbation well one of the guys one of the reports say that the problem I think for one thing. They're trying to prevent people from having sex as usual So so the They say well because with sex you can have the STDs with masturbation You can't

47:34 And it's like, okay whatever. But that's not what they're saying! They're saying men who masturbate... I mean it just weird Yeah it's a screwy thing So that came out of Victoria New Zealand? This is a foxnews.com story Not Victoria Canada huh Oh maybe it is Canada, I think its possible Hold on How come it doesn't say that It just says There's a lot of it. The Council of Victoria, maybe it is Canada that would add that actually kind of makes more sense to me Well, it makes more sense to me That'd be New Zealand actually no offense to you new zealanders You know the you know what I'm saying? No one talk about you know the sheep or anything You had to take it there didn't ya? I just heard this morning on the news coming in that a German high-speed train derailed in a tunnel because it hit a flock of sheep

48:24 That's not funny man. What was the sheep doing in the tunnel? I don't know, that is not good. God, I wouldn't think it. Anybody get killed? Uh...I don't have details on that, I can take a look It will be hard those tracks were pretty well Protected the high-speed I know in France, you know people do want to take the high speed train all the time You know it's fine to take the high speed train in France except for one thing. You don't get to see anything Because most of the tracks are in a ditch, you know to keep 25 people injured

49:00 Anyway, the high-speed trains in France are the fastest ones but you can't see anything because they're all in ditches basically. Right and you're really low and it's more like trenches? Yeah trenches, they're like a trench that keeps whatever for whatever reason they have them in trenches For aerodynamics Probably that to keep people from throwing rocks at em or whatever And well I'm thinking like an American never mind They don't do that so much either But you've been on these, right? Because I took it to France. Oh yeah, I've been on the ICE. I've been on pretty much all high-speed trains. This is the ICD, the German Intercity Express. Beautiful trains! They...I love that the ICE's are really nice and they actually go on some of the main routes so you can actually see something out the window. They're not in a ditch but they don't go quite as fast as the French train Three people suffered broken bones 20 people received slight injuries cuts and bruises

49:58 Yeah, it looks pretty gnarly. It literally went right off the rails. Doesn't take much huh? You'd think that sheep wouldn't do that but... I mean you just plow right through the sheep and you have a bunch of chops left. That really seems pretty vulnerable so if you throw anything on those tracks it can derail pretty quickly Well, a flock of sheep probably adds up. I'm sure a big cow would've probably done that How many is a flock I don't know. It's not a flock, it's a herd okay? They're talking about a herd not a flock so uh you know in the olden days when they used to have steam trains you used to have a cow catcher on the front yeah it would scoop you right off and it would scoop the cow off and throw him aside um maybe they should think about a sheep catcher or cow catcher in the front of these high-speed trains because the nose looks destroyed almost like a plane that went through a hailstorm

51:02 Hmm not to check it out. I mean what else you have written down there? Yeah, I know you got some notes No that's my only thing was the Chinese story about the Congo Because of this one paragraph that just cracked me up when they talked about the duty-free thing because is exactly the scenario That was described to me two years ago and There's a good site people should check out. This guy, I think his name is Jim Kunstler has got a website he's a writer that does all these books and he also writes some harem scarum kind of economic dire predictions. It's kunstler dot com K-U-N-S-T-L-E-R dot com and you can read him or not but the thing that's cool about this site is not

51:48 I disagree. Since i'm a person into cycles, I disagree with this patient. K-U-N-T S-L-E-R? Yeah, K-U-N-S. Oh. K-U-N-S T-L-E-R, I think Freudian slip on my side. Sorry I noticed and Is that he's got this eyesore of the month, which is just hilarious You have to go people out there should just go Flake through these eyesores over the month because some of them are just like wow I'm looking at today's eyesore Go back a couple because there's one in Czechoslovakia They're gonna build that it's just like you look at this thing and you go my god What are they thinking?

52:34 What is this one? I got to go through a couple of my guess. Is it showing something from Rome or Greece, what is that? That's kind of tongue in cheek one that one. That's not a good example that one of the Parthenon or whatever it is. Okay, I see it. What the hell is that? You talking about the one from Czechoslovakia? I'm looking at the... The Protoplasm? I'm looking at the Paragon Prairie Tower Oh no, you gotta go back a couple more. That's the minor one too but anyway this is just a funny feature I thought it was a good idea. Something that I look at and go ah man I should have done that because i think you do an eyesore of the week It's like another good site people should always check in on. I never check in enough on this site I don't know why but its ingrish dot com and e-n-g-r-i-s-h

53:31 And it's always hilarious. I mean, it's like... It's essentially some guy who mocks the misuse of the English language in Asia with all kinds of posts and stuff that just amaze. Flabbergasting! A friend of mine has a retail... No, it was wholesale fashion accessory business in LA And so they get a lot of orders from the Far East now, which is where all this luxury stuff is going. So to China et cetera and they had literally written something and they asked when they could expect the de-ribbery? I thought it was so cute that they don't have spell checkers. So you know how Asians will mispronounce L's and R's but they literally wrote in an email when can we expect the de-ribbery? Yeah, like don't... They phonetically

54:25 Do it wrong. Yeah, don't they have spell checker? Use no hooks handle with cake keep fire away I'm looking at it now English yeah Engrish has always got a couple good ones and usually two or three chuckles Now I'm still into the kid from Brooklyn God that guy's so funny Well he's pretty much this one gag is a one-trick pony yeah But he does we does when every day It's worth it you know That's amazing there some yeah I used to, those guys used to be more common in the United States when we actually had a working class. Yeah that doesn't exist anymore the working class according to Financial Times

55:07 I don't think it does either. And it's a shame because, like... It got wiped out by a number of factors but the white collar class is one of them. Because my dad was working-class when he was raising us and he always made more money than the white collar guys and they'd always talk about it. The working class people would make up... So that's kind of like a user generated content definition you know? Working class! You know, I work so am I not part of the working class? Yeah good point But the working classes, I think we know what we're talking about. People actually work. My understanding was working class is like factory type, factory truck driver that's kind of the visual eye get is that incorrect? Yeah, factory truck driver machinists

56:03 You know, I think construction workers are industrial. Construction worker kind of more or less that kind of you guys who actually work as opposed to the guys who sit around shooting the crap like we do. We work hard John don't say that! But i've worked in all those environments and then I have the uh... I know what it's like because when I was a kid You could actually get a job when you were in high school, you'd get a work permit because you couldn't work if you're under 16 or something legally because it was child labor laws. But you could get a special permit which kind of defeats the purpose of it but you can get a work permit when you're a kid and then when summer rolled around you can go get a job at 15 or even 14 if you really had a lot of ambition. I used to go out into the fields man. I grew up on farmland we used to

56:54 dig up potatoes and turnips, and I worked in a That was actually a pretty fun job in on a rose farm that grows roses Learned a lot about about roses and basically we'd sort the roses by differently, you know. The first sort, the second sort third sort and then you have kind of a trash which is the fourth or fifth sort And at the end of your summer vacation You would have a lot of money and you realize why because from the tip of your finger up to your shoulder you would be just covered in cuts Just completely swollen, infected

57:35 Well, when I was a kid, we had in the Fremont area of Northern California that used to be an agricultural area almost without...I mean it was apricots and cherries. And the cherry fields outside of Niles which are now non-existent produced some of the finest cherries they've ever had then. I can still remember them to this day when I was a little kid we used eat constantly but Anyway, they used to have a thing called... You could work in the apricot orchard picking and there was this thing called cutting cots. I never did this but you knew what it was. They had these big apricot orchard and then there used to be one right near the biggest one that's now the Thornton Avenue exit off of highway.

58:22 17 or 880, whatever it is down there. And it was huge and people would cut the apricot in half and then you'd lay them out on these giant trays and then the trays would go into the drying room and that's how they dried the apricots. It was all natural I think there were some sulfur. Some sulfur they would burn a wick in there something to keep bugs from getting in there That's all torn, it was all torn out eventually for condos. And then the whole area now is just all housing and even... The other great agricultural area in Northern California was the Santa Clara Valley which is also they used to have some of the greatest vineyards and cherries and all kinds of agricultural products that were high grade. And that's all been wiped out for housing so now everything has essentially moved

59:11 San Joaquin, Sacramento Valley which is just extremely... You can grow anything there but you don't have the same kind of soils and really high-end quality there. You get more of just a lot, a lot of stuff that's tasteless I'm just browsing through...I read two things on the plane The Economist and Financial Times, the weekend edition It was probably in The Times which they didn't bring with me There was a list of common fruits and vegetables but it really focused on vegetables And how many different kinds we used to have Oh. Like cucumbers, there were 300 different varieties of cucumbers now four. That's pretty freaky! Yeah no wonder we're all you know sick. Yeah exactly we're killing ourselves

59:59 Well, you know the problem is you have to blame the public. The public doesn't demand it so they don't get it and then big growers say well if people are just going to buy this one cucumber that's a high yield cucumber we can make them by the ton and pick them by machine thats what were gonna make because we make more money that way and the public doesn't care And the fact of the matter is the public doesn't care I was sitting at meeting may have told this anecdote before but imma tell it again anyway not everybody listens to show every week I was given a speech to the Produce Distributors Association, really big operation. They had a big trade show of produce distribution and it was amazing. And this is a paid gig right? They asked you to come speak? Yeah yeah What are they expecting like technology? Yes some technology angles. Everyone uses computers the need to know what's going on You don't give a shit! You're just like um...I want to meet these guys make some money have a good time

1:00:48 being a new speaker. And it came up in the conversation that, you know, there's tasteless potatoes that we eat compared to some of these really wild. And I talk about my experiences in Peru where I was confronted with something like 5,000 kinds of potatoes because that's where the potato came from and they eat them all.

1:01:27 It's kind of fascinating. Anyway, to get to the end of the story... The thing that came up in conversations is these guys would love to sell and distribute more interesting products but American public wants one thing and one thing only cheap! Cheap, cheap, cheap! And they said the only country that comes close to being as bad as Americans was just one... You want a bunch of carrots? Gotta be Scotland No, it turns out to be Germany. Really? They say the Germans are just as bad... almost as bad with the cheap-cheap-cheap. We don't want a variety we want cheap! We want them cheapest carrots we can get. We want the cheapest potatoes that we can get. We want the cheapest lettuce we can get You know I'm thinking John that the Amish and even these guys these polygamists you know had that compound going and were kind of in their own self contained separatist world And they might have something..they might have a good idea there

1:02:23 Yeah, they probably do. And I gotta tell you by the way those women those polygamist women which is just the way that being described everywhere so... Those polygamists women? I think it's hot man the clothes they have on! I love that frontier out there kind of like Laura Ingalls You know she was hot Little House on the Prairie remember that? Remember Laura the older sister? That's what their look is. By the way I'm also a sucker for for the headscarves I love that I find that to be incredibly sexy. Some women just aren't sexy, but wow! You've got a huge scandal over here what's going on with that polygamy thing because they took all these kids away from their moms for no... What was the point of that? Meanwhile we celebrate the Pope coming into the country who runs a company of sodomists

1:03:14 And all he says is, oh we'll do better. You can send your email to Adam Curry at... Well I'm taking it to the extreme but let's be honest about it. The Pope was excoriating that whole scene to an extreme and the Italians don't know what to do about the American... Yeah but they took 500 kids away from their parents! Yeah I know its ridiculous That border is probably unillegal Well, there's gonna be a lot of lawsuits flying. I don't know what those guys are doing. This is Texas this is the same you know area they burnt down at compound in Waco and killed a bunch of people for You know whatever reason because they felt like it that was during the Clinton administration But Texas seems to be that you know though I don't know what's wrong with Texas that they have They have this situation just continues

1:04:05 of nutty kind of cults but at the same time there's a murderous approach toward them that is just doesn't seem like such a Christian state. All gunslinging, gun-toting Texas? That's johnatdvorak.org I always get it... I think the Texans have.. There are no Texan listening to this show. Are you kidding me?! Oh dude! That's absolutely not true. Except for Bubba. Bubba is a Texas. There are lots of Texans. I like Texans. I love Texas. I go there whenever chance I can, it's great the food is good and people are nice but there is something wrong with it That's where I did my mass wedding. I married 70 couples in Austin Oh that's right you talked about that before Yeah Austin is a cute little town But getting back to the original point is damn man we are just killing ourselves

1:04:54 We're robbing ourselves of all this wonderful stuff that comes from Mother Earth and all the good stuff is either not being produced anymore or is illegal. You know, that's one of the things I have to say...I've actually now started collecting The Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmare Show UK version. Oh really? I still like the US version better but okay it doesn't matter I like virgin is wimpy compared to the UK version. I like Gordon Ramsay, if i were a woman id be hot for him he's a very commandeering but yet sensitive guy and yeah I don't know I like him he's cool man well what I look at when I watch that show Kitchen Nightmares not his other shows I don't care much for but The Kitchen Nightmare Show If you're watching a guy who was in the consulting business Yeah exactly

1:05:45 And it's like you get to see a consultant at work and what he has to go through to get anyone to change. Basically, the show doesn't change much from episode to episode. He goes into a place... The guy is all screwed up. You know? He is in denial. No wait! Wait no no no this is the format, I'm a student John. First week he goes in and sits down and orders food off the menu right then either uh... it's always crap sometimes he throws up have you ever seen one of those episodes? Yeah he has thrown up a couple times yeah he goes to throw-up and then it starts and then the owner or restauranter whoever always has a chip on his shoulder who the hell are you come tell me how to run my business the chef is usually just completely what do they say uh... they lost their love

1:06:30 food or they lost their love. Yeah, that or they're totally incompetent. Or they really just suck and he always buys him a nice sign and does the redecoration... Oh but you're missing a couple other little items in there. No! The promotion! There's always a little assistant which is somebody else working in the kitchen who is a gem oh yeah yeah right exactly who's gonna step up Yeah, yeah in fact there's even one show where he actually the restaurant fold It was one of the best shows once in a while. He fails which makes the show interesting This restaurant back anymore I don't see the episodes where he goes back three months later They stopped doing that no I've been watching it. He still does that maybe the US version they don't do it Oh either us first I don't watch but anyway the he's failed a couple times But my favorite one was worth it was a restaurant in Paris That was a vegetarian restaurant in Paris which he thought was ludicrous and

1:07:19 And the restaurant failed. I remember this one, it was a veg restaurant in Paris and wasn't that the girl had a rich father like a Texan type dude? Right with a hat and everything? Didn't really want to work Yeah she called her girlfriend yeah come on in do some waiting and the girlfriend's like I don't want to go you know It was a mess The chef was a Brazilian crackpot, he was a maniac. The whole thing was absolutely one of the better episodes and he was so disappointed but anyway I recommend this show for people who want to watch it's basically a business consultancy show that is very educational in terms of like you know how even though there are formulas there like the other formula by the way that's in the show

1:08:07 insists that they make simple food that is locally sourced. Right, change the menu... The simple food that's locally sourced That's basically the theory And then he breaks the plates Have you ever seen those? Yeah, he's done it a number of times now They're too big, they're too small and there are two squares and everyone does a plate smashing contest It's a good show man So anyway so we opened up a place when were in New York last Yeah, I stayed in the hotel at the London. The London? Yeah. Did you use the restaurant? Dude booked up until after the new year

1:08:45 You're kidding. Not kidding, we couldn't do this there's in that area of the hotel you have kind of like a bar which is it does have tables you can sit down there if you're lucky you can get a table then you have the restaurant right in front of that and behind their there's they call it the London Proper and thats the real restaurant and its booked up until I mean I only inquired didn't have time to eat there anyway im sure theres a way to get in But that's what the, what the maitre d' said is booked up through the new year. Damn! It's not small you know so I can imagine

1:09:22 Yeah, he knows how to make money that guy. Hell yeah! I mean basically if you start looking at his websites and stuff you see it's actually kind of a... It's a cool hotel too by the way. He is an entrepreneur. Well that's the old...I didn't realize until i was looking it up that that's the old Riga Royal Yes correct And they've done it up nice John really its'a good hotel Well when it was the Riga Royal it was a good hotel but I guess they got a little threadbare But I was at the Regal Roy, I used to stay there all the time. And one time we, and it's just... There was a lot of New York moments that took place in that joint. One time I'm down, they used to have a bar that was quite popular which is probably part of that restaurant now but anyway, the bar, one time I'm in the bar with some PC Magazine folks and this guy who's drunk off his ass

1:10:08 singing, he had an accompaniment. He just decided he wandered up to the... There was a piano there and nobody was playing it so he started... He drug one of his pals over there to start playing the piano and he started singing. And then eventually started singing a cappella. And he had this gorgeous voice but the guy barely could stand up and I saw a group that I could see where it came from. So I said who is this guy? They say well its Engelbert Humperdinck. No way! Yeah And so I'm thinking, oh this is interesting. So we stayed there till about three in the morning and he just kept singing it was unbelievable! It was like a free concert. The guy had a heck of a voice I have to say and acapella stunning. What are um... because he's one of the big guys like in the Tom Jones league

1:10:55 Yeah, that style. Big voice. What were his big hits? Engelbert Humphrey Dink I don't know who cares...I care! But it's just like you know in New York you have what they call especially if you don't live there well even if you live there they called this New York moments or something screwy happens like that. It happens all the time one time I was walking down uh I think it was Park and here comes Mike Tyson Hey John, johncdevorac.org slash blog Yeah right so anyway and this guy he had flanking him walking down the street pretty much pushing anybody out of the way they happen to be on this pretty wide sidewalk as it is three guys on each side of him that were twice the size he was

1:11:45 and all in black leather, just and he had sunglasses on. And they come they just come zooming down the street. God I don't know where they were headed. I wasn't gonna follow them but it was like wow that's what you call your entourage because other guys you see roaming around Manhattan they're just by themselves you don't think much of it this is what we this is not a New York moment John this is a brush with greatness Brush with greatness. I had a brush with greatness on the flight. I had Dolph Lundgren was sitting To see some for me remember him yeah, is he still alive and he looks good dude's got to be 50 And yes 60 no He's not that old but now he's dudes and he's my he's my height and he's big man. He's and he's

1:12:29 He's cut. Did you talk to him? Did you say hi, hey Dolph! Yeah I'm that asshole. Hi gee i've met your ex-wife Brigitte! Anglebert Humperdinck. Please release me let go yeah that's his big kid that's the big one that's the big one be careful getting one more word in sass cap oh i heard someone pontificating in LA You know Jimmy Iovine? Do you know who that is? No. Jimmy Iovine, I think he started as a...I don't know if he's always been a record producer but as far as i know He did a lot of the big music videos in the heyday of MTV, was director and they had Interscope Records I think That's who I'm thinking of Anyway, he runs Warner now with Warner Records with Doug Morris

1:13:24 And listen to this, listen to the scheme. They're so desperate trying to figure out what to do and how to make money that their new scheme is- Wait wait stop stop! Did you eavesdrop this or did they tell you? I was told...I don't feel comfortable telling who told me but it was someone very senior in Hollywood Alright Like top of the fucking- I got it, go Their scheme now They want to make music videos that include advertising. So they want to do placement Smirnoff, you know they want to of course it's all hip-hop That's the only videos that are kind of still being made as I want to do. You know just all advertising all Liquor, you know bling whatever it is and that that's their new business model or at least one of the new ones And I heard and yeah, and I heard someone tell me this with you know of such stature was such conviction I'm like dude, you know

1:14:25 That's not a good plan. That's really not something we ought to try, I just don't think that's gonna work. It's crazy! Anyway... Are they going to work the product placement into the lyrics? Oh why not?! Yeah you might as well go all the way! Well i'm sure that's being done here and there anyway. That's probably already happening Yeah, I'd like to see the fee schedule for that. It would be kind of interesting to find someone who had it Well that's the problem everyone thinks is so easy advertising just because Google can do it with billions and billions of eyeballs and clicks With very low rent advertising you know no one has really done advertising successfully online not big brand advertising yet

1:15:17 Except for that new company I hear about, that Mevio thing. Mevio is an operation they know what they're doing. So what would happen you think if online never got beyond what Google's doing? Wow. All these newspapers and all these other people doing all this different kind of stuff, all moving to online I mean i know that they're actually making a profit at PC Magazine online so you can do it to a point but what if where we are right now is IT? Okay, I'll answer that...I gotta answer two ways first of all I don't believe that scenario could ever play out because

1:15:56 It's just about the core that we just have to all agree on numbers You know what's the circulation of The New York Times a million? You know I you say, I should know that number. But I think it's more than more than I guess like two and a half right I don't know Wall Street Journal Yeah, same is like it's gonna be eight hundred thousand to 2 million Let's just say that you know geek beef geek brief TV does 2 million a month easily you know and sometimes ten times that You know, so I just don't see how the dollars always follow audience. Always always always So i don't think your scenario is going to play out however should that happen? Uh...I just gotta go shoot myself Well we don't want that Yeah but I can't imagine that That would be..that's just amazing I cant even come up with a scenario What do you think what was your thought if this was it Okay im just looking at the editor and publisher here for some circ numbers

1:17:01 You know, it's one of those things... People don't realize that- Everything is so experimental. It's like the Twitter thing which I don't want to talk about But the fact is that there's these initiatives and these crazy ideas keep cropping up left and right, left and right. That are always end up looking for... I mean they get the eyeballs can be had but then monetizing them is not necessarily a- You still have to do with sales job you can have great fish at the fish market but you've still got to sell it. You know? You've stil gotta move product. You know? You still need Gordon Ramsay to straighten out in your restaurant. MTV 20 years ago

1:17:39 New York Times is 1.037, it's one million, it's a million. Wall Street Journal 2 and the USA Today is 2.2. So listen to this... When MTV started in 1981 I didn't get there until mid 80s The cable was Advertisers did not know what to do with it. It wasn't television I mean that's not TV and you know, it's hard for people to realize that that was the thinking at the time But if I remember doing the pitches to Budweiser we'd record pitches for them because we desperately wanted Budweiser to advertise on the channel and That's how

1:18:15 Spring Break, MTV's Spring Break in the Beach House came to be not because MTV said hey you know what it is a great idea let us go do spring break and we will make that into a tent pole promotion every year. No it was because they were trying to get Budweiser and if you look at some of that footage well they may have changed maybe different beer brand now but all every single shot is filled with either a vodka brand or some other type of alcoholic beverage But the ratings for MTV at the time, even when I was there were 0.4 on average which means that about 3-400 thousand people are watching MTV at any given moment and today that rating is still between 0.4 and 0.6 It's not a lot of people In aggregate in QM yeah...and then the brand of course is phenomenal but it's just not a lot of people that are watching

1:19:13 And people have this idea, consumers have this idea that everyone watches MTV. It's huge but now the ratings just aren't there! In fact that is why MTV... you know MTV isn't stupid they were brilliant although they alienated their core audience but it always happens and will happen in our form of media as well. It already happening MTV said, well wait a minute. These videos are being commoditized. BET which Viacom later bought for probably this very reason they were getting the Michael Jackson world planetary premieres so they weren't getting the product they weren't necessarily the only place where you could watch music videos on television

1:19:54 And they thought to themselves, you know what we really need to do is if only we could make like a game show. But we really don't have the money for a game show so let's do this let's throw some barco loungers in the corner and lets get a cute girl to do dumb prizes and we'll get a dorky host and call it remote control. Boom! The rating went up to 1.0 and they never looked back that why MTV is what it is today 30 minute reality based shows with no audience Right so yeah, so the sure a lot of these you know I watched The Soup which is another great show in fantastic And they go over all these reality shows. You never have to watch him because I have to do is watch Joel McHale he'll bring up the speed on all these things But there's so many of these reality shows it's like it's just like jaw-dropping I mean you never heard of half of them and

1:20:48 I don't know. I think we should just stop calling them reality shows and just call them what they are, television! That's what television is gonna be from now on that is the genre it's the genre... Now that's pretty depressing Well look dude I watch C-SPAN and luckily we have some of that but why is it depressing? I get my media fill online.. I like to watch a good drama or a good comedy that's well written once in awhile Sure, well it's kind of getting too expensive You know this is reminding me of this transition that took place in radio because if you remember, well you don't remember or I don't remember because we weren't really listening to the radio in the 30's since we were born. But the uh... radio used to- but I've collected it and the radio used to be a big spot where people would just look at good dramas and well written scripts and lot acting and then when television came along you know just basically died became spinning music because somebody said what you can make as much money spending these records

1:21:44 as you can, going through all this expense of producing real dramas and then boy everything's going to TV. So everything transitioned and then that even deteriorated too now it just essentially chatterboxes on the radio especially on AM that can talk for three hours That's what I like about the BBC. They still have radio dramas here, they have The Arches which has been running for 50 years or whatever ongoing radio drama and people hear listen to The Wireless you know they literally just listen to...they call it The Wireless and it's really good

1:22:21 But, you know it's BBC so it is being paid from public funds. Everyone gets a bill each year or kind of gets a bill but you have to pay for individually outside your taxes and you're getting good stuff delivered for it It doesn't...it's not commercially viable Yeah, I guess there's an advantage of sometimes to have the government involved in media a little bit. But the point is that if television deteriorates to nothing more than these unscripted shows... The equation is simple. Who wants to watch that crap?

1:23:00 Lots of the same people who don't give a rat's ass if they only have two cucumbers varieties versus 300 They're the ones who are watching that and they're watching it in droves. Just like you look up the circ numbers I know rating numbers and people are watching this It's relatively inexpensive to produce And it, you know...it's-it's a simple equation The audience is leaving television. It's no longer the cultural epicenter of of what's going on in the world. It is the latest show that you've seen or it is The Kid from Brooklyn, and that's the cultural conversation taking place through IM and email and social networks... People are spending more time doing something else! So the audience is going away and that's a direct equation to how much money these guys can ask for 30-second spot so I just don't see how the economics of it will work

1:23:55 You know, it's... if a show costs 50 grand per episode to produce versus you know for reality based show versus Lost which is 2-3 million dollars an episode and you get the same type of ratings. You know lost is not getting Dancing with the Stars numbers I'll have you know It does good but not that good Gladiators kick Los' ass! Gladiators dude So it's the economics of it. That's what I love about online, because you can still kind of create something worth watching The message can still be true even though you may not have all the high value productions of a studio But even that is no longer necessary anymore so thats where we gotta get it...I think

1:24:49 You don't think so? I don't like the sounds of this. Well, I...I don't know much John and in this conversation i love looking at the waveforms uh...of the recording software because you basically see your track is all wave form and only see me bumping once in a while but this actually knows something about yeah i know you do but i dont..i'm not ignorant person regarding this particular uh...uh... category of discussion myself, but I'm not like you. You seem to be happy about it. I find the whole thing depressing." What difference does it make? It's just a different box where you watch it! No, I'm talking about the overall effect on the culture

1:25:31 I mean having a bunch of people watching Gladiator, which should actually be banned from the air as far as i'm concerned. And with the effect on the culture it's like The Jerry Springer Show! Now in fact, now More Polvich which became a clone of The Jerry Springer Show...I didn't realize until recently when I watched it And these shows, besides being somewhat fake are essentially just... the public's not dumb enough. I mean we dumb down the public anyway with the two cucumbers and they don't have any sense about anything They're already stupefied and then we just make it worse with this stuff and then we take advantage of them by advertising to these boneheads

1:26:11 And then the situation gets worse and worse and worse, and then when all hell breaks loose for one reason or another and the public doesn't realize that we've...that the government's made a big mistake because they don't-they're too busy watching Gladiators to worry about anything. Or Britney what she's up to! And then we bitch and moan about the public being a bunch of boneheads? Hey whose fault is it?! It's your fault Adam Curry! Okay well it's not because I don't live there, I don't contribute to that. No no but listen here's what i will say I absolutely agree on the cultural side. Again, I'll say the actual cultural conversation is no longer really taking place on television but with the system set up in the United Kingdom this is why it doesn't bother me that much because yes there's plenty of reality-based crap programming. I have Sky Plus and a record...I don't even have to watch when it's on It records automatically and has 900 channels

1:27:08 There's some fantastic programming on BBC. Absolutely culturally valid, really well thought out awesome stuff being made and that's purely because of the system so it is a non-commercial system or kind of not there is a lot of commercialism going on in it but if you really are sad then why don't we set up that way? Why don't we change PBS to become link that into the ownership of the television. You know, just like they're trying to do the music tax if you have a computer then you'll pay taxes... If you want some good television and got a TV

1:27:47 150 bucks a year and we'll make good programming for you. Well, you know they actually the PBS does still... We still have Nova and Frontline and American Experience these are really well done shows I have to say in there obviously not cheap but they're all no this is bullshit they're all sponsored by big conglomerates it's a very commercial industry that's cutthroat man These are independent producers who are selling their stuff to PBS. It's not, it doesn't even come close. Okay you mean because it is all sponsored by Archer Midlands McDaniels or whatever the name of those guys are that are... Monsanto or these other people so you never do a report on them? Yeah or GE. Yeah no I yeah it bothers me a little bit yeah No I'm totally upset about the fact that GE So here it is You've seen Top Gear right we have discussed this. You've seen Top Gear?

1:28:45 Top Gear could not exist in any type of sponsorship or advertising model because somewhere along the line Toyota is going to want to advertise on the station and it just won't happen because those guys over at Top Gear crashed one into a jet engine. These guys do all kinds of weird shit, or they chopped it in half and tried to make it into a desert crossing limo So it would never ever happen. That's destroying the culture, is not having that type of media outlet that is subsidized literally by the users. No I'm not you got me on that one! I can't argue against this point so I'm not gonna try but I will say that probably would be the model we should use here at NOA Agenda Well isn't that exactly what were doing?

1:29:36 Well, no I'm talking about what we're doing it on our own dime. Oh you mean people should pay us $150 a year? Yeah, I think that's a fine plan But they won't there's too much free material out there That's the problem this is an interesting dilemma because who was gonna pay the hundred and fifty like for the TV or one show Here's what kills me John here's where kills me You how long is your speech this new killer speech you have the new presentation? How long it's for is 45 to 55 minutes depending on and you know much time they give me do you do Q&A after that or need never Do q a depends I do Q&A sometimes, you know It depends on what they want as you have to customize it right generally so there are organizations. There are companies I'm sure that there's upstanding and some even maybe nonprofits who of course

1:30:23 will pay you, you don't have to be non-profit for that but really upstanding interesting companies who are paying you I'm sure anywhere between five and fifty thousand dollars to go to present. And here you are getting the same John C. Dvorak for free with the same killer material. Well it's not the same material actually uh it's just two guys talking... John work with me here will ya? Work with me. Oh okay yeah absolutely! It's free Go on. So I guess my point is this is not out there, and this is a very valuable property you can get. Hey our numbers show it man if you don't actually have the stats. I sent you the screenshot did you see how this shit is building? Yeah we're getting about 10 thousand core listeners and has gone up to 12 or 15-20 No three episodes ago hit 25 thousand

1:31:19 Yeah, for one episode? Yeah. Oh... yeah That's not bad! That's good that there is money there We should be able to monetize that Well so here is how it works 25 thousand is 25 CPM units Right In audio we could probably sell that for 20 dollars So what's twenty times twenty five Uh..that's 500 bucks So there you go my friend 500 bucks per episode. Now that's only if we sell one ad, of course if we do two ad units then it's a thousand bucks see how it works? But you don't want to put a bunch of ads in the show although if the shows an hour and half which it tends to be... We could probably put in three ads No man! That would ruin the show Of course it would but I'm just saying so this is actually

1:32:11 You know, that's how all these other audio shows are kicking ass making so much money because their audiences are so loyal that they're able to sell them stuff. Everyone is going to buy a domain name eventually So of course I'm gonna use Callie Lewis' code And that's how a lot of money is made without this whole stupid CPM model It's very interesting to me I really love it. That's what that eMusic thing is, we did it with Nokia... Right now I understand that but you know the thing that I still see missing from the equation? Is shows that are not sponsored Not trying to get people buy stuff

1:32:55 In the old-fashioned, although this is a little bit of a PBS model, underwritten. So in other words we get General Electric to just give us $15,000 to do the show and then we see General Electric pay for the show... Yeah but that's the PBS model! People say well you know then we won't say anything bad about General Electric Well I don't know what to say about General Electric anyway Well, it could be General Electric. It could be NBC. It could be any other subsidiary. It could be a foundation. Could be the Catherine and John Arthur Vining. You know I mean it could be anything. That I'd take I'd take that. But maybe not, not me. No, that would be okay we need a grantsmanship person though there's an expertise getting that kind of money that neither one of us have and probably will never obtain i know it's you could probably do a mediocre job but there's probably somebody out there listens to this show and says oh I can get their money in a minute boneheads! And so we're waiting to hear from them yeah damn straight adam at medio dot com

1:33:55 I finally fixed my curry.com email after like it being on the fritz for a year and a half. Did you get swamped with mail? That's a long story, it's not that interesting. So in other words if somebody said Adam to curry adam at curry dot com they would just die? No you'd get an email sent back that most people mistake for your mailbox being full but actually if you read the and I find that people never ever read bounce messages and boy you can learn quite a bit from them if you took three seconds you lazy pricks Same with error mess, error dialogues. Just read it for a second before you start saying you don't get it You'll see that is says has exceeded bandwidth That's why was being stopped And there's whole explanation for but basically the curry.com domain name and this is interesting when not just looking at your personal email account When we see the amount of email that would be coming in

1:34:56 to curry.com and then just try anything right if you send it to um, you know web dude at curry.com The way it was set up It would actually go in it would go to an administrator account So the spam, it was terabytes. Just fucking terabytes and- Yeah no that's really a problem It wasn't being redirected it was being forwarded from this service that I use for my email so like a terabyte a day of data was being forwarded to my Gmail account and they have some limits set up you just can't be forwarding a terabyte of data every day Of crap Not for your 50 bucks a month Mr. Curry we're just not gonna allow that

1:35:37 But it's a terabyte of crap. And actually I'm a bad netizen for not having solved that much earlier because yeah, it was just sending crap filling up them pipes which is and let's just finish the show with that you know? I love these stories and the...I don't know where these are coming from but the internet is full video was going to break the Internet. I love these stories You follow? Yeah, yeah. No I actually have criticized these stories because there was one of them that said well the internet is going to... it's AT&T they had this thing and they said the Internet is gonna be full by 2010 and they expect it to increase by another 50% by 2015 but then wait a minute how can I increase at all if its gonna be full by 2010 There was this really weird discrepancy in those in the way the story was presented It was like this makes no sense! I think I know what's behind it now you said it's AT&T I betcha

1:36:31 that they want to make WiMAX or HDSPA, whatever it's called. They want people to see that as the high-level service internet wireless so people kind of wean them off of the idea... Do consumers really understand the difference between WiFi and WiMAX? And hey this one works pretty good you know it always seems and by the way I hear that the Internet is going to be full in 2020 sounds like one of those jobs to me Yeah, you might be right. It's gonna be full. It's full! Full of clothes! Go home! Ah yes well on that note... We're full go home what do you got going on this week John?

1:37:23 I've got to go on Monday, I'm going to run down to Xerox PARC for a special event and get to meet a couple of really hot shot guys. I've been itching to meet over the years and I'll report back on that later. Can you give me any clues on who these hotshot guys are? Is this is seminar or conference? It's something there is like an open house they're doing for certain journalists under, I'm not absolutely sure to be honest about it but it's being done by the Xerox printer people. And so uh...it'll just be interesting and I'l take pictures You mean the document company? Yeah, the document company them. Alright well I am going to hang around here. Actually my wife first live...hey dude she has ruled Friday evening with that show

1:38:10 Holland's got talent number one. Yeah, number one show of the entire day every single Friday So she's doing her first live show on Friday so I'm gonna go go over there and see how they do that be very interesting to say yeah Yeah totally and just start renegotiating season two Yeah, sounds like you have the upper hand well we got it now that's for sure Alright, oh thank you hun. I'm just-I just finished. Snack time? Yeah... How great is my life man? Here's my wife brings me uh let's see Let me just Oh this will be a quick culinary moment So what is this hun in the glass? I can't hear you Red wine? Just pure red wine or is it- You can tell? Well you gotta ask Is there uh Hun come hold on a second I can't hear you when your standing over there Hold on Patricia Wine means a little bit of wine

1:39:06 A little bit of wine with a little bit come close hun. This is the microphone Okay, but a little bit of juice in it see John this is what she does She did red wine and then she puts grape juice in it yeah Why why because I don't want you to fade away And then let me just hear it and you just came back All right, and let me just say we have here meatballs Meatballs we have some pickles and we have some salmon with cream cheese on little cracker melba toast Yes And some crickets. Alright what do you have John? I have a cup of coffee I'm gonna go have that wine with grape juice from the curry manor in the United Kingdom. I'm Adam Curry

1:39:51 And in Northern California, Silicon Valley. I'm John C. Dvorak. We'll talk to you again next week right here on No Agenda