P2P Music Downloading-my thoughts

I realize this hasn't been as big of an issue the last little while, but it's certainly an issue that hasn't gone away. In light of this, I thought I'd share my thoughts with the world!!!!

I do to an extent see where that the record companies are coming from. If the song can be downloaded for free on WinMX, Kaaza, etc., then that is money that they and the artist are losing. I also see how that could hurt the artist if enough of his/her songs were downloaded.

But there is a flipside to the coin that the RIAA and the record companies won't ever be heard telling. Many people (and I'm included) do not want to go pay $15-$20 for a CD that they may not like and may choose to download a song or two for a trial run. There are also situations in which you may be looking for only a certain song, find it by an artist who is unknown to you and like them well enough to go purchase their CD.

The biggest thing to me is what are you to do when the record company doesn't care enough about an artist to license their music for sale anymore? If you're an Elvis or Beatles fan, you'll probably not strike out too often in finding their music on CD, but what of lesser popular artists such as Porter Wagoner, The Wilburn Brothers, Floyd Cramer, etc.? What is the beef with downloading their music if it isn't even being made available for sale? A lot of times with the older artists, the songs are coming straight from someone's scratchy 45 rpm and that has been saved in an mp3 format making it all the rougher for the listen.

If losing money is the issue, then they need to also make it illegal to resell your used CD's, records, and 8-tracks! Frankly, I scour flea markets and thrift stores looking to buy records and 8-tracks. However when I do that, the artist isn't getting paid! So maybe that should be illegal? Maybe I shouldn't give the powers that be any ideas!!!!!!

The solution? Well, I don't know how workable this is, but there has to be a way to make P2P legal for a fee. For instance, if I would like to share my Don Bowman collection with other people, there should be a P2P network that will allow me to do it legal but for a fee. Part of that fee would of course go to the site with the rest going to the artist or publisher. Again, I don't know how this would work, but it's gotta be better than the RIAA suing the pants off of people!

Just a thought about work.....

I don't want to slam anyone but I would like to drop a little hint-CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF, LOL!!!! Working in retail, it seems sometimes people have nothing better to do than to make a mess. Leaving merchandise in the middle of the floor, trash in the floor, merchandise being put back where it doesn't belong, etc. Come on, it would take a few seconds to put something back in it's rightful spot!!! There is not too much more frustrating than to have to pick up after grown people! When the store closes, I want to go home, not have to stay and pick up after an adult who could've picked up after themselves!

An open letter to the American farmer

The old saying is that you never talk about farmers with your mouth full. Honestly, I would normally tend to agree with that statement. They certainly grow a lot of the food we eat and cotton goes to make many of our clothing products. However, there is a situation that I would like to call attention to.

For the last 4 years (this will be the 5th), we have had rice planted by our house. For those unfamiliar with the growing of rice, a levie is built up around the field and the field is flooded. I think common sense dictates that you should not flood a field that is close to someone's house but they do anyway!

To make matters more "interesting," with the exception of the first year, the rice has never been harvested but instead has been cut down. Why would you want to continue to grow a crop that is seeing such a consistent failure rate? For 3 years, the crop has apparently not been worth harvesting. Last year the crop became infested with wild (red) rice and I was told by my step father-in-law, who is a farmer, that if the crop had became infested with that, they shouldn't be planting it again this year.

I am not intending to level any accusations against anyone here, but come on, common sense should dictate that you don't plant a failing crop and you certainly don't plant it right by someone's house. It causes the foundation of the house to settle when you pull all of that water out of the ground, the weeds from the rice levies spread over onto someone else's property and you also cause an increase of snakes around the levies.

Hank Williams and the bootleg recordings

I'm probably the world's biggest Hank fan! For those who aren't aware, there exist a number of "bootleg" recordings known as the "Mother's Best" recordings. Briefly, they were a series of radio shows done by Hank in 1951 for Mother's Best Flour; they were shelved after being given airplay (they were pre-recorded for when Hank was on tour, etc.) and rediscovered in the early 60's by a camerman from WSM being thrown in the trash. He realized what they were and retrieved them and gave them to a member of Hank's band.

All of these years, the record company MGM (later Polydor and later still Mercury Nashville) knew of the existence of these yet never licensed them to the public. Mercury even had the audacity to release a box set entitled The Complete Hank Williams which was minus any of these recordings.

Now the recordings are in the midst of a lawsuit. Legacy Entertainment attempted to release unauthorized, overdubbed versions of 40+ of the recordings and was met with a lawsuit from the estate of Hank Williams. Now Mercury is claiming they are the only ones with the legal right to release these even after a court has ruled Jett Williams and Hank Williams, Jr. to be the legal owner of these.

If the record company knew of the existence of these and their popularity (they've passed around from collector to collector on bootleg CD's and tapes down through the years) why didn't they attempt to do something? Sounds like another case of the record company not really caring what people want!

Whatever happened to decency on TV?

As I say in my profile, I'm a huge fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. Every night that I watch it, I'm told that I should watch a sports show entitled "The Best **** Sports Show Period." Come on now, there are kids watching the ball game! Do they need to hear something like that? I remember when I was a young teen one of the Cardinal announcers saying that a player was "d**ned if he did and d**ned if he don't" and Al Hrabosky, the other announcer, corrected him for saying that reminding him that there were kids watching. What changed? Now Al sits there unashamedly advertising this show. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?

Why do you call this music, lol

Every day, every place I go, I hear this crap that someone has the audacity to call music being piped in from Muzak. Shouldn't someone sue them for lying, lol? There are a few good songs to be found (Roy Orbison, Johnny Rivers, etc.) but for the most part, it is a bunch of "singers" who can't even "sing" in a normal tone of voice. To make matters more unbearable, this same mess is piped in day after day after day after day with no variety at all. I really don't want to offend anyone who likes this music (all 2 or 3 of ya!) but come on, how about some variety here?

During Valentines week, they switched up music and were playing love songs by the likes of Elvis, Everly Brothers, Ed Ames, etc. Why can't we get more of that during the year? Why must we be stuck with Phil Collins and a bunch of others who could only dream of sounding as good as Elvis, Hank Williams, or Ed Ames?