for 16 August 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Song of Myself

You do realize this makes
sense, do you not? Seventy
million Brands-of-One out
there, each trying to land a
few gigs every month (be they
music or just selling an
occasional essay to a zine)
to pay the rent ... every
little distinguishing mark
helps. Why not make sure your
business card plays a jingle?
Or that when your PalmPilots
exchange virtual cards,
musical and graphic tags go
along with them?

When the satire becomes
indistinguishable from the
sensible business advice,
it's probably time to knock
off early and have a few
drinks. Works for me.

Alan S. Kornheiser
<ASKornheiser@prodigy.net>

Who said anything about
satire? If you can't
distinguish the sermons of
the guru-prophets of the
coming revolution from the
pathetic screeds of a bunch
of ironic, word-drooling
smartasses, well, you're the
one that's going to be left
in the dust.

Second, as for your indulging
in afternoon booze fests, it
seems you need reminding of
guru-prophet rule number one:
Do as we say, not as we do.

Poor Richard

Personalized jingle? Step
this way:
http://www.harb.net/
AGIFTOFSONG/overview.htm.
These people are good, but
haven't had hits. So it's
half Dinizio's price and they
do the words too. Do you
think there's a future here?

Dave Heasman
<d.heasman@mgn.co.uk>

Frankly, we don't see any
future whatsoever, we're
sorry to say. Um, wait, you
meant for them? Oh, they'll
probably do just fine. It's
you we're worried about.

Poor Richard

Liked it, but ya should have
played on the flourish
element. You know, back in
Shakespeare's time, every
member of royalty had some
little trumpeter doing a note
— the more important you
were, the more notes you had.

I'm very interested in a
service that will announce me
to potential ex-girlfriends
(on those rare occasions when
I'm bar-hopping in Baltimore)
by playing Little America's
"Where Were You When I Needed
Love?"

Something along the lines of
an MP3 Rio Blaster model
would do. But of course, I
think I could lease Little
America to have them stagger
around with me.

I'll investigate further.

David Moynihan
<dmoynihan@blackmask.com>

Hey, by all means, give it a
shot. First of all, by
following our advice in that
kind of fashion you'll be
publicly branding yourself as
a hip, cutting-edge guy.
Second, we can't imagine that
Little America is driving
too hard of a bargain these
days, especially if you're
buying the drinks. Third,
even if you strike out, it
may not be a total loss —
the sight of you toddling
around with Little America in
tow like a DT-induced
hallucination may be just
what the lost-soul barflies
of Baltimore need to scare
them straight.

Poor Richard

I have a word for you.
Actually, two words:
conceptual art. It's
expensive, it's impressive,
and there's no there there.
Plant a field of wheat. Think
about it. Harvest it. Repeat.
It's art. And you don't even
get to keep the wheat.

It's been there for a decade
or so, but nobody's tapped
the e-geek market to fund it.
Even Billy the G buys
reproduction rights to
things. For this, there are
no reproduction rights. It
happens, then it's a memory.
It's the future, baby. My
people will call your people.

Alan Kornheiser

<askornheiser@prodigy.net>

The problem with conceptual
art, from a marketing
perspective at least, is that
it has little nostalgic or
ironic value. As such, I
think it would be a hard sell
even to those who are looking
to divest themselves of their
money in the most efficient
manner. This is why most
conceptual artists who have
attempted to sell their art
via eBay — i.e., those
selling their souls or cans
of Coke or any other kind of
meta-transaction — haven't
been particularly successful.
On the other hand, there are
probably some who would argue
that all the dot coms with no
profits, scant revenues, and
11-digit market caps are the
greatest pieces of conceptual
art ever perpetrated.

Huck

You sound an awful (!) lot
like Ian Shoales.

Hmm.

Danny
<dannybaptista@home.com>

I'm not sure I understand
you. Are you saying I sound
like Ian Shoales only when
he's awful?

Huck

St. Huck,

Great article on eBay! BTW,
the link at the end to your
email and the bid link are
fucked up. Check 'em out.

Wisdom
<James.Wisdom@gecapital.com>

Well, at least that gives me
a decent rationale for why
I've gotten so few bids on my
brilliant idea.

Thanks,

Huck

Another brilliant column. The
eBay craze is the logical
extension of that first and
foremost Internet craze:
porn. What adult sites did to
the way we buy make-believe
sex, eBay does to the way we
buy everything else. If a man
consumes something on the
Internet and nobody is there
to hear it, does it make a
noise?

<ftoro@mistral.co.uk>

You know, there is an adult
section of eBay, but since
you have to fork over your
credit card to access it,
I've never seen what is
actually for sale there. I
like to think Silicon Valley
turbo-bachelors like Larry
Ellison and Paul Allen are
bidding against each other
for the services of the
world's most coveted
hookers.

Huck

The Shit

"Gary's Trajectory," A Wanderer in the Perfect City, Lawrence Weschler, Hungry Mind Press, 1998 The Parallax View, Alan J. Pakula, Paramount Pictures DVD, 1974 Rogues to Riches: The Trouble with Wall Street, Murray Teigh Bloom, Putnam,1971 Actual Air, David Berman, Open City Books, 1999 Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, editors, Princeton Architectural Press, 1998 Canary-wing parrots, Dolores Street, San Francisco Super Shitty to the Max, Hellacopters, Man's Ruin Records, 1998 Request magazine (any issue after June 1999) On the Road to Vietnam, Bob Hope, Cadet 4046 vinyl, 1964 The Flying Ballerina, Drums and Tuba, TEC Tones, 1998 Dino, Nick Tosches, Delta Alpha Publishing, 1999 The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1999 Big Red soda