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	Los Angeles
	Julien Prunet

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Août 15, 2002

Sightings of Elvis in Vegas: tomorrow, on the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, we're driving with Joel and Kristina to Las Vegas. I'm sure we'll come across hordes of Elvis impersonators on the Strip -hopefully these guys below, who wear their wigs and shiny jumpsuits as they parachute out of a plane.

I love Vegas. And miss Elvis, like everybody I suppose. He would be 67. Some fans claim the King still lives and this site, Dead Elvis, documents Elvis sightings such as this one, told by a guy in Nashville:

"I saw a strange light on the ground, coming from deep below the Earth's surface. JW and me, we walked over to it. The light came from below the ground. We looked all around and couldn't see anything anywhere. We carried on going home, but decided to stop at a Cafe. After we ordered our drinks, I saw him. There he was, plain as the darkest day. Elvis, it was Elvis. He payed for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and left. I didn't even have time, to say, "Hello"."

Like many others, his story starts with: "I was walking/driving back home from A PARTY... "I was fairly tired..." Did you mean to say "drunk"? Or "high"?
Bye bye for now, Elvis has left the ~~building~~ blog.

posted by on 09:49 du soir | link

Août 14, 2002

Small claims court was interesting, and conveniently located in downtown L.A. near the new Disney Hall designed by Frank Gehry (below), and the Andy Warhol exhibition.

The junk faxer I'm suing actually showed up in court. He was ready to settle but he changed his mind in the last minute and we had to go in front of the judge. I certainly was a bit nervous and speaking too fast, but I was lucky that the judge knew all about junk faxes and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Some judges don't, and would rather dismiss these kinds of cases. I did what I could, the judge grilled the guy, but didn't rule. I'll receive the ruling in the mail in the next 2 days.

In the meantime: an anti-spam activist near Seattle (like this one I wrote about in Libération), who was suing an e-mail spammer, has received a bad surprise.

French friends and relatives laugh at this new endeavor of mine: suing junkfaxers, trying to corner telemarketers and e-mail spammers_ but the law protecting citizens is rarely used because of public ignorance, and suing is the only recourse to stand up against these bastards, who send me faxes at 5 a.m.

More downtown Los Angeles fun: Matt at the tofu festival in Little Tokyo on Sunday. Mmmm... tofu!

posted by on 08:36 du soir | link

The end of free: "Clearly, the strongest trend is "free to fee." Content Web sites are heading like lemmings to the cliff of charging users for content," writes online trend expert Steve Outing, in his new Editor and Publisher column. He also mentions an interesting website, The End of free, which tracks and reports on paid content sites.

On a related matter, I love the fact that blogger supreme Jim Romenesko can't stand stupid registration on news sites (the Los Angeles Times for instance) and refuses to link to anything on Obscure Store that requires registration. He usually deep-links stories, by linking to their "ready to print" version. I also hate those sites made impossible to blog.

posted by on 08:02 du soir | link

Kate "hot child in the city" Sullivan (author of the Rockblog) has her first rock column in the Los Angeles New Times! She says that, in our own interest, we need to share the music we love:
"Though the record industry is wobbling and the radio thugs are losing total listenership, we, the people, are in a pretty good spot right now, music-wise. Good music is happening and we've got access to it.

The secret weapon we've got -- and that the record labels and media conglomerates want -- is the power of our own mouths.

[...] This is our power. This was always our power, and it means more today than it has since the radio was invented."

posted by on 05:22 du soir | link

Août 13, 2002

Les Rolling Stones vont-ils faire décoller le... Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD)?
Quel nom sexy pour un format audio parait-il bien plus riche que le CD, mais qui peine à rallier les fans de musique depuis son lancement, en septembre 1999. SACD arrive après les cassettes Digital Audio et le MiniDisc (que j'utilise comme pas mal de journalistes. Moins frustrant que DAT mais source de pas mal d'angoisses. Ces saletés d'enregistreurs cassent au bout d'un an et demi et avalent régulièrement des interviews.)

Mais bref, ABKCO Records réédite demain -mardi- 22 titres des Rolling Stones remasteurisés en SACD, selon le Chicago Tribune. Lors d'une récente interview, Ken Scott, co-producteur de Ziggy Stardust avec David Bowie, disait qu'il allait bientôt travailler sur la version de Ziggy en SACD.
Il n'a pas tardé à ajouter qu'il écoutait surtout des vinyls chez lui. Le meilleur son possible, inégalé. Ah, si mes vieux Cure et Japan sur vinyl n'étaient pas restés à Lyon.

Mais à Los Angeles, nous avons quelques incontournables, comme "Puff the magic Dragon (you can sing along on this site)" et "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" Ok -- raise your hand if you didn't own this record.

posted by on 10:43 du soir | link

Août 12, 2002

Eric Olsen fait bouger les blogues: le blogger ultra dynamique de l'Ohio lance cette semaine un nouveau blogue de groupe de critiques de disques et de livres, Blogcritics.com

Original: il va essayer de bâtir une saine relation avec l'Association des Maisons de disques américaines, la RIAA (diabolisée par les blogueurs, et à juste raison). Eric voudrait que les blogueurs du groupe Blogcritics puissent recevoir des disques en avant-première, des communiqués de presse etc, accès aux chanteurs, bref: qu'ils soient traités comme des journalistes de médias traditionnels.

Le lancement de BlogCritic sera marqué demain par une interview avec le président de la RIAA, Cary Sherman (beau coup, Eric!) mardi à 11 am (Eastern) soit 20h à Paris. Il a du cran pour affronter les blogueurs qui sont en général les plus ardents défenseurs de feu-Napster et des sites de musique P2P. La conversation risque d'être fort intéressante. Un tel projet pourrait très bien exister en France si les bloggeurs se regroupaient...

Au fait, Eric apparait en tant qu'expert dans un article publié samedi dans Libération sur la genèse de Ziggy Stardust, l'album de légende de David Bowie.

posted by on 12:23 du soir | link

Les rêves de gloire internet en vente: Vous avez peut-être déjà vu l'article très divertissant de Salon sur les noms de domaine idiots réservés en masse à une époque pas si lointaine: des gens pensaient sincèrement s'enrichir en revendant un jour rferfffffffffffffffffffffffffffeeeeeeeeeeeee.com ou Fatgravy.com. C'est au tour de la la BBC de farfouiller avec un soupçon de nostalgie dans le site Deleted Domains, qui recense plus de 16 millions de noms de domaines abandonnés, à notre disposition.

posted by on 11:01 du matin | link

Août 11, 2002

Like Goldorack below, Os always triumphs over the evil machines

Os came by last night to set me free from Blogger's mood swings and install Movable Type on my PC. I'm particularly impressed when he talks to a bunch of computers in cyberspace and his servers in Baltimore at the same time, always as Zen as a soybean. Again... thanks a million, Os!