Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?

So it's "Internet Week '08" here in New York City (hold your applause, please).

Beginning tomorrow and continuing through next Tuesday, various seminars, events, cocktail parties and meet-and-greets will be held at different locations around the city. The basic idea is to give the nation's technological and media bigshots the chance to come together and discuss how to intelligently adapt to the digital world and best use the internet to make a crapload of money. But it'll also give the scrappy movers and shakers among new media -- of which I can now count myself a member -- the chance to rub elbows with the Illuminatian elite of the corporate media. It promises to be an interesting confluence of ideas and cultures, if not the sort of overwhelming boon to the city's prostitution industry that last month's annual Fleet Week was.

Needless to say, I'm totally signed-on for the open bar events.

That's not why I'm mentioning any of this, however.

No, I bring this up because one of the first seminars scheduled for the week is a breakfast panel focusing on the impact of the internet on journalism and vice versa.

It's entitled "Time Warner's Conversations on the Circle: News & Politics."

It's being held at the Time Warner Center, home of none other than CNN -- in fact, it's moderated by CNN's Washington Bureau Chief, Dave Bohrman.

And guess who just registered for it.

(Why the picture? Because if you know who Spacey's character is and what he's saying right there, it's just perfect.)

Who's Crying Now?

I confess -- I've always had a place in my heart for Journey.

They really have recorded some of the best anthems of my generation, as cheesy as the songs may seem by today's standards. I'm sure you've noticed by now that the band has been back in the news lately thanks to their new lead singer, Arnel Pineda. He's a dead-ringer for both Steve Perry's voice and hair, and was discovered by Journey guitarist (and the dumbest man in rock n' roll) Neal Schon via YouTube. Schon searched the site and spotted a video of Pineda playing in a cover band in the Philippines, was blown away by his vocal range, and paid for Pineda to fly to the states to audition.

It's admittedly an incredible story, made amusingly moreso by the fact that Journey concerts now include a slightly surreal influx of proud Filipinos.

One person not happy about all of this is Lou Dobbs.

In a statement, Dobbs is already decrying what he calls "the outsourcing of American pop music to the Third World," and claims that Pineda "puts a strain on our country's national resources by forcing concession stands at concert venues to make sure they have enough dog on the menu to satisfy his fans."

No comment yet from Journey.

Listening Post

They call themselves Bertolt Brechtian Punks, which is just a fancy way of saying that their aesthetic comes directly from Alan Cumming's Tony-winning performance as the Emcee in the superb revival of Cabaret a few years back. Either way, they're one of the best live shows you'll ever see.

Here's the Dresden Dolls doing Sing.

Raising Hill

Hopefully, you got the chance to see HBO's damn good movie Recount, about the underhanded machinations and near-psychotic fight for votes that ensued in Florida immediately following the 2000 presidential election. In addition to being a snapshot likely to trigger depressing alternate reality fantasies that wipe away the nightmare of the last several years, it paints a picture of the sickeningly Machiavellian lenghts that Republicans went to in an effort to stop the vote recount -- in particular, the staged protests (read: near-riots) designed to terrorize adversaries to the breaking point.

An exercise in irony that's beyond description, however, is to watch Recount, then pay close attention to the behavior of Hillary Clinton's supporters yesterday at the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing. Clinton's frighteningly rabid apostles -- who've been conditioned by their leader not to take no for an answer, no matter what -- bear a resemblance to the bullying GOP warriors of 2000 in ways that would be hilarious if they weren't so damn sad. (Protests are one thing; shouting, booing, making pseudo-extremist threats and otherwise being disruptive inside the meeting room itself is something else entirely.)

Hillary's journey to the dark side has been complete for quite a while -- but there's no need for her zombies to rub it the hell in.

(CTV: Hillary Supporters Furious with Hearing Decision/6.1.08)

The Right to Write?

Decent Sunday morning reading: The sad-but-true tale of my firing from CNN gets another set of news legs, compliments of the American Journalism Review.

In all honesty, Kevin Rector has written a thoughtful and thorough article on the current conflict over personal internet writing among journalists. It details the questions being raised, the institutions that are making their policies crystal clear, and the ones which seem to be sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that this whole blogging fad will pass.

(American Journalism Review: "Murky Boundaries" by Kevin Rector/5.30.08)

"Just Keep Asking Yourself: What Would Jesus NOT Do?"

Chuck Palahniuk's Choke has been made into a movie. This is good news. What's even better news is that Sam Rockwell is the star of the film, playing misanthropic, sexual support group-addicted con man Victor Mancini.

Here's your first look.

Sunday Sacrilege