Uniquely Nashville: Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but one of the most fascinating annual events held in Nashville is coming up this weekend, and very few locals will even know it happens. Each year, the national organization comprised of individuals who run local bluegrass festivals (yes, there is an association for everything) has a convention at the Sheraton Music City (near the airport). The organization is called The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America, but most people attending the convention call it something that sounds like, “Spig-ma.”

I’ve never actually been inside a Spig-ma convention meeting, but I’ve made lots of visits to the lobby and hallways of the Sheraton during the annual convention. (I just remembered, I’ve even blogged it before.) I don’t know how to describe it. If you’ve ever heard a few bluegrass pickers jamming, imagine a few dozen groups of such jammers picking in every hallway, corner and stairwell in a large hotel. Fortunately, every room in the hotel is booked by convention attendees as a civilian walking into this scene would equate the experience to an episode of the Twilight Zone.

I’ll be going out to the Sheraton with the fiddler (she’s home this weekend) and the mandolin player from my house. They always enjoy jamming with the oldtimers. I enjoy them enjoying it.

Despite her “striking” resemblance in this picture to Tonya Harding, Sally Anthony has not appeared on the Jerry Springer show. Yet.

Surreal: On her website, minor-league-basketball-team-minority-owner-and-entertainer Sally Anthony says she’s “proof that dreams can become reality.” Yeah, right, and dreams can also turn into nightmares and Felinniesque freak shows. Talk about dreams: She’s a “You’re so Nashville…” fantasy.

(Note: I would like to make clear this post is entirely in “jest” and is parody and satire and all those other libel-shielding things. It does does not really reflect the high regard this blogger has for minor league sports team owners, or minor league entertainers, for that matter. And what’s more, my using the term “minor league entertainer” should not be construed to suggest Ms. Anthony is minor-league or obscure. The fact that I nor anyone I know has ever heard of her does not mean she isn’t a really big-time star. So, just to make it clear, no where on this post do I describe Ms. Anthony as being “odd” or “kooky.” Let’s just say, she’s special. Okay.)

Update: A person who is too bashful to comment, even though one can do so anonymously, e-mailed me to suggest that someone who would display the photo on the left prominently on the front page of her website would likely see herself as the victim in all of this self-inflicted mockery. She’ll actually think we’re laughing at her, not with her. That being the case, I’d like assure Sally that we’re not making fun of her just because she’s made a complete fool of herself. (By the way, after noticing that picture, I’ve changed my mind. She’s got more of the Courtney Love look going on that the Tonya Harding.)

Update II: Did I say Courtney Love? I meant Kurt Cobain.

Vaporzine trend? One of the more inside and savvy readers of this weblog thinks there may be a trend-story somewhere in this couple of couple vaporzines magazines.

Update: I stand corrected (see comments).

New shark-jumping land speed record: It’s official. The new “media insider” blog FishbowlNY both launched and jumped the shark on its first day. Apparently, by noon, its keepers were already too bored with its stated topic (”fishbowlNY: a gossip blog about New York media”), its keepers have moved onto war-blogging.

This is gossip?

Incidentally, when will major NY papers and wire services stop waiting for official Pentagon excuses about why those helicopters keep crashing over there? You think a Sea Stallion plummets and kills over 30 people because the sand filter on the turbine breaks down? No, a hand-held Stinger missile will do that. icasualties is the only open-source outlet that also cross-references all up-to-the-minute news about what network pundits present weeks later as “shocking new numbers.”

Incidentally, when will FishbowlNY do gossip rather than oped pieces?

Blog-lite advisory: I’m too busy keeping up with the new mediabistro blogs to actually blog any today. Back tonight. Elizabeth Spears (former Gawker) runs them. It shows. Best initially: the NY media gossip one, FishbowlNY. While I’m gone today, you can still find a steady stream of links to articles about magazines on del.icio.us/rexblog. Make it a good day.

(via: Jeff Jarvis)

All the old news fit to print: Apparently, when Mr. Roboto and I (see the comments) talk, the Tennessean listens.

On December 22, I laid down this challenge (with credit to Mr. Roboto) to the Tennessean after they unleashed their “crack” investigative team on that den of “inequity” otherwise known as the Chely Wright fan club:

Here’s a better story for the Tennessean reporter to pursue. I think she should do an expose on the reasons behind why no Tennessean reporters covered the Nashville payola scandal earlier this year involving WQZQ that even a best-selling author writing for the New Yorker covered (thanks to Mr. Roboto for that link). Why are over-enthusiastic fans worth investigating and a blatantly corrupt radio industry not? Does the lack of coverage of that payola scandal have anything to do with the Tennessean having an entertainment columnist on the payroll of that station? Not to suggest that any of this is scandalous, but it’s at least worth asking the presidents of some fan clubs about.

Today, the Tennessean has a front page story about a real scandal, not the Chely Wright pretend-scandal.

Yet even in today’s story, the writer can’t help herself and takes yet another jab at the eager Chely Wright fans who discovered a way to hack the radio cartel with this editorial comment embedded in her story: Sometimes, those fans cross the line. No quotation marks. Fans should check in with the reporter, I guess, who seems to have established what is the “line” fans may cross in competing with the payola thugs and radio barrons.

But can they name a blogger? Laura Berman, a columnist for the Detroit News, was humbled recently in a college classroom where she was there to lead a class on “writing a newspaper column.”

Quote:

The scene: A college classroom at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
The subject: Writing the newspaper column.
The question: “Can any of you name a columnist you read — in a newspaper or magazine or online — on a regular basis?”
In response: Dead silence.

Relatives and friends memes: First meme: The Bloglines meme (I’m blaming this on Doc who blames it on Joesph, etc.). You find your blog on bloglines.com and click “related blogs.” For example, here are the weblogs to which Bloglines says rexblog is related. As there are a lot of blogs on the list I have not encountered before, I’m looking forward to meeting the new relatives.

Okay, the second meme: Name ten bloggers you’d like to invite to an imaginary dinner party. Shawn Lea invited me to hers.

Which reminds me of an old joke I just made up:

Q. What is the proper way to respond to an imaginary blogger dinner party invitation?

A. With an RSSVP.

Who would Jesus clue? On this weblog, I lambasted the folks at Rolling Stone for being clueless by rejecting an ad from the Zondervan Bible folks, a decision the magazine wisely reversed later.

What I didn’t know was that some of my Nashville neighbors, the Southern Baptist publishing arm, also have a beef with the Bible, or, at least with the “The New International Version” of the Bible, the version being promoted in the ad rejected by Rolling Stone. Nashville-based and Southern-Baptist owned LifeWay Christian Bookstores won’t sell the version because of its “gender neutrality,” which LifeWay says stems from “secular political correctness” rather than “biblical inerrancy.” (Disclosure: I attend a church that uses a “gender neutral” version of the Bible and think, at times, it’s ridiculous. I also know — believe me — lots of Southern Baptists (and I was one for the first half of my life) who realize how clueless it is for LifeWay to censure a version of the Bible based on its own dogmatic set of right-wing-political correctness.)

And so we have a dilemma in what was being called after the election, “Jesus Land”: How can you rail against the heathen Rolling Stone secularists for not carrying an advertisement for a Bible you rail against for being too secular and politically correct?

As I said in the first two posts on this topic, God works in mysterious ways. I’ll add now, She also has a remarkably keen sense of humor.

Rexblog vs. AP: Okay, if the AP “breaking” story that Martha Stewart Living is ending its online and catalog sales operations sounds a little familiar, it’s because you read it a couple of weeks ago (1/6) on the rexblog.

HD Cubanvision: While I disagree with him on occasion, I’m addicted to Mark Cuban’s weblog. Where else are you going to read something like this about HD Net, the all high definition TV network he owns:

“Since it’s my network, and this is something I think is amazing and compelling, we are going to broadcast the feed continuously on HDNet during daylight and twilight hours in Baghdad. No talking heads. No interruptions for commentary. Just the sights and sounds of Baghdad, uninterrupted and unedited. What you see, and in High Definition you see and hear a lot, is what you get.”

HD C-Span of the Iraqi skyline may not not sound to me the most compelling TV, but Mark Cuban’s passion makes him the best billionaire blogger we have, and will have, unless, that is, Warren Buffett decides to crank one up.

Top Ten EU rejected names of Windows-Lite: The WSJ is reporting that the European Commission’s antiturst authority “has expressed concern” about Microsoft’s version of windows that complies with the regulator’s order to provide a version of Windows without Windows Media Player. The EU, it appears, doesn’t like the name MS has chosen, “Windows XP Reduced Media Edition” as they fear such an unappealing name could turn away consumers.

What? Microsoft using an unappealing name to turn away customers? An interesting marketing challenge: Name a product so no one will want to purchase it. Reminds me of the movie/play, The Producers. With that in mind, here are my suggestions for the top ten unappealing names Microsoft can now run by the EU:

10. Windows Weakling
9. Windows Yugo
8. Windows Mute
7. Windows Crash
6. Windows Without
5. Windows Osama
4. Windows Short Horn
3. Windows Slow Edition
2. Windows FU-EU
and the number one least appealing name…
1. Windows Mini

Drawing on experience: Mississippi State assistant professor of graphic design, Kate Bingaman, 27, documented over two years of her consumer purchases on her website, Obsessive Consumption. Now she’s documenting her climb out of debt. Her inspired way to increase her (and our) awareness of credit card debt is to literally draw each credit card statement each month until it’s paid off.

(via: del.icio.us/merlinmann)

Now, I’m even more impressed: Previously, I have praised the folks behind JPG Magazine for demonstrating how to translate participatory journalism, blogging, and, in their case, photoblogging into print. Now, I’ve discovered they are using on-demand printing to produce and distribute the publication.

As I often get Google-search visitors here who are looking for information about how to start a magazine (and who are disappointed that I have none), I’d like to give the JPG Mag folks even more kudos for demonstrating a means to scratch the itch of magazine creation and entrepreneurship in a way that does not require one to max out credit cards and take out second mortgages on ones home. If you think the world can’t live without your idea for a magazine or that it’s “the first ever” magazine of its kind, here’s a way to test that theory. If you think that all that stuff you’re blogging would make a good magazine, here’s a way to test that theory.

Impressive.

Tagsology: Great WSJ column on “tags” by Jeremy Wagstaff, who, I’ve discovered, also has a wonderful weblog that provides helpful links related to his column. If this topic interests you, on del.icio.us/rexblog, where I link to lots of magazine stories, I use the tags “magazines” and “vaporzine” primariliy.

(via: Steve Rubel)