No words: I was offline most of the weekend and missed this video of a CBS news report about an amazing high school basketball player. I just got around to watching it before leaving the office…now I must dry my eyes. Amazing.

Update:  Bad news: Staci Kramer at PaidContent.org says CBS has asked YouTube to remove the video from its site (after 1.3 million views).  Good news: You can view it at CBSnews.com.

Then call me a “music snob”: (From today’s Tennessean) “Music snobs might see Trace Adkins’ latest hit, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, as little more than a marketing-driven party song, shamelessly fusing together redneck and urban slang in a not-so-subtle sweep for lowbrow listeners.”

The story goes on to suggest that the success of the song is a “ray of hope” for Nashville record labels.

Despite the coincidence of me living and working in Nashville and sharing the same work address as Trace Adkins’ record label, I have nothing to do with the music industry in Nashville except loathing crap like the aforementioned tune. If this is the best the “industry” of commercial music in Nashville can do, then I celebrate their demise. Bring on MySpace or whatever can replace artificial scarcity tactics that allow “hit-making” based on the redneckification of hip-hop exploitative misogyny and calling it “a ray of hope.” This stuff is crap and surely even Capitol Records and the Tennessean reporter Ryan Underwood know that.

There is some great music created in Nashville. Strangely, it’s easier to find in a Starbucks than on the radio dial. Here’s a suggestion for someone looking for good country music from Nashville. Go to Pandora.com and create a radio station based on the artist “Tim O’Brien” and see where that takes you. I have no idea where it will take you, but I’ll guarantee you it will be a better playlist than any “Top 40″ commercial country radio station in America. It won’t be crap. And I won’t be embarrassed to say it was created in Nashville. And I think that’s a “ray of hope.”

Update: Philip Woodgate (see comments) followed my Pandora-Tim O’Brien suggestion and likes what he heard. For a great list of such musicians, I suggest looking through the archives of Candace Corrigan’s podcast, “The Nashville Nobody Knows,” including this interview with Tim O’Brien.

Technorati Tags: nashville

Jason Fried: “If you are trying to build a business, money matters. Profit matters. Longevity matters. So don’t build a product, a team, and a company if you can’t support them. And yes, there are cases of free products that turn into very profitable products, but that’s just a lucky lottery ticket.”

I am pointing to this post because my company is one of the growing number of small businesses that are paying Jason’s company up to $1,200 per year for Basecamp. And because, I find myself now “living” in Basecamp, I think that’s a deal.

Technorati Tags: smallbusiness

Roberta Flack moment: When I read this Jason Fry piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, I felt as if he was killing me softly with his song, telling my whole life with his words. In other words, “what he said…”

Quote:

“But blogging will no longer be a phenomenon. When people talk about it, they’ll often be referring to tools for putting up simple Web sites easily, or a certain style of Web publishing: brightly written, frequently updated and inviting reader conversation.”

Technorati Tags: blogging

The Okay Dave resumeme: Geez. OkayDave.com is just a little design portfolio. Like, say, Star Wars is a little film. Can something be too good? (sorry, I’ve lost the thread that led me there.)

Technorati Tags: meme