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January 19, 2008

The MWSF keynote (, , )

by fluffy at 2:18 AM
So I just watched the MWSF keynote, and out of sheer boredom I decided to watch the Randy Newman performance at the end. What the hell?! Did the Steve actually approve that first song, where basically he ranted about how America might be bad but Europeans like Nero, Caligula, Hitler and Stalin were worse so we're not really that evil, and added some thinly-veiled racist comments about having "a brother" and "two tight-assed Italians" in the supreme court?

Not to mention that the "song" was so musically-similar to "You've Got A Friend In Me," the song he played immediately afterwards. That didn't really help his image, considering he's been parodied so many times as having basically written only one song.

The first song in particular left a pretty sour taste in my mouth, and since Jobs has been coming across as very arrogant lately (especially when he dares to claim that Apple TV Take 2 is innovative even though its model is a direct crib from TiVo + Unbox), his tacit approval of Newman's views makes me ashamed to be an Apple user (even moreso than the most recent Mac+PC ads). It seems like Apple is going out of its way to promote the image of Mac as being a platform for arrogant, snobby people who just want to bask in perceived superiority of style over substance.

No wonder so many prominent Apple engineers are leaving to do their own thing now (many citing being tired of being stuck working on Steve's vision rather than being able to truly innovate).

I wouldn't be too surprised if their board of directors were to try ousting Jobs again. It's great that he's revitalized the company and turned their technology around, and he's made a few very good moves that have served him well (iMac and generally better industrial design, iPod/iTunes, and NeXTStep), but it seems like his RDF has taken control and people have lost whatever pushback they had against him, and I have a feeling that over the next few years things are going to get worse for Apple (and its users) before they get better.

(Who knows, maybe Microsoft will come to its senses and reinvent itself and make Windows a platform worth switching back to. I could see them pulling an OSX and basically just making a whole new OS based on FreeBSD, with a decent GUI and a virtualization layer for legacy apps. That's basically what Apple did, and historically Microsoft has been very good at copying Apple's moves and being much more successful. There's no reason some other company couldn't do that, either. Consider how many companies are building very successful platforms based on Linux now!)

Comments

#10370 01/19/2008 04:26 am
I haven't watched the Newman performance, but the reaction seems to have been that it was basically a left-wing polemic against Bush's policies, so presumably they "Hey, Caligula was worse" thing was sarcasm? (See the very end of this post, for example.)
#10371 01/19/2008 10:20 am
The sarcasm was so strong it wrapped around into sincerity, then. The whole thing just left a really bad taste in my mouth.
#10372 01/19/2008 04:02 pm
Only one song???? Uh, no. Randy Newman has been a prolific writer and performer for decades. See songs like "I Love LA" and "Short People". He has quite a body of work. He also has a very strange, unique sense of humor... which has gotten him into trouble before.

True story: I went to school with a kid named Braden Barty... Who's father was Billy Barty - yes, THAT Billy Barty. One day, he brings his dad to an assembly (this was 5th grade, so, like 1981) and the retards at the school have the nerve to play "Short People"!!!!! Now, mind you, I was *11* and even I was embarrassed for the school. I told Mr. Barty so, in fact. He and his family laughed it off.
#10373 01/19/2008 04:13 pm
1. I'm not saying he only wrote one song, just that a lot of his more recent songs sound very similar (a more charitable phrase might be "structurally and melodically consistent"), and he's attracted a lot of parody and ridicule for this.

2. Who the hell is THAT Billy Barty?
#10380 01/21/2008 06:35 pm
#10382 01/22/2008 09:54 am
Yeah, he definitely doesn't actually apologize for Bush, nor does he like Stalin and Hitler. Some of the lyrics became an op-ed in the NYT.
#10383 01/22/2008 03:45 pm hehe.
Spud:


Heh - thank you - Though you can likely find better pictures of him (and a list of things you'd remember seeing him in, like 'Willow') on IMDB.

Linky: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000863/

Some of the highlights:
UHF
Willow
Masters of the Universe (Yes, the HeMan movie)
Legend
The Lord of the Rings (1978)

... and a giant metric fuck-ton of TV and old movies, going all the way back to 1933.

I thought everyone know who he was. I guess that's because I went to school with his son. {shrug}