Artist: Phoenix

Track: Lisztomania

Album: Wolfgang Amadeus

Discovered & downloaded on:
KEXP Song of the Day

I heard “Lisztomania” on KEXP weeks ago and was hoping it would show up on the Song of the Day podcast.  Today it finally did.  Get it while you can.

Less than two weeks ago, I was here in San Francisco presenting a few proposals to Cannon Wines Limited, a wine importer and marketer.  Today I’m back in the office as the new Marketing Director, charged with promoting their popular labels and building some of their newest brands from the ground up. Along with producing and distributing marketing materials for sales managers all over the US market, I’ll also be revolutionizing the way Cannon does business, by streamlining many of its internal operations with web tools and bringing most of its materials online for easier access and distribution. Expect a complete redesign of www.cannonwines.com to drive those efforts in the coming months.

I’ll also be executing the freshly minted marketing agenda for Naked Earth, a collection of blends made with organically grown grapes.  First on the agenda will be an update of the Naked Earth brand site, followed by a few exciting events.  Join the Naked Earth Facebook group to receive RSVPs as those develop.

First order of business though: finding a place to live.  Homelessness is stressful.

So I was in San Francisco while this was heating up, and ironically disconnected for a couple days while on business, but I caught the ending in full tonight.  Here’s the back story: at some point, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) declared it his mission to be the first Twitter user to have 1 million followers.  The closest user to that goal at the time was CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk).  Sadly, also in the running was Britney Spears, who doesn’t even post her own content, but let’s not get into that.

Kutcher challenged CNN to beat him to a million followers, and raised the stakes with a wager that, if he becomes the first, he’ll donate $100,000 to Malaria No More, which aims to eradicate the disease from the African content using a distribution system for prevention. Well CNN accepted the challenge, and broadcast its effort on live TV, with follower counters and all.  Not to be outdone by traditional media, tonight Ashton Kutcher broadcast his own live play-by-play on his UStream account.

The race continued into the night, and victory was finally taken by Kutcher at around 11:20 PM, no doubt with help from his wife Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) and all of the tech industry’s elites.  The 1 millionth follower may have been Australian, as the continent was just waking up as it happened.

Kutcher then thanked all of the tech start-ups involved, from Kevin Rose at Digg, to the guys at Qik, to his publicist, the charity, etc.  Evan Williams and others congratulated him.  Then Kutcher watched CNN’s live concession to him on TV, and responded with this:

A toast to Ted Turner – you are a pioneer in media, in creating CNN and creating your entire network and your conglomerate… you had the foresight to see that digital media was going to be the future, even before all of us believed it.  And for that, you deserve to be congratulated.  And also, you deserve to be ding dong ditched, because at the end of the day, the old guard has passed and the new guard is here.

If Ashton Kutcher is the new guard of media, I don’t want to be inside those gates.  Yikes. Clearly Kevin Rose has created a monster.  Kutcher then goes on with generic declarations on democratizing media, blah blah blah… regurgitating lines he heard in pitch meetings, no doubt.  See it in the video.

Personally I find celebrity news trite, annoying, and hugely distracting from the real news Americans should be watching and analyzing.  So I wasn’t all that interested in documenting the occasion, but as it is my communication style of choice, I recorded the historical social networking/media moment and the thank-you speech following, as you’ll see above.

[UPDATE] CNN has posted a response to the results:

First of all, kudos to Ashton and all those in the @aplusk camp. Now more than ever, the consumer is in the driver’s seat and we couldn’t be more gratified than to be part of this historic social media milestone. We’d like to thank every one of our followers for helping CNN reach the one million mark, and we are delighted to raise our donation to 10,000 bed nets for World Malaria Day in recognition of them.

Historic? Really? Seems more like a popularity contest to me – no substance.

Artist: The Faunts

Track: Alarmed/Lights

Album: Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.

Discovered & downloaded on:
KEXP Song of the Day

“Alarmed/Lights” by Edmonton band The Faunts is one of the songs I’ve been listening to in repeat while working, and driving through all of the sad parts of Vegas. So, pretty much everywhere outside my neighborhood. It’s dark and moody, running almost 8 minutes and beginning much like it started, flowing in, out and back so seamlessly that I can tune out and not know I’ve been listening to the same song for 4 hours.  Feels like an out-of-focus snapshot of the sadder Vegas that tourists never see.

Whenever I come across a news story that sounds both ridiculously futuristic and unbelievable, I post a tweet with the #futureisnow hashtag. Here’s a recap of recent tweets:

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Israel using unmanned, 60-ton bulldozer drones to clear roads of land mines and other explosives. http://is.gd/pSOJ

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Production on the Chevy Volt set to begin on June 1, 2009. http://is.gd/pjnx

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow RT @gavinpurcell: I have a Kindle 2 and it is awesome. Physical books = another piece of the old world I can do mostly without.

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow New MMCC barcodes will transmit audio, video, text and games. I’m totally getting a tattoo of one. http://is.gd/nzsa

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Pentagon inks deal on portable milli-wave raygun tech. http://is.gd/nq74

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow The United States has shot down its first enemy unmanned drone aircraft, controlled by Iran http://bit.ly/152yjf

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Pattie Maes presents the Sixth Sense wearable computer by the MIT Media Lab at TED 2009. http://bit.ly/LiOPj

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Jerry loses a finger in a motorcycle accident, so he gets a prosthetic finger – with a 2 GB USB drive. http://bit.ly/T7a6X

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow @kevinrose does a speed test from Virgin America’s in-flight wi-fi from SFO to NYC (while streaming): http://twitpic.com/1zcmw

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Robot Overload Appreciation: the US has deployed 17,300 drones in the Middle East, just in the past 5 years?! http://is.gd/hSnN

andrewmackenzie: #futureisnow Berkeley Bionics partners with Lockheed to produce their awaited HULC high-endurance exoskeleton for soldiers http://is.gd/laKQ

Current assessment of the future: frightening.