happy thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving weekend. trish and i just got back from my parents house in illinois. it was great to see my family. the highlight of the weekend was shooting skeet [insert dirty joke here] at my aunts house. i should mention my aunt kathy because she told me she reads the blog so this is my shout out. anyway, i don't think i'd qualify for gun toting redneck, but holding a shiny hand canon and shootin' some lead at a little piece of clay is pretty fun. if you haven't had a chance to try it, i'd definitely recommend it. the gun in the picture is a remington 870 wingmaster that is about 50 years old. it was my grandfathers gun and now my uncle has it. the gun still shoots like a champ and by the way, my grandpa was pretty gnarley. i heard stories this weekend about him apparently going hunting without a gun by letting his dog chase a rabbit into an old car which he would then reach into, grab the rabbit, snap its neck and have a tasty snack. don't believe me? my dad swears by it.


Anyway, i had a chance to write a few open letters:

Dear Cracker Barrel:
please add some more merchandise displays to your waiting area. i'm still able to breathe a bit

Dear people driving by the accident on I-24 near Hopkinsville, KY:
just because a car is wrecked on the side of the road doesn't mean you need to slow down to a crawl and gape at it

Dear retailers of america:
kudos to you for creating a day where people camp outside your doors in the cold for the chance to give you money and impulse buy things they don't want or need just because they're on sale

Dear Strike and Spare Bowling Alley in Springfield, IL:
$4.50 a game isn't bad, but what's with the $4.00 for shoe rental? those smelly things probably cost five dollars to make and you're probably paying for each pair 5 times over every night. you try to squeeze money out of me, i leave.

Dear Tiger Woods:
you're not fooling anybody

Dear Risk computer game:
i love you but you're ruining my life

Dear 50" LCD flatscreen TV:
you are a dirty temptress. i told you already that i don't have the extra money so stop sneaking your way into my dreams.

Dear deer that i did not see or shoot:
you are very sneaky and i can't figure out if i just picture a bad spot or if you smelled me a mile away. i'm going to figure it out, but in any case, there's no way i'm spraying deer pee on me.

Dear Rain:
STOP IT


Sincerely,

Nick

college

i've had a few people ask me for advice on how to get into the music industry and what kind of college to go to. i know i've kinda already addressed the subject of recording schools here. but this is a little different. let's talk about college. college as we all think about it is a joke. politicians and news pundits who decry a lack of higher education seem to claim that college is some magical potion that can instantly cure all social ills. but that's stupid. even if their claims weren't outrageous, the fact that "education is the answer" is like stating that investing in the stock market is universally good. that's just not true. sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad. the fallacy lies in the generalization.

the problem occurs when we look at college as anything beyond a financially calculated decision. the truth is that whether or not a person should go to college or invest in a mutual fund or open a savings account should be based on the individual situation that each person is in. college can be a wonderful thing and can really open doors for someone who is ready for it and who can manage the cost, but to just assign some sort of blanket statement that it's always good is absolutely false. not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer. not everyone can occupy high-level, high paying jobs. although it is entirely possible to get a high paying high level job without going to college.

would it be nice for everyone to go to a fancy $20,000 a year school to "find yourself" and go to parties for four years. but very few have the means to cover this cost on their own. yes, you can get student loans, but why put yourself $80,000 in debt to get a degree in a field that you probably don't use once you get a job that pays the same amount that a good skilled trade job would pay - except a skilled tradesman doesn't have to pay for big student loans.

people forget about trade schools. electricians, mechanics, paralegals, nurses and many other well paying jobs can be attained through very cheap investment into a vocational school. or let's talk about how many kids who don't have money decide to take out big loans to go to a school far away for a degree they could have gotten at a local college and probably have paid for it all while working. but see, we're all deceived by the beautiful campuses, exotic locations and fun filled student activities. don't get me wrong - there's nothing bad about having fun. if your parents have an extra $80,000 they want to fork over for a fancy degree, then awesome. go for it and have the time of your life. but when politicians on high create some universal expectation that every poor kid should take out loans and go to a big ticket university, it makes me want to scream. yes, that will probably work for a very small percentage of very motivated kids who come from a bad background. but we should expect realistic steps.

what if college as we know it was completely different? i read an article about this a while back and it seems to make a lot of sense. instead of college being a self contained program where the institution handled teaching, testing and certification, what if a college would award a degree based entirely on certification. imagine a system where you go to a college and pay a couple hundred dollars to take a very lengthy and very intense test. based on your score you would be awarded a degree. each major would have its own test. i've told some people about this and they scoff and say that it wouldn't work for people who don't test well. but i say that would be irrelevant because it would be massive tests such as the bar examinations that lawyers take or the CPA exam that accountants take. why can't we create a certification for every major? that way, even the poorest kid could scrounge together the couple hundred dollars for the test fee, spend a few months checking out books from the public library and could have a degree with a little hard work. that seems like the best way to make an education available. the colleges could still offer courses to those who want a traditional college experience. i imagine that there would be a middle ground of competing free market schools. imagine a small specialized school that you could attend at nights that went through the courses for a marketing certification in 6 months and only cost $1,500 but doesn't have all the big costs for sports teams and high priced real estate that a traditional college has. a student could take 3 years and earn a few different degrees at a fraction of the cost.

and the last thing is basic supply and demand. so what if a student wants to make a stupid decision about college. it only affects them, right? well, if we convince a large number of kids to go to a big fancy school when in all likelihood they probably shouldn't even be there, then what we are doing is increasing the demand for higher education in a fairly limited supply of schools. and what does that do? it increases the price artificially. colleges just love to add extra racquetball courts and concerts and big events. they just increase the tuition to cover it. no big deal. it's almost like preying on young and stupid kids while they're young so that they'll spend the next 15 years making monthly payments and wondering if the massive student life budgets were worth the extra costs. when a band plays at a club, they get a certain amount of money. when a band plays at a college, they get MUCH MUCH more money than a club because colleges have big huge budgets and cash that they are just throwing away. and where does that come from? your tuition. the waste is just ridiculous. but people think it was worth it because those were the best days of their lives. but the reason they were the best days is because now they have to work three jobs just to make all the payments. the circular logic is making me dizzy. how about you skip the fancy school and exchange it for the no frills community college and then use your extra income to build some wealth and to make life better and better as your grow older. i don't know, it seems like a good way to do things to me.

basically, college is an investment. but it's not always a good investment. it could very easily be a very bad investment to someone who doesn't have the money and is getting a degree they don't now and won't ever need. each person needs to realistically assess what college is really going to cost them in the long run and what they are going to get out of it in the long run. and if the numbers don't add up, they should have the courage to withstand peer pressure and either hold off on going until things do add up or find another option like apprenticing for a skilled trade or vocational training.

just another sunday

oh phoenix arizona. we played there yesterday for like the 87th time in the last couple months. ok, maybe not 87th but it felt like a lot. i was pissed at clay because instead of booking us direct on southwest he booked us on delta and we had to take a 530am flight through atlanta. i gave him crap about it all weekend. but honestly, i'm closer to getting my northwest/delta status so i'm sure when i'm getting bumped up to first class clay will be my best friend again.



trevor, tom and i were sitting in a bulkhead seat (which means the front row - no seats in front of us)...the guy on the other side of the aisle had his bag at his feet. some lady comes up to him and is like "you'd better put that up...they're not gonna let you leave that there". we all saw that and were like, "thanks mom." it's like when people go crazy overboard about the microwave paper towel rule. i swear every time i microwave something without a paper towel i hear somebody chiming in with their "oh man, you'd better put a paper towel on that." and ya know what? sometimes i'd like to slap them because 1. it's my freaking microwave so i'll do whatever i want, 2. i didn't ask for your opinion, and 3. i'm making popcorn so i'm pretty sure i don't need a paper towel.



i went to sleep on the flight for a while. i mean, with all the early morning flights thanks to clay, a guy's gotta sleep somewhere (hahhaa sorry clay i'm just giving you crap). i woke up and reset my reclined seat and apparently the girl behind me had coffee on the tray and it spilled all over her. she starts spurting obscenities and i'm so groggy from having just woken up that i don't realize what's going on until i see her get up and go to the bathroom to change pants. so whoever you are in the villanova soccer team sweatshirt, sorry i spilled your coffee.

tonight trish and i went to trev's house to watch the AMA awards. it was cool to see carrie there and her bass player who we hang out with sometimes. also of note was tooth and nail president brandon ebel getting some camera time right next to puff daddy. we're totally gonna mess with him about it the next time we see him. so here's the whole thing in a nutshell. janet put on some weight and dances behind the beat. jay z was awesome. shakira was awesome. rihanna was awesome. whitney houston needs to be careful how intimate she gets with her award and what the heck does perez hilton have to do with music? adam lambert tried to do some sort of crazy gay sexual inuendo with simulated gay oral sex that instead of having the desired effect of shocking everyone, i think people just saw it as lame and reaching. i mean, when madonna tried that sort of thing at least she had some good songs to back it up. speaking of madonna i hardly knew any of her songs until a few years ago because my mom would instantly change the radio station if a madonna song came on. the same with elton john. i seriously missed out on elton john for so many years. i know my mom was trying to shelter me, but it's not like Tiny Dancer is recruiting me to be gay.....or wait...maybe it is. hahaha just kidding. but seriously i missed out on some seriously good music. but to be fair, my mom was really level headed about stuff and ended up lifting the ban on owning non-christian music.



so kids, the moral of the story is mind your own business on airplanes, don't book my flights before 9am, and don't immediately ban a whole artist's catalog just because you disagree with a lifestyle choice. it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

scalping

i've been following the lefsetz letter recently. for those of you who don't know what it is, it's a blog run by a prominent music attorney who rants about different aspects of the music industry. lately he's been harping on some shady-ness in the industry with major artists, live nation and ticketmaster. i'll try to make this explanation short and sweet. big artists work with ticketmaster to essentially scalp their own tickets through various tactics. these same artists turn around and blame ticketmaster for screwing over the little guy and selling tickets to ticket brokers. yes, blatant hypocrisy aside, nobody talks about the principle of scalping tickets.



scalping tickets is assumed by everyone to be universally evil. those who scalp are back alley scum who are on par with lechers and fraudsters. it was a college economics teacher who made an offhand remark about scalping as part of an economics lesson that got me thinking about this years ago. so i ask, What Is Wrong With Scalping??

the basis of free market exchange is that a transaction between two individuals is based on mutual decision. when you buy a cheeseburger you are making a choice that the cheeseburger is of enough value that you gladly give up your money. some people are willing to pay less or more for that cheeseburger, but unfortunately, there's no way for mcdonalds to evaluate each customers' valuation of their product. so if you absolutely LOVE cheeseburgers, then paying $1 for one as mcdonalds is probably a great deal to you. let's say you loved them soooooo much that you were willing to pay $100 for each cheeseburger. now i know that nobody is that stupid, but just humor me for a second. if that were true, then mcdonalds is missing out by only charging $1. if mcdonalds did charge $100, would that be price gouging? well, if you were willing to pay that much, isn't it your choice? if mcdonalds were able to to charge based on each customer's valuation, then each transaction would be as efficient as possible.

i've always seen ticket scalping as a free and open exchange that allows the promoters to maximize the efficiency of their transactions. if U2 plays a concert, some people are willing to pay $80 a ticket (or whatever the heck they're charging now). some people are willing to pay a whole lot more. now some people think this is wrong because the big bad promoter is muscling in for a better deal. but what's wrong with that? why is it ok for the consumer to clip coupons, make low-ball offers and buy open box items to save money but it's not ok for someone at the other end to do the same? in the end, all transactions are voluntary. no one is forcing you to buy a ticket to a concert.

now let's imagine that at a venue in addition to the ticket windows they also have staff scalpers who sell last minute tickets all the way up to the show. empty seats to a concert are an inefficiency. let's say a promoter books a show that is a failure. if he were able to scalp the last minute tickets at a bargain price, he's be able to hedge his losses and also make a better show by getting people in the seats. and that's really the end game. when the seats are filled EVERYONE wins.

if a promoter hires a headliner, they frequently have very little room to make a profit. frankly i'm not sure why anyone would want to take such a huge financial risk with such a small promise of a reward. why is it that if a show fails, the artist still gets a guarantee, yet if the show does well, the promoter frequently has to split the backend profit with the act? if a promoter does a good job and stirs up enough demand that fans are willing to pay well beyond the ticket price for a limited amount of seats, shouldn't he be free to reap the rewards of his hard work? if he were able to do this, the act would still get a piece of the backend profit the promoter would get a profit large enough to balance out the huge risk he's taking.

now imagine this. think of a world where last minute scalping was perfectly normal, legal and acceptable. i think there would be a large portion of the population who don't normally go to concerts would start showing up for last minute deals. lesser known bands who need to fill seats would find it easily to build a following. promoters would have an easier time getting people in the seats, and the extra profits made from the big shows would trickle down throughout the whole industry.

for years the venues and promoters have demonized scalping because of one thing - they don't get the money. but now that they've figured out a way to do it, they're all for it. and think about this, if a venue scalped it's own ticket, it would cut out the middle man ticket brokers which would actually decrease the demand for tickets and there give lower scalped prices than we have now. how's an example. let's say that 90 fans legitimately want tickets to a show. because of that demand, there are 10 ticket broker who only buy tickets with the intention to resell at a higher rate. if the venue was able to scalp themselves the day of the show and cut out the middle men, this would cut the demand for tickets by 10 pecent and thus the actual price that those 90 people end up paying is actually LOWER than it would be through ticket brokers.

anyway, it's just a thought. i could be wrong....but i think i'm right.

too much time on a bus

i just spent all day on a moving bus. and by all day, i mean i went to sleep and woke up on a moving bus and got home at midnight. thank god for bus internet and satellite tv.
here's a few things i learned today:

1. Lionel Richie is/was AMAZING, but the 80's were soooooo corny



I've watched this video a hundred times just to relive the creepiness. i'm totally stealing this expression - it's like when you blow your nose, it's disgusting, but you just have to look.

also, the girl in the video, Laura Carrington, wasn't actually blind. yes, i searched the interweb to find that out. i know a faker when i see one.

2. This would totally have fooled me when i was a kid.



underneath that manhole is a creepy old man.

3. You can make anything out of gaff tape.



i wish i could supply a story from the bus about a certain sculpture that was made out of gaff tape, but i try to keep this blog fairly clean. and also the assault charges are still pending so my lawyer says to keep my mouth shut. for those of you without a sense of humor, that was a joke.

only three things? i spent all day on a bus and i only have three things to share? even i'm disappointed in myself. let's just shut this blog down before it gets any worse.

Show Cancelled in North Platte, NE

our show tonight was canceled in North Platte, NE. it's pretty ridiculous. i can't really give details, but let's just say that we didn't make the decision and we fought hard to keep the show going even if it meant us borrowing acoustic guitars and no sound or lights. we realize that there was a lot of hard work put into the show by local churches and volunteers and we fought hard to stay, but to no avail. we'll find a way to make this up to you.

Kallispel, MT

first off, a point must be made that the new Michael Jackson movie is AWESOME. clay allen hates it but he doesn't like anything that doesn't have EMG's or James Hetfield in it. (haha sorry clay). seriously, it sucks that Michael died, but if he would have lived this movie wouldn't have been nearly as good. the fact that they had a multiple-camera crew filming at all times means that they had planned to do a tour video anyway - probably in conjunction with a live DVD or something. what's cool is that you really get to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff. you get to see michael being a bit of a diva and small conflicts between him and the crew that probably wouldn't have made the cut if he were alive to give his ok to the footage. it's also incredibly interesting to see how such a large production is pulled off. we usually only see the phenomenal finished product. it's hard to conceptualize how each element of the show - band, lights, dancers, pyro, etc. - are all small elements of the bigger picture. each thing by itself seems fathomable. but it's the compilation of every facet that contributes to the awe and spectacle that is a big arena show. and i think the lesson to be learned is that ANYTHING can be done if you break it down into attainable steps.

tonight we played in Kallispel, Montana. First of all, driving in this morning was amazing. as remote as this place is, the view seems worth it. how fitting that after dreaming about catching huge fish do i wake up to a gorgeous river just begging me to go fly fishing. A lot of people came out to the show and it turned out pretty cool. here's a shot of the crowd from when we played the FM Static set.



As you can see, it was held in a dirt floor rodeo arena which was cool, except that there was dust kicked up everywhere and my allergies didn't really like that. the people were awesome though. in the signing line we met a guy who identified himself as "Heavy" who is a former WWE wrestler who now runs a high school assembly ministry where he does feats of strength and spreads the word to kids. he seemed like a great guy so i thought i'd give him a plug. go check out his website at http://www.WalkingWithPower.org. Here a shot of him hanging out with us.



ya. that's what a 22" neck looks like.

So anyway, we've got two shows left on the tour. it's gone by so fast, but i gotta be honest. i'm anxious to get home. i'll be out on the road with tricia for the last week of her tour so if you're near one of the superchick atlanta and florida shows, come out and say hi.

Fire It Up Music Video

yesterday we had a day off in San Francisco and we used the day to shoot a music video for Fire It Up. the video has to do with a car chase and us playing on a moving flatbed truck. I won't spoil the video for you and tell you what happens. noooo, why would i ever do that? instead i'm going to just show you all the behind the scenes camera tricks. here's a shot of us getting setup.



Steve's kit was strapped down and screwed into the truck. behind him is a generator and a couple loudspeakers so that we can play along with the CD while we're filming. trev's metal spine mic stand had to be screwed down partly to keep it from falling and partly to give trev something to hold onto.



before we started moving, the driver freaked out and wanted us all to sign a hastily written contract that said he wouldn't be responsible if we fell off and got hurt. kinda freaky for a sec, but we all signed it anyway. (as if that thing would hold up in court anway hahah).



Here you can see Adam, one of the directors and the bay bridge in the background. we were actually on a small island called Treasure Island that used to be a Navy base. right next to us was a shoot for the ABC medical drama Trauma. Coincidentally, Tricia's band Superchick had their song "Breathe" used in some of the promos for that show. Notice our tour manager Clay Allen in the white hat strapping down steve's drumset. more on clay later...



i was really surprised to see what they were shooting with. 3 of the 4 camera's were the new Canon 5D. these are regular digital SLR photography cameras, but they're able to shoot HD video. Along with an assortment of different lenses, the clips i saw actually looked pretty good. they also had the RED camera that Max Hsu (http://homepage.mac.com/maxwax11/iblog/) used on the new superchick video. wow, that's two superchick references in one blog. that's for you babe.



Although we did plenty of moving shots of us on the flatbed truck, we had to cheat a little and get some closeups while we were stopped. here you see trev singing with a guy with a leaf blower pointed at his head to give the appearance of wind.



this is the same shot, just panned to the right. again, we see our amazing road manager clay helping rock the truck to give it the appearance of movement. that's the big guy for ya. if this truck is a-rockin', the big guy is a-knockin'.



And finally here is a shot of the '65 Mustang Fastback that is gonna be in the video. he tried not to show it, but i could tell that steve was salivating over it and was trying to figure out a way to get them to let him take it for a spin. also of note was an instance of a seagull flying overhead and pooping on me. NOT FUN.

i think the video is gonna look pretty sweet. once it's edited and done i'll be sure to post it here. the rest of the day was spent walking around San Francisco, eating at a nice restaurant and then finding out our rental car had been broken into while we were eating at said restaurant. clay and i spent the next half hour questioning random homeless people and searching for a "short guy who steals things" at a nearby shell station. so ya, basically a really crazy day. you stay classy San Francisco.