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I’ve been thinking for awhile that I need a new career. Even as an aspiring rock star, it may be time to give that up if only I could become a CEO. You see, for awhile I have been thinking that my ideal situation would be to work somewhere and to do such a terrible job that the people pay me an enormous amount of money … TO LEAVE. This happens all the time. Here in Boston – dude managing the Big Dig project screws it up so badly that they buy out his contract for a few hundred thousand dollars. And then the other day we had this in the NY Times:
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 30, 2007 E. Stanley O’Neal, the embattled chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch,
retired today from the brokerage firm, capping a tumultuous 10 days that
included a significant quarterly loss and write-down. …. Mr. O’Neal is expected to receive at least $159 million in severance and
retirement. He is entitled to $30 million in retirement benefits as well as $129
million in stock and option holdings, according to an analysis by James F. Reda
& Associates using yesterday’s share price of $66.09. That would be on top of
the roughly $160 million he took home in his nearly five years on the job.
So what I’m trying to say is this – will somebody please pay me millions of dollars to go away. Please! I’ll go anywhere, I’ll get out of your sight, I’ll stay away from you forever. Hook a rock star up!
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Hey Q.R. Station friends,
you probably know that I live in the Boston area. It’s a great night here cause the Red Sox are going to the World Series. If you’ve been around this area, there are two things that get people excited – sports and music. I guess people here are just passionate in general. If you’re a band and the people here like you – they love you. And they let you know it. So right now people here are celebrating. For me it’s always a lot more fun when a team I care about goes far, so this will be a fun couple weeks ahead.
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Let’s get back to Phil and Genesis for a second here, just for the hell of it. Another thing Swing told me about that concert is that you could go online and purchase a copy of the concert, or any other Genesis concert from this tour. Pretty cool technology, and one that I had been thinking about awhile ago. Check this – I’m at a U2 concert in Boston in 2005. It was awesome – they were on point during that tour. The first thing I said to my girl when that concert ended was “I need to hear that again”. It was so damn good that it wasn’t enough to be there and to experience it once. Man, I needed to absorb that some more. It turned out that I could get a free copy of the concert online within days. There is a whole world of U2 “tapers” out there. They have such a huge following of fans, and a percentage of those fans take it upon themselves to record the shows. U2 doesn’t actually have a problem with this as long as they are distributed freely. As soon as you try to sell a copy of their show is when you can expect someone from the U2 posse to show up at your door and kick your … For me, this is the way it should be. I paid for the show (or maybe I didn’t but I just want to hear it because I love the band so much) and I want to experience it over and over again. Why shouldn’t I? Does the band really need more money for this? As U2 demonstrates, they only do better by having such a large and committed following. Of course, before U2 there was the Greatful Dead, who had a section of their floor roped off just for tapers. That’s a commitment to this concept if there ever was one.
Now I haven’t put any research into this blog topic. My sole source of information on this is a two minute (or less) conversation with SwingDoom about this. But our understanding is that even if you paid to see Genesis, you still have to pay to get a copy of the show online. This sucks. If I pay over $100 to see your show, don’t you think I deserve an audio copy as part of that enormous fricken price? Why should I have to pay again? I should be able to input the ticket number and receive a “free” copy, even though it’s not really free since I paid your ridiculous ticket price. For someone that didn’t go to the show, sure, make them pay. But just realize this – the more people listening to you the better off you are going to be. Given that Phil and company have already made a fortune off of us a few times over, perhaps they would be better off by being more generous.
Just a thought …
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P.S. – when Q.R. Station gets large, we’re going to have to allow tapers and put our own copies of our shows out there for those that want them.
A little over a week ago SwingDoom checked out Genesis in DC. SwingDoom, being a drummer and all, has a connection to these guys. I mean, any band that carries two drummers is going to get a look from Swing. The report card for Genesis: ummm, not so great. Phil just wasn’t in the mood that night, or that’s the way it came off. But the thing that really pisses me off is that Phil didn’t even acknowledge that Swing was in the house. The least he could do is recognize the drummer in our up and coming band. What’s up Phil? Can’t recognize Q.R. Station??
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