SXSW - Austin, Texas Swings Digital Media South Away From SF Bay Area

Now, I've been to Austin and went to the University of Texas at Arlington just up the way between Dallas and Ft. Worth. Austin was always called "The Berkeley Of The South" but that was from the perspective of nutso Texas conservatives. Now, I think Austin should be seen as a national capital of digital media, or at least the presentation of it. Just look at SXSW.

South By Southwest has been going on since 1987, but since it added the film and interactive media festivals it's really taken off and now with the growth of digital media, it's growth is viral. Viral because it's a festival about content related for digital media, and digital media itself, and then it's reported about using, you guessed it, digital media. A unique convergence. Take a look at this video blog:



I increasingly get the idea that the excitement in digital media is as much in cities like Austin or New York as it is in the Bay Area. We've got nothing like SXSW and yet it's something perfectly Bay Area. I think the main problem here is the cost of living is driving away the creative people that feed the digital media community. What's more the problem is that the Bay Area leaders are too out of touch to see this as a crisis.

When more cities -- or maybe that one city like Austin -- starts luring Bay Area firms away, then they'll wake up. But California's lost a lot of movie production activity for the same reason, so maybe not.

Rosie O and Frenchie Davis Are Right - Antonella Barba Is Getting A Pass From "Idol" On Soft-Porn Picts - Frenchie's A Big Girl...

I'm not sure that it's racist or a function of American Idol waking up to a digital media world, but they are letting contestant Antonella Barba pass without punishment for all of the racy pictures that have sprung up on the Internet.

There's not just one photo, there's a lot of them, and on YouTube , too. Moreover, either she knew about them and told American Idol or she knew about them and didn't tell American Idol. In either case, the yank job that "Idol" did to Frenchie Davis four years ago could have been done again.

It wasn't.

The View's Rosie O'Donell is right to bring up race in this story. I think some people are brainwashed to only accept images of Whites, or people of color who are lighter skinned. It's wrong, of course, but all too common. None the less, we've got to put a stop to it as a society and I think we are at least waking up to the problem.



But to be fair, there's a bit more to the Frenchie Davis story and it's obvious: she's overweight. And this fact really underscores the fact that American Idol's playing a nasty double standard. It's ok to have almost nude picts of yourself online as long as you're this thin and light-skinned woman, but if you're plus-sized and Black, American Idol's got a problem.

After all, this is the same program on which Simon Cowall told a then-unknown Jennifer Hudson she was too fat. Now that same person just got the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Dreamgrils. I'm serious. He said that. Now, I'm sure he had the same feeling for Frenchie Davis.

But it doens't mean America agrees with him.

See, in this Long Tail world, there's room for all tastes. The bottom line is this: was Frenchie a terrific singer? The answer -- given her success -- is yes. Why not bring her back on the show?

Simon, you've had your say. Now, it's America's turn.

Texas Chippendales Eight Free From Court - What's The Fuss?

I can't figure out what the fuss is over this matter. Who made the call to report them? The sports bar hired them to begin with.
Weird.

From the Smoking Gun...

FEBRUARY 26--Free the Chippendales Eight! A Texas prosecutor has decided not to press charges against a cadre of male adult dancers who were busted earlier this month at a Lubbock sports bar for dancing suggestively in front of 1100 female fans. The dancers, wearing tight leather pants and boxer shorts, were popped after they began gyrating and thrusting pelvises in a manner meant to cause "sexual gratification," according to police, whose Special Operations Unit shut down the performance at Jake's Sports Café.

But while cops booked the dancers on a misdemeanor charge of violating the state's adult cabaret law, the Lubbock County District Attorney's office declined to prosecute the eight perfomers. Three other men--a Chippendales manager, a show promoter, and the bar manager--were also arrested after the abbreviated February 16 performance. They, too, will not be prosecuted. On the following pages you'll find Lubbock Police Department mug shots of the unjustly accused beefcake and the management trio. The dancers are reportedly considering whether to sue Lubbock authorities over the dirty dancing arrests.

The Sundance Film Festival - Video Blog From Susan On Pierre Huyghe

I've never heard of her or the film-maker she's vlogging about, but the video is quite interesting. Here's Susan: