For Your Health (Part 10)

Thought I was done with this series, didn't you?

Well...never underestimate the power of a hypochondriac with anxiety.

I wanted to share something that has gone down in "Rhoades Family Lore."

Our family used to go to Long Beach every year (the one in Washington), which is a kind of "resort" town on a peninsula on the coast of southwestern Washington...near the Oregon border. Every year the family would stay at the lovely Boulevard Motel (which has unfortunately closed) because they had these cool little "cabins" for rent, and you could walk out the back to get to the beach.

For me as a kid, there were two really cool parts of Long Beach (neither of which was the actual "beach"). The first was the sweet arcade. The second was the Go Karts.

Oh man. Those Go Karts.

Back in the heady days of the early 90s, Go Karts were pretty serious business. There were no accelerator restrictors, seat belts, or padding of any kind. The Karts were simple, welded metals frame toting a way-too-powerful engine.

We visited the Go Karts During one of our visits, in the year of our Lord 1991. This was the first year that I was legally "above the yellow line" that I had to be over in order to ride the "grown up" carts.

I strapped in and found out very quickly that, as a feather-light 11 year old, I could crank out some serious speed.

The only problem is that I was a "terrible driver."

This became evident during my third and final race of the day. I was coming around the second "hairpin turn". My brother Tim was hot on my tail, and I checked over my shoulder to see if he was gaining on me.

When I looked forward, all I saw was a wall of tires...which had been placed around the track to cushion the inevitable crashes from these overpowered vehicles. The wall is circled below:

I whacked into the tires at almost full speed (because braking is for pussies). A fraction of a second later, the bridge of my nose whacked the un-padded steel steering wheel. As my car caromed off the wall, my brother's kart whacked into my kart's rear bumper, catapulting me onto the front of his vehicle.

This all happened in the blink of an eye, of course. For me, one second I was looking over my shoulder, the next second I was sitting on the front of my brother's go-kart wondering what the hell had just happened and why my face hurt so much.

As this "blink of an eye" action all taking place, my father (who was standing outside the track watching) leaped over a 5 foot high chain link fence in a single bound (fence pictured below...it seemed much bigger when I was 11).

He ran to me, scooped me up in his arms, and hustled me in to our motor home (embarrassingly named Poopdeck Pappy).

As I sat there, probably crying, my dad was doing his best House M.D. to see if I was seriously injured. From what I recall, it mostly amounted to "standing over me and looking very concerned."

From what I could tell I was okay -- no bumps, bruises, broken bones, scratches, et cetera. However, with trepidation, I felt the bridge of my nose (that had contacted the steering wheel).

It had swelled to the size of a walnut.

I asked my dad in all sincerity, "Am I always going to look like this?"

"No," my Dad assured me.

When my family heard I said that...they thought it was pretty funny. At the time I didn't get it -- I thought it was a very valid fear.

To be honest, I still feel kinda' that way.

Because now I have something that won't go away. A lot of my time is now spent fighting back against this cloud of anxiety that I'm afraid is just going to consume me...or worse, is covering some kind of serious malady that I'm too embarrassed to mention to my doctor because now that I've already "cried wolf" several times this year.

I keep telling my brain that it's fine, and that nothing's wrong. My good-ish health has been confirmed by more than a half-dozen doctors from three different hospitals.

But my brain keeps trying to convince me that something is ruining me from the inside...and boy is that brain convincing.

 I'm able to function normally, for the most part. It's not "debilitating," but when I have time to think about it, I silently fight against the fog that makes me occasionally dizzy, often uncomfortable, and always worried that something is wrong with me.

It sucks.

And it makes me wonder, will I always be like this?

I'm sure my dad will read this...and I wish he could give me the same comfort that I had when I was 11...but now that I'm a farty old know-it-all 33 year old, I've managed to convince myself that this "cloud" is just my new reality.

And that bothers me.

I keep fighting, of course. I've started exercising more. I'm trying to start "eating better." I'm trying to stay stimulated artistically (by writing...as well as acting in an upcoming production of "The Producers" -- TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!!). And I'm trying to not worry so much, though to be honest I never really worried that much before the anxiety struck.

I just hope that my efforts have some impact...because frankly, the fact that I'm not getting better, and the prospect that my current state of health is just my new reality is a bit depressing.

Scooter Crash! POW!

Before I go into what happened, let me make this plea to anyone reading. Please, for the love of God, use your goddamn turn signal. Any time you're turning. Even if you think you don't need to, just do it.

Cool? Cool.

So yeah, like the title says, I got into a "minor" traffic accident today. But as a woman at work told me (and I agree) when you're riding a motorcycle there is no such thing as a "minor" accident. Pretty much every time you're in an accident it's going to suck a lot more for the motorcycle.

The roots of this accident go back several months. I think it was last spring, and I was driving on a residential street with driveways on each side of the road. I was stuck behind a person driving obscenely slowly. After a bit, the driver came to a complete stop in the middle of the street, and I figured they were pulling into a driveway.

My instinct was correct, and the driver turned to the left, so I started to pass on the right. However, before I got too far, he cranked the wheel to the right (I guess he wanted to take a straight shot down his driveway?) and nearly caused me to slam into his fender and fly over the hood of his car.

At no point did he use a turn signal to indicate what he was doing. I remember thinking at the time, "Huh, that was scary. I'm not sure how to avoid an accident like that, other than to just wait behind the car until they've pulled entirely off of the road."

Flash forward to yesterday.

I'm driving home from work. For some reason I was thinking about how I'd handle "getting into an accident" on my scooter...whether or not my safety gear would protect me adequately. It was another one of those stupid, morbid lines of thought that I have at inappropriate times like that.

I was heading north on Cahuenga boulevard, and I decided to hang a left onto Whitnall Highway, which is one of those rare "diagonal" streets that cut through the San Fernando valley (thanks to a run of high voltage power lines splitting the highway). Directly in front of me was a fairly newish red Honda Civic with a USC Film School bumper sticker, who had also just turned onto Whitnall.

I followed the Civic for a couple hundred feet before the driver suddenly slowed to a stop. Since the car had stopped into the middle of the street I figured the person was parallel parking, so I needed to get out from behind them so they could back into the spot. Underneath the power lines is the Whitnall Off-Leash Dog Park (you can see cars parked along the street in this image...but during the accident it was wall-to-wall with parked cars and the park was packed):

 

I proceeded to pass the car on the left, as there was no traffic coming in the opposite direction. However, just as my scooter reached the rear bumper of the Civic, the driver cranked the wheel and started to turn. Left. Directly in front of my accelerating scooter (presumably on to Hatteras).

Now, if the driver turns left at this point, one of four things could happen to me:

1. I could slam into the Civic's fender and do a header over the hood, damaging both vehicles pretty badly
2. The driver could just never see me and run me over, leading to a pretty embarrassing "motorcyclist under car wheel" situation
3. The car could clip my scooter as I drove past, potentially leading to a really embarrassing "motorcyclist vs. stationary object" situation
4. I could jam on the brakes and try to stop before the car made the turn

NOTE -- the option of swerving to avoid this collision was not available, since it could lead to a collision with parked cars, a curb, or just slightly delayed the inevitable collision with the red car. And anyway, it happened way too quickly and I was too close to the car to consider a "by the book" swerve action, in my opinion.

Anyhow, I chose option number four. I jammed my brakes, locked up my tires, laid down my scooter, and promptly came to a skidding halt on my right side, with my helmet banging lightly against her driver's side door.

So in the matter of a few seconds I went from happy-go-lucky scooter jockey to prone road rash victim. It was quite jarring (literally).

Turns out my assaulter was a skinny, early-20-something , bleached-blonde woman with multiple piercings, large fashionable sunglasses, and a big tattoo of what looked like a butterfly on her back. She got out of her car, very shaken, and started apologizing profusely in a surprisingly low-pitched quasi-stoner voice.

I did what I always do in awkward situations like this -- I started cracking jokes to ease the tension and told her not to worry about it.

If I hadn't locked up my brakes, I probably would have avoided the accident entirely...because I didn't actually make contact with her car (except for my helmet). She was definitely at fault on this one, but since I was passing her car on the left, from a liability point of view it would have been more of a hassle to file a claim, in my opinion. My move was completely legal, but borderline "aggressive." I would have had to convince her insurance company that she hadn't used her turn signal...which is hard to prove without a third-party witness...and the deductible probably wouldn't have covered the cost of the repairs...and my insurance would have just gone up anyway...et cetera.

So I decided to just chalk it up to bad luck and get going home. I examined the damage -- my scooter was slightly scraped up on one side. It had a busted right-hand mirror, a missing reflector, and the handlebars had shifted a few inches to the right. It didn't look too bad, and it started up just fine. As for me, I had a bruised and scraped up ankle (I'll spare you the gory pictures), a scraped elbow, and a sore neck. No serious problems structurally...it was the standard "bumps and bruises" accident result.

I tried to convince her that everything was fine, and she was good to leave...but she insisted that I "at least" get her phone number (DIGITS BABY!). Throughout she continued to apologize, telling me that if I "needed anything" to give her a call. If I wind up having to get my bike repaired I might try to get a hold of her...but who are we kidding? I probably won't do that.

So she drove off, and I limped home (literally).

As for those safety devices I was worrying about? Well, the gloves and helmet get an "A+"...no scrapes on my hands, and a totally intact brain case.

My "armored jacket" gets a "C-". My right shoulder escaped mostly unharmed (though slightly bruised), but the armored plate in my elbow did bupkis, as I've got a 1" diameter bloody scrape there that's going to be a bastard to heal.

My armored pants and boots get a "NA", because I don't own either of those things. The boots would have been nice, as it turns out, because my ankle got trapped under my scooter and scraped to hell...and that's my main source of "ouch" at the moment. I don't think I need the pants...because those look goofy, and the khakis I was wearing weren't even scuffed.

I guess I'll try to be a little more careful in the future, though I'm not really sure what I could/should have done differently in this situation. I think I was just unlucky...hopefully that won't happen again.

Daniel Tosh and Rape Comedy

I'm going to write about the Daniel Tosh rape joke controversy today.

If you don't know about the controversy, I think this article gives a pretty good, un-biased overview: http://www.avclub.com/articles/daniel-tosh-was-just-asking-for-it-by-joking-about,82351/

If you're not interested in my opinions, or if you're afraid that you're going to like me less after reading this blog article, feel free to go to a different blog entry, like this one. Don't worry -- I'm not going to condone rape, or even the notion that "joking about rape is always okay" or that "comedians are above criticism."

I'm going to talk more the way this story has been covered, and my continued annoyance with the rise of "blog journalism" (that's a phrase I just coined...OR DID I?!?!).

 Anyone still with me? Okay. Good. Let's get started.

First off, full disclosure, I think Daniel Tosh is a very funny comedian. I saw his special "Daniel Tosh: Completely Serious" shortly before he got his show on Comedy Central, and I thought it was one of the best specials I'd ever seen.

I watched his show for its first two seasons, but recently the clips he plays are getting a little bit too gross (too many bodily fluids), so I haven't watched in a while.

Anyhow, that's my relationship with Mr. Tosh.

Now, on to the incident.

Here is the woman's account of the joke:

So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”

...

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there.

Actual journalists (such as this CNN article) recounted the incident thusly:

When the comedian Daniel Tosh reportedly singled out a woman in his audience and suggested, according to a blog post that recounted the incident, it would be "funny" if she "got raped by, like, five guys, right now," the online reaction was swift, heated and often split down gender lines.

Do you notice anything? They use the caveats "reportedly" and "according to a blog post" in the lead of the article. This is very important for a journalist, since they are relying entirely upon this one person's account of the night, and one of the basics of journalism is to get multiple sources (you should use at least three to five sources for any article) before moving forward with a story. Unfortunately the article then goes on:

A comedian who shoots down an audience member who objects to his rape jokes by joking about her being gang-raped on the spot isn't being funny.

See what happened there? They were being all careful at the beginning, hedging their bets with journalistic language, but then they pretty much attribute that quote to him. It's a bait-and-switch.

Now I want to show how most tabloid rags have covered this story. For instance, here's an article from that bastion of journalistic integrity, The Daily Mail:

A female heckler at a comedy show was told by comedian Daniel Tosh that it would be funny if she was gang raped.

And from the blog boingboing.net:

Now, proposing that an audience member sitting right in front of you in a crowd of mostly men "get raped by, like, 5 guys right now" is in my opinion a whole lot heavier than letting a few random rape jokes drop in your lame standup act. Not that rape jokes are lulzy. But, Christ, what an asshole.

You get the idea. We have a number of blogs, opinion columnists, commentators, and "guest writers" coming in to educate their audience about why Daniel Tosh's joke was not funny. And they're all using a single source -- the woman's account.

Consider this, though -- what if the blogger didn't recount the "joke" exactly as it was told? What if there was something lost in the translation? What if Daniel Tosh was actually being careful in context, but the woman (still smarting from embarrassment and anger that night) recounted the joke in a way that would make Daniel appear in the worst-possible light?

Now please, please don't equate this with a kind of he said / she said issue, where (much like in many real-life rape cases) the account of the incident is wildly different depending on who you asked. For instance, the accused rapist might say "it was consensual" while the woman says "it was rape." My argument is not similar to that at all. There were over 200 people at the comedy club that night so there are multiple accounts available, but strangely, none of those audience members has given a neutral account...at least not that I have seen.

So, until a neutral, 3rd party account of the incident is reported, everyone should be exercising caution as to the wording of the "joke." In it's alleged form, yes...it's pretty offensive. To joke about a woman being gang raped in a theater doesn't sound funny at all -- in or out of the context of a "comedy club."

The closest we have to a neutral account is Jamie Masada's, who disputes how the incident went down. Using Mr. Masada's recollection (he was there that night) the woman's blog should have read like this:

Tosh asked the audience, "So...what would you like to talk about?" Some guy in the front row shouted "RAPE!"

I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find rape funny and never have, so I shouted out "No! Rape is never funny!" Tosh paused for a moment and joked with the guy in the front row, "That girl's probably been raped by, like, five guys."

Now, is it a funny joke? Not really. But is it as offensive as telling a woman "that it would be funny if she was gang raped" in a comedy club? No. Not at all. Not even close. It's a snide comment postulating as to why the woman hates rape comedy so much -- he's not threatening her with actual gang rape.

Of course, I don't think either account is accurate, and I wish someone else would come forward, or that Tosh would give his own account. All he's done is apologize, and say that he was misquoted out of context. I wish he'd just release his tax returns already!!! 

I mean...um...sorry. That was a different...never mind.

Personally, I do not believe that Daniel Tosh delivered the joke as the woman remembers, and it annoys me that people are taking this anonymous woman's retelling of the comedian's joke as Gospel. 

The joke just does not really even sound like Tosh. Compare the alleged "gang rape" joke to this one, from an earlier special, that also touches on the subject of rape:

Here, Tosh takes the horror of rape and turns it into an absurd story involving silly string. It's a careful recounting, and it's obviously made-up...though it still uses "rape" as a punchline. See how carefully he tiptoes around the subject -- even giving a kind of disclaimer that he works "a little blue." He's covering his bases...because if he didn't, it would be less funny.

The woman's account plays on the perception that Daniel Tosh is a kind of frat boy comedian, and the cadence of the alleged joke: "got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her" sounds nothing like his actual cadence. It sounds like a frat guy's really bad impression of Daniel Tosh...and personally, I don't buy it.

As a final note I'll address the issue...can rape jokes ever be funny?

I think so, if they're done right. I've laughed at many rape jokes, and other jokes about horrible things (racism, 9/11, AIDS, child abuse, et cetera). Anything, including rape, can be targeted successfully for a joke.

If you don't believe me, ask Mr. George Carlin -- a well-respected stand-up who knew a thing or two about what is and isn't funny:

page contents

"Every Pirated Copy Represents a Lost Sale"

I want to talk about the financial impact of piracy today. First, I'll give you this quote from Slate:

Much of the debate about SOPA and PIPA has thus far centered around the entertainment industry’s absurdly inflated claims about the economic harm of copyright infringement. When making these calculations, intellectual property owners tend to assume that every unauthorized download represents a lost sale. This is clearly false. Often people copy a file illegally precisely because they’re unwilling to pay the market price. Were unauthorized copying not an option, they would simply not watch the movie or listen to the album.

So, let's talk about lost sales. That's what this whole SOPA/PIPA fuss is all about, right? Studios claim that they are losing money and if piracy continues unchecked, studios will lose a lot of money. Piracy apologists counter that studios are making record profits, and the effects of piracy are minimal, and might even be beneficial.

In their estimates of actual monetary losses, the MPAA paid for a study that was conducted by L.E.K. Consulting. The study examined and tried to calculate the toll piracy took from the industry. I have not read the entire report...but let's be honest, you haven't either.

However, a few people who actually did read the report (including the venerated libertarian think take the Cato Institute) seemed to think these numbers were complete bullshit. Even me, the lonesome anti-piracy crusader, had expressed some doubt.

Then I thought about it for a bit.

A couple months, actually.

Turns out, maybe the one-to-one sales loss isn't so crazy after all.

To demonstrate, let's do a thought experiment. If people are right, and they use the "well, I pirated it because I wouldn't have paid to see the movie anyway" excuse, if we remove piracy from the equation the "no net loss" argument should still hold up.

Because that's what they're claiming, right? That generally there is little-to-no net loss due to piracy?

Let's say Mike wants to watch a movie. He kinda' wants to watch A Few Good Men, because he heard it was pretty good, but he's not like, really super-interested in watching it. It just sounds interesting.

In a world with piracy, Mike could either torrent the movie or find a streaming site -- super easy. He wouldn't even have to get up off of the couch and the movie would be up and running in a couple of minutes.

But what if there were no piracy?

He could still see the movie if he wanted to. He could buy it on Amazon and watch it instantly ($9.99). He could buy it from iTunes and watch it instantly ($9.99). He could sign up for Netflix  and have the DVD delivered to his house ($7.99 a month after free trial). He could stream it through Gamefly ($7.98 a month). He could rent it from a Redbox kiosk ($1.20, if you can find it). He could buy a used DVD on Amazon or eBay (under $5.00). Or he could rent it from one of those antiquated buildings called a video store (under $4.00).

But maybe he doesn't want to wait, or it's just too damn expensive (because $5.00 is a lot of goddamn money).

So instead of watching that Academy Award-nominated "masterpiece," he decides to do something else with 138 minutes of his life.

Here's where the thought experiment really kicks in -- can you find Mike an activity that does not represent a "lost sale"? Remember...there is no piracy allowed.

Maybe he'll play a video game (which he purchased). Or watch some TV (which pays broadcast rights and also generates advertising revenue). Maybe he'll just listen to some music (which he purchased legally) or watch a movie he already owns (and purchased legally). Maybe he'll watch some YouTube videos (that generates advertising revenue for Google, and they have partnerships with content creators) or catch up on a show like The Daily Show or South Park (both online, both generating ad revenue) or watch something saved on his DVR (which is subscription-based, and has commercials that many people still watch even though they don't have to).

In every scenario above, the content creator is making money that they wouldn't be making if Mike chose to watch a pirated movie. At some point, somewhere down the line, a sale is being lost due to piracy.

You can quibble about the amount, but maybe those claims by the MPAA and RIAA don't sound so ridiculous after all.

"But hang on a second," you bleat. "What if, instead of being cooped up in a house all day like a pale friendless neckbeard, Mike decides to go work in the yard? Or go for a walk? Or play with his son? Or go to the park? Or build a bookshelf in his garage?"

If you thought that, congratulations! You've fucking failed!!! If Mike had wanted to do those things he would have done them. Remember -- Mike wants to watch a movie, not fucking re-create a scene from Leave it to Beaver.

A person who wants to consume media actually wants to consume media. Sounds counter-intuitive...I know.

So if Mike wants to watch Jack Nicholson yell his way out of a cross examination he can do so legally...but admittedly those avenues are a little hit and miss right now. There are all kinds of weird varying costs, blocked countries, arcane release windows, and a poor selection of titles available.

See, online content distribution is a relatively new medium -- it's going to take time to find the right balance between profit and sustainability. This includes problems with worldwide distribution rights, release windows, exclusivity, broadcast deals, et cetera. When entering a market like this, it's hard for any business to wrap it's heads around an appropriate business model.

For example, in the field of home entertainment (leaving box office numbers out of the equation), movies and television shows cost about the same to produce as major release video games. When purchased new, the price point for each is about the same, with newly released video games costing $59.99 while new Blu-Ray DVDs cost $49.99. Yet, the highest grossing Blu-Ray of all time was Avatar, with 2.7 million discs sold. Compare that with a recently released video game, Modern Warfare 3...which sold almost three times that amount in the first 24 hours alone.

Obviously people don't want to pay too much for a movie. Movies engage the consumer for 2 or 3 hours max. Video games can engage the consumer for over 75 hours. The market for each home entertainment product is totally different -- typically people want to buy video games and rent movies.

So, what's the fair price for an online movie rental?

If you think that price is $0.00, then the "no net loss" argument holds water. You'd also be completely wrong, and shut up. Last night I paid $3.99 to rent the movie Wanderlust from Amazon.com (and you should too...because it's fucking hilarious). I think that's a fair price...and I felt good about myself after watching it, because finding it for free online would have been soooo goddamn easy.

What I'm saying is...I understand how hard it is to avoid piracy sometimes. I've struggled with it. The guy who writes The Oatmeal struggled with it (and lost). The guy who composed this image struggled (and lost). But I think we have a responsibility as consumers to give these companies (who create things that so many people enjoy) the benefit of the doubt, and try to pay for the content we consume...even when it's really hard to do so.

Shit...it happened. I'm moralizing. I hate moralizing. 

For the record, I'm not judging you if you've pirated stuff in the past. I really honestly don't care. Just...for the good of the industry I'd like you to consider the other options first, especially if you can afford it (and you all can).

The New York Times' Arcticle about TV-Shack.net

Goddammit.

Okay, I read this article today...and I rolled my eyes at the first goddamn sentence:

"Richard O’Dwyer, an enterprising 24-year-old college student from northern England, has found himself in the middle of a fierce battle between two of America’s great exports: Hollywood and the Internet."

This bullshit has to stop. Seriously. Stop. There is nothing enterprising about this guy. He wasn't the first or the best internet pirate. You could make an argument that someone much larger was a better internet pirate.

I mean, where was your $18 million dollar mansion, Rick?

Good lookin' out, bro.

I also rolled my eyes at the next paragraph.

"Although the site did not serve up pirated content, American authorities say it provided links to sites that did."

Right. It provided links...to illegal content (and only illegal content).

Legal question: let's say a person wants to publish a "drug dealer directory." So they contact local drug dealers, have them purchase advertising space (like the Yellow Pages), then they publish the directory. On top of that, they sell advertising space around the drug dealer contact info. Is that legal?

Legal answer: no. It isn't. It's called aiding and abetting, and provided the defendant "has knowledge of the crime before or after the fact, and may assist in its commission through advice, actions, or financial support" it is against the law.

Shit.

I knew this article was going to be a struggle to finish. Luckily, the rest of the was a kind of top-down look at piracy, chock full of quotes from O'Dwyer's mother.

Yeah. His mom. That's some amazing, un-biased journalism right there -- well done.

First, let's talk about tv-shack.net, which is the website that Mr. O'Dwyer ran for several years. I can't talk about the specifics regarding my role investigating this site over the years, but like all anti-piracy industry professionals, I was was familiar with this site while it was active.

But I can talk about the site.

tv-shack.net is what is known in the industry as a "linking site." These sites are the middle-man sites that allow users to locate content -- this is so everyone keeps their hands clean.

If any of you have seen "The Wire," you can look at it as a drug sale. One guy takes the order and collects the money. Another guy (usually a juvenile) gets the drugs and gives it to the customer. Later, after all of the money has been collected (and away from the prying eyes of the police) it is then distributed to the underage runner.

This way, there is no direct exchange of money for drugs. At least...not in plain sight.

Linking sites work the same way. They take the order while someone else delivers the content. The site can then claim that only the users posted the links, and because of safe harbor, the site owner is not responsible.

In instances like this, typically that's a bullshit argument.

If you're wondering what an "Internet site dedicated to infringing activities" looks like, look no further than tv-shack.net. At its peak, the site had links to hundreds of TV shows and movies (all infringing). It did not appear to offer legitimate user-generated content (as can be found on YouTube) -- everything belonged to someone else.

This is what the front page of the site looked like in 2009, courtesy of crunchbase.com. Do you buy the argument that "some" links were infringing? Or is it more likely that "every single goddamn link on the site" was infringing? Do you see any original content here, or even any attempt at indicating there is original content available?

LOL thumbnail!!!

These site operators know what they're doing; they know what they are doing is illegal, so they attempt to hide behind what they perceive to be legal grey areas (such as safe harbor) without fully complying with the DMCA (such as being required to designate a DMCA agent if you can afford to).

And could he afford it?

Yeah. He could. It costs $115. O'Dwyer made over $230,000 from advertising revenue on tv-shack.net, and the site operated from December 2007 to June 2010. That's over $92,000 a year. That might not seem like a lot to you rich motherfuckers out there...but this was all done while he was a full-time student at Sheffield Hallam University...so he was basically running TV Shack in his spare time.

How much of that $230,000 did he give the studios to distribute their content? Probably about the same amount you and I did.

How much did the movie industry lose? That's a hotly contested topic, but helpfully, Mr. O'Dwyer gives us some idea:

The Justice Department examined the site on June 15, 2010 and found that the most popular films were “Sex in the City,” with 37,000 views and “The A Team,” with 29,000. They were both playing in theaters at the time, the authorities concluded.


Helpfully for the authorities, Mr. O’Dwyer also did the math for his users, spelling out, according to the Justice Department, exactly how much money its users were saving. It reminded users that they could have spent up to $10 on a movie ticket, $10 on "a typical US nacho-Coke or popcorn-Coke combo," and another $5 on "typical US parking."

 Dumb.

So, if he's a UK citizen, and all of his crimes were committed in the UK, why is he being extradited to the US?

Well, firstly, the films pirated by tv-shack.net were mostly US films (as the screen capture shows). Pirating these shows put him in violation of US law, and we have a nifty little extradition treaty with the UK. Other web operators with the same business model as tv-shack.net have already been convicted.

He is not going to rot in jail. If convicted, he's going to spend up to 2 years in jail for his illegal activities, then he can go back to the UK, where he can continue "playing Super Mario games on his computer."

Oh, and Jimmy Wales? Please just shut up.

How I Personally Caused the Financial Crisis (part 3)

This is the last part...unless I decide to write another part, which is unlikely.

This part is about Washington Mutual...re-branded as WaMu at some point in 2006, then again as "Chase" when the company went tits-up in 2008.

I worked for WaMu for over 2 years -- starting as a temp in 2004, then as a full-time employee until 2006...when I was laid off.

I enjoyed my time at WaMu. I worked with great people, including two of the finest managers I've ever worked for. I was grossly overcompensated for the position I maintained, but I felt valued, and I felt that I made valuable contributions. In spite of the flip title of this series, I do not think I can be held truly accountable for WaMu's demise (which led to further collapses).

No, that distinction goes to three WaMu executives who really screwed the pooch, broke the bank, and helped ruin the US economy.

 

The first, of course, is Kerry Killinger...CEO and Chairman of Washington Mutual starting in 1991. I don't blame him entirely -- he ran a very good company for over two decades, and made some shrewd business decisions in that time. Washington Mutual was a fantastic bank with a good reputation locally, and it was starting to expand nationally with well-timed, ambitious acquisitions. It had one of the best retail banks in the nation, and its mortgage division was growing rapidly.

Unfortunately in 2005 Mr. Killinger decided to hire some New York asshole named:

Stephen Rotella, who is the second guy I blame. I actually think he was the most responsible for the collapse of the business. Honestly...all I have to do is show you a picture of the dude's face. I mean, just look at it:

Ugh.

Shortly after I was hired full-time, I remember, reading that long-time executive Deanna Oppenheimer was leaving the company in 2005. She was a well-liked, highly valued member of the company with deep Seattle roots. I never met her personally, but she seemed incredibly competent and (as it turns out) she was heavily responsible for the success and growth of the retail bank.

Unfortunately for WaMu, in 2005 she made the incredibly prudent decision to work at Barclays...which is the 4th largest bank in the entire world.

In her place Kerry Killinger hired that above-pictured jag-off from New York, who had worked as an executive at JPMorgan Chase for a couple of decades. Once he got to Seattle, Mr. Rotella immediately set about attempting to convert WaMu from a well-liked, local-feeling, friendly thrift bank into a soulless multinational corporation full of money. And it might have worked too...if the economy hadn't collapsed into a pile of shit beneath his feet -- quite a bit of which was shit of his own creation.

Mr. Rotella hired the last guy I blame -- David Schneider; also from New York and JPMorgan Chase. Mr. Schneider was brought in as the new "President of Home Loans." A few months before I was laid off I attended an event introducing David to the "WaMu family," where he was set to give a speech to the adoring faithful.

During his presentation, he looked and sounded a bit like Ray Romano...and he joked about the difficulties of moving to Seattle, made lighthearted comments about the weather, and poked fun at Seattle's sports teams.

Needless to say, I did not like him. At all.

Here's a video of him getting "grilled" by Senator Levin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvFBJVhNpiM

Ahhh....schadenfreude.

So what did those three guys do? How did they screw things up?

I don't know specifically...since I was not privy to any meetings at the "executive" level. But there are hundreds of articles online detailing the shady lending practices at WaMu, and explaining the decisions that led to the company's eventual demise. Drew DeSilver wrote a very good two-part series for the Seattle Times. If you want a macro view of what happened, you ought to read that...because all of that shit is beyond my purview.

Hell, if you want an even better examination of the collapse, read "The Lost Bank" by Kirsten Grind. I mean, I haven't read it (though I plan to), but I hear it's pretty good.

What I will detail for you is my own "micro" view of what happened...drifting out from my lowly position in a cubicle near a window on the 6th floor of the Washington Mutual Tower.

My first hint that things were not right with the company was when my manager Paulette (one of the finest people I have ever worked for) was going over the details of a loan with me. She was perplexed by something, and whispered aloud:

"What are we doing giving a $1.5 million dollar low-doc Option-ARM to someone with a 587 FICO?"

I didn't know what she was talking about...but it turns out it was a good question....a very, very good question that should have been screamed at the upper management repeatedly.

But it was a question that, apparently, no one else was asking. And if they were asking it, no one was actually doing shit about it.

To explain, low-doc was the WaMu term for a "Stated-Income Stated-Asset" loan...also known as a liar loan. 

An Option-ARM loan is a loan with four monthly payment options -- the minimum payment (you pay a very small amount, essentially losing equity via negative amortization), the interest-only (you only pay the interest, and build zero equity), the 30-year fully amortized (the standard payment option) and the 15-year fully amortized (for people with too much goddamn money). This product was created to give the borrower options -- say one month they had to get car repairs...all they had to do was pay the "minimum payment" for one month, then return to normal payments the next month.

Easy peezy.

Gone were the rigid confines of a set monthly payment. Payments were now fully controlled by the borrower! Huzzah!!!

At least, that's how it was advertised. I should know -- they pitched me the product at my employee initiation. At the time, I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea...because I was a stupid 25 year-old idiot who didn't know a damn thing about home loans.

Because, what the loan officers probably failed to tell you was that you could only go up to 110% of your original loan amount using the "minimum payment" option. After that, you had to start paying the full amount and then some. Stupid doing what stupid does, a large number of people (up to 80% by some reports) only payed the "minimum" amount, expecting their situations to improve or their home values to go up.

But situations for everyone deteriorated rapidly. Home prices sunk like a rock. Many people lost their jobs. And many more people lost their homes. 

Bing bang boom.

But like I said, WaMu loved that Option ARM bullshit. It was, by far, the most popular product we offered. I should know -- our group looked at a lot of the loans that came through the pipeline. A large percentage (some reports say up to 55%) were Option ARMs.

Upper management was pushing this product hard. The group situated next to ours was the crew that published the daily rate sheets. More and more we could see that the credits standards were being relaxed. Penalties for low FICOs were being eased. Penalties for Low Doc loans were also being removed. I wish I'd have saved some of those sheets, because the permissiveness (compared to today's market) was fairly absurd in retrospect.

Speaking of things I wish I'd saved, I remember reading an internal Q&A from Mr. Rotella (or perhaps it was Mr. Schneider) that talked about the company's intended shift from A-Paper (good) loans to Alt-A (shitty) loans. The executive answering questions (either Rotella or Schneider) seemed to think it was a splendid idea. The question was something like, "Are we still going to be pursuing A-Paper loans in our portfolio?" To when the executive responded with something to the effect of "We will be significantly scaling back our A-paper mortgages, and aggressively pursuing exciting opportunities in the Alt-A and subprime markets."

I feel like I printed that out or saved it somewhere...but I could be wrong. I don't know...I've moved a lot and I have a lot of new computers. I feel like printed out a page with Steve Rotella's head, surrounded by all of the shitty quotes I could find from his terrible business decisions.

Of course, speaking personally, the most damaging change that Mr. Rotella made was the decision to send our group (along with many other regulatory oversight groups and loan processors) to a "low cost" area in Columbia, South Carolina.

This move cost me my job, along with the entirety of my over-inflated salary.

I had the "pleasure" of visiting Colombia to train my replacements.

Now, one of the side-effects of a move to a "low-cost" area is that you have to hire local, "low-cost" employees. I mean...I'm not saying that everyone in Columbia was dumb...I'm just saying that the people who were taking over my job were dumb. While I was there, I gave a very simple presentation, which was met with a lot of glassy-eyed stares.

There were competent folks among them, sure...but most of those competent folks came to Columbia from other parts of the country because they wanted to keep their job (the options: move to Columbia or be laid off). Once those competent employees gained a smidge of self respect, they realized that they were in Columbia and that no job was worth living in that god awful shit-hole..

Of course, there's a whole 'nother part of the company that played a big part...but I never witnessed much of that (subprime loans were handled by a different department). But if you want to read about Long Beach Mortgage's contribution, you go to this article...also from the Seattle Times. It's pretty damning.

I also distinctly remember Paulette looking at loans from one of the "big producers" in California. The loan officer was untouchable due to his incredibly high volume, and he received more than a few "pricing exceptions" from our office. I don't remember his name or even where he was from...but there's a damn good chance he was one of the people mentioned during senate testimony, which revealed that the office where he worked "had levels of fraud exceeding 58 percent and 83 percent of the loans."


I'm pretty sure we knew he was cheating...but we couldn't do anything about it even though we tried.

Anyway, shortly after my presentation in Columbia I left the company...with a surprisingly generous severance package. Consequently, I didn't get to see WaMu in its final death throes. But the company's fate had already been sealed at that point, in my opinion. Once you add all the things I talked about -- the championing of the Option ARM, Long Beach Mortgage, the relaxing of borrower credit standards, and the outsourcing of those tasked with pricing oversight...what you get is a heap of shitty shit mortgages that drowned the company.

I guess I should go read that "The Lost Bank" book now...to see if my instincts about this thing were right after all...