Troll Trolling the Trolls

I feel like none of it is good, but why is it so absurd for people to believe that your geopolitical adversary optimizing a content recommendation algorithm and exploiting your data is just a little bit worse than a US company doing. I do believe that "The Chinese" is an almost washed out geopolitical trope at this point, but I also think its naive to think that they aren't actively conducting psyops, espionage, and cyber warfare against the west. I mean , we do it to them when and where we can, so I'd expect them to do the same.

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[–]Gnukk 1 point an hour ago* 

It’s absurd because states don’t conduct cyber warfare by manipulating kids in other countries to eat tide pods. Get back to me when there is a “organise a communist workers front” TikTok challenge. Ofc there are espionage, cyber attacks, etc. but why would “bonesmashing” have anything to do with it.

No, trolling doesn't work that way.

I saw a posting online making fun of an alleged "Tick-Tock" challenge where supposedly you can change your jaw line by hitting yourself with a hammer every day.  I think it has to be a joke of some sort - getting people to smash themselves in the face with a hammer has to be the ultimate idiotic Tick-Tock challenge.

But what was interesting were the comments about the posting, as shown above.  One respondent opined that a real troll from China would be trying to organize a Communist worker's party in the United States.  Never mind that China is not really Communist, but rather a brutal one-man dictatorship.

This goes back to what I said about Russian trolls.  They aren't going online with poorly worded postings that "Russia good!  USA bad!" but rather try to get us angry, upset, and hating each other.  It isn't just one thing, but background noise - a Greek chorus - of discontent and ultimately, apathy.

The West is so awful it isn't worth saving!  Kids these days!  Eating tide pods and hitting themselves with hammers!  It just makes no sense at all!

But that is the point, not "Comrade!  Rise up and fight the oppressors!" - although I am sure that they troll the neo-communist and socialist discussion groups as well.  And when they do, they are not obvious about it, but want to stir up discontent.

You read a posting about someone with $200,000 in student loans that they "can never pay off!" and you are probably looking at a troll account.  You read a posting about how "I'll never be able to afford a home!" (something I once thought, before I owned four of them, at one time) it is likely a troll.  Funny thing, but those "broke Millennials" who ruined Avocado Toast (is that still a trope?) or whatever, are mostly successful middle-aged people who actually own their own homes, now.

We are being trolled. All the time, every time. And the trolls are not trying to persuade us that China or Russia is great, but rather that the USA or Canada or the West in general, sucks. And since people tend to love bad news, it isn't hard to sell this message.  Everything is awful! Only a Trump dictatorship can save Democracy and preserve "freedom" - you know, like in China or Russia!  Oh, if only to live in China or Russia, where you can own all the firearms you want and can speak your peace and even protest the government!  It is a paradise of freedom!

The sarcasm light is lit.

It is our strength, not our weakness that we can disagree about things and protest the government and say we don't like one party over another.  People criticize the two-party system we have in the USA, but fail to realize it is a thousand-fold improvement over the one-party system they have in half the world today.  We have it pretty good, if only we stopped to notice it.

And no, not "everyone" is so dumb as to hit themselves with hammers or eat laundry detergent.  But a lot of people are stupid enough to go on social media, and sites like Twitter and Tick-Tock, in particular. And as we are discovering, it ain't hard to convince them of anything - that the world is flat, the moon landing was faked, Donald Trump is the new Jesus - anything.

And no, this nonsense doesn't directly affect one country over another, but it creates this background of discontent and distrust.  "You can't trust the mainsteram media!" they cry, "They will tell you that vaccines don't cause autism, but the mommy group I subscribe to on Facebook has the real info!"

As I write this, there is a controversy over the "bombing" of a hospital on Gaza.  Hamas claims Israel did it in an "air raid" and postings online tell me that Israel "FIREBOMBED!" the hospital, in all caps, because "Firebomb" is so much more incendiary (pun not intended) than bombing.  And of course, everyone was quick to jump on the bandwagon of "Israel Bad, Hamas Good!" which is nonsense, as Hamas is a terrorist organization that kills people for fun.

(UPDATE: As the smoke clears (no pun intended), it appears that the bombing of the hospital that killed a thousand people is widely overstated and, in fact, made up. There is one small crater in the parking lot from a Palestinian missile that set fire to number of cars. How a thousand people could have died in a hospital that only has 80 beds is questionable. Not only that, but pictures show the hospital is very much intact and not a pile of rubble as alleged. We are being trolled.)

Of course, a day later, we find out that maybe this wasn't the case.  US tracking satellites show no Israel air strike took place at that time, and Israel provides ample evidence that the actual culprit was a Palestinian rocket gone astray. The Israelis also point out that if it was one of their airstrikes, the entire place would have been obliterated. 

But you might as well shout into the wind at this point - the "true believers" will argue that "Well, of course Israel would say that!"  And you see how trolling works - you can convince people to believe what you want them to believe and immediately discount any contrary argument.  The first casualty in any war is the truth.

The true believers believe because they been conditioned to believe just about anything.  That is the point of the subtle online trolls. 

Maybe a year from now - or ten years - we'll know what really happened.  And in ten years, I have no doubt that the situation in Gaza will remain unchanged.

And a new generation of online users will be trolled as well.

Sally Stripper

Stripped-down models were never intended to be sold.

A reader writes noting that 2G service is going to be sunsetted next year, so maybe that is why Tmobile is offering "introductory" prices on 2G phone service.  They know they can force an upgrade on the customer next year.

But I think also, it is akin to the "Sally Stripper" cars sold back in the day, with alarmingly low prices (and not many features) that no one was expected to actually buy.  The low price brought the customer into the showroom, and then the salesman would "upsell" them to a de-luxe model.  No one bought the Sally Stripper.

Why did they do this?  So they could advertise a low, low price. But by making the car a punishment box, they were confident that no one would actually buy one.

Back in the 1930's things like arm rests on the doors were optional on the "base" model.  Maybe you got one with the mid-level model, on the driver's door.  But unless you wanted to pay extra for one, you didn't get one on the passenger's side.  But of course, for just a few dollars more you got both in the de-luxe model!

Not only that, you'd get a sun visor on the passenger's side, and even a windshield wiper on that side as well!  Maybe also, the ultimate in luxury - a cigar lighter, with ashtray!  But of course, such obscene luxuries as a heater and radio were options even on the de-luxe model.

By the 1950's, most of these features were standard, but it was still possible to buy a car with "no heat, no organ" as salesmen called them - no heater or radio.  Things like power steering and power brakes were still optional on all but the highest priced models, but most cars sold had these as factory installed options. The "Sally Stripper" model existed mostly in theory, not fact.  You'd have to special-order such a stripped car, unless you were a fleet buyer.  And since they had a loaded model on the lot, it wasn't hard to upsell you on that, for not a lot more than paying sticker on a special-order model.

Over the years, more and more "options" became standard. AMC famously made air conditioning standard on the Ambassador in the 1970s, but even then, you could get a "credit" for deleting it.  Today, there are few, if any, cars that do not  have it standard. But even in the 1970s, you could buy an Oldsmobile with a "three on the tree" manual transmission - but no one ever did. Hydramatic was pretty much always  optioned on every car sold.

I had a 1973 Pontiac that was stripped - manual transmission and brakes, three-on-the-column, rubber floor mats, radio delete.  It did have a heater, though, but not much else!   Oddly enough, today it would be considered a "rare" car - but still not worth much!

The ad above is for the 1981 Chevette "scooter" which was one of the last Sally Strippers offered in an era of high inflation.  The car came with no back seat (much like early AMC Gremlin base models) but you could order one as an option.  Almost every one sold had that option.  They took little things out or made things just a wee bit cheaper.  Instead of chrome badges, it had stickers with the model name.    I doubt GM saved much money on each car by deleting these features.  That was not the point - the point was to punish the buyer for being cheap and then upsell him to the de-luxe model with a back seat and real chome-like trim.   Maybe even an armrest!

The way companies play games with prices makes it harder for consumers to shop.  People see this "low-low" price on a car and figure it is a better deal, not realizing that the competitor (usually Japanese in this case) had a slightly higher price, but you got extra things, like a five-speed transmission and a nicer interior.  If you "optioned up" the other car to meet the competitor, you'd end up paying more.  But that sort of mathematics gets lost on most consumers.

GM was famous for also doing the opposite - putting obscene "sticker" prices on cars, particularly the "luxury" models such as Cadillac, and then marking down the prices at the dealer level, aggressively. No one paid sticker price for a GM car or even close to it. Meanwhile, the Japanese were offering their cars fully loaded and sold at sticker price or close to it.

As a result, no one paid $20,000 sticker for a Caddy, but closer to $15,000.  The next year, the "resale" value of the Cadillac was $12,000, showing a nearly 50% depreciation in one year alone.  Meanwhile, the Japanese car is selling secondhand for more than the sticker price, new.  These sort of pricing games might have made sense in 1955, but by 1985 they were harming, not helping, sales.

The theory was, of course, that if you had an obscene sticker price on your car, it helped sales in two ways.  First, there was always the chance that some rube would walk in and pay sticker price for the car and the dealer would then profit handsomely.  Second, you could "sell" the consumer by showing him how much of a discount he got off the obscene sticker price.  "Look, honey!  We're saving $5000 on this car!"   But of course, "discounts" from imaginary prices are not "savings."  Savings is what you put in the bank - real money - not imaginary money left on the showroom floor.

To some extent these games still go on. But the list of standard features in most cars today is pretty extensive.  You'd have to go out of your way to find a car with manual windows and no A/C today.  They simply don't make them.   And the manual transmission is on the endangered list - soon to disappear as well.

But car dealers - and most retailers - still play this game.  Maybe they keep one "stripped" car in stock to show to the "prospect" and then tell them, for "only a few more dollars a month!" they can get additional features like heated seats and a larger display screen.  Or maybe the upgraded engine, as well!

Oh, that old gag.  I noted before how the number of parts and the cost of assembly of a 85 Johnson "Sea Horse" outboard, was the same as the 100 and 115 horsepower models.  Each was a V-4 engine with the same engine block and lower unit.  The bore and stroke and carburation was changed, but this did not affect the cost of manufacture by much.  The idea was to sell horsepower, not a collection of parts.  And in the 1960's and 1970's car makers did the same thing, offering the 350 Chevy motor in three different horsepower ratings, depending on carburetor type and camshaft.  Stroke it out a bit and you could offer it as a 400.  De-stroke it, and it becomes a 305.  And each engine has a different price point, based on horsepower, not a collection of engine parts.

And today, this is still the case, with many carmakers offering different levels of horsepower.  Granted, some engines do cost more to build today (there is less "headroom" left in today's engine designs) but it doesn't cost twice as much for the hi-po model, unless you could gas-guzzler taxes and carbon credits.

To be sure, it can be fun, sometimes, to have the "stripper" model.  But then again, not if you are paying just as much - or even more - than a model with basic options.  I noted before the local Nissan dealer wanted nearly as much for a year-old (unsold) cab-and-half "S" model with crank windows and no screen, as the big-town dealer wanted for a current year "SV" model four-door with power everything.

Sometimes, being cheap costs you more money.

The low-low price is often used as a come-on to get you into the showroom.  Once you are there, you are told, "Sorry, none of those are in stock, but I can show you the upscale model for not a lot more!"

It is the old bait-and-switch, and it still goes on today!

Palestinian (Iranian) Troll Farms

The Iranians are very good at trolling - almost as good as the Russians!

I cannot go online these days without seeing some "meme" or other misleading posting that presents some obviously wrong data about the situation in Gaza.  One "meme" totes up a "body count" of dead and wounded Palestinians (no source given, so you have to take their word on faith).   Not mentioned is how many of these people are "civilians" and how many are Hamas fighters.   But hey, that makes no difference, right?

Also not mentioned is the over 1,000 Israelis - many of whom were children or even infants - who were massacred.  But hey, that was during the last news cycle, so that doesn't count, right?  I mean, we've forgotten about that already, right?  The narrative the Palestinians/Iranians are pushing is that Israel got up one morning and just decided to bomb Gaza for no reason whatsoever.  It is like the last dustup where Hamas fired 4,000 rockets at Israel and yet Israel was the aggressor.

Sorry, no sale!

Another video purports to show plucky Palestinians making rockets from old water pipes.  We are told they dug up their water pipes (yet Israel is the bad guy for shutting off the water?) and making them into rocket tubes.  They then dived a sunken wreck of a warship for corroded old artillery shells.  Wa-la!  A rocket, ready-made!  Like most YouTube click-bait videos, they cut to the "reveal" where buried pipe and corroded shells magically appear as shiny new rockets.  No, no, these are not brand-new rockets smuggled in from Iran, nosiree!  We made 'em!  From old pipes!

Go sell nonsense somewhere else.

Even if we assume this is true, one wonders whether the efforts put into digging up old pipes and such might be better spent helping the average Gaza citizen.  If they have enough time and money to make rockets, how can they claim to be oppressed?  And the answer is simple - they get rockets from Iran, who wants to stir up trouble.  They keep their own citizens in a state of privation, to use as props for the "Israel Bad, Hamas Good" trope.  They also make good human shields, too!

Go sell insanity somewhere else!

The most laughable thing I saw was a posting (and a series of comments) that claimed that Palestinians and the Arab world in general was not only not anti-Gay, but the most Gay-friendly place on earth!  No, I am not kidding about this - they claimed that Arab countries were overflowing with gay bars and gay pride celebrations and that Arab men all had sex with men as it was a cultural tradition.  Another chimed in with the "helpful" comment that in Afghanistan, the warlords all engaged in "Boy Play" (Bacha Bazi) and thus Afghanis were gay-friendly!

Kindly go fuck yourself.

The problem with the latter argument is that it equates homosexuality with pedophilia, which the GOP has been trying to do for years now (even as some prominent members of the GOP are caught trying to have sex with minors of both genders).  Just to be clear, the vast majority of pedophiles are heterosexuals - but again, the conservative far-right sees no issue with child marriage. "It's in the Bible, folks!"

The other problem is that all of it is false.  Again, with regard to the last argument, the Taliban (and most of the Arab world) takes a pretty dim view of "boy play" as rightfully they should.  But they don't condone adult same-sex relations, either.  These alleged "gay bars" in the Arab world are only in the imagination of the trolls.  Sure, there are closeted gay Arabs out there. I met a few when I was at Syracuse University (mostly Iranians, oddly enough).  They felt as long as they were "on top" it wasn't gay.  People compartmentalize these things, to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

The above map shows the reality of being gay in the Arab world.  Not only is it illegal in most if not all Arab countries, in many it is punishable by death.  "Oh, but they haven't beheaded anyone for being gay in a long time!" the trolls argue.  Nice try.  The reality is, you are one step away from a jail cell at all times, and two steps away from the beheading block.

Israel is a conservative country, to say the least, and while they have not legalized gay marriage within the country, they recognize "foreign" gay marriages.  And it is not illegal to be gay.  Contrast this to their neighbors who proscribe anything from years of imprisonment, to 100 lashes, to death.   And by the way, 100 lashes isn't some BDSM fantasy, it is often deadly as flesh is flayed to the bone.  These are not nice people, so stop pretending they are.

And no, Hamas is not gay-friendly.  None of the Arab world is.

So why would Iranian trolls try to persuade us otherwise?  Well, as I noted in my earlier posting, a lot of "liberals" latch onto causes such as the Dali Lama or the Palestinians.  Conservatives (who ironically or not-so-ironically, are often very pro-Arab and pro-Iran, provided they sell us cheap oil!) are often befuddled by this.  How can you be "liberal" and at the same time support causes that are very anti-gay?  And in many cases, the gays themselves, align with these causes.  The poor oppressed Muslims, having the largest religion in the world, so downtrodden!  We must free them from Western oppression so they can slaughter us in peace!

I know which side my bread is buttered on.  And I have this distinct allergy to people who want to kill me.  So I don't vote Republican and I don't lose much sleep over the oppressed Muslim majority.

But like I said, it is all just trolling, and the purpose of the posting I saw was to assuage the concerns that no doubt some liberals - and gays in particular - would have, over supporting Hamas. They want to paper-over the fact that Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization which, if they had their way, would obliterate those same supporters in the United States - supporters who are, to them, no more than useful idiots.

I am not going to lose much sleep over the fate of Hamas.  The people of Gaza voted these idiots into power in 2006.  There are no innocent civilians, which terrorists will be the first to admit, as they blow up a disco, behead a baby, or fly an airplane into the World Trade Center.  Speaking of which, by the time this entry is posted, I no doubt assume some sort of terrorist attack on the US will already have taken place - or will shortly.

We have to stop feeling sorry for odious and primitive peoples, whose very "cultural values" involve the extinction of the West and western liberal values.  You cannot negotiate with terrorists or "understand their point of view."  The paradox of tolerance kicks in - you cannot tolerate intolerance.

And yes, granted, most Muslims are not terrorists, nor do they advocate terrorism.  But it is scary to see how many transplanted Muslims in the Western world are not only celebrating acts of terror against Israel, but committing acts of terror in their adopted home countries.

Religious extremists of all stripes are evil.  Maybe it is high time we outlawed religion?  Just kidding, but it seems sometimes that religion and belief are behind most of the troubles in the world, or that belief is being weaponized by people in power to manipulate the masses into doing things against their own self-interests.

Being a martyr is not some special treat!  It is a waste of your own life, and that of others.

The Cautionary Tale Of The Tech Collapse

You'll never get rich on a salary!

I noted time and time again in this blog that the "I'll just work until I'm 70!" crowd is in for a rude awakening.  In most companies, you get tossed out around age 55 or so.  By then, your skill set is 35 years old and outdated.  Your salary is twice that of a new hire.  And your health insurance premiums are five times that of a new hire - if the new hire is even offered health insurance at all.

To the accounting department, you are just an entry on a spreadsheet - and expensive entry. And new management knows how to cut costs - by cutting you.

That's why I say that a job is just a means to an end - personal wealth and independence.  Sadly, as young people, we are trained to think of our salary not as something to save, but a number that qualifies us to borrow money.  "I got a raise!  Now I can get that loan to buy a new Acura!" - we all fell for that gag at one time or another in our lives.

And in each era, there are "hot jobs" where you can "name your own salary" (you really can't, but they make it sound that way).  When I was in my 20's it was Engineering.  And I got an Engineering degree, but since my background was in heavy industry (GM, Carrier) the people wanting to hire me were interested in someone who could design simple control systems for air conditioners.  The "hot jobs" in silicon valley (where designing silicon was the big thing) were all people who went to Cal Tech or the like, and had a background in semiconductor design.

So I went to the Patent Office.  A family friend had his own Patent law firm and just signed a 5-year lease on two whole floors of an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue.  "Bobby," he said, "You have to get in on this racket!"  So I did.  But in two years, his main client - a chemical company - was bought out by a competitor and they had their own preferred firm for Patent work.  He went from high-flying lawyer to nearly broke overnight.  He told me, "Know anyone who wants to sublet two floors on Pennsylvania Avenue?"  It didn't help that the commercial real estate market in DC collapsed around then.

By then, silicon valley had turned from silicon to software.  Semiconductor design became a commodity and no one wanted to pay much for "chips" or for engineers who designed them.  There was a mass-exodus from Silicon Valley of silicon firms - to Boulder, Austin, and other points on the compass.  They could pay engineers less, as the cost of living was less - at the time, anyway.

Meanwhile, "coding" became the "hot job" to have and you could "name your own salary" (not really) as most people my age were encouraged to get into "hard" Engineering - transistors and such - and software was not even recognized as "science" by either the University or the Patent Office.

But as Engineers will tell you, nature abhors a vacuum.  And when hardware Engineering was hot, people got into Engineering.  When software became hot, people got into software.  Eventually, there is equilibrium in the market, as people flock to majors where they feel they can get "rich" or at least well-off.

The same was true for the Patent business.  After Polaroid v. Kodak, and the creation of the Federal Circuit court to hear all Patent appeals, there was a land-office business to get Patents.  And my family friend was right - it was a "racket" at least for a while.  But eventually, word got around and more and more people went to law school and became Patent Attorneys or Patent Agents, and the bloom was off the rose.  It didn't help any that the courts came down with decisions that tamped down the potential damages and thus the value of Patents themselves.  In the nearly 30 years I practiced, prices for Patent Applications remained stagnant, and in some cases, went down.

Today, it is the software or "coding" business that is slowing down.  The big "FANG" companies (or is it now "MANA"?) have laid off hundreds of thousands of software engineers, for a number of reasons.  First, I believe, is that many of these websites (and that is all they are, websites) have matured, and the need for new coding has diminished.  You can hire a few people to maintain the site, put out fires, and incrementally improve it.  But you don't need to write thousands of lines of code every month for a mature site.

Second, I believe, a lot of pie-in-the-sky ideas have failed to pan out (Hello, Metaverse?).  So they are scaling back, closing down some sites and features, and laying off software "engineers" as a result.

Third - and this gets into conspiracy theory territory - the FANG companies and their hangers-on are sick and tired of fat, slovenly, cheetos-eating "tech" guys "naming their own salary" and one way to put a damper on this is to do massive layoffs and then selectively rehire only the most desperate of laid-off employees.

This is a page right out of those executive handbooks.  When you are made CEO, you fire everyone and make them "reapply" for their old job - having to justify why they are worth anything at all.  In many cases, this strategy backfires and the best employees get fed up and go to work for a competitor.  In other cases, it allows you to cut out a lot of dead wood and slim down operations.  Wall Street rewards you with a share price increase, which, with your stock options, puts millions in your pocket.

Fourth, well, we covered this before - young kids are exhorted to major in STEM studies and they all go to college to "learn to code" and now the market is flooded with new coders.  Nature abhors a vacuum.

We saw the same thing in the law business.  In my second year of law school, the smarter students who were on Law Review and the top 5% of the class, all had summer "law clerk" jobs at white shoe Manhattan law firms, where they did little actual work, but the senior partner would give them tickets to the Yankees game - at the firm's private box, right behind home plate.  They were assured six-figure salaries upon graduation, which, back in 1992 was a lot of money.

And then, not.  A host of graduates back in 1992 found their offers rescinded as the law business contracted and business dried up.  It was sad to see, but then again, those high-flyers were always rubbing our noses in how special they were, until they weren't.

In 2008, the process repeated, only worse.  A "lost generation" of lawyers found no job offers anywhere, as the market was now flooded with young graduates, all of whom got into the law business after watching "L.A. Law" or "Ally McBeal" and thought that being a lawyer meant long expense-account lunches, wild sex, and maybe a few hours of actual legal work, mostly mouthing off to a judge and thus winning your case.

The law business recovered within a few years, but the law firms were by then hiring new graduates, and the "lost generation" of 2008 grads found themselves on the outside looking in.  The same might happen to young software engineers who are struggling to find jobs these days.

A recent article online discusses this scenario.  Within a few years, we went from "name your own salary" to "stand in line and fill out these forms and be prepared for five interviews, if we consider you at all!"  Times change very quickly and in the time it takes to graduate from college, well, the job market you were aiming for may have evaporated.

Even if you get that "hot job" out of college, the legions of followers graduating behind you will mean that the market may become saturated - and some young punk with a fresh degree and new ideas may be gunning for your job.  Welcome to Capitalism!

Does this mean life sucks, so you might as well not bother trying?  Hell, no.  What it means is that if you get that "hot job" the smart thing to do is to bank as much of that salary as you can and not be tempted to spend (and borrow) more and more.  Most people do the latter - buying status cars and status houses to show others that they "made it" and then stress themselves out with all that debt and monthly payments.  The hot job better remain hot, or they are screwed.

I noticed, when I worked at law firms, that there were always quiet associates and partners who drove pretty plain cars, lived in nice but not austenatious, houses, and even brown-bagged their lunch to work.  They were making good money and could "afford" to spend more, but chose not to.  If they got laid off later on in life (which I saw happen to more than one) they were still financially secure.

On the other hand, the young associate who leased a brand-new luxury car and bought a "look at me!" mini-mansion, lived in fear of losing his job.  Who wants to live that way?

I found out later in life that the biggest luxury you could own was .yourself.  To have enough money in the bank to live without working - if you chose to do so.  It didn't take overnight, and it meant making sacrifices along the way, but the end result was worth more than 1,000 fancy cars or look-at-me houses.

And that, in short, was why I started this blog.

More Than Words (How The Music Industry Works)

Musicians often buy songs from composers, or their handlers do.  Bands are often manufactured from whole cloth.  What sells is image, not music.

I am going through my music library - 10,000+ songs ripped from CDs and "other sources" over the years. I am deleting duplicate copies, saving the bulk in WMA format (better resolution than MP3 - take that, Apple!) and deleting some music outright.  How the heavy metal collection ended up on my hard drive, I do not know.  But when someone asks me to remove the 20 viruses, pop-ups, and menu programs from their laptop, I make sure to copy their music library at the same time.  Hence 10,000 songs.

Back in the 1990s, I believe, this song "More than Words" got a lot of airplay (FM radio - remember that?) and Mark bought the CD from the band "Extreme."  He was a little disappointed (as were a lot of people) that the rest of the album wasn't love ballads, but extreme (pardon the pun) heavy metal noise of low talent - and was basically unlistenable.  How could this band with no appreciable talents or skills get a number one hit that was so uncharacteristic of their sound?

As you might guess, the band went nowhere, and I saw online an interview with the band founder who refused to talk about "More than Words" for a number of reasons, I suspect.  They wanted to be a heavy metal band, and when this syrupy love song made it to Number 1, they found a new fan base coming to their concerts - to hear only one song - and then leaving when the heavy metal noise started.

And heavy metal is noise - this is not up for discussion, period.  Go to your room, young man!  No supper for you!

By the way, the song really isn't a love song, but a borderline date-rape song.  The boy in the song is pressuring his girlfriend to have sex, saying that she would show "more than words" that she loved him.  It is the oldest argument in the book - and one reason young men turn to playing music - hoping that they will score with the girls.  But I digress.

I suspect the band founder interviewed didn't want to talk about their #1 hit for a number of reasons.  They hoped to make it big as heavy metal superstars, and no doubt, the other "metal heads" mocked them for this sentimental song.  Their new fanbase only liked the one song.  And maybe - just maybe - they never wrote or even performed it.

Act shocked - the record industry is corrupt!  I know, I was so disillusioned as well (just kidding).

It is well known in the recording business that "pop" stars claim to have written a number of songs, but actually buy them from composers who give up even the song and lyric credits, in exchange for a few bucks.  It is also well-known in the industry that many - if not most - recordings in a studio make use of "studio musicians" such as The Wrecking Crew (Capitol Records) or The Swampers (Muscle Shoals), who play instruments and sing better than some garage band.  When it comes to packaging a sound, you can't rely on the original band to provide a concise sound in a studio environment.

Many a drummer or guitar player has been disillusioned when a professional replacement is used on the actual recording.  And you can understand why - the recording engineer and producer are basically saying you suck, even though they will still give you album credit and cut you a paycheck.  You sit in the studio and watch someone else do your job. That has to be hard.

Of course, we don't have any hard evidence this was the case for More That Words.  But it is suspicious to me that this one song is so jarringly different that the rest of their songbook and they never had a syrupy love song before or since.  The fact the band leader refuses (quite vehemently) to talk about it, only adds to the mystery.  And if you know a bit about the recording industry, well, connect the dots.

But maybe it was the other way. Maybe they came up with this "one hit wonder" and then faded away (rather quickly, I might add) and are bitter about it.  After all, it is one thing to be a minor heavy metal band, but to flirt with success and then fade away has to be twice as sour.

So much of "music" these days (and going back decades) has more to do with image than music.  "Bobby Soxers" swooned over Frank Sinatra in the 1940's, and in the 1950's, it was Elvis.  In the 1960's, the Beatles - with girls screaming so loud they passed out (and never heard the music).  It was all about selling sex and sexuality to horny teenagers.  And in the 1970s, they realized you could sell androgyny to teenage boys with "glam rock."   The shit never ends.

What one realizes, decades later, going through a collection of over 10,000 tunes, is that much of what you though was good music was actually dreck.   Bands that sold image over content, and faded away rather quickly.  The best music survives and the rest goes into the trash bin, never to be heard of again. Bands like Def Leppard or Grand Funk Railroad are basically noise to listen to, today.  They had good promoters, for sure, but that's about it.

I suspect this will also be true of "rap" and "hip-hop" and pop music of this era as well.  Some will have staying power, but the bulk will go away and never be heard from again.  And a whole new host of "pop stars" are famous for selling image over music - Lady Ga-Ga, Beyonce, and today, Taylor Swift.  This is not to say their music sucks, only that - like Madonna - you may hear one or two songs of theirs 10 years from now, and the rest will be largely forgettable.

Once the image is shattered - or at least fades away - the music has to stand on its own merits, and much of it is without merit, as it is mathematically impossible for an artist to produce nothing but hits.