g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
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James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
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.clue
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Cartago Delenda Est

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Monday, April 11, 2005
13:23 - A strong case for the Nomad Zen
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11letter.html?

(top) link
Would you use the MP3 player and music store that Hitler used? Would you?!

First, Mr. Bush's iPod is heavy on traditional country singers like George Jones, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney. He has selections by Van Morrison, whose "Brown Eyed Girl" is a Bush favorite, and by John Fogerty, most predictably "Centerfield," which was played at Texas Rangers games when Mr. Bush was an owner and is still played at ballparks all over America. ("Oh, put me in coach, I'm ready to play today.")

The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell and "My Sharona," the 1979 song by the Knack that Joe Levy, a deputy managing editor at Rolling Stone in charge of music coverage, cheerfully branded "suggestive if not outright filthy" in an interview last week.

Mr. Bush has had his Apple iPod since July, when he received it from his twin daughters as a birthday gift. He has some 250 songs on it, a paltry number compared to the 10,000 selections it can hold. Mr. Bush, as leader of the free world, does not take the time to download the music himself; that task falls to his personal aide, Blake Gottesman, who buys individual songs and albums, including Mr. Jones's and Mr. Jackson's greatest hits, from the iTunes music store.

Mr. Bush uses his iPod chiefly during bike workouts to help him pump up his heartbeat, which he monitors with a wrist strap. The strap also keeps track of calories expended for the intensely weight-focused president, who has recently lost eight pounds after eating a lot of doughnuts during the 2004 campaign. Mr. Bush burned 1,300 calories on his bike ride on Saturday, Mr. McKinnon reported.

As for an analysis of Mr. Bush's playlist, Mr. Levy of Rolling Stone started out with this: "One thing that's interesting is that the president likes artists who don't like him."

The NYT then goes on to state matter-of-factly how it's no wonder that the WPod doesn't have Fogerty's "Fortunate Son" on it, because "As the son of a two-term congressman and a United States Senate candidate, Mr. Bush won a coveted spot with the Texas Air National Guard to avoid combat in Vietnam." Which I guess has attained the mantle of fact now, Rathergate or no Rathergate. Ah well. At least Bush's personal iPod-loader buddy has this stinger to add:

Mr. McKinnon, who has downloaded "Castanets" by Alejandro Escovedo and "Alive 'N' Kickin' " by Kenny Loggins into Mr. Bush's iPod, said that sometimes a presidential playlist is just a playlist, nothing more.

"No one should psychoanalyze the song selection," Mr. McKinnon said. "It's music to get over the next hill."

And yet I'm sure plenty of people will use it as ample reason to go get their music from Napster instead.

UPDATE: But not if you're an investor. Apparently, according to Forbes (and via Steven Den Beste), Apple has jumped 320 spots in the past year to become the 442nd biggest company in the world. I guess Dubya knows where the smart money is, maybe...

UPDATE: So does Jeeves. I've seen iPods in the "generic music player" context elsewhere too, such as in Best Buy ads (that "You can control the Black Eyed Peas" one)... becoming "kleenexed" is perhaps the ultimate achievement in marketing, and yet a mixed blessing as the brand inevitably becomes diluted and escapes the company's control. I don't think Apple's complaining, though.


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© Brian Tiemann