New music this week from Laura Jean, Crown Lands, Atarashii Gakkou, Monalisa Twins, Ryan Adams, Alabama Shakes, Joe Lynn Turner, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and much more. Enjoy!
Here is a listing of this week's artists by twitter handle (while there still is such a thing) unless otherwise marked:
@laurajeanmusic
@scarypockets featuring @LizzyMcAlpine
Magazine - made up of @pomplamoose, Arielle Kasnetz and @AnileeL
@CrownLandsMusic
@Soumyajit42 with @itsam222 and KAYA E
@volkermilch mixed by @DurzzoMusic
@japanleaders
@MonaLisa_Twins
@alyandaj
@ergobria
@TheRyanAdams
@wearesilvertwin
@Alabama_Shakes
@WhiteReaperUSA
@joelynnturner
@wearephoenix
@FirstAidKitBand
@turnoverva
specialinterest.no (Instagram)
@okaykayaouch with @elikeszler
@carladalforno
@JulienChangBAL
@lafemmeressort
@YYYs
@kinggizzard
Hey, Americans - vote as if you were trying to defeat fascists. Because you are.
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Well, for those of you who follow everything that has happened in the process of turning twitter into... well I have no idea what really, I need to point out something that everyone is overlooking. It's not about Musk's astonishingly thin skin, or the banning of parody, or the gross mismanagement of the labor force, or the blackmailing everyone over their check marks, or whatever has happened since I started typing. A lot of people have migrated to Mastadon, and a lot have moved to Counter.Social (I opened an account on each and am considering options).
Remember how Musk financed all of this? A lot of the money that was used to buy twitter isn't Musk's money, but the money of various investors and banks. The largest investor is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. Let's do a little math:
The purchase price for twitter wasn't $44 Billion. He actually committed $33.5 Billion. He already had a 9.6% stake in the company and that made up the difference. Of that $33.5 Billion $13 Billion is debt financing, so actually Musk only went $20 Billion out of pocket. The rest is owned by other people, the greatest share holder being Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Now for those of you paying attention Musk has no real clue how to run twitter. By the time he gets bored with all of this twitter will probably only be worth about $5 Billion. I don't actually care about that. These sites come and go. Remember MySpace? Hell, I had a MySpace page. The problem is that no matter how much twitter eventually winds up being worth, Elon Musk is still going to owe Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudia Arabia about $2 Billion. Probably a lot more - who knows what interest rate he's getting charged.
Now there are a lot of banks in the debt financing. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle is also a large investor - about half what the Prince put in. A lot of people are going to need to be paid off, and that's Elon's problem.
I think that our problem is that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia isn't going to take a payout. I think he's going to take twitter.
Now Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a complicated person to analyze. He has been both in favor of the Ruling Saudis and in the outs. During one time while under arrest he held secret negotiations and essentially bribed his way out of house arrest and all charges against him by donating $6 Billion to the Saudi Government. He is the 7th richest person in the world. He is the largest shareholder in News Corps (i.e. Fox News), Saks 5th Avenue, Chase Manhattan, Citigroup, Four Seasons Hotel Group, Planet Hollywood, Daewoo, and he holds large minority interests in everything from Ford Motor Company to Coca-Cola to Euro Disney.
But he's been investing in Tech in one form or another since the 1990's. He has held either minority or controlling stakes in AOL, Netscape, Motorola, and MCI. For a while he was the largest stakeholder in Apple, but he sold that off in 2005. His investment strategy shows incredible patience, but his tech interest also shows a keen interest in infrastructure - and that's the point of all of this.
Twitter has massive infrastructure. They've been building data centers all over the world to handle their traffic and customer load, as well as their advertising structure. We're talking buildings where the interiors are measured in the hundreds of thousands of square yards full of computer servers and tracking all of their users, advertisers, and all the metrics involved. I have seen one of the buildings with my own eyes, and it's impressive. It's some of the largest internet infrastructure anywhere in the world - larger than what is put together by Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple or any of the other big players.
And it appears that Elon Musk has no idea what to do with it all. He may not even know it all exists, beyond the fact that it's the backbone that lets twitter function on a day to day basis. But imagine what a Saudi Prince, part of the Royal family even if not close to the throne, could do with that.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is seen by us in the west as something of a reformer, although he tows the line when it comes to issues like Israel and Palestine. He is one of the richest members of the family but despite his views he managed to survive the purge of 2017 that ended with him paying that $6 Billion I mentioned before. He is a box of contradictions, but he's also a proven survivor and his interest in tech goes back decades. This is a man with a plan, and the patience to wait years to execute it.
Which brings me to a troubling question: When he eventually takes twitter, which might take some time but seems likely to happen, what is he going to do with it? What is he doing NOW with the access he has NOW?
I honestly don't know, but we'd best prepare for it and be ready to ask when the time comes. What would a Saudi Prince do with the already-built infrastructure of what is currently the largest social media company in the world?
What could he do?
Cheap Shots (Monday is Rum day!):
And believe you me, he speaks from the experience of having done it himself hundreds of times.
If you support the ideas of Stephen Miller, then you're a fucking racist.
It's still called Ratfucking, right?
You can still follow Kathy Griffin on twitter, showing just how weak Musk's "moderation" is.
Child of immigrants wants an American with generations of roots in Georgia deported.
Nothing to see here - just manufactured terrorists.
See the new Russian blockbuster movie, "I Stole a Zoo."
Face it, this is more proof that he's not terribly bright.
Chuck Todd shows evidence of a spine.
Remember, Republicans accuse Democrats of things they only do themselves.
Da Comrade. We do crimes.
I do think that Mr. Olbermann has a point here - where are the in network protests of the firing of Tiffany Cross?
And come on now, who HASN'T made the joke about Florida looking like a dick?
Cutting it a little close there, don't you think?
And because I love you, I present to you a band that's been doing this style of music since they were pre-teens:
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