While I was home for the holidays, Pat and I got into an unexpectedly heated debate about the ongoing Hollywood writers’ strike. I’m not sure we’re that far apart, really. We both agreed that the writers got screwed on profit-sharing from DVDs, and now they deserve a fair cut of online distribution (and some renegotiation on the DVD deal).

But one thing I’m really liking about the strike: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both totally ad-hoc. Without writers, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are doing a lot of off-the-cuff comedy with B-grade graphic effects and the occasional lapse of uncomfortable silence. It’s so much better: random, sometimes poorly edited, and incredibly funny.

Because Hollywood refuses to show their faces to a camera, all their interviews are with politicians, economists, and other people who generally have something intelligent to say. That has always been the draw for me–not only are these two men incredibly funny comedians, they are also very smart. I think the strike is giving them the right environment to bring those strengths back to the fore. Keep it up, guys.

It’s a lot easier than I thought. It turns out that most of the RIAA-sponsored music I’d bought were tracks I heard on the radio — and if it’s all over the radio, why pay money?

Instead I’ve found (or rediscovered, in a couple cases) a healthy dose of musicians that are far better fare than what’s served on the FM spectrum:

• The Rakes - Ten New Messages
• Venetian Snares - Rossz Csillag Allat Szulettet
• The Go Find - Stars On The Wall
• The Earlies - The Enemy Chorus
• The Frames - Live in Washington D.C. (free download from NPR)
• Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

The march continues.

(I must admit I forgot to use RIAA Radar a few weeks ago and inadvertently bought one RIAA-produced album. It was an impulse buy on a recommendation of a co-worker: Robert Randolph & The Family Band - Unclassified. And as much as I hate the RIAA, part of me is forced to admit that I really like the album.)

Gizmodo has declared an RIAA Boycott for March, and I’m all for it.

If you live in a cave, the RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America. They have lost sight of their marketplace and are trying to generate revenue through legislation instead of developing new business models. They’re the same people who tried to outlaw portable MP3 players, claimed it’s okay to hack into other peoples’ computers, and are currently suing 13-year-olds for over $500 per song.

Here are a few ways you can avoid financing one of the most anti-competitive and maliciously destructive organizations in our country.

• Buy music from independent labels.
  If you don’t know where to start, try Bleep, eMusic, or Epitonic.
• Check the music before you buy.
  RIAA Radar will tell you if an album funds lawsuits against children.
• If you must have RIAA music, borrow it from your friends.
  If you have no friends, use Lala to trade CDs over the intarweb.

So I had a long post written up about the ridiculousness of the Adult Swim Boston terror scare, which cost the city of Boston over $1 million and has spawned a whole category of journalistic viciousness. I also thought I had the greatest blog post title in history: “Whatever happens, I feel like my hair is safe for the moment.”

But Cole Slaw beat me to it, and neatly summarized everything I’d planned on ranting about. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you haven’t been reading the papers; the best place to start is by watching the press conference. (It won’t explain anything, but it’s good for a laugh.)

The city of Boston has every right to ask Turner to repay them for unintended damages, and Turner (claiming good corporate citizenship) is smart to open up the checkbook. But to press criminal charges against the artists for anything more serious than vandalism or graffiti is just knee-jerk politics. These two clearly didn’t realize they would cause a panic, and Massachusetts hoax laws are based on intent (not aftermath).

So the Daily Show got an interview with Bill Gates. You can watch Billy Boy’s sit-down on YouTube, or you can just load nine minutes of static onto your iPod and listen to it while you read the steaming pile of press release. The end effect is the same: random noise interspersed with sound bites about how amazing Vista will be. I’m very disappointed. Here is a sampling of what John threw at him over the course of almost ten minutes of interview.

• What does the F12 button do? (Nothing, you n00b.)
• What is a “beta version”? Will that make me sterile? (No.)
• What if I don’t know how to use Vista? (Call Bill, apparently.)
• What’s your password? (Is it “Gates”?)
• Do you hire people that can outsmart hackers? (Yes.)
• When are we going to get jetpacks? (Don’t know.)

Jon Stewart is an intelligent guy, I’ve been a fan of The Daily Show for years, and I’ve seen him do plenty of great interviews. But with ten minutes to interview the richest man on the planet, and one of the most influential philanthropists we’ve known, Jon turns into a clown. There are so many things Bill Gates could comment on that would’ve been even slightly interesting:

• What does he think of the One Laptop Per Child project?
• What are some longer-term goals on the table for the Gates Foundation, now that they’ve got billions of Warren Buffet’s money to spend?
• Does Bill Gates think that mobile technology will ever totally antiquate the desktop PC?
• Where does Gates see the biggest opportunities for Microsoft to compete with Google, since they’re clearly being trounced on “search”?
• What does Bill think about the problems in the Middle East? Bill’s PR reps would probably hate to see him start talking politics on the eve of a huge launch, but I’m sure Jon Stewart could get something out of him.
• Engadget had a great suggestion that should’ve come naturally to The Daily Show: team up Bill Gates with John Hodgman. It writes itself!

Maybe Bill’s people told Jon’s people that he needed to stay away from anything serious. Bill was in a rush to leave once the interview was up (he walked completely off-stage before the fade to commercial). Was he hurrying to the London launch, or was he just sour at having such a crap interview?

But not all of tonight’s YouTubing has been a waste. I didn’t get to watch the Colbert v. O’Reilly interviews when they aired, so I just caught up with them tonight. Steven Colbert definitely owned O’Reilly, twice – once on the Factor, and again on the Report. I can’t get enough of O’Reilly screaming about whether the “T” in “Colbert” is silent.

This week, I’d say Colbert’s “perched dragon” style interview-fu has proven far superior to Stewart’s “drunken hamster” style.

The French equivalent of the RIAA, the Syndicat National de l’Edition Phonographique, recently put out an ad campaign designed to intimidate music swappers with threats of massive fines. See the anti-sharing ad here.

Not very kind of them, to be sure, but not unexpected. Lately the global media oligopolies have been acting like frightened little children when it comes to file-sharing, so intimidation and scare tactics is nothing unusual.

What makes it noteworthy is the response that has sprung up on blogs around the Web, and which I am happy to duplicate here.

Culture has no price.

Swapping copyrighted music may be illegal, but it’s just a consumer reaction to a changing market. The old business model of selling CDs for $14 through strictly controlled distribution channels doesn’t work anymore. Until the recording industry realizes this, adjusts its pricing models, and renovates its distribution methods to emphasize digital media, people will continue to trade music illegally — and you’ll never be able to stop them.

Lately, record labels have been making online downloads absurdly expensive, at times pricing them higher than the actual CDs. Sometimes I wonder if music executives are intentionally shooting themselves in the foot to make their lobbyists’ jobs easier, or if they’re just colossally stupid. I guess they still don’t understand that we love MP3 stores not for the convenience, but for the cost. Steven Levy summarized it best: How many times does the same chorus have to play before music execs can hum along?

I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to start pouring money into online distribution channels that deserve support: Audio Lunchbox, Epitonic, Bleep, Magnatune, and (despite unreasonable price increases and restrictive DRM) maybe even iTunes.