If the title of this blog sounds a little salacious, get thy head out of the gutter and know that mom is ninety years old and the only Boss she has ever known was her supervisor at the Philadelphia Board of Education thirty or forty years ago. But in the last few days a connection has occurred, a similarity if you will, something they might have in common. And so, seeing that whenever a blogger puts “Bruce Springsteen” in his or her post’s tags that it generates thousands of hits, I thought…you know…what the hell. I’ve got a little story to tell and damn it, I will.
Last September I flew from my home in California to the Westchester County Airport just north of White Plains in New York. Mom lives in Riverdale just south of Yonkers, and the rest of my family is scattered throughout the region. We have eight relatives in Princeton and maybe there’s about the same number left in Philly. The purpose of this short visit was a birthday brunch in honor of mom that my sister and niece put together with care, and the room was filled with close to seventy friends and family.
As people do these days, I put together a home video using pictures taken from her birth in 1921, through the time she met my dad, had me and my sister, celebrated life events and than to present day, surrounded by her great-grandkids. You know the type of video I’m talking about…we all make them with ease, using the software that is so readily available and easy, letting us scan, drag, drop and sequence. and of course, add music.
Let me jump ahead to last week at SXSW. Bruce Springsteen gave the keynote address. Someone used their video camera to record it and uploaded it to You Tube. Mando Lines took the embed code and posted it at No Depression. It was featured on the front page, and added to a blog describing the address he gave. And this morning it’s gone. A black screen…content taken down. Most likely because it wasn’t authorized and approved by SXSW, Bruce, his people, his record label, his clothier, his wife, his kids, his dog or whoever else may have taken either offense or saw that by having it on You Tube it violates some right…I imagine in the case that there was money to be made by it. Certainly it wasn’t taken down because of what Bruce said…it was good stuff and reported in many newspapers, TV and throughout the internet.
So I wonder what is so bad about having Bruce’s speech shared? We ain’t talkin’ about piracy here, we’re talking about access. With all the tools of the digital age, should information be blocked, sorted and chosen for you to see and hear? That’s old school TV news soundbites…we live in this internet age where anything is up for grab…and if Kim or Paris want to flash their whatevers, we get to see it within a matter of seconds. Isn’t that what technology is about?
Well folks…..on the very same day that Bruce gave his speech, I received a notification from You Tube. They wanted to tell me that they were informed by a number of corporations and multi-international conglomerates beginning with Universal Music Group and EMI Music, along with another half-dozen smaller publishing companies that I…yes me…has been cited for using unauthorized music in Mary Maxin’s 90th Birthday video. In the US, it appeared I was ok to keep it up for the moment…but it was being blocked in other countries. I can only imagine that some $500 an hour attorney is currently working on the papers that will yank it off You Tube forever. Because I’m infringing.
So…even though I legally bought all the music I used, and even though I put it up on You Tube so that some relatives of ours who couldn’t travel to NY would see it, and despite that as of today it’s had a whopping 7 views, I’m on notice. Frank and Dean and Buck must have heard their songs playing at that Celestial Diner In The Sky and complained to their respective labels via (very) special delivery.
So before Mary Maxin is banned from You Tube like Bruce was, I think I’ll post our little, private home video for mom. The story of a woman born in the USA, who met a man she loved from the moment she saw him on a corner in South Philly, who lived through wars, bought into the suburban American Dream, raised a family, had a job, lost her husband to cancer, survived a stroke and at ninety is still as beautiful, caring and loving as always. Let’s see how long it takes for the bastards to remove it from the site.
