Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Paradox of Ambition and Public Interest Law

UCI Law is a law school that really wants us to get good jobs when we get out.

I’m sure all law schools are like that, but this is especially true of UCI, since it is new and really feels like it has something to prove. This is good in many ways because the school really focuses on giving students the resources they need to succeed. But the drive for success, and the self-promotion that it requires, makes for an uneasy tension for those of us who want to practice public interest law. Is it always possible to simultaneously serve the public and serve one’s own career?

I came to UCI because it places great emphasis on service and pro bono work, and it really supports its public interest students. UCI has been everything I had imagined it would be, and now in my second year my desire to practice public interest law remains as strong as ever. Who wouldn’t want to have a job helping people? It sounds simple enough, right? It’s true that public interest lawyers do not make as much money as other lawyers, but the job satisfaction usually more than makes up for it. In a strange way, it feels good to say, “I’m taking a pay cut to help save the world.”

So what is the problem then? It is hard to grapple with the law school culture of ambition, and this does not go away even if one wants to be a public interest lawyer. Public interest students have ambitions just like anyone else. If you can get the “good job,” you can make huge positive differences in the world. Some cynical observers might say this is just as much about maximizing one’s own moral superiority as it is about serving the public. And while I would disagree strongly with such an accusation, it still lurks underneath. Public interest law is about serving the public, but many of us perhaps unintentionally serve ourselves in the process because doing this kind of work is what makes us feel good. Is it contradictory for us all to be clamoring for all the great jobs, while at the same time saying that we’re just in this because we want to serve others? I often ask myself, “If I feel like other people would be better difference-makers than me, wouldn’t it make sense to just yield and let them go and achieve a better outcome for society?”

There are not that many public interest jobs out there. Public interest organizations do not have a lot of money, and there is a great deal of competition to do this kind of work. Offices are also constrained not by having a lack of clients, but rather by a lack of funds to hire everyone they would want to hire to serve those clients. For every person that gets hired, that’s one qualified person that doesn’t. So to get the jobs we want, are we supposed to just step on whomever may be in the way?

To quote Robert Duvall’s character from the movie Thank You For Smoking, “if you want an easy job, go work for the Red Cross.” Indeed, it is a luxury to feel good about yourself and your job. When I worked at a grocery store, I didn’t feel like I was saving the world, but I did feel proud of myself for keeping the recycling room at the store clean. And so anyone who says that the only jobs worth doing are the ones where you help people demeans all of the people who are working hard at whatever job they can just to get by. I was lucky because my parents did fine financially and my grocery store income was just supplemental. Many people are not so lucky. Everyone wants to be that person who took that case all the way up to the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court and won a great ruling that will help everyone. Not everyone wants to just be good at whatever job they have. But this is really what is more important. Justice Benjamin Cardozo once said, “In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity—please observe, a plodding mediocrity—for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.” The plodding mediocrities are the people who make the world go round.

I wish that the law culture gave us room to be mediocre. And by this I don’t mean lazy. I want nothing more than the opportunity to work as hard as I can, and to define success on my own terms, rather than be boxed in to someone else’s definition of success. Is it possible to have a job that helps people, while at the same time turning away from the culture of ambition that is so prevalent at law schools? Is it possible to get where you want to go, but not have to step on anyone to get there? Ask me in five years.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Why Amazon's New Music Purchasing Options Make No Sense and are Not Economically Sustainable

Right now I'm holding in my hand an album called "Kveikur," the newest release by the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. I really like it. So I bought it.

I purchased the disc on Amazon. Buying it in disc format was about a dollar more expensive than the MP3 version, but I think discs are nice to have because you get the audio in lossless format, and you get the full album artwork.

When I purchased the disc, I was able to take advantage of a new feature that Amazon offers. When you purchase a physical disc, Amazon allows you to download the MP3 files immediately. This would seem to make sense at first glance. Surely someone who purchases a disc should be entitled to listen to that music in MP3 format, because MP3s are just a lower quality version of what is heard on the disc. No one disputes that purchasers of physical discs should also be allowed to convert the files to MP3s and put them on their computers or portable music players.

So why then does Amazon's new feature present a huge problem in terms of economic incentives? When I purchased "Kveikur," I downloaded it immediately, put it on my ipod, walked to class with it, jogged with it, etc. I had complete access to the MP3s for almost a week before today when the CD came in the mail. Psychologically, it's a bit of a letdown to get something in the mail that you basically already own. It kind of takes the fun out of opening the package. But then a more sinister thought crossed my mind. The CD, like all discs sold by Amazon, is in "new" condition, and is still shrink-wrapped. But because of Amazon's new feature, I had been able to access the music without actually unwrapping the disc, and if I wanted to, I could re-sell the disc on Ebay or even Amazon Marketplace, and list it as being in "new" condition. I could probably recover most of what I spent to buy it, while still retaining the MP3 files on my computer.

I would say this is a major loophole. The old notion of "if you buy the CD, you should own the MP3s too" is undoubtedly still a valid one, but this presumes that the purchaser has unwrapped and accessed the CD first. If you can get to the MP3s without unwrapping the CD, then it allows consumers to double dip, and before long the pricing and incentive structure starts to break down.

This feature also presents a more subtle problem. About five years ago I purchased the album "Meddle" by Pink Floyd on CD. The CD edition I owned was a remastered version done in 1994. Then in 2011, most of Pink Floyd's catalog, including "Meddle" was remastered again and re-released. Because I had purchased "Meddle" on disc earlier, Amazon said that I was entitled to download the MP3s of the album. However, the edition that I was permitted to download was the 2011 remaster. I have no idea whether the 2011 remaster of "Meddle" is superior to the 1994 remaster, but technically, they are two separate products. If a remastered version of an album is essentially given away to people who had purchased an old version, then doesn't that take away the incentive to remaster the album at all? After all, mastering does cost money, not as much money as recording, but still some. Record companies wouldn't remaster albums if they thought that it wouldn't lead to new sales. Is Amazon's system fair to whoever put forward the money to fund the 2011 remaster? Probably not, and maybe no one cares, but I think it would be unwise to ignore the issue completely.

These problems present themselves rather oddly come holiday season. If one were to give music CDs as gifts, under Amazon's system, the purchaser can download the MP3s, and the recipient of the gift can get the disc. (They always said it's more fun to give than to receive, and now Amazon is making that a reality!)

Of course, these problems have presented themselves before, but in slightly less extreme forms. In the past there has been nothing stopping people from giving CDs as gift, and then ripping them onto their own computers. (I imagine this is a common Christmas morning tradition in some families). Similarly, there has been nothing stopping people from buying a CD online, ripping the music to their computers, and then reselling it in "like new" condition on Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. And aren't the CD sections in public libraries really just functioning as government-sponsored file swapping?

I am not proposing that we crack down on friends ripping each other's CDs, but I do think that Amazon is perhaps making things a little too easy. Even today, it is still tacky to say "Hey, can I rip that CD I just bought for you?" Likewise, for people reselling music, they're going to get more for it if the product is "new" and shrink-wrapped than they will if it is "like new," even if it doesn't have a scratch on it. I'm not quite sure why Amazon thought it would be good idea to create such large loopholes, since I find it very hard to believe this problem did not occur to anyone in their corporate offices. It could be that Amazon did a cost/benefit analysis, and determined that they would make more money doing things this way, even if it did result in knowingly giving away some music. If so, what recourse do artists have? It is unclear. Some stores, most notably iTunes, have dispensed with discs altogether. Amazon clearly does not want to go down that road, nor should they if they don't want to, but if they're going to sell both discs and digital content, they should really keep them separate so as to avoid confusion and unintended consequences.







Monday, September 2, 2013

My new album "Expression" is now released

My new album Expression is released today in online retailers.

I wrote a more detailed account of the contents of the album earlier, but I made a few slight modifications to the tracklist since then. To sum things up, this album is a mix of rock and electronic music, and most of it is instrumental. For this of you have seen me play live, this album sounds very different from my more mellow solo acoustic set. This album was kind of me saying to myself "let's get the weird stuff out of my system."

The album is mastered by Scott Apicelli at Blue Sky Studios in Delmar, NY.  He does a really good job, and he does not subject his work to the destructive loudness war that is being fought by mastering engineers. (I've complained about the loudness war extensively here and here).

The album is streamed on Spotify, Google Play, and other streaming sites. You can also purchase the album for download:

CD Baby sells the album for $5.60 here.
Amazon MP3 sells the album for $8.99 here.
iTunes sells the album for $9.99 here.

(Even though CD Baby is the cheapest, it's the one where I get the most money because it you don't have another middleman like Amazon or Apple taking a cut. Of course, I don't expect anyone to actually spend money on this because I am just an amateur doing this as a hobby, so message me if money is an issue).

Here is the album's tracklist:

1. My Own
2. If You Are Awake
3. Likeness
4. The Decision to Not Do Drugs
5. The Future
6. Do Not Touch
7. I Drove Away
8. When Quiet Becomes
9. Clear
10. (This is My Expression)


The title of (This is My Expression) is in parentheses because it is optional (it is the only track with my singing). As I wrote earlier, it is debatable whether the album is better or worse if you hit stop after Track 9. I have never been fully comfortable with (This is My Expression). It's kind of long, kind of whiny, etc., but it's there, so I'll let you decide for yourself.

When Quiet Becomes is the only track I did not describe in my last post, as it was a late addition. It is a slow instrumental that has a gradual buildup. The track is built around two very simple chord progressions, but hopefully all the changes in instrumentation in texture along the way keep it interesting.

Also in my last post I mentioned a track called Heart Goes Out. I decided it would not fit the feel of the album, and at the very end decided not to record it. Maybe next time.

So there it is. I hope you like it.

Andrew


Here is the cover art that I designed:





Also, here as some pictures from the sessions:

















Saturday, July 6, 2013

My new album is on the way!

So I've been pretty bad about updating the progress of the new album. Part of it is that I don't want to spam you with MP3s, and part of it is that I've just been too lazy to write about it. So here is a rundown of the new album, what to expect, and when to expect it.

First of all, the release date: Barring some catastrophic meltdown, the new album will be completed by about September 1, 2013. Once I upload it online, it usually takes about 2 weeks to become widely available on iTunes, Spotify, etc.

Second, the title: The album that is being released is not the album called "Hydrogen." Yes, I am aware that this blog is called "Hydrogen Explained" and the original purpose of the blog was to document the progress of the album "Hydrogen."  However, the album "Hydrogen" has been put on hold, and there are a number of reasons for this.

The songs that I wrote for "Hydrogen" have a great deal of importance to me, and I will revisit the album and eventually complete it. However, those same songs mostly relate to my life before I moved to California and started law school. I made several attempts to record some of those songs before I moved, but I was unhappy with the sounds I was getting. As I wrote earlier, I decided to spontaneously record a couple pieces of experimental electronic music as a way to jumpstart my creative process. It was clear that this new music was not to appear on the album "Hydrogen" and it represented a new project. I decided to go with it.

This new project, which I have called "Expression," relates to my move to California. So while "Expression" is released before "Hydrogen," it is chronologically later in terms of when the music was conceived of. I will return to finish "Hydrogen" next, and hopefully not too much time will have passed, so that I don't lose of the spirit of what was going on when the songs were written.

Third, what's on the album: I have a written a tracklist, which will more or less stay constant between now and the release date. Tracks 1-8 are instrumental, 9 is spoken word, and 10 has (mediocre) singing. For those of view who have seen me perform live, this album sounds nothing like my solo acoustic show. As of today, most of the tracks on this list have already been recorded:

(Sorry that some of the MP3 links in my old posts are dead. I need to get that fixed. In the meantime, I guess I'll just build up the anticipation.)

1. My Own: This was the first track recorded during this sessions, and can best be described as weird electronic instrumental music. It was completely written and recorded very quickly, in about a day. The structure is very simple, but the layered texture is what makes in interesting. My mother says it sounds like "robots in a cruel world."

2. If You Are Awake: The title comes from my inability to call people on the east coast after a certain hour because of the time difference. That's why this track features a ringing cell phone as one of its background "instruments." This instrumental track is somewhat inspired by the Allman Brothers Band because it features harmonized lead guitar, one guitar in the left channel, and the other in the right.

3. Likeness: This track is a mellow piano improvisation I recorded in 2010. Even though it's an older track, it fits with the process of "Expression" because it was recorded rather spontaneously. And this track has sat on my hard drive for three years so it's about time it saw the light of day.

4. Do Not Touch: The only truly atonal track on here. It's nothing more than a gradual buildup of keyboard tones until finally at the end the aggregate of the Equal Temperament 15 scale plays all at once. In other words, it's very dissonant, but it's over before you know it.

5. I Drove Away: Long story short, it was Friday night, my plans got cancelled and I had nothing to do. So basically instead of sitting around moping I decided to create some music. This instrumental track was entirely written and recorded in a 24-hour time period, but I think it still stands up well. It's centered around piano, but also has overdubs of synthesizer and electronic beats, so maybe it'll sound modern...

6. The Future: This track is a kind of remix/tribute/commercial for a collaboration I was part of called People of the Future. My friend Andrew Riker and I had created two albums (with help from my friend Greg Smith and also members of my family). Each album had music along with dialogue in a story, sort of like a movie with just the sound. This tribute track features snippets and samples from those albums, along with new music that is similar in style to People of the Future. If you haven't heard those albums, this track will likely be a tad confusing because there is no narrative to guide the action. But either way, it will be a fun incoherent musical collage.
 
7. Heart Goes Out: This is a piano piece I wrote in 2008, and it appeared on the second People of the Future album. The piano playing on the original recording was a little sloppy, so I've been wanting to rerecord it and put it one of my solo albums for a while too since it might be the best thing I ever wrote for piano. Even though most of the album is electric, this fits on there as a nice break from the chaos of tracks 6 and 8. The goal of this album seems to be "weird enough to get your attention, but not too weird to make you turn it off." Hopefully this track fits that mold.

8. The Decision to Not Do Drugs: This is an instrumental track, and it sounds a tad on the scary side. It has a slow pulsing build-up, which might test your patience. But the last two minutes of the track might be the most intense two minutes of the album.  

9. Clear: This is a short spoken word track. It's me talking about vague things, but my voice is sped up 30%. This was the perfect amount to make me sound still human, but no longer like me. It's clear that there's something wrong with this voice, but it's still natural-sounding enough that you can't quite put your finger on it.

10. (This is My Expression): The title of this track is in parenthesis because it is optional. That is, if you press stop on your CD player after Track 9 instead of letting it play through, you've still had a valid (and arguably superior) listening experience. I'm not sure if I actually like this song. It is 11 minutes long, and is the only one to feature my singing. It is also the song I am least confident about. It touches on themes of social awkwardness and feeling overwhelmed starting law school. The idea was that if I put a bunch of negative energy into one song, all that energy would get flushed down the toilet at once. Of course, it never works that way, and at the end I just found myself with just a really whiny-sounding song. That being said, the singing I think is still passable enough to release (maybe), and some of the instrumentals arrangements are (sort of) interesting, so I guess I'll keep it. All in all, it's not the prog epic I was hoping for, but it will have to do.

Fourth: If you're still reading, cheers to you! So that's "Expression" in a nutshell. It's been fun to make, and the recording process has been a lot more free-flowing than my last album. This is how music should always be. Thanks for listening. You'll get to hear this thing soon.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Could a Rite of Spring riot happen today?

Today is the 100th anniversary of the premier of Igor Stravinsky's landmark ballet The Rite of Spring. This particular premiere has a great deal of historical significance, not just because of the music itself, but also because the of the riot that broke out in the audience in response to the ballet's intense rhythms, highly dissonant chord structures, and risque choreography.

I have seen the Rite performed twice. One thing that has not changed in 100 years is that the fact that this piece is totally ferocious. However, at both performances the audiences were very reserved and respectful, as you would expect from any classical music concert. I have wondered many times, “How is it that people were so moved (or disturbed) by the music that they would riot?” After all, such a thing would be highly unusual today. Were listeners in 1913 just more excitable? Did they listen to music in a fundamentally different way than we do today?

I think the answer to those questions is an emphatic no. A century after the Rite, dissonance in the classical context is no longer shocking. If one were to premiere a piece of classical music that was even louder and more dissonant than the Rite, it would not start a riot. But the riot was not about dissonance or rhythmic intensity itself, but rather, the alarm came from the newness. It would take a lot to shock us nowadays, but I think it can be done. Of course, fights break out at heavy metal shows all the time. You can't really say “well, that's metal, but Stravinsky was classical” because if you wanted to hear heavy music in 1913, Stravinsky was about as heavy as it got. The people moshing as metal shows today would probably have been the same people rioting at the premiere of the Rite 100 years ago.

One thing that often gets downplayed is the choreography, which was just as much a source of controversy as the music. Audiences were not used to seeing such a sexually charged ballet. When preparing for a performance of the Rite, Leonard Bernstein reportedly scolded the orchestra, saying, “Don't you get it? This piece is all about SEX!” Of course, sex appeal in music is not that something that has gone away in the last 100 years, and there has been a great deal spoken and written about the proper role of sexuality in music. In a way, Stravinsky was foreshadowing one of the great debates of 20th Century popular music.

Despite the riot, the Rite was not wholly rejected by the audience at its premiere. In fact, one of the leading causes of the disturbance was a dispute between supporters of the work and its detractors. Music itself may move people to passion, but even more importantly, people don't like being disagreed with. I'm sure many fights at metal shows have starting with one person saying “this band rocks” and another saying “this band sucks.” It was not really the music that made people want to riot, it was the debate. Of course, we have to give Stravinsky a great deal of credit for starting the conversation.

So could something similar happen today? Of course. Many things that were shocking at first become more accepted as time goes on. There are many people who hate metal, but few who would like to see it banned. Jazz was considered too rambunctious when it first came out, and now is one of the most respected of all musical styles. The Rite might not start a riot today, but that is why we need to create new music that will. We owe Stravinsky and others like him a great debt for having the courage and brilliance to start a controversy.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Reflections on AmeriCorps Service, Six Months Later

Six months ago, right before I started law school, I completed a two year stint in the AmeriCorps program, first as an advocate in a domestic violence court, then as a victim assistance advocate in the local police department. In AmeriCorps we're very big on doing reflections, and so I thought I'd look back on the experience now that some time has passed. One thing that hasn't changed in the last six months is the high regard I have for the AmeriCorps program, and all of the people I met who were in it. When evaluating myself as an individual, however, I have turned a slightly more critical eye.

In AmeriCorps we worked with clients who had been through many difficult experiences. During training we were instructed in the proper way to talk to clients, but also about the proper way to take care of ourselves. We would routinely have trainings about compassion fatigue and burnout, so we didn't try to “take the work home” with us. I took these trainings to heart, but I often carved out my own approach. When I got home, I would often keep thinking about what happened at work, but just try to boil away all the negativity with thoughts like “ooh, what weird legal issue came up today?” or “wow, that was a convoluted fact pattern!” My way of coping with compassion fatigue was not to stop thinking about work, but to keep on thinking about it but just take the compassion out.  This was undoubtedly not the most mature way to handle things, and I think I did my clients a disservice.

That's not to say that when I was at work, I wasn't compassionate, but sometimes I had too much of a swagger, at least in my own mind. I wanted to be a lawyer so I could help people, but I think deep down inside, I kind of liked the idea of having power. Even if you have every intention of using that power for good, it still might not be the healthiest motivation. When I was in AmeriCorps I liked wearing a tie, hanging out in courtrooms, seeing things that other people didn't see, and having access to information other people didn't have access to. The stories were sad, but they were also very interesting, and sometimes that intrigue got me carried away. Part of the problem was me, but part of it is the culture. Many of us have grown up watching “Law & Order” or other court shows, and we are trained to think of legal proceedings as exciting. But most court shows fail in their basic premise, because they are always about the cases and not the people.

The people who are actually involved in disputes rarely find them exciting. And why should they? Most legal problems are just that: problems. For cases involving individual litigants, no one would be in court if someone hadn't been through something bad or thought that they were wronged in some way. Spend five minutes in the lobby of any courthouse, and you'll find that it is not a happy place. In a perfect world we would not need courts at all.

For us as advocates, we have a great balancing act. We should enjoy our work because it helps people, and it's good to find it academically interesting. But if it becomes too academic on the one hand, or too sensational on the other, we can run the risk of trivializing it. This is not a TV show, and it's not a game. These are people's lives. I don't know if I ever really understood that. It's true, we can never know what it's like to be in someone else's situation, but I'd like to think that it's possible to give this work the mature outlook it deserves. Real life may sometimes be more interesting than fiction, but of course, it's still real.