Pocket Symphony

If you’re reading this, you probably know that among my geeky obsessions, I have a thing for Disney. And again, it’s no secret that I’m a sucker avid consumer of home video. So let me tell you a story about something called “double dipping”. In a 1993 episode of Seinfeld, “double dipping” was a term used to describe putting your chip into the dip after you’ve already had it in your mouth. It’s a disgusting thing to do. In the world of home video, ‘double dipping’ refers to something different, but equally gross.

In the last thirty years, there have been several different video formats: Beta, VHS, DiscoVision, LaserDisc (CLV and CAV), DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay… and a couple of others. At any given time, a couple of formats co-exist and invariably, the better one costs a little more and has a smaller market share. For example, in the ’90s, consumers had the choice between VHS and LaserDisc. VHS was tremendously popular, but LaserDisc was better (and more expensive). Since LaserDisc catered to a smaller but more avid group of movie fans, it was the format that first introduced things like director’s commentary tracks, surround sound and, most importantly, widescreen presentations. If you were a true film buff and were given the choice of formats, LaserDisc always won, hands down.

Now, if a movie was released on both VHS and Laser on the same day, the decision was easy. But every once in a while, a movie would be released on VHS only and then, a short time later, would be followed by the LaserDisc version. When a movie is a classic film that appeals both to kids and adults and only has a limited release period (i.e. every Disney classic), such a move forces the potential consumer to either wait out the VHS-only period (and wait out the incessant commercials and even, perhaps, the crying of their children), or buy one format and then the other. Hence the term “double dip”. And Disney was famous for it.

In the past few years, though, things have changed. LaserDiscs are gone, and so, for the most part, have VHS tapes. Pretty much all of the new releases are on DVD, blu-ray (a hi-definition variant of DVD) or delivered directly through the internet to various home machines, such as TiVo or AppleTV. With so many people owning HDTVs, more and more people are investing in blu-ray players (even the PS3 is a blu-ray player) - and until everyone abandons the physical storage of those five-inch discs in favor of internet-based delivery of media, blu-ray is as good as it gets. But those discs aren’t cheap. Which brings me to this happy post.

Over the past year, Disney’s home video arm has recognized that overt greed isn’t a good thing - and nurturing (and respecting) their dedicated consumers is a good move. To that end, they started putting a rebate coupon in some of their blu-ray titles. If you spend twenty-something dollars on a blu-ray that you already have on DVD, you can send in a coupon and get ten dollars back. Not a bad deal. Makes the double-dip more enticing. Last month, Disney released fan favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas on blu-ray. Included in the package was a special disc that allowed you to load a digital copy of the movie onto your iPod, iPhone, computer… whatever device you own that lets you watch digital movies. That was another good move. But up until last week, Disney had not released any of their “animated classics” on blu-ray - so the hardcore fans were wondering how it would shake out.

The first Disney Classic to make it to blu-ray is Sleeping Beauty. Because I’m lucky enough to live in Los Angeles, I was able to attend a special screening of the remastered movie at Disney’s flagship theater, El Capitan. The evening was made even more special by the inclusion of a panel discussion of Disney alumni and experts, including the voice of Princess Aurora herself.

The movie itself looked great - so I knew that I’d be purchasing the blu-ray as soon as it was released (for the record, I’ve owned this movie on VHS, LaserDisc, Special Edition Laserdisc, and DVD). When it came out on Tuesday, I was surprised and delighted to discover that not only did Disney release the blu-ray edition on the same day as the DVD edition, but that the initial copies of the blu-ray include a free copy of the movie on DVD stuck right on the cover. For homes that have one blu-ray player for the grown-ups and a DVD player for the kids - you now have two copies of the movie. For fans of the movie who want to see it now but don’t yet have a blu-ray player (but are planning on getting one in the near future), you can enjoy the standard-def version until you have a hi-def player. This is the opposite of double-dip. It’s a single dip… a skinny-dip. And that is a good thing. Thanks, Disney!

(Want my review of the blu-ray? Well… I’m not posting it here, so you’ll just have to ask me in person.)

Not much to say… except I just got a new iPhone. Hopefully I’ll be posting more on-the-go soon. Here’s a picture of Inca that I just took with the phone:

It’s about 7pm on Sunday night, and I’m sitting in a Hollywood coffee shop with a couple of friends. They’re here working on movie scripts - participating in Script Frenzy, where writers are encouraged to complete an entire screenplay in a single month. I would very much like to participate, since it has been years since I have completed a single long-form creative project. However, it’s already the 20th of the the month, and I’ve got plans for several nights in the next two weeks - it ain’t gonna happen. That’s not to say that I don’t plan to get back to writing… but for now, this will have to do.

Quick flashback: When I was in 8th grade, my favorite tome was The Book of Lists.

Essentially a compendium of mostly useless information, The Book of Lists (which is still in print, by the way) spoke to the obsessive in me. I read it all the time - my friend Tom describes it as “The best bathroom book ever” - and while it didn’t make me a better person, it helped me understand that nothing is truly unique, and for every odd piece of trivia, there are several more weirder pieces just like it.

Three years later, I had an AP US History teacher named Tim Cullen who would pepper his lessons with pieces of trivia. Cullen argued that not only did these tidbits humanize the figures we were studying, but at some point, somewhere down the line, we’d be at a cocktail party with some big hotshot, and our knowledge of the quirks of Mary Todd Lincoln would make us more memorable people and get us a leg up in the business world.

In retrospect, Cullen was right, and books like The Book of Lists (yes, there are others!) certainly made me a more interesting person.

An odd side effect, though, is that I turned into what the English call a “trainspotter”, especially around my areas of interest. If I saw a movie that I enjoyed, I needed to see every movie by that director. If I heard a cool song, I needed to hear every b-side by that artist. Luckily, I never had the budget to become a real obsessive record collector - the kind who needed to have copies of every variant pressing of every single, with picture sleeves from every different territory, but I definitely did become a music collector - I needed to hear all the songs (and at least have knowledge of all the variant sleeves etc).

When I restarted my MousePod show, my method of approaching bodies of work set the format. I planned on going through every single animated Disney feature, in chronological order. Granted, I never got that far into my list before I pulled the plug on the show, but the positive feedback I got from listeners showed that I wasn’t alone in my way of grouping things.

So why this rant here today? Perhaps it’s a just a little soul-baring to ingratiate myself to you, the mystery reader of my new blog. Maybe. But probably not. I think what it is is a preview, or a warning, of what to expect. I’m not going to talk about anything in isolation. Everything is a part of a greater whole. And that whole is full of trivia. And I’ll be bringing it here. To you.

Lucky you.

Yes, yes, I know that “Pocket Symphony” is an album by the French duo Air.

While I do like the band (and the record), I got this domain years before the album came out.

When I first decided to do The MousePod, “mousepod.com” was unavailable. I did snag “mousepod.net”, but I wanted a dot com address.

Something inside me said that I would, at some point, create a bunch of different shows - not just Disney-related. Where the name “mousepod” is both Disney- and Apple-centric, I wanted a more generic name that would suggest something neat, concise and compact.

I was thinking about the praise that Leonard Bernstein gave Brian Wilson after he heard “Good Vibrations” and “Surf’s Up” - praise which, some say, helped push poor Brian over the edge - and Brian’s description of the former as a “pocket symphony”, and one domain check later a website was born.

(If you aren’t familiar with those songs, which were intended for the classic “lost” Beach Boys’ album SMiLE, you need to pick up Smiley Smile and Surf’s Up by the Beach Boys, and Brian’s SMiLE, which saw him finally completing the album.)

By the way, Pete (Sonic Boom) from the brilliant Spacemen 3 released a record called “Pocket Symphony” under the name E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research) on the excellent label Sympathy For The Record Industry.

I’m still planning on using this site as a launching pad for several different projects. This is only the second.

I guess this is as good a time/place as any to start this new blog.

If you’re a fan of my old podcast The MousePod, welcome, this is going to be a little different (but hopefully as entertaining).

Several years ago, I wanted to get involved with something dynamic on the web. I had spent my entire adult life in the music industry, but was on a “hiatus” of sorts and felt disconnected from the entertainment biz.

Two brand-new internet-based tech advances at that time were blogging and podcasting (well, actually, the big advance was RSS, which made both feasible) - so I decided to start a blog/podcast.

Those who know me are aware that I’m a pop culture geek, with a tendency toward the obsessive. I knew that I wanted to attract an audience to my “show”, so I needed to pick one of my favorite topics and focus on it. Heather, my beautiful wife, suggested “Disney”, so I started The MousePod. It was the first Disney podcast (official or unofficial) and was a lot of fun to do. Unfortunately for me, life kept getting in the way (Disney wasn’t my only obsession, remember), so I had the tendency to go for long stretches between shows. Luckily, there were plenty of talented and enthusiastic Disney fans who wanted to podcast, so the gap was more than filled pretty quickly.

So whatever happened to The MousePod?

Well, it’s gone. Probably for good.

Last summer, Heather & I decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Both of us found new jobs. Mine is back in the music biz (more about that later). Heather wound up with a Director position at… Disney. It’s an awesome job, and it allows her to really push her talents and skills to new heights. However, we both decided that for me to do a unofficial Disney podcast would be too much of a potential conflict, so my show and blog was lovingly mothballed.

But I really miss sharing my discoveries on the internet. Hence, this brand-new blog (and more). Unlike The MousePod, it’s not going to be focused on anything specific. I probably won’t do anything in the way of promotion, so if this turns out to be an exercise for an audience of one, that’ll be fine. But if you stumble across Pocket Symphony and you enjoy it, please drop me an email. And if you want to share it with a friend or two, I’d be delighted.

Yr Pal,
Jesse