Even Paid Speech Isn't Free

This post is not about me, or complaining about what happened to me. I'm doing fine. This post is just another snapshot of life in this nutty country.

You may have noticed the ad here in the HuffPo for my new record of songs about Bush administration members. The title is "Songs of the Bushmen," the cover art is a smiling GW with a bone through his nose (this exposition is necessary for the story to come). Neither HuffPo nor TVNewser, a blog covering, what else, TV news, had a problem with the ad.

But we also bought some ads on digital billboards, the kind that change messages every few seconds, in Chicago, and on digital screens in coffee shops and other retail establishments in LA and SF. The goal was to make that cover image kind of ubiquitous, as ubiquitous as it could be on a small marketing budget. The billboards were owned by Clear Channel, the good people behind Rush Limbaugh and other forms of bad radio, and those folks were ultra-eager to take our money and suggest that we spend more with them in other cities -- until they saw the artwork. At which point, the tone changed from oleaginously friendly salesman to angry schoolmarm -- the art was "not acceptable," a curt email informed us. There was no explanation for the grounds of unacceptability -- wrong kind of bone? -- just the loud sound of the only provider of digital billboards in Chicago slamming the door.

Meanwhile, out west, this hip little startup in San Francisco, DaNoo, was equally happy to sell us space on their digital screens. They were happy with the first week, in which just the art appeared, with no explanation. They even wanted to use our campaign as some sort of success story for their outfit. But suddenly, when the name of the record (and my name) appeared on the art, they pulled the plug. Their "venues" -- i.e., store owners -- had said some patrons had complained.

Let's review: GW Bush has an approval rating lower than Richard Nixon on his worst day in office. If a normal risk-averse corporation looked at those numbers, it would intuit that now, if ever, would be an okay time to let such ads be shown. And, yes, Clear Channel can easily qualify as, in Donald Rumsfeld's felicitous phrase, "dead-enders." But this hip little company, with digital screens in hip little places in hip little SF and LA?

Maybe this is just another application of what I'm pleased to call Shearer's Law -- the more people you seek to talk to, the less you can say to them.

To read more about this on HuffPost, Click here.

Comments

[antispin]

My last two posts to this venue used the words "Kevin Klose" and were likewise censored. Am I wrong?

[vale409]

Harry, I like you and agree with you 99.99% of the time. But on this case, you gotta just suck it up. Freedom of speech also lets the owner have the freedom to post or not to post an ad. Now if the government steps in that's a different story.
We have the freedom to not listen to clear channel.

I can't wait to hear the album!

[Snowball]

Just wait to what what kind of freedom of speech you still have when Clear Channel or like minded corporations control the whole media spectrum. Clear Channel does not own the broadcast spectrum they get to use for free, it's public property. They get to profit on our dime and at the same time, tell us we can't use our own property.

[antispin]

vale409: you are just so fundamentally wrong about this. Anytime a company like Clear Channel uses public resources like the electromagnetic spectrum to broadcast, they are subject to the 1st amendment.

[TheHandyman]

You are only right if you totally accept that corporations and businees's are People and they have the same human rights described in the Constitution. It took a pro-business Supreme Court during Teddy's time to come up with that one. So if Business's are really People with rights, why is it that these same Business's are never held accountable for the crimes they commit? When a train is derailed and some toxic chemical or gas is dumped doing damage or causing evacuations the CEO of Southern Paciific doesn't go to jail for the decision to not replace aging infastructure. When CEO of a slaughter house underpays, and underfunds the comany for maintaining their equipment he doesn't go to jail. If a business wants to operate in this country then they should not be allowed to use political considerations any more than they get to use sex, age, or race to discriminate. Clear Channel has done things that have actually caused loss of life through not following FCC rules and yet not once has the Company or any of its Management been charged. Why, well, a company isn't a person so comapnies can't commit crimes, or so the DOJ under this President has declared!

[wbramh]

We used to have the freedom NOT to listen to Clear Channel, but that was in an era when the government didn't allow the same company to own every station in a market. And we used to be able to listen to our favorite artists songs on radio until the talent was reduced to a smaller play list comprised of artists under contract with Clear Channel's record division. And we used to be able to see our favorite performers in live concert until Clear Channel bought up all the venues and filled them exclusively with their own artists. And we used to be able to afford to go to concerts until... well, you got the gist of it by now.

[NewsCorpse]

This is consistent with Clear Channel’s history of partisan censorship. They have previously refused ads for VoteVets and they nixed the Dixie Chicks from their radio network. They are serial censors.

Would they also refuse an ad with a picture of Bush in earrings, or wearing a turban? What's the criteria? Would they refuse an ad with a picture of John McCain like this:

http://www.crasscommerce.com/product_info.php?products_id=390

We need to break up these media monopolies FAST!

[milo9]

Clear Channel has to be put in check. They control vast areas of air space. They even control the "progressive" am station in L.A.. I'm sick of the manipulation.

[Snowball]

Corporations can, and do, censor anything that's not in their interest or does not fit their ideological perspective. That perspective is decidedly pro-Republican which is the party of corporate interests. Except for the internet, for the time being at least, corporations control all the avenues of communication in this country. Sooner or later, we might not even have that without net neutrality. The corporate interests and our sell-out politicians are actively working to shut us down.

I didn't care much for the cover or get it. I place it alongside the same kind of bad judgment that was behind Move-on's Betrayus add and the New Yorker's Obama cover. Ineffective attempts at humor that the people who created the material should have had the foresight to see how they'd backfire and obscure the message. If a joke is just stupid or you have to explain it, it's not funny. And I'm as anti-Bush, anti-corporate power and anti-Republican as anybody you'll ever meet.

That aside, even though the art is ridiculous and not that funny, that's no reason to censor it.

[jennylens]

Who's behind the little "hip little company"? Sheep in wolves clothing! I am reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver. She wrote about the fact people won't touch food with dirt on it. They are so disconnected to the fact produce grows from the ground. I stopped going to Whole Foods and most grocery stores because they drown their greens. The produce manager told me someone complained spinach was dirty. I said "that's the way it grows, water destroys vitamins and minerals, which are water soluble. Soggy spinach and already wilting greens on onions means produce won't last as long nor be as nutritious­." The produce manager shrugged his shoulders. Better to make more sales with wet produce than care about nutritional quality. Whole Foods wastes energy, gasoline, etc flying in produce from Chile and around the world, labels it organic, charges a lot of money (now farmer's markets sell at same prices), and consumer is left with soggy, sick food. From a "hip Big company."

We are not a nation of whiners. We are a nation of sheep, too stupid see the whole picture. Lizard brains.

I walk/drive east on Olympic at Bundy, a busy thoroughfare, leaving Santa Monica, entering West LA. An insipid digital billboard needs something besides beer and inane TV ads. I believe Clear Channel "owns" it. What a shame -- this 'hood is your perfect target audience, who would find encouragement from you!

Been following you since the 60's. You are indeed an inspiration!

[timothe]

It cuts both ways. The NBC networks refused to run a very positive Iraq War ad put out by an independent group of veterans' families. Their claim was that they don't run controversial politcial ads even though there was significant proof that they ran similar ads that were against the war.

I find the banner of a caveman type of bone running through the President's nose mildly offensive. I'm glad Clear Channel saw it the same way.

[LittleBrother]

Harry, I think you had the bad luck of releasing the record just in time to catch a tidal wave of tight-lipped, sphincter-clenching Disapprobation convulsing the nation.

However enlightened identity politics seemed at first, the Democratic primary season was an excruciatingly extended demonstration that identity politics have disintegrated into hysterical chaos, in which not only satire, but ANY published item relating to gender, ethnicity, color, etc. is unfair game for scathing denunciation and critical pseudo-analysis that explains away any possible redeeming quality (e.g., wit, humor) and reduces the content to Exhibit A-- the Smoking Gun!-- in an indictment for the heinous crimes of racism, classism, ageism, lookism, elitism, insensitivity, and worst of all, Hate.

This pathological trend is criticized by BOTH left and right; in case anyone thinks I've been boning up on Allan Bloom, think again.

And speaking of boning up-- it's as if Queen Victoria spun so hard in her grave during the Age of Aquarius that her bones finally flew apart, left their resting place, and lodged themselves in the fundamental orifices of a perpetually appalled and outraged generation. Some of whom have contributed to this comment thread.

They Are Not Amused!

I can only hearken back to the phrase attributed to, or at least popularized by, Bette Midler: F--k 'em if they can't take a joke!

[fogbreath]

"piss on their legs if they can"

[joebaggadonuts]

Harry, thanks for all you do.

Many people are taking the red pill now. They are turning off Clear Channel or just listening to it to remind themselves of the evil that we human beings are up against. Keep up the good works. Unfortunately, the reward for taking the red pill is to know the truth, to have to eat gruel, and to never give up the fight.

[raker]

The theme that has run quietly through fifteen years of the Republican Congress and eight years of Bush is people's apparent fear of retribution for not toeing the line. Virtually no companies will advertise on progressive media; mainstream media and NPR - especially The NY Times and The Washington Post - are falling all over themselves to be more-conse­rvative-th­an-thou; and countless statesmen and respected leaders have irreparably trashed their reputations for the benefit of George and Bar's boy. Why? How? Is it blackmail? On everyone in public life?? It makes no sense. For Colin Powell to have thrown away all that he had for that little twerp, they must have had something good on him.

[JoeKing]

You nailed it there raker. I think it is indeed blackmail. Especially in Pelosi's case. All their illegal phone tapping and email reading had NOTHING to do with intercepting "terrorists". It was all about getting something on them so they'll keep their mouths shut later when the shite hits the fan, as it has. Same thing Nixon was into. And if we look deep enough, many of the same people who did the dirty work for Nixon are doing it now. I can see no other logical explanation as to why Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table beside that and of course the fact that she too is a puppet for aipac.

Damn, I hate the fact that I've allowed them to make me so bitter and jaded. Hate it.

[theistus]

Geez , there are a lot of people on here with no sense of humor, or ability to interpret and place words and images in context. Bushmen - dual meaning - one is a generic term for people who continue to live a hunter/gatherer existence. Contrary to what some have states, it is neither an offensive or racist term. The other is people who work for George Bush. The image and the bone are simply playing on that juxtaposition of meaning. It is neither offensive or racist, or imbued with undertones, other than simply being a gag based on a double meaning for a phrase. Living in SF, I see people with actual bones through nose piercings almost every day. The image was not making any kind of racial or social commentary, and to read one into is just plain ridiculous.

Jokes are so much better when you have to explain them, aren't they? And if you have to have a joke explained to you, maybe being a comedy critic is not really your bag.

Keep up the good work Harry, the idiot masses may eventually get it.

[GLaB]

Bushmen don't wear bones in their noses.

That's a racial stereotype. Period.

Like "all black people got rythm."

[milo9]

Are you kidding me?

[NYCBear]

Um - bones in noses have nothing to do with being black, do they? They certainly don't in my experience.

You've never seen pictures of bushmen in the Amazon jungles or Papua New Guinea wearing bones in their noses? Very impressive, some of them. And most of those bushmen don't even know Africa exists.

The racist cartoons of Black people with nose-bones were of cannibals, if I remember correctly, not bushmen. There was usually a missionary in a pot over a log fire next to the guy with the grass skirt and the nose bone and the giant lips. And the cartoon cannibal would talk in a faux-southern dialect. Nasty stuff.

But those cartoons didn't make all bushmen black or all nose bones racist. That, apparently, happened in your own head.

[skindoggy]

The bigger issue than the predictable declination by Clear Channel to run your ad... is the potential ramifications of a media conglomerate, enabled by lessening restrictions of common ownership of media outlets, to control what is placed on public airwaves. Imagine if they owned ALL of the media outlets in major metropolitan areas.....­.they effectively can "control" the message. It is my contention that the rise, success and sustination of the Rush Limbaugh phenomonon is partially related to the increased capability of one conglomerate to control multiple markets and dictate WHAT content is on the air for many hours of the day. We need to be very careful when crafting regulations for these companies.
Skindoggy

[haleywins]

"Imagine if they owned ALL of the media outlets in major metropolitan areas.....­.they effectively can "control" the message"

Imagine? Don't they already?

I kid.

[milo9]

Their class does own all the media.

[HalleBurton]

Maybe you could re-do the artwork and use the WTC Towers in flame, like that republican tool in Florida did on a billboard.

[MVPOnline]

Curious Harry - did you get your money back from the CC folks in those markets that refused to run the ad?

[naluca]

You want to see reaction? Try Obama with a bone through HIS nose. That's where the real power of the US is.

[GLaB]

In case you're really oblivious to why your cover is offensive, try this little exercise. Google "bushmen" and click on Images. Tell me how many pictures you have to go through before you find one with a bone through his nose.

[theistus]

In case your really oblivious why its not offensive, develop a sense of humor and context.

[GLaB]

Okay, here's the context:

Bushmen are REAL PEOPLE.

Bushmen DON'T wear bones in their noses.

The bone in the nose is traditionally a racist stereotype of "all Africans," that goes right along with the white man in the cooking pot.

Got it?