With ers Without You

In Praise of Conspiracy Theories, David Perell:

It’s easy to hate on conspiracy theories, but what are the best arguments for taking them seriously?

Here’s one: At a recent dinner, we started talking about John F. Kennedy assassination theories. One guy remarked that historical conspiracy theories are worth studying because they illuminate so much about the culture of the time.

Studying the JFK conspiracy theories is a fun way to learn about the tension between Cuba and America, America’s rivalry with the KGB, the won’t-stop-at-anything political motivations of Lyndon B. Johnson, the mafia’s influence, and the power of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

Peter O’Dowd and Kalyani Saxena:

“When you were a kid, it seemed like you could walk up to just about anybody and be best friends the next minute. But somewhere along the long, winding road to adulthood, making new friends became an impossibly hard thing to do.”

One of the wisest things I was ever taught about radio broadcasting … and life … was that you needed learn the rules so you understood them so you could break them.

Learning that rules were so you could understand not so you could be be limited, broke my mind and made me, me.

I feel like Seth Godin was on a similar vibe in this post:

One sort of job requires people to follow a recipe. Another, better sort of job requires people to understand the recipe. If you understand it, that means you can change it. You have resilience and insight and the leverage to make it better.

Drafting up an email for my #southoftalle email list right now with all my photos from today where Ex-Tropical Cyclone Seth was hitting the Gold Coast beaches pretty hard. Into that kinda thing? email.southoftalle.com to subscribe for free.

Matthew Belloni in Puck

A good model is Peacock-WWE. Last March, NBC Universal took over the pro wrestling outfit’s WWE Network and its 1.1. million subs, offering them a deal on Peacock for their Roman Reigns fix. Check out these internal Peacock stats that came to me from a source:

• Of the 1.1 million subscribers to WWE Network, one million successfully converted to Peacock subscribers.
• More than 3 million Peacock subs have watched WWE content since it moved over in March.
• More than half of those 3 million subs indicated that they signed up “because of WWE.”

Rights and branding issues are thorny, but consolidation makes sense, even if it’s not a major merger like Comcast or Netflix or Roku picking off Lionsgate/Starz, or some of the other buzzed-about potential deals.

I wonder what Australian consolidation we could see?

There’s no way that Youtube, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, or Apple will cede their position or brand, and maybe they could suck some streaming providers in. Viacom CBS seems set on playing the long game so they could be in the same lineup as the big five.

That leaves SBS, ABC, Seven, Nine, Telstra, Stan, Kayo, Binge, Foxtel, Hayu, Optus Sport in the Australian market wanting credentials or money, and HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, Fubo/ESPN not in the market … yet?

Who’s left in 2025? Is there room for 20 subscriptions? Potentially $200 a month on TV.

I noticed a Jetstar Boeing 787-8 coming into Gold Coast Airport in some pretty strong winds and broke the camera out quickly.

Happy 120th birthday to the Federal Government, its birth of course being an issue for the states.

Joan Didion on being in the world:

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

I never thought I’d be in such a winning position, but if anyone is trying to buy a rat, the ones under my house are of good breeding and honestly I’m happy for you to take as many as you can hold.

Some of Betty White’s best recent work was for Air New Zealand

In 2016 Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Academy Award. Many scholars believe this upset the gods and brought torment on our people and the only worthy sacrifice would be Betty White. May her sacrifice lead to peace in our land.

Some personal news, I’m changing the definition of fun to things that take less than four hours to do.

James Cameron walks into the boardroom and “wrote the word Alien on a board. Then he pluralized it, making it Aliens and insinuating he was about to up the ante on this planned sequel. Finally, he drew two lines through the S he had added, turning it onto a dollar sign.”

Song idea: Nugget Connection.

A song about why there are so many songs about chicken nuggets and why they look like little maps of Australia if Australia would just let Tasmania be free from its reign.