Michael Jackson

The D&D Open Gaming License / The Dangers of Playing with Other People’s Toys

January 13, 2023 by krisis

This week everyone is talking about Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s not for a good reason.

Last week, a revision to the longstanding D&D “Open Gaming License” leaked. I’ve written about the OGL before, but in short it’s the persistent legal agreement that allows independent creators to use the core rules and concepts of D&D to create their own 3rd party material. While that ostensibly exists for people who want to sell their own 3rd-party D&D supplements, it also acts as a safety net for anyone homebrewing their own content.

Many outlets have written at length about the newly-drafted version of the OGL – i09 reporter Linda Codega broke the story at Gizmodo last week. The draft institutes a number of restrictions, including tightening the ability to distribute digital content, enforcing royalty-sharing on big earners, and instituting some potentially-invasive rights to reproduce creator content.

Understandably, both creators and players are in an uproar – after all, every D&D player is also a co-creator of their campaign’s story! Even if they never intend to publish or profit from their storytelling contributions, there’s a pervasive feeling of “this affects all of us” solidarity from the D&D community.

Another reliable leak mentioned that D&D owners Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Hasbro would be looking at digital DNDBeyond subscription cancellations as an early metric of the community’s response to the OGL changes. A leak coming from within the DNDBeyond team makes a lot of sense. WotC and Hasbro bought DNDBeyond last April from Fandom for $146 million dollars. The DNDBeyond team don’t have a long-term allegiance to the Hasbro corporate overlords and they are watching the stellar good will they’ve amassed as a community platform being quickly eroded by this decision.

As the DNDBeyond team may have feared (but also secretly wished for), this new leak immediately lead to a cascade of hundreds of players posting proof of their subscription cancellations on DNDBeyond forums and on Twitter.

I was one of those players.

Tomorrow is my bi-weekly D&D date with my best friends from the states and I am currently the Dungeon Master of our campaign. That means today ought to be spent finalizing maps and building out potential encounters for my custom campaign that has taken a hard left turn from the official campaign in Storm King’s Thunder.

Instead, I’m spending the day wondering if it’s worth putting in the effort to tell stories in a fictional world that is just another capitalist playground. [Read more…] about The D&D Open Gaming License / The Dangers of Playing with Other People’s Toys

Song of the Day: “Love Me Down” by Jason Derulo

June 19, 2017 by krisis

It’s often the case in my insular little world of no TV or radio that I’m aware of an artist for years before I hear a single note of their music.

That was the case for Jason Derulo. I knew he was an R&B singer and a good dancer, but hadn’t heard a single song of his before the band tackled “Want To Want Me” when it exploded as a song of the summer in 2015. I don’t know what I was expecting from him, but it wasn’t the sparse, slightly campy, almost retro vibe of that tune.

(We discovered it medleys perfectly with Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”as we tinkered with the arrangement to save me from singing the entire thing in falsetto.)

I was enamored enough to check out the entire Everything is 4 LP from which the song was plucked. I liked a lot of the LP and its breezy, synth-filled, 80s R&B vibe, but no song hit me as squarely as “Love Me Down.”

Music Monday: “Thriller” – Michael Jackson

October 31, 2016 by krisis

I am raising a third-generation Michael Jackson fan.

My mother loved Michael from his Motown days, and his Off The Wall hit when she was working in a hip Philly dance club, where I’m sure it was unavoidable. She passed that love to me via many, many spins of Thriller and its videos, which I obsessed over for years after its release.

I’ve always assumed that my love for MJ was a habit I learned from my mother, but having watched EV obsess over him for over a year now with no special coaching on my part I’m beginning to think it’s a genetic predisposition. Either that, or his voice was truly so magical that it can enrapture any child’s imagination, no matter when they first hear it.

Maybe both.

For the second year in a row, I tried to teach EV the “Thriller” dance for Halloween. Last year it was more that I was trying to finally learn it and EV liked to shuffle around like a zombie. This year we both tried, but the appeal of a glowing rectangle held too much sway and EV spent more time watching the dance instructors than doing the dance. She only got as far as the head nods.

Now that I’m older and a musician, I can’t help but dissect “Thriller” in a different way.

There’s no possible way to overstate just how truly and deeply weird it was as a song on a Michael Jackson album, let alone as the title track. There’s really not anything else remotely campy on the LP, aside from perhaps “Beat It.”

In fact, the song started out its life not as “Thriller,” but as a Rod Temperton demo called “Starlight.” You can even listen to a completed version of the track with virtually the same production. Free of the creepy lyrics and the Vincent Price cameo, there’s nothing remotely ooky about the song. It sounds like more of the same disco/funk blend from Off the Wall. It’s a near neighbor to “Turn This Disco Out.” [Read more…] about Music Monday: “Thriller” – Michael Jackson

30 for 30 Project, 1988: “Man in the Mirror” – Michael Jackson

September 12, 2011 by krisis

Sometimes the collective unconscious speaks for you. Sometimes you speak for the collective unconscious.

Case and point: as I write this, “Black and White” started playing on the radio.

In 2009 I was set on covering some Michael Jackson songs. Gina and I had been talking about it for a while for Arcati Crisis, and I finally ordered his “Best of” sheet music book at the end of 2008 and got to work.

It turns out, I wasn’t the only one set on covering him. First, Kris Allen broke away from the pack on American Idol with an acoustic “Man in the Mirror” – my first choice of covers – in the semi-finals. A few weeks later, American Idol’s first finalist round was – yes, Michael Jackson songs.

(Watch me cover “Man in the Mirror” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag for all of the related posts.)

Heading into a summer free for playing open mics, I decided maybe I did want to have some MJ songs in my repertoire, Idol-be-damned. I started learning “Man on the Mirror,” per my original plan.

That week, Michael Jackson passed away.

That is how I found myself on my blog, broadcasting a video concert for a bunch of strangers, playing “Man in the Mirror” and crying. [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1988: “Man in the Mirror” – Michael Jackson