John Robb Sez:

Basically, it is a cynics play on our broken patent system. He and a team of lawyers use shell companies to snag undervalued patents. They have also built a patent factory in order to lock up entire fields of endeavor. The end product is an idea tax via royalties and penalties for non-payment. The big difference between this venture and other attempts at this is the amount of money and sophistication -- its an order of magnitude more.
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IF the future of American innovation is rentier economics, then count me out. The cynical nature of this makes you want to root for Chinese knock-off artists.

A commentor adds:

[T]hese men are much worse than the robber barons. The robber barons typically had to actually build a railroad. Not just open up an office and persecute inventors.

Indeed. There's a deep and strong strain of business culture that sees nothing more attractive than locking up technology in a box, hardening the dividing line between creators and consumers in the digital age. It's the pure zero-sum fatback mentality: lock down something people need (like a bridge, or now a good idea) and charge a toll for using it, the kind of "entrepreneurialism" that holds everyone back. Nice.

Procedural literacy (the knowledge of how things work and thus how to change them and make new things) is already at a premium thanks to decades of proprietary thinking in the technology sphere. These kinds of ventures seek to extend the proprietary shell game beyond working products and into the realm of ideas themselves. Boo hiss indeed.

Paging Chris Messina...

Hung out with good old Joe Felice and his traveling companion Jenny the other night here. They were passing through on down from camping up in Shasta. We talk a bit about where our lives are going, Joe pointed back at NYC and being an artist again, and good for him. He's a witty mofo, will do real well for himself if he keeps at it I think.

It's interesting, my relationship to the creative process and how it's evolved. I haven't really tried to make anything in a long time, and I'm finding myself rusty, heasitant and nervous. Some people like to blow smoke at me for my blogging, but I hardly think these chicken-scratching amount to much from an artistic standpoint.

Sure, I turn the odd phrase that's maybe worth keeping, and I find the medium to be a great avenue for self-expression, but I've always been one to observe a wide and gaping chasm between self-expression and something worth paying attention to. This puts a bit of distance twixt me and a lot of other artists in that I think of the audience as final arbiter of worth (if no one "gets" what you're doing, you're not doing very good).

Point is, I try to have high and rarified standards for this here Bachelor of the Fine Arts. I'm playing with my little video camera and suddenly feeling the urge to rehearse. I think this is good, something I should do. Rehearsal is a positive thing, a sound practice and essential part of any quality craft.

Rehearsal starts with some writing off in a room. It needs time and privacy. I should probably get started then, eh?

Last night we rolled down into town to see a ballgame, a great all-American summer activity. The hometown heroes are the Humboldt County Crabs, and they're a good crop. 11 and 5 so far this season.

We watched them take down the California Glory, who had a pitcher named "Sandercock," which makes a great crowd-heckle, and his penchant for passed balls gave rise to a great pseudonym:

Spaulding "Dirtball" Zandercock, arch nemesis to the infamous Wiley Weckmen.

One of the things Mark and I like to riff on is names for characters. With the right name, everything else just springs forth. For instance, just think of the possibilities if you had someone enter the scene labeled as Prof. J P Talkertion (and his saucebox of words). Crank up the boombox!

Off to a wedding ceremony for two girls down at the underground music club. No joke.

Bruce's new album (along with the new Hank III, which is pleasantly less-produced) are on heavy rotation at this point in the Summer of Jefferson. Here's Bruce on CNN:

The Seeger Sessions are really great. It's a whole new Boss, I say, both vocally and musically.