I think the It Gets Better Project for gay teenagers is a great idea. There is nothing as depressing for a young person than to experience ostracism, bashing and abuse in a period of life that's hard enough to deal with. I'd like to point out though, that not only gays suffer from this kind of thing in their teenage years.

When I was in junior high, living a normal social life with friends of both sexes, looking forward to a sex life on the near horizon, my family moved 2,000 miles across the US and I was plunged into a new school in the middle of the second year. The social pecking order in such places is already established, I didn't fit in anywhere. I was pretty much shunned by most of the other students, but I met a friend and neighbor, Owen Husney with whom I've corresponded all these years. Owen and I shared the common problem of "not fitting in" and we hit it off right away. We both learned to play the guitar and formed a band. Later we went our separate ways musically, but we've kept current with each other. We both went on in life to do some surprising things, considering how little respect we got in those early years. After playing and recording with a band called High Spirits in Minneapolis, Owen got into management and signed and developed an artist who has made a deep and lasting mark in the musical landscape: Prince. Owen also managed Al Jarreau, a seven-time Grammy award winning jazz singer. Owen has been playing the big league of the music business for decades.

On the occasion of fifty years passing since we first met outside on a snowy day in Minnesota, I recorded a chat with Owen about our lives then and now.

It Does Get Better by randulo

Cold Case depends on the music track to establish a feeling for the era the case takes place in. Apparently, this has been the cause of the lack of DVD availablitiy.

So "Lilly" plays the guitar? Actually, my favorite on Cold Case is the B.B. King-looking Thom Barry. I love that voice and can't bear to watch CC in French. I wish he had a bigger role.

But aside from my fandom, there is an unhealthy aspect of this cold. I wondered for a long time why the series, which is in its 7th season and is hugely popular, is not available on DVD. We would have bought one or more of these. The series is also not available on iTunes or Hulu.com, big mystery until I looked at a comment in the Amazon reviews. According to the writer of the review, it's the music negiotiations that have held up availablility of the show on DVD. CBS has some of their shows available to watch on the web site, but Cold Case has no full episodes. Probably for the same reason.

Two questions come to mind:

1) When the music rights were obtained, why didn't someone include DVD rights in the deal? They didn't think it would be a hit, so didn't bother? Whoever did the deal was short-sighted.

2) Music rights holders, what part of create new demand for your your old music is unclear to you? You should be begging for a deal, even a small potatoes deal for your one tune to be played to millions, some of whom will start looking to the music on iTunes, Amazon, in even CD stores while they still exist.

The real trouble with the music busines is this same lack of vision. From "The Internet? Never be a hit." to "The Internet? We need to milk this!" they've still largely not gotten the picture