Cat & Cat - new hardcover and audio editions; White Picket Jungle and Stalking Mule

All the pieces and funds are finally together for the hard cover version of Cat & Cat. I just put money down at the printers, so there's no turning back now. To everyone who told me, "I can't read ebooks, but I'll buy it when it's a real book," you're all on notice. The hardcover should be available in May, and I'll keep you all posted.

I also have some readings scheduled for the summer, and I'm willing to go pretty much anywhere to hawk the book. So if anyone knows a venue that hosts first-time, self-published authors, please let me know.

Other Cat & Cat news -  I'm currently looking into recording an audio version of Cat for those - like me - who prefer listening to fiction. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to attempt the reading myself or find some voice talent for the endeavor. Forthcoming details here, on Facebook, Linked-In & Twitter, and at zakomark.com.

For those awaiting Stalking Mule and my short story collection, White Picket Jungle, I've made real progress on both this week, and I hope to have some more details later this spring. Thank you all for your patience. It goes without saying that finding time to write can be a little difficult when you have a day job and family responsibilities. I'm hoping the warm weather will give me more opportunities to propel these projects forward.

Plagiarism: What It Is and What It Isn't

Okay, after being harangued by dozens of friends and family, I finally listened to Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams' "Blurred Lines" versus Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp7Q1OAzITM

I did a quick comparison and found ... this is the most ridiculous plagiarism case victory I've ever encountered. Yes, they sound similar. DUH!!??  So do a lot of other tunes when compared to other tunes in the same vein. But is it plagiarism? Let's dig a little deeper.

First off, I need to confess one thing right off the bat. I know Marvin Gaye's music because it's in my wheelhouse. All I know about Robin Thicke is that he's Alan's kid. Although I may know today's pop artists by name and sight, I never heard "Blurred Lines" until a few days ago. Similarly, I can't identify one Taylor Swift, Justin Beiber or Ariana Grande song; nor do I know ANYTHING current on the pop or country charts unless it's been tastefully redone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-FS96IlOFg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCgZKAYFU3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_VBTH72bS8

When I do listen to rock/pop music (which is often), it's The Guess Who, Paul Simon, Hall & Oates, Blood Sweat & Tears, Chicago, The Jess Roden Band, Long John Baldry, Billy Joel, Elton John, John Mellencamp, or Nora Jones. Stuff played and sung  by musicians that makes musical sense to me. Just so you know my prejudices. You can now judge what follows and trust that I'm not impartial, nor would I ever claim to be. I'm a trained, schooled musician  - jazz, classical & rock - descended from three generations of successful professional musicians who all supported their families playing and making music. Yes, that makes me a musical snob. Deal with it. 

That being said, I'm not going to bore non-musicians with a bunch of talk about chord progressions, bass lines, drum beats, etc. All I'm going to say here is that musical elements ARE NOT copyrightable (yes, that's a word) in and of themselves. Take the "Bo Diddly Beat" for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZHB3ozglQ

Now listen to Buddy Holly and Blues Project use the same beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyTtFNGzFsE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua3zDatgVo4

If musical motives like this were subject to copyright, then over 50% of classical, jazz, rock & pop music would be in violation of plagiarism laws. So now, as a service to anyone interested, let me present a brief overview of what constitutes musical plagiarism (IMHO), and what doesn't.

The Doors "Hello, I Love You" vs. The Kinks "All Day & All of the Night"

Listen for yourself and join me back here when you're done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzM71scYw0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMWNwHof0kc

And here's a mash up that pretty much makes it so clear a child can understand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSPQFD4FzZQ

Despite Robby Krieger's protestations to the contrary, I have to believe Jim & The Doors knew they were on thin ice here, British courts sure thought so, which is why UK royalties  for "Hello" are paid to Ray Davies & the Kinks.  My verdict? This case is dicey. Similar? Hell yes! Especially when compared to "Blurred Lines" and "Got To Give It Up." But, honestly, "Hello" & "All Day" are different despite the obvious common elements.


The Romantics "What I Like About You" vs. John Mellencamp's "R.O.C.K. In the USA" vs. John Cafferty's "On The Dark Side vs. Neil Diamond's "Cherry, Cherry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqnw5IfbZOU - Romantics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLQrAKhg-4c - John Mellencamp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQ-6IAS1cc - John Cafferty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlcuAsgc5-c - Neil Diamond

Anyone with even a tin ear knows these songs are essentially the same. They all even use the same clap on the off-beat against the the guitar riff. Bar bands have been mixing and matching and mashing up various elements of these tunes for decades. Just search Youtube and you'll even find Lady Antebellum poking fun at their audience with this inside musical joke:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jumv9vmxe6Y . Once again, these songs are all waaaay closer to one another than "Blurred Lines" and "Got To Give It Up." But no one ever sues over a riff, just like they don't sue over chord progressions. And that leads me into jazz and classical music.

A big part of be-bop music rests in taking standard chord changes, such as found in tunes like "I Got Rhythm" and "How High The Moon," and then writing new melodies over the progressions:

"I Got Rhythm": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-cej-5dkc0

"Rhythm-A-Ning": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Di_mswqhLU


"How High the Moon": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Ji4uG4cac

"Ornithology": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LphuCadyQi0

To non-musicians, "Rhythm-A-Ning" probably sounds completely different when compared to "I Got Rhythm," the same way "Ornithology" seems like a different tune than "How High The Moon." But to jazz musicians playing these tunes, they are infinitely more identical than "Blurred Lines" and "Got To Give It Up"; so much so that early be-boppers got in a lot of trouble lifting standard chord-lines, applying new melodies and crediting themselves as composers. If you still don't hear how "How High The Moon" is "Ornithology," I'll just let Professor Benny Golson demonstrate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq0MuQQLoG8

Play the tunes at the same time, and they layer over each other perfectly.

Plagiarism? HELL NO. You may as well accuse Mozart of ripping off Haydn, and then Beethoven for plagiarizing both of them. Or any other classical composers for taking folk melodies or popular arias and reconstituting them in their own symphonies, concerti or tone poems. Musical elements are like colors in a painter's pallet. It's what you do with them that defines whether you are creating something new (even if it is derivative) or just copying or mimicking.

So what, then, is musical plagiarism? My best case is actually hypothetical. What if Weird Al Yankovich recorded "Eat It" or "Another One Rides the Bus" or "White & Nerdy" and didn't credit Michael Jackson, Queen or Chamillionaire respectively. THAT WOULD BE PLAGIARISM. If you want a real example of real plagiarism, I'll point to Robert Van Winkle's direct lift of the bass line from David Bowie's "Under Pressure", adding a quick grace note while keeping the accompanying piano chords for the intro to "Ice Ice, Baby."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6NhjD3Dbg

I understand I'm on shaky ground here because "Ice Ice" is a completely different song than "Under Pressure." But since I've already confessed to my prejudices above, I guess you'll just have to consider the source.

What you shouldn't have to consider is whether Thicke & Williams' "Blurred Lines" plagiarized Gaye's "Got To Give It Up." They didn't. Just like countless bands who've written tunes over the Bo Diddly Beat (see above), they lifted a "feel" - a drum beat and a similar bass pattern. The chord progressions are distinctly different, however. Listen to them again now in light of what we've just explored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp7Q1OAzITM


Do they sound similar? Sure they do. But now that we've reviewed songs that really are more identical, can you hear that "Blurred Lines" was NOT PLAGIARIZED. Thicke and Williams are hacks I wouldn't cross the street to hear for free. But they're not .. I repeat NOT plagiarists. Obviously, however, I must not know what I'm talking about because a jury of their peers heard the case and sided against them.

A jury of their peers? Really? Thicke and Williams may be devoid of any real talent (IMHO), but they're still working song writers and performers. So a true jury of their peers wouldn't consist of convenience store clerks or accountants, but rather other working song writers and performers. You may as well have retail clerks and salesmen judging whether two rival nuclear physicists violated a patent on a super-collider. Hell, I'm even 100% confident Marvin Gaye himself would have laughed at the idea that Willams and Thicke plagiarized him. I know Marvin's music, and he let his influences seep into his songs all the time. It's called music. Like it, hate it, ignore it, it doesn't change what it is and isn't. And "Blurred Lines" isn't "Got To Give It Up," at least not in any universe where I reside.

From my Scribd Library - Slender Man - 34 Most Asked Questions on Slender Man by Walter Rodriguez

The Cy-buran Legend of the Slender Man or Slenderman (SM) is one of the most fascinating, original subcultures spawned from the internet. I myself was a typical goon lurking and occasionally posting on the forums at somethingawful.com when SM first appeared in a somewhat random post by fellow goon Victor Surge (aka Eric Knudsen).

The concept behind SM was simple enough. Surge created a skinny, tentacled, faceless ghoul, inserted him in various news stories and photographs, and created a fictitious folkloric history akin to the Vanishing Hitchhiker, Hook Man or Bloody Mary.  I found the meme amusing and many of the subsequent SM tales spun by other goons (called creepypasta) to be creative and amusing. To be honest, though, I never really considered SM groundbreaking or revolutionary. Imagine my surprise, then, when I started reading news accounts detailing violent crimes and eventually an attempted murder committed in the name of Slender Man.

Since encountering these horror stories come to life, I've felt the need for a definitive scholarly study of the Slender Man meme-omenon, one that addresses not only his whimsical origins but his collaborative, ad hoc development and unique stature as the first true internet-created folk legend. Unfortunately, Walter Rodriguez's poorly conceived, barely intelligible effort isn't the book the world is waiting for. https://www.scribd.com/book/246753839/Slender-Man-34-Success-Secrets-34-Most-Asked-Questions-On-Slender-Man-What-You-Need-To-Know  Only my fascination with SM allowed me to choke down prose that isn't even lucid enough to be deemed turgid. In fact, Rodriguez's relentless abuse of grammar, vocabulary and punctuation makes me question whether he speaks English as a second or even a third language:

"Professor Sira Chess of the University of Georgia has marked that the Slender Man exemplifies the resemblances amid customary legends and the open origin ethos of the Internet, and that, dissimilar these of customary monsters such like lamias and werewolf/werewolves, the Slender Man's Mythos may be followed and signposted, assigning a strong perceptiveness in to in what way legend and legends shape."

If you can read and comprehend the above passage, then you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. My eyes start glazing over by the time I reach the phrase "open origin ethos."

Look, I'm not a jerk. I understand that my above critique may strike many as snarky and downright cruel. I myself hesitated before clicking PUBLISH. However, I feel not only compelled but justified in my criticism seeing as I actually endured every word of Rodriguez's book.

All writers owe it to themselves and any potential readers to at least present a clean, edited copy for consideration. Had Rodriguez collaborated or consulted with a writer or editor, the information he presents may have actually added to the understanding of Slenderman and this new breed of folklore - the oral tradition gone viral. Instead we are left with a muddled and missed opportunity to shed light on this newest, darkest aspect of the modern myth-making.

For those of you piqued to investigate Slender man further, I can point you to Wikipedia :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man :: and numerous other web entries involving the attempted murder of twelve-year-old Payton Leutner, e.g. http://www.people.com/article/slender-man-stabbing-suspects-speak-interrogation-videos .  As for me, I'm going to keep scouring online resources until I find a scholarly study worthy or my time and hard-earned disposable income.