So my sister and her family arrive in Vail. And the first thing my nephew wants to talk about is all the films and TV shows he's downloaded from the Pirate Bay. He just lets the files fly all night.

And I'm thinking how it's not that the younger generation doesn't want to pay for anything, but that they expect access to everything! Sh*t, most of them don't pay for stuff anyway, that's their parents' job. We grew up scrimping and saving to purchase an album. Today's generation grazes the entire history of recorded music, expects to be able to access whatever they want whenever they want. You expect them to give this up?

My nephew's got the Academy screener for Charlie Wilson's War. I'd like to see the head of the MPAA deal with that. Sh*t, if you won't let my nephew have his movies, he'll just find another entertainment medium to partake of. Just like the writers strike drove masses of viewers to the Internet. It was the best thing to happen to YouTube since the Google purchase! But you can't stop my nephew and his generation from acquiring movies. Or music. You've got to monetize this behavior, you've got no choice.

But the real excitement came when we started talking about the TV shows we watched. Wendy started testifying about Duff and the Charm City Bakery. She's waxing rhapsodic about cakes to the point where the bill's been paid, the table's been cleared and it's time to go.

And I'm thinking how the elements she's speaking of ring a bell. I'm thinking of my conversation with Jim Lewi.

You can take ads galore, but you can't compete with word of mouth. We're bombarded with messages. You can't penetrate me. But when a trusted source tells me about something... When two people tell me about something that I don't think I'm interested in, I check it out!

Go to: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/ and start perusing the cakes. Click on "Fun Stuff." Check out "Acupuncture." Or "Armadillo EMT." You can't stop looking. Because of the raw creativity. The creativity we used to have in the music business.

And click on "About Duff." This is a rock star. A caricature suffices, he doesn't need posed photos by an overpriced "auteur." And the bio is irreverent. I throw out the record company bios. They read like product introductions for steel stamping companies. Boring!

There's no lock on creativity. It's not exclusive to music. Or movies. The music business has squandered its capital. Rather than pursue the unique, the different, the truly attention-getting, those in power just put forth retreads of what's come before. They play it safe. You wonder why people hate radio?

I'm gonna check out Ace Of Cakes. It's got to be more interesting than all the sh*t music people work me on.

Lewi's on to something.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_db