We consider Jill Sobule to be the musical muse of ATD–which we desperately need since we are obviously way, way too jacked into the matrix.

That’s precisely why we have the gifted singer-songwriter appear annually at our D: All Things Digital conference–to kick off each day’s sessions with one of her songs and, more to the point, add a lot of much-needed levity and nontechie soul to the proceedings.

And tomorrow, Sobule’s Internet-funded album, “California Years,” produced by the legendary Don Was, debuts. I urge everyone to click the link here and get a copy–online, of course.

And by Internet-funded, I mean that the $75,000 needed to produce the album was raised entirely through an innovative Web initiative Sobule ginned up in late 2007 via a site called Jill’s Next Record.

Sobule wrote about the effort several times in our Voices section, where you can read about her asking for ideas here, launching her fund-raising site here and, finally, talking about the result here.

Sobule (pictured here in cartoon form)–whose big mainstream hit a few years ago was a much-better-than-hopelessly-dopey-Katy-Perry “I Kissed a Girl”–had worked her way through four record labels (she was dropped by two and two went belly-up) with six CDs.

Sick and tired of the way musical artists had their work funded, she essentially asked her fans to become her record label, writing on her site: “It would be a sort of patronage thing, where you guys are the Medici family, except I give you prizes for donations of certain amounts.”

The $1,000 “platinum” level, for example, got the donor a theme song and the $5,000 “diamond” level got a house concert by Sobule.

And what her fans are getting now in the completed album is superb–a sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always moving work. (My young sons cannot stop singing her perfect song, “San Francisco,” for example.)

As Sobule writes:

“‘California Years’ was written over the last three years, following my move to the West Coast. It was influenced by the sights and sounds of the Golden State, especially the seductive, but not always sunny Los Angeles. Maybe the next record will be ‘The Utah Month’ or ‘Back to Brooklyn.’

“The whole thing was made possible by a small but mighty fan base. They gave me the love, encouragement and the dough to do this. I was truly surprised and so very grateful. This record is for them.”

Let’s cheer on efforts like Sobule’s and hope for a hit. Because hers is indeed a small but mighty effort, as all kinds of content creators try to figure out businesses in the new digital age, unafraid of the changes inevitably coming (AP might want to take notes about this).

Here is Sobule in a long interview on NPR last week (which you cannot embed, bad NPR!) and another video below on CNN about her digital project:

And here are two videos I did with her about the effort. The first has one of the songs on the new album, called “Nothing to Prove,” and the other an update on what she wants to do next, digitally and musically speaking:

(BoomTown is still in an Elmer’s glue coma from making 252 handmade cards with 33 pounds of glitter, which my sons’ school insists on instead of the store-bought kind from Walgreens that I prefer.)

In any case, big, sloppy hugs all around to the readers of All Things Digital–except for those who know just who they are.

But to make up, please don’t think sending a romantic Twitter to us or one of those dumb digital virtual gifts of silly-looking little animals and baked goods on Facebook is going to cut it.

That’s right, you need to send a whole email to show that you really care! And maybe an iTunes gift certificate for Jill Sobule’s fabulous new “California Years” record too (I am wearing out my advanced copy, but it is officially out in April, including the apt song, “Bloody Valentine”).

Also a Tesla.

After all, love is bling.

Now, it’s getting flat-out macabre.

That would be the continuing swirl of attention the health of Apple icon Steve Jobs has been getting.

Rumors of his impending demise have been popping up periodically since the too-thin crisis of the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and look like they won’t stop until it actually comes true.

My grandmother used to have a perfect rejoinder for this kind of funeral-chasing behavior, which was prevalent among her gang of Italian sisters, who–whenever anyone caught a cold–predicted the worst outcome: “Don’t be a crepe-hanger.”

This time, more rumors surfaced yesterday in Gizmodo, curiously, a week before the Macworld at which he is famously not appearing. The site used a single–yes, that’s right–source saying his illness and not Apple’s business troubles with the conference’s organizer, IDG, was the reason for his pull-out.

The rumor, of course, sent Apple (AAPL) shares into a tailspin for the day, before others–such as CNBC’s Jim Goldman–posted just-as-strong refutations of the Jobs-Is-On-His-Last-Legs stories.

Blogger Robert Scoble even talked to a worker at a yogurt store that Jobs frequents and got a health report (good!).

Oh, dear–yogurt workers as medical experts? What’s next? Brain surgery consultation from the Starbucks barista? This is what we’ve descended to?

It has to stop, because the fact of the matter is that Jobs’s health is still nobody’s business, as it has not been throughout this bizarre obsession with one man’s personal issues.

In a post in late July, the last time this issue surged, I wrote:

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations from stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Why?

Well, any Apple investor has to know by now that Jobs suffered from a rather serious bout with a curable version of pancreatic cancer some years ago and that recovery includes inevitable complications.”

And, indeed, the only decent argument you can make to focus so intently on Jobs’s health of any relevance is the impact on Apple company stock, which is self-righteously trotted out each time these specious reports emerge.

The thing is, a lot of companies have been run by execs with health issues (and countries too–VP Dick Cheney’s ticker has been misfiring for a long time now, for example, and he still seems to have been running the show with a verve we wish he perhaps did not have so much of now).

But, to be fair, I will acknowledge the issue. But if anyone does not get that Apple’s CEO has health issues by now, they are ignorant in the extreme. The situation should be baked into the stock price.

In addition, Apple is run by a lot of other competent people besides Jobs and they too are part of its success. Here’s a news flash–Steve Jobs does not conceive, manufacture and wrap every iPhone and iPod.

That is the kind of mythology that has, of course, been propagated a lot by Apple and it is–like a lot of things–a bit true in a bigger concept.

But, as I recently said, when Jobs inevitably leaves the company, probably on his own two feet in retirement, the Cupertino HQ will not suddenly be taken up to the skies as if it were the rapture.

Maybe the yogurt shop guy knows about when that’s going to happen.

Speaking of rapture, here’s singer Jill Sobule singing about that at a recent D: All Things Digital conference.

And, in a second video, she sings perfectly about how we should behave when it comes to what is inevitable for us all. People riveted by Jobs’s fate might do well to take her sage advice.

Here are the videos:

Everybody remain calm.

While it might have looked like it was the rapture for major Internet players yesterday–what with everyone and his mother getting sucked up into the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover tussle and disappearing into the ether of confusion that now reigns over the situation–it is best to keep moving toward the light of harsh reality for illumination.

And the reality in three parts, addressing the trifecta of big news yesterday, is:

I DO NOT LIKE MONOPOLIES, I DO NOT LIKE THEM, JERRY-I-AM

Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) will not and, more importantly, cannot make any significant search-ad deal in any way longer than the two-week test they announced to terrific fanfare yesterday.

It is a regulatory no-no of such an obvious nature, that Microsoft (MSFT) has to prove almost nothing to win on the merits of the fact that Google dominates the arena with such power that it cannot be linked with anyone else.

But it is a nice image of one Silicon Valley company coming to the rescue of another, helping to show how Yahoo could be better monetized and, therefore, be worth more.

(Although irony-alert: Outside of Yahoo’s own self-inflicted wounds, it is Google that is most responsible for knocking Yahoo’s teeth out in the search and search ad game.)

So, any further hook-up between the two seems sure to become the Justice Department Lawyer Employment Act of 2008, the likes of which we have not seen since Microsoft got its turn at being deservedly whacked for being a monopolist back in the last century.

Let’s face it, outside of those who cannot seem to shake the annoying Kumbaya mentality over at Google, a Yahoo-Google partnership is simply fantastical, like some out-of-control Dr. Seuss ditty.

They could not, would not with a goat. They would not, could not on a boat. They will not share an algorithm, they will not, will not, Jerry-I-Am.

TROUBLE AHEAD, TROUBLE BEHIND

In a post I did just before the heating up of the AOL-Yahoo talks was reported yesterday, I had written:

“Yahoo is still ferreting away with execs from Time Warner and its AOL unit–you know, that rat’s-nest of a deal in which AOL, Time Warner investment dollars and, oh, some old fishing rod of former exec Don Logan’s is thrown into Yahoo for a 20% stake, along with perhaps a dollop of Google involvement for added complexity.”

And, maybe it is just me, or–except for the fine fishing rod–is anyone else a little worried about the potential disaster of an AOL-Yahoo mashup?

As someone who wrote two–count ‘em, two!–books on AOL, including a very detailed narrative of the horrific AOL merger with Time Warner (TWX) a few years back, a union from which both sides have never adequately recovered, I am plenty worried.

From a Time Warner perspective, I get it. It allows the company to unload the lodestone of AOL from around its neck and finally give it some value.

I might point out that Time Warner had ample opportunity to so do over the years (more on that, tomorrow!).

And its inability to make much of the online unit must be disappointing to its new CEO Jeff Bewkes, who hated the original AOL merger more than most.

While Time Warner and AOL like to point to the success of Advertising.com, and there are some various bright spots here and there (Truveo, TMZ, Userplane), its online ad business is still not dominant enough and other parts woefully behind the efforts of others.

And its recent $850 million cash purchase of the very nice, but distant-third Bebo social-networking site reeked of desperation rather than the aspiration it was meant to be. With MySpace and Facebook battling for the big numbers, only help from a large traffic site like Yahoo might work.

That’s not to say that some of its deeply underutilized assets, like AIM, would not be a good add to Yahoo. But the benefit to Yahoo–except as a way to try to escape from or shake down Microsoft for more money–seems negligible.

Lastly, given that it would be a stock transaction without the need for a shareholder vote, I cannot imagine that a large number of them would not freak out at the uncertainty of an AOL-Yahoo merger versus a solid number from Microsoft.

RUPE-A-DOPE

How jaw-dropping are the rascally wiles of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. (owner of this site)?

First, he cozies up to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang like a White Knight, but gets caught up in the fact that Yahoo does not want him to have too much power.

Then, Murdoch heads on up to Redmond to play footsie with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, intrigued by the possibility of offloading MySpace and getting a better trade for it.

You just know he’s going to end up with the whole thing and Yang and Ballmer will be left scratching their heads over what just happened.

But, seriously, I am not entirely clear why Microsoft is also adding this level of complexity, even if it would give it a partner to add more money and assets to the deal.

I get the addition of MySpace might be nice. And so would some investment dollars from News Corp. (NWS).

And, most of all, I see how delicious it might be for Microsoft to be able to fire Google as News Corp.’s ad partner for MySpace (a firing, I suspect, Google might actually welcome, given its public complaints about the difficulty of monetizing social networking).

But I am not sure why Microsoft won’t just man-up and fork over a few more dollars to its original offer, which would end this circus pretty quickly.

My guess is that the deal-making fervor has gone to its head and it cannot just be seen as giving in to Yahoo’s exertions to show it really, truly could be worth more.

Ballmer should just deliver that need from Yahoo and do the deal.

And, for good measure, he might just consult Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

GETTING READY FOR THE RAPTURE

Finally, for those who want to rock out on the rapture, here is singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, singing about it onstage at D5 last May:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

All are insightful (and some are even funny, too).

No one is identified, but here are some of my favorite observations, since most of them say it better than I ever could.

No Experience Necessary

(I added the names in parentheses.)

Now we’ve got a CEO who has never been CEO before (Jerry Yang). A COO with limited operations experience (Sue Decker). A CFO who has never been a CFO in his life (Blake Jorgensen) and an EVP of ad sales with no sales experience (Hilary Schneider). Next, I think we’ll hire a CTO who is well versed in arts and culture with no prior tech experience. (Still a mystery.)”

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

I read your latest post and even though I am not at Yahoo anymore, I am going to go outside and use my newest gift to myself, my margarita blender, get brain freeze from too much ice being consumed too quickly, and try to get the confusion of their reorg out of my mind!

“If I was working at Yahoo reading this, I would not know what I am supposed to do tomorrow when I come back into the office! Therefore, I would instead go home tonight, get out my list of headhunters and start sending out the next stack of resumes I did not send out over the weekend!”

Will Work for Free

I’d actually like to be a Yahoo! As would many other people who care. You’d think they’d be looking for the passionate people who’d like to be there. You’d think any of these Internet companies would. But that is a long story.”

Kara Is Hilarious

The Yahoo posts were laugh-out-loud funny, but your coolness factor just went way up for having Jill Sobule at your house!”

Kara Is Mean

You are downright nasty…hard to believe you worked for The WSJ and not the NY Post. Maybe it’s time to lay off for a while? You must be able to write something more intellectually interesting.”

Note to that emailer above: More intellectually interesting than corporate high jinks? I think not!

And given the recent events at Dow Jones, what with our pending acquisition by News Corp., BoomTown and Page Six are about to be related by marriage. So we’re The WSJ and the NY Post!

If you need an inkling of what a talent she is, here are her four performances at D5. Sometimes she is funny, sometimes silly, sometimes deeply poignant (the last video here is a heartbreaker) and always amazing.

Do not miss these videos:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

So here’s one of my movies to show you how we prepare for the annual conference, which is highlighted this year by a joint interview with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, the twin icons of the tech industry.

We’ll kick off the conference tomorrow night with an interview with Sen. John McCain, who is in the race to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States. We will talk to him about that, as well as the war in Iraq, but also hope to discuss a plethora of digital issues with him. McCain is one of the few politicians who knows a thing or two about the media, telecom and Web sectors.

Other interviewees on Wednesday and Thursday include: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; CBS CEO Les Moonves; News Corp. President Peter Chernin; Cisco CEO John Chambers; former AOL CEO Steve Case, who will talk about his new company, Revolution; famed director and producer George Lucas; Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley; Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom; and space tourist (and former Microsoft exec) Charles Simonyi.

We’ll also have demos from tech players like Palm legend Jeff Hawkins and others. And we are also excited to have singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who will perform several times throughout.

We’ll have full coverage of D5 on our site, starting tomorrow night, including liveblogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, pictures, video excerpts and more.