Wings Over the Pyre - April 12th, 2005

02:39 am - The Podcast Is ... Away!

Technorati Tags: Redoubt, music, podcast, radio

Finally, Archive got off their keisters and got the fifth podcast in the series online and rolling. Wonderful! So the link has been created in the usual place, and a track list is likewise posted.

I'm rather proud of this one. It'll be interesting to see if there's any approval from my vast listener base.

Insert appropriate irony above.

Current Mood: accomplished

05:52 am - Redoubtable Requests

Technorati Tags: Redoubt, music, radio, shoutcast, icecast

Thanks to the pleasantly brilliant work of Eric the .5b, I now have an easy and efficient way to actually get the songs that have most frequently been requested from the Redoubt over the past X days. Which is interesting viewing, mind you. I'm vaguely intrigued, poking at the reference numbers.

Of course, I'm not seeing much in the way of requests I didn't put in over the past week or two (though, damn it, I guarantee I never requested Mrs Catto Loves Her Budgie, not once), so its clear my listenership isn't exactly knocking the roof off the house, as it were.

So tune in, darn it all! Oh, and if you'll be generous, do try and use the P2P-Radio link to help distribute the bandwidth around a little. The more the merrier, as it were, at least when it comes to my not-so-fat pipe.

(Stop snickering. Stop it, say I.)

In any case, this has been a Redoubt Status Update. Thanks to the expertise of Lord Thompson, I believe I'll be able to create a wholly new playlist interface list (or at least generate better ones), as well as put things like "Most Requested Songs" and the like online for all to see.

Note that there are usually new songs online for all to see, and one of the next variant lists I intend to create is a list of songs added in the past month. Look forward to it.

Current Mood: nerdy

06:26 am - When The Press Gets Bored, Its Nothing But Dumb

Technorati Tags: politics, reporting, CNN, media, MSM

Since they can't seem to be troubled to actually report on the successes in Afghanistan, the progress toward democracy of the Iraqis (who, totally against the dire projections of the MSM, elected a Kurd interim president, one who's gone on record as liking Jews, to the liberals' horror), or find a story worth reporting at all, CNN brings us this trite trash:

Bush bares soul with 'iPod One'

(CNN) -- The music tastes of U.S. President George W. Bush have come under scrutiny after an aide revealed the playlist of his new iPod player.

The portable digital device, given to Bush by his daughters Jenna and Barbara last July, contains much country music, but also songs by Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and the Knack.

The MP3 player, which can store up to 10,000 songs, only contains about 250, according to the New York Times, which first reported the story.

"iPod One," as the player has been dubbed, is used by Bush while he pedals around his Texas ranch on a mountain bike, presidential media adviser Mark McKinnon told the newspaper.

The task of downloading the music falls to the 58-year-old president's personal aide, Blake Gottesman, who buys individual songs and albums from the iTunes music store.

Not every track is "on-message:" the playlist -- regarded by many as a mirror to the soul -- includes musicians who campaigned against Bush, such as John Fogarty. Also on the iPod is the 1979 song "My Sharona" by the Knack, about a man pursuing a much younger woman.

That is, pointedly, only an excerpt of the article, but it doesn't exactly ascend the hill of investigative authority from there. But the most gallingly insulting piece is buried toward the end:

The playlist does reveal a rather narrow range of babyboomer tunes. Writing in the London Times, Caitlin Moran noted: "No black artists, no gay artists, no world music, only one woman, no genre less than 25 years old, and no Beatles."

Levy agreed, telling the New York Times: "What we're talking about is a lot of great artists from the 60s and 70s and more modern artists who sound like great artists from the 60s and 70s.

"This is basically boomer rock 'n' roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving. What I mean to say is, it's feel-good music. The Sex Pistols it's not."

Its the music he listens to while riding his crazy careening mountain bike up and down hills and dales that break arms of Secret Service guys jobbed with hanging around him. Its stuff he apparently likes to listen to. But, by implication, its somehow "inferior" because it doesn't contain gay artists, women, or the Beatles.

This requires the Horde battle-cry:

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

If anything revealed the authors' intent and desires more clearly than that bit, I can't find it. Basically, an artist's gender, sexual orientation, and/or life-history is far and away more important than whether or not their music is any good or not, appropriate to the activity its paired with or not, or whether an individual just happens to like it. Its Affirmative Action writ intimate, in that if the president doesn't listen to what they think he should, what's "appropriately multi-cultural," its a micro-scandal.

The ironic bit is that they go from pointing out that "My Sharona" is about a man pursuing a much younger woman, to suggesting that its "safe, reliable, loving, feel-good" music. If George Walker Bush was listening to the Sex Pistols, Tom Waits, and Black Sabbath, they surely wouldn't be in the positions they are today. Someone like that would be a bit more likely to quote the likes of Henry Rollins to them and be more than happy to "Let That Devil Out."

Then they'd be in real trouble.

Current Mood: annoyed

06:59 am - Toys For the Future

Technorati Tags: music, media, lights, dance, nightclubs, businesses

So, yes, the idea of quitting my job and investing every dime I can scrape together into my own nightclub here on the north side of Atlanta is not wholly gone from my head. Its still there, far in the back, glaring around at various other ideas, sneering a lot, and practicing preening in front of a mirror.

Of course, then I stumbled on Lightspace in a link from Slashdot regarding the MIT LED-driven disco floor.

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd love to have as part of a sunken dance floor. Easily replaceable panels, highly programmable pattern display, crazy, over the top effects, this is exactly the right thing to drop in.

Of course, it might be hard to cater to the goth crowd with this, but low, dark pulses of dark purple on black rings rippling out from each footstep might create the right cavernous atmosphere. I think I'd have to tinker with the responsiveness.

This is why I should not surf the net.

Current Mood: impressed

08:54 am - Spiking Lines

As of 9a, 99x has not played the GQ clip.

I wonder if they had a sudden spike in collective intelligence.

Regardless, I'm a'bed.

Current Mood: exanimate

10:32 pm - The Wave of Experience

Technorati Tags: gaming, politics, rights, community

I received a call from Wally, the director of the morning show on 99x, this morning, after I left a very pleasant vmail expressing my concern about the clip they recorded at Galactic Quest. He left a contact number and emphatically repeated the clip would not be used, even though they aired the announcement they'd do so yesterday.

Of course, call-back on the number given got me vmail and a portion which disturbed me to some degree:

Be aware that anything left here can be used on the air.

I intended to call him up and thank him for his concern, and remind him that such a breech in good-judgment is probably warrant for a closer eye to be put on such "stunts" by management, if only to make sure that the corporate image is supported. Its one thing to be seen as a jokey ass, quite another to implicitly threaten minors, and advertisers tend to notice such things. However, in light of the message on his vmail, I was understandably reluctant to leave any kind of note, even with an explicit note that he most certainly does not have my permission to air such commentary.

Of course, this message arrived after I'd already suffered through listening to two hours of their morning show, and growing increasingly disgusted and annoyed by the whole production.

In two hours, every single bit except one was devoted entirely to making fun of the listening audience in some way. Every single bit demeaned someone, whether it be the two chicks who sent their pics in for their "Hot or Not" rip-off or just lambasting school-bus drivers for the retarded on the basis of one being in the news (who, admittedly, was engaged in some stupid action, but hardly generalizable). The sole exception to the ever-growing press of denigration was a phone interview with a comedian from the US version of The Office, and that was more advertising than Q&A.

Here's a hint, folks. If you feel the need to brag about your demographic survey numbers during your show during a rant about the Braves' no longer being interested in putting up with your bullshit shenanigans during interviews in the past, you're on the losing side of the equation. Your audience doesn't care about your numbers, only your advertisers do. And if you're trying to reassure them that you're a great place to get air-time for interviews and exposure, instead of doing your show, you're living a sad lie.

Is this all it takes to have a "popular" morning show on the dial, these days? I can write software that works like a Mad Lib to be that creative.

On my agenda is still speaking to Kyle directly, and explaining exactly why I ended up coming away from the event with a feeling of betrayal. Honestly, if someone disrupted a public event I was putting on, to the extent this was pursued, I most certainly would not lionize them before the crowd in a bid for free publicity. I would have them dragged out into the street and beaten until long-term amnesia set in. I felt, in the aftermath, as if my night was sold-out for five minutes of air time. I felt cheap and disposable.

Coming to grips with my reaction to the whole thing and putting it in place in my mind is not the work of an afternoon. I am not, inherently, a social creature. I am good at my job, in part, because I am not directly faced with dealing with people-of-the-flesh. I've spent the last few years trying to get a handle of some rather annoyingly extreme social anxiety with the help of Heather, Mike, and Fatal Stitches. This kindling of fury hasn't done anything to help me out with it; public mockery when I've been trying to do "the right thing" is directly counter to the ends I'm trying to achieve.

In any case, I will certainly be making sure that any event I'm associated with in any way is forewarned and fore-armed against such a contingency, and the next time I'm made aware of it, I will pointedly not passively expect others in charge of situations to see that justice is done. I have done the "socially acceptable response" route and it is patently detrimental to my own state of mind, not the least reason being that its discordant with the axioms I've set myself in life, the pursuit of those rare moments of justice I feel are mandated.

I typically don't make the same mistake twice. Perhaps pointedly so.

In any case, I will definitely be attending Trinoc*Con and Dragon*Con this year (with the whole Squid Krewe), with possible public appearances at other, lesser events. Believe me, I will not placidly countenance disruption again, no matter the social context.

We, as members of a community, be it gamers, online geeks, or simple neighbors, have a responsibility to look out for one another, to look out for ourselves, and pursue an agressive course of action that assures that we, as individuals and as a group, not only are respected by others, but we can find in ourselves respect for our selves.

The latter is infinitely harder.

Current Mood: annoyed